Featured Titles 2005 New titles - selected on the basis of good reviews. Nonfiction, fiction and mystery titles are included on these lists. Books for kids and teens (fiction and nonfiction) are also listed.

September 2005

Nonfiction

• A Widow's Walk
  Author: Fontana, Marian
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743246241 Date: 2005
  KirkusPW
  Fontana, president of the 9/11 Widows and Victim's Family Association, pens a moving, lyrical, and profoundly funny memoir of a year in the life of a firefighter wife widowed in the 9/11 attacks.
  Suggested Reading: 9/11 Stars | Memoirs
  Updated 6.29.05
• Tender Bar: A Memoir
  Author: Moehringer, J.R.
  Publisher: Hyperion $ 23.95 ISBN: 1401300642 Date: 2005
  KirkusBooklistLJ
  The author's vivid memoir about a boy striving to become a man, and his romance with a grand old New York saloon that was sanctuary for all types of men--cops and poets, actors and lawyers, gamblers and stumblebums--is told with heart, drama, and exquisite comic timing.
  Suggested Reading: Drink Up Stars | Memoirs | All Stars
  Updated 9.17.05
• Mark Twain: A Life
  Author: Powers, Ron
  Publisher: Free $ 35 ISBN: 0743248996 Date: 2005
  PW
  In the most important narrative biography of Samuel Langhorne Clemens in half a century, a Pulitzer-Prize winner brings to life the astonishing man behind one of America's most famous sons.
  Suggested Reading: Twain Stars
  Updated 8.2.05

Fiction

• The Man from Beyond
  Author: Brownstein, Gabriel
  Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393051528 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle arrives in New York on a spiritualist crusade, defending the powers of the mysterious medium Margery. His good friend Harry Houdini is a skeptic, and when Doyle claims Margery's powers are superior to Houdini's, the magician goes on the attack.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Elementary Stars | Magic & Magicians | Spiritualist Stars
  Updated 8.15.05
• The March
  Author: Doctorow, E.L.
  Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375506713 Date: 2005
  KirkusPW
  In the last years of the Civil War, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman marched 60,000 Union troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, cutting a 60-mile wide swath of pillage and destruction. That event comes back to life in this magisterial novel.
  Suggested Reading: Civil War Stars | Sherman
  Updated 7.18.05
• Joplin's Ghost
  Author: Due, Tananarive
  Publisher: Atria $ 25 ISBN: 0743449037 Date: 2005
  PW
  An acclaimed suspense writer's latest chilling tale examines how the daughter of a musician and jazz club owner finds her life changed when she becomes haunted by the ghost of Scott Joplin.
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars | Ghosts | Music
  Updated 7.25.05
• 26A
  Author: Evans, Diana
  Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060820918 Date: 2005
  PW
  A hauntingly beautiful, wickedly funny and devastatingly moving novel of innocence and dreams that announces the arrival of a major new talent to the literary scene. The attic room at 26a Waifer Avenue in the lower-middle-class London neighborhood of Neasden is a sanctuary for identical twins Georgia and Bessi Hunter. - Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: Twins | Debuts
  Updated 7.25.05
• A Sudden Country
  Author: Fisher, Karen
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400063221 Date: 2005
  PWKirkusLJ
  A vivid and revelatory novel based on actual events of the 1847 Oregon migration, A Sudden Country follows two characters of remarkable complexity and strength in a journey of survival and redemption. - Publisher Marketing
  Suggested Reading: Western Stars | Debuts | All Stars | Oregon Trail
  Updated 7.12.05
• Anansi Boys
  Author: Gaiman, Neil
  Publisher: Morrow $ 26.95 ISBN: 006051518x Date: 2005
  KirkusPWBooklist
  Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spirit of rebellion able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. When he dies on a karaoke stage, things get very interesting for Charlie.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 8.15.05
• Lord of the Silver Bow: Troy
  Author: Gemmell, David
  Publisher: Del Rey $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345458354 Date: 2005
  KirkusLJPW
  This re-imagined Trojan War is the beginning of an epic trilogy. Readers will be introduced to Aeneas, Lord of the Silver Bow, a feared warrior who surrenders his heart to Andromache, who is betrothed to Hektor.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 8.8.05
• Widow of the South
  Author: Hicks, Robert
  Publisher: Warner $ 24.95 ISBN: 0446500127 Date: 2005
  BooklistLJ
  This debut novel is based on the true story of Carrie McGavock. During the Civil War's Battle of Franklin, a five-hour bloodbath with 9,200 casualties, McGavock's home was turned into a field hospital where four generals died. For 40 years she tended the private cemetery on her property where more than 1,000 were laid to rest.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts | Civil War Stars
  Updated 6.29.05
• On Beauty
  Author: Smith, Zadie
  Publisher: Penguin $ 25.95 ISBN: 1594200637 Date: 2005
  KirkusPW
  Smith's third novel is an analysis of family life, the institution of marriage, and an honest look at people's deceptions. An infidelity, a death, and a legacy set in motion a chain of events that forces everyone to examine the assumptions which underpin their lives.
  Updated 8.2.05
• The Year the Music Changed
  Author: Thomas, Diane
  Publisher: Toby $ 22.95 ISBN: 1592641229 Date: 2005
  LJ
  A lonely 14-year-old fires off a fan letter to an unknown 20-year-old country singer named Elvis Presley, launching an intimate, touching correspondence that chronicles Achsa and Elvis' coming of age as artists and individuals.
  Suggested Reading: Elvis
  Updated 5.4.05

Mystery & Suspense

• Immoral
  Author: Freeman, Brian
  Publisher: Minotaur $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312340427 Date: 2005
  LJ
  In a moral world, murder is the ultimate crime, a killer pays the ultimate price, and the victim remains buried. Unless everyone is immoral.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 8.24.05
• Demon of the Air: An Aztec Mystery
  Author: Levack, Simon
  Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312348347 Date: 2005
  PWLJ
  In this gripping murder mystery, intrigue, drama, treachery and romance combine with historical fact and a potent imagination to bring life to the strange and brutal world of the Aztecs.- Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: Aztec Stars | Historical Crime Fiction
  Updated 9.17.05
• The Third Brother
  Author: McDonell, Nick
  Publisher: Grove $ 22 ISBN: 080211802x Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  A news magazine intern sorts through the chaos of his life and the world around him after his parents' murder-suicide, and his brother's confession and suicide.
  Suggested Reading: Thai Stars
  Updated 7.7.05

• Murder Never Forgets
  Author: O'Hehir, Diana
  Publisher: Berkley $ 23.95 ISBN: 0425205851 Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  One of the most intellectually delightful murder mysteries ever written . . . The narrating voice is a pleasure from beginning to end . . . Three cheers."--Vivian Gornick, author of Fierce Attachments.
  Suggested Reading: Traditional British
  Updated 7.7.05

• First Drop
  Author: Sharp, Zoe
  Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312341695 Date: 2005
  PW
  It should have been an easy introduction to Charlie Fox's new career as a bodyguard, working for the personal protection agency run by her ex-lover, Sean Meyer. Their trip to Florida together should have been a working holiday--and a chance to build on the fresh start they promised to make when they last worked together. All Charlie has to do is baby-sit Trey Pelzner, the gawky fifteen-year-old son of a rich computer programmer in Fort Lauderdale. The last thing anyone expected was a determined attempt to snatch the boy, or that Trey's father and their entire bodyguard team--including Sean--would disappear off the face of the earth at the same time. Now somebody out there wants the boy badly and they're prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way. Evading them, alone in unknown territory, takes all the skill and courage Charlie possesses. As hair-raising as a roller-coaster ride, First Drop skyrockets Zoe Sharp to the top of that exclusive list of suspense writers who are going places fast. - Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 8.2.05

Books for Kids, Teens & Readers of All Ages

Age and grade designations are approximate, parental judgement should be used.

• Leaf Man
  Author: Ehlert, Lois
  Publisher: Harcourt $ 16 ISBN: 0152053042 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  Come along on a journey with a man made of leave
  Grades: Preschool - 3 Category: Picture Book | Nature
• Peep
  Author: Westerfield, Scott
  Publisher: Razorbill $ 16.99 ISBN: 159514031X Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  Bursting with the sharp intelligence and sly humor that's fast becoming his trademark, Westerfield's new novel is an utterly original take on an archetype of horror--the vampire.
  Grades: 8-12 Category: Speculative Fiction | Horror