HARDCOVER
WORK SONG, by Ivan Doig
Doig affectionately revisits Morris “Morrie” Morgan from the much-heralded The Whistling Season. Now, 10 years later, in 1919, Morrie lands in Butte, Mont., beholding the area’s natural beauty that “made a person look twice.” Scoring a job is a top priority, as is getting more face time with Grace Faraday, the alluring widow who runs the boardinghouse where he stays. Things, naturally, are complicated, as the fiendishly bookish Morrie is on the run from Chicago gangsters who feel they’ve been duped after he scored a windfall from a fixed sports wager. The local “shysters” at the duplicitous Anaconda Copper Mining Company, meanwhile, find Morrie’s sudden interest in Butte highly suspicious as they try to bully Grace into selling her property. Morrie lands what might be an ideal job working at the public library with ex cattle rancher Samuel Sandison, though our sturdy narrator must choose sides when the mining company ups the ante. Drama ebbs and flows as Morrie yields to the plight of union leader Jared Evans, and Morrie and Samuel come to terms with sins from their pasts. Charismatic dialogue and charming, homespun characterization make Doig’s latest another surefire winner. PW Review
THE SISTERS FROM HARDSCRABBLE BAY, by Beverly Jensen
A sequence of tales chronicling the early 20th-century lives of New Brunswick sisters Idella and Avis Hillock includes “Gone,” an account of their mother’s heartbreaking childbirth crisis and the Pushcart Prize-nominated “Wake,” in which they attend their wild father’s funeral.
Beverly Jensen died of cancer at the age of forty-nine without publishing her work. Since her death, her fiction has been championed by a dedicated group of supporters, including Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates.
THE LAST STAND, by Nathaniel Philbrick
Philbrick here takes on an oft-told tale, replete with its dashing, flawed main character, its historically doomed, noble Native chief, and a battlefield strewn with American corpses. While off his usual stride with a surfeit of unnecessary detail, bestselling author and National Book Award winner Philbrick (In the Heart of the Sea; The Mayflower) writes a lively narrative that brushes away the cobwebs of mythology to reveal the context and realities of Custer’s unexpected 1876 defeat at the hands of his Indian enemies under Sitting Bull, and the character of each leader. Judicious in his assessments of events and intentions, Philbrick offers a rounded history of one of the worst defeats in American military history, a story enhanced by his minute examination of the battle’s terrain and interviews with descendants in both camps. Distinctively, too, he takes no sides. In his compelling history, Philbrick underscores the pyrrhic nature of Sitting Bull’s victory it was followed by federal action to move his tribe to a reservation. 32 pages of b&w photos, 18 pages of color photos, 18 maps. PW Review
THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE, by Aimee Bender
Discovering in childhood a supernatural ability to taste the emotions of others in their cooking, Rose Edelstein grows up to regard food as a curse when it reveals everyone’s secret realities. By the Pushcart-winning author of An Invisible Sign of My Own.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is a luminous tale about the enormous difficulty of loving someone fully when you know too much about them. It is heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad, and confirms Aimee Bender’s place as “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language.”
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson
Lisbeth Salander-the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels-is under close supervision in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: when she’s well enough, she’ll stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will have to prove her innocence, and to identify the corrupt politicians who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse. And, on her own, she will plot her revenge-against the man who tried to kill her and the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.
Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Lisbeth Salander is ready to fight back.
SO COLD THE RIVER, by Michael Koryta
In this explosive thriller from Koryta (Envy the Night), failed filmmaker Eric Shaw is eking out a living making family home videos when a client offers him big bucks to travel to the resort town of West Baden, Ind., the childhood home of her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, to shoot a video history of his life. Almost immediately, things go weird. Eric uncovers evidence of another Campbell Bradford, a petty tyrant who lived a generation before the other and terrorized the locals. The older Campbell begins appearing in horrific visions to Eric after he sips the peculiar mineral water that made West Baden famous. Koryta spins a spellbinding tale of an unholy lust for power that reaches from beyond the grave and suspends disbelief through the believable interactions of fully developed characters. A cataclysmic finale will put readers in mind of some of the best recent works of supernatural horror, among which this book ranks. PW Review
INNOCENT, by Scott Turow
The sequel to the genre-defining, landmark bestseller Presumed Innocent, INNOCENT continues the story of Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto who are, once again, twenty years later, pitted against each other in a riveting psychological match after the mysterious death of Rusty’s wife.
BACKSEAT SAINTS, by Joshilyn Jackson
BACKSEAT SAINTS will dazzle readers with a fresh and heartwrenching portrayal of the lengths a mother will go to right the wrongs she’s created, and how far a daughter will go to escape the demands of forgiveness. With the seed of a minor character from her popular best-seller, GODS IN ALABAMA, Jackson has built a whole new story full of her trademark sly wit, endearingly off-kilter characters, and utterly riveting plot twists.
BONHOEFFER, by Eric Metaxas
A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil that was Nazism.
After discovering the fire of true faith in a Harlem church, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany and became one of the first to speak out against Hitler. As a double-agent, he joined the plot to assassinate the Fuhrer, and was hanged in Flossenberg concentration camp at age 39. Since his death, Bonhoeffer has grown to be one of the most fascinating, complex figures of the 20th century.
Bonhoeffer presents a profoundly orthodox Christian theologian whose faith led him to boldly confront the greatest evil of the 20th century, and uncovers never-before-revealed facts, including the story of his passionate romance.
THE COOKBOOK COLLECTOR, by Allegra Goodman
(July Publication. pre-order now.)
Heralded as “a modern day Jane Austen” by USA Today, National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Allegra Goodman has compelled and delighted hundreds of thousands of readers. Now, in her most ambitious work yet, Goodman weaves together the worlds of Silicon Valley and rare book collecting in a delicious novel about appetite, temptation, and fulfillment.
Emily and Jessamine Bach are opposites in every way: Twenty-eight-year-old Emily is the CEO of Veritech, twenty-three-year-old Jess is an environmental activist and graduate student in philosophy. Pragmatic Emily is making a fortune in Silicon Valley, romantic Jess works in an antiquarian bookstore. Emily is rational and driven, while Jess is dreamy and whimsical. Emily’s boyfriend, Jonathan, is fantastically successful. Jess’s boyfriends, not so much-as her employer George points out in what he hopes is a completely disinterested way.
Bicoastal, surprising, rich in ideas and characters, The Cookbook Collector is a novel about getting and spending, and about the substitutions we make when we can’t find what we’re looking for: reading cookbooks instead of cooking, speculating instead of creating, collecting instead of living. But above all it is about holding on to what is real in a virtual world: love that stays.
LUCY, by Laurence Gonzales
(July publication, pre-order now)
An explosive, daring novel that suggests what might happen when a young girl is discovered to be the result of the experimental breeding of human and ape.
Lucy, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a primatologist, a girl who has had only apes as playmates, is rescued from the jungles of the Congo during a civil war uprising and brought to live in the suburbs of Chicago. The stunning revelation of who-and what-she is sets in motion her fight for survival and for her very right to exist.
Here is a novel that has as its underpinnings the moral, ethical, and philosophical issues of cutting-edge biotechnology, genetic engineering, and cloning, and that masterfully explores what it means to be human.
Thoroughly well-written, grounded in science and a sorrowful sense of human nature, this book is utterly memorable.
LOWCOUNTRY SUMMER, by Dorothea Benton Frank
This remarkable writer revisits some of her most unforgettable characters in
this enchanting new story sure to make you laugh and cry. Return with her to
Tall Pines Plantation in this long-awaited sequel to her beloved bestseller
Plantation…
When Caroline Wimbley Levine returned to Tall Pines Plantation, she never expected to make peace with long-buried truths about herself and her family. The Queen of Tall Pines, her late mother, was a force of nature, but now she is gone, leaving Caroline and the rest of the family uncertain of who will take her place.
In the lush South Carolina countryside, old hurts, betrayals, and dark secrets will surface, and a new generation will rise along the banks of the mighty Edisto River.
Wonderfully evocative, infused with humor and poignancy, and rich with the lyrical cadences of the South, Lowcountry Summer is vintage Dorothea Benton Frank, a deeply moving novel you’ll want to savor and share.
RED HOOK ROAD, by Ayelet Waldman
(July publication, pre-order now.)
Two families living on the Maine coast find their way through grief together after a tragic accident takes the lives of a young, newly-married couple, which results in a broken marriage, a bonding between bereaved siblings, and healing in the form of an adopted girl’s prodigious violin talent.
As lyrical as a sonata, Ayelet Waldman’s follow-up novel to Love and Other Impossible Pursuits explores the aftermath of a family tragedy.
STILL A BIG SELLER…STILL IN HARDCOVER…THIS TITLE IS SCHEDULED FOR PAPERBACK IN JANUARY, 2011!
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
Set in Stockett’s native Jackson, MS, in the early 1960s, this first novel adopts the complicated theme of blacks and whites living in a segregated South. A century after the Emancipation Proclamation, black maids raised white children and ran households but were paid poorly, often had to use separate toilets from the family, and watched the children they cared for commit bigotry. In Stockett’s narrative, Miss Skeeter, a young white woman, is a naive, aspiring writer who wants to create a series of interviews with local black maids. Even if they’re published anonymously, the risk is great; still, Aibileen and Minny agree to participate. Tension pervades the novel as its events are told by these three memorable women. Is this an easy book to read? No, but it is surely worth reading. It may even stir things up as readers in Jackson and beyond question their own discrimination and intolerance in the past and present. LJ Review
HITCH 22, By Christopher Hitchens
Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world’s most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature. He is a fervent atheist, raised as a Christian, by a mother whose Jewish heritage was not revealed to him until her suicide.
In other words, Christopher Hitchens contains multitudes. He sees all sides of an argument. And he believes the personal is political.
This is the story of his life, lived large.
THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE, by Julie Orringer
A novel set in 1937 Europe tells the story of three Hungarian Jewish brothers bound by history and love, of a marriage tested by disaster, of a Jewish family’s struggle against annihilation by the Nazis, and of the dangerous power of art in the time of war.
Julie Orringer’s astonishing first novel-eagerly awaited since the publication of her heralded best-selling short-story collection, How to Breathe Underwater (”Fiercely beautiful”-The New York Times)-is a grand love story and an epic tale of three brothers whose lives are torn apart by war.
WAR, by Sebastian Junger
In his breakout bestseller, The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger created “a wild ride that brilliantly captures the awesome power of the raging sea and the often futile attempts of humans to withstand it” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, Junger turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat–the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. Through the experiences of these young men at war, he shows what it means to fight, to serve, and to face down mortal danger on a daily basis.
UNBOUND, by Dean King
In October 1934, the Chinese Communist Army found itself facing annihilation, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Nationalist soldiers. Rather than surrender, 86,000 Communists embarked on an epic flight to safety. Only thirty were women. Their trek would eventually cover 4,000 miles over 370 days. Under enemy fire they crossed highland awamps, climbed Tibetan peaks, scrambled over chain bridges, and trudged through the sands of the western deserts. Fewer than 10,000 of them would survive, but remarkably all of the women would live to tell the tale.
Unbound is an amazing story of love, friendship, and survival written by a new master of adventure narrative.
GIRL IN TRANSLATION, by Jean Kwok
Emigrating with her mother from Hong Kong to Brooklyn, Kimberly Chang begins a secret double life as an exceptional schoolgirl during the day and sweatshop worker at night, an existence also marked by a first crush and the pressure to save her family from poverty. A first novel.
Introducing a fresh, exciting Chinese-American voice, an inspiring debut about an immigrant girl forced to choose between two worlds and two futures.
THE SPY, by Clive Cussler
Investigating a disputed ruling that a brilliant pre-World War I battleship gun designer committed suicide, chief investigator Isaac Bell of the legendary Van Dorn Detective Agency discovers that an elusive spy with ties to a top-secret project has been staging the killings of America’s leading technological minds.
Detective Isaac Bell, hero of The Chase and The Wrecker, returns in the remarkable new adventure from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.
THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE, by Maggie O’Farrell
Fifty years after an unconventional reporter of genteel origins becomes a single mother, present-day London painter Elina navigates the first weeks of motherhood upon surviving a dangerous labor and learns that her life is disconcertingly linked to the woman from the past.
A spell-binding novel of two women connected across fifty years by art, love, betrayals, secrets, and motherhood. By the author of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
THE LION, by Nelson DeMille
In this eagerly awaited follow-up to The Lion’s Game, John Corey, former NYPD Homicide detective and special agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, is back. And, unfortunately for Corey, so is Asad Khalil, the notorious Libyan terrorist otherwise known as “The Lion.” Last we heard from him, Khali had claimed to be defecting to the US only to unleash the most horrific reign of terrorism ever to occur on American soil. While Corey and his partner, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, chased him across the country, Khalil methodically eliminated his victims one by one and then disappeared without a trace.
Now, years later, Khalil has returned to America to make good on his threats and take care of unfinished business. “The Lion” is a killing machine once again loose in America with a mission of revenge, and John Corey will stop at nothing to achieve his own goal — to find and kill Khahil.
THE IMPERFECTIONISTS, by Tom Rachman
Preoccupied by personal challenges while running a struggling English-language newspaper in Rome, an obituary writer confronts mortality, an eccentric publisher obsesses over his basset hound and other staff members uncover the paper’s founding by an impulsive millionaire. A first novel.
61 HOURS, by Lee Child
In a latest work by the Anthony Award-winning author of the best-selling Gone Tomorrow, Reacher arrives accidentally in a small South Dakota town, where during a dangerous winter storm he is enlisted to protect a lone witness who local police hope can help convict a brutal crime ring.
A MEASURELESS PERIL, by Richard Snow
Former longtime American Heritage editor Snow (Coney Island: A Postcard Journey to the City of Fire, 1983, etc.) examines the Atlantic theater of World War II, where his father fought. The Pacific is often considered the primary locale for the naval battles of WWII, but the effort in the Atlantic, centered on protecting supply lines between the United States and Europe, was no less vital. Snow uses the experiences of his father, a Navy man who had served in the Atlantic, as a jumping-off point to tell the wider story of what would be known as the Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945), in which Allied ships were pitted against hard-to-track German submarines. The Atlantic war began in earnest after a German U-boat torpedoed and sunk a British passenger ship in 1939. The author shows how the situation complicated the United States’ then-neutral stance in the war. Soon Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt began corresponding, leading to a deal in which the United States sold destroyers to the British, bypassing the antiwar Congress. In December 1941, Hitler ordered German U-boats to attack American ships, bringing the States fully into the Atlantic war. It proved to be a grueling, drawn-out affair, the longest continuous campaign of World War II. Churchill called the struggle against the German U-boats “the only thing that ever really frightened [him] during the war.” Snow looks at several important figures in the campaign, and he writes at length about Karl Doenitz, the commander of the German submarine fleet, whose strategic thinking about the use of submarines specifically, using U-boats to focus on attacking merchant ships transformed naval warfare. The author also uses letters and recollections of his father, providing a palpable sense of the daily activity of an enlisted man in the Atlantic war. An accomplished historian with a welcome personal touch. Kirkus Review
THE PASSAGE, by Justin Cronin
Fans of vampire fiction who are bored by the endless hordes of sensitive, misunderstood Byronesque bloodsuckers will revel in Cronin’s engrossingly horrific account of a post-apocalyptic America overrun by the gruesome reality behind the wish-fulfillment fantasies. When a secret project to create a super-soldier backfires, a virus leads to a plague of vampiric revenants that wipes out most of the population. One of the few bands of survivors is the Colony, a FEMA-established island of safety bunkered behind massive banks of lights that repel the “virals,” or “dracs” but a small group realizes that the aging technological defenses will soon fail. When members of the Colony find a young girl, Amy, living outside their enclave, they realize that Amy shares the virals’ agelessness, but not the virals’ mindless hunger, and they embark on a search to find answers to her condition. PEN/Hemingway Award winner Cronin (The Summer Guest) uses a number of tropes that may be overly familiar to genre fans, but he manages to engage the reader with a sweeping epic style. The first of a proposed trilogy, it’s already under development by director Ripley Scott and the subject of much publicity buzz. PW Review
(the following title is now new…but is a popular title in the store right now!!)
WHERE THE RIVERS RUN NORTH, by Sam Morton
Experience the untamed beauty of early America in Where the Rivers Run North, a new historical novel from Sam Morton. Morton’s extensively researched fiction carries the reader through three eras in the history of Abraska, or what is now southern Montana and northern Wyoming. From the days when Native American tribes dominated the landscape to the hardships of fledgling pioneer life to times of fast-paced modern development, Where the Rivers Run North introduces a shifting cast of characters as intriguing as they are diverse. One thread runs throughout–the figure of the horse, whether running wild on the plains or competing on the racetrack.
THE SCENT OF RAIN AND LIGHTNING, by Nancy Pickard
Pretty young schoolteacher Jody Linder doesn’t stray too far from small-town Rose, KS, returning to teach at her own high school. Jody is emotionally fragile, yet she’s stubborn enough to live in the same house where her father was murdered 23 years earlier-the same night her mother vanished, also presumed dead. Raised by her grandparents and her uncles, Jody’s believed their side of the story all her life. Town drunk Billy Crosby was convicted-wrongfully perhaps-of the murder. The bombshell that Billy is being released from prison opens up Jody’s personal floodgates. She suddenly realizes how little she knows about her town and her family’s motives. New revelations begin a thaw in Jody’s heart and unleash in her a new determination to find the real killer. Verdict Stylistically similar with flashbacks, a determined young heroine, and a snappy twist, this novel is a worthy successor to the author’s much-acclaimed The Virgin of Small Plains. Pickard’s superb storytelling transports the reader into the characters’ world, making all too real their dilemmas, their choices, and their willingness to believe the unlikely. LJ Review
OPERATION MINCEMEAT, by Ben MacIntyre
The exciting story of the ingenious British ruse that distracted the Nazis from the Allied Sicilian invasion. Although the invasion finally took place July 10, 1943, allowing the Allied forces an initial foothold into the German “Fortress Europe,” the trick that kept the Nazis from fortifying Sicily took place months before. The dead body of a British major, “William Martin,” had been hauled in on April 30 by fishermen off the port of Huelva, Spain, a pro-German outpost, his briefcase full of top-secret letters by British officers detailing the invasions of Greece and Sardinia and sure to land in the eager hands of the Germans. In fact, the body was a plant, a suicide victim actually named Glyndwr Michael. He had been plucked from a morgue in London, kept on ice for a few months, dressed in a well-used British Navy uniform, stocked with identification, fake official letters and correspondence from his father and fiancée “Pam,” and slipped into the Spanish waters by a British submarine. London Times writer at large Macintyre (Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal, 2007, etc.) skillfully unravels this crazy, brilliant plan by degrees. The “corkscrew minds” at British Navy Intelligence, headed by John Godfrey and his assistant, Ian Fleming (yes, of James Bond fame), put forth the germ of the idea, which was then developed to its fantastic implementation by RAF flight officer Charles Cholmondeley and Lt. Commander Ewen Montagu, first under the code name “Trojan Horse,” then the more prosaic “Operation Mincemeat.” The author’s chronicle of how the last two intelligence officers lovingly created an entire personality for “Major Martin” makes for priceless reading. Astoundingly, as Winston Churchill noted exultantly, the Nazis swallowed the bait “rod, line and sinker. “Macintyre spins a terrific yarn, full of details gleaned from painstaking detective work. Kirkus Review
MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER, by Robin Oliveira
Despite her skill as a midwife, Mary Sutter cannot overcome the obstacle that bars her from further medical training: her gender. The Civil War changes everything. After her brother enlists in the Union Army, Mary follows him from Albany to Washington, DC, to volunteer as a nurse. She ends up at the ramshackle Union Hotel, crowded with recruits dying of disease, where Dr. William Stipp reluctantly agrees to hire her. As Union losses mount, her work becomes essential. But she relents to her mother’s pleas to return home to help her twin sister through childbirth. After failing to save her sister, Mary returns to the front, where she eventually performs surgery in partnership with Stipp, whose admiration for her skill deepens to love before new family concerns carry her home again. VERDICT Oliveira deftly depicts the chaotic aftermath of battles and develops her own characters while incorporating military and political leaders of the time. The historic details enrich the narrative without overshadowing Mary’s struggles. This well-written and compelling debut will engage all readers of historical fiction, especially those interested in the Civil War. LJ Review
THE DEVIL’S STAR, by Jo Nesbo
As a serial killer terrorizes Oslo, Inspector Harry Hole (Nemesis, 2009, etc.) is battling even more fearsome demons. When copywriter Camilla Loen is shot to death, her index finger removed and a star-shaped red diamond tucked beneath her eyelid, Chief Inspector Bjarne Moller has the bright idea of pairing his heir-apparent, Inspector Tom Waaler, with barely functional alcoholic Harry, who’s spent most of the previous month on unofficial leave drowning his grief over his late colleague, Officer Ellen Gjeltsen. But Harry doesn’t just dislike and distrust Waaler; he’s convinced that Waaler is Prince, the mob’s inside man who murdered Ellen. So the salt-and-pepper rapport between Harry and Waaler is more like arsenic-and-cyanide. Even pulling Harry off the case so that he can investigate the disappearance of producer Wilhelm Barli’s wife turns sour because a parcel containing her severed middle finger swiftly makes it clear that singer/actress Lisbeth Barli has become another victim of the Courier Killer. The exhaustingly wide-ranging case poses three crucial questions. What pattern underlies the Courier Killer’s choice of victims and modus operandi? When the police arrest an innocent suspect, can Harry protect him long enough to get the goods on the real killer? And how can he possibly neutralize the hydra-headed Waaler, who grows more dangerous the more he’s thwarted? Not all the answers are equally interesting, but even readers new to this white-hot series will be impressed by Nesbo’s generous plotting and his insight into dark places in the human soul. Kirkus Review
SLOW DEATH BY RUBBER DUCK, by Rick Smith
The rubber ducky on the cover of this book is full of toxic chemicals that can find their way into your body. Writing in plain language for general readers, with a sense of humor and a hopeful tone in the face of scary statistics, two prominent Canadian environmentalists explain research that points to the conclusion that common chemicals in everyday household items, from toothpaste to children’s toys, can negatively impact our health. In the tradition of Super Size Me, the authors ingested and inhaled compounds found in the home and in household products, at ordinary household levels, over a two-year period, and used blood tests and urine samples to measure chemical levels in their own bodies. Their interviews with chemical companies and government regulators expose attitudes underlying the problem. The authors draw on scientists and community organizers to offer practical suggestions to help readers protect themselves and their families, such as getting rid of plastic shower curtains, non-stick pans, and stain repellants. The book includes a list of organizations, web sites, and databases further reading. Rick Smith is executive director of Environmental Defence Canada. Bruce Lourie, an environmental thinker in Canada, is president of the Ivey Foundation. Annotation
PLAN B 4.0, by Lester Brown (paperback)
As fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we have begun investing in energy sources that can last forever. Plan B 4.0 explores both the nature of this transition to a new energy economy and how it will affect our daily lives.
Skein of the Crime, by Maggie Sefton
The newest installment in the series, with knitting patterns and recipes included!
Fall has come to Fort Connor, Colorado, and the cool air has inspired the knitters at the House of Lambspun to start on their hats and mittens. It’s also brought an influx of students to the university town-and into the shop for knitting classes. Kelly Flynn is happy to teach them the tricks of the trade-until one of them is found dead on the river trail near Kelly’s house. Compelled to investigate, Kelly finds herself following a path that twists more easily than the yarn with which she knits. Knowing the killer could be close, Kelly must work fast to unravel the skein of this crime.
THE SHALLOWS, by Nicholas Carr
“Is Google making us stupid?” Carr, who posed that question on a famed Atlantic Monthly cover, here says yes: as use of the Internet reroutes our neural pathways, we are forfeiting our subtlety and ability to concentrate. Bound to kick up some controversy. LJ Review
PAPERBACK
THE QUICKENING, by Michelle Hoover
With the coming of the Great Depression to the upper Midwest, two farmer’s wives are pitted against one another, exposing the dark secrets they hide and triggering a series of events that will unravel their friendship–and their families. A first novel. Original.
HALFWAY TO HEAVEN, by Mark Obmascik
A middle-aged former journalist sets out to summit all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot-plus peaks. Obmascik (The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession, 2004), who led the Denver Post’s Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of the Columbine massacre before turning to nature writing, proves an engaging, convivial host as he leads us up the slopes of the Rockies accompanied by a parade of colorful climbing partners. The author often conquered several adjoining peaks on the same expedition, and each climb introduces us to a different companion, each with a unique back story. The partners were the result of a demand from Obmascik’s wife Merrill that her neophyte mountaineer would never climb alone. At one point, she filled the role of climbing partner herself, only to discover a few feet from the summit of Snowmass Mountain that she was afraid of heights. The author’s desperate quest for hiking companions took him through friends, neighbors, old college buddies and his reluctant teenage son. Through the Internet, he joined forces on other mountains with a Boeing engineer who climbed in shorts, another who chain-smoked Marlboros, a 70-year-old with two artificial hips and the legendary Erik Weihenmayer, the only blind man ever to summit Mount Everest. Obmascik encountered mountain goats, several hungry marmots (who ate his climbing poles), two gnarly old gold miners and even a few lovelorn females. Throughout, the author maintains a breezy narrative style, a keen eye for nature’s beauty and a self-deprecating tone that makes his marathon journey fly by. His story and those of many of the free spirits he meets along the way vividly demonstrate the thrill of taking the road less traveled. Highly readable, entertaining and educational. Kirkus Review
THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING, by Paulette Jiles
In 1863, as the War Between the States creeps inevitably toward its bloody conclusion, former Kentucky slave Britt Johnson ventures west into unknown territory with his wife, Mary, and their three children, searching for a life and a future. But their dreams are abruptly shattered by a brutal Indian raid upon the Johnsons’ settlement while Britt is away establishing a business. Returning to find his friends and neighbors slain or captured, his eldest son dead, his beloved and severely damaged Mary enslaved, and his remaining children absorbed into an alien society that will never relinquish its hold on them, the heartsick freedman vows not to rest until his family is whole again.
A soaring work of the imagination based on oral histories of the post-Civil War years in North Texas, Paulette Jiles’s The Color of Lightning is at once an intimate look into the hearts and hopes of tragically flawed human beings and a courageous reexamination of a dark American history.
CHEF, by Jasprett Singh
Kirpal Singh reminisces on his life as a Sikh cook in the military camp at the foot of the Siachen Glacier in Kashmir and how his friendship with Irem, a Pakistani woman arrested for entering Kashmir illegally, made him question the tumultuous conflict between India and Pakistan.
An award-winning debut novel-a lyrical journey into memory, and into the depths of a conflicted region, for fans of Michael Ondaatje, John Banville, and Rohinton Mistry.
THE CASTAWAYS, by Erin Hilderbrand
Greg and Tess MacAvoy are one of four prominent Nantucket couples who count each other as best friends. As pillars of their close-knit community, the MacAvoys, Kapenashes, Drakes, and Wheelers are important to their friends and neighbors, and especially to each other. But just before the beginning of another idyllic summer, Greg and Tess are killed when their boat capsizes during an anniversary sail. As the warm weather approaches and the island mourns their loss, nothing can prepare the MacAvoy’s closest friends for what will be revealed.
Once again, Hilderbrand masterfully weaves an intense tale of love and loyalty set against the backdrop of endless summer island life.
THE HOST, by Stephenie Meyer
Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. Wanderer, the invading “soul” who has been given Melanie’s body, didn’t expect to find its former tenant refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
As Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of Jared, a human who still lives in hiding, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she’s never met. Reluctant allies, Wanderer and Melanie set off to search for the man they both love.
Featuring one of the most unusual love triangles in literature, THE HOST is a riveting and unforgettable novel about the persistence of love and the essence of what it means to be human.
RUMOR HAS IT, by Jill Mancell
Londoner Tilly Cole discovers the perils of smalltown life in Mansell’s perfectly executed exemplar of fluff. After her live-in boyfriend “does a runner,” Tilly ditches London for Roxborough and a job as assistant to interior designer Max Dineen. Much of the town’s gossip centers on handsome ladies’ man Jack Lucas, and despite his almost irresistible charm, Tilly resolves not to be the latest notch on his bedpost. Meanwhile, gossip threatens to wreck Tilly’s friend Erin when she’s targeted by a jealous former friend and gets Max’s ex-wife, Hollywood soap-opera star Kaye Dineen, hounded back to England. At the center, Tilly and Jack get into tangles, literally and figuratively, as they bounce toward their happy ending. While witty dialogue and wry observations keep the pace brisk, Mansell (Miranda’s Big Mistake) still
manages to tug at the heart. PW Review
APRIL & OLIVER, by Tess Callahan
In this memorable debut, Callahan offers a uniquely funereal love story that focuses on a stagnant friendship-turned-untenable romance between unlikely life-long friends. To deal with the death of her immediate family, as well as the scars of childhood abuse, April assumes the role of the jaded wild child; Oliver, her once-inseparable childhood companion, has become her polar opposite, an engaged law student poised for success. Estranged during Oliver’s college years, the two reconnect with troubling results. Callahan’s descriptions are vivid, and often paired with charming flashbacks to more innocent times, providing stark contrast to the tumultuous course of April and Oliver’s young-adult lives. Callahan’s narrative takes some supporting-character detours from the principles’ love-hate relationship, including an abusive boyfriend; a manipulative and dangerous family friend, and April’s strong-but-slipping Nana. Callahan’s poetic style and grasp of emotion gives proper weight to April’s loss and Oliver’s secrets, and is sure to engage, sadden, and enthrall readers, especially in a bittersweet, somewhat surprising finale. PW Review
SUMMER’S CHILD, By Diane Chamberlain
Twenty years after 11-year-old Daria Cato found a baby abandoned on a beach in Kill Devil Hills, N.C., she is still very much a part of the child’s life. Daria’s parent’s had adopted the infant, but now they are dead and she has accepted responsibility for Shelly–who has grown into a beautiful, slightly handicapped young woman. Without consulting Daria, Shelly contacts Rory Taylor, host of TV’s True Life Stories, to ask his help in finding her birth mother. Rory has a personal interest in Shelly’s story since he’d been one of the many teenagers hanging out on the beach the summer the baby was found. Daria, meanwhile, has been keeping to herself the crush she’s had on Rory for years–along with Shelly’s true story. Here, as in previous offerings, Chamberlain (Breaking the Silence) creates a captivating tale populated with haunting characters. PW Review
WITH THE OLD BREED, By E.B. Sledge
In The Wall Street Journal, Victor Davis Hanson named With the Old Breed one of the top five books on epic twentieth-century battles. Studs Terkel interviewed the author for his definitive oral history, The Good War. Now E. B. Sledge’s acclaimed first-person account of fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa returns to thrill, edify, and inspire a new generation.
An Alabama boy steeped in American history and enamored of such heroes as George Washington and Daniel Boone, Eugene B. Sledge became part of the war’s famous 1st Marine Division-3d Battalion, 5th Marines. Even after intense training, he was shocked to be thrown into the battle of Peleliu, where “the world was a nightmare of flashes, explosions, and snapping bullets.” By the time Sledge hit the hell of Okinawa, he was a combat vet, still filled with fear but no longer with panic.
Based on notes Sledge secretly kept in a copy of the New Testament, With the Old Breed captures with utter simplicity and searing honesty the experience of a soldier in the fierce Pacific Theater. Here is what saved, threatened, and changed his life. Here, too, is the story of how he learned to hate and kill-and came to love-his fellow man.
HALF THE SKY, by Nicholas Kristof
“Half the Sky is a call to arms, a call for help, a call for contributions, but also a call for volunteers. It asks us to open our eyes to this enormous humanitarian issue. It does 80 with exquisitely crafted prose and sensationally interesting material…I really do think this is one of the most important books I have ever reviewed.”—Carolyn See, The Washington Post
From the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, here is a passionate call to arms against the oppression of women around the globe—”the central moral challenge” of our time. Through inspiring stories of extraordinary women, Kristof and WuDunn show that the most effective way to fight global poverty is to unleash the potential of women. They also offer an uplifting do-it-yourself tool kit for those who want to help.
“Superb…As Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring once catalyzed us to save our birds and better steward our earth, Half the Sky stands to become a classic, spurring us to spare impoverished women these terrors, and elevate them to turn around the future of their nations.”—Susan Ager,
The Plain Dealer “I read Half the Sky in one sitting, staying up until 3 a. m. to do so. It is brilliant and inspirational, and I want to shout about it from the rooftops and mountains.”—Greg Mortanson, author of Three Cups of Tea.
THE BLACK SWAN, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.
Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”
For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don’t know. He offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. The Black Swan is a landmark book-itself a black swan.
