Tom B. Is Recommending:

Twelve Longmire short stories available for the first time in a single volume—featuring an introduction by Lou Diamond Phillips of A&E’s Longmire

Ten years ago, Craig Johnson wrote his first short story, the Hillerman Award–winning “Old Indian Trick.” This was one of the earliest appearances of the sheriff who would go on to star in Johnson’s bestselling, award-winning novels and the A&E hit series Longmire. Each Christmas Eve thereafter, fans rejoiced when Johnson sent out a new short story featuring an episode in Walt’s life that doesn’t appear in the novels; over the years, many have asked why they can’t buy the stories in book form.

Wait for Signs collects those beloved stories—and one entirely new story, “Petunia, Bandit Queen of the Bighorns”—for the very first time in a single volume, regular trade hardcover. With glimpses of Walt’s past from the incident in “Ministerial Aide,” when the sheriff is mistaken for a deity, to the hilarious “Messenger,” where the majority of the action takes place in a Port-A-Potty, Wait for Signs is a necessary addition to any Longmire fan’s shelf and a wonderful way to introduce new readers to the fictional world of Absaroka County, Wyoming.

 

 

A celebration of the relationships that bring us strength, purpose, and joy

Ties That Bind honors the people who nourish and strengthen us. StoryCorps founder Dave Isay draws from ten years of the revolutionary oral history project’s rich archives, collecting conversations that celebrate the power of the human bond and capture the moment at which individuals become family. Between blood relations, friends, coworkers, and neighbors, in the most trying circumstances and in the unlikeliest of places, enduring connections are formed and lives are forever changed.

The stories shared in Ties That Bind reveal our need to reach out, to support, and to share life’s burdens and joys. We meet two brothers, separately cast out by their parents, who reconnect and rebuild a new family around each other. We encounter unexpected joy: A gay woman reveals to her beloved granddaughter that she grew up believing that family was a happiness she would never be able to experience. We witness lifechanging friendship: An Iraq war veteran recalls his wartime bond with two local children and how his relationship with his wife helped him overcome the trauma of losing them.

Against unspeakable odds, at their most desperate moments, the individuals we meet in Ties That Bind find their way to one another, discovering hope and healing. 

 

Commemorating ten years of StoryCorps, the conversations collected in Ties That Bind are a testament to the transformational power of listening.

 

 

On May 20, 2010, headlines around the world announced one of the most extraordinary accomplishments in modern science: the creation of the world’s first synthetic lifeform. In Life at the Speed of Light, scientist J. Craig Venter, best known for sequencing the human genome, shares the dramatic account of how he led a team of researchers in this pioneering effort in synthetic genomics—and how that work will have a profound impact on our existence in the years to come. This is a fascinating and authoritative study that provides readers an opportunity to ponder afresh the age-old question “What is life?” at the dawn of a new era of biological engineering. 

 

From the author of the sleeper hit T-Rex Trying, a sweetly funny new collection of drawings of T-Rex and his family being stymied by the modern world—and their unfortunately short arms
 

Thousands of fans fell for Hugh Murphy’s first book, T-Rex Trying, which featured T-Rex trying and failing to do everyday tasks, from putting on a cardigan to jumping rope. In T-Rex Trying and Trying, the loveable lizard king is back . . . this time with his family, She-Rex and Wee-Rex. 

 

Featuring never-before-seen content and the best from the site, Murphy’s 120 drawings feature:
• T-Rex trying to take a selfie • She-Rex trying to catch a bouquet at a wedding • T-Rex trying to change a diaper • T-Rex trying to tell people he’s choking • Wee-Rex trying to crawl • T-Rex trying to measure his inseam • and many, many more! An adorable and hilarious book, this is the perfect gift for readers of all ages. 

 

 

Friday Night Lights meets Glee—the incredible and true story of an extraordinary drama teacher who has changed the lives of thousands of students and inspired a town.

Why would the multimillionaire producer of Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, to see a high school production of Les Misérables?

To see the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows such as Rent and Spring Awakening before they move on to high school theater programs across the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar town go on to become Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders. Michael Sokolove, a Levittown native and former student of Volpe’s, chronicles the drama director’s last school years and follows a group of student actors as they work through riveting dramas both on and off the stage. This is a story of an economically depressed but proud town finding hope in a gifted teacher and the magic of theater.

 

 

What kind of world would you like to inhabit?

To imagine something different, better, or more interesting is to push the existing world into a state of change. Some of the greatest revolutionary acts of our time came to be because someone had the courage to imagine something new.

In The Imaginary World of…, Keri Smith asks readers to imagine something new: a unique world of their own making.

Readers start by creating a list of everything to which they’re drawn: things they love and collect, colors, shapes, ideas, people, and creatures that fascinate them. The items in the list will become the building blocks for their imaginary worlds, used to create texture and establish a foundation for the new place they’ll begin to inhabit. Readers will then be prompted to think about landscape, place names, maps, currency, residents, logos, foods, histories, and more for their world.

An indispensable guide for artists, dreamers, activists, and kids of all ages, The Imaginary World of… will encourage readers to become revolutionaries of everyday life, chronicling the possibilities in the brave new worlds they envision.