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Library Marketing Staff Picks
Our favorite new and forthcoming books!
Jennifer Parmelee Childs Recommends:
Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella
OK, DON'T PANIC. I'm home on maternity leave and need to do a staff book review. Like I actually have time to read anything with a newborn screaming in the background! But wait, I have a copy of the new Shopaholic galley...surely my laughter will drown out the sounds of the baby crying! And it helps that I can relate to the baby theme�the pram shopping (OK, I have a boring stroller), celebrity OBGYN (OK, mine was not so glamorous), and planned Water birth with Lotus Flowers (OK, again, not me). I guess my situation is a bit different, yet I still found this fourth installment in Kinsella's Shopaholic series is as engaging and amusing as all the previous volumes. Heroine Becky Bloomwood Brandon manages to get herself in the most incredible, unbelieveable situations, yet Kinsella's gift for comic writing make them seem totally believable. If you haven't read her books, do yourself a favor and try one. Millions of fans can't be wrong!
978-0-385-33870-7 (0-385-33870-8) | $24.00 | Dial Press | HC | February 2007
Erica McDonald Recommends:
The Goldfish Went on Vacation: A Memoir of Loss (and Learning to Tell the Truth about It) by Patty Dann
What could be more difficult than learning your husband has only one year to live? Try explaining illness and death to your four-year-old son. Dann�s account of her family�s personal loss is at times quirky, poignant, heartbreaking, and inspiring. How do you explain death to a small child? The goldfish may go on vacation, but when a child loses a parent, honesty is important and professional guidance and support can be crucial. This book will touch your heart. And in addition to its moving story, it includes an afterword from the child psychologist who worked with Dann�s young son along with an extensive list of further resources.
978-1-59030-428-0 (1-59030-428-4) | $18.00 | Shambhala | HC | January 2007
And not to be missed:
50 Best Girlfriend Getaways in North America by Marybeth Bond
Inspiration will spark as soon as you open this book. That girls-only vacation you�ve been meaning to start planning will head straight to the top of your to-do-list. With so many enticing options there�s something for everyone, from big city blow-ups to adventure escapes and pampering retreats. So call up your girlfriends, daughters, or sisters and say, �Let�s go!�
978-1-42620-051-9 (1-4262-0051-X) | $15.95 | National Geographic | TR | March
Sarah Pucillo Recommends:
Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey by Alison Weir
I was first introduced to historian Alison Weir�s work after a desperate search for the best history of Henry the VIII and his six wives. Having finished Philippa Gregory�s The Other Boleyn Girl, I simply had to know the fact from the fiction. But I couldn�t bear the thought of reading a dry, boring historical account after having spent days lost in Gregory�s fictional world of Anne Boleyn. When I began Alison Weir�s history on the floor of Barnes & Noble, I was hooked. I could have stayed there until closing. Now, my favorite historian brings to life Lady Jane Grey, the teenage girl who reigned as Queen of England for nine days. Weir�s background as a historian allows the reader to trust in her depiction of the time period. Her fictional Lady Jane is born from a solid knowledge of sixteenth century England. Written from the perspective of Jane, her mother, her nurse, the Lady Mary and many of the other key players in the political power struggle that placed Lady Jane on the throne, Weir blends together fact and fiction to answer numerous questions surrounding Lady Jane Grey�s rise to power. How did she become the Queen and why did she accept? What role did her parents play in her rise to power? And in the end, why did Queen Mary choose to have Lady Jane beheaded? Weir weaves questions of Edward the IV�s death into the layers of Lady Jane Grey�s story. While based in historical fact, her account of the King�s death led me to question how much I really knew about this period in English history. When reading historical fiction, we know the outcome, what we are looking for is the how and the why. Weir answers these questions with an alluring combination of fact and fiction and presents a page-turning depiction of an unusually bright young woman who was unafraid to challenge a woman�s role in Tudor England. Fans of historical fiction can only hope Alison Weir will continue to write novels.
978-0-345-49485-6 (0-345-49485-7) | $24.95 | HC | Ballantine | February 2007
Marcia Purcell Recommends:
Finn owes a giant debt to Huckleberry Finn as the main character is Huckleberry's reprobate father�and a very nasty piece of work he is indeed. From the first image in this first novel�a body, skinned from head to toe, floats slowly down the Mississippi River�the reader is grabbed by the throat, and wide-eyed, forced to observe the progression of life (and death) on the very edge of civilization by the edge of a mighty river. The novel is a polished jewel of language�sharp, cutting. Most remarkably, when the dialog is left unfinished (a frequent device of the author) you still know exactly how the conversation goes. There are scenes so painful and horrifying that you have to put the book down to catch your breath, and then you realize how loudly your heart is beating. And yet, looking back, I wouldn't have missed reading this book. It's just amazing. Remember this name, Jon Clinch. I'm already looking forward to his next book.
978-1-4000-6591-2 (1-4000-6591-7) l $23.95 HC l Penguin Random House l February 2007
And for something completely different...
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson
Here's another boy growing up in the Midwest�almost a hundred years later during the 1950s�and while Bill Bryson needs not one word of help from me to sell any of his books, this is a laugh-outloud piece of joy�filled with charming recollections of growing up with a father that could not possibly have been more different than Huck's father. Read. Enjoy.
978-0-375-43430-3 (0-375-43430-5) l $27.95 HC l Broadway l October 2006
Courtney Russell Recommends:
The Year of the Fog by Michelle Richmond
Imagine you�re in charge of someone else�s child, and she becomes lost while in your care. Isn�t that one of the worst scenarios you can think of? This is how The Year of Fog begins. Abby, a photographer, lets go of little Emma�s hand while at the beach in San Francisco. Emma is gone, lost within minutes. And she is the daughter of Abby�s fianc�. With a beginning like that, I could barely put the book down until I knew the outcome. Did Emma go into the ocean and drown? Did someone snatch her away? Who could it have been? Why can�t Abby remember more about what happened that day? Why is memory so tricky? I was fascinated to learn about how Abby�s mind worked and all of the actions she took throughout her search for Emma.
We all know that losing a child is every parent�s worst nightmare, and I�m sure there are many books on this topic� but, this is a story from the soon-to-be stepmother�s point of view. It was very interesting from this angle because she has an attachment and love for the child that almost equals a parent�s�but it is different and less subjective. I could only attempt to fathom the guilt one would feel about being accountable for having lost someone else�s child (especially when it�s your fianc�s), and the author, Michelle Richmond, truly gets that across. Richmond probes deep inside Abby�s world and outlines every aspect of what parents go through logistically after a child is abducted or lost, and also what they experience physically, emotionally, and mentally. Abby�s life centers on finding Emma, or at least finding out what happened during those initial seconds and minutes when she took her eyes away, and it becomes almost an obsession�possibly to the detriment of her relationship with the little girl�s father. I had to keep turning the pages to find out what happens to Emma, and of course, what happens to Abby and her relationship with her fianc�. Reading this was quite an emotional investment, and I felt as if I lived through the journey with Abby! This is one that just stays with you for a long time, and is as suspenseful as it is moving.
978-0-385-34011-3 (0-385-34011-7) | $20.00 | Delacorte | HC | March 2007
David Eicke Recommends:
The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy
Okay, so it's dark. But that's what you get when you dig. Prolific and widely heralded novelist Cormac McCarthy has been digging for decades now, and, following in the moist, shadowy ruts of his recent novel The Road, his new book, The Sunset Limited, also refuses to merely skim the topsoil. Without a moment�s hesitation, McCarthy delves into his weird plain-language profundity, grinding steadily at the resin surface of the world's oldest and toughest question of �why exactly are we here?� He does so in a spare and poignant way, using only a dialogue between two nameless foil characters: an exhausted, depressive professor and a humble, slow-talking ex-con, who, in their quests for a middle ground may just inadvertantly carve out a canyon too wide to shout across. I like a book like this because it makes me think.
They say an unexamined life is not worth living, and McCarthy's words�bearing the weight of Shakespeare and the immediacy of Updike�always compel examination. While I do recommend sequentially sandwiching this book with a couple of toes-in-the-sand, pastel-colored novels, I still consider it essential reading and required contemplation. Just embrace it. Read it sitting on a damp tile floor in low light with a storm outside. Read it in a house of mirrors. Read it on an empty screeching subway car in the middle of the night as the train jerks and the lights flicker. Alone and silently, begin. It's a very short book, but its effect as a catalyst to commonly ducked-under introspection can last as long as you'd want, or as long as you'd let it. McCarthy, you'll find, has somehow fitted this, the slimmest book on the shelf, with a caliber wide enough for a life.
978-0-307-27836-4 (0-307-27836-0) | $13.95 | Vintage |TR | October 2006
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