[bksvol-discuss] New Fiction

From: "Jamie Yates, CPhT" <mirxtech@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Bookshare Volunteers <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:31:02 -0400
Coming of the Storm: Contact: The Battle for America, Book One
by Michael Gear
Published 2010 by Gallery Books
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781439153888
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
The first book in an exciting new series about Native American and European
first contact by the Gears. From "New York Times" bestselling novelists W.
Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear comes a landmark new series portraying the
devastating clash of cultures that followed the European invasion of early
America. Dramatic, authentic, and deeply moving, this first book in the
"Contact" series tells the story of the blood-drenched years that followed
Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto's landing in "La Florida" in 1539 -- as
seen entirely through the eyes of two courageous Native Americans.Black
Shell, an exiled Chickasaw trader, is fascinated by the pale, bearded
newcomers who call themselves "Kristianos," and not even the wise counsel of
Pearl Hand, the extraordinary and beautiful woman who has consented to be
his mate, can dissuade him. It will unfortunately take a first-hand lesson
in the Kristianos' unfathomable brutality for Black Shell to fully
comprehend the dangers that these invaders pose to his people's way of
life.While his first instinct is to run away with Pearl Hand, somewhere the
Kristianos cannot find them, Black Shell has been called to a greater
destiny by the Spirit Being known as Horned Serpent. With Pearl Hand by his
side, Black Shell must find a way to unite the disparate tribes and
settlements of his native land and overcome the merciless armies of de Soto,
which will stop at nothing to attain wealth and power.For years readers have
urged the Gears to bring the clash of Native American and European cultures
to life as only they can. Now, with "Coming of the Storm," the Gears unleash
their expansive breadth of knowledge and stunning writing talents to dispel
the myths and falsehoods surrounding Hernando de Soto, as they paint a vivid
portrait of the heroic men and women who fought a terrifying, militarily
superior power for their survival -- and in so doing defined the character
of a nation.
Publishers Weekly 12/14/2009
In their first book of a planned epic series about the European explorers
conquest of the Native Americans, the archeologist husband-and-wife
bestselling writing team ("People of the Thunder") follow Black Shell, a
wandering, mystical trader of the Chicaza clan who in 1539 first clashes
with Hernando de Soto and his Conquistadors invading south Florida. Enslaved
and cruelly mistreated by de Soto, Black Shell is soon freed by his
extraordinary mate, Pearl Hand. Emboldened by his powerful Spirit dreams,
Black Shell, aided by wily feminist Pearl Hand, swears revenge for the
atrocities committed against the Native Americans and vows to defeat the
brutal de Soto. De Soto obsesses over acquiring gold and spreading
Catholicism in his armed scuffles with Black Shell and his intrepid band
called the Orphans, a struggle cast as a traditional good versus evil
showdown. The rich historical details and keen characterizations are offset
by the graphic depictions of battlefield violence and social cruelty in this
smooth, brisk-paced narrative that should generate wide appeal to American
historical fiction fans. "(Feb.)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.


The Infinities
by John Banville
Published 2010 by Knopf Publishing Group
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780307272799
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
In his first novel since the Booker Prize-winning "The Sea," John Banville
gives readers a dazzling new work that chronicles both a human family and a
rather unholy gathering of immortals. On a languid midsummer's day in the
countryside, old Adam Godley, a renowned theoretical mathematician, is
dying. His family gathers at his bedside: his son, young Adam, struggling to
maintain his marriage to a radiantly beautiful actress; his
nineteen-year-old daughter, Petra, filled with voices and visions as she
waits for the inevitable; their stepmother, Ursula, whose relations with the
Godley children are strained at best; and Petra's "young man"--very likely
more interested in the father than the daughter--who has arrived for a
superbly ill-timed visit.
But the Godley family is not alone in their vigil. Around them hovers a
family of mischievous immortals--among them, Zeus, who has his eye on young
Adam's wife; Pan, who has taken the doughy, perspiring form of an old
unwelcome acquaintance; and Hermes, who is the genial and omniscient
narrator: "We too are petty and vindictive," he tells us, "just like you,
when we are put to it." As old Adam's days on earth run down, these
unearthly beings start to stir up trouble, to sometimes wildly unintended
effect. . . .
Blissfully inventive and playful, rich in psychological insight and sensual
detail, "The Infinities" is at once a gloriously earthy romp and a wise look
at the terrible, wonderful plight of being human--a dazzling novel from one
of the most widely admired and acclaimed writers at work today.
Publishers Weekly 11/23/2009
Having apparently exorcised his taste for bloody intrigue with his
pseudonym, Benjamin Black, Banville returns to high form (and his given
name) with a novel even more pristine than his Booker-winning "The Sea". Old
Adam Godley lies dying, flying through his past on the way to eternity while
his brooding son (also named Adam) sleepwalks through his marriage to the
amorous Helen, and young Adam's loony sister, Petra, writes an encyclopedia
of human morbidity. But Adam and his brood are not alone, nor is our
narrator any detached third person: the gods are afoot, chiefly Hermes,
disguised as a farmer, whispering to us of mortal love, guiding old Adam on
his way, and laying bare all the Godleys' secrets while divine Zeus conducts
illicit amours with Helen. Hermes assures us that mortal speech is barely
articulate gruntings, yet Banville has the perfect instrument for his
textured prose, almost never as finely tuned as this. The narrative is rife
with asides, but it is to the common trajectory of a life thatdespite the
noise crowding ailing Adam's reposeit lends its most consoling notes,
elevating the temporal and profane to the holy eternal. "(Mar.)" Copyright
2009 Reed Business Information.


Ordinary Thunderstorms
by William Boyd
Published 2010 by Harper
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780061876745
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
One May evening in London, Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a
job interview, is feeling good about the future as he sits down for a meal
at a little Italian bistro. He strikes up a conversation with a solitary
diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterward. With horrifying speed,
this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents, through which
Adam loses everything--home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport,
credit cards, cell phone--never to get them back. The police are searching
for him. There is a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him.
He is alone and anonymous in a huge, pitiless modern city. Adam has nowhere
to go but down--underground. He decides to join that vast army of the
disappeared and the missing who throng London's lowest levels as he tries to
figure out what to do with his life and struggles to understand the forces
that have made it unravel so spectacularly. Adam's quest will take him all
along the river Thames, from affluent Chelsea to the gritty East End, and on
the way he will encounter all manner of London's denizens--aristocrats,
prostitutes, evangelists, and policewomen--and version after new version of
himself. "Ordinary Thunderstorms," William Boyd's electric follow-up to his
award-winning "Restless," is a profound and gripping novel about the
fragility of social identity, the corruption at the heart of big business,
and the secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of every city.
Publishers Weekly 12/21/2009
Whitbread-winner Boyd ("A Good Man in Africa") ventures into thriller
territory with this fast-paced Hitchcockian wrong-man whodunit. While in
London interviewing for an academic posting, climatologist Adam Kindred, by
chance, meets immunologist Philip Wang at a restaurant. When Wang leaves a
folder full of papers behind, Adam tries to return them to Wang's flat only
to find the man's bloody corpseand to leave evidence of his visit all over.
Fearful of pursuing police and a persistent hired assassin, Adam flees with
Wang's papers and goes underground. Meanwhile, at Wang's pharmaceutical
company, the CEO uncovers a coup brewing to oust him and rush to market the
anti-allergy drug Wang hadn't yet finished testing and for which the missing
papers are crucial data. The disparate story lines eventually weave a
competently plotted tale of corporate and criminal skullduggery that bows
under the weight of improbable coincidences and stock characters. "(Feb.)"
Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.


A Beautiful Place to Die
by Malla Nunn
Published 2009 by Atria Books
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781416586203
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
Award-winning screenwriter Malla Nunn delivers a stunning and darkly
romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring
Detective Emmanuel Cooper -- a man caught up in a time and place where
racial tensions and the raw hunger for power make life very dangerous
indeed.In a morally complex tale rich with authenticity, Nunn takes readers
to Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border between South Africa and
Mozambique. It is 1952, and new apartheid laws have recently gone into
effect, dividing a nation into black and white while supposedly healing the
political rifts between the Afrikaners and the English. Tensions simmer as
the fault line between the oppressed and the oppressors cuts deeper, but
it's not until an Afrikaner police officer is found dead that emotions more
dangerous than anyone thought possible boil to the surface.When Detective
Emmanuel Cooper, an Englishman, begins investigating the murder, his mission
is preempted by the powerful police Security Branch, who are dedicated to
their campaign to flush out black communist radicals. But Detective Cooper
isn't interested in political expediency and has never been one for making
friends. He may be modest, but he radiates intelligence and certainly won't
be getting on his knees before those in power. Instead, he strikes out on
his own, following a trail of clues that lead him to uncover a shocking
forbidden love and the imperfect life of Captain Pretorius, a man whose
relationships with the black and coloured residents of the town he ruled
were more complicated and more human than anyone could have imagined.The
first in her Detective Emmanuel Cooper series, "A Beautiful Place to Die"
marks the debut of a talented writer who reads like a brilliant combination
of Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene. It is a tale of murder, passion,
corruption, and the corrosive double standard that defined an apartheid
nation. I
Publishers Weekly 10/27/2008
Set in South Africa in 1952, Australian filmmaker Nunns stellar debut
explores a divided society through the frame of a classic murder mystery.
When Det. Sgt. Emmanuel Cooper, Nunns tortured sleuth, investigates white
suspects in the fatal shooting of Afrikaner police captain Willem Pretorius,
he immediately encounters resistance from the victims family. Before long,
brutal investigators from the Security Branch offer a politically expedient
solution. Cooper must fend off their threats as he pursues a link between
the murder and an open Peeping Tom case that Pretorius had been probing. The
detective finds no shortage of people who might have had a motive for
killing the captain. Fans of Charles Todds Inspector Rutledge series ("A
Matter of Justice", etc.) will note some parallels, in particular
Coopersbeing haunted by the spirit of his old sergeant-major. Smooth prose
and a deft plot make this novel a welcome addition to crime fiction set in
South Africa. "(Jan.)" Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.


Changeling
by Kenzaburo OE
Published 2010 by Grove Press
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780802119360
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
In The Changeling, Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe takes readers
from the forests of southern Japan to the washed-out streets of Berlin as he
investigates the impact our real and imagined pasts have on our lives.
Writer Kogito Choko is in his sixties when he rekindles a childhood
friendship with his estranged brother-in-law, the renowned filmmaker Goro
Hanawa. As part of their correspondence, Goro sends Kogito a trunk of tapes
he has recorded of reflections about their friendship. But as Kogito is
listening one night, he hears something odd. "I'm going to head over to the
Other Side now," Goro says, and then Kogito hears a loud thud. After a
moment of silence, Goro's voice continues, "But don't worry, I'm not going
to stop communicating with you." Moments later, Kogito's wife rushes in;
Goro has jumped to his death from the roof of a building. With that, Kogito
begins a far-ranging search to understand what drove his brother-in-law to
suicide. The quest takes him to Berlin, where he confronts ghosts from both
his own past, and that of his lifelong, but departed, friend.
Publishers Weekly 11/30/2009
In 1997, Juzo Itami, one of Japan's most successful film directors, jumped
to his death in Tokyo. Nobel laureate Oe ("Hiroshima Notes") was Itami's
brother-in-law, and he transposes Itami's suicide, under a fictional
disguise, into a dazzling and elaborate maze of memories and meditations
centering on the suicide of film director Goro Hanawa. Goro has made a
series of tapes for Kogito, his world-famous writer brother-in-law, as
groundwork for a possible film, which Kogito listens to obsessively after
Goro's suicide. To rid himself of Goro's ghost, Kogito travels to Berlin,
but even there he runs into pieces of Goro's past. Eventually, the reader is
led back to the two men's youthful involvement with a right-wing
paramilitary group founded by Kogito's late father. What begins as a weekend
spent at the group's camp turns into something sinister from which Goro
emerges fundamentally changed. Oe's deft mix of high intellectual reflection
and absurd slapstick scenarios is polished to a high gloss, giving this book
a tone that may remind American readers of Saul Bellow's "Humboldt's Gift".
"(Mar.)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
Publisher's Marketing Text:
In The Changeling, Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe takes readers
from the forests of southern Japan to the washed-out streets of Berlin as he
investigates the impact our real and imagined pasts have on our lives.
Writer Kogito Choko is in his sixties when he rekindles a childhood
friendship with his estranged brother-in-law, the renowned filmmaker Goro
Hanawa. As part of their correspondence, Goro sends Kogito a trunk of tapes
he has recorded of reflections about their friendship. But as Kogito is
listening one night, he hears something odd. "I'm going to head over to the
Other Side now," Goro says, and then Kogito hears a loud thud. After a
moment of silence, Goro's voice continues, "But don't worry, I'm not going
to stop communicating with you." Moments later, Kogito's wife rushes in;
Goro has jumped to his death from the roof of a building. With that, Kogito
begins a far-ranging search to understand what drove his brother-in-law to
suicide. The quest takes him to Berlin, where he confronts ghosts from both
his own past, and that of his lifelong, but departed, friend.


The Quiet War
by Paul McAuley
Published 2009 by Pyr
Paperback, English. ISBN: 9781591027812
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
From the teeming cities of Earth to the scrupulously realized landscapes of
the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, "The Quiet War," an exotic, fast-paced
space opera, asks the question: Who decides what it means to be human?
Publishers Weekly 07/20/2009
Shortlisted for this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award, this sweeping
interplanetary adventure is also a thoughtful examination of human nature.
The few people remaining on feudal 23rd-century Earth are obsessed with
repairing the damaged ecosystem, while the near-anarchic Outers, who fled to
the solar system's outer worlds, would rather probe the atmosphere of Saturn
and grow gardens in vacuum. Earth tries to rein in the Outers with a
campaign of intrigue, assassination and sabotage that culminates in bloody
carnage. McAuley ("Cowboy Angels") moves deftly among five well-drawn
characters in the thick of the action: a cloned spy, a hotshot pilot, a
ruthless scientist, a bluntly independent biological engineer and an
unscrupulous diplomat. They all, in different ways, must choose between the
familiar and the new, struggling to reconcile conflicting desires. This
compelling tale opens vast panoramas while confronting believable people
with significant choices. "(Sept.)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business
Information.


Crazy Heart
by Thomas Cobb
Published 2010 by Harper Perennial
Paperback, English. ISBN: 9780060915193
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
At the age of fifty-seven, Bad Blake is on his last legs. His weight, his
ticker, his liver, even his pick-up truck are all giving him trouble. A
renowned songwriter and "picker" who hasn't recorded in five years, Bad now
travels the countryside on gigs that take him mostly to motels and bowling
alleys. Enter Ms. Right. Can Bad stop living the life of a country-western
song and tie a rope around his crazy heart?


The Information Officer
by Mark Mills
Published 2010 by Random House
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781400068180
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
Filled with remarkably poignant and atmospheric details of life under siege,
and indelible characters who live and breathe, "The Information Officer" is
a taut, transporting thriller--an enthralling novel told with exceptional
skill and style. Mark Mills's bestselling novels "Amagansett" and "The
Savage Garden" have won him widespread acclaim for his singular brand of
suspense. Weaving a haunting and atmospheric historical backdrop with a
tense plot of murder and an unforgettable love story, he delivers another
riveting tale in The Information Officer.
Summer 1942: Malta, a small windswept island in the Mediterranean, has
become the most bombed patch of earth on the planet, worse even than London
during the Blitz. The Maltese, a fiercely independent people, withstand the
relentless Axis air raids.
Max Chadwick is the British officer charged with manipulating the news on
Malta to bolster the population's fragile esprit de corps. This is all,
besides a few broken-down fighter planes, that stands in the face of Nazi
occupation and perhaps even victory--for Malta is the stepping-stone the
Germans need between Europe and North Africa.
When Max learns of the brutal murder of a young island woman--along with
evidence that the crime was committed by a British officer--he knows that
the Maltese loyalty to the war effort could be instantly shattered. As the
clock ticks down toward all-out invasion, Max must investigate the
murder--beyond the gaze of his superiors, friends, and even the woman he
loves.
Filled with remarkably poignant and atmospheric details of life under siege,
and indelible characters who live and breathe, The Information Officer is a
taut, transporting thriller--an enthralling novel told with exceptional
skill and style.
Publishers Weekly 12/07/2009
The prolonged and intense Axis bombing of Malta and the British efforts to
deliver squadrons of new Spitfire fighters in aid of the strategic
Mediterranean island's defense provide the dramatic backdrop for Mills's
WWII spy thriller. Maj. Max Chadwick negotiates a narrow path feeding info
via his weekly bulletin in the Maltese newspaper "Il-Berqa", putting a
positive spin on Malta's depressing situation, and seeking to separate rumor
from fact. When Chadwick learns that a British submariner may be a serial
killer targeting sherry queens (e.g., dance hostesses who worked the bars
and bawdy music halls in the capital city's disreputable quarter), he has to
consider carefully what to reveal. If the murders become public, they could
tip the precarious balance of local support against the British. Mills
("Amagansett") paints a vivid portrait of a tenacious people, embattled and
besieged troops, and a principled man trying to resolve the conflict between
duty and justice. "(Feb.)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.


The House of Tomorrow
by Peter Bognanni
Published 2010 by Amy Einhorn Books
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780399156090
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
Sebastian Prendergast lives in a geodesic dome with his eccentric
grandmother, who homeschooled him in the teachings of futurist philosopher
R. Buckminster Fuller. But when his grandmother has a stroke, Sebastian is
forced to leave the dome and make his own way in town.
Jared Whitcomb is a chain-smoking sixteen-year-old heart-transplant
recipient who befriends Sebastian, and begins to teach him about all the
things he has been missing, including grape soda, girls, and Sid Vicious.
They form a punk band called The Rash, and it's clear that the upcoming
Methodist Church talent show has never seen the likes of them. Wholly
original, "The House of Tomorrow" is the story of a young man's
self-discovery, a dying woman's last wish, and a band of misfits trying
desperately to be heard.

Publishers Weekly 11/16/2009
Sebastian Prendergast, the teenage narrator of Bognanni's funny and unique
debut, lives in Iowa's first geodesic dome with his grandmother, a devout
follower of futurist philosopher Buckminster R. Fuller. But when Nana has a
stroke, Sebastian is thrown together with Janice and teenageJared Whitcomb,
who were touring the home when Nana was stricken. Soon, Sebastian and Jared
form an unlikely bond via the great teenage tradition of punk rock, starting
their own band despite the objections of everyone around them and
Sebastian's lack of musical ability (holding a guitar for the first time,
Jared says, Strum, and Sebastian asks, What do you mean?). And while Jared
succeeds to some degree in socializing Sebastianteaching him about music,
smoking, and curse wordsSebastian ends up getting more than he bargained for
when the two get caught up in Whitcomb family drama. The boys here don't
come of agegirls are just beginning to exist and lifelong struggles are only
taking rootbut their connection is an honest, noisy, and raucous look at
friendship and how loud music can make almost everything better. "(Mar.)"
Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
Publisher's Marketing Text:
Sebastian Prendergast lives in a geodesic dome with his eccentric
grandmother, who homeschooled him in the teachings of futurist philosopher
R. Buckminster Fuller. But when his grandmother has a stroke, Sebastian is
forced to leave the dome and make his own way in town.
Jared Whitcomb is a chain-smoking sixteen-year-old heart-transplant
recipient who befriends Sebastian, and begins to teach him about all the
things he has been missing, including grape soda, girls, and Sid Vicious.
They form a punk band called The Rash, and it's clear that the upcoming
Methodist Church talent show has never seen the likes of them. Wholly
original, "The House of Tomorrow" is the story of a young man's
self-discovery, a dying woman's last wish, and a band of misfits trying
desperately to be heard.


The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag: A Flavia de Luce Mystery
by Alan Bradley
Published 2010 by Delacorte Press
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780385342315
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
From Dagger Award-winning and internationally bestselling author Alan
Bradley comes this utterly beguiling mystery starring one of fiction's most
remarkable sleuths: Flavia de Luce, a dangerously brilliant eleven-year-old
with a passion for chemistry and a genius for solving murders. This time,
Flavia finds herself untangling two deaths--separated by time but linked by
the unlikeliest of threads.
Flavia thinks that her days of crime-solving in the bucolic English hamlet
of Bishop's Lacy are over--and then Rupert Porson has an unfortunate
rendezvous with electricity. The beloved puppeteer has had his own strings
sizzled, but who'd do such a thing and why? For Flavia, the questions are
intriguing enough to make her put aside her chemistry experiments and
schemes of vengeance against her insufferable big sisters. Astride Gladys,
her trusty bicycle, Flavia sets out from the de Luces' crumbling family
mansion in search of Bishop's Lacey's deadliest secrets.
Does the madwoman who lives in Gibbet Wood know more than she's letting on?
What of the vicar's odd ministrations to the catatonic woman in the
dovecote? Then there's a German pilot obsessed with the Bronte sisters, a
reproachful spinster aunt, and even a box of poisoned chocolates. Most
troubling of all is Porson's assistant, the charming but erratic Nialla. All
clues point toward a suspicious death years earlier and a case the local
constables can't solve--without Flavia's help. But in getting so close to
who's secretly pulling the strings of this dance of death, has our
precocious heroine finally gotten in way over her head?

Publishers Weekly 01/25/2010
Bradleys endlessly entertaining follow-up to 2009s "The Sweetness at the
Bottom of the Pie" finds precocious 11-year-old Flavia de Luce once again
indulging her curiosity about corpses. Wandering near her threadbare
ancestral home in early 1950s England, Flavia bumps into famed TV puppeteer
Rupert Porson and his pregnant wife, who have been marooned by an ailing
van. While they wait for repairs to be completed, they agree to put on a
performance for the village of Bishops Laceybut Ruperts sudden death ends
the show. Feigning an innocence entirely at odds with her shrewdness about
adult doings, Flavia uses her skills in chemistry and questioning to puzzle
out which of the many possible suspects murdered Rupert and why. The author
deftly evokes the period, but Flavias sparkling narration is the mysterys
chief delight. Comic and irreverent, this entry is sure to build further
momentum for the series. "(Mar.)" Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
Publisher's Marketing Text:
From Dagger Award-winning and internationally bestselling author Alan
Bradley comes this utterly beguiling mystery starring one of fiction's most
remarkable sleuths: Flavia de Luce, a dangerously brilliant eleven-year-old
with a passion for chemistry and a genius for solving murders. This time,
Flavia finds herself untangling two deaths--separated by time but linked by
the unlikeliest of threads.
Flavia thinks that her days of crime-solving in the bucolic English hamlet
of Bishop's Lacy are over--and then Rupert Porson has an unfortunate
rendezvous with electricity. The beloved puppeteer has had his own strings
sizzled, but who'd do such a thing and why? For Flavia, the questions are
intriguing enough to make her put aside her chemistry experiments and
schemes of vengeance against her insufferable big sisters. Astride Gladys,
her trusty bicycle, Flavia sets out from the de Luces' crumbling family
mansion in search of Bishop's Lacey's deadliest secrets.
Does the madwoman who lives in Gibbet Wood know more than she's letting on?
What of the vicar's odd ministrations to the catatonic woman in the
dovecote? Then there's a German pilot obsessed with the Bronte sisters, a
reproachful spinster aunt, and even a box of poisoned chocolates. Most
troubling of all is Porson's assistant, the charming but erratic Nialla. All
clues point toward a suspicious death years earlier and a case the local
constables can't solve--without Flavia's help. But in getting so close to
who's secretly pulling the strings of this dance of death, has our
precocious heroine finally gotten in way over her head?


Next
by James Hynes
Published 2010 by Reagan Arthur Books
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780316051927
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
Kevin Quinn's life seems increasingly pointless, so he decides to fly to a
job interview in Austin, Texas. "Next" occurs on one Bloomsday-like
imaginary day and runs backward and forward in time to a heart-stopping
finale.--Kate Christensen, author of "The Great Man." One Man, one day, and
a novel bursting with drama, comedy, and humanity.
Kevin Quinn is a standard-variety American male: middle-aged,
liberal-leaning, self-centered, emotionally damaged, generally determined to
avoid both pain and responsibility. As his relationship with his girlfriend
approaches a turning point, and his career seems increasingly pointless, he
decides to secretly fly to a job interview in Austin, Texas. Aboard the
plane, Kevin is simultaneously attracted to the young woman in the seat next
to him and panicked by a new wave of terrorism in Europe and the UK. He
lands safely with neuroses intact and full of hope that the job, the
expansive city, and the girl from the plane might yet be his chance for
reinvention. His next eight hours make up this novel, a tour-de-force of
mordant humor, brilliant observation, and page-turning storytelling.

Publishers Weekly 01/18/2010
In this funny, surprising, and sobering novel, Hynes ("Kings of Infinite
Space") follows Kevin Quinn, who has flown to Austin, Tex., for a job
interview at the height of a terrorism scare. Kevin, an editor at the
University of Michigan, has grown as frustrated by academic politics as he
is by his relationship with his shallow girlfriend. On the flight, he sits
next to Kelly, a beautiful and enigmatic young woman who reminds him of a
great lost love of his youth. With time to kill before his interview, Kevin
spends the first half of the novel surreptitiously following Kelly around
Austin while reminiscing about his misspent youth and failed relationships.
The casual but persistent self-absorption of Kevin's reveries is both funny
and off-putting, and when contrasted with the threat of terrorism and his
shadowing of the young woman, gives the novel a creepy energy that fully
kicks in after Kevin is knocked unconscious, and Hynes pushes the plot into
unchartered territory. The final 50 pages are unlike anything in the recent
literature of our response to terrorisma tour de force of people ennobled in
the face of random horror. "(Mar.)" Copyright 2010 Reed Business
Information.


The Surrendered
by Chang-Rae Lee
Published 2010 by Riverhead Hardcover
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781594489761
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
The bestselling, award-winning writer of "Native Speaker, A Gesture Life,"
and "Aloft" returns with his biggest, most ambitious novel yet: a
spellbinding story of how love and war echo through an entire lifetime.
With his three critically acclaimed novels, Chang-rae Lee has established
himself as one of the most talented writers of contemporary literary
fiction. Now, with "The Surrendered," Lee has created a book that amplifies
everything we've seen in his previous works, and reads like nothing else. It
is a brilliant, haunting, heartbreaking story about how love and war
inalterably change the lives of those they touch.
June Han was only a girl when the Korean War left her orphaned; Hector
Brennan was a young GI who fled the petty tragedies of his small town to
serve his country. When the war ended, their lives collided at a Korean
orphanage where they vied for the attentions of Sylvie Tanner, the beautiful
yet deeply damaged missionary wife whose elusive love seemed to transform
everything. Thirty years later and on the other side of the world, June and
Hector are reunited in a plot that will force them to come to terms with the
mysterious secrets of their past, and the shocking acts of love and violence
that bind them together.
As Lee unfurls the stunning story of June, Hector, and Sylvie, he weaves a
profound meditation on the nature of heroism and sacrifice, the power of
love, and the possibilities for mercy, salvation, and surrendering oneself
to another. Combining the complex themes of identity and belonging of
"Native Speaker" and "A Gesture Life" with the broad range, energy, and pure
storytelling gifts of Aloft, Chang-rae Lee has delivered his most ambitious,
exciting, and unforgettable work yet. It is a mesmerizA-ing novel, elegantly
suspenseful and deeply affecting.

Publishers Weekly 10/26/2009
Lee's masterful fourth novel (after "Aloft") bursts with drama and human
anguish as it documents the ravages and indelible effects of war. June Han
is a starving 11-year-old refugee fleeing military combat during the Korean
War when she is separated from her seven-year-old twin siblings. Eventually
brought to an orphanage near Seoul by American soldier Hector Brennan, who
is still reeling from his father's death, June slowly recovers from her
nightmarish experiences thanks to the loving attention of Sylvie Tanner, the
wife of the orphanage's minister. But Sylvie is irretrievably scarred as
well, having witnessed her parents' murder by Japanese soldiers in 1934
Manchuria. These traumas reverberate throughout the characters' lives,
determining the destructive relationship that arises between June, Hector
and Sylvie as the plot rushes forward and back in time, encompassing graphic
scenes of suffering, carnage and emotional wreckage. Powerful, deeply felt,
compulsively readable and imbued with moral gravity, the novel does not
peter out into easy redemption. It's a harrowing tale: bleak, haunting,
often heartbreakingand not to be missed. "(Mar.)" Copyright 2009 Reed
Business Information.
Publisher's Marketing Text:
The bestselling, award-winning writer of "Native Speaker, A Gesture Life,"
and "Aloft" returns with his biggest, most ambitious novel yet: a
spellbinding story of how love and war echo through an entire lifetime.
With his three critically acclaimed novels, Chang-rae Lee has established
himself as one of the most talented writers of contemporary literary
fiction. Now, with "The Surrendered," Lee has created a book that amplifies
everything we've seen in his previous works, and reads like nothing else. It
is a brilliant, haunting, heartbreaking story about how love and war
inalterably change the lives of those they touch.
June Han was only a girl when the Korean War left her orphaned; Hector
Brennan was a young GI who fled the petty tragedies of his small town to
serve his country. When the war ended, their lives collided at a Korean
orphanage where they vied for the attentions of Sylvie Tanner, the beautiful
yet deeply damaged missionary wife whose elusive love seemed to transform
everything. Thirty years later and on the other side of the world, June and
Hector are reunited in a plot that will force them to come to terms with the
mysterious secrets of their past, and the shocking acts of love and violence
that bind them together.
As Lee unfurls the stunning story of June, Hector, and Sylvie, he weaves a
profound meditation on the nature of heroism and sacrifice, the power of
love, and the possibilities for mercy, salvation, and surrendering oneself
to another. Combining the complex themes of identity and belonging of
"Native Speaker" and "A Gesture Life" with the broad range, energy, and pure
storytelling gifts of Aloft, Chang-rae Lee has delivered his most ambitious,
exciting, and unforgettable work yet. It is a mesmerizA-ing novel, elegantly
suspenseful and deeply affecting.


So Much for That
by Lionel Shriver
Published 2010 by Harper
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780061458583
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
From the acclaimed author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The
Post-Birthday World" comes a searing, ruthlessly honest new novel about a
marriage both stressed and strengthened by the demands of serious illness.
Shep Knacker has long saved for "The Afterlife": an idyllic retreat to the
Third World where his nest egg can last forever. Traffic jams on the
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will be replaced with "talking, thinking, seeing,
and being"--and enough sleep. When he sells his home repair business for a
cool million dollars, his dream finally seems within reach. Yet Glynis, his
wife of twenty-six years, has concocted endless excuses why it's never the
right time to go. Weary of working as a peon for the jerk who bought his
company, Shep announces he's leaving for a Tanzanian island, with or without
her. Just returned from a doctor's appointment, Glynis has some news of her
own: Shep can't go anywhere because she desperately needs his health
insurance. But their policy only partially covers the staggering bills for
her treatments, and Shep's nest egg for The Afterlife soon cracks under the
strain. Enriched with three medical subplots that also explore the human
costs of American health care, "So Much for That" follows the profound
transformation of a marriage, for which grave illness proves an unexpected
opportunity for tenderness, renewed intimacy, and dry humor. In defiance of
her dark subject matter, Shriver writes a page-turner that presses the
question: How much is one life worth?
Publishers Weekly 11/30/2009
A risk taker with a protean imagination, Shriver ("The Post-Birthday World")
has produced another dazzling, provocative novel, a witty and timely
exploration of the failure of our health-care system. Shep Knacker's
long-cherished plan to use the million dollars from the sale of his handyman
business to retire to a tropical island receives a gut-wrenching blow when
his wife, Glynis, is diagnosed with a rare cancer. Transformed into a
full-time caregiver, the good-natured Shep is buoyed during the illness of
self-centered, vindictive, and obnoxiously demanding Glynis by his working
mate and best friend, Jackson Burdina, whose teenage daughter, Flicka, also
has a terminal disease. Ironically, Glynis tenaciously clings to life, while
Flicka, with whom she bonds, wants to end hers. Jackson, meanwhile, acutely
conscious that he's going broke, rails pungently against government
regulations and the insurance industry. A mouthpiece for the plight of
middle-class workers, Jackson's diatribes about contemporary societythe
medical, educational and banking systems, exorbitant taxation, political
chicaneryring painfully true. As Shep's Merrill-Lynch account dwindles and
further medical calamities arise, Shriver twists the plot to raise suspense
until the heart-lifting denouement. "(Mar.)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business
Information.


The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology
by Christopher Golden
Published 2010 by St. Martin's Griffin
Paperback, English. ISBN: 9780312559717
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
Stoker Award-winning author Golden has assembled an all-original anthology
of zombie stories from an eclectic array of today's hottest writers,
including Max Brooks, Kelley Armstrong, and Tad Williams. RESURRECTION! The
hungry dead have risen. They shamble down the street. They hide in back
yards, car lots, shopping malls. They devour neighbors, dogs and police
officers. And they are here to stay. The real question is, what are you
going to do about it? How will you survive?HOW WILL THE WORLD CHANGE WHEN
THE DEAD BEGIN TO RISE?Stoker-award-winning author Christopher Golden has
assembled an original anthology of never-before-published zombie stories
from an eclectic array of today's hottest writers. Inside there are stories
about military might in the wake of an outbreak, survival in a wasted
wasteland, the ardor of falling in love with a zombie, and a family outing
at the circus. Here is a collection of new views on death and
resurrection.With stories from Joe Hill, John Connolly, Max Brooks, Kelley
Armstrong, Tad Williams, David Wellington, David Liss, Aimee Bender,
Jonathan Maberry, and many others, this is a wildly diverse and entertaining
collection...the Last Word on the New Dead.
Publishers Weekly 12/14/2009
The 19 provocative, haunting, and genuinely unsettling original stories in
this zombie anthology move the genre beyond its usual apocalyptic
wastelands. David Lisss novelette What Maisie Knew is a stunning and
gruesome meditation on the banality of capitalism and evil. Mike Careys
Second Wind is a haunting tale of an undead stockbroker who comes to
question whether he ever truly lived. Lovers of more traditional zombie fare
will also not be disappointed. Joe Hills ingenious Twittering from the
Circus of the Dead tells a classic slasher film story through Twitter posts,
while Jonathan Maberrys heartbreaking Family Business describes a ruined
America populated by kindly monks and zombie hunters. This powerful
anthology shines a bright and unflinching light on the fears of death,
decay, and loss that underpin Americas longstanding obsession with the
undead. "(Feb.)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.


The Gin Closet
by Leslie Jamison
Published 2010 by Free Press
Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781439153215
Find this book in our catalog.
Jacket Notes:
Jamison's auspicious debut novel is told through the voices of a young woman
and her alcoholic aunt. From a bold, sensitive, and shrewd young writer: a
hotly anticipated debut novel, about flesh, fear, poverty, privilege, and
the sheer and inescapable brutality of love.In the beginning, there was
Tilly: fabulous and free, outrageous and untamable, vulnerable and
terrified. Was it the Sixties that did her wrong, or the drugs, or the men,
or was it the middle-class upbringing she couldn't abide? As a young woman,
she flees home for the hollow neon underworld of Nevada, looking for pure
souls and finding nothing but bad habits. She stays away for decades,
working the streets and worse, eventually drinking herself to the brink of
death in the middle of the desert. One day, after Tilly has spent nearly
thirty years without a family, her niece shows up on the doorstep of her
dusty trailer.Stella has been leading her own life of empty promise in New
York City. She makes her living booking Botox appointments and
national-media appearances for a famous (and famously neurotic)
"inspirational" writer by day; she complains about her job at warehouse
parties in remote boroughs by night; she waits for her married lover to make
time in his schedule to screw her over, softly; and she takes care of her
ailing grandmother in Connecticut. Before Stella's grandmother dies, she
tells Stella the truth about Tilly, her runaway daughter, and Stella decides
to give up the vast and penetrating loneliness of the city to find this lost
woman the family had never mentioned."The Gin Closet" unravels the strange
and powerful intimacy that forms between Tilly and Stella as they move to
San Francisco to make a home with Abe, Tilly's overworked and elusive son.
Shifting between the perspectives of both women, the narrative documents the
construction of a fragile triangle that eventually breaks under its own
weight.With an uncanny ear for dialogue and a witty, unflinching candor
about sex, love, and power, Leslie Jamison reminds us that no matter how
unexpected its turns are, this life we're given is all we have: the
cruelties that unhinge us, the beauties that clarify us, the addictions that
deform us, those fleeting possibilities of grace that fade as quickly as
they come. In the words of writer Charles D'Ambrosio, this extraordinary
novel teaches us that "history has its way, the body has its way, and the
rebellions we believe in leave behind a bleak wisdom, if we're lucky -- and
defeat, if we're not." "The Gin Closet" marks the debut of a stunning new
talent in fiction.
Publishers Weekly 11/23/2009
Jamison's beautifully written debut follows independent young New Yorker
Stella and her estranged aunt Tilly as they form some version of a family.
Stella is disenchanted with her life and job as a journalist's personal
assistant; Tilly is a professional lost soul, a former prostitute, and an
unsuccessful recovering alcoholic. To all appearances, Stella is the savior,
finding Tilly, who's been shunned by the family, to rescue her; but through
alternating first-person accounts, the reader grows to view the two women as
equals. Their experiences with men especially mirror one another's; Tilly
has merely had worse luck. Stella describes wanting a man, any man, who
could offer his face as a label for my loneliness; later, recalling men
she's been with, Tilly says, most of them I didn't even like that much, but
they seemed like the easiest way to change my own life. The relationship
between Stella and Tilly is compelling, as are their relationships with
auxiliary characters, like Stella's brother and Tilly's son, but what truly
drives the novel is Jamison's gorgeous prose. "(Feb.)" Copyright 2009 Reed
Business Information.

-- 
Jamie in Michigan

Currently Reading: The Lock Artist  by Steve Hamilton
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[bksvol-discuss] New Fiction

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