Posts tagged ‘new book releases’
New to Titcomb’s – Week of April 4th
Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman ($24.00; our price: $19.20) – staff pick by Karen! In 2005, celebrated novelist Goldman married a beautiful young writer named Aura Estrada in a romantic Mexican hacienda. The month before their second anniversary, Aura broke her neck while body surfing. Francisco, blamed for Aura’s death by her family and blaming himself, wanted to die, too. Instead, he wrote “Say Her Name,” a novel chronicling his great love and unspeakable loss.
Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer ($24.95; our price: $19.96) - staff pick by Karen! From the bestselling author of Songs Without Words and The Dive from Clausen’s Pier comes her strongest work yet–a collection of burnished, impossible-to-put down narratives framed by two stunning, linked novellas.
Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin ($24.95; our price: $19.96) A million-plus-copy bestseller in South Korea and poised to become an international sensation, Please Look After Mom is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, and of the desires, heartaches, and secrets they discover she harbored within.
Once Upon a Time, There Was You by Elizabeth Berg ($26.00; our price: $20.80) A beautiful story about the power of love and family, this new novel by the beloved, bestselling author of The Last Time I Saw You follows the journey of a couple who meet again after their divorce.
The Love of My Youth by Mary Gordon ($25.95; our price: $20.76) Beloved author Gorden pens a beautifully choreographed novel about first lovers meeting again after more than 30 years, walking the streets of Rome and reimmersing themselves in their lost past.
A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS by Jennet Conant ($28.00) Bestselling author Jenny Conant presents a stunning account of Paul and JuliaChild’s early lives as OSS agents in the Far East.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett ($16.00)- now in paperback! In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the civil rights movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way women–black and white, mothers and daughters–view one another.
Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay ($14.99)- now in paperback! When Nina Revskaya puts her remarkable jewelry collection up for auction, the former Bolshoi Ballet star finds herself overwhelmed by memories of her homeland, and of the events, both glorious and heartbreaking, that changed her life half a century earlier. It was in Russia that she discovered the magic of dance and fell in love, and where, faced with Stalinist aggression, a terrible discovery incited a deadly act of betrayal–and an ingenious escape to the West.
Ape House by Sara Gruen ($15.00)- now in paperback! From the author of the bestselling Water for Elephants comes the story of a family of bonobo apes violently kidnapped from their laboratory by animal liberation activists and placed on a reality TV show.
A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff ($15.00) – now in paperback! Digging for finds in attics and wardrobes, Phoebe knows that when she buys a piece of vintage clothing, she’s not just buying fabric and thread–she’s buying a piece of someone’s past. But one particular article of clothing will soon unexpectedly change her life.
Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell ($15.00) – now in paperback! Struggling artist Claude Monet’s life was irrevocably changed when he met the beautiful and mysterious Camille Doucieux. Through years of painting, misunderstanding, and love, they carve out a life together, but can Camille ever escape her past?
New to Titcomb’s – Week of March 28th
The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell ($26.95; our price: $21.56) On a winter day in 2008, Hakan von Enke, a retired high-ranking naval officer, vanishes during his daily walk in a forest near Stockholm. The investigation into his disappearance falls under the jurisdiction of the Stockholm police. It has nothing to do with Wallander–officially. But von Enke is his daughter’s future father-in-law. And so, with his inimitable disregard for normal procedure, Wallander is soon interfering in matters that are not his responsibility, making promises he won’t keep, telling lies when it suits him–and getting results. But the results hint at elaborate Cold War espionage activities that seem inextricably confounding, even to Wallander, who, in any case, is troubled in more personal ways as well. Negligent of his health, he’s become convinced that, having turned sixty, he is on the threshold of senility. Desperate to live up to the hope that a new granddaughter represents, he is continually haunted by his past. And looking toward the future with profound uncertainty, he will have no choice but to come face-to-face with his most intractable adversary: himself.
Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation by Andrea Wulf ($30.00) For the founding fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating. Andrea Wulf reveals for the first time this aspect of the revolutionary generation. She describes how, even as British ships gathered off Staten Island, George Washington wrote his estate manager about the garden at Mount Vernon; how a tour of English gardens renewed Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’s faith in their fledgling nation; how a trip to the great botanist John Bartram’s garden helped the delegates of the Constitutional Congress break their deadlock; and why James Madison is the forgotten father of American environmentalism. These and other stories reveal a guiding but previously overlooked ideology of the American Revolution.
The Land of Painted Caves by Jean Auel ($30.00; our price: $24.00) The highly anticipated sixth book of Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children(R) series, The Land of Painted Caves, is the culmination fans have been waiting for. Continuing the story of Ayla and Jondalar, Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable re-creation of the way life was lived more than 25,000 years ago. The Land of Painted Caves is an exquisite achievement by one of the world’s most beloved authors.
The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted by Bridget Asher (paperback original: $15.00) Brokenhearted and still mourning the loss of her husband, Heidi travels with Abbott, her obsessive-compulsive seven-year-old son, and Charlotte, her jaded sixteen-year-old niece, to the small village of Puyloubier in the south of France, where a crumbling stone house may be responsible for mending hearts since before World War II. There, Charlotte confesses a shocking secret, and Heidi learns the truth about her mother’s “lost summer” when Heidi was a child. As three generations collide with one another, with the neighbor who seems to know all of their family skeletons, and with an enigmatic Frenchman, Heidi, Charlotte, and Abbot journey through love, loss, and healing amid the vineyards, warm winds and delicious food of Provence. Can the magic of the house heal Heidi’s heart, too?
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall (now in paperback – $15.95) An epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? Isolated by Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run hundreds of miles without rest or injury. In a riveting narrative, award-winning journalist and often-injured runner Christopher McDougall sets out to discover their secrets. In the process, he takes his readers from science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultra-runners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to a climactic race in the Copper Canyons that pits America’s best ultra-runners against the tribe. McDougall’s incredible story will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.
My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira (now in paperback – $15.00) Mary Sutter is a brilliant young midwife who dreams of becoming a surgeon. Eager to run away from recent heartbreak, Mary travels to Washington, D.C., to help tend the legions of Civil War wounded. Under the guidance of two surgeons, who both fall unwittingly in love with her, and resisting her mother’s pleas to return home to help with the difficult birth of her twin sister’s baby, Mary pursues her medical career against all odds. Rich with historical detail-including cameo appearances by Abraham Lincoln and Dorothea Dix, among others- My Name Is Mary Sutter is certain to be recognized as one of the great novels about the Civil War.
New to Titcomb’s – Week of March 21st
Night Road by Kristin Hannah ($27.99; our price: $22.39)
For eighteen years, Jude Farraday has put her children’s needs above her own, and it shows–her twins, Mia and Zach–are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude. Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia’s best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable.
Jude does everything to keep her kids on track for college and out of harm’s way. It has always been easy– until senior year of high school. Suddenly she is at a loss. Nothing feels safe anymore; every time her kids leave the house, she worries about them.
On a hot summer’s night her worst fears come true. One decision will change the course of their lives. In the blink of an eye, the Farraday family will be torn apart and Lexi will lose everything. In the years that follow, each must face the consequences of that single night and find a way to forget…or the courage to forgive.
Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell ($25.95)
From the bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates, an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn.
Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight.
Every Last One by Anna Quindlen (now in paperback! $15.00)
Mary Beth Latham has built her life around her family, around caring for her three teenage children and preserving the rituals of their daily life. When one of her sons becomes depressed, Mary Beth focuses on him, only to be blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterward is a testament to the power of a woman’s love and determination, and to the invisible lines of hope and healing that connect one human being to another. Ultimately, as rendered in Anna Quindlen’s mesmerizing prose, Every Last One is a novel about facing every last one of the things we fear the most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel.
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Eagan (now in paperback! $14.95)
One of the Best Books of the Year: Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The Daily Beast, The Miami Herald, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Newsday, NPR’s On Point, O, the Oprah Magazine, People, Publishers Weekly, Salon, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, Slate, Time, The Washington Post, and Village Voice
Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.
The Four Ms. Bradwells by Meg Waite Clayton ($25.00; our price: $20.00)
Meg Waite Clayton’s national bestseller “The Wednesday Sisters” was a word-of-mouth sensation and book club favorite. Now the beloved author is back with a page-turning novel that explores the secrets we keep, even from those closest to us, and celebrates the enduring power of friendship.
Mia, Laney, Betts, and Ginger, best friends since law school, have reunited for a long weekend as Betts awaits Senate confirmation of her appointment to the Supreme Court. Nicknamed “the Ms. Bradwells” during their first class at the University of Michigan Law School in 1979–when only three women had ever served full Senate terms and none had been appointed to the Court–the four have supported one another through life’s challenges: marriages and divorces, births and deaths, career setbacks and triumphs large and small. Betts was, and still is, the Funny One. Ginger, the Rebel. Laney, the Good Girl. And Mia, the Savant.
But when the Senate hearings uncover a deeply buried skeleton in the friends’ collective closet, the Ms. Bradwells retreat to a summer house on the Chesapeake Bay, where they find themselves reliving a much darker period in their past–one that stirs up secrets they’ve kept for, and from, one another, and could change their lives forever.
A Lesson In Secrets: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear ($25.99; our price: $20.79)
Maisie Dobbs’ first assignment for the British Secret Service takes her undercover to Cambridge as a professor–and leads to the investigation of a web of activities being conducted by the emerging Nazi Party.
As the storm clouds of World War II gather on the horizon, this pivotal chapter in the life of Maisie Dobbs foreshadows new challenges and powerful enemies facing the psychologist and investigator–and will engage new readers and loyal fans of this “outstanding” series (Marilyn Stasio, “New York Times Book Review”).
Live Wire by Harlan Coben ($27.95; our price: $22.36)
When former tennis star Suzze T and her rock star husband, Lex, encounter an anonymous Facebook post questioning the paternity of their unborn child, Lex runs off, and Suzze – at eight months pregnant – asks Myron to save her marriage, and perhaps her husband’s life. But when he finds Lex, he also finds someone he wasn’t looking for: his sister-in-law, Kitty, who along with Myron’s brother abandoned the Bolitar family long ago.
As Myron races to locate his missing brother while their father clings to life, he must face the lies that led to the estrangement – including the ones told by Myron himself. If we thought we knew Myron Bolitar, Coben now proves we didn’t. An electric, stay-up-all night thriller that unfolds at a breakneck pace, Live Wire proves that Harlan Coben still has the ability to shock us anew.
Jersualem, Jersualem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World by James Carroll ($28.00)
James Carroll’s urgent, masterly Jerusalem, Jerusalem uncovers the ways in which the ancient city became, unlike any other in the world–reaching deep into our contemporary lives–an incendiary fantasy of a city.
In Carroll’s provocative reading of the deep past, the Bible’s brutality responded to the violence that threatened Jerusalem from the start. Centuries later, the mounting European fixation on a heavenly Jerusalem sparked both anti-Semitism and racist colonial contempt. The holy wars of the Knights Templar burned apocalyptic mayhem into the Western mind. Carroll’s brilliant and original leap is to show how, as Christopher Columbus carried his own Jerusalemcentric worldview to the West, America too was powerfully shaped by the dream of the City on a Hill–from Governor Winthrop to Abraham Lincoln to Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan. The nuclear brinksmanship of the 1973 Yom Kippur War helps prove his point: religion and violence fuel each other, with Jerusalem the ground zero of the heat.
Hellhound on His Trail: The Electrifying Account of the Largest Manhunt in American History by Hampton Sides (now in paperback! $15.95)
From the acclaimed bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder, a taut, intense narrative about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the largest manhunt in American history.
With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel when the drifter catches up with his prey. Against the backdrop of the resulting nationwide riots and the pathos of King’s funeral, Sides gives us a riveting cross-cut narrative of the assassin’s flight and the sixty-five-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England—a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover’s FBI.
New to Titcomb’s – Week of March 14th
Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy ($26.95; our price: $21.56)
Maeve Binchy is back with a tale of joy, heartbreak and hope, about a motherless girl collectively raised by a close-knit Dublin community.
When Noel learns that his terminally ill former flame is pregnant with his child, he agrees to take guardianship of the baby girl once she’s born. But as a single father battling demons of his own, Noel can’t do it alone.
Fortunately, he has a competent, caring network of friends, family and neighbors: Lisa, his unlucky-in-love classmate, who moves in with him to help him care for little Frankie around the clock; his American cousin, Emily, always there with a pep talk; the newly retired Dr. Hat, with more time on his hands than he knows what to do with; Dr. Declan and Fiona and their baby son, Frankie’s first friend; and many eager babysitters, including old friends Signora and Aidan and Frankie’s doting grandparents, Josie and Charles.
But not everyone is pleased with the unconventional arrangement, especially a nosy social worker, Moira, who is convinced that Frankie would be better off in a foster home. Now it’s up to Noel to persuade her that everyone in town has something special to offer when it comes to minding Frankie.
So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman ($25.00; our price: $20.00)
When she disappeared from her rural hometown, Wendy White was a sweet, family-oriented girl, a late bloomer who’d recently moved out on her own, with her first real boyfriend and a job waiting tables at the local tavern. It happens all the time–a woman goes missing, a family mourns, and the case remains unsolved. Stacy Flynn is a reporter looking for her big break. She moved east from Cleveland, a city known for its violent crime, but that’s the last thing she expected to cover in Haeden. This small, upstate New York town counts a dairy farm as its main employer and is home to families who’ve set down roots and never left–people who don’t take kindly to outsiders. Flynn is researching the environmental impact of the dairy, and the way money flows outward like the chemical runoff, eventually poisoning those who live at the edges of its reach.
Five months after she disappeared, Wendy’s body is found in a ditch just off one of Haeden’s main roads. Suddenly, Flynn has a big story, but no one wants to talk to her. No one seems to think that Wendy’s killer could still be among them. A drifter, they say. Someone “not from here.”
Fifteen-year-old Alice Piper is an imaginative student with a genius IQ and strong ideals. The precocious, confident girl has stood out in Haeden since the day her eccentric hippie parents moved there from New York City, seeking a better life for their only child. When Alice reads Flynn’s passionate article in the Haeden “Free Press “about violence against women–about the staggering number of women who are killed each day by people they know–she begins to connect the dots of Wendy’s disappearance and death, leading her to make a choice: join the rest in turning a blind eye, or risk getting involved. As Flynn and Alice separately observe the locals’ failure to acknowledge a murderer in their midst, Alice’s fate is forever entwined with Wendy’s when a second crime rocks the town to its core.
Stylishly written, closely observed, and bracingly unexpected, So Much Pretty leads the reader into the treacherous psychology of denial, where the details of an event are already known, deeply and intuitively felt, but not yet admitted to, reconciled or revealed.
Beyonders by Brandon Mull ($19.99)
Jason Walker falls through a tunnel at the zoo and ends up in a new, utterly foreign world, a world with no heroes and no hope. Jason finds himself faced with the prospect of becoming the hero he never imagined he could be.
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (now in paperback – $15.00)
A brilliant novel that captures the dusty, dark, and beautiful world of small-time horse racing, where trainers, jockeys, grooms and grifters vie for what little luck is offered at a run-down West Virginia track .
Tommy Hansel has a plan: run four horses, all better than they look on paper, at long odds at Indian Mound Downs, then grab the purse — or cash a bet — and run before anyone’s the wiser. At his side is Maggie Koderer, who finds herself powerfully drawn to the gorgeous, used up animals of the cheap track. She also lands in the cross-hairs of leading trainer Joe Dale Bigg. But as news of Tommy’s plan spreads, from veteran groom Medicine Ed, to loan shark Two-Tie, to Kidstuff the blacksmith, it’s Maggie, not Tommy or the handlers of legendary stakes horse Lord of Misrule, who will find what’s valuable in a world where everything has a price.
Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life by Frances Mayes (now in paperback – $15.00)
In this sequel to her New York Times bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany, Mayes lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-longlove affair with Tuscany’s people, art, cuisine, and lifestyle.
This Week’s New Releases – March 7th
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht ($25.00; our price: $20.00) staff pick by Shuchi!
Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, , the youngest of The New Yorker’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation.
In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.
But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.
The Informationist: A Thriller by Taylor Stevens ($23.00; our price: $18.40)
Vanessa “Michael” Munroe deals in information—expensive information—working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe took up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. As his protégé, she earned the respect of the jungle’s most dangerous men, cultivating her own reputation for years until something sent her running. After almost a decade building a new life and lucrative career from her home base in Dallas, she’s never looked back.
Until now.
A Texas oil billionaire has hired her to find his daughter who vanished in Africa four years ago. It’s not her usual line of work, but she can’t resist the challenge. Pulled deep into the mystery of the missing girl, Munroe finds herself back in the lands of her childhood, betrayed, cut off from civilization, and left for dead. If she has any hope of escaping the jungle and the demons that drive her, she must come face-to-face with the past that she’s tried for so long to forget.
Gripping, ingenious, and impeccably paced, The Informationist marks the arrival or a thrilling new talent.
The Wise Man’s Fear (Kingkiller Chronicles #2) by Patrick Rothfuss ($29.95; our price: $23.96)
“My name is Kvothe. I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me… ” So begins the tale of a hero told from his own point of view—a story unequalled in fantasy literature. .
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot – now in paperback ($16.00) staff pick by Karen!
Acclaimed author Skloot brilliantly weaves together the story of Henrietta Lacks–a woman whose cells have been unwittingly used for scientific research since the 1950s–with the birth of bioethics, and the dark history of experimentation on African Americans.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell – now in paperback ($15.00)
One of TIME magazine’s most influential novelists in the world presents a bold and epic novel about a rarely visited point in history–18th-century Japan–in a work as exquisitely rendered as it is irresistibly readable.
Solar by Ian McEwan – now in paperback ($15.00)
Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity? A complex novel that brilliantly traces the arc of one man’s ambitions and deceptions, Solar is a startling, witty new work from the author of Atonement.
The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell - now in paperback ($15.00)
The acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries gives readers an electrifying thriller that takes off into a sweeping international drama. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjovallen, 19 people have been massacred–and the only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene.
The Information Officer by Mark Mills – now in paperback ($15.00)
Filled with remarkably poignant and atmospheric details of life under siege, and indelible characters who live and breathe, The Information Officer is a taut, transporting thriller–an enthralling novel told with exceptional skill and style.
This Week’s New Releases – February 21st
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain ($25.00; our price: $20.00) - staff pick!
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness–until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group–the fabled “Lost Generation”–that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage–a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.
A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.
Against All Odds: My Life Of Hardship, Fast Breaks, and Second Chances by Scott Brown ($27.99)
Scott Brown’s greatest win did not occur on a cold January election night in 2010 when he came from behind to capture the U.S. Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for nearly fifty years. It began when he survived a savage beating at the drunken, dirty-fingernail hands of a stepfather when he was barely six years old, while trying to protect his mother.
In this gripping memoir of resilience and redemption, Brown tells the story of his difficult, often nomadic childhood, shunted from house to apartment, and town to town, seventeen times over his first eighteen years. He somehow thrived despite a largely absent father, who married four separate times. So did his mother, in relationships frequently stained with alcohol, anger, and even violence. For nearly two decades’ growing up, Brown endured innumerable hardships and challenges, even stealing food to eat. He was periodically sent off to live with relatives, his possessions wrapped in a few old blankets. Saved by basketball, he was the boy who shoveled snow from the public courts to shoot hoops alone in the frozen cold.
With clear-eyed conviction and unflinching can-dor, Brown tells the story of his own bad-boy days, of the coaches who mentored him, and of how he found a way out of familial chaos through the swish of a ball in the net, winning a starting slot on the Tufts varsity basketball team as a freshman player and becoming the tenth-highest scorer to graduate in the school’s history. His rise from there was even more improbable: a first-year law student and member of the Massachusetts National Guard, he was picked as “Cosmopolitan” magazine’s “America’s Sexiest Man” and was vaulted into the glamorous world of New York modeling at the height of the 1980s. But the man who was once ushered into the backrooms of Studio 54 returned to Massachusetts to continue with his military and legal training, settle down, raise a family, and soon found an unlikely path that would lead him to national political stardom. Here, too, are the secrets from the unprecedented Senate race that captured the country’s imagination and how Scott Brown won his remarkable victory.
The Heights by Peter Hedges ($15.00)
A “devilishly delightful” (“Bookpage”) new novel from an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and the author of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
Tim and Kate Welch are seemingly the last middle-class family in the exclusive neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, NewYork. Tim is a popular history teacher, and an ordinary guy. Kate is not ordinary, but she aspires to be. Brought up by a hippie mother, Kate stays home with their two young sons trying to be the responsible parent she never had. But their neat and tidy world is turned upside down when Anna Brody- beautiful, wealthy, and impulsive-moves into the most expensive brownstone in Brooklyn, and draws Kate and Tim into her world.
The Sea Captain’s Wife by Beth Powning ($15.00) – now in paperback
A gripping novel of love and adventure on the high seas that introduces an unforgettable young heroine.
Growing up on the Bay of Fundy in the 1860s, Azuba Galloway is determined to escape the confines of her town and live at sea. When she captures the heart of Captain Nathaniel Bradstock, she is sure her dreams are about to be realized, only to have pregnancy intervene. But when Azuba becomes embroiled in a scandal, Nathaniel must bring his young family abroad to save his reputation. Azuba gets her wish, but at what price?
Alone in a male world, and juggling the splendor of foreign ports with the terror of the open seas, Azuba must fight to keep her family together. Blending the high-tension drama of missed chances and unexpected twists of the sort that made A Reliable Wife a bestseller with the pluck and spirit of a heroine in the vein of Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Sea Captain’s Wife will captivate readers and critics alike.
The Silent Sea by Clive Cussler ($9.99) – now in paperback
Clive Cussler’s tales of the Oregon and its crew-”the clever, indefatigable Juan Cabrillo and his merry band of tough, tech-savvy fighting men and women” (“Publishers Weekly”)-have made fans of hundreds of thousands of readers. But the Oregon’s sixth adventure is its most remarkable one yet.
On December 7, 1941, five brothers exploring a shaft on a small island off the coast of Washington State make an extraordinary discovery, only to be interrupted by news of Pearl Harbor. In the present, Cabrillo, chasing the remnants of a crashed satellite in the Argentine jungle, stumbles upon a shocking revelation of his own. His search to untangle the mystery leads him, first, to that small island and its secret, and then much farther back, to an ancient Chinese expedition-and a curse that seems to have survived for more than five hundred years. If Cabrillo’s team is successful in its quest, the reward could be incalculable. If not . . . the only reward is death.
Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel ($14.00) – now in paperback
When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled further into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey–named Beatrice and Virgil — and the epic journey they undertake together. With all the spirit and originality that made Life of Pi so beloved, this brilliant new novel takes the reader on a haunting odyssey. On the way Martel asks profound questions about life and art, truth and deception, responsibility and complicity.
Exposed by Kimberly Marcus ($16.99)
Sixteen-year-old Liz is Photogirl—sharp, focused and confident in what she sees through her camera lens. Confident that she and Kate will be best friends forever.
But everything changes in one blurry night. Suddenly, Kate is avoiding her, and people are looking the other way when she passes in the halls. As the aftershocks from a startling accusation rip through Liz’s world, everything she thought she knew about photography, family, friendship and herself shifts out of focus. What happens when the picture you see no longer makes sense? What do you do when you may lose everything you love most? Told in stunning, searingly raw free verse, Exposed is Kimberly Marcus’s gut-wrenching, riveting debut and will appeal to fans of Ellen Hopkins, Laurie Halse Anderson and Virginia Euwer Wolff.
Batboy by Mike Lupica ($7.99) – now in paperback
Brian is living every baseball kid’s dream: he is a batboy for his hometown Major League team. Brian believes that it’s the perfect thing to bring him and his big-leaguer dad closer together. And if that werenAt enough, this is the season that Hank Bishop, BrianAs baseball hero, returns to the Tigers for the comeback of a lifetime. The summer couldn’t get much better! Until Hank Bishop starts to show his true colors, and Brian learns that sometimes life throws you a curveball.
New to Titcomb’s – Week of February 14th
Jackie As Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Greg Lawrence ($25.99)
At the age of forty-six, one of the most famous women in the world went to work for the first time in twenty-two years. Greg Lawrence, who had three of his books edited by Jackie, draws from interviews with more than 125 of her former collaborators and acquaintances in the publishing world to examine one of the twentieth century’s most enduring subjects of fascination through a new angle: her previously untouted skill in the career she chose. Over the last third of her life, Jackie would master a new industry, weather a very public professional scandal, and shepherd more than a hundred books through the increasingly corporate halls of Viking and Doubleday, publishing authors as diverse as Diana Vreeland, Louis Auchincloss, George Plimpton, Bill Moyers, Dorothy West, Naguib Mahfouz, and even Michael Jackson. Jackie as Editor gives intimate new insights into the life of a complex and enigmatic woman who found fulfillment through her creative career during book publishing’s legendary Golden Age, and, away from the public eye, quietly defined life on her own terms.
A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley ($23.00; our price: $18.40)
Award-winning author Alan Bradley returns with another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce. The precocious chemist with a passion for poisons uncovers a fresh slew of misdeeds in the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey—mysteries involving a missing tot, a fortune-teller, and a corpse in Flavia’s own backyard.
Flavia had asked the old Gypsy woman to tell her fortune, but never expected to stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned in the wee hours in her own caravan. Was this an act of retribution by those convinced that the soothsayer had abducted a local child years ago? Certainly Flavia understands the bliss of settling scores; revenge is a delightful pastime when one has two odious older sisters. But how could this crime be connected to the missing baby? Had it something to do with the weird sect who met at the river to practice their secret rites? While still pondering the possibilities, Flavia stumbles upon another corpse—that of a notorious layabout who had been caught prowling about the de Luce’s drawing room.
Pedaling Gladys, her faithful bicycle, across the countryside in search of clues to both crimes, Flavia uncovers some odd new twists. Most intriguing is her introduction to an elegant artist with a very special object in her possession—a portrait that sheds light on the biggest mystery of all: Who is Flavia?
As the red herrings pile up, Flavia must sort through clues fishy and foul to untangle dark deeds and dangerous secrets.
Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III ($25.95)
After their parents divorced in the 1970s, Andre Dubus III and his three siblings grew up with their exhausted working mother in a depressed Massachusetts mill town saturated with drugs and crime. To protect himself and those he loved from street violence, Andre learned to use his fists so well that he was even scared of himself. He was on a fast track to getting killed or killing someone else. He signed on as a boxer.Nearby, his father, an eminent author, taught on a college campus and took the kids out on Sundays. The clash of worlds couldn t have been more stark or more difficult for a son to communicate to a father. Only by becoming a writer himself could Andre begin to bridge the abyss and save himself. His memoir is a riveting, visceral, profound meditation on physical violence and the failures and triumphs of love.
Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and Fall – From America’s Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness by Frank Brad ($25.99)
From an author who wrote one of the bestselling Bobby Fischer books ever and who was himself a friend of Fischer’s comes an impressively researched biography that for the first time captures the complete, remarkable arc of the life of the chess master.
Being Polite to Hitler by Robb Forman Dew ($24.99; our price: $19.99)
After teaching and raising her family for most of her life, Agnes Scofield realizes that she is truly weary of the routine her life has become. But how, at 51, can she establish an identity apart from what has so long defined her?
Often eloquent, sometimes blunt, and always full of fire, The Scofield clan is not a family that keeps its opinions to itself. As much as she’d like to, Agnes can no more deflect their adamant advice than she can step down as their matriarch. And despite her newfound freedom, Agnes finds herself becoming even more entangled in the family web. She shepherds her daughter-in-law, Lavinia, who moves in with her own two daughters to escape her husband’s drinking. She puts out fires, smoothes fraying nerves, and, stunned as anyone, receives a marriage proposal. Having expected her life to become smaller, Agnes is amazed to see it grow instead.
Robb Forman Dew intricately weaves together personal and family life into a richly wrought tapestry of the country in the 1950s and beyond. Being Polite to Hitler is a moving, frank, and surprising portrait of post-World War II America.
Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt ($24.00; our price: $19.20) – staff pick by Karen!
Safe from the Neighbors by Steve Yarborough (now in paperback – $15.00)
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd (now in paperback – $15.99)William Boyd’s electrifying follow-up to the Costa Award-winning Restless, Ordinary Thunderstorms is a profound and gripping novel about the fragility of social identity, the corruption at the heart of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the seamy underbelly of every city.
Roses by Leila Meacham (now in paperback – $13.99)
Spanning the 20th century, the story of Roses takes place in a small East Texas town against the backdrop of the powerful timber and cotton industries, industries controlled by the scions of the town’s founding families. Cotton tycoon Mary Toliver and timber magnate Percy Warwick should have married but unwisely did not, and now must deal with the deceit, secrets, and tragedies of their choice and the loss of what might have been–not just for themselves but for their children, and children’s children. With expert, unabashed, big-canvas storytelling, Roses covers a hundred years, three generations of Texans and the explosive combination of passion for work and longing for love.
The Infinities by John Banville (now in paperback – $15.00)
On a languid midsummer’s day in the countryside, the Godley family gathers at the bedside of Adam, a renowned mathematician and their patriarch. But they are not alone in their vigil. Around them hovers a clan of mischievous immortals–Zeus, Pan, and Hermes among them –who begin to stir up trouble for the Godleys, to sometimes wildly unintended effect. The Infinities–John Banville’s first novel since his Booker Prize-winning and bestselling The Sea –is at once a gloriously earthy romp and a wise look at the terrible, wonderful plight of being human.
Think Twice by Lisa Scottoline (now in paperback – $14.99)
A New York Times-bestseller. Unbeknownst to her identical twin Bennie Rosato, Alice Connelly is on the run from her drug-dealing confederates who are trying to kill her. Alice sees only one way out–to become Bennie. Now Bennie must prove who she really is, while Alice ruins her life.
New to Titcomb’s – Hardcover Edition
Picture Books
Three Hens and a Peacock by Lester L. Laminack, illustrated by Henry Cole ($15.95)
When life on the Tucker farm is disrupted by the arrival of a peacock, whose shrieking and strutting bring many welcome visitors, the hens complain that they are doing all of the work until the hound suggests a trade.
Little White Rabbit authored and illustrated by Kevin Henkes ($16.99)
In the newest picture book from bestselling Caldecott Medalist Henkes, a curious young rabbit hops through the wide world before finally ending up safe at home. Full color.
Just In Time, Abraham Lincoln by Patricia Polacco ($17.99)
Michael and Derek don’t expect the adventure of a lifetime visiting a Civil War museum with their grandmother. But the mysterious museum keeper invites them to play a game, and before they know it, they’re walking through a door straight into a very realistic depiction of 1863. Full color.
Before There Was Mozart: The Story of Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George by Lesa Cline-Ransome illustrated by James E Ransome
The musical superstar of 18th-century France was Joseph Boulogne–a black man. This inspiring story tells how Joseph, the only child of a black slave and her white master, becomes “the most accomplished man in Europe.” Full color.
Children’s Fiction
The End of the World Club by J&P Voelkel ($16.99)
With the end of the Mayan calendar fast approaching, 14-year-old Max Murphy and his new friend Lola, the modern Maya girl who saved his life, are racing against time to outwit the 12 Lords of Death. Following the trail of the conquistadors, their quest takes them back to the wild heart of Spain.
Teen
Delirium by Lauren Oliver ($17.99)
From the acclaimed author of Before I Fall comes her powerful second novel, a stunning tale of star-crossed romance, set in a world where love is forbidden. Lena Haloway has always accepted the government’s decree that love is a disease that must be eradicated–but then she meets Alex.
Fiction
The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse ($24.95; our price: $19.96)
From the author of the “New York Times”-bestselling “Labyrinth” comes a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage. A World War I vet stranded by a snowstorm in a village in the French Pyrenees unearths a tragic, centuries-old mystery.
Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland($26.00; our price: $20.80)
The New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl in Hyacinth Blue creates a dynamic portrait of Clara Driscoll: lead designer for Louis Comfort Tiffany (famous for Tiffany lamps) and a woman conflicted between her desires for artistic recognition and romantic love.
The Nomination: A Novel of Suspense by William G. Tapply ($24.95; our price: $19.96)
The last novel of the beloved author of the Brady Coyne mystery series.
The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French ($25.95; our price: $20.76)
In 1953, Dr. Wilson Spriggs gave Marylou Ahearn a radioactive cocktail without her consent as part of a secret government study that had horrible consequences. For 50 years she’s been plotting her revenge. At last she’s found Spriggs.
The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier ($24.95; our price: $19.96)
What if our pain was the most beautiful thing about us? From a bestselling and award-winning author comes a new novel of stunning artistry and imagination about the wounds we all bear and the light that radiates from us all.
While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction by Kurt Vonnegut ($27.00; our price: $21.60)
Featuring more than a dozen pieces of artwork done by Vonnegut himself, this collection contains 16 never-before-published pieces of short fiction–long-buried, brilliant short stories dating from early in the author’s career.
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown ($24.95; our price: $19.96)
A major new talent tackles the complicated terrain of sisters, the power of books, and the places we decide to call home.
The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor ($24.99; our price: $19.99)
This historical thriller has wonderful period detail about Cambridge in the 1700s–the secret societies, the Cambridge dons, the brothels, and the bookshops.
The Matchmaker of Kenmare: A Novel of Ireland by Frank Delaney ($26.00; our price: $20.80)
Set in 1943, this follow-up to Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show finds Ben McCarthy meeting an enigmatic woman–Miss Begley, the sharp-witted matchmaker of Kenmare–and a powerful friendship begins.
A Cup of Friendship by Deobrah Rodriguez ($25.00; our price: $20.00)
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Kabul Beauty School comes a fiction debut as compelling as real life: the story of a remarkable coffee shop in the heart of Kabul, and the women who meet there–each with a story and a secret.
A Man In Uniform by Kate Taylor ($25.00; our price: $20.00)
The author of Madame Proust and the Kosher Kitchen artfully mixes mystery and history in this page-turning journey through 19th-century Parisian society, in which nothing is as it seems.
Nonfiction
Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer ($26.00)
After throwing her back out, Dederer was told to try yoga. Over the next decade, she would become fast friends with some poses and develop long-standing feuds with others. At the same time, she found herself confronting the forces that shaped her generation.
The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok ($25.00)
The Memory Palace is a gorgeous memoir about the 17-year estrangement of the author and her homeless schizophrenic mother, and their reunion.
The Tin Ticket by Deborah J. Swiss ($24.95)
The Tin Ticket takes readers to the dawn of the 19th century and into the lives of three women arrested and sent into suffering and slavery in Australia and Tasmania–and reveals how they overcame their fates unlike any other women in the world at the time.
Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth by Lisa Napoli ($25.00)
Napoli writes how–caught in the grip of a mid-life crisis, cynical about work, and depressed about her love life–a chance encounter with a handsome stranger leads to the adventure of a lifetime in Bhutan.
J.D. Salinger: A Life by Kenneth Slawenski ($27.00)
One of the most popular and mysterious figures in American literary history, J. D. Salinger eluded fans and journalists for most of his life. Now comes a new biography that Peter Ackroyd in “The Times” of London calls “energetic and magnificently researched”–a book from which “a true picture of Salinger emerges.” Filled with new information and revelations–garnered from countless interviews, letters, and public records–J. D. Salinger presents an extraordinary life that spanned nearly the entire twentieth century.
Chinaberry Sidewalks by Rodney Crowell ($24.95)
Singer-songwriter Crowell reveals his life as the only child of a hard-drinking father and a Holy Roller mother, growing up in frontier Houston. However, at the heart of this memoir is Crowell’s tribute to his parents and their troubled yet redeeming romance.
My Father at 100 by Ron Reagan ($25.95)
February 6, 2011, is the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. To mark the occasion, his younger son Ron presents an intimate look at the life of his father–one of the most popular presidents in American history.
New to Titcomb’s – Tuesday, January 11th
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua ($25.95) – staff pick by Vicky!
An awe-inspiring, often hilarious, and unerringly honest story of one mother’s exercise in extreme parenting, revealing the rewards-and the costs-of raising her children the Chinese way.
All decent parents want to do what’s best for their children. What Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother reveals is that the Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that. Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions and providing a nurturing environment. The Chinese believe that the best way to protect your children is by preparing them for the future and arming them with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother chronicles Chua’s iron-willed decision to raise her daughters, Sophia and Lulu, her way-the Chinese way-and the remarkable results her choice inspires.
Incendiary by Chris Cleave ($15)
I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself.
In an emotionally raw voice alive with grief, compassion, and startling humor, a woman mourns the loss of her husband and son at the hands of one of history’s most notorious criminals. And in appealing to their executioner, she reveals the desperate sadness of a broken heart and a working-class life blown apart.
The Sentry (a Joe Pike Novel) by Robert Crais ($26.95; our price: $21.56)
The extraordinary new crime novel from the “New York Times” bestselling author.
Dru Rayne and her uncle fled to L.A. after Hurricane Katrina; but now, five years later, they face a different danger. When Joe Pike witnesses Dru’s uncle beaten by a protection gang, he offers his help, but neither of them want it-and neither do the federal agents mysteriously watching them.
As the level of violence escalates, and Pike himself becomes a target, he and Elvis Cole learn that Dru and her uncle are not who they seem- and that everything he thought he knew about them has been a lie. A vengeful and murderous force from their past is now catching up to them . . . and only Pike and Cole stand in the way.
Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (now in paperback – $15.95)
Two-time Booker Prize-winner Peter Carey’s latest feat of imagination is an irrepressible, audacious, and trenchantly funny novel set mostly in nineteenth-century America.
Olivier–an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville–is an aristocrat born just after the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English engraver. Their lives are joined when Olivier sets sail for the New World to save his neck from one more revolution and Parrot is sent with him as spy, protector, foe, and foil. With the story of their unlikely friendship, Peter Carey explores the adventure of American democracy with the dazzling inventiveness and richness of characterization, story, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer.
Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy (now in paperback – $14.95)
With the warmth, humor, and compassion we have come to expect, Maeve Binchy tells a story of doctors and staff, patients, family, and friends at a heart clinic in a community caught between the old Ireland and the new.
Dr. Clara Casey agrees to take on the seemingly thankless task of establishing a clinic with little funding–for a year. With her own plate full–two troublesome grown daughters and a needy ex-husband–she is still able to gather a wonderfully diverse and dedicated staff. And before long she has done the impossible, made the clinic a success and a aprt of the community. Now Clara must decide whether or not to stay.
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore (now in paperback – $15.00)
The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his.
Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police. How, then, did one grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence? Wes Moore, the author of this fascinating book, sets out to answer this profound question. In alternating narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.
New to Titcomb’s – Tuesday, January 4th
The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards ($26.95; our price: $21.56) – staff pick by Karen!
The highly anticipated new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. With revelations that prove as captivating as the deceptions at the heart of her bestselling phenomenon The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Kim Edwards now gives us the story of a woman’s homecoming, a family secret, and the old house that holds the key to the true legacy of a family.
At a crossroads in her life, Lucy Jarrett returns home from Japan, only to find herself haunted by her father’s unresolved death a decade ago. Old longings stirred up by Keegan Fall, a local glass artist who was once her passionate first love, lead her into the unexpected. Late one night, as she paces the hallways of her family’s rambling lakeside house, she discovers, locked in a window seat, a collection of objects that first appear to be useless curiosities, but soon reveal a deeper and more complex family past. As Lucy discovers and explores the traces of her lineage00from an heirloom tapestry and dusty political tracts to a web of allusions depicted in stained-glass windows throughout upstate New York-the family story she has always known is shattered, Lucy’s quest for the truth reconfigures her family’s history, links her to a unique slice of the suffragette movement, and yields dramatic insights that embolden her to live freely.
With surprises at every turn, brimming with vibrant detail, The Lake of Dreams is an arresting saga in which every element emerges as a carefully place piece of the puzzle that’s sure to enthrall the millions of readers who loved The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.
Left Neglected by Lisa Genova ($25.00; our price: $20.00. audio book: $39.99) note: hardcover will be in shop later this week. call us if you want a copy held!
Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her husband Bob, faithful nanny, and three children–Lucy, Charlie, and nine-month-old Linus.
A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller. Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt.
A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother. Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future.
Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny–her new, true life–may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.
Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx ($26.00)
“Bird Cloud” is the name Annie Proulx gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands and prairie and four-hundred-foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River. On the day she first visited, a cloud in the shape of a bird hung in the evening sky. Proulx also saw pelicans, bald eagles, golden eagles, great blue herons, ravens, scores of bluebirds, harriers, kestrels, elk, deer and a dozen antelope. She fell in love with the land, then owned by the Nature Conservancy, and she knew what she wanted to build on it–a house in harmony with her work, her appetites and her character, a library surrounded by bedrooms and a kitchen.
Proulx’s first work of nonfiction in more than twenty years, Bird Cloud is the story of designing and constructing that house–with its solar panels, Japanese soak tub, concrete floor and elk horn handles on kitchen cabinets. It is also an enthralling natural history and archaeology of the region–inhabited for millennia by Ute, Arapaho and Shoshone Indians– and a family history, going back to nineteenth-century Mississippi riverboat captains and Canadian settlers.
Proulx, a writer with extraordinary powers of observation and compassion, here turns her lens on herself. We understand how she came to be living in a house surrounded by wilderness, with shelves for thousands of books and long worktables on which to heap manuscripts, research materials and maps, and how she came to be one of the great American writers of her time. Bird Cloud is magnificent.
A Lonely Death: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd ($24.99; our price: $19.99)
A breathtaking blend of psychological complexity, haunting atmosphere, compelling twists, and impressive detail, the novels in the Ian Rutledge mystery series have garnered their author widespread acclaim and numerous honors and awards. At the heart of the series is the compelling Scotland Yard detective inspector Ian Rutledge, a veteran of the Great War who understands all too well the darkness that lies within men’s souls.
Now three men have been murdered in a Sussex village, and Scotland Yard has been called in. It’s a baffling case. The victims are soldiers who survived the horrors of World War I only to meet a ghastly end in the quiet English countryside two years later. Each had been garroted, with small ID discs left in their mouths.
But even Scotland Yard’s presence doesn’t deter this vicious and clever killer. Shortly after Inspector Ian Rutledge arrives, a fourth soldier is found dead. With few clues to go on and the pressure building, Rutledge must gamble everything–his job, his reputation, and even his life–to find answers.
Keys to the Castle by Donna Ball (paperback original – $14.00)
The author of the Ladybug Farm series delivers an exhilarating new novel of a middle-aged woman who follows her heart to love and happiness.
When a dashing French poet swept forty-something workaholic Sara Graves off her feet, she did something completely unexpected: She married him. Then three weeks later he died, leaving her a house she can’t afford to keep in a country she’s never been to. Traveling to France to settle the estate, Sara is shocked to discover that her husband wasn’t the impoverished poet he claimed to be- and that the estate he left her is a 400-year-old crumbling castle in the Loire Valley. Now Sara must sell Chateau Rondelais before it (not to mention her late husband’s disarmingly handsome lawyer and best friend) makes her question her decision to leave-and opens her heart to change and all its unexpected possibilities.
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (now in paperback – $15.00) – staff pick by Karen!
Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, Tom Rachman’s wry, vibrant debut follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language newspaper as they struggle to keep it–and themselves–afloat.
Fifty years and many changes have ensued since the paper was founded by an enigmatic millionaire, and now, amid the stained carpeting and dingy office furniture, the staff’s personal dramas seem far more important than the daily headlines. Kathleen, the imperious editor-in-chief, is smarting from a betrayal in her open marriage; Arthur, the lazy obituary writer, is transformed by a personal tragedy; Abby, the embattled financial officer, discovers that her job cuts and her love life are intertwined in a most unexpected way. Out in the field, a veteran Paris freelancer goes to desperate lengths for his next byline, while the new Cairo stringer is mercilessly manipulated by an outrageous war correspondent with an outsize ego. And in the shadows is the isolated young publisher who pays more attention to his prized basset hound, Schopenhauer, than to the fate of his family’s quirky newspaper.
As the era of print news gives way to the Internet age and this imperfect crew stumbles toward an uncertain future, the paper’s rich history is revealed, including the surprising truth about its founder’s intentions. Spirited, moving, and highly original, The Imperfectionists will establish Tom Rachman as one of our most perceptive, assured literary talents.
The Aloha Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverni (now in paperback – $15.00)
Another season of Elm Creek Quilt Camp has come to a close, and Bonnie Markham faces a bleak and lonely winter ahead, with her quilt shop out of business and her divorce looming. A welcome escape comes when Claire, a beloved college friend, unexpectedly invites her to Maui to help launch an exciting new business: a quilter’s retreat set at a bed and breakfast amid the vibrant colors and balmy breezes of the Hawaiian Islands. Soon Bonnie finds herself looking out on sparkling waters and banyan trees, planning quilting courses, and learning the history and intricacies of Hawaiian quilting, all the while helping Claire run the inn.
As Bonnie’s adventure unfolds, it quickly becomes clear that Claire’s new business isn’t the only excitement in store for her. Her cheating, soon-to-be ex-husband decides he wants her stake in Elm Creek Quilts, which threatens not only her financial well-being but her dearest friendships as well. Luckily she has the artistic challenge of creating her own unique Hawaiian quilt pattern to distract her–and new friends like Hinano Paoa, owner of the Na Mele Hawai’i Music Shop, who introduces Bonnie to the fascinating traditions of Hawaiian culture and reminds her that love can be found when and where you least expect it.
Bloodroot by Amy Greene (now in paperback – $15.00)
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, “Bloodroot “is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies–of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss–that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.
The novel is told in a kaleidoscope of seamlessly woven voices and centers around an incendiary romance that consumes everyone in its path: Myra Lamb, a wild young girl with mysterious, haint blue eyes who grows up on remote Bloodroot Mountain; her grandmother Byrdie Lamb, who protects Myra fiercely and passes down “the touch” that bewitches people and animals alike; the neighbor boy who longs for Myra yet is destined never to have her; the twin children Myra is forced to abandon but who never forget their mother’s deep love; and John Odom, the man who tries to tame Myra and meets with shocking, violent disaster.
The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason (now in paperback – $14.00)
Zachary Mason’s brilliant and beguiling debut novel reimagines Homer’s classic story of the hero Odysseus and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. With hypnotic prose, terrific imagination, and dazzling literary skill, Mason creates alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer’s original that, taken together, open up this classic Greek myth to endless reverberating interpretations. The Lost Books of the Odyssey is punctuated with great wit, beauty, and playfulness; it is a daring literary page-turner that marks the emergence of an extraordinary new talent.
An Irish Country Girl by Patrick Taylor (now in paperback – $14.99)
Readers of Patrick Taylor’s books know Mrs. Kinky Kincaid as the unflappable housekeeper who looks after two frequently frazzled town doctors in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. A trusted fixture in the lives of those around her, it often seems as though Kinky has always been there.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Some forty-odd years before and many miles to the south, the girl who would someday be Kinky Kincaid was Maureen O’Hanlon, a farmer’s daughter growing up in the emerald hills and glens of County Cork. A precocious girl on the cusp of womanhood, Maureen has a head full of dreams, a heart open to romance, and something more: a gift for seeing beyond the ordinary into the mystic realm of fairies, spirits, and even the dreaded Banshee, whose terrifying wail she first hears on a snowy night in 1922. . . .
As she grows into a young woman, Maureen finds herself torn between love and her fondest aspirations, for the future is a mystery even for one blessed with the sight. Encountering both joy and sorrow, Maureen at last finds herself on the road to Ballybucklebo—and the strong and compassionate woman she was always destined to become.
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah (now in paperback – $14.99)
From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes a powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past.
Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.
Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials by Rosalind Wiseman (now in paperback, and on shelves Thursday! – $8.99)
A debut novel from the bestselling author of Queen Bees and Wannabes!
Charlie Healy just wants a drama-free year, but it doesn’t seem like she’s going to get it. After surviving a middle school packed with mean girls, Charlie is ready to leave all that behind in high school. But then, on her very first day, she runs into her former best friend, Will, who moved away years ago. Now he’s back, he’s HOT, and he’s popular. And he takes Charlie back into the danger zone of the popular crowd. But when a hazing prank goes wrong, Charlie has to decide where her loyalties lie.
