Eric Is Recommending:

Exams, all-nighters, and crazy roommates can add up to a lot of stress for college students. Now the collegiate set can let off a little steam by indulging in the comfort of a childhood favorite: an activity book packed full of coloring pages, connect-the-dots, paper doll cut outs, word searches, mazes and more—with a healthy dose of caustic wit and grown-up themes.

Readers will find witty activities such as:

*Degrees of Success! Match your degree of choice (Philosophy, Art History, Communications, Journalism) to the job it will actually land you in the real world: Substitute teacher, sandwich artist, production assistant, freelance video blogger, street performer, etc...

*What’s Behind that Door? There’s a sock on the dorm room door, draw the important reason your roommate needed the room to himself tonight!

*Orientation BINGO!

With more than 50 activities, the Coloring for Grown-Ups College Companion is the perfect back-to-school gift for everyone from incoming freshmen to recent grads.

A hilarious pictorial parody of a clueless father and his adorable daughter

In an attempt to create an image that his new daughter would one day appreciate, Dave Engledow took a photo in which he’s cradling eight-week-old Alice Bee like a football and doctored it to look like he’s squirting breast milk into a "World’s Best Father" mug. Friends and family clamored for more. After Dave’s humorous attempts to capture the sleep-deprived obliviousness of being a first-time dad went viral, he and Alice Bee found themselves bona fide Internet and television celebrities.

Merging a Norman Rockwell aesthetic with a darkly comic sensibility, Dave pairs each side-splittingly funny image with a log entry describing the awkward situation that the World’s Best Father has found himself in. Readers of Sh*t My Dad Says and Awkward Family Photos will devour the artful and hilarious Confessions of the World’s Best Father.

A love story set in 1845 Nantucket, between a female astronomer and the unusual man who understands her dreams.

It is 1845, and Hannah Gardner Price has lived all twenty-four years of her life according to the principles of the Nantucket Quaker community in which she was raised, where simplicity and restraint are valued above all, and a woman’s path is expected to lead to marriage and motherhood. But up on the rooftop each night, Hannah pursues a very different—and elusive—goal: discovering a comet and thereby winning a gold medal awarded by the King of Denmark, something unheard of for a woman.

And then she meets Isaac Martin, a young, dark-skinned whaler from the Azores who, like herself, has ambitions beyond his expected station in life. Drawn to his intellectual curiosity and honest manner, Hannah agrees to take Isaac on as a student. But when their shared interest in the stars develops into something deeper, Hannah’s standing in the community begins to unravel, challenging her most fundamental beliefs about work and love, and ultimately changing the course of her life forever.

Inspired by the work of Maria Mitchell, the first professional female astronomer in America, The Movement of Stars is a richly drawn portrait of desire and ambition in the face of adversity. 

Charles R. Is Recommending:

When Corporal Elijah Russell's superb horsemanship is revealed during a firefight in northern Iraq, the young Army Ranger is assigned to an elite Special Forces unit preparing to stage a secret mission in eastern Afghanistan. Elijah's task is to train the Green Berets -- fiercely loyal to their enigmatic commander, Captain Wynne -- to ride the horses they will use to execute this mission through treacherous mountain terrain. But as the team presses farther into enemy territory, the nature of their operation only becomes more mysterious and Wynne's charismatic power takes on a darker cast. Ultimately, Elijah finds himself forced to make a choice: on one side, his best friend and his most deeply held beliefs; on the other, a commanding officer driven by a messianic zeal for his mission.

Based on the author's extensive interviews with Green Berets, Army Rangers, and other veterans, this taut page-turner brilliantly fuses the war novel and the Western into a compellingly original tale.

From a beat-up postal van turned food truck, Coolhaus has rocketed to a national brand. Yahoo called it "the best ice cream in America." The inventive sandwiches, named after famous architects, are sold in supermarkets across the country, as well as from trucks in Los Angeles, New York, Austin, and Dallas. Coolhaus has drawn accolades from the New York Times, "Every Day with Rachael Ray," Time, and "Good Morning America," to name a few, and from such celebrities as Will Ferrell, Jimmy Kimmel, and Alex Guarnaschelli.

Now the owners part with the recipes for their coolest creations, like the BuckMINTster Fuller (Dirty Mint Chip Ice Cream with Chocolate Chip Cookies) and the Frank Behry (Strawberry Gelato with Snickerdoodles). Daring flavors range from classic (Cookies and Sweet Cream), to boozy (Bourbon Manhattan), to vegan (Lychee Martini), and even savory (Fried Chicken and Waffle).

Sandwiched among the treats are tips on ice cream making, profiles of major and up-and-coming architects, and amusing tales of the owners' forays into the ice cream business.

Paul Casablancas, a musician and Claire DeWitt's ex-boyfriend, was talented and popular in the San Francisco scene he shared with Claire. When he's found dead in his apartment, his cherished guitars missing, Claire follows clues through Chinatown, Marin, and Santa Cruz, alongside her new assistant, Claude. Her other cases offer hints to Paul's fate--including the case of a long-ago missing girl whom a teenage Claire found in the midst of the gritty, grim East Village of the 1980s.

As visions of the past reveal the secrets of the present, Claire begins to understand the words of the enigmatic French detective Jacques Silette: "The detective won't know what he is capable of until he encounters a mystery that pierces his own heart." Could love be the undoing of the world's greatest P.I.?

At the age of twenty-six, Penny Marshall was a divorced mother of one living in the Bronx. One year later she starred in a Head & Shoulders commercial (she was the one with the dandruff) with Farah Fawcett. So began the unlikely career of one of Hollywood's most accomplished directors.

My Mother Was Nuts tells the story of Marshall's incredible life, from her starring role on the classic sitcom Laverne and Shirley to her trailblazing moment as the first woman to direct a movie grossing more than $100 million at the box office.

The book is a behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood life, exploring her friendships with John Belushi, Lorne Michaels, Art Garfunkel, and Carrie Fisher, her marriage and eventual divorce from Rob Reiner, and her experiences working with Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Geena Davis, Denzel Washington, and Drew Barrymore.This is a book about Hollywood, womanhood, and the power of Spanx.

Kimberly Rae Miller is an immaculately put-together woman with a great career, a loving boyfriend, and a beautifully tidy apartment in Brooklyn. You would never guess that behind the closed doors of her family's idyllic Long Island house hid teetering stacks of aging newspaper, broken computers, and boxes upon boxes of unused junk festering in every room -- the product of her father's painful and unending struggle with hoarding.

In this dazzling memoir, Miller brings to life her experience growing up in a rat-infested home, hiding her father's shameful secret from friends for years, and the emotional burden that ultimately led to her suicide attempt. In beautiful prose, Miller sheds light on her complicated yet loving relationship with her parents, which has thrived in spite of the odds.
 

Coming Clean is a story about recognizing where you come from and understanding the relationships that define you. It is also a powerful story of recovery and redemption.

 

 

Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, a classic bestseller, has inspired an optimistic perspective for millions of Americans. Now, in an inspirational and entertaining rebuttal, the legendary basketball coach Bob Knight explains why "negative thinking" will actually produce more positive results, in sports and in daily life.

 

Coach Knight, the second-winningest coach in NCAA history with 902 victories, explains that victory is often attained by the team that makes the fewest mistakes. His coaching philosophy was to instill discipline by "preparing to win" rather than hoping to win. That meant understanding the downside and drilling his teams to prevent the things that could go wrong. And when his teams did win, he made sure they didn't dwell on their success, but rather looked immediately to the challenges of the next game. He applies this lesson to business strategy as well.

Coach Knight has long been inspired by his grandmother's words, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." As the first person to teach Knight about the power of negative thinking, this book is dedicated to her pragmatic spirit. 

Top Writing Tools of Famous Authors

Snatched from Politics and Prose Bookstore's Tumblr feed.  Check it out HERE.

New Titles Are Pouring In--Here Is A Random Stack of Them

The greatest thinker in human history, Plato, travels to Italy seeking initiation into the Orphic mysteries: the secret to the Underworld known only to the gods. But the knowledge he discovers is terrifying.

More than two millennia later, twelve ancient golden tablets secreted in museums around the world hold sacred information known to only a few--the pathway the dead must follow to the afterlife. And archaeologist Lily Barnes has just found another on a dig in southern Italy. But this tablet is far more valuable--and dangerous--than the rest. It holds the key to hell itself.

Now, Lily has vanished, and her husband, Jonah, is desperate to find her. He knows she is alive--and in mortal danger--and he's willing to go to hell to rescue her. But the deeper he descends on this dark and twisting odyssey, the more Jonah's fear rises, for not everyone who travels where Lily has gone will find the way back.

Manhattan, 1964. Vivian Schuyler, newly graduated from Bryn Mawr College, has recently defied the privilege of her storied old Fifth Avenue family to do the unthinkable for a budding Kennedy-era socialite: break into the Madison Avenue world of razor-stylish Metropolitan magazine. But when she receives a bulky overseas parcel in the mail, the unexpected contents draw her inexorably back into her family’s past, and the hushed-over crime passionnel of an aunt she never knew, whose existence has been wiped from the record of history.

Berlin, 1914. Violet Schuyler Grant endures her marriage to the philandering and decades-older scientist Dr. Walter Grant for one reason: for all his faults, he provides the necessary support to her liminal position as a young American female physicist in prewar Germany. The arrival of Dr. Grant’s magnetic former student at the beginning of Europe’s fateful summer interrupts this delicate détente. Lionel Richardson, a captain in the British Army, challenges Violet to escape her husband’s perverse hold, and as the world edges into war and Lionel’s shocking true motives become evident, Violet is tempted to take the ultimate step to set herself free and seek a life of her own conviction with a man whose cause is as audacious as her own.

As the iridescent and fractured Vivian digs deeper into her aunt’s past and the mystery of her ultimate fate, Violet’s story of determination and desire unfolds, shedding light on the darkness of her years abroad . . . and teaching Vivian to reach forward with grace for the ambitious future––and the love––she wants most.

The Paris Wife was only the beginning of the story . . .

Paula McLain’s New York Times–bestselling novel piqued readers’ interest about Ernest Hemingway’s romantic life. But Hadley was only one of four women married, in turn, to the legendary writer. Just as T.C. Boyle’s bestseller The Women completed the picture begun by Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank, Naomi Wood’s Mrs. Hemingway tells the story of how it was to love, and be loved by, the most famous and dashing writer of his generation. Hadley, Pauline, Martha and Mary: each Mrs. Hemingway thought their love would last forever; each one was wrong.

Told in four parts and based on real love letters and telegrams, Mrs. Hemingway reveals the explosive love triangles that wrecked each of Hemingway's marriages. Spanning 1920s bohemian Paris through 1960s Cold War America, populated with members of the fabled "Lost Generation," Mrs. Heminway is a riveting tale of passion, love, and heartbreak.

 

 

Award-winning author Sarah Beth Durst has been praised for her captivating novels that merge the darkly imagined with very real themes of self-discovery and destiny. In The Lost, we'll discover just what it means to lose one's way....
 

It was only meant to be a brief detour. But then Lauren finds herself trapped in a town called Lost on the edge of a desert, filled with things abandoned, broken and thrown away. And when she tries to escape, impassible dust storms and something unexplainable lead her back to Lost again and again. The residents she meets there tell her she's going to have to figure out just what she's missing--and what she's running from--before she can leave. So now Lauren's on a new search for a purpose and a destiny. And maybe, just maybe, she'll be found....
 

Against the backdrop of this desolate and mystical town, Sarah Beth Durst writes an arresting, fantastical novel of one woman's impossible journey...and her quest to find her fate.

An award-winning author reimagines one of Freud’s most famous and controversial cases

Acclaimed for her spare prose and exceptional psychological insights in her novels Becoming Jane Eyre and Love Child, Sheila Kohler’s latest is inspired by Sigmund Freud’s Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. Dreaming for Freud paints a provocative and sensual portrait of one of history’s most famous patients.

In the fall of 1900, Dora’s father forces her to begin treatment with the doctor. Visiting him daily, the seventeen-year-old girl lies on his ottoman and tells him frankly about her strange life, and above all about her father's desires as far as she is concerned. But Dora abruptly ends her treatment after only eleven weeks, just as Freud was convinced he was on the cusp of a major discovery. In Dreaming for Freud, Kohler explores what might have happened between the man who changed the face of psychotherapy and the beautiful young woman who gave him her dreams.

 

 

In the bestselling tradition of Jennifer Weiner, a clever, funny yet poignant novel about the friendship between two absolutely unforgettable women.

For many of us, there comes a moment when we wish we were invisible.

For Ellen Homes, not only does she wish it . . . she actually lives it.

She spends her days quietly observing but unobserved, watching and recording in her notebooks the lives of her neighbors, coworkers, and total strangers.

Overweight, socially stunted, and utterly alone, one night Ellen saves a blind young woman from being mugged.

Then everything changes.

Character-driven, poignant, and leavened with touches of humor and witty dialogue, Invisible Ellen is a remarkable novel about personal transformation, morality, the power of friendship, and the human need for connection with others. 

 

 

In the vein of Harlan Coben, Robert B. Parker, and Carl Hiaasen comes a richly atmospheric, wildly original, and fast-paced mystery introducing the unforgettable P.I. John Darvelle—set against the magnetic allure of Los Angeles.

Private detective John Darvelle is a man of specific tastes—simple design, smart women, cheap American beer. He's a man of specific opinions—drive a car nobody can remember, avoid brunch at all costs, and don't live in Brentwood. And he adheres to his own professional code, an indelible blend of loyalty, fierce commitment, and performance under pressure. He also plays a lot of Ping-Pong.

Arthur Vonz is one of the most powerful men in Los Angeles, a filmmaker among the ranks of Spielberg, Coppola, and Kubrick. He hires Darvelle to find a young woman named Suzanne Neal, an incandescent beauty who just might be hiding something. What starts as an easy assignment soon has Darvelle plunging deep into the hidden world of Hollywood's elite. A twisting, turning journey puts him face-to-face with the LAPD, a ruthless underground crime operation, and a cold-blooded killer.

It's the case of a lifetime . . . that could end his life. 

 

 

A mother's worst nightmare: the subway doors close with her baby son still on the train. In this suspenseful debut novel, a woman goes to unimaginable lengths to get her child back.
 

A struggling, single mother, Emma sometimes wishes that her thirteen-month-old son Ritchie would just disappear. Then, one quiet Sunday evening, after a sinister encounter on the London Underground--Ritchie does just that.
 

Emma immediately reports his abduction to the police but there she faces a much worse situation than she ever imagined. Why do the police seem so reluctant to help her? And why do they think she would want hurt her own child?
 

If Emma wants Ritchie back, she'll have to find him herself. With the help of a stranger named Rafe, the one person who seems to believe her, Emma sets off in search of her son. She is determined to find Ritchie no matter what it takes...but who exactly is the real enemy here?
 

With dark twists and intertwining narratives, The Stranger on the Train is an unforgettable novel of psychological suspense that you will keep you guessing until the shattering finale.

From the internationally acclaimed author of Touch, praised as "breathtaking" (People) and "lovely at once dreamy and riveting" (Washington Post), comes a powerful family saga steeped in the legends of the sea. Set in a lobster fishing village, The Lobster Kings introduces a fiery and unforgettable heroine, Cordelia Kings.

The Kings family has lived on Loosewood Island for three hundred years, blessed with the bounty of the sea. But for the Kings, this blessing comes with a curse: the loss of every firstborn son. Now, Woody Kings, the leader of the island s lobster fishing community and the family patriarch, teeters on the throne, and Cordelia, the oldest of Woody's three daughters, stands to inherit the crown. To do so, however, she must defend her island from meth dealers from the mainland while navigating sibling rivalry and the vulnerable nature of her own heart when she falls in love with her sternman.

Inspired by King Lear, The Lobster Kings is the story of Cordelia s struggle to maintain her island s way of life in the face of danger from offshore and the rich, looming, mythical legacy of her family's namesake.

 

 

A gripping historical novel of love and vengeance starring Harry Longbaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid.

Legend has it that bank robber Harry Longbaugh and his partner Robert Parker were killed in a shootout in Bolivia. That was the supposed end of the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy.

Sundance tells a different story. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Longbaugh is very much alive, though serving in a Wyoming prison under an alias.

When he is released in 1913, Longbaugh reenters a changed world. Horses are being replaced by automobiles. Gas lamps are giving way to electric lights. Workers fight for safety, and women for the vote. What hasn’t changed are Longbaugh’s ingenuity, his deadly aim, and his love for his wife, Etta Place.

It’s been two years since Etta stopped visiting him, and, determined to find her, Longbaugh follows her trail to New York City. Confounded by the city’s immensity, energy, chaos, and crowds, he learns that his wife was very different from the woman he thought he knew. Longbaugh finds himself in a tense game of cat and mouse, racing against time before the legend of the Sundance Kid catches up to destroy him.

By turns suspenseful, rollicking, and poignant, Sundance is the story of a man dogged by his own past, seeking his true place in this new world.

The new novel from the New York Times bestselling author and "master of the modern thriller,"* about a father who is forced to make a choice with unspeakable consequences

When single father Danny Goodman suddenly finds himself unable to afford the private school his teenage daughter adores, he has no one to turn to for financial support.

In what seems like a stroke of brilliant luck, Danny meets Thomas Galvin, the father of his daughter’s new best friend, who also happens to be one of the wealthiest men in Boston. Galvin is aware of Danny’s situation and out of the blue offers a $50,000 loan to help Danny cover his daughter’s tuition. Uncomfortable but desperate, Danny takes the money, promising to pay Galvin back.

What transpires is something Danny never imagined. The moment the money is wired into his account, the DEA comes knocking on his door. Danny’s impossible choice: an indictment for accepting drug money that he can’t afford to fight in court, or an unthinkably treacherous undercover assignment helping the government get close to his new family friend. As Danny begins to lie to everyone in his life, including those he loves most in the world, he must decide once and for all who the real enemy is or risk losing everything—and everyone—that matters to him.

Liz and Michele Are Recommending:

The Good Spy is Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird’s compelling portrait of the remarkable life and death of one of the most important operatives in CIA history – a man who, had he lived, might have helped heal the rift between Arabs and the West.

On April 18, 1983, a bomb exploded outside the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. The attack was a geopolitical turning point. It marked the beginning of Hezbollah as a political force, but even more important, it eliminated America’s most influential and effective intelligence officer in the Middle East – CIA operative Robert Ames. What set Ames apart from his peers was his extraordinary ability to form deep, meaningful connections with key Arab intelligence figures. Some operatives relied on threats and subterfuge, but Ames worked by building friendships and emphasizing shared values – never more notably than with Yasir Arafat’s charismatic intelligence chief and heir apparent Ali Hassan Salameh (aka “The Red Prince”). Ames’ deepening relationship with Salameh held the potential for a lasting peace. Within a few years, though, both men were killed by assassins, and America’s relations with the Arab world began heading down a path that culminated in 9/11, the War on Terror, and the current fog of mistrust.

Bird, who as a child lived in the Beirut Embassy and knew Ames as a neighbor when he was twelve years old, spent years researching The Good Spy. Not only does the book draw on hours of interviews with Ames’ widow, and quotes from hundreds of Ames’ private letters, it’s woven from interviews with scores of current and former American, Israeli, and Palestinian intelligence officers as well as other players in the Middle East “Great Game.”

What emerges is a masterpiece-level narrative of the making of a CIA officer, a uniquely insightful history of twentieth-century conflict in the Middle East, and an absorbing hour-by-hour account of the Beirut Embassy bombing. Even more impressive, Bird draws on his reporter’s skills to deliver a full dossier on the bombers and expose the shocking truth of where the attack’s mastermind resides today.

A debut that Neil Gaiman calls “Glorious,” The Girl in the Road describes a future that is culturally lush, technologically slick, and emotionally wrenching.

In a world where global power has shifted east and revolution is brewing, two women embark on vastly different journeys—each harrowing and urgent and wholly unexpected.

When Meena finds snakebites on her chest, her worst fears are realized: someone is after her and she must flee India. As she plots her exit, she learns of The Trail, an energy-harvesting bridge spanning the Arabian Sea that has become a refuge for itinerant vagabonds and loners on the run. This is her salvation. Slipping out in the cover of night, with a knapsack full of supplies including a pozit GPS system, a scroll reader, and a sealable waterproof pod, she sets off for Ethiopia, the place of her birth.

Meanwhile, Mariama, a young girl in Africa, is forced to flee her home. She joins up with a caravan of misfits heading across the Sahara. She is taken in by Yemaya, a beautiful and enigmatic woman who becomes her protector and confidante. They are trying to reach Addis Abba, Ethiopia, a metropolis swirling with radical politics and rich culture. But Mariama will find a city far different than she ever expected—romantic, turbulent, and dangerous.

As one heads east and the other west, Meena and Mariama’s fates are linked in ways that are mysterious and shocking to the core.

Written with stunning clarity, deep emotion, and a futuristic flair, The Girl in the Road is an artistic feat of the first order: vividly imagined, artfully told, and profoundly moving.

12 Charming Tidbits About Beverly Cleary

Read this Mental Floss list HERE.

Jeff C. Is Recommending:

In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast’s memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.

When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz held to the practices of denial, avoidance, and distraction. But when Elizabeth Chast climbed a ladder to locate an old souvenir from the “crazy closet”—with predictable results—the tools that had served Roz well through her parents’ seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed.

While the particulars are Chast-ian in their idiosyncrasies—an anxious father who had relied heavily on his wife for stability as he slipped into dementia and a former assistant principal mother whose overbearing personality had sidelined Roz for decades—the themes are universal: adult children accepting a parental role; aging and unstable parents leaving a family home for an institution; dealing with uncomfortable physical intimacies; managing logistics; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal care.

An amazing portrait of two lives at their end and an only child coping as best she can, Can We Talk about Something More Pleasant will show the full range of Roz Chast’s talent as cartoonist and storyteller.

 

 

A darkly luminous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours

Michael Cunningham’s luminous novel begins with a vision. It’s November 2004. Barrett Meeks, having lost love yet again, is walking through Central Park when he is inspired to look up at the sky; there he sees a pale, translucent light that seems to regard him in a distinctly godlike way. Barrett doesn’t believe in visions—or in God—but he can’t deny what he’s seen.
 

At the same time, in the not-quite-gentrified Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, Tyler, Barrett’s older brother, a struggling musician, is trying—and failing—to write a wedding song for Beth, his wife-to-be, who is seriously ill. Tyler is determined to write a song that will be not merely a sentimental ballad but an enduring expression of love.
 

Barrett, haunted by the light, turns unexpectedly to religion. Tyler grows increasingly convinced that only drugs can release his creative powers. Beth tries to face mortality with as much courage as she can summon.
 

Cunningham follows the Meeks brothers as each travels down a different path in his search for transcendence. In subtle, lucid prose, he demonstrates a profound empathy for his conflicted characters and a singular understanding of what lies at the core of the human soul.
 

The Snow Queen, beautiful and heartbreaking, comic and tragic, proves again that Cunningham is one of the great novelists of his generation.

They fight without conscience or remorse. 

Their only job is to kill. 

They are the most ruthless enemy we have ever faced.

And they are one millionth our size.

When Dr. Lou Welcome fills in last minute for his boss at a national conference in Atlanta he brings along his best friend, Cap Duncan. But an accident turns tragic when Cap injures his leg while running.　 Surgeons manage to save the leg, but the open wound is the perfect breeding ground for a deadly microbial invader committed to eating Cap alive from the inside out.

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, a teenaged girl is fighting for her life against the same bacteria. The germ is resistant to any known antibiotic and the government scientist tasked with finding a cure has been kidnapped.

Turning to the Centers for Disease Control for help, Lou Welcome uncovers a link to a shadowy group known as One Hundred Neighbors that has infiltrated our society and is using our health institutions as hostages. Like the deadly germs they can unleash, One Hundred Neighbors will stop at nothing to further their agenda.

From the hospital corridors where anything you touch can mean your end, to the top corridors of power in this race against time, Lou must stop an epidemic, save his best friend, and face even his own most terrifying demons.From the New York Times bestselling author comes another heart stopping thriller that will make you look at the world around you in a new and frightening way.

Brimming with wit, atmosphere, and unforgettable characters, Fatal Enquiry reintroduces private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewellyn, and their unforgettable world of Victorian London.

Some years ago, Cyrus Barker matched wits with Sebastian Nightwine, an aristocrat and sociopath, and in exposing his evil, sent Nightwine fleeing to hide from justice somewhere in the far corners of the earth. The last thing Barker ever expected was to encounter Nightwine again—but the British government, believing they need Nightwine’s help, has granted him immunity for his past crimes, and brought him back to London. Nightwine, however, has more on his mind than redemption—and as Barker and Llewellyn set out to uncover and thwart Nightwine’s real scheme, they find themselves in the gravest danger of their lives.

A brilliant new collection of short stories from “the conspicuously talented” (Time) Rivka Galchen

In one of the intensely imaginative stories in Rivka’s Galchen’s American Innovations, a young woman’s furniture walks out on her. In another, the narrator feels compelled to promise to deliver a takeout order that has incorrectly been phoned in to her. In a third, the petty details of a property transaction illuminate the complicated pains and loves of a family.

The tales in this groundbreaking collection are secretly in conversation with canonical stories, reimagined from the perspective of female characters. Just as Wallace Stevens’s “Anecdote of the Jar” responds to John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Galchen’s “The Lost Order” covertly recapitulates James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” while “The Region of Unlikeness” is a smoky and playful mirror to Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Aleph.” The title story, “American Innovations,” revisits Nikolai Gogol’s “The Nose.”

By turns realistic, fantastical, witty, and lyrical, these marvelously uneasy stories are deeply emotional and written in exuberant, pitch-perfect prose. Whether exploring the tensions in a mother-daughter relationship or the finer points of time travel, Galchen is a writer like none other today.

“This sprawling, likable whodunit [is] obvious ballast for the summer’s beach totes. . . . Dicker keeps the prose simple and the pace snappy in a plot that winds up with more twists than a Twizzler. . . . [An] entertaining debut thriller.” —Kirkus Reviews

The publishing phenomenon topping bestseller lists around the world 

August 30, 1975: the day fifteen-year-old Nola Kellergan is glimpsed fleeing through the woods, never to be heard from again; the day Somerset, New Hampshire, lost its innocence.

Thirty-three years later, Marcus Goldman, a successful young novelist, visits Somerset to see his mentor, Harry Quebert, one of the country’s most respected writers, and to find a cure for his writer’s block as his publisher’s deadline looms. But Marcus’s plans are violently upended when Harry is suddenly and sensationally implicated in the cold-case murder of Nola Kellergan—whom, he admits, he had an affair with. As the national media convicts Harry, Marcus launches his own investigation, following a trail of clues through his mentor’s books, the backwoods and isolated beaches of New Hampshire, and the hidden history of Somerset’s citizens and the man they hold most dear. To save Harry, his own writing career, and eventually even himself, Marcus must answer three questions, all of which are mysteriously connected: Who killed Nola Kellergan? What happened one misty morning in Somerset in the summer of 1975? And how do you write a book to save someone’s life?

A chart-topping worldwide phenomenon, with sales approaching a million copies in France alone and rights sold in more than thirty countries, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair is a fast-paced, tightly plotted, cinematic literary thriller, and an ingenious book within a book, by a dazzling young writer.

Learn more about the upcoming movie, directed by Ron Howard HERE.

Emma Donoghue: Making Beautiful Music

Read this interview HERE.

RIP

Maya Angelou, one of America's most celebrated poets, novelists and civil-rights activists has passed away. Angelou, who served on two Presidential committees and was awarded numerous awards, was 86 years old.

Two YA Crossover's You Want To Read. Jackie Will Tell You More.

I love this book! I love this book! I LOVE this book! The premise: After what we all know and love about The Wizard of Oz via the movie, Dorothy comes back to Oz somehow, and had turned into a demon of greed, stealing the magic from Oz and being a heartless/murderous dictator, with the help of a now evil Glinda. The Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion are all monsters now, doing terrible, terrible things to the beings of Oz with full consent from Dorothy.

Back in our world, Amy Gumm is having deep troubles. Her mother is an alcoholic druggie who is hostile to her. School is no escape: she gets suspended after defending herself from a bully. And then there was a tornado. After it hits, she finds her trailer teetering on the edge of a huge abyss, and a teenage boy saves her.
He explains that she's now in Oz, for real. Then he jumps down the hole and disappears.

She's left to her own devices, learning quickly that just about everything she knew about Oz is now completely opposite. Eventually meeting up with the Wickeds (who are actually what passes for "good guys" now), she finds out that her destiny to become an assassin, because Dorthy must die, and Amy is the only one who can do the job.

This is clearly the first in a series, and I'm pretty much panting for the next book to come out. Once again, this is technically a YA book, but if someone enjoyed the movie and are up for some serious role reversals and some mighty tight fighting and plotting, they will want to grab a copy of this book!

I sat down, opened up this book, and didn't stop reading until I hit the back cover. I can't tell you the last time I read a book in one setting, but I truly could not free myself from this unusual and riveting tale.

It involves a large family who come together in the summers on an island. It is told by 17 year old Cadence, who weaves a tremendous web of family issues along with bigotry and upper class entitlement issues.

It's also a mystery as Cadence tries to find answers for her missing memories of the summer she was 15, and why she has been kept away from the island and family for the last two years.. What we find out, along with her, is shocking and electrifying. This story is brilliant, and I cannot recommend it enough to both teenagers and adults alike.


--Jackie

"Massive in many senses, but none more so than its ability to exert a vice-like grip on the reader....Destined to be spy thriller of the year." (Irish Independent)

This astonishing debut espionage thriller depicts the collision course between two geniuses, one a tortured hero and one a determined terrorist, in a breakneck story reminiscent of John le Carre and Robert Ludlum at their finest.

Pilgrim is the code name for a world class and legendary secret agent. His adversary is a man known only to the reader as the Saracen. As a young boy, the Saracen barely sees his dissident father beheaded in a Saudi Arabian public square. But the event marks him for life and creates a burning desire to destroy the special relationship between the US and the Kingdom. Everything in the Saracen's life from this moment forward will be in service to jihad.

At the novel's opening, we find ourselves in a seedy hotel near Ground Zero. A woman lies face down in a pool of acid, features melted off her face, teeth missing, fingerprints gone. The room has been sprayed down with DNA-eradicating antiseptic spray. All the techniques are pulled directly from Pilgrim's book, a cult classic of forensic science written under a pen name.

In offering the NYPD some casual assistance with the case, Pilgrim gets pulled back into the intelligence underground. What follows is a thriller that jockeys between astonishingly detailed character study and breakneck globetrotting. The author shifts effortlessly from Pilgrim's hidden life of leisure in Paris to the Saracen's squalid warrior life in Afghanistan, from the hallways of an exclusive Swiss bank to the laboratories of a nefarious biotech facility in Syria.

The inevitable encounter between Pilgrim and the Saracen will come in Turkey, around the murder of a wealthy American, in a thrilling, twisting, beautifully orchestrated finale.

"Debut novelist Hayes brings well-refined storytelling chops to...[good] entertainment for readers with a penchant for mayhem, piles of bodies and a lethal biochemical agent or two." (Kirkus Reviews)

Read a Q&A with the author HERE.

Listen to an audio excerpt HERE.

The Bugs of Literature

A very fun flow chart from Jenn Northington at bookriot.com

"The Untold is destined to be THE summer read of 2014, and well beyond." ~Cathy

 With shades of Water for Elephants and True Grit, a stunning debut novel set in the Australian outback about a female horse thief, her bid for freedom, and the two men trying to capture her.

It is 1921. In a mountain-locked valley, Jessie is on the run.

Born wild and brave, by twenty-six she has already lived life as a circus rider, horse and cattle rustler, and convict. But on this fateful night she is just a woman wanting to survive though there is barely any life left in her.

Two men crash through the bushland, desperate to claim the reward on her head: one her lover, the other the law.

But as it has always been for Jessie, it is death, not a man, who is her closest pursuer and companion. And while all odds are stacked against her, there is one who will never give up on her—her own child, who awaits her.

Read an interview with the author HERE. (The book they are showing you is the Australian version, where the book debuted under another title.)

Cathy says:

"The Untold is a wild, amazing ride that gives readers one of the most powerful and compelling female protagonist ever written. Jessie is a convicted horse rustler, fleeing the scene of a murder, pursued by, among others, her half aboriginal lover, through the mountain wilderness of Australia in 1921. Based on a real character, her story is told though a haunting voice that brilliantly conveys the harsh and brutal nature of the time and place.

The Untold is destined to be THE summer read of 2014, and well beyond. Courtney Collins is bold with her narrative voice and bolder still with the pace, while bringing to life a tale that rivals any myth of the American West, and bravo that a woman is the stuff that myths are made of."

“This book left me awestruck; a stunning debut which reads like the work of a writer at the height of his power. Begins with the story of one struggling man and his family and soon seems to encompass and address all of modern America’s problems. Fourth of July Creek is a masterful achievement.” —Philipp Meyer, author of "The Son"

 

After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral eleven-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face-to-face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times.

But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the FBI, putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.

In this shattering and iconic American novel, Smith Henderson explores the complexities of freedom, community, grace, suspicion, and anarchy, brilliantly depicting our nation's disquieting and violent contradictions. Fourth of July Creek is an unforgettable, unflinching debut that marks the arrival of a major literary talent.

Read an interview with the author HERE.

10 Video Games That Book Lovers Will Enjoy

Check them out HERE.

Murder, Mayhem and Mystery with Margaret

Here are some recommendations from our mystery buyer Margaret N.:

He meets women. He gains their trust. He kills them. That’s all London police detective Maeve Kerrigan knows about the man she is hunting. Three women have been strangled in their homes, and it appears to be the work of the same sadistic killer. With no sign of break-ins, every indication shows that the women let their attacker in willingly. The victims' neighbors and friends don't seem to remember anything unusual or suspicious, and Maeve is almost at a loss about how to move forward with the investigation.

Then the evidence starts to point to a shocking suspect: DCI Josh Derwent, Maeve's partner on the police force. Maeve refuses to believe he could be involved, but how well does she really know him? Secrets Derwent has long kept locked away are coming back to haunt him, and the more Maeve learns about her partner's past, the more difficult it is to dismiss him as a suspect. After all, this is hardly the first time Derwent's been accused of murder.

Jane Casey returns with her most outstanding novel yet in The Stranger You Know, a taut thriller and an intimate portrayal of complicated, all-too-human characters.

Crime writer Erica Falck is shocked to discover a Nazi medal among her late mother's possessions. Haunted by a childhood of neglect, she resolves to dig deep into her family's past and finally uncover the reasons why. Her enquiries lead her to the home of a retired history teacher. He was among her mother's circle of friends during the Second World War but her questions are met with bizarre and evasive answers. Two days later he meets a violent death. Detective Patrik Hedstrom, Erica's husband, is on paternity leave but soon becomes embroiled in the murder investigation. Who would kill so ruthlessly to bury secrets so old? Reluctantly Erica must read her mother's wartime diaries. But within the pages is a painful revelation about Erica's past. Could what little knowledge she has be enough to endanger her husband and newborn baby? The dark past is coming to light, and no one will escape the truth of how they came to be .

Just months after Rebekah Roberts was born, her mother, an Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, abandoned her Christian boyfriend and newborn baby to return to her religion. Neither Rebekah nor her father have heard from her since. Now a recent college graduate, Rebekah has moved to New York City to follow her dream of becoming a big-city reporter. But she’s also drawn to the idea of being closer to her mother, who might still be living in the Hasidic community in Brooklyn.

Then Rebekah is called to cover the story of a murdered Hasidic woman. Rebekah’s shocked to learn that, because of the NYPD’s habit of kowtowing to the powerful ultra-Orthodox community, not only will the woman be buried without an autopsy, her killer may get away with murder. Rebekah can’t let the story end there. But getting to the truth won’t be easy—even as she immerses herself in the cloistered world where her mother grew up, it's clear that she's not welcome, and everyone she meets has a secret to keep from an outsider.

In her riveting debut Invisible City, journalist Julia Dahl introduces a compelling new character in search of the truth about a murder and an understanding of her own heritage.

A riveting crime thriller set during a sultry Barcelona summer, introducing Inspector Hector Salgado

Inspector Hector Salgado is a transplanted Argentine living in Barcelona. While working on a human trafficking case, Salgado's violent temper got the best of him and he beat a suspect within an inch of his life. Ordered on probation, he fled to Argentina to cool off for a few months.

Now he's back in Barcelona and is eager for another big case. But his boss has other plans. He assigns Salgado to a routine accidental death: a college student fell from a balcony in one of Barcelona's ritzier neighborhoods. As Salgado begins to piece together the life and world of the victim, he realizes that his death was not all that simple: his teenage friends are either overly paranoid or deceptively calm, and drugs might be involved. Hector begins to follow a trail that will lead him deep into the underbelly of Barcelona's high society where he'll come face-to-face with dangerous criminals, long-buried secrets, and, of course, his own past. But Hector thrives on pressure, and he lives for this kind of case--dark, violent, and seemingly unsolvable.

Gripping, sophisticated, and wickedly entertaining, The Summer of Dead Toys introduces a charismatic new detective and announces Antonio Hill as a new master of the crime thriller. 

Come Meet Tom Robbins!!! One Week From Today!!!

Monday, June 2, 2014 at 7:30 pm at our Highlands Ranch store

Internationally bestselling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins will discuss and sign his critically acclaimed new memoir Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life, the long-awaited tale of his wild life-and-times, both at home and around the globe. Free numbered tickets for the signing line will be available beginning on Tuesday, May 27, at 9:00 am, at all Tattered Cover locations with the purchase of Tibetan Peach Pie. Line tickets will continue to be available through the start of the event with the purchase of the new book. Seating for the presentation prior to the signing is limited, and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Guests can take photographs, but no posed photos will be allowed.

Can’t make it to the signing? Request an autographed copy here: books@tatteredcover.com

Tom Robbins's warm, wise, and wonderfully weird novels-including Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Another Roadside Attraction, and Jitterbug Perfume-provide an entryway into the frontier of his singular imagination. Madcap but sincere, pulsating with strong social and philosophical undercurrents, his irreverent classics have introduced countless readers to hitchhiking cowgirls, born-again monkeys, a philosophizing can of beans, exiled royalty, and problematic redheads.

In Tibetan Peach Pie, Robbins turns that unparalleled literary sensibility inward, weaving together stories of his unconventional life-from his Appalachian childhood to his globe-trotting adventures-told in his unique voice, which combines the sweet and sly, the spiritual and earthy. The grandchild of Baptist preachers, Robbins would become, over the course of half a century, a poet interruptus, a soldier, a meteorologist, a radio DJ, an art-critic-turned-psychedelic-journeyman, a world-famous novelist, and a counterculture hero, leading a life as unlikely, magical, and bizarre as those of his quixotic characters.

Robbins offers intimate snapshots of Appalachia during the Great Depression, the West Coast during the sixties' psychedelic revolution, international roving before Homeland Security monitored our travels, and New York publishing when it still relied on trees.

Written with the big-hearted comedy and mesmerizing linguistic invention for which Robbins is known, Tibetan Peach Pie is an invitation into the private world of a literary legend.