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August 25, 2015

August 25, 2015

The following are lists of books releasing the weeks of August 24th and August 31st that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers.

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On Sale the Week of August 24th in Hardcover

August 24th

BEST BOY by Eli Gottlieb (Fiction)
Sent to a “therapeutic community” for autism at the age of 11, Todd Aaron, now in his 50s, is the “Old Fox” of Payton LivingCenter. A joyous man who rereads the encyclopedia compulsively, he is unnerved by the sudden arrivals of a menacing new staffer and a disruptive, brain-injured roommate. His equilibrium is further worsened by Martine, a one-eyed new resident who has romantic intentions and convinces him to go off his meds to feel “normal” again. Undone by these pressures, Todd attempts an escape to return “home” to his younger brother and to a childhood that now inhabits only his dreams.
Liveright * 9781631490477

CONTRABAND: Smuggling and the Birth of the American Century by Andrew Wender Cohen (History)
Since the American Revolution itself, smuggling had tested the patriotism of the American people. Distrusting foreign goods, Congress instituted high tariffs on most imports. Protecting the nation was the custom house, which waged a “war on smuggling,” inspecting every traveler for illicitly imported silk, opium, tobacco, sugar, diamonds and art. The Civil War’s blockade of the Confederacy heightened the obsession with contraband, but smuggling entered its prime during the Gilded Age. CONTRABAND explores the history of smuggling to illuminate the broader history of the United States, its power, its politics and its culture.
W. W. Norton & Company * 9780393065336

FARTHEST FIELD: An Indian Story of the Second World War by Raghu Karnad (History)
The years 1939-45 might be the most revered, deplored and replayed in modern history. Yet India’s extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. Raghu Karnad retrieves the story of a single family --- a story of love, rebellion, loyalty and uncertainty --- and, with it, the greater revelation that is India’s Second World War. FARTHEST FIELD narrates the lost epic of India’s war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it.
W. W. Norton & Company * 9780393248098


August 25th

BILLION-DOLLAR BALL: A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of College Football by Gilbert M. Gaul (Sports)
College football has doubled in size in the last decade, thanks to generous tax breaks, lavish TV deals, and corporate sponsors eager to slap their logos on everything from scoreboards to footballs and uniforms. In BILLION-DOLLAR BALL, Gilbert M. Gaul offers a surprising, incendiary examination of how college football has come to dominate some of our best, most prestigious universities, reframing campus values, distorting academic missions, and transforming athletic departments into astonishingly rich entertainment factories.
Viking * 9780670016730

THE DROWNED BOY: An Inspector Sejer Mystery by Karin Fossum (Mystery)
Carmen and Nicolai failed to resuscitate their son, Tommy, after finding him floating in their backyard pond. When Inspector Skarre arrives on the scene, Carmen reports that Tommy, a healthy toddler with Down’s syndrome, wandered into the garden while Nicolai was working in the basement and she was cleaning the house. Skarre senses something is off with Carmen’s story and consults his trusted colleague, the famed Inspector Sejer. An autopsy reveals Tommy’s lungs to be full of soap.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt * 9780544483965

ELLE & COACH: Diabetes, the Fight for My Daughter's Life, and the Dog Who Changed Everything by Stefany Shaheen, with Mark Dagostino (Memoir)
Stefany Shaheen takes readers on an emotional journey as she tries everything to manage her daughter Elle's Type 1 diabetes, all while juggling a family of four children. Overcoming the skepticism that a dog can provide answers that medical science is still seeking, the family finds a resounding sense of peace and reassurance through Coach's near miraculous abilities as a medic-alert dog, specially trained to detect dangerous changes in blood sugar levels.
Hachette Books * 9780316258760

THE FALL OF PRINCES by Robert Goolrick (Fiction)
In THE FALL OF PRINCES, Robert Goolrick brings to vivid life a world of excess and self-indulgence, where limousines waited for hours outside Manhattan’s newest trendy club or the latest dining hot spot. Where drugs were bountiful and not refused. Where no price was too high and flesh was always on offer. Where a quick trip to Europe or a weekend on the coast or a fabulous Hamptons beach house were just part of what was expected. When the money just kept coming and coming and coming...until it didn’t.
Algonquin Books * 9781616204204

KISSINGER’S SHADOW: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman by Greg Grandin (History/Politics)
Examining Henry Kissinger's own writings, as well as a wealth of newly declassified documents, Greg Grandin reveals how Richard Nixon's top foreign policy advisor, even as he was presiding over defeat in Vietnam and a disastrous, secret and illegal war in Cambodia, was helping to revive a militarized version of American exceptionalism centered on an imperial presidency. Believing that reality could be bent to his will, Kissinger anticipated, even enabled, the ascendance of the neoconservative idealists who took America into crippling wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Metropolitan Books * 9781627794497

THE LAST LOVE SONG: A Biography of Joan Didion by Tracy Daugherty (Biography)
Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne. They became wildly successful writing partners and co-wrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well-known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction. Tracy Daugherty takes readers on a journey back through time, following a young Didion in Sacramento, through to her adult life as a writer interviewing those who know and knew her personally, while maintaining a respectful distance from the reclusive literary great.
St. Martin's Press * 9781250010025

LAST RAGGED BREATH by Julia Keller (Mystery)
Royce Dillard doesn't remember much about the day his parents --- and 123 other souls --- died in the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster. He was only two years old when he was ripped from his mother's arms. But now Dillard, who lives off the grid with only a passel of dogs for company, is fighting for his life one more time: He's on trial for murder. Prosecutor Bell Elkins faces her toughest challenge yet in this haunting story of vengeance, greed and the fierce struggle for social justice.
Minotaur Books * 9781250044747

THE LAST TIME I SAW HER by Karen Robards (Romantic Suspense)
In this world, Dr. Charlotte “Charlie” Stone skillfully probes the twisted minds of incarcerated serial killers to better understand what makes them tick, and to help nab those who remain at large. But in the next world, Charlie’s ghostly lover --- convicted killer Michael Garland --- is facing death yet again. It seems that the only way Charlie can snatch Michael from the jaws of oblivion is by proving his innocence. And this dead man’s dead ringer may just be the key.
Ballantine * 9780804178297

THE NATURE OF THE BEAST: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny (Mystery)
Hardly a day goes by when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage doesn't cry wolf. His tales are so extraordinary that no one can possibly believe him, including Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache, who now live in the Quebec village of Three Pine. But when the boy disappears, the villagers are faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true. And so begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. What they uncover deep in the forest sets off a sequence of events that leads to murder, an old crime, an old betrayal, and right to the door of an old poet.
Minotaur Books * 9781250022080

SECONDHAND SOULS by Christopher Moore
(Mystery/Humor)
Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone --- or something --- is stealing them, and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death Merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He’s trapped in the body of a 14-inch-tall “meat puppet” waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find him a suitable new body to play host. To get to the bottom of this abomination, a motley crew of heroes will band together.
William Morrow * 9780061779787

SPY GAMES by Adam Brookes (Thriller/Adventure)
Fearing for his life, journalist Philip Mangan has gone into hiding from the Chinese agents who have identified him as a Western spy. But when he is caught in a terrorist attack in East Africa and a shadowy Chinese figure approaches him with information on the origins of the attack, Mangan is suddenly back in the eye of the storm. Meanwhile, on a humid Hong Kong night, a key British Intelligence source is murdered minutes after meeting spy Trish Patterson. A sinister power is stirring that will use Mangan and Patterson as its pawns --- if they survive.
Redhook * 9780316399906

THE TAMING OF THE QUEEN by Philippa Gregory (Historical Fiction)
Kateryn Parr, a 30-year-old widow in a secret affair with a new lover, has no choice when a man old enough to be her father who has buried four wives --- King Henry VIII --- commands her to marry him. Despite being a leader of religious reform and the first woman to publish in English, Kateryn cannot save the Protestants, under threat for their faith, and Henry’s dangerous gaze turns on her. The traditional churchmen and rivals for power accuse her of heresy. The punishment is death by fire, and the king’s name is on the warrant.
Touchstone * 9781476758794

A WINDOW OPENS by Elisabeth Egan (Fiction)
Alice Pearse is a mostly happily married mother of three, an attentive daughter, an ambivalent dog-owner, a part-time editor, a loyal neighbor and a Zen commuter. When her husband makes a radical career change, Alice is ready to lean in --- and she knows exactly how lucky she is to land a job at Scroll, a hip young start-up that promises to be the future of reading. She is proud of her new “balancing act” until her dad gets sick, her marriage flounders, her babysitter gets fed up, her kids start to grow up, and her work takes an unexpected turn.
Simon & Schuster * 9781501105432

X by Sue Grafton (Mystery)
Perhaps her darkest and most chilling novel, Sue Grafton’s X features a remorseless serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes. Once again breaking the rules and establishing new paths, Grafton wastes little time identifying this sociopath. The test is whether Kinsey Millhone can prove her case against him before she becomes his next victim.
A Marian Wood Book/Putnam * 9780399163845
On Sale the Week of August 24th in Paperback

August 25th

THE CINDERELLA MURDER: An Under Suspicion Novel by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke (Mystery/Thriller)
Television producer Laurie Moran believes she has the ideal case to feature on an episode of her reality drama, “Under Suspicion”: the Cinderella Murder. When Susan Dempsey, a beautiful and multi-talented UCLA student, was found dead, her murder raised numerous questions. With the help of lawyer and host Alex Buckley, Laurie knows the case will attract great ratings. The suspense and drama are perfect for the silver screen. But is Cinderella’s murderer ready for a close-up?
Pocket Books * 9781476763699

FLINGS: Stories by Justin Taylor (Fiction/Short Stories)
In this piercing collection of short fiction, Justin Taylor captures the lives of men and women unmoored from their pasts and uncertain of their futures. A man writes his girlfriend a Dear John letter, gets in his car and just drives. A widowed insomniac is roused from malaise when an alligator appears in her backyard. A group of college friends try to stay close after graduation, but are drawn away from --- and back toward --- each other by the choices they make.
Harper Perennial * 9780062310163

THE GREAT ZOO OF CHINA by Matthew Reilly (Thriller/Adventure)
While gaining a behind-the-scenes look at the Great Zoo of China before its grand opening, reptile expert and freelance writer Dr. Cassandra Jane “CJ” Cameron finds herself trapped in a nightmare when the animals overthrow the zookeepers and take control of the premises in a wild way that no one ever could have imagined.
Pocket Books * 9781476749570

IF YOU ONLY KNEW by Kristan Higgins (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Letting go of her ex-husband is harder than wedding-dress designer Jenny Tate expected…especially since his new wife wants to be Jenny's new best friend. So Jenny decides to move back to her hometown, where she'll start her own business, bask in her sister Rachel's picture-perfect family life, and maybe even find a little romance of her own with Leo, her downstairs neighbor. Rachel's idyllic marriage, however, is imploding after she discovers her husband sexting with a colleague.
HQN Books * 9780373784974

THE LOST KEY: A Brit in the FBI Novel by Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison (Thriller)
Freshly minted FBI agent Nicholas Drummond is barely out of his Quantico training when he and his partner, Mike Caine, are called to investigate a stabbing on Wall Street. Their investigation, however, yields more questions than answers. It quickly becomes clear that the victim, John Pearce, was more than the naval historian and antiquities dealer he appeared to be.
Jove * 9780515155808

MARRIED SEX: A Love Story by Jesse Kornbluth
(Fiction)
Paperback Original
As a divorce lawyer for Manhattan’s elite, David Greenfield is privy to the intimate, dirty details of failed marriages. He knows he’s lucky to be married to Blair, who he loves more today than he did when they tied the knot. Then seductive photographer Jean Coin asks David to be her lover for six weeks, until she leaves for Timbuktu. Tempted, David reasons that “it’s not cheating if your wife’s there.” A one-night threesome would relieve the pressure of monogamy without wrecking their marriage. What harm could come of fulfilling his longtime sexual fantasy?
Open Road Media * 9781504011259

SIDNEY SHELDON’S CHASING TOMORROW by Tilly Bagshawe (Thriller)
When a mysterious and beautiful stranger enters their lives, Tracy Whitney and her partner's once unbreakable partnership is suddenly blown wide open. Jeff Stevens wakes one morning to find Tracy gone, vanished without a trace. For more than a decade, a broken Jeff struggles to carry on knowing Tracy is out there somewhere. But the rest of the world believes she is dead…until a series of murders leads a tenacious French detective to her doorstep.
William Morrow * 9780062304032

SLAUGHTER: A Frank Quinn Novel by John Lutz (Thriller)
Paperback Original
A beautiful jogger, drained of blood, dismembered, then meticulously reassembled on the grass in Central Park. Subway derailments, plummeting elevators, collapsing construction cranes, apartment explosions --- all creating a bloody, senseless puzzle. Detective Frank Quinn knows that even while the slayer is taunting the cops and the public, he’s also screaming to be caught. But Quinn will have to risk everything he holds precious to bring in this killer.
Pinnacle * 9780786028313

WOMAN WITH A GUN by Philip Margolin (Mystery/Thriller)
Aspiring novelist Stacey Kim can't erase an iconic photo from her mind and soon becomes embroiled in a plot of great intrigue. Why did the "Woman with a Gun" kill her husband on their wedding night? Did she actually do it? And why does the one person with answers, photographer Kathy Moran, remain silent? Stacey must reconcile conflicting accounts and find a way to reach the reclusive Moran, or the truth may never see the light of day.
Harper Paperbacks * 9780062399588
On Sale the Week of August 31st in Hardcover

September 1st

A CURIOUS BEGINNING: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery by Deanna Raybourn (Historical Mystery)
After her home is ransacked in 1887 England, Veronica Speedwell receives a visit from the mysterious Baron von Stauffenbach, warning her of additional danger. Instinctively trusting him, she accepts his offer of sanctuary in London. But when the Baron is found murdered, Veronica is left with her host’s associate, an ill-tempered naturalist named Stoker. Together, they must evade unknown assailants while unraveling the mystery of the threat against Veronica --- a threat tied to her true parentage.
NAL * 9780451476012

DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE by Rosie Thomas (Historical Fiction)
The year is 1910: Eliza's life has been utterly transformed since she dove head-first into the bohemian world of the Palmyra Theatre, becoming first a stage player and, since her marriage to impresario Devil Wix, a canny woman of business. She is now the mother of growing children, and in her family life as well as at the theatre she must face the challenges of a new century. The First World War changes the world forever, and the fortunes of the Wix family change with it.
The Overlook Press * 9781468311747

THE GATES OF EVANGELINE by Hester Young (Gothic Mystery)
When New York journalist and recently bereaved mother Charlotte “Charlie” Cates begins to experience vivid dreams about children, she is sure that she has lost her mind. Yet these are not the nightmares of a grieving parent, she soon realizes. They are messages and warnings that will help Charlie and the children she sees, if only she can make sense of them. After a little boy in a boat appears in Charlie’s dreams asking for her help, Charlie finds herself entangled in a 30-year-old missing-child case that has never ceased to haunt Louisiana’s prestigious Deveau family.
G.P. Putnam's Sons * 9780399174001

THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB: A Lisbeth Salander Novel by David Lagercrantz (Thriller)
Late one night, Mikael Blomkvist receives a phone call from a source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female superhacker --- a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well. The implications are staggering. Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Lisbeth Salander for help. The secret they are both chasing is at the center of a tangled web of spies, cybercriminals and governments around the world, and someone is prepared to kill to protect it.
Knopf * 9780385354288

GIRL WAITS WITH GUN by Amy Stewart (Historical Mystery)
Constance Kopp towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding 15 years ago. One day, a belligerent and powerful silk factory owner runs down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family --- and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt * 9780544409910

IS FAT BOB DEAD YET? by Stephen Dobyns (Comic Thriller)
In the seaport city of New London, Connecticut, newcomer Connor Raposo has just witnessed a gruesome motorcycle accident on Bank Street. At least he thinks it was an accident. But then he sees a familiar man --- who else would wear an Elvis pompadour in this day and age? --- lurking around the crime scene. Where does Connor know him from? And why does everyone he knows keep showing up dead?
Blue Rider Press * 9780399171451

THE MAKING OF ASIAN AMERICA: A History by Erika Lee (Social History)
In the past 50 years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. But as award-winning historian Erika Lee reminds us, Asian Americans also have deep roots in the country. THE MAKING OF ASIAN AMERICA tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present day.
Simon & Schuster * 9781476739403

THE MAN WHO FELL FROM THE SKY: A Wind River Mystery by Margaret Coel (Mystery)
Robert Walking Bear died while hunting for Butch Cassidy’s buried loot in the Wind River mountains with a map believed to have been drawn by the Hole in the Wall Gang leader himself. Rumors circulate that Robert was murdered by his own cousins to get the map and find the treasure themselves. But when one of Robert’s cousins falls prey to another deadly accident, Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and Father John O’Malley engage in a hunt for the killer before more die in search of Cassidy’s cache.
Berkley * 9780425280300

PURITY by Jonathan Franzen (Fiction)
A glancing encounter with a German peace activist leads young Pip Tyler to an internship in South America with The Sunlight Project, an organization that traffics in all the secrets of the world --- including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins. TSP is the brainchild of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic provocateur who rose to fame in the chaos following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now on the lam in Bolivia, Andreas is drawn to Pip for reasons she doesn't understand, and the intensity of her response to him upends her conventional ideas of right and wrong.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux * 9780374239213

SISTERS IN LAW: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World by Linda Hirshman (Biography)
The relationship between Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg transcends party, religion, region and culture. Strengthened by each other’s presence, these groundbreaking judges, the first and second to serve on the highest court in the land, have transformed the Constitution and America itself, making it a more equal place for all women. Linda Hirshman’s dual biography includes revealing stories of how these trailblazers fought for their own recognition in a male-dominated profession.
Harper * 9780062238467

THE SOLOMON CURSE: A Sam and Remi Fargo Adventure by Clive Cussler and Russell Blake (Thriller/Adventure)
There are many rumors about the bay off Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Some say it was the site of the lost empire of the Solomon king and that great treasure lies beneath the waters. Others say terrible things happened here, atrocities and disappearances at the hands of cannibal giants, and those who venture there do not return. It is cursed. Which is exactly what attracts the attention of husband-and-wife treasure-hunting team Sam and Remi Fargo. What they find at the end of the trail is both wonderful and monstrous --- and like nothing they have ever seen before.
G.P. Putnam's Sons * 9780399174322

UNDERCOVER by Danielle Steel (Romantic Suspense)
For DEA Special Agent Marshall Everett, life as he knows it is over once a gunshot wound renders his arm useless. He’s called to action in the most unlikely of places when he stumbles upon a beautiful girl burying an old steel box in a Parisian park. Drawn into the mystery, Marshall soon discovers that she is Ariana Gregory, daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Argentina, who is trying to find herself again after being kidnapped and brainwashed by radical revolutionaries. But there are powerful forces at large who will not rest until they secure revenge.
Delacorte * 9780345531049
On Sale the Week of August 31st in Paperback

September 1st

THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER: Stories by Hilary Mantel (Fiction/Short Stories)
The latest work from the celebrated author of the historical novels WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES is a collection of 10 stories, Hilary Mantel’s first since 2003’s LEARNING TO TALK. Many of these contemporary tales play with the conventions of genre; there’s even a vampire tale. But the title story, about an imagined attempt on the former Prime Minister’s life, will, not surprisingly, get the most attention.
Picador * 9781250074720

THE CARRIER: A Zailer and Waterhouse Mystery by Sophie Hannah (Psychological Thriller)
When Gaby’s plane is delayed, she is forced to share a hotel room with a stranger: Lauren, who is terrified of her. But why is she scared of Gaby in particular? Lauren won’t explain. Instead, she blurts out something about an innocent man going to prison for murder. Gaby soon suspects that Lauren’s presence on her flight isn’t a coincidence, because the murder victim is Francine Breary, the wife of the only man Gaby has ever truly loved.
Penguin Books * 9780143128335

CITY OF ECHOES by Robert Ellis (Hard-boiled Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
On Detective Matt Jones’ first night working Homicide in LA, he’s called to investigate a particularly violent murder case: a man has been gunned down in a parking lot off Hollywood Boulevard. Driven by the grisliness of the killing, Jones and his hot-tempered partner, Denny Cabrera, jump headfirst into the investigation. But as Jones uncovers evidence that links the crime to a brutal, ritualized murder that occurred 18 months prior, he begins to suspect that there’s more going on beneath the surface.
Thomas & Mercer * 9781477827727

DEEP DOWN DARK: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Héctor Tobar (Biography)
When the San José mine collapsed outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped 33 miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking 69 days. The entire world watched what transpired above ground during the grueling and protracted rescue, but the saga of the miners' experiences below the Earth's surface --- and the lives that led them there --- has never been heard until now.
Picador * 9781250074850

EDGE OF ETERNITY: Book Three of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett (Historical Fiction)
Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy follows the fortunes of five intertwined families --- American, German, Russian, English and Welsh --- as they make their way through the 20th century. EDGE OF ETERNITY, the finale, covers one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, encompassing civil rights, assassinations, Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution --- and rock and roll.
NAL * 9780451474018

THE EYE OF HEAVEN: A Fargo Adventure by Clive Cussler and Russell Blake (Thriller/Adventure)
Husband-and-wife team Sami and Remi Fargo are on a climate-control expedition in the Arctic when they discover a Viking ship in the ice filled with pre–Columbian artifacts from Mexico. As they plunge into their research, tantalizing clues about a link between the Vikings and the legendary Toltec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl --- and a fabled object known as the Eye of Heaven --- begin to emerge. But so do many dangerous people.
Berkley * 9780425275177

FLORENCE GORDON by Brian Morton (Fiction)
At 75, Florence Gordon has earned her right to set down the burdens of family and work and shape her legacy at long last. But just as she is beginning to write her long-deferred memoir, her son Daniel returns to New York from Seattle with his wife and daughter, and they embroil Florence in their dramas, clouding the clarity of her days and threatening her well-defended solitude. And then there is her left foot, which is starting to drag….
Mariner Books * 9780544570245

HAND TO MOUTH: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado (Memoir/Sociology)
We in America have certain ideas of what it means to be poor. Linda Tirado takes all of these preconceived notions and smashes them to bits, articulating not only what it is to be working poor in America, but what poverty is truly like --- on all levels. She discusses how she went from lower-middle class, to sometimes middle class, to poor and everything in between, and in doing so reveals why “poor people don’t always behave the way middle-class America thinks they should.”
Berkley * 9780425277973

I THINK YOU’RE TOTALLY WRONG: A Quarrel by David Shields and Caleb Powell (Literary Criticism)
Caleb Powell always wanted to become an artist, but he overcommitted to life, whereas his former professor, David Shields, always wanted to become a human being, but he overcommitted to art. Shields and Powell spend four days together at a cabin in the Cascade Mountains, talking about everything they can think of in the name of exploring and debating their central question (life and/or art?): marriage, family, sports, sex, happiness, drugs, death, betrayal --- and, of course, writers and writing.
Vintage * 9780804169813

J: A Novel by Howard Jacobson (Fiction)
When Ailinn Solomons arrives in his village by a sea that laps no other shore, Kevern Cohen is instantly drawn to her. Although mistrustful by nature, the two become linked as if they were meant for each other. Together, they form a refuge from the commonplace brutality that is the legacy of a historic catastrophe shrouded in suspicion, denial and apology, simply referred to as WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED.
Hogarth * 9780553419566

THE LAST AMERICAN VAMPIRE by Seth Grahame-Smith (Horror)
In Reconstruction-era America, vampire Henry Sturges is searching for renewed purpose in the wake of his friend Abraham Lincoln's shocking death. It will be an expansive journey that will send him first to England for an unexpected encounter with Jack the Ripper, then to New York City for the birth of a new American century, the dawn of the electric era of Tesla and Edison, and the blazing disaster of the 1937 Hindenburg crash.
Grand Central Publishing * 9781455502110

LAST WINTER WE PARTED written by Fuminori Nakamura, translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell (Thriller)
A young writer is assigned a difficult task by his editor: he is to write an investigative biography of a death row inmate named Yudai Kiharazaka, a 35-year-old photographer who has been convicted of the murders of two women. Trying to unearth the truth about Kiharazaka forces the writer to grapple with horrifying archival material and to interview dangerous, grotesque people --- not least of all Kiharazaka himself.
Soho Crime * 9781616956141

THE LOST SISTERHOOD by Anne Fortier (Historical Fiction)
Following the success of her bestselling debut, JULIET, Anne Fortier has written a thrilling historical novel that will forever alter our idea of one of mankind's greatest myths --- the Amazons --- by telling a brilliantly entwined story about a band of women who lived very long ago, and a young modern-day scholar who thinks they might not be such a myth after all.
Ballantine Books * 9780345536242

MORIARTY by Anthony Horowitz (Historical Mystery)
Days after the encounter at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton detective agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. Professor Moriarty’s death has left an immediate, poisonous vacuum in the criminal underworld, and there is no shortage of candidates to take his place --- including one particularly fiendish criminal mastermind. Chase and Scotland Yard Inspector Athelney Jones must pursue this sinister figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, who is determined to stake his claim as Moriarty’s successor.
Harper Perennial * 9780062377197

MR. HOCKEY: My Story by Gordie Howe (Autobiography)
Over an incredible six decades, Hall of Famer Gordie Howe had so many accomplishments that he set the record for the most records by any athlete ever in any sport. But Howe did not inspire generations of hockey players simply by rewriting the record books. When people talk about him, it’s the man they revere even more than the player. There has never been a comprehensive account of Howe’s life from the man himself. Now is the time.
Berkley * 9780425279649

NIGHT OF THE WHITE BUFFALO: A Wind River Mystery by Margaret Coel (Mystery)
A mysterious penitent confesses to murder, and then flees the confessional before Father John O’Malley can identify him. Two months later, attorney Vicky Holden discovers rancher Dennis Carey shot dead in his truck. It soon develops that the most sacred creature in Native American mythology, a white buffalo calf, was recently born on Carey’s ranch. Vicky and Father John try to unravel the strange events surrounding both the murder and the recent disappearances of three cowboys from the ranch.
Berkley * 9780425264669

NYPD RED 3 by James Patterson and Marshall Karp (Thriller)
Detective Zach Jordan and his partner, Kylie MacDonald, are called to the home of billionaire businessman Hunter Alden, Jr. after he makes a grisly discovery in his townhouse garage. When Alden's teenage son goes missing soon afterwards, and his father seems oddly reluctant to find him, Zach and Kylie find themselves in the middle of a chilling conspiracy that threatens everyone in its wake --- especially their city's most powerful citizens.
Grand Central Publishing * 9781455584925

THE REPUBLIC OF IMAGINATION: A Life in Books by Azar Nafisi (Memoir/Literary Criticism)
Taking her cue from a challenge thrown to her in Seattle, where a skeptical reader told her that Americans don’t care about books the way they did back in Iran, Azar Nafisi energetically responds to those who say fiction has nothing to teach us. Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite American novels, Nafisi invites us to join her as citizens of her “Republic of Imagination,” a country where the villains are conformity and orthodoxy and the only passport to entry is a free mind and a willingness to dream.
Penguin Books * 9780143127789

ROBERT B. PARKER’S BLIND SPOT: A Jesse Stone Novel by Reed Farrel Coleman (Mystery)
In Paradise, a young woman is found murdered, and her boyfriend --- a son of one of the town’s most prominent families --- is missing and presumed kidnapped. Though seemingly coincidental, there is a connection between a reunion of Jesse Stone’s old Triple-A team in New York City and the crimes back in Paradise. As Jesse, Molly and Suit hunt for the killer and for the missing son, it becomes clear that one of Jesse’s old teammates is intimately involved in the crimes.
Berkley * 9780425276167

THE SAME SKY by Amanda Eyre Ward (Fiction)
Alice and her husband, Jake, have a loving marriage and thriving business, but Alice still feels that something is missing. Carla is a strong-willed young girl who is acting as caretaker to her six-year-old brother, Junior. Years ago, her mother left the family behind in Honduras to make the arduous, illegal journey to Texas. But when her grandmother dies, Carla takes fate into her own hands. The lives of Alice and Carla will intersect in a profound and surprising way.
Ballantine Books * 9781101883761

A SLIP OF THE KEYBOARD: Collected Nonfiction by Terry Pratchett (Essays)
A SLIP OF THE KEYBOARD brings together for the first time the finest examples of Terry Pratchett's nonfiction writing, both serious and surreal: from musings on mushrooms to what it means to be a writer (and why banana daiquiris are so important); from memories of Granny Pratchett to speculation about Gandalf's love life, and passionate defenses of the causes dear to him.
Anchor * 9780804169226

THE SPARROW SISTERS by Ellen Herrick (Magical Realism/Fantasy)
Paperback Original
When a new doctor settles into Granite Point, he brings with him a mystery so compelling that town healer Patience Sparrow is drawn to love him. But when her herbs and tinctures are believed to be implicated in a local tragedy, Granite Point is consumed by a long-buried fear --- and its 300-year-old history resurfaces as a modern-day witch hunt threatens. It seems as if Patience and her town are lost until the women of Granite Point band together to save the Sparrow Sisters. Will they be able to turn the tide and return life to Granite Point?
William Morrow Paperbacks * 9780062386342

THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD: The Fourth and Final Neapolitan Novel written by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Here is the dazzling saga of two women: the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery uncontainable Lila. In the fourth and final Neapolitan novel, both are adults; life’s great discoveries have been made, its vagaries and losses have been suffered. Through it all, the women’s friendship, examined in its every detail over the course of four books, remains the gravitational center of their lives.
Europa Editions * 9781609452865

STRANGE SHORES: An Inspector Erlendur Novel by Arnaldur Indridason (Mystery)
A young woman who has disappeared has left in her wake a tempest of lies, betrayal and revenge. Decades later, somewhere in the same wilderness, Detective Erlendur is on the hunt. He is looking for the missing woman but also for his long-lost brother, whose disappearance in a snowstorm when they were children has colored his entire life. Slowly, the past begins to surrender its secrets. But as Erlendur uncovers a story about the limits of human endurance, he realizes that many people would prefer their crimes to stay buried.
Picador * 9781250074737

TRUTH BE TOLD: A Jane Ryland Novel by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Thriller)
In digging up the facts on a heartbreaking story about a middle-class family evicted from their suburban home, reporter Jane Ryland soon learns the truth behind a big-bucks scheme and the surprising players who will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep their goal a secret. Meanwhile, Boston police detective Jake Brogan has a liar on his hands. A man has just confessed to the famous 20-year-old Lilac Sunday killing, and while Jake’s colleagues take him at his word, Jake is not so sure.
Forge Books * 9780765374943

THE WOLF by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Thriller)
When the world's most powerful mob boss loses his wife and daughters in a terrorist attack funded by one of his rivals, he resolves to turn the tables. Rallying the heads of the globe's top criminal organizations, Vincent Marelli launches a war that may be his last. With the weight of the criminal world on his shoulders, he has only one desire in his heart: to know who ordered the hit that took out his girls.
Ballantine Books * 9780345483959

WOLF IN WHITE VAN by John Darnielle (Psychological Thriller)
Isolated by a disfiguring injury since the age of 17, Sean Phillips crafts imaginary worlds for strangers to play in. As the creator of “Trace Italian” --- a text-based, role-playing game played through the mail --- Sean guides players worldwide through his intricately imagined terrain. However, when two high school students take their play into the real world, disaster strikes. Sean is pulled back through time, tracing back toward the moment of his own self-inflicted departure from the world in which most people live.
Picador * 9781250074713

YES PLEASE by Amy Poehler (Memoir/Humor)
A collection of stories, thoughts, ideas, lists and haikus from the mind of one of our most beloved entertainers, YES PLEASE offers Amy Poehler's thoughts on everything from her "too safe" childhood outside of Boston to her early days in New York City, her ideas about Hollywood and "the biz," the demon that looks back at all of us in the mirror, and her joy at being told she has a "face for wigs.”
Dey Street Books * 9780062268358

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