books tagged “contemporary”

books tagged “contemporary”

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  • Handler, Daniel: Adverbs
    Adverbs
    by Daniel Handler
    ISBN 0060724420 (0-06-072442-0)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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  • Ahab's Wife Or, the Star-Gazer
    by Sena Jeter Naslund, Christopher Wormell
    ISBN 0060838744 (0-06-083874-4)
    Softcover, Perennial

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    Book summary:

    It has been said that one can see farther only by standing on the shoulders of giants. Ahab's Wife, Sena Naslund's epic work of historical fiction, honors that aphorism, using Herman Melville's Moby-Dick as looking glass into early-19th-century America. Through the eye of an outsider, a woman, she suggests that New England life was broader and richer than Melville's manly world of men, ships, and whales. This ambitious novel pays tribute to Melville, creating heroines from his lesser characters, and to America's literary heritage in general.

    Una, named for the heroine of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, flees to the New England coast from Kentucky to escape her father's puritanism and to pursue a more exalted life. She gets whaling out of her system early: going to sea at 16 disguised as a boy, Una has her ship sunk by her own monstrous whale, and survives a harrowing shipwreck:

    I was so horrified by the whale's deliberate charge that I could not move. Then my own name flew up from below like a spear: "Una!" Giles' voice broke my trance, and I scrambled down the rigging. No sooner did my foot touch the deck than there was such a lurch that I fell to my face. I heard and felt the boards break below the waterline, the copper sheathing nothing but decorative foil. The whole ship shuddered. A death throe.
    The ship dies, but Una returns to land to pursue the life of the mind. The novel's opening line--"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last"--also diminishes Melville's hero in the broader scheme of things. Naslund exposes the reader to the unsung, real-life heroes of Melville's world, including Margaret Fuller and her Boston salon, and Nantucket astronomer Maria Mitchell. There is a chance meeting with a veiled Nathaniel Hawthorne in the woods, and throughout the novel the story brims with references to the giants of literature: Shakespeare, Goethe, Coleridge, Keats, and Wordsworth. Although her novel runs long at nearly 700 pages, Naslund has created an imaginative, entertaining, and very impressive work. --Ted Leventhal [via]

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  • Cabot, Meg: All American Girl
    All American Girl
    by Meg Cabot
    ISBN 0060294698 (0-06-029469-8)
    Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited

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    Book summary:

    TOP TEN REASONS
    Samantha Madison
    IS IN DEEP TROUBLE

    10. Her big sister is the most popular girl in school

    9. Her little sister is a certified genius

    8. She's in love with her big sister's boyfriend

    7. She got caught selling celebrity portraits in school

    6. And now she's being forced to take art classes

    5. She's just saved the president of the United States from an assassination attempt

    4. So the whole world thinks she is a hero

    3. Even though Sam knows she is far, far from being a hero

    2. And now she's been appointed teen ambassador to the UNAND THE NUMBER-ONE REASON
    Sam's LIFE IS OVER?

    1.The president's son just might be in love with her

    [via]

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  • Johnson, Denis: Already Dead
    Already Dead
    by Denis Johnson
    ISBN 0060187379 (0-06-018737-9)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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  • Autobiography of a Face
    by Lucy Grealy
    ISBN 0060569662 (0-06-056966-2)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    "I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison."

    At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit. Vividly portraying the pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasures of wanting to be special, Grealy captures with unique insight what it is like as a child and young adult to be torn between two warring impulses: to feel that more than anything else we want to be loved for who we are, while wishing desperately and secretly to be perfect.

    [via]

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  • Bloodsucking Fiends
    by Christopher Moore
    ISBN 0060735414 (0-06-073541-4)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Bloodsucking Fiends [via]

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  • Blue Angel
    by Francine Prose
    ISBN 006019541X (0-06-019541-X)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    Francine Prose may never surpass Joyce Carol Oates in the Prolific Olympics, but she is one of those omnipresent writers whom failed writers hate. And surely she'll make new enemies with her hilarious and cruel 10th novel, Blue Angel, a satire of academia, specifically of English and writing departments. The setting is Euston College in rural Vermont, a place kids go to if they don't get into Bennington; a place where desperate novelists teach creative writing to rich kids who don't seem to read. Prose, who has taught at all the hotshot workshops, skewers both teachers and students in the way only a true insider could.

    Swenson, her writing-teacher protagonist, once published a well-received novel but is now consumed by neuroses and repressed lust, and instead of writing tends to get drunk or morose, or both. But when a gifted student named Angela Argo enters his class, he feels like he is coming back to life. His resurrection into "believing" in writing again, and his eventual disappointment, form the core of the novel.

    Prose's gift for satire is stunning as she directs her caustic wit at all the current academic debates: sexual-harassment policies warning against all manner of "touching"; deconstructionists versus Old School fuddy-duddies; women's studies teachers who bring everything back to the phallocentric Man killing us all. But Blue Angel's best passages come when the author is describing truly rotten writers. Here's a Connecticut rich girl, a member of Swenson's workshop, who likes to write about all those poor unfortunate nonwhite people. Her story is called "First Kiss--Inner City Blues" and is written from the point of view of a Latino woman who lives in a trash-strewn neighborhood full of gunfire and bad people. Here's the opening line: "The summer heat sat on the hot city street, making it hard for it to breathe, especially for Lydia Sanchez." It's a sentence so bad, it's almost a revelation. --Emily White [via]

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  • The Book of Dead Birds
    by Gayle Brandeis
    ISBN 0060528044 (0-06-052804-4)
    Softcover, Perennial

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    Winner of Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize, an award in support of a literature of social responsibility, The Book of Dead Birds is an intimate portrait of a young woman at a defining moment in her life, who stands at the intersection of two cultures and races.

    Ava Sing Lo has been accidentally killing her mother's birds since she was a little girl. Now, having just finished her graduate work, Ava leaves her native San Diego for the Salton Sea, where she volunteers to help environmental activists save thousands of birds poisoned by agricultural run-off.

    Helen, Ava's mother, has been haunted by her past for decades. As a young girl in Korea, Helen was drawn into prostitution on a segregated American army base. Several brutal years passed before a young white American soldier married her and brought her to California. When she gave birth to a black baby, her new husband quickly abandoned her, and she was left to fend for herself and her daughter in a foreign country.

    With great beauty and lyricism, The Book of Dead Birds captures a young woman's struggle to come to terms with her mother's terrible past while she searches for her own place in the world. This moving mother-daughter story of migration, survival, and reconciliation resonates across cultures and through generations.

    [via]

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  • Brave New World
    by Aldous Huxley
    ISBN 0060809833 (0-06-080983-3)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    "Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come. [via]

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  • The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men
    by Christie Ridgway
    ISBN 0060763507 (0-06-076350-7)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Page Four asks: Which Palm Springs party girl has been caught canoodling with an out-of-town "Adam"?

    Eve Caruso keeps her finger on the pulse of Palm Springs and reports every spicy celebrity tidbit to her loyal readers. She knows everyone in this townexcept that mysterious hunk who just strolled into the exclusive spa where she's conferring with hot new starlet Jemima Cargill.

    Nash Cargillnicknamed "The Preacher" by all his rowdy friendsis here to protect his flighty sister from a stalker, not fall for a sexy society columnist. But Eve has the perfect nameshe's wildly tempting. Nash should resist; after all, her luscious lips speak trouble, her two sisters are too interested in their affair, and the rest of her family defines "notorious." But Eve is more vulnerable than she seems, and Nash has never said "no" to a lady in distress . . .

    [via]

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  • Prose, Francine: A Changed Man
    A Changed Man
    by Francine Prose
    ISBN 0060560037 (0-06-056003-7)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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  • The Chronicles of Narnia
    by C. S. Lewis
    ISBN 006082042X (0-06-082042-X)
    Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited

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    Book summary:

    Narnia is the land of enchantment, glory, nobility--home to the magnificent Aslan, cruel Jadis (the White Queen), heroic Reepicheep, and kind Mr. Tumnus. All the magic of C.S. Lewis's Narnia, bewitching readers for almost 50 years, is captured for the first time in this splendid deluxe edition, including The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle, with fabulous illustrations hand-colored by the original Narnia artist Pauline Baynes and an insightful introduction by Narnia authority Brian Sibley.

    Lewis's work has cast a spell over countless readers over the years, so that once we pick up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we don't want to stop until we've read the whole series. The Complete Chronicles makes it even easier to keep reading! The seven beloved stories have been arranged in the chronological order in which Lewis intended them to be read. Begin at the beginning, as Digory and Polly are tricked into a strange other world, which becomes, even as they watch, the great Narnia. Return again and again with four other children--Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy--who are to play such a vital role in Narnia's history. Finally, enter the whimsical land one last time to witness the end of Time, and the beginning of something new: "world within world, Narnia within Narnia." This gorgeous volume is absolutely a must-have for current and future Narnia lovers. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter [via]

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  • The Chronicles of Narnia Full Color: Gift Edition
    by C. S. Lewis, Pauline Baynes
    ISBN 0060845287 (0-06-084528-7)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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    Book summary:

    Two Hardcovers in Boxed Set: "The Magician's Nephew" & "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". [via]

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  • Banks, Russell: Cloudsplitter Pt. 1: A Novel
    Cloudsplitter Pt. 1: A Novel
    by Russell Banks
    ISBN 0060168609 (0-06-016860-9)
    Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers

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  • Collected Poems 1947-1980
    by Allen Ginsberg
    ISBN 0060153415 (0-06-015341-5)
    Hardcover, Harper & Row

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    Book summary:

    Tortured by the paranoia and mental illness of his immigrant mother, and by his own homosexuality in a society that was homophobic, Allen Ginsberg's early work was as much a measure of his self-loathing as his detestation of social hypocrisy and injustice. His poems reached depths of humiliation and shame that presaged a mental breakdown, followed by recovery with the help of Buddhist philosophy. Ginsberg's political commitment was fired by his involvement with Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder and others in the Beat movement, a poetry of social protest that refused perceived elitist boundaries. Despite a tendency toward propaganda, Ginsberg's best poetry is infused with satiric comedy and cheerful self-parody, and is most readily appreciated when read aloud. [via]

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  • The Complete Chronicles of Narnia
    by C. S. Lewis, Pauline Baynes
    ISBN 0060281375 (0-06-028137-5)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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  • Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
    by Gregory Maguire, Bill Sanderson
    ISBN 0060392827 (0-06-039282-7)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Gregory Maguire's chilling, wonderful retelling of Cinderella is a study in contrasts. Love and hate, beauty and ugliness, cruelty and charity--each idea is stripped of its ethical trappings, smashed up against its opposite number, and laid bare for our examination. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister begins in 17th-century Holland, where the two Fisher sisters and their mother have fled to escape a hostile England. Maguire's characters are at once more human and more fanciful than their fairy-tale originals. Plain but smart Iris and her sister, Ruth, a hulking simpleton, are dazed and terrified as their mother, Margarethe, urges them into the strange Dutch streets. Within days, purposeful Margarethe has secured the family a place in the home of an aspiring painter, where for a short time, they find happiness.

    But this is Cinderella, after all, and tragedy is inevitable. When a wealthy tulip speculator commissions the painter to capture his blindingly lovely daughter, Clara, on canvas, Margarethe jumps at the chance to better their lot. "Give me room to cast my eel spear, and let follow what may," she crows, and the Fisher family abandons the artist for the upper-crust Van den Meers.

    When Van den Meer's wife dies during childbirth, the stage is set for Margarethe to take over the household and for Clara to adopt the role of "Cinderling" in order to survive. What follows is a changeling adventure, and of course a ball, a handsome prince, a lost slipper, and what might even be a fairy godmother. In a single magic night, the exquisite and the ugly swirl around in a heated mix:

    Everything about this moment hovers, trembles, all their sweet, unreasonable hopes on view before anything has had the chance to go wrong. A stepsister spins on black and white tiles, in glass slippers and a gold gown, and two stepsisters watch with unrelieved admiration. The light pours in, strengthening in its golden hue as the sun sinks and the evening approaches. Clara is as otherworldly as the Donkeywoman, the Girl-Boy. Extreme beauty is an affliction...
    But beyond these familiar elements, Maguire's second novel becomes something else altogether--a morality play, a psychological study, a feminist manifesto, or perhaps a plain explanation of what it is to be human. Villains turn out to be heroes, and heroes disappoint. The story's narrator wryly observes, "In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings. When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats." --Therese Littleton [via]

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  • The Confusion
    by Neal Stephenson
    ISBN 0060733357 (0-06-073335-7)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, a.k.a. King of the Vagabonds, a.k.a. Half-Cocked Jack, lately and miraculously cured of the pox -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues, rife with battles, chases, hairbreadth escapes, swashbuckling, bloodletting, and danger -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe.

    Meanwhile, back in Europe ...

    The exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, master of markets, pawn and confidante of enemy kings, onetime Turkish harem virgin, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession -- her child.

    While ...

    Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, nobles are beheaded, dastardly plots are set in motion, coins are newly minted (or not) in enemy strongholds, father and sons reunite in faraway lands, priests rise from the dead ... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended.

    [via]

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  • The Confusion Ltd
    by Neal Stephenson
    ISBN 0060599340 (0-06-059934-0)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, a.k.a. King of the Vagabonds, a.k.a. Half-Cocked Jack, lately and miraculously cured of the pox -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues, rife with battles, chases, hairbreadth escapes, swashbuckling, bloodletting, and danger -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe. Meanwhile, back in Europe ... The exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, master of markets, pawn and confidante of enemy kings, onetime Turkish harem virgin, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession -- her child. While ... Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, nobles are beheaded, dastardly plots are set in motion, coins are newly minted (or not) in enemy strongholds, father and sons reunite in faraway lands, priests rise from the dead ... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended. [via]

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  • Crystal Cave
    by Mary Stewart
    ISBN 0060548258 (0-06-054825-8)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Initially published nearly thirty years ago, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave has been spellbinding readers and converting them into serious Arthurian buffs ever since. The first in a series of four books, this novel focuses on the early life of Merlin the magician, and the political developments of fifth-century Britain. Not for the fainthearted, this verbose text pays careful attention to historical details and methodical plot development.

    Merlin's childhood is formed by the absence of his reticent, convent-bound mother and his unnamed and unknown father. As the bastard grandson of a local king, Merlin is the object of both envy and ridicule. His strange powers and predictions earn him greater status as a pariah, and he leaves home as a preadolescent. Returning years later as a young man--empowered by self-knowledge and magic--Merlin finds himself caught in the currents of the shifting kingdoms.

    As an established classic in this genre, and the first in a popular series, The Crystal Cave introduces this familiar character with fresh sensitivity. While readers looking for the romance of First Knight will be disappointed, those happy with tight writing and a complex story line will be satisfied. --Nancy R.E. O'Brien [via]

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  • Leon, Donna: Death at La Fenice
    Death at La Fenice
    by Donna Leon
    ISBN 006074068X (0-06-074068-X)
    Softcover, Dark Alley

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    When renowned opera conductor Helmut Wellauer is found dead in his dressing room, the victim of cyanide poisoning, Guido Brunetti, the Vice Commissario of the Venice Police, must sift through several suspects. 25,000 first printing. National ad/promo. [via]

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  • The End
    by Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist
    ISBN 0060296445 (0-06-029644-5)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Picking up from the final pages of the Pentultimate Peril, this farewell installment to the ridiculously (and deservedly!) popular A Series of Unfortunate Events places our protagonists right where we last left them: on a large, wooden boat in the middle of the ocean, trapped with their nemesis Count Olaf, who has armed himself with a helmet-full of deadly Medusoid Mycelium.

    The situation quickly and--this being the Baudelaires--predictably deteriorates. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny find themselves tossed in a storm so terrible that our beloved narrator spends four pages describing how he cannot describe it. From this point on, fans of the series' smarty-pants wordplay and acrobatic narrative can rest assured that they're in for more of the same (and how) in this 368-page finale, and Daniel Handler's deadpan Snicket continues to tutor a generation in self-referential humor (including one particularly funny bit regarding three very short men carrying a large, flat piece of wood, painted to look like a living room). Snicket notes, of course, that if you read the entire series, "your only reward will be 170 chapters of misery in your library and countless tears in your eyes."

    There's one big question, though, for anyone who's made it through "the thirteenth chapter of the thirteenth volume in this sad history": is the final book a fitting end? That question is probably best-answered by one of The End's most oft-repeated phrases: It depends on how you look at it. Those looking for conclusive resolution to the series' many, many mysteries may be disappointed, although some big questions do get explicit answers. Not surprisingly for a work so deliberately labyrinthine, though, even the absence of an answer can be sort of an answer--and reaction to The End can be something of a Rorschach test for readers. Or, as Lemony Snicket says, "Perhaps you dont know yet what the end really means." --Paul Hughes [via]

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  • Every Which Way But Dead
    by Kim Harrison
    ISBN 006057299X (0-06-057299-X)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Rachel Morgan's back! Bestselling author Kim Harrison returns with a new supernatural adventure that fans of Laurell K. Hamilton and Charlaine Harris won't want to miss.

    Some days, you just can't win. Witch and former bounty hunter Rachel Morgan's managed to escape her corrupt company, survive living with a vampire, start her own runner service, and face down a vampire master.

    But her vampire roommate Ivy is off the wagon, her human boyfriend Nick is out of town indefinitely and doesn't sound like he's coming back while the far-too-seductive vampire Kisten is looking way too tempting, and there's a turf war erupting in Cincinnati's underworld.

    And there's a greater evil still. To put the vampire master behind bars and save her family, Rachel made a desperate bargain and now there's hell to payliterally. For if Rachel cannot stop him, the archdemon Algaliarept will pull her into the sorcerous ever-after to forfeit her soul as his slave. Forever.

    [via]

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  • The Final Solution: A Story Of Detection
    by Michael Chabon
    ISBN 0060777109 (0-06-077710-9)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, prose magician Michael Chabon conjured up the golden age of comic books -- intertwining history, legend, and storytelling verve. In The Final Solution, he has condensed his boundless vision to craft a short, suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that reimagines the classic nineteenth-century detective story.

    In deep retirement in the English country-side, an eighty-nine-year-old man, vaguely recollected by locals as a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of German numbers the bird spews out -- a top-secret SS code? The keys to a series of Swiss bank accounts perhaps? Or something more sinister? Is the solution to this last case -- the real explanation of the mysterious boy and his parrot -- beyond even the reach of the once-famed sleuth?

    Subtle revelations lead the reader to a wrenching resolution. This brilliant homage, which won the 2004 Aga Khan Prize for fiction, is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.

    [via]

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  • Fluke
    by Christopher Moore
    ISBN 006056668X (0-06-056668-X)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    In his entertaining adventure-in-whale-researching, Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings, Nathan Quinn, a prominent marine biologist, has been conducting studies in Hawaii for years trying to unravel the secret of why humpback whales sing. During a typical day of data gathering, Nate believes his mind is failing: the subject whale has "Bite Me" scrawled across its tail. Events become even stranger as the self-proclaimed "action nerds," Nate, photographer Clay, their research assistant Amy, and Kona, a white Rasta (a Jewish kid from New Jersey), encounter sabotage to their data and equipment. They also observe increasingly bizarre whale behavior, including a phone call from the whale to their wealthy sponsor to ask that Nate bring it a hot pastrami and Swiss on rye, and discover both a thriving underwater city and the secret to what happened to Amelia Earhart.

    Thoughtful, irreverent, and often hilarious, Moore has crafted a tale that contains a bit of the saga of declining whale populations due to hunting and habitat destruction, as well as his over-the-top, decadent wit as applied to scientific methodology and professional jealousies. Moore notes a pasty, rival scientist "looked like Death out for his after-dinner stroll before a busy night of e-mailing heart attacks and tumors to a few million lucky winners," and that killer whales (which are all named Kevin), are "just four tons of doofus dressed up like a police car." Smart, sincere, and a whale of a story, Fluke is terrific. --Michael Ferch [via]

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  • Galilee
    by Clive Barker
    ISBN 0060179473 (0-06-017947-3)
    Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited

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    Book summary:

    Over many years and many books, Clive Barker has earned a reputation as the thinking person's horror writer. His novels have mixed fantasy, psychology, and sheer creepiness in almost equal quantities, and while the gore quotient remains relatively low, the tension always runs high. In Galilee, however, Barker soft-pedals the ghoulish in favor of the gothic. His novel (or as the author would have it, "romance") tells the tale of two warring families caught up in a disastrous web of corruption, illicit sexuality, and star-crossed love, with a soupçon of the supernatural thrown in as well. On one side are the wealthy Gearys--a fictional stand-in for the Kennedys--and on the other are the Barbarossas, a mysterious black clan that has been around since the time (quite literally) of Adam. Galilee chronicles the twisted course of this centuries-old family feud, which centers around the magical Barbarossa matriarch Cesaria and her son Galilee. Indeed, it's the latter figure--one part Heathcliff to one part Christ--whose relationship with the Geary women sets a match to the entire powder keg of hostility and resentment. Mixing standard clichés of romance with his own peculiarly deep-fried version of the Southern gothic, Baker has come up with an intelligent and shamelessly amusing potboiler. [via]

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  • Maxted, Anna: Getting over It
    Getting over It
    by Anna Maxted
    ISBN 0060393203 (0-06-039320-3)
    Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers

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  • Homeland and Other Stories
    by Barbara Kingsolver
    ISBN 0060161124 (0-06-016112-4)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    With the same wit and sensitivity that have come to characterize her highly praised and beloved novels Animal Dreams and The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver gives us a rich and emotionally resonant collection of twelve stories. Spreading her memorable characters over landscapes ranging from northern-California to the hills of eastern Kentucky and the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, Kingsolver tells stories of hope, momentary joy, and powerful endurance. In every setting, Kingsolver's distinctive voice -- at times comic, but often heartrending -- rings true as she explores the twin themes of family ties and the life choices one must ultimately make alone. Homeland and Other Stories creates a world of love and possibility that readers will want to take as their own.

    [via]

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  • The Hostile Hospital
    by Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist
    ISBN 0060288914 (0-06-028891-4)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    As you might expect, nothing but woe befalls the unlucky Baudelaire orphans in the eighth grim tale in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events that began with The Bad Beginning. Ever since the orphans' photographs were plastered across the front page of The Daily Punctilio in an article falsely accusing them of murder, they have been on the run. Only when they disguise themselves as cheerful hospital volunteers (Volunteers Fighting Disease, to be exact), do they see a possible refuge. Of course, this backfires hideously. Where is their ineffectual guardian, Mr. Poe, when they need him most? Will the evil, greedy Count Olaf be successful in giving poor Violet a cranioectomy at the Heimlich Hospital? Is a heart-shaped balloon really better than water for a thirsty patient? Is no news really good news? As ever, Snicket refuses to comfort young readers with cozy answers and satisfying escapes. And, as ever, there are plenty of rusty blades and horrible plot twists to make us shudder and shameless-but-hilarious wordplay to make us grimace happily. Bring on the next one! (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]

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  • I Was a Teenage Fairy
    by Francesca Lia Block
    ISBN 0060277475 (0-06-027747-5)
    Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers

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    Once upon a time, in the bubble-gum-snapping, glitter polish-wearing, lip-gloss-applying San Fernando Valley, a gentle girl named Barbie met a feisty fairy named Mab: "Maybe Mab was real. Maybe there really are girls the size of pinkies with hair the color of the darkest red oleander blossoms and skin like the greenish-white underbellies of calla lilies.... But it doesn't matter if Mab is real or imagined, Barbie thought, as long as I can see her." Mab, with her crabby commentary and no-holds-barred opinions, gives Barbie the strength she needs to face the horrors casting a shadow over her life in sunny, shimmering California. How else could Barbie survive her over-perfumed, over-tanned, overbearing stage mother, dragging her daughter to modeling agencies in the gold-plated hope of reliving her younger days as a beauty queen? Or the "cadaver-pale skin" and "fleshy mouth" of Hamilton Waverly, the "crocodile pedophile" photographer who makes Barbie feel "like the doll she had been named for, without even a hole where her mouth was supposed to be"? Mab glimmers and gabs by Barbie's side throughout her teen years as she becomes a successful fashion model, falls in love, and endures all the troubles that come along for the ride--in addition to facing the black secret of her past.

    Francesca Lia Block, author of the magical Weetzie Bat books that are collected in Dangerous Angels, and the empowering, punchy Girl Goddess #9, has once again crafted a mystical tale whose ethereal, original language will wrap readers in its gossamer grip. Block carries us to the weeping heart of despair, but would never be so cruel as to leave us there: Barbie gets a new, skyward-gazing name, Selena Moon, and readers get a glimmersome vision of living happily ever after. (Ages 13 and older) --Brangien Davis [via]

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  • Tessaro, Kathleen: Innocence
    Innocence
    by Kathleen Tessaro
    ISBN 0060522283 (0-06-052228-3)
    Softcover, Avon Books

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  • The Known World
    by Edward P. Jones
    ISBN 0060557559 (0-06-055755-9)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Set in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel, The Known World, is a masterpiece of overlapping plot lines, time shifts, and heartbreaking details of life under slavery. Caldonia Townsend is an educated black slaveowner, the widow of a well-loved young farmer named Henry, whose parents had bought their own freedom, and then freed their son, only to watch him buy himself a slave as soon as he had saved enough money. Although a fair and gentle master by the standards of the day, Henry Townsend had learned from former master about the proper distance to keep from one's property. After his death, his slaves wonder if Caldonia will free them. When she fails to do so, but instead breaches the code that keeps them separate from her, a little piece of Manchester County begins to unravel. Impossible to rush through, The Known World is a complex, beautifully written novel with a large cast of characters, rewarding the patient reader with unexpected connections, some reaching into the present day. --Regina Marler [via]

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  • Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded August 27, 1883
    by Simon Winchester
    ISBN 0060838590 (0-06-083859-0)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    In Krakatoa, the author of The Map That Changed the World and The Professor and the Madman focuses his considerable research powers on one of the most cataclysmic events of modern history: the volcanic eruption, in 1883, of the Southeast Asian island of Krakatoa, which resulted in the deaths of 36,000 people and sent shock-waves around the world. But what at the time was a mysterious, almost supernatural phenomenon has become, under the precepts of the contemporary science of plate tectonics, explicable if no less tragic. Winchester veers between eyewitness accounts by survivors and the limited scientific measurements of the time in an attempt to describe the indescribable. The event "is still said to be the most violent explosion ever recorded and experienced by modern man," he writes. "Six cubic miles of rock had been blasted out of existence, had been turned into pumice and ash and uncountable billions of particles of dust." Yet words and numbers can barely hint at the scale of the calamity, which resulted in tsunamis that washed whole villages into the ocean and forever changed the very topography of the area. The author also explores the social and cultural topography, noting, "Orthodox Islam, its revival in part triggered by tragic events such as the great cataclysm, was totally transformed in Java during the nineteenth century, with fundamentalism, militancy, and profound hostility to non-Muslims its watchwords." At times Winchester seems to overstate his case, and the link he finds between Krakatoa and the rise of anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world isnt especially convincing. But, by weaving together the disaster with science, communications, politics, religion, and economics, he has come up with a comprehensive and often fascinating glimpse into the way the world, and our perception of it, can change in an instant. --Shawn Conner [via]

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  • The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: A Novel
    by Louise Erdrich
    ISBN 0060187271 (0-06-018727-1)
    Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited

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    Book summary:

    Over the course of 13 years and five novels, Louise Erdrich has staked out a richly imagined corner of North Dakota soil--her own Yoknapatawpha, where every character is connected to every other and nothing can be said to happen for the first time. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse is no exception. The report in question comes from Father Damien Modeste, who has served the Ojibwe through a century of famine, epidemics, murders, and feuds. But the good priest is not what he appears. The prologue ends with the curiously beautiful image of the old man slowly removing heavy robes, undergarments, and, at last, a bandage wound tightly around women's breasts: "small, withered, modest as folded flowers."

    How--and why--could such a deception last so long? That's the first mystery. The second begins when Father Jude Miller (a name familiar to readers of The Beet Queen) arrives to investigate the life of Sister Leopolda (or Pauline Puyat, another familiar name). Was Leopolda a saint? Or its opposite, whatever that is? Miracles, after all, are a part of the reservation's everyday life; for every nun's stigmata there's a secular wonder like the death of Nanapush. Indeed, the chapter detailing this old trickster's demise is the kind of earthy, tragicomic fable Erdrich does to perfection, including as it does an extended trial by moose, death by flatulence, and not one but two lustful resurrections.

    Erdrich's writing is at its best when she chronicles the bittersweet humor of reservation life. It's at its worst, sadly, when she cranks up the fog machine and goes for the violins. ("He had the odd sensation that petals drifted in the air between them, petals of a fragrant and papery citrus velvet," she tells us, telegraphing Father Jude's attraction to a woman.) But at least the book's sins are sins of ambition--this is a novelist who revisits the same territory because the capaciousness of her vision demands it. Readers may forgive Erdrich's vagueness about Father Damien's religious calling, but they will never forget her images, as lovely and surprising as figures glimpsed in a dream: the devil in the shape of a black dog, his paw in a bowl of soup; freshly planted pansies, nodding at the priests' feet "like the faces of spoiled babies"; a woman in a billowing white nightdress riding a grand piano through the "gray soup" of a flood. Moments like these are small miracles of their own. --Mary Park [via]

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  • Ackroyd, Peter: The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
    The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
    by Peter Ackroyd
    ISBN 0060151870 (0-06-015187-0)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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  • The Last Witchfinder
    by James Morrow
    ISBN 0060821809 (0-06-082180-9)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Jennet Stearne's father hangs witches for a living in Restoration England. But when she witnesses the unjust and horrifying execution of her beloved aunt Isobel, the precocious child decides to make it her life's mission to bring down the Parliamentary Witchcraft Act. Armed with little save the power of reason, and determined to see justice prevail, Jennet hurls herself into a series of picaresque adventurestraveling from King William's Britain to the fledgling American Colonies to an uncharted island in the Caribbean, braving West Indies pirates, Algonquin Indian captors, the machinations of the Salem Witch Court, and the sensuous love of a young Ben Franklin. For Jennet cannot and must not rest until she has put the last witchfinder out of business.

    [via]

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  • A Light in the Attic
    by Shel Silverstein
    ISBN 0060256737 (0-06-025673-7)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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    Book summary:

    For over 20 years, kids and kids at heart have giggled at the jumbled, goofy nonsense poems of Shel Silverstein. And now, lucky readers can listen to his mad meanderings as well with this 20th anniversary edition of A Light in the Attic, which includes a CD read by the author himself. Eleven classics, including "Twistable, Turnable Man," "The Dragon of Grindly Grun," "Prehistoric," and "Backward Bill" are performed by the late virtuoso of verse, while the tremendously popular book contains every one of the original poems that made Silverstein's name a household word: "Poemsicle," "Hula Eel," "Standing Is Stupid," "Moon-Catchin' Net," "Meehoo with an Exactlywatt," and dozens upon dozens more. Silverstein's amusing, cartoonish line drawings are every bit as familiar and beloved to readers as his poems. Gone, but not forgotten, the creator of the irresistible poetry collections Where the Sidewalk Ends and Falling Up, left an indelible mark on children's poetry. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter [via]

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  • Little Altars Everywhere
    by Rebecca Wells
    ISBN 0060517794 (0-06-051779-4)
    Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited

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    Book summary:

    "It can wear you to a nub, trying to be a popular person and a good Catholic all at the same time." So says Sidda, one of the characters inhabiting Little Altars Everywhere. Author Rebecca Wells uses her considerable acting talent to perform this abridgment, adding even more spark to her already lively characters. Everyone--Shep, Vivi, Willetta, and the rest--is given a distinct voice, and Wells plays each of them to the hilt. More like a recording of a one-woman show than a mere reading, Altars is an excellent example of how entertaining audiobooks can be. (Running time: 3 hours, 2 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney [via]

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  • Erdrich, Louise: Love Medicine
    Love Medicine
    by Louise Erdrich
    ISBN 0060786469 (0-06-078646-9)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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  • North, Hailey: Love: Undercover
    Love: Undercover
    by Hailey North
    ISBN 0060582308 (0-06-058230-8)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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  • The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
    by Christopher Moore
    ISBN 0060735457 (0-06-073545-7)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Reading a Christopher Moore novel is a little like eating a potato chip--it's hard to stop at just one. And you don't have to look beyond the titles to understand the allure; who could pass up a book called Practical Demonkeeping or Island of the Sequined Love Nun? Each of Moore's tales skewers a particular literary genre. In Coyote Blue he nailed New Age fascination with Native American religion; in Blood-Sucking Fiends: A Love Story he put a new twist on the classic vampire tale. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is a companion piece to his first novel, the hilariously twisted horror story Practical Demonkeeping, and readers of that book will recognize the setting, Pine Cove, California. In addition, Moore includes plenty of his patented weird sex, occasional gross-out death, several off-kilter but nonetheless affecting love stories, and some fabulous secondary characters such as Mavis Sand:

    Mavis first began augmenting her parts in the fifties, first out of vanity: breasts, eyelashes, hair. Later, as she aged and the concept of maintenance eluded her, she began having parts replaced as they failed, until almost half of her body weight was composed of stainless steel (hips, elbows, shoulders, finger joints, rods fused to vertebrae five through twelve), silicon wafers (hearing aids, pacemaker, insulin pump), advanced polymer resins (cataract replacement lenses, dentures), Kevlar fabric (abdominal wall reinforcement), titanium (knees, ankles), and pork (ventricular heart valve).
    In a nutshell, the plot revolves around a gigantic prehistoric lizard whose slumber deep beneath the ocean surface is interrupted by a radioactive leak from a nearby power plant. At the same time, a woman in Pine Cove hangs herself; the local psychiatrist (who has been prescribing antidepressants to everyone in town with gay abandon) decides the suicide was her fault and yanks everyone's medication; and an elderly black blues singer named Catfish Jefferson arrives to perform at the Head of the Slug saloon. Into this already strange brew mix one schizoid former B-movie starlet, a pot-head town constable, a bereaved local artist, a biologist tracking anomalous behavior in rats, a crooked sheriff, and a pharmacist with a bizarre sexual fixation on sea mammals, and you have a recipe for the kind of madness Moore does so well. --Alix Wilber [via]

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  • Stillings, Marianne: Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evie
    Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evie
    by Marianne Stillings
    ISBN 0060734760 (0-06-073476-0)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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  • Moving Target
    by Elizabeth Lowell
    ISBN 0060198753 (0-06-019875-3)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    When her aunt mysteriously dies, Serena inherits rare leaves from a legendary volume known as the Book of the Learned. Shortly after they are appraised by Rarities Unlimited, and Internet company, Serena discovers that at least one 'collector' will do anything to keep the leaves hidden, including murder. [via]

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  • Narnia Chronology: From the Archives of the Last King
    by C. S. Lewis, Pauline Baynes
    ISBN 0060765453 (0-06-076545-3)
    Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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    Narnia is the land of enchantment, glory, nobility--home to the magnificent Aslan, cruel Jadis (the White Queen), heroic Reepicheep, and kind Mr. Tumnus. All the magic of C.S. Lewis's Narnia, bewitching readers for almost 50 years, is captured for the first time in this splendid deluxe edition, including The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle, with fabulous illustrations hand-colored by the original Narnia artist Pauline Baynes and an insightful introduction by Narnia authority Brian Sibley.

    Lewis's work has cast a spell over countless readers over the years, so that once we pick up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we don't want to stop until we've read the whole series. The Complete Chronicles makes it even easier to keep reading! The seven beloved stories have been arranged in the chronological order in which Lewis intended them to be read. Begin at the beginning, as Digory and Polly are tricked into a strange other world, which becomes, even as they watch, the great Narnia. Return again and again with four other children--Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy--who are to play such a vital role in Narnia's history. Finally, enter the whimsical land one last time to witness the end of Time, and the beginning of something new: "world within world, Narnia within Narnia." This gorgeous volume is absolutely a must-have for current and future Narnia lovers. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter [via]

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  • Narnia Chronology: From the Archives of the Last King
    by Pauline Baynes, C. S. Lewis
    ISBN 0060244887 (0-06-024488-7)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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    Book summary:

    The hardcover boxed set of C. S. Lewis's classic fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia, with cover art by three-time Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator David Wiesner and the full black-and-white original interior art by Pauline Baynes.

    Journeys into magical realms, battles between good and evil, talking creatures, and more, await readers of all ages in The Chronicles of Narnia.

    This timeless box set includes all seven titlesThe Magician's Nephew; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; and The Last Battlewith interior black-and-white art by Pauline Baynes, the original illustrator.

    [via]

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  • Ridgway, Christie: An Offer He Can't Refuse
    An Offer He Can't Refuse
    by Christie Ridgway
    ISBN 0060763485 (0-06-076348-5)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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  • Keyes, Marian: The Other Side of the Story
    The Other Side of the Story
    by Marian Keyes
    ISBN 0060592060 (0-06-059206-0)
    Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers

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    Jojo Harvey is a dead ringer for Jessica Rabbit and the most ferocious literary agent in town. A former NYPD cop, she now lives in London making million-dollar book deals while trying to make partner at her firm . . . all the while sleeping with the boss man.

    Lily Wright is an author who believes in karma, and is waiting for the sky to fall after stealing her former best friend's man. Though her first book failed to sell, her life turns upside down when her most recent book becomes a huge bestseller.

    Gemma Hogan is an event designer extraordinaire, but her personal life is nonexistent after losing the love of her life and her best friend in one fell swoop. To make matters worse, her father has just left her mother. While taking care of her mother, she e-mails a close colleague about her frustrations, who in turn forwards the hilarious e-mails to a famous literary agent named Jojo Harvey, who just happens to represent her former friend, now enemy, Lily Wright. . . .

    Written in the charming and chatty voice that has become Marian Keyes's signature style, this hilarious and heartwarming novel proves there are three sides to every story . . . especially in the world of publishing!

    [via]

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  • Patchett, Ann: The Patron Saint of Liars
    The Patron Saint of Liars
    by Ann Patchett
    ISBN 0060540753 (0-06-054075-3)
    Softcover, Perennial

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  • Shaffer, Peter: Peter Shaffer's Amadeus
    Peter Shaffer's Amadeus
    by Peter Shaffer
    ISBN 0060140321 (0-06-014032-1)
    Hardcover, Harper & Row

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  • Prey
    by Michael Crichton
    ISBN 0060536985 (0-06-053698-5)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    In Prey, bestselling author Michael Crichton introduces bad guys that are too small to be seen with the naked eye but no less deadly or intriguing than the runaway dinosaurs that made 1990's Jurassic Park such a blockbuster success.

    High-tech whistle-blower Jack Forman used to specialize in programming computers to solve problems by mimicking the behavior of efficient wild animals--swarming bees or hunting hyena packs, for example. Now he's unemployed and is finally starting to enjoy his new role as stay-at-home dad. All would be domestic bliss if it were not for Jack's suspicions that his wife, who's been behaving strangely and working long hours at the top-secret research labs of Xymos Technology, is having an affair. When he's called in to help with her hush-hush project, it seems like the perfect opportunity to see what his wife's been doing, but Jack quickly finds there's a lot more going on in the lab than an illicit affair. Within hours of his arrival at the remote testing center, Jack discovers his wife's firm has created self-replicating nanotechnology--a literal swarm of microscopic machines. Originally meant to serve as a military eye in the sky, the swarm has now escaped into the environment and is seemingly intent on killing the scientists trapped in the facility. The reader realizes early, however, that Jack, his wife, and fellow scientists have more to fear from the hidden dangers within the lab than from the predators without. The monsters may be smaller in this book, but Crichton's skill for suspense has grown, making Prey a scary read that's hard to set aside, though not without its minor flaws. The science in this novel requires more explanation than did the cloning of dinosaurs, leading to lengthy and sometimes dry academic lessons. And while the coincidence of Xymos's new technology running on the same program Jack created at his previous job keeps the plot moving, it may be more than some readers can swallow. But, thanks in part to a sobering foreword in which Crichton warns of the real dangers of technology that continues to evolve more quickly than common sense, Prey succeeds in gripping readers with a tense and frightening tale of scientific suspense. --Benjamin Reese [via]

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  • Cabot, Meg: Princess in Love
    Princess in Love
    by Meg Cabot
    ISBN 0060726016 (0-06-072601-6)
    Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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    It would seem that 14-year-old Mia Thermopolis ("five foot nine inches tall, with no visible breasts, feet the size of snowshoes") has the kind of life every Manhattan teenager could only dream of: She is, in her spare time, the princess of the European country of Genovia. Alas, the Royal Privilege is more like a Predicament. Not only does she have to endure daily princess lessons from her critical Grandmère ("It isn't as if I'm going to show up at the castle and start hurling olives at the ladies-in-waiting"), but her new stepfather is also her algebra teacher, her mother is pregnant and vomiting, she doesn't like her boyfriend very much, and she's convinced the real love of her life--her best friend's older brother--thinks of her as a kid.

    Written in diary form like Louise Rennison's award-winning Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, Meg Cabot's endearing and often hilarious novel Princess in Love--third in the series after The Princess Diaries and Princess in the Spotlight--is sure to appeal to teen readers who will be able to relate to Mia--a young woman who would like people to know that "behind this mutant facade beats the heart of a person who is striving, just like everybody else in this world, to find self-actualization." (Ages 12 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]

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  • Princess in the Spotlight
    by Meg Cabot
    ISBN 0060294655 (0-06-029465-5)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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    Fifteen-year-old Mia Thermopolis, the witty, lovable star of Meg Cabot's The Princess Diaries, has had it with princess lessons, also known as torture sessions: "Do they really think anyone in Genovia cares whether I know how to use a fish fork? Or if I can sit down without getting wrinkles in the back of my skirt? Or if I know how to say 'thank you' in Swahili? Shouldn't my future countrymen be more concerned with my views on the environment? And gun control? And overpopulation?" To make matters worse, she's getting these lessons from Grandmère, a rather judgmental woman who dresses her pet in chinchilla bolero jackets and has eyeliner permanently tattooed on her eyelids. Princess in the Spotlight further records Mia's path to princessdom: her artist mother's relationship with her algebra teacher (how awkward), her forced television interview, broadcast to all of America (how humiliating), and her crush on her best friend Lilly's brother Michael (how excruciating). The result is another thoroughly entertaining diary of a very human, very self-deprecating, very unprincesslike princess. (Ages 12 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]

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  • A Quick Bite
    by Lynsay Sands
    ISBN 0060773758 (0-06-077375-8)
    Softcover, Avon Books

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    A Quick Bite (Paperback) by Lindsay Sands (Author) [via]

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  • The Reptile Room
    by Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist
    ISBN 0060283130 (0-06-028313-0)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    The Reptile Room begins where Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning ends... on the road with the three orphaned Baudelaire children as they are whisked away from the evil Count Olaf to face "an unknown fate with some unknown relative." But who is this Dr. Montgomery, their late father's cousin's wife's brother? "Would Dr. Montgomery be a kind person? they wondered. Would he at least be better than Count Olaf? Could he possibly be worse?" He certainly is not worse, and in fact when the Baudelaire children discover that he makes coconut cream cakes, circles the globe looking for snakes to study, and even plans to take them with him on his scientific expedition to Peru, the kids can't believe their luck. And, if you have read the first book in this Series of Unfortunate Events, you won't believe their luck either. Despite the misadventures that befall these interesting, intelligent, resourceful orphans, you can trust that the engaging narrator will make their story--suspenseful and alarming as it is--a true delight. The Wide Window is next, and more are on their way. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]

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  • Lowell, Elizabeth: Running Scared
    Running Scared
    by Elizabeth Lowell
    ISBN 0060198761 (0-06-019876-1)
    Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers

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  • Homes, A. M.: The Safety of Objects
    The Safety of Objects
    by A. M. Homes
    ISBN 0060564512 (0-06-056451-2)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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  • Andrews, Mary Kay: Savannah Blues
    Savannah Blues
    by Mary Kay Andrews
    ISBN 0060519134 (0-06-051913-4)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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  • Size 14 Is Not Fat Either
    by Meg Cabot
    ISBN 0060525126 (0-06-052512-6)
    Softcover, Avon Books

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    Former pop star Heather Wells has settled nicely into her new life as assistant dorm director at New York Collegea career that does not require her to drape her size 12 body in embarrassingly skimpy outfits. She can even cope (sort of) with her rocker ex-boyfriend's upcoming nuptials, which the press has dubbed The Celebrity Wedding of the Decade. But she's definitely having a hard time dealing with the situation in the dormitory kitchenwhere a cheerleader has lost her head on the first day of the semester. (Actually, her head is accounted forit's her torso that's AWOL.)

    Surrounded by hysterical studentswith her ex-con father on her doorstep and her ex-love bombarding her with unwanted phone callsHeather welcomes the opportunity to play detective . . . again. If it gets her mind off her personal problemsand teams her up again with the gorgeous P.I. who owns the brownstone where she livesit's all good. But the murder trail is leading the average-sized amateur investigator into a shadowy world. And if she doesn't watch her step, Heather will soon be singing her swan song!

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  • Sushi For Beginners
    by Marian Keyes
    ISBN 0060555955 (0-06-055595-5)
    Softcover, Avon Books

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    Sushi For Beginners has all the right ingredients for a thirtysomething novel. The thirtysomething girls are there, looking for a better job, a better man, ANYTHING other than what they've already got; there are men to die for and men you wish would drop dead, preferably in agony. And these "so-real you can pinch 'em" people live their lives in a funny, thrilling, sad world that you wish hadn't just ended when you turn the last page. But there is more, because this one is written by best-selling Irish author Marian Keyes.

    Where her previous best-seller, Last Chance Saloon, featured Irish folk living in London, Sushi For Beginners is set in Keyes' hometown, Dublin. The only "foreigner" here is Lisa from London, a real madam whose longed-for promotion to Manhattan magazine is knocked off-course a few thousand miles when she is forced to accept the editorship of Colleen, a new magazine for young women, billed by the publishers as "dumbed-down" but definitely "sexy". Lisa would frankly rather eat one of her freebie Patrick Cox stilettos. Still a job is a job, and anyhow, Irish MD Jack Devine could just turn out to be a major consolation prize. Lisa's deputy at Colleen is Ashling, a Little Miss Fix-It, whose early role reversal with her mother (thanks to the latter's nervous breakdown) has induced an organisational paranoia and a handbag filled with emergency equipment to meet any eventuality. Oh, and a best friend whose motives might not always be in Ashling's best interests.

    This is a story of three girls' lives, what's made them what they are and their search for happiness--sometimes found in unlikely places and sometimes lost forever. With Sushi For Beginners, Keyes is fast becoming the undisputed Queen of her genre. She is wincingly accurate and wickedly funny, and while she can tackle big issues like homelessness (no pun intended) with honest feeling devoid of over-sentimentality, her insight into the aspirations of thirtysomething women at the turn of the 21st century sets her high above the competition. --Carey Green This review refers to the hardcover edition of this title. [via]

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  • The System Of The World
    by Neal Stephenson
    ISBN 0060750863 (0-06-075086-3)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    'Tis done.

    The world is a most confused and unsteady place -- especially London, center of finance, innovation, and conspiracy -- in the year 1714, when Daniel Waterhouse makes his less-than-triumphant return to England's shores. Aging Puritan and Natural Philosopher, confidant of the high and mighty and contemporary of the most brilliant minds of the age, he has braved the merciless sea and an assault by the infamous pirate Blackbeard to help mend the rift between two adversarial geniuses at a princess's behest. But while much has changed outwardly, the duplicity and danger that once drove Daniel to the American Colonies is still coin of the British realm.

    No sooner has Daniel set foot on his homeland when he is embroiled in a dark conflict that has been raging in the shadows for decades. It is a secret war between the brilliant, enigmatic Master of the Mint and closet alchemist Isaac Newton and his archnemesis, the insidious counterfeiter Jack the Coiner, a.k.a. Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds. Hostilities are suddenly moving to a new and more volatile level, as Half-Cocked Jack plots a daring assault on the Tower itself, aiming for nothing less than the total corruption of Britain's newborn monetary system.

    Unbeknownst to all, it is love that set the Coiner on his traitorous course; the desperate need to protect the woman of his heart -- the remarkable Eliza, Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm -- from those who would destroy her should he fail. Meanwhile, Daniel Waterhouse and his Clubb of unlikely cronies comb city and country for clues to the identity of the blackguard who is attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with Infernal Devices -- as political factions jockey for position while awaiting the impending death of the ailing queen; as the "holy grail" of alchemy, the key to life eternal, tantalizes and continues to elude Isaac Newton, yet is closer than he ever imagined; as the greatest technological innovation in history slowly takes shape in Waterhouse's manufactory.

    Everything that was will be changed forever ... The System of the World is the concluding volume in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, begun with Quicksilver and continued in The Confusion. [via]

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  • Bevarly, Elizabeth: The Thing about Men
    The Thing about Men
    by Elizabeth Bevarly
    ISBN 0060509465 (0-06-050946-5)
    Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited

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  • Jones, Diana Wynne: The Time of the Ghost
    The Time of the Ghost
    by Diana Wynne Jones
    ISBN 0060298871 (0-06-029887-1)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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  • Vile Village
    by Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist
    ISBN 0060288906 (0-06-028890-6)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    The seventh book in Lemony Snicket's splendidly gloomy Series of Unfortunate Events shadows the three Baudelaire orphans as they plummet headlong into their next misadventure. Mr. Poe, their ineffective legal guardian, having exhausted all options for finding them a new home with relatives (including their 19th cousin), sadly entrusts his young charges' fate to a progressive guardian program formed with the premise "It takes a village to raise a child." Before they know it, the Baudelaires are being whisked off on a bus to a village (vile) named "V.F.D." Snicket fans who read The Austere Academy and The Ersatz Elevator will jump to see these three initials, as they provide a clue to the tragic disappearance of the Baudelaires' friends, the beloved, equally orphaned Quagmire triplets.

    To the orphans' dismay, V.F.D. is covered in crows--so much so that the whole village is pitch-black and trembling. "The crows weren't squawking or cawing, which is what crows often do, or playing the trumpet, which crows practically never do, but the town was far from silent. The air was filled with the sounds the crows made as they moved around." Another disturbing element of the town is that the Council of Elders (who wear creepy crow hats) has thousands of rules, such as "don't hurt crows" and "don't build mechanical devices." Fortunately, the Baudelaires are taken in by a kindly handyman named Hector who cooks them delicious Mexican food and secretly breaks rules. Still, neither Hector nor an entire village can protect the orphans from the clutches of the money-grubbing Count Olaf, who has relentlessly pursued them (actually, just their fortune) since The Bad Beginning. Fans won't want to miss any of this marvelously morbid series! (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]

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  • Young, Elizabeth: The Wedding Date
    The Wedding Date
    by Elizabeth Young
    ISBN 0060799226 (0-06-079922-6)
    Softcover, Avon Books

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  • Where the Sidewalk Ends
    by Shel Silverstein
    ISBN 0060256672 (0-06-025667-2)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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    Shel Silverstein shook the staid world of children's poetry in 1974 with the publication of this collection, and things haven't been the same since. More than four and a half million copies of Where the Sidewalk Ends have been sold, making it the bestselling children's poetry book ever. With this and his other poetry collections (A Light in the Attic and Falling Up), Silverstein reveals his genius for reaching kids with silly words and simple pen-and-ink drawings. What child can resist a poem called "Dancing Pants" or "The Dirtiest Man in the World"? Each of the 130 poems is funny in a different way, or touching ... or both. Some approach naughtiness or are a bit disgusting to squeamish grown-ups, but that's exactly what kids like best about Silverstein's work. Jim Trelease, author of The New Read-Aloud Handbook, calls this book "without question, the best-loved collection of poetry for children." (Ages 4 to 10) [via]

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  • The Wide Window
    by Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist
    ISBN 0060283149 (0-06-028314-9)
    Hardcover, Harpercollins

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    In The Bad Beginning, things, well, begin badly for the three Baudelaire orphans. And sadly, events only worsen in The Reptile Room. In the third in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events, there is still no hope on the horizon for these poor children. Their adventures are exciting and memorable, but, as the author points out, "exciting and memorable like being chased by a werewolf through a field of thorny bushes at midnight with nobody around to help you."

    This story begins when the orphans are being escorted by the well-meaning Mr. Poe to yet another distant relative who has agreed to take them in since their parents were killed in a horrible fire. Aunt Josephine, their new guardian, is their second cousin's sister-in-law, and she is afraid of everything. Her house (perched precariously on a cliff above Lake Lachrymose) is freezing because she is afraid of the radiator exploding, she eats cold cucumber soup because she's afraid of the stove, and she doesn't answer the telephone due to potential electrocution dangers. Her greatest joy in life is grammar, however, and when it comes to the proper use of the English language, she is fearless.

    But just when she should be the most fearful--when Count Olaf creeps his way back to find the Baudelaire orphans and steal their fortune--she somehow lets her guard down. Once again, it is up to Violet, Klaus, and Sunny to get themselves out of danger. Will they succeed? We haven't the stomach to tell you. (Ages 9 to 12) --Karin Snelson [via]

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