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November book buzz
This document provides a summary of upcoming book releases, movies based on books, and e-reader devices. It highlights several new book releases across genres like fiction, non-fiction, thrillers and children's books. It also lists movie adaptations of books like The Help and Harry Potter 7 part 1. Finally, it provides details on popular e-readers like Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony Reader along with their specifications.
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November book buzz
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- 2. Book News The Helpreleases August 12th . Emma Stone … ‘Skeeter’ Phelan Bryce Dallas Howard … Hilly Holbrook Sissy Spacek … Missus Walters Viola Davis … Aibileen Clark
- 3. Book News Life ofPi begins shooting in January Ang Lee--Director
- 4. The Power ofBook Trailers Jo Nesbo’s The Redbreast
- 7. Books to Movies FairGame Cast: Naomi Watts … Valerie Plame Sean Penn … Joseph Wilson Sam Shepard … Sam Plame Opening Friday
- 8. Books to Movies HarryPotter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Opening November 19th
- 9. Books to Movies Tangled Voicedby Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi November 24th
- 11. New Releases Title: TheWeekend Author: Bernhard Schlink The latest from the author of “The Reader”
- 12. New Releases Title: SafeFrom the Sea Author: Peter Geye A family saga set against a Great Lakes boating disaster.
- 13. New Releases Title: TheFinkler Question Author: Howard Jacobson 2010 Winner of the Man Booker Prize
- 14. New Releases Title: CrookedLetter, Crooked Letter Author: Tom Franklin An unlikely friendship is altered by crime.
- 15. New Releases Title: BookLust to Go Author: Nancy Pearl The ultimate Reader’s Advisor releases her latest.
- 16. New Releases Title: Armageddon Science:The Science of Mass Destruction Author: Brian Clegg What could happen if science gets away from us?
- 17. New Releases Title: Intothe Storm: Violent Tornadoes, Killer Hurricanes, and Death-defying Adventures in Extreme Weather Author: Reed Timmer
- 18. New Releases Title: Revolution Author:Jennifer Donnelly This historical YA fiction story was one of Amazon’s best of October.
- 19. Hot Off ThePress Title: The Instructions Author: Adam Levin Four days + 1000 pages = One Brazen Debut
- 20. Hot Off ThePress Title: The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy Author: Bill Carter
- 21. Hot Off ThePress Title: Moonlight Mile Author: Dennis Lehane Kenzie and Gennaro return for the first time in 11 years.
- 22. Hot Off ThePress Title: My Reading Life Author: Pat Conroy A reflection on the books that shaped the author’s life.
- 23. Hot Off ThePress Title: The Petting Zoo Author: Jim Carroll The posthumous novel from the writer of The Basketball Diaries.
- 24. Hot Off ThePress Title: Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People Author: Amy Sedaris Great Christmas ideas! Video
- 25. Hot Off ThePress Title: Edge Author: Jeffrey Deaver The latest thriller from the popular author.
- 26. Upcoming Releases Title: TheLast Days of Ptolemy Grey Author: Walter Mosely A moving depiction of love and dementia.
- 27. Upcoming Releases Title: Diaryof a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth Author: Jeff Kinney 5 Million Copies in the first printing!
- 28. Upcoming Releases Title: SunsetPark Author: Paul Auster A book about “the miraculous strangeness of being alive.”
- 29. Upcoming Releases Title: DecisionPoints Author: George W. Bush A “tell-some” from the 43rd president.
- 30. Upcoming Releases Title: OfThee I Sing Author: Barack Obama Tales of great Americans.
- 31. Upcoming Releases Title: Unbroken:A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption Author: Laura Hillenbrand
- 32. Upcoming Releases Title: Chasingthe Sun: The Epic Story of the Star That Gives Us Life Author: Richard Cohen
- 33. Upcoming Releases Title: The Autobiographyof Mark Twain, Vol. 1 Author: Mark Twain Part one of three.
- 34. Upcoming Releases Title: Lukaand the Fire of Life Author: Salman Rushdie A literary tale set against the backdrop of video games.
- 35. Upcoming Releases Title: AnObject of Beauty Author: Steve Martin The King Tut singer pens another wild and crazy tale.
- 36. Upcoming Releases Title: TheDistant Hours Author: Kate Morton Morton’s latest is described as a “romantic thriller.”
- 37. Upcoming Releases Title: TheEmperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee Considered by some to be the definitive guide to the history of cancer.
- 38. Upcoming Releases Title: FullDark, No Stars Author: Stephen King Four dark novellas by the horror master.
- 39. Upcoming Releases Title: Rescue Author:Anita Shreve A domestic drama from the best-selling author.
- 40. Upcoming Releases Title: Matched Author:Ally Condie The latest dystopia YA genre begins.
- 41. Upcoming Releases Title: Griftopia:Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids and the Long Con that is Breaking America Author: Matt Taibbi From the Rolling Stone columnist.
- 42. Scott’s Personal Recommendations--Thrillers Title: TheBreach Author: Patrick Lee Part two, Ghost Country, releases Dec. 28th .
- 43. Scott’s Personal Recommendations--Thrillers Title: The13th Hour Author: Richard Doetsch Memento meets the printed page.
- 44. Scott’s Personal Recommendations--Thrillers Title: NeverLook Away Author: Linwood Barclay A family outing goes tragically awry.
- 45. This Month inJames Patterson • Cross Fire Alex Cross gets married…and people die.
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- 49. Amazon Kindle • 7.5"x 4.8" x 0.335" • 8.5 oz. • 6" e-ink display • 4GB (3.3GB available) • No Expandable Memory • Not compatible with Overdrive
- 50. Amazon Kindle DX •10.4" x 7.2" x 0.38" • 18.9 ounces • 9.7" e-ink display • 4GB (3.3GB available) • No Expandable Memory • Not compatible with Overdrive
- 51. Sony Reader Touch •6.61” x 4.68” x 0.38” • 7.58 oz • 6 inch display • 2GB Dual Memory Card Expansion Slots for Memory Stick Duo™ and SD Card up to 32GB. • Works With Overdrive
- 52. Sony Reader Pocket •5.71 x 4.11 x 0.33 ” • 5.47 oz • 5 inch display • 2GB • Works With Overdrive
- 53. Sony Reader Daily •7.87 x 5.04 x 0.38 ” • 9.6 oz • 7 inch display • 2GB Dual Memory Card Expansion Slots for Memory Stick Duo™ and SD Card up to 32GB. • Works With Overdrive
- 54. B&N Nook • 7.7x 4.9 x 0.50 • 6 Inch Display • 11.6 oz./12.1 3G • 2 GB expandable up to 16GB • Works With Overdrive
- 55. B&N Nook Color •8.1 x 5.0 x 0.48 • 7 Inch Display • 15.8 oz. • 8 GB expandable up to 32GB • Works With Overdrive
- 56. Apple iPad • 9.56x 7.47 x 0.5 • 22 oz./23 3G • 9.7 inch display • 16-64 GB • Does not work with Overdrive (Yet)
- 57. Borders Kobo • 4.7x 7.2 x 0.4 • 8 Oz. • 6 Inch Display • 1 GB expandable up to 32 GB • Works With Overdrive
Editor's Notes
- #4 Director Ang Lee has completed his search for an actor to play the lead in his movie adaptation of Life of Pi, Yan Martels’ 2002 Man Booker Prize-winning novel. According to the movie news site, Deadline, newcomer Suraj Sharma won the part over 3,000 other teenagers that Lee auditioned. Shooting will begin in January.
- #12 From Publishers Weekly Old friends cautiously reunite at an isolated German estate after one of them is released from prison in Schlink's (The Reader) meditative novel on the past's grip on the present and the possibility--or impossibility--of redemption. Convicted of quadruple murder and numerous acts of terrorism on behalf of the radical left, Jörg spent 24 years in prison before being unexpectedly pardoned. His sister, Christiane--whose obsessive concern for her brother's welfare has turned her into a borderline recluse--arranges a gathering to welcome Jörg back into society. Among those assembled are journalist Henner, whom Jörg believes betrayed him to the police; quiet Ilse, using the weekend to begin a novel about a common friend's alleged suicide; and Marko, a young revolutionary keen on convincing Jörg to use his newly earned freedom to speak out against the current government. Schlink avoids the easy route of condemnation and salvation, never lingering too long on Jörg's crimes--though the ties to the RAF aren't cloaked--and though the past is admirably handled (sketched in, but not overbearing), the book's real strength is the finely wrought dynamics among the characters, whose relationships and histories are fraught with a powerful sense of tension and possibly untoward potential.
- #13 Product Description Set against the powerful lakeshore landscape of northern Minnesota, Safe from the Sea is a heartfelt novel in which a son returns home to reconnect with his estranged and dying father thirty-five years after the tragic wreck of a Great Lakes ore boat that the father only partially survived and that has divided them emotionally ever since. When his father for the first time finally tells the story of the horrific disaster he has carried with him so long, it leads the two men to reconsider each other. Meanwhile, Noah s own struggle to make a life with an absent father has found its real reward in his relationship with his sagacious wife, Natalie, whose complications with infertility issues have marked her husband s life in ways he only fully realizes as the reconciliation with his father takes shape. Peter Geye has delivered an archetypal story of a father and son, of the tug and pull of family bonds, of Norwegian immigrant culture, of dramatic shipwrecks and the business and adventure of Great Lakes shipping in a setting that simply casts a spell over the characters as well as the reader. From Booklist This finely crafted first novel takes place in the wooded areas around a small lake north of Duluth and in the tempestuous waters of Lake Superior. The history of the family at the center of the novel, the Torrs, encompasses both areas and is a prolonged story of resentment and recrimination. When his estranged father asks him for help, Noah Torr travels to the lakeside cabin to find his father dying and determined to reconcile some of the bitterness from the past. This is primarily a study of the lives and relations of the two men and on the calamitous effect that the sinking of the ore ship Ragnarok had on them. The suspense of the tight plot originates less in external action than in the two men’s increasing focus on the disaster in Lake Superior. The third-person narration skillfully interweaves tales of the past with the reality of the present. Give this book to readers of David Guterson and Robert Olmstead, who will be captured by the themes of approaching death and the pain and solace provided by nature. --Ellen Loughran
- #14 Product Description Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer, and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never lost touch with each other, or with their former teacher, Libor Sevcik. Dining together one night at Sevcik's apartment—the two Jewish widowers and the unmarried Gentile, Treslove—the men share a sweetly painful evening, reminiscing on a time before they had loved and lost, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. But as Treslove makes his way home, he is attacked and mugged outside a violin dealer's window. Treslove is convinced the crime was a misdirected act of anti-Semitism, and in its aftermath, his whole sense of self will ineluctably change. The Finkler Question is a funny, furious, unflinching novel of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and the wisdom and humanity of maturity.
- #15 Amazon.com Review Product DescriptionEdgar Award-winning author Tom Franklin returns with his most accomplished and resonant novel so far—an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town. More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades. From Publishers Weekly Franklin's third novel (after Smonk) is a meandering tale of an unlikely friendship marred by crime and racial strain in smalltown Mississippi. Silas Jones and Larry Ott have known each other since their late 1970s childhood when Silas lived with his mother in a cabin on land owned by Larry's father. At school they could barely acknowledge one another, Silas being black and Larry white, but they secretly formed a bond hunting, fishing, and just being boys in the woods. When a girl goes missing after going on a date with Larry, he is permanently marked as dangerous despite the lack of evidence linking him to her disappearance, and the two boys go their separate ways. Twenty-five years later, Silas is the local constable, and when another girl disappears, Larry, an auto mechanic with few customers and fewer friends, is once again a person of interest. The Southern atmosphere is rich, but while this novel has the makings of an engaging crime drama, the languid shifting from present to past, the tedious tangential yarns, and the heavy-handed reveal at the end generate far more fizz than pop. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
- #16 Product Description Nancy Pearl sells books: hers and those of the authors she recommends. Book Lust To Go is 120 places to read about before you go. Consider the entry “Indicative of Indonesia,” in which Nancy Pearl urges travelers to read V.S. Naipaul’s Among the Believers and Christopher J. Koch’s The Year of Living Dangerously. Wanderlust-y reading for prospective travelers to Ireland begins with the cheeky: “Let’s not start with James Joyce and just say we did, okay?” then goes on to recommend such gems as Nuala O’Faollin’s Are you Somebody? and J. P. Dunleavy’s Ireland In All Her Sins and Some of Her Graces. This enthusiastic literary globetrotting includes stops in Korea, Sweden, Afghanistan, Albania, Parma, Patagonia, Texas, and Timbuktu. But Nancy Pearl is a reader and a librarian, not a travel agent, so she can’t resist recommending reading for “Travel to Imaginary Places” (including Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Wizard of Earthsea and Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union) and stories of chucking it all and moving to Spain or Greece under the heading “So We/I Bought (or Built) a House In . . . ” Book Lust To Go brings Pearl’s amazing ability to summon the perfect book to connect with a particular interest with the art of having an adventure — whether it requires a passport or just an armchair.
- #17 From Publishers Weekly Clegg (Before the Big Bang) explores how runaway science and other disasters might destroy humanity. He begins with the much discussed but highly speculative concerns over the operation of CERN's Large Hadron Collider. The collider is designed to recreate energies equal to those existing at the time of the big bang, which some theorists say might create a chain reaction that would dissolve the world and even the universe. Discounting the danger as hypothetical in the extreme, Clegg moves on to other possible doomsday scenarios. The short list includes nuclear bombs and nuclear power, climate change, biohazards, nanobots, the threat of transforming humans into enhanced Homo cyberneticus, and the more credible threat of a total "information breakdown." In each case he expertly describes the science and evaluates the seriousness of the threat. Clegg is an optimist and never a fearmonger. Even his discussion of climate change, a subject he admits is "depressing," ends with the options available to avoid catastrophe. Clegg ends with a call for better science education so that "the voting public" can "control science wisely." He also passionately argues that the value of science far outweighs the dangers of its misuse or of new technologies. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
- #18 Product Description Reed Timmer, a star of the top rated Storm Chasers on the Discovery Channel is one of the most successful and most extreme storm chasers in the world. His is a job that requires science and bravado, knowledge and instinct just to survive, never mind excel. Now, in Into the Storm, he takes readers inside the terrifying and awe-inspiring world of big weather. Published to coincide with the fourth season's premiere, Into the Storm is Timmer's dramatic account of his extraordinary profession. Featuring stories of the three-hundred-plus extreme tornados, hurricanes, or blizzards that Timmer has watched ring-side over the last decade-storms that include the killer F5 tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, in May 1999; the unprecedented, devastating storm surge of Hurricane Katrina; and the little-studied but enormously powerful storm systems in places like Canada and Argentina. As a Ph.D. candidate in meteorology, Timmer is after more than just an adrenaline rush-his stories feature fascinating insights into the science of storms, and how the data he is collecting will could possibly save lives. With a firsthand perspective on the storm-chasing community, Timmer also takes readers inside this world, examining his controversial obsession and the ethical debates it sparks. Featuring the same you-are-there immediacy that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to Timmer's web site tornadovideos.net, every month, Into the Storm is one wild-and informative-ride.
- #19 Amazon.com Review Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2010: Revolution, Jennifer Donnelly's remarkable new novel, weaves together the lives of Andi Alpers, a depressed modern-day teenager, and Alexandrine Paradis, a brave young woman caught up in the French Revolution. While in Paris with her estranged father, a Nobel geneticist hired to match the DNA of a heart said to belong to the last dauphin of France, Andi discovers a diary hidden within a guitar case--and so begins the story of Alexandrine, who herself had close ties to the dauphin. Redemption and the will to change are powerful themes of the novel, and music is ever present--Andi and Alex have a passion for the guitar, and the playlist running through Revolution is a who's who of classic and contemporary influences. Danger, intrigue, music, and impeccably researched history fill the pages of Revolution, as both young women learn that, "it is love, not death, that undoes us."--Seira Wilson From Publishers Weekly Donnelly (A Northern Light) melds contemporary teen drama with well-researched historical fiction and a dollop of time travel for a hefty read that mostly succeeds. Andi Alpers is popping antidepressants and flunking out of her Brooklyn prep school, grieving over her younger brother's death. She finds solace only when playing guitar. When the school notifies her mostly absent scientist father that she's flirting with expulsion, he takes Andi to Paris for Christmas break, where he's testing DNA to see if a preserved heart really belonged to the doomed son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Andi is ordered to work on her senior thesis about a (fictional) French composer. Bunking at the home of a renowned historian, Andi finds a diary that relates the last days of Alexandrine, companion to (you guessed it) the doomed prince. The story then alternates between Andi's suicidal urges and Alexandrine's efforts to save the prince. Donnelly's story goes on too long, but packs in worthy stuff. Musicians, especially, will appreciate the thread about the debt rock owes to the classics. Ages 14–up. Copyright © PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
- #20 Product Description Beginning with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ending, four days and 900 pages later, with the Events of November 17, this is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker. Expelled from three Jewish day-schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies, Gurion ends up in the Cage, a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases of Aptakisic Junior High. Separated from his scholarly followers, Gurion becomes a leader of a very different sort, with righteous aims building to a revolution of troubling intensity. The Instructions is an absolutely singular work of fiction by an important new talent. Combining the crackling voice of Philip Roth with the encyclopedic mind of David Foster Wallace, Adam Levin has shaped a world driven equally by moral fervor and slapstick comedy—a novel that is muscular and exuberant, troubling and empathetic, monumental, breakneck, romantic, and unforgettable.
- #21 Product Description A dramatic account of the politics and personalities behind NBC's calamitous attempt to reinvent late-night television. When NBC decided to move Jay Leno into prime time to make room for Conan O'Brien to host the Tonight show-a job he had been promised five years earlier-skeptics anticipated a train wreck for the ages. It took, in fact, only a few months for the dire predictions to come true. Leno's show, panned by critics, dragged down the ratings-and the profits-of NBC's affiliates, while ratings for Conan's new Tonight show plummeted to the lowest levels in history. Conan's collapse, meanwhile, opened an unexpected door of opportunity for rival David Letterman. What followed was a boisterous, angry, frequently hilarious public battle that had millions of astonished viewers glued to their sets. In The War for Late Night, New York Times reporter Bill Carter offers a detailed behind-the-scenes account of the events of the unforgettable 2009/2010 late-night season as all of its players- performers, producers, agents, and network executives-maneuvered to find footing amid the shifting tectonic plates of television culture.
- #22 From Publishers Weekly An old case takes on new dimensions in Lehane's sixth crime novel to feature Boston PIs Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, last seen in 1999's Prayers for Rain. Twelve years earlier, in 1998's Gone, Baby, Gone, Patrick and Angie investigated the kidnapping of four-year-old Amanda McCready. The case drove a temporary wedge between the pair after Patrick returned Amanda to her mother's neglectful care. Now Patrick and Angie are married, the parents of four-year-old Gabriella, and barely making ends meet with Patrick's PI gigs while Angie finishes graduate school. But when Amanda's aunt comes to Patrick and tells him that Amanda, now a 16-year-old honor student, is once again missing, he vows to find the girl, even if it means confronting the consequences of choices he made that have haunted him for years. While Lehane addresses much of the moral ambiguity from Gone, this entry lacks some of the gritty rawness of the early Kenzie and Gennaro books. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Product Description Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane delivers an explosive tale of integrity and vengeance—heralding the long-awaited return of private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for help from the child's aunt led investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl—only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home. Now Amanda is sixteen—and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Yet Amanda's aunt is once more knocking on Patrick Kenzie's door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, clever young woman—a woman who hasn't been seen in weeks. Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most. Their search leads them into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, a mentally unstable crime boss and his equally demented wife, a priceless, thousand-year-old cross, and a happily homicidal Russian gangster. It's a world in which motives and allegiances constantly shift and mistakes are fatal. In their desperate fight to confront the past and find Amanda McCready, Kenzie and Gennaro will be forced to question if it's possible to do the wrong thing and still be right or to do the right thing and still be wrong. As they face an evil that goes beyond broken families and broken dreams, they discover that the sins of yesterday don't always stay buried and the crimes of today could end their lives.
- #23 From Publishers Weekly The strengths and weakness of Conroy's novels--both his beguiling narrative voice and his often overly emotional language--are present in this slim paean to the books and book people that have shaped his life. Conroy attributes his love of literature to his mother, who nurtured his passion for reading and at the same time educated herself by studying his school books. "I tremble with gratitude as I honor her name," he writes. Conroy's favorite novel was Gone with the Wind, which his mother read to him when he was five years old, and it made a novelist of him, he asserts. Conroy pays tribute to the men who were substitute father figures and mentors, among them a legendary book rep who chastised him for his "overcaffeinated prose." Breakneck contrasts exist throughout: on the one hand, Conroy sketches concisely the venom of Southern white bigotry; on the other hand, he allows humor to bubble up through dialogue, and riffs the English language. While some readers will not progress beyond the fustian prose, Conroy's legion of fans will doubtlessly bond with the author as he earnestly explores the role of books in providing him with inspiration and solace. (Nov. 2) (c) Product Description Bestselling author Pat Conroy acknowledges the books that have shaped him and celebrates the profound effect reading has had on his life. Pat Conroy, the beloved American storyteller, is also a voracious reader. He has for years kept a notebook in which he notes words or phrases, just from a love of language. But reading for him is not simply a pleasure to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his own writing. It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that reading has saved his life, and if not his life then surely his sanity. In My Reading Life, Conroy revisits a life of passionate reading. He includes wonderful anecdotes from his school days, moving accounts of how reading pulled him through dark times, and even lists of books that particularly influenced him at various stages of his life, including grammar school, high school, and college. Readers will be enchanted with his ruminations on reading and books, and want to own and share this perfect gift book for the holidays. And, come graduation time, My Reading Life will establish itself as a perennial favorite, as did Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
- #24 From Publishers Weekly Basketball Diaries author Carroll's slightly rough posthumous novel about a famous painter's breakdown begins as painter Billy Wolfram has a psychotic episode, wanders about the Central Park petting zoo, threatens strangers, and is picked up and committed to a mental hospital for observation. Upon his release, Billy returns home and goes into "reclusion," brooding on events in his past (such as his mother's death), watching old TV shows, and receiving visits from a Central Park zoo raven who talks to Billy about the flood (the raven was on Noah's ark), art, and the emptiness in Billy's life. Other than his assistant, Marta, Billy's only real visitor is his childhood friend, rock star Denny, leaving him plenty of time for introspection that leads back to Kennedy's assassination, which coincided with Billy's mother catching him masturbating. Since then, Billy has frozen out his sexual feelings, and, as it turns out, Marta would love to thaw them. Although Carroll's prose is uneven--clever and profound sentences jostle awkwardly with lumbering, bathos-soaked platitudes--and the narrative tension is rather slack, this is a heartfelt portrait of a New York original by a New York original. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Product Description A moving, vividly rendered novel from the late author of The Basketball Diaries. When poet, musician, and diarist Jim Carroll died in September 2009, he was putting the finishing touches on a potent work of fiction. The Petting Zoo tells the story of Billy Wolfram, an enigmatic thirty- eight-year-old artist who has become a hot star in the late-1980s New York art scene. As the novel opens, Billy, after viewing a show of Velázquez paintings, is so humbled and awed by their spiritual power that he suffers an emotional breakdown and withdraws to his Chelsea loft. In seclusion, Billy searches for the divine spark in his own work and life. Carroll's novel moves back and forth in time to present emblematic moments from Billy's life (his Irish Catholic upbringing, his teenage escapades, his evolution as an artist and meteoric rise to fame) and sharply etched portraits of the characters who mattered most to him, including his childhood friend Denny MacAbee, now a famous rock musician; his mentor, the unforgettable art dealer Max Bernbaum; and one extraordinary black bird. Marked by Carroll's sharp wit, hallucinatory imagery, and street-smart style, The Petting Zoo is a frank, haunting examination of one artist's personal and professional struggles.
- #25 From Booklist In her follow-up to the best-selling I Like You (2006), Sedaris once again invites us all to remember the “good old days” with her off-the-wall crafting and entertaining suggestions. “Did you know that inside your featureless well-worn husk is a creative you?” she asks. No doubt drawing on and making light of the current economic atmosphere, she notes, “Being poor is a wonderful motivation to be creative”; and most crafts are made with found or salvaged materials. More a vehicle for Sedaris’ knack for farce and costume than a real how-to guide (unless the formula for a “wizard duck costume” marks the realization of your wildest dreams), it nevertheless contains a few useful facts, ideas, and recipes. The true joy of this book lies in its hilarious and amazingly well-styled photo spreads, many featuring Sedaris in one of her uncanny disguises, including a teenager, an elderly shut-in, and Jesus. She devotes equal time to instruction on making homemade sausage, gift-giving, crafting safety, and lovemaking (aka “fornicrafting”). Those looking to make conventional crafts, obviously, should look elsewhere. Everyone else should sit down, have a laugh, and make your very own bean-and-leaf James Brown mosaic. The author and her brother have a considerable following among hip readers of humor, and the appeal of this book will certainly transcend the world of crafters. --Annie Bostrom Product Description America's most delightfully unconventional hostess and the bestselling author of I Like You delivers a new book that will forever change the world of crafting. According to Amy Sedaris, it's often been said that ugly people craft and attractive people have sex. In her new book, SIMPLE TIMES, she sets the record straight. Demonstrating that crafting is one of life's more pleasurable and constructive leisure activities, Sedaris shows that anyone with a couple of hours to kill and access to pipe cleaners can join the elite society of crafters. You will discover how to make popular crafts, such as: crab-claw roach clips, tinfoil balls, and crepe-paper moccasins, and learn how to: get inspired (Spend time at a Renaissance Fair; Buy fruit, let it get old, and seewhat shapes it turns into); remember which kind of glue to use with which material (Tacky with Furry, Gummy with Gritty, Paste with Prickly, and always Gloppy with Sandy); create your own craft room and avoid the most common crafting accidents (sawdust fires, feather asphyxia, pine cone lodged in throat); and cook your own edible crafts, from a Crafty Candle Salad to Sugar Skulls, and many more recipes. PLUS whole chapters full of more crafting ideas (Pompom Ringworms! Seashell Toilet Seat Covers!) that will inspire you to create your own hastily constructed obscure d'arts; and much, much more!
- #26 From Publishers Weekly Thriller Award–winner Deaver (The Bodies Left Behind) unveils some nifty new tricks in this edge-of-your-seat thriller that pits two worthy antagonists against each other. Henry Loving, "a lifter," specializes in extracting information from human targets by any means necessary (i.e., torture). Corte, "a shepherd," is an agent in the Strategic Protection Department of a secret government agency normally assigned to protect high-profile targets. An intercepted communication identifies Loving as the lifter ordered to target Ryan Kessler, a Washington, D.C., metro detective. While Corte attempts to protect Kessler's family and identify the "primary," Loving's employer, Loving seeks the edge to get the information he needs to extract. Corte, a board game aficionado and game theory student, and Loving are well matched, sharing a history that ups the stakes and makes the contest personal. Deaver's first first-person narrator, Corte, is an exciting new weapon in the author's arsenal of memorable characters. (Nov.) (c)
- #27 From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Mosley (Known to Evil) plays out an intriguing premise in his powerful latest: a man is given a second shot at life, but at the price of a hastened death. Ptolemy Grey is a 91-year-old man, suffering from dementia and living as a recluse in his Los Angeles apartment. With one foot in the past and the other in the grave, Ptolemy begins to open up when Robyn Small, a 17-year-old family friend, appears and helps clean up his apartment and straighten out his life. A reinvigorated Ptolemy volunteers for an experimental medical program that will restore his mind, but at hazardous cost: he won't live to see 92. With the clock ticking, Ptolemy uses his rejuvenated mental abilities to delve into the mystery of the recent drive-by shooting death of his great-nephew, Reggie, and to render justice the only way he knows how, goaded and guided by the memory of his murdered childhood mentor, Coydog McCann. Though the details of the experimental procedure are less than convincing, Mosley's depiction of the indignities of old age is heartbreaking, and Ptolemy's grace and decency make for a wonderful character and a moving novel. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist *Starred Review* Ptolemy Grey is a 91-year-old African American living alone in violent South Central L.A. Frail and suffering from dementia, largely forgotten by his extended family, he can’t remember to eat, his mind “scattered over nearly a hundred years.” He relives events marked by racism, lynching, poverty, and longing for his long-dead wife. His great-grand nephew, Reggie, takes him to the grocery store and prompts him to eat. When Reggie is killed in a drive-by shooting, Ptolemy’s days appear to be numbered. But Robyn, a beautiful, resourceful 17-year-old, steps in. As she sees to Ptolemy’s needs, she awakens his desire for the lucidity he once had, and he meets a doctor who offers him a chance for several months of mental clarity before almost certain death. Mosley’s dramatic departure from his Easy Rawlins and Leonid McGill crime novels appears to be a very personal one, a deeply thoughtful, provocative, and often beautiful meditation on aging, memory, family, loss, and love. Ptolemy and Robynare truly indelible characters. Mosley’s story is ultimately life affirming, and his writing is by turns gritty and sublime. Baby boomers caring for aged parents, or thinking about their own mortality, will line up for The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. Mosley’s fans of any age will also embrace it, and every library will be better for adding it. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A return to top form for Mosley, who has slumped a bit since ending his Easy Rawlins series. An aggressive marketing campaign and a poignant autobiographical connection (Mosley helped care for a relative with dementia) will draw deserved attention to a very fine novel. --Thomas Gaughan
- #28 Product Description Greg Heffley has always been in a hurry to grow up. But is getting older really all it’s cracked up to be? Greg suddenly finds himself dealing with the pressures of boy-girl parties, increased responsibilities, and even the awkward changes that come with getting older—all without his best friend, Rowley, at his side. Can Greg make it through on his own? Or will he have to face the “ugly truth”?
- #29 From Publishers Weekly Auster (Invisible) is in excellent form for this foray into the tarnished, conflicted soul of Brooklyn. New York native Miles Heller now cleans out foreclosed south Florida homes, but after falling in love with an underage girl and stirring the wrath of her older sister, he flees to Brooklyn and shacks up with a group of artists squatting in the borough's Sunset Park neighborhood. As Miles arrives at the squat, the narrative broadens to take in the lives of Miles's roommates--among them Bing, "the champion of discontent," and Alice, a starving writer--and the unlikely paths that lead them to their squat. Then there's the matter of Miles's estranged father, Morris, who, in trying to save both his marriage and the independent publishing outfit he runs, may find the opportunity to patch things up with Miles. The fractured narrative takes in an impressive swath of life and history--Vietnam, baseball trivia, the WWII coming-home film The Best Years of Our Lives--and even if a couple of the perspectives feel weak, Auster's newest is a gratifying departure from the postmodern trickery he's known for, one full of crisp turns of phrase and keen insights. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist *Starred Review* Passionately literary, Auster nonetheless publishes as frequently as a genre author, writing poetic and brainy feigned procedurals featuring inadvertent outlaws. In his sixteenth novel, four flat-broke twentysomething searchers end up squatting in a funky abandoned house in Sunset Park, a rough Brooklyn neighborhood. Bing, the “sloppy bear” ringleader, plays drums and runs the Hospital for Broken Things, where he mends “relics” from a thriftier past. Melancholy artist Ellen is beset by erotic visions. Grad student Alice is researching pop-culture depictions of postwar sexual relationships. Miles is a fugitive. Poisoned by guilt over his stepbrother's death, he hasn't communicated with his loving father, a heroic independent publisher; his kind English professor stepmother; or his flamboyant actor mother for seven years. Lately he's been in Florida, “trashing out” foreclosed homes, stunned by what evicted people leave behind in anger and despair. Miles returns to New York after things turn dicey over his love affair with a wise-beyond-her-years Cuban American teenager. As always with the entrancing and ambushing Auster, every element is saturated with implication as each wounded, questing character's story illuminates our tragic flaws and profound need for connection, coherence, and beauty. In a time of daunting crises and change, Auster reminds us of lasting things, of love, art, and “the miraculous strangeness of being alive.” --Donna Seaman
- #30 Product Description President George W. Bush describes the critical decisions of his presidency and personal life. Decision Points is the extraordinary memoir of America’s 43rd president. Shattering the conventions of political autobiography, George W. Bush offers a strikingly candid journey through the defining decisions of his life. In gripping, never-before-heard detail, President Bush brings readers inside the Texas Governor’s Mansion on the night of the hotly contested 2000 election; aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America’s most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq; and behind the Oval Office desk for his historic and controversial decisions on the financial crisis, Hurricane Katrina, Afghanistan, Iran, and other issues that have shaped the first decade of the 21st century. President Bush writes honestly and directly about his flaws and mistakes, as well as his accomplishments reforming education, treating HIV/AIDS in Africa, and safeguarding the country amid chilling warnings of additional terrorist attacks. He also offers intimate new details on his decision to quit drinking, discovery of faith, and relationship with his family. A groundbreaking new brand of memoir, Decision Points will captivate supporters, surprise critics, and change perspectives on one of the most consequential eras in American history – and the man at the center of events.
- #31 Product Description In this tender, beautiful letter to his daughters, President Barack Obama has written a moving tribute to thirteen groundbreaking Americans and the ideals that have shaped our nation. From the artistry of Georgia O'Keeffe, to the courage of Jackie Robinson, to the patriotism of George Washington, President Obama sees the traits of these heroes within his own children, and within all of America's children.Breathtaking, evocative illustrations by award-winning artist Loren Long at once capture the personalities and achievements of these great Americans and the innocence and promise of childhood.This beautiful book celebrates the characteristics that unite all Americans, from our nation's founders to generations to come. It is about the potential within each of us to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths. It is a treasure to cherish with your family forever.
- #32 Product Description On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.
- #33 Product Description In the grand tradition of the scholar-adventurer, acclaimed author Richard Cohen takes us around the world to illuminate our relationship with the star that gives us life. Whether floating in a skiff on the Ganges as the Sun descends behind the funeral pyres of Varanasi, interviewing psychologists in the Norwegian Arctic about the effects of darkness, or watching tomato seedlings in southern Spain being hair-brushed (the better to catch the Sun’s rays), Cohen tirelessly pursues his quarry.Drawing on more than seven years of research, he reports from locations in eighteen different countries, including the Novolazarevskaya science station in Antarctica (the coldest place on Earth); the Arizona desert (the sunniest); the Pope’s observatory-cum-fortress outside Rome (possible the least accessible); and the crest of Mount Fuji, where—entirely alone—he welcomes the sunrise on the longest day of the year.As he soon discovers, the Sun is present everywhere—in mythology, language, religion, sciences, art, literature, and medicine; in the ocean depths; even atop the Statue of Liberty. Ancient worshippers believed our star was a man with three eyes and four arms, abandoned by his spouse because his brightness made her weary. The early Christians appropriated the halo from sun imagery and saw the cross as an emblem of the Sun and its rays. Galileo was the first to espy blemishes on the solar surface—sunspots—but hid his discoveries for fear of persecution. Einstein helped duplicate the source of the Sun’s power to create the atomic bomb; while the “Sun King” Louis XIV, Chairman Mao, Adolf Hitler, and the Japanese emperors all co-opted the Sun to enlarge their authority. Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes declare that even thinking about the solar system took up too much space in his brain, while Richard Wagner had Tristan inveigh against daylight as the enemy of romantic love.Packed with interesting figures (the Sun is responsible for 44 percent of the world’s tidal energy, and when aligned with the Moon, as at high tide, makes us all minutely taller); extraordinary myths (in India, just a few years ago, pregnant women were still being kept indoors during an eclipse, for fear their babies would be born blind or with cleft palates); and surprising anecdotes (during the Vietnam War, a large number of mines dropped into Haiphong harbor blew up simultaneously in response to a large solar flare), this splendidly illustrated volume is erudite, informative, and supremely entertaining. It not only explains the star that so inspires us, but shows how complex our relations with it have been—and continue to be.
- #34 From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Mark Twain is his own greatest character in this brilliant self-portrait, the first of three volumes collected by the Mark Twain Project on the centenary of the author's death. It is published complete and unexpurgated for the first time. (Twain wanted his more scalding opinions suppressed until long after his death.) Eschewing chronology and organization, Twain simply meanders from observation to anecdote and between past and present. There are gorgeous reminiscences from his youth of landscapes, rural idylls, and Tom Sawyeresque japes; acid-etched profiles of friends and enemies, from his "fiendish" Florentine landlady to the fatuous and "grotesque" Rockefellers; a searing polemic on a 1906 American massacre of Filipino insurgents; a hilarious screed against a hapless editor who dared tweak his prose; and countless tales of the author's own bamboozlement, unto bankruptcy, by publishers, business partners, doctors, miscellaneous moochers; he was even outsmarted by a wild turkey. Laced with Twain's unique blend of humor and vitriol, the haphazard narrative is engrossing, hugely funny, and deeply revealing of its author's mind. His is a world where every piety conceals fraud and every arcadia a trace of violence; he relishes the human comedy and reveres true nobility, yet as he tolls the bell for friends and family--most tenderly in an elegy for his daughter Susy, who died in her early 20s of meningitis--he feels that life is a pointless charade. Twain's memoirs are a pointillist masterpiece from which his vision of America--half paradise, half swindle--emerges with indelible force. 66 photos and line illus. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist *Starred Review* In explaining his dissatisfaction with his early attempts to write his life story, Mark Twain blamed the narrowness of the conventional cradle-to-grave format: “The side-excursions are the life of our life-voyage, and should be, also, of its history.” This volume—the first of three—makes public autobiographical dictations in which Twain unpredictably pursues the many side-excursions of his remarkably creative life. Embedded in a substantial editorial apparatus, these free-spirited forays expose private aspects of character that the author did not want in print until he had been dead at least a century. Readers see, for instance, a misanthropic Twain consigning man to a status below that of the grubs and worms, as well as a tenderhearted Twain still grieving a year after his wife’s death. But on some side-excursions, Twain flashes the irreverent wit that made him famous: Who will not delight in Twain’s account of how, as a boy, he gleefully dons the bright parade banner of the local Temperance Lodge, only to shuck his banner upon finding a cigar stub he can light up? But perhaps the most important side-excursions are those retracing the imaginative prospecting of a miner for literary gold, efforts that resulted in such works as Roughing It and Innocents Abroad. A treasure trove for serious Twain readers. --Bryce Christensen
- #35 From Publishers Weekly Rushdie unleashes his imagination on an alternate world informed by the surreal logic of video games, but the author's entertaining wordplay and lighter-than-air fantasies don't amount to more than a clever pastiche. A sequel of sorts to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, this outing finds Haroun's younger brother, Luka, on a mission to save his father, guided, ironically, by Nobodaddy, a holograph-like copy of his father intent on claiming the old man's life. Along the way, they're joined by a collection of creatures, including a dog named Bear, a bear named Dog, hybrid bird-elephant beasts, and a princess with a flying carpet. As with video games, Luka stores up extra lives, proceeds to the next level after beating big baddies, and uses his wits to overcome bottomless chasms and trash-dropping otters. Rushdie makes good use of Nobodaddy, and his world occasionally brims with allegory (the colony of rats called the "Respectorate of I" brings the Tea Party to mind), but this is essentially a fun tale for younger readers, not the novel Rushdie's adult fans have been waiting for. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist This entertaining fable, dedicated to Rushdie’s second son, is a stand-alone sequel to Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990). Haroun’s younger brother, Luka, a 12-year-old boy living in the land of Alifbay, enters the World of Magic after his father, Rashid Khalifa, the famous tale spinner known as the Shah of Blah, falls into a comalike sleep. Luka’s quest to steal the Fire of Life, the only potential cure, begins a fast-paced adventure that combines supernatural whimsy with candid real-world attitude. With his talking-animal companions and his father’s phantom alter ego, Nobodaddy, he moves through a psychedelic alternate universe populated by strange creatures and forgotten deities. The setting behaves like a huge video game, and the kaleidoscopic action can be overwhelming at times. Readers will enjoy the silly puns and fun magic-carpet ride, and should appreciate the literary in-jokes and wry humor. Although the tone is fairly lighthearted overall, the triumphant finale is a fantastic tribute to the rich interior world of the storyteller and the transformative power of his art. HIGH DEMAND BACKSTORY: Ever since the fatwa was issued against Rushdie upon the publication of The SatanicVerses, readers are always eager to see what this major international writer is up to now. --Sarah Johnson
- #36 Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly Martin compresses the wild and crazy end of the millennium and finds in this piercing novel a sardonic morality tale. Lacey Yeager is an ambitious young art dealer who uses everything at her disposal to advance in the world of the high-end art trade in New York City. After cutting her teeth at Sotheby's, she manipulates her way up through Barton Talley's gallery of "Very Expensive Paintings," sleeping with patrons, and dodging and indulging in questionable deals, possible felonies, and general skeeviness until she opens her own gallery in Chelsea. Narrated by Lacey's journalist friend, Daniel Franks, whose droll voice is a remarkable stand-in for Martin's own, the world is ordered and knowable, blindly barreling onward until 9/11. And while Lacey and the art she peddles survive, the wealth and prestige garnered by greed do not. Martin (an art collector himself) is an astute miniaturist as he exposes the sound and fury of the rarified Manhattan art world. If Shopgirl was about the absence of purpose, this book is about the absence of a moral compass, not just in the life of an adventuress but for an entire era. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist This thoroughly engaging primer on the art world is unusual on a number of levels. Although the lead characters are unlikable, the novel is hard to put down, offers an enlightening explication of how the market for art is created, and includes photos and absorbing detail on many of the artworks under discussion. The narrator, Daniel Franks, is an arts journalist who relates the story of avaricious, amoral Lacey Yeager, who is willing to do almost anything to move ahead in the art world. After landing an entry-level job at Sotheby’s, where her stint cataloging dusty works in the basement helps develop her eye for good art, Lacey moves on to working in a gallery, where she makes many important connections among collectors and dealers before opening her own gallery in Chelsea. Along the way, she sleeps with artists, collectors, and, finally, an FBI agent who investigates malfeasance in the art world. This page-turner is likely to make readers feel like they have been given a backstage pass to an elite world few are privileged to observe. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The best-selling author draws on his experience as a renowned art collector for this clever, convincingly detailed depiction of NYC’s art scene. --Joanne Wilkinson
- #37 rom Publishers Weekly Starred Review. A letter posted in 1941 finally reaches its destination in 1992 with powerful repercussions for Edie Burchill, a London book editor, in this enthralling romantic thriller from Australian author Morton (The Forgotten Garden). At crumbling Milderhurst Castle live elderly twins Persephone and Seraphina and their younger half-sister, Juniper, the three eccentric spinster daughters of the late Raymond Blythe, author of The True History of the Mud Man, a children's classic Edie adores. Juniper addressed the letter to Meredith, Edie's mother, then a young teen evacuated to Milderhurst during the Blitz. Edie, who's later invited to write an introduction to a reprint of Raymond's masterpiece, visits the seedily alluring castle in search of answers. Why was her mother so shattered by the contents of a letter sent 51 years earlier? And what happened to soldier Thomas Cavill, Juniper's long-missing fiancé and Meredith's former teacher? Despite the many competing narratives, the answers will stun readers. 5-city author tour. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
- #38 From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Mukherjee's debut book is a sweeping epic of obsession, brilliant researchers, dramatic new treatments, euphoric success and tragic failure, and the relentless battle by scientists and patients alike against an equally relentless, wily, and elusive enemy. From the first chemotherapy developed from textile dyes to the possibilities emerging from our understanding of cancer cells, Mukherjee shapes a massive amount of history into a coherent story with a roller-coaster trajectory: the discovery of a new treatment--surgery, radiation, chemotherapy--followed by the notion that if a little is good, more must be better, ending in disfiguring radical mastectomy and multidrug chemo so toxic the treatment ended up being almost worse than the disease. The first part of the book is driven by the obsession of Sidney Farber and philanthropist Mary Lasker to find a unitary cure for all cancers. (Farber developed the first successful chemotherapy for childhood leukemia.) The last and most exciting part is driven by the race of brilliant, maverick scientists to understand how cells become cancerous. Each new discovery was small, but as Mukherjee, a Columbia professor of medicine, writes, "Incremental advances can add up to transformative changes." Mukherjee's formidable intelligence and compassion produce a stunning account of the effort to disrobe the "emperor of maladies." (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist *Starred Review* Apparently researching, treating, and teaching about cancer isn’t enough of a challenge for Columbia University cancer specialist Mukherjee. He was also moved to write a biography of a disease whose name, for millennia, could not be uttered. The eminently readable result is a weighty tale of an enigma that has remained outside the grasp of both the people who endeavored to know it and those who would prefer never to have become acquainted with it. An unauthorized biography told through the voices of people who have lived, toiled, and, yes, died under cancer’s inexorable watch. Mukherjee recounts cancer’s first known literary reference—hence its birth, so to speak—in the teachings of the Egyptian physician Imhotep in the twenty-fifth century BCE, in which it is clear that Imhotep possessed no tools with which to treat what appears to be breast cancer. His cryptic note under “Therapy:” “There is none.” Throughout cancer’s subsequent years, many more physicians and scientists with names both familiar and obscure attempted and occasionally succeeded in deciphering or unlocking keys to many of the disease’s mysteries. Alas, this is not a posthumous biography, but it is nonetheless a surprisingly accessible and encouraging narrative. --Donna Chavez
- #39 From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Eerie twists of fate drive the four longish stories in King's first collection since Just After Sunset (2008). In "1922," a farmer murders his wife to retain the family land she hopes to sell, then watches his life unravel hideously as the consequences of the killing suggest a near-supernatural revenge. "Big Driver" tells of an otherwise ordinary woman who discovers her extraordinary capacity for retribution after she is raped and left for dead. "A Good Marriage" explores the aftermath of a wife's discovery of her milquetoast husband's sinister secret life, while "Fair Extension," the book's most disturbing story, follows the relationship between a man and the best friend on whom he preternaturally shifts all his bad luck and misfortune. As in Different Seasons (1982), King takes a mostly nonfantastic approach to grim themes. Now, as then, these tales show how a skilled storyteller with a good tale to tell can make unsettling fiction compulsively readable. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist *Starred Review* King begins his afterword by stating, “The stories in this book are harsh.” The man ain’t whistlin’ Dixie. Returning to the novella—possibly his brightest canvas—King provides four raw looks at the limits of greed, revenge, and self-deception. The first, “1922,” is an outright masterpiece and takes the form of the written confession of one Wilf James. Back in 1922, see, Wilf killed his wife to prevent her selling off part of the farm, but tossing her corpse down the well didn’t exactly stop her. It’s Poe meets Creepshow by way of Steinbeck and carries the bleak, nearly romantic doom of an old folk ballad about murderin’ done wrong. A pair of the remaining tales feature female protagonists considering hiding others’ crimes: “Big Driver” is a rape-revenge tale about a writer of cozy mysteries who ends up in the uncoziest of situations, while “A Good Marriage” stars a wife whose husband of 27 years turns out to be hiding an unimaginable secret. Though the shortest story by far, “Fair Extension” is no slouch, submitting for your approval one Mr. Elvid (get it?), who is out to shine a little light on our blackest urges. Rarely has King gone this dark, but to say there are no stars here is crazy. High-Demand Backstory: King has gone on record saying he believesthat American readers should pay more attention to the virtues of short fiction; and if anyone can get reluctant short-story and novella readers into the swing, he certainly can with this book. --Daniel Kraus
- #40 From Publishers Weekly In Shreve's smooth if unsurprising latest (after A Change in Altitude), EMT Peter Webster is drawn to a woman he rescues at the scene of a one-car drunk driving accident. Webster is well intentioned, but alcoholic Sheila, with her dangerous history, could prove beyond his efforts to save her, though the two embark on an affair that evolves into marriage and parenthood with the birth of their daughter, Rowan. Sheila's drinking, meanwhile, escalates until she causes another accident, this time with young Rowan in the car, causing Webster to send Sheila away to avoid jail time. Years later, with not a word from long-gone Sheila, Rowan is a typically turmoil-ridden high school senior--moody, her grades slipping, drinking--and her tribulations prompt Webster to reach out to Sheila to help his daughter. Webster and Sheila are more type than character--good-hearted man, damaged woman incapable of love--and the paramedic rescue scenes feel mostly like opportunities for Shreve to show off her research. Still, the story runs like a well-oiled machine and should sate the author's fans. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Paramedic Pete Webster is worried sick about his daughter, Rowan, a high-school senior whom he has raised single-handedly ever since she was two. Rowan has adopted very untypical behavior, ignoring her studies and drinking heavily. It brings back bad memories of his ex-wife, Sheila. He pulled her from a car wreck while on the job and soon fell madly in love with her both for her beauty and her irreverent sense of humor. When she became pregnant, he married her though he was only 21. They were very happy until Sheila began drinking all day, every day. Now Pete is worried that their daughter believes she is doomed to repeat her mother’s mistakes; he decides to contact Sheila, whom he has not seen or heard from for 16 years. The prolific Shreve brings her customary care to this thoroughly absorbing, perfectly paced domestic drama. Alternating between the life-and-death scenarios Pete encounters on the job and the fraught family tension between father and daughter, Shreve pulls readers right into her story. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Since 2001, Shreve’s books have spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times best-seller lists; her sixteenth novel will no doubt follow suit. --Joanne Wilkinson
- #41 From Booklist “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Cassia’s feelings of security disintegrate after her grandfather hands her a slip of paper just before his scheduled death at age 80. Not only does she now possess an illegal poem, but she also has a lingering interest in the boy who fleetingly appeared on her viewscreen, the one who wasn’t her match, the man she will eventually marry. What’s worse, she knows him—his name is Ky, and he is an orphan from the Outer Provinces. How could she love him as much as Xander, her match and best friend since childhood? The stunning clarity and attention to detail in Condie’s Big Brother–like world is a feat. Some readers might find the Society to be a close cousin of Lois Lowry’s dystopian future in The Giver (1993), with carefully chosen work placements, constant monitoring, and pills for regulating emotional extremes. However, the author just as easily tears this world apart while deftly exploring the individual cost of societal perfection and the sacrifices inherent in freedom of choice. Grades 9-12. --Courtney Jones Product Description Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.
- #42 The dramatic story behind the most audacious power grab in American history The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class—made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms and political maneuvers. The crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they’ve hijacked America’s political and economic life.Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi here unravels the whole fiendish story, digging beyond the headlines to get into the deeper roots and wider implications of the rise of the grifters. He traces the movement’s origins to the cult of Ayn Rand and her most influential—and possibly weirdest—acolyte, Alan Greenspan, and offers fresh reporting on the backroom deals that decided the winners and losers in the government bailouts. He uncovers the hidden commodities bubble that transferred billions of dollars to Wall Street while creating food shortages around the world, and he shows how finance dominates politics, from the story of investment bankers auctioning off America’s infrastructure to an inside account of the high-stakes battle for health-care reform—a battle the true reformers lost. Finally, he tells the story of Goldman Sachs, the “vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” Taibbi has combined deep sources, trailblazing reportage, and provocative analysis to create the most lucid, emotionally galvanizing, and scathingly funny account yet written of the ongoing political and financial crisis in America. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of politics and finance in this country, and the profound consequences for us all.
- #43 Thirty years ago, in a facility buried beneath a vast Wyoming emptiness, an experiment gone awry accidentally opened a door. It is the world's best-kept secret—and its most terrifying. Trying to regain his life in the Alaskan wilds, ex-con/ex-cop Travis Chase stumbles upon an impossible scene: a crashed 747 passenger jet filled with the murdered dead, including the wife of the President of the United States. Though a nightmare of monumental proportions, it pales before the terror to come, as Chase is dragged into a battle for the future that revolves around an amazing artifact. Allied with a beautiful covert operative whose life he saved, Chase must now play the role he's been destined for—a pawn of incomprehensible forces or humankind's final hope—as the race toward Apocalypse begins in earnest. Because something is loose in the world. And doomsday is not only possible . . . it is inevitable. Starred Review. Lee's debut thriller pits ex-con ex-cop Travis Chase against increasingly dire odds as the action ratchets up like levels in a complex video game. Fresh out of prison, Travis sets out on a solo Alaskan trek, wanting nothing more than quiet time for introspection. Then he encounters a downed plane containing the dead bodies of the United States's first lady and several others, plus hints about a mysterious missing item. Armed with superior firepower and the instincts and savvy of a good cop, Travis tracks down the murderers, who are torturing hostage Paige Campbell to get her father, Peter, to reveal another clue. Travis manages to rescue Paige just as Peter confesses the information and is killed. His last words send Paige and Travis into a dangerous world of secrets and conspiracies, where they slowly learn about the eponymous Breach and meet progressively more menacing foes. It's all here: brilliantly devious enemies; nifty, innovative gadgets and weaponry; hang-on-to-your-hat action; and razor-sharp plot twists aplenty. (Jan.)
- #44 From Publishers Weekly At the start of Doetsch's tricky thriller, an innocent man, Nicholas Quinn, is in police custody, suspected of murdering his wife, Julia, at their house in upscale Byram Hills, N.Y. Then a stranger gives Nick a watchlike device that allows him to change the past by sending him back, one hour at a time, for half a day. When Nick goes back in time, he discovers single events are the result of a complex web of causes. Saving his wife means untangling a plot that includes a robbery committed by corrupt cops, a horrendous plane crash and a mysterious family secret. Julia's fate seems to be inevitable, one way or another, and Nick's tampering brings death to friends and allies along the way. At times Doetsch (The Thieves of Faith) oversells Nick's anguish with breathless prose, and no character emerges as more than a cardboard cutout, but readers will enjoy the clever razzle-dazzle of a story whose parts fit together like clockwork. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Booklist *Starred Review* Staring at the glass of the interrogation room, Nick Quinn realizes he has been accused of murdering his wife a couple of hours earlier. She was the love of his life, and he cannot convince the police officers of his innocence. During a break in the questioning, a man appears and offers Quinn a watch. This amazing device will enable Quinn to travel backward one hour at a time to save his wife’s life and bring the true killer to justice. As he uses the timepiece and works toward his ultimate goal, Quinn learns to his horror that changing the past has terrifying ramifications and that he could make things even worse than they were before the day began. Starting with chapter 12 and working backward, Doetsch spins a compelling tale of loss, grief, and injustice with an element of fantasy. As the events unfold in Quinn’s quest, the shocks and twists are uniquely affecting, as the reader technically knows what’s going to happen. If there ever was a novel that deserves to be read in one sitting, this is it. With a totally original and compelling story line, The 13th Hour is one of the best thrillers of the year. --Jeff Ayers --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- #45 From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Bestseller Barclay's outstanding thriller, his fourth stand-alone after Fear the Worst, opens with what should be a happy family outing—a trip to an amusement park. Shortly after newspaper reporter David Harwood; his wife, Jan; and their four-year-old son, Ethan, arrive at Five Mountains in upper New York State, Ethan disappears. A frantic Jan goes to find security, while David soon locates Ethan nearby asleep in his stroller. But now Jan is missing. What's more, the park has no record of selling her a ticket, and she doesn't show up on any security video. Nor is she at home in Promise Falls, N.Y. While the police suspect David killed Jan and concocted the park abduction story, he uses his reporting skills to dig into his wife's past and learns he never really knew her. The tension mounts as Barclay skillfully shows how even the most innocent action can seem suspicious. The surprising twists and appealing characters rank this among the author's best. 5-city author tour. (Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist David Harwood thinks his only problem is the failing newspaper he works for—until Jan, his wife of five years, suddenly begins to show signs of serious depression and talks of suicide. When she arranges a trip to a local amusement park for David, their young son Ethan, and herself, David feels encouraged that her mood may be lifting. Unfortunately, in the press of the crowd, Ethan mometarily vanishes, and by the time he’s found, Jan has also disappeared. Unlike Ethan, she can’t be found. Was she abducted? Did she run away? It isn’t long before David is tagged as the number-one suspect in what cops think is her murder, and it’s up to him to find what really happened. The truth is more bizarre than David could have imagined. Giving what might have been a routine tale some curious twists, Barclay’s latest stand-alone is a satisfying thriller about a fairly ordinary guy who stumbles into a puzzle that changes his life and family forever. --Stephanie Zvirin
- #46 Product Description Wedding bells ringDetective Alex Cross and Bree's wedding plans are put on hold when Alex is called to the scene of the perfectly executed assassination of two of Washington D.C.'s most corrupt: a dirty congressmen and an underhanded lobbyist. Next, the elusive gunman begins picking off other crooked politicians, sparking a blaze of theories--is the marksman a hero or a vigilante?A murderer returnsThe case explodes, and the FBI assigns agent Max Siegel to the investigation. As Alex and Siegel battle over jurisdiction, the murders continue. It becomes clear that they are the work of a professional who has detailed knowledge of his victims' movements--information that only a Washington insider could possess.Caught in a lethal cross fire As Alex contends with the sniper, Siegel, and the wedding, he receives a call from his deadliest adversary, Kyle Craig. The Mastermind is in D.C. and will not relent until he has eliminated Cross and his family for good. With a supercharged blend of action, deception, and suspense, Cross Fire is James Patterson's most visceral and exciting Alex Cross novel ever.
- #48 Sony Data DiscmanLaunched: September 1991Launch price: $550 The predecessor to today's e-readers, the Sony Data Discman read audio CDs and CD-ROMs (remember those?). The Discman was primarily pitched as a research device, letting users have access to encyclopedias and other digitized reference books on the go. "The latest portable computers are marvels of miniaturisation, packing the magnetic disc and memory capacity of a desktop brute into an A4-sized slab. They can carry all the office databases," a New Scientist reviewer wrote in 1992. E-books available at the time included Compton's Concise Encylopedia, Wellness Encyclopedia and Passport's World Travel Translator. The King James Bible and a year-in-review disc of USA Today were also available.
- #49 Launched: 1998Launch price: $500 Think Kindle-vs-Nook is a heated battle? The first round of the E-Reader Wars was fought back in 1998, when the NuvoMedia Rocketbook went head-to-head with the EB Dedicated Reader and SoftBook Press's SoftBook. The Rocketbook weighed in at 1.25 pounds and had 4 MB of Flash memory -- enough to hold 4,000 pages worth of material. The Pro version had 16 MB of Flash memory and could hold about 40 books. Modern e-readers typically hold thousands. The Rocketbook was a full pound lighter than its most serious rival, the SoftBook, which could hold 100,000 pages. It went for $600 -- or $300 if you also subscribed to a $20-a-month "content package." Alas, the e-readers of yore were an idea ahead of their time. The Rocketbook "did almost everything the Kindle does, except for wireless downloads, though it was also thicker and heavier," Gregory T. Huang wrote in Xconomy in September. "But there was not enough of a market for such a device at the time, and it was discontinued after five years." The SoftBook also died early. Media company Gemstar scooped up SoftBook Press and NuvoMedia, but in 2003 it pulled the plug.
- #50 On the third generation—with “50% better contrast” than earlier editions. Kindle eBooks use the AMZ file type—strictly proprietary. They can be read on the Kindle and apps created for computers, ipads, iphones and android phones. Holds 3500 books Font size up to 20 Retails for 139 With 3G for 189 DX (9.7 inch display and free 3G) for 379
- #51 On the third generation—with “50% better contrast” than earlier editions. Kindle eBooks use the AMZ file type—strictly proprietary. They can be read on the Kindle and apps created for computers, ipads, iphones and android phones. Holds 3500 books Font size up to 20 Retails for 139 With 3G for 189 DX (9.7 inch display and free 3G) for 379
- #52 $229 with 50 bucks in books
- #53 179 with 50 bucks in books
- #54 179 with 50 bucks in books
- #55 149 for wi-fi only 199 for 3G
- #56 249
- #57 499—829 I stopped by the Overdrive booth at the National Book Festival yesterday and the Overdrive folks were kind enough to show me their new app. I couldn’t shoot a video, unfortunately, because the app is still in private beta. But they are still on schedule to be released this year, with Android coming first and iPhone, iPad coming later. And yes, the iPad will be getting its own app. The new apps will support both ebooks and MP3 audiobooks checked out of your local library (they’re going to replace the existing Overdrive Media Console). I’m glad OMC is being replaced, actually; it was not a good experience. They showed me the Android app (almost everyone in the booth had it on their Android smartphone). It has a decent set of ebook options: 7 font sizes, several font types, brightness, and a night reading mode. There was also a CSS option that I didn’t quite understand. It looked like you could uncheck a box and ignore the CSS in the ebook. That last one could be interesting; it’s one step away from letting the user control all formatting.
- #58 $139