April 15, 2011: Volume LXXIX, No 8

KIRKUS v o l.

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REVIEWS

t h e nat i o n ’s p r e m i e r b o o k r e v i e w j o u r na l f o r mo r e t h a n 7 5 y e a rs

fiction

nonfiction

children & teens

★ The grown children of an infamous couple are at the center of Kevin Wilson’s fun debut p. 634

★ Martin Meredith offers a compelling study of human evolution that’s rich with insight p. 658

★ Karen Blumenthal takes readers back to the Roaring Twenties to examine Prohibition p. 676

★ Carol Birch pens a magical, literary novel that puts a spin on a classic seafaring saga p. 626

★ The lives of beekeepers come to light in Hannah Nordhaus’ smooth-ashoney history p. 660

★ The Turn of the Screw receives a creepy, mesmerizing update courtesy of Adele Griffin p. 683

★ A murder among the English gentility occupies a sleuth in Anna Dean’s clever mystery p. 636

★ Peter Bart shares a charming insider’s account of one of Hollywood’s most storied eras p. 642

★ A girl discovers family and self in an artists’ colony in Sheila O’Connor’s kids’ debut p. 692

in this issue: continuing series round-up

Richard Paul Evans hits the road; Graham Masterton conjures up a nightmare; Sally Goldenbaum attends a wedding; Susan McDuffie takes to the hills; Cassandra Clark finds herself among the angels; Cathy Holton spends a summer in the South; and much more v i s i t k i rku sre vi e ws. com f or f ull versions of f eatures, q & as and thou sa n ds of archived reviews

The Kirkus Star A star is awarded to books of remarkable merit, as determined by the impartial editors of Kirkus.

Kirkus Online: Trust the toughest critics in the book industry to recommend the next great read.

Visit KirkusReviews.com to discover exciting new books, authors, blogs and other dynamic content.

f r om

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interactive e-books p. 621

nonfiction p. 641

fiction p. 625

children & teens p. 673

mystery p. 634

kirkus indie p. 705

# President M A RC W I N K E L M A N Vice President & Publisher B O B C A R LT O N bcarlton@kirkusreviews.com Editor E L A I N E S Z E WC Z Y K eszewczyk@kirkusreviews.com

p u b l i s h e r

Dear Readers, At Kirkus, all of our efforts over the last several months have been directed toward book discovery. More robust book coverage, a new website, video content, an extensive book blogger network across a wide variety of genres— everything we do is aimed at making sure readers find their next great read.

One of the most exciting additions to our website is the trivia game, Qrank, which allows people to compete in book-related quizzes. The goal is to choose 10 of the 12 possible questions and answer them quickly and accurately to beat your friends and earn points. Each questions starts off with a base amount—200 points for easy ones, 400 for medium and 1,000 for hard—and there will be prizes every week. Test your book knowledge and compete against your friends and colleagues at kirkusreviews.com/qrank.

In the next month, we will introduce yet another avenue for book discovery: an interactive, digital version of Kirkus. Please visit kirkusreviews. com and sign up to receive the digital version when it’s ready. Also sign up for our weekly e-newsletter, which contains the latest in book reviews, iPad app. reviews and Kirkus contests, at kirkusreviews.com/subscription/ newsletter/add/.

Included in this issue you’ll find our 2011 BEA Guide, which features reviews of more than 125 BEA books, author booth and signing information, and a floor map to show you exactly where to find the books we’ve recommended or starred. Plus, we will offer a more robust, content-added digital version in mid-May. So keep an eye on kirkusreviews.com for more information and to find more innovative new discovery tools that will debut in the near future.

We’re forging ahead in our commitment to lead the industry in book discovery, which starts with serving you, our readers.

—Bob Carlton

Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N

Managing/Nonfiction Editor E R I C L I E B E T R AU eliebetrau@kirkusreviews.com Features Editor M O L LY B RO W N molly.brown@kirkusreviews.com Children’s & YA Books VICKY SMITH vicky.smith@kirkusreviews.com Kirkus Indie Editor P E R RY C RO W E perry.crowe@kirkusreviews.com Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH Editorial Coordinator REBECCA CRAMER rebecca.cramer@kirkusreviews.com Contributing Editor G REG ORY Mc NAME E # for customer service or subscription questions, please call 877-441-3010 Kirkus Reviews Online www.kirkusreviews.com Print indexes: www.kirkusreviews.com/ book-reviews/print-indexes Kirkus Blog: www.kirkusreviews.com/blog Advertising Opportunities: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/ advertising-opportunities Submission Guidelines: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/ submission-guidlines Subscriptions: www.kirkusreviews.com/ subscription Newsletters: www.kirkusreviews.com/ subscription/newsletter/add This Issue’s Contributors Maude Adjarian • Bruce Allen • Mark Athitakis • Joseph Barbato • Gerald Bartell • Amy Boaz • Julie Buffaloe-Yoder • Lori Calabria • Christina Cintron • Rebecca Cramer • Kelli Daley • Michelle Daugherty • Gregory F. DeLaurier • David Delman • Kathleen Devereaux • Daniel Dyer • Lisa Elliott • Peter Franck • Bob Garber • Sean Gibson • Faith Giordano • Peter Heck • BJ Hollars • Sean Hughes • Robert M. Knight • Erica Lamar • Rebecca Schumejda • Louise Leetch • Peter Lewis • Elsbeth Lindner • Carey London • Joe Maniscalco • Don McLeese • Gregory McNamee • Carole Moore • Clayton Moore • Gabriella M. Cebada Mora • Chris Morris • Liza Nelson • Mike Newirth • WM O’Neill • Mike Oppenheim • Jim Piechota • Christofer D. Pierson • Gary Presley • John T. Rather • Jim Ruland • Lloyd Sachs • Michael Sandlin • Susan Sebanc • William P. Shumaker • Arthur Smith • Wendy Smith • Margot E. Spangenberg • Andria Spencer • Claire Trazenfeld • Steve Weinberg • Carol White • Chris White • Laura H. Wimberley

interactive e-books THE GOING TO BED BOOK

interactive e-books for children

Boynton, Sandra Illustrator: Boynton, Sandra Narrator: Kramer, Billy J. Developer: Loud Crow Interactive $2.99 | Version: 1.0 March 7, 2011

THE LITTLE MERMAID

Andersen, Hans Christian Illustrator: Zwerger, Lisbeth Translator: Bell, Anthea Developer: Auryn Inc. $2.99 | Version: 1.0 | February 25, 2011 Andersen’s classic text is paired to Zwerger’s elegant, subdued illustrations and animated with graceful restraint.

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much going on. A page of text appears, with a fish bobbing as if in a slight current at the bottom of the page. It looks as though it has been submerged, light shining through moving water between the iPad surface and the text. When readers advance to the next page, the fish swims across into an illustration as the narration continues. The background sounds are the ceaseless rushing of the ocean depths. Children who touch the screen to find an animation will discover that they can make ripples and splashing sounds while guiding a school of minnows about. This is exactly the right choice for this story. Many pages have several paragraphs (read aloud in a gentle, woman’s voice), and the interaction engages readers tactilely, helping them to focus. As the action moves to the ocean’s surface, the undersea gurgling is replaced by the wash of ripples, the soughing of the wind and creaking of ships. This being the original story, there is no happy ending: The little mermaid becomes a “daughter of the air,” hoping to eventually win an immortal soul.

Children accustomed to Disney blandness will find this quiet, subtle app a welcome introduction to a more sophisticated aesthetic. (iPad storybook app. 6-12)

Preserving the look of the classic board book—even to the trim size and rounded corners—this makeover folds new into old in such inventive ways that it may take more than a few passes to discover all the interactive features.

Aboard a ship that rocks in response to a tilt of the tablet a set of animal passengers bounce belowdecks. First they take a bath featuring user-created bubbles, and then they brush their teeth using water so hot that the whole screen hazes up with wipe-able “steam.” Pajama-clad, all then wobble—or, tweaked by a finger, rocket—back outside for a bit of exercise before bed. (Readers control this part by twirling the moon.) In the finest animation of all, every touch of the night sky in the final scene brings a twinkling star into temporary being. Along with making small movements that resemble paper-engineered popup effects, Boynton’s wide-eyed passengers also twitch or squeak (or both) when tapped. And though they don’t seem particularly sleepy or conducive to heavy lids, an optional reading by British singer Billy J. Kramer (whose well-traveled voice also pronounces each word individually at a touch), backed by soothing piano music, supplies an effectively soporific audio. “The day is done. / They say good night, / and somebody / turns off the light.”

This is as beautiful as the developer’s earlier PopOut! Peter Rabbit while styling itself perfectly to Boynton’s whimsy. (iPad board-book app. 1-3)

VIOLET AND THE MYSTERY NEXT DOOR

Keeme, Allison Illustrator: Keeme, Allison Developer: Black Dog Books $3.99 | Version: 1.0 February 21, 2011 Series: Violet, Vol. 3 A relatively small number of animations and interactive effects embellish an engaging, sometimes laugh-out-loud detective story.

This third case for young sleuth Violet, aka “Phantom

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“But best of all, its ‘English learner’ and ‘Spanish learner’ options slow down the tempo of the narration, making it easier to follow along with the text.” from runaway radish

Girl,” and her trusty canine sidekick Phantom Dog sends the pair into the snow to check out new neighbor Maxwell— “MaxMan”—and then help him find a lost bottle-cap badge.

As in previous episodes, each scene offers readers the option to read the text silently or, with a tap of a corner button, to hear it read by the author (who sounds about Violet’s age).

For children fond of skipping around or going back to favorite pages, there is an index of thumbnail images that can be called up at any time by tapping another corner button. With further taps, items in the lively cartoon scenes that are outlined in yellow expand into clues or closer views. The background music is unobtrusive, but it can also be turned off at the beginning. As in previous outings, the tale gives readers three chances to make choices that create short loops in the plot. Here, though, readers can pause for a fast-paced videogame–style snowball fight and also for a comical game of touch-the-bird. These diversions, along with the occasional blink, wave or movable toy, are so well placed that there seem to be more than there actually are.

All enhance the overall air of high good humor. (iPad storybook app. 6-8)

BAD WOLF

Developer: Label1 $4.99 | Version: 1.0 February 28, 2011 A “cool” cartoon version of “Little Red Riding Hood” challenges both the traditional perspective and readers’ tolerance for imperfect English.

“Bad Wolf and the Little Riding Red Hood” is the English title on the opening screen of this multilingual (English/ Spanish/Portuguese) iPad app by Label1, digital publishers from Brazil, though elsewhere “Little Red Riding Hood” (with and without “the”) appears. Readers will marvel at the misspellings (“snickers” for sneakers, “misterious,” etc.) and almost poetically awkward translation (LRRH: “Can you explain about your big nose?” WOLF: “Your distrust doesn’t ring me a bell. My big nose, of course it’s to feel, it’s to smell.”). This modern Red Riding Hood, drawn with large manga-like eyes, wears a backpack and red hoodie, complete with white earbuds trailing out of a pocket. Grandma herself is pretty groovy, sporting a long gray ponytail (translated as “hair tail”), headband and peace symbol. Dramatic tension is attempted via sound effects (e.g., wind, wolf howls and menacing music) and heavy use of light and shadow. Visually the text combines enlarged cursive handwriting and small print, with no read-aloud option (amusing as it would be to hear) and minimal animation and tapping action.

The audience for this app is probably college students looking for additions to their “bad English” collections, but will they pay $4.99 for it? (iPad storybook app. 10 & up)

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RUNAWAY RADISH

Levy, Janice Illustrator: Wright, Sydney Developer: Siena Entertainment $0.99 | Version: 2.0 March 19, 2011 Series: StoryChimes Although markedly different in tone and style from most iPad storybook apps (though no less worthy), this English-and-Spanish tale of a food sculptor and a mischievous, fast-moving root vegetable is fun and has some features that make it worth multiple readings.

When Don Pedro tries to sculpt an elaborate scene, including a castle and knights, out of radishes, one of the veggies springs to life and runs for the hills. The ensuing chase, which eventually involves a donkey, a group of mariachi musicians, a chef and a street vendor is silly enough. But the reality-bending illustrations are appropriately over-thetop, and the giant radish’s cry—”Places to go, people to see. / Out of my way, you can’t carve ME!”—is catchy. In addition to the usual interactive features, including optional narration, a pop-up page index and mute-able background audio, it has two good options for younger readers. It can be read in English and Spanish and even includes bilingual flash cards for some of the words used in the story. But best of all, its “English learner” and “Spanish learner” options slow down the tempo of the narration, making it easier to follow along with the text. If there’s a quibble with the app it’s that the text’s font itself is too small and doesn’t serve the style of the art well. A matching game is included.

The Runaway Radish (who, spoiler alert, doesn’t exactly make it out of the story intact) is entertainingly chaotic, and this “Gingerbread Man” variant is a good effort in both Spanish and English. (iPad storybook app. 3-8)

THE PEDLAR LADY OF GUSHING CROSS

Rogers, Jacqueline O. Developer: Moving Tales Inc. $4.99 | Version: 1.2 | February 28, 2011 A stately animated version of a traditional wisdom tale better known as “The Pedlar of Swaffham,” or “The Treasure.”

Written in high-toned language— “The old woman was anything but lonely, for she had befriended her solitude almost as another, separate self ”—and narrated at a deliberate pace over unobtrusive music and sound effects the story takes a pedlar from her dusty home to a distant city, driven by a tantalizing dream.

The dismissive comment of a city guard about a treasure dream of his that describes the old lady’s home sends her back, where beneath her own tree she discovers a bubbling spring that transforms her sere yard into a lush oasis. The art is primarily done in neutral blue-gray tones (except at the end) with

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“Past and present, reality and dreams, harsh truths and dangerous delusions mingle intriguingly in this unusual fourth novel from the versatile author of vivid historical and contemporary fiction.” from witches on the road tonight

spare, precisely drawn details and naturally posed figures. As each page is a short animated loop, turning the Text Display off and the Auto Page Turn on converts the app into a close approximation of conventional video. Other options include voiceovers in Spanish or French, and also a self-record button.

In place of distracting touch activated details random small changes are designed in that make each pass-through different, and on each new page individual letters of the text fetchingly cascade down, arrange themselves in order and then can be “dumped” to the edge by tilting the tablet.

A magisterial rendition, with the digital bells and whistles kept firmly in service to the story. (source note) (iPad storybook app. 7-11)

THE UNWANTED GUEST

Rogers, Jacqueline O. Developer: Moving Tales, Inc. $4.99 | Version: 1.1 | March 1, 2011 Uneven synchronization of animations and voiceovers mar this retelling of a Yiddish tale about an old man driven out of his house when Poverty takes up residence.

Depicted as an emaciated, hairless, passive-looking goblin, Poverty keeps growing until the man is crowded right out into the yard—but then shrinks and is in turn driven away when the man shakes off his despair and with determined labor repairs house and fortunes. Using sharp contrasts and neutral tones to create a sense of formality, the art on each page is a short animated loop featuring figures making restrained, deliberately paced movements. The text, as read in an even tone in the voiceover is likewise formal (“He wandered the purlieus of town by day…” “Life bends and folds where and when you least expect it”) and in the cleverest interactive feature cascades down randomly on each page to arrange itself in order. But it’s also too long, as on several pages the loop begins to repeat distractingly before the narration is finished. Menu options include readings in Spanish or French, a self-record capability and an auto-run setting that turns the app into something like a conventional video.

Strongly atmospheric art and story-centered design give this a leg up over more gamelike apps, but wait for an update with better editing. (source note) (iPad storybook app. 7-11)

JEREMY FISHER: Buddy Edition

Potter, Beatrix Illustrator: Potter, Beatrix Developer: Sideways Software $1.99 | Version: 1.0 | Feb. 18, 2011 Potter’s tale of a hapless frog who sets out to catch a minnow for dinner and almost ends up being dinner himself gets several useful extras in this unabridged |

app. It also receives a design upgrade that increases the original’s cramped trim size and eliminates its blank pages while pairing text and pictures more closely together.

There are three reading options: silent; read aloud in a pleasantly measured and low-key way by a female narrator with a British accent; and, through an online connection, a mode that allows an absent parent or other reader to be the voice and to turn the pages remotely. This last option even includes a button that enables two-way conversations. The illustrations are sharply detailed, clear of hue and expandable with a touch to full-screen size. There is little animation (a dragonfly here, a water bug there), but touching some figures produces an audio tag. A coloring book and connect-the-dots activity complement the story. A retractable navigation bar at the bottom provides thumbnail images of each page of the tale for easy skipping around, plus a button to open the table of contents. The remote Buddy mode requires a relatively involved prior setup, but it should prove a boon to families with absent parents.

High production values and a story-centered design give this a leg up over flashier, more gamelike e-books. (iPad storybook app. 4-8)

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS HD

Developer: So Ouat! $3.99 | Version: 10 March 17, 2011

There must be something about the (rights-free) story of the three homeowner pigs and that hungry wolf that appeals to iPad-app developers. There are so many versions of it—at least 20 by our count—for Apple’s tablet that it’s fair to say it’s become a blank slate upon which to try different features on an easy, familiar story.

Developer So Ouat!’s contribution to the subgenre is that its version is cleanly packaged with Saturday-morning-cartoon– style pigs that live inside a virtual book. Users can choose an ages-5-and-under version or opt for a more complex one for children 6 and up. The “Show Me” tab triggers a feature that underlines words in the text; tapping those words brings up a drawing that defines the word. “Tell Me” reads the story, and an “Explain Me” tab offers the written definitions of tricky words.

That’s in the older version, which also includes a cursive version of the text, highlighted vowels and French and Spanish editions of the story. Despite the extensive frills, though, the text is sloppy and in need of some polish. “It was hard work and took a long time to build, but the house was even more beautiful and much stronger than the other two little pigs,” reads one unfortunate, apostrophe-deprived sentence.

It just goes to show that even with a unique take on a classic, you can still go wrong with the basics. (iPad storybook app. 3-8)

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MONKEY AND CROC

Terry, Will Illustrator: Terry, Will Developer: Jujubee Illustrations $1.99 | Version: 1.0 February 1, 2011

In this simple jungle tale done as an app, Monkey and Croc are both going about their individual daily routines—but, unbeknownst to Monkey, he is quite close to becoming Croc’s next meal as their parallel routines dangerously converge.

Colorful cartoony illustrations fill each screen telling the bulk of Croc and Monkey’s story, with short textual reinforcement to make clear readers understand that as Monkey does something, Croc follows suit, including feeling hungry.

Throughout, sentences are kept to just few words per page and often repeat, making this text amenable to beginning readers.

Clicking the gear in the upper-left corner of all pages provides both a “read to me” setting and the option of including sound effects. The text is narrated at a reasonable, if not slow pace, and each word is highlighted as it is clearly enunciated. However, the narrator’s voice lacks variation and works against the story’s building tension. The sound effects feature a “munch, munch” effect when Croc is tapped, and, similarly, Monkey makes a stereotypical monkey sound. Despite opportunities for additional sound effects, these two sounds, which grow old quickly, are the only sounds featured.

Although designed for the iPad, this playful text fails to take advantage of the platform, ultimately providing an only mildly amusing user experience. (iPad storybook app. 4-6)

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fiction ONE SUMMER

THE SIXTH MAN

Baldacci, David Grand Central Publishing (288 pp.) $25.99 | June 14, 2011 978-0-446-58314-5

Baldacci, David Grand Central Publishing (432 pp.) $27.99 | April 19, 2011 978-0-446-57310-8

Baldacci (Hell’s Corner, 2010, etc.) departs from thriller mode to pen this often-maudlin tale of familial reinvention.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Jack earned two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, but it appears that the appointment in Samarra he dodged has been waiting for him in Cleveland, Ohio. As Christmas nears, he is dying of an unnamed but always terminal disease, surrounded by his two boys, Jackie and Cory, prickly teenage daughter Mikki, wife Lizzie and mother-in-law Bonnie. On Christmas Eve, Lizzie rushes out into a snowstorm to fill Jack’s pain-med prescriptions and is killed in a crash. Bonnie supervises the dispersal of the children to various relatives, and Jack is consigned to a hospice. One day, he finds he’s breathing on his own. Painstakingly, he recovers and even gains back his former fitness level as an Army Ranger. He gathers the children and moves them to Lizzie’s beloved South Carolina seaside home, nicknamed the Palace, in hopes of fulfilling what turned out to be Lizzie’s last wish. Once in S.C., Jack finds the Palace and adjacent lighthouse in considerable disrepair. A trained contractor, he sets to work with his crusty, Harley-driving partner Sammy.

Mikki, a singer/songwriter, finds a kindred spirit in fellow rocker Liam, whose mother Jenna, a corporate lawyer turned wisecracking restaurant owner, hires Jack to soundproof Liam’s studio. The stage is set for new love, but first Jack must overcome his obsession with fixing the lighthouse beam and turn the searchlight on his children. Especially since Bonnie is scheming to get custody of the youngsters. It doesn’t help that Jack is only too willing to tangle with small town toughs, or that Mikki has run afoul of the local mean teen queen and her high-school football henchmen.

Baldacci’s muscle-bound style doesn’t do subtle: He is best at choreographing fight scenes, rescues and dire brushes with severe weather, all of which, thankfully, are here in abundance.

Overall, though, the stilted language and trite sentimentalism are yawn-inducing.

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To keep al-Qaeda zealots, megalomaniac North Koreans with nukes and other bad guys at bay, gigabytes of real-time intelligence stream to the Wall, there to be collated and conceptualized by one man, the Analyst.

The Analyst, once an anonymous IRS bureaucrat with an eidetic memory and a strangely powerful intellect, now sits mute in a federal supermax prison, an accused serial killer. Baldacci (First Family, 2009, etc.) drops Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, Secret Service agents turned private investigators, into the mess. King has agreed to investigate the murders at the behest of defense attorney Ted Bergin, his beloved mentor. On their way to meet Bergin at the prison in Maine, King and Maxwell happen upon Bergin sitting in his vehicle on an isolated road, emergency lights flashing, murdered. Baldacci’s realistic plot blends patriotism and naked ambition, greed and paranoia and bureaucratic infighting. With the Wall providing a singular source of accurate information, the government’s alphabet departments are losing funding, especially Homeland Security, the fiefdom of manipulatively ambitious Ellen Foster. Peter Bunting, chief of a private-security company, is the genius behind the Wall and the Analyst. Mason Quantrell, owner of a rival company, is more interested in fat contracts than useful intelligence.

Then there are the Analyst’s sister, Kelly Paul, a woman with her own secrets; James Harkes, an agent without a badge but with a propensity for unleashing violence; and finally, Edgar Roy, the Analyst, brilliant, shy, lonely and deeply troubled about his part in the death and destruction generated by the Wall. This novel is action-adventure, the plot ricocheting between isolated Maine woods and Washington power corridors, with stops in Virginia and New York. It’s Baldacci’s fifth book in a series featuring King and Maxwell, and one that further explores their complex and sometimes thorny relationship.

Authentic scenario, mystery piled on misdirection and more double-crosses than a tic-tac-toe tournament.

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“A magical, literary novel puts a surreal spin on a coming-of-age seafaring saga.”

-from jamrach’s menagerie

JAMRACH’S MENAGERIE Birch, Carol Doubleday (304 pp.) $26.95 | June 14, 2011 978-0-385-53440-6

A magical, literary novel puts a surreal spin on a coming-of-age seafaring saga.

Among the amazements of the 10th novel by the British, award-winning Birch is that it is the first to be published in America. Its narrator is a young boy named Jaffy Brown, who begs to be described as a Dickensian “street urchin,” but whose life changes irrevocably after he encounters a tiger on a street near the Thames and proves uncommonly brave when the animal takes the boy into its mouth. The tiger belongs to Charles Jamrach, an importer of exotic animals who recruits Jaffy to go to sea on a whaling expedition that has a much more ambitious goal: to capture a dragon.

Among his shipmates will be Tim, another boy with whom Jaffy bonds but who is very competitive, creating a tension complicated by Jaffy’s attraction to Tim’s sister. All of this is narrated in retrospect, decades later, after Jaffy has discovered how it feels to be “stuck between a mad God and merciless nature.” Yet it retains a sense of childlike wonder in its lyrical prose, as the line between what Jaffy is experiencing and what he is dreaming blurs the longer he is at sea: “Nowhere clearer than the ocean for a bright state of being, of falling with constant clarity into the vortex inside...Sometimes it felt as if the stars out there, far from all land, were screaming. Hundreds of miles blaring at your head. So beautiful, that night, waking in the sky with the screaming stars all around.” The ill-fated voyage finds the dragon haunting the young mariner much the same as the albatross did Coleridge’s ancient mariner. Before it is over Jaffy will have his first taste of death. And worse. If prayer was the only passable path to salvation, Jaffy felt “it had become long since plain that God didn’t answer. Not so’s the average idiot could understand anyway.”

Jaffy’s experience could well move the reader as profoundly as it changed the narrator. (Reading group guide online)

I KNEW YOU’D BE LOVELY Stories

Black, Alethea Broadway (224 pp.) $14.00 paperback original | June 7, 2011 978-0-307-88603-3 e-book 978-0-307-88604-0 Characters struggle to overcome their fears and fulfill their desires in a cautiously upbeat set of stories.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained” could be the unofficial motto of the sensitive young adults who inhabit Black’s recognizable world.

But often, they must be prodded to act. The opener, “That of 626

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Which We Cannot Speak,” sets the stage with its depiction of a divorced man trying to connect with an attractive physician at a New Year’s Eve party. Her laryngitis makes it impossible for her to speak, so they communicate via a clipboard she keeps around her neck. In the title story, a young woman conquers her jealousy over her boyfriend’s friendship with a beautiful writer with a sexy, win-win solution in which everyone gets what they want. “We’ve Got a Great Future Behind Us” introduces us to an estranged pair of well-known musicians who manage to come together one more time to write a good song about their train wreck of a marriage, and the suburban dad of “The Only Way Out Is Through” turns a family crisis, during a disastrous camping trip, into a last-ditch opportunity to bond with his troubled son. The toll of not taking action is tallied as well, when Elizabeth, the elder sister in “The Summer Before,” comes back to her family’s summer home after a years-long absence only to realize the ways in which she has not recovered from her parents’ divorce. And in the mournful final episode, an aunt must face her own ambivalence toward commitment when her newly widowed sister asks her to sign on as emergency guardian for her young children. Although it could benefit from a bit more warmth toward its protagonists, this debut reads like a dream, with nary a false note.

Well-balanced collection filled with low-key charm and notable talent.

A DEATH IN SUMMER

Black, Benjamin Henry Holt (336 pp.) $25.00 | July 5, 2011 978-0-8050-9092-5

The son of a Dublin newspaper magnate is murdered in a thriller that has everything but a catalyst to set things spinning.

Black (Elegy for April, 2010, etc.), pseudonym for Booker Award winner John Banville, knows what noir thriller fans go for. He spikes events with deliciously nasty wit and sharp, often elegant prose. The exploded remains of a victim’s head, for example, smear a window like “a giant peony blossom, that blotted out most of the view of rolling grasslands stretching off to the horizon.” Black’s investigator, pathologist Garret Quirke, whose problems with women and alcohol qualify him as a valid hard-boiled investigator, has a laser eye for character foibles. So you know if Françoise d’Aubigny, the widow of the murder victim, the widely despised Richard Jewell, hides anything about his murder, it’s certain Quirk (in his fourth case) will spot it. It’s also certain he and the widow, who in profile has “the look of a figure on a pharaoh’s tomb,” will have an affair. In due order, a web of suspects is drawn. There’s a gardener, an obnoxious bully; a business associate, Carlton Sumner, a rival to Jewell for “ruthlessness and skuldudgery”; and Jewell’s half-sister Dannie, who murmurs something about “poor orphans,” a clue that hangs inert over the proceedings. These and other characters, including Quirk’s

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mistress, his assistant and his daughter, are drawn with laser sharpness, but their scenes seldom push the action forward.

Matters get moving whenever Quirke starts investigating, but Black keeps him off-scene for long stretches, further stalling cohesion and momentum. The reveal, alas, will probably pop into the reader’s mind before it does onto the page. Dublin, during an uncharacteristic hot spell, offers atmosphere Black never effectively drapes over the proceedings.

The parts are greater than the sum.

THE GOOD AND THE GHASTLY

Boice, James Scribner (288 pp.) $24.00 | June 14, 2011 978-1-4165-7544-3

A thousand years after the apocalypse or Armageddon or something, Visa Second America finds history repeating itself through an attempt to recast civilization from its ashes.

The third and most audacious novel

by Boice (NoVa, 2008, etc.) is futuristic without being science fiction or even speculative fiction.

Because except for the fact that Visa has now branded itself on pretty much everything (from the name of every country to psychological conditions including “Visa Schizophrenia and Visa Bipolar Disorder”), the 34th century isn’t appreciably different from the present. Maybe young people are a little meaner and more desperate, and maybe ruling officials are more corrupt in their relations with organized crime, but the author’s social commentary plainly sees these as matters of degree rather than transformation: “They were sociopaths. But they were human beings. And human beings are all alike. Always have been, always will be.” Such are the reflections of the protagonist and frequent first-person narrator, Junior Alvarez, an Irishman (yes, it’s that kind of novel), engaged in interminable conflict with the Italians. The reader meets Junior as an incarcerated juvenile delinquent, who thinks he’s the reincarnation of Alejandro el Grande (until he realizes that Bob Dylan is the reincarnation of Alexander the Great, and that he, Junior, is the reincarnation of Bob Dylan, writer of such classics as “Imagine,” “Auld Lang Syne” and “Beat It”). He later becomes a flunky, a hoodlum, a combination community leader and drug pusher and, through the novel’s extended finale, a crook on the lam. In a plot that seems more like a graphic novel or a screenplay than the literary fiction to which it seems to aspire, he finds himself pitted against a mother whose son he battered in a street brawl. Much of the novel that isn’t narrated by Junior finds his female adversary wreaking vengeance against society in general and stalking Junior in particular. Justice is served…maybe.

Stop this world, you’ll want to get off.

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CALEB’S CROSSING

Brooks, Geraldine Viking (320 pp.) $26.95 | May 3, 2011 978-0-670-02104-8

The NBA-winning Australian-born, now New England author (People of the Book, 2008, etc.) moves ever deeper into the American past.

Her fourth novel’s announced subject is the eponymous Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a member of the Wampanoag Indian tribe that inhabits Massachusetts’s Great Harbor (a part of Martha’s Vineyard), and the first Native American who will graduate from Harvard College (in 1665). Even as a boy, Caleb is a paragon of sharp intelligence, proud bearing and manly charm, as we learn from the somewhat breathless testimony of Bethia Mayfield, who grows up in Great Harbor where her father, a compassionate and unprejudiced preacher, oversees friendly relations between white settlers and the placid Wampanoag. The story Bethia unfolds is a compelling one, focused primarily on her own experiences as an indentured servant to a schoolmaster who prepares promising students for Harvard; a tense relationship with her priggish, inflexible elder brother Makepeace; and her emotional bond of friendship with the occasionally distant and suspicious Caleb, who, in this novel’s most serious misstep, isn’t really the subject of his own story. Fascinating period details and a steadily expanding plot, which eventually encompasses King Philip’s War, inevitable tensions between Puritan whites and upwardly mobile “salvages,” as well as the compromises unavoidably ahead for Bethia, help to modulate a narrative voice that sometimes teeters too uncomfortably close to romantic cliché. Both Bethia, whose womanhood precludes her right to seek formal education, and the stoical Caleb are very nearly too good to be true. However, Brooks’ knowledgeable command of the energies and conflicts of the period, and particularly her descriptions of the reverence for learning that animates the little world of Harvard and attracts her characters’ keenest longings, carries a persuasive and quite moving emotional charge.

While no masterpiece, this work nevertheless contributes in good measure to the current and very welcome revitalization of the historical novel.

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THE TERRIBLE PRIVACY OF MAXWELL SIM

Coe, Jonathan Knopf (304 pp.) $26.95 | March 11, 2011 978-0-307-59481-5 e-book 978-0-307-59555-3

The lonely life of an everyman who might as well be called a nobody is the subject of the popular British author’s ninth novel (The Rain Before It Falls, 2008, etc.). |

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“Seven years after a trial sent a police suspect up for murder, a disturbingly similar new killing reopens the case.” from trespasser

Late-40-ish Max Sim, on leave while “recovering” from depression from his job as a department store’s customer liaison officer, is estranged from his disapproving wife, Caroline, and his daughter. Despite an array of computerized and other devices that offer connection to everywhere and everyone, Max seems eternally on the periphery of his own story. In fact, we learn about the experiences and influences that have formed him from the testimony of other people. A girl whom Max admires tells him the (real life) story of Donald Crowhurst, the yachtsman who entered a round-the-globe race and promptly disappeared (Max senses an immediate kinship). Caroline, a writer who despairs over Max’s indifference to culture, contributes a mordant fictionalization of a disastrous family vacation. A school essay written by a childhood friend’s sister, and a confessional memoir penned by Max’s absentee father, a would-be poet living in Australia (whence Max returns from a visit at the novel’s outset), complete the array of judgmental perspectives on our antihero’s many, many failings.

The story’s central action is Max’s car trip to the Shetland Islands, as a rep delivering a shipment of eco-friendly toothbrushes to a client. It’s a ruefully comic plunge into the unknown, during which Max appears to form a relationship with the voice of his car’s “satnav” (GPS navigational system); so it goes, in the brave new world of instant communication. It’s a risky road for a novel to travel, especially when a postmodernist-metafictional dénouement and ending underscore this book’s peculiar challenges to the reader. Still, like the hero of many a BBC-TV comedy, Max carries on, and may, like the cockroach, outlast all the “normal” people who keep their distances from him.

Not for every taste, but a significant building block in Coe’s adventurous and distinctive oeuvre.

TRESPASSER

Doiron, Paul Minotaur Books (320 pp.) $24.99 | June 21, 2011 978-0-312-55847-5 Seven years after a trial sent a police suspect up for murder, a disturbingly similar new killing reopens the case, dragging Maine game warden Mike Bowditch along for one hellacious ride.

Mike’s nightmare begins with a call so routine he can’t even respond to it. A passerby has phoned to say that a young woman’s car has struck a deer out on Parker Point. Already busy responding to Hank Varnum’s complaint that some lowlife on an all-terrain vehicle has vandalized his property, Mike passes on the call, but when Trooper Curt Hutchins has engine trouble, he ends up driving to the scene an hour later, only to find that both the deer and the driver have vanished. Sadly, it’s not long before Mike finds the driver, Harvard Business School student Ashley Kim, raped and murdered in the Parker Point vacation home of her teacher, Prof. Hans Westergaard. Both before and after Mike contaminates it, everything about the crime scene reminds him of the seven-year-old murder of college student/waitress 628

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Nikki Donnatelli. And he’s not the only one. Lou Bates, whose charismatic nephew Erland Jefferts was convicted of the earlier crime, is convinced that Mike can help clear him. Jill Westergaard is equally insistent that Mike can help find her missing husband. Since game wardens, especially if they’ve found dead bodies, aren’t supposed to get involved in murder cases, Mike has quite a series of challenges ahead of him—not counting his stormy relationship with schoolteacher Sarah Harris and the self-destructive streak he showed in The Poacher’s Son (2010).

If Mike’s second appearance isn’t quite up to his striking debut, it’s still a complex, heartfelt, altogether impressive piece of work.

THE LITTLE WOMEN LETTERS

Donnelly, Gabrielle Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (368 pp.) $25.00 | June 7, 2011 978-1-4516-1718-4 British-born Donnelly’s first novel, payback for all the Americans rewriting Jane Austen, concerns a present-day London family with three sisters descended from and living adventures parallel to the eponymous Alcott heroines.

As Lulu Atwater reads a stash of Jo March’s (disappointingly dull) letters she’s discovered in her mother’s attic, the parallels Donnelly makes between the Atwater and March families are not subtle. Instead of Marmee as mother, there’s warm and loving Fee, a family therapist originally from Boston and the great-great granddaughter of Jo Bhaer (nee March). Fee’s husband David, who publishes travel books, is a genial but frequently absent father. Like Meg March, responsible oldest daughter Emma is engaged to a nice young man, and like Amy March, effervescent youngest daughter Sophie, an aspiring actress, is slightly spoiled but ultimately lovable. Lulu, the brainy middle daughter, is unsettled, unpredictable and outspoken. With no dying fourth sister—although Sophie has a bout of food poisoning—and no serious financial strain (or even awareness of a civil war being fought, say in Afghanistan), the Atwater family adventures lack the gravitas of the Marches’. Offered a great professional opportunity in North Dakota, Emma’s fiancé sensitively lets her decide whether the benefit to his career is worth leaving London and her career; despite the Atwaters’ half-baked avowals of feminism, she decides it is. When Sophie stands up to snobby Bostonian Aunt Amy and her prejudice against Irish Catholics (as exotic as this novel gets), Aunt Amy likes her spunk and introduces her to an important theatrical producer. Fee and David hit a rocky spot in their marriage but quickly act to rekindle their romance. No Jo March, Lulu finally discovers her passions: for cooking as a career and for a hunky true love. Plenty of sitcom-ready moments occur, like Sophie accidentally brushing her teeth with hair conditioner and Emma buying shoes she can’t afford.

The Atwaters are amiable in small doses, but Alcott fans will find this chick lit’s superficial relationship to the sneakily subversive Little Women insulting.

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MILES TO GO

Evans, Richard Paul Simon & Schuster (336 pp.) $22.00 | April 5, 2011 978-1-4391-9137-8 Second in Evan’s new series (The Walk, 2010, etc.) about an adman seeking redemption while going through several pairs of Nikes.

Alan Christoffersen, the author’s peripatetic ad exec, who is mourning his late wife McKale as well as the loss of his burgeoning career in Seattle, has vowed to walk all the way to Key West. At the end of the first book, our hero suffered a near-fatal assault. The present installment finds him hospitalized in Spokane after surgery for severe abdominal stab wounds. His sole visitor is a woman named Angel, whose flat tire he fixed shortly before the attack. When he is discharged, Angel offers him a room in her apartment, which he accepts, realizing that physical and seasonal obstacles will stymie his wanderlust until spring.

Soon he learns that Angel, a 911 dispatcher, is hiding something. Her elderly landlord Bill keeps turning up when she’s not home, asking for “Nicole.” Nicole has cancelled her cable and given Bill notice she’s leaving the apartment. When Angel (admitting she’s Nicole) confesses that due to tragedies in her life she’s vowed to commit suicide after watching all 100 movies on the AFI’s “world’s greatest” list, Alan is able to share his secrets for self-healing. Soon the platonic pair have created an impromptu family, including Bill, a recent widower, that gathers for lovingly described holiday meals. But this idyll ends, as Alan must move on. Nicole will be fine thanks to Bill’s bequest of $3.6 million. (Overwhelmed by her kindness, he altered his will shortly before his death on New Year’s Eve.) Alan hits the road again, rescuing a runaway and calling attention to the problem of abused and neglected children aging out of foster care. In South Dakota, near mountain monuments to U.S. presidents and Chief Crazy Horse, the plot is once again left dangling from a precipice.

This leg of the Walk series is brisker and, thankfully, less didactic than the last. (Agent: Laurie Liss/Sterling Lord Literistic)

THE ABSENT SEA

Franz, Carlos Translator: Chambers, Leland H. McPherson & Company (375 pp.) $25.00 | June 17, 2011 978-0-929701-94-3 What happened in a provincial town during the early days of the Pinochet regime.

Twenty years after the coup that toppled Salvador Allende’s government, Laura Larco returns to Pampa Hundida. A young judge there in 1973 when the soldiers rolled in, Laura fled abroad a few months later. Now she has come home to resume her judicial |

post, carrying in her briefcase a manuscript written in response to her daughter Claudia’s angry question, “Where were you, Mamá, when all those horrible things were taking place in your city?” Born in Berlin, Claudia has come to Chile “to serve justice” and make sure wrongdoers are punished in the restored democracy. But guilt and innocence are not easily defined, we see as Franz interweaves the events that unfold following Laura’s return with her memories of the town’s ordeal in 1973.

The brutal Major Cáceres relied on the terrified complicity of Pampa Hundida’s authorities as he executed political prisoners in a camp on the outskirts of town, and he established an unnerving bond with Laura, fearfully attracted to him from the moment she stormed into the church where he was praying to denounce his violations of the law. Past and present narratives build to a joint climax, as Laura learns of the terrible intimacy between a torturer and his victim, as well as the willingness of ordinary people to benefit from evil deeds. Revelations of Cáceres’ crimes threaten to discredit the annual religious fiesta that by 1993 is the primary source of Pampa Hundida’s economic well-being. Wouldn’t it be better, the nervous mayor asks Laura, just to let old wounds heal? By contrast Cáceres, disfigured and half-insane, looks to her to judge him. The course of action she chooses is as unpredictable as everything else in Franz’s superbly plotted novel, which invokes the ancient gods of Chile’s indigenous people, as well as the eternal opposition between humanity’s Apollonian and Dionysian instincts, to remind us that all judgments are partial and compromised.

Dark, brilliant and disturbing. Let’s hope this first U.S. publication for Chilean novelist Franz will be followed by many more.

THE GHOST OF GREENWICH VILLAGE

Graham, Lorna Ballantine (352 pp.) $15.00 paperback original | June 28, 2011 978-0-345-52621-2 A young woman who flees the Midwest to begin a new life in New York discovers that her cool little apartment already has a long-term tenant.

Manhattan can be a lonely place for fresh-faced arrivals, and Ohio-born Eve Weldon does struggle to make new friends after moving to the big city, but at least her new roommate (of sorts) is a lively conversationalist. He just happens to be dead. Donald is a sardonic Beatera writer who passed suddenly, well before his time. Donald may not have known the success of his contemporaries, but he proves, to Eve, to be an invaluable source of literary lore. With her collection of vintage outfits and love of mid-century writers, Eve is fascinated by the era. It turns out that Eve’s mother Penelope, who also died young, lived for a time in the Village in the 1960s, before settling for a safe, dull life with Eve’s father Gin. In a way, Eve seems bent on living the free-spirited life her mother never had. She lucks into a full-time job writing scripts for Smell the Coffee, a Good Morning America–style morning show hosted by

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affable ex-jock Hap McCutcheon and ice queen Bliss Jones. The gig is far from glamorous, though, and her position in the staff pecking order is precarious. But during one of her pre-interviews, she manages to charm Matthias Klieg, a legendary and reclusive German fashion designer. The much older man takes what appears to be a paternal interest in Eve, and she discovers that he and Donald were close friends who fell in love with the same woman. Donald remains unaware of Eve’s connection with Klieg and cajoles her into helping him finish his work by dictating his experimental stories to her in the hopes that she can finally get him published. Donald further complicates Eve’s life by making it impossible for her to bring any friends or lovers back to her place, setting both of them up for an inevitable confrontation.

With its light, matter-of-fact depiction of a supernatural relationship, Graham’s debut is lots of fun to read, even during those moments when Eve’s wide-eyed innocence borders on cloying.

Delightful coming-of-age story with a sweet reverence for the art and romance of old Gotham.

SUMMER IN THE SOUTH

Holton, Cathy Ballantine (352 pp.) $25.00 | May 24, 2011 978-0-345-50601-6

Holton (Beach Trip, 2009) takes a trip to a small Tennessee town and finds a colorful cast with a long-hidden secret among the azalea bushes and magnolia trees.

Ava’s mother, the fanciful Clotilde, has died, her love affair has gone bad and her dreams of writing a novel are unrealized. When Will, an old friend from college days, invites her to come South for the summer, live with his elderly but well-to-do aunts and write her novel, Ava accepts. Soon she’s chucked the boyfriend and her job back in Chicago and headed for Woodburn, Tenn. Named after her friend Will’s family, Woodburn is a typical Southern town, peopled by colorful Southerners: There are Will’s aunts, the sweet, cat-loving Fanny, married to her childhood sweetheart, Maitland, and Josephine, the spinster with an iron will; Clara, the AfricanAmerican who lives in the cottage behind the Woodburn’s grand home; Alice, whose gay son, Fraser, channels Edgar Allan Poe; and Darlene, the failed blond beauty queen who has her sights set on Will. And then, of course, there is Jake, who is also a Woodburn, but from the other branch of the family. Jake’s father was the son of Charlie Woodburn, a ne’erdo-well who married Fanny back during Prohibition. Charlie’s death from drowning decades ago fascinates Ava, who is convinced his demise was not the accident everyone seems to think it was. Holton skillfully weaves the stories of Ava and her vagabond early life with that of irrepressible but equally irresponsible Clotilde, together with those of Charlie and the Woodburn girls. The fun, witty dialogue strikes the right note, as does the attention to detail, from the iced sweet tea to the casual conversations of Woodburn’s residents.

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From the spry octogenarians who compose the town’s old guard to the scheming Darlene who has her hat set for Will, Holton’s novel is brimming with unforgettable characters, smart conversations and an engaging mystery that makes spending a summer in the South a tantalizing proposition. (Agent: Kristin Lindstrom/Lindstrom Literary Management)

PIGEON ENGLISH

Kelman, Stephen Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (288 pp.) $24.00 | July 19, 2011 978-0-547-50060-7 A charming narrative voice energizes this lively first novel, which has brought enthusiastic reviews, healthy sales and a movie contract to its young British author.

Eleven-year-old Harrison (“Harri”) Opuku has migrated with his mother and older sister Lydia from Ghana (where his father, baby brother and grandmother remain) to a “council estate” (i.e., public housing in a tower block) in the south of London. Gangs of teenagers from neighborhood estates prowl the violent streets, but Harri responds to their threats by joining forces with a friend (Jordan) as “detectives” resolved to find those responsible for the fatal stabbing of another boy.

Kelman quickly gives the reader emotional identification with Harri, who is mischievous (he loves tormenting the huffy, whiny Lydia), a romantic goof (who hopes against hope that his blond schoolmate Poppy will acknowledge his existence), energetic (he’s locally renowned for his speed) and a verbal athlete who speaks in a lively multilingual argot festooned with vivid, funny locutions. When he solemnly grouses, “In England there’s a hell of different words for everything,” or pronounces everything along the spectrum that runs from delightful to alarming “hutious,” there’s just no resisting the kid. Unhappily, even though the aforementioned slaying (based on the true story of the 2000 murder of a Nigerian boy) is given central stage early on, the story is depressingly underplotted and really isn’t much of a novel. Its title also refers (too coyly) to the pigeon that lands on Harri’s window ledge, which becomes a kind of protector and exemplar, clumsily signifying both freedom and flight. And when, late in the book, the bird itself swoops in to share the narrative, we sense how desperate Kelman is to fill up pages.

Even a kid as feisty and ingratiating as Harri can overstay his welcome. A pity, because brief snatches of his embryonic wit, street smarts and survival instincts are about as hutious as it gets. (Reading group guide online)

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“An intoxicating small-town thriller that quickly gets under your skin.” from break the skin

BREAK THE SKIN

Martin, Lee Crown (288 pp.) $24.00 | June 14, 2011 978-0-307-71675-0

A crime of passion, thought to be committed by a traumatized Vietnam veteran, links a lovesick Illinois girl with an equally needy young Mexican-American woman in Texas.

Laney, a shy and scrawny 19-year-old, works at a Wal-Mart in a small town in southeastern Illinois. She shares a trailer with two workmates: sultry Delilah, a perennially mistreated loser at love now approaching 40, and Rose, “a big woman with a big heart” suspected of practicing witchcraft.

Things are looking up when Delilah, who packs a .38 Special, romantically targets a bar-band rocker named Tweet. But when Tweet takes up with Rose, all hell breaks loose. The Vietnam vet, for whom Laney falls, is Lester, Tweet’s bow-legged, sweet-tempered roadie, who is so haunted by his killing of innocent civilians during the war that he enters fugue states of memory loss. One of them takes him to Denton, Tex., where Betty Ruiz, “Miss Baby,” the owner of a tattoo shop, claims him off the street. She convinces him his name is Donnie True and they’re a couple. They fall in love for real and plan their future together. But they, too, are engulfed by violence when her brother Pablo is punished for stealing money from Slam Dent, his partner in a cattle-stealing scheme. Told in flashback through the alternating voices of Laney and Miss Baby, the book overdoes its tattoo metaphor in evoking “lives festering just beneath the skin.” But Martin, whose kidnap novel The Bright Forever (2005) was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in fiction, expertly applies shades of James Cain–like noir to a modern story that might have been inspired by one of the Lucinda Williams songs on this book’s soundtrack. Black magic, daughters cursed by the loss or absence of their fathers, post traumatic stress syndrome, small-town secrecy and lies, pre-teen voyeurism: Welcome to life “on the other side of right thinking.”

An intoxicating small-town thriller that quickly gets under your skin.

THE NINTH NIGHTMARE

Masterton, Graham Severn House (272 pp.) $28.95 | June 1, 2011 978-0-7278-6997-5

Masterton (Fire Spirit, 2010, etc.) continues his Night Warriors series by tossing half-a-dozen untried Warriors at a nefarious 12th-century amputee monk.

Something is definitely wrong at Cleveland’s Griffin House Hotel. In Room 717, a disembodied voice predicts doom for charity worker Katie Kercheval. Police detective Walter Wisocky warns Rhodajane Berry, who’s come to town for her grandmother’s |

funeral, to report any odd doings in Room 309. Record promoter Lincoln Walker is attacked by a wraithlike figure who sets Room 104 afire. Rooms 237 and 239, where twin teen singers Kiera and Kieran Kaiser are staying, keep turning into an open field. The problem, cabdriver John Dauphin patiently explains, isn’t just with the hotel, it’s with these guests, all of whom are unwittingly sensitive to the dreams with which the walls have been infused ever since Cleveland Flats rapist/killer Gordon Veitch polluted them back in the 1930s. And the evil of these dreams goes back even further to the Cistercian monk Brother Albrecht, who’s been plotting dream-borne revenge and reunion with his beloved ever since his arms and legs were amputated in punishment for adultery 900 years ago. The first third of this installment (Night Wars, 2006, etc.) hints at these developments in some truly creepy ways. The rest—revealing their superhero destinies to the Griffin House guests (refashioned as An-Gryferai, Xyrena, Zebenjo’Yyx, Jekkalon and Jemexxa) and arming them to enter the dream world and do battle with Veitch, now calling himself Mago Verde, and Brother Albrecht—is more routine action stuff.

The closest parallels to this novel are movies like Inception and comic books featuring the Justice League of America.

FARISHTA

McArdle, Patricia Riverhead (368 pp.) $25.95 | June 1, 2011 978-1-59448-796-5 The unvarnished but heartfelt tale of the lone woman stationed with a remote reconstruction team in northern Afghanistan during a year marked by romance, tragedy and solar ovens—winner of the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Retired American diplomat McArdle’s own experience gives authentic flavor to her story of American diplomat Angela (translated as angel or Farishta in the Dari language) Morgan, forced to choose between early retirement and an unappealing 12-month posting to Mazar-i-Sharif in the war zone. Widowed after a bombing in Beirut and still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, 47-year-old Angela is driven by determination and impulsiveness, both of which emerge when defying convention by riding a stallion in public, facing down warlords and moving around without armed guards in dangerous territory. In an episodic narrative, she befriends her translator Rahim and gets embroiled in his forbidden love affair; saves the life of an Afghani child; falls foul of a devious but attractive Russian spy; engages with imprisoned and segregated women; finds a purpose in introducing solar ovens to a population busily denuding its country of trees; and encounters romance again with a younger, starchier man, a British Major who initially disapproves of her presence and activities. Despite the danger and drama, the story’s pedestrian tone is accented by a documentary feel and wooden dialogue, although a final sequence of disasters intensifies emotion.

Sincere but earthbound.

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MOTHERS & DAUGHTERS

Meadows, Rae Henry Holt (272 pp.) $25.00 | April 1, 2011 978-0-8050-9383-4

A box of her dead mother’s mementos arrives at Sam’s door, and the mystery surrounding the contents speaks to the chasm between mothers and daughters.

The novel opens as Sam drops baby Ella off at the sitter’s for the first time after eight months of dedicated motherhood. It is the general consensus that she needs to get back to her pottery studio. She is fiercely attached to Ella, making up for the cool reserve of her mother Iris, whose own story focuses on the last few weeks of her life. Living contentedly alone in a condo in Florida, Iris, losing her life to cancer (it wasn’t much of a battle), reflects on the quiet moments she had with her own stoic mother, a farmer’s wife in Minnesota. In this multigenerational saga, that farmer’s wife turns out to be Sam’s grandmother Violet, a castaway on an orphan train, whose narrative centers the novel. A century ago, beautiful Lilibeth (the mother of Violet, who is the mother of Iris, who is the mother of Sam) dreamed of greater things and left her husband and Kentucky for New York, taking young Violet and little else. There, Lilibeth, who relies on the kindness of strange men, becomes a regular at Madame Tang’s opium den, and Violet adapts to the hardscrabble life of a tenement child on the Lower East Side. Violet’s New York is filthy and frightening, yet she loves the independence and the other tough kids she meets. Bound for the orphanage, Violet asks her mother to send her off on the orphan train instead. Operating for almost 80 years, the train brought destitute children to families in the Midwest, with varying results. Violet travels from town to town with the other children, parading on makeshift stages in the hope of being adopted. The wonder and strangeness of Violet’s journey is the highlight of the novel, and it lays the groundwork for a yearning, restrained relationship between Sam and Iris.

A little girl boards New York’s orphan train at the turn of the 20th century and shapes generations to follow in this satisfying portrait of the many faces of motherhood.

QUARANTINE

Mehta, Rahul Perennial/HarperCollins (224 pp.) $14.99 paperback original | May 31, 2011 978-0-06-202045-1 Debut short-story collection explores the lives of gay Indian-American men caught between multiple cultures.

The quarantine in Mehta’s eponymous story is not a medical situation but a kind of forced cultural dislocation imposed, as quarantines often are, for the benefit of those secreted away.

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endure a painful relocation to move in with their adult children who are bound by competing feelings of duty and guilt. Trapped in a country they don’t understand, they lash out at their reluctant caretakers. The stories are told by fully assimilated American-born grandchildren who sometimes know less about India then their grandparents know about America. That many of the stories are set in West Virginia and all of the narrators are gay makes for a unique worldview. “Citizen,” a sweet story about a young man’s attempts to help his senile grandmother prepare for American citizenship, displays a comic touch, whereas “Quarantine” and “A Better Life,” which open and close the collection, are considerably darker. Mehta is also interested in same-sex relationships, especially when they are on the verge of failing. These stories of couples on life support offer an abundance of bittersweet moments. Not only must these young men navigate the minefields that all people in love must meander through, but they must also deal with the strain of explaining their homosexuality to parents who grew up in cultures far less permissive than those in which they have raised their children. A mother’s pragmatic question—“So who does the cooking and cleaning?”—contains as many layers as an onion.

A rich study of family ties, romantic failings and cultural disconnection told in crisp, clean prose.

THE BUTTERFLY’S DAUGHTER

Monroe, Mary Alice Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (400 pp.) $25.00 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4391-7061-8 A young woman follows the path of the monarch butterflies in their autumnal migration to Mexico.

Luz Avila, a factory worker in Milwaukee, lives with her Abuela (grandmother) Esperanza. Abuela raised her when her mother Mariposa, named after the monarch butterflies Abuela loves, disappeared. Both Abuela and Luz believe Mariposa died long ago. But when Abuela receives an unsettling phone call from her other daughter in Texas, she plans a trip to Mexico with Luz, to visit the mountain sanctuary where monarch butterflies are already beginning to trickle in from their northern feeding and mating grounds. It is an Avila family tradition for mothers and daughters to visit a precipice overlooking the canyon groves where the monarchs gather en masse, and to recall the Aztec goddess who sacrificed herself so that creation could begin. After Abuela’s sudden death from a heart attack, Luz vows to make the trip on her own. Ignoring warnings from her mechanic boyfriend Sully, Luz drives away in her grandmother’s rusted Volkswagen with a cardboard box containing Abuela’s ashes in the backseat. After her car dies in Chicago, Luz works at a taqueria to pay for repairs, then continues her journey, this time with a very pregnant new friend, Ofelia, who’s fleeing her abusive lover, and Ofelia’s chihuahua Serena. There’s a stop in Kansas where Ofelia is taken in by her former employers at a nursery, and Luz

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“An ambitious picaresque tale about civil war, love, propaganda and the Panama Canal.” from the secret history of costaguana

meets a field entomologist, Billy, who teaches her how to tag monarchs. Luz continues on her journey, now accompanied by Margaret, a buttoned-down botanist who wants to escape her stultifying life. The POV shifts abruptly to Mariposa, alive after all and slowly recovering from multiple addictions and a vaguely unsavory past with the help of a Native American equestrian healer. She is agonizing over why a message left for her mother in Milwaukee has gone unanswered. Slowed by a plethora of preachy maxims, the story creeps to a predictable close.

The butterflies are the most colorful characters here. (Reading group guide online)

THE TWO DEATHS OF DANIEL HAYES

Sakey, Marcus Dutton (352 pp.) $25.95 | June 9, 2011 978-0-525-95211-4

Has Daniel Hayes killed his wife? The question torments the amnesia victim who’s the protagonist of this fifth suspense novel from Sakey (The Blade Itself, 2007, etc.).

A naked man is crawling out of the icy ocean and up the deserted beach. He has no idea where he is or what happened. Then he spots a parked car, a silver BMW. There’s a recently fired Glock inside and an owner’s manual belonging to Daniel Hayes of Malibu; the name triggers no memories. He finds a motel and learns he’s in Maine. More questions. Why is he compelled to watch a cable show with pretty actresses? And why is a cop banging on his door? There’s nothing wrong with Daniel’s reflexes: In seconds he’s behind the wheel and out of there. It’s a gripping enough start. Daniel steals new plates and returns to Malibu. He learns he’s a screenwriter, married to one of those actresses, Laney Thayer, who died when her car was forced off the road. Daniel is a murder suspect. We meet other characters. Sophie, Daniel’s agent, is being threatened by an intruder called Bennett, who has questions about Daniel and a necklace. Bennett is the sketchily characterized heavy, a Mr. Cool, blackmailer par excellence. A taut scene between Daniel and Laney’s co-star ends with an enraged Daniel attacking him; could that same rage have led him to kill Lacey? Sakey lets the question hang, effectively. Elsewhere he is less convincing. Daniel is still driving his BMW with the stolen plates; the cops, after an unbelievably amateurish stakeout of Daniel’s house, pretty much disappear. A shocking plot twist at the heart of the novel further undermines credibility. It’s part of a one-two punch, the second punch only landing at the end. Dead bodies pile up; so do the improbabilities. It doesn’t help that this hard-boiled crime fiction has a disconcertingly soft center, typified by the Forrest Gump-like mantra, “Life is a raindrop.”

Far-fetched.

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BURIED PREY

Sandford, John Putnam (400 pp.) $27.95 | May 10, 2011 978-0-399-15738-7 A macabre discovery at a demolition site sends Lucas Davenport back to 1985, and his very first homicide.

There’s no proof at the time that the Jones girls are dead, only a plea from George and Gloria Jones to find them after they went missing, along with a raft of evidence that all points in one direction. When the need to follow every lead drags Lucas Davenport, the beat cop who first caught the call, into a very temporary assignment as a plainclothes homicide detective, he immediately shows the sleuthing instincts that will make him a star (Storm Prey, 2010, etc.). For his trouble, he’s shunted off the case onto the infinitely more routine murder of gangbanger Billy Smith. Along the way, he manages to solve the fatal stabbing of Ronald Rice more or less on the fly. Meanwhile, a series of anonymous tips and circumstantial clues convince Lt. Quentin Daniel, who’s running the Jones case, that his killer is schizophrenic panhandler Terry Scrape. When a manhunt leaves Scrape dead, Daniel closes the case over Lucas’s protests.

It’s not until 25 years later, when a construction crew finds the two girls’ bodies, that Lucas has a chance to reopen it. Much of his two investigations, past and present, amount to a slog, a procedural daisy chain of information that leads to more information, much of it unreliable. But when the killer commits a particularly brazen and atrocious crime in the present day, the pace picks up as Lucas vows to execute his quarry personally.

Most interesting for its long look at the young Lucas, who’s considerably more humorous, profane and loosely wrapped than the peerless agent of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension he becomes.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF COSTAGUANA

Vásquez, Juan Gabriel Riverhead (304 pp.) $26.95 | June 9, 2011 978-1-59448-803-0

An ambitious picaresque tale about civil war, love, propaganda and the Panama Canal, delivered with verve and wit.

The inspiration for the second novel

by Vásquez (The Informers, 2009) is Joseph Conrad’s 1904 classic Nostromo, which depicted warfare and greed in the mythical country of Costaguana. José Altamirano, the narrator of Vásquez’s novel, knows Costaguana was a stand-in for his native Colombia, and he’s eager to correct Conrad by telling the truth about his country through much of the 19th and early 20th century. He does this both in broad strokes and through the lives of his loved

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ones, who suffered their share of tragedies: From the yellow fever that kills close friends to the long civil war that tragically affected family members, loss and death routinely stalk José.

Yet his tone remains kindly and often comic. He smirkingly observes the bizarre coincidences in his life, the foibles of the so-called leaders who drove the country into civil war with what is now Panama, and the contempt of the American imperialists who ended the war with a land-grab. José inherited his sensibility from his father, who came of age provoking conservative religious authorities and later wrote propaganda on behalf of a French company making an early attempt to dig the Panama Canal. Such inventions support the novel’s theme that words matter, particularly when they’re false: José’s father’s upbeat prose kept the canal-building effort alive in its funders’ imaginations despite its doomed reality; yellow journalism fueled the civil war; and Conrad’s novel, in José’s estimation, rudely defined the country as backwards. As Colombia collapses into civil war in the final chapters of the book, Vásquez elegantly chronicles the violence and absurdity of war while conveying a sense of bemused fatedness. That the author can make his hero so entertaining without diminishing the gravity of the bloodshed is a testament to his talents.

To read this novel is to enter a Borgesian rabbit hole—it’s a fiction that purports to tell the truth obscured by another fiction—yet its strangeness helps make it both brave and engaging.

THE FAMILY FANG

Wilson, Kevin Ecco/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $23.99 | August 9, 2011 978-0-06-157903-5 The grown children of a couple infamous for their ostentatious performance art are forced to examine their own creativity and flaws in the shadow of their unusual upbringing.

In this first novel, Wilson (stories: Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, 2009) turns his attention to a subversive family of artists. In fact, his titular subjects are so dedicated to their art that, whether they know it or not, they’re perpetually in the midst of an emerging improvisation. The so-called mentors in this little play are Caleb and Camille Fang, two performance artists whose dedication to their craft is largely lost on their children Annie and Buster. “Mr. and Mrs. Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief,” the opening lines proclaim. But what sounds like all sorts of fun to the parents—a particularly acid stunt on a childhood vacation involves Mr. Fang proposing to Mrs. Fang on the inbound airplane, soliciting many happy returns from fellow passengers and then ruining the return flight with a cheerless reversal—has long-term consequences on the kids. The novel flashes back and forth between Annie and Buster’s roller-coaster ride of a childhood (one example: the Fangs manipulating the adolescent Buster and Annie into playing the leads in a school production of Romeo and Juliet), and their odd half-life as adults. Annie has become an emerging 634

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movie star. When a role demands full-frontal nudity, she acts out with such outrageousness that she becomes tabloid fodder. When Buster, a once-successful writer, is injured during an ill-chosen freelance assignment, he finds himself with no other choice but to return to the family fold. The subtlety of the comedy is flawless, channeling the filmmaking of Wes Anderson or Rian Johnson.

A fantastic first novel that asks if the kids are alright, finding answers in the most unexpected places. (Author tour to Atlanta, Chattanooga, Memphis, Miami, Mississippi (Jackson and Oxford), Nashville, North Carolina (Asheville, Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham))

m ys t e r y IN SEARCH OF THE ROSE NOTES

Arsenault, Emily Morrow/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $14.99 paperback original | July 26, 2011 978-0-06-201232-6 Former best friends reunite to solve the mystery of their babysitter.

It’s been nine years since Charlotte and Nora’s babysitter Rose disappeared.

During that time, Nora has married and become a potter kept busy at craft fairs, while Charlotte, after floundering a bit, has become a schoolteacher. Their friendship has withered, and the days when they scanned arcane texts in hope of divining what happened to Rose are only distant childhood memories when Charlotte calls and announces that Rose’s body, folded into a wicker trunk, has surfaced. So Nora returns to Waverly, Conn., to pick up the friendship and the mystery of Rose, a task that wends past anonymous poems in The Looking Glass, the Waverly Literary magazine; a crippling accident that Rose witnessed; and a vow of silence taken by four joyriders out for a little fun. The backward journey must also investigate a suicide attempt, inexplicable mood swings and childhood rivalries, jealousies and thoughtless cruelties before reaching its sad conclusion.

Arsenault (The Broken Teaglass, 2009) spins a tale that’s sensitive, chilling and compellingly told in chapters alternating the troubled present with the even more turbulent past.

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“A brood of serial killers makes a family business out of stalking reporter Irene Kelly.” from disturbance

DISTURBANCE

Burke, Jan Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) $25.00 | June 21, 2011 978-1-4391-5284-3 A brood of serial killers makes a family business out of stalking reporter Irene Kelly.

A perennial star with the Las Piernas (California) News Express, Irene Kelly now finds herself facing eclipse, the trouble coming from two directions.

First, the embattled News Express, long engaged in a bitter war of attrition, the same one being waged by newspapers nationwide, puts out a final edition, converting Irene and her colleagues into unhappy members of the nonworking press. A tough deal for someone like Irene who loves her job so much that the loss of it is in a sense a small death. But death by metaphor is only that, after all, while real death—that which has been promised her by notorious serial killer Nick Parrish—is an over-and-done-with proposition, the stuff of obits and requiems. Irene has a history with Parrish, the kind that doesn’t bear thinking about, except that she does think about it, recalling a robotic monster who kills as if assembled for no other purpose. Her experience with Parrish has been hands-on: his hands on her throat, resulting in trauma she relives in shivery nightmares whenever things go bump in the night. She’d been lucky to wriggle free of him, an escape so narrow she can’t quite believe in its permanence. Yes, she knows that Parrish, his body wracked by serious injuries to head and spine, is locked away behind prison bars presumably forever—a life sentence, no possibility of parole—but still she worries. The worry will intensify exponentially when she learns about those three chips off the old block.

Even Burke, accomplished thrillermeister that she is (The Messenger, 2008, etc.), can’t get blood from a stone, or wring a nuance from your basic, warmed-over serial killer, a prototype well past its sell date. Her next will be better.

DEAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN

Buzzelli, Elizabeth Kane Midnight Ink/Llewellyn (360 pp.) $14.95 paperback original | July 1, 2011 978-0-7387-1878-1 Whatever it is that women want, it’s probably not a Noel Coward ditty.

Mired in abandonment issues and determined not to need anybody ever, gruff Deputy Dolly Wakowski finds herself pregnant. Freelancer Emily Kincaid, divorced from a serial philanderer, man-shy and five years new to Leetsville, Mich., is waiting to hear if a New York agent will handle her book. Their lives keep intersecting over murders (Dead Floating Lovers, 2009, etc.) that Emily helps Dolly solve |

while writing them up for the Northern Statesman. This time they must identify the dead (Mexican?) woman shot in the back of the head in a deserted house. Turkey buzzards lead them to a mutilated dog, also shot. Off the pair go to question migrants, who are skipping town at an alarming rate after dead dogs are left on their doorsteps. Meanwhile, Emily’s ex, a relocated Ann Arbor English professor, has befriended eccentric Cecil Hawke, and convinced the wealthy Englishman that Emily can edit his manuscript, the definitive work on Noel Coward. But when Emily starts reading, the manuscript is not about Coward but about two friends on a killing spree, one of whom has a gnawedoff finger just like Cecil’s. Then at a Blithe Spirit costume party at Hawke’s house, his dramatically hostile wife Lila, the current inamorata of Emily’s ex, is shot dead. Is there a connection to the murder on Old Farm Road? While Dolly wrestles with morning sickness and Emily reasons with herself about breaking her confidentiality contract with Cecil, dogs, sheep and a migrant family suffer gruesome atrocities, ushering in more distorted versions of Coward.

Buzzelli will have you packing your bags for a move to northern Michigan in the hope that you’ll find a friend as appealing as Emily and a dog as lovable as Sorrow.

THE LAW OF ANGELS

Clark, Cassandra Minotaur Books (368 pp.) $25.99 | April 12, 2011 978-0-312-67455-7

Sister Hildegard again defends the innocent amid political intrigue in medieval Yorkshire (The Red Velvet Turnshoe, 2009, etc.).

Hildegard has had a year of peaceful labor, living her long-cherished dream of founding a cell of nuns. The sisters tend their beehives and flocks and happily offer the same care to two wayward girls: Petronilla, a pretty, chatty teenager, and the silent peasant child Maud. Their calm is shattered when armed men destroy the grange—the same men who ravaged Maud’s family and farm. Under John of Gaunt’s cruel rule, a knight may pillage a manor to claim it, but why ride for miles to track down a serfling? To protect Maud, Hildegard takes the girls to the great town of York to bring charges against the predators. The city is abuzz with the summer heat, the grim anniversary of the hanging of rebel Wat Tyler and the upcoming festival of Corpus Christi. Hildegard’s abbess sends her the Cross of Constantine, the relic Hildegard recovered the year before, and bids her take it to the archbishop. When Hildegard obeys, the cross is stolen. Then Hildegard witnesses an inexplicable explosion in a crowded market stall. Was it set by rebels or by rulers seeking to frame them? Hildegard must find justice for Maud, recover the powerful holy relic and untangle the machinations of the rebels and their enemies, all before the great feast day crowds the city to its breaking point.

Intricately plotted and rich in vivid historical detail, the three interlocking mysteries create an engrossing, fascinating tale.

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FLOWERS FOR HER GRAVE

Clemens, Judy Poisoned Pen (298 pp.) $24.95 | $14.95 paperback original Lg. Prt.: $22.95 | August 1, 2011 978-1-59058-918-2 paper 978-1-59058-920-5 Lg. Prt. 978-1-59058-919-9

Would you want Death as your sidekick, even if you were on the run?

Since losing her husband and child in a fiery car crash, Casey Maldonado has been hunted by the Pegasus car company and forced to kill a thug in self-defense (Embrace the Grim Reaper, 2008, etc). Now she’s settled down, at least temporarily, as Daisy Gray, the new fitness instructor at The Flamingo, an upscale living complex in Raceda, Fla. The only person, or thing, or aura, who knows her real story is Death, who hovers at her side sarcastically kibitzing. Before her first day of employment is over, Andrea, a resident, lies dying in the gym shower room; Andrea’s best friend Krystal has started a petition asking for the ouster of Daisy, whom she accuses of murder; and gossip smears the two previous fitness instructors, Richie and Brandon, pronouncing one cute but incompetent and the other sexy but inclined to prey on lonely singles. Egged on by Death, Daisy goes into full sleuth mode, chatting up the complex’s manager and her assistant, the water-aerobics instructor, the barman, anyone who signs up for her fitness classes and a powerfully built Amazon who turns the tables on her by introducing her to her sensei, Asuhara, who gently elicits Daisy’s real identity as Casey. All the while, Death flits in and out, leaving icy drafts to mark his presence, and a cop who reminds Daisy of her dead husband activates her hormones. The climactic scene finds Death returning from somewhere else in time to join Casey for another departure.

Death is annoying, and Clemens steamrolls her plot to an abrupt conclusion in the last few pages, but Casey is bearable in small doses.

FELICITY’S GATE

Cole, Julian Minotaur Books (384 pp.) $25.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-312-58592-1 Two brothers work distinctly at crosspurposes to solve the murder of a York artist in journalist Cole’s fictional debut.

When painter Jane F. Wragge is bashed to death and her live-in companion Moses Mundy does a runner, DCI Sam Rounder naturally assumes that Moses is the killer, even though Jane’s diary, which he accidentally finds and inexplicably keeps to himself, is one long love letter to Moses. Meanwhile, the absent lover is hardly idle; he’s hired Sam’s brother, private eye Rick Rounder, to gather 636

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evidence that he’s innocent—an engagement Rick demurely keeps from his brother. Neither rounder is much of a sleuth.

Rick’s first assignment, poking around the lowlifes of South London for a lead about which former mate of Moses might have stitched him up for this job, nearly gets him killed. And the main effect of Sam’s immersion in Jane’s diary, which he continues to plow through as the murderous attacks continue, is to alienate him even further from his long-suffering wife Michelle.

Not to be outdone, Rick ends up neglecting his partner Naomi as well. The distancing act isn’t restricted to the rounders and their women, either. Except for Rick and the late Jane, Cole seems determined to keep most of his characters, especially Jane’s gallery of former lovers, at arm’s length from his readers.

That’s a shame, because although the mystery is thin and anticlimactic, he has a fine sense of the magical power of landscapes, the fragility of loving relationships and the terrifying ease with which naughty fantasies slip over the edge into nightmares.

An offbeat first novel from a promising author who hasn’t quite found his niche.

A GENTLEMAN OF FORTUNE Or, The Suspicions of Miss Dido Kent

Dean, Anna Minotaur Books (336 pp.) $24.99 | April 5, 2011 978-0-312-59696-5 A murder among the English gentility once again challenges the inquisitive prowess of Miss Dido Kent (Bellfield Hall, 2010, etc.).

Dido is residing in the fashionable town of Richmond with her cousin, Mrs. Flora Beaumont, when the ladies learn that the charming, eligible bachelor Mr. Lansdale has finally come into his fortune on the death of his invalid aunt. This happy occasion is disrupted by the vicious gossip of Mrs. Midgely, a neighbor who insinuates that Mrs. Lansdale was murdered. Certainly Dido considers the circumstances strange. She notes the death of the victim’s little lap dog and a puzzling burglary through a window broken from the inside. When Mrs. Midgely prevails upon the local apothecary to bring the case to the magistrates, Dido gives in to her natural curiosity. By paying visits, eavesdropping in shops and attending to the subtleties of parlor games, Dido aspires to defend Mr. Lansdale’s innocence. She is assisted in her endeavors by Mr. William Lomax, with whom she hopes to share mutual affection. As the plot thickens, Dido begins to doubt Mr. Lansdale’s innocence, and Mr. Lomax presumes to entreat Dido to cease her investigations for her own safety. In the end, however, she manages to untangle the mystery and preserve justice, all while remaining the soul of discretion.

Delightful. The clever puzzle and pitch-perfect Regency prose will charm readers.

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THE WORST THING

Elkins, Aaron Berkley Prime Crime (304 pp.) $25.95 | May 3, 2011 978-0-425-24099-1 The creator of forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver (Skull Duggery, 2009, etc.) plunges the egghead designer of a hostage-negotiation protocol into a harrowing abduction in far-off Iceland.

When he was five years old, Bryan Bennett was kidnapped and held for 58 days while his parents, working in Turkey, sweated to come up with the ransom. Small wonder that as an adult, he’s become such an expert on negotiating with kidnappers that he’s written the book for the Odysseus Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Security. Now his new boss, Wally North, wants him to fly to Reykjavik to lead a self-protection seminar for the executives of GlobalSeas Fisheries. Bryan’s own phobias—he doesn’t lead seminars, hates airline travel and still suffers from frequent panic attacks—threaten to make the trip a nightmare even before GlobalSeas CEO Baldur Baldursson, who’s already survived one botched abduction attempt, is snatched again, this time in the company of Bryan’s wife Lori. The kidnappers, who include the three clueless left-wing ideologues of Project Save the Earth and George Henry Camano, the ice-cold freelancer they’ve hired to coordinate the snatch, are no more happy to have grabbed Lori than Bryan is to have lost her. Their face-off pits the expert negotiator against the expert kidnapper and inevitably leads to Bryan’s exchanging himself for his wife.

It’s only then that his ordeal truly begins.

A well-calculated change of pace for normally laid-back Elkins, with mounting thrills, a heavy emphasis on self-therapy and a nice surprise at the end.

SPIDER WEB

Fowler, Earlene Berkley Prime Crime (320 pp.) $25.95 | May 3, 2011 978-0-425-24098-4 Quilt maven Benni Harper (State Fair, 2010, etc.) grapples with public responsibilities and private challenges when a sniper targets San Celina’s finest.

Hosting San Celina’s inaugural Memory Festival would be tough enough for any cowgirl. Benni has to corral the feisty ladies of the Coffin Star Quilt Guild, write narratives for her step-grandfather Isaac Lyons’s oral-history project and coordinate booths for everyone from the local Alzheimer’s Association to Blind Harry’s Bookstore, run by her best friend Elvia. But when a sniper injures two San Celina police officers, including Elvia’s brother Miguel, Benni develops her own memory issues. The shootings set Benni’s husband, San Celina Police Chief Gabe Ortiz, into a tailspin of Vietnam-era |

flashbacks so destructive that he moves into the guestroom for fear of injuring his wife. Benni doesn’t know which is worse: the fear of bullets that could rain down destruction at any minute, or the ghosts of the bullets that rained down death 30 years ago in Khe Sanh. As Benni grapples with the violent side of Gabe’s history, Lin Snider, a mysterious former nurse who says she wants to retire to California’s Central Coast, makes Benni wonder whether she’ll ever be free of reminders of the romantic side of her husband’s checkered past. Even the steady confidence of Grandma Dove and Aunt Garnet may not be able to keep Benni on an even keel this time.

Fowler pieces together questions of memory and identity so deftly that only purists will bemoan the dearth of clues or detection.

HIDEOUT

George, Kathleen Minotaur Books (320 pp.) $24.99 | August 16, 2011 978-0-312-56913-6 A slow night in Pittsburgh turns deadly.

Amped up on crack, booze and weed, Ryan Rutter aims his truck at a woman walking through the park but badly miscalculates. Instead of just scaring her, he hits her head on, then at the urging of his passenger, his younger brother Jack, flees the scene, heading for a vacation cabin at Sugar Lake that their family rented for two weeks until Jensen, the owner, kicked them out for trashing it. The next day, Jack, the more temperate of the boys, finds work to get them food and gas money while Ryan, antsy, decides burglary is just the ticket and winds up with another death on his hands. Detective Colleen Greer catches the first case. With some unsought help from her supervisor Richard Christie, she begins making inquiries. When Jensen shows up at the cabin, Ryan waylays him and threatens him with the man’s own hunting rifle. Worse yet, when Addie, the neighbor who offered Jack an odd job or two, comes by, Ryan jeopardizes her too. Greer, Christie and a plethora of competing law officers from neighboring districts eventually get leads on the boys, put out APBs and close in on them, but not before Ryan, unbeknownst to Jack, opens the gas stove jets to eliminate the pair of witnesses.

Cops getting territorial and sexually frisky (The Odds, 2009, etc.) play second string to Jack, who’s caught up in trying to redeem his brother, and Addie, who makes a mean spaghetti sauce.

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“The Seaside Knitters are joyously preparing for the wedding of one of their own, but first they have to solve a murder.” from the wedding shawl

THE WEDDING SHAWL

Goldenbaum, Sally Obsidian Books (320 pp.) $24.95 | May 3, 2011 978-0-451-23319-6

The Seaside Knitters are joyously preparing for the wedding of one of their own, but first they have to solve a murder.

The family and friends of knitting shop owner Izzy Chambers are busy making ready for her marriage to Sam Perry. Izzy’s beloved aunt Nell has even hired gardener Claire Russell to make her backyard perfect for the ceremony. Long divorced from her ultra-strict husband, Claire has returned to Sea Harbor, Mass., to face the past. Soon after a book-shop discussion of cold cases focusing on the death of Claire’s daughter, beautiful local teen Harmony Farrow, Harmony’s BFF Tiffany Ciccolo is found dead in the basement of the beauty salon where she worked.

Tiffany had a crush on Andy Risso, member of a popular local band.

Since Andy was formerly Harmony’s high-school flame, the police have him high on the suspect list. Nell and her friends realize they have to solve both murders before they can present Izzy with her beautiful wedding shawl and provide a perfect wedding day.

The latest outing for these dexterous amateur sleuths (A Holiday Yarn, 2010, etc.) is a very pleasant read that evokes summers by the sea and features a mystery that will keep you guessing and instructions for making a wedding shawl and a lobster dinner.

MERELY PLAYERS

Gregson, J.M. Severn House (208 pp.) $27.95 | May 1, 2011 978-0-7278-6984-5 The murder of a TV actor leaves too many suspects and too few clues to suit DCI Percy Peach (Wild Justice, 2009, etc.).

A drop in the crime rate should be just the thing for Brunton CIS’s Percy Peach. It would give him time to revel in his blissful new marriage to his comely ex-sergeant, the former Lucy Blake. But the lack of any real wrongdoing to investigate gives Peach’s superintendent, Tommy “Bloody” Tucker, the notion that Percy is just the man to help him negotiate the tension between the National Front and Brunton’s Asian population. Percy hates PR. What he wants is a nice juicy murder. And he gets his wish: Adam Cassidy, who stars in the wildly popular teledrama Call Alec Dawson, is found shot to death in his BMW off the A666. No question who hated Adam. He cheated on his wife Jane, blackballed his mentor Dean Morley from a recurring role on the show and did the same for Michelle Davies, even after bedding her. He canned his agent, Tony Valento, who’s connected enough to hire a hit man. And his brother Luke, who takes care of their aged father Harry, was frustrated with Adam’s neglect of the old man, the 638

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one person who idolized him. So there’s motive aplenty—but who had the means? That’s just what Peach and his new bagman, DS Clyde Northcott, mean to find out.

Another meat-and-potatoes procedural from the reliable Gregson.

THE REDEEMED

Hall, M.R. Simon & Schuster (416 pp.) $25.00 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4391-5712-1 The case of a murdered porn star–turned– anti-porn activist raises more dragons for Severn Vale District Coroner Jenny Cooper to slay.

It looks to all eyes as if psychiatric nurse Alan Jacobs took a fatal overdose of Phenobarbital on his own. But who incised a cross onto the skin of his chest, and why? Jenny Cooper would love to know, but she’s already staggering under quite another weight. Prison chaplain Father Lucas Starr, convinced that Paul Craven, who confessed to stabbing Eva Donaldson to death, is innocent, makes an impassioned plea for Jenny to reopen the question of his guilt in her Coroner’s Court. The venue would seem an ideal place for a disinterested pursuit of the truth, but that’s exactly what doesn’t happen. Jenny runs afoul of a campaign to have Parliament pass sweeping antipornography laws. The campaigners, funded by software pioneer Lord Michael Turnbull’s Decency movement, Eva’s last employer, and pastor Bobby DeMont’s Mission Church of God, aren’t about to see their lobbying undermined. When she goes into court, Jenny faces perhaps the most formidable array of legal talent, acting on behalf of four different parties, ever assembled in a work of fiction. Her dedication to bringing out the truth of Eva and Alan’s deaths is sorely challenged by her opponents’ willingness to use every possible weapon against her—even a long-forgotten accident from her childhood.

Complex, sorely tried Jenny (The Disappeared, 2009, etc.) seems destined to butt heads with every authority figure she can find. She has all the makings of a franchise heroine, if only she can survive her bruising conflicts.

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ESCAPE ARTIST

Ifkovic, Edward Poisoned Pen (250 pp.) $24.95 | June 1, 2011 978-1-59058-847-5 A much younger version of Edna Ferber, who already showed her sleuthing chops as a 70-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner (Lone Star, 2009, etc.), solves what’s presumably her first case—with a little help from the other biggest celebrity to hail from Appleton, Wis. |

In 1904, nobody in her hometown knows that 19-yearold Edna Ferber will grow up to be a playwright and novelist to reckon with. So although Sam Ryan, aging publisher of the Appleton Crescent, pays Edna $3 a week to retail the more genteel items of society gossip, he’s inclined to take the side of her nemesis, bigoted new city editor Matthias Boon, who wants to grab Edna’s story when she lands smack in the middle of a murder. The victim is schoolgirl Frana Lempke, 17, whose rumored liaison with an unnamed older man proved that she was no better than she should be and probably deserved to get strangled, even if nobody can figure out how she sneaked out of her closely watched school. As it happens, her death coincides with the visit of the celebrated Harry Houdini, who was born in Hungary but claims Appleton as his hometown. “All Jews are escape artists,” Edna’s blind father tells her, and indeed Frana and Edna’s attempts to escape Appleton’s stifling conventionality are worthy of Houdini. But because Ifkovic is determined to introduce readers to every citizen of the town, you don’t get much chance to get close to any of the suspects, and the workmanlike whodunit serves mainly as a charming excuse to introduce Houdini to Ferber.

The biggest mystery, in fact, is what chapter in Ferber’s eventful life is likely to furnish the basis for the next installment in this offbeat series.

JERSEY LAW

Liebman, Ron Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) $25.00 | June 14, 2011 978-1-4165-6977-0 The two bottom-feeding South Jersey lawyers from Death by Rodrigo (2007) are at it again, their goal not so much to excel in court as to survive outside it.

You don’t want to mess with Slippery (nee Avon) Williams, whether you’re dealing drugs on the fair streets of Camden under his watchful eye or running a parallel organization in Atlantic City, which Chink (nee Reginald Shawn) Dupree was doing from prison until Slippery got him transferred into the Camden County Jail and iced. But now, it seems, Sami Khan, South Jersey’s premier electronics dealer, is doing just that. As if fencing stolen property and evading taxes weren’t enough for his family business, Sami has been laundering money for Slippery’s outfit—which would be fine if Camden County DA Robert Cahill weren’t leaning on Sami to flip. The situation is even trickier for Sami’s lawyers, Mickie Mezzonatti and Junne Salerno, whose youse-guys narration guides innocent readers through this jungle. Having accepted $50,000 from Slippery to join upscale Philadelphia attorney Gerald Rubino at Sami’s defense table, they realize too late that the service they’re being paid for is to tip Slippery off to any hint that Sami’s about to roll over on him. Of course, if they betray a client’s confidence, they’ll be disbarred. But disbarring sounds pretty good compared to getting whacked by Slippery, especially once Arty Bernstein, the landlord of their bucket shop, indicates that he’s perfectly |

willing to sell them out to Slippery the minute they make a wrong move, or even before.

The dilemma is so authentic that it’s sad to see how cheaply and easily Liebman lets his two heroes off the hook. Fuhgeddaboudit, but be sure to check back next time.

STAGESTRUCK

Lovesey, Peter Soho (336 pp.) $25.00 | June 1, 2011 978-1-56947-947-6 Backstage hugger-mugger at Bath’s Theatre Royal.

The curtain has barely gone up when the pop star hoping to resurrect her glory days by switching from singing to drama begins to scream and tear at her face.

Clarion Calhoun is rushed to hospital, her understudy goes on and the production is put in serious jeopardy. Disfigured from the caustic drain cleaner someone added to her face powder, Clarion decides to sue the theatre, a catastrophe only slightly diminished when Denise, who applied Clarion’s makeup, commits suicide in remorse. Battling a lifelong fear of theatres, Detective Peter Diamond (Skeleton Hill, 2009, etc.) steps in to sort out matters. His task is complicated by the actors’ ability to act innocent; the theatre management’s romantic proclivities and financial woes; the appearance of the grey lady (the resident theatre ghost); and the dreaded sighting of two dead tortoiseshell butterflies, which according to theatre lore presage tragedy. Furthermore, Diamond is saddled with Sergeant Dawkins, a vulgarly dressed, loudmouthed pendant who keeps volunteering for more work. Clarion, for unspecified reasons, drops her lawsuit, but on an unannounced visit to a performance is suffocated anyway with a plastic bag. Determined to get to the bottom of the bathos at Bath and pinpoint the origin of his theatre terror, Diamond slogs on, finally standing center stage to confront at least one of his nemeses.

Far from Lovesey at his best, without the wit, trickery and demonic plotting that has earned him silver, gold and diamond daggers from the British Crime Writers’ Association.

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THE FAERIE HILLS

McDuffie, Susan Five Star (236 pp.) $25.95 | April 15, 2011 978-1-59414-961-0

In the isles of the Hebrides, Muirteach of Clan MacPhee solves his second mystery for the Lord MacDonald (A Mass for the Dead, 2006).

In 1373, Muirteach’s uncle is fostering Lord MacDonald’s grandson, a headstrong young boy named Niall. Upon |

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“The Nameless Detective Agency must cope with a clutch of monsters, all members of the gentler sex.” from camouflage

hearing tales of faerie gold, Niall takes to the hills to find treasure and never returns. His disappearance reignites old clan tensions. Niall’s parents accuse the men of Clan MacRuari of murdering the boy in vengeance for the accidental killing of a MacRuari son decades ago. The islanders believe the fey folk took the boy as punishment. Muirteach, however, sees a human hand at work. He and his uncle’s men comb the island for clues but find only the bones of an infant in a cave and word of a changeling in the next village. As Muirteach’s love for the healer Mariota blossoms, the shadows of the faerie world grow darker.

On the night of Samhain, when the dead walk amongst the living, another victim is struck down. Does a witch or the local faerie doctor hold the key to Niall’s disappearance?

Well-paced and engrossing, this blend of faerie lore and alltoo-human intrigue will satisfy fans of fantasy and mystery alike.

LOSING NICOLA

Moody, Susan Severn House (288 pp.) $28.95 | June 1, 2011 978-0-7278-8014-7 Twenty years after her 12th birthday ended in tragedy, Alice Beecham returns to her hometown in an attempt to make herself whole by figuring out what happened.

The summer of 1953 may have been uneventful for the world at large, but it was crucial for history teacher Fiona Beecham and her brood, who in the absence of their soldier husband and father have found a home with Fiona’s aunt in Shale, a town in coastal Kent. Even though nobody exactly liked 13-yearold Nicola Stone, nobody could resist her either. An arresting backstory—her father was doing time for strangling her friend Valerie Johnson two years earlier—combined with her sovereign impertinence and her budding sexuality to make her irresistible to the local lads, from Julian Tavistock to Alice’s all-buttwin Orlando, and those a bit older but no wiser, especially art teacher Bertram Yelland. As Alice struggles with unfamiliar and uncomfortable feelings for Sasha Elias, the piano teacher whose family was killed in the Holocaust, Nicola adroitly manages to affront every adult in Shale while remaining the alpha child in Alice’s circle. Her reign of terror ends when Orlando and Alice, picking blackberries the morning after Nicola’s rudeness spoiled Alice’s party the day before, find her beaten to death.

When the passing years fail to bring resolution to the mystery of her death Alice resolves to mark the breakup of her marriage by resettling in Shale long enough to interview everyone concerned. She soon learns that despite their ritual reluctance, they’re more than willing to talk about the secrets they’ve hidden all these years.

Veteran Moody (Doubled in Spades, 1997, etc.) spins a puzzle that takes a back seat to her graceful evocation of her heroine’s childhood and its disintegration one fateful summer.

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CAMOUFLAGE

Pronzini, Bill Forge (288 pp.) $24.99 | June 1, 2011 978-0-7653-2564-8 The Nameless Detective Agency must cope with a clutch of monsters, all members of the gentler sex.

From the moment David Virden sets an outrageously expensive shoe in the agency’s barebones office, Nameless takes against him. The man is too sleek, too carefully put together. Still, the gig seems straightforward enough once a certain amount of veneer is stripped away. Virden wants an ex-wife found. That’s the straightforward part. No problem. Harness Tamara, Nameless’ black, beautiful and extremely brainy colleague, to her agile computer, and they’re halfway to a final tally of billable hours. The offbeat part has to do with the reason Virden wants his ex tracked down dead or alive. It’s central to his current and shamelessly shady matrimonial venture, involving the very well-heeled, very Catholic Judith Lopresti. But that’s his business, Nameless decides, while preparing to pursue the agency’s. Nameless finds Roxanne McManus as easily as he thought he would and almost immediately wishes he hadn’t.

She and Jane Carson, her partner in vicious crime, are Messalina and Lucrezia Borgia for our time. Meanwhile, Jake Runyon, the agency’s crack field investigator, has also taken a case involving one of San Francisco’s loathsome ladies. What makes his case different is that it’s personal. What makes it a match is the woman’s unregenerate wickedness.

Can doing first-rate work as consistently as Pronzini (Betrayers, 2010, etc.) really be as effortless as he makes it seem?

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nonfiction STEALING REMBRANDTS The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists

IN THE LONG RUN A Father, a Son, and Unintentional Lessons in Happiness

Amore, Anthony M.; Mashberg, Tom Palgrave Macmillan (256 pp.) $25.00 | July 5, 2011 978-0-230-10853-0

A museum security director and a journalist combine to educate the masses about the realities of art theft, with an emphasis on the paintings of Rembrandt.

Amore is employed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, which has been victimized by thieves pulling off high-profile heists. Mashberg is a Boston Herald reporter who immersed himself in the Gardner thefts, hoping to solve the most notorious of those, which occurred in 1990. The authors smash myth after myth, many of them the result of unrealistic movies of the James Bond variety. For instance, they demonstrate that a high percentage of art thieves—whether stealing from museums or private homes—are not sophisticated about technology or about the paintings themselves. In fact, many are common house burglars who seek new criminal challenges and who believe, often mistakenly, that stealing works of art assessed at high prices will lead to riches. They frequently fail to reckon with the reality that art masterpieces are difficult to fence because they stick out in underground markets. The bulk of the text consists of case studies from private residential collections and from public galleries in Stockholm, Cincinnati, Boston and Worcester, Mass. The studies sometimes feel like filler in an already slim book, partly because the heists occurred so many decades ago. The narrative is generally stronger when the authors convey insights from thieves who discuss their mindsets, and when the text focuses on why educated museum staff members can be duped so easily. The background about Rembrandt, why his art has become so sought-after and how thieves have disposed of his masterpieces constitutes a book within the book, backed by original research.

An interesting mish-mash of everything related to the thievery of valuable art. (8-page black-and-white glossy insert)

Axelrod, Jim Farrar, Straus and Giroux (288 pp.) $26.00 | May 17, 2011 978-0-374-19211-2 A CBS News national correspondent reassesses his priorities after 12 successful years in the ruthlessly competitive TV news business.

As this polished memoir opens, the 46-year-old author is covering the 2008 Democratic primaries and fighting to win the air time that will guarantee his continued rise in network news.

At the time, however, he was beginning to feel ignored and marginalized by new bosses, and he was also reminded of his father’s race times at age 46 in the New York City marathon. So Axelrod decided to get in shape, run in the 2009 marathon and beat his father’s best time. In alternating chapters, the author describes his arduous training for the big race and his relationship with his successful trial-lawyer father, a troubled charmer with few friends who escaped the pressures of life, marriage, and fatherhood through running. Axelrod’s desire to outrun his father fits nicely with his driven ambition to provide handsomely for his family—a wife and three young children whom he rarely sees during months of constant travel. Following one of his workaholic father’s rules for success—“Never say no”—Axelrod accepted assignments to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, hoping that his bosses were finally coming around. But he failed to consult his pregnant wife, and his marriage became badly strained.

The author eventually realized that his quest for fame and money was clouding the fact that he was obsessively focused on work that he did not really enjoy. He resolved to curb his ambition and settle down, in all respects, with his family.

A candid story that will resonate for many midlife readers.

POOR ECONOMICS A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty Banerjee, Abhijit; Duflo, Esther PublicAffairs (320 pp.) $26.99 | April 26, 2011 978-1-58648-798-0

Highly decorated economists Banerjee and Duflo (Economics/Massachusetts Institute of Technology) relay 15 years |

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“Infamous Players stands as a sort of cheeky, breezy companion to Peter Biskind’s epic Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, which documents the same period…but Bart’s account is faster, more personal, and more fun.” from infamous players

of research into a smart, engaging investigation of global poverty—and why we’re failing to eliminate it.

Aiming to change the stigma that revolves around poverty, the authors explore not just how many find themselves in economic quicksand, but why. They suggest that policymakers, economists and philanthropists alike fail to understand the unique problems that lead to poverty; as such, attempts to eradicate it are often misguided. The poor need more than food, the authors write; they need programs that empower them with a real, fighting chance. Through a blend of on-the-ground observations, social experiments and psychological analysis, Banerjee and Duflo showcase an expansive understanding of poverty’s traps and its potential solutions. They extol the virtues of such practices as microsaving and microfinance, which cut out debilitating interest rates and predatory moneylenders.

But even these solutions aren’t without their issues, including lack of trust in the lender and an unwillingness to take risk. The authors advocate for increased access to family planning, as family size is often a leading cause for why many are saddled with financial burden. They also investigate why many forego free or low-cost medical care or education.

A refreshingly clear, well-structured argument against the standard approach to poverty, this book, while intended for academics and those working on the ground, should provide an essential wake-up call for any reader.

INFAMOUS PLAYERS A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex)

Bart, Peter Weinstein Books (304 pp.) $24.95 | May 3, 2011 978-1-60286-139-8

Hollywood, the psychedelic years.

Bart recalls his tumultuous tenure as Vice President of Paramount, a onceproud studio struggling to adjust to changing audience tastes in the late sixties and seventies. Bart came to the picture business via an untraditional route—he had previously worked as a reporter for the New York Times—and his rise would be inextricably linked with that of Robert Evans, the famously brash and sybbaritic former apparel executive who had charmed his way into the Hollywood elite after an undistinguished acting career. Together, Bart and Evans, under the supervision of their voluable and impetuous corporate master, Charles Bluhdorn, would make Paramount an exemplar of the “new” Hollywood, championing innovative, era-defining projects including The Godfather, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, and Love Story. It was a bumpy ride, and Bart drolly dishes on bad behavior both behind and in front of the camera, marveling at the ability of great cinema to survive the egos, private agendas, bad behavior, and appalling stupidity that run rampant in the highest echelons of the industry. Bart’s behind-the-scenes reminiscences of the productions of such legendary productions is insightful and endlessly diverting for any fan of the period’s 642

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films, and he limns the personalities and career arcs of such luminaries as Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, and Francis Ford Coppola with a wealth juicy details and good humor. Infamous Players stands as a sort of cheeky, breezy companion to Peter Biskinds epic Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, which documents the same period…but Bart’s account is faster, more personal, and more fun.

An irresistible insider’s account of one of Hollywood’s most vital and storied eras. (Author appearances in New York and Los Angeles)

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WALK IN THE WORLD A Pedestrian in Paris

Baxter, John Perennial/HarperCollins (336 pp.) $14.99 paperback original | June 1, 2011 978-0-06-199854-6

Memoirist, biographer and translator Baxter (Von Sternberg, 2010, etc.) turns his sensuous walking tours of Paris into the written word, with gratifying results.

The author does what he does best—short chapters that explore some engaging nugget of Parisian culture or history, in a pace and voice that are both gentle. Goaded by a friend to put his voluminous knowledge of Paris to use as a walkingtour guide to literary and other artistic haunts, he accepted the challenge and found a calling. Baxter enjoys amusing and being amused, and he has pocketfuls of colorful background stories that create atmosphere. He is of the Henry Miller school—give him the boulevards known for sex and crime, food and drink, the opium dens and the absinthe bars, the art galleries selling salacious photographs—and he pulls it all off with an air of charm and calm. On his tours, the plans are open-ended; he digresses as needs be, perhaps into a story about how the lock to his house broke when he was about to leave for Christmas Eve at his relatives’, or the curious interlude with a performance artist claiming to have known Marlene Dietrich. Readers can feel his elation at being out and about, experiencing the antique weather in the small passageways, cruising down Haussmann’s sidewalks, dropping into cafés famous and obscure and exploring anything Hemingway. He is the flâneur’s flâneur: “Visitors didn’t want their Paris. They wanted mine. Plenty of time when they got home to read Flaubert or a history of the French Revolution. What they wanted now was to reach out and touch the living flesh—to devour and be devoured.”

Walking through Paris with Baxter is really what bien-être is all about. (Author appearances in Paris)

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BINGSOP’S FABLES Little Morals for Big Business

Bing, Stanley Illustrator: Brodner, Steve Harper Business (208 pp.) $19.99 | April 26, 2011 978-0-06-199852-2

Biting wisdom of the corporate world conveyed through a series of clever moral tales and anthropomorphic illustrations.

Borrowing from the style and structure of Aesop’s Fables, Fortune magazine columnist and author Bing (Executricks: Or How to Retire While You’re Still Working, 2008, etc.) focuses his keen observer’s eye on the egos, misjudgments and general mayhem that sink or float the players in American Big Business. Offering a wealth of advice on navigating the tricky waters of corporate politics and interpersonal relationships, these parables are equally relevant for life outside the office. Bing’s pithy, humorous guidance is dispensed through his alter ego, Bingsop. The short volume is loaded with scathingly funny, and recognizable, corporate archetypes: the CEO, the Media Mogul, the Benefits Manager, the Consultants, among others. The fun begins with the “Translator’s Note,” in which the author explains that he is writing from a time far in the future recounting the collected wisdom of a scribe from early-21st-century America. Brodner’s illustrations of animals as human caricatures are clever and offbeat. Each tale ends with a moral that cuts to the chase—e.g., “Everybody wants to think outside the box unless it’s their box,” or “It’s your ring people are kissing, not you.”

Deceptively simple bedtime stories for adults.

TICKET MASTERS The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped

Budnick, Dean; Baron, Josh ECW Press (392 pp.) $24.95 paperback original | June 1, 2011 978-1-55022-949-3

The lively, sprawling chronology of the concert-ticket sales business.

Relix editors Budnick (Jambands: The Complete Guide to the Players, Music, and Scene, 2003, etc.) and Baron begin by recapturing the “eureka moment” of computer moguls Harvey Dubner and partner Jack Quinn in the 1960s. Both men managed to surmount a spectrum of technological kinks to roll out a revolutionary operating system that expanded automated ticketing to encompass not only theater venues, but the lucrative rock music and sporting-event business as well. Dubbed Ticket Reservation Systems, it endured fierce competition and necessary rebranding (Ticketron), while an ingenious startup venture (that would become Ticketmaster) began competing for venue contracts and consumer sales with technology capable of processing increasingly complex ticketing platforms. |

The authors engagingly trace the industry’s evolution through its rapid and profitable growth trends in the ’70s and ’80s, aided partly by shrewd businessmen like Ticketmaster honcho Fred Rosen, an entrepreneur who savored his company’s absorption of rival agent Ticketron in 1991. However, trouble began to mount. Customers revolted over Ticketmaster’s excessive, involuntary tiers of “service fees,” and allegations of unsavory and overzealous business practices sparked an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for antitrust practices. A host of volatile lawsuits followed, though nothing could prevent the highly scrutinized merger with LiveNation in 2010. Budnick and Baron offer information in accessible language fortified with verbatim dialogue from a pantheon of music-industry brass. Classic-rock bands, musicians, managers, concert promoters, radio broadcasters and entertainment attorneys contribute to a spirited forum on how the grinding gears of the evolving (often double-crossing) ticket market has affected their concert tours and business.

An exhaustive, somewhat circuitous literary treatment that favors history over histrionics.

THE RED MARKET On the Trail of the World’s Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers Carney, Scott Morrow/HarperCollins (272 pp.) $25.99 | June 1, 2011 978-0-06-193646-3

Having written magazine articles on subjects like the buccaneer business model of Somali pirates and the dark side of overseas adoptions, Wired contributing editor Carney expands on time spent in India, Europe and America examining the illegal “red” marketplace for trafficked human body parts.

The author writes that “our appetite for human flesh is higher now than at any other time in history.” Though the trade may appear barbaric, it is commonplace in places like Egypt and the Philippines, and most transactions are handled—to an outsider, at least—altruistically. As a post-graduate anthropology student, the author taught for many years in southern India, and his unsympathetic initiation into the “body business” came at the expense of a young American student and suicide victim upon whose increasingly perishable corpse descended a variety of locals who insinuated “demands on what was left of her material self.” Elsewhere in India, Carney reports dramatic stories of a riverbank “bone factory” where 100 confiscated, grave-robbed human skulls might net $70,000 overseas, the atrocious forprofit kidnapping of children from city streets and orphanages and the contract-bound surrogate baby factories in Akanksha.

A chapter on the latest advancements in the lucrative international brokers’ market for living-donor kidneys is as startling as one on genetic egg harvesting—in exchange for sperm, Swiss fertility specialists can “basically FedEx you a baby.” Less dour is

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the author’s affably detailed stint “guinea-pigging” for a clinical trial of a “rebranded Viagra” and selling his hair for auction. As Carney highlights the most egregious of criminal red markets hoping to expose and recriminalize them, he impartially balances that perspective with arguments for industry legalization and demystifies its seductive “free market solution.” Much akin to the work of Mary Roach, the result is a volume that lays bare the atrocities of the human flesh trade, reiterating the verity that “every corpse has a stakeholder.”

Gruesomely fascinating. (Black-and-white photos throughout. Author appearances in Los Angeles and New York. Agent: Mary Ann Naples)

MAÑANA FOREVER? Mexico and the Mexicans

Castañeda, Jorge G. Knopf (286 pp.) $26.95 | May 17, 2011 978-0-375-40424-5 e-book 978-0-307-59660-4

A distinguished scholar charts the many contradictions that shape and afflict Mexico.

After 500 years of authoritarian rule, Mexico has a burgeoning middle class and a functioning, if creaky, representative democracy, but its civil society remains perilously weak. Indeed, Castañeda (Politics and Latin American Studies/New York Univ.; Ex Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants, 2008, etc.) argues, the very cultural traits which may have permitted the people to survive their tortured history now serve to obstruct progress and stand in the way of Mexico’s full entry into modernity. He identifies a number of these characteristic features, explains their origins and the consequences they have wrought and discusses the hurdles they pose for the country’s future. Mexico, he argues, is plagued by a valorization of the individual and a persistent mistrust of collective action, a penchant for embracing victimhood, a tendency to avoid conflict and confrontation, a mistrust of competition, an obsession with past oppression and betrayals, a tolerance of corruption, an exaltation of ritual over reality and a xenophobia embedded even in law. As he takes the measure of his native land, Castañeda relies on three sources of information: “the classics”—the best that has been written by knowledgeable observers of Mexico—an abundance of statistical information, and his considerable personal experience. The delivery of so much political, economic and sociological data, while a necessary component of his analysis, can sometimes make for slow going, and he frequently assumes a greater understanding of Mexico’s recent politics than most Americans, at least, surely possess. Still, his anecdotes are lively, and he makes judicious use of the experts he frequently invokes. Perhaps Mexicans will heed Castañeda’s prescription for reform, including, for example, instituting a national police force and criminal code and his call for a new respect for the rule of law. There’s an underlying pessimism to his argument, but he can’t help offering reasons for hope.

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An informed, persuasive analysis of the attitudinal adjustments and concrete changes required for Mexico to thrive in the 21st century. (Author tour to Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Washington, D.C.)

PLEASE FIRE ME Posts from the Revolting Workplace

Chromy, Adam; Morris, Jill Citadel/Kensington (240 pp.) $14.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-0-8065-3443-5 Chromy and Morris adapt their online venue for venting, PleaseFireMe.com, into a fictitious primer for a workingclass revolution.

Perhaps people hate their jobs more in an economic downturn when the option to quit is no longer on the table and the words “You’re fired!” can often provide the comfort of a steady unemployment check. That conundrum is what inspired Chromy and Morris to create their popular website where irate, disgruntled employees post their frustrations without fear of reprisal. This literary rendition framed as a faux revolutionary manifesto provides rants from the humorous (“Please fire me.

I am dressed like a smoothie”) to the zany (“Please fire me. I work in a restaurant. One day, I meet this nice old lady who gives me a hug. Then she says, ‘Oops, I probably shouldn’t be doing that; I have TB’ ”) to the downright ridiculous (“Please fire me. My wife went into unexpected early birth of my first child. When I asked my manager if I could leave work to be with my wife at the hospital he replied, ‘Well, that’s just poor planning on your part. What’s more important, your career or your family?’ ”) Smirks and sidesplitting laughs are abundant, but the scattered format of the hit-and-miss revolutionary dialogue the authors use to plug the gaps between the reallife testimonies is apt to leave readers unsatisfied. When the book does work, however, even the most despondent of workers won’t be able to help cracking a smile at this collection of hilarious tales from the labor front.

Scan for the funny and skip the rest.

NOM DE PLUME A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms

Ciuraru, Carmela Harper/HarperCollins (288 pp.) $24.99 | June 14, 2011 978-0-06-173526-4

In her nonfiction debut, anthologist Ciuraru (editor: Poems About Horses, 2009, etc.) presents brief biographies of a handful of pseudonymous authors from George Sand to the late 20th century.

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“Both a gripping true-crime narrative and an astonishing portrait of fin de siècle yellow journalism.” from murder of the century

What motivates a writer to publish under another name?

Ciuraru offers quite a few reasons in these biographical sketches of writers whose works of fiction appeared under a pseudonym and one, Portugal’s Fernando Pessoa, who wrote under more than 70 heteronyms, separate personalities each with its own style and extensive imaginary biography. Most of the Ciuraru’s choices are familiar figures—Mark Twain, George Orwell, Lewis Carroll, Sylvia Plath—and each section begins with a single introductory sentence that may be intended as intriguing but often serves instead to suggest an unsettling contempt for her subjects. If there is a consistent lesson to be taken from these lives, it is that a successful author will find it nearly impossible to hide behind a pseudonym for long. Otherwise, these authors have little in common; their reasons for publishing pseudonymously and their attitudes toward their alter egos are as varied as their life stories. Ciuraru does not attempt to find a pattern among them or impose one upon them, nor does she explain how her subjects’ struggles with identity issues might differ from those of other authors. Written in a breezy style that occasionally lapses into the vernacular, the biographies are lively and entertaining, but they provide no real secrets or startling revelations. The omission of endnotes will disappoint readers attempting to determine whether an assertion is the author’s own or reflects a scholarly consensus, or those seeking the sources of delicious factual tidbits like the width of Emily Brontë’s coffin (17 inches).

A collection of original literary biographies connected by a single circumstance that does not by itself suffice to pull them together.

MURDER OF THE CENTURY The Gilded Age Crime that Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars Collins, Paul Crown (320 pp.) $26.00 | June 14, 2011 978-0-307-59220-0

Collins (English/Portland State Univ.; The Book of William: How Shakespeare’s First Folio Changed the World, 2010, etc.) unpacks a sensational 1897 murder case that fascinated the public as it played out across the front pages of the New York City’s leading newspapers: Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal.

The tabloids would go beyond mere coverage of the story; the white-hot rivalry between the papers led to an astoundingly proactive agenda that saw reporters actually outflanking the police investigation and effectively solving much of the case.

After a group of children discovered the ghastly severed trunk of William Guldensuppe, a Turkish bath-house attendant, the rival news organs spared no expense to ferret out the culprits, eventually tracking the purchase of an oilcloth used to wrap the torso to Mrs. Augusta Nack, a German immigrant midwife and rumored back-room abortionist. Guldensuppe had been Nack’s lover before being replaced by Martin Thorn, a hotheaded |

barber. Things failed to progress smoothly. The manipulative, spider-like Nack and the handsome, violent Thorn are compelling villains, and other players, such as Thorn’s grandstanding lawyer William Howe (a vain, corpulent charlatan of oratory brilliance), the pathetic John Gotha, Thorn’s former friend and the prosecution’s chief witness and the maniacally ambitious Hearst round out a thoroughly engrossing cast of characters. The narrative is wonderfully rich in period detail (readers may gag at the description of the rat-induced stench that filled the courtroom during the trial), salacious facts about the case (Guldensuppe’s killing and dismemberment was a truly heinous crime) and infectious wonder at the chutzpah and inventiveness displayed by Pulitzer’s and Hearst’s minions.

Both a gripping true-crime narrative and an astonishing portrait of fin de siècle yellow journalism. (Agent: Michelle Tessler/ Tessler Literary Agency)

EFFIE The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais Cooper, Suzanne Fagence St. Martin’s (336 pp.) $25.99 | June 21, 2011 978-0-312-58173-2

A fresh look at Victorian society as seen through the eyes of an early defender of women’s rights, Effie Gray.

Victoria & Albert Museum curator Cooper (Pre-Raphaelite Art in the Victoria & Albert Museum, 2003, etc.) works from Effie’s previously unknown personal correspondence, which the author gained access to when Sir Geoffrey Millais lent thousands of her brown-paper wrapped letters to London’s Tate Gallery in 2009. Combining biography with a social history of the period, Cooper tells Effie’s story of her marriage to John Ruskin and its annulment and her subsequent marriage to the artist John Everett Millais, one of Ruskin’s student admirers in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which shared Ruskin’s admiration for medievalism. These ideas influenced the Victorian approach to art and architecture and the Gothic revival in church and government buildings. The narrative of Effie’s liberation from the bondage of her first marriage and her husband’s cruel and abusive conduct is a suspenseful tale involving intrigue and close planning; nothing was left to chance. With the help of Lady Easterly, wife of the head of the Royal Academy, she was at last free to marry Millais, who became head of the Academy before his death in 1896.

A refreshing re-examination of interesting questions about art, nature and life beyond the bounds of Victoria’s England.

(8-page color photo insert, 8-page black-and-white photo insert. Agent: Jonathan Conway)

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THE BEST ADVICE I EVER GOT Lessons from Extraordinary Lives

Couric, Katie Random (288 pp.) $26.00 | April 12, 2011 978-0-8129-9277-9

Award-winning anchor of the CBS Evening News compiles insights and advice from influential public figures

for any stage of life.

What do Beyoncé and General David Petraeus have in common? They’re among the more than 100 entertainers, entrepreneurs, political figures and journalists doling out words of wisdom in Couric’s collection. In an easy-to-read format, the author assembles an array of advice from successful people, and her tone is casual and upbeat. Divided into different themes, such as courage, hard work and contribution, the book veers between the humorous and the poignant. Finance expert Suze Orman describes her struggles as a waitress, and late war hero Edmund N. Carpenter II shares his approach to life in a candid essay he wrote in 1938 at the tender age of 17. Couric seamlessly weaves in the lessons she has learned along the way, sharing anecdotes from her own life, which has not been without hardship. She opens up about her husband’s early death from cancer and the sexist attitudes she faced as the first woman to soloanchor a major newscast. Most of the advice found here isn’t earth-shattering—Bill Cosby says he was his own worst enemy, Larry King suggests readers “learn how to listen”—but it comes from people who have excelled with talent, luck and lots of hard work. The author’s profits will be donated to Scholarship America, an organization that helps students go to college.

Readers looking to browse for a little inspiration can also help a worthy cause.

SLOW SEX The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm

Daedone, Nicole Grand Central Publishing (256 pp.) $24.99 | May 25, 2011 978-0-446-56719-0

In the spirit of the Slow Food movement, Daedone introduces the Slow Sex movement, which urges couples to take time to investigate a woman’s genitalia and her responses to contact.

A 10-day life-changing starter program of Orgasmic Meditation, or OM, is designed to educate both partners about the female body and what it wants. In specific, vivid detail, the author provides instructions for exploring the different means of clitoral stimulation, while describing sensations and how to build, then ground, sexual energy. The benefits extend beyond 646

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the obvious: Women cultivate the ability to communicate during intimate moments, furthering their ability to state their needs outside the bedroom. While it all sounds wonderful, it may present a challenge to practice; OM requires a partner dedicated to a potentially awkward process and open to discussion of his technique. However, bonus chapters on Slow Oral (His and Hers) and intercourse provide sensuous counsel more universally applicable. At times far-fetched, other times keenly perceptive, Daedone offers astute insights but also makes a few questionable claims—e.g., an orgasm that lasts four months, or that every woman can be orgasmic—that are validated when she redefines “orgasm” so it is no longer synonymous with “climax.” Encouraging testimonials from practitioners scattered throughout offer hope, yet lack the warmth and veracity of the few personal stories the author shares from her youth.

Real-life lovemaking advice from a sex specialist entangled in an idealistic program.

A JANE AUSTEN EDUCATION How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter Deresiewicz, William Penguin Press (272 pp.) $25.95 | May 2, 2011 978-1-59420-288-9

A literary critic confronts his callow youth and finds salvation in the pages of the English romantic novelist.

In the early pages, former Yale English professor Deresiewicz (Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets, 2005) recalls being an unlikely candidate for Jane Austen fandom, let alone the Austen scholar he later became. An aficionado of severe modernist bricks like Ulysses, he first read Emma only because he was compelled to for a course requirement. But Austen’s skewering of contempt and pretentiousness among the English gentry hit home. “[S]he was showing me my own ugly face,” he writes. Each of this book’s main six chapters is framed around a particular Austen novel, along with a life lesson Deresiewicz took from it. In Pride and Prejudice, he learned not to be so quick to judge; through Northanger Abbey, he discovered the importance of understanding others’ perspectives; Mansfield Park imparted a message about the perils of social climbing.

The structure is somewhat facile, but his command of Austen’s life and works is assured, and he’s an engaging penitent, exposing his emotional scars without being manipulative. The Mansfield Park chapter is particularly incisive, drilling deep into his motivations for befriending a set of upper-crust New Yorkers, and bouncing that experience against the emotional parrying in Austen’s novel.

Deresiewicz’s path of discovery has an Austenish arc. After years of dismissiveness toward others, he learned to become openhearted and—how else could a book like this end?—eventually marry his true love. Though he occasionally ventures deep into the weeds elaborating on a novel’s particular plot point—some of the dust of his dissertation work sticks to these pages—he’s generally careful

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“Too much of the book is simply a retread of familiar stories from the 2008 news cycle, embellished with gossipy details.” from the lies of sarah palin

to keep the book appealing to both Austenites and those looking for a good memoir.

Deresiewicz smartly finds the practical value of Austen’s prose without degrading her novels into how-to manuals.

(Agent: Elyse Cheney/Elyse Cheney Literary Associates)

THE LAZY GOURMET Magnificent Meals Made Easy

Donovan, Robin; Gallin, Juliana Viva Editions (216 pp.) $15.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-1-57344-653-2

Recipes for the adventurous home cook looking to take their meal from ordinary to exquisite.

Donovan (Campfire Cuisine: Gourmet Recipes for the Great Outdoors, 2006) and Gallin have a mantra: “Cooking a great meal can be just as easy as cooking a crappy meal!” While their cookbook won’t transform that quick weeknight mac and cheese into a multicourse masterpiece, it will allow wannabe chefs to whip up mouthwatering dishes guaranteed to impress guests. The book is divided into two parts: “The Basics” lists must-have ingredients to keep on-hand and provides simple cooking tips, from softening butter to storing appliances, but “The Recipes” is where the fun begins.

Snacks, small plates, soups and desserts are all on offer, ranging from Savory Blue Cheese Shortbread to Pistachio Ice Cream with Strawberries and Balsamic Syrup. The recipes may sound exotic, but each has been tested by volunteers with no culinary training.

The language is straightforward and free of confusing cooking terms, and the most complicated piece of equipment required is a food processor. Recipes are often followed by detailed instructions on how to “Make it ahead,” suggestions for side dishes to “Serve it with,” or alternate ingredients for cooks looking to “Change it up.” Some recipes, however, may be too lackadaisical for even the laziest of gourmets—e.g., a recipe for Basil Leaf and Goat Cheese Wraps that instructs readers to set out the ingredients then direct “diners to take a basil leaf and wrap it around some cheese.”

A collection of easy-to-follow recipes that demystifies gourmet cooking.

A SOLDIER’S DREAM Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq

Doyle, William NAL Caliber/Berkley (336 pp.) $25.95 | June 7, 2011 978-0-451-23000-3

The inspiring story of one soldier in Iraq in 2006 determined to make peace with warring tribal factions.

Doyle energetically spotlights the daring, risky work of Cpt. Travis Patriquin, a U.S. Army commander from Missouri trained in Special Forces whose gift with |

foreign languages and genuine interest in Arab culture allowed him to win over Iraqi tribes in their mutual struggles against alQaeda. Posted in 2006 to Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province (and “de facto capital of the al-Qaeda caliphate in Iraq”), Patriquin was at the deadly epicenter of violence against the resented U.S. coalition forces, in the form of IEDs, grenades, snipers, etc., which killed Americans daily. Al-Qaeda had terrorized the local sheiks by kidnappings, intimidation of family members and torture, and used bribes of young fighters to set bombs for the U.S. troops. Patriquin and his commander, Col. Sean MacFarland, believed that the key in turning the tide was to befriend the local tribal bosses and try to build a loyal police force. One important leader proved to be Sheik Sattar abu Risha, “the Tony Soprano of western Iraq,” suspected smuggler and bandit, whom Patriquin advocated backing, despite the Army’s suspicions about him. Courting him with hours of “man-kissing” and tea drinking, Patriquin convinced him of the value of building a police recruiting effort, and the word spread from sheik to sheik: “It was time to switch sides and join the Iraqi police.” American forces sweetened the deal by offering security and cash rewards.

This groundswell among the Iraqis is termed the Awakening, and Patriquin and his Arab-friendly skills were instrumental in bringing it about. With his death by IED in December 2006, the U.S. Army lost its own Lawrence of Arabia.

Impressive feats from an important soldier, but the book has the ring of an official military account. (Agent: Mel Berger/ William Morris Endeavor)

THE LIES OF SARAH PALIN The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power Dunn, Geoffrey St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $25.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-312-60186-7

Metro Newspapers senior correspondent and Huffington Post contributor Dunn adds to the growing shelf of Sarah Palin books.

Unfortunately, the author doesn’t convincingly substantiate his statement that Palin’s “ambition is as unbridled as it is morally corrupt.” Too much of the book is simply a retread of familiar stories from the 2008 news cycle, embellished with gossipy details about how, as a kid, the former Alaskan governor enlisted her 8th-grade friends in intrigues against a rival, as well as innuendos about her parents’ and her own marriage. By loading the narrative with such trivia, Dunn downplays Palin’s more significant lies—e.g., about her husband’s membership in the separatist Alaska Independence Party. However, the author effectively dismisses her ordinary-soccer-mom cover story, demonstrating that she has been an ambitious career politician since 1992, when she was first elected to the Wasilla city council; and that she has depended upon a growing base of support from conservative, evangelical Christians. Dunn documents her reprisals against political opponents of her campaign to censor library books when she was mayor, her abuse of power

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as governor in a personal vendetta against her brother-in-law and her overall lackluster performance as governor. More tantalizing is the author’s account of a meeting in the summer of 2007, between Palin and a group of neoconservative pundits and politicians, including New York Times columnist William Kristol, who became the point-man for the Palin-for-VP campaign. Whether she will be a serious contender in 2012 is questionable, but as a political celebrity she has made a soft landing as a political consultant on Fox News and on the international speakers circuit, where she joins notables such as Bill Clinton at $100,000 per engagement.

A fundamentally dull book, likely of more interest to Palin publicists than to serious readers. (8-page black-and-white photo insert. Agent: Deborah Grosvenor/Kneerim-Williams)

INCOGNITO The Secret Lives of the Brain Eagleman, David Pantheon (304 pp.) $25.95 | May 31, 2011 978-0-307-37733-3

An up-to-date examination of what used to be called the mind-body problem.

Eagleman (Neuroscience/Baylor Coll. of Medicine; Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, 2009) makes the point that our sense of ourselves as coherent, freestanding personalities is at odds with the most basic findings about the workings of the human brain, an organ so complex that an objective description of it sounds hyperbolic. Instinct, unconscious impulses, automatic systems, emotion and a dozen other forces, most of which we aren’t even aware of, affect every thought and action. The book is full of startling examples; split-brain research, for example, shows how the two halves of a mind can be completely at odds, with neither being aware of what the other experiences. Nor are those of us with “whole” brains and a complete set of senses necessarily experiencing the world “as it really is.” For example, other animals experience a different part of the visual spectrum, or can detect sounds and odors we have no awareness of. A significant segment of the population—about 15 percent of women—sees colors the rest of us can’t. Our brains work differently when learning a skill and after it’s become second nature – it’s one thing to drive to a new place, another to drive a familiar route, and our brains work much harder doing the former than the latter, when we can go on “automatic pilot.” There are lessons to be learned from various mental disorders, as well. Victims of strokes affecting certain parts of the brain may claim that they are operating at full capacity when they are clearly not; one former Supreme Court justice was forced to retire after displaying these symptoms. Eagleman has a wealth of such observations, backed up with case studies, bits of pop culture, literary references and historic examples.

A book that will leave you looking at yourself—and the world— differently. (Black-and-white illustrations throughout. Agent: Andrew Wylie/The Wylie Agency)

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WANDERLUST A Love Affair with Five Continents

Eaves, Elisabeth Seal Press (296 pp.) $16.95 paperback original | June 1, 2011 978-1-58005-311-2

A youthful, meandering journey of selfdiscovery through travel and love.

From an early age, Eaves (Bare: On Women, Dancing, Sex, and Power, 2002) considered travel to be liberation from home in Vancouver and romance with adventurous boys. As a young girl, she had lived with her family for a year in Valencia, Spain, where her father took an academic sabbatical and she attended school; the experience proved a charming entrée into a larger world. Inspired by a crush she developed as a teenager and who wrote her as he traveled the world, she pursued a job as a nanny in Valencia during a summer between attending the University of Washington, Seattle, and enjoyed late nights at bars and moonlit motorcycle rides as a break from her constricted days caring for two Spanish children. Study abroad took her to study Arabic at the American University in Cairo, where she was often followed and harassed by hostile men. A college internship in Karachi sponsored by the U.S. State Department led to more travel in the Middle East, rather than a career as a diplomat. Fleeing a boyfriend and house she had settled in after college in Seattle, she roamed Malaysia and then Australia. Back in the States, a segue into Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs got her a job as a journalist in London, and a trip to South America on the way. Finally, there was Dominic, whose diplomatic career took him, and her, to Paris, where she was stifled by the city’s “insufferable correctness.” In short, the author was plagued by her wanderlust, finding in most relationships a chronic unhappiness. Settling down with one man, she notes, would mean “banning myself from ever seeing another country”—something she recognizes with clear-eyed conviction she could never do.

Detailed chronicle of exploits that grow tiresome and blasé, reflecting the author’s own weariness.

DEMON FISH Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks Eilperin, Juliet Pantheon (320 pp.) $25.95 | June 14, 2011 978-0-375-42512-7

Washington Post environmental reporter Eilperin (Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives, 2006) travels the globe to explore the complex relationship between sharks and humans, issuing a passionate call for the protection of these diverse and majestic creatures.

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Sharks inspire fear, writes the author, but as many people know, it’s largely groundless: “you are more likely to die from lightning, a bee sting, or an elephant’s attack than from a shark’s bite.” Yet this fear, along with commercial pressures, is driving some species to extinction. Before we feared them, sharks played important religious roles in societies from the Mayan empire to communities in the Niger Delta region. Eilperin witnessed the modern-day practice of “shark calling,” in which Papua New Guineans perform religious rituals and then catch sharks using lures and snares. (The practice is not wholly symbolic, as the meat is eaten and the fins sold.) Shark’s fin soup is an important symbol of wealth in China; however, after eating it, Eilperin calls it “one of the greatest scams of all time, an emblem of status whose most essential ingredient adds nothing of material value to the end product.” Nonetheless, shark populations are collapsing in part due to the commercial value of fins. Unfortunately, the author provides little clarity about which human activities (such as sport fishing and finning) have the most significant impacts on shark populations. Moreover, the book treats sharks as too monolithic, doing little to explain which particular species face the gravest threats. But Eilperin is convincing in her argument that many species will go extinct if current practices continue. She is optimistic about certain alternatives, like the shark-watching expeditions she saw in a Mexican village, where former fisherman now make their living guiding eco-tourists. With alternatives like this and the possibility of international agreements, Eilperin concludes that all hope is not lost for the shark.

A general but solid primer on the state of sharks today and a plea for their protection. (8 pages of color illustrations. Agent: Brettne Bloom/Kneerim & Williams Literary)

INDEPENDENCE The Struggle to Set America Free Ferling, John E. Bloomsbury (448 pp.) $30.00 | June 21, 2011 978-1-60819-008-9

A venerable historian of the American Revolution focuses on the events between the shot heard round the world and the signing of the Declaration of

Independence.

Ferling (History/State Univ. of West Georgia; The Ascent of George Washington, 2009, etc.) uses a transatlantic approach to show how the stone of revolution began its roll, accelerating until it reached the velocity necessary to crush both American reconcilers and a major portion of England’s colonial empire.

Numerous characters (none really surprising) emerge in prominence as the narrative progresses: in England—Lord North (the Prime Minister), King George III, Edmund Burke, William Pitt, Charles James Fox; in America—Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston. Although the author spends some time |

detailing the initial civilian and military clashes (the Tea Party, Boston Massacre, Concord bridge, siege of Quebec), he attends most carefully to the human stories: the loneliness of families separated by war and politics (he highlights the correspondence between John and Abigail Adams), the fear of those near the war zones, the frustrations of dealing with international relations in a time when communications were snail-slow and the egos and ignorance on both sides of the Atlantic. Sometimes Ferling points toward contemporary analogies. Writing of England, he notes: “Not for the last time would a government underestimate its enemy as it took its people into the costly, bloody wasteland of war.” Only occasionally is the author hobbled by a lack of documentary evidence, forcing him into multiple uses of probably and seems and their kin. He also reminds us the vote for independence was on July 2nd, not 4th.

A lucid, erudite account a period both terrifying and supremely inspiring. (Author tour to New York, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston)

LOADED! Become a Millionaire Overnight and Lose 20 Pounds in 2 Weeks, or Your Money Back!

Geist, Willie; McDonnell, Boyd St. Martin’s Griffin (256 pp.) $14.99 paperback original | May 10, 2011 978-0-312-64153-5

Humorist and Morning Joe co-host Geist teams with writing partner McDonnell to produce funny new book all about the Benjamins.

Neither the authors nor Bill Richter and Bill Lachey—the fictional financial gurus they tap to help boost their bottom line—know a thing about high finance. So what? The cockamamie “Dollar Bills” are flush with attitude—or ’tude as the deluded duo might say. According to these bankrupt buffoons, all you need to get rich is to look rich. Their strategy starts out simply: Get a Bluetooth and brand-new cigarette boat with a mermaid painted on the side and Boom!, you’re off. Plenty of harebrained get-rich tips follow, such as showing up at a job interview in a horse-drawn carriage or building a golf course in Afghanistan. The Dollar Bills’ “Plain English to Confusing Financial Terms” glossary and faux transcripts of their Internet-only call-in show keep the uninitiated up to speed while reminding everyone who wants to get rich to lease a Picasso as quick as you can. Don’t sweat those scary predatory loans, the Dollar Bills advise. In their whacked-out world, predatory loans are just money given to cheetahs, crocodiles and jacked dudes with brass knuckles. It’s all very amusing in small doses, but ultimately, it feels like a so-so Saturday Night Live skit that goes on a little too long.

You might already be in the poorhouse pining for the longlost American Dream, but at least the Dollar Bills provide some absurd laughs while you’re there.

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A FATHER’S LOVE One Man’s Unrelenting Battle to Bring His Abducted Son Home

Goldman, David; Abraham, Ken Viking (272 pp.) $26.95 | May 10, 2011 978-0-670-02262-5

With the assistance of veteran co-author Abraham (Billy: The Untold Story of a Young Billy Graham and the Test of Faith that Almost Changed Everything, 2008, etc.), Goldman tells the story of his six-year battle to regain custody of his son Sean.

While working in Milan in 1997, the author met his future wife Bruna. Although she was Brazilian, they decided to marry and make their home in the New Jersey beach community where he was raised. Sean was born in 2000. In 2004, Bruna and Sean traveled to Brazil to visit her parents. Goldman planned to join them in a week, but four days after her departure, she phoned to inform him that she was leaving him and demanded sole custody of their son. The author writes that Bruna threatened him and pressured him to sign legal documents granting her custody. Seeking legal advice, he learned that this was not just a custody case. According to the Hague Convention, which had been ratified by both the United States and Brazilian, his wife had kidnapped their son. Despite the fact that U.S. courts ordered the immediate return of the Sean to the United States— where a custody hearing would be held in accordance with the Convention—Goldman was thwarted continually by the Brazilian judicial system. In 2008, having no other recourse, Goldman decided to seek publicity for his case. Featured on CBS, he attracted the attention of New Jersey Representative Chris Smith, who became a determined advocate on his behalf and enlisted support from fellow congressmen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama. Sean became a poster child for thousands of other abducted children, and finally, in December 2009, he was released to the custody of his father.

A riveting tale of an unusual abduction and a father’s determination to regain rightful custody of his son.

THE WAY OF BASEBALL Finding Stillness at 95 MPH

Green, Shawn; McAlpine, Gordon Simon & Schuster (226 pp.) $24.00 | June 7, 2011 978-1-4391-9119-4

The greatest Jewish baseball player since Sandy Koufax fuses sports autobiography with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

The moniker “average ballplayer” certainly did not apply to Green during his playing days. From his on-field exploits as a prolific slugger with a slender frame to his religion to his contemplative approach to the game, he defied categorization.

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In crafting his memoir, the author—with help from McAlpine (Mystery Box, 2003)—continues to flout convention. Rather than the standard post-retirement, paint-by-numbers tale of groupies and life on the road or addiction recovery and redemption, he offers an account of his philosophical approach to hitting, a method developed in response to a frustrating first few years in the big leagues. By developing a solitary routine that involved taking hundreds of swings off a tee, Green discovered a way to find inner stillness, to free his mind of distraction and focus on nothing but the act of hitting. The results were impressive: two All-Star appearances, a Silver Slugger award, and three top-10 finishes in MVP voting. The narrative describing the process and the insight that led to it, however, may not hit a home run with readers. Green’s a likable narrator, and his Eastern-tinged philosophical musings have merit, but it’s difficult to determine the intended audience. Baseball junkies will relish his discussion of how pitchers tip pitches, but are likely to tune out the Zen advice; Jewish fans looking for religious insight will be disappointed by their hero’s relatively secular worldview; and those seeking enlightenment aren’t likely to achieve a higher state of being by following the author’s recycled platitudes.

Perfect for a semi-religious Jewish casual baseball fan in search of a Zen-lite guidebook…or maybe just Blue Jay, Dodger, Met and Diamondback fans who remember Green’s playing days fondly. (10 color line drawings. Agent: Linda Loewenthal/ David Black Agency)

20 YEARS YOUNGER Look Younger, Feel Younger, Be Younger!

Greene, Bob Little, Brown (320 pp.) $27.99 | May 2, 2011 978-0-316-13378-4

Bestselling author and life motivator Greene (The Life You Want, 2010, etc.) plumbs the secrets to looking and feeling younger.

Together with a team of medical experts, the author explores the building blocks of youthfulness and how to turn back the clock on aging to recapture the vigor of a healthy mind and body. In the introduction, the 50-something author references the grueling training and reserve that was necessary when he bicycled cross-country on a multi-city book tour.

What he took away from that experience was improved “mental and emotional clarity,” along with a physical soundness he’d never believed he could achieve. Reinvigorated, Greene shares his wellspring of knowledge on how to combine the latest advances in anti-aging science with a practical daily regimen. He introduces a four-part system galvanizing the benefits of regular exercise, healthful nutrition, skin care and restorative sleep. The author presents several theories on why we age and what can be done to reverse its effects on our minds and bodies. Exercise is as much a key component, Greene stresses, as mindful eating, and he presents a detailed fitness program along with pages of recommended

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“superfoods” touted to boost energy and longevity. Cautionary advice on the dangers of “killer compounds” like saturated and trans-fats, sodium and refined sugar is blatantly conventional, but can serve as a helpful reminder when combined with recommendations on skin care, sunscreen and an 11-point plan to maximize the benefits of sleep. The closing chapter provides a sensible food plan featuring recipes for Sweet Potato and Turkey Shepherd’s Pie, Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes and Slow-Cooked Lamb. Together with stress control and the power of a positive attitude, Greene firmly demonstrates that it’s never too late for anyone to look and feel their best.

Timely, accessible and compelling guidance from a veteran health-and-wellness guru.

RIPTIDE Struggling with and Resurfacing From a Daughter’s Eating Disorder

Hale-Seubert, Barbara ECW Press (216 pp.) $17.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-1-55022-995-0 Hale-Seubert tells the story of a mother’s worst nightmare—a daughter’s struggle against and ultimate defeat by anorexia

and bulimia.

The author, a practicing psychotherapist, candidly recounts daughter Erin’s slow death at age 23 from the ravages of selfinduced starvation. When Erin was 13, a simple school assignment in her Life Skills class became a jarring moment. Erin was asked to list what she had eaten that day, and the author was startled by Erin’s answer: very little. Her condition worsened to include bulimia, resulting in many hospitalizations and treatments during the next decade. Erin lied, stole and even spent the night in jail, all so she could buy food to eat and purge.

Hale-Seubert lays bare her guilt and frustrations as a mother, admitting to feeling detached, even relieved at times, and her humanity is on display here as she agonizes over the possible causes of her daughter’s disease. Was it her parenting style or negative body image? Her ex-husband’s anger? Perhaps it was because Erin suffered from Sydenham’s chorea as a child, an illness that has been linked to obsessive disorders. There are no clear-cut answers here, nor should there be.

Readers may find Hale-Seubert’s book painful to read, but they will have a hard time turning away from the author’s stark, candid, courageous voice.

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HAWKE’S SPECIAL FORCES SURVIVAL HANDBOOK The Portable Guide to Getting Out Alive

Hawke, Mykel Running Press (224 pp.) $14.95 paperback original | April 26, 2011 978-0-7624-4064-1

Just surfaced in angry seas clinging to the hull of your capsized boat, or crawled from the rubble of a collapsed building following an earthquake?

U.S. Army vet and TV survival guru Hawke’s expert know-how may be your best chance to make it home alive.

Eminently readable, this lean, no-nonsense survival guide from the star of the Discovery Channel’s Man, Woman, Wild is stocked with real-world advice on how to survive virtually any disaster. Outfitted with generous graphs, illustrations and bullet points, Hawke’s guide engages without becoming heavyhanded. Topics range from the importance of survival psychology to in-field immunization. Whatever environment you might find yourself in when catastrophe strikes—jungle, desert, arctic, urban—you’ll likely be prepared as never before. Learn how to snuggle up in a swamp and craft your own water purifier out an old sock and some leftover charcoal. Throughout the tutorial, the author never lets you forget that, in most cases, survival simply comes down to having the right attitude—and often a really sharp stick. Readers sitting in their comfortable living-room chairs may never feel compelled to try and construct their own spring-loaded snare or bamboo fire saw, but there is an undeniable sense of empowerment that comes from at least having some clue as to how to go about it in an emergency. The book is also compact and durable for easy transport.

Whether you decide to tote along the handbook on your next intercontinental flight or save it for that long-awaited summer cookout, a priceless resource that’ll pay off even if the cataclysm never hits.

THE ANCIENT GUIDE TO MODERN LIFE

Haynes, Natalie Overlook (288 pp.) $25.95 | May 1, 2011 978-1-59020-637-9

British comedienne and classics lover Haynes (The Great Escape, 2007) presents a wonderfully whimsical yet instructional view of Greco-Roman history.

The author fuses educational narrative and jocular commentary to guide the reader through aspects of ancient life still of interest today: politics, law, philosophy, religion, the role of women, the urbanrural dichotomy, entertainment and money, among others. The idea that the past bears upon the present often becomes a meaningless abstraction, but Haynes offers practical examples

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“A hard-hitting, eye-opening study that not only paints a dire future of a world without girls but traces the West’s role in propagating sex selection.” from unnatural selection

of this aphorism with welcome wit and a wink. Classics scholars are unlikely to learn anything new—the author clearly writes for a general audience—but they will surely chuckle at her candid accounts of celebrated ancients, especially “Rome’s most articulate grouch, Juvenal.” Haynes sets the record straight on topics as diverse as the nature of gladiatorial salutes and the unexpected origin of “Who watches the watchmen?”, while providing illuminating context for controversial issues, like slavery and Roman views on Christians and Jews. She adds personality to simplistically clichéd historical figures such as Plato, Cicero and Nero. Her writing is speculative at times, necessarily so given the nature of her sources—ancient writers can be frustratingly biased and limited in scope. On rare occasions, the author takes it too far—e.g., her confidence in the solution to Socrates’ enigmatic last words. But such examples are limited, and most often Haynes’ more unsubstantiated ideas are inquisitively phrased and constructively provocative.

Will have readers grabbing for the classics. (Author tour to New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia)

THOUGHTS WITHOUT CIGARETTES A Memoir Hijuelos, Oscar Gotham Books | (384 pp.) $27.50 | June 2, 2011 978-1-592-40629-6

Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Hijuelos (Beautiful Maria of My Soul, 2010, etc.) revisits the people and experiences whose confluence created his most celebrated work, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989).

The author’s life did not begin propitiously. The son of Cuban immigrants, he developed a debilitating case of nephritis after a boyhood visit to Cuba. After a year in a convalescent hospital, he was finally able to return home, where his mother, a complex figure whom Hijuelos spent decades trying to understand, protected him ferociously. But the author celebrates his father, notably in the book’s dazzling final paragraph. Hijuelos recalls an odd ambivalence about the Spanish language. Able to comprehend it completely, he refrained from speaking it throughout his boyhood, feeling costive whenever he tried. An indifferent student in childhood, he drifted aimlessly through Harlem’s schools, finding himself in and out of a variety of scrapes—fighting, smoking, drinking, some dealing. He took up the guitar, found he had talent, and credits this discovery as the first of several that preserved him. After high school, he bounced around, then began some off-and-on undergraduate programs, beginning at Bronx Community College, eventually ending up at CCNY, where he got into a writing seminar with Donald Barthelme, who became a longtime friend. From then on, good fortune hovered nearby, and he met numerous literary luminaries. He eventually crossed paths with just about everyone from the era—Vonnegut, Mailer, Gardner, Irving. His adolescent memories percolate with sex—with his encounters, his 652

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fantasies and even with some graphic recollections involving, in one case, whipped cream, in another, a bride who entertains a wedding guest most generously. The tale ends with the publication of Mambo Kings, its wild reception and its amazing aftermath—and with a stirring condemnation of a literary world that ignores Latino writers.

Uneven—but with peerless evocations of people and of a struggle to find a voice.

UNNATURAL SELECTION Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

Hvistendahl, Mara PublicAffairs (336 pp.) $26.99 | June 7, 2011 978-1-58648-850-5

A hard-hitting, eye-opening study that not only paints a dire future of a world without girls but traces the West’s role in propagating sex selection.

In her debut, Beijing-based Science correspondent Hvistendahl delves deeply into the causes of the vanishing of girls in Asia and Eastern Europe and looks beyond the traditional explanation of infanticide and abandonment. In fact, girls are simply not being born—demographers calculate that 163 million potential girls have been eliminated in Asia alone through ultrasound and abortion, the technological advancements of the West. A natural sex ratio at birth is 100 girls to 105 boys-nature compensates for the fact that more boys tend to die young due to dangerous behavior, wars, exhaustion, etc. Even a slight deviation from this natural balance toward boys can have enormous repercussions in a society, leaving a surplus of males unable to find mates, introducing instability, violence and the possibility of extinction. Astoundingly, the sex ratio in China is 121 boys to girls, in India 112. The skewed gender imbalance has also swept Vietnam, the Caucasus and the Balkans—all developing countries where the status of women is supposed to have improved as the countries got richer. Yet traditional beliefs— boys take care of their parents and the ancestral graves, girls need a large dowry for marriage and are a burden—are deeply ingrained in these societies, even still among Asian immigrants in America, whose sex ratio is also skewed toward boys. By the mid-1980s, the high-quality second trimester ultrasound arrived; despite laws passed proscribing its use in sex selection in China, India and elsewhere, doctors capitulated to patients’ needs—and money. Western doomsayers and scientists set up the alarm by the late 1960s about world overpopulation, and naively (or sinisterly, as the author hints) endorsed sex selection even then as an effective form of birth control, setting the groundwork for future crisis.

Hvistendahl’s important, even-handed exposé considers all sides of the argument and deserves careful attention and study.

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WHAT’S GOTTEN INTO US? Staying Healthy in a Toxic World

Jenkins, McKay Random (336 pp.) $26.00 | April 19, 2011 978-1-4000-6803-6

An alarming view of the storm of synthetic chemicals sweeping into our homes, workplaces, retail shelves and,

inevitably, our bodies.

Nonfiction adventure writer Jenkins (English/Univ. of Delaware; Bloody Falls of the Coppermine: Madness, Murder and the Collision of Cultures in the Arctic, 1913, 2005, etc.) developed a benign tumor the size of an orange and pondered how it could happen to him, someone who strives for healthful living. Among other places, his search led to an unnamed big-box store permeated with the smell of synthetic lavender, where he opened a jar of fabricated fragrance and gagged. The book goes on to detail in nontechnical terms the often oil-derived and frequently unlabeled concoctions that have soaked into much of what consumers buy, wear, eat and drink since the end of World War II. Even bathtub rubber ducks for children, rendered temptingly chewable by synthetics, are not immune.

A rule of thumb is to avoid ingredients with unpronounceable names, like the ubiquitous phthalates. Jenkins provides suggestions for staying clear of the worst of it, but, like others before him, he recognizes that the cumulative impacts of synthetics are not yet scientifically understood and, in fact, painfully understudied. In the tradition of Rachel Carson, Jenkins has little doubt that those impacts are dire. There is still hope that humanity and nature are resistant to this toxic flood, but as the author makes clear, it’s a thin hope at best.

Wholesome take on a toxic subject.

NICA’S DREAM The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness Kastin, David Norton (336 pp.) $26.95 | June 20, 2011 978-0-393-06940-2

Music historian and educator Kastin (I Hear America Singing: An Introduction to Popular Music, 2001) narrates the life of Kathleen Annie Pannonica (Nica) Rothschild (1913–1988), an heiress who fell in love with American jazz and soon became a sort of fairy godmother to some of the form’s greatest names, principally Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk.

The author begins with the most controversial moment in Nica’s life: the shocking death in 1955 of Parker, 34, in her New York hotel room. The event propelled her onto the front pages and raised many eyebrows (including, respectfully, Kastin’s, who doubts Nica had sexual relations with her |

musician friends). The author is stymied throughout by the reluctance of Nica’s children to grant interviews—or even to permit access to their mother’s rich archive of recordings and papers. But he goes with what he has, which is considerable. Kastin chronicles the rise of the Rothschilds, Nica’s family, her marriage, notable service in World War II, motherhood, divorce and her absolute devotion to jazz—and to the many musicians she befriended and subsidized. Night after night, she parked her Rolls (later, a Bentley) outside the clubs; she opened her hotel rooms and (later) her house to all-night jam sessions; she helped rescue Monk from oblivion, saw him enjoy a long period of soaring popularity, endured and supported him during his various psychological crises and allowed him to board for protracted times with her.

Along the way, Kastin introduces us to just about every major figure in American jazz (Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Art Blakey et al.)—and a few notable fans as well (Norman Mailer and Leonard Bernstein, among others).

Though this is putatively Nica’s story, neither the author nor readers can long avert attention from mesmerizing Monk and the other Olympians of bebop. (8 pages of illustrations. Agent: Paul Bresnick/Paul Bresnick Literary Agency)

FLIPPING BURGERS TO FLIPPING MILLIONS A Guide to Financial Freedom Whether You Have Your Dream Job, Own Your Own Business, or Just Started Your First Job Kelly, Bernard Hyperion (176 pp.) $21.99 | May 1, 2011 978-1-4013-2420-9

A McDonald’s employee saves his money and writes a financialadvice book.

Career McDonald’s employee Kelly has turned an average job into a financial success, and he lays out the simple steps that have allowed him to do so. The author begins by writing of the desire for financial freedom that he first felt at the young age of 17, which led him to forgo his plans to backpack across Europe and fill out a McDonald’s application instead.

There are three paths to financial security, Kelly writes, and they are all based on the assumption that one can earn a 7 percent return on investment during the first 8 years of a savings program, and 10 percent every year thereafter. There’s the good option, which would require readers to stow away 10 percent of every paycheck for 8 years; the better option, which would see them banking 20 percent; and the best option, which would require readers to live on $1,430 a month, averaging 44 percent savings over 8 years. The author recognizes that the high interest rates he cites sound unrealistic, but he writes that investment in McDonald’s stock can provide that type of return. This is not the only instance in which the author glorifies his employer—the entire book is rife with

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“From the eminent elder statesman, an astute appraisal on Chinese diplomacy from ancient times to the fraught present ‘strategic trust’ with the United States.” from on china

AN EMPIRE OF ICE Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science

pro-McDonald’s sentiment. Kelly’s prose is straightforward and simple, much like the book’s content, and his tough-love approach to savings is particularly resonant, if a little disheartening, in the current economic climate.

One question remains: Is this a financial self-help resource or a slick McDonald’s PR campaign?

ON CHINA

Kissinger, Henry Penguin Press (608 pp.) $36.00 | CD: $49.95 | May 17, 2011 978-1-59420-271-1 CD 978-0-14-242836-8 From the eminent elder statesman, an astute appraisal on Chinese diplomacy from ancient times to the fraught present “strategic trust” with the United States.

Former Secretary of State Kissinger (Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises: Based on the Record of Henry Kissinger’s Hitherto Secret Telephone Conversations, 2003, etc.) brings his considerable scholarly knowledge and professional expertise to this chronicle of the complicated evolution and precarious future of Chinese diplomacy with the West. Traditionally, Chinese foreign policy as practiced by centuries of emperors was marked by appeasement and generally overwhelming their barbarian enemies with Chinese largesse: the “five baits” included clothing, music, slaves and food to “corrupt” the opponent into seeing things the Chinese way. In their supreme self-containment, the Chinese disdained the importunate advances of the barbarians until the aggressive incursions by the West to force open the barriers to trade in the late 18th century. Foreign threats by the West, Russia and Japan and the series of “unequal treaties” imposed on China impelled it into a period of “self-strengthening” that was finally achieved by the Communist consolidation of power under Mao. From Mao’s declaration in 1949 that the Chinese people “have stood up,” the Chinese practiced a modern form of pursuing the “psychological advantage,” rather than the military (shades of Sun Tzu), in confronting the superpowers. However, a new era commenced under Deng Xiaoping, who was bent on reform and open to travel and new ideas, and normalization of relations with America was finally established under President Carter.

Kissinger wisely considers Tiananmen, Taiwan, the elevation of Jiang Zemin and the new era of “cooperative coexistence” maintained by President Hu Jintao. The author warns, however, that despite China’s commitment to a “peaceful rise,” the U.S.-China relationship will continue to contain an underlying tension.

Sage words and critical perspective lent by a significant participant in historical events.

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Larson, Edward J. Yale Univ. (360 pp.) $28.00 | May 31, 2011 978-0-300-15408-5

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Larson (History/Pepperdine Univ.; A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign, 2007, etc.) sheds new light on the famous three-way race to the South Pole.

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was the first to reach the pole, in 1912—returning in triumph to tell the tale—while British standard-bearer Robert Scott lagged behind by two weeks and perished on the ice. However, writes the author, this was not a defeat for Britain. While the Norwegian’s primary aim was to “bag poles,” the primary mission of the two British adventurers, Scott and Ernest Shackleton, was to carry out scientific research. This they did admirably, laying the groundwork for modern research in such diverse fields as marine biology, meteorology and glaciology. The story is not only about science, writes Larson, but “also about power and politics, culture and commerce; hubris and heroism at the end of the Earth.” At the close of a London lecture sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society where Amundsen was the featured speaker, a cheer was raised for his dogs, “without whom,” in the words of Lord Curzon, “Captain Amundsen would never have got to the Pole.”

In fact, Larson writes, the British ethos at the time centered on its imperial grandeur. The shock of defeat in the Boer war was counterbalanced by tales of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration and the three major expeditions by Scott and Shakleton, during which the explorers suffered terrible privation wintering on the ice with seal meat as their only food.

A satisfying tale of adventure and exploration.

SAVORING THE HAMPTONS Discovering the Food and Wine of Long Island’s East End

Lehrer, Silvia Running Press (341 pp.) $30.00 | May 1, 2011 978-0-7624-4233-1

The charm and flavors of Long Island’s East End come to life in this cookbook from Hampton year-rounder and Cooktique owner Lehrer.

Arranged by season, the cookbook is filled with recipes geared toward using the finest, freshest and most flavorful ingredients available in the Hamptons. Spring and summer dishes are filled with peas, strawberries and seafood; fall and winter focus on heartier meals that showcase root vegetables and lamb. The author also includes recipes from various East

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End eateries, such as Luce and Hawkins’ Crisp Duckling with Rhubarb Chutney and Fishbar on the Lake’s Grilled Porgy with Smoky Tomato Chutney. Suggestions for wine pairings, all from Long Island wineries, accompany certain dishes. In addition to recipes, the book profiles a few of the area’s most famed restaurants, wineries and farms. An abundance of information about the Hamptons’ culinary scene may pique the interest of residents and devoted summer vacationers, but readers unfamiliar with the area may feel like they are reading a travel brochure.

Lehrer’s profiles of local establishments are so numerous that they often seem to outnumber the recipes. Glossy full-page photos of prepared dishes, ingredients and local businesses and their owners round out the book.

Perfect for readers looking to re-create their favorite Hamptons dining experiences.

THE BIG FIGHT My Life In and Out of the Ring

Leonard, Sugar Ray; Arkush, Michael Viking (304 pp.) $26.95 | June 7, 2011 978-0-670-02272-4

Not a knockout, but a revealing confession from a champ who was often accused of being a packaged TV commodity.

Leonard was the right fighter at the right time—an Olympic gold medalist, articulate, handsome and personable, at a time when the retirement of Muhammad Ali left boxing hungry for another standard-bearer (and Howard Cosell eager for a new buddy to tout). Yet, little known to the American public, he was also an abuser of cocaine, alcohol and ultimately of his wife. Now clean and sober for four years and happily remarried, he takes full responsibility for his transgressions—“Looking back, I can offer no defense for my conduct. I was wrong”—without absolving the women who threw themselves at him (more beautiful and greedy the more famous he became), the family and friends who put their financial considerations above his health and even trainer Angelo Dundee, whom he inherited from Ali, and who the author plainly believes has claimed more credit than he deserves. Though the thematic arc is that of a redemption story, most of that redemption—remarriage, sobriety, a second family that he treats much better than the first—is crammed into a final chapter or two. The bulk of the autobiography alternates between his exploits in the ring (of which he is justifiably proud) and his weakness away from it, with all the sex, drugs and vacillation between retirement and recommitment. Particularly revelatory is the book’s illumination of the psychology of this most physical sport. It also celebrates the bond between opponents that outsiders can never experience: “For months, the opponent was the enemy, the major obstacle standing in the path of greater earnings and greater fame. Yet, as most of us who fight for a living come to recognize, some sooner than others, the opponent is also a partner on the same journey.” |

Perhaps a little too conveniently, the book makes a split between slick, privileged, cocky “Sugar Ray” and the more insecure and vulnerable “Ray Leonard.” Guess who’s still standing at the end?

WHAT I LEARNED WHEN I ALMOST DIED How a Maniac TV Producer Put Down His Blackberry and Started to Live His Life

Licht, Chris Simon & Schuster (160 pp.) $23.00 | May 24, 2011 978-1-4516-2767-1

TV news honcho Licht was used to calling the shots as executive producer of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, but that changed one day when something popped inside his skull.

Instead of prepping for another episode of the successful morning show with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the author, not yet 40, landed in the emergency room. There, he learned that his brain was bleeding—and no one knew exactly why. Licht, who up until then was the picture of health, found that he was no longer in control. What followed was a harrowing ordeal that, even if it didn’t ultimately kill him, was destined to change him in ways that he could never have dreamed of before. As a “stop and smell the roses” parable, Licht’s tale of sudden life-threatening illness covers familiar ground. Still, hearing how this classic type-A personality was forced to confront some hard truths about himself in order to survive makes for a compelling exercise. Readers might not care much about how attentively Scarborough and Brzezinski buzzed around his bedside, or that Vice President Joe Biden personally got on the phone with the hospital in an effort to ensure his recovery. But other candid observations, like the impact the author’s steadyas-a-rock father had on his son’s healing, are right on the money.

Not exactly revelatory, but often moving.

THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington Lockhart, Paul Harper/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $27.99 | June 7, 2011 978-0-06-195886-1

Lockhart (History/Wright State Univ.; The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army, 2008, etc.) suggests that conventional Fourth of July hyperbole about the Battle of Bunker Hill “confuses history with heritage, conflates fantasy and patriotic sentiment.”

The author compares the British and American forces and find them both made up of poorly trained raw recruits, led by

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“An intoxicating selection of snippets from a columnist that journalist Pete Hamill called ‘an ornament to the profession.’ ” from stories my father told me

generals—Thomas Gage and Artemas Ward—who had profited from the lessons of the French and Indian War, in which they had fought side-by-side. The American militiamen were settled farmers, not hardy frontiersman, and the British army was not the finest in the world. Gage had gained respect for American militiamen and recognized the need for marksmanship, while Ward recognized the importance of drill and light infantry tactics. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress and the Committee of Safety were prepared to respond quickly and decisively when Gage moved his army into Concord and Lexington to quell the incipient rebellion. However, the militiamen who responded enthusiastically to the call to protect their colony were not prepared for a war, and Ward faced the problem of establishing even rudimentary discipline in camp.

Lockhart explores how the militant Massachusetts leadership—Ward, Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, General Ward and Israel Putnam—were spoiling for a decisive battle. For six weeks—until British forces were reinforced—the militia commanded the heights surrounding Boston. Ironically, the actual battle on June 17 was not fought on Bunker Hill as planned, but on the less defensible, neighboring Breed’s Hill; the author calls the battle a “triumphant defeat.” Yet this was a mixed blessing because it obscured the need for a disciplined and trained army in order to defeat the British.

Nonetheless, as the author ably demonstrates, the actual story is “about ordinary people who, when put to the test, did extraordinary things.” (17 black-and-white photos; 2 maps. Agent: Will Lippincott)

STORIES MY FATHER TOLD ME Notes from “The Lyons Den”

Lyons, Jeffrey Abbeville Press (336 pp.) $35.00 | June 1, 2011 978-0-7892-1102-6

A veritable storm of outtakes from Leonard Lyons’ “Lyons Den” society column from the New York Post, which dazzle rather than titillate.

Lyons wrote his column for exactly 40 years, from 1934 to 1974—six columns a week, tallying 12,479 at 1,000 words each— about people in the public eye. He would leave for work as the sun went down, heading for a variety of hot spots—Toots Shor’s, Downey’s, Sardi’s, El Morocco, the Stork Club, the Little Club, or all of them—gathering choice items for his readership.

“Leonard Lyons genuinely admired the people he wrote about,” writes Charles Osgood in the foreword. “And knowing this they would open up to him and tell him the colorful stories that were his bread and butter.” Here, his son, TV and movie critic Jeffrey Lyons, sews together pieces from his father’s columns into vest-pocket profiles of the famous, from Irving Berlin to Shelly Winters. For those who have never dined on Lyons’ work, this collection is a treat: Lyons was a champion at getting telling quotes, material as pithy and vivid as the Algonquin Round Table—e.g., Lauren Bacall’s response to whether she would 656

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curtsy to Prince Philip: “If he curtsies to me, I’ll curtsy to him.

In this world, you get what you give.” Or Joe DiMaggio: “Never wake a ballplayer on a rainy morning.” There are terrific comments from a stunning range of characters—Einstein, Rocky Marciano, Groucho Marx, Chagall—and if Lyons can seem a bit eager and star-struck (“There was never anyone like Oscar Levant”; “Orson Welles…the most amazing person you’d ever meet”), he takes such obvious pleasure in the telling that readers will be swept along with him.

An intoxicating selection of snippets from a columnist that journalist Pete Hamill called “an ornament to the profession.”

(70 photographs, 12 in full color)

POISONED LEGACY The Human Cost of BP’s Rise to Power Magner, Mike St. Martin’s (432 pp.) $27.99 | June 7, 2011 978-0-312-55494-1

This angry investigative report begins well before the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

In the first chapter, National Journal editor Magner describes a possible cancer epidemic in a Kansas town where refinery wastes have poisoned a wide area and where a courageous retired schoolteacher is fighting an uphill battle to force BP to clean up. Apparently, he had been researching this problem when the Gulf blowout forced him to change the book’s focus, but both stories alternate throughout the narrative. Readers with a taste for heated fist-shaking will have plenty of opportunities as Magner delivers detailed accounts of BP’s mishaps, emphasizing the massive 2005 Texas refinery explosion, leaks and malfunctions along the Alaska pipeline and the Deepwater disaster. Each follows an identical pattern: BP officials cut costs, safety budgets drop, employees grumble and warn of disaster, disaster occurs, individuals who suffered terribly tell their stories and government regulators and the media suddenly show interest, resulting in an outpouring of outrage, investigations, damning reports, fines and apologies from BP executives and the inevitable avalanche of lawsuits. Magner makes a strong case for BP’s negligence and the American government’s feeble oversight, but his case that BP operates less competently than other oil companies is not as convincing. Perhaps wisely, the author makes no argument that Americans are willing to make the painful sacrifices necessary to ensure that these catastrophes never recur. We want oil, and we don’t want it to cost too much.

A relentlessly critical denunciation of the latest environmental disaster that leaves the impression that more will follow.

(Agent: Ron Goldfarb/Goldfarb & Associates)

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THE SECRET KNOWLEDGE On the Dismantling of American Culture

Mamet, David Sentinel (256 pp.) $27.95 | June 2, 2011 978-1-59523-076-8

A Pulitzer Prize–winning showman and “reformed Liberal” rants about the precarious state of the nation.

In 39 short essays, playwright, screenwriter and director Mamet (Theatre, 2010) discusses many of his least-favorite things, including taxes, sloth, foreign aid, the notion of global warming, big government, taxes, the present Democratic administration, liberals, taxes and “social justice” (quotes his).

Did we mention taxes? With the mood of serious discussion, the author weights this jeremiad with stilted argot and copious footnotes that are simply more of the same arguments in reduced typeface. But Mamet is sharper than the conventional scold, and, like his most memorable stage characters, he offers a mashup of notions, some commendable, supported by reference to very selective history. Unabashed in making blanket, unfounded assertions, the gifted dramatist erects nincompoop straw men easily demolished with clever, impassioned rhetoric.

Detection of undeniable flaws in liberal logic, rightly derided, gives way to ad hominem argument, post hoc reasoning and faulty classification—it’s disputation, not evidence. In a monolithic, elitist Left—one surely not as cohesive and close-minded as Mamet depicts, one more liable to agree with him on, say, the benefits of capitalism (albeit, perhaps, with more legal safeguards—he sees hypocrisy. Surely, community values and the unfettered marketplace of ideas are important to liberal and conservative alike. Sweetened with personal history, a couple good jokes and some pointed insights, Mamet’s polemic yields no secret and scant knowledge. He does, nevertheless, raise the volume with incontestable dramatic talent.

A Manichean analysis from a strident new voice from the Right—for liberals, something intended to ignite antagonism; for the like-minded, a buttress against the opposition.

GENIUS OF PLACE The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted

Martin, Justin Merloyd Lawrence/Da Capo (352 pp.) $27.50 | June 1, 2011 978-0-306-81881-3

The remarkable story of America’s first, and still foremost, landscape architect.

By 1857, when he applied to superintend the creation of a large green space in the middle of Manhattan, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) had already worked briefly as a clerk, surveyor, sailor, farmer, journalist, book author and publisher. He’d applied his restless intelligence to |

a variety of social issues, most notably abolition, and during the Civil War helmed the United States Sanitary Commission and then supervised a gold-mining operation in California. But it was the New York City opportunity, enhanced when he and architect Calvert Vaux won a design competition for the project, which became his true vocation. Almost universal applause had greeted the creation of Central Park. After 1867, having teamed with Vaux again to design Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Olmsted accepted a variety of landscape commissions for public parks, university campuses, planned communities and institutional and private grounds that, taken together, transformed notions of how the built environment could brush up against nature.

Martin (Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon, 2002, etc.) examines many of the most conspicuous projects, but he focuses on Olmsted the man, demonstrating how each interlude in this unusually crowded life shaped his genius. Smoothly detailing Olmsted’s many interests and varied experiences (including his work as a proto-environmentalist and conservationist), chronicling the unusual number of personal tragedies, infirmities and ailments that plagued him, charting the evolution of his thinking and introducing us to the wide range of colleagues, friends and family who supported him, Martin helps explain the driven, artistic temperament that informed the famed landscapes. He persuasively casts Olmsted as essentially a social reformer whose passion for meaningful work found its most complete expression in the creation of public spaces intended for the enjoyment of all.

A revealing look at a still-underappreciated giant whose work touches posterity more intimately and more delightfully than many of his distinguished Civil War–era contemporaries.

(16 pages of photos and black-and-white drawings)

YOUR DAUGHTER’S BEDROOM Insights for Raising Confident Women

McFadden, Joyce T. Palgrave Macmillan (240 pp.) $25.00 | May 1, 2011 978-0-230-10362-7

Psychoanalyst and Huffington Post columnist McFadden offers insight and honesty in a discussion of the healthy ways mothers can help their daughters grow comfortable and knowledgeable about their sexuality.

In August 2005, the author launched the Women’s Realities Study, a research project that aimed to take the pulse of modern women by asking open-ended questions about relationships, motherhood and mental health, among others. Her intended goal was to create a companion piece to the classic Our Bodies, Ourselves. Mission accomplished. The author clears away the heavy clouds that overshadow topics many daughters do not learn about from their mothers (and which mothers often dread sharing with their daughters): menstruation, masturbation and sex. For generations, embarrassment, shame and even fear have kept this crucial information from being handed down to daughters. McFadden stresses that mothers must learn to value

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their own sexuality and to lead by example. This position is one many women may strain to achieve, however, as historically society has pigeonholed women into neatly gift-wrapped boxes with nothing “dirty” showing through the seams. “No matter how sexually alive [a woman] was before, as soon as she becomes a mother, we act as though her erotic life is over,” writes the author. McFadden provides examples of mothers willing to take on and embrace these changes, and how they do so with trust, warmth and often space. There are hurdles to cross and backs to be straightened when it comes to this topic, but daughters need their mothers, and it’s time they heard their voices.

An empowering resource for mothers and daughters everywhere.

BORN IN AFRICA The Quest for the Origins of Human Life Meredith, Martin PublicAffairs (304 pp.) $26.99 | May 10, 2011 978-1-58648-663-1

An appealing account of human evolution and the fiercely competitive anthropologists who are unearthing our ancestors’ remains and arguing over what they mean.

Observing that apes and chimpanzees live in Africa, Charles Darwin theorized that it was the home of our common ancestor, “the most likely birthplace of humankind.”

Almost no one agreed at the time, writes British journalist and historian Meredith (Mandela, 2010, etc.). Experts dismissed South African Raymond Dart’s landmark 1924 discovery, a complete skull of a primitive hominid. Matters did not change until after World War II, largely because of the energetic, colorful and contentious Louis Leakey, soon joined by his wife, Mary, their children and grandchildren. In human anthropology more than most sciences, both academic success and fame depend on finding extraordinarily rare human remains, a task that requires grueling persistence, a talent for raising money and luck. Meredith reveals his journalistic roots by focusing on these ambitious, often media-hungry men and women whose foibles and nasty feuds may not be relevant but make for entertaining reading.

The author does a superb job of describing the nuts-andbolts of field research, the meaning of the often headline-producing findings and the ever-changing variety of species who split off from the common ancestors of chimpanzees and hominids. (Agent: Felicity Bryan)

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THE CITY HOMESTEADER Self-Sufficiency on Any Square Footage

Meyer, Scott Running Press (352 pp.) $20.00 paperback original | April 26, 2011 978-0-7624-4085-6

Practical, step-by-step tips for creating a sustainable lifestyle on a smaller scale.

Think you can’t live a self-sufficient life in an apartment or suburb? Think again, writes Meyer. Sustainability is all the rage right now, and this helpful guide gives urban dwellers instructions on growing their own food and living a more eco-conscious life. The author tackles such subjects as planting an edible garden by focusing on which vegetables do well in smaller spaces and which can handle less ideal locations. Strawberries, for instance, do well in hanging pots, and pole beans only require vertical room. Meyer even offers a window-gardening option for those without any outdoor space, and he carefully explains the many ways to preserve food—from dehydrating to canning to freezing. Take it a step further and create your own compost pile, he suggests. When you’re done outside, look to improving your indoor quality of life with the author’s green cleaning and laundry tips (remember clotheslines?) and eco-friendly methods of handling of pests like cockroaches. There’s even an all-natural way to dispose of “pet poop.” If you’ve got a bigger yard and flexible city codes, Meyer gives a crash course in raising backyard livestock, like bees, chickens and even goats. Not too many city residents may be interested in caring for goats, but the general idea is that you’d be surprised at how much you can do with limited space.

A basic guide to greener living filled with easy-to-follow instructions that can be implemented in any size home.

THE PRESIDENT AND THE ASSASSIN McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century

Miller, Scott Random (432 pp.) $28.00 | June 14, 2011 978-1-4000-6752-7 e-book 978-0-679-60498-3

A rich, rapacious America clashes with its downtrodden and idealistic in this ambitious, wide-ranging study.

The era leading up to the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 was defined by enormous expansion in American industry and muscle-flexing abroad as well as the potent rise of labor unrest and revolutionary ideas such as anarchy. The growth of railroads, steel output, consumer goods, patents and sheer American ingenuity enriched the captains of industry, while the laborers, assembly-line workers, coal miners and armies of poor immigrants performed mind-numbing

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tasks for quarters and dimes per day. Wall Street Journal correspondent Miller harnesses several narratives successively. He moves between the coffer-rich Republican election of the selfmade man and Civil War hero McKinley against the populist William Jennings Bryan, to the meeting between the painfully shy working-class loner in Cleveland, Leon Czolgosz, and the charismatic anarchist speaker Emma Goldman. Fired up by Goldman’s words on social revolution and liberty—which in turn had emerged from a movement that Miller neatly traces from the work of Edmund Burke, William Godwin and the Transcendentalists—Czolgosz steeled himself for the “propaganda of the deed”—e.g., the kind of deadly terrorism that was rocking European capitals in the 1890s. Meanwhile, McKinley was faced with international crises that he would manipulate effectively for American imperialist gain, such as the annexation of Hawaii, defeat of Spain for the protectorate of Cuba and the Philippines, takeover of Guam and Puerto Rico and an attempted Open Door policy toward China (thwarted by the Boxer Rebellion).

This is a wildly complex and significant period in American history, and Miller does a solid job of attending to the many boiling pots on the stove. (16-page photo insert. Agent: Michael Carlisle/InkWell Management)

EL SICARIO The Autobiography of a Mexican Assassin

Translator: Molloy, Molly Editor: Bowden, Charles Editor: Molloy, Molly Nation Books/Perseus (224 pp.) $15.95 paperback original | June 14, 2011 978-1-56858-668-7

A reformed assassin’s tell-all of the horrors endured and executed throughout his years in the Mexican drug trade.

Editors Molloy (Research Librarian/New Mexico State Univ.) and Bowden (Murder City, 2010, etc.) introduce the reader to the mysterious El Sicario, a high-level killer speaking out for the first time. While the editors offer the necessary frontmatter and editorial work, the vast majority of the book is dedicated to the assassin’s first-person account. El Sicario charts his path from poverty-stricken child to notorious killer, citing an incident in his early years in which an unsuccessful attempt to defend his older brother’s honor ended in his own beating.

“This caused a lot of bitterness inside of me,” he says. “And I was traumatized that I was not able to defend myself.” The experience emboldened the young boy, prompting him to dedicate his adolescence to becoming a drug mule, fully aware of the power and wealth that accompanied the risk. “To be sixteen years old and to be able to live like this!” he says. “To have money and to be able to invite any girl I wanted to go out to eat in nice restaurants with me.” His adulthood was spent as a corrupt Mexican police officer, offering him clear access into the corruption within the force. He exposes the systematic organization of the |

drug traffickers themselves, how groups are trained for a singular murderous purpose—all part of an elaborate system to “obscure the knowledge of where all of these bodies are buried.”

While somewhat unique, El Sicario’s tale is also quite familiar—one in which the power of money, drugs and women all play a role in achieving the necessary numbness required to carry out unspeakable crimes.

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL The Conversation Continues Moyers, Bill New Press (592 pp.) $29.95 | June 1, 2011 978-1-59558-624-7

A collection of bracing interviews with American writers and thinkers.

Veteran journalist and nine-time Peabody Award winner Moyers (Moyers on Democracy, 2008, etc.) gathers a glittering array of discussions with authors, activists, historians, social scientists and others that were broadcast on his public-affairs program Bill Moyers Journal in 2007–10. Focusing on topics both timely and timeless—torture, health-care reform, the U.S. economy, aging, compassion, God, among many others—the insatiably curious Moyers prods disparate intellectuals into candid talk about their sphere of interest. Often progressive, always articulate, the interviewees include historians Thomas Cahill, Nell Painter and Howard Zinn; poets Robert Bly, Nikki Giovanni and W.S. Merwin; journalists Douglas Blackmon, Barbara Ehrenreich, William Greider, Robert Kaiser and Robert Wright; and activists Grace Lee Boggs (grassroots democracy), Jim Hightower (corporate power), Michael Pollan (food), Jane Goodall (animals) and Holly Sklar (workers). Each interview illuminates some main current in American life. Jon Stewart argues for the importance of joking about absurd world events; novelist Louise Erdrich reflects on the fractured inner life of a mother and writer of mixed ancestry; journalist Sam Tanenhaus distinguishes between the conservatism of Glenn Beck and William F. Buckley Jr.; and Republican insider Victor Gold tells why he awaits “a rebirth of Goldwater.” Judge Richard Goldstone discusses his controversial report on human-rights violations in the Gaza War, and streetwise reporter David Simon, best known for his HBO series The Wire, makes a strong case for crime as the best keyhole into how our society really works.

When biologist E.O. Wilson reminds us that human activity is wiping out much of the rest of life on the planet, Moyers suspects that such life would probably survive without us. “Oh, it would do wonderfully well without us,” says the scientist.

A bright treat for browsers.

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THE BEEKEEPER’S LAMENT How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America

Nordhaus, Hannah Perennial/HarperCollins (336 pp.) $14.99 paperback original | June 1, 2011 978-0-06-187325-6 A crackerjack story of one American beekeeper’s days, with both his songs of joy and sorrow, presented within the context of beekeeping’s natural and social history.

While researching a story about beekeeping, journalist Nordhaus happened upon John Miller, a migratory beekeeper who shuttles his thousands of hives from California to North Dakota. The author struck gold with the colorful Miller, a man who “likes to pontificate, joke, write, say incendiary things, tell stories, drip with sarcasm.” As beekeeping has a fascinating, ages-old story to tell, Miller is an excellent ambassador, born to a long line of apiarists and a willing slave to his hives. Nordhaus is a lively writer who knows how to get to the nub of a topic, be it the architecture of a hive, the sting of a honey bee or the various nefarious infestations that beleaguer bee colonies.

Since Colony Collapse Disorder has captured much national interest, she covers that plague, plus a host of other malefactors, such as mites and pesticides. Beekeeping has never been easy, but without the honeybees and their keepers, hundreds of crops would perish. The money in beekeeping, such as it is, is in the pollination fees, not the honey, and Nordhaus ably conveys the economics of the trade. She is just as able to describe the romance and miracle of honey, however. To make a pound, some 50,000 bees travel a collective 55,000 miles and visit more than two million flowers: “[B]ees carry the future from tree to tree, and honey is the reward for their labors, nectar distilled by desire and duty into something more.”

A smooth-as-honey tour d’horizon of the raggedy world of beekeeping. (10 black-and-white photos. Author appearances in Colorado and upon request. Agent: Stephanie Cabot/The Gernert Company)

THE SECRET LIVES OF HOARDERS True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter

Paxton, Matt; Hise, Phaedra Perigee/Penguin (240 pp.) $14.95 paperback original | May 3, 2011 978-0-399-53665-6 With reverent curiosity, Paxton shares the stories of hoarders from a distinc-

tive perspective.

While digging himself out of the mess he made of his own life, the author, in a state of desperation, picked up a few cleaning jobs that lead him to an unexpected calling as a celebrated hoarding 660

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expert often featured on A&E’s hit show Hoarders. After years of working with hoarders, the author writes, he finally “figured out how to make sense out of their world.” He ushers readers into that world by sharing their stories. Take Margaret, who “had been hoarding so many years that her possessions had started to decompose at the bottom of her five foot piles,” whose home and possessions were “chewed or peed on by her fifty or so dogs that had free run of the place.” Paxton is quick to point out that he is not a therapist but works closely with social workers in an effort to assist individuals that are in some cases almost literally suffocating under their belongings and underlying tribulations.

The author presents an easy-to-use scale that deviates from the National Study Group’s standard measures of chronic disorganization, helping his crew, as well as the reader, understand the various stages of hoarding. He then gives examples via case studies ranging from low-level to advanced or life-threatening hoarders.

No matter how disturbing the situation is, he treats each of his clients with total respect, emphasizing that compassion is key in helping someone dig their way out.

Delicately excavates the skeletons in the clutter.

COLOR ME ENGLISH Migration and Belonging Before and After 9/11

Phillips, Caryl New Press (352 pp.) $24.95 | June 1, 2011 978-1-59558-650-6

A collection of essays on the themes of race, the African diaspora, otherness and identity, from a Caribbean-born, British-raised, and United States–based writer with a sharp eye for the tensions of modern society.

In what could be seen as a sequel to A New World Order: Essays (2001), Phillips, who is better known as a novelist (In the Falling Snow, 2009, etc.), again explores issues of migration and shares his insights into writers and their role in shaping their world. Written over nearly two decades and seemingly for a variety of publications, these highly personal musings open with Phillips’s childhood in Leeds, where for a time he was the only black child in his school. For a Muslim newcomer, Ali, the difference was culture and religion. Though Phillips found he was “being coloured English,” he saw that Ali remained an outsider. “Distant Shores” contains six pieces on his perceptions and experiences in both Europe and Africa. Europe, he writes, is no longer white and no longer Judeo-Christian, and it never will be again. However, with the help of literature as a bulwark against intolerance, societies can make the necessary transition and transform themselves. The longest section, titled “Outside In,” looks at writers in exile—e.g., James Baldwin in France, Ha Jin in the United States and Chinua Achebe in Canada. The four essays in “Homeland Security,” written between 2001 and 2006, show Phillips’ disappointment over the failure of America to live up to its image as a land of freedom and equality, but also his hope that storytelling will restore the spirit of the country.

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“Rosenbaum works marketing magic as he presents insight from Arianna Huffington, along with more than 60 other media minds, to create a lively exploration of digital curation.” from curation nation

Profiles, movie and book reviews and autobiographical and journalistic sketches complete the collection.

Although linked by the author’s sense of history and his awareness of being an outsider, these pieces seem uncomfortable together, as though forced to migrate from earlier settings to this new home.

I’M NOT DEAD, I’M DIFFERENT Kids in Spirit Teach Us About Living a Better Life on Earth

Rand, Hollister HarperCollins (288 pp.) $14.99 paperback original | April 19, 2011 978-0-06-195906-6 Rand sees dead people—and many of them are children.

In a conversational style, the author shares the stories and lessons learned from the spirits of the dead children she’s spoken with from the afterlife. Readers who believe Rand can commune with the dead will find comfort here, but skeptics are unlikely to be persuaded otherwise. The author lays out the chapters in four easy-to-read parts: SpiritTweets (which the author defines as a brief quote from a child spirit), SpiritThoughts, SpiritAnswers and SpiritSummaries. She tackles a variety of questions, such as the difference between a psychic and a medium, and offers suggestions for readers looking to become more aware of and receptive to the spirits around them. Certain elements of the book may be of particular difficulty for some readers, such as Chapter 8, “Over Before It Started: Aborted, Miscarried and Stillborn Children Speak.” However charged the topic, Rand remains nonjudgmental and apolitical in tone. There’s more lighthearted fare here as well—e.g., spirits would rather hear “thank you,” instead of “please.” The author isn’t one to dismiss those who may be dubious of her talents, going so far as to incorporate their doubts into this book.

Popular clairvoyant offers a clear-eyed look at young spirits and the afterlife.

THE LONG JOURNEY HOME A Memoir Robison, Margaret Spiegel & Grau (400 pp.) $26.00 | May 17, 2011 978-1-4000-6869-2

Poet and essayist Robison’s (What Matters, 2001, etc.) autobiography of madness and redemption—completing a trilogy of dysfunction of sorts, joining the memoirs of her sons, Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors, 2002) and John Elder Robison (Look Me in the Eye, 2007).

The author was raised in rural Georgia in the 1930s amid a family of secrets—a depressed father and a mother defeated by |

life, and aunts not spoken of who were spirited away to mental institutions. In her search for her artistic voice and confused sexuality, she bent to the will of family and times. Doing what was expected of her, she married John, a young divinity student and later a philosophy professor. John could be loving and kind, but more often—over decades of married life—drunk, violent and psychotic, with frequent and recurrent stays in psychiatric hospitals. In the process, he left deep wounds on his wife and children. Finally, depression and psychosis overtook Robison herself and she too was committed. Yet, as she writes, “madness broke through the thick walls of repression,” and she began to write. Still, she had to extricate herself from John and from an ersatz and cult-like psychiatrist, under whose spell she had fallen until he tried to rape her. But Robison persevered, continuing to write and teach and finding love and companionship with a woman. Though a stroke rendered her left side paralyzed, she eventually regained the speech she had lost. She also found her voice, and in old age made the story of her life her own.

Robison’s story, fairly or not, is really one about women and men—how women can become lost and wounded in the world of men and saved and renewed in the world of women.

A harshly honest memoir that paints a portrait of a woman and a life, both brave and flawed.

CURATION NATION How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators

Rosenbaum, Steven McGraw-Hill (304 pp.) $28.00 | February 15, 2011 978-0-07-176039-3

Documentary filmmaker and creator of MTV News UNfiltered navigates the information age in this debut volume.

Rosenbaum works marketing magic as he presents insight from Arianna Huffington, along with more than 60 other media minds, to create a lively exploration of digital curation—defined here as the gathering and dissemination of information and utilized by many, from small bloggers to aggregate news giants like the Huffington Post. The heart of the narrative focuses on an intriguing debate between those who claim that hosting a content-aggregated site is vampirism, and others, like Huffington or younger “Content Generation” users, who applaud the freedom of gathering and sharing media links. As technology rapidly changes, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is harder to apply, and legal battles like Viacom vs. YouTube may have far-reaching economic effects. Rosenbaum also provides interesting background on cable television and the first written curation, Reader’s Digest, as well as many examples of successful Internet curators, such as BlogHer.com. The author cites social-media strategist Rohit Bhargava, who predicts that content on the web will double every 72 hours in the near future. Rounding it up into one easy-to-read platform is a user’s delight—and possibly a curator’s goldmine. Though light on advice for struggling

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MRS. MATTINGLY’S MIRACLE The Prince, the Widow, and the Cure that Shocked Washington City

entrepreneurs, Rosenbaum provides reader-friendly tips for beginning curation, such as how to pick a platform, use keyword search terms and navigate RSS feeds.

A compelling discussion of the evolution of curation in the digital world.

CELLULOID ACTIVIST The Life and Times of Vito Russo

Schiavi, Michael Univ. of Wisconsin (366 pp.) $29.95 | May 10, 2011 978-0-299-28230-1 e-book 978-0-299-28233-2

Biography of a gay-rights champion and author of the queer-cinema ur-text The Celluloid Closet (1981).

In this first book, Schiavi (English/New York Institute of Technology) looks at the life of Vito Russo (1946–1990), best known for co-founding the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Foundation (GLAAD) and for the aforementioned groundbreaking book. Russo’s name isn’t as well known as his major contributions to gay rights in the 1970s and ’80s, but Schiavi illuminates his short but productive life through access to Russo’s copious journals and numerous accomplishments— all without much reliance on the perspectives of anyone other than seemingly Russo himself. Although structured and written like a boilerplate academic study, the book is a total immersion into Russo’s daily life: his struggles growing up in dangerous 1960s East Harlem and then in culturally barren suburban New Jersey, and his developing interest in classic Hollywood film, which also helped shape his identity as a gay male in a largely homophobic American mainstream society. The narrative focuses particularly on Russo’s unglamorous persistence as a writer and lecturer, toiling for low pay for publications such as London’s Gay News and New York City publications like the Advocate and Christopher Street, but not finding much mainstream acceptance until tragically late in his career. Even the publication of The Celluloid Closet got him more publicity and recognition than publishing royalties. Schiavi’s chapters the years leading up to Russo’s death at age 44 from AIDS-related complications are also affecting but not always easy to digest.

The author provides a sad reminder of the full fury of the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, which struck so suddenly and took so many promising lives with it.

Conventionally academic but complex portrait of an undeservedly obscure gay author and activist.

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Schultz, Nancy Lusignan Yale Univ. (288 pp.) $30.00 | April 26, 2011 978-0-300-11846-9

Through the account of a miraculous healing, Schultz (English/Salem State Univ.; Fire and Roses, 2002, etc.) dissects the religious history and culture of early-19th-century America.

In the spring of 1824, Ann Mattingly, a devout Catholic and the sister of the Washington, D.C., mayor, was dying of breast cancer when her family learned of a popular German cleric who was said to possess divine powers of healing. Enter Prince Alexander Hohenloe, who intervened with prayers and offerings, and Mattingly was instantly cured. Schultz takes this controversial incident as a launching point for a discussion of many of the issues plaguing citizens of the newly established United States, including religion, women’s changing role in society and slavery.

The focus of this brisk and engaging history, however, remains the founding of the Catholic Church in America, the subsequent tensions between Protestants and Catholics and the wave of anti-Catholicism that swept the nation. Mattingly and her family history—a melange of divisive infighting, tragedy and faith that would make good box-office fodder—makes for fascinating reading, but it’s the author’s ability to draw her characters in a specific point in history that truly shines. Photographs and paintings of early America sporadically illustrate the book.

Regardless of their religious beliefs or skepticism of miracles, readers will find this book well worth their time.

LA SEDUCTION How the French Play the Game of Life

Sciolino, Elaine Times/Henry Holt (384 pp.) $26.00 | June 21, 2011 978-0-8050-9115-1

An American journalist in Paris offers a serious, skeptical study of France’s quintessential “soft power.”

The art of getting results by attraction rather than coercion is a long specialty of the French, especially in terms of politics, foreign policy, language, manners, food, culture and style. New York Times Paris correspondent Sciolino (Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran, 2000, etc.) presents some of the prevailing, socially accepted uses of opération séduction (“charm offensive”) that both bemuse her sense of American pragmatism and arouse her incredulity. Men of a certain age still tender the baisemain to married women (Hillary Clinton got one from President Sarkozy), women learn from the cradle to dress provocatively (and then welcome admiring

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remarks from strangers) and married people routinely take lovers as part of keeping “in good health,” while France’s national symbol is a sexy, barefoot commoner named Marianne whose bodice falls half undone. French politicians cannot get elected if they can’t demonstrate a vigorous capability: Case in point, when Sarkozy’s wife of many years left him for another man, he married supermodel Carla Bruni in a hurry and found his approval ratings soar. French shamelessness extends to politicians such as former presidents Mitterand, Giscard d’Estaing and Chirac, for whom the political office was another form of seduction. French professional women do not seem to be concerned that insistent male attention would be called harassment in the United States. Ultimately, Sciolino grates at the real problem unsettling the French—i.e., their fear of declinism, or decline. Their traditional arts of seduction—slow food, lace, finely crafted luxury items, etc.—are being threatened by globalization, eliciting a heavy sense of nostalgia for the era when beauty and pleasure reigned. Moreover, French leaders like Sarkozy still embrace a “profound unity of our culture,” even though about 10 percent of France’s population is “of Arab and African origin or descent,” underscoring deep fissures in France’s sense of its own national identity.

Sciolino incorporates numerous interviews in order to preserve a shrewd, journalistic distance in this illuminating book. (16-page black-and-white photo insert. Agent: Andrew Wylie/ The Wylie Agency)

THE ANIMAL CONNECTION A New Perspective on What Makes Us Human Shipman, Pat Norton (304 pp.) $26.95 | June 14, 2011 978-0-393-07054-5

In an easy, conversational style, American Scientist contributor Shipman (Anthropology/Penn State Univ.; Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari, 2007, etc.) sets forth her theory that our connection with animals is in large measure what makes us human.

The author argues that the urge to care for and connect with other species is a universal human trait and that the animal connection dates from more than 2.6 million years ago when our ancestors began using stone tools to process animal carcasses as food. The use of stone tools not only changed what our ancestors ate but what they needed to know about the behavior of animals around them. Sharing this knowledge about animals was essential to their success as predators, and, writes Shipman, most of the prehistoric art that we can understand depicts medium- or large-sized animals, not landscapes, people, vegetation or insects. The author posits that interacting with animals led not only to the making of tools and to the development of symbolic behavior, including language, but another major advance in human evolution: the domestication of other species. She writes that domestication transformed animals |

into living tools that enabled humans to expand their abilities and exploit new resources, and that communicating with animals and training them called for a new set of skills that had to be learned, stored and transmitted. Throughout the book are black-and-white photographs of stone and bone tools, art objects and other visual evidence that Shipman presents to back up her theory that the animal connection was instrumental in shaping our species. In the final chapter, she looks at the animal connection in the modern world. Noting that it was what gave humans the vital skills of empathy, understanding and compromise, she concludes that we still have a deep need to be involved with animals and expresses her concern that this need may go unrecognized in an increasingly industrialized world.

Attention animal lovers and science buffs: Although Shipman is an academic, there is no classroom atmosphere here; the writing is refreshingly jargon-free, and the narrative may persuade pet owners to take a fresh look at their charges. (25 illustrations)

THE DIGITAL DIET The 4-Step Plan to Break Your Tech Addiction and Regain Balance in Your Life

Sieberg, Daniel Three Rivers/Crown (272 pp.) $13.00 paperback original | May 3, 2011 978-0-307-88738-2

Former CBS and CNN technology correspondent recognizes what is lost in a multitasking, digitally obsessed world and outlines suggestions to help people reclaim their lives.

Spending hours on the computer with minimal productivity? Is social-networking a daily necessity, or has the purchase of the latest games, gadgets and apps become routine? Life does not have to be beholden to technology, writes Sieberg, who encourages technology users to take control. The author, an Emmy-nominated journalist and self-rehabbed gaming and social-network addict, urges the plugged-in public to recognize the impact technology is having on their self-esteem, relationships and health. Technology, writes the author, should allow people to work smarter, not harder. It should provide them with more down time, but not consume it. Rather than berating people for their tech obsession, though, Sieberg shares his own fall into compulsive computering and his subsequent struggle to make time off-screen. He outlines his four-step, 28-day plan that instructs readers to take back control through “positive computing” and constructive time-management. The author is aware that one size does not fit all, and he provides a flexible tech cleanse that readers can employ as they see fit. Packed with helpful tips, examples of exercises one can do while incorporating their gadgets and recommendations for apps and software that help achieve positive technology management, Sieberg sets the reader on a path for success.

Take control over technology with this energetic, engaging and uplifting read.

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A Sea on Fire: Two Books Explore the Gulf Oil Disaster B Y G REG O RY MC NA M EE

On April 20, 2010, people the world over learned that oil platforms, like oil tankers, oil fields, and oil barons, have names.

That day, an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, Deepwater Horizon, exploded. Eleven workers died. In subsequent days— and months afterward— Deepwater Horizon would fill the news with tales of dead and threatened fish, marine mammals and birds; of beachfront communities deserted by vacationers; of malfeasance and collusion.

We learned of astonishing levels of corruption among the agencies charged with monitoring the oil industry, of corporate arrogance in the face of the “small people” and of round-robin finger-pointing.

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Four months later, the well that had been gushing millions of gallons of oil from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico was finally sealed and the spill stopped. So, in the mainstream, did the news, with only the occasional piece still bubbling up in the papers, most recently, a federal judge ordering BP’s claims administrator to quit contending that he was impartial.

Deepwater Horizon’s effects will be long felt—environmentally, as the Gulf struggles to recover; economically, as the world oil market lurches from one crisis to the next; legally, as lawsuits make their way through the courts, a process sure to take on the contours of a modern Bleak House. Meanwhile, two new books are keeping the story of Deepwater Horizon fresh—and bringing underreported news into the story.

A few months ago, John Konrad, a former oil rig captain and one-time employee of Deepwater Horizon’s owner, was in New Orleans covering the early hearings on the disaster for his maritime blog, gcaptain.com.

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Konrad found himself explaining the technology of offshore oil drilling to the assembled reporters there, helping, as he says, “decrypt the meaning of terms like ‘BOP’ and ‘Negative Pressure Test,’ ” when NPR reporter Joe Shapiro suggested that he write a book.

Konrad teamed with Washington Post writer and editor Tom Shroder and did just that with Fire on the Horizon, which we called a “lucid investigation into the fatally risky business that caused the blowout, which, by putting human faces on many players, amplifies the ache.” As disaster books go, it brings an unusually thorough view of the many weak links in the system. But, Konrad urges, it’s not just a failed blowout preventer at the bottom of the ocean that we can pinpoint. Instead, he says, “The underlying cause of this incident is no different from the financial crisis or housing bubble—it’s human behavior in a time of unprecedented energy prices and technological sophistication.”

Carl Safina, well known for his writings about the ocean, including

“Deepwater Horizon is far from the first accident to devastate the Gulf of Mexico, and it will take decades to undo the damage—if it can be undone.

Yet the incident probably won’t change anything...”

the recently published View from Lazy Point, had at the same time been contemplating a book about the disaster— though, he tells us that he “wasn’t sure what the book should be because no one knew how the whole event would play out.” A chance meeting with an interested editor led to a contract for what would become A Sea in Flames and to a whirlwind of research trips and a campaign of coming up to speed on the astonishing technology that underlies deep-sea drilling.

Like Konrad and Shroder, Safina also finds that the story of Deepwater Horizon is all too human. “What impressed me most,” he tells Kirkus, “was the total unpreparedness for the event, followed by the widespread inanity of the responses. So the book became a description of why the well was allowed to blow out (a series of incredible misjudgments by several companies all contributed), and a sort of topography of the emotional, scientific, political and social landscape of the season that became the totality of the event. The blowout is as much, maybe more, about how people reacted emotionally to the idea of the oil, compared to the actual oil itself.”

Both books are long on seeking to assign responsibility—or blame—for the disaster, and both find it in a complex chain of events, technical failings, miscommunications and clashing cultures. In the end, both books seek to avoid abstractions. Konrad and Shroder are particularly good in portraying the efforts of the men and women of the Coast Guard and other rescue services in confronting a challenge that none had faced before—for, though its technology was out of date, Deepwater Horizon had scooped out the deepest oil well in history, six-and-a-half miles down.

As Safina writes, the story of the Deepwater Horizon boils down to 11 dead men, leaving nine widows and 21 fatherless children, along with 17 injured workers. It boils down to the

millions of people whose lives along the Gulf Coast were disrupted and, finally, to every one of us who are implicated in the oil economy.

Deepwater Horizon is far from the first accident to devastate the Gulf of Mexico, and it will take decades to undo the damage—if it can be undone.

Yet the incident probably won’t change anything—we will continue consuming oil, we’ll forget about the catastrophe and eventually another disaster will befall us. Notes Safina, the blowout of a Mexican oil well in 1979 prefigured Deepwater Horizon in many particulars, and yet absolutely no new improvements were put in place in its aftermath—everyone was too busy thinking about the next bonanza to pay much attention.

As Shroder observes, “The potential profits of oil exploration and production are so enormous that it drives us to push the technological envelope to develop resources that we could never have dreamed of exploiting before. The great need for oil and the great rewards |

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have made risk-taking inevitable. The longer people go without a disaster, the more risks they will be willing to take— the more risk-taking will seem a rational course of action—until another disaster becomes inevitable.”

Fire on the Horizon

John Konrad & Tom Shroder Harper | $27.99 March 1, 2011 9780062063007 A Sea in Flames

Carl Safina Crown | $25.00 April 19, 2011 9780307887351 nonfiction

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YOU MUST GO AND WIN

Simone, Alina Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (256 pp.) $14.00 paperback original | June 14, 2011 978-0-86547-915-9

Wry memoir from an Eastern European indie-rock sensation.

A significant strength of this literary debut from singer Simone—whose second full-length original album will be released this fall—is her prose style, which is vibrant, taut and humorous. Born in Ukraine, she emigrated with her family to Massachusetts in the waning days of Soviet rule, after her professor father ran afoul of the KGB. The author amusingly portrays this experience as having transformed her family into caustic Kafkaesque eccentrics. The young Simone’s response was to retreat into bohemian creativity. One chapter documents the bittersweet review of artsy VHS tapes she made with a teenage pal who went on to fame in the Dresden Dolls. The author married young and pursued a career making independent folk-rock that, for a number of years, seemed cursed.

After a particularly futile and creepy audition, she writes, “There is a certain peace that comes with the realization you aren’t ruining anyone’s life but your own.” Yet, over time, Simone managed to build an enthusiastic, cultish audience, bolstered in 2008 with her release of an album honoring Yanka Dyagileva, a Russian folkpunk performer who’d died mysteriously. The most provocative and engaging chapters document the author’s wanderlust. In addition to touring the country, playing her music in run-down venues, she traveled on multiple occasions to Siberia, her remote hometown and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. At points, she departs on spiritual tangents, as when she discusses her obsessive research on the Skoptsy, an obscure 19th-century Russian sect that practiced castration—she found this a good conversational topic for discouraging nightclub suitors. The chapters that focus on her travails as a Brooklyn-based aspiring musician are both less interesting and more familiar than Simone seems to perceive. The author skillfully captures the forlorn waiting-tobe-famous existence of young creative people, yet these passages become somewhat self-indulgent and unsurprising.

Sure to prove popular with 20-something hipsters, just as her music seems poised for wider exposure.

THE STORY OF CHARLOTTE’S WEB E.B. White’s Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic

Sims, Michael Walker (256 pp.) $24.00 | June 7, 2011 978-0-8027-7754-6

An affectionate biography examines the birth of an American classic.

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As the subtitle indicates, Sims (Apollo’s Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination, 2007, etc.) concentrates on White’s lifelong love of the natural world. He loved the family stable, writes the author, and roamed the undeveloped places in and around Mount Vernon, N.Y., as well as reveling in the rustic beauty of the Belgrade Lakes in Maine, where his family summered. White’s reading tastes revolved around the “true life” animal stories of Ernest Thompson Seton and his ilk, and he was also charmed by the antics of Don Marquis’ Archy and Mehitabel. White began writing early, first keeping a diary and then joining the child contributors to St. Nicholas, among whom also numbered his future wife, Katharine Sergeant. Sims also traces White’s New Yorker career, touching lightly on high points and drawing on his writings, both public and private, in which he often adopted the voices of animals. The author avoids the often-irritating tendency of literary biographers to foreshadow portentously from these early experiences, allowing readers to draw their own connections. His examination of the genesis and development of Charlotte’s Web—White worked desperately to nurse an ill pig back to health, knowing that if he was successful, he would end up killing it anyway—will thrill lovers of the novel. Sims quotes generously from White’s working drafts, which were constantly in revision from the beginning. Descriptions of these pages offer both a fascinating insight into the writing process and crushing refutation of any claim that writing for children is easy.

Packed with the same kind of sensory detail its subject reveled in, this account is an honorable addition to the literature of letters. (8-page black-and-white insert. Agent: Heide Lange)

NOT DEAD YET My Race Against Disease: From Diagnosis to Dominance

Southerland, Phil; Hanc, John Dunne/St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $25.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-312-61023-4

Inspirational memoir from a champion cyclist about overcoming a bleak diagnosis of diabetes and rising to the top—on

his bike and in life.

Southerland was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at a young age. As a teenager, he dreamed of creating an organization to help those who were similarly afflicted. As an adult, he took the first steps toward his dream by founding Team Type 1, a competitive cycling troop comprised entirely of Type 1 diabetics that has won a number of championships. Cashing in on his status as a renowned athlete, Southerland began distributing medical supplies and campaigning for diabetes awareness around the world on a scale that surpassed even his wildest teen dreams. Here, the author describes a harrowing and sickly childhood, during which he was dragged from doctor to doctor, each prognosis gloomier than the last. He recalls the personal challenges he faced and overcame on a daily basis in dealing with his diagnosis, which inherently laid the foundation for the strength, will and fortitude it

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“Stacey provides a comprehensive look at the varying nature of family structures spanning from the United States to southwest China, and she suggests love and marriage are not necessarily blissfully united.” from unhitched

took for him to become a champion athlete. The author’s passion for cycling and drive to excel became blueprints for controlling his disease and living a healthy life. This motivational comingof-age story veers between inspiration and action. Southerland’s accounts of cycling tournaments are so vividly portrayed, and his optimistic and humorous tone is appropriate for any age group.

Uplifting book for any person struggling with hardships and looking for the strength to overcome.

UNHITCHED Love, Marriage, and Family Values from West Hollywood to Western China

Stacey, Judith New York Univ. (304 pp.) $24.95 | May 2, 2011 978-0-8147-8382-5

A candid unearthing of veiled and inviolable topics related to relationships and marriage.

When considering the pros and cons of entering into a marital bond these days, one must recognize the progression and, in many cases, regression of society regarding relationships. For 10 years, Stacey has conducted research based on this rationale, and her captivating results form the basis of a book that unravels the mysteries behind marital—and nonmarital—relationships of all shapes, sizes and colors. With clear-cut, modern prose, the author infuses her commentary and details her investigation from all sides of the aisle with well-researched facts and figures.

Stacey uses gay marriage and polyandrous relationships as a springboard for readers to reflect on the traditional marriage system of one man, one woman, and she turns controversial cultural issues into divisive conjectures. With powerful recognition of “Gay Parenthood and the End of Paternity as We Knew It,” the author directly confronts the taboo subject that can be same-sex relationships and their take on parenthood, running the gamut from gay men desperate to adopt, to those who decline, whom she refers to as “refuseniks.” Stacey provides a comprehensive look at the varying nature of family structures spanning from the United States to southwest China, and she suggests love and marriage are not necessarily blissfully united.

Clever and practical blend of research, history and anecdote.

HOW THE STATES GOT THEIR SHAPES TOO The People Behind the Borderlines Stein, Mark Smithsonian Books (360 pp.) $24.95 | June 7, 2011 978-1-58834-314-7

A fun sequel offers more recondite tidbits of American history. |

With 50 states, there are plenty of details about border controversies for this mildly titillating follow-up to screenwriter Stein’s How the States Got Their Shapes (2008), which in turn inspired the History Channel’s eponymous documentary. The personalities behind the disputes take center stage: Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who were actually a pair of highly accomplished English surveyors of the Royal Society possibly hired by Benjamin Franklin to establish impartially the disputed 300-mile Pennsylvania-Maryland-Delaware boundary.

“Asking Mason and Dixon to survey a boundary in America,” writes the author, “was… akin to asking Mozart to play at a prom.” Thanks to Ethan Allen (“not a furniture maker”) and his motley posse of Green Mountain Boys, the homesteads making up the future Vermont were saved from rapacious New Yorkers.

It is largely due to the zeal (or wealth) of John Hardeman Walker who “put the boot heel on Missouri” in order to keep his land from sinking into Arkansas. Under the presidency of James K. Polk, America’s borders increased greatly, incorporating Texas, the Oregon Territory and everything in between the Rockies and the Pacific, creating a massive befuddlement for lawmakers; bright lights such as Sam Houston, Brigham Young and John Sutter would all wield profound influence on the shape of the states affiliated with their names. Stein includes contributions by important women, including proto-feminist Clarina Nichols, who moved her family to Kansas for the purpose of creating an anti-slavery majority in 1854, and Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, who attempted tirelessly to win statehood for the District of Columbia. Overall, the author provides plenty of good stuff for tournament quizzes and Jeopardy questions.

Bright, readable and accessible for all ages. (46 black-and-white portraits; 85 black-and-white maps. 10-part TV series on The History Channel featuring the author. Agent: Kenneth Wright/Writers House)

THE MATHEMATICS OF LIFE

Stewart, Ian Basic (304 pp.) $27.50 | June 7, 2011 978-0-465-02238-0

In the past, students who loved science but hated math studied biology. That won’t work today, writes the prolific emeritus professor of Mathematics at Britain’s Warwick University, who explains why in his usual enthusiastic but definitely not dumbed-down style.

Physical scientists joked about biologists as “stamp collectors,” and this was not far off until Victorian times, as they happily occupied themselves discovering and describing living things. By 1850, botanists counting flower petals wondered why they almost always came up with 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55—the wellknown series called Fibonacci numbers. Mystical speculation abounded until 20th-century research proved that the dynamics of growing plants forces cells into specific mathematical relationships. Having dipped the reader’s toe into his specialty, Stewart (Cows in the Maze: And Other Mathematical Explorations,

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2010, etc.) proceeds to deliver a history of biology followed by a tour of current research. A fine chapter on Darwin and evolution contains almost no mathematics. The story of genetics, all the way up to the Human Genome Project, demands grade-school arithmetic to understand Mendel’s rules of heredity. Readers with painful memories of high-school algebra will feel reassured because Stewart accessibly explains population growth, speciation, brain function, chaos and game theory, networking, symmetry and even the mechanism that produces animal stripes and spots. The lack of equations does not imply simplicity, however; all chapters begin with basics, but readers without a scientific background will struggle to finish more than one.

An ingenious overview of biology with emphasis on mathematical ideas—stimulating but requiring careful reading despite the lack of equations.

RAT ISLAND Predators in Paradise— and the World’s Greatest Wildlife Rescue

Stolzenburg, William Bloomsbury (288 pp.) $26.00 | June 1, 2011 978-1-60819-103-1

Veteran science writer Stolzenburg (Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators, 2008) pursues the question of the predator-prey dynamic.

As the author reported in his first book, such well-intended interventions in nature as the removal of wolves from Yellowstone Park can have negative consequences. Here, Stolzenburg takes another look at ecological engineering. As humans have moved across the planet, rats have traveled with us. An amazing 20 percent of the animal species on Earth live on islands, and nearly half are endangered by rats, feral cats, weasels, goats, pigs and rabbits which have been introduced by humans either inadvertently or as a food source. Most at risk are birds whose eggs and nestlings provide a source of food for these predators. In 1964, New Zealand’s Wildlife Service was alerted to an outbreak of rats that threatened to overrun one of their last pristine refuges on Big South Cape Island. They were especially concerned to rescue the endangered kakapo, a green parrot so large that it neither flies nor swims. Attempts to remove them to safer environments proved only marginally successful, and the last resort appeared to be the eradication of feral cats and rats by systematic largescale poisoning. Animal-rights advocates began an extensive campaign to stop the program when it was introduced to Santa Cruz off the coast of Southern California, but they were unsuccessful and it has continued. “As of the summer of 2010,” writes the author, “conservation specialists had conducted more than eight hundred eradications of destructive mammals from islands they had breached with human help.” Rats have been eliminated, and songbird habitats preserved. The question remains, however: Do we have the right to intervene in nature on this scale?

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A tough, nuanced consideration of ethical issues that arise from man’s relationship to nature. (Appearances at natural history museums and Audobon Societies. Agent: Russ Galen/Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency)

NEW ATLANTIS Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans

Swenson, John Oxford Univ. (336 pp.) $27.95 | June 1, 2011 978-0-19-975452-6

A detailed, angry look at the Crescent City’s imperiled players and traditions in Hurricane Katrina’s wake.

Veteran music journalist Swenson (The Rolling Stone Jazz and Blues Album Guide, 1999, etc.), a New Orleans resident since 1999, surveys the havoc wreaked on his adopted hometown’s music scene after the so-called “federal flood” of August 2005. Already threatened by the erosion of southern Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, the city was flattened by the massive storm, which scattered its musicians around the country. Swenson details the natives’ taxing attempts to reinstate the indigenous musical culture, one of the country’s national treasures, within a shattered civic infrastructure. He interviews dozens of locals, ranging from vets like Dr. John, Dr. Michael White and Cyril Neville of the Neville Brothers to young lions like Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and his troubled cousin Glen David Andrews. The author excoriates the city fathers, whose thinly veiled racism led to post-Katrina opposition to the Mardi Gras Indian tribes and practitioners of funeral “second lining” (parading). Despite chaos and escalating violence, the music community courageously restored itself. However, after a description of the celebration of the New Orleans Saints’ uplifting 2010 Super Bowl victory, the book ends on a downbeat note with a rushed look at the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon pipeline disaster, which wracked the region anew. Readers won’t fault Swenson’s journalism, comprising on-the-ground observation and interviews, and he is at home with every pertinent musical genre, from jazz and funk to rock, gospel and hip-hop. But the lax organization and editing of the book often slow the narrative’s momentum and lose the thread of the tale. Chapters stutter to a halt with lengthy explications of artists’ careers, replete with unsifted quotes, or with endless descriptions of performances in clubs or on festival stages. These notebook-clearing exercises too frequently swamp Swenson’s powerfully affecting story of New Orleans’ monumental cultural tragedy and gutsy rebirth.

A solid, rewarding book that could have been great with some judicious pruning. (50 photographs)

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“Uplifting chronicle of the author’s personal involvement in disaster-relief efforts after 9/11, the Asian tsunami of 2004 and the Haitian earthquake of 2010.” from the third wave

THE THIRD WAVE A Volunteer Story

Thompson, Alison; Fox, MeiMei Spiegel & Grau (240 pp.) $24.00 | July 12, 2011 978-0-385-52916-7

Uplifting chronicle of the author’s personal involvement in disaster-relief efforts after 9/11, the Asian tsunami of 2004 and the Haitian earthquake of 2010.

When Thompson heard about the tsunami, she knew she had to go there to help. With $300 and some gear, she was on the ground in Sri Lanka by January 5th, ready to start work. Her impressive accomplishments form the heart of the narrative.

Prefigured by her months in the dust, dirt and rubble of Ground Zero after 9/11, Thompson’s 14 months in Sri Lanka were alternately painful and gut-wrenching. There was nothing left in Peraliya when they arrived. Approximately 2,500 had died, and more than 500 homes had been destroyed. The villagers needed clean water, food, shelter and medical aid. All the water wells had been contaminated by the sea. On their first day, the volunteers’ truck became an emergency first-aid station. In the first 10 hours, they treated 150 people. By the time they took a break, after six months, a permanent medical facility was under construction, 75,000 people had been treated, school facilities had been set up and shelter had been provided. The author and her fellow volunteer friends had been joined by Germans, Dutch, British, Danes and dozens of others from around the world, each with something special to offer. They fought the heartache of funds that didn’t come through and the suffering of those who saved their loved ones from the violence of the sea, only to lose them later due to the inadequacy of follow-up medical care.

Thompson writes that at Ground Zero, she overcame her fear of death. In Peraliya, she overcame her fear of evil.

An inspiring story demonstrating that there are always ways to help. For fellow volunteers, the author includes a helpful section called “What to Know Before You Go.”

WONDER GIRL The Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias

Van Natta Jr., Don Little, Brown (256 pp.) $27.99 | June 2, 2011 978-0-316-05699-1

An enthusiastic, sympathetic biography of the incomparable all-around sports champion.

There is no lack of research into Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias’ life (1911–1956) most notably Susan E. Cayleff ’s 1995 biography Babe, but Van Natta’s work spirits the reader away on this fairy-tale story with grace, humor and an occasional need to set the record straight. In fact, Babe was born in 1911, though she publicly shaved a few years off her age. |

One of seven children born to Norwegian immigrants in East Texas, Babe was a tomboy and a daredevil, catching the eye of Melvorne J. McCombs, the scout for the Employers Casualty Insurance Company in Dallas, which needed a scorer for their women’s basketball team to win the upcoming Amateur Athletic Union championship, in February 1930. Hired to work at the company and star on the team, Babe essentially dropped out of high school, gaining with each victory for her team admiring coverage in the press and a devoted following. Confining herself to one sport was impossible for Babe, because of her extraordinary talent, and she was braggart, habitually employing hotair tactics to psych out her opponents. After winning a coveted spot on the 1932 Olympic team by dominating all eight events, she won two gold medals (javelin, hurdles) and a silver (high jump), setting world records, then translated her publicity into high earnings afterward, which got her barred for three years from amateur golf, the next sport she intended to master. Babe had a power swing, embarking on a winning streak of American and British titles that rarely let up until her untimely death by cancer in 1956. She and her pro-wrestler husband, George Zaharias, started the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), which galvanized the game for women.

An enormously inspiring life story for a new generation of female achievers. (8 pages of black-and-white photographs)

ENTER NIGHT A Biography of Metallica

Wall, Mick St. Martin’s (480 pp.) $27.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-312-64989-0

Semi-sympathetic biography of a difficult band to like.

British music journalist Wall (When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin, 2009, etc.), who has also penned bios of Ozzy Osbourne, Bono and other major rock acts, has followed Metallica since they first broke across the Atlantic with their debut LP in 1983. For the most part, he tells a straightforward history most fans will know. Beginning with the tragedy that robbed them of their heart and soul just as they were poised to become one of the biggest bands in the world— the death of bassist Cliff Burton in a bizarre bus accident in Sweden in 1986—Wall returns to the Metallica’s birth in the hyperactive mind of drummer Lars Ulrich, the metal-obsessed scion of a Danish tennis dynasty. In Los Angeles, Ullrich met his polar opposite, the surly rhythm guitarist James Hetfield, product of a broken home of outsider Christian Scientists. This odd couple formed the backbone of Metallica and pioneered— along with Burton, a loose cannon of a guitarist named Dave Mustaine, who founded Megadeth, and his replacement Kirk Hammett—what became known as thrash metal, an amalgam of British heavy metal and West Coast punk rock. In the early days, the band was beloved for its anti-style style—no teased hair, spandex or mascara—and unusually honest subject matter

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for metal songs—death and violence rather than elves and devils. After the blockbuster success of their eponymous LP, which fans dubbed The Black Album, Wall argues (non-controversially) that the band lost their way. As square institutions like MTV, the Grammy Awards and even the U.S. Congress embraced them, Metallica practically threw it all away on an ill-conceived attack on their fan base over “theft” of their music on Napster’s revolutionary file-sharing platform. Nearly all of the material in the book will be familiar to most Metallica fans and readers who have seen the 2004 film Some Kind of Monster.

Wall’s tales of encounters with the band over the years all seem to make the point that he has never been a true Metallica fan. That would explain this lackluster treatment. (One 32-page color photo insert)

DAVID CROCKETT The Lion of the West

Wallis, Michael Norton (320 pp.) $26.95 | May 16, 2011 978-0-393-06758-3

He wasn’t born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, and he didn’t kill a b’ar when he was only three. Even so, David Crockett was a force of nature, as this fine biography details.

The Scots-Irish son of the American frontier, writes Wallis (Billy the Kid, 2007, etc.), became a legend within his lifetime and “died as a work still very much in progress.” Yet much of what we know about Crockett is erroneous, thanks to fictions perpetuated over the course of nearly two centuries. David Crockett— David, not Davy—was indeed an accomplished hunter of bears, having killed more than 100 of them in seven months during 1825–26, as Wallis carefully records. But more than that, he was a frontier entrepreneur who “approached nature as a science and hunting as an art,” earning a considerable income supplying furs for a hungry East Coast and European trade. As a politician, an endeavor in which hunting stories were guaranteed to liven up stump speeches, he fell afoul of fellow Tennessean Andrew Jackson early on, opining against several of Jackson’s policies and views, particularly on the matter of what to do about the Indians. (Crockett opposed the relocations that would culminate in the Trail of Tears.) It was on the hustings, Wallis writes, that Crockett perfected a kind of bumpkin persona, wearing a buckskin shirt with two big pockets: “In one pocket he kept a big twist of tobacco and in the other a bottle of liquor,” either of which worked to sway a voter. When Crockett’s card in Washington played out, he left for Texas—whose Anglo secessionists, writes the author, desired freedom from Mexico at least in part because Mexico had outlawed slavery. There Crockett met his end—but not, as Wallis notes, in quite the way Walt Disney would have it.

An excellent study likely to tick off the hagiographers. (60 illustrations. Author tour to Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Austin, Washington, D.C.) 670

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THE HOUSE IN FRANCE A Memoir

Wells, Gully Knopf (320 pp.) $25.95 | June 22, 2011 978-0-307-26980-5

Memoir of the author’s mother and stepfather and the luminous social and intellectual circles in which they moved.

Remembering her mother, American journalist Dee Wells, and stepfather, Oxford philosopher A.J. Ayer, Condé Nast Traveler features editor Wells flits from decade to decade and celebrity to celebrity without too great a concern for chronology. Dee Wells and Ayer were two of the original 20th-century bohemians/hippies/free spirits. Dee in particular was terribly gratified when the ’60s finally caught up with their lifestyle. In her debut memoir, the author chronicles the many relationships—social and (mostly) sexual—of their set; the anecdotes are remarkable for their vivid attention to detail. All the tangential lives came together at La Migoua, the eponymous home which absorbed the characteristics of any and all who were welcomed there; the house reflected the spirit of Dee and her nonconformist outlook on life. The stories of Wells’ mother and Ayer are a delight to read and revealing when dealing with the captivating personalities of their generation, which included, among many others, Christopher Hitchens, Alan Bennett, Bertrand Russell, Iris Murdoch and Martin Amis. However, the author’s tendency to dwell on her own tiresome, personal tales, such as her quest to give up her virginity, slow the narrative and detract from the far more interesting story of Wells’ parents and their friends.

Too much teenage angst and not enough of the vibrant intellectual society that Wells illuminates in many of the chapters.

(16 pages of photographs. Agent: Irene Skolnick/Irene Skolnick Agency)

IF YOU ASK ME (And Of Course You Won’t)

White, Betty Putnam (272 pp.) $25.95 | May 3, 2011 978-0-399-15753-0

The beloved actress shares some of her recent experiences.

White’s (Here We Go Again: My Life in Television, 1995, etc.) autobiographical work reads much like an enjoyable, if one-sided, afternoon chat with a charming personality. She engagingly addresses an ever-present second person and intuits the questions her audience would ask. White doesn’t dwell for long on a given topic, instead relating brief, easily digestible tales. Subsequently, the narrative sometimes lacks cohesion, even structured as it is according to different aspects of her life—e.g., Hollywood Stories, Stagecraft, Love and Friendship and Animal Kingdom, etc. Yet this only further adds to the

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“Excellent big-picture, popularly written history of the Howard Zinn mold, backed by a mountain of research and statistics.” from railroaded

book’s conversational flow. There is nothing overly profound or moving in these pages, nor do the laughs come fast and furious, but readers will enjoy White’s gentle tone and cheery stories.

She avoids acrid personal attacks or overwrought self-criticisms, and she clearly writes because she enjoys it, a fact she admits on more than one occasion. The book is certainly not an essential read for either historical or humorous purposes, and it’s often riddled with clichés, but White’s fans and those looking for a bit of light fare will enjoy this latest batch of stories.

A quick, pleasant read from an author whose writing voice is surprisingly reminiscent of her speaking voice. (National publicity campaign, with author appearances in New York and Los Angeles)

RAILROADED The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America

White, Richard Norton (736 pp.) $35.00 | May 31, 2011 978-0-393-06126-0

The railroads may not have advanced civilization in America, notes this sharpedged history, but they were eminently creative in their destruction.

Latter-day corporatistas will not be pleased with the neoMarxist slant that eminent historian White (American History/ Stanford Univ.; Remembering Ahanagran: Storytelling in a Family’s Past, 1998, etc.) brings to his vigorous account of the 19th-century transcontinental railroads. It is that great scholar of entrepreneurship Joseph Schumpeter whose spirit guides much of White’s book, particularly his notion that capitalism involves “creative destruction,” the constant uprooting of the old for the new in order to sell it all over again. (Think of CDs replacing LPs, and of MP3s replacing CDs.) In the case of the railroads, the creative destruction involved the replacement of one form of corporation with another—and if, as White argues, the 19th-century railroad corporations almost always went bust in the manner of the dotcoms in our own time, the individuals who controlled those corporations mostly did well for themselves. As he writes, “[t]he celebrated creative destruction of capitalism is, it seems, gentle with the rich,” an observation not to be lost in our own time.

White peoples the narrative with characters who are fascinating as case studies of the seven deadly sins, such as entrepreneur and wheeler-dealer Tom Scott, who “was not so much tainted by corruption as impregnated with it”; and Samuel Huntington, who railed against Scott for beating him at his own game, complaining that “the devil, the communist, and the Pa. R.R. have united against us.” Huntington opposed Leland Stanford, too, but Stanford was a staunch Republican, and the Republican powers that be warned him that if Huntington’s opposition cost Stanford his Senate seat, “they would punish Huntington by punishing [his] railroad.” And so forth, one alliance conspiring against another— but, as White makes clear, all conspiring to grow rich, and all at the expense of the working people. |

Excellent big-picture, popularly written history of the Howard Zinn mold, backed by a mountain of research and statistics.

(8 pages of illustrations)

NOTHING DAUNTED The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West

Wickenden, Dorothy Scribner (320 pp.) $26.00 | June 21, 2011 978-1-4391-7658-0

A detailed study of two spirited and privileged young women who unexpectedly became a small part of the history of the American West.

Rosamund Underwood and Dorothy Woodruff, both Smith College graduates, spent their 20s traveling to Europe and Manhattan and pouring tea for suffragettes at home in Auburn, N.Y. Nearing 30, they were becoming restless and, longing to do useful and interesting work, applied to become teachers in the small community of Elkhead, Colo. New Yorker executive editor Wickenden, Woodruff ’s granddaughter, relates their experiences with a vivid, gossipy flair, and readers get an excellent sense of what everyday life was like, not only for the privileged and highly educated, but for the mine worker, the homesteader, the elementary-school teacher. However, readers expecting a straightforward, linear narrative will be baffled by the sinuous curve of the story as it makes switchbacks and loops, like the much-discussed Moffat Road Railroad. In fact, the momentous first day of school for the young teachers doesn’t arrive until halfway through the book. The earlier material covers their journey to Elkhead, their childhood and college years and their extensive domestic and international travel. The author’s frequent diversions into local and national history demand careful attention, and they might delight one reader but bore another.

Wickenden defers the discussion of the women’s marriages until two-thirds of the way through the book, which both prioritizes their accomplishments and entices the reader. We know at the outset that Dorothy has children, and this knowledge pulls us gently through the narrative’s many turns.

An absorbing maze of a book—readers may well, like Woodruff and Underwood, find their hearts lost to the West.

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I’M KIND OF A BIG DEAL and Other Delusions of Adequacy

Wilder-Taylor, Stefanie Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) $15.00 paperback original | June 7, 2011 978-1-4391-7657-3 A tell-too-much, say-too-little collection of autobiographical essays about one woman’s B-grade brushes with stardom. |

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The latest from Hollywood writer and producer WilderTaylor falls well short of satisfying. The first two-thirds of the book deal with her many mishaps along the road to something like fame. After graduating from high school, she went to New York City with vague ambitions of becoming an actress. But her stage career began and ended in an Italian restaurant where, as a singing waitress, she demonstrated her total lack of vocal skills.

In Los Angeles, she found her way as a dancing extra in a Bob Dylan-Dave Stewart music video that quickly “fell off into oblivion.” Later, Wilder-Taylor auditioned for a dating show called Studs, only to find herself paired with a man who “looked like a bisexual pirate.” Ever in search of celebrity—or at least, of a way to be near it—the author briefly drove limos for the likes of such minor screen luminaries as Lolita Davidovich and Justine Bateman. The narrative, which moves rather disconnectedly between episodes, displays even more disjointedness in the final third of the book. Wilder-Taylor, now an established figure in the entertainment industry, struggled to cope not only with the demands of her career, but also motherhood, all while trying to deal with an drinking problem that had been present since her teens. In between snarky “letters” she writes to Angelina Jolie about the actress’ too-perfect maternal image and to David Hasselhoff about their common “crazy love of booze,” the author offers maddeningly brief glimpses of real emotional poignancy in her depiction of her alcohol and codeine-dependent father and their rocky relationship. Wilder-Taylor’s often self-deprecating candor is the book’s greatest strength, but also its greatest weakness. While she freely provides gossipy tidbits about her life and adventures, her capacity to move beyond the superficially funny and into the meaningfully humorous is lacking.

Kind of a waste of time.

THE 100 BEST AFFORDABLE VACATIONS

Wooldridge, Jane; Bleiberg, Larry National Geographic (288 pp.) $19.95 paperback original | April 19, 2011 978-1-4262-0718-1 Travel journalists Wooldridge and Bleiberg suggest holidays for all budgets.

Did somebody say vacation? National Geographic takes readers down highways and across the friendly skies with 100 ideas for the budget-conscious traveler. Wooldridge and Bleiberg provide a collection of unique trips that will excite all personalities and many wallets.

Like to shop? Drive through the world’s longest yard sale, which stretches from Michigan to Alabama. Those who enjoy yoga and meditation should head out to Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado. Wooldridge and Bleiberg divide the trips by theme, including sections on vacations that celebrate Americana or feed travelers’ “body & soul.” Try a cowboy poetry reading in Elko, Nev., or a community-service trip to post-Katrina New Orleans.

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suggestions. The book should be viewed as a flip-through reference that will generate ideas for cash-strapped travelers. Most of the authors’ suggestions are in the U.S., although several take travelers to more exotic locations like Belize or Puerto Rico.

Rev up the car and hit the road.

BOB DYLAN Like a Complete Unknown

Yaffe, David Yale Univ. (192 pp.) $24.00 | May 24, 2011 978-0-300-12457-6

A slim volume of essays adds more than a footnote to the long shelf of Dylan books.

After a recent spate of Dylan studies by prominent academics—Sean Wilentz and Christopher Ricks, in addition to the comprehensive Greil Marcus anthology—there would seem to be nothing left to say about this celebrated and frequently confounding artist. Yet music critic Yaffe (English/Syracuse Univ; Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing, 2005, etc.) sheds some fresh light, or at least offers a provocative perspective.

His four thematic chapters “attempt to elucidate the difficult pleasure that is Dylan, with his nasal voice, oblique lyrics, complicated relation to race, and controversial appropriation of words and music.” Obviously passionate about his subject, on whom he teaches a course, Yaffe writes that “while he is perhaps miscategorized as a poet, he is underrated as a singer.” The author later makes the far more startling assertion that “Dylan’s relationship to race is unique,” and that “the story of how Dylan got his groove back by becoming his own soul sister is also a distinctly American narrative of racial appropriation and sexual exploitation, of selling out, getting saved, and owning up.” For Yaffe, Dylan’s controversial (and short-lived) “born again” phase is as much about race (and gospel music) and eros as it is about Christianity. Pretty much every page could launch a debate, though Yaffe is one of the few to swallow whole the assertion by Mavis Staples that the young Dylan would have married her if she had consented. More than any other recent Dylan book, this one frequently anticipates his death, the unthinkable prospect of no more Dylan (though there will be plenty more Dylan books).

Not for the neophyte, but fascinating for obsessives who think they know everything and want to know more.

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children & teens DREAMLAND SOCIAL CLUB

Altebrando, Tara Dutton (400 pp.) $16.99 | May 12, 2011 978-0-525-42325-6 In this evocative homage to Coney Island, the “Playground of the World,” a 16-yearold girl searches for clues about the mother she barely remembers.

Upon their grandfather’s death, Jane and Marcus Dryden and their father move into their mother’s childhood home on Coney Island. Jane soon discovers that her mother, Clementine Porcelli, the daughter of two carnies, founded the still-active Dreamland Social Club at Coney Island High School. She sets out to learn more about Clementine and the mysterious club. With the help of an old set of keys and a tattooed musician named Leo, she unlocks the various haunts of her mother’s youth and finds the sense of adventure she lost when her mother died. Along the way, Jane realizes that “normal” is a matter of perspective and gains insight into the complicated and contentious history of the town’s periods of growth and decline. Altebrando provides exceptional depth in both the setting and the motley cast of Coney Islanders, teen and adult, living and dead. Occasionally breaking the third-person narrative with Jane’s memories of her mother, the author breathes life into the long-dead Clementine, while weaving in the attractions of Coney Island’s fabled past.

The result is a memorable tale of personal growth and acceptance that will make teens eager to join a Dreamland Social Club of their own. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)

HOW TÍA LOLA SAVED THE SUMMER

Alvarez, Julia Knopf (160 pp.) $15.99 | PLB: $18.99 e-book: $15.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-375-86727-9 PLB: 978-0-375-96727-6 e-book: 978-0-375-89766-5 Series: Tía Lola Stories Alvarez returns with another Tía Lola story, replete with adventure and humor.

Revisiting this charming Latino family a couple of months after How Tía Lola Learned to Teach (2010), readers find 11-year-old |

Miguel Guzman’s aunt creating a magical summer camp for the Fourth of July week, complete with campfires and a nighttime treasure hunt. Víctor Espada is back in Vermont to visit, bringing his three daughters and his dog to stay at the farm. With romance blooming between Víctor and Miguel’s divorced mom, Tía Lola tries to keep the peace between the five children. Meanwhile, outnumbered by the four girls and sidelined from playing baseball by an ankle injury, Miguel is beset by a plethora of worries, while his 9-year-old sister Juanita struggles to feel special among the Espada girls. Each of the children (and a couple of the adults) overcomes a challenge, thanks to Tía Lola’s empathy and wisdom.

The author subtly continues thematic elements of acceptance and community from the previous novels and blends Spanish words and phrases into the story, which will appeal to Latino and non-Latino readers alike.

Returning readers will rejoice in reconnecting with the effervescent Tía Lola and the rest of the gang, while even readers new to the tales will want to read more about Vermont’s favorite Dominican aunt. (Fiction. 8-12)

THE WIKKELING

Arntson, Steven Illustrator: Terrazzini, Daniela Jaglenka Running Press Kids (256 pp.) $18.00 | May 1, 2011 978-0-7624-3903-4 The low-key dystopia pictured in this inventive tale may not strike a chill into the hearts of young readers, but it’s sure

to disconcert adults.

The highly connected, technological future in which Henrietta Gad-Fly lives feels appallingly possible. Safety is the primary social force, solitude is unknown, traffic jams clog the roads and horns have been replaced by “Honk Ads,” which relentlessly tout upgraded cell phones and promote conspicuous consumption. Awkward and lonely, Henrietta is surprised and pleased to make two friends in the space of a few days. Oddly enough, Gary and Rose both share her propensity for headaches. The discovery of a “wild housecat” in Henrietta’s attic leads all three to learn more about the past, connects Henrietta to her family in new ways and eventually sparks a confrontation with the creature (or program?) that is draining their energy and causing them pain. Along the way, Arntson touches on the value of knowledge, the destruction of the environment and the importance of individuality, as well as offering intriguing glimpses of a number of imaginary animals. Most of Terrazzini’s black-and-white illustrations resemble cut-paper silhouettes and provide a suitably stark

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“An extraordinary novel explores the challenges faced by children whose parents have gone off to war.” from the summer before boys

vision of Henrietta’s world. A few wispier grey-on-grey drawings are included, ostensibly on pages of the antique Bestiary the children consult, and these are variously whimsical and frightening.

Provocative and offbeat. (Fantasy. 10-14)

TÍA’S TAMALES

Baca, Ana Illustrator and Translator: Chilton, Noël Univ. of New Mexico (32 pp.) $16.95 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8263-5026-8 Every family recipe has a flavorful story behind it.

When school is cancelled because of snow, young Luz and her grandmother (Abuelita) spend the day together. Abuelita brings a big round box decorated with pink and purple flowers; inside is a suprise, for later. First, it’s time to make tamales, with a story about Abuelita’s father Diego and his aunt (tía). When Diego was a little boy, he worked on the family farm, with little rest or fun. One winter, the surprise visit of his tía, in a crazy, elaborate hat, lifts his low spirits. She suggests lunch, but finding food is a challenge, especially in the winter. The chickens aren’t laying, ice on the river prevents fishing and trees are bare.

Tía declares that the chickens need some laughter and, using the magic in her hat, soon gets them cackling and laying. She has similar success with fish and fruit. Back in the present, it’s time to open Abuelita’s box (the contents of which every reader will know), which provides the perfect sparkle to an already wonderful day. Split pages tell the story in both English (top half) and Spanish (bottom), and Abuelita’s recipe is bilingually included as well. Chilton’s artful illustrations have the look of paper dolls placed against a soft, old-fashioned backdrop rendered in a muted, comforting palette.

An embarrassment of riches. (Picture book. 7-12)

THE SUMMER BEFORE BOYS

Baskin, Nora Raleigh Simon & Schuster (208 pp.) $15.99 | May 10, 2011 978-1-4169-8673-7 An extraordinary novel explores the challenges faced by children whose parents have gone off to war.

When her mother’s National Guard unit is deployed to Iraq, Julia spends her summer with her best friend and cousin, Eliza. The grounds of the century-old mountain lodge where Eliza’s dad works is the perfect setting for Julia and Eliza’s favorite childhood game, in which the girls pretend to be young ladies from the past. For years, their vivid imaginations transported them to another time.

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anchored in reality. The arrival of Michael, a child of another lodge employee, further strains the girls’ relationship. Julia must decide where her loyalty lies: partnering Eliza in their imaginary world or with Michael. Interspersed throughout the narrative are Julia’s accounts of American women who have died in wars throughout history. These poignant commentaries serve to illuminate Julia’s anguish and uncertainty about her mother’s safety.

Baskin adeptly portrays Julia’s ambivalence and anxiety in this thoughtful tale that artfully brings the war to the homefront. (Fiction. 9-12)

HIDE AND SHEEP

Beaty, Andrea Illustrator: Mayer, Bill McElderry (32 pp.) $15.99 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4169-2544-6

Farmer McFitt has lost his flock of mischievous sheep in this comical, rhymed counting book that features densely detailed illustrations that beg for repeat visits.

Ten wayward lambs hit the town to avoid a shearing. As a countdown progresses, the rambunctious crew creates a ruckus at various locales, offering readers adventures for varying interests. They visit the ballpark, museum, beach and library, where “Four hungry ewes run off looking for snacks. / They roam the library, inspecting the stacks. / Novels and poetry! All of it free! They nosh and they nibble from A down to Z.” Even the cinema is overrun, as the lambkins dress up as their movie genre of choice (western, comedy and period piece). Mayer populates his spreads with playful tableaux, enticing readers to explore each escapade and find (and count!) sheep. Done in pen and watercolor with an offset pattern to layer in color and texture, his simple, cartoony drawing style—reminiscent of the Thimble Theatre–era Popeye comic strip—is organic, spontaneous and skillfully controlled. All ends well as Farmer McFitt finds his sheep, knits the fleece and gets to stop counting sheep and sleep. The countdown is entirely textual—no numerals here—so it’s not a teaching text, but it’s plenty fun for all that.

Beaty’s amusing text teamed with Mayer’s humorous artwork is one frolicking romp through numbers and naughtiness.

(Picture book. 3-6)

WELLINGTON’S RAINY DAY

Beck, Carolyn Illustrator: Kerrigan, Brooke Orca (32 pp.) $19.95 | May 1, 2011 978-1-55469-284-2

Beck’s attempts to gross out readers continue with her latest, seemingly innocuous title, about a hungry dog.

Wellington’s day is not going very well. The fire is out, his bowl is empty, his nose smarts from a scratch thanks to Honey the cat and his afternoon walk will be in the rain. And that meatloaf

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smell—it’s too tempting to pass up. So, after a lengthy drink from the toilet, he devours his master’s dinner…and the contents of the garbage can, which are described in all-too-vivid detail. As he lies belching, his arch-nemesis, Honey, takes the opportunity to torture him with threats of tattling. Welly’s stomach just can’t take it. With a great spew of synonyms and adjectives he vomits and then proceeds to lick it all up again. By the time he returns home from a rainy walk, he feels he is very deserving of punishment since he has ensured his master will be hungry. But when Honey gets the blame, his guilty feelings magically evaporate.

Kerrigan’s pencil-crayon and watercolor-wash illustrations portray a rather droll, floppy-eared dog and a spiteful cat. Thankfully, her artwork is not as detail-oriented as the text.

This is one for only the strong of stomach or Xtreme dog lovers. (Picture book. 4-8)

THE RELIC HUNTERS

Benz, Derek Lewis, J.S. Little, Brown (354 pp.) $15.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-316-04519-3 Series: Grey Griffins: The Clockwork Chronicles, 2 A teeming cast, a mare’s nest of plotlines and characters with ambiguous agendas muddle this sequel to The Brimstone Key (2010).

The morass of steampunk and fantasy conventions includes giant armored battle suits and flying cars, zombies, magical weapons and shapechanging Faerie familiars. In the midst of this, the four young Grey Griffins begin to drift apart. Natalia makes new friends, and Ernie, still smarting over events from the previous volume, splits off to lead a band of costumed vigilantes. Meanwhile, Harley becomes the assistant to a renowned inventor who is wasting away from an unidentified illness, and Max has confusing visions of the supposedly evil Otto Von Strife. This last character’s conveniently available notebook reveals that he’s building a world-threatening Paragon Engine.

Led by mysterious instructor Obadiah Strange, the Grey Griffins reunite first on a failed mission that leaves them watching as Von Strife’s teleporting associate Smoke whisks away both Strange and a magical (?) relic called the Schrödinger Box, then to mount an attack on the Paragon Engine that ends in a cliffhanger. Readers hoping to keep track of who’s who and what’s where will definitely want to start with the previous episode, but they are likely to feel that they’ve wasted their time after a climactic revelation renders the entire plot nonsensical.

There’s a lot better out there than this. (Steampunk. 11-13)

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NUMBERS ON THE MOVE: 1 2 3 DANCE AND COUNT WITH ME

Benzwie, Teresa Illustrator: Weber, Mark Temple Univ. Press (32 pp.) $16.95 | May 31, 2011 978-1-4399-0343-8

From 0 to 10 and back again, children demonstrate numbers with different movements: jumps, kicks, twists and more.

This demonstration of teaching numbers kinesthetically serves as a counting book for young readers and a helpful reminder for parents and teachers of ways to reinforce learning.

In the beginning, a child sits cross-legged, with eyes closed and body quiet; a different child goes on to stretch out as one; two more slide at two and so forth, until 10 children are clapping on a double-page spread. Then the numbers go backward, with one child leaving the group at a time, leaving the last one sitting quietly. “Zero is a place of rest / Now you know you’ve done your best.” A simple text uses sometimes-awkward rhyme in various patterns to support instructions. A thoughtfully chosen variety of children of differing ages, colors and abilities appear in Weber’s illustrations; all are identifiable. Large, legible figures and a colorful set of numbered blocks on the pages indicate the number being described. The book concludes with some extra activities for children, including work with the rhythm of their name, and a final page for adults suggesting more counting experiences. The author, a social worker and movement educator, has previously written about kinesthetic learning, most recently in Alphabet Movers (2002).

A good reminder about the value of movement in earlychildhood education. (Picture book. 3-6, adult)

WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN New Stories and Poems of the Borderlands

Editor: Black, Holly Editor: Kushner, Ellen Random (544 pp.) $19.99 | PLB: $22.99 e-book: $19.99 | May 24, 2011 978-0-375-86705-7 PLB: 978-0-375-96705-4 e-book: 978-0-375-89745-0

Bordertown: where the human and faerie worlds intersect, a place populated by runaways and the lost, powered by an unreliable mix of magic and technology.

Thirteen years ago, the way to this shared world was closed after four anthologies (The Essential Bordertown, 1998, etc.) and three novels (Elsewhere, 1991, etc.). Now, Kushner (one of the original contributors) and Black (who grew up reading the original tales) have reopened the way, and once again teens uncomfortable in the world—or just looking for excellent fantasy fiction—can escape to it. This is punk-rock, DIY fantasy, full of

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harsh reality and incandescent magic. “Noobs” will be quickly acclimated by the introductory “Bordertown Basics,” an irreverent tour-guide’s view with everything the visitor needs to know.

Many of the stories echo with loss and discomfort; standouts include “Crossings” by Janni Lee Simner, a chilling look at the difference between dreams and reality, and “A Tangle of Green Men,” Charles De Lint’s heartbreaking examination of love, loss and life. Poems and songs (from Patricia A. McKillip, Neil Gaiman and Jane Yolen, among others) balance the fiction, and if some of the songs don’t play so great to tone-deaf readers, they still bring the importance of music home. A few stories fall a little flat, but these tiny flaws don’t detract from a masterful anthology.

Here’s to another generation finding comfort and inspiration on the border. (introductions, author notes) (Fantasy/ anthology. 13 & up)

ARE YOU AWAKE?

Blackall, Sophie Editor: Blackall, Sophie Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt (40 pp.) $12.99 | May 24, 2011 978-0-8050-7858-9 The titular question sparks a conversation many parents will find very familiar.

Edward peppers his mom with question after question—nothing unusual about that. Problem is, it’s 4:00 a.m. Sleepy circular logic results from the combination of Edward’s repetitious, 30-plus queries and Mom’s patient, bemused answers. When “Why hasn’t the sun come up yet?” is posed for the fourth time, she switches from allusions to moon and stars to a perfunctory “Because it’s Tuesday.” We learn that Dad is a pilot flying at night—one source, perhaps, of the little one’s restlessness. Blackall provides visual indicators that invite children to track the passage from night to morning. Color alters gradually from the bedroom’s dusky grays to the golden light suffusing the room at sunrise. An analog clock shaped like a green owl marks the hour in some spreads. Just for fun, apparently, in a corner of the verso pages, Edward’s roly-poly toy elephant cavorts before succumbing to zzzzs. The boy’s dialogue is in lower case, while Mom’s is proffered in gently emphatic caps. As she wakes fully, Mom poses a few Qs of her own, then opines about yellow things. Edward finally slumbers, Dad comes home—and a last spread promises more “Why?”s.

Diminutive in size—just right, really, for a midnight conversation—and pleasantly sweet. (Picture book. 2-5)

BOOTLEG Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition

Blumenthal, Karen Flash Point/Roaring Brook (160 pp.) $18.99 | May 24, 2011 978-1-59643-449-3

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When Congress passed the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol, supporters were convinced it would create a stronger, more moral nation. Instead, it ushered in an era of corruption and lawlessness, here brought to life with a fast-paced, gripping narrative and period photographs.

The story opens dramatically in 1929 with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the murder of seven Chicago men that epitomized the gangland violence that became a routine by-product of bootlegging. Blumenthal then chronicles the rise of the temperance movement in the late 1800s, the passage of and life under Prohibition and its repeal in 1933. The story is populated with colorful and notorious characters, such as the hatchet-wielding Carry Nation, gangster Al Capone and Morris Sheppard, the golden-tongued senator and champion of Prohibition. Drawing from period newspaper accounts, personal anecdotes and other primary sources, the author puts a human face on history, chronicling how parents brewed booze in their bathtubs and children smuggled the hooch. Blumenthal acknowledges that Prohibition was successful in some notable ways: Arrests for public intoxication declined as did alcohol-related diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver. Whatever positive outcomes there were, however, were eclipsed by the widespread corruption and violence of bootlegging.

An informative, insightful account of a fascinating period of American history. (glossary, bibliography, source notes) (Nonfiction. 12 & up)

FALCON QUINN AND THE CRIMSON VAPOR

Boylan, Jennifer Finney Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $16.99 | PLB: $17.89 | May 10, 2011 978-0-06-172835-8 PLB: 978-0-06-172836-5 Series: Falcon Quinn, 2 Falcon Quinn returns to another exclamation mark–laden year at a school where nobody understands him, the poor

little angel—literally.

At the end of his last year at the Monster Academy, Falcon discovered his angelic nature as well as his true parentage: His father is the demonic Academy headmaster Crow; his mother, queen of the monster-killing guardians. None of this knowledge has made him any more popular. The other kids don’t trust him anyway, and it doesn’t help that he keeps finding himself in ridiculous scrapes. Did Falcon try to kill his friend Pearl, the famous Chupakabra of Peru? Did he stuff Quagmire, the puddle of bubbling glop, in his godzooka during band practice? When Falcon flees from monsters and finds himself among guardians, he discovers those monster-killers resemble his monster friends more closely than either side would like to admit. The silliness is consistently funny but not consistently age-appropriate; a pirate referring to the bottom of the sea as “Peter Tork’s locker” is a groaner that will zoom right over the heads of middle-school readers. For the most part, however, egg-laying werechicken boys and Hamlet “as written in the original Frankenstein dialect”

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“The plane carrying the 50 Miss Teen Dream Pageant contestants crashes on a remote desert island, and the survivors must channel the skills that made them successful on runways to keep themselves alive until they can be rescued.” from beauty queens

will keep giggles coming. The humor provides necessary counterpoint to the trowelled-on nobody-loves-me angst.

Goofy, overenthusiastic nonsense with just enough rambling plot to hold it all together. (Fantasy. 9-11)

JACOB WONDERBAR AND THE COSMIC SPACE KAPOW

Bransford, Nathan Illustrator: Jennings, C.S. Dial (320 pp.) $14.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8037-3537-8

Bransford’s debut and the first of a series is an outer-space comedy of errors.

Sixth-grader Jacob Wonderbar is the bane of substitute teachers everywhere.

When witchy Mrs. Pinkerton tries to get the class under control and somehow her precious mug is shattered, a sprinkler is triggered and the whole class erupts in screams…Jacob gets the blame and his mother has to pick him up. That night, commiserating with his best friends, Sarah and Dexter, they investigate a strange noise in the forest—and a man in silver offers them a spaceship in exchange for a corndog. Next thing the trio knows, they are taking a tour of the solar system aboard Lucy, an opinionated if slightly bored spaceship. Then there’s a little accident that may involve the breaking of the universe. A space pirate, the eating of dirt, the universe’s largest carbon allotrope and a snooty space princess all complicate the trip home…which Jacob isn’t sure he wants to make. It’s the Saturday-morningcartoon version ofHitchhiker’s Guide even if the laughs aren’t quite so fast and furious (and some of them are a bit of a stretch).

There’s plenty of set-up for future volumes; fans will hope they won’t have to wait long. (Science fiction/humor. 9-12)

BEAUTY QUEENS

Bray, Libba Scholastic (400 pp.) $18.99 | May 24, 2011 978-0-439-89597-2

This inventive satire mocks celebrity culture while celebrating the resilience of teen girls.

Printz Award–winning author Bray (Going Bovine, 2009) plunges into cultural criticism with her latest teen novel.

The plane carrying the 50 Miss Teen Dream Pageant contestants crashes on a remote desert island, and the survivors must channel the skills that made them successful on runways to keep themselves alive until they can be rescued. (“From Ladybird Hope’s I’m Perfect and You Can Be Too, Chapter Three: ‘A lady’s quick thinking can save a bad situation.’ She was talking about putting nail polish on a runner in your hose, but I think the same rule applies here.”) Unfortunately, their sponsor |

decides there is better press in avenging their deaths than in mounting a rescue and sets that scenario in motion. An encounter with the stars of a pirate-themed reality-TV show highlights their vulnerability. By now, though, genuine survival skills have been honed, and the teens foil the dastardly plot. While the foibles of today’s media/celebrity/political culture are the clear target of this stinging satire, the teen cast is funny and endearing in its own right. As the story unfolds, each girl’s back story and actions under duress reveal a unique character.

The humor is both dark and madcap, including footnote asides and commercial scripts that keep the laughs coming.

(Fiction. 14 & up)

THE LAND OF LOST THINGS / EL PAÍS DE LAS COSAS PERDIDAS

Bursztyn, Dina Illustrator: Bursztyn, Dina Piñata Books/Arté Público (32 pp.) $16.95 | May 31, 2011 978-1-55885-690-5 A child’s inquisitive search for a lost pencil takes him on an imaginary tour.

Missing his favorite blue pencil, a little boy visualizes his way through “the land of lost things.” On his quest he encounters not just his own but a “forest of lost blue pencils.” Ripping a pencil from one of the trees releases a flood of dark blue color that spreads across the page. Wielding an eraser, the boy creates a newly white space to reveal a setting sun, green centipede and a butterfly of many colors—really his lost golden button, comb and scissors. Soon, still wandering in this strange world of mislaid items, the boy finds his flashlight and holey red sock amid a flock of flying ones as he follows the path to “a mountain of mittens” and walks through “a garden of lost umbrellas.” Still unable to find his original blue pencil, a brown one from his pencil box creates a new drawing of inspired adventure. The boy’s inventive exploration is depicted with whimsical art in digital collage, opaque watercolors and markers. The art creates the necessary fanciful atmosphere for this tale, as the bilingual telling lacks verve.

A mildly interesting way to introduce artistic expression to a preschool audience. (Picture book. 4-6)

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THE SWIMMING LESSON

Chaconas, Dori Illustrator: McCue, Lisa Viking (32 pp.) $13.99 | February 22, 2011 978-0-670-01281-7 Series: Cork & Fuzz

Possum Fuzz and muskrat Cork are at odds over Fuzz’s reluctance to visit Cork’s house “in the middle of a pond” in this early-reader series entry. |

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“Christensen effectively re-imagines Warhol’s unmistakable style for 21st-century kids while offering a developmentally appropriate take on Warhol’s life.” from fabulous!

Cork offers to teach Fuzz how to swim, but after a lesson on land pretending to paddle through tickly grasses, Fuzz declares, “Swimming is not a possum thing to do.” He decides to climb out on a branch over the pond to jump down on Cork’s house, and Cork can barely watch as Fuzz gingerly makes his way along the branch—which ends up being a bit short. Startled by a bird, Fuzz falls into the water. Cork immediately dives in, and, in controlled text that ingeniously repeats words introduced earlier, he implores his friend to “paddle” and “kick.” Safe and sound at book’s end, the friends delight in Fuzz’s swimming skills as Cork mulls over an offer of tree-climbing lessons. Throughout, Chaconas expertly controls and repeats vocabulary, delivering a tightly paced, engaging story arc over four brief chapters.

McCue’s accompanying illustrations, reminiscent of Garth Williams’ use of line to create visual texture, strike a fine balance between echoing key textual events and terms and extending the narrative.

This swimming lesson will make learning to read a pleasure.

(Early reader. 6-8)

FLAWLESS

Chapman, Lara Bloomsbury (272 pp.) $16.99 | $9.99 paperback original May 1, 2011 978-1-59990-631-7 paper 978-1-59990-596-9 Cyrano gets a sex change and goes to high school.

Seventeen-year-old academic superstar Sarah is perfect except for a nose that’s so enormously large it literally stops traffic in her high school’s hallways. BFF Kristen is not nearly so bright, but she’s beautiful, a gifted, fashion-forward shopper, and she definitely knows how to work a room. When Adonis-like newcomer Rock (really!) shows up, both girls fall head-over-heels for him, but Sarah is his intellectual soul mate. Reluctantly, she does what friends are supposed to do—or at least what Kristen guilts her into thinking friends should do: She writes all of the e-mails, love letters and text messages her not-so-bright friend sends, as well as tutoring her on literary and cultural topics. Each chapter begins with a relevant quote on the true nature of beauty, messages Sarah ought to be thinking about, since the walls she’s believably built around herself to fend off nose critics have fenced out nearly everyone. While it pushes credibility that Rock doesn’t detect the deceit and Kristen isn’t sufficiently sensitive to notice Sarah’s lust for him, the trying situation is amusing enough to sustain interest, in spite of the worn-out concept (though teens in the know may feel that both Edmond Rostand and Steve Martin did it better).

A teen romance with a little heart, it pushes past other formulaic efforts…by a nose. (Romance. 11 & up)

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SLIGHTLY INVISIBLE

Child, Lauren Illustrator: Child, Lauren Candlewick (40 pp.) $16.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-7636-5347-7 Series: Charlie & Lola

Newcomers and devoted fans alike will cheer for clever, likable siblings Charlie and Lola in their newest outing.

Charlie and pal Marv want solitude for tracking “strange and tricky creatures,” but younger sister Lola interferes at every step: “Lola stepped on our spaceship. We had to walk back to Earth.” When the boys concoct an invisibility potion (“pink milk, a tiny drop of banana, and a secret invisible ingredient”), Lola cunningly feeds it to imaginary friend Soren Lorenson. Child has her own magic potion here: Atop her appealing mixed-media spreads of collaged line drawings, fabric patterns and graph paper, she now adds invisible Soren Lorenson. While Charlie, Lola and Marv (and Soren) look for creatures, readers have the joy of looking for Soren, whose glossy but uncolored outline can only be glimpsed by tipping the book until the light hits just so. The four of them play together, engrossed—under Lola’s direction—until they catch “the most strange and terrifyingly tricky creature in the universe” and have tea with him.

Text bounces around and changes and typeface and font size.

Adults will recognize a spot-on portrayal of children’s imagination games, while kids will recognize the underwater, outerspace and mountainous territories that their homes become every day through play. (Picture book. 3-7)

FABULOUS! A Portrait of Andy Warhol

Christensen, Bonnie Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt (40 pp.) $16.99 | May 24, 2011 978-0-8050-8753-6

The “fabulous” life of Andy Warhol is made accessible and understandable via this child-friendly look at the life and career of one of America’s most recognizable painters.

Shy, sickly Andy spent many lonely hours resting in bed.

Warhol’s mother understood his uniqueness, and instead of forcing him to attend school, stand up to bullies or play sports, she unfailingly nurtured his talents and accepted and supported his interests. Andy attended art classes at the Carnegie Museum art school in Pittsburgh and was encouraged by teachers who also recognized his promise. Comics, movie magazines, glamorous superstars and luminous icons from his Eastern Orthodox parish church fueled his imagination. Christensen effectively re-imagines Warhol’s unmistakable style for 21st-century kids while offering a developmentally appropriate take on Warhol’s life. She focuses on his early graphic work and the exciting, transformative era of Pop Art. She conveys the explosive impact of his Campbell’s soup cans and Marilyn as she discretely limns the early activities of “The Factory.”

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Though readers will need to consult the backmatter for the details of the more complex and tumultuous years from the mid-’60s to his death in 1987, they will find this a vital and exciting child-appropriate introduction to an American icon. (Picture book/biography. 6-9)

SO MUCH CLOSER

Colasanti, Susane Viking (256 pp.) $17.99 | May 3, 2011 978-0-670-01224-4

In a voice that is alternately clichéd, naive and spot-on, high-school junior Brooke narrates a novel that explores familiar territory about teenage angst.

For two years, Brooke has been less concerned about her future than she is about Scott, the boy she´s secretly lusted after. Acting on her certainty that they are meant to be together, Brooke attempts to reveal her feelings to Scott. Before she can, Scott announces his family is moving to New York City. Brooke does her research and coincidentally finds that her father, with whom she is not spoken in six years, lives around the corner from Scott’s new home and that if she moves, they will attend the same school during their senior year. Once they finally begin dating, though, Brooke realizes Scott enjoys the physical part of their relationship much more than discovering who she is. Colasanti’s Manhattan is a teenager’s paradise, with late-night rendezvous at sandwich shops, rooftop hideaways and low parental involvement. The contrast between Brooke’s dull New Jersey town and life in the big city will resonate with teens craving a change.

Although predictable in its outcome and characterization, this quick read will satisfy those looking for a light beach book.

The escapist setting at least partially makes up for flat characters and a rather ludicrous plot. (Fiction. 12 & up)

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON AND SUSAN B. ANTHONY A Friendship That Changed the World

Colman, Penny Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt (272 pp.) $18.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-8050-8293-7

Two of the most iconic figures in women’s history were linked in deep friendship as well as commitment to the most contentious causes in 19th-century America: antislavery and woman suffrage.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a married mother of four boys at the time they met, and Susan B. Anthony, an unmarried schoolteacher, formed a friendship that lasted until Elizabeth’s death more than 50 years later. Their tireless work, including advocacy, |

speeches, organizing and writing, placed them at the center of tumultuous events in the middle of the 19th century. They were associates of other prominent activists, such as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and Lucretia Mott. This lively, very readable narrative paints a picture that depicts each woman’s path to activism and demonstrates that these passionate figures often disagreed with each other and their fellow activists over strategy, allies, direction for the movement—even rhetoric. The tenor of the times is on full display as the struggle to extend rights to women is resisted by most institutions in society. Conflicts within the movement are discussed, although the longterm breach that occurred when Stanton and Anthony opposed the amendment granting the right to vote to freedmen because women of all races were denied is not fully explored.

This thoughtful portrayal of two complex women is further enhanced by comprehensive backmatter, making this an invaluable addition to the literature of suffrage. (Nonfiction. 12 & up)

THE MAGNOLIA LEAGUE

Crouch, Katie Poppy/Little, Brown (368 pp.) $17.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-316-07849-8

A Southern take on the ever-popular supernatural thriller.

Sixteen-year-old Alex Lee, who has been raised on a communal farm in California, loses her mother to a car accident and is sent to Savannah, Ga., to live with a wealthy grandmother she’s never meant. Hippie, übersocially-conscious Alex is told that, by birthright, she belongs to an exclusive social club, The Magnolia League, comprised of rich, beautiful and fashionable women. Two other girls in the League are given—and actually begin to make progress on—the herculean task of transforming Alex into a true Magnolia before the upcoming debutante ball. The slow pace of the novel’s first half may cause readers to lose interest, but those who persevere will discover the answer to some building questions. For starters: How do the women in the league become and stay so perfect, and why don’t any of them leave Savannah? And who is the hauntingly beautiful Sina, the only person who seems to scare the Magnolias? Once she begins to understand the darker side of the League’s magic, Alex agrees to flee Savannah with her boyfriend Thaddeus while she still can. She makes a run for it, but her grandmother might have one more trick up her sleeve guaranteed to make Alex stay.

Though it probably won’t win any converts, this one will please current fans of the genre; expect sequels. (Supernatural thriller. 12 & up)

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THE LEMONADE CRIME

Davies, Jacqueline Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (160 pp.) $15.99 | May 2, 2011 978-0-547-27967-1 This sequel to The Lemonade War (2007), picking up just a few days later, focuses on how the fourth graders take justice into their own hands after learning that the main suspect in the case of the missing lemonade-stand money now owns the latest in game-box technology.

Siblings Evan and Jessie (who skipped third grade because of her precocity) are sure Scott Spencer stole the $208 from Evan’s shorts and want revenge, especially as Scott’s new toy makes him the most popular kid in class, despite his personal shortcomings. Jessie’s solution is to orchestrate a full-blown trial by jury after school, while Evan prefers to challenge Scott in basketball. Neither channel proves satisfactory for the two protagonists (whose rational and emotional reactions are followed throughout the third-person narrative), though, ultimately, the matter is resolved. Set during the week of Yom Kippur, the story raises beginning questions of fairness, integrity, sin and atonement. Like John Grisham’s Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer (2010), much of the book is taken up with introducing courtroom proceedings for a fourth-grade level of understanding. Chapter headings provide definitions (“due diligence,” “circumstantial evidence,” etc.) and explanation cards/documents drawn by Jessie are interspersed.

Readers will enjoy this sequel from a plot perspective and will learn how to play-act a trial, though they may not engage with the characters enough to care about how the justice actually pans out. (Fiction. 8-10)

NO DOGS ALLOWED!

Davis, Anne Illustrator: Davis, Anne Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $16.99 | PLB: $17.89 | May 1, 2011 978-0-06-075353-5 PLB: 978-0-06-075355-9

humor, as when Bud observes “Umbrellas are tricky for cats…”

Richly colored paintings have a primitive feel that meshes well with the understated text. Effective, if potentially confusing, multiple representations of the same character on a single page convey movement, while slight changes in the position of ears and eyes telegraph changing emotions. There are no real surprises and not much obvious motivation for Bud’s about-face, but readers will likely be pleased with the happy ending.

Definitely predictable but potentially entertaining, as well as useful to parents looking for yet another paean to the merits of learning to share. (Picture book. 3-6)

TEMPEST RISING

Deebs, Tracy Walker (352 pp.) $16.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-8027-2231-7

Among the recent spate of mermaid books this easily stands as the darkest, even though romance remains the main thrust of the story.

Tempest, aptly named, must choose between life on land or in the sea when she turns 17. As seems usual in these stories, her mother was a mermaid who has returned to the ocean. Tempest experiences stormy emotions and frequent sudden bursts of anger as she faces what may not be a choice after all. If it’s a choice, why has she grown gills on her neck? Tempest is an excellent surfer with a wonderful boyfriend, Mark, but when she meets Kai, a strange new surfer, she feels an instant and strong attraction. Kai turns out to be a sea creature too. He’s trying to protect Tempest from an evil sea witch when lightening nearly kills him. To save his life, Tempest drags him to the sea then plunges into the ocean to follow when other creatures swim away with him. She swims to a magical kingdom where she and Kai do battle with the witch and find her mother. Deebs dispenses with the suspenseful battle quickly and returns to the romance, described in an increasingly Harlequin-esque style, and adds an intriguing, possibly sequel-ready, ending.

An exciting-enough story, seriously overdone, which many young readers will love. (Fantasy romance. 12 & up)

Proof, once again, that archetypal enemies can become friends.

Bud, a large marmalade cat with strong opinions and decidedly anthropomorphic appearance and abilities, is perfectly happy living and playing with his cat friend Gabby, as readers of their eponymous first adventure may remember. The sudden appearance of Cookie, a black-and-white dog, displeases Bud mightily. Gentle Gabby, however, seems only too willing to make friends with the interloper. Bud puts up with Cookie’s antics at first but soon grows jealous and insists that dogs aren’t allowed in their house. Then a storm cloud and Gabby’s tender heart persuade him otherwise. Simple declarative sentences communicate the action concisely but also allow for subtle 680

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Dominy, Amy Fellner Walker (256 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8027-2177-8 Speech-and-debate summer camp provides a backdrop for romance and the fight against anti-Semitism.

Ellie Taylor has been a champion orator at her middle school and is looking forward to a summer honing her |

“Full-bleed, shiny, saturated spreads depict the buccaneers—the very definition of a motley crew—with calculated, joyful excess.” from pirates of the sea!

persuasive skills at the prestigious Christian Society Speech and Performing Arts summer camp at Benedict’s School. Her favorite, most reliable and endlessly maddening verbal sparring partner isn’t a kid, though, it’s her beloved grandfather, Zeydeh.

Although Ellie assures Zeydeh that the camp is Christian in name only, her faith in both herself and her religion is tested when Mrs. Yeats, who endows the scholarship Ellie needs to win to afford attendance at Benedict’s, is revealed as a lifelong anti-Semite. (Naturally, Mrs. Yeats’ grandson Devon is Ellie’s debate partner and “sizzling” crush object.) Zeydeh and Mrs. Yeats both challenge Ellie to pick a side—her heritage or her future—provoking her to resort to a variety of realistically clumsy subterfuges before staking out her identity on her own, clear terms. More mature than Fiona Rosenbloom’s You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2005) and less contemplative than Jenny Meyerhoff ’s The Queen of Secrets (2010), Dominy’s debut balances light and heavy subject matter with ease.

There’s nothing earth-shatteringly original here, but readers who like their frothy romance with a bracing dash of serious social issues will be clamoring for seconds. (Fiction. 11-14)

PIRATES OF THE SEA!

Dorman, Brandon Illustrator: Dorman, Brandon Greenwillow/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-06-204068-8 A pirate yarn sails familiar territory in satisfyingly rollicking fashion.

Subscribers all to the pirate code— “No cryin’ / No dyin’ / No brushing yer teeth! / No stealin’ / No squealin’ / No eatin’ Parrot Pete!”—the ragged crew of Cap’n Bones sets out aboard the battered but seaworthy Dragonfish of Doom in search of hidden treasure. Dorman pairs his rousing (if not always regular) rhyme to swashbuckling scenes of scurvy knaves in typical pirate regalia (Cap’n Bones sports both pegleg and hook). They leer at mermaids with snaggle-toothed glee and weather hazards from butt-biting sharks to wild waves on the way to digging up a chest full of gold coins and more. “There be trinkets, / There be jewels, / There be even a gold chair. / There be goblets, / There be diamonds, / There be pirate underwear!” Young buccaneers along for the voyage will join the general derision that greets a proposal to “buy lace britches—we’ve oodles of riches—and start our lives anew.” Full-bleed, shiny, saturated spreads depict the buccaneers—the very definition of a motley crew—with calculated, joyful excess.

As pirate fare goes, this is far from the only ship on the sea, but it does sail along smartly. (Picture book. 6-8)

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EVEREST You Decide How to Survive!

Doyle, Bill; Borgenicht, David; Morton, David Illustrator: Labat, Yancey Chronicle (208 pp.) $12.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8118-7123-5 Series: Worst-Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure

An armchair-adventurer franchise goes to Everest.

The premise is familiar: Readers engaged in a video-game– like scenario face a series of decisions. At each challenging juncture choices must be made. Do this and turn to page… Do that, and you’ll discover you’re doomed. Readers become members of the youngest team to ever scale Mt. Everest. Those that trouble to study the backmatter will receive some pithy advice from climbing expert Morton (who has successfully scaled Everest multiple times.) It is wise to heed that advice. The team consists of three young teens, three experienced climbers and the sponsor, a video-game–company owner, all of whom are just lightly sketched—it’s all about the plot. Most of them will almost seductively offer you opportunities to make major mistakes. Realistically, the errors made on the approach to Everest are generally forgiven: a quick recovery period then back to climbing. Those made higher up may be lethal. Brief text sections are accompanied by an occasional short graphic section consisting of five or six frames of action-filled art. Readers that make cautious choices will be rewarded by reaching the summit, but it’s easy to be led astray, and only a path or two through the minefield of mistakes will result in full success—although there are quite a few amusing ways to fail without actually dying.

Quick, clean fun; no crampons needed. (Action/adventure. 8 & up)

THE DAGGER QUICK

Eames, Brian Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (336 pp.) $15.99 | May 10, 2011 978-1-4424-2311-4 Pirates! Bullies! Murder and mayhem!

Family secrets! Seventeenth-century England to Cape Verde and the Caribbean! But no ending.

Debut novelist Eames commits a cardinal sin by ending his story without a resolution. It opens well, however, with our hero and a bully and a fistful of horse manure. Said hero is Kitto, 12 years old, clubfooted, about to discover that his last name is different from what he thought, that his deceased mother had a dark and complicated past and that his uncle is a pirate. Kitto’s father, a cooper, is murdered, and Kitto kills his attacker, then is off to sail with his uncle after his stepmother and adored little brother are kidnapped. The characters are not so much developed as moved like chess pieces: hidden treasure, scary tattoos, a treacherous

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“The economical text packs in a surprising amount, offering an adventure for the anthropomorphic little bird, who encounters a bear, a mountain goat, a camel, a frog and three pink possums in his quest for understanding what makes a house (or a home) perfect.” from purple litle bird

friend with a pet monkey, a rescued slave, a climactic ship-toship battle with circling sharks. Things are dropped in: an intricately inlaid dagger that belonged to Kitto’s mother; his Quaker stepmother’s premonition of what might be magic in him; adult sailors following a 12-year-olds’ orders. Sometimes the language is clunky or awkward. It does, however, draw readers in, at least until the last pages, where Kitto lands after his clubfoot is bitten off by one of those sharks, and his companions are about to cauterize it.

Then what? Readers who plummet off this cliff will hope there are no sharks circling below. (glossary) (Adventure. 8-12)

THE DARK CITY

Fisher, Catherine Dial (384 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8037-3673-3 Series: Relic Master, 1 A gripping fantasy adventure, the first of a tetralogy, satisfies but does not surprise.

Raffi, the novice “scholar” sworn to the surly Relic Master Galen, finds little joy in their now-outlawed Order’s sacred task of seeking out the ancient technology of the vanished Makers. After one such exploding “relic” stripped Galen of his mystical powers, a vicious thief lord bullies the pair into pursuing a member of the catlike Sekoi race into the post-apocalyptic city of Tasceron, which just might harbor a magic powerful enough to heal Galen. Meanwhile, the Watch, fanatical enemies of the Order, has set one of their murderous agents on their trail... Fisher takes a hoary science-fiction trope—the Lost Colony revering the ancestral “Starmen” as gods and their forgotten gadgets as holy objects— and melds it with the standard quest fantasy, complete with the archetypal naive-yet-powerful apprentice, the wise-but-bitter mentor, the roguish spy-with-a-heart-of-gold and the vaguely elfin alien. Yet her mastery of detailed and exotic worldbuilding, every scene hinting at intriguing secrets and untold back story, blends these speculative staples into a tale redolent with humor, wonder and suspense. Genre-savvy readers will undoubtedly predict every plot twist pages in advance; nonetheless, they will also demand the sequels.

Well-crafted storytelling provides more than the sum of its parts. (Fantasy. 11-16)

PURPLE LITTLE BIRD

Foley, Greg Illustrator: Foley, Greg Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $14.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-06-200828-2

everything purple” circumnavigates the world in search of the missing ingredient in his nearly perfect purple house: a little variety in color, as it turns out.

The economical text packs in a surprising amount, offering an adventure for the anthropomorphic little bird, who encounters a bear, a mountain goat, a camel, a frog and three pink possums in his quest for understanding what makes a house (or a home) perfect. Bear, goat, camel and frog live in places that have their pluses (“It is cool and refreshing,” the purple bird tells the frog in his pond) and minuses (“But…it’s too damp!”). Foley uses a crayon palette to good effect, with warm hues and quick strokes that color outside the friendly cartoon lines and fill the page.

Each of the other animals lives in its own natural habitat—forest greens and browns for the bear, snowy white and gray for the mountain goat, warm yellow and tan for the camel and a surprisingly red tree for the pink possums. The same colors appear in the next-to-last opening as Purple Bird and his possum friends paint his (formerly) purple house to perfection.

Satisfying for the very youngest. (Picture book. 18 mos.-4)

BEE & BIRD

Frazier, Craig Illustrator: Frazier, Craig Neal Porter/Roaring Brook (40 pp.) $16.99 | May 10, 2011 978-1-59643-660-2 A bee and bird travel from tree and truck to boat and beehive; the likable pair are the perfect guides to this wordless work on perspective.

A bright-red triangle peeks from the corner of a spread dominated by black and yellow stripes. This evolves into a bee riding a bird’s head (the red triangle, it turns out, was that little bit of bird readers could see beyond the abdomen of the highly magnified bee). The bird sits on a branch—of a tree—on a truck and so on, the illustrator’s “camera” pulling back further with each page turn to reveal more and more. Frazier’s images create a quaint narrative as the previous page’s patterns are represented in a new context on the following page. With each spread, Bee and Bird’s journey unfolds, and the perspective puzzle is pieced together. Done in Frazier’s signature style, the illustrations are filled with simple, bold patterns in primary colors, and everything is thoughtfully abstracted into geometric patterns and shapes. However, here fans of Frazier’s Stanley and Hank books will feel a lack of joyful freedom in the forms, as his artwork appears to be restricted by the confines of concept.

Still, pleasant and cheery, it is an interesting and urbane read. (Picture book. 2-6)

A small purple bird—Pierre is the name on his purple mailbox—who “love[s] 682

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MAGGIE’S SECOND CHANCE A Gentle Dog’s Rescue Furstinger, Nancy Illustrator: Hyatt, Joe Gryphon Press (24 pp.) $16.95 | May 1, 2011 978-0-940719-11-8

Based on a true story, this selection tells the story of an abandoned dog and how a group of children fought to build a shelter in order to save her.

Realistic, detailed illustrations show Maggie with longing, sorrowful eyes that follow readers through the pages. Initially, Maggie is left behind in her house, without any food and close to giving birth, when her family moves away. She is discovered just in time and brought to a pound, where she has her puppies.

Maggie’s story is featured in the local papers and her pups are all adopted, but Maggie still does not have a home when a boy named Mike asks his teacher what will happen if she doesn’t find one. When the class finds out she will be euthanized, they decide to have a local shelter built. By the time they are able to get the permits, the money and the building done, Maggie has reached the end of the line. Will Mike be able to get to the pound in time to save her and the other dogs like her? Of course!

Includes notes on Maggie’s and the children’s stories and Web resources to help young activists turn thought into deed.

A nice example of how empowered children can really make a difference, this earnest, heartfelt selection will inspire children to start their own efforts. (Picture book. 4-8)

BUT I LOVE HIM

Grace, Amanda Flux (264 pp.) $9.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-0-7387-2594-9 A disturbing reverse chronology of first romance gone horribly wrong.

Ann regains consciousness on her bedroom floor, bruised and bloodied, one wrist broken, and reflects on the past year. How did her loving, thoughtful boyfriend Connor transform into this unpredictable, violent monster? It seems impossible to reconcile Connor’s two sides, but as readers follow Ann’s mental snapshots, working backward from one August to another, they will unearth clue after red-flag–raising clue pointing toward Connor’s poorly controlled anger and borderline-suicidal feelings of worthlessness and Ann’s own desperate desire to be needed and loved. When these two damaged, yearning souls connect, their problems simmer, then boil over into a foul brew of codependency and isolation from everyone who might help them. The parental characters are stock—Connor’s parents are locked in a years-long abusive dance, while Ann’s mother is still so lost in grief over her husband’s death that she hasn’t said “I love you” to Ann in three years—but Ann and Connor are more finely |

drawn than expected, inhabiting every shade of hope, despair, confusion, ecstasy, longing, rage and guilt with heartbreaking realism. Although Grace’s efforts surpass Jennifer Brown’s Bitter End (2011), they fall victim to the cliché that only emotionally scarred young women are drawn to abusive young men.

Flawed, but powerful and compulsively readable. (Fiction. 14-18)

INSIGHT

Greenwood, Diana Zondervan (224 pp.) $15.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-310-72314-1 A mid-century family road trip becomes a journey into faith.

Elvira’s sister Jessie is born at home in a difficult delivery, several months after their alcoholic but loving father apparently perished in the sinking of his World War II troop ship. As Jessie grows, she becomes decidedly strange, not speaking until after her fourth birthday, when the first word she utters is “Damnation!” Jessie seems to have an unusual connection to psychic forces, able to read some people’s minds and sometimes see into the future—but not apparently at will. Their cantankerous, unhappy mother packs up the family, and they hit the road with an itinerant preacher, bound for California. The reason for their trip is not obvious at first, but Elvira gradually comes to believe that her father may not be dead and that Jessie’s vision of him is guiding their mother.

Under the preacher’s kindly ministrations, Elvira slowly develops belief in a benevolent God, and although she remains conflicted about what His role ought to be in her life, she accepts that Jessie’s visions are providing much-needed guidance.

While Christian beliefs flavor this effort, they never overpower the narrative but are instead organic to it.

Given the generally unloving relationship Elvira has with her mother, the feel-good ending seems too pat, but the supernatural element will extend appeal to a broader audience. (Christian/supernatural fiction. 10 & up)

TIGHTER

Griffin, Adele Knopf (224 pp.) $16.99 | PLB: $19.99 e-book: $16.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-375-86645-6 PLB: 978-0-375-96645-3 e-book: 978-0-375-89643-9 Drug addiction and tainted love mess with the mind of a befuddled au pair in this creepy update of Henry James’ The

Turn of the Screw.

Seventeen-year-old Jamie is secretly treating a broken heart with her parents’ prescriptions when she leaves for a dream

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babysitting job in a swanky summer community off of Providence, R.I. After a teacher spurns her schoolgirl crush, Jamie sinks into a funk that she hopes will be lifted by focusing on sweet 11-year-old Isa. But once in place, Jamie is tormented by gossip of last summer’s nanny, a reckless girl named Jessie, and her boyfriend, Peter, who died in a plane crash. Through her pill-induced haze, Jamie begins seeing the pair everywhere and hears Peter’s vengeful voice coming out of Isa’s brother Milo’s mouth. Then a confrontation with some of the local rich kids sends Jamie spinning off to the same cliff where she first saw the dead lovers take flight. Who or what is driving her to follow their fatal path? Griffin interweaves subtle commentary about social class, drug abuse and mental illness into this marvelous homage while winding the suspense knob all the way to 11. Whether or not the ghosts are real, Jamie’s alienation and addiction are, and readers will feel her growing claustrophobia at each turn of the page.

A contemporary reboot that does the original proud. (Fiction. 12 & up)

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE SUMMER

Han, Jenny Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $17.99 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4169-9558-6 Can teenage love ever be forever?

Isabel (Belly) from The Summer I Turned Pretty (2009) and It’s Not Summer Without You (2010) finishes up her freshman year at college somewhat unconvincingly committed to Jeremiah Fisher, one of the two brothers with whom she has spent summers since she was small.

Isabel becomes furious to learn that Jeremiah had sex with another girl from their college in Cabo on spring break, but he wins back her affections with a grand gesture: a proposal of marriage. Caught up in the idea—she will plan a summer wedding! they will attend college as a married couple!—Isabel tries ignores her misgivings about Jeremiah, the appalled silence of her mother and her own still-strong feelings for Jeremiah’s older brother, Conrad. It’s both funny and believable when Jeremiah insists he wants to dance the wedding dance to “You Never Can Tell” from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. Han gives a satisfying nod to wedding-planning fantasies even while revealing their flimsy basis for an actual marriage. A final chapter in 23-year-old Isabel’s voice reveals the not-so-surprising happy ending.

Han’s impressive ear for and pitch-perfect reproduction of the interactions between not-quite-adult older teens make this an appealing conclusion to this trilogy romance among bright middle-class young people. (Fiction. 12 & up)

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TRUE...SORT OF

Hannigan, Katherine Greenwillow/HarperCollins (368 pp.) $16.99 | PLB: $17.89 | May 1, 2011 978-0-06-196873-0 PLB: 978-0-06-196874-7 Impetuous, mercurial Delaware Pattison, stuttering Brud and silent, lonely Ferris find an intertwined salvation.

Delly, an impulsive middle child loved by her parents and tagalong young brother, meets life on her own terms and with such self-centered focus that she bends language to suit and reflect her. A ride home in Officer Tibbetts’ squad car is a “Dellylivery”; “What the glub?” Delly exclaims, citing her “nocussictionary”; she anticipates “surpresents” especially for her; Ferris’ treehouse is a “hideawaysis.” (An appended glossary—Dellyictionary— offers 40 of these portmanteaux). Brud longs to shoot baskets like Ferris, a girl so silent and thin that both he and Delly think she’s a boy. Ferris fascinates Delly with her solitude and ability to connect with wild creatures and Brud with her miraculous basketball skills. Delly’s teachers, though aware of Ferris’ elective mutism and fear of being touched, don’t question the girl’s safety at home. But Delly notices scars on Ferris’s back and gets a bad feeling about Ferris’ normal-seeming father. There’s a lot going on, and Delly’s quirky language occasionally threatens to obscure the plot. Ferris is rescued, at least temporarily, but young readers may be left wondering whether adults are truly capable of protecting them.

Plenty of action and dialogue carry this uneven story along.

(Fiction. 9-12)

FIVE 4THS OF JULY

Hughes, Pat Raccio Viking (304 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-670-01207-7

While the American Revolution rages, teenager Jake Mallery fights his own war for freedom.

Living in East Haven, Conn., Jake feels like a servant to his father and hopeless in his love with a bonded servant girl.

But when Jake, never completely attached to the revolutionary cause, is imprisoned for over a year on a British prison ship, he learns what the loss of freedom and the hatred of captors feel like.

On board, he learns through his friendship with Fortnum, who had been born a slave, that there “was nothing about being owned that was acceptable to a man,” destroying Jake’s earlier assumption that well-treated slaves were happy. As M.T. Anderson did in his Octavian Nothing novels and Laurie Halse Anderson does in Chains (2008) and Forge (2010), Hughes examines the paradoxes and hypocrisies surrounding liberty in our War of Independence, but on a smaller, more domestic stage. In the five Fourths of July

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“Despite their species-typical behavior, the characters are distinctive; the squabbling shrew Queen Dukwina and her lizard husband Empraking Dibby, well-shod Dandy Clogs and the gluttonous Wiltuds are particularly memorable.” from the rogue crew

covered in Hughes’ straightforward and well-conceived novel, Jake goes from boy to rebel to soldier, from prisoner to patriot, and returns to find home a new place and himself “[n]ot changed, but changing. Not healed, but healing.”

A fine addition to collections on the war and an eye-opening look at the horrors of British prison ships, where 11,500 Americans died. (Historical fiction. 10 & up)

THE ROGUE CREW

Jacques, Brian Philomel (400 pp.) $23.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-399-25416-1 Series: Redwall

Animal warriors band together against innovative corsairs in this 22nd novel set in the richly detailed world of Redwall.

Scarred and psychotic Razzid Wearat and his mutinous crew wreak havoc along the coast, but when they head inland and overland on the Greenshroud—having equipped the ship with wheels—the Long Patrol hares, the ruthless Rogue Crew otters and the Guosim shrews must race to save Redwall Abbey. Grim warriors outnumber peaceful Abbey beasts, and there is far more fighting than feasting. The many battle scenes and deaths—of disposable pirates and high-spirited heroes—are graphic but not gratuitous, and the action sequences are carefully choreographed. In contrast to earlier books, the villain faces an ensemble rather than a strong protagonist, which might account for the narrative’s rapid scene changes. Despite their species-typical behavior, the characters are distinctive; the squabbling shrew Queen Dukwina and her lizard husband Empraking Dibby, well-shod Dandy Clogs and the gluttonous Wiltuds are particularly memorable. Though the plot, characters and setting resembles those of the previous 21 books, the multi-stranded plot demands attentive reading. The mouthwatering descriptions of food, the various dialects and the detailed settings also make for an immersive experience.

Familiar, perhaps formulaic, but a nonetheless rousing read from the late Jacques. (Animal fantasy. 9-12)

GOOD NIGHT GIANTS

Janisch, Heinz Illustrator: Bansch, Helga American Psychological Association/ Magination (32 pp.) $14.95 | 9.95 paperback original May 15, 2011 978-1-4338-0950-7 paper 978-1-4338-0951-4

imaginary giants as a way to relax, enumerating groups of different giants from a pair up to six and then back down to another pair of huge creatures, shown with just their feet sticking out from a red blanket. The rhyming text in these sequences is quite sing-song and doesn’t scan well, possibly as a result of having been translated from the original German. The giants themselves have an eerie, nightmarish quality in the illustrations, which are done in a loose, cartoonlike style in watercolor and pencil. The activities of the giants are nonsensical, as in a dream, showing them on rooftops or coming out of a huge watering can. The words to a song are also provided, urging “happy thoughts” and repeated deep breathing, though there is no music included, and the words don’t readily transfer to a familiar melody. Two pages of advice to parents on getting children to sleep finish it off.

Strange giants, sing-song rhymes and generic psychological advice don’t add up to a soothing bedtime read. (Picture book. 3-5)

AFRICAN ANIMAL ALPHABET

Joubert, Derek; Joubert, Beverly Photographer: Joubert, Beverly National Geographic 48 $16.95 | PLB: $26.90 | May 1, 2011 978-1-4263-0781-2 PLB: 978-1-4263-0782-9

The Jouberts, National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence, introduce young readers to the African animals they have studied for years and give them a lesson in letters at the same time.

A large capital letter frames every page (sadly, without its lowercase counterpart), while the photography takes center stage. A short paragraph either introduces a fact or two about the animal or describes what is happening in the photograph.

Heavy alliteration encourages kids to look for each instance of the featured letter on the page—how many b’s are on the baboon page? Attempts to include the featured letter in the paragraph sometimes feel forced, overly anthropomorphic or inappropriate; for example, after cheetahs catch their dinner, they “chomp and chew with delight.” But the letter hunt will be secondary for most children—the photographs will keep them riveted. Beverly Joubert gives readers an up-close and personal view of each animal, capturing the features that make them unique. A brief glossary helps young readers with some of the more challenging vocabulary: boisterous, rambunctious, vociferous. Backmatter also includes a list of sources for more information and a double-page spread showing each letter of the alphabet, a thumbnail photo of the animal it represents and a brief listing of facts, including habitat, size, food, sounds and how many babies they have at a time.

A solid introduction to Africa’s fauna—happy (letter) hunting. (Informational picture book. 4-6)

This odd compendium of story, song lyrics and advice to parents misses the mark as a prescription for sweet dreams.

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“Among the pleasures of this high-tech fairy tale are Maddie’s initiative, courage and independent spirit, stoutly risking rejection in pursuit of her heart’s desire.” from awaken

AWAKEN

Kacvinsky, Katie Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (320pp.) $16.99 | May 23, 2011 978-0-547-37148-1 Can love exist in a digital age?

It’s 2060, and American teens are educated at home via DS—digital school.

Few venture outside their comfortable virtual worlds, but 17-year-old Maddie leads a life even more confined than most.

She’s been grounded for years—punishment for serious digital misbehavior—and despite a sympathetic mom, her dad, architect of the DS system, won’t let Maddie off the hook yet. Then, at a face-to-face tutoring session, she meets her digital-study–buddy Justin, who introduces her to a new world, the three-dimensional one. Thoroughly smitten, Maddie allows Justin and his cohorts to draw her into their conspiracy to end DS for good. The futuristic and political trappings make little sense (DS was instituted to end violence in American schools, including mass killings of elementary schoolchildren by terrorists aiming to curb overpopulation). However, as the title hints, this debut’s true subject is romantic awakening. Before readers can succumb to disbelief, the narrative shifts to Maddie’s dawning attraction to Justin and the natural world he represents, following her sensual voyage of discovery and exploration of first love’s frustrations and joys.

Among the pleasures of this high-tech fairy tale are Maddie’s initiative, courage and independent spirit, stoutly risking rejection in pursuit of her heart’s desire. (Science fiction/romance. 12 & up)

BETTY BUNNY LOVES CHOCOLATE CAKE

Kaplan, Michael B. Illustrator: Jorisch, Stéphane Dial (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8037-3407-4

A spunky bunny girl, whimsical watercolor illustrations and a laugh-out-loud plot are the key ingredients for this sweet and satisfying treat of a story.

“Betty Bunny was a handful.” That’s what her mother always tells her, and the author and illustrator show readers just how much of a handful she is, capturing her irrepressible personality (which includes a streak of creative naughtiness). Little Betty, the youngest child of four, becomes enraptured with chocolate cake, announcing she loves it so much, she wants to marry it. Her brothers jump right in to tease her, her sister tries to help and her mom offers calm solutions, all with minimal text set in an attractive type with key phrases in larger, bold font.

Kaplan, a television writer and producer, has an exquisite sense of dramatic pacing and comedic timing, as well as a deep understanding of a 5-year-old bunny girl’s emotions. Betty has intense feelings: She truly loves her chocolate cake, and she is truly furious at her siblings when they tease her. The author captures 686

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the flavor of sibling interactions as well, with each of the three older rabbit children interacting with Betty in characteristic ways, including some hilarious smart-aleck comments from the bunny brothers. Betty not only wants to marry her chocolate cake, she wants to keep it close to her too, finding out the hard way that cake doesn’t belong in your pocket…or your sock.

Delicious. (Picture book. 3-6)

SEVEN SORCERERS

King, Caro Aladdin (336 pp.) $15.99 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4424-2042-7

Jam-packed with magic, danger, monsters and mysterious events, this import never quite lives up to its potential.

The problem isn’t a lack of imagination. King has clearly spent a lot of time and thought on worldbuilding, and there are plenty of intriguing details to pore over. There’s also a quest of sorts, which plunks Ninevah Redfern, King’s heroine, into a parallel world known as the Drift. Intent on rescuing her recently abducted younger brother, Nin is aided by the typical stalwart companions—in this case Jonas, a young man who’s been navigating both worlds on his own for a while, and Jik, a creature Nin makes from the powerful mud of the Drift. Then there’s what feels almost like a parallel plot, the story of the eponymous seven sorcerers, whose efforts to defer death inadvertently created the villain, a cruel man who’s been gruesomely mistreated and feeds on misery and destruction. It’s a lot to absorb, and the fact that some characters speak in difficult dialect doesn’t help. Add the facts that several characters change their allegiance for no apparent reason and that Nin’s primary strength is that she’s lucky, and it seems likely that most readers will be more frustrated than fascinated.

Those who do enjoy this, however, will be pleased to know that a sequel has already been published in the U.K. (Fantasy. 9-12)

MOONGLASS

Kirby, Jessi Simon & Schuster (240 pp.) $16.99 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4424-1694-9 When Anna Ryan was 7, her mother drowned in the ocean, leaving Anna with inescapable guilt and a growing rift with her withdrawn lifeguard father.

After he accepts a job transfer to southern California the summer before Anna’s junior year, they end up stationed at the same beach where her father and mother met and fell in love and living beside the abandoned cottage her mother resided in for several summers. The teen’s new surroundings, beautifully described in

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the first-person narration, invite unexpected friendships and a secret relationship with young lifeguard Tyler, who’s been warned not to fool around with the boss’ daughter. And enveloped by her now-mythical mother’s stomping grounds, locals who remember her mother, a growing need for answers about her mother’s past and an eerie pull from the ocean itself, Anna’s fond memories of collecting sea glass by the light of the moon with a carefree mother turn to anger as she begins to remember details about her troubled mother’s “accident.” Like sea glass, this smooth, radiant debut, reminiscent of Sarah Dessen, sets authentic and sympathetic characters working through a life-changing transformation against the backdrop of a steamy summer romance.

Great for beach time—or anytime. (Fiction. 12 & up)

COLD CASE

Leonard, Julia Platt Aladdin (288 pp.) $15.99 | May 10, 2011 978-1-4424-2009-0 An interesting premise falls victim to toofamiliar plotting.

When Oz Keiller opens the refrigerator door at his family’s restaurant and discovers the body of Aaron Sneider, he quickly finds he has also cracked the seal on a long-buried family secret: Years ago his father had been caught stealing nuclear secrets from Los Alamos. Oz teams up with his crime-show–obsessed best friend, Rusty, to hunt for evidence to prove his brother’s innocence after his brother is arrested for a crime Oz knows he didn’t commit. While interviewing his father’s old colleagues and Aaron’s contacts, Oz learns that his father may have been a scapegoat himself for a much larger conspiracy. Trying to craft a sophisticated plot with multiple suspects, Leonard unfortunately pulls too much from the same crime shows Rusty is obsessed with and gives the mystery away to savvy readers all too soon. Even though there’s not much in the way of scene-setting, it manages to feels like Oz is slogging back and forth between the same few places in a repetitive loop. The near-absence of adults is forced through a series of coincidences and comes across as a contrivance rather than a natural narrative occurrence.

An indistinguishable middle-school narrator in an unremarkable mystery. (Mystery. 10-14)

SURVIVOR KID A Practical Guide to Wilderness Survival

Long, Denise Chicago Review (224 pp.) $12.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-1-56976-708-5

stay healthy and out of trouble while awaiting rescue, the same lessons taught to adults in her survival classes.

Her matter-of-fact, no-nonsense tone will play well with young readers, and the clear writing style is appropriate to the content. The engaging guide covers everything from building shelters to avoiding pigs and javelinas. With subjects like kissing bugs, scorpions, snow blindness and “How going to the bathroom can attract bears and mountain lions,” the volume invites browsing as much as studying. The information offered is sometimes obvious: “If you find yourself facing an alligator, get away from it”; sometime humorous: Raccoons will “fight with your dog, steal all your food, then climb up a tree and call you bad names in raccoon language”; and sometimes not comforting: “When alligators attack on land, they usually make one grab at you; if they miss, you are usually safe.” But when survival is at stake, the more information the better, especially when leavened with some wit. An excellent bibliography will lead young readers to a host of fascinating websites, and 150 clipart-style line drawings complement the text.

A splendid volume for young adventurers. (index not seen) (Nonfiction. 9-14)

JEREMY BENDER VS. THE CUPCAKE CADETS

Luper, Eric Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (240 pp.) $15.99 | May 3, 2011 978-0-06-201512-9 A not-so-lightweight tale rises above drag jokes to reveal surprising profundity.

At first bite, this lightly humorous novel about two sixth-grade boys infiltrating the Cupcake Cadets (think Girl Scouts) to win a $500 prize seems to be going for cringe comedy, heavy on the gag aspects of boys wearing girls’ clothing. But once the guys actually join the troop and discover that they can pass, the story becomes a richer, more layered confection.

Jeremy Bender loves boats and dreams of piloting his father’s beloved Chris-Craft. But when he and his best friend, Slater Stevenson, accidentally ruin the engine, Jeremy has to come up with big bucks to fix it. That’s when he gets his big, albeit crazy idea—join the Cupcake Cadets and win their Windjammer Whirl, a model sailboat race. It’s a hubris-filled plan with multiple pitfalls, and Jeremy and Slater fall into every one. Life lessons are learned, as the disasters prompt not only a renewed determination in our heroes, but also better planning and forethought, which are largely seen as female virtues. A subplot about a school bully who just happens to be the troop leader’s son adds flavor, as does a determined, hardworking Cadet’s discovery of their not-so-little secret.

Although amusing, this story never quite reaches the level of funny, but it’s well-meaning and enjoyable. (Fiction. 8-12)

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THE SWEETEST THING

Mandelski, Christina Egmont USA (352 pp.) $17.99 | e-book: $17.99 | May 10, 2011 978-1-60684-129-7 e-book: 978-1-60684-253-9 A teen with a talent for cake decorating wrestles with love and loss in this coming-of-age story.

Sheridan Wells lives with her father, a well-known chef and restaurateur, in small-town Michigan. Her mother, a cake decorator and Sheridan’s inspiration, deserted the family when Sheridan was 7.

Nonetheless, Sheridan thinks about her obsessively and longs to reunite. So when her father is offered his own television cooking show and Sheridan is asked to celebrate her birthday during the first episode, she gets a crazily brilliant idea—why not track down her mother and get her to co-decorate the birthday cake?

The plot is complicated by Sheridan’s dueling love interests, and the author makes the risky choice of creating a central character that takes a long time to warm to. The most engaging scenes take place in the kitchen, demonstrating Sheridan’s passion for the art of cooking and cake decoration, and they showcase the intrinsic rewards of a job well done. Although satisfying, the climax, which takes place on several fronts, is not as stirring as it should be.

Aimed squarely at teenage girls, this sensitive story explores the need to embrace the reality rather than the fantasy of love, both familial and romantic. (Fiction. 12 & up)

EVERYBODY BUGS OUT

Margolis, Leslie Bloomsbury (192 pp.) $15.99 | May 24, 2011 978-1-59990-526-6 Series: Annabelle Unleashed, 3

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WHEN I WAS BORN

Martins, Isabel Minhós Illustrator: Matoso, Madalena Tate/Abrams (32 pp.) $10.95 | May 1, 2011 978-1-85437-958-0 This cheerfully existential tome charms, from the stylized cherry tree on the endpapers to the very last page.

The first page is black, with white sans-serif letters: “When I was born I had never seen anything.” The narrator had never seen “the sun or a flower or a face” or the sea or the forest. His hands didn’t know about playing. “Everything was about to start.” His mouth discovers it can taste and shout and kiss and stick his tongue out. He lists smells he loves, like the scent of his grandmother’s lap. Each day he discovers something new: running and jumping; saying “nice words and bad words”; learning colors. The images are made of strong, simple shapes and hues of red, white, black, green and gold. There is a wonderful spread of peppers, cherries, melons and tomatoes, as well as a wall of family pictures with an uncle with a long (bright) red beard, an auntie with green skin, a pink-faced grandpapa and a goldenskinned grandmamma (both with white hair). Birds, animals, leaves and boxes sit proudly on the pages, surrounding the child, who sports a green-and-white striped shirt and rosy cheeks.

Translated from the Portuguese and first published in England, this account of a child’s discovery of the world and its wonders unfolds self-consciously but winningly. (Picture book. 3-8)

TO MARKET, TO MARKET

Margolis delivers a vivacious third installment in the Annabelle Unleashed series.

It is post–winter vacation, and Annabelle is full of New Year’s resolutions and hope for the new semester. However, her equanimity is short-lived, as she finds herself embroiled in a multitude of secrets. Two key events occurring over the upcoming Valentine’s Day weekend—the science fair and the first school dance—have created a moil of anxiety and intrigue among Annabelle and her friends. Annabelle silently nurtures a secret crush on her gregarious science-fair partner, Oliver.

However, her silence leads to distress when good friend Claire openly declares her intent to ask Oliver to the dance. Is it too late for Annabelle to be honest with herself, her friend and Oliver about her crush? Annabelle also finds herself in a quandary when she discovers Emma’s boyfriend has cheated on his science-fair project; Annabelle must decide when it is OK to divulge a secret. Margolis’ breezy tone nicely conveys the peaks and valleys of middle-school life.

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Readers will be cheering for Annabelle as she struggles to extricate herself from this tangled web of subterfuge. (Fiction. 8-12)

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McClure, Nikki Illustrator: McClure, Nikki Abrams (40 pp.) $17.95 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8109-9738-7

Readers join a mother and child on their trip to the farmers market, meeting vendors and learning how they prepare their goods for sale.

Exact, masterful cut-paper illustrations bring the market’s smells, produce, bustle and cheery people to life. At each stand, a double-page spread introduces the artisan and the next item on the family’s shopping list (which appears on the title page).

On the left, proud portraits of smiling producers selling their goods immediately humanize the quotidian errand; on the right, the list item appears in large, colored lettering followed by a brief introduction to both sellers and their products. McClure calls the vendors by their first names only, and her conversational tone feels almost as warm as a good handshake. A pageturn takes readers back to the orchard, field, smoke-house, garage or barn where their goods originated—earthy, realistic

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“Em is an entertainingly cheeky narrator and appealingly resilient heroine; when she meets Michael’s friends, she wryly comments, ‘Team Freak. Wonder if we could get jerseys.’ ” from hourglass

scenes captured brilliantly through bold, black lines and the use of a single color associated with each item. Opposite pages deliver lengthy, sometimes exhausting, descriptions of each production process. McClure clearly wishes to honor the sellers’ unflagging energy and admirable work, and she succeeds handily through her lively illustrations. Here, cut paper reads as freeze frames, action shots of real people with cockeyed grins, tattoos, funny hats, dogs and children.

These soulful images never feel static—an amazing feat for such a deliberate, painstaking medium. (Picture book. 2-8)

GOYANGI MEANS CAT

McDonnell, Christine Illustrator: Johnson, Steve Illustrator: Fancher, Lou Viking (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 12, 2011 978-0-670-01179-7

This beautifully illustrated, gentle adoption story stands out from most other treatments of the topic by honestly and reassuringly addressing the loss—of a birth family, a birth culture—inherent in adoption as well as the joy a new family experiences.

Here, Soo Min, a young Korean girl, is adopted by an American couple. Everything seems strange and new: She doesn’t speak any English; her adoptive parents know little Korean. She finds comfort with Goyangi (“cat”), who doesn’t need language to communicate, whose fur she strokes when afraid and who “licked her hand with his towelly tongue” when she is homesick for Korea. Soft-focus collage-and-paint illustrations show the family members getting to know one another: at the playground, in the library, playing soccer and just spending time at home together. Korean words in hanja (characters) incorporated into the pictures’ backgrounds and the presence of Korean words in the Western alphabet interspersed throughout the text make this an excellent choice to share with children like Soo Min; seeing the words in both languages comforts as well as educates.

Soo Min’s age isn’t specified; she looks about 2 or 3, which is older than most Korean children adopted in the United States, but that doesn’t take away from the main idea.

A sensitive portrayal of international adoption, authentically and realistically done. (Picture book. 4-7)

HOURGLASS

McEntire, Myra Egmont USA (408 pp.) $17.99 | May 14, 2011 978-1-60684-144-0 Troubled teen Emerson Cole returns to her Southern hometown and old “haunts” in this genre-blending story.

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Em can’t overcome her dark past; she started seeing ghosts at 13, shortly before her parents’ tragic accident. Caught talking to seemingly empty space too often, Em is verbally and physically defensive, unable to completely confide in Thomas, Dru or her best friend Lily. When Thomas hires handsome college-aged Michael Weaver (a consultant from the mysterious Hourglass institute) to help Em with her “hallucinations,” predictably tempestuous romance and unexpected adventure ensue. After meeting an X-Men–esque group of former Hourglass students— and the dangerous but sexy Kaleb Ballard, Michael’s rival for her affections—Em learns that she’s not crazy but gifted, and that she might be able to change the past as well as see it. Em is an entertainingly cheeky narrator and appealingly resilient heroine; when she meets Michael’s friends, she wryly comments, “Team Freak. Wonder if we could get jerseys.” First-time author McEntire deftly juggles plot, characters and dialogue; her portrait of grief is particularly poignant.

The ambitious combination of paranormal romance and sci-fi action leads to some pacing problems but also makes for a refreshing read. (Fiction. 12 & up)

IF ROCKS COULD SING A Discovered Alphabet

McGuirk, Leslie Illustrator: McGuirk, Leslie Tricycle (48 pp.) $17.99 | PLB: $20.99 | May 24, 2011 978-1-58246-370-4 PLB: 978-1-58246-395-7

With sharp eyes, endless patience and vivid imagination, McGuirk seeks and finds rocks in the shapes of alphabet letters and items representing those letters.

Using these finds and some inventive photography, she has created a most unusual alphabet book. The opening spread lays out all the amazingly accurate stone letters (some uppercase, some lowercase) on a background of soft, natural, earthy beige.

Each letter is given its own page, and some have a double-page spread. The letter-shaped rock names the shape—as in “e is for elephant”—and the remarkable rock shapes either stand alone or are given props. The “ghost” rocks float eerily on a black background, while “K is for kick” aims a foot-shaped rock at a bright-orange ball. The seahorse floats among seaweed, and a rock mitten is paired with one made of wool. Some of the more conceptual references stretch the imagination a bit, and little ones may need some explanation. For “U is for up,” two animalshaped rocks play on a seesaw; too bad there was no umbrella or unicorn rock to be found. The ever-difficult “x” is the only disappointment; “x is for xoxo” depicts a pudgy figure that kind of resembles two people kissing, but this may be a stretch for children. An author’s note provides additional information about McGuirk’s dedicated collection process.

Begs to be pored over again and again. (Alphabet book. 3-10)

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“Messner gets all the details of third grade right.” from marty mcguire

THE SUMMER OF FIRSTS AND LASTS

McVoy, Terra Elan Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (432 pp.) $16.99 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4424-0213-3 Three sisters try to figure out themselves and their relationships with each other during their last summer together at Camp Callanwolde.

Calla is ambitious, smart and obsessed with her longtime crush and never boyfriend, Duncan. Violet is artistic, confident and head over heels with James, who is definitely off-limits. Daisy is athletic and taken by surprise by Joel, who is as intriguing as he is confusing. Everything seems on course for it to be the best summer ever, when Brynn, a girl who is determined to make things happen, turns all their lives upside down. Brynn is sometimes a catalyst for good, encouraging Daisy to try the zip line and to stand up to the girls intent on bullying her. However, in the midst of her shenanigans she nearly destroys the bonds of trust that exist between the sisters. Rather than forging their own summer experiences, the sisters seem at the mercy of their circumstances, a lack of growth that makes the story unsatisfying.

The sisters’ three stories merge and separate as the point of view shifts from one sister to the next with each new chapter. Shifting narrators, a too-large cast and competing, rather than complementing, story lines keep this tale from ever finding its legs.

Readers will quickly become frustrated by the uneven plot and the setting of summer camp, which never makes it past cliché. (Fiction. 14 & up)

MARTY MCGUIRE

Messner, Kate Illustrator: Floca, Brian Scholastic (144 pp.) $15.99 | $5.99 paperback original May 1, 2011 978-0-545-14244-1 paper 978-0-545-14246-5 When the promised land of third grade does not pan as promised, Marty McGuire finds herself playing a completely new role.

Mrs. Aloi, her maracas-shaking teacher, is putting together the parts for the class play of The Frog Prince, and she decides that Marty is perfect for the part of the princess. Marty, who prefers learning about frog anatomy to kissing or, worse, throwing a frog, is horrified. She gets little support from her scientist mother or her teacher father—a princess she shall be! On top of this bad news, Marty’s best friend has joined the girly-girl group and does not seem interested in playing outside and pretending to be Jane Goodall anymore. Messner gets all the details of third grade right: the social chasm between the girls who want to be like the older kids and the ones who are still little girls, the Mad Minutes for memorizing arithmetic facts, the silly classroom-control devices 690

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teachers use and the energy students of this age put into projects like class plays. Floca’s black-and-white sketches are filled with movement and emotion and are frequent enough to help new chapter-book readers keep up with this longer text.

Believable and endearing characters in a realistic elementary-school setting will be just the thing for fans of Clementine and Ramona. (Fiction. 7-10)

THE FIRES BENEATH THE SEA

Millet, Lydia Big Mouth House (256 pp.) $17.99 | May 1, 2011 978-1-931520-71-3 Series: The Dissenters

Nature and science in a vivid Cape Cod setting create layers of meaning as 13-year-old Cara and her brothers confront the puzzle of their mother’s disappearance.

Mom vanished two months ago, and summer’s ending.

While swimming in the ocean, Cara spots a sea otter—but sea otters don’t belong on Atlantic beaches. Cara reaches out her fingertips, and the otter streams words into Cara’s mind: “TAKE CARE OF THEM FOR ME.” The next morning, on a bayside beach (across the Cape from the ocean beach), she sees the otter again—or another one—and Cara’s dog picks up a piece of driftwood inscribed “CARA. CONSULT THE LEATHERBACK.” Ten-year-old brother Jax, a genius with odd ESP gifts, communes with the aquarium’s leatherback turtle; 16-year-old brother Max, a skeptic, needs coaxing but joins the mission too. A man stalks them, water flowing continuously out of his face; he arrives, horribly, through faucets and lawn sprinklers. In a stunning and luminescent scene, Cara and Jax confront the Pouring Man on the ocean floor. Their quest has three levels: a personal level about their missing mother, an ecological level about ocean acidification and an epic level about good and evil that the kids don’t understand yet. Millet’s prose is lyrically evocative (“the rhythmic scoop and splash of their paddles”).

A lush and intelligent opener for a topical eco-fantasy series.

(Fantasy. 9-13)

FLUTTER The Story of Four Sisters and One Incredible Journey Moulton, Erin E. Philomel (208 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-399-25515-1

Almost relentless peril besets two resourceful girls who seek a miracle cure for their ailing newborn sister in Vermont’s mountains.

Maple, 9 1/2, and her older sister Dawn set out in search of the “Wise Woman of the Mountain,” a

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folkloric formation in the Green Mountains, and “her” curative waters. What ensues is nonstop danger, making for fast reading.

This doesn’t add up to necessarily believable reading, however, as the sisters’ adventures, which include encounters with a bear, rapids and poachers, would daunt adults with wilderness experience. While readers will turn pages to discover how all this is resolved and will sympathize with the girls’ motives for the trek, they’ll likely not buy that youngsters of these ages would believe in a magical presence and potion, and the sheer number of dangers strains credulity. Disappointing is the butterfly metaphor: Maple continually notices a monarch that acts as an encouraging totem and spirit guide at various dramatic stages throughout the novel. In the end, this turns out to be an unnecessary motif, because the girls ultimately learn that love and pulling together are really what effect miracles. Maple’s first-person/ present-tense, sometimes repetitive narration, which places readers in every hazardous moment, sometimes gets bogged down with inconsistent use of contractions.

A generally realistic portrait of sisterly conflict, and undemanding readers will enjoy the fast-paced action. (Adventure. 9-12)

BUGLETTE THE MESSY SLEEPER

Murguia, Bethanie Deeney Illustrator: Murguia, Bethanie Deeney Random (32 pp.) $15.99 | PLB: $18.99 | May 10, 2011 978-1-58246-375-9 PLB: 978-1-58246-394-0 Buglette is neat and precise during the day, but each morning she awakens to a messy bed that reflects the big dreams of the night before.

Driving a construction machine leads to a mountain of blankets, and kicking a ball over the moon leaves her pillow teetering on a branch. Her parents tend to be heavy handed with guilt-inducing comments, comparing her to her brothers, who are “neat little sleepers,” and sighing over “how we ended up with a messy sleeper.” They also plant the seed of blame when they suggest that her nighttime movements might wake up their feared predator, the crow. Her brothers make an attempt to “put a lid” on her, but the result is near disaster when the crow makes his move. Buglette bravely saves them all by emulating her intrepid dream self. Murguia’s tale sends mixed messages. Messy sleeping may be an issue for bugs, but it probably won’t resonate with humans, and literal-minded young readers will not be able to project any alternate interpretations. Mama Bug’s attitude is especially problematic and obfuscates the apparent theme of celebrating differences and dreaming of possibilities. The watercolor illustrations in nature’s colors are appealing, and Buglette’s action-packed dreams are charmingly depicted. They also serve to provide a visual interpretation that, perhaps, rises above the text.

Here’s hoping Murguia’s next book has a clarity of text that matches the illustrations. (Picture book. 4-7)

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TEN

Myracle, Lauren Dutton (208 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-525-42356-0 Series: The Winnie Years In this prequel to The Winnie Years series, fans meet their heroine as she celebrates her 10th birthday, secure in her family’s love and her identity.

Winnie writes in a note to herself: “Being weird is much more fun than not being weird… I can handle anything, and the reason why is because I am me and I am ten and I am awesome.” Winnie must remind herself of this when she encounters the changing emotional terrain of fifth grade. Myracle keeps Winnie refreshingly honest and perky as she faces down self-doubts, whether by announcing that she is not in that stage yet when the other girls in class decide they must all have crushes on boys or standing up to the bully Mindy.

In this nuanced portrayal, Winnie also develops her EQ (emotional-intelligence quotient): she learns to listen to her friend Amanda, concede a point rather than be right, even feel empathy for Mindy. Winnie is not challenged with big questions the way Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice is, nor does she have the complicated depth and eccentricity of Susan Patron’s Lucky.

She is simply the quintessential girl-next-door to whom young readers can comfortably relate.

A solid addition to a winning series, this provides the foundation for the characters and action in Eleven (2004). (Fiction. 8-12)

INCREDIBLY ALICE

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds Atheneum (288 pp.) $16.99 | May 10, 2011 978-1-4169-7553-3 Series: Alice McKinley

The newest entry in a series that sits proudly in second place on the ALA’s list of Most Banned/Challenged titles of the 21st century (behind Harry) takes its insecure but sensible 17-year-old narrator through her final semester of high school.

Alice navigates past such fixed points as Senior Prom, Prank Day and graduation as well as more personal triumphs and tribulations, from getting one of those flat business envelopes from her first-choice college to finding out that her boyfriend Patrick will be spending the next year in Spain. As ever, Naylor-as-Alice fills the interstices with teachable moments including (but not limited to) the short-lived appearance of a “Restricted Reading” shelf in the school library, watching an older co-worker and her loving husband with their new baby, coping with stress-related insomnia, attending a pregnant classmate’s baby shower and wedding and reacting to a friend’s admission that she’s saving up for a labiaplasty. It’s all embedded in a milieu of quotidian

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detail, familiar characters and memories from previous episodes that add both continuity and a matter-of-fact credibility to the advice and insight.

The author leaves Alice and friends posing for graduation pictures and looking forward to pre-college summer jobs aboard a cruise ship that will frame the next few volumes in this richly entertaining, reliable and informative guide to growing up. (Fiction. 13-15)

MY TATTOOED DAD

Nesquens, Daniel Illustrator: Magicomora Translator: Amado, Elisa Groundwood (48 pp.) $18.95 | May 1, 2011 978-1-55498-109-0

From Spain, a son’s affectionate tribute to his wandering, heavily decorated, yarnspinning father.

Recalled as the not-quite-adult-sounding narrator remembers them, “all tangled up, like a ball of wool that someone has dropped,” his often-absent father’s rousing if unlikely tales are backed up, or at least inspired by head-to-toe tattoos. They feature death-defying encounters with a double-tailed tiger and a giant bird, a conversation with a huge spider and remarkable feats like catching in midair both the lad himself, who as a baby once flew out a window as the car rounded a bend, and also a crazed trick-shooter’s bullet. Alternating tattoo-style vignettes of animals, hearts, skulls and the like framed in baroque flourishes with wildly fanciful full-page cartoons, pop surrealist Magicomora provides urbane visual counterparts to the stories’ increasingly freewheeling flights. “When I was little,” concludes the narrator, “I thought Dad was in charge of hanging the moon in the sky. Not I know that’s not true. But sometimes, on nights when he’s out there, he does hang up a star. That one, for example.”

A strange and entertaining affirmation of the parent-child bond. (Picture book. 10-12)

WOW! OCEAN!

Neubecker, Robert Illustrator: Neubecker, Robert Disney Hyperion (40 pp.) $17.99 | May 17, 2011 978-1-4231-3113-7 Series: Wow! The excitement of the ocean world from the beach to the deep and all between is conveyed by the jam-packed illustrations in this celebration.

The text is limited to a sentence before the title page setting up the premise—Izzy’s family goes to the beach—and captions for the double-page spreads—“Wow! Shells!” “Wow! Tide Pool!” “Wow! Turtles!” and so forth. Each busy, oversized 692

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spread contains a colorful framed illustration with numerous figures drawn with a heavy, black line. Each creature has an almost inconspicuous label. Even the frames are filled with color splotches. Two children, variously equipped with surf boards, masks, diving gear and submersible vehicles, explore these waters. Sharp-eyed readers will also follow their dog chasing the crab through each setting (even in the fishy endpapers).

The author has chosen his creatures carefully, including many his readers will already have heard of (octopus, manta rays, blue whales, great white sharks) and more that will be new. These are not pictured to scale but are reasonably recognizable by shape and coloration. There’s humor and fantasy (in the deep, the dog sprouts fins and a tail) but also plenty of solid identification information for readers who like to know the names of things. Izzy’s enthusiasm will be familiar to readers of Wow! City! (2004), Wow! America! (2006) and Wow! School! (2007).

This ideal post–aquarium-visit souvenir has similar child appeal. (Picture book. 3-7)

SPARROW ROAD

O’Connor, Sheila Putnam (256 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-399-25458-1

The mystery of why her mother suddenly took a job at a summer artists’ refuge far from home is solved when 12-year-old Raine meets Gray James, the father she never knew.

But that’s only a piece of the puzzle of what was and what could be at Sparrow Road and in her life.

The crumbling country estate, a former orphanage, is a place readers will want to explore. It is suffused with a sense of longing, the same wistful atmosphere surrounding the characters in this beautifully written novel, with its leisurely revelation of secrets and sad events of the past. Remarkably, O’Connor has peopled her story almost entirely with grown-ups: Raine’s family; Viktor, the mysterious owner; and Lillian, Josie, Diego and Eleanor, artists working there for the summer. These are welldeveloped secondary characters, each with a distinct personality, but this is fully Raine’s tale. The adults nurture her, but they also set her free to discover herself, her family and her own artistry. She and Josie, the quilt maker, piece together the history of the house while Raine imagines, dreams and reconstructs her former contentment, shattered by revelations about her father’s alcoholism and her grandfather’s anger. Set perhaps 30 years ago, the specific time and place are unimportant.

Readers finding themselves in this quiet world will find plenty of space to imagine and dream for themselves. (Fiction. 10-14)

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“As a plant (in this world, faeries are biologically plants), Laurel works with powders and beakers and pestles trying to determine Yuki’s secret—is Yuki a faerie too?” from illusions

TROUBLE AT IMPACT LAKE

Oertel, Andreas Lobster Press (192 pp.) $10.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-1-926909-86-8 Series: The Archaeolojesters, 3 It’s another archaeological adventure for 13-year-olds Cody, Eric and Rachel, in the third installment of this action-packed series.

Just back from Egypt and travels in time, the kids find a mystery right on their own doorstep in Manitoba. They meet three people at the service station who claim to be searching for Harrier planes that sunk at Impact Lake during World War II, when the lake was the site of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan for training floatplane pilots. But Cody is immediately suspicious of the strangers, knowing that Harrier planes didn’t exist during the war. Off go the three investigators, launching themselves on another escapade involving drowned pilots, ghosts, rumors of a crazy trapper, a killer bear and kidnappers. What are the strangers looking for at Impact Lake? Lively action and plenty of dialogue make this volume as much fun to read as its two predecessors. Oertel knows how to develop a scene for maximum scary or humorous effect, and his three young protagonists come off as real kids with a penchant for adventure.

Two latter-day Hardy boys and a Nancy Drew may just awaken the Indiana Jones in young readers and teach a bit of history at the same time. (Adventure. 9-12)

THE BOY WHO BIT PICASSO

Penrose, Antony Illustrator: Picasso, Pablo Photographer: Miller, Lee Abrams (48 pp.) $16.95 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8109-9728-8

“Picasso was great fun to play with. He liked to romp around on the floor and have pretend bullfights. His tweed jacket was nice and scratchy. He smelled good too. He smelled of cologne and French tobacco.”

To a set of seldom-seen photos taken by his mother, Lee Miller, interspersed with both pictures of roughly hewn toys and playful art created by Picasso and a page of drawings of the titular incident by modern children, Penrose adds appreciative comments and authentically sketchy childhood memories of a renowned family friend. Taken in France and England, the photos offer glimpses of the artist in his studio or posing with young Antony, along with shots of his own children, other friends such as George Braque and artwork done in a characteristic array of media and found materials. Images of colorful works from the author’s personal collection are added as well; the author’s little Noah’s Ark set appears juxtaposed to a tiny Picasso piece called |

Mrs. Noah, for instance. The text itself adds playful notes with variations in size and weight, along with occasional wavy lines and is set on solid backgrounds of pale blues, yellows, lilacs and other pastel hues.

Though certainly not a systematic overview of Picasso’s life and career, this intimate, child’s-eye view serves up a winning glimpse of the artist’s personality and unparalleled creative breadth. (glossary, thumbnail bios) (Memoir. 8-10)

ILLUSIONS

Pike, Aprilynne HarperTeen (384 pp.) $16.99 | May 3, 2011 978-0-06-166809-8 The third in this four-leaf series wilts at the outset, with prose more clichéd than its predecessors, but perks up in the second half.

Laurel’s back in her real-world hometown of Crescent City, Calif., trying to live a normal teenage life without pining for Avalon, her faerie homeland. Trolls are probably hunting her, but they don’t attack often, so Laurel’s biggest quandary in this installment is deciding between—chime in, paranormal romance fans!—the two dreamy boys who adore her. Steadfast David is human, while steamy Tamani is Lauren’s personal faerie guardian; they’re equally loyal and equally smitten. Daily life becomes precarious when Klea, a tough special-ops fighter who frequently saves Laurel’s life but emanates untrustworthiness, asks Laurel to befriend Yuki, an exchange student who’s obviously hiding things. As a plant (in this world, faeries are biologically plants), Laurel works with powders and beakers and pestles trying to determine Yuki’s secret—is Yuki a faerie too? Pike’s third-person narration uses Tamani’s perspective sometimes, conveniently showing readers scenes behind Laurel’s back. It’s unclear how Laurel and Tamani shift from knowing that Yuki and Klea’s motivations are unknown, to assuming they comprehend who Yuki and Klea really are (they have no evidence), but those unfounded assumptions underlie the climax’s surprise.

Fans will revel in the idealized characterizations, breathless abstinence romance, lurking danger and newly explicit Arthurian parallels. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)

PRETEND Plecas, Jennifer

Illustrator: Plecas, Jennifer Philomel (32 pp.) $15.99 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-0-399-23430-9 A sweet, imaginative father-son adventure.

Dad is sitting on the sofa, reading a magazine, shoes off, feet up, cookies and milk on the side table. Jimmy says, “Pretend” that the couch is a boat on the ocean, and they are surrounded

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“After Mother and Father ask [Dude] if he’s cleaned his room and done his homework, Dude and Betty don’t ‘go’ like Dick and Jane, nor does his dog Bud ‘run’ like Spot—they ‘bail’ and head back to the beach.” from dude

by sharks, suddenly tired and starving. The sofa begins to float, and sharks fill the water, but Jimmy uses his fishing lines (the dog’s leash) to capture dinner (the escaped cookies). Jimmy and Dad get out their binoculars (cue image of kid and dad using their hands to make circles over their eyes in classic gesture) and find an island. They have to climb to the hilltop to be safe (the stairs morph into a steep, green hill) and make a fort from stumps and large fronds (chairs and blankets). All this is rendered in friendly ink lines and soft watercolor. The button-eyed father and son share the same half-cookie smile and fuzzy hair.

At the end, Jimmy says to pretend they are looking at the stars and building a campfire so they can say, “This is the best time ever”—and Dad notes that they don’t have to pretend that part.

It ends with a tiny coda, the best “for pretend and for real.”

Darling and genuine. (Picture book. 3-7)

DUDE Fun with Dude and Betty

Pliscou, Lisa Illustrator: Dunne, Tom HarperCollins (40 p.) $14.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-06-175690-0

This cheeky debut from Pliscou and Dunne pokes fun at traditional reading primers while reveling in California surf culture.

Truly non-bogus retro artwork in the style of 1950s Dick and Jane illustrations evokes a nostalgic sensibility with contemporary updates—including a notably multicultural cast of characters in several beach scenes. The pictures throughout the book are brightly colored and detailed, with endpapers decorated with paintings of surfboards and characters that rely more on gestural strokes than detail. The control of the text is intentionally broken to incorporate “surf-speak” on nearly every page, including when Dude’s friend Betty is introduced: “Betty is a righteous surf bunny. She does not live in the Valley.”

While this might undermine the book’s success as a beginning reader, it totally ratchets up the humor in a most excellent way.

After Mother and Father ask him if he’s cleaned his room and done his homework, Dude and Betty don’t “go” like Dick and Jane, nor does his dog Bud “run” like Spot—they “bail” and head back to the beach. “Waves are happening,” reads the final page.

“Dude is stoked.”

Readers will be stoked too about this fresh, funny, way-cool slice of Americana. (Early reader. 6 & up)

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DIE FOR ME

Plum, Amy HarperTeen (352 pp.) $16.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-06-200401-7 Boy meets Girl. Boy turns out to have a deep—nay, otherworldly—connection to Girl despite being the loneliest member of a family of immortal, sexy, goodhearted monsters.

Newly-orphaned Brooklynite Kate Mercier is now living in Paris with her grandparents and sister.

She’s grateful for anything that breaks the constant tyranny of her depression, even the weird obsession she’s developing with Vincent, a hot Parisian she’s seen in her favorite café. Vincent is equally obsessed with Kate, but after a few dates his secret is revealed: Vincent is a revenant, driven by some mystical force to give his life to save others again and again, constantly reborn as an 18 year old with rippling “rock-hard abdominal muscles.” Along with his revenant family (one father figure, several extremely sexy pseudo-brothers and a teenage girl to be Kate’s friend), he rescues at-risk Parisians while fighting off the revenant’s evil counterparts among the undead. Kate and Vincent are, of course, drawn to each other, miserable with despair when apart. When they are together, it takes all Vincent’s willpower not to molest his beloved; readers of Twilight and its ilk know the drill. But wait! Evil is afoot, and perhaps it will spice up their love life!

Those obsessed with paranormals won’t dislike anything here, but everyone else should give it a miss. (Paranormal romance. 12-14)

LARK

Porter, Tracey Laura Geringer/HarperCollins (192 pp.) $15.99 | PLB: $16.89 | May 24, 2011 978-0-06-112287-3 PLB: 978-0-06-112288-0 After the rape and murder of a suburban 16-year-old, two girls learn to cope in a world that stubbornly insists on continuing without her.

Lark is a gymnast, diver and stellar student, until one January day she’s kidnapped from her Arlington, Va., school. Her body is found naked, beaten and stabbed in the snowy woods. Over the next few months, the children and adults of Arlington recover—or fail to recover—from Lark’s death. Interleaved chapters provide three points of view: Eve, who was Lark’s childhood friend until a devastating experience of her own led to Eve’s personality shift in middle school; Nyetta, whose parents are going through a messy divorce and who thought Lark was the best babysitter ever; and Lark herself, who recaps the rape and murder in gutwrenching ghostly interludes. Lark’s ghost is haunting Nyetta in an attempt to get someone, anyone, to look directly at the damage done by the murderer. It’s no easy task: This is a town where grief counselors

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teach girls that avoiding assault is a matter of how they dress, move and walk. It’s a town where a mother doesn’t take her daughter’s assault seriously because there hasn’t been penetrative sex. Nyetta and Eve will only be able to move past Lark’s death if they face its most devastating truths.

Harrowing. (Fiction. 13 & up)

BLACKOUT

Rocco, John Illustrator: Rocco, John Disney Hyperion (40 pp.) $16.99 | May 24, 2011 978-1-4231-2190-9 “It started out as a normal summer night”—until the lights go out, citywide.

When it gets “too hot and sticky” inside their apartment (no fans or AC tonight), one busy family (mom, dad, two girls and a black cat) heads to the rooftop of their building, where they find light via stars and a block party “in the sky.” Other parties are happening down on the street, too. When the lights come back on, everything returns to normal, except for this family, which continues to enjoy the dark. The plot line, conveyed with just a few sentences, is simple enough, but the dramatic illustrations illuminate the story. Beginning with the intriguing cover—the silhouetted family on their rooftop under a vast, dark-blue sky dotted with Starry Night–type swirls, black is used as both a backdrop and a highlighter. Page composition effectively intermingles boxed pages and panels with double-page spreads, generating action.

Brilliantly designed, with comic bits such as a portrait of Edison on a wall and the cat running from a hand shadow of a dog.

Not all young readers will have experienced a blackout, but this engaging snapshot could easily have them wishing for one.

(Picture book. 5-8)

JAKE RANSOM AND THE HOWLING SPHINX

Rollins, James HarperCollins (384 pp.) $16.99 | May 3, 2011 978-0-06-147382-1 Series: Jake Ransom, 2

An adventure series mashup built on Indiana Jones-like tropes picks up steam with this second volume.

Three months have passed since eighth-grader Jake Ransom and his older sister Kady returned from the ancient land of Calypsos on Pangaea, where they saved the inhabitants—Neanderthals and lost Roman legionaries and ancient Maya—from the evil magister Kalverum Rex. Neither teen knows any more about the location of their archaeologist parents, missing three years now, but both are sure that their parents are lost somewhere in time. After an attack on their home, |

the siblings visit an Egyptian exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History only to be attacked again by the blood magic of Kalverum as he seeks the Key to Time. They are thrown into the desert kingdom of Deshret, cut off from the rest of Pangaea by a flesh-tearing windstorm. The bracelets given them by the elders of Calypsos also draw in their friends from their last adventure, and the five find themselves once again battling the Skull King and his minions while trying to find traces of their parents. Rollins’ second Jake Ransom adventure is tighter, more magical and more thrilling than the series opener.

Likely to win Jake more fans, this will have adventure seekers of both genders clamoring for volume three (likely to deal with Norse lore, given the dropped hints). (Adventure. 9-12)

AL PHA’S BET

Rosenthal, Amy Krouse Illustrator: Durand, Delphine Putnam (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-399-24601-2 Less a traditional abecedary than an original pourquois tale, Rosenthal’s latest asks the question, how did the alpha-

bet come to be?

The story purports that letters (along with fire, the wheel and shadows) were already invented when title character, Al Pha, makes a bet with himself that he can devise the best order for them. The king has high hopes that “once the letters are organized, writing will really take off! Books! Poetry! Love letters! Stop signs!” The illogic of this anticipation is mitigated by the humorous tone of the text and Delphine Durand’s cartoonish, acrylic illustrations, which then depict Al Pha lugging a sack of letters home to begin to sorting them into an order largely based on associations. “The first one was easy. He chose A, for Al.” Later, “Feeling hungry, Al picked an apple. ‘Mmmm. Delicious.’ All that mmmming led him to the next letter. And that’s double perfect, thought Al. M for middle.” His task complete a few spreads later, Al Pha presents the ordered letters to the king, who sings them in sequence and then names the arrangement in honor of Alpha and his bet.

A fresh take on a tried-and-true topic. (Picture book. 3-5)

THIS PLUS THAT Life’s Little Equations

Rosenthal, Amy Krouse Illustrator: Corace, Jen HarperCollins (40 pp.) $14.99 | PLB: $15.89 | May 1, 2011 978-0-06-172655-2 PLB: 978-0-06-172656-9 You don’t have to be a math whiz to enjoy these equations that explore many aspects of a child’s daily life with surprising results, depending on what’s added, subtracted or divided.

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One plus one does not equal two; rather, “1 + 1 = us” as two little girls hug to become “us.” Colors blend together on the page to show how “red + blue = purple,” “blue + yellow = green” and “yellow + red = orange,” while droplets of each color cascade down the page to prove that all colors added together equal a rainbow. Altering a component triggers different results. A “smile + wave = hello,” but a “smile + ocean wave = beach.” “Chalk + sitting = school,” but “chalk + jumping = hopscotch.” The minimalist text, presented in the form of equations, and the simple, light-hearted watercolor, pen and ink illustrations, featuring the same children throughout, function symbiotically. The opaque equation “(snow + carrot) + rosy cheeks = winter” makes plenty of sense with its illustration of a child bundled in a snowsuit taking a bite out of a snowman’s carrot nose. Surprising in their variety, the equations range from the sublime (“soul + color = art”) to the ridiculous (“balloon + wind = lost”).

Clever premise + artful execution = sure winner. (Picture book. 4-8)

DIVERGENT

Roth, Veronica Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (496 pp.) $17.99 | May 3, 2011 978-0-06-202402-2 Cliques writ large take over in the first of a projected dystopian trilogy.

The remnant population of postapocalyptic Chicago intended to cure civilization’s failures by structuring society into five “factions,” each dedicated to inculcating a specific virtue. When Tris, secretly a forbidden “Divergent,” has to choose her official faction in her 16th year, she rejects her selfless Abnegation upbringing for the Dauntless, admiring their reckless bravery. But the vicious initiation process reveals that her new tribe has fallen from its original ideals, and that same rot seems to be spreading… Aside from the preposterous premise, this gritty, paranoid world is built with careful details and intriguing scope. The plot clips along at an addictive pace, with steady jolts of brutal violence and swoony romance.

Despite the constant assurance that Tris is courageous, clever and kind, her own first-person narration displays a blank personality.

No matter; all the “good” characters adore her and the “bad” are spiteful and jealous. Fans snared by the ratcheting suspense will be unable to resist speculating on their own factional allegiance; a few may go on to ponder the questions of loyalty and identity beneath the façade of thrilling adventure.

Guaranteed to fly off the shelves. (Science fiction. 14 & up)

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LIMOS, LATTES & MY LIFE ON THE FRINGE

Rue, Nancy Zondervan (241 pp.) $9.99 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-0-310-71487-3 This high-school drama with a strong evangelical subplot may appeal to Christian readers.

A brainy girl who’s always on the outside of high-school society because of her “I’m-better-than-you” attitude finds a cause that puts her into conflict with the popular kids who rule the school. The wealthy “ruling class” rules the prom with their expensive and exclusive glamour, while the “K-Mart” kids feel frozen out. Tyler, an appealing and strong character and one of the school’s few African-American students, sticks to her defiant streak when she’s nominated for prom queen as a joke. Still, she realizes that she isn’t the only student who feels left out of the prom and organizes a campaign to bring the prom to the whole school.

However, when Patrick, the leader of the “ruling class” joins her cause, she’s dismayed to find herself attracted to him. Meanwhile, she meets Valleri, a new student committed to Christianity. Tyler finds a strange book with paranormal powers that responds directly to her own thoughts as it explains Biblical stories of “Yeshua.” The religious subplot appears to exist entirely to evangelize readers, but Rue works it into the book well enough that it doesn’t interfere with the main plot until the story veers off into melodrama in the final 30 pages.

Overall, an interesting and entertaining-enough school story. (Christian fiction. 12 & up)

A MANGO IN THE HAND A Story Told Through Proverbs

Sacre, Antonio Illustrator: Serra, Sebatsiá Abrams (32 pp.) $16.95 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8109-9734-9

A “story told through proverbs” could easily go terribly wrong, but this sweet tale succeeds beautifully.

On Francisco’s feast day, Mamá and Papá plan to make ropa vieja, tostones and aguacate. For dessert Francisco would like fresh-picked mangos from the tree a short walk from his home.

Finding several bees near the tree, Francisco returns empty handed. Papá asks for an explanation. “La verdad, por dura que sea. / The truth, no matter how hard it is.” Francisco admits his fear of the bees, but Papa tells him to gently shoo them away. A second attempt results in his picking more than he can handle, making for a gooey mess. Papá suggests one more time. “You can do it by yourself, mi’jo / Querer es poder. / Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Francisco succeeds but on the way home generously gives all his mangos to the neighbors. Through the little proverbs, Francisco

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“Particularly arresting are the nighttime scenes, the first of which shows the husband sneaking into the witch’s enchanted garden…it is rendered in hues of purple and blue, with black silhouettes popping out in stark contrast.” from rapunzel

learns that life is about trying, succeeding and sharing. “Amor con amor se paga. / Love is repaid with love.” This smoothly written family story is filled with warmth and humor and incorporates a blending of well-placed proverbs in both Spanish and English to drive the story’s themes. Digitally colored pencil-and-ink cartoon drawings reflect the lush greens of summertime and outdoor living in this intergenerational barrio.

Muy dolce. (Picture book. 5-7)

RAPUNZEL

Reteller: Sage, Alison Illustrator: Gibb, Sarah Whitman (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8075-6804-0 This gorgeous offering is a retelling of the Brothers Grimm story with intricate illustrations taking center stage.

Reminiscent of elaborate embroidery or tapestries, the pictures create and sustain the tale’s magical atmosphere. Particularly arresting are the nighttime scenes, the first of which shows the husband sneaking into the witch’s enchanted garden in search of the plants that will cure his ailing wife; it is rendered in hues of purple and blue, with black silhouettes popping out in stark contrast. The size and layout, as well as the color, of the illustrations vary according to the action and mood of the story. For instance, one remarkable page is divided horizontally into four panels; the stunning series of images in silhouette on pastel backgrounds depicts the action described in prose on the facing page in the manner of a graphic novel. A few pages later, an entire two-page spread is devoted to an illustration of the prince riding through the forest with Rapunzel’s tower in the background. In this instance, natural colors dominate, forming a lush background for the prince and his horse, which are rendered in exquisite detail.

Children and adults alike will be spellbound, poring over the pages again and again, delighting each time in new details and discoveries. (Fairy tale. 6-11)

ROMEO AND JULIET

Shakespeare, William Illustrator: Nagar, Sachin Adaptor: McDonald, John F. Campfire (80 pp.) $9.99 paperback original | May 10, 2011 978-93-80028-58-3 Series: Campfire Graphic Novel Classics A bland, uninspired graphic adaptation of the Bard’s renowned love story.

Using modern language, McDonald spins the well-known tale of the two young, unrequited lovers. Set against Nagar’s at-times oddly psychedelic-tinged backgrounds of cool blues and purples, the |

mood is strange, and the overall ambiance of the story markedly absent. Appealing to what could only be a high-interest/ low–reading level audience, McDonald falls short of the mark.

He explains a scene in an open-air tavern with a footnote—“a place where people gather to drink”—but he declines to offer definitions for more difficult words, such as “dirges.” While the adaptation does follow the foundation of the play, the contemporary language offers nothing; cringeworthy lines include Benvolio saying to Romeo at the party where he first meets Juliet, “Let’s go. It’s best to leave now, while the party’s in full swing.” Nagar’s faces swirl between dishwater and grotesque, adding another layer of lost passion in a story that should boil with romantic intensity. Each page number is enclosed in a little red heart; while the object of this little nuance is obvious, it’s also unpleasantly saccharine. Notes after the story include such edifying tidbits about Taylor Swift and “ ‘Wow’ dialogs from the play” (which culls out the famous quotes).

There are certainly better adaptations out there. (Graphic classic. 12 & up)

THE LUCKY KIND

Sheinmel, Alyssa B. Knopf (208 pp.) $16.99 | PLB: $19.99 e-book: $16.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-375-86785-9 PLB: 978-0-375-96785-6 e-book: 978-0-375-89866-2 Unexpected relatives complicate a teen’s life.

In his junior year at a private school in Manhattan, Nick’s biggest concern is finally getting the attention of Eden, a girl he’s known since kindergarten. Nick’s ordinary, stable home life is upended when his father gets a phone call from a stranger named Sam. After a tension-filled weekend, Nick’s father reveals that Sam is the son he and his girlfriend gave up for adoption 30 years ago. Nick feels betrayed by the enormity of the secret that his parents have kept, and his anger at them threatens to taint his new relationship with Eden. He can’t separate his emotions about his family from his feelings for Eden and abruptly breaks up with her after sleeping together. His best friend Stevie tries to point out that he’s probably afraid of making the same mistake his father made. It’s not until Nick meets Sam and learns the details of his non-Jewish father’s early life in small-town Ohio that he can come to grips with his family’s new reality. Nick is lucky in his choice of girlfriend—Eden patiently waits for him to sort things out.

Sheinmel effectively uses a breezy, often humorous firstperson voice that’s deceptively slight in its handling of deep issues, even as Nick does the hard emotional work to pull himself out of the depths of his self-pity. (Fiction. 12 & up)

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“Readers will be enchanted by the idea that the lovely orb that shines above all the world’s peoples has engendered so much wonder and so many rich traditions.” from a full moon is rising

EVERFOUND

Shusterman, Neal Simon & Schuster (512 pp.) $17.99 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4169-9049-9 Series: The Skinjacker Trilogy, 3

Shusterman ends his provocative trilogy with a rock-solid adventure that manages to examine deep questions of faith and morality.

At the end of Everwild (2009), Nick the Chocolate Ogre had dissolved into a mass of chocolate pudding, Mary Hightower was asleep in a glass coffin waiting to be reborn, Allie the Outcast was strapped to the front of a runaway train and Mikey McGill (formerly the monstrous McGill) was searching for a way to rescue her. The adventures continue, with Mexican Afterlight Jix joining the cast of characters as a furjacker, slipping into the bodies of giant cats as he spies on Mary’s army for the Mayan King. The rules of Everlost are unique, catering to the children who go there upon death and wait until they are ready to go into the light. But even those rules can be overset with the introduction of Clarence, the scar wraith, whose touch can extinguish anyone out of existence— forever. Alliances form and melt as characters decide between their own self-interest and what is right; the shifting third-person perspective gives readers glimpses into everybody’s souls.

Rich in detail, with exceptional characterization and shot through with unexpected (and very necessary) humor, this is an engrossing and thoroughly satisfying ending to a unique saga of life after death. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

THE BREAK-UP DIARIES

Simone, Ni-Ni; London, Kelli Dafina/Kensington (288 pp.) $9.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-0-7582-6316-2 Series: The Break-Up Diaries, Vol. 1 Lessons, frenemies and posturing abound in this pair of novelette-length bittersweet romances featuring African-American teens.

Simone’s (Shortie Like Mine, 2008) “Hot Boyz” stars confident 16-year-old Chance, who prefers Atlanta’s rougher Bankhead neighborhood to her rich mother’s gated community. After catching her “trial run” boyfriend cheating at a Bankhead club, Chance meets her “chocolate knight,” the handsome, hard-to-get and, as it turns out, 22-yearold Ahmad. As their romance deepens, Chance becomes guiltily entangled in the lies she tells both her friends and Ahmad about their respective ages until, inevitably, a somewhat contrived string of bad decisions brings the truth to light. In debut author London’s “Boy Trap,” head cheerleader Gabrielle, aka Easy Breezy, plans to follow in her mother’s footsteps: snag an NBAbound high-school basketballer, “trap” him by having sex and 698

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guarantee herself a future as a millionaire. But Tyler, the baller on whom she sets her sights, won’t take the bait. As Breezy’s disturbingly manipulative schemes escalate, so do Tyler’s often didactic admonishments: “First, you have to be good enough for yourself.” The language in both stories is fresh and appealing, filled with contemporary slang, wordplay and censor-friendly modified curses (“Oh, hello!”), and each protagonist’s pride has enough cracks to let the reader in.

Fun, if heavy-handed. (Fiction. 12 & up)

A FULL MOON IS RISING

Singer, Marilyn Illustrator: Cairns, Julia Lee & Low (48 pp.) $19.95 | May 30, 2011 978-1-60060-364-8

A celebration of the full moon via various cultures, countries and festivals.

Singer deftly invites readers to consider and appreciate Earth’s silvery satellite through poems written in a variety of styles that offer a glimpse of how the full moon is enjoyed and welcomed throughout the world. Several of the offerings reflect fascinating natural phenomena that occur or are influenced during periods of the full moon, and short endnotes about the poems provide helpful, contextual information. Cairns’ cheery, childlike, energetic watercolors, feeling the double-page spreads, make the diverse cultures and locales come alive. Readers will be enchanted by the idea that the lovely orb that shines above all the world’s peoples has engendered so much wonder and so many rich traditions.

In addition to facts about the natural world, readers will learn some interesting trivia: Who knew that when one bends over and looks through the legs the moon looks smaller? Doublepage world maps on the endpapers that pinpoint the locales in which the poems are set and a foreword with illustrations of the moon’s phases in both hemispheres add to the interest and helpfulness of this volume, enhancing its usefulness as a literary work and a supplement to classroom studies about the moon.

Gentle and lovely, just like its inspiration. (Picture book/ poetry. 7-10)

ARE YOU GOING TO KISS ME NOW?

Tanen, Sloane Sourcebooks Fire (368 pp.) $8.99 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-1-4022-5461-1 This clever comedy strands a starstruck girl on a deserted island with major celebrities.

Francesca, an aspiring writer who devours tabloid journalism by the ream, enters an essay contest and wins a trip to Africa to promote

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literacy. She quickly learns that, far from being a dream come true, her experience won’t be entirely pleasant. The party comprises two rival young actresses, both already fading from fame; the hottest, yet not-so-very-bright teen heartthrob of the day; a fatherly, also-fading actor who pilots the plane; the Christian rocker illegitimate son of the fatherly actor-pilot; a TMZ-like gay blogger; and Francesca, with her exploding red hair and freckles. The protagonist’s six egomaniacal companions prove mostly useless, starting with the fatherly actor who crashes their plane, neglects to send a distress message and lets their signal fire go out. With the only actual adult sunk in depression, the rest act out their jealousies on each other. Francesca copes by writing and stockpiling text messages to her best friend. The scenario makes for some marvelous dry humor, enhanced by Tanen’s ability to turn an original phrase: “OMG she was the size of a lima bean.” Yes, the characters learn some important and dramatic lessons and maturity happens, but the thrust of this book is comedy, and it scores.

A witty winner aimed straight at reality-TV fans. (Comedy adventure. 12 & up)

CORSETS & CLOCKWORK 13 Steampunk Romances

Editor: Telep, Trisha RP Teens (448 pp.) $9.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-0-7624-4092-4 Simply sticking a few gears in does not steampunk make, no matter what the subtitle says.

The 13 stories, from a range of authors including several who have previously written mostly for adults, range from romance to horror, cover a gamut of times and places and include both the sublime and the sublimely bland. The opening story has both corsets and clockwork but little real depth, and at least four stories are more romantic fantasy (of varying quality) with a few elements meant to evoke a steampunk ethos. Others take some elements of the genre and transport it (with fair success) to the American south of the ’50s and Nazi-occupied Poland. The best stories are those that most closely adhere a fairly traditional definition of steampunk in manners, machinery and punk spirit, like Frewin Jones’ weirdly wonderful “The Cannibal Fiend of Rotherhithe,” with its half-mer cannibal heroine and a plucky boy who might be true love or just a snack; Adrienne Kress’ “The Clockwork Corset,” high romance with a spunky cross-dressing heroine; and Kiersten White’s excellent closing tale, “Tick, Tick, Boom,” whose narrator is a machinist and noble’s daughter who falls for an anarchist.

All in all, a diverse and too-often off-topic collection that’s not steamy enough in either sense of the word but is partly redeemed by a few gems. (introduction, author biographies) (Steampunk/fantasy/romance anthology. 12 & up)

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THE DARK ZONE

Testa, Dom Tor (288 pp.) $16.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-7653-2110-7 Series: Galahad, 4

The fourth installment in Testa’s teen saga of space exploration, the Galahad Series.

A year into their mission to establish a new home for humankind beyond the edge of the known universe, the crew of the Galahad has had their share of trials. There hasn’t been much time to deal with the usual issues of teen angst and first loves, but that doesn’t mean these aren’t part of the mix. Dealing with relationships is the central issue in this outing, from friendship to love to loss. Most importantly, how does the team build a relationship with a new species? Vulturelike creatures appear, pace and then attach themselves to the outer hull of the ship. Are they a threat? Mere observers? Perhaps they are messengers…but from whom and from where? The Council has to put aside their personal considerations to resolve the best course of action—for the ship and the crew, their mission and all that remains of humanity. Slow to start, this book regains momentum halfway through to race toward an open conclusion. With only two more books in the series, the next installment should pick up the pace.

Dedicated fans of the series will appreciate it, but it probably won’t win new converts. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

THE BOOK WITH A HOLE Tullet, Hervé Illustrator: Tullet, Hervé Abrams (96 pp.) $14.50 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-1-85437-946-7 Deliciously interactive and profoundly immersive, this book provides rich imaginative play from cover to cover.

The cover is red, black and white, with a substantial diecut half-circle void bisecting its spine. The pages are just black and white. Each spread has an irresistible circular hole in its middle and a few black lines to make an image for its question. “What are you going to cook?” invites readers to see the hole as the opening of a pot, with savory steam rising from it. The hole becomes the mouth of a three-eyed creature, the stomach of a dyspeptic gentleman (“what did he eat too much of?”) and then the expansive middle of a cheery pregnant woman (“Did she eat too much, too?”) Readers can put their own heads in the holes to be king or queen or build their own block skyscraper through a hole that’s surrounded by them.

There’s a game board—with the hole of course—to make up your own rules. Readers are invited to toss a crumpled sheet of paper through a hole to shoot baskets or to make a trunk for an elephant with their arms. Sometimes the black-and-white

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k i r ku s q & a w i t h p h i l b i l d n e r The Unforgettable Season: The Story of Joe Dimaggio, Ted Williams and The Record-Setting Summer Of ’41

Phil Bildner Putnam $16.99 March 3, 2011 9780399255014

He may not be in front of a classroom on a daily basis anymore (he taught most recently at P.S. 333, a junior high in Manhattan), but Phil Bildner still loves to teach. With his picture books about baseball and its legendary players, he may well have attracted a whole new generation of sports fans.

Kirkus talked with him about his latest picture book, The Unforgettable Season: The Story of Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and the Record-Setting Summer of ’41, illustrated by S.D. Schindler, why he believes those 1941 records still stand, why he loves baseball and why this should not be labeled “the steroid era.”

Q: What attracted you to the summer of 1941 and the two records achieved by Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams?

A: I think it was a combination of elements that brought me to this story. I was looking for one that hadn’t been done before, or not as often. The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is obviously well known, but these two men were heroes and went on to be WWII heroes as well.

Q: And, just to be clear, Ted Williams was not the first to maintain a .400 batting average through an entire season, but he was the last. Correct?

A: Correct. He’s the last one to do it. People openly wonder if in this media age it’s possible to accomplish it again. When Barry Bonds was chasing [Roger Maris’] home-run record, and when [Mark] McGwire and [Sammy] Sosa were going after it, it was a media circus. I think today it would be overwhelming. Once it got to 35 or 40 hits, every at-bat would be tweeted. Would they be pitched to? Would they get days off? Every game would be on ESPN instead of local networks—like when Hideki Matsui first came to the U.S. [from Japan, to play for the Yankees], and everywhere he went he was “Godzilla.”

Q: After DiMaggio’s 55-game-hit-streak-ending game in Cleveland, he went on to another 16-game hitting streak that season. DiMaggio would hit safely in 72 of 73 games, another record. How do you decide what to include and what to leave out?

A: The Yankees went on to play in the World Series that year and that was originally in the book. There were other individual stories about DiMaggio and Williams, and we had to decide what to keep in and what to leave out. The fact that they came together in the All-Star Game in such a way [Williams hit a home run to win the game for the American League; one of the runners to score on that hit was DiMaggio]. If

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it weren’t nonfiction, it would be hard to believe that it worked out that way.

Q: How did you work with Steve [S.D.] Schindler?

A: How wonderful are the illustrations? They’re beautiful but in an understated way. That was one of the fun things! Since it’s nonfiction, the amount of fact-checking that went into this— down to what color uniform and what hats they were wearing. There’s an element of playfulness in some of the games in Fenway Park. Steve didn’t use the actual advertisements because we weren’t sure about rights issues, so he used KAYIX for the dog food with the Roman numeral for “9.” He had some fun with it also. I enjoyed the research. You uncover things when you doublecheck the facts—like the fact that Jo DiMaggio’s bat was stolen [during his hitting streak]! That’s the type of thing that will leap off the page when a kid is reading it.

Q: You end with some of baseball’s all-time great stats, including Maris breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record.

Do you think there should be a caveat, to note that Maris broke the record the first year the baseball season was extended from 154 to 162 games?

A: I think Roger Maris’ record is completely legitimate and doesn’t need an asterisk.

Q: Do you think that those playing in the past decade should be labeled with “the steroid era”?

A: I think it already is [labeled that way] and many people do. I don’t think you “officially” do it.

When did it start, when does it end? Do you just label steroids, or human growth hormone? In the ’80s, everyone was all jacked up on greenies. It was commonplace to use amphetamines and marijuana. For the pitchers in the 1960s, the mound was higher. Do you want to say they were pitching in an era that was pitcher-friendly? I think we all talk about it and people are aware of it. The long and short of it is, “No.” I take a stand by not talking about the Barry Bonds’ [home run] record. Its absence speaks for itself. If someone wants to bring it up, I feel I’ve done my job as an author. I look at my books as a launching point. It’s a great place to start a discussion. That’s what I hope to do with a lot of my books.

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“Indolent, irascible and utterly irresistible, Fuddles is the undisputed focus of every scene in this hilarious reminder to stick with a good thing when you’ve got it.” from fuddles

lines become patters with no text, leaving youngsters to ask their own questions about that hole.

Most apps have a long way to go before they will be as artful and engaging as this interactive wonder. (Picture book. 3-8)

POINDEXTER MAKES A FRIEND

Twohy, Mike Illustrator: Twohy, Mike Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $15.99 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4424-0965-1 Poindexter is a pig with a problem: He is shy.

Cartoonlike illustrations show this earnest hero alternately hiding and playing alone, a bit lonely but still independent. Various animals from the neighborhood would like to be his friend, but Poindexter only watches through his window as they pass by, excusing himself when they ask him to join them. Mostly Poindexter stays safely ensconced in his room, reading stories to his stuffed animals, or enjoying himself in the library, reading alone or helping out the librarian. One day, a frightened turtle named Shelby ventures into the library, and the librarian encourages Poindexter to help him find a book on how to make friends. Together, the two read the book and follow its rules by smiling, introducing themselves, sharing and being nice to each other. They are even able to use their new skills to help another library patron. By the end, Shelby has come out of his shell both figuratively and literally, and the two make plans to meet the next day and read a book together on a common interest (stuffed animals). The brief, straightforward text is well matched to the expansive, gently funny illustrations.

A sweet story with a satisfying ending, this provides some concrete ideas that can help a child make friends and may draw the shyest youngsters out from under their shells. (Picture book. 3-6)

FUDDLES

Vischer, Frans Illustrator: Vischer, Frans Aladdin (32 pp.) $15.99 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4169-9155-7

up a tree. His catnap in the neighbor’s yard turns into a harrowing flight from an aggressive dog, leaving Fuddles lost without his litter box as night descends. Scared and lonely, missing his family and feeling hungry, Fuddles learns the hard way there’s no place like home. Digitally rendered, comical illustrations trace Fuddles’ journey from spa-like existence in tub and hammock to his feeble fitness training with scratching post and toy mouse to the reality of his outdoor adventure, punctuated by indignant falls, futile clawing, frantic flight and fearful search for home.

Indolent, irascible and utterly irresistible, Fuddles is the undisputed focus of every scene in this hilarious reminder to stick with a good thing when you’ve got it. (Picture book. 4-7)

BETWEEN TWO ENDS

Ward, David Amulet/Abrams (304 pp.) $16.95 | May 1, 2011 978-0-8109-9714-1

A book about a book within a book.

Years ago William and Shari wished themselves into a book, the unabridged version of 1,001 Arabian Nights, and although William wished himself back, he is consumed with guilt because Shari stayed, as the character Shaharazad. Twenty years later, William’s anguish has brought his family to the brink of dissolving. In a lastditch attempt to hold it all together, they visit his boyhood home, the scene of the mysterious events. His son Yeats becomes the vessel for restoring Shari to the real world. It all involves wishes, magic bookends, pirates, danger, intrigue and imagination. Yeats is very much the hero of the piece, absorbing and responding to every impossible, fantastic occurrence with ingenuity and spirit.

Ward presents just enough of an outline of the traditional Arabian Nights frame story to set the stage for modern readers, while creating his own fantasy within the fantasy to grab their attention.

But there is a lack of consistency in the framework of his fantasy world, especially in its treatment of time. The supporting characters are not all fully developed, especially Shari, who, although she is the focus of the whole endeavor, remains insubstantial.

The conclusion allows little time for emotional denouement and strongly hints at a possible sequel. A fast-paced but flawed adventure. (Fantasy. 10-12)

A pampered, protected house cat turns outdoor adventurer when he escapes into the front yard of his residential neighborhood and encounters reality.

Fat, flaccid and totally spoiled by his family, feline Fuddles lives a life filled with eating, sleeping and the occasional litter-box trip. When he finally opts for adventure, Fuddles discovers he’s not allowed outside. Obsessed with going out and fighting the foes he knows await, Fuddles initiates a “strict exercise regime.”

Eventually Fuddles spies an open front door, darts outside and loses no time leaping after birds on the porch, where his tubbiness weighs him down. He tries chasing squirrels but can’t claw his way |

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ELLRAY JAKES IS NOT A CHICKEN!

Warner, Sally Illustrator: Harper, Jamie Viking (144 pp.) $14.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-670-06243-0 Series: EllRay Jakes, Vol. 1 The creator of the series about thirdgrader Emma McGraw (Only Emma, 2005, |

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“In a build-up that explores the process of grief, second chances and even the meaning of life, Cullen’s and Cabot’s worlds slowly intersect and solve the mystery of Gabriel’s disappearance in this multilayered debut for sophisticated readers.” from where things come back

etc.) focuses on a new character here: EllRay Jakes, one of Emma’s classmates.

EllRay, a likable everykid with a sense of humor, is getting picked on; he doesn’t know why, nor what to do about it. EllRay’s voice is chatty and authentic, especially in articulating kids’ and adults’ perceptions of the playground dynamic: “Ms. Sanchez is smart about what goes on inside her classroom, but she doesn’t know what goes on outside—before school and during nutrition break, lunch and afternoon recess. And outside is when school really happens for kids.” When bully Jared reveals he’s after EllRay because EllRay once hurt his feelings, it feels a bit pat, although the resolution is realistic: The boys don’t become best friends, but they learn to get along. EllRay is African-American in a predominantly white school; race is addressed openly here (he sometimes wishes there were more kids who look like him; his father suspects—incorrectly—that race is the reason EllRay is getting teased) without serving as the main issue, which is refreshing.

EllRay’s struggles and eventual success coping with bullying, a hot-button topic, ring true, and kids who enjoyed previous Emma stories will appreciate this take from the boys’ side.

(Fiction. 7-11)

NERD CAMP

Weissman, Elissa Brent Atheneum (272 pp.) $15.99 | May 24, 2011 978-1-4424-1703-8 Gabe is torn between his enthusiasm for a summer residential program for gifted children and his fear that his new, cool stepbrother-to-be will find out he’s a nerd.

Just his age, 11, Zack seems like the ideal sibling to Gabe, who has always wanted one. But surfer-boy Zack really doesn’t like nerds. All the things Gabe enjoys—math team, reading and the gifted program—Zack describes as weird. Luckily, sleep-away camp impresses him. Episodic chapters combine camp scenes, letters home and a growing chart of the things Gabe’s done he can tell Zack about and the geeky details that he can’t. The third-person narration describes the fun of a camp where students write poetry, solve problems and investigate lice with microscopes and also swim, kayak, play sports and compete in a Color War. While Gabe is trying to present six weeks of camp activities in the best light for Zack, he’s also choosing them in order to avoid fellow-camper Amanda, a girl who seems to be stalking him but turns out to be someone who could be a friend. The author sets up the thematic conflict believably, but the contrast between Gabe’s enjoyment and his social fears gets tiresome. The protesting goes on too long, the resolution is pat and the author’s hand and purpose seems evident.

This celebration of summer camp and geekiness tries too hard. (Fiction. 9-12)

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WHERE THINGS COME BACK

Whaley, John Corey Atheneum (240 pp.) $16.99 | May 3, 2011 978-1-4424-1333-7

If extinct woodpeckers can come back, can people, too?

In Lily, Ark., “the land that time forgot,” cynical 17-year-old Cullen Witter, who likes to jot down titles for books he intends to write and pines for Ada Taylor (Lily’s “black widow” because all of her boyfriends have died in accidents), narrates his unforgettable summer after senior year. Following the overdose death of his cousin, some “ass-hat” ornithologist claims that the Lazarus woodpecker (based on the Lord God Bird) has resurfaced after 60 years of extinction. It’s hard for Cullen to enjoy the frenzy and hope it brings his small town when the woodpecker receives more media coverage than his younger brother, Gabriel, who has inexplicably disappeared.

Alternating chapters with Cullen’s account is a third-person narration about Benton Sage, an 18-year-old missionary to Ethiopia.

He discovers the Book of Enoch, an ancient text not included in the traditional Bible, which describes Archangel Gabriel’s role of ridding Earth of fallen angels. Benton’s secret journal about Enoch falls into the possession of his college-freshman roommate, Cabot Searcy, whose curiosity turns into an obsession. In a build-up that explores the process of grief, second chances and even the meaning of life, Cullen’s and Cabot’s worlds slowly intersect and solve the mystery of Gabriel’s disappearance in this multilayered debut for sophisticated readers.

Unexpected, thought-provoking storytelling. (Fiction. 14 & up)

HOORAY FOR AMANDA & HER ALLIGATOR!

Willems, Mo Illustrator: Willems, Mo Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (72 pp.) $17.99 | May 1, 2011 978-0-06-200400-0 An exploration of the nature of surprises between good friends.

The point of view belongs firmly with Amanda’s stuffed alligator, whose patience wears thin whenever Amanda is away and he is waiting for her return, and whose generosity is taxed when Amanda brings home a new stuffed panda from a zoo visit.

Resourceful Amanda plows through a stack of library books with enticing titles (Whale Songs for Beginners; You Can Make It Yourself: Jet Packs!) as her alligator thinks of ways to engage her attention. When Alligator begins chewing on Amada’s head, she tells him “Books beat boredom,” but he still thinks her head tastes better than a book. Alligator’s worry over his price tag (he came from the sale bin) and the introduction of the new “friend” add emotional complexity to the simple friendship tale.

The pacing, word volume and wide trim size are all inviting and encouraging, bringing readers close to the cozy friendship

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between Amanda and her impatient stuffed friend. The figures are set against plenty of white space, giving them an appealing kinetic energy and encouraging the eye to move, or sometimes gallop, across the page.

Silly, warm and inviting, the six-and-1/2 short episodic chapters are just right for reading aloud as well as for beginning readers who are steady on their reading feet. (Picture book. 3-7)

CAPTURED

Wood, Maggie L. Lobster Press (288 pp.) $12.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-1-77080-071-7 Series: The Divided Realms, Vol. I This sweet, exciting fantasy finds a lonely 15-year-old girl suddenly transported to a magical realm where she’s a princess with a dangerous mission.

Willow has been raised by her Nana, whom Willow thinks is her grandma but really is her nurse from the magical realm of Mistolear. When Nana dies, Willow touches a glowing crystal that whooshes her home, where she learns that she is literally a pawn in a life-and-death chess game played with real people who are frozen into chess pieces when captured. Nana taught Willow to be a good chess player, and she can see no way for her side to win the game. Worse, she learns that she must fight the evil magical overlord who is controlling events, but she doesn’t know any magic. Wood builds the standard fantasy medieval world, complete with towering, turreted castles, dark cobblestone streets and bright costumes with huge, trailing sleeves, and she’s also careful to include the overpowering garbage smells and starving peasants. She keeps the action moving, throwing in plenty of wry comedy, a classic hates-himat-first-but-it’s-love romance and a couple of originally drawn sidekicks. If the adults come off as a bit stereotypical, the adolescent heroes make up for it with verve. The magic and the living chess game work well.

A successful kickoff to this new series. (Fantasy. 12 & up)

THE DARKENING

Wood, Maggie L. Lobster Press (288 pp.) $12.95 paperback original | May 1, 2011 978-1-77080-072-4 Series: The Divided Realms, 2

to the faery realm, but when Brand breaks the all-important rules by stowing away in her magical transport spell, the faeries turn the pair over to the dark lord Jarlath Thornheart, who throws them into the terrifying goblin’s gauntlet. Thornheart’s twins, Dacia and Theon, accompany them, but Willow doesn’t trust them even though their magical powers are held in abeyance during the game. Various magical beasts attack. When tiny goblins try to gnaw the adventurers to death, however, Willow takes control. With their fractured English and irrepressible spirits, the little goblins, especially Pitt, the heir to the goblin throne, steal much of the show. Wood takes her time getting to the gauntlet game as she builds a back story for the dark faeries and, curiously, keeps returning to a bodily waste–elimination motif. Finally in the gauntlet, Willow realizes her powers and makes major moral choices.

Although slower than the first installment this story remains entertaining; here’s hoping the little goblins become recurring characters. (Fantasy. 10 & up)

NO ONE BUT YOU

Wood, Douglas Illustrator: Lynch, P.J. Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 10, 2011 978-0-7636-3848-1

Wood and Lynch pair once more (Grandad’s Prayers of the Earth, 1999) to celebrate the simple joys of individual moments.

Every action, whether it be smelling the earth after a rain shower or savoring the first bite of a red, ripe strawberry, is unique and personal. “There are so mavny things in the world, / so many important things / to be taught, / to be shown” Wood imparts, “But the best things… / No one can discover them but you.” Children strive to find a place in the world where they feel significant. Allowing them to own these moments, and cherish them, is an important step, and Wood’s articulation of this truth should strike chords of recognition in both children and adults. Lynch’s softly smudged oil paintings, drenched in sun- and moonlight, match the gentle flow of this sensory walk through nature. City-dwellers may not have experienced all of these specific actions, but they should feel encouraged to come up with a list of their own.

A touching and genuine exhortation that just teeters on the edge of sentimentality but is lifted by a strong purpose: Self-discovery can be found in the most surprisingly simple of moments. (Picture book. 6 & up)

This second installment of Wood’s fantasy series finds Princess Willow battling goblins and various demons even as she attempted by the attentions of her sworn knight, Brand, and an enticing faery, Theon.

As promised by the title, this story takes a grimmer tone than the first, but the author eventually lightens the mood with winning comedy from goblin children. This time Willow travels |

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I KICK THE BALL / PATEO EL BALÓN

k i r k u s r o u n d-u p continuing series

Zepeda, Gwendolyn Illustrator: Torrecilla, Pablo Piñata Books/Arté Público (32 pp.) $16.95 | May 31, 2011 978-1-55885-688-2 With an underlying message of good nutrition and daily exercise, Zepeda introduces a young boy struggling to balance school and chores with his dreams of future soccer stardom.

After school, Toñito is on his suburban front lawn with his soccer ball. Lost in a fantasy world, he runs as fast as a race car, kicks his ball high in the sky and jumps as high as a fish. He is playing soccer before imaginary cheering crowds when he finally hears his mother’s call of “Toñito! TOÑITO! Luis Antonio!”

Toñito completes his homework and willingly eats his dinner of chicken, cabbage, spinach, rice and fruit, describing how each of these foods fuels “his soccer machine.” Soon it is time for bed, where the young boy’s active imagination carries over into his dreams. The first-person tale concludes with Toñito’s opportune realization that he can attain his dreams if he maintains his healthy lifestyle. Torrecilla’s vibrant full-page, animationinspired illustrations often feature multiple dynamic versions of Toñito, mirroring the energetic and occasionally onomatopoeic text. On facing pages, smaller illustrations separate bilingual text blocks (English over Spanish), which vary in length, complexity and subtlety. Bilingual text, a focus on the imagination and inventive visual elements save this story from the overt didacticism typical in health and nutrition picture books.

A good bet for young soccer fans. (Picture book. 4-8)

FIBBLE: The Fourth Circle of Heck

THE DRAGON IN THE VOLCANO: Dragon Keepers, #4

Basye, Dale E. Illus. by Bob Dob Random (384 pp.) $16.99 | PLB $19.99 May 24, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-375-85678-5 PLB: 978-0-375-95678-2 (Fiction. 9-13)

Klimo, Kate Illus. by John Shroades Random (240 pp.) $15.99 | PLB $18.99 May 24, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-375-86692-0 PLB: 978-0-375-96692-7 (Fantasy. 8-12)

THE DISCOVERY: Ghost Huntress, #5

DEAD IS NOT AN OPTION Dead Is…, #5

Gibson, Marley Graphia (264 pp.) $8.99 paperback original | May 2, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-547-39308-7 (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)

Perez, Marlene Graphia (252 pp.) | $7.99 paperback original May 2, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-547-34593-2 (Paranormal mystery. 12 & up)

MOSQUITOES ARE RUINING MY SUMMER!: And Other Silly Dilly Camp Songs

I SO DON’T DO FAMOUS I So Don’t Do..., #4

Katz, Alan Illus. by David Catrow McElderry (32 pp.) $16.99 | May 3, 2011 ISBN: 978-1-4169-5568-9 (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)

Summy, Barrie Delacorte (304 pp.) $16.99 | PLB $19.99 May 10, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-385-73790-6 PLB: 978-0-385-90699-9 (Paranormal mystery. 10-14)

This Issue’s Contributors # Kim Becnel • Marcie Bovetz • Sophie Brookover • Louise Brueggemann • Timothy Capehart • Louise Capizzo • Julie Cummins • Katie Day • GraceAnne A. DeCandido • Dave DeChristopher • Elise DeGuiseppi • Lisa Dennis • Diane B. Foote • Barbara A. Genco • Judith Gire • Carol Goldman • Heather L. Hepler • Megan Honig • Jennifer Hubert • Shelley Huntington • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Betsy Judkins • Deborah Kaplan • K. Lesley Knieriem • Robin Fogle Kurz • Megan Lambert • Angela Leeper • Lori Low • Joan Malewitz • Jeanne McDermott • Kathie Meizner • Lisa Moore • R. Moore • John Edward Peters • Rebecca Rabinowitz • Kristy Raffensberger • Nancy Thalia Reynolds • Lesli Rodgers • Leslie L. Rounds • Ann Marie Sammataro • Mindy Schanback • Dean Schneider • Chris Shoemaker • Karyn N. Silverman • Robin Smith • Rita Soltan • Edward T. Sullivan • Jennifer Sweeney • Deborah D. Taylor • Monica D. Wyatt

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kirkus indie Kirkus has been keeping an eye on self-publish-

submitted four of his books to Kirkus Indie

ing ever since we started our Kirkus Discoveries

or Kirkus Discoveries, and we’ve enjoyed

program in 2005. Two years later, authors were

each one. We’ve shared our reviews of his

self-publishing about 125,000 books annually.

works in our newsletters and on our web-

In 2009, the number had tripled. In 2010, that

site, but we love talking to writers as much

number passed the 1 million mark.

as you love reading about them, so we bent

And it’s not just the number of books

Maffei’s ear and he bent ours right back.

being self-published that’s staggering. As

Kirkus Indie brings readers the best

technology advances, particularly in the

works by independent authors, and we

realm of e-books, independent authors are

bring independent authors the crucial tools

finding larger and larger audiences. J.A.

to get the word out about their books like

Konrath reports daily sales of over 1,800

no one else. We’ll give your book an unbi-

copies. Amanda Hocking sold 450,000

ased, professional review, and then you’ll

e-books in a month.

have the option to have that review posted

The age of indie has truly arrived.

on our website where it will stand along-

As the times have changed, so has Kirkus.

side traditionally published books, greatly

Kirkus Discoveries is now Kirkus Indie, and

improving your book’s chances of being

at kirkusreviews.com, you’ll find an “Indie”

discovered by readers.

section right alongside “Fiction,” “Nonfic-

To learn more about Kirkus Indie and

tion” and other traditional publishing catego-

start promoting your title, please visit us

ries. We don’t care how books are produced.

online at kirkusreviews.com/indie/about.

We just want to let you know about them.

Take this issue’s interview with Fredric Maffei. The Arizona-based author has |

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ALL RISE

A ROSE FOR MY MOTHER

Canfield, Nancy Lee iUniverse (300 pp.) $31.95 | $21.95 paperback | June 14, 2010 ISBN: 978-1450231251 Paper: 978-1450231237 An account of one woman’s turbulent childhood and her paranormal awakening.

Canfield’s parents Ralph and Lorraine meet as teenagers in South Buffalo and quickly create a large family when children keep arriving despite the pair’s inability to care for them, either financially or emotionally. Even when Ralph had steady work at an arms plant during World War II, money was tight, and as work dries up after the war, the family’s situation deteriorates. Ralph and Lorraine argue and drink too much, leaving the children to largely fend for themselves. The family splits up, and Nancy Lee is sent to live with her aunt and abusive uncle for a short stint before being placed in numerous foster homes and eventually an orphanage. After a few years, the family reunites underneath one roof, but Nancy Lee is much changed, scarred by her experiences. She eventually marries the first man she meets, who is 23 to her 17, out of a clear desire to escape the highly toxic and dysfunctional family home. By 20, Nancy Lee is the mother of three children and the wife of a man who physically and verbally abuses her.

Knowing that she is trapped, she repeatedly tells her husband that one day she will leave him. After 20-plus years, Nancy Lee finally keeps her promise and files for divorce, explaining that a key component in her ability to make such a bold move is the inner strength she has developed through harnessing her paranormal sensitivities; Nancy Lee is a highly sensitive person with psychic abilities, signs of which are seen throughout her childhood. The author’s tell-it-like-it-was memoir is moving because of its lack of sentimentality; she neither demonizes nor idealizes her parents and depicts the people in her life so vividly that at times it’s easy to forget that this startling tale is nonfiction. While the paranormal details, coupled with some purple prose, may make the book hard for some readers to swallow, on the whole, Canfield’s story is an incredible account of childhood neglect and her power to triumph in a life riddled with obstacles.

An inspirational, unsentimental tale of overcoming the odds.

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Doughtie, Nath Trafford (306 pp.) $21.05 paperback | May 14, 2007 ISBN: 978-1425103590 Retired jurist Doughtie presents a twisty legal drama of nasty doings in northern Florida.

Judge Alva “AC” Cason sits on the bench of Florida’s Eighth Judicial Circuit, hearing and passing judgment on the miseries spilled out in the family division. Much of the business is sad but tedious: “He thought he could do this job in his sleep, but remembered he sometimes did just that, which was generally frowned upon.” Doughtie is having fun here, for AC is drawn as a warm and decent man, learned, confident and ethical, informed but not flouting. He is a rich character, as are the other principals, whose complexity gives the story its pleasing misdirection and color. Doughtie ably handles a number of strands—an increasingly ugly child dependency case, a crooked judge, rich folks ruining everything, a con man overstepping his moral boundaries and a surging romantic relationship between AC and caseworker—as he authentically engages the legal system. It is clear that Doughtie loves the legal profession, though he is not above teasing it: “Judge AC tried to exhibit the concerned expression of a person with hemorrhoids”; he revels in explaining courtroom minutiae with expository narrative that only feels forced when he takes it outside judicial business, as when detailing the con man’s tricks. Equal to, if not transcending, the legal aspects of the story is the love affair of AC and Vicky, sweetly and very physically presented, yet, thankfully, unlike the law, not minutely. Indeed, Doughtie keeps the tale quite everyday, avoiding the theatrical and extravagant, but allowing for him to give time pondering such elements as the Florida landscape that he loves as much as the law: turkey oaks and wiregrass, the rosemary bushes and tumbledown farms, the dozy inland river ways and the pencil factory that ate all the cedars. The final pages offer a dumbfounding surprise, and an emotional cliffhanger.

Doughtie has tendered an understated, sophisticated, revealing legal entertainment that leaves the reader wanting more.

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CROSSING CAINE’S ROAD

Hinton, Maggie Trafford (442 pp.) $27.26 paperback | January 30, 2007 ISBN: 978-1412098410 Love and second chances sprout like fragile desert wildflowers in this winsome romance.

With her husband in a coma for six years now, Melanie Greyson figures it’s time to start over, so she packs up and moves to the northern Arizona village of Buena Suerte to take a teaching job. Her three kids—especially 17-year-old daughter K.C, dragged away from her friends and trumpet lessons during her senior year— are not amused when they see the tiny burg and the flyblown trailer in which they’ll be living. The Greysons’ malaise lifts, though, when Jesse Cockran, the school’s new music teacher, complete with pony tail, piercing blue eyes, well-muscled frame and haunting trumpet technique, roars up on his Harley and moves in across the street. Soon Jesse is flirting up a storm with Melanie and inspiring K.C., who finds her dreamboat in football captain Cooke Nasby, a soulful if sometimes exasperating boy from the Apache reservation. As Melanie and K.C. plunge into their sometimes tender, sometimes testy romances—the one young and passionate, the other mature and much more passionate—readers will settle happily in with their engaging story, which the author tells with a good feel for the tingling excitement, awkward hesitancies and sudden abandon of new love. Alas, complications both external and internal threaten their bliss: K.C. and Cooke confront the minefield of sex, Jesse battles a hostile school board president and a junkie, harridan ex-wife, and Melanie finds herself torn between her raging attraction to Jesse and her loyalty to her husband—a dilemma made more agonizing by family pressure to pull the plug. In her first novel, Hinton strikes a nice balance between realism and melodrama. She writes a supple prose and populates her small but by no means insignificant town with vivid characters possessing rich, complex emotional lives. We can’t help rooting for Melanie and K.C. as they fight their way through the tug-of-war between desire and responsibility.

A fine debut, written with style and heart.

CHANGING THE CONVERSATION: Transformational Steps to Financial and Family Well-Being Klaben, Gary Navigator (304 pp.) | $24.95 October 1, 2010 ISBN: 978-0982800904

A refreshingly philosophical perspective on the real meaning of money and worth. |

If Klaben has set out to change the way the American consumer defines financial well-being, this book is an excellent foundation. While it is more concerned with philosophical or spiritual issues than with simply doling out financial advice— though Klaben is a financial adviser—the book is no less useful as a guide to gaining control over money. Klaben talks at length about “KASH,” which stands for Knowledge, Attitude, Skills and Habits. Most important in the formula is Attitude; the secret to successful achievement in anything, says the author, is “a consistent strong purpose and positive attitude.” The advice is clearly intended to guide the reader not just toward better financial control, but better control of his or her life. The author imparts a good deal of wisdom and urges the reader to write down goals as a way to “define our purpose and achieve our destination.” He implores readers to follow a moral compass because “doing the correct thing is what defines who we are.”

According to Klaben, sound financial decision-making follows three simple guidelines: sufficiency, sustainability and appropriateness. He speaks of having mentors, being a “chief,” making our own luck and keeping the focus on the simple. He says when it comes to challenges and setbacks, “Bad news does not define us. How we react to bad news is what defines us.” In the end, Klaben says, there are only three stages of life: learning, earning and yearning. “Mastering money,” says the author, “is a lifelong journey.” Those looking for an easy path to the selection of appropriate investments or extending one’s wealth through the retirement years will not find that here. But this book will provide a fresh way of viewing one’s own financial future. In fact, this is a book that may very well cause the reader to rethink his or her value system and redefine “worth.”

A thoughtful, engaging book with a lasting impact.

SIRENS’ SONGS: Livre D’Artiste Facsimile

Stevens, Elisabeth BrickHouse (88 pp.) $18.00 paperback | February 1, 2011 ISBN: 978-1935916031 A compact yet thematically and stylistically wide-ranging verse collection that contains lyrical and nuanced explorations of love, power, impermanence and aging.

The sea washes through this collection, not as a fixed symbol, but rather as something as capricious and mutable as life itself. Its currents may represent irresistible forces of attraction (“Siren’s Song”); its depths, the generative source of life (“The Mermaid’s Tale”); its tides, the vicissitudes of aging (“I’d Hate to See My Love Grow Old”); and its unyielding forces, a threat to reclaim what it has birthed (“The Sea Dance,” “First Marriage”). Out of fear, love or simply wonder these narrators hold fast to the sight of the sea, by turns flailing to escape its currents or submersing themselves in its solemn, primordial metaphors. Not surprisingly for a volume drenched in superlatively feminine associations, these poems have much to say

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k i r ku s q & a w i t h f r e d r i c m a f f e i

Divinely Smitten

Fredric Maffei CreateSpace $12.95 paperback November 2009 978-1449577360

K i rk us M e di a L L C # President M A RC W I N K E L M A N SVP, Finance J ames H ull SVP, Marketing M ike H ejny SVP, Online Paul H o f f man #

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at 15, boozing it up with a couple of friends at Sugar Hill, that tiniest of jazz clubs in Newark, New Jersey.

And joining us at our table between sets, the lovely Billie Holiday. There’s always a sigh after that particular memory, to have been so honored. But even so, the “memoir” stands. It’s in the between-lines of everything I write. But good luck ferreting me out. I doubt even I could do it.

Q: With two of your books, And of the Holy Ghost and Divinely Smitten, religion, spirituality and magic realism feature prominently. What interests you about those topics?

Q: Do you have a writing routine?

A: I’m a desperately unhappy camper between books.

But when I’m really latched on, I wake in the wee small and generally don’t quit till I’ve got my 1,000 words or so.

A: The big question first? Before I’ve even had a chance to warm up? But I do think it goes a lot further than mere interest—that each of us is obliged, finally, to somehow place him- or herself in the grand scheme of things. I mean, until we do that—figure out the nature of that fine little silken strand we’re hanging from—nothing makes any sense. And while I’m hanging from that same strand just like everyone else, as a writer I try to play with it as interestingly and provocatively as I can, reeling it in here, letting it out there. Maybe even attach a yoyo to the thing, ratchet it down a notch from the dire seriousness of it all, Christ help us… or Buddha… or somebody!

Q: What drives you to write?

A: I warn you, I’m about to lose all brevity. It didn’t start out as writing at all. It started out as a 4-yearold’s surviving with the help of his “friends,” such imaginary characters as he was hard at work creating and interacting with. See, maudlin already. But then I’m still doing it, even at 4 plus 66. You’d think I’d have found a different tack to take by now, wouldn’t you? Now, of course, I’ve evolved a whole other batch of reasons to write. I’ve set aside childish things.

Sometimes I write in order to stave off such alternate fates as I’ve sensed in store for myself. And of the Holy Ghost does that for me. But more often, I view the novel as the great testing ground for whatever could, should or might come next. And what could be more relevant than that?

Q: Your book about Hollywood, All the Little Sparrows, seems very well informed of how showbiz operates. Do you have some personal experience there?

A: Actually, it couldn’t be more impersonal, which is to say all secondhand. But I was hooked from that first Disney film. Later, there was that quite impressive stack of screenplays I’d written, letters sent, rejections received… and that I lived in Hollywood far too many years… and that I once passed Kirk Douglas going one way on the sidewalk while I was going the other. I’m sorry, but all this feels like a terrible flashback that I’m almost but not quite certain happened to someone else.

Q: Does the flute player on the cover of And of the Holy Ghost have anything to do with your e-mail address “flutesby…”?

A: Yes, I’m a flutist, or flautist, as they say in France.

Incidentally, the naked flutist on the cover is me, but I don’t tell anyone. I figured if I was going to bare my soul in my books, why draw the line?

Q: Of all your books, do you have a favorite?

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your path to self-publishing?

A: Curious, but I almost don’t want to say which, for fear the others might hear. But I’ve got to lean most heavily toward my Divinely Smitten. For its taking on more than the others.

A: I’d already had a novel commercially published.

But by then I’d lost all patience and hated the whole incredible game of it. My fellow self-publishers know exactly what game I’m talking about. Wonderfully freeing, no longer having to wag one’s tail to please.

Wonderful, letting a book be the book it is without having to first pass some bottom-liner’s muster.

There only remains to do what it is we writers do, which is to write. Life is good.

Q: Your biography on your Amazon page is really interesting. Any plans for a memoir?

A: I don’t think I could write about myself directly.

It’d be too maudlin, too angry, too boring, and I’d have to delve too deeply into such broken bits as I’m trying to fix. One thing I’d put in, though: that shiny black-haired boy that I was, a professional musician |

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P h oto c o u rt esy o f F re d ric Ma f f e i

Copyright 2011 by Kirkus Media LLC. KIRKUS REVIEWS (ISSN 0042 6598) is published semimonthly by Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Road, Austin, TX 78744.

Subscription prices are $169 for professionals ($199 International) and $129 ($169 International) for individual consumers (home address required). Single copy: $25.00. All other rates on request.

Fredric Maffei was a professional musician at 15, served four years in the Navy during the Vietnam War and lived in Hollywood for far too long.

These varied experiences work their way into his novels, four of which have received strong reviews from Kirkus, largely because of their sly humor, welldrawn characters and social acuity. Here, he talks to us about his work and the writing life.

about gender issues and the burdens and triumphs of femininity. There are unabashed celebrations of sexuality, such as in “Doughnut Man,” which conflates several sensory pleasures, and even frightening glimpses of a woman who kills dispassionately the man she loves in “The Crime.” But there are also threats to the female body and psyche as in “First Marriage” where the narrator flatly acknowledges that “He fucks to kill,” or in “Mustache Man” in which the narrator “couldn’t stop laughing / until one man walked right through me, / followed by another, and another. / Then, as the tide rose and the sun sank, / they trampled me into the dark, wet sand.” In exploring the crimes perpetuated on the female body and heart, Stevens (Ragbag, 2010) occasionally resembles Sharon Olds, though without the sustained brutality and conceptual density. While the poems suggest a world of both empowered and victimized women, where the men are as likely to be the sirens as not (“The Steel Pier”), her accompanying illustrations, simple line sketches, tend to portray women in almost comically erotic terms, but always with a hint of elemental wildness to them, suggesting that they can never be victimized for long.

A triumphant and eloquent collection that never shies away from the emotional and intellectual entanglements of love and lust, connection and manipulation, the momentary and the eternal.

Philip K. Dick’s blood flowing through his veins—it only adds to the richness and variety of his developing oeuvre.

This range notwithstanding, Townsend knows the value of mining the single moment, and many of his best stories feature lush descriptions of a simple meal or an intimate conversation. Further, he has a flair for writing believable dialogue that reveals, among other things, that the gay Mormon experience is simply another aspect of the human experience.

Mormon literature with a universal appeal.

MORMON FAIRY TALES

Townsend, Johnny Booklocker.com (318 pp.) $17.95 paperback | January 1, 2011 ISBN: 978-1609105945 Townsend writes gorgeous, intimate tales from the edges of one of the fastest-growing religions in the world.

The best thing you can say about Townsend’s collection of short stories is that, after reading it, you can’t tell if Townsend is a Mormon. While his many touching vignettes draw deeply from Mormon mythology, history, spirituality and culture, his book is neither a gaudy act of proselytism nor angry protest literature from an ex-believer. Like all good fiction, his stories are simply about the joys, the hopes and the sorrows of people—and here, many of those people just happen to be Mormons. Townsend’s status as a Mormon could be best described as a gay ex-Mormon who still associates himself with the traditions of his youth. The author reflects on his complicated faith by creating characters that, like him, dwell on the borders of the Mormon community—a nonbeliever stuck in purgatory, a young Mormon ready to shirk his missionary responsibilities, a gay contemporary of Brigham Young uneasy about taking a fourth wife. Townsend’s genrebending tales span geography, space and time, taking us from 19th-century Salt Lake City to late-21st century Kansas City, or from “Spirit Prison” to the U.N. where an alien has just arrived to explain that God does really live on the planet Kolob. For a lesser writer, this challenging range would press fiction into absurdity. But for Townsend—who has a bit of |

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