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books tagged “2000s”
books tagged “2000s”
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The 7 Habits Journalby Stephen CoveyISBN 0743237064 (0-7432-3706-4)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Ancient Egyptiansby Jane ShuterISBN 073981351X (0-7398-1351-X)
Hardcover, Heinemann/Raintree
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At Swim, Two Boysby Jamie O'NeillISBN 0743222954 (0-7432-2295-4)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'At Swim, Two Boys'Book summary:You may have read the hype. Irishman Jamie O'Neill was working as a London hospital porter when his 10-year labor of love, the 200,000-word manuscript of At Swim, Two Boys, written on a laptop during quiet patches at work, was suddenly snapped up for a hefty six-figure advance. For once, the book fully deserves the hype.
In the spring of 1915, Jim Mack and "the Doyler," two Dublin boys, make a pact to swim to an island in Dublin Bay the following Easter. By the time they do, Dublin has been consumed by the Easter Uprising, and the boys' friendship has blossomed into love--a love that will in time be overtaken by tragedy. O'Neill's prose, playing merrily with vocabulary, syntax, and idiom, has unsurprisingly drawn comparisons to James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, but in his creation of comic characters (such as Jim's pathetic but irrepressible father) and in the sheer scale of his work, Charles Dickens springs to mind first. But Dickens never wrote a love story between young men as achingly beautiful as this.
In the character of Anthony MacMurrough, who is haunted by voices as he pursues his illegal and dangerous desire for Dublin boys, O'Neill has created a complex and fascinating center to his novel, rescuing the love story from mawkishness, and allowing a serious meditation on history, politics, and desire. For as Ireland seeks its own future free of British government, so Jim, Doyle, and MacMurrough look back to Sparta to find a way to live. As Dr Scrotes, one of MacMurrough's voices, commands:
Help these boys build a nation of their own. Ransack the histories for clues to their past. Plunder the literature for words they can speak.
In this massive, enthralling, and brilliant debut, Jamie O'Neill has indeed done just that: provided a nation for what Walt Whitman calls, in O'Neill's epigraph, "the love of comrades." --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk [via]More editions of At Swim, Two Boys:
Baby Buddhas: A Guide for Teaching Meditation to Childrenby Lisa DesmondISBN 0740746898 (0-7407-4689-8)
Softcover, Andrews McMeel Pub
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Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Parodyby Michael Gerber, Rodger RoundyISBN 0743244281 (0-7432-4428-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Best American Poetry 2000by David Lehman, Rita DoveISBN 0743200330 (0-7432-0033-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Best American Poetry 2000'Book summary:In her introduction to The Best American Poetry 2000, Rita Dove offers the key to honest appreciation: read the work for itself, not for its creator's name and rank on the great chain of poetic being. With luck it will take the top of your head off, though some poems may only elicit a tingle the first time around. Put those away and come back another time, in another mood. "A poem must sing," she writes, "even if the song elicits horror." And the 75 she ultimately chose--by such poetic senior citizens as Lucille Clifton, Thom Gunn, W.S. Merwin, and the as yet unacknowledged--both sing and explode. Her harvest is as varied and abundant as the garden (and gardener!) Stanley Plumley celebrates in "Kunitz Tending Roses":
Still, there he is, on any given day,
Dove does find certain trends, ranging from "the interpolation of personal chronicles with the larger sweep of events" to "elegies for the passing of heroes, of good times, of innocence." Certainly, more than one therapist pops up here--in, for instance, Pamela Sutton's mesmerizing "There Is a Lake of Ice on the Moon" and in Denise Duhamel's intricate "Incest Taboo" (which is a lot more subtle than its title would give out). This dislocating double sestina's 13 stanzas juggle a fear of birds, a brother's death, alcoholism, familial expectations, and so much more. Set free by the form's constraints--the same end-words must recur in each stanza--this poet uses such phrases as "parrot," swoop," "wrong, "hover," hum," and "mother" to great effect, ironies and tragedies accreting. As Duhamel writes in the contributors' notes: "I felt as though I were doing a strenuous combination of math, crossword puzzles, and particle physics."
talking to ramblers, floribundas, Victorian
perpetuals, as if for beauty and to make us
glad or otherwise for envy and to make us
wish for more--if only to mystify and move us.
Some poems are definitely augmented by their creators' explanations--and their prose is often as eloquent as their verse. Others require none. Yet what threatens to steal the poetic show occurs after these comments. The series wizard, David Lehman, asked past and present guest editors to cite their top 15 20th-century American poems, in alphabetical order. It's impossible not to gravitate to this section and silently argue with some selections, approve others wholeheartedly, discover a few for the first time, and remonstrate over certain absences. How marvelous, if unsurprising, to see so many poets voting for Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop (who scores particularly high), and two whom John Hollander wittily terms "the transatlantic problematics," Auden and Eliot. If only Lehman had asked each editor to expound on his or her choices. In this list context, Louise Glück's refusal to "prefer merely fifteen" proves as inspiring as others' elections. Still, it's amusing to watch such poets as Mark Strand, A.R. Ammons, and Lehman himself look for loopholes and stuff the ballot box with also-rans. --Kerry Fried [via]
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The Best Awfulby Carrie FisherISBN 0743269306 (0-7432-6930-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Best Awful'Book summary:Carrie Fisher's The Best Awful returns Postcards from the Edge fans to the often hilarious, occasionally tragic, but always captivating world of Suzanne Vale, a bi-polar, celebrity talk show host with a six-year-old daughter, a gay ex-husband, an aging starlet mother, and an unbreakable will to survive. After Suzanne stops taking her medication, Fisher treats us to the wild, hysterical ride that follows Suzanne's manic episodes, including a search for Oxycontin in Tijuana with her tattoo artist and a new house guest in the form of Hoyt, a clinically depressed patient Suzanne picks up at her psychopharmacologist's office. Even after the inevitable psychotic break lands Suzanne at Shady Lanes, where she's the "latest loony to hit the bin" Fisher never deviates from her trademark wit and uncanny ability to find truth in every irony:
You entered the hospital broken, found some other like broken patient people, and once in their company, looked down on the other more pathetic inhabitants of the bin you shared, those flying even lower than you and your low-flung co-conspirators...
An insider's look at the Hollywood most of us only read about in supermarket checkout lines, The Best Awful doesn't strive to be anything other than what it is--a rambunctious, honest, wise-cracking trip to rock bottom and back again. Supporting characters are just that, a backdrop against whom Suzanne hopes to find a plausible sense of self. For readers who can accept this novel for what it is, The Best Awful promises over 250 pages of uninhibited entertainment. --Gisele Toueg, Amazon.com [via] 
The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsessionby Mark ObmascikISBN 0743245466 (0-7432-4546-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Blue Day Bookby Bradley Trevor GreiveISBN 0740722670 (0-7407-2267-0)
Hardcover, Andrews McMeel Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Blue Day Book'Book summary:Available now for the first time in Little Book format, this international best-selling collection of amusing, poignant animal photos and inspirational text will lift the spirits of anyone who's got the blues. [via]
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The Blue Day Book: A Lesson in Cheering Yourself Upby Bradley Trevor GreiveISBN 0740704818 (0-7407-0481-8)
Hardcover, Andrews McMeel Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Blue Day Book: A Lesson in Cheering Yourself Up'Book summary:A wonderful collection of amusing, poignant animal photos and inspirational text designed to lift the spirits of anyone who's got the blues. [via]
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The Blue Day Book For Kidsby Bradley Trevor GreiveISBN 0740750232 (0-7407-5023-2)
Hardcover, Andrews McMeel Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Blue Day Book For Kids'Book summary:Perfect for those downer days when your child needs a pick-me-up, The Blue Day Book for Kids magnificently pairs striking animal photographs and inspirational thoughts to re-create the magic Bradley Trevor Greive (BTG) tapped into with the original book.
Enchanted by the wildly successful Blue Day Book's poignant, often funny, photos of animals and clever, poetic insights, many parents and teachers from all over the world wrote the author asking, "When will you do a version of this book for children?"
The Blue Day Book for Kids features the same style of delightful black-and-white animal photos found in its New York Times best-selling predecessor. But this special edition for children is accompanied by compassionate words of wisdom written especially for children 12 and under. As BTG says, "Hey, even little people have big blue days."
The deceptively simple, imaginative story line reflects a child's sensibility about the symptoms, causes, and cures for those times when children feel tired, grumpy, left out, or think that nothing ever goes as they planned. Even on days when brussels sprouts are served at dinner . . . a cherished toy must be shared . . . a homework avalanche looms . . . or a silly mistake is made in front of friends or family, The Blue Day Book for Kids provides children with a literary umbrella to laugh off the unexpected rain life can bring. [via]
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Brick Laneby Monica AliISBN 0743243315 (0-7432-4331-5)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brick Lane'Book summary:With its gritty Tower Hamlets setting, this sharply observed contemporary novel about the life of an Asian immigrant girl deals cogently with issues of love, cultural difference and the human spirit. The pre-publicity hype about Brick Lane was precisely the kind to set alarm bells ringing (we've heard it so often before), but, for once, the excitement is fully justified: Monica Ali's debut novel demonstrates that there is a new voice in modern fiction to be reckoned with.
Nazneen is a teenager forced into an arranged marriage with a man considerably older than her--a man whose expectations of life are so low that misery seems to stretch ahead for her. Fearfully leaving the sultry oppression of her Bangladeshi village, Nazneen finds herself cloistered in a small flat in a high-rise block in the East End of London. Because she speaks no English, she is obliged to depend totally on her husband. But it becomes apparent that, of the two, she is the real survivor: more able to deal with the ways of the world, and a better judge of the vagaries of human behaviour. She makes friends with another Asian girl, Razia, who is the conduit to her understanding of the unsettling ways of her new homeland.
This is a novel of genuine insight, with the kind of characterisation that reminds the reader at every turn just what the novel form is capable of. Every character (Nazneen, her disappointed husband and her resourceful friend Razia) is drawn with the complexity that can really only be found in the novel these days. In some ways, the reader is given the same all-encompassing experience as in a Dickens novel: humour and tragedy rub shoulders in a narrative that inexorably grips the reader. Whether or not Monica Ali can follow up this achievement is a question for the future; it's enough to say right now that Brick Lane is an essential read for anyone interested in current British fiction. --Barry Forshaw [via]
A Child's Book of True Crimeby Chloe HooperISBN 0743225139 (0-7432-2513-9)
Softcover, Scribner
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Children Playing Before A Statue Of Herculesby David SedarisISBN 074327394X (0-7432-7394-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Children Playing Before A Statue Of Hercules'Book summary:A bestseller in its own right and a must-have for fans of the #1 bestselling author David Sedaris, a collection of his favorite short fiction.
David Sedaris is an exceptional reader. Alone in his apartment, he reads stories aloud to the point he has them memorized. Sometimes he fantasizes that he wrote them. Sometimes, when theyre his very favorite stories, hell fantasize about reading them in front of an audience and taking credit for them. The audience in these fantasies always loves him and gives him the respect he deserves.
David Sedaris didnt write the stories in Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules . But he did read them. And he liked them enough to hand pick them for this collection of short fiction. Featuring such notable writers as Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, Jean Thompson, and Tobias Wolff, Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules includes some of the most influential and talented short story writers, contemporary and classic.
Perfect for fans who suffer from Sedaris fever, Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules will tide them over and provide relief. [via]
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Citizen Girlby Emma McLaughlin, Nicola KrausISBN 0743266862 (0-7432-6686-2)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Citizen Girl'Book summary:Citizen Girl is the sophomore effort from Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, whose Nanny Diaries sent Park Avenue mothers running for cover and catapulted the duo to cult-like status amongst gossip literature's elite. This time around, our heroine is Girl, a twentysomething women's studies major whose liberal arts education led her to believe that saving women from worldwide oppression was as easy as reporting for duty at her local feminist non-profit. As Girl soon learns, no job is ever as it seems, and even the director of the Center for Equity in Community is not free from manipulating her staff in order to get ahead. As we follow Girl through unemployment and an eventual position as the Director of Rebranding Knowledge Acquisition for My Company, McLaughlin and Kraus invite readers on a raucous journey though the ups and downs of early 21st Century corporate life.
While at times disjointed and overly crass, Citizen Girl certainly has its moments. Most post-grad women will be able to identify with Girl on at least some level, whether it be returning to Career Services with her tail between her legs or forgiving her boyfriend for hiring a stripper at his best friend's bachelor party. ("I turn to find Buster slumped on my front stoop, soaked to the skin behind a proffered bouquet of hopeful white tulips.")
Some readers may tire of Girl's particular combination of naiveté and idealism after the first 50 pages, and the blatant stereotypes may wear thin after a while (Girl's boss at My Company is named Guy, and the woman they hire to turn things around is called Manley). Still, Girl's story is intriguing enough that by the end of the book, most of us will be rooting for her as she negotiates her way through the tumultuous battlefield that often is corporate America. --Gisele Toueg [via]
The Constant Princessby Philippa GregoryISBN 0743272498 (0-7432-7249-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Constant Princess'Book summary:"I am Catalina, Princess of Spain, daughter of the two greatest monarchs the world has ever known...and I will be Queen of England."
Thus, bestselling author Philippa Gregory introduces one of her most unforgettable heroines: Katherine of Aragon. Daughter of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, Katherine has been fated her whole life to marry Prince Arthur of England. When they meet and are married, the match becomes as passionate as it is politically expedient. The young lovers revel in each other's company and plan the England they will make together. But tragically, aged only fifteen, Arthur falls ill and extracts from his sixteen-year-old bride a deathbed promise to marry his brother, Henry; become Queen; and fulfill their dreams and her destiny.
"They tell me nothing but lies here and they think they can break my spirit. I believe what I choose and say nothing. I am not as simple as I seem."
Widowed and alone in the avaricious world of the Tudor court, Katherine has to sidestep her father-in-law's desire for her and convince him, and an incredulous Europe, that her marriage to Arthur was never consummated, that there is no obstacle to marriage with Henry. For seven years, she endures the treachery of spies, the humiliation of poverty, and intense loneliness and despair while she waits for the inevitable moment when she will step into the role she has prepared for all her life. Then, like her warrior mother, Katherine must take to the battlefield and save England when its old enemies the Scots come over the border and there is no one to stand against them but the new Queen.
"It was my dying husband's hope, my mother's wish, and God's will that I should be Queen of England; and for them and for the country, I will be Queen of England until I die."
Raised on the battlefield and in the most beautiful Moorish palace in the world, sent to England alone at the age of sixteen to take her place in a court where she couldn't speak the language, and abandoned and forced to endure poverty after the death of her husband, Katherine remained a woman of indomitable spirit, unwavering faith, and extraordinary strength. Philippa Gregory brings to life one of history's most inspiring women and creates one of the most compelling characters in historical fiction.
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Crusader's Crossby James Lee BurkeISBN 0743277198 (0-7432-7719-8)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Digging to Americaby Anne TylerISBN 0739326422 (0-7393-2642-2)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Digging to America'Book summary:Anne Tylers richest, most deeply searching novela story about what it is to be an American, and about Iranian-born Maryam Yazdan, who, after 35 years in this country, must finally come to terms with her outsiderness.
Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryams fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the instant babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate: an arrival party that from then on is repeated every year as the two families become more and more deeply intertwined. Even Maryam is drawn in up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by Bitsy Donaldsons recently widowed father, all the values she cherishes her traditions, her privacy, her othernessare suddenly threatened.
A luminous novel brimming with subtle, funny, and tender observations that immerse us in the challenges of both sides of the American story. [via]More editions of Digging to America:
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Dreamcatcherby Stephen KingISBN 0743211383 (0-7432-1138-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dreamcatcher'Book summary:Stephen King fans, rejoice! The bodysnatching-aliens tale Dreamcatcher is his first book in years that slakes our hunger for horror the way he used to. A throwback to It, The Stand, and The Tommyknockers, Dreamcatcher is also an interesting new wrinkle in his fiction.
Four boyhood pals in Derry, Maine, get together for a pilgrimage to their favorite deep-woods cabin, Hole in the Wall. The four have been telepathically linked since childhood, thanks to a searing experience involving a Down syndrome neighbor--a human dreamcatcher. They've all got midlife crises: clownish Beav has love problems; the intellectual shrink, Henry, is slowly succumbing to the siren song of suicide; Pete is losing a war with beer; Jonesy has had weird premonitions ever since he got hit by a car.
Then comes worse trouble: an old man named McCarthy (a nod to the star of the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers) turns up at Hole in the Wall. His body is erupting with space aliens resembling furry moray eels: their mouths open to reveal nests of hatpin-like teeth. Poor Pete tries to remove one that just bit his ankle: "Blood flew in splattery fans as Pete tried to shake it off, stippling the snow and the sawdusty tarp and the dead woman's parka. Droplets flew into the fire and hissed like fat in a hot skillet."
For all its nicely described mayhem, Dreamcatcher is mostly a psychological drama. Typically, body snatchers turn humans into zombies, but these aliens must share their host's mind, fighting for control. Jonesy is especially vulnerable to invasion, thanks to his hospital bed near-death transformation, but he's also great at messing with the alien's head. While his invading alien, Mr. Gray, is distracted by puppeteering Jonesy's body as he's driving an Arctic Cat through a Maine snowstorm, Jonesy constructs a mental warehouse along the lines of The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. Jonesy physically feels as if he's inside a warehouse, locked behind a door with the alien rattling the doorknob and trying to trick him into letting him in. It's creepy from the alien's view, too. As he infiltrates Jonesy, experiencing sugar buzz, endorphins, and emotions for the first time, Jonesy's influence is seeping into the alien: "A terrible thought occurred to Mr. Gray: what if it was his concepts that had no meaning?"
King renders the mental fight marvelously, and telepathy is a handy way to make cutting back and forth between the campers' various alien battlefronts crisp and cinematic. The physical naturalism of the Maine setting is matched by the psychological realism of the interior struggle. Deftly, King incorporates the real-life mental horrors of his own near-fatal accident and dramatizes the way drugs tug at your consciousness. Like the Tommyknockers, the aliens are partly symbols of King's (vanquished) cocaine and alcohol addiction. Mainly, though, they're just plain scary. Dreamcatcher is a comeback and an infusion of rich new blood into King's body of work. --Tim Appelo [via]
Eat the Documentby Dana SpiottaISBN 0743273001 (0-7432-7300-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Everyone Worth Knowingby Lauren WeisbergerISBN 0743262336 (0-7432-6233-6)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Everyone Worth Knowing'Book summary:Lauren Weisberger, whose bestselling debut The Devil Wears Prada outed the vicious antics of the magazine industry elite, is back at it with Everyone Worth Knowing, another cautionary tale of sex, power, and fame. This time around, the PR industry is her target, and Prada fans will recognize similar themes throughout this entertaining, if at times overly dramatic, exposé.
Bette Robinson is a twentysomething Emory graduate who shunned her parents' hippie ideals in favor of a high-paying yet excruciatingly boring job at a prestigious investment bank. One day, after a particularly condescending exchange with her boss (who sends her daily inspirational e-mails), Bette walks out on her job in a huff. After a few weeks of sleeping late, watching Dr. Phil and entertaining her dog Millington, Bette's uncle scores her a job at an up-and-coming public relations firm, where her entire job seems to revolve around staying out late partying and providing fodder for clandestine gossip columns. What follows is one episode after another of Bette climbing up the social ladder at the expense of her friends, family, and the one guy who actually seems worth pursuing.
Weisberger is clever enough to turn seemingly outrageous circumstances into amusing anecdotes, like the tale of a woman who was close to suicide until she found out she was only 18 months away from scoring a highly coveted Birkin bag ("You simply cannot kill yourself when you're that close ... it's just not an option."). This wit, combined a hint of voyeurism that most of us can't deny, is what makes Everyone Worth Knowing a guilty pleasure that's well worth the indulgence. --Gisele Toueg
The Significant Seven with Lauren Weisberger
Lauren graciously agreed to answer the questions we like to ask every author.
Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: Very tough question. For the first half of my life, it would definitely have to be Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. I worshipped that book. Recently, I'd say that it was Empire Falls by Richard Russo. Even though there's not a tremendous amount of action, the characters are brilliant. It's a hauntingly realistic depiction of small-town America. And the place descriptions are so compelling that the book is compulsively page-turning.
Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: This is not the time for self-improvement, that's for sure--they'd all have to be 100% entertainment. For book it would have to be The Last of the California Girls, a random novel that I've read 2,000 times; for CD I would say Monster Ballads, the album of cheesy 80's love songs that I ordered from an 800-number, and for DVD, it would be Dirty Dancing, of course.
Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: That one's easy. It goes something like this: "Hi, (insert editor's name here)! Yes, of course, it's already finished. I'm just tweaking a few sentences, and I'll have the whole draft to you by Monday, latest."
Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: For me, the best writing environments are all about deprivation and the removal of temptation. Therefore, anywhere on earth where there's no TV, no phone, no internet access, no friends, and no fridge is pretty much perfect.
Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: I really don't want to think about this one, but if I HAVE to, I hope it would include a few keywords like "brilliant," "supremely talented," and "drop-dead gorgeous."
Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: I'm supposed to say Hemingway or Moses or Madonna, right? It'd probably just be my sister, Dana. We already have a lot of dinners together, so I know it's a guaranteed good laugh.
Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: The ability to be invisible! It would make all my current spying/stalking/staring SO much easier.
Lauren Weisberger's List of Books You Should Read
so80s
Marjorie Morningstar
Kissing in Manhattan
Bright Lights, Big City
Glamorama
See more recommendations from Lauren Weisberger
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Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakotaby Chuck KlostermanISBN 0743202279 (0-7432-0227-9)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota'Book summary:Powered by a sharp and wholly original voice, Chuck Klosterman delivers a real-life High Fidelity in this savvy, deliriously funny memoir of growing up a shameless heavy-metal devotee in 1980s North Dakota. The year is 1983, and Chuck Klosterman just wants to rock. But he's got problems. For one, he's in the fifth grade. For another, he's mired in rural North Dakota. Worst of all, his parents aren't exactly down with the long hairstyle which said rocking requires. Luckily, his brother saves the day when he brings home a bit of manna from metal heaven, Shout at the Devil, Motley Crue's seminal paean to hair-band excess. And so Klosterman's twisted odyssey begins, a journey spent worshipping at the heavy metal altar of Krokus, Ratt and Poison, and a journey from which, clearly, he has never fully recovered. In the hilarious, young man growing up with a soundtrack tradition, Fargo Rock City chronicles Klosterman's formative years through the lens of heavy metal, the irony-deficient genre that, for better or worse, dominated the pop charts throughout the 1980s. For readers of Dave Eggers, Lester Bangs, and Nick Hornby, Klosterman delivers all the goods: from his first dance (with a girl) and his eye-opening trip to Mandan, N.D., with the debate team; to his list of 'essential' albums; and his thoughtful analysis of the similarities between Guns 'n' Roses' 'Lies' and the gospels of the New Testament. [via]
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A Favored Childby Philippa GregoryISBN 0743249305 (0-7432-4930-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Favored Child'Book summary:The Wideacre estate is bankrupt. The villagers are living in poverty and Wideacre Hall is a smoke-blackened ruin. But, in the Dower House, two children are being raised in protected innocence.
Equal claimants to the estate, rivals for the love of the village, they are tied by a secret childhood betrothal but forbidden to marry. Only one can be the favored child. Only one can inherit the magical understanding between the land and the Lacey family that can make the Sussex village grow green again. Only one can be Beatrice Lacey's true heir.
Sensual, gripping, sometimes mystical, The Favored Child sweeps the reader irresistibly into the eighteenth century, a revolutionary period in English history. This rich and dramatic novel continues the saga of the Lacey family started in Philippa Gregory's bestselling and enduringly popular Wideacre.
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The Footprints of Godby Greg IlesISBN 0743234693 (0-7432-3469-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breastsby Fiona GilesISBN 0743211472 (0-7432-1147-2)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts'Book summary:While countless breastfeeding guides crowd bookshelves, not one of them speaks to women with anything approaching bestselling author Fiona Giles's level of intimacy and vitality. In Fresh Milk, through a provocative collection of stories, memories, and personal accounts, Giles uncovers the myths and truths of the lactating breast.
From the young mother grappling with the bewildering trappings of maternity wear to the woman who finds herself surprisingly aroused by new sensations, and the modern dad who learns the ins and outs of breastfeeding, the portraits in Giles's eye-opening book offer a funny, wise, and comforting resource for women -- and even their friends and partners who have had, or expect, intimate experiences with the pleasures and pain of lactation.
By turns poignant and informative, sexy and witty, empathic and empowering, Fresh Milk delivers everything we wanted to know about breastfeeding that our mothers never told us. [via]
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Friends to the End: The True Value of Friendshipby Bradley Trevor GreiveISBN 0740747010 (0-7407-4701-0)
Hardcover, Andrews McMeel Pub
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Gap Creek: Library Editionby Robert MorganISBN 0743203631 (0-7432-0363-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gap Creek: Library Edition'Book summary:Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 2000: Robert Morgan's Gap Creek opens with one wrenching death and ends with another. In between, this novel of turn-of-the-century Appalachian life works in fire, flood, swindlers, sickness, and starvation--a truly biblical assortment of plagues, all visited on the sturdy shoulders of 17-year-old Julie Harmon. "Human life don't mean a thing in this world," she concludes. And who could blame her? "People could be born and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn't mean a thing.... The world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its business." For Julie, that business is hard physical labor. Fortunately, she's fully capable of working "like a man"--splitting and hauling wood, butchering hogs, rendering lard, planting crops, and taking care of the stock. Even when Julie meets and marries handsome young Hank Richards, there's no happily-ever-after in store. Nothing comes easy in Julie Harmon's world, and their first year together is no exception.
Throughout the novel, Morgan chronicles Julie's trials in prose of great dignity and clarity, capturing the rhythms of North Carolina speech by using only the subtlest of inflections. Clearly the author has done his research too--the descriptions of physical labor practically leap off the page. (Suffice to say, you'll learn far more about hog slaughtering than you ever dreamed of knowing.) Yet he resists the temptation to make his long-suffering characters into saints. Julie simmers with resentment at being her family's workhorse, and Hank flies into a helpless rage whenever he feels that his authority is questioned. In novels like The Truest Pleasure and The Hinterlands, Morgan proved his ability to create memorable heroines. In Gap Creek, he writes with great feeling--but not a touch of sentimentality--about a life Julie aptly calls "both simple and hard." [via]
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The Good Earthby Pearl S. BuckISBN 0743272935 (0-7432-7293-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Good Earth'Book summary:Pearl S. Buck's epic
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a China that was
-- now in a Contemporary Classics
edition.
Though more than sixty years have passed
since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer
Prize, it has retained its popularity and become
one of the great modern classics. "I can only
write what I know, and I know nothing but China,
having always lived there," wrote Pearl Buck. In
The Good Earth she presents a graphic
view of a China when the last emperor reigned
and the vast political and social upheavals of
the twentieth century were but distant rumblings
for the ordinary people. This moving, classic
story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his
selfless wife O-lan is must reading for those
who would fully appreciate the sweeping changes
that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese
people during this century.
Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the
whole cycle of life: its terrors, its passions,
its ambitions and rewards. Her brilliant novel
-- beloved by millions of readers -- is a
universal tale of the destiny of man. [via]
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Good Harborby Anita DiamantISBN 0743225724 (0-7432-2572-4)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Good Harbor'Havanaby Stephen HunterISBN 0743238087 (0-7432-3808-7)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Havana'Book summary:The field of male fantasy fiction receives a generous literary boost with the publication of Havana, Stephen Hunter's third novel (following Hot Springs and Pale Horse Coming) to feature straight-shooting ex-Marine and Arkansas state policeman Earl Swagger.
Reluctantly leaving his wife and hero-worshipping son at home, Swagger flies off to Cuba in 1953 to act as a bodyguard for "Boss" Harry Etheridge, a rainmaking Southern congressman who proposes investigating the influence of New York gangsters on the Guantanamo Naval Base. Almost as soon as his lungs fill with the humid Caribbean air, Swagger regrets accepting this assignment. Not only must he contend with posturing, backstabbing U.S. intelligence agents, but Boss Harry proves to be both incautiously lustful (forcing Earl to rescue him from a Havana brothel confrontation) and a big target for mobsters who don't want American politicians or anyone else upsetting the profitable criminal equilibrium of Batista-era Cuba. Swagger exacerbates the risk to his longevity by agreeing to help the U.S. government assassinate Cuba's revolutionary darling of the moment, Fidel Castro--a task that will pit this Arkansas lawman against a disenchanted Russian killer who's been charged with protecting and mentoring the 26-year-old agitator.
Given Swagger's well-established weaponry skills, it's hardly surprising that Havana is peppered with tightly choreographed shootouts, both on dusty country roads and in a Zanja Street porno theater full of moaning patrons. That's the male fantasy part; this novel's literary inclination shows in its portrayal of Havana as a richly decadent city full of shiny-fendered Cadillacs, jaded whores, and casinos flushing money onto Florida-bound boats. While Ernest Hemingway and mob boss Meyer Lansky make cameo appearances here, only Castro leaves much of an impression, whether he's bumbling through an attack on a military barracks or defending himself against a father who thinks him lazy, vain, and "womanly" ("I am between opportunities, but I swear to you, I am a man of destiny"). Although Swagger's climactic gunfight tests the limits of credibility, Havana remains an unusually substantive page-turner, expertly blending hostilities with humor and heart. --J. Kingston Pierce [via]
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In Her Shoesby Jennifer WeinerISBN 0743267117 (0-7432-6711-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In Her Shoes'Book summary:Meet Rose Feller. She's thirty years old and a high-powered attorney with a secret passion for romance novels. She has an exercise regime she's going to start next week, and she dreams of a man who will slide off her glasses, gaze into her eyes, and tell her that she's beautiful. She also dreams of getting her fantastically screwed-up little sister to get her life together. Meet Rose's sister, Maggie. Twenty-eight years old, drop-dead gorgeous and only occasionally employed, Maggie sings backup in a band called Whiskered Biscuit. Although her dreams of big-screen stardom haven't progressed past her left hip's appearance in a Will Smith video, Maggie dreams of fame and fortune -- and of getting her dowdy big sister to stick to a skin-care regime. These two women with nothing in common but a childhood tragedy, shared DNA, and the same size feet, are about to learn that their family is more different than they ever imagined, and that they're more alike than they'd ever believe. In Her Shoes -- Jennifer Weiner's follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut, Good in Bed -- observes Rose and Maggie, the brain and the beauty, as they make journeys of discovery that take them from the streets of Philadelphia to Ivy League libraries to a "retirement community for active seniors" in Boca Raton. Along the way, they'll encounter a wild cast of characters -- from a stepmother who's into recreational Botox to a small, disdainful pug with no name. They'll borrow shoes and clothes and boyfriends, and make peace with their most intimate enemies -- each other. Funny and poignant, richly detailed and wrenchingly real, In Her Shoes will speak to anyone who has endured the bonds of big -- or little -- sisterhood, or longed for a life different from the one the world has dictated, and dreamed of trying something else on for size. [via]
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In the Moon of Red Poniesby James Lee BurkeISBN 0743245431 (0-7432-4543-1)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Storyby Chuck KlostermanISBN 0743264460 (0-7432-6446-0)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story'Book summary:For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock 'n' roll all the way. Within the spanof twenty-one days, Chuck had three relationships end-one by choice, one bychance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a halfmile through a bean field. A man in Dickinson, North Dakota, explained to him why we have fewer windmills than we used to. He listened to the KISS solo albums and the Rod Stewart box set. At one point, poisonous snakes became involved. The road is hard. From the Chelsea Hotel to the swampland where Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane went down to the site where Kurt Cobain blew his head off, Chuck explored every brand of rock star demise. He wanted to know why the greatest career move any musician can make is to stop breathing. . . and what this means for the rest of us.[via]More editions of Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story:
Last Car to Elysian Fields : A Novelby James Lee BurkeISBN 0743245423 (0-7432-4542-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Last Days of Dogtownby Anita DiamantISBN 0743225740 (0-7432-2574-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last Days of Dogtown'Book summary:The tiny rural backwater of Dogtown, nestled on Cape Ann and hugging the Massachusetts coast line, is a place that is reputedly dying, but its few remaining inhabitants show an enduring spirit that keeps a small flame of life alight. For here, in this forgotten hamlet, lives a cast of dignified, yet utterly eccentric characters. Black Ruth is one of only two Africans still living in the area; she dresses as a man, speaks to no-one, and continues her craft as the local stonemason, casting love and care over the stones she hews. Mrs Stanley is blousey, blonde and the local madam; a woman of total self-absorption, who cares nothing for her young grandson, coming of age amid the sights and sounds of a wretched rural brothel. Oliver Younger, a man with ambition, overcomes a cruel and miserable childhood to marry the woman of his dreams and create a family infused with love. At the centre of it all is Judy Rhines, a fiercely independent woman, generous and wise, but also heartbroken and lonely, whose taboo love for Cornelius, a former slave, burns at the core of her soul. Loosely based on the true story of a community, "The Last Days of Dogtown" is a rich, compassionate and compelling novel which illuminates a small, but vivid, chapter of nineteenth century America. [via]
The Masterby Colm ToibinISBN 0743250419 (0-7432-5041-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Master'Book summary:Like Michael Cunningham in "The Hours, " Colm Toibin captures the extraordinary mind and heart of a great writer. Brilliant and profoundly moving, "The Master" tells the story of Henry James, a man born into one of America's first intellectual families two decades before the Civil War. James left his country to live in Paris, Rome, Venice, and London among privileged artists and writers.
In stunningly resonant prose, Toibin captures the loneliness and longing, the hope and despair of a man who never married, never resolved his sexual identity, and whose forays into intimacy inevitably failed him and those he tried to love. The emotional intensity of Toibin's portrait of James is riveting. Time and again, James, a master of psychological subtlety in his fiction, proves blind to his own heart and incapable of reconciling his dreams of passion with his own fragility.
Toibin is "a great and humanizing writer" who describes complex relationships in "supple, beautifully modulated prose" ("The Washington Post Book World"). In "The Master, " he has written his most ambitious and heartbreaking novel, an extraordinarily inventive encounter with a character at the cusp of the modern age, elusive to his own friends and even family, yet astonishingly vivid in these pages. [via]
Middle East Illusionsby Noam ChomskyISBN 0742533093 (0-7425-3309-3)
Softcover, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Middle East Illusions'Book summary:Middle East Illusions offers chapters written by Chomsky just before the 2000 Palestinian Intifada and up through October 2002, when 9-11 and a prospective U.S. military campaign against Iraq add new pressures to age-old conflicts. The book also includes the full text of Chomsky's earlier book, Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood, written during the crucial period spanning the Six-Day and 1973 wars, which continue to define and deeply influence events in the Middle East today. [via]
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Middle East Illusions: Including Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhoodby Noam ChomskyISBN 0742529770 (0-7425-2977-0)
Softcover, Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Middle East Illusions: Including Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood'Book summary:What are the roots of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and how has it been influenced by the United States? Why has the U.S.-brokered "peace process" repeatedly failed to deliver peace? What are the prospects for a just resolution? What interests underlie current U.S. strategic doctrines in the Middle East, especially in its redeclared "war on terrorism" after 9-11, and how do we look beyond them to find more peaceful and viable alternatives?
These are among the current and long-standing questions Noam Chomsky takes up in his newest book. Middle East Illusions presents recent chapters written by the author about the myths behind the peace process, the second Palestinian Intifada (which began in September 2000 and continues today in defiance of Israeli repression), and the Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks on the United States, including its drive toward another war with Iraq.
Middle East Illusions also includes the full text of Chomsky's earlier book, Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood, written during the crucial period spanning the Six-Day and 1973 wars, events that continue to define and deeply influence the world today. It therefore presents in-depth analysis covering several decades, making it one of the richest of any analysis published about the region's geopolitics.
Noam Chomsky is recognized internationally for his critical analysis of the Middle East. His thoroughly documented research draws on an immense range of sources, including Hebrew texts rarely discussed in the United States, declassified government planning documents, and other sources all too often overlooked in discussions of the U.S. role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. [via]More editions of Middle East Illusions: Including Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood:
- Middle East Illusions: Including Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood: ISBN 0742526992 (0-7425-2699-2)
Hardcover, Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc - Middle East Illusions: Including Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood: ISBN 0742529770 (0-7425-2977-0)
Softcover, Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc
The Mommy Myth: The Idealization Of Motherhood And How It Has Undermined All Womenby Meredith W. Michaels, Susan DouglasISBN 0743260465 (0-7432-6046-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mommy Myth: The Idealization Of Motherhood And How It Has Undermined All Women'Book summary:Does Martha Stewart make you feel like you never do enough for your kids? Do "celebrity mom" profiles leave you feeling lumpen and inadequate? That's because they're supposed to, say Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels, authors of The Mommy Myth and self-professed "mothers with an attitude." Both scathing and self-deprecating, their pop-culture critique takes on "the new momism," the media's obsession with motherhood and the impossible standards which that obsession promotes. Today's ideal mom makes June Cleaver seem like a layabout: she may work outside the home, but never too much, always looks at the world through her children's eyes, makes sure to buy only educational, age-appropriate toys, and includes a loving note with each hand-prepared lunch. Meanwhile, the news media hype stories about child abduction, politicians excoriate so-called "welfare queens," and parenting experts advocate wearing your child in a sling until he moves out on his own. Romanticized, commercialized, sensationalized, and demonized by turns, today's mothers are damned if they work and damned if they don't; whats more, the idea that the government might do something to help their plight has come to seem almost quaint. As a history of motherhood in the media from 1970 to the present, The Mommy Myth makes a fun and thought-provoking read. Yet close readings of episodes of thirtysomething don't create quite the call to arms the authors seem to have in mind; no woman likes to think of herself as a media dupe, particularly the kind of woman who will be reading this book. Straightforward policy critiques like their chilling chapter on childcare fare much better, illuminating a culture that seems to have forgotten public institutions' power to correct social ills. --Mary Park [via]
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More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addictionby Elizabeth WurtzelISBN 0743223314 (0-7432-2331-4)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction'Book summary:"I crush up my pills and snort them like dust. They are my sugar. They are the sweetness in the days that have none. They drip through me like tupelo honey. Then they are gone. Then I need more. I always need more.
For all of my life I have needed more."
A precocious literary light, Elizabeth Wurtzel published her groundbreaking memoir of depression, "Prozac Nation," at the tender age of twenty-six. A worldwide success, a cultural phenomenon, the book opened doors to a rarefied world about which Elizabeth had only dared to dream during her middle-class upbringing in New York City. But no success could staunch her continuous battle with depression. The terrible truth was that nothing had changed the emptiness inside Elizabeth. Her relationships universally failed; she was fired from every magazine job she held. Indeed, the absence of fulfillment in the wake of success became yet another seemingly insurmountable hurdle.When her doctor prescribed Ritalin to boost the effects of her antidepression medication, Elizabeth jumped. And the Ritalin worked. And worked. And worked. Within weeks, she was grinding up the pills and snorting them for a greater effect. It reached the point where she couldn't go more than five minutes without a fix. It was Ritalin, and then cocaine, and then more Ritalin. In a harrowing account, Elizabeth Wurtzel contemplates what it means to be in love with something in your blood that takes over your body, becomes the life force within you -- and could ultimately kill you.
"More, Now, Again" is an astonishing and timely story of a new kind of addiction. But it is also a story of survival. Elizabeth Wurtzel hits rock bottom, gets clean, usesagain, and finally gains control over her drug and her life. As honest as a confession and as heartfelt as a prayer, "More, Now, Again" recounts a courageous fight back to a life worth living. [via]
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The Night Before Christmasby Clement Clarke Moore, Susan WingetISBN 0741202859 (0-7412-0285-9)
Hardcover, Lang Holdings Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Night Before Christmas'Book summary:The Night Before Christmas Hardcover with cardboard sleeve. [via]
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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craftby Stephen KingISBN 0743204360 (0-7432-0436-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft'Book summary:Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash." But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber." As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing."
King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.
King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo [via]
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One For My Babyby Tony ParsonsISBN 0743236092 (0-7432-3609-2)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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One for the Moneyby Janet EvanovichISBN 0743267710 (0-7432-6771-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One for the Money'Book summary:Stephanie Plum is so smart, so honest, and so funny that her narrative charm could drive a documentary on termites. But this tough gal from New Jersey, an unemployed discount lingerie buyer, has a much more interesting story to tell: She has to say that her Miata has been repossessed and that she's so poor at the moment that she just drank her last bottle of beer for breakfast. She has to say that her only chance out of her present rut is her repugnant cousin Vinnie and his bail-bond business. She has to say that she blackmailed Vinnie into giving her a bail-bond recovery job worth $10,000 (for a murder suspect), even though she doesn't own a gun and has never apprehended a person in her life. And she has to say that the guy she has to get, Joe Morelli, is the same creep who charmed away her teenage virginity behind the pastry case in the Trenton bakery where she worked after school.
If that hard-luck story doesn't sound compelling enough, Stephanie's several unsuccessful attempts at pulling in Joe make a downright hilarious and suspenseful tale of murder and deceit. Along the way, several more outlandish (but unrelentingly real) characters join the story, including Benito Ramirez, a champion boxer who seems to be following Stephanie Plum wherever she goes.
Janet Evanovich shares an authentic feel for the streets of Trenton in her debut mystery (she developed her talents in a string of romance novels before creating Ms. Plum), and her tough, frank, and funny first-person narrator offers a winning mix of vulgarity and sensitivity. Evanovich is certainly among the best of the new voices to emerge in the mystery field of the 1990s. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]
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The Other Boleyn Girlby Philippa GregoryISBN 0743227441 (0-7432-2744-1)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Other Boleyn Girl'Book summary:Everyone knows the fate of Anne Boleyn, but not many know the story of her rise to majesty and the part played by her rival and sister, Mary, who was Henry's mistress and mother to two of his bastard children before the dazzling older Boleyn girl even caught his eye. Philippa Gregory, whose own role as the Queen of historical romance grows more secure with each new novel, has surpassed her self with this epic tale of lust, jealousy and betrayal. The Other Boleyn Girl charts the lives of both Boleyns--each in their turn "the other Boleyn Girl"--and their fiercely ambitious, conniving family who used the girls as pawns to advance their own positions at the court of Henry VIII. At 13, Mary is little more than a child when she is presented to Henry, ordered by her scheming family to serve her King and country by opening her legs whenever commanded, or doing anything else the great monarch desires. And while his loins are satisfied, life at court is sweet for the unofficial Queen and her pushy coterie. Inevitably though, the King's eyes soon begin to wander and Mary is overlooked, helpless to do anything but aid her family's plot to advance their fortunes, replace her with Anne and give Henry the greatest gift of all: a son and heir.
So good a job has Ms Gregory done at portraying the Boleyns and Howards as selfish, scheming, treacherous manipulators however, that it becomes increasingly hard to feel empathy for any of them. While Mary is merely hapless, Anne is the most ruthless of them all, so that instead of feeling cheated by knowing the outcome of her story, it only serves to help digest her unpalatable rise. Such a gruesome destiny was never more deserved. Ms Gregory has worked hard at researching her historical references. Daily life at court is described in fascinating detail--from the relentless leisure pursuits, masques and banquets laid on for the easily bored King to the complex hierarchies and machinations of the courtiers. However, the fall of Queen Katherine of Aragon and her only child, the Princess Mary, and the politics of the competing European courts and the break with Rome are seen only as a backdrop to the bawdy goings-on of the Boleyns and their fateful race for the crown. --Carey Green [via]
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Peter Panby J. M. Barrie, Raquel JaramilloISBN 0743214498 (0-7432-1449-8)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Peter Pan'Book summary:"Peter Pan," J. M. Barrie's tale of the boy who wouldn't grow up, remains one of the most beloved children's books ever written. For nearly a hundred years, kids across the world have drifted off to sleep dreaming about Tinker Bell and the Lost Boys, pixie dust and ticking clocks, crocodiles and Captain Hook. But in spite of the story's visual richness, it has never been illustrated photographically until now.
In this lavishly produced edition of the unabridged adventure classic, designer and illustrator Raquel Jaramillo interprets "Peter Pan" through her wondrous photographic imagery. By blending illustration, photography, and computer technology, she blurs the lines between fiction and reality. The result is fresh and startlingly beautiful -- pure magic. Neverland comes alive with the immediacy and drama of a movie. Pirates stalk savage forests, mermaids swim through sun-kissed seas, children fly above undiscovered islands. Portrayed with a flesh-and-blood intimacy, the beloved characters of Peter Pan, Wendy Darling, Captain Hook, Tinker Bell, and Nana seem more real than ever before.
Part ghost story, part love story, tender, funny, and wise, "Peter Pan" is a haunting work that appeals equally to boys and girls. But in the wake of numerous abridged retellings, the famous Disney adaptation, and other big-screen updates, the true nature of the novel has been somewhat forgotten, its impact diminished with each passing generation. Jaramillo's stunning re-creation secures the legacy of the tale, in all its complexity, for a second century. It will prove to be as ageless as Peter himself. [via]
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Prayers for the Assassin: A Novel of the Futureby Robert FerrignoISBN 0743272897 (0-7432-7289-7)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Queen's Foolby Philippa GregoryISBN 0743246071 (0-7432-4607-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Queen's Fool'Book summary:The bitter enmity between Elizabeth the First and Mary Tudor, the daughters of Henry VIII (not to mention the conflict between their mothers Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon) makes the squabbles between modern-day royals seem small beer indeed. This is particularly clear after reading something as enjoyable as Philippa Gregory's The Queen's Fool, which treats the period and its turbulent sweep with an almost operatic grandeur. In The Other Boleyn Girl, Gregory delivered a tremendous popular success and lifted this kind of popular historical writing from the realms of romantic fiction to something rich in authentic drama and convincing historical verisimilitude.
Mary and Elizabeth, the two young princesses, have a common goal: to be Queen of England. To achieve this, they need both to win the love of the people and learn how to negotiate dangerous political pitfalls. Gregory recreates this era with tremendous colour, and she makes the court an enticing but danger-fraught place. Into this setting comes the eponymous fool, the youthful Hannah, who (despite her air of guileless religiousness) is not naive. She soon finds herself having to deal with the beguiling but treacherous Robert Dudley. Dispatched to report on Princess Mary, Hannah discovers in her a passionate religious conviction (to return England to the rule of Rome and its pope) that will have fatal consequences.
From Tolstoy's War and Peace onwards, historical novelists have set fictitious characters among real-life personages with mixed success; the author's creations can often pale beside the historical figures. That is emphatically not the case here, and Gregory ensures that all her characters have a full and teeming life. Expect a major movie: something as colourful and exuberant as The Queen's Fool is a natural for screen adaptation. --Barry Forshaw [via]
Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Outby Phillip C. McGrawISBN 0743227255 (0-7432-2725-5)
Softcover, Free Pr
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Seven Deadly Wonders : A Novelby Matthew ReillyISBN 0743270533 (0-7432-7053-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifestoby Chuck KlostermanISBN 0743236017 (0-7432-3601-7)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto'Book summary:There's quite a bit of intelligent analysis and thought-provoking insight packed into the pages of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which is a little surprising considering how darn stupid most of Klosterman's subject matter actually is. Klosterman, one of the few members of the so-called "Generation X" to proudly embrace that label and the stereotypical image of disaffected slackers that often accompanies it, takes the reader on a witty and highly entertaining tour through portions of pop culture not usually subjected to analysis and presents his thoughts on Saved by the Bell, Billy Joel, amateur porn, MTV's The Real World, and much more. It would be easy in dealing with such subject matter to simply pile on some undergraduate level deconstruction, make a few jokes, and have yourself a clever little book. But Klosterman goes deeper than that, often employing his own life spent as a member of the lowbrow target demographic to measure the cultural impact of his subjects. While the book never quite lives up to the use of the word "manifesto" in the title (it's really more of a survey mixed with elements of memoir), there is much here to entertain and illuminate, particularly passages on the psychoses and motivations of breakfast cereal mascots, the difference between Celtic fans and Laker fans, and The Empire Strikes Back. Sections on a Guns n' Roses tribute band, The Sims, and soccer feel more like magazine pieces included to fill space than part of a cohesive whole. But when you're talking about a book based on a section of cultural history so reliant on a lack of attention span, even the incongruities feel somehow appropriate. --John Moe [via]
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Shadowbrook: A Novel Of Love, War, And The Birth Of Americaby Beverly SwerlingISBN 0743228138 (0-7432-2813-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shadowbrook: A Novel Of Love, War, And The Birth Of America'Book summary:A sweeping tale of love, ambition, and a war that ignited a revolution... 1754. In a low-lying glen in Ohio Country, where both the French and English claim dominion, the first musket ball fired signals the start of a savage seven-year conflict destined to dismantle France's overreaching empire and pave the way for the American Revolution. In a world on the brink of astonishing change are Quentin Hale, the fearless gentleman-turned-scout, fighting to preserve his beloved family plantation, Shadowbrook; Cormac Shea, the part-Irish, part-Indian woodsman with a foot in both worlds; and the beautiful Nicole Crane, who, struggling to reconcile her love for Hale and her calling to the convent, becomes a pawn in the British quest for territory. Moving between the longhouses of the Iroquois and Shadowbrook's elegant rooms, the frontier's virgin forests and the cobbled streets of Québec, Swerling weaves a tale of passion and intrigue, faith and devotion, courage and betrayal. Peopled with a cast of unforgettable characters and historical figures, including a young George Washington, this richly textured novel vividly captures the conflict that opened the eighteenth century and ignited our nation's quest for independence. A classic in the making, Shadowbrook is a page-turning tale of ambition, war, and the transforming power of both love and duty. [via]
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The Shipping News : A Novelby E. Annie ProulxISBN 0743225406 (0-7432-2540-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Shipping News : A Novel'Book summary:In this touching and atmospheric novel set among the fishermen of Newfoundland, Proulx tells the story of Quoyle. From all outward appearances, Quoyle has gone through his first 36 years on earth as a big schlump of a loser. He's not attractive, he's not brilliant or witty or talented, and he's not the kind of person who typically assumes the central position in a novel. But Proulx creates a simple and compelling tale of Quoyle's psychological and spiritual growth. Along the way, we get to look in on the maritime beauty of what is probably a disappearing way of life. [via]
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Soul Storiesby Gary ZukavISBN 0743206371 (0-7432-0637-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Soul Stories'Book summary:One of Gary Zukav's many gifts as a speaker and bestselling writer is his ability to present complicated metaphysical and spiritual themes in a way that is simultaneously down-to-earth and spine-tingling. How does he do it? Through story--the oldest and most powerful form of teaching the mind and touching the heart. As a frequent guest on Oprah, Zukav has also discovered that the American public is starved for grounded information on ethereal topics such as intuition, soulful relationships, and nonhuman teachers.
Soul Stories is a collection of true tales that speak to themes such as "Reincarnation," "A Higher Form of Reasoning," "Psychic Archaeology," "The New Female," and "Universal Humans." Some stories come from Zukav's personal experience, like his sister's auto accident and his mother instantly knowing that her daughter was hurt even though they were 100 miles apart. It is tempting to view these 52 tales of fate, coincidence, and sixth sense with an air of doubt. "You have to decide," Zukav warns. "That means thinking about it and, even more important, discovering what you feel about it. Eventually, you might find that what you feel about a Soul Story is more important to you than what you think about it." No matter what you feel about the individual tales, you will leave this book trusting that the best way to understand the meaning and mysteries of life is through story. --Gail Hudson [via]
Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschoolingby John Holt, Patrick FarengaISBN 0738206946 (0-7382-0694-6)
Softcover, Da Capo Lifelong
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling'Book summary:Today more than one and a half million children are being taught at home by their own parents. In this expanded edition of the book that helped launch the whole movement, Pat Farenga has distilled John Holt's timeless understanding of the ways children come to understand the world and added up-to-the-moment practical advice. Rather than proposing that parents turn their homes into miniature schools, Holt and Farenga demonstrate how ordinary parents can help children grow as social, active learners. Chapters on living with children, "serious play," children and work, and learning difficulties will be of interest to all parents, whether home schooling or not, as well as to teachers. This new edition is supplemented with financial and legal advice as well as a guide to cooperating with schools and facing the common objections to home schooling.Teach Your Own not only has all the vital information necessary to be the bible for parents teaching their own children, it also conveys John Holt's wise and passionate belief in every child's ability to learn from the world that has made his wonderful books into enduring classics.[via]More editions of Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling:
That Old Ace in the Hole: A Novelby Annie E. ProulxISBN 0743242483 (0-7432-4248-3)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'That Old Ace in the Hole: A Novel'Book summary:Bob Dollar is a reluctant land swindler. When the 25-year-old protagonist in Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole signs on as a location scout for Global Pork Rind, an industrial hog farming corporation, he has no idea what kind of moral quandaries he's in for. Well, maybe he does. His assignment, after all, is to infiltrate a tiny town in the Texas Panhandle and find a tract of land his employer can turn into an industrial hog farm. Bob tells the locals he's scouting for luxury home developers ("They feel there is potential here"), but as a cover story it's less than clever. Only a fool would build mansions in the godforsaken Panhandle country, a place of light soil, bad wind, killing drought, and end-of-world thunder. "To live here," one Panhandler tells Bob, "it sure helps if you are half cow and half mesquite and all crazy." The narrative follows Bob's hapless quest to ink a deal, but Proulx's mission is bigger than that. She's out to tell the story of the Panhandle itself, to write an entirely new literary territory into existence. With the help of a menagerie of eccentric characters set down in "the most complicated part of North America," Proulx succeeds admirably. --Claire Dederer [via]
More editions of That Old Ace in the Hole: A Novel:
- That Old Ace in the Hole: A Novel: ISBN 0743241479 (0-7432-4147-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster - That Old Ace in the Hole: A Novel: ISBN 0743241487 (0-7432-4148-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster - That Old Ace in the Hole: A Novel: ISBN 0743240928 (0-7432-4092-8)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster - That Old Ace in the Hole: A Novel: ISBN 0743242483 (0-7432-4248-3)
Softcover, Scribner
Tomorrow: Adventures in an Uncertain Worldby Bradley Trevor GreiveISBN 0740738402 (0-7407-3840-2)
Hardcover, Andrews McMeel Publishing
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A Trip to the Starsby Nicholas ChristopherISBN 0743203305 (0-7432-0330-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Truelove & Homegrown Tomatoesby Julie CannonISBN 0743245881 (0-7432-4588-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Two for the Doughby Janet EvanovichISBN 0743267729 (0-7432-6772-9)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Two for the Dough'Book summary:It's Stephanie Plum, New Jersey's "fugitive apprehension" agent (aka bounty hunter), introduced to the world by Janet Evanovich in the award-winning novel One for the Money.
Now Stephanie's back, armed with attitude -- not to mention stun guns, defense sprays, killer flashlights, and her trusty .38, Stephanie is after a new bail jumper, Kenny Mancuso, a boy from Trenton's burg. He's fresh out of the army, suspiciously wealthy, and he's just shot his best friend.
With her bounty hunter pal Ranger stepping in occasionally to advise her, Stephanie staggers kneedeep in corpses and caskets as she traipses through back streets, dark alleys, and funeral parlors.
And nobody knows funeral parlors better than Stephanie's irrepressible Grandma Mazur, a lady whose favorite pastime is grabbing a front-row seat at a neighborhood wake. So Stephanie uses Grandma as a cover to follow leads, but loses control when Grandma warms to the action, packing a cool pistol. Much to the family's chagrin, Stephanie and Granny may soon have the elusive Kenny in their sights.
Fast-talking, slow-handed vice cop Joe Morelli joins in the case, since the prey happens to be his young cousin. And if the assignment calls for an automobile stakeout for two with the woman who puts his libido in overdrive, Morelli's not one to object.
Low on expertise but learning fast, high on resilience, and despite the help she gets from friends and relatives, Stephanie eventually must face the danger alone when embalmed body parts begin to arrive on her doorstep and she's targeted for a nasty death by the most loathsome adversary she's ever encountered. Another case like this and she'll be a real pro.
Two for the Dough is irresistible fun and powerful suspense entertainment from an acclaimed author who is already a national star. [via]
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The Virgin's Loverby Philippa GregoryISBN 0743269268 (0-7432-6926-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Virgin's Lover'Book summary:The National Bestseller In the autumn of 1558, church bells across England ring out the joyous news that Elizabeth I is the new queen. One woman hears the tidings with utter dread. She is Amy Dudley, wife of Sir Robert, and she knows that Elizabeth's ambitious leap to the throne will draw her husband back to the center of the glamorous Tudor court, where he was born to be. Elizabeth's excited triumph is short-lived. She has inherited a bankrupt country where treason is rampant and foreign war a certainty. Her faithful advisor William Cecil warns her that she will survive only if she marries a strong prince to govern the rebellious country, but the one man Elizabeth desires is her childhood friend, the ambitious Robert Dudley. As the young couple falls in love, a question hangs in the air: can he really set aside his wife and marry the queen? When Amy is found dead, Elizabeth and Dudley are suddenly plunged into a struggle for survival. Philippa Gregory's The Virgin's Lover answers the question about an unsolved crime that has fascinated detectives and historians for centuries. Intelligent, romantic, and compelling, The Virgin's Lover presents a young woman on the brink of greatness, a young man whose ambition exceeds his means, and the wife who cannot forgive them. [via]
We Are All Welcome Hereby Elizabeth BergISBN 0739326015 (0-7393-2601-5)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
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White Doves at Morningby James Lee BurkeISBN 0743244710 (0-7432-4471-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heartby Sherry ArgovISBN 074327637X (0-7432-7637-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart'Book summary:Make him chase you...Until you catch him.
Never shy and always laugh-out-loud funny, Sherry Argov's Why Men Marry Bitches is a sharp-witted manifesto that shows women how to transform a casual relationship into a committed one. With the grittiest of girlfriend-to-girlfriend detail, Argov removes the kid gloves and explains why being extra nice doesn't necessarily mean he'll be more devoted. The guide shares real-life "no holds barred" interviews with men who answer the following in raw detail:
- How do men manipulate a relationship to keep it casual?
- Do men deliberately push women's emotional buttons?
- How can she convince him commitment was his idea?
- How can she invite a proposal without saying a word?
Whether you are single, married, recently separated, or just fed up with your family members telling you to fetch a husband because time is running out, Why Men Marry Bitches is the must-have guide that will show you how to exude confidence, win his heart, and get the love and respect you deserve.
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Wrongful Deathby Baine KerrISBN 0743211170 (0-7432-1117-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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A Year of Scrapbookingby Anna Swinney, Debbie JanasakISBN 0737000643 (0-7370-0064-3)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Year of Scrapbooking'Book summary:Connect with your past and keep your family heritage alive by creating unique, imaginative scrapbooks for every occasion. Organized by the calendar year, this book contains hundreds of ideas and project themes for each month-fro birthday and wedding albums to holiday and special event scrapbook pages. Learn all the techniques you need to learn to turn valuable memories into a treasured heirloom. [via]
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El Clan Del Oso Cavernarioby Jean M. AuelISBN 0743233581 (0-7432-3358-1)
Softcover, Fireside
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Clan Del Oso Cavernario'Book summary:Esta novela de gran vigor y asombrosa belleza es una conmovedora saga acerca de los seres humanos, sus relaciones y los límites del amor. A través de la magnifica narrativa de Jean M. Auel, regresamos a los albores de la civilización moderna, y en compañía de una nina Ilamada Ayla, penetramos en la cruda y a la vez hermosa Edad de Hielo y en el mundo que los hombres y mujeres de esa época compartieron con quienes se Ilamaban a si mismos, el Clan del oso cavernario. Un desastre natural deja a la niña errando sola por una tierra desconocida y peligrosa, hasta que la encuentra una mujer que pertenece al Clan, un grupo de gente muy distinta de la suya. A medida que Ayla aprende acerca del modo de vida del Clan y sobre los métodos curativos de Iza, la mayoría acaba por aceptarla y hasta Iza y Creb, el viejo Mog-ur, llegan a quererla. Es el brutal y orgulloso joven, destinado a ser su próximo líder, quien percibe en su manera de ser diferente, una amenaza en contra de su autoridad. Entonces, desarrolla hacia la extraña chica que vive entre ellos y que pertenece a los Otros, un odio constante y profundo, y está decidido a vengarse. [via]
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