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These books have been selected either because we think they are of particular interest or 
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June 9

 

The Lion
By Nelson DeMille $27.99
     In this eagerly awaited follow-up to The Lion's Game, John Corey, former NYPD Homicide detective and special agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, is back. And, unfortunately for Corey, so is Asad Khalil, the notorious Libyan terrorist otherwise known as "The Lion." Last we heard from him, Khali had claimed to be defecting to the US only to unleash the most horrific reign of terrorism ever to occur on American soil. While Corey and his partner, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, chased him across the country, Khalil methodically eliminated his victims one by one and then disappeared without a trace.

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
By Anthony Bourdain $26.99
     Anthony Bourdain is the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York, and he is the host of the series No Reservations on the Travel Channel. He is the author of A Cook's Tour, Les Halles Cookbook, and the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo.
 

Rhino Ranch
By Larry McMurtry $15
     In this poignant and striking final chapter in the Duane Moore story, which began in 1966 with The Last Picture Show, Pulitzer Prize- and Oscar-winning author Larry McMurtry takes readers on one last unforgettable journey to Thalia, Texas, a town that continues to change at a breakneck pace even as Duane feels himself slowing down.
     Returning home to recover from a near-fatal heart attack, Duane discovers that he has a new neighbor: the statuesque K. K. Slater, a quirky billionairess who's come to Thalia to open the Rhino Ranch, dedicated to the preservation of the endangered black rhinoceros. Despite their obvious differences, Duane can't help but find himself charmed by K.K.'s stubborn toughness and lively spirit, and the two embark on a flirtation that rapidly veers toward the sexual -- but the return of Honor Carmichael complicates Duane's romantic intentions considerably. As Duane reflects on all that he and Thalia have been through, he feels adrift in a world where love and betrayal walk hand in hand and a stalwart Texas oil town can become home to a nature preserve.

So Cold the River
By Michael Koryta $24.99
     It started with a beautiful woman and a challenge. As a gift for her husband, Alyssa Bradford approaches Eric Shaw to make a documentary about her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, a 95-year-old billionaire whose past is wrapped in mystery. Eric grabs the job even though there are few clues to the man's past--just the name of his hometown and an antique water bottle he's kept his entire life.
     In Bradford's hometown, Eric discovers an extraordinary history--a glorious domed hotel where movie stars, presidents, athletes, and mobsters once mingled, and hot springs whose miraculous mineral water cured everything from insomnia to malaria. Neglected for years, the resort has been restored to its former grandeur just in time for Eric's stay.

June 15

 

Whiplash: A FBI Novel
By Catherine Coulter $26.95
     Yale professor Dr. Edward Kender's father is undergoing chemotherapy when the supply of a critical accompanying drug suddenly runs out. Unwilling to accept the drug company's disingenuous excuse of production line problems, Dr. Kender hires private investigator Erin Pulaski to prove there is something more sinister going on at Schiffer Engel's manufacturing facility in Indiana.
     Pulaski uncovers a bombshell-Schiffer Engel's intentional shortage is bringing in a windfall profit in excess of two billion dollars.
     When a top Schiffer Engel employee shows up viciously murdered behind the U.S. headquarters, Sherlock and Savich are called in to lend a hand. The murder of a foreign national on federal land can only mean the German drug company has a secret of epic proportions.

The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824
By Harvey Sachs $26
     The Ninth Symphony, a symbol of freedom and joy, was Beethoven’s mightiest attempt to help humanity find its way from darkness to light, from chaos to peace. Yet the work was born in a repressive era, with terrified Bourbons, Hapsburgs, and Romanovs using every means at their disposal to squelch populist rumblings in the wake of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s wars. Ironically, the premiere of this hymn to universal brotherhood took place in Vienna, the capital of a nation that Metternich was turning into the first modern police state.

June 22

 

The Devil Amongst the Lawyers: A Ballad Novel
By Sharyn McCrumb $24.99
     In 1934 all the national publications sent their star reporters to remote Virginia to cover the trial of Erma Morton: a beautiful 21-year-old year old mountain girl with a teaching degree, accused of murdering her father--a drunken tyrant of a man.
     Eager for a new cause celebrity to capture the public's imagination, they were counting on reports of horse-drawn buggies, run-down shacks, and children in threadbare clothes--all of the stereotypes of mountain life. But among them is Carl Jennings, an 18-year-old mountain boy on his first job. An eager, honest journalist, he reports accurately--describing telephones, electricity, gas stations, and coal company executives.

Masters of the Game: Inside the World's Most Powerful Law Firm
By Kim Eisler $25.99
     For the past twenty years, author and journalist Kim Eisler has covered the law firm of Williams & Connolly, first at American Lawyer Magazine, then for Legal Times and since 1993 as National Editor of Washingtonian Magazine. More than any other writer, Kim has unprecedented and unusual contacts and relationships with the partners, as well as a background knowledge and familiarity with the firm’s history and personnel over the past two decades.
 

Sizzling Sixteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel
By Janet Evanovich $27.99
     It’s summertime in Jersey and all across the land it’s time for summer reading and working on your tan. But no vacation can start or go off without a hitch unless you’ve packed your bag with the latest Evanovich. Yes, it’s time for Stephanie and gang to get up to their old antics with Grandma, Lula, Connie too— Mrs. Plum, she will be frantic! See, someone wants to kill Vinnie Who? The list is long and Mooner returns to brighten our day complete with his favorite bong. And Lula’s involved in a Ponzi scheme Stand back! You know she’ll be pissed while Stephanie’s chasing a dangerous skip he thinks he’ll never be missed. With Ranger days and Morelli nights (Or perhaps its the other way ‘round) this sixteenth Stephanie Plum adventure will wear the blockbuster crown.

High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg
By Niall Ferguson $29.95
     In this pathbreaking new biography, based on more than ten thousand hitherto unavailable letters and diary entries, bestselling author Niall Ferguson returns to his roots as a financial historian to tell the story of Siegmund Warburg, an extraordinary man whose austere philosophy of finance offers much insight today.
     A refugee from Hitler's Germany, Warburg rose to become the dominant figure in postwar City of London and one of the architects of European financial integration. Seared by the near collapse and then "Aryanization" of his family's long-established bank in the 1930s and then frustrated by the stagnation of its Wall Street sister, Kuhn Loeb, in the 1950s, Warburg resolved that his own firm of S. G. Warburg (founded in 1946) would be different.

June 29

 

In the Name of Honor
By Richard North Patterson $26
     The McCarrans and the Gallaghers, two military families, have been close for decades, ever since Anthony McCarran—now one of the army's most distinguished generals—became best friends with Jack Gallagher, a fellow West Pointer who was later killed in Vietnam. Now a new generation of soldiers faces combat, and Lt. Brian McCarran, the general's son, has returned from a harrowing tour in Iraq. Traumatized by wartime experiences he will not reveal, Brian depends on his lifelong friendship with Kate Gallagher, Jack's daughter, who is married to Brian's commanding officer in Iraq, Capt. Joe D'Abruzzo. But since coming home, D'Abruzzo also seems changed by the experiences he and Brian shared—he's become secretive and remote.
 

Private
By James Patterson & Maxine Paetro $27.99
     Former CIA agent Jack Morgan runs Private, a renowned investigation company with branches around the globe. It is where you go when you need maximum force and maximum discretion. The secrets of the most influential men and women on the planet come to Jack daily--and his staff of investigators uses the world's most advanced forensic tools to make and break their cases.
     Jack is already deep into the investigation of a multi-million dollar NFL gambling scandal and the unsolved slayings of 18 schoolgirls when he learns of a horrific murder close to home: his best friend's wife, Jack's former lover, has been killed. It nearly pushes him over the edge. Instead, Jack pushes back and devotes all of Private's resources to tracking down her killer.

July 1

 

Far North: A Novel
By Marcel Theroux $15
     Out on the frontier of a failed state, a plane crashes at the edge of an abandoned city. Sheriff Makepeace, the city's last citizen, resolves to go in search of the plane's origins and what is left of a world ravaged by climate change and war. In this startling, post-apocalyptic landscape, Makepeace encounters violent stockaded villages, irradiated cities, and work camps laboring to harness the technologies of a vanished civilization.

Beneath the Sands of Egypt: Adventures of an Unconventional Archaeologist
By Donald P. Ryan $26.99
     The memoir of a world-renowned archaeologist and Egyptologist. Ryan takes the reader behind the scenes of the life of a typical archaeologist, who leads anything but the "dangerous, swashbuckling life" of characters like Indiana Jones. While many of his expeditions involve the excitement of discovery, he writes, most of his time is spent meticulously sifting through sand to rescue and piece together buried artifacts and then trying to puzzle out their meaning. In 1989, he made the exciting discovery of a mummified body that was later identified as controversial female pharaoh Hatshepsut. Ryan continues to work diligently at his craft, noting that "each time we come across something new, whether artifacts from the past or ideas from the mind, it's a discovery."

Work Song
By Ivan Doig $25.95
     "If America was a melting pot, Butte would be its boiling point," observes Morrie Morgan, the itinerant teacher, walking encyclopedia, and inveterate charmer last seen leaving a one-room schoolhouse in Marias Coulee, the stage he stole in Ivan Doig's 2006 The Whistling Season. A decade later, Morrie is back in Montana, as the beguiling narrator of Work Song.

 

July 8

 

The Island
By Ellen Hilderbrand $25.99
     Birdie Cousins has planned a getaway with her daughter Chess on rustic, charming Tuckernuck Island off the coast of Nantucket, a chance to bond before Chess's upcoming marriage. Birdie's been through a difficult divorce herself, so she knows the big commitment that marriage entails. She's only recently dared to tiptoe back into the waters of romance.
     When Chess abruptly breaks off the wedding and her fiancé shockingly dies in a rock climbing accident, it leaves Chess feeling guilty and deeply depressed. Birdie circles the wagons, convincing her younger daughter Tate, and her own sister India to join them on Tuckernuck for the month of July.

The Undertaker's Wife
By Loren D. Estleman $14.99
     The undertaker practices the Dismal Trade with consummate skill. He has raised it to an art through the high craft of the Connable Method. He has transformed the ugliness of death into a thing of dignity and beauty. Victims brutalized by war, street fights, fires—every hazard in a raw West—in his hands, become presentable. Everywhere on the frontier he offers his skill: to the rich of San Francisco, to Kansas cowboys, outlaws, soldiers, and sheriffs. He is devoted to dignifying the dead. The undertaker’s wife waits, she weaves, she builds.

The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree
By Susan Wittig Albert $24.95
     The country may be struggling through the Great Depression, but the ladies of Darling, Alabama, are determined to keep their chins up. Their garden club-The Darling Dahlias-has a clubhouse, a garden, a flag, and a weekly column in The Darling Dispatch written by their own Miss Elizabeth Lacy. Unlike their snooty rivals-Sisters of the Spade- they welcome members from across the social spectrum. What better way to know everything there is to know about everyone in town?
     But when a treasure trove of sterling silver is found buried under the town's famous Cucumber Tree, two of the Dahlias claim ownership, which leads to some very unladylike behavior. And the unpleasant discovery of an unknown young woman's body on a hill outside of town points to even worse behavior. If anyone can get to the root of these mysteries, it's the Darling Dahlias.

A Full Cup: Sir Thomas Lipton's Extraordinary Life & His Quest for the America's Cup
By Michael D’Antonio $26.95
     In A Full Cup, Michael D'Antonio tells the tale of this larger- than-life figure. Beginning with a journey across the United States just after the Civil War, Thomas J. Lipton developed the ambition and learned the business techniques that helped him create the first chain of grocery stores. Wealthy before the age of thirty, he set his sights on the tea trade, and soon his name became synonymous with his product. Lipton's great business success makes for a compelling story of innovation and achievement. Moreover, though, Lipton's most intriguing creation was a public persona-one of the first formed with the help of a modern mass media-that appealed to millions of ordinary people, as well as the elites in America and Europe. Concocting simple stunts like elephant parades, Lipton mastered the new art of obtaining free publicity. With shameless self-promotion, he became one of the world's most eligible bachelors, a patron of the poor, and ultimately reached legendary heights when he revived the competition for the America's Cup. With one losing attempt after another, the gallant Lipton, who didn't even know how to sail his own yacht, became ever more popular. D'Antonio's biography brings to vivid life this remarkable figure.

July 13

 

Faithful Place: A Novel
By Tana French $25.95
     Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was nineteen, growing up poor in Dublin's inner city, and living crammed into a small flat with his family on Faithful Place. But he had his sights set on a lot more. He and Rosie Daly were all ready to run away to London together, get married, get good jobs, break away from factory work and poverty and their old lives.
     But on the winter night when they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show. Frank took it for granted that she'd dumped him, probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again.
     Neither did Rosie. Everyone thought she had gone to England on her own and was over there living a shiny new life. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank is going home whether he likes it or not.

 

The Whisperers: A Thriller
By John Connolly $26
     In his latest gripping Charlie Parker thriller, Connolly takes readers into the heart of the woods, where a very dangerous evil lurks. A group of disenchanted former soldiers has begun its own smuggling operation, and what is being moved is infinitely stranger and more terrifying than anyone can imagine. Anyone, that is, except private detective Charlie Parker, who has his own intimate knowledge of the darkness in men’s hearts.

My Life as an Experiment: One Man's Humble Quest to Improve Himself by Living as a Woman, Becoming George Washington, Telling No Lies, and Other Radical Tests
By A. J. Jacobs $15
     Bestselling author and human guinea pig A. J. Jacobs puts his life to the test and reports on the surprising and entertaining results. He goes undercover as a woman, lives by George Washington’s moral code, and impersonates a movie star. He practices "radical honesty," brushes his teeth with the world’s most rational toothpaste, and outsourcers every part of his life to India—including reading bedtime stories to his kids.

Corduroy Mansions: A Novel
By Alexander McCall Smith $24.95
     Corduroy Mansions is the affectionate nickname given to a genteel, crumbling mansion block in London’s vibrant Pimlico neighborhood, and the home turf of a new cast of captivating, quirky, and altogether McCall-Smithian characters. There’s the middle-aged wine merchant William, who’s trying to convince his reluctant twenty-four-year-old son, Eddie, to leave the nest; and Marcia, the restaurant propriatrix who has her sights set on William. There’s also the (justifiably) much-loathed member of Parliament, Oedipus Snark; his mother, Berthea, who’s writing his biography and loathing every minute of him; and his long-suffering girlfriend, Barbara, a literary agent who would like to be his wife (but, then, she’d like to be almost anyone’s wife). There’s the vitamin evangelist, the psychoanalyst, the art student with a puzzling boyfriend, and the Pimlico terrier, Freddie de la Haye, who can fasten his own seat belt and is almost certainly the only avowed vegetarian canine in London.
 

In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving
By Leigh Ann Tuohy $24
     First came the bestselling book, then the Oscar-nominated movie—the story of Michael Oher and the family who adopted him has become one of the most talked-about true stories of our time. But until now, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy have never told this astonishing tale in their own way and with their own words.
     For Leigh Anne and Sean, it all begins with family. Leigh Anne, the daughter of a tough-as-nails U.S. Marshal, decided early on that her mission was to raise children who would become "cheerful givers." Sean, who grew up poor, believed that one day he could provide a home that would be "a place of miracles." Together, they raised two remarkable children—Collins and Sean Jr.—who shared their deep Christian faith and their commitment to making a difference. And then one day Leigh Anne met a homeless African-American boy named Michael and decided that her family could be his. She and her husband taught Michael what this book teaches all of us: Everyone has a blind side, but a loving heart always sees a path toward true charity.

July 15

 

How to Grow a School Garden: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers
By Arden Bucklin-Sporer & Rachel Pringle $24.95
     Today both schools and parents have a unique opportunity - and an increasing responsibility - to cultivate an awareness of our finite resources, to reinforce values of environmental stewardship, to help students understand concepts of nutrition and health, and to connect children to the natural world. What better way to do this than by engaging young people, their families, and teachers in the wondrous outdoor classroom that is their very own school garden?
     It is all here: developing the concept, planning, fundraising, organizing, designing the space, preparing the site, working with parents and schools, teaching in the garden, planting, harvesting, and even cooking, with kid-friendly recipes and year-round activities. Packed with strategies, to-do lists, sample letters, detailed lesson plans, and tricks of the trade from decades of experience developing school garden programs for grades K-8, this hands-on approach will make school garden projects accessible, inexpensive, and sustainable.

Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food
By Paul Greenberg $25.95
     Our relationship with the ocean is undergoing a profound transformation. Whereas just three decades ago nearly everything we ate from the sea was wild, rampant overfishing combined with an unprecedented bio-tech revolution has brought us to a point where wild and farmed fish occupy equal parts of a complex and confusing marketplace. We stand at the edge of a cataclysm; there is a distinct possibility that our children's children will never eat a wild fish that has swum freely in the sea. In Four Fish, award-winning writer and lifelong fisherman Paul Greenberg takes us on a culinary journey, exploring the history of the fish that dominate our menus---salmon, sea bass, cod and tuna-and examining where each stands at this critical moment in time.

July 20

 

Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery
By Stephen J. Pyne $29.95
     Launched in 1977, the two unmanned Voyager spacecraft have completed their Grand Tour to the four outer planets, and they are now on course to become the first man-made objects to exit our solar system. To many, this remarkable achievement is the culmination of a golden age of American planetary exploration, begun in the wake of the 1957 Sputnik launch. More than this, Voyager may be one of the purest expressions of exploration in human history.

The Rembrandt Affair: A Gabriel Allon Novel
By Daniel Silva $26.95
     Determined to sever his ties with the Office, Gabriel Allon has retreated to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall with his beautiful Venetian-born wife Chiara. But once again his seclusion is interrupted by a visitor from his tangled past: the endearingly eccentric London art dealer, Julian Isherwood. As usual, Isherwood has a problem. And it is one only Gabriel can solve.
     In the ancient English city of Glastonbury, an art restorer has been brutally murdered and a long-lost portrait by Rembrandt mysteriously stolen. Despite his reluctance, Gabriel is persuaded to use his unique skills to search for the painting and those responsible for the crime. But as he painstakingly follows a trail of clues leading from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires and, finally, to a villa on the graceful shores of Lake Geneva, Gabriel discovers there are deadly secrets connected to the painting. And evil men behind them.

July 27

 

Stem Cell Medicine: The New Adult Stem Cell Regenerative Therapy for Cancer, Spinal Injuries, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's and other conditions
By Robin Smith $25
     Stem Cell Medicine gives an authoritive, comprehensive and understandable "crash course" in this important scientific technology, and explains how the adult stem cell--extracted from patients' own bodies--offers incredible curative possibilities, without political controversy.
     As a primitive cell that call transform into many different types of cells, the adult stem cell can be used to combat a variety of diseases, including multiple sclerosis, heart disease, cancer, leukemia and Lupus. Real-life success stories prove that this technology that seems "too good to be true" is actually changing lives.

 

 

 

 

August 3

 

 

K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain
By Ed Viesturs $14.99
     At 28,251 feet, the world's second-tallest mountain, K2 thrusts skyward out of the Karakoram Range of northern Pakistan. Climbers regard it as the ultimate achievement in mountaineering, with good reason. Four times as deadly as Everest, K2 has claimed the lives of seventy-seven climbers since 1954. In August 2008 eleven climbers died in a single thirty-six-hour period on K2–the worst single-event tragedy in the mountain's history and the second worst in the long chronicle of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges. Yet summiting K2 remains a cherished goal for climbers from all over the globe. Before he faced the challenge of K2 himself, Ed Viesturs, one of the world's premier high-altitude mountaineers, thought of it as "the Holy Grail of mountaineering."

Breaking Dawn: The Twilight Saga #4
By Stephanie Meyer $14.99
     To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs.
     Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life-first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse-seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever

The Clique #13: My Little Phony
By Lisi Harrison $9.99
     The thirteenth novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series about Westchester County's most exclusive private middle school girls.

 

Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago
By Douglas Perry $25.95
     There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins, a minister's daughter from a small town, zeroed in on murderers instead. Looking for subjects to turn into a play, she would make "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan - both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers - the talk of the town. Love-struck men sent flowers to the jail and newly emancipated women sent impassioned letters to the newspapers. Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites.

The Red Queen: A Novel
By Philippa Gregory $25.99
     Heiress to the red rose of Lancaster, Margaret Beaufort never surrenders her belief that her house is the true ruler of England and that she has a great destiny before her. Her ambitions are disappointed when her sainted cousin Henry VI fails to recognize her as a kindred spirit, and she is even more dismayed when he sinks into madness. Her mother mocks her plans, revealing that Margaret will always be burdened with the reputation of her father, one of the most famously incompetent English commanders in France. But worst of all for Margaret is when she discovers that her mother is sending her to a loveless marriage in remote Wales.

My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, a Daughter, a Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence
By Lauren Kessler $25.95
     With the eye of a reporter, the curiosity of an anthropologist, and the open (and sometimes wounded) heart of a mother, award-winning author Lauren Kessler embeds herself in her about-to-be-teenage daughter's life. In seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms, at home, online, at the mall, and at summer camp, Kessler observes, investigates, chronicles- and participates in-the life of a twenty-first-century teen. As she begins to better understand and appreciate her mercurial daughter, their relationship-at first a mirror of the author's difficult relationship with her own mother-lurches in new directions. With the help of a resident teen expert (her daughter), as well as teachers, doctors, therapists, and other mothers, Kessler illuminates the age-old struggle from both sides, gracefully interweaving personal experience with journalistic inquiry. Funny, poignant, and insightful, My Teenage Werewolf explores the fascinating and scary world of today's teen as it comes to grips with the single most important relationship in a woman's life.

August 10

 

The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases
By Michael Capuzzo $26
     Three of the greatest detectives in the world--a renowned FBI agent turned private eye, a sculptor and lothario who speaks to the dead, and an eccentric profiler known as "the living Sherlock Holmes"-were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders. Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter decided one day over lunch that something had to be done, and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice. The three men invited the greatest collection of forensic investigators ever assembled, drawn from five continents, to the Downtown Club in Philadelphia to begin an audacious quest: to bring the coldest killers in the world to an accounting. Named for the first modern detective, the Parisian Eugène François Vidocq –the flamboyant Napoleonic real-life sleuth who inspired Sherlock Holmes – the Vidocq Society meets monthly in its secretive chambers to solve a cold murder over a gourmet lunch.

Composed: A Memoir
By Rosanne Cash $26.95
     For thirty years as a musician, Rosanne Cash has enjoyed both critical and commercial success, releasing a series of albums that are as notable for their lyrical intelligence as for their musical excellence.
     Now, in her memoir, Cash writes compellingly about her upbringing in Southern California as the child of country legend Johnny Cash, and of her relationships with her mother and her famous stepmother, June Carter Cash. In her account of her development as an artist she shares memories of a hilarious stint as a twenty-year-old working for Columbia Records in London; recording her own first album on a German label; working her way to success; her marriage to Rodney Crowell, a union that made them Nashville's premier couple; her relationship with the country music establishment; taking a new direction in her music and leaving Nashville to move to New York; motherhood; dealing with the deaths of her parents, in part through music; the process of songwriting; and the fulfillment she has found with her current husband and musical collaborator, John Leventhal.

The Capitol Game
By Brian Haig $25.99
     It was the deal of the decade, if not the century. A small, insignificant company on the edge of bankruptcy had discovered an alchemist's dream; a miraculous polymer, that when coated on any vehicle, was the equivalent of 30 inches of steel. With bloody conflicts surging in Iraq and Afghanistan, the polymer promises to save thousands of lives and change the course of both wars.
     Jack Wiley, a successful Wall Street banker, believes he has a found a dream come true when he mysteriously learns of this miraculous polymer. His plan: enlist the help of the Capitol Group, one of the country's largest and most powerful corporations in a quick, bloodless takeover of the small company that developed the polymer. It seems like a partnership made in heaven...until the Pentagon's investigative service begins nosing around, and the deal turns into a nightmare. Now, Jack's back is up against the wall and he and the Capitol Group find themselves embroiled in the greatest scandal the government and corporate America have ever seen...

August 17

 

Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err is Human
By Michael & Ellen Kaplan $18
     Our species, it appears, is hardwired to get things wrong in a staggering variety of ways. Why did recipients of a loan offer accept a higher interest rate when a pretty woman's face was printed on the flyer? Why did one poll on immigration find that the most despised foreigners were from a group that did not exist? Why does giving someone power make them more likely to chew with their mouth open and pick their nose? And why is your sister going out with that biker dude?
     In fact, our cognitive, logical, and romantic failures may be a fair price to pay for our extraordinary success as a species—they are the necessary cost of our adaptability. Bozo Sapiens swoops effortlessly across neurochemistry, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology (among other disciplines) to answer with clarity and wit the questions above—and larger ones about what it means to be human.

The Courtiers: Splendor and Intrigue in the Georgian Court at Kensington Palace
By Lucy Worsley $30
     Kensington Palace is now most famous as the former home of Diana, Princess of Wales, but the palace's glory days came between 1714 and 1760, during the reigns of George I and II . In the eighteenth century, this palace was a world of skullduggery, intrigue, politicking, etiquette, wigs, and beauty spots, where fans whistled open like switchblades and unusual people were kept as curiosities. Lucy Worsley's The Courtiers charts the trajectory of the fantastically quarrelsome Hanovers and the last great gasp of British court life. Structured around the paintings of courtiers and servants that line the walls of the King's Staircase of Kensington Palace, paintings you can see at the palace today. The Courtiers goes behind closed doors to meet a pushy young painter, a maid of honor with a secret marriage, a vice chamberlain with many vices, a bedchamber woman with a violent husband, two aging royal mistresses, and many more. The result is an indelible portrait of court life leading up to the famous reign of George III, and a feast for both Anglophiles and lovers of history and royalty.

What Color Is Your Parachute? 2011: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers
By Richard N. Bolles $28.99
     In good times, people use What Color Is Your Parachute? because it helps them change direction, switch careers, and find rewarding work. In hard times, it teaches ways to uncover jobs when supposedly there are no jobs, and it provides a step-by-step plan (called the Flower Exercise) that gives people the edge over other job-hunters. Since it is updated every year, this guide combines decades of experience with up-to-the-minute advice. The 2011 edition will include additional information on job clubs and innovative advice on creativity and inventiveness. It will also feature a new emphasis on improving productivity by showing job-hunters how to treat their search like a well organized day job. This classic career guide is a proven resource for the recently laid-off, the underemployed, and anyone dreaming of career fulfillment.

General Jo Shelby's March
By Anthony Arthur $26
     Acclaimed historian Anthony Arthur tells one of the most remarkable but surprisingly unknown stories of the post–Civil War era in full for the first time. Here is the unforgettable account of how a famous Confederate general forged a defiant new life out of crushing defeat, and how he finally achieved forgiveness and respect in his own reunited land.
     General Jo Shelby had been a daring and ruthless cavalry commander, renowned and notorious for his slashing forays behind Union lines. After Appomattox, Shelby, declaring that he would never surrender, headed for Mexico. With three hundred men, some from his fighting “Iron Brigade” regiment, others adventurers, fortune hunters, and deserters, the man Arthur refers to as “the last holdout of the Confederacy” made the treacherous twelve-hundred-mile trip.

August 25

 

Spider Bones: A Temperance Brennan Novel
By Kathy Reichs $26.99
     Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan has a puzzle on her hands. A man has drowned under suspicious circumstances. His fingerprints identify him immediately, but here’s the thing: the man apparently died more than 40 years ago. And if this is really him, then who is buried in his grave? #1 New York Times bestseller Kathy Reichs is back with her thirteenth novel featuring America's favorite forensic anthropologist, Tempe Brennan

Mockingjay: The Final Book of The Hunger Games
By Suzanne Collins $17.99
     Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins’s groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession
By Craig Childs $24.99
     Beyond what most people think about archaeology--with its cleanly numbered dates, and discoveries--lies a vibrant and controversial realm of scientists, thieves, and contested land claims. Now, in Finders Keepers, Childs explores the field's transgressions against the cultures it tries to preserve and pauses to ask: To whom does the past belong? Written in his trademark lyrical style, this riveting book carries readers directly into his adventures and discoveries, lifting the curtain on the ethical dilemmas and dark side of archaeology. It is a book about man and nature, remnants and memory, a dashing tale of crime and detection. In other words, this is a ghost story.

August 30

 

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference
By Cordelia Fine $25.95
     Sex-based discrimination is supposedly a relic of the distant past. Yet popular books, magazines, and even scientific articles increasingly defend continuing inequalities between the sexes by calling on immutable biological differences between the male and the female brain. Why are there so few women in science and engineering, so few men in the laundry room? Well, they say, it’s our brains. Drawing on the latest research in developmental psychology, neuroscience, and education, Delusions of Gender rebuts these claims, showing how old myths, dressed up in new scientific finery, help perpetuate the status quo. This book reveals the brain’s remarkable plasticity, shows the substantial influence of culture on identity, and, ultimately, exposes just how much of what we consider “hardwired” is actually malleable, empowering us to break free of the supposed predestination of our sex chromosomes.

September 1

 

Lost Empire: A Fargo Adventure
By Clive Cussler $27.95
     While scuba diving in Tanzania, Sam and Remi Fargo come upon a relic belonging to a long-lost Confederate ship. An anomaly about the relic sets them off chasing a mystery-but unknown to them, a much more powerful force is engaged in the same chase. Mexico's ruling party, the ultranationalist Mexica Tenochca, is intent on finding that artifact as well, because it contains a secret that could destroy the party utterly.
     Through Tanzania and Zanzibar, into the rainforests of Madagascar, and across the Indian Ocean to Indonesia and the legendary site of the 1883 Krakatoa explosion, the Fargos and their ruthless opponents pursue the hunt-but only one can win. And the penalty for failure is death.

Freedom: A Novel
By Jonathan Franzen $28
     Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter’s dreams. Together with Walter—environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man—she was doing her small part to build a better world.

Body Work: A V.I. Warshawski Novel
By Sara Paretsky $26.95
     The enigmatic performer known as the Body Artist takes the stage at Chicago's Club Gouge and allows her audience to use her naked body as a canvas for their impromptu illustrations. V. I. Warshawski watches as people step forward, some meek, some bold, to make their mark.
     The evening takes a strange turn when one woman's sketch triggers a violent outburst from a man at a nearby table. Quickly subdued, the man-an Iraqi war vet-leaves the club. Days later, the woman is shot outside the club. She dies in V.I.'s arms, and the police move quickly to arrest the angry vet.
     A shooting in Chicago is nothing new, certainly not to V.I., who is hired by the vet's family to clear his name. As V.I. seeks answers, her investigation will take her from the North Side of Chicago to the far reaches of the Gulf War.

Pirates of the Levant
By Arturo Perez-Reverte $25.95
     Accompanied by his faithful foster son, Íñigo, Captain Alatriste accepts a job as a mercenary aboard a Spanish galleon. The ship sets sail from Naples on a journey that will take them to some of the most remote-and wretched-outposts of the empire: Morocco, Algeria, and finally to Malta for a stunning and bloody battle on the high seas that will challenge even the battle-hardened Alatriste's resolve.
     Now seventeen, Íñigo is almost ready to leave Alatriste, his foster father and fellow soldier. But will age and experience bring wisdom, or is he likely to repeat many of his mentor's mistakes?

September 7

 

Ape House: A Novel
By Sara Gruen $26
     Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships—but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language.
     Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but animals she gets—especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans . . . until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what’s really going on inside.

The Elephant's Journey
By Jose Saramago $24
     In 1551, King João III of Portugal gave Archduke Maximilian an unusual wedding present: an elephant named Solomon. The elephant’s journey from Lisbon to Vienna was witnessed and remarked upon by scholars, historians, and ordinary people.
     Solomon and his keeper, Subhro, begin in dismal conditions, forgotten in a corner of the palace grounds. When it occurs to the king and queen that an elephant would be an appropriate wedding gift, everyone rushes to get them ready: Subhro is given two new suits of clothes and Solomon a long overdue scrub

Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
By Michael Ruhlman $16
     In Ratio, Michael Ruhlman, recognized as one of the great translators of the chef’s craft for both home cooks and culinary professionals, shows how cooking with ratios will unchain you from recipes and set you free. Ratio is the truth of cooking: basic preparations that teach us how the fundamental ingredients of the kitchen—water, flour, butter and oils, milk and cream, and eggs—work. Detailing thirty-three essential ratios and suggesting enticing variations, Ruhlman empowers every cook to make countless doughs, batters, stocks, sauces, meats, and custards without ever again having to locate a recipe.

Permanently Blue: How Democrats Can End the Republican Party and Rule the Next Generation
By Dylan Loewe $14

     In 2008 Democrats accomplished the political trifecta that had eluded them for more than 40 years: get a progressive president elected and win landslide victories in the House and Senate at the same time. The question is, was that the high point for the party? Or was it just the beginning of a Democratic golden age?
     As author Dylan Loewe compellingly argues, Democrats now have a unique chance to make their majority permanent and to dominate politics for a generation to come—provided they recognize their opportunity and employ the right strategies to capitalize on it. From the midterms and redistricting to Obama’s reelection, from the search for his successor in 2016 to the changing political landscape in 2020 and beyond, Loewe walks readers through what it will take for Democrats to stay in power and why the possibility of turning the nation “permanently blue” is suddenly so bright.

September 14

 

The English is Coming! How One Language is Sweeping the World
By Leslie Dunton-Downer $24
     English has fast become the number one language for everything from business and science, diplomacy and education, entertainment and environmentalism to socializing and beyond—virtually any human activity unfolding on a global scale. Worldwide, nonnative speakers of English now outnumber natives three to one; and in China alone, more people use English than in the United States—a remarkable feat for a language that got its start as a mongrel tongue on an island fifteen hundred years ago. Through the fascinating stories of thirty English words used and understood in nearly all corners of the globe, The English Is Coming! takes readers on an eye-opening journey across culture and commerce, war and peace, and time and space.

The Best American Poetry 2010
Edited By David Lehman $35
     Amy Gerstler’s commitment to innovative poetry that conveys meaning, feeling, wit, and humor informs the cross section of poems in the 2010 edition of The Best American Poetry. The works collected here represent the wealth, the breadth, and the tremendous energy of poetry in the United States today. Featuring poems from some of our country’s top bards, including John Ashbery, Anne Carson, Louise Glück, Sharon Olds, and Charles Simic, The Best American Poetry 2010 also presents poems that poignantly capture the current moment, such as the sonnets John Updike wrote to chronicle his dying weeks. And there are exciting poems from a constellation of rising stars: Bob Hicok, Terrance Hayes, Denise Duhamel, Dean Young, and Elaine Equi, to name a very few.

Guinness World Records 2011
By Guinness World Records $28.95
     Guinness World Records 2011 continues to build on the intriguing, informative, inspiring and instructional records and superlatives that have made Guinness World Records one of the most famous brands and an annual best-seller around the world. Over 110 million copies have sold since the first edition was published in 1955. Nearly 4 million copies are sold every year in more than 100 countries and in 25 languages. Market research has indicated that Guinness World Records is one of the strongest brands in the world, with prompted brand recognition of 98.2% in the English language territories.

Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama
By Bill O’Reilly $27.99

Safe Haven
By Nicholas Sparks $25.99     When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard, putting down roots in the close-knit community and becoming increasingly attached to Alex and his family.

The Suicide Run: Five Tales of the Marine Corps
By William Styron $14
     The Suicide Run collects five of William Styron’s meticulously rendered narratives based on his real-life experiences as an U.S. Marine. In “Blankenship,” Styron draws on his stint as a guard at a stateside military prison at the end of World War II. “Marriott, the Marine” and “The Suicide Run”—which Styron composed as part of an intended novel that he set aside to write Sophie’s Choice—depict the surreal experience of being conscripted a second time, after World War II, to serve in the Korean War. “My Father’s House” captures the frustration of a soldier trying to become a civilian again. In “Elobey, Annobón, and Corisco,” a soldier attempts to exorcise the dread of an approaching battle by daydreaming about far-off islands, visited vicariously through his childhood stamp collection.

Wicked Appetite
By Janet Evanovich $27.99
     Life in Marblehead has had a pleasant predictability, until Diesel arrives. Rumor has it that a collection of priceless ancient relics representing the Seven Deadly Sins have made their way to Boston’s North Shore. Partnered with pastry chef Lizzie Tucker, Diesel bullies and charms his way through historic Salem to track them down—and his criminal mastermind cousin Gerewulf Grimorie. The black-haired, black-hearted Wulf is on the hunt for the relic representing gluttony. Caught in a race against time, Diesel and Lizzie soon find out that more isn’t always better, as they battle Wulf and the first of the deadly sins.

Let's Have a Bite! A Banquet of Beastly Rhymes
By Robert L. Forbes $19.95
     If you haven't heard, the whole animal kingdom is roaring its approval for Let's Have A Bite!, this collection of delectable rhymes about animals naughty and nice. With thirty-three delicious poems by Robert Forbes and zany illustrations of each featured creature (look out for a secret critter peeping out from each page) by a master cartoonist Ronald Searle, these wildly playful rhymes and charmingly intricate illustrations will keep readers seven to seventy coming back again and again.

September 21

 

Bad Blood: A Virgil Flowers Novel
By John Sandford $27.95
     One late fall Sunday in southern Minnesota, a farmer brings a load of soybeans to a local grain elevator- and a young man hits him on the head with a steel bar, drops him into the grain bin, waits until he's sure he's dead, and then calls the sheriff to report the "accident." Suspicious, the sheriff calls in Virgil Flowers, who quickly breaks the kid down...and the next day the boy's found hanging in his cell. Remorse? Virgil isn't so sure, and as he investigates he begins to uncover a multigeneration, multifamily conspiracy-a series of crimes of such monstrosity that, though he's seen an awful lot in his life, even he has difficulty in comprehending it...and in figuring out what to do next.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race
By Jon Stewart $27.99
     Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts.
     After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. Earth (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy.

Santa Fe Edge: An Ed Eagle Novel
By Stuart Woods $25.95
     Ed Eagle, the six-feet-six, take-no-prisoners Santa Fe attorney has recovered from his encounters with Mexican organized crime and - more treacherously - his ex-wife, Barbara. Now a mysterious new client has come his way, one who may shed light into some dark corners of Ed's past...and put him in danger once more.

New York: The Novel
By Edward Rutherford $17
     Edward Rutherfurd celebrates America’s greatest city in a rich, engrossing saga, weaving together tales of families rich and poor, native-born and immigrant—a cast of fictional and true characters whose fates rise and fall and rise again with the city’s fortunes. From this intimate perspective we see New York’s humble beginnings as a tiny Indian fishing village, the arrival of Dutch and British merchants, the Revolutionary War, the emergence of the city as a great trading and financial center, the convulsions of the Civil War, the excesses of the Gilded Age, the explosion of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the trials of World War II, the near demise of New York in the 1970s and its roaring rebirth in the 1990s, and the attack on the World Trade Center. A stirring mix of battle, romance, family struggles, and personal triumphs, New York: The Novel gloriously captures the search for freedom and opportunity at the heart of our nation’s history.

September 28

 

Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy
By Ken Follett $36
     Ken Follett's World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep, beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics. Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families-American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh-as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.
     Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man's world in the Welsh mining pits...Gus Dewar, an American law student rejected in love, finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House...two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on radically different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution...Billy's sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London...

Assholes Finish First
By Tucker Max $25
     Assholes Finish First is Tucker Max's deliciously dirty collection of twenty-five true tales of sex, girls, and wildly entertaining depravity.

By Nightfall: A Novel
By Michael Cunningham $25
     Peter and Rebecca Harris: mid-forties denizens of Manhattan’s SoHo, nearing the apogee of committed careers in the arts—he a dealer, she an editor. With a spacious loft, a college-age daughter in Boston, and lively friends, they are admirable, enviable contemporary urbanites with every reason, it seems, to be happy. Then Rebecca’s much younger look-alike brother, Ethan (known in the family as Mizzy, “the mistake”), shows up for a visit. A beautiful, beguiling twenty-three-year-old with a history of drug problems, Mizzy is wayward, at loose ends, looking for direction. And in his presence, Peter finds himself questioning his artists, their work, his career—the entire world he has so carefully constructed.