paperback picks PENGUIN.COM
Blood Magick
Mirage
Fear Nothing
Only Enchanting
Branna and Fin’s relationship is tortuous. And though they succumb to the heat between them, there can be no promises for tomorrow. And only Fin can fight the evil that haunts their families.
A dangerous new weapon linked to the great inventor Nikola Tesla and a Navy experiment with electromagnetic radiation leads Juan Cabrillo and his Oregon colleagues on a race to find the truth. And they discover there is more at stake than they imagined.
Soon after Boston detective D.D. Warren is brutally attacked, a new psychopath begins a reign of terror. D.D. may not be back on the job, but she’s back on the hunt— and she will stop this madman at any cost.
After his fiancée deserts him, Flavian, Viscount Ponsonby, falls for the enchanting Agnes Keeping and impetuously proposes to her. But when Agnes discovers that the proposal is only to anger his former love, Flavian must convince her that his feelings are real.
9780425259870 • $17.00
9780425250631 • $9.99
9780451469397 • $9.99
9780451469663 • $7.99
Silent Night
The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog
Rosarito Beach
Hello From the Gillespies
9780425276716 • $14.00
9780451472519 • $9.99
A homeless boy named Slide asks Spenser for help during Christmas after his shelter is attacked. The clues lead Spenser to a dangerous drug kingpin who threatens the safety, security, and the lives of the young homeless community in Boston. 9780425271612 • $12.00
Brash and beautiful DEA agent Kay Hamilton doesn’t like to play by the rules. And now she’s on the verge of It’s 1960 and Doug Barnes is playing a shepherd in the Christmas pageant—which is a very big deal. Then every- bringing down the largest and most vicious drug cartel in Mexico. But when a mysterious stranger shows up, the thing goes wrong. But Christmas is a time of miracles. And for this family, it’s the most special Christmas of all. case becomes personal—and far more dangerous.
After a year of family setbacks, Angela Gillespie decides to write a Christmas letter that tells the unvarnished truth, never intending to send it out. But Angela’s letter is sent—with embarrassing details about her husband and children—and their lives will never be the same. 9780451466723 • $15.00
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sylvia Day, the highly anticipated new novel in the Crossfire series. Gideon calls me his angel, but he’s the miracle in my life. My gorgeous, wounded warrior, so determined to slay my demons while refusing to face his own. The vows we’d exchanged should have bound us tighter than blood and flesh. Instead they opened old wounds, exposed pain and insecurities, and lured bitter enemies out of the shadows. I felt him slipping from my grasp, my greatest fears becoming my reality, my love tested in ways I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to bear. At the brightest time in our lives, the darkness of his past encroached and threatened everything we’d worked so hard for. We faced a terrible choice: the familiar safety of the lives we’d had before each other or the fight for a future that suddenly seemed an impossible and hopeless dream. ON SALE NOVEMBER 18TH 9780425273869 • $16.00
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contents
NOVEMBER 2014 B O O K PA G E . C O M
features 26
4
COVER STORY: MUSIC Five books on the artists and songs that topped the charts
28
Books make great gifts! Our holiday catalog is packed with choices for every kind of reader.
BROCK CLARKE Meet the author of The Happiest People in the World
29
LYDIA MILLET
BRADFORD MORROW The shadowy world of literary forgery
33
GIFT BOOKS: LIBATIONS A toast to the holiday season
34
GIFT BOOKS: FASHION Style versus statement
36
CHARLIE LOVETT A Jane Austen mystery
41
KIRSTIN DOWNEY The legacy of Queen Isabella
44
SNOW Picture books on winter fun
47
SERGIO RUZZIER Meet the author-illustrator of A Letter for Leo
columns 16 16 17 18 21 22 24 24
35 FICTION
TOP PICK:
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
ALSO REVIEWED:
Sometimes the Wolf by Urban Waite Revival by Stephen King The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man by W. Bruce Cameron First Impressions by Charlie Lovett See You in Paradise by J. Robert Lennon A Map of Betrayal by Ha Jin Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy
40 NONFICTION
TOP PICK:
The Peripheral by William Gibson Let Me Be Frank with You by Richard Ford The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. by Gina B. Nahal The Fragile World by Paula Treick DeBoard
Isabella by Kirstin Downey
ALSO REVIEWED:
MARTINE LEAVITT The bravest little bighorn
47
Avon Romance
reviews
DAVID NICHOLLS Last chance to save a marriage
32
R EADS from
Cover image © lukeruk at Thinkstockphotos.com
Mermaids in real life
30
Holiday gifts
Novel
The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson The Wild Truth by Carine McCandless A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka by Lev Golinkin
43 TEEN
46 CHILDREN’S
TOP PICK:
TOP PICK:
How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon
WELL READ LIFESTYLES LIBRARY READS WHODUNIT BOOK CLUBS AUDIO COOKING ROMANCE
Joan of Arc by Kathryn Harrison The Georgetown Set by Gregg Herken 33 Artists in 3 Acts by Sarah Thornton
ALSO REVIEWED:
Stories of My Life by Katherine Paterson Talon by Julie Kagawa Like Water on Stone by Dana Walrath
Audrey (cow) by Dan Bar-el
ALSO REVIEWED:
A Possum’s Tail by Gabby Dawnay The Curse of the Buttons by Anne Ylvisaker Absolutely Truly by Heather Vogel Frederick
A M E R I C A’ S B O O K R E V I E W PUBLISHER Michael A. Zibart
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Cat Acree
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Allison Hammond
Elizabeth Grace Herbert
CONTRIBUTOR
ADVERTISING COMMUNICATIONS
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Julia Steele
Lily McLemore
Roger Bishop
EDITOR
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Hilli Levin
Penny Childress
MANAGING EDITOR
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
PRODUCTION INTERN
Trisha Ping
Sukey Howard
Sadie Birchfield
Lynn L. Green
Sada Stipe
MARKETING Mary Claire Zibart
CONTROLLER Sharon Kozy
EDITORIAL POLICY BookPage is a selection guide for new books. Our editors evaluate and select for review the best books published in a variety of categories. Only books we highly recommend are featured. BookPage is editorially independent and never accepts payment for editorial coverage.
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FICT ION
Nora Bonesteel’s Christmas Past
Spend Christmas with Jane Austen, amateur sleuth
New York Times best-selling author McCrumb revisits her most loved characters as they recognize that there is more to this world than the eye can see . . . especially at Christmastime.
Christmas 1814: Jane Austen is attending festivities at the home of a prominent family when a partygoer dies tragically. With strange clues appearing, Jane begins to suspect foul play and fears the murderer is amongst the snowbound guests.
Soho Crime
$25 9781426754210
The River
Dollbaby
When two sisters return home for a visit after leaving the Amish world, both are troubled by the secrets— and the people—they left behind.
A sweeping family saga of Southern eccentricities and secrets set against the backdrop of civil-rights era New Orleans, this debut weaves together the lives of five women in a poignant tale of love, loss and redemption.
Bethany House $15.99
9780764212451
9781616203757
Abingdon $18.99
The Secret of Pembrooke Park As secrets come to light at the abandoned manor house Pembrooke Park, will Abigail find the hidden treasure and love she seeks . . . or very real danger?
Bethany House $14.99
Pamela Dorman $26.95
9780764210716
9780670014736
The High Divide
Seven Wonders
In 1886, a father leaves his family to seek redemption, causing his wife and two sons to follow him across the mountains and plains on the search for the truth behind his motives and identity.
From New York Times best-selling author Ben Mezrich comes a high-octane, globe-trotting experience rife with historic secrets, conspiracies, intrigue and a whole lot of adventure.
Algonquin $24.95
Running Press $26
Duck Commander fiction for the whole family
9780762453825
A.D. 30 In this sweeping epic novel, the outcast daughter of a Bedouin sheik crosses the harsh deserts of Arabia to find her way to the healer from Galilee.
This Christmas, the Robertson Family is bringing their promise of faith, family and fun to humorous and heartwarming stories for both adult and youth fiction readers.
Center Street $25
Tyndale House $19.99-$29.99
9781599954189
BookPage Christmas 2014.indd 2
10/3/14 2:50 PM Book
6
FICT ION
Harper Perennial Olive Editions
Flesh and Blood New York Times best-selling author Cornwell delivers the next enthralling thriller in her highstakes series with this complex tale involving a serial sniper who strikes chillingly close to Kay Scarpetta.
Small format editions of some of our best-selling titles featuring beautiful and unique hand-drawn cover illustrations. All Olive Editions are $10 each and will be available for a limited time only.
Harper Perennial $10 each
Morrow $28.99
9780062325341
Gray Mountain
The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man
The 2008 recession has not been kind to Samantha Kofer, a high-powered New York City attorney. Newly unemployed, she winds up working as an unpaid intern in a legal aid clinic deep in small-town Appalachia.
Doubleday $28.95
A Call to Duty The first book of Weber and Zahn’s newest series is set in the world of Honor Harrington.
This wonderful tale about finding truth, love and yourself comes from the author of the 52-week New York Times bestseller A Dog’s Purpose.
Baen $25
Forge $24.99 9780385537148
9780765377487
9781476736846
Need a good listen this holiday season?
BOOKS MAKE
great These audiobooks present you with great stories as you bake, gift-wrap or travel for the holidays.
Penguin Random House Audio
2:50 PM BookPage Christmas 2014.indd 3
tryaudiobooks.com
$40-$45
gifts
WORLD inside them
10/8/14 10:34 AM
NON FICT ION
A Season to Remember Carson Tinker, the starting long snapper for the Crimson Tide football team, was among those forever changed by the April 27 tornado in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Tinker explains how he held onto his faith during the tragedy in this stirring memoir.
Share the magic of The 13th Gift For fans of Richard Paul Evans and Debbie Macomber comes The 13th Gift, a heartwarming story about how a random act of kindness transformed one of the bleakest moments in a family’s history into a time of hope and love. A beautiful reminder that the holidays are about giving, not receiving.
Harmony $15
B&H $14.99
9781433682896
New from Bill O’Reilly
Not to be Missed
The Wild Truth
Renowned critic Turan tells the stories behind his favorite films and illuminates the artistry that makes them unforgettable. “Essential reading for anyone who loves movies.” —Susan Orlean, author of Rin Tin Tin
The complete story of Chris McCandless’ life and his journey has not yet been told— until now. The missing pieces are finally revealed by Chris’ beloved and trusted sister.
t
HarperOne $27.99
PublicAffairs $25.99
9780062325143
9781586483968
The Roosevelts
The Birds of Pandemonium
This extraordinarily vivid and personal portrait of America’s greatest political family and its huge impact on our nation is the tie-in volume to Burns’ PBS documentary.
Join Raffin’s one-woman crusade to save the precious lives of endangered birds.
Algonquin $24.95
Knopf $60
9780307700230
9781616201364
The Court-Martial of Paul Revere Since General George S. Patton, Jr. died following the end of World War II, there has been suspicion that his death was not an accident. Killing Patton takes readers inside the final year of the war and recounts the events surrounding Patton’s tragic demise.
Henry Holt $30
BookPage Christmas 2014.indd 4
Jack the Ripper and the Case for Scotland Yard’s Prime Suspect
This riveting account sheds light on Paul Revere’s only military service during the Revolution—the Penobscot Expedition, a disastrous episode in his life as well as the largest naval disaster prior to Pearl Harbor.
ForeEdge $29.95
Jack the Ripper was one of the most vexing criminal mysteries of all time. House explains how DNA testing revealed the Ripper’s identity in this gripping and suspenseful book. 9781611685350
Wiley $34.95
9781630261221
10/3/14 2:52 PM Book
C H I L D R E N ’S
The Night Before Christmas
9780807556252
Reid reimagines this classic Christmas poem in her own extraordinary style with a lively cast of young creatures anticipating the most exciting night of the year!
Frozen: Hideand-Hug Olaf This adorable readaloud story is sure to be a hit with fans of Frozen. Once you’re done reading, play a game of hide-and-seek with your very own Olaf plush. The winner gets a big, warm hug!
Disney $26.99
9781484721506
Albert Whitman $16.99
Lindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse
The Legend of St. Nicholas This newly illustrated edition tells the story of a young man named Nicholas, who spent his life secretly helping those in need all over the world.
9780310731153
Zonderkidz $15.99
With the intricate detail of a graphic novel, debut author Kuhlmann tells the story of a brave little mouse who flies himself to America after a plague of new mousetraps makes him the last of his kind in Germany.
This pack makes a great gift during the holidays—it comes in a carrying case with Velcro enclosure, and includes four festive books full of puzzles, games, stickers and coloring activities that are sure to entertain and delight.
Usborne
Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla
1
2:52 PM BookPage Christmas 2014.indd 5
Applegate tells the true story of the gorilla who inspired her Newbery Award-winning novel, The One and Only Ivan.
Clarion $17.99
$14.99
9780735841673
NorthSouth $19.95
9780544252301
Usborne Winter Activity Pack
Peanuts: A Scanimation Book
9780761181774
The Paddington Treasury
Good grief! Scanimation meets Charlie Brown in 10 memorable scenes from the most popular comic strip of all time.
Workman $14.95
Wonders from cover to cover Reading lights up her world! American Girl books add the perfect touch of dazzling adventure, brilliant advice and shining inspiration to your girl’s holiday or any day.
$14.99-$29.95
9780062312426
For more than 50 years, the stories of Paddington Bear have captivated generations of young readers. This beautiful treasury collects six classic Paddington stories filled with adventure!
HarperCollins $21.99
The Heaven of Animals Best-selling author and artist Tillman explores the magical heaven of animals in a beautiful message of comfort to those who have lost a beloved animal friend.
Feiwel & Friends $17.99
9780312553692
10/3/14 2:54 PM
T EE N
The Maze Runner
Autumn Falls Pick up the first book in a breakout new series from teen icon Bella Thorne. Autumn receives an enchanted journal that brings her writing to life—anything could happen!
Dashner’s New York Times best-selling novel is now a major motion picture! This special movie tie-in edition features photos from the film and makes the perfect gift for fans.
Delacorte $10.99
9780385385206
Delacorte $18.99 9780385744331
Jackaby
Endgame: The Calling
“Doctor Who” meets “Sherlock” in Ritter’s debut novel, which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assistant in a tale brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre.
Twelve meteors. Twelve ancient lines. Twelve players. The fate of the world is in their hands. Endgame is real. Endgame is now.
HarperCollins $19.99
Don’t miss these riveting bestsellers.
$17.99 each
Algonquin $16.95
9780062332585
9781616203535
The Rithmatist
The Lost
yolo
The New York Times best-selling epic teen adventure is now available in trade paperback—and the follow-up is out in 2015!
Patterson brings the fifth and final book in the best-selling Witch & Wizard saga to a head, exposing the nature of power—and what it means to have it.
Through texts and messages, the best-selling Internet Girls series is back! It’s freshman year of college for the winsome threesome, and everything is different.
Tor $9.99
Little, Brown $18
Abrams $16.95
9780316207706
9781419708718
9780765338440
The Qwikpick Papers: Poop Fountain!
READERS on the laps parents
Survivors Box Set: Volumes 1 to 3
Told with the mix of journal entries, doodles and notes that has made best-selling author Tom Angleberger’s books so appealing, this first book in a new series captures the odd preoccupations of preteens.
The time has come for dogs to rule the wild! The first three action-packed books in the best-selling Survivors series are now available in this musthave box set.
Abrams $12.95
HarperCollins $19.99 9781419704253
BookPage Christmas 2014.indd 6
Be rebellious. Be brave. Be bold.
9780062342836
10/3/14 2:57 PM
Book
GI F TS
The highly anticipated follow-up to the best-selling book Shake, Shake Puppies also features 61 dogs caught mid-shake—only this time they’re even more adorable and hilarious.
9780062351722
Harper Design $17.99
Unlikely Heroes Holland uncovers and celebrates another side of animals that we often think belongs primarily to humans: heroism. This book features 37 true stories of animals that found the courage, compassion, heart and grit to go above and beyond.
Workman $13.95
Listening Library audiobooks will delight everyone on your list!
$29.95-$50 9780761174417
Dogs in Cars
Really Important Stuff My Dog Has Taught Me
9780761181798
In this tender, funny and utterly inspiring collection, every page pairs an irre9781581572797 sistible photograph with a life lesson that appeals to our hearts and minds.
Frozen has been called one of Disney’s greatest musicals of all time—high praise indeed! This souvenir piano/ vocal/guitar songbook features 11 songs as penned by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Also available for voice, easy piano, easy guitar and ukulele.
$14.99-$16.99
BookPage Christmas 2014.indd 7
Through lively maps, illustrations, photographs and infographics, this essential reference book invites young readers to explore geography, pop culture and school life around the globe.
Countryman $19.95
Catch Frozen fever with Hal Leonard songbooks!
Hal Leonard
Lonely Planet Kids Amazing World Atlas
The pure joy of a dog with his nose to the horizon, in a moving car, is captured on every page. It’s fullspeed happiness!
Workman $12.95
6
57 PM
Audiobooks = Gifts
Shake Puppies
9781743604335
Lonely Planet $20
Ocean: A Photicular Book See the ocean come to life through eight mesmerizing “photicular” images of creatures of the deep—from the glowin-the-dark anglerfish to the haunting, hooktoothed tiger shark.
9780761180517
Workman $25.95
10/8/14 4:08 PM
This Season—Give a Gift WILSON
HAVANA STORM
From #1 New York Times bestselling author A. Scott Berg comes the definitive—and revelatory—biography of one of the great American figures of modern times: Woodrow Wilson.
Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler
A. Scott Berg
BERKLEY TRADE PAPERBACK
A DIRK PITT®® NOVEL
Dirk Pitt returns in the thrilling new novel from the grand master of adventure and #1 New York Times–bestselling author. PUTNAM HARDCOVER Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
DARK BLOOD A CARPATHIAN NOVEL
SHIFTING SHADOWS STORIES FROM THE WORLD OF MERCY THOMPSON
Patricia Briggs
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, a collection of stories from the world of shapeshifting car mechanic Mercy Thompson— including four all new works. ACE HARDCOVER
Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
TOM CLANCY FULL FORCE AND EFFECT A JACK RYAN NOVEL
Mark Greaney
Jack Ryan and a cast of Tom Clancy’s greatest characters come together to fight a very clear and present danger in this continuation of the #1 New York Times-bestselling series. PUTNAM HARDCOVER Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
On sale December 2nd
ON THE ROAD WITH JANIS JOPLIN John Byrne Cooke
Janis Joplin’s road manager reveals the untold story of his years with the young woman from Texas who would become the first female rock and roll superstar. Includes rare and personal photographs. BERKLEY HARDCOVER Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
Christine Feehan
The fates of a warrior reborn and a seductive Dragonseeker are irrevocably entwined in the new Carpathian novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author. BERKLEY HARDCOVER Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
DEAD BUT NOT FORGOTTEN STORIES FROM THE WORLD OF SOOKIE STACKHOUSE
Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner
A collection of fifteen all-new stories set in the world of Sookie Stackhouse, written by authors handpicked by Charlaine Harris herself. ACE HARDCOVER
Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
On sale November 25th
VANISHED THE SIXTY-YEAR SEARCH FOR THE MISSING MEN OF WORLD WAR II
Wil S. Hylton
From a mesmerizing storyteller, the gripping search for a missing World War II crew, their bomber plane, and their legacy. RIVERHEAD TRADE PAPERBACK Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
IMMORTAL A NOVEL OF THE FALLEN ANGELS
J. R. Ward
The #1 New York Times bestselling series comes to an epic conclusion as mankind’s reluctant savior struggles with his greatest challenge yet... NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY HARDCOVER Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
THE LOST KEY A BRIT IN THE FBI NOVEL
Catherine Coulter and J. T. Ellison
The newest entry in the sizzling international thriller series featuring Nicholas Drummond, from #1 New York Times–bestselling author Catherine Coulter. PUTNAM HARDCOVER Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
TRUE LOVE
Jennifer Lopez
In True Love, Lopez opens up about a defining period—the transformative two-year journey when she confronted her greatest challenges, identified her biggest fears, and ultimately emerged a stronger person than she’s ever been. Includes intimate and electrifying never-before-seen photographs. CELEBRA HARDCOVER
Follow #GIVEABOOK this holiday season! BookPage Christmas 2014.indd 12
Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook Amor Verdadero Verdadero Available Available in in Spanish: Spanish: Amor
10/3/14 3:00 PM
Boo
00 PM
That Sparks The Imagination THE REPUBLIC OF IMAGINATION
THE SLOW REGARD OF SILENT THINGS
AMERICA IN THREE BOOKS
Azar Nafisi
Patrick Rothfuss
Azar Nafisi, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, offers an impassioned, beguiling, and original tribute to the vital importance of fiction in a democratic society.
A brand-new companion to the Kingkiller Chronicles featuring one of the most beloved characters from the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling fantasy series. DAW HARDCOVER
VIKING HARDCOVER
Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
DOGFACE
DEADLINE
Gorgeous (and adorable) four-color photographs of man’s best friend.
John Sandford
Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
PUTNAM HARDCOVER
Barbara O’Brien
A VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVEL
The thrilling new novel in the #1 New York Times–bestselling series from John Sandford.
VIKING STUDIO HARDCOVER
Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE
THE IMAGINARY WORLD OF…
ONE MAN’S FUNDAMENTALS FOR DELICIOUS LIVING
Keri Smith
The creator of Wreck This Journal invites artists and dreamers of all ages to imagine and build a unique world of their own making.
Nick Offerman
Nick Offerman, best known as Parks and Recreation’s Ron Swanson, offers a hilarious memoir featuring advice on manliness, woodworking, love, style, and assorted meats.
PERIGEE TRADE PAPERBACK
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY TRADE PAPERBACK Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
NAPOLEON
HERE COMES SANTA CAT
A LIFE
Deborah Underwood Illustrated by Claudia Rueda
Andrew Roberts
Napoleon is the first one-volume cradle-to-grave biography to take advantage of the recent release of Napoleon’s thirty-three thousand letters and will radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation.
A cat with flair to spare and holiday ambitions that will delight readers!
DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
VIKING HARDCOVER Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
ONCE UPON AN ALPHABET
BLOOD MAGICK
Oliver Jeffers
BOOK THREE OF THE COUSINS O’DWYER TRILOGY
THE alphabet book to top all others, from the illustrator of the #1 New York Times bestselling The Day the Crayons Quit!
Nora Roberts
The stunning conclusion to the #1 New York Times bestselling trilogy about the land we’re drawn to, the family we learn to cherish, and the people we long to love…
PHILOMEL HARDCOVER Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
BERKLEY TRADE PAPERBACK Also Also available available as as an an ebook ebook
DIAL DIAL
BookPage Christmas 2014.indd 13
BERKLEY BERKLEY
Members Members of of Penguin Penguin Group Group (USA) (USA) LLC LLC A A Penguin Penguin Random Random House House Company Company
DAW DAW
Distributed Distributed by by Penguin Penguin Group Group (USA) (USA) LLC LLC
Available Available from from Penguin Penguin Random Random House House Audio Audio
10/3/14 3:00 PM
GI F TS
Hickory Daiquiri Dock
Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry Barrow presents a beautiful collection of preserving techniques for turning the fleeting abundance of the farmers’ market into a pantry full of canned fruits and vegetables, jams, soups and more.
9780393240733
9780762455058
Running Press $15
Tasting Whiskey
Around the Table
This insider’s guide to the world of whiskey explores how it’s made and the best way to taste it, along with drink recipes and food pairings.
Country music megastar McBride invites fans into her home, her kitchen and her family’s traditions in this beautiful, full-color illustrated collection of culinary celebrations. 9781612123011
9780062323910
With advice on everything from plants to pavers, this guide will inspire you to develop your own garden personality.
SWALLOWED
9780761145264
This book captures the show’s trademark wit, advice and recipes for a year of holidays—from Easter to Halloween to Christmas—and all that comes with them.
Cultivating Garden Style
others to be
Workman $18.95
The Chew: A Year of Celebrations
Morrow $29.99
some books are to be
to be
Midda is a watercolorist whose delicate and beautiful paintings shine like jewels in this treasure of a book, which celebrates food and the pleasures that accompany it.
From best-selling author Federle comes the ultimate cocktail recipe book for new parents. Featuring 20 classic nursery rhymes with a grown-up twist—it’s time to put the baby down and pick up a shaker!
Norton $35
Storey $18.95
A Bowl of Olives
Kingswell $19.99
9781484711088
The gift of great books
Timber $35 9781604694772
Digested
Lonely Planet: The World Find plenty of vacation inspiration with pages of destination highlights, travel planning tips and fascinating facts about every country on the planet.
There’s no better gift than a DK book. Stunning photos, evocative illustrations and illuminating text will impress everyone on your list. From photography to astronomy, you’ll find something inspiring and beautiful this holiday.
Lonely Planet $29.99
DK
$25-$50
9781743600658
BookPage Christmas 2014.indd 8
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COOK BOOKS
Heritage
Mark Bittman revolutionizes dinner
Brock—“the most conspicuously gifted American chef of his generation” (Time) whose restaurants include Husk and McCrady’s—begins with delicious dishes he cooks at home and builds toward recipes that have put him in the global spotlight.
The best-selling series just got faster! With How to Cook Everything® Fast, award-winning author Bittman presents 2,000 all-new, pareddown, flavor-packed recipes that get food on the table in 45 minutes or less.
$35 each
Based on the wildly popular blog, here is proof that you can eat healthy and still be a badass in the kitchen.
Will it waffle? Steak? Yes! Pizza? Yes! Apple pie? Emphatically, yes. Try these 53 irresistible recipes to make in a waffle iron—easy, delicious and pure culinary fun.
9780761176466 9781623363581
The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook The fabulous Beekman boys welcome vegetarians and omnivores alike to the table in this gorgeous, lushly illustrated collection of heirloom vegetable-based recipes.
National Geographic Kids Cookbook Join master chef Seaver on a culinary adventure with mouthwatering recipes, tips for healthy eating, fun crafts and activities and foodfocused challenges. 9781426317170
Rodale $32.50
The Doctor’s Diet Cookbook
America Farm to Table
A companion to the #1 New York Times bestselling diet book, The Doctor’s Diet Cookbook is a collection of simple, delicious recipes that help you maintain a healthy weight throughout your life.
Best-selling author and chef Batali pays homage to the American farmer— from Maine to Los Angeles—in stories, photos and recipes.
Bird Street $27.95
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Now in its 16th edition, the New Cook Book is the go-to cookbook in millions of homes across America with more than 1,200 recipes and more how-to information than ever before.
Rodale $24.99
Workman $14.95
9781609615758
Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book
Thug Kitchen
Will It Waffle?
9781939457271
Grand Central $35
Artisan $40
9781579654634
9780544307070
Better Homes and Gardens $29.99
Food, family and t radition
National Geographic $19.99
From family traditions and recipes (with bacon no less!), the Southern hospitality, charm and delicious food in these three distinct books make the perfect gift (even for yourself!) from the editors and contributors of Southern Living! 9781455584680
Oxmoor House $22.95-$40
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CH R IST I A N LI V I NG
Daily Guideposts 2015
Make room for God this holiday season
Centered on the theme of joy, this devotional features all-new material from 50 popular Christian writers.
Find meaning in a season that feels increasingly frivolous. Go back to the beginning—before Christ’s ministry, crucifixion and resurrection— in Not a Silent Night, and use the daily readings in All I Really Want to discover God during the hectic holidays.
Guideposts $19.99
$15.99-$16.99 9780824904678
You Can, You Will
The Grave Robber
New York Times best-selling author Osteen identifies the traits of highly successful people and presents practical principles that will help readers become champions in their own lives.
No matter how big the problem is, God is bigger still. If you long to see God work in miraculous ways today, then you will love this faith-building, lifegiving message.
Something big is happening!
Baker $22.99
FaithWords $24 9781455575718
9780801015946
Books you can’t miss! Looking for the perfect gift for every reader? Howard has it! Find us at HowardBooksOnline.com Scripture, science and history align. In Four Blood Moons, John Hagee explores the supernatural connection between certain celestial phenomena, biblical prophecy and world events— past, present and future.
Worthy
$12.99-$14.99
The first in a new series from Karen Kingsbury is a dramatic love story that shows miracles do still happen, and angels are watching over us.
A powerful and moving novel of love, illicit passion, the illusion of possession and the ultimate surrender to God.
Star of “Duck Dynasty ®” and family patriarch Phil Robertson shares his simple philosophy on life—Love God. Love your neighbor.
A Travel Guide to Life
Sadie Robertson—star of “Duck Dynasty ®” and this season’s “Dancing With the Stars”—shares life skills that are setting her on a path to a successful future.
In the follow-up to his New York Times bestseller A Travel Guide to Heaven, DeStefano offers readers an uplifting handbook for achieving lifelong happiness.
FaithWords $22
$22.99-$25.99 9781455521029
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BI B L E S
The Complete Illustrated Children’s Bible With nearly 300 beautiful two-page illustrations, this striking storybook can lead your child in their faith—and into a lifetime of love of the Bible.
Harvest House $24.99
9780736962131
Introducing an exciting new Bible translation—the Modern English Version
The #1-selling study Bible! Dr. David Jeremiah draws on his more than 40 years of ministry to bring you this transformational study Bible that achieves a simple, threefold purpose: to help you understand what the Bible says, what it means and what it means for you today.
Worthy
Love Letters from God: Bible Stories
$49.99-$74.99
you cant’ buy
A whimsical collection of 18 iconic Bible stories that include lift-the-flap love letters from God— written especially for the young reader.
9780310733843
Zonderkidz $16.99
HAPPINESS
BOOKS NKJV Adventure Bible
THAT’S THAT’S KIND KIND OF OF
The #1 Bible for kids is now available in the New King James Version with full color throughout! The NKJV Adventure Bible takes kids ages 8 to 12 on a fun, exciting journey through God’s word.
A new translation that combines the beauty of the past with clarity for today! The Modern English Version heralds a new day for Bibles with the most modern translation produced in the King James tradition.
Charisma House $19.99-$64.99
9780310746263
Zonderkidz $29.99
ifts for eve Great g n your list r yone o
This holiday give a gift that will bring the people on your list a refreshing new way to read, study, understand and apply God’s word. HarperCollins Christian Publishing offers a wide range of Bibles for all interests.
HarperCollins Christian $29.99-$59.99
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columns
WELL READ
LIFESTYLES
BY ROBERT WEIBEZAHL
BY JOANNA BRICHETTO
Discovering America
Making the cut
Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, with its intriguing and evocative title, was an international bestseller that fed Western readers’ appetite for learning about life under a fundamentalist regime. Her new book, The R epublic of Imagination (Viking, $28.95, 352 pages, ISBN 9780670026067), bears some of the hallmarks of that success—literary criticism blended with personal history—but it flips the equation, offering an assessment of Nafisi’s adopted country (she became an American citizen in 2008) through the lens of her passion for literature. “Long before I made America my home, I inhabited its fictions, its poetry, its music and films,” Nafisi tells us. After studying in the U.S., she returned to teach literature in Tehran, and, since emigrating, continues to teach it here (at Johns Hopkins University). This idiosyncratic book, which draws on that classroom experience, is a bit of a hodgepodge. Purportedly an exploration of America’s past, present and future identity as seen through its literature, it is both more than that and, at times, less. Nafisi focuses on three books, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Babbitt and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, as she tries to figure out what it means both to be American and to transcend that nationality and become a citizen of what she calls the wider, borderless republic of the imagination. The lion’s share of Nafisi’s literary analysis is focused on Huck Finn, a book that Nafisi has taught for decades and clearly loves. Anyone who shares her affection for Twain’s masterpiece will be drawn in by her enthusiastic and insightful close reading. She structures this first section of the book around her lifelong relationship with her cousin, Farah, a political activist, now deceased, who shared
At first glance, the tripartite title Scissors, Paper, Craft (Barron’s, $16.99, 128 pages, ISBN 9781438004709) might conjure rock, paper, scissors—that immemorial game. But Christine Leech’s lovely paper designs are not for children to make, although kids could certainly assist with some, play with others and be enchanted by all. These are for adult hands
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Nafisi’s passion for Huck, book and character both. The parallels Nafisi draws between Huck’s renegade individualism and Farah’s resistance of authority, for which she paid a high price, are absorbing, although the connection sometimes feels a bit jerry-rigged. Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt is an interesting choice for a study about the American character, what with its main character’s worship of the dollar, zeal for progress and quest for status. Unfortunately, this section of Nafisi’s book is the weakest, with a cursory analysis that unexpectedly morphs into a didactic polemic about American educational policy which, while well-intentioned, brings little new to the discussion. “Long before I The misfits made America in Carson my home, I McCullers’ The Heart inhabited its Is a Lonely fictions, its Hunter propoetry, its music vide Nafisi and films.” with better material as she explores how loneliness and the longing to connect mark so many American literary characters and, by extension, Americans themselves. Nafisi is an undeniably engaging writer whose prose has the congenial, argumentative energy of what, in her student days, would have been called an all-night bull session. Like many of us, she is a product of an age where the personal became political, and The Republic of Imagination is particularized by the writer’s own life. As an immigrant and observant outlier who has embraced her adopted land, Nafisi is, at heart, pondering what it means to be, to become an American. The clues she takes from Twain, Lewis and McCullers provide the imperfect, contradictory building blocks of an American identity—hers, and ours.
to cut, shape, bend, curl and punch: gorgeous designs for home, workplace and wonderful gifts. All 30 clever paper projects combine eye-catching gracefulness and simple construction, and prove the author knows the manifold demands on our time and patience when it comes to crafting. Her sets of inexpensive, simple materials and clear instructions effectively offer relief to busy schedules, for each project is designed with practical ends in mind, along with aesthetic ones. This range of utility goes from storage systems to gift tags, pop-up cards to mobiles. One favorite is the “Shadow Tree Picture,” which turns paper into magic.
UNDER WRAPS Sally J. Shim focuses on just one form of paper craft with Pretty Packages: 45 Creative Gift-Wrapping Projects (Chronicle, $19.95, 128 pages, ISBN 9781452125992). Who knew there could be so many ways of wrapping a present? Shim works in South Korea, which has an ancient tradition of high craftsmanship, obviously transcending the gender-specificity of that word. Compared to Leech’s book, these projects increase both the time and the patience factors, and many more materials than paper are involved. But insofar as the designs are more complex, the results are stunning. A number of
the wrappings—in watercolor, felt, fabric, stitched paper, yarn, vellum, etc.—are so beautiful, it would almost be a shame to unwrap the darn things. I love the simple flourishes the most: the gift tag cut out of thin wood into a small, sweet flag, or the clay medallion, inscribed with the monogram of the person receiving the gift and attached with string, ribbon or a wire hook. As the busiest season for gift-giving approaches, Shim’s projects can inject some unexpected fun into what, for most, is a tedious task and will ensure your packages bring smiles before and after opening.
TOP PICK IN LIFESTYLES The name of Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman’s lifestyle blog says it all: A Beautiful Mess. For these two gurus, more is definitely more. The more stuff you create, the more home you make. They have published their most delightful projects to date in A Beautiful Mess Happy Handmade Home: Painting, Crafting, and Decorating a Cheerful, More Inspiring Place (Potter Style, $21.99, 240 pages, ISBN 9780770434052). The sumptuously photographed volume lays out how to maximize your creativity—not just in your very own home, but rather to make your home your very own. Larson and Chapman take a refreshing, rule-breaking approach to interior style: They tweak every room with adventurous hacks and fresh repurposings, like a taped pattern for the refrigerator, a geometric update for your coffee table, a pegboard on the bed, swings in the playroom and more in every other livable space. If you’re hoping to transform your home without emptying your savings account, look no further.
Selected from nominations made by library staff across the country, here are the 10 books that librarians can’t wait to share with readers in November.
#1
US by David Nicholls
Harper, $26.99, ISBN 9780062365583
In the touching new novel from the author of One Day, a father tries to repair faltering relationships with his wife and teenage son on a tour of Europe. BookPage interview on page 30.
NEVER JUDGE A LADY BY HER COVER by Sarah MacLean
Avon, $7.99, ISBN 9780062068514 The true identity of Chase, head of the London Underworld, is revealed in this thrilling conclusion to MacLean’s Rules of Scoundrels series.
L E STAT I S BAC K
LIVES IN RUINS by Marilyn Johnson
Harper, $25.99, ISBN 9780062127181 Johnson explores the strange world of archaeologists in this fascinating look at those who search for our buried past.
THE BURNING ROOM by Michael Connelly
Little, Brown, $28, ISBN 9780316225939 When a victim dies nearly a decade after being shot, Bosch must solve a very cold case. BookPage review on page 18.
MORTAL HEART by Robin LaFevers
HMH, $17.99, ISBN 9780547628400 LaFevers’ His Fair Assassins trilogy concludes when Annith’s worst fears are realized. She learns that she’s being groomed to be a Seeress and may never leave the convent.
THE SHIP OF BRIDES by Jojo Moyes
Penguin, $16, ISBN 9780143126478 In this touching novel from the author of Me Before You, hundreds of Australian war brides sail to England on an aircraft carrier just after the end of WWII.
THE FORGERS by Bradford Morrow
Mysterious Press, $24, ISBN 9780802123213 A literary forger—who created fake documents purportedly by famous authors—looks back on the havoc he has caused. BookPage Behind the Book on page 32.
AD A NN E RICE
IN THE COMPANY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger
Pegasus, $24.95, ISBN 9781605986586 This new collection features 16 Sherlock Holmes-inspired stories by top contemporary suspense writers.
JANE AND THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS by Stephanie Barron
Soho Crime, $25, ISBN 9781616954239 The latest entry in Barron’s popular mystery series finds Jane Austen on the trail of a holiday killer.
MERMAIDS IN PARADISE by Lydia Millet
Norton, $25.95, ISBN 9780393245622 A tropical honeymoon goes comically wrong when mermaids are sighted on a nearby reef. BookPage interview on page 29.
LibraryReads is a recommendation program that highlights librarians’ favorite books published this month. For more information, visit libraryreads.org.
Published by
K NOPF
# Pr i nce Le st at
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WHODUNIT BY BRUCE TIERNEY
This cold case is burning up LAPD cold case investigator Harry Bosch has gotten older and crankier at the same rate I have, so I always look forward to each new chapter in his saga, largely to see what new life lessons I might learn from my unwitting role model. In Michael Connelly’s The Burning Room (Little, Brown, $28, 400 pages, ISBN 9780316225939), Bosch is
confronted by an unusual situation: A man shot 10 years ago has recently died from complications from his bullet wound, so what was once an investigation of a probable gangland drive-by has now escalated into a full-blown murder case, and every clue is a decade old. Bosch and his talented rookie partner, Lucia Soto, quickly establish that the shooting was in no way random, but rather the work of a dedicated hit man. As each clue provides a new piece of the puzzle, a disturbing connection to another crime begins to establish itself—a crime near and dear to Bosch’s new protégé. Drawn in by Soto’s zeal and personal involvement, Bosch broadens the investigation, a misstep that could cost him his job and his pension. But will that stop Harry Bosch? Not bloody likely! This is another in an unbroken series of do-not-miss novels from Connelly.
BRITTLE BONES
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This year, Ruth Rendell celebrates her 50th year in fiction; in the interim, she has cranked out more than one book a year, an enviably prolific record. In The Girl Next Door (Scribner, $26, 288 pages, ISBN 9781476784328), she mines a different vein than many of her contemporaries, with a tale of murder that has its roots in the closing days of WWII, when a group of English school chil-
dren used an abandoned construction site as their playhouse. Fast-forward 60-some years, when a rather grisly discovery has been made at the site: a pair of skeletal hands, severed at the wrist, clasped together in a tin box. The investigator assigned to the case could scarcely be more blasé; after all, who cares about a case where the perpetrator is likely dead or at least well into his or her 70s? But when the living members of the onetime school chums are gathered together for questioning, random old memories begin to gel into a plausible narrative for the crime. And when old flames rekindle and long-forgotten animosities bubble to the surface, anything can happen, even among people who, by most measures, should be old enough to know better.
SMELL WHAT’S COOKING Changes are afoot on Tlokweng Road as The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café (Pantheon, $24.95, 240 pages, ISBN 9780307911544), opens. In Alexander McCall Smith’s 15th (really, 15th?) novel of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the lovable but overbearing Grace Makutsi has been promoted to co-director of Precious Ramotswe’s agency, leaving the position of secretary to be filled by lackadaisical apprentice mechanic Charlie, recently laid off from his job at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The three have their work cut out for them as they attempt to unearth the true identity of a woman with amnesia, who mysteriously showed up at the home of a prominent family in Botswana’s small Indian community. Meanwhile, Makutsi has her fingers in another sort of pie entirely: the opening of what she envisions will be the most stylish restaurant the capital city of Gaborone has ever seen, the eponymous Handsome Man’s De Luxe
Café. And if all of that weren’t enough to keep her harried around the clock, she carries a new baby astride one of her ample, “traditionally built” hips. And what of the other “traditionally built” heroine of the series, Ramotswe? Well, you can be sure she is on hand, doing the detecting, calming the waters and dispensing her own brand of morality, Botswana style, in the manner that has won Smith worldwide readership almost since day one.
TOP PICK IN MYSTERY It really doesn’t matter whether you prefer serious, get-it-done heroes like Jack Reacher or Dave Robicheaux or wisecracking sleuths along the lines of Elvis Cole or Shell Scott, you have to love Timothy Hallinan’s protagonist, travel writer/adventurer Poke Rafferty. Based in Bangkok, Rafferty is the author of a series of travel books, Looking for Trouble in (fill in the name of an exotic-sounding southeast Asian city). In his latest adventure, For the Dead (Soho Crime, $25, 352 pages, ISBN 9781616951146), however, it seems he has passed the trouble baton to his adopted daughter, Miaow, whose small but deceitful act of loyalty for a friend sets off a chain of reactions that nobody (least of all the reader) can anticipate. If the bad guy had simply followed instructions, there would have been no story. He should have pitched the iPhone into the Chao Phraya River, and everything would have been fine. (Well, fine for the bad guys, at least—not for the two cops they murdered.) But instead, for the sake of a few extra baht, he sold it to a dodgy electronics shop, where Miaow bought it a short time later, taking next to no time to find the damning photos that could go a long way toward toppling the Thai tower of power— if, that is, she and her family live to see tomorrow. In five words: Could. Not. Put. It. Down.
Before Scarlett and Rhett, before the war that would divide a nation... there was Ruth. Discover the story of Mammy in the first prequel to Gone with the Wind, authorized by the Margaret Mitchell Estate.
Win a collection of Ruth’s Journey treasures! One Grand Prize Winner will receive a Gone with the Wind 75th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s edition on blu-ray and digital HD with ultraviolet, a signed first edition copy of Ruth’s Journey, and a Ruth’s Journey audiobook. Five Runners-Up will receive first edition copies of Ruth’s Journey. Go to BookPage.com/Contests to enter. Contest ends on November 30, 2014 at midnight. No purchase necessary to win. One entry per person. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER. Purchase or acceptance of a product offer does not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes opens at 12:01 a.m. (EDT) on November 1, 2014 and ends at 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on November 30, 2014. Enter online at BookPage.com/Contests. Open to legal residents of the US who have reached the age of majority or older in their state of residence. Void where prohibited by law. One (1) grand prize available to be won consisting of an autographed hardcover copy of Ruth’s Journey (Approximate Retail Value $26.00), an unabridged audio compact disc audiobook of Ruth’s Journey (Approximate Retail Value $39.99), and a Gone with the Wind 75th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition on Blu-ray and Digital HD with UltraViolet (Approximate Retail Value $49.99). Five (5) Runner’s Up prizes will be awarded a prize package consisting of a hard cover copy of Ruth’s Journey (Approximate Retail Value $26.00). Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full details and Official Rules available online atBookPage.com/Contests. Sponsor: Atria Books, A Division of Simon and Schuster.
Pick up or download your copy today! Available wherever books are sold.
Great gifts for the book lovers you love! THE WONDER OF ALL THINGS For lovers of thought-provoking fiction— a sensational new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Returned, about first love, sacrifice and the power of miracles.
THE LAST BREATH For the adventurer with strong family ties— an emotionally searing drama about a woman who risks her life to uncover the past.
BY WINTER’S LIGHT For the historical romantic at heart and fans of the popular Cynster family—an enchanting tale of mistletoe, magic and love set in romantic Scotland.
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www.MIRABooks.com
Pick up your copies today!
columns
BOOK CLUBS BY JULIE HALE
New in Paperback
Portrait of the artist Siri Hustvedt’s mesmerizing novel, The Blazing World (Simon & Schuster, $16, 384 pages, ISBN 9781476747248), was longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, and it’s easy to see why. Artist Harriet Burden, heroine of the narrative, stirs up controversy in the New York cultural scene when she enlists three men to pose as the masterminds behind three of her own installations. Tired of being overlooked
as an artist, Harriet is determined to attract some attention. But the stunt takes an unfortunate turn when one of her enlistees—a man named Rune—double-crosses her. Alas for Harriet, Rune has many important people backing him, including reviewers and critics, and she soon has big trouble on her hands. What transpires between the two of them—including a strange death—makes for hypnotic reading. This suspenseful story is recounted in part through Harriet’s journal entries. Detractors of her art, as well as admirers and family members, also have a say in this multifaceted story. Hustvedt’s skillful shifts in point-of-view add complexity to a masterful novel about the hazards of letting life and art overlap.
rience that makes him question himself and the state of the world. In “Wings,” a pair of has-been musicians try to pick up the pieces of their failed lives and move forward. Part ghost story, part lament for a lost connection, “The Juniper Tree” features a teacher who’s mourning a dead friend. Rich in its examination of the human condition, this collection is one to savor. Moore is an expert at pinpointing what motivates both genders and articulating the interior worlds of her characters. With both short pieces and relatively longer works, this perceptive, timely book offers something for every reader.
New in paperback from New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank “The Last Original Wife is a keeper.” —Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The Shoemaker’s Wife
The poignant story of a group of Irish emigrants aboard the RMS Titanic “I loved this book. Hazel Gaynor is an exciting new voice in historical fiction.” —Kate Kerrigan, author of Ellis Island
Mary McNear’s debut novel introduces readers to the charming town of Butternut Lake
TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS
Anna Quindlen’s Still Life with Bread Crumbs (Random House, $16, 288 pages, ISBN 9780812976892) is a funny, romantic novel about a woman surprised by love. At the age of 60, Rebecca Winter, a once-celebrated photographer who’s struggling to make ends meet, finds herself in the midst of some big transitions. No longer able to afford her New York City apartment, she relocates to an upstate cabin where she encounters crazy raccoons and enthusiastic hunters. Stimulated by her new surroundings, Rebecca begins taking pictures. When she LOSSES AND LAMENTS befriends Jim Bates, a roofer and In Bark (Vintage, $15, 208 pages, avid bird watcher, her life takes yet another unexpected turn. Jim tags ISBN 9780307740861), her first crop of stories since the acclaimed along during her photography excursions, making the shift to rural collection Birds of America (1998), life more intriguing than she ever Lorrie Moore delivers more of her wit, wisdom and trademark verbal thought possible. Quindlen has written a charming and poignant precision. In these eight stories, narrative that will resonate with she takes on inexhaustible topics like relationships, the experience of readers of all ages. It’s a timeless, aging and the challenges of dealing never-say-never tale about rolling with change. “Debarking” follows with life’s changes and discoverthe freshly divorced Ira as he starts ing the art that lies in everyday to date again—a bewildering expe- existence.
“A great, emotional read for every woman who must face the past before moving forward.” —New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods
New from internationally bestselling author Paullina Simons A compelling saga of heartbreak and redemption, and the devastating love story that led to The Bronze Horseman
PERFECT FOR BOOK CLUBS @WilliamMorrowPB
@bookclubgirl
William Morrow Paperbacks
Book Club Girl
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columns
From the author of the stunning debut
A shattering legacy
The Mourning Hours
Zak Ebrahim subtitles The Terrorist’s Son (Simon & Schuster Audio, $14.99, 2 hours, ISBN 9781442377363) “A Story of Choice.” But children don’t get to make life-changing choices for themselves; it can take years. For Ebrahim, those years were filled with extraordinary pain and suffering, and he tells his story with rare, raw candor. His father, El-Sayyid Nosair, was the first known Islamic jihadist to take a life on American soil, and he went on to help plan the first bombing of the World
comes a powerful new novel that explores every parent’s worst nightmare… Join the Kaufmans as they embark on a journey of love, loss and survival.
the fragile world
“Emotionally powerful from beginning to end….
This bold and moving story is absolutely unforgettable.” —New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf
Pick up your copy today!
www.MIRABooks.com • www.paulatreickdeboard.com
Trade Center in 1993 from his cell in Attica. Ebrahim, his mother and siblings were the collateral damage of this new kind of infamy, tipped into a life of harassment and insistent poverty. Bullied by his classmates, beaten by his stepfather, Ebrahim was filled with fear, anger, self-loathing and the bigotry his father had seared into him. When he began to see the world differently, questioning dogma and blind hatred, finding empathy as a way to a better world, he finally made his choice and turned away from his father and terrorism. This is a powerful story, made even stronger by Ebrahim’s heartfelt reading.
SOMEONE IS LYING OMG, um, hello! If you didn’t know that Tana French can get into the minds, mores and mangled, Americanized language of adolescent girls, you’ll be totally convinced when you listen to The Secret Place (Penguin Audio, $50, 20 hours, ISBN 9781611761351), read in tandem by Lara Hutchinson and Stephen Hogan with the perfect range of Irish accents. French, also a master of complex whodunits, has crafted a doozy. When Holly Mackey (Faithful Place, 2010) brings a note saying “I know who
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AUDIO BY SUKEY HOWARD
2014-09-24 3:53 PM
killed him” to Detective Moran, stuck unhappily working cold cases, it reopens the investigation of a super-popular 16-year-old boy’s brutal murder at St. Kilda’s, a posh Dublin girl’s school. Teamed up with tough, gritty Antoinette Conway from the Murder Squad, Moran spends one intense day sorting through the lies, loyalties, rivalries and confusion of two tight, contentious cliques of girls. Moran’s take alternates with a year of flashbacks filtered through Holly and her three mates’ eyes and rapidly changing teenage psyches. Bravo, if you find the “who” before the denouement.
TOP PICK IN AUDIO Hilary Mantel won two Man Booker prizes—the only woman ever to do so—for her first two extraordinary novels about Thomas Cromwell and the Tudor court. She’s still working on the last book of the trilogy, so maybe to take a break or to keep her fans from rioting, she has published a collection of short stories. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher (Macmillan Audio, $24.99, 4.5 hours, ISBN 9781427251701) is titled for its longest, wittiest and most controversial tale, which took her 30 years to complete. Many of these dark, quirky stories are told in the first person by dysfunctional people navigating life’s treacheries with impaired insight into themselves and their situations. Some stories seem to come, in part, from Mantel’s own experiences as wife and writer. Whatever the setting, her impeccable narrative style, unsparing eye and scalpel-sharp humor put each experience and each character in fine focus. Jane Carr’s exemplary reading only adds to it all.
Fall Listening From Macmillan Audio
“After reading this funny, intimate, candid, honest diary of a year in Andy’s life, I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘Is Andy Cohen...Carrie Bradshaw?’” —Sarah Jessica Parker
READ BY THE AUTHOR
READ BY ELIZA FOSS
READ BY GEORGE K. WILSON “The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man introduces my favorite kind of flawed cynical protagonist in Ruddy McCann, former football star, now Repo Man in a small town full of memorable weirdos. It’s suspenseful, action-packed, romantic, and above all, truly funny. I loved it.” —Nelson DeMille
READ BY LORELEI KING READ BY SCOTT SHEPHERD “[Denis Johnson’s] work on the page is searing; at once transcendent and violent, his writing is unforgettable.” —Barbara Chai, The Wall Street Journal
READ BY THE AUTHOR
From the host of Bill Nye the Science Guy comes an impassioned, inspired explanation of how the science of our origins is fundamental to our understanding of the nature of science itself.
“Lisa Scottoline is one of the very best writers at work today.” –– Michael Connelly
READ BY MARIA BELLO
LISTEN TO EXCERPTS AT WWW>MACMILLANAUDIO>COM
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COOKING
ROMANCE
BY SYBIL PRATT
B Y C H R I S T I E R I D G WAY
2014’s gourmet go-tos
Two hearts united
This is a great year for fabulous cookbooks from fabulous chefs, and they’re hitting the market just in time for the holidays. Nothing could be fina than a new book from Ina (Garten, that is). This time, our beloved Barefoot Contessa shares her secrets for making entertaining less stressful and more fun. Every recipe in Make It Ahead (Potter, $35, 272 pages, ISBN 9780307464880) is designed to be made and served right away, plus (and this is a very
Mary Balogh offers another poignant and heart-wrenching story in her Survivors’ Club series in Only Enchanting (Signet, $7.99, 400 pages, ISBN 9780451469663). Flavian, Viscount Ponsonby, visits a fellow Survivors’ Club member’s home for their annual reunion and meets a young gentlewoman and widow, Agnes Keeping. She is content with her life, and she purposefully avoids impulse and passion. But when she sees the charming, handsome Flavian, she quickly falls
big plus) each one also has all the info you need to make it ahead. This goes for everything from Cranberry Martinis, Parmesan Kale Chips, Slow-Roasted Spiced Pork and Winter Slaw to Lemon Ginger Molasses Cake, with a dollop of made-ahead whipped cream. Ina’s recipes, as expected, are foolproof, delicious and seasoned with her magic brand of kitchen confidence. And the glory of Dorie (Greenspan, that is) shines on in her new Baking Chez Moi (HMH/ Rux Martin, $40, 496 pages, ISBN 9780547724249), a superb, surprising collection of elegantly simple recipes gathered from her French friends. These are the recipes the French bake at home—generous, satisfying and determinedly different from the complicated, time-consuming confections produced by professional pâtissiers. Each delight is introduced with a charmingly detailed header, followed by Greenspan’s always impeccable instructions and advice on serving and storing. In these gorgeously illustrated pages, you’ll find 175 recipes for cakes, tarts, galettes, cookies and a super selection of fruit, creams, frozen desserts and candies. The baking world is hunky-Dorie again! If you’re a follower of Jamie Oliver, you know that, like good wine,
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he has improved with age. Only 100 recipes made it into Jamie Oliver’s Comfort Food (Ecco, $34.99, 408 pages, ISBN 9780062305619), and he has given these chosen few more space, more photos and more loving attention. Oliver’s choices are a spoton international medley bound to please, from Chicken Tikka Masala to Mini Fish and Perfect Chips, fantastic Feijoada to Crispy Duck Lasagna, Lobster Mac ’n’ Cheese to Polish Pierogi, Sticky Chinese Ribs to Sticky Toffee Pudding. Take comfort and give comfort with these all-time favorites.
TOP PICK IN COOKBOOKS Sean Brock grew up in the coalfields of southwest Virginia and began his lifelong love affair with food in his grandmother’s kitchen, garden and preserved-food-filled basement. That love affair blossomed into a passion for Southern cooking, three award-winning restaurants and Heritage (Artisan, $40, 336 pages, ISBN 9781579654634), his beautifully designed celebration of Lowcountry cooking, its spirit and soul, roots and traditions and future—a future that Sean, a staunch supporter of heirloom ingredients (animal, vegetable and Bourbon), may well have a hand in. No matter how handsome a cookbook is, only the recipes can make it a winner— and this one crosses the culinary finish line first! Some are easy, like Chicken Simply Roasted in a Skillet; some are deliciously complex, like Rabbit Andouille with Braised Peppers and Lady Pea Gravy; some are surprising, like Crispy Pig’s Ear Lettuce Wraps; but all are inspiring, enticing and beyond good.
for him. War injuries left Flavian with memory gaps that still plague him, but despite his fuzzy past, he’s sure he wants Agnes in his future. Flavian persuades her to marry him, and they travel to London to take up their new life. But they quickly discover that old wounds and uncomfortable history put a wedge between them and their hope for happiness. Although Agnes blames their marital woes on her seemingly too intense feelings for Flavian, he is relieved when she decides to make their marriage work. But there are foes and gossip to defeat, and these two will have to be honest and open-hearted to beat the odds. This introspective, lovely romance will leave readers sighing.
LOVE ALL GROWN UP Love is all around in Jude Deveraux’s Change of Heart (Pocket, $7.99, 400 pages, ISBN 9781476779720). Twelve-year-olds Eli and Chelsea consider themselves modern-day Robin and Marian, righting wrongs and helping the poor. They even manage to make a match for Eli’s single mom, the story of which takes up the first third of the novel. Fast-forward 20 years, and computer genius and government operative Eli Har-
court, who went from geeky kid to gorgeous man, has reached out to his childhood friend Chelsea Hamilton. They lost touch as teens, and now he invites her to visit his home in Virginia—she’s the one who got away and he’s determined to change that. Chelsea, who’s been somewhat aimless in the intervening years, isn’t so sure about this reunion. When she arrives, his changed appearance makes her even more uncertain. But pretty soon, Eli and Chelsea fall into another Robin and Marian-style suspenseful adventure, peopled with helpful and entertaining secondary characters. Will their hearts be resolved when the mystery is solved? Deveraux’s latest is a fastpaced charmer.
TOP PICK IN ROMANCE Burn for Me (Avon, $5.99, 400 pages, ISBN 9780062289230) by Ilona Andrews is the first Hidden Legacy book, a new paranormal romance series set in a world similar to our own but run by family dynasties that hold hereditary magical powers. The most formidable members of these powerful families are known as Primes, and Nevada Baylor, a private investigator, is on the trail of a very dangerous Prime who is bent on destruction. While Nevada has an interesting power of her own, she must partner up with legendary Mad Rogan to have any hope of success. As the two set out to find the most wanted man in the city, their race against time ends in a battle between two potent adversaries. Who will be caught in the crossfire? This story is kisses only, though the sizzling attraction between the leads suggests that this could change in later installments. Captivating world-building and interesting, faceted characters make this a smokin’-good story!
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cover story
MUSIC BY HENRY L. CARRIGAN JR.
That’s what makes the jukebox spin
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his fall, music keeps playing around in our heads thanks to a crop of books by and about some of rock’s most elusive artists, as well as its most treasured songs.
WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN’ Over a two-year period, maverick Southern author Rick Bragg (All Over but the Shoutin’ ) sat down with Jerry Lee Lewis and let the Killer walk “day after day through the past and come back, sometimes bloody, with the stories in this book.” Not simply an “as-told-to” memoir, Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story (Harper, $27.99, 512 pages, ISBN 9780062078223) is a harmonious blend, with Lewis providing the details of his life and Bragg weaving a narrative around them to add historical and cultural context. “He did not want to do a first-person book,” Bragg writes, “and I had no interest in trying to pretend to be him. Instead, this is one man talking of a remarkable life and another man writing it down and shaping it into a life story so rich that, if I had not been there, I would have wondered if it was real.” And Lewis’ story is definitely remarkable: Full of life from birth—“I come out jumpin’, an’ I been jumpin’ ever since”—Lewis discovered his “reason for being born” when he saw a piano in his aunt’s house as a child. He knew he wanted to be a star, so he pursued his dream relentlessly, appearing in clubs when he was 14 and lying about his age. Lewis burned down many roadhouses with his raucous style, rising to fame with songs such as “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” and
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leaving in his wake broken marriages and mangled friendships. The book candidly catalogs his problems with drugs, alcohol, taxes and women (his seven marriages included a union with his 13-yearold second cousin that caused an international scandal). Lewis also acknowledges his fear that he may have led people astray with his music, but confesses that music was the purest part of his life. Lewis tells his story here for the first time, and it’s every bit as frantic, ugly, joyful and searing as you’d expect from the Killer.
A NATURAL WOMAN While Lewis hypnotized audiences with manic energy, Aretha Franklin grew up in the Detroit church where her father preached, playing soulful gospel piano and developing her unmistakable voice. Franklin collaborated with music writer David Ritz in 1999 on a less-than-revealing memoir, Aretha: From These Roots. As Ritz explains in his new book, Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin (Little, Brown, $30, 528 pages, ISBN 9780316196833), Franklin asked him to work with her on a second volume, but he declined, citing her insistence on steering clear of certain topics. Instead, Ritz chose to write an independent biography, drawing on his earlier conversations with the singer, her friends and family to provide a full
and frank account of the Queen of Soul’s career. Moving album by album, the book recounts her rise to the top of the soul charts in the late 1960s and her fall from the throne in the early 1970s. She struggled to find her style in the disco era, and reinvented herself in 1985 with the hit “Freeway of Love.” Franklin isolated herself for almost 20 Paul McCartney added psychedelic illustrations to his handwritten years after the deaths lyrics for “The Word,” a song on 1965’s Rubber Soul album. of her father, sisters From The Beatles Lyrics, reprinted with permission. Lyrics © Sony /ATV Music Publishing. and brother, only to come out of the shadcharts. Reaching this level of sucows once again in 2008 to sing at cess wasn’t easy, as Santana reveals President Obama’s first inaugurain his new memoir, The Universal tion. Franklin’s life is rarely pretty, however, and Respect is ultimately Tone: Bringing My Story to Light (Little, Brown, $30, 544 pages, ISBN a poignant and disappointing tale 9780316244923), which he co-wrote of a singer who never reached the with Ashley Kahn and Hal Miller. pinnacle for which she aimed. Although the book’s prose is someSOUL SACRIFICE times flat and repetitive, the details In 1966, a young guitar player of Santana’s story are nevertheless named Carlos Santana filled in compelling. He traces his path one night at Bill Graham’s famous from his childhood in the Mexican Fillmore West with an impromptu town of Autlán to his earliest gigs group of musicians; the rest, as they at El Convoy in Tijuana. Santana say, is history. Three years later, recounts his sometimes ragged Santana and his band mesmerfamily life and reveals for the first ized the crowd at Woodstock, and time the sexual abuse he suffered soon after, the band’s first album at age 11 at the hands of a man climbed to #4 on the Billboard who took him to San Diego and molested him, leaving the boy with “an intense feeling of pleasure mixed with confusion, shame, and guilt for letting it happen.” Above all, however, Santana’s memoir recounts his spiritual quest to find the “story behind the stories, the music behind the music. . . . I call it the Universal Tone, and with it you realize you are not alone; you are connected to everyone.”
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ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE Although the life stories of musicians continue to fascinate us, we’re just as intrigued and perplexed by the lyrics of popular songs. Few songs have been as scrutinized as those by the Beatles, and in his new book, The Beatles Lyrics (Little, Brown, $35, 384 pages, ISBN 9780316247160), Beatles biographer Hunter Davies not only probes the meanings of the Fab Four’s songs but also gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at their writing process. For John Lennon and Paul McCartney, songwriting could happen anywhere—songs might begin as a scribble on the back of an envelope or on hotel stationery. “Strawberry Fields,” for example, was written by Lennon when he was in Spain, far from home and thinking back on his childhood in Liverpool. This stunning collection explores the stories behind all the Beatles’ classics and includes more than 100 original handwritten manuscripts.
CONTENT. MORE
COLOR . MORE
CULTURE.
CRYING, WAITING, HOPING The hallways of rock ’n’ roll history are littered with volumes that move mechanically through a yearby-year chronicle of important events. Noted cultural critic Greil Marcus wasn’t interested in writing a typical history of the genre, however. His provocative The History of Rock ’n’ Roll in Ten Songs (Yale University Press, $28, 320 pages, ISBN 9780300187373) chronicles the music through an exploration of 10 songs recorded between 1956 and 2008. In his typical gnostic style, Marcus examines the ways in which each song transcends its era, gathering meaning as it is recorded by artists in completely new times and places. For example, he observes that the Teddy Bears’ 1958 hit, “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” took 48 years to find its voice. “When Amy Winehouse sang it in 2006, her music curled around Phil Spector’s [who wrote the song], his curled around her, until she found her way back to the beginning of his career, and redeemed it.” Marcus’ unconventional history captures the unruly, unpredictable nature of rock ’n’ roll.
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meet BROCK CLARKE “This collection celebrates Binchy’s unabashed delight in the human condition.” —Book l ist
maeve binch y
Q: What’s the title of your new book? would you describe the novel Q: How in one sentence?
Q: Is Denmark really such a happy place?
m a ev e’s Times In Her Own Words
Full of her “trademark warmth, humor, humanity… wit, and bigheartedness.” —P u bl isher s W eek ly “Warm, down-to-earth …Very delightful … It works wonderfully … (be ready with the hanky).”
—L ibr a ry Jou r n a l
are three things an outsider should know about upstate Q: What New York?
Q: If you had to go undercover, who would you want to be?
Q: What’s your most unusual pastime? Q: Words to live by?
THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
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Facebook.com/maeveBinchyauthor
The author of three previous novels, including the bestseller An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, Brock Clarke puts a satiric spin on the spy genre in The Happiest People in the World (Algonquin, $24.95, 352 pages, ISBN 9781616201111). This wildly comic tale follows a Danish cartoonist—on the run from terrorists—who goes undercover in upstate New York. Clarke teaches creative writing at Bowdoin College and lives in Portland, Maine.
interviews
LYDIA MILLET
Laughing through the apocalypse
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hough they often deal in dark themes—humanity’s rampant destruction of the earth is a common backdrop—Lydia Millet’s books are also, paradoxically, hilarious. Granted, it’s a grim humor, laced with sadness—but even so, it’s probably no surprise that the author in conversation is warm-voiced and inclined toward laughter. Millet, who spoke to us from a parking lot outside an L.A. Fitness, and then from inside her car when it started to rain, sounds thoroughly non-gloomy on the phone. In her voice, there’s no sense of the looming apocalypse that in most of her books is a given. “I tend to laugh out loud while writing,” Millet says, “which makes me seem insane because I usually write in public places. I laugh as I read, too.” If this sounds unlikely, it’s only because you haven’t read Millet’s new novel, Mermaids in Paradise. Not LOLing while doing so is a bit of a challenge. Probably her flat-out funniest book yet, it’s part satire, part social commentary and part rollicking adventure. The story is set mostly on a tropical island and is narrated by a woman named Deb, who’s on her honeymoon with her new husband, Chip. Chip’s extreme gregariousness leads the couple to befriend a marine biologist, who soon makes a startling discovery: a bunch of actual mermaids hanging
MERMAIDS IN PARADISE
By Lydia Millet
Norton, $25.95, 304 pages ISBN 9780393245622, audio, eBook available
LITERARY FICTION
out near the coral reef. The revelation of the mermaid colony prompts an ugly threeway battle between the forces of exploitation, preservation and religious hysteria that—despite the element of fantasy at its core—is plausible enough to feel like documentary. And like the best comedy, it’s kind of depressing. Deb, our saucy narrator, sounds like what you’d hear if the Internet had a collective voice. She speaks in a hyper-caffein“Wacky and ated pastiche of received quirky are language and adjectives piercingly vivid detail; I strive to she’s obviously avoid now brilliant, but she that I’m 45.” is also a creature of this world, the world of status updates and marketing-speak. There is an art to the precision deployment of the well-worn phrase in the service of comedy, and Deb has mastered it. When she trots out “literally” or “quite a bit” or “so that was the situation there,” it’s hilarious rather than annoying, because she wields these phrases like weapons. “I love judgmental women, their voices,” Millet says. “I enjoyed writing her. This book and another I wrote together are kind of a matched set. I wrote them both as sort of laugh machines for myself while I worked on something that was difficult.” (The second book is called The Palms of Bora-Bora; when it might appear is not yet decided, Millet says.) It wasn’t a struggle to find Deb’s voice, says Millet; in fact, it’s usually a strong voice that starts a novel off. “The struggle is to remain within the voice as things happen,” she explains. “There needs to be change and transformation”—other characters necessarily arrive and
do things, the plot develops—“and that’s when it’s harder to sustain the voice.” Deb’s best friend, Gina, has an even more cutting tone and is equally uproarious. She’s a dedicated ironist and devastatingly observant. Millet says she’s known people like this since college, who are “just so committed to irony.” Chip, on the other hand, provides a sweet-natured counterpoint to the acidic humor of Deb and Gina. “Chip is my ideal man in a certain way,” Millet says. “He’s so friendly and a geek and also kind of hot, maybe not that bright, but— like a Labrador.” In the book, Deb refers at one point to Chip’s “golden-retriever light” having dimmed after a conversation. “Golden retriever, that’s kind of harsh,” Millet says now, laughing. “He’s more of a Lab.” Though any novel with mermaids in it is arguably going to be a bit outlandish, Millet plays those elements fairly straight. She says she hopes the book does not come across as wacky. “Wacky and quirky are adjectives I strive to avoid,” she says, “now that I’m 45.” She does find it easier to work with plot when there’s also humor—but adds that going for laughs is a bit of a gamble. “You really want people to laugh,” she says. “It’s not going to be rewarded in any other way,” since funny books are often not taken seriously as literature. “We should pay attention to humor and satire,” she says. “It’s wrong that they’re sort of second-class citizens in the world of literary prestige—and especially if they’re written by women, I’m guessing.” One advantage of couching serious ideas inside a humorously told story is that it tends to increase
IVORY ORCHID PHOTOGRAPHY
BY BECKY OHLSEN
receptivity. “It makes us more . . . I don’t want to say more open, but it makes us rawer in a given moment,” Millet says. This certainly holds true for Mermaids in Paradise. Spiked throughout the book are a handful of gutpunch moments, and their impact is greater because of the overall relaxed tone of the novel; the combination leaves you exposed, rather than on the defensive as you might otherwise be when reading a book whose subject is our plundering of the natural world. This is doubly true of the ending, which contains a twist that puts everything that came before in a new light. In addition to these two comic novels and the more serious project she wrote them to escape from, Millet also published a young adult novel earlier this year with Akashic Books and works 30 hours a week as a staff writer at the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson. She’s also raising two kids: a girl, 10, and boy, 6. How does she balance her various responsibilities? “There hasn’t been a balance,” she says. She gives herself three hours of writing time on weekends and can sometimes eke out half an hour on a weekday. “I’m definitely writing at a slower pace than I used to,” she says. But she loves the work she does at the Center, and it obviously ties in with her fiction-writing interests. “I wouldn’t want to give it up, even if I could financially.” Still, she says, “I wouldn’t mind just 10 more hours [in] a week.”
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interviews
DAVID NICHOLLS
Farewell tour for a failing marriage
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n his 2009 bestseller One Day, British actor-turned-screenwriter-turnednovelist David Nicholls traced the inevitable romantic collision of starcrossed college acquaintances via snapshots, taken on the same calendar date each year, over their 20-year journey to togetherness.
In his equally nimble follow-up, Us, Nicholls reverses course to chronicle the gradual disintegration of the 30-year marriage of a well-intentioned if hopelessly mismatched London couple who never quite recovered from the death of their infant firstborn daughter. “One Day is a very classic willthey-or-won’t-they-get-together love story; over 20 years, how do they change and how are they finally drawn to one another and finally make a life together?” Nicholls says from his home in London. “Us is sort of what comes next, I suppose. The questions are: Will they stay together? Do they belong together? Is this going to last? It’s not a sequel to One Day in any specific way. It’s more of a companion piece, I suppose.” Narrator Douglas Petersen is a buttoned-up, left-brained biochemist who’s still baffled that his free-spirited, right-brained artist wife Connie chose to marry him. When Connie wakes him in the middle of the night to suggest that their 30-year marriage may have run its course, the scientist in
US
By David Nicholls
Harper, $26.99, 416 pages ISBN 9780062365583, audio, eBook available
FICTION
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Douglas cooks up a logical solution: a Grand Tour of the continent’s art masterpieces with their moody, artistic teenage son Albie. In the course of this Griswold- esque forced march, Douglas is rescued from a biker beating by a prostitute in Amsterdam, “Hopefully Albie bails to in the same Italy with an accordion- way that playing female people saw busker, and themselves Connie retreats in One Day, home, there to hover via they will see smartphone themselves as the deterin Us.” mined father fumbles to find and emotionally connect with their wayward son. Love, loss, laughter and tears are the primary colors to which Nicholls adds subtle shades of wit and wisdom that enable his characters to transcend the page. Little wonder that Us was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize even before it hit U.S. bookshelves. Nicholls admits he took his own roundabout journey to fiction writing, having spent the better part of the 1990s as a struggling actor, including three years with the Royal National Theater. That apprenticeship morphed into script reading for BBC Radio Drama, script editing for London Weekend Television, script adaptation (Much Ado About Nothing; Tess of the D’Urbervilles) and eventually scriptwriting for TV (“Waiting”; “I Saw You”) and film (One Day; Starter for Ten). “Sadly, I wasn’t an accomplished actor at all. I realized it wasn’t acting that I enjoyed; it was the characters and stories,” he says. “I do regret the fact that I wasted eight years of my life pursuing something that I couldn’t do, but I think I learned a lot from it. It was
good training.” The breakout success of One Day and the book tour that followed found its way into the comedic framework of Us. “When One Day came out, I went on something of a grand tour myself, visiting a lot of the cities I’d read about but never seen, and I thought it would be a funny idea to set someone out on that kind of journey, but in middle age,” he says. “It also was a chance for me to write about travel, which I love, but not in the hokey glories-of-Venice, splendors-of-Rome way. I wanted to write about it more as it’s experienced—the coffee stains, missed trains, bad breath and cheap hotels.” Readers couldn’t have asked for a better traveler-without-a-clue than Douglas, whose command of the minutiae of train schedules and hotel check-in times borders on the obsessive. How did a biochemist stumble into this rom-com? “My novels had always been about the arts, books and TV and films, things I understand. I thought it would be interesting to write about things that I didn’t really understand, like science and the visual arts,” Nicholls explains. “Douglas doesn’t really believe in fiction; he’s rather repressed and buttoned-up. There’s a key line where he says, ‘I love my wife more than I could say, and so I never said it.’ That’s sort of what I love about him, the deep well of emotion and passion that lies just beneath the surface.” Nicholls and Douglas do share one memorable moment: the Amsterdam scene in which the scientist accidentally topples a line of expensive motorcycles, nearly sparking a riot. “That happened to me pretty much as written three years ago,” Nicholls chuckles. “I
KRISTOFER SAMUELSSON
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managed to escape, but it was pretty horrific.” If One Day explored the adage that opposites attract, Us tests its staying power. “Douglas and Connie’s marriage is a bit like a lot of relationships: the differences initially intrigue you. It’s only when children become involved that the different attitudes you have and different outlooks on life can become a problem,” Nicholls says. Speaking of problems, how does one craft a happy ending to a marriage falling apart? “That’s a tricky one,” he admits. “I still think of Us as a love story; it has a lot in it that’s romantic. But it’s probably a little more grown up, a little darker, a little more ambiguous, and I think that all of those things are good. Hopefully, in the same way that people saw themselves in One Day, they will see themselves in Us.” The film adaptation of One Day opened shortly after the book’s publication, with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess starring in Nicholls’ screenplay—but the author has other plans for Us. “I really want it to have a proper life as a book first. Also, I think it’s a very, very hard book to adapt, which is why I won’t adapt it. Someone else will have to take it on.”
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features
BEHIND THE BOOK BY BRADFORD MORROW
Masquerading as a literary master
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n his latest novel, Bradford Morrow exposes the dark side of the rarebook world, where literary forgers create fake letters, signatures and manuscripts by famous authors. His richly detailed mystery opens with a grisly scene: A reclusive book collector is found in his studio with his head bashed in and his hands severed. Morrow, a professor of literature at Bard College, explains why he was drawn to this shadowy subject.
The Forgers is a novel I have been unintentionally researching my entire adult life. How so? In my 20s I worked in both used and rare bookshops, even opened my own shop for a time, and have been a book collector ever since I sold off most of my inventory to launch the literary journal Conjunctions. My life has been thoroughly steeped in books. Over the years I’ve done almost everything one can do with a book, having spent time as a tradesman, binder, editor, translator, bibliographer, teacher, writer and voracious reader of books. The world in which The Forgers is set, then—a world of both secondhand bookshops and high-end antiquarian booksellers who deal in valuable first editions—is one I know well. Indeed, writing The Forgers propelled me back to every book fair I’ve ever attended over the years, whether it was in rural New Jersey, at a fairgrounds in California or the annual Antiquarian
THE FORGERS
By Bradford Morrow
Mysterious Press, $24, 258 pages ISBN 9780802123213, audio, eBook available
LITERARY THRILLER
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Booksellers Association fair at the Armory on Park Avenue. This is not to suggest, however, that I have ever been a literary forger. Far from it. To be honest, I don’t have the strangely impressive array of skills necessary to the task. A master forger must, after all, excel as a calligrapher, a chemist and a con-man connoisseur. A master Forgers must forger must have a deep, excel as a even scholarly, understanding calligrapher, a chemist and of the author whose handa con-man writing is to be connoisseur. mimicked if they are going to achieve the kind of perfection needed to get their handiwork past eagle-eyed experts. While I spent many months inside the head of my narrator—himself a master forger with a particular taste for manufacturing inscriptions, letters and manuscripts by Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James and W.B. Yeats, and for all his faults a protagonist for whom I have a lot of affection—I don’t find his passion for messing with history to be an altogether admirable one. And yet literary forgers from past eras have always fascinated me, such as master deceivers William Ireland, Thomas Chatterton and Thomas J. Wise, each of whom has an interesting personal backstory. All were wildly talented, imaginative and flawed. Ireland’s father, for instance, was a Shakespeare scholar and collector, and given there are precious few verified Shakespeare autographs extant, young Will decided to create some others that would enhance his father’s collection. Emboldened, he even penned some “undis-
covered” Shakespeare manuscripts and letters to Anne Hathaway and Queen Elizabeth, among others. His high-wire ruse worked nicely for quite a while, although those who venerated authenticity eventually, as they are wont to do, raised concerns. It is his and others’ gnarly paths that my narrator, also named Will, has chosen to follow. Why forgery? And why a murder mystery in which forgery is the prime focus? At lunch last year in New York, my editor, Otto Penzler, wondered if I would write a short story for a series he publishes at his wonderful Mysterious Bookshop, called Bibliomysteries. I asked him precisely how he defined bibliomystery and he said, simply, it’s a work of fiction in which books are central and a murder takes place. Although I have long been considered a so-called “literary writer,” in recent years I’ve become deeply interested in genre fiction, a neighborhood in the city of literature that is inspiring, rigorous in its architectures and terribly inviting. In part because I consider the best genre fiction, from crime to sci-fi, horror to fantasy, to be every bit as literary as literary fiction, I said yes. I settled on forgery as my theme because I felt the travesties of other misfits—like book thieves, let’s say—offered me a bit less to explore, certainly in terms of technical sophistication. As I began sketching ideas, writing some pages in search of the right voice, I realized that my forgers would be functioning in the netherlands of the community I knew so well. With that realization, I felt immediately at home.
The next question to address was, what is the most serious deprivation a forger could suffer? Of course he needs his vintage pens and papers, his custom-mixed inks, first editions in which to create inscriptions from long-dead authors, perhaps to other long-dead authors or hitherto unsuspected lovers. Take those away, you interfere with his illicit, to him beautiful, art. But to take away his hands? You terminate it forever. So when I settled on my first line—“They never found his hands”—I was fully underway. The thing about writing The Forgers is that the further I got into it, the more I understood I needed a larger canvas than that of a short story to explore the lives of these dark, compelling people. That short story commission turned within a matter of months into a novel, and the novel eventually explored far more than murder and rare books. Indeed, much of The Forgers is a love story complicated by death and deception, but also suffused with bibliophilia, a shared love of books. It’s a novel about secrecy, about faith and the fragile nature of redemption. It is also about the very nature of truth, the curious plasticity of reality and how history itself may be radically altered with the stroke of a pen.
gifts
LIBATIONS BY EVE ZIBART
Move over, Mrs. Beeton—Mr. Boston is back in town
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fter decades of transforming everyday life into a service industry, Americans are embracing DIY as a second language, with whole industries devoted to restoring the lost garden of earthly delights.
Organic produce and farmto-table dining, artisan cheeses, small-vineyard wines, etc., are badges of the newly educated palate. There are more has-beens wielding knives and renovating houses on cable TV than on “Dancing with the Stars.” And now we are in the age of the mixologist. You read it here first: The next Cooking Channel will be the Cocktail Channel. While drinkers’ manuals to consuming wine, whiskey, beer and so on have been flourishing for years, the trend now calls for how-to books designed to reinvent happy hour as home entertainment. Among the most useful, and admirably unpretentious, is The 12 Bottle Bar: A Dozen Bottles. Hundreds of Cocktails. A New Way to Drink. (Workman, $14.95, 416 pages, ISBN 9780761174943) by David Solmonson and Lesley Jacobs Solmonson, which leads you gently from buying the basics to making the best of them—a friendly offer made even less threatening when you realize that the dependable dozen includes two vermouths, two bitters and orange liqueur (i.e., Cointreau, Grand Marnier, etc.). Even more admirable, it reminds readers that being a good host has more to do with joining your guests than trying to impress them. At once the wittiest and most comprehensive of new spirits encyclopedias, The Thinking Drinker’s Guide to Alcohol: A Cocktail of Amusing Anecdotes and Opinion on the Art of Imbibing (Sterling Epicure, $24.95, 224 pages, ISBN 9781454912811), by Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham, arose from a theatrical lecture at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2011, but it’s more than wordplay. It’s a suc-
cinct but surprisingly sound romp through the history of spirits, their great proponents (Jack Kerouac for tequila, Thomas Jefferson for wine, Hemingway for rum), a bit of myth and culture (the Wild West) and even some great movie moments as well as a restrained selection of
famous labels. Oh, and did you know? Jesus was a beer guy. (Toga party, anyone?) It may also be the first such tome with a Kickstarter pedigree, making it a truly populist publication. The collage-style illustrations and graphic timelines are equally admirable.
AN AMERICAN CLASSIC Although it might sound painfully stodgy, Michael Dietsch’s Shrubs: An Old-Fashioned Drink for Modern Times (Countryman Press, $24.95, 224 pages, ISBN 9781581572445) is a fine introduction to artisanal ingredients you actually can make at home. A shrub is simply a beverage combining fruit and herbs or spices with vinegar, or in some cases citrus fruit. It’s a style of drink that goes back millennia, and was a staple of Founding Mother pantries; one of the recipes comes from
Martha Washington, another from Ben Franklin. Such beverages are still common elsewhere—I have a bottle and recipe book from the wife of a highly regarded Japanese winemaker—and are immensely soothing by themselves as well as in mixed drinks, which makes them perfect for mixed-ages parties (or, as per Dietsch’s wife, for the pregnant or indisposed). Most of the 40 or so shrub recipes here have only three or four ingredients and
don’t even require cooking; what a lovely weekend project!
FOR COCKTAIL NERDS ONLY At the far end of the accessibility spectrum is molecular mixology, and only true cocktail geeks (or those looking for gifts for them) will get the full frontal benefit of Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail (Norton, $35, 416 pages, ISBN 9780393089035) Momofuku’s resident mad scientist Dave Arnold, who is to cocktails as Richard Blais is to home cooking (doesn’t everyone use liquid nitrogen in the kitchen?), discourses at length on the correct size of ice cubes for specific concoctions, quick-cooking bitters, countertop distilling,
eutectic freezing (look it up), comparative percentages of ethanol in mixers and so on. Fortunately, there are a few recipes that don’t require a vacuum machine, so maybe you and your Significant Nerd can bond over those.
SPIRIT GUIDES Matt Teacher’s The Spirit of Gin: A Stirring Miscellany of the New Gin Revival (Cider Mill Press, $24.95, 364 pages, ISBN 9781604334623) begins with a foreword by Arrigo Cipriani, son of the co-founder of the legendary Harry’s Bar in Venice, and includes interviews with distinguished bartenders and producers, but sometimes there’s a little too much Teacher in the talk. It is, however, a lush and beautiful book full of what might be called cocktail porn— full-color photographs of concoctions, shakers, bars, etc. (Nearly 40 percent of the book is entitled “A Catalogue of Gin Distillers,” and what with the pictures of various producers’ bottles, it starts to feel a little like a sales brochure.) Whisk(e)y Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life (Viking Studio, $25, 272 pages, ISBN 9780670016808), by Heather Greene, is modeled on the now-familiar wine manual style, combining history, terroir (bourbon vs. Irish, and that pesky “e”), science and technology (distilling methods, barrel aging), education (deciphering labels) and storage and entertaining tips (recipes and glassware). Greene, who teaches a whiskey course at Manhattan’s Flatiron Room and was the first woman to serve on the Scotch Malt Whisky Society tasting panel, plays up the chick-liquor schtick a little too much, but she’s particularly good on tasting elements and flavor and aroma descriptions. As she points out, women seem to have better noses. Now, if someone would just outlaw the subtitle, we could save a forest.
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gifts
FASHION BY CAT ACREE
The frivolous and the familiar
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hough it evolves constantly, fashion would grow stagnant without personal flourishes like a favorite pair of lived-in jeans. “The best things in life are free,” Chanel famously said. “The second best are very expensive.”
Fashion can be considered trivial or superficial, and in many ways this is true. But at its best, fashion can incite, even disturb, the imagination. Between the pages of W magazine, with its commitment to pushing boundaries and fostering the art of long-form photography,
The Seventh Seal. Photographer Alex Prager describes assembling a lovely and gloomy cast of characters to portray a Hitchcockian day at the races. This is fashion at its most provocative, a necessary book for minds that require a little disturbance.
CLOTHES HORSE
Tilda Swinton in W magazine, August 2011. From W: Stories, reprinted with permission. it thrives. Editor-in-Chief Stefano Tonchi collects 10 of the magazine’s finest productions from the past two decades in W: Stories (Abrams, $75, 256 pages, ISBN 9781419714177), allowing an unexpected peek behind these remarkable, avant-garde editorials with outtakes, inspiration boards and brief essays from photographers, designers and more. Steven Meisel’s first shoot with W raised questions of beauty and gender with aggressive, androgynous models sprawling up and down half-lit urban alleys. Actress Tilda Swinton recalls her and photographer Tim Walker’s pilgrimage to Iceland, where they shot alien, forbidding images that at times look like stills from Ingmar Bergman’s
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From fantasy we move to reality, and no book better captures the relationship between real women and their clothing than Women in Clothes (Blue Rider, $30, 528 pages, ISBN 9780399166563). The truly stylish—or even those who have given the slightest thought to their style—aren’t taking their every cue from glossy magazine spreads, so editors Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton set out to discover just what women think about when they put themselves together. The result is a truly all-encompassing (but never overwhelming), contemporary “philosophy of style,” a collection of interviews and surveys of more than 600 artists, writers and other women. It’s like a massive conference call with all your friends and everyone else’s friends, too. As Heti writes, “The most compelling women are the ones who are distinctive, who are most like themselves and least like other women.” It’s nice to
feel that your idiosyncracies and influences can be considered as important as good tailoring, and you may find yourself polling your friends, looking at other women differently or at least feeling a little better about owning 10 gray sweatshirts. Or perhaps you have 12 pairs of red shoes or too many wrap dresses—no judgment either way. That being said, you’re likely to have one pair of red flats you love more than any other. Based on Emily Spivak’s blog of the same name, Worn Stories (Princeton Architectural Press, $24.95, 200 pages, ISBN 9781616892760) eschews the beautiful side of fashion for the pricelessness and singularity of that one favorite thing. More than 60 cultural figures and celebs, many of whom reside in New York, reveal their personal connections to just one item of clothing, from fashion designer and self-declared “total dork” Cynthia Rowley’s Girl Scout sash to John Hodgman’s Ayn Rand dress. One piece of clothing can tell quite a story, and this book is delightful proof of that.
notoriously tried to block anyone from writing her story and repeatedly obfuscated fact with fiction. According to Rhonda K. Garelick, author of Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History (Random House, $35, 608 pages, ISBN 9781400069521), the gaps in Chanel’s story are as essential to her persona as her stylistic revolution. So rather than “pinning down a ghost,” this new bio explores Chanel’s story (as we know it) in relationship to the vast theater of European history. Garelick—who was granted unrestricted access to the Chanel Archives in Paris and to the diaries of Chanel’s lover, Grand Duke Dmitri Romanov—has produced an epic, well-researched balance of historical resonance and breathless admiration.
TIMELESS ARCHIVES
Fashion on its grandest scale lies within the pages of Vogue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute (Abrams, $50, 272 pages, ISBN 9781419714245). The Met’s Costume Institute (reopened this year as the Anna Wintour Costume Center) houses more than 35,000 costumes and accessories from the 15th century on, and has been funded since 1948 by the yearly Costume Institute Benefit, an evening of pretty people dressed in pretty things. This book looks back on the exhibitions and galas of the 21st century, beginning PEARLS AND FLATS with 2001’s “Jacqueline Kennedy: Time and time again we return The White House Years” and ending with the architectural feats of to Coco Chanel (1883-1971), the patron saint of classic, feminine high-glamour ball gowns in 2014’s style and a cultural force unlike any “Charles James: Beyond Fashion.” before or since. Though we recreFeaturing Vogue editorials and essays by Hamish Bowles, this is ate her image with our cardigans where art, fashion and history coland taupe flats, biographers who have attempted to capture Chanel lide, where creativity meets—and are more often than not thwartmanipulates—our culture. It might ed by their own subject. Chanel be frivolous, but it’s far from trivial.
reviews THE BOOK OF STRANGE NEW THINGS
FICTION
To infinity and beyond REVIEW BY MEGAN FISHMANN
Michel Faber’s phenomenal The Book of Strange New Things is primed to become a classic on space, faith and, above all, devotion. Faber made bestseller and awards lists with his Victorian novel The Crimson Petal and the White, and a film adaptation of an earlier work, Under the Skin, was recently released. In his latest, readers are introduced to Christian minister/reformed addict Peter Leigh. Peter has been selected as one of the very few to travel to the newly named planet Oasis. His mission: to preach the good word to a community of native aliens (Oasans) who are surprisingly desperate to learn from “the book of strange new things” (aka the Bible). Despite his excitement over this extraordinary opportunity, Peter struggles with having to leave his beloved wife, Bea, back home in London. They are able to communicate only via a form of email known By Michel Faber as The Shoot, and their messages take days to arrive. Peter immediately Hogarth, $28, 512 pages ISBN 9780553418842, audio, eBook available immerses himself in the Oasans’ community, returning to base only every five days—a timespan that equals weeks on Earth. Each time, LITERARY FICTION he receives new bad news from Bea. Tsunamis have wiped out major islands, national banks have gone under, garbage men are on strike and earthquakes have wiped out small countries. With each day, Bea’s hysteria mounts, along with the public reaction to these traumas. Peter is faced with a moral quandary: Should he return to Bea, and a potentially doomed planet? Or should he remain with the Oasans, slowly losing himself in their strange world? However, all is not what it appears in his new home, and Faber shines in examining Peter’s conflicting feelings over whether he is best suited to serve God or his wife. Those leery of science fiction should not skip this remarkable, magnetic book full of eloquent meditations on faith, devotion, commitment and humanity.
SOMETIMES THE WOLF By Urban Waite
Morrow $26.99, 288 pages ISBN 9780062216915 eBook available
SUSPENSE
This fast-paced and gripping novel is part thriller, part crime story, part mystery. It tells the story of Bobby Drake, a deputy sheriff in a small Pacific Northwest town trying to outlive the sins of his larger-than-life father, Patrick. He is doing a good job of it, until his father is let out of prison and the cycle of crime and violence begins again—threatening the peaceful existence Bobby has created. The appearance of a wolf in the mountains, the first sighted in
many decades, provides a metaphoric subplot to the main story. Bobby is tasked with tracking and protecting the wolf—one of the more benign of the many predators in the story, a category that includes Bobby’s father. The story is told smoothly, blending sweet domestic scenes with fast action, violence, kidnapping and murder, all against the backdrop of the Cascade Mountains, which are lovingly described by author Urban Waite. The characters are realistically drawn— the good guys (especially the DEA agent and the sheriff) heavily flawed, and the bad guys very bad. But what makes Sometimes the Wolf tick is the strained but loving relationship between father and son. The plot is tight, and the action fast. It is easy to read, but hard to put down. You just might lose some sleep over this one. —DAVID W. SCHWEID
REVIVAL By Stephen King Scribner $30, 416 pages ISBN 9781476770383 Audio, eBook availble
SUSPENSE
Stephen King is really good at acknowledging the human grief that underlies so much horror, and how that grief can twist a person into something monstrous—Pet Sematary, anyone? This is one of the themes of his new hair-raiser, Revival. King brings the dread early. The novel begins with the shadow of a man falling over a little boy playing with his toy soldiers in 1962. The little boy is Jamie Morton; the man is the new preacher in his town,
Charles Jacobs. The way King describes the meeting makes you want to stop reading right there because you know something ghastly is going to happen. The only thing is, it doesn’t. The new reverend is very young, but he’s a delightful man who befriends Jamie and his perfectly normal, loving family. He has a beautiful wife and an adorable little boy. He’s a bit obsessed with electricity, but hey, everyone has a hobby. Then, something horrifying does happen. It’s in no way supernatural and no, it doesn’t involve the good reverend interfering with little Jamie. But it is horrific, unforeseen and nobody’s fault. The repercussions will affect thousands of people and persist for decades—at the end Jamie is middle-aged and Jacobs is elderly and ailing. Between the tragedy and where it leads, life stumbles on with its big and little crises. The reader may wonder at some points if this is a novel where a character has to cope with gruesome but ordinary misfortune, à la Dolores Claiborne. But no, underneath it all, behind it all, nothing is remotely ordinary. Don’t do what this reviewer did and read the last pages of Revival in the middle of the night in a house way out in the woods. Once again, King proves that he’s not a squillionaire best-selling horror author for nothing. —ARLENE McKANIC
THE MIDNIGHT PLAN OF THE REPO MAN By W. Bruce Cameron
Forge $24.99, 336 pages ISBN 9780765377487 Audio, eBook availble
POPULAR FICTION
A blend of mystery, supernatural tale and love story, The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man borrows from several genres but ultimately gets by on its humor. W. Bruce Cameron, best known for his dog-centered fiction series and the
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I
CHARLIE LOVETT BY STEPHENIE HARRISON
n First Impressions, former bookseller Charlie Lovett again combines antiquarian intrigue and a literary mystery— and this time, Jane Austen herself is at the center. We asked Lovett a few questions about books, collecting and, of course, Austen.
JEFFREY SKEMP
q&a
What made you choose Jane Austen and Pride & Prejudice as the “real world” literary connection for this novel? One of the working titles for my first novel, The Bookman’s Tale, was The First Folio. As I began to think toward my next project, I thought—if The First Folio, then why not The Second . . . something. As a book collector, the obvious continuation of the phrase was The Second Edition, so I began to imagine a book that would be worthless in its first edition, but priceless in its second edition (it’s more likely to be the other way around). My father had taught English Literature for 40 years, with a specialty in Jane Austen and the 18th century. When I added the “second edition” idea to what I knew about Austen and her creative process, the idea for First Impressions began to gel. It must be an interesting challenge to weave real people into fiction. In the case of Jane Austen, how did that work? I want to be respectful to the facts of Austen’s life, while at the same time being true to the fictional story I am telling in which she is a character. To understand the basic facts of her life, I used as my primary source an early biography written by family members—Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. But to write Austen as a character, I went straight to her novels. I wanted my Jane to be the sort of person I imagine could have written those books. I re-read the novels and came up with a character who is bright, witty, bold, loyal and quietly revolutionary. First Impressions has a rather incendiary central mystery. Did you ever worry that the premise might alienate Austen fans? To me, the central question of the novel is not “Did Jane Austen plagiarize Pride and Prejudice?” but “How can Sophie Collingwood prove that Jane Austen didn’t plagiarize Pride and Prejudice?” Because Sophie believes so strongly in Jane, I think Austen fans will relate to her. And I hope that the portrayal of both Jane and Sophie will leave readers rooting for these two heroines, born 200 years apart. There’s a good deal of talk in this novel about the importance of opening lines. As an author, what makes a first line memorable? I think the best opening lines are both simple and intriguing. In that sense, the opening to The Hobbit is one of the best: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” You can’t get much simpler than that. But what the heck is a hobbit (the reader of 1937 would ask)? And why does it, or he, live in a hole in the ground? I like a line that is both completely straightforward yet totally mysterious at the same time. You’ve now tackled both Jane Austen and William Shakespeare in fiction—are there other authors you would like to feature in future novels? I’m often asked if I will write a novel about Lewis Carroll, and I think probably not. I have so many fictional versions of him on my shelves that I can’t see my way to adding another. But there are many other authors that intrigue me, especially Read an extended version of the greats of English literature like this Q&A on BookPage.com. Dickens and the Brontës.
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reviews memoir 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, uses his own past as a repo man to craft the character of Ruddy McCann, failed college football star who now plays the sometimes dangerous game of seizing autos from their delinquent owners. Residing in the small and dismal-sounding town of Kalkaska, Michigan, he also helps his mousy sister, Becky, manage the family bar and grill, walks his dog and hangs out with the obligatory quirky characters who seem to populate such areas. Aside from the tragedy that ended his promising football career, there is nothing remarkable about Ruddy’s life—until he starts hearing a voice in his head. And this is no typical voice: It has a name (Alan), and it claims to be a murdered real estate agent. Initially disbelieving, Ruddy slowly begins to build a rapport with Alan, even as part of him insists he must be in the midst of a psychotic break. In short order, Ruddy goes from repo man to detective, helping Alan solve his own murder. At the same time, Ruddy is nursing a crush on a woman who happens to be (perhaps?) the daughter of his current internal companion. What saves this improbably silly plot is the smart, wry humor that peppers the prose. The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man is a light, breezy read that is pure entertainment. —REBECCA STROPOLI
FICTION spinoffs has reached capacity, a new book comes onto the scene that turns the genre on its head. Such is the case with First Impressions, Charlie Lovett’s delightful new novel. Sophie Collingwood has always loved books and also fancies herself something of a detective, so when the opportunity to work at one of London’s antiquarian bookstores presents itself, it seems a dream come true. But when two different men request her assistance in tracking down an obscure religious text, Sophie is drawn into a hunt that calls into question the authorship of the most famous work of English literature: Pride & Prejudice. As the mystery around this potentially earth-shattering tome thickens and the literary treasure hunt turns deadly, Sophie finds herself worrying that her own life may be on the line along with Austen’s reputation. Part mystery, part love story, First Impressions is a 100 percent thumping good read and a loving homage to one of literature’s most beloved authors. Lovett takes readers on a rollicking adventure that cleverly weaves in the best elements of Austen’s novels, while also giving life to Austen’s own personal history in a satisfying and captivating way. It’s a giddy novel that celebrates books and the people who love them as much as it entertains, making it the perfect read for bookworms and Janeites alike. —STEPHENIE HARRISON
FIRST IMPRESSIONS By Charlie Lovett Viking $27.95, 320 pages ISBN 9780525427247 Audio, eBook available
POPULAR FICTION
SEE YOU IN PARADISE By J. Robert Lennon
Graywolf $16, 256 pages ISBN 9781555976934 Audio, eBook available
SHORT STORIES
If the mark of a great author is not merely how much she incites the imaginations of readers but the extent to which she inspires fellow writers, then there can be no doubt that Jane Austen is the greatest author of them all. Just when you think the market for Austen
In the title story of J. Robert Lennon’s new collection of short fiction—a book 15 years in the making—a man stumbles, surreally, into a kind of dream job on a tropical island, only to sense that something’s not quite right.
FICTION Indeed, nothing is ever quite right in the 14 stories that populate See You in Paradise, whether it’s the subtle exhilaration that comes with a very realistic tragedy or the slow unwinding of a family thanks to an inter-dimensional portal in the backyard. The stories range from the relatable to the bizarre, the comic to the horrific, and yet they’re all unified in the creation of a strange American landscape that’s at once alien and all too real, a landscape with the power to transform us in remarkable, unexpected ways. In tales like “Zombie Dan” and “The Wraith,” Lennon deftly weaves the supernatural into scenes of domestic discord and sexual dysfunction. The realistic elements of those stories are so sensitively and vividly portrayed that you could substitute a zombie for an old friend from college and get much the same emotional impact, which somehow makes the supernatural tint that much darker and more effective. “Portal,” which opens the collection, leaves such a lasting aura of strangeness that, as you move into less supernatural (but no less weird) stories like “Hibachi” and “Ecstasy,” they seem haunted by their own darkly funny magic. Even if it’s not there, you sense it. There are spells at work in all of these pages, and just like the characters that populate them, by the time you’ve turned the last page, you’re not the same. The greatest trick of See You in Paradise, though, is Lennon’s ability to deliver bitingly surreal fiction that also makes you believe, with each passing page, that you’ve been where these characters are. When life is at its strangest, you laugh and cry and shriek unexpectedly, you become the monster under your own bed, you take leaps of faith and insanity that pay off in terrifyingly big ways, and somehow all of that wound up in this book. It’s not just a sampling of more than a decade of work by one of fiction’s most satisfyingly inventive voices. It’s a harsh, hilarious, unnerving portrayal of a world just strange enough to not be our own . . . but only just. —MATTHEW JACKSON
A MAP OF BETRAYAL By Ha Jin
Pantheon $26.95, 304 pages ISBN 9780307911605 eBook available
LITERARY FICTION
A Map of Betrayal, the new novel from the PEN/Faulkner-winning author Ha Jin (Waiting, Nanjing Requiem) is a haunting tale of two families and two countries that are linked together by the life of a single spy. When American-born professor of Asian Studies Lillian Shang inherits her father Gary’s journals, she uncovers details of his four-decade career as a spy for Communist China. But when history threatens to repeat itself in the next generation, Lillian must struggle with issues of loyalty and betrayal. Using the diaries, Lillian follows her father from his early years as a secret agent working for Mao against the Nationalist army to his career as a U.S.-based spy feeding intelligence to China—but the most shocking revelation is that he left a wife and two children behind when he immigrated to the United States in 1950. Visiting the village where he once lived offers Lillian some understanding of her father’s choices and sheds light on the dynamics that shaped her own unhappy childhood. Gary’s first family was never told about his fate, nor did they ever benefit financially from his position. This triggers intense guilt over her own material advantages, and she thrusts herself into the personal lives of her newfound family—only to discover that her nephew, Ben, may be following in his grandfather’s footsteps. The novel is told in chapters that alternate between Lillian’s present-day pursuit of her father’s story and Gary’s career from 1949 to his death in the late 1980s. Gary’s story, which is actually the more poignant of the two, is unfortunately occasionally rendered in a dense prose that reads like a textbook on American-Sino relations. Lillian’s chapters, however, reflect
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reviews her aching personal sadness, and the novel closes with a delicate, ironic twist that one associates with the best of Jin’s fiction. A Map of Betrayal is the gripping story of a daughter coming to terms with her family history, set against a backdrop of political change. —LAUREN BUFFERD
CITIZENS CREEK By Lalita Tademy Atria $26, 432 pages ISBN 9781476753034 Audio, eBook available
HISTORICAL FICTION
Set in the 1800s, Citizens Creek chronicles two different lives in its two parallel sections: those of Cow Tom, a slave born in Alabama and sold to a Creek Indian chief prior to his 10th birthday, and his granddaughter, Rose. Cow Tom possessed many unique gifts. As a healer and expert in keeping cattle healthy, he became a kind of cow-whisperer as he grew, a trait that later manifested itself in the ability to master all kinds of languages. Armed with dreams of freeing himself, his wife and their two young daughters and establishing themselves in the Creek Tribe, Cow Tom must navigate working as a translator for the U.S. military and traveling the Trail of Tears, among other trials.
Islands in the Grass by Arviss R. Stuart paperback: 9781628383973 ($14.99) e-book: 9781628383980 ($9.99)
A tapestry of lives. A journey of life, family and love. In print and e-book.
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FICTION Following in Cow Tom’s footsteps is his granddaughter Rose, who, in her efforts to lead the family, becomes the matriarch and guardian of his legacy. As she tries to ensure her family is provided for and grapples with love, motherhood, political and social hostility, Rose proves her story is timeless. Set against a vibrant backdrop of American expansion, black emancipation and the displacement of Native-American nations, Citizens Creek is a story of identity, community, family and an individual’s will to make a difference. California-born Lalita Tademy is the author of Cane River, a best-selling novel and a 2001 Oprah Book Club Selection, and its critically acclaimed sequel, Red River. Here, she uses frank, descriptive prose that teems with life as it depicts Cow Tom’s travels and Rose’s trials and triumphs. Some books hold whole worlds between their pages—Citizens Creek is one of them. —HALEY HERFURTH
THE PERIPHERAL By William Gibson Putnam $28.95, 496 pages ISBN 9780399158445 Audio, eBook available
SCIENCE FICTION
ex-Marine Burton Fisher and his sister Flynne eke out a living playing online games for wealthy enthusiasts. When Flynne sits in for Burton on what she assumes is just another futuristic game for hire, she witnesses a murder that seems far more real than virtual. And indeed it is, as the siblings find out when Flynne is contacted by investigator Wilf Netherton—but the crime occurred in a drastically altered London, 70 years in their future. In that distant, dystopian time, predicting the future remains impossible—but manipulating the past is not. And so Netherton enlists Flynne in an investigation in his world that could never have been possible in hers. Leave it to Gibson to break down our innate resistance to time travel by using our uncertainty about the mechanics of high-speed computing to make the impossible seem plausible. Fair warning: Gibson throws readers directly into The Peripheral’s dual worlds without undue explanation, preferring to let the details of his futures—whether polts, patchers, sigils, Medicis, thylacines or whatever those shape-shifting Lego blocks are all about—catch our eye and lure us in. But rest assured: By the time this master storyteller starts methodically revealing his cards, you’ll be hooked. —J AY M a c D O N A L D
Thirty years ago, William Gibson blew our minds with his prescient debut novel, Neuromancer, which imagined a technologically advanced world that now eerily resembles our own. The Peripheral doubles down on his cyberpunk classic by transporting us to not one but two future worlds, connected by a murder but separated by the “jackpot,” a multi-causal near-apocalypse set in motion by mankind’s greatest threat: human indifference. In the nearer of these futures, several decades hence, small-town America has been reduced to a sole industry: the manufacture of illegal drugs. To rise above this real-life version of “Breaking Bad,”
LET ME BE FRANK WITH YOU By Richard Ford
Ecco $27.99, 256 pages ISBN 9780061692062 Audio, eBook available
LITERARY FICTION
knowing, wry protagonist. Like each of the novels in the Bascombe trilogy, the four long stories that make up Let Me Be Frank with You are set on the eve of a holiday, in this case Christmas 2012. Sixty-eight-year-old Frank has retired from selling real estate, but in the first story, “I’m Here,” which sets the mostly elegiac tone of the book, he returns to the home he once owned on the New Jersey shore to witness firsthand the devastation (“Nagasaki-by-the-sea”) wrought by Hurricane Sandy. In the other stories, he has an unsettling encounter with a woman who once lived in the house he and his wife occupy, visits his ex-wife in the “state-of-the-art, staged-care facility” where she’s moved after her diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, and pays a call on a dying friend. Each of these stories is told in Frank’s candid, confiding voice, one Ford has so artfully channeled and kept fresh through the nearly 1,600 pages that comprise the four books. For all the razor sharpness of his observations, Frank is no misanthrope. He spends some of his time greeting soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and reads novels to the blind. He’s a survivor who’s overcome prostate cancer and the loss of one son in childhood. Though his wit tends toward the acerbic, there’s an undercurrent of gratitude for everything that’s come to him in a life he feels he’s lived about as well as one man can. That’s no small accomplishment, Ford seems to say. Anyone who’s followed that life since it first appeared on the page can only feel a similar gratitude to Ford for having created it. —HARVEY FREEDENBERG
THE LUMINOUS HEART OF JONAH S. By Gina B. Nahai
With the publication of The Lay of the Land in 2006, it appeared Richard Ford had written the final chapter in the story of Frank Bascombe, one that began with The Sportswriter and continued with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Independence Day. Happily, Ford has given readers one last chance to enjoy his
Akashic Books $29.95, 380 pages ISBN 9781617753213 eBook available
LITERARY FICTION
Gina B. Nahai’s fifth novel, The
Luminous Heart of Jonah S., is a book full of enchantments and mysteries. The mystery that launches her tale is a contemporary murder: On a morning in June 2013, Neda Raiis, the wife of a Iranian Jewish exile named Raphael’s Son, reports finding her husband with his throat slit in an idling car at the gate of their Los Angeles mansion. By the time the police arrive, his body has disappeared. Raphael’s Son, we quickly learn, has cheated almost everyone in the L.A. Iranian-Jewish community in an elaborate Ponzi scheme, with a vengeance beyond anything Bernie Madoff could have conceived. In fact, “he reveled in the harm he had inflicted upon everyone else.” Is he really dead, members of the community wonder, while readers will wonder about the source of his implacable anger. For insight into Raphael’s Son’s vengeful nature, Nahai carries us to Tehran in 1952, and into the heart of a powerful, wealthy Iranian Jewish family, the Soleymans. We follow their fates through the reign of the Shah of Iran, the tumultuous Iranian revolution and then into exile. Nahai populates her story of old Tehran with elements of magical realism. Raphael Soleyman has a heart that glows through his skin after dark, attracting a following of fireflies, nocturnal birds and restless ghosts on the nights he sleepwalks through the city. Elizabeth Soleyman radiates the smell of the sea, which inspires nostalgia and confusion among those around her. This is irresistible storytelling. No surprise there. Nahai’s second novel, Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith, was a finalist for the Orange Prize, and her third, Caspian Rain, was an L.A. Times Best Book of the Year. But what really sets The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. apart is how Nahai uses her estimable gifts to offer a nuanced, sometimes satirical portrait of the tight-knit Iranian-Jewish exile community in Los Angeles and to illuminate the historic disruptions to life in Iran that brought them here. It’s a fascinating read.
THE FRAGILE WORLD By Paula Treick DeBoard
KRISTA SCHUMOW
FICTION
MIRA $14.95, 432 pages ISBN 9780778316763 Audio, eBook available
POPULAR FICTION
Curtis and Kathleen Kaufman are living every parent’s worst nightmare: Their son Daniel, a musical prodigy attending Oberlin College, was mowed down by a drunk driver. In The Fragile World, Paula Treick DeBoard explores the aftermath of this shattering event. The Kaufmans’ solid marriage disintegrates in their mourning. Their other child, Olivia, a lovely and decidedly normal preteen (there is really only room for one prodigy per family), feels the pressure to fill the hole left by Daniel. Seeking a fresh start, Kathleen moves to Omaha. Olivia stays with her father in Sacramento, where they subsist on frozen food and never address their lingering pain. When Curtis gets a letter notifying him that Daniel’s killer is up for early parole, something in him snaps. He makes plans to bring Olivia, by now a goth-wannabe who has given up on ever filling Daniel’s shoes, to her mother before continuing to Oberlin to face the man who destroyed his family. From here, The Fragile World takes a turn from a lovely, quiet meditation on grief to one of the most recipe-for-disaster road trips since Thelma and Louise got in that Ford Thunderbird. Eventually, Curtis must decide whether his thirst for revenge is more powerful than his instinct to keep his family intact. The Fragile World is told alternately from Curtis’ and Olivia’s viewpoints, and DeBoard perfectly captures the angsty, ironic tone of a teenage girl hiding oceans of pain. It is a beautifully evocative journey through a family’s darkest hours, one that reminds us that even the most broken among us are capable of resilience. —AMY SCRIBNER
—ALDEN MUDGE
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reviews
NONFICTION JUST MERCY By Bryan Stevenson
ISABELLA
A queen who made her mark R E V I E W B Y K E L LY B L E W E T T
LAW
From “Game of Thrones” to The Pillars of the Earth, popular culture offers up medieval stories where royals grab for power, where crucial alliances are built between church and state, where important people suddenly fall over dead after a sumptuous meal, poisoned by a hidden rival. But this world did, in fact, exist, and the subject of Kirstin Downey’s fascinating new biography, Isabella: The Warrior Queen, maneuvered through it with unlikely and thrilling success. Most have heard of Isabella and Ferdinand, the monarchs who commissioned Columbus’ famous voyage, but what is less widely known is that Isabella ran the kingdom while Ferdinand merely signed the papers. Born in 1451, she left her fingerprints all over Spain by initiating the Inquisition, waging war against foes, pursuing a trans-Atlantic By Kirstin Downey Nan A. Talese, $35, 544 pages empire and brilliantly matchmaking her five children. ISBN 9780385534116, eBook available A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of an acclaimed biography of Frances Perkins, Downey is a brilliant storyteller. Despite the BIOGRAPHY difficulties posed by a limited and inevitably incomplete archive, she writes with eloquence and intensity about Isabella’s life. And readers will quickly see why she chose to write about this medieval queen, whose life often seems pulled from the pages of a novel. Take, for example, Isabella’s engagement to a man she passionately did not want to marry. She prayed to God to smite either the man or her, and the suitor died on the road of a sudden illness. Because she wanted her daughters to be powerful leaders, Isabella made sure that their education (unlike her own) included instruction in Latin. And when she encountered the articulate dreamer Christopher Columbus, she chose to financially support his expeditions against the recommendations of her advisors. Downey’s Isabella is a generous, insightful and extremely ambitious leader who was determined to expand her kingdom against daunting odds—and who helped shape the world we inhabit today.
THE SECRET HISTORY OF WONDER WOMAN By Jill Lepore
Knopf $29.95, 432 pages ISBN 9780385354042 eBook available
HISTORY
A harried reader could get the gist of The Secret History of Wonder Woman by opening it just past dead center and reading through the 16-page comic-book version of the story. There you would learn, in brief, that William Moulton Marston, inventor of the lie detector test, came up with the idea for Wonder Woman in 1941. Also, that the Wonder Woman character drew on the fem-
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inism of Marston’s wife, Elizabeth Holloway, and of Olive Byrne, who joined the Marston household as a “housekeeper” and just happened to be the daughter of Ethel Byrne and niece of Margaret Sanger, two early, firebrand birth control activists. That under Marston, Wonder Woman enjoyed astonishing popular success, surpassed only by Superman and Batman. And that after his death, with the end of World War II and the dawn of the 1950s, Wonder Woman lost her superpowers and, like so many women who had worked in the war effort, was returned to domestic life. But this barely scratches the surface of the personal and social history that Jill Lepore, a professor of American history at Harvard and staff writer at the New Yorker, relates so well and so playfully. Her fascinating, often brilliant new book is profusely illustrated with
Spiegel & Grau $28, 352 pages ISBN 9780812994520 Audio, eBook available
photographs and cartoon panels. Marston turns out to be a brilliant, bombastic self-promoter, a terrible businessman but a wonderful father to the children he has with both Elizabeth and Olive (though their true parentage remains a secret to Olive’s children until later in their lives). Marston is a complicated personality whose marital relationships would seem to make him a very unlikely feminist. And yet he was—in ways that will lead readers to ponder political orthodoxies. Through assiduous research (the endnotes comprise almost a third of the book and are often very interesting reading), Lepore unravels a hidden history, and in so doing links her subjects’ lives to some of the most important social movements of the era. It’s a remarkable, thought-provoking achievement. —ALDEN MUDGE
Bryan Stevenson was fresh out of Harvard Law School when he embraced—first in Georgia, then in Alabama—the mission of defending death row inmates and others facing undeserved or disproportionate prison sentences. An African American from a poor family in Delaware, Stevenson accepts as a starting point the maxim, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” In Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, he builds his case against the flaws of America’s judicial system by clustering his observations around the case of Walter McMillian, a black man who first drew community ire by having an affair with a married white woman. Subsequently, a drug dealer who associated with the same woman, in an attempt to lessen his own jail time, told authorities that McMillian had killed a local college girl. The dealer’s ever-changing testimony was transparently false from the outset, but eager to close the case, the authorities arrested McMillian for murder, a jury with only one black member convicted him and a judge sentenced him to death. In succeeding chapters, Stevenson describes his struggles to exonerate McMillian. His primary adversaries are deep-seated racism, tough-oncrime politicians, ambitious prosecutors, by-the-book judges, incompetent for-hire “expert” witnesses, a Supreme Court more interested in judicial expediency than actual justice, the rise of the victims’ rights movement (which recognizes only the initial victims of crimes), the burgeoning private prison lobby and the “good Germans” among us who piously avert our eyes as we go about our daily business.
Although Stevenson writes in a calm, deliberate style, there are passages here so harrowing and outrage-provoking that sensitive readers may need to set the book aside periodically until they can clear their minds of the foul images it conjures up. Anyone animated by a modicum of fairness will recognize Just Mercy as a de facto call to arms. —EDWARD MORRIS
THE WILD TRUTH By Carine McCandless
HarperOne $27.99, 304 pages ISBN 9780062325143 Audio, eBook available
MEMOIR
A few years ago, I taught Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild in a college freshman writing class. I thought the story of Chris McCandless, who turned his back on civilization to hike into the Alaskan wilderness, would resonate with undergraduates. Chris’ tragic journey may have ended with his death, but his quest for purity and adventure was inspirational. Or so I thought. Apart from one lone hippie idealist, the other students condemned Chris for his selfishness: How could he turn his back on his parents after all they had done for him? As it turns out, many other readers felt the same way. But they didn’t know the whole story of the violent dysfunction that Chris was escaping in his bid for freedom. Now his sister, Carine McCandless, has written a brave and sensitive memoir that fills in the gaps. In The Wild Truth, Carine depicts their father, Walt, as a violent, controlling abuser. While still married to his first wife, Marcia, he began an affair with Chris and Carine’s mother, Billie. Marcia had six children, and Billie had two—Chris and Carine were technically illegitimate. None of this was explained to Chris and Carine as children, though they spent time with their half-siblings. But their father’s violence and
their mother’s denial of it were perfectly clear. Although Chris tried to protect his little sister, there was no denying the level of physical, emotional and verbal abuse and manipulation in the house. Carine’s description of this dynamic is even-handed and the more horrific for it. And the manipulation continued after Chris’ death in the way Billie and Walt handled his revenue-generating afterlife. Carine, writing with the full support of her siblings and Krakauer, has succeeded in bringing grace and truth back to her brother’s story. —CATHERINE HOLLIS
A BACKPACK, A BEAR, AND EIGHT CRATES OF VODKA By Lev Golinkin
Doubleday $25.95, 320 pages ISBN 9780385537773 Audio, eBook available
MEMOIR
“Running a totalitarian regime is simple: tell the people what they’re going to do, shoot the first one to object, and repeat until everyone is on the same page.” Such was life in Ukraine for young Lev Golinkin and his family, and it might have been tolerable had he not also suffered daily beatings in school for being a Jew. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the family fled to Austria where they lived in a refugee hotel before immigrating to the U.S. A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka is the story of that journey and of Golinkin’s struggle to reclaim his identity. When the family finally makes it to the America extolled in folk songs and held out as their greatest hope, assimilating is as hard as you might imagine. Golinkin’s father, an engineer in the Ukraine, spends eight months sending out resumes in order to land an entry-level job in his field. His mother, a doctor, struggles with the language barrier while pulling espresso shots as a barista. Lev and his sister Lina are the family’s great hope, but while she studies, he struggles to
q&a
KIRSTIN DOWNEY B Y K E L LY B L E W E T T
The riddle of Isabella
A
fter writing an awardwinning biography of Frances Perkins (The Woman Behind the New Deal), former Washington Post reporter Kirstin Downey turns her attention to a woman with far broader influence: Isabella, the queen of Castile.
JEFFREY SKEMP
NONFICTION
What three words would you use to describe Isabella? Fervent, far-sighted, relentless. Why did you want to write about her? I’m fascinated by the important roles women have played in history, and which have been, for the most part, almost entirely overlooked and ignored. Women have been studied if they had a reputation for being sexy or beautiful—think Cleopatra; or if they are the wife or sister of someone famous—think Eleanor Roosevelt. The way our society handles the roles of epoch-changing women is to mention their names, and then move on to the next important man or social movement. I was also haunted by the dark aspects of Isabella’s character, particularly by the Spanish Inquisition, which Isabella was responsible for launching in Spain. I wondered how a person could manifest two different aspects of character simultaneously. That is, open-minded to some new ideas and terribly close-minded about others. What I heard, saw and read in books never explained it. I was determined to try to unlock the riddle. What do you think was her greatest impact on Spain and the world? Europe was on the way to becoming a Muslim continent because of the aggressive expansion of the Ottoman Turks into Europe. Constantinople fell to the Turks when Isabella was 2 years old, and the Turks said they intended to take Rome next. Her actions and legacy prevented that from happening. Because of her, two continents of the seven on the globe speak Spanish. Because of Isabella and her mission to convert the Americas to Christianity, the pope today is an Argentinian Catholic who leads the largest single block of faithful on the planet. In the late Middle Ages, there were about 100 million Christians, and most of them were in Europe. Now there are more than 2 billion Christians, and most of them live outside Europe. What do you think gave Isabella the greatest pleasure? She was deeply religious and experienced some kind of religious ecstasy associated with her Christianity. Her religiosity shaped Spanish culture. She forced everyone in Spain to become Catholic because she thought their souls were at risk if they were not practicing Christians. People who didn’t wholeheartedly practice Catholicism were forced to leave Spain or face death by burning as a heretic. I imagine she wouldn’t much like people writing critical histories about her, either, so I am so burned at the stake. What question do you most want to answer about this book that we haven’t asked? Question: How did Machiavelli, who was roughly a contemporary of Isabella, entirely miss the world-changing significance of Isabella in his book The Prince? Answer: You’d have to ask Machiavelli, but I’d blame it on sexism.
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reviews dismantle his internalized anti-Semitism. Golinkin writes with dry humor about his experience but connects emotionally when describing how a lengthy stint doing charity work in college finally led him to investigate his past and the people whose charity made his own life not just better, but possible at all. A friend in Vienna steered them to Indiana so they wouldn’t be lost among refugees in Brooklyn, and the efforts expended to get the children into college were heroic. A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka blends memoir and history into an intimate tale of personal growth. —HEATHER SEGGEL
JOAN OF ARC By Kathryn Harrison
Doubleday $28.95, 400 pages ISBN 9780385531207 eBook available
BIOGRAPHY
To imagine what life was like growing up in a French village in the early 15th century, don’t think of A Year in Provence. Think of modern-day Syria. It was the France of the Hundred Years War with England, a land and a people ravaged by unchecked violence. Catholic belief permeated everyday life, and the French were taught that their travails were a punishment from God. Out of this mélange of catastrophe and faith came the village teenager we know as St. Joan of Arc, to this day her country’s icon. Hundreds of books have been written about her, but the story remains astounding enough for new interpretations. Kathryn Harrison, the well-known author of novels, memoirs and a previous biography of a saint, has now taken up the challenge with the deeply researched and thoughtful Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured. Harrison expertly cross-cuts Joan’s life (1412-1431) in its historical context with the remarkable parallels between her story and the
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NONFICTION life of Jesus and with consideration of the books, plays, movies and paintings she has inspired. Each age invents its own Joan. But even stripped of fable, Joan was a phenomenon: a peasant girl who pronounced herself the messenger of God, donned men’s clothes and armor, inspired the French king and army to victory, fought beside them and stood up boldly to the quisling court that condemned her to burn. In Harrison’s hands, Joan’s confidence and intelligence come alive. Whatever we make of Joan’s “Voices”—angels, hallucinations or mental illness—she was utterly convinced of their reality and purity. The French churchmen allied with England who killed her believed the voices were demons, but Harrison shows that Joan’s worst crime in their eyes was her revolutionary audacity in dressing and behaving like a man. Of course, the ultimate victory was hers. —ANNE BARTLETT
THE GEORGETOWN SET By Gregg Herken Knopf $30, 512 pages ISBN 9780307271181 Audio, eBook available
HISTORY
During the years after World War II, a group of ambitious, idealistic, affluent and well-connected young people settled in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. Until at least 1975, their strong influence was felt, for good or ill, in virtually every aspect of government, especially foreign policy decisions, and in shaping public opinion on such issues as the founding of NATO, the military and covert actions of the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis and the war in Vietnam. Historian Gregg Herken takes us inside this world in his meticulously researched and compellingly written The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington. At the center of the narrative is political and foreign
affairs columnist Joseph Alsop, whose Sunday night supper parties became a Georgetown tradition. Vigorous discussions of issues dominated these gatherings. The guest list was nonpartisan and usually included members of Congress, foreign ambassadors, administration officials and, of course, Alsop’s well-connected friends and neighbors. These neighbors included Katharine and Phil Graham, publishers of The Washington Post; Frank Wisner and Allen Dulles, both deeply involved in covert activity; and diplomats Charles “Chip” Bohlen, David Bruce and Llewellyn Thompson. It was understood that any information from these gatherings could be used by Joe Alsop and his brother, Stewart, in their reporting. But it worked both ways: If a guest wished to leak information to the press, it was the perfect place to do so. Senator John Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, were neighbors and occasional Alsop dinner guests. After the official events of JFK’s inauguration were over, the new president went to the Alsop home, without notifying the owner beforehand, where he stayed for two hours. When the Cuban missile crisis was developing, JFK went to a private party at the columnist’s home and stunned the host by confiding that there might be a nuclear war in the next five to 10 years. During the Watergate hearings, Alsop’s home became a kind of refuge for Henry Kissinger, who was having dinner there when President Nixon reached him by phone to give him advance word of his plans to resign. After Watergate, the Georgetown dinner party lost much of its drawing power. Some of the people in this book have written their own memoirs or been the subjects of books by other writers. Herken works through this material to give us a balanced view of the mark they left on history. This compulsively readable group portrait of movers and shakers shows how major government decisions were influenced by an elite few during a dynamic period of national and world events.
One of the first artists featured in Sarah Thornton’s fascinating 33 Artists in 3 Acts is American Jeff Koons, who tells her that he never wants people to feel small when they view his art. Clearly Thornton ascribes to a similar principle. In this witty, smart follow-up to her 2008 bestseller, Seven Days in the Art World, Thornton generously cracks the sometimes perplexing code of modern art. She cleverly divides her artist profiles into three sections. First, Thornton explores artists’ attitudes toward politics and power in their work. She then probes the network of relationships an artist needs to succeed, before finally looking at the artistry itself. Let’s face it: Artists are, by and large, a weird bunch. (Laurie Simmons, the mother of “Girls” creator Lena Dunham, spends part of the book toting a silicone Japanese sex doll between her Tribeca loft and her home in Connecticut as she “gets to know” her before creating a series of photographs.) While the strangeness of artists is entertaining, Thornton goes beyond the quirks by asking each to articulate their own definition of an artist. For the most part, she presents their answers without judgment. But Thornton is no pushover. When she sits down with Koons—who is a millionaire many times over for his art—she gently reminds him that she is “familiar with his famous adages and anecdotes so it would be great if he could resist his penchant for reiterating them and answer my questions as directly as possible.” She gets points for trying to draw more than pat answers from a man who, by virtue of his wild success, no longer needs to answer for anything.
—ROGER BISHOP
—AMY SCRIBNER
33 ARTISTS IN 3 ACTS By Sarah Thornton Norton $26.95, 448 pages ISBN 9780393240979 eBook available
ART
TEEN
HOW IT WENT DOWN
A community seeks answers REVIEW BY ROBIN SMITH
Kekla Magoon’s books just keep getting better. The first time I read her work, I was serving on the Coretta Scott King Awards committee, and we honored Magoon with the Steptoe New Talent Award for The Rock and the River. So it’s with special pride that I look forward to each of her subsequent releases. A review of How It Went Down could read like a cliché: “ripped from the headlines . . . as fresh as the morning paper . . . as gripping as any story on the nightly news.” But this book is not cliché at all. Written shortly after the death of Trayvon Martin and published shortly after the killing of Michael Brown and the response in Ferguson, Missouri, it’s a hard book to read without flashing back to headlines. It’s the story of one young man, Tariq Johnson, who is shot while By Kekla Magoon walking down the street at 5:30 p.m. by a white man who drives away Holt, $17.99, 336 pages in a borrowed car. Though Tariq carried no weapon, the shooter ISBN 9780805098693, eBook available claims self-defense and is released after questioning. What might have Ages 14 and up been a linear story is made much more interesting as many of the survivors—grief-stricken, angry family members, gang friends and FICTION neighbors—reveal their own tales. Each person has an attachment to Tariq, and each tries to figure out the truth. The reader gets caught in the same maze as everyone else: Who was Tariq? What happened on that afternoon? These hundreds of vignettes, with their varying narrators and conflicting perspectives, could leave the reader confused, but Magoon keeps a firm hand on her story. We may never find the answers we’re looking for, but after reading this book, we will look at the headlines with a much more critical eye. This is not only a book to read in one gulp; it’s a book that asks you to slow down and read it over and over again. It’s an important, compelling story that everyone should read, especially high school students trying to make sense of our supposed post-racial world.
STORIES OF MY LIFE By Katherine Paterson
Dial $17.99, 320 pages ISBN 9780803740433 eBook available Ages 14 and up
MEMOIR
Beloved children’s and young adult author Katherine Paterson has won two Newbery Medals, two National Book Awards and numerous other honors. However, it was only when she realized her children had never heard family stories over the kitchen sink— they’d long had a dishwasher—that she penned a memoir. Paterson’s life story is full of adventures. In anecdotes ranging from the hilarious (a pet snake
interrupting a Board of Education meeting) to the heartbreaking (the sudden death of her son’s best friend), she takes readers from her birth in war-torn China to her life as a Christian missionary in Japan, a teacher in rural Virginia, a young mother in East Coast suburbia and beyond. A timeline, family tree, photos and other documents—including a manuscript scribbled on by her young daughter—help readers visualize people and events. Readers who grew up with Paterson’s books will relish this insight into her life and will appreciate discovering what inspired her well-loved stories (although some sections, like the one chronicling her husband’s time in hospice care, contain mature content). This is a highly recommended read for Paterson fans, or anyone who delights in children’s literature. —J I L L R A T Z A N
TALON By Julie Kagawa
Harlequin Teen $17.99, 464 pages ISBN 9780373211395 Audio, eBook available Ages 12 and up
FANTASY
Ember is a dragon. Her life has been spent at an isolated training school run by Talon, the organization that governs all dragons. To fulfill the next stage of training— assimilation into human society— Ember and her brother, Dante, must assume human form. The assignment lands them in a small beach town in California, where they befriend a group of surfer teens. But Ember’s enthusiasm is tempered when she spots a dan-
gerous rogue dragon in the guise of a gorgeous biker boy. At the same time, a dragon-slayer affiliated with the Order of St. George—a legendary society that once hunted dragons nearly to extinction—arrives in the seaside town. Ember is attracted to both the chivalrous slayer and the mysterious rogue dragon, but she cannot distinguish between friend and foe. Kagawa’s fine storytelling elevates this novel within the crowded field of fantasy romance. The first in a new series, Talon leaves readers perfectly balanced between satisfaction and anticipation. —DIANE COLSON
LIKE WATER ON STONE By Dana Walrath Delacorte $16.99, 368 pages ISBN 9780385743976 eBook available Ages 14 and up
NOVEL-IN-VERSE
The Armenian genocide that took place 100 years ago is not discussed in most history classes, but the story is still sadly relevant. Told in verse, Like Water on Stone follows three Armenian children, orphaned by the Ottoman siege of 1915, as they race to safety and, hopefully, to America. Their path is littered with bodies, and they see the smoke of their neighbors’ destroyed houses. Along the way, an eagle watches the young trio and does what he can to guide them and keep them safe. The eagle is a necessary character here, as a story this bleak needs a dose of magic to keep readers from despairing. The writing is stark and never shies from the realities of war: starvation, sexual assault, the desecration of the dead. Shahen, the only surviving son of his family, tries to protect his sisters while raging against their misfortune; in turn, they remind him of home and hope. Like Water on Stone isn’t easy reading, nor should it be. It’s a clear-eyed view of war and its brutal consequences. —HEATHER SEGGEL
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children’s
MARTINE LEAVITT
The fun of feeling sheepish
M
artine Leavitt has a super-cool dad—a smart, rugged man named James Webster who, throughout his life, has gone on countless hikes into mountain ranges and national parks in his native Canada, where he immersed himself in and learned about nature. He also took pages and pages of notes, and countless photographs of the flora and fauna he encountered.
Leavitt—who, it must be said, is pretty cool herself—has done her own pages and pages of writing via eight novels for young readers, including the 2006 National Book Award finalist Keturah and Lord Death. So, naturally, when she became enchanted by her father’s account of a herd of bighorn sheep he followed for four seasons, she encouraged him to publish it. He demurred, and several years passed. But then her father gave her a special gift: his sheep-centric notes and photos, for her to use as fodder for a book. The end result, Blue Mountain, is a wonderful, often wondrous, story about a herd of bighorn sheep who live high in mountains very much like the ones Leavitt’s father explored. One major difference: The sheep (and other animals they encounter) talk, laugh, squabble and negotiate just like human beings. “I told my father I was going to
BLUE MOUNTAIN
By Martine Leavitt
FSG, $15.99, 176 pages ISBN 9780374378646, eBook available Ages 8 to 12
MIDDLE GRADE
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have to fictionalize and anthropomorphize the sheep,” Leavitt tells BookPage from her home in Alberta, Canada. “I got his permission to do that.” That, plus the felicitous timing of the gift, got Blue Mountain off to a strong start. “I’d just finished writing My Book of Life by Angel, a novel-in-verse about a teen prostitute in “It was a Vancouver,” the author explains. little bit of “It was a very an extra dark kind of challenge for story, not a me to crawl happy place for me to live while inside the writing. . . . I body of an needed to do animal.” something that made me happy, that was a little bit of an escape. And I have 15 grandchildren, but I’ve yet to write a book any of them could read. That’s kind of what got me started, and it was just pure fun from beginning to end.” Though she has created an affecting tale that illustrates the seriousness of humans’ ever-increasing encroachment on nature, Leavitt has also infused her story with fantasy and given her animal characters personalities that jive with their real-life counterparts’ behaviors and tendencies. There’s Tuk, a young male bighorn who finds himself in charge of his own small herd, a subset of the larger, older group over which savvy matriarch Kenir presides. Fellow youngsters, including ditzy Mouf and loyal Rim, join him on an exploratory journey to Blue Mountain, which Tuk believes can be the herd’s safe new home—unless, of course, the mist-shrouded behemoth is merely the stuff of myth. Tuk’s little band of yearlings en-
counter a variety of obstacles and animals along the way, from a hungrily conniving, yet easily outsmarted, bear to an otter with self-esteem issues (who may or may not help them traverse a bog). Oh, and an elk who really, really wants everyone to know that she’s beautiful. Leavitt says she “writes the stories I feel really compelled to write,” not least because a character will insist on making itself heard. “My books often start that way—I hear a character talking to me. Before, they’ve always been teenagers.” And so, the question: Was it difficult to think like a bighorn sheep this time around? Leavitt says with a laugh, “I do feel you cannot construct a believable voice in a story unless you’ve lived inside the body of your characters. It was a little bit of an extra challenge for me to crawl inside the body of an animal, but it ended up being quite glorious and meaningful.” Not least, she adds, “because I ended up thinking, is there so much of a difference, so much of a divide, that I can’t understand some things about their exigencies? If you check out a YouTube video of bighorn lambs playing, they run around like little children do. . . . These animals have their territory, their need to exist and survive. Can we really distance ourselves from that basic kind of existence?”
PAUL STUART
INTERVIEW BY LINDA M. CASTELLITTO
The author’s passion for her subject is infectious and inspiring, for sure, and Blue Mountain is a compelling echo of—and expansion on—her father’s work. Readers who already love animals and worry about the future of our beleaguered Earth will feel both indignant and hopeful on behalf of the animal characters, and perhaps those who are less aware will find their curiosity piqued, or even experience the sparking of an activist flame. Of course, Leavitt is already there, her respect and concern for nature amplified by her Blue Mountain experience. “I loved being a bighorn sheep,” she declares. “I felt like that’s what we need to do a little bit more of. Maybe if we stop separating ourselves so much from animals, and see ourselves as a different kind of animal, maybe if big cities could . . . feel the connection of being alive and having the same basic needs, maybe some of the efforts we have to protect wildlife would come naturally, and be even easier to promote.” Here’s hoping.
★ ”This vivid collection underscores both the diversity and commonality among children.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“These humans may be little, but their photos bring large delight.” —Kirkus Reviews
AVA IL A BL E NOW WHERE VER BOOKS ARE SOLD
FSG
children’s publishing group
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reviews AUDREY (COW)
CHILDREN’S
Down on the farm REVIEW BY JILL RATZAN
First there was Wilbur the pig. Then there was Ivan the shopping mall gorilla. Now there’s Audrey the cow. Farmer Glenn might think Audrey is a food cow, but according to Audrey, she’s a poet cow, a white Charolais who can appreciate the finer things in life, like landscapes to admire and flowers to eat. More than two dozen distinct voices, including cows, dogs, sheep, pigs, deer and humans, take turns relating what happens as Audrey draws on her dead mother’s tales—and her farmyard friends’ resourcefulness—to plan a daring escape. Like Katherine Applegate in her Newbery Medal-winning The One and Only Ivan, author Dan Bar-el starts with a true story and expands on it, granting voices and agency to his animal characters. Also like By Dan Bar-el Ivan, occasional black-and-white drawings (here by Tatjana Mai-Wyss) Tundra, $19.99, 240 pages add visual interest and help emerging readers relate to the unusual ISBN 9781770496026, ages 7 to 10 narrators. Elementary school readers can cheer for Audrey’s quest while an oldMIDDLE GRADE er audience can giggle at the clever wordplay: The French-derived word for slaughterhouse, abattoir, is misheard by the animals as “Abbot’s War,” and gossip literally comes from the horse’s mouth. Don’t stop to question who exactly these voices are talking to—or why people seem to have cell phones at some opportune moments but not others—because doing so would spoil the fun of this gentle tale. Instead, focus on the postmodern storytelling, the perfect combination of humor and pathos and the determination of a cow who isn’t willing to give up.
A POSSUM’S TAIL By Gabby Dawnay Illustrated by Alex Barrow
Tate, $19.95, 40 pages ISBN 9781849762212 Ages 3 to 6
PICTURE BOOK
Though both the author and illustrator of A Possum’s Tail have worked with British children’s magazine OKIDO—Gabby Dawnay is a regular contributor, and Alex Barrow is the art director—this is their first picture book collaboration. It’s offbeat and endearing, so don’t be surprised if children ask for multiple reads. In this rhymed story, readers follow Samuel Drew and his toy dog on wheels as they head to the London Zoo. On his way, the boy passes people and places in a story that is, in many ways, a tribute to the city of London. The streets are busy: Children play; cars zoom
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by; people dine in restaurants. We even pass tourists and guards at Buckingham Palace. There is a lot to see, and children will want to take time to soak in the details. Once Samuel gets to the zoo, we learn he’s most eager to see the possums, which hang upside down in their cage. Samuel watches a while and then leaves: “They’re all asleep. No games today!” But sure enough, five baby possums race after the boy as he leaves. They grab onto the toy dog’s tail and trail along behind Samuel on his way home (heading left through the pages, going back the same way he came, something we don’t see often in picture books). The boy has no idea they’re tagging along, wreaking havoc in the streets and causing people to stumble. The book is playfully designed— on some spreads the text swings up and down across the page—and there’s a lot of understated humor. Here’s hoping Dawnay and Barrow collaborate again. —J U L I E D A N I E L S O N
THE CURSE OF THE BUTTONS By Anne Ylvisaker Candlewick $15.99, 240 pages ISBN 9780763661380 Audio, eBook available Ages 8 to 12
MIDDLE GRADE
It’s 1861, and the men of Keokuk, Iowa, have finally been called to war. Unfortunately for 11-yearold Ike Button, he’ll have to stay behind with the women while his older brothers, father and uncles all serve in the Union Army. Ike doesn’t want to care for his baby cousins when he could be off fighting like the men. Determined to forge his own destiny, Ike conjures up a scheme to go to Missouri and slip into the regiment. But before those ill-conceived plans come to fruition, Ike discovers that the war is happening in Keokuk, too, and he doesn’t need to be a soldier to
fight for the cause. The Curse of the Buttons is the third installment in the delightful Button family saga, though readers do not need to have read the other books to enjoy this one. Anne Ylvisaker wastes no words; her narrative is charming in its simplicity and entrances the reader by fully immersing them in the time and place. Even as the Button family faces challenges, they prevail with kindness and spirit. — K I M B E R LY G I A R R A T A N O
ABSOLUTELY TRULY By Heather Vogel Frederick Simon & Schuster $16.99, 368 pages ISBN 9781442429727 eBook available Ages 8 to 12
MIDDLE GRADE
Truly Lovejoy, or Drooly as her brother calls her, tries to stay under the radar. But she’s nearly six feet tall and sporting size 10.5 shoes, so being overlooked is impossible. When her father loses an arm to an IED in Afghanistan, the family is yanked from their first home in Austin and plunked into tiny, duller-than-dull Pumpkin Falls, New Hampshire. The move is supposed to be good for her dad, but Truly struggles with being displaced. A bright spot is getting to know her colorful and perky Aunt True, who begins to work with Truly’s dad to make over the 100-yearold family bookstore. The whole town soon comes together to turn the bookstore into something wonderful. While working in the store, Truly finds a cryptic message stuck inside a copy of Charlotte’s Web. Soon she finds that chasing clues is more intriguing than dwelling on being “stuck” in Pumpkin Falls. Absolutely Truly is a series opener by Heather Vogel Frederick, award-winning author of the Mother-Daughter Book Club series. Middle grade readers will enjoy the cozy town, engaging characters and easily relatable family situations. —BILLIE B. LITTLE
features
SNOW BY JULIE HALE
meet SERGIO RUZZIER
First sign of flurries
S
now holds a special sway over the imagination. Daredevil sledding sessions, snowball brawls, warm cups of cocoa—snow days are coming soon, so now’s the time to get ready!
Caldecott Honor winner John Rocco shares an epic incident from his childhood in Blizzard (Disney Hyperion, $17.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9781423178651, ages 3 to 5), an account of the 1978 storm that dropped 40 inches of snow on the Northeast. While the young narrator is initially thrilled by the weather (no school!), he finds that snow, in excess, does not necessarily equal fun. The white stuff won’t
support the weight of sledders, and walking through it is like wading. With stressed parents, a rapidly diminishing stock of food and no sign of snowplows, the narrator, inspired by the Artic explorers of old, sets off on an expedition to collect supplies—a major mission that proves a success. From this boyhood victory, Rocco has created an unforgettable book. Through his intriguing pencil, watercolor and digitally painted illustrations, he cleverly communicates the scale of the blizzard (a stop sign disappears into a drift), and his characters’ warm, beaming faces reflect the celebratory spirit that snow always seems to inspire.
WINTRY WORDPLAY In Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold (HMH, $17.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780547906508, ages 6 to 9), Joyce Sidman and Rick Allen take a fascinating look at how animals endure the shivery, dark weeks of winter. Through rollicking rhymes and breezy free verse, Sidman examines the cold-weather habits of wolves, moose, snakes,
beavers, tundra swans and more. Her lines are full of fresh imagery (bees have “eyelash legs” and “tinsel wings”), and the collection as a whole unlocks the secrets of nature in ways young readers will appreciate. (Who knew that snakes hibernate in the same place every winter?) Sidebars offer intriguing survival stories and fun facts about each creature, while Allen’s digitally layered linoleum-block prints provide detailed studies of the season. A collection that’s as crisp as the first snowfall, Winter Bees is the perfect way to pass a chilly afternoon.
SNOWY ADVENTURE In her magical new book, Outside (HMH, ISBN 9780547910659, $16.99, 40 pages, ages 4 to 8), Deirdre Gill celebrates the mind-expanding nature of snow and the ways it can lend new dimension to the everyday world. A restless boy watches through a window as white flakes pile up outside. After exhausting all of his indoor options (like pestering his brother), he leaves the house and heads into the woods, where the majestic, snow-coated trees provide a change of perspective. Left to his own devices, he rolls up a frosty white ball that transforms into— among other thrilling things—a giant snowman. When a winged dragon enters the mix, the boy enjoys a ride through the sky. Gill’s expert oil-on-paper illustrations create a telling contrast between the house’s stuffy interior and the open-ended nature of the great outdoors. Her lovely book captures the quiet mystery of the season.
A LETTER FOR LEO Sergio Ruzzier, illustrator of Have You Seen My New Blue Socks?, was the recipient of the 2011 Maurice Sendak Fellowship. In his new book, A Letter for Leo (Clarion, $16.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780544223608, ages 4 to 8), a lonely mailman finds comfort in a new friend. Ruzzier was born in Milan, Italy, and now lives in Brooklyn.
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WORDNOOK
BY THE EDITORS OF MERRIAM-WEBSTER
PUBLIC ADVOCATE Dear Editor: I’ve always felt that ombudsman was an odd word. What can you tell me about its origins? J. G. South Windsor, Connecticut For a word that became current in late 20th-century America, ombudsman has deep roots. It can be traced back to the Old Norse word umbothsmathr. Compounded from omboth, meaning “commission,” and mathr, meaning “man,” umbothsmathr had the meaning “commissary” or “manager.” The word evolved into Modern Swedish ombudsman. In 1809 the Swedish government established the office of justitieombudsmannen, or justice commissioner, who was empowered to investigate the complaints of private citizens regarding abuse by public officials and bureaucrats. This functionary established a reputa-
tion as the one person to whom the victim of bureaucratic abuse could resort when other channels had failed. The concept of an ombudsman spread to Finland, Denmark and Norway. In 1962, New Zealand appointed a comparably empowered official. The establishment of the office of ombudsman in New Zealand inspired other parts of the English-speaking world to create their own officials with similar powers.
GOING OFF ON A RANT Dear Editor: Can you tell me why an angry speech is called a philippic? Does it have anything to do with the name Philip? S. E. Gila Bend, Arizona Yes, indeed, it does have to do with the name Philip. The term is often used to refer to the series of four speeches in which Athenian orator and statesman Demosthe-
nes (384-322 B.C.) urged his fellow Athenians to fight the growing threat from King Philip II of Macedon. Despite Demosthenes’ exhortations, Philip proved unstoppable and conquered Greece. Roman philosopher Cicero made similar orations against Mark Antony following the death of Julius Caesar. Because they were modeled after Demosthenes’ speeches, they were also called Philippics. In general vocabulary rather than in reference to the classical orations, a philippic is a long, bitter discourse full of condemnation.
goddess of love Venus, a word that must first have meant simply “charm” or “epitome of qualities that arouse sexual desire” and was later applied to the goddess. The stem venes- that underlies Venus must also have meant “magical charm,” to judge by its derivative venerari, meaning “to solicit the favor of” or “to worship.” From veneratus, the past participle of venerari, English has borrowed venerate. Another derivative of venes- was venesnom, which became Latin venemum, meaning “magical charm” or “potent drug.” Here is where the relationship begins. Venemum also developed the sense “deadly substance, poison,” and in this meaning, became Old French venim, which Middle English borrowed as venom.
PICK YOUR POISON Dear Editor: I’ve heard that the word venom comes from Venus, the name for the Roman goddess of love. Is this true? R.V. Paducah, Kentucky
Send correspondence regarding Word Nook to: Language Research Service P.O. Box 281 Springfield, MA 01102
The story is not quite as straightforward as that, but the two are related. The Romans called their
Test Your Mental Mettle with Puzzles from The Little Book of Big Mind Benders perfect matcH
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