Featured Titles

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 2008

Nonfiction

  • Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum cover
    Author: Fortey, Richard
    Publisher: Knopf $ 27 ISBN: 9780307263629 Date: 2008
    starKirkus starLJ star PW
    In an elegant and illuminating narrative, the acclaimed author of Life, Trilobite!, and Earth acquaints the reader with the extraordinary people, meticulous research, and driving passions that helped to create the Natural History Museum in London.
    Updated 9.6.08

Fiction

  • The Wasted Vigil
    Author: Aslam, Nadeem
    Publisher: Random $ 25 ISBN: 9780307268426 Date: 2008
    star PW star Kirkus starLJ
    From the author of Maps for Lost Lovers comes a new novel--at once lyrical and blistering--about war in modern times, told through the lives of five people who come together in post-9/11 Afghanistan.
    Updated 9.6.08
  • Ms. Hempel Chroniclescover
    Author: Bynum, Sarah Shun-Lien
    Publisher: Harcourt $ 23 ISBN: 9780151014965 Date: 2008
    star Kirkusstar LJ star PW
    Ms. Beatrice Hempel, teacher of seventh grade, is new--new to teaching, new to the school, newly engaged, and newly bereft of her idiosyncratic father. Grappling awkwardly with her newness, she struggles to figure out what is expected of her in life and at work.
    Updated 9.8.08cover
  • The Army of the Republic
    Author: Cohen, Stuart Archer
    Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780312383770 Date: 2008
    starLJ
    A war of ideals tears a family and a troubled America apart, in this urgent and provocative political thriller.
    Updated 9.6.08
  • The Heretic's Daughtercover
    Author: Kent, Kathleen
    Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780316024488 Date: 2008
    star PW star LJ
    Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried, and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. This is the haunting story of Carrier's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by her daughter, Sarah.
    Updated 9.6.08
  • City of Refugecover
    Author: Piazza, Tom
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061238611 Date: 2008
    starBooklist starLJ
    From the award-winning novelist and author of Why New Orleans Matters comes a breathtaking novel of two families, one white and one black, whose lives are torn apart by Hurricane Katrina, and then pieced back together again in ways they couldn't have imagined.
    Updated 9.6.08
  • O the Clear Momentcover
    Author: McClanahan, Ed
    Publisher: PGW $ 23 ISBN: 9781582434308 Date: 2008
    star PW
    In this enormously appealing "implied autobiography," McClanahan has assembled a gathering of stories that are both quirky and
    Updated 9.6.08
  • Goldengrovecover
    Author: Prose, Francine
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780066214115 Date: 2008
    star Booklist starLJ
    The "New York Times"-bestselling author of Reading Like a Writer returns with an emotionally powerful novel about love and loss filled with echoes of the classics Vertigo and Pygmalion.
    Updated 4.24.08
  • Anathemcover
    Author: Stephenson, Neal
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 29.95 ISBN: 9780061474095 Date: 2008
    starLJ
    Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians. There, he and his cohorts are sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, and unpredictable saecular world, until the day that a higher power decides it is only these cloistered scholars who have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. One by one, Raz and his friends, mentors, and teachers are sent forth without warning into the unknown.
    Updated 9.6.08
  • The Scourge of God
    Author: Stirling, S.M.
    Publisher: Roc $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780451462282 Date: 2008
    star PW star Booklist
    In this continuation of the bestselling author's chronicle of an alternate world, Rudi MacKenzie continues his trek across the land that was once the United States where he hopes to learn the truth behind The Change that rendered technology across the globe inoperable.
    Updated 9.6.08
  • The Toss of a Lemon
    Author: Viswanathan, Padma
    Publisher: Harcourt $ 26 ISBN: 9780151015337 Date: 2008
    starKirkus star LJ
    Spanning the lifetime of one woman, this debut novel offers an intimate look into a Brahmin household. Inspired by her grandmother's stories, Viswanathan masterfully brings to life a profoundly exotic yet utterly recognizable family in the midst of social and political upheaval.
    Updated 8.19.08

Crime Fiction

  • The Black Towercover
    Author: Bayard, Louis
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 9780061173509 Date: 2008
    star PW star Kirkus star Booklist
    The acclaimed author of Mr. Timothy and The Pale Blue Eye has constructed another spellbinding historical mystery about a real-life convict who transformed himself into the world's first modern detective.
    Updated 9.6.08
  • The Maxcover
    Author: Bruen, Ken and Jason Starr
    Publisher: Hard Case $ 6.99 ISBN: 9780843959666 Date: 2008
    star Booklist
    In prisons half a world apart, Max Fisher improbably rises to the top of the pecking order at Attica, while on the Greek island of Lesbos, Angela Pretrakos tries to escape a murder charge. Now both are headed for eye-opening encounters with the law.
    Updated 5.23.08
  • Angel's Tipcover
    Author: Burke, Alafair
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 9780061561023 Date: 2008
    starKirkus star PW
    In her breakout book, the acclaimed thriller writer delves into the underworld of the Manhattan nightclub scene to deliver another work of first rate, suspenseful entertainment ("Washington Post Book World").
    Updated 8.19.08
  • The Big O
    Author: Burke, Declan
    Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 9780151014088 Date: 2008
    starKirkus
    Karen's easy life as a receptionist and armed robber is about to take a turn for the worse. Rossi, her ex, is getting out of prison any day now. He'll be looking for his motorcycle, his gun, the sixty grand he says is his, and revenge. But he won't be expecting Ray, the new guy Karen's just met, to be in his way. No stranger to the underworld himself, Ray wants out of the kidnapping game now that some dangerous new bosses are moving in. Meanwhile Frank, a disgraced plastic surgeon, hires Ray to kidnap his ex-wife for the insurance money. But the ex-wife also happens to be Karen's best friend. Can Karen and Ray trust each other enough to work together on one last job? Or will love, as always, ruin everything? From a writer hailed as "Elmore Leonard with a hard Irish edge" ("Irish Mail on Sunday"), Declan Burke's The Big O is crime fiction at its darkest and funniest. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 8.19.08
  • Ritualcover
    Author: Hayder, Mo
    Publisher: PGW $ 24 ISBN: 9780871139924 Date: 2008
    starKirkus star PW star Booklist
    The author of The Devil of Nanking delivers a taut, chilling tale of clandestine occult practices, New Age medicine, and the drug underground, set in a hypermodern urban landscape challenged by colliding immigrant cultures.
    Updated 8.19.08
  • Exit Music
    Author: Rankin, Ian
    Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780316057585 Date: 2008
    starKirkus star Booklist star LJ
    As he is simply trying to tie up some loose ends before his retirement, a new case lands on Detective Inspector John Rebus's desk: a dissident Russian poet has been murdered in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. Only a few days shy of the end to his long, controversial career, will Rebus even make it that far?
    Updated 8.19.08