November New and Notable
Bob Schieffer’s America, by Bob Schieffer
A volume of signature pieces by an award-winning commentator for Face the Nation covers a wide range of topics, from today’s most relevant issues and the human condition to the legacies of presidents and the everyday elements of life, in an anthology that also features original writings by the author on his life and work. 175,000 first printing.
American Lion, by Jon Meacham
A thought-provoking study of Andrew Jackson chronicles the life and career of a self-made man who went on to become a military hero and seventh president of the United States, critically analyzing Jackson’s seminal role during a turbulent era in history, the political crises and personal upheaval that surrounded him, and his legacy for the modern presidency. 250,000 first printing.
The Whiskey Rebels, by David Liss
Ethan Saunders, a former spy for George Washington, is recruited by Alexander Hamilton to find his ex-fiancee’s missing husband. Meanwhile, Joan Maycott and her veteran husband, amid hardship and deprivation on the western Pennsylvania frontier, find unlikely friendship and a chance for prosperity with a new method of distilling whiskey. The Maycotts’ success however attracts the brutal attention of men in Hamilton’s orbit, men who threaten to destroy all Joan holds dear. As their causes intertwine, Joanand Saunders–both patriots in their own way–find themselves on opposing sides of a daring scheme that will forever change their lives and their new country.Hired by his onetime fiancâee to find her missing husband, Ethan Saunders, a former spy for Washington during the Revolution, follows a trail that leads him to Alexander Hamilton and to rebellious whiskey-makers fiercely opposed to a tax on their products.
A Most Wanted Man, by John Le Carre
A half-starved young Russian man claiming to be a devout Muslim, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, and a sixty-year-old scion of a failing British bank based in Hamburg form an unlikely alliance as the rival spies of Germany, England and America scent a sure kill in the “War on Terror,” and converge upon the innocents.Smuggled into Hamburg, Issa, a young Russian man carrying a large amount of cash, forms an alliance with Annabel, a civil rights lawyer, and Tommy Brue, scion of a failing British bank, as they become victims of rival intelligence operations in the War on Terror.
The Best American Comics 2008, edited by Lynda Barry
Celebrating the best in graphic storytelling and literary comics, a cutting-edge collection, guest edited by the award-winning author of the long- running comic strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek, features excerpts from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Web, from Chris Ware, Seth, Alison Bechdel, and Matt Groening, among others.
Letter to my Daughter, by Maya Angelou
The best-selling author of Even the Stars Look Lonesome and Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now brings together personal reminiscences, hard-won wisdom, and inspirational ideas in a new collection of short essays that include “Loving and Living Are Bold Words,” “Giving,” “Good Living Is Hard Work,” and others. 250,000 first printing.
A Mercy, by Toni Morrison
In exchange for a bad debt, an Anglo-Dutch trader takes on Florens, a young slave girl, who feels abandoned by her slave mother and who searches for love–first from an older servant woman at her master’s new home, and then from a handsome free blacksmith–in an evocative novel set against late seventeenth-century America, by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved. 300,000 first printing.
I See You Everywhere, by Julia Glass
Narrated in the alternating voices of two very different sisters, an intimate novel follows the intertwined lives of Louisa Jardine, the conscientious, careful, and precise older sister who yearns for a good marriage, an artistic career, and a family, and her younger sister Clem, an iconoclastic, daring rebel, over the course of twenty-five years, from 1980 to 2005. 125,000 first printing.
Fred Astaire, by Joseph Epstein
Essayist and fiction writer Epstein (Snobbery: The American Version; Fabulous Small Jews: Stories ) turns his discerning gaze to the legendary dancer and star Fred Astaire. Although he presents general biographical details, Epstein’s chief concern is with Astaire the artist, and he thoroughly scrutinizes all aspects of his talent. Epstein devotes attention to every facet of the Astaire image, discussing at length his physical characteristics and unique sense of style. He also spends a good portion of the book addressing Astaire’s dancing partners and the varying success of each. Most biographies tend to focus on the sensational details of the life lived; Epstein, however, places the magic of Astaire’s art front and center, which results in an astute and ardent examination. The author’s passion for his subject makes this an engaging read, even for those with only cursory knowledge of Astaire. (LJ Reviews)
The Longest Trip Home, by John Grogan
The author (Marley and Me) examines the events of his life and his evolving relationship with his parents, from his upbringing in a devout Catholic home, to his marriage to a Protestant woman, and finally his father’s diagnosis with leukemia…a memoir.
The Fire, by Katherine Neville
Summoned to her family’s Colorado hideaway for her mother’s birthday, Alexandra Solarin not only discovers that her mother is missing but that she is destined to play a key role in the Game, embarking on a desperate quest to recover a dangerous artifact, one tied to the 1822 mission of Sultan Ali Pasha’s young daughter to carry a relic from Albania to Rome. 200,000 first printing. (author of The Eight)
The Eleventh Man, by Ivan Doig
Driven by the memory of a fallen teammate, TSU’s 1941 starting lineup went down as legend in Montana football history, charging through the season undefeated. Two years later, the “Supreme Team” is caught up in World War II. Ten of them are scattered around the globe in the war’s various lonely and dangerous theaters. The eleventh man, Ben Reinking, has been plucked from pilot training by a military propaganda machine hungry for heroes. He is to chronicle the adventures of his teammates, man by man, for publication in small-town newspapers across the country like the one his father edits. Ready for action, he chafes at the assignment, not knowing that it will bring him love from an unexpected quarter and test the law of averages, which holds that all butone of his teammates should come through the conflict unscathed.Two years after their university football team enjoys a record-breaking season, the players become caught up in the drama of World War II, including Ben Reinking, who chronicles the wartime adventures of his teammates for newspapers across the country.
The Wettest County in the World, A Novel Based on a True Story, by Matt Bondurant
Running moonshine liquor during the prohibition years, a notorious trio of brothers continues their illicit business after Prohibition and plays a central role in a violent conspiracy trial–a story that is investigated in 1935 by a magazine journalist. 50,000 first printing.
The Long Knives Are Crying, by Joseph M. Marshall III
In the sequel to Hundred in the Hand, in 1875, Sitting Bull gathers the warriors of the Lakota in a final attempt to stop white settlement on native lands, in a sweeping story of the events leading up to the Battle of the Little Bighorn as narrated by Cloud, in a historical volume that also documents the Battle of the Rosebud and the aftermath of Little Bighorn.
Testimony, by Anita Shreve
A New England boarding school is rocked in the wake of a sex scandal in which participants were caught on videotape, a situation that derails the innocence and best intentions of students, parents, and others in life-shattering ways.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
Forty years after the disappearance of Harriet Vanger from the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family, her octogenarian uncle, convinced that she had been murdered by someone from her own deeply dysfunctional clan, hires journalist Mikael Blomqvist and Lisbeth Salander, an unconventional young hacker, to investigate. 100,000 first printing.
Sun Going Down, by Jack Todd
Follows the fortunes of Ebenezer Paint and his descendants — rough and tough individuals who are caught up in Civil War river battles, epic cattle drives through drought and blizzards, the horrors of Wounded Knee, the desperation of the dust bowl, and the prosperity of the roaring 1920s.Follows four generations of an American frontier family as inspired by the letters and diaries of the author’s ancestors, in a tale that traces the experiences of the Paints, from Civil War-era Ebenezer through his Depression-era great-grandchildren.
A Country Called Home, by Kim Barnes
Driven by youthful idealism, Thomas Deracotte and his pregnant wife, Helen, leave upper-crust Connecticut and a secure future for a utopian adventure in wilderness Idaho, purchasing a dilapidated local farm and optimistically setting up housekeeping with the help of Manny, a local boy, but unexpected trauma and tragedy shatter their family and provide a harsh legacy for their daughter. 25,000 first printing.
Ender in Exile, by Orson Scott Card
Having made the difficult choice to leave his home world to travel to the colonies, twelve-year-old military genius Andrew Wiggin shares a series of daring adventures with his sister Valentine and the artificial intelligence Jane. By the author of Ender’s Game. 200,000 first printing.
The Flat Belly Diet, by Liz Vaccariello
Draws on the resources of the popular health magazine Prevention to counsel readers on how to target middle-body fat stores using strategic food combinations, in a guide that also makes recommendations for reducing stress, sleeping more productively, and staying committed to a healthier lifestyle. 200,000 first printing.
1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, by Tom Moon
An entertaining guide to great music provides recommendations on one thousand great recordings that represent the best in classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, opera, soundtracks, and every other genre of music, covering everything from Bach to Count Basie and R&B singer Baby Huey, with listening notes, commentary, anecdotes, and more. Simultaneous. 250,000 first printing.
The World in Six Songs, by Daniel Levitin
Analyzes six evolutionary musical forms while identifying neural impulses that reflect the brain’s development in accordance with music, drawing on cutting-edge scientific findings as well as the writer’s experiences as a musician to illuminate the sophisticated biological process that accompanies the musical experience.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne
Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called “Out-With” in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.
Obama, The Historic Campaign in Photos, by Deborah Willis
A photographic chronicle of Barack Obama’s historic presidential campaign ranges from its beginnings to the Democratic primary win in summer 2008, documenting his family, his fellow candidates, the voters who selected him, his speeches, and memorable campaign moments and events. 250,000 first printing.
Barack Obama 2009 Calendar: Words of Hope and Inspiration
(Calendar Paperback: 16-Month; Wall)
Yes We Can, by Garen Thomas
Highlights the life and accomplishments of the Harvard Law School graduate, legislator, civil rights lawyer, and 2008 candidate for president of the United States. Appropriate for grade school through adult readers.
Early Justice and the Formation of the Colorado Bar, by David L. Erickson
“. . . perpetuate the history of the profession and the memory of its members . . .”
Certainly the above was a laudable goal as formulated back in 1897, when the final, and now current iteration, of the Colorado Bar Association came into being. That goal, along with several other high-sounding desires, seemed to be the standard language cribbed from an American Bar Association template for forming state bar associations. One has to conclude from the written records and minutes of the time, however, that indeed those pioneers genuinely valued and honored their history. They talked about it; they celebrated it; they spoke warmly of it.
What David has done for us is nothing less than remarkable. He has given the lawyers of Colorado what many of us have either overlooked or taken for granted: a journal of our professional antecedents. Jump in anywhere, and you’ll find colorful characters, miscreants, heroes, and, yes, fairly strange happenings, in our history. Thanks to David, those folks, once lost, now can rejoin our bar association.
-Charles C. Turner, Executive Director
Colorado Bar Association
Titanic’s Last Secrets, by Brad Matsen
Matsen (Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss, 2005, etc.) provides an intriguing postmortem of design-safety compromises on the “Ship of Dreams.”The author’s point of entry into the story is the diving team of John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, stars of the TV series Deep Sea Detectives. They wanted to resolve why the mighty ship sank only two-and-a-half hours after hitting an iceberg on April 15, 1912. By contrast, sister ship Olympic had survived and made it to port after colliding with a Royal Navy cruiser in 1911 and sustaining damage so severe it took six weeks to repair. In 2005, Chatterton and Kohler descended to the wreck in two Russian submersibles and, with the help of a maritime forensics analyst and an imaging technician, pieced together what happened to Titanic. It had grounded on the iceberg, not just sideswiped it, thereby scraping the bottom of its hull and opening an additional fatal hole. When not discussing the dive’s planning, execution and analysis of its findings, Matsen focuses on the crucial decisions made during Titanic’s construction by three men: chief designer Thomas Andrews, who went down with his ship; White Star Line chairman Bruce Ismay; and Lord William Pirrie, head of the Belfast shipbuilding firm Harland and Wolff. Heeding Ismay’s insistence that they reduce costs and space, Andrews reluctantly used the Board of Trade’s specifications for the amount of steel in the hull and the number of lifeboats required, rather than the additional quantities of each that he deemed safe for a ship of this size. A dive into the wreck of the Britannic, which sunk after striking a German mine in 1916, strongly suggested that Pirrie and Ismay, knowing Titanic’s expansion joints were weak, sought to bolster them on its companion vessel. The divers ultimately concluded that Titanic’s designer, builder and owner “had sent a ship to sea not knowing if it was strong enough to survive.”Wholly engrossing narrative of a crowning example of catastrophic hubris. Copyright Kirkus 2008
The Brass Verdict, by Michael Connelly
The answer to every Connelly fan’s dream: Hieronymus Bosch meets the Lincoln Lawyer.Away from the courtroom for two years after he was shot (The Lincoln Lawyer, 2005), Mickey Haller plans a gradual return to the legal practice he runs from the back seat of his car. But the plan is abruptly accelerated by the murder of his colleague Jerry Vincent, who designated Mickey as the attorney who’d take over his list of clients if anything happened to him. One client is a high-profile defendant guaranteed to put Mickey back on the map. Hollywood studio head Walter Elliot is accused of killing his much younger wife Mitzi, who evidently took the recent vesting of her prenup as the signal to file for divorce, and her even younger lover, interior decorator Johan Rilz, who wasn’t nearly as gay as Mitzi had hinted. Before Mickey can claim victory, however, he’ll have to explain away the gunpowder residue on his client’s hands; he’ll have to figure out what secret the client is hiding from him that makes him so sure he’s going to get off; and he’ll have to be ready to go to trial in ten days. While he’s racing around trying to fit the pieces together, he’ll cross swords repeatedly with Connelly’s long-running hero, Det. Harry Bosch, the 33-year veteran of Robbery-Homicide (The Overlook, 2007, etc.) who’s investigating Vincent’s murder. Despite twists aplenty, the trial drags on for so many pages that savvy readers will solve the mystery ahead of Mickey. But his relationship with Bosch, whom he doesn’t recognize as his half brother, is satisfyingly resourceful-by turns wary, competitive, complementary, cooperative and mutually predatory.Even if the case is less than baffling, Connelly brings his two sleuths together in a way that honors them both.Agent: Philip Spitzer/Philip Spitzer Literary Agency Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus
Love Your Life, by Victoria Osteen
A co-pastor of Lakewood Church and wife of Joel Osteen counsels today’s busy women on how to live life joyfully and satisfactorily, in an inspirational guide that makes recommendations for balancing priorities and coping with matters of faith and health. 750,000 first printing.