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Hotlists 2008
Crime Fiction - embedded
Seeing Stars
Lists of (mostly) hardcover books which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ).
The review journal assigns the star.
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Stellar All Stars
Tree of Smoke
by Denis Johnson
The Zookeeper's Wife
by Diane Ackerman
The Dead Father's Club
by Matt Haig
Consumption
by Keith Patterson
Down River
by John Hart
The Terror Dream by Susan Faludi
Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .
Starred Reviews
Nonfiction Stars - 2006
April 2, 2008
Nonfiction Stars of 2006 - A selected list of titles.
This reading list is based on personal preferences. It reflects interests history, science, nature, travel, food, biography, memoirs and a few assorted odd topics. An emphasis is placed on nonfiction that reads like good fiction. Titles are listed by approximate date of publication, then alphabetically by author.
Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine - unless otherwise noted.
December | November
| October | September
| August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
December
- Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell With the Rolling Stones
Author: Greenfield, Robert
Publisher: Da Capo $ 24 ISBN: 0306814331 Date: 2006
Booklist
Recorded during the blazing-hot summer of 1971 in the basement of Keith Richards's palatial mansion by the sea in the south of France, Exile on Main Street freezes forever in time a moment when the Stones and their counterculture audience found themselves at a crossroads, and Greenfield was there.
Updated 10.16.06 - Winefred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler's Bayreuth
Author: Hamann, Brigette
Publisher: Harcourt $ 35 ISBN: 015101308X Date: 2006KirkusPW
Updated 8.28.06 - The Harbor Boys: A Memoir
Author: Hamilton, Hugo
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060784679 Date: 2006Kirkus
From the author of The Speckled People, one of the most lyrical and powerful memoirs of recent times, comes an exploration of another crucial moment in his early life: the summer he spent working at a harbor close to his home in Dublin, at a time of tremendous unrest. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 10.16.06 - Paris: The Secret History
Author: Husssey, Andrew
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 32.50 ISBN: 1569613231 Date: 2006Kirkus
If Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon described daily life in contemporary Paris, this book describes daily life in the city throughout its history.
Suggested Reading: Paris
Updated 10.16.06 - The King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter: The Man Who Saved Geometry
Author: Roberts, Siobhan
Publisher: Walker $ 27.95 ISBN: 0802714994 Date: 2006LJ
Updated 8.10.06 - The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma
Author: Thant, Myint-U
Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 0374163421 Date: 2006KirkusPW
The author tells the story of modern Burma, in part through a telling of his own family's history, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic, and appalling.
Suggested Reading: Burma
Updated 9.25.06 - A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings
Author: Tillyard, Stella
Publisher: Random $ 26.95 ISBN: 140006371x Date: 2006Kirkus
Compulsively readable, this is the dramatic scandal-ridden tale of a family trapped between the stiff protocols of royalty and their own desires. An unforgettable glimpse of the birth of celebrity culture and the enduring plight of "the royals." - Publisher Marketing
Updated 8.28.06
December | November
| October | September
| August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
November
- Scott of the Antarctic: A Life of Courage and Tragedy
Author: Crane, David
Publisher: Knopf $ 30 ISBN: 0375415270 Date: 2006PW
With full access to all family papers and to the voluminous diaries and records of key participants in the Antarctic expeditions, this richly illuminating biography of Robert Falcon Scott is an absolutely convincing portrait of a complicated hero.
Updated 9.18.06 - The Scientist As Rebel
Author: Dyson, Freeman J.
Publisher: New York Review $ 27.95 ISBN: 1590172167 Date: 2006KirkusPW
This collection, by a renowned scientist who is also a lively and distinguished writer, offers fresh and often unexpected perspectives on the history, methods, and ethics of science, as well as informative and accessible ways of thinking about contentious current debates on the relations between science, religion, literature, and society. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 10.16.06 - The Yellow House
Author: Gayford, Martin
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.99 ISBN: 0316769010 Date: 2006PWKirkus
This chronicle of the two months in 1888 when Paul Gauguin shared a house in France with Vincent Van Gogh describes not only how these two hallowed artists painted and exchanged ideas, but also the texture of their everyday lives. Includes 60 B&W reproductions of the artists' paintings and drawings from the period.
Updated 9.18.06 - Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft
Author: Houpt, Simon
Publisher: Sterling $ 24.95 ISBN: 1402728298 Date: 2006LJ
Houpt offers an intriguing tour through the underworld of art theft, where the stakes are high and passions run strong. Not only is this volume beautifully written and lavishly illustrated, it tells a story as fascinating as any crime novel.
Updated 5.21.07 - The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
Author: Johnson, Steven
Publisher: Riverhead $ 26.95 ISBN: 1594489254 Date: 2006PW
This thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London is a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world.
Updated 10.23.06 - Blacktop Cowboys: Riders on the Run for Rodeo Gold
Author: Phillips,Ty
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312330367 Date: 2006PW
This gritty, firsthand account of the world of competitive steer wrestling chronicles the lives of the rodeo cowboys pursuing their dreams to be the best.
Updated 7.10.06 - Thunderstruck
Author: Larson, Erik
Publisher: Crown $ 25.95 ISBN: 1400080665 Date: 2006LJBooklistPW
The bestselling author of The Devil in the White City tells the amazing, interwoven stories of two men--Hawley Crippen, a doctor and an unlikely murderer, and Gugliemo Marconi, the obsessive genius who invented the wireless--whose stories converge during the greatest criminal chase of all time.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 8.10.06 - Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph and the Legacy of the American Outlaw
Author: Vollers, Maranne
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 006059862x Date: 2006PW
Through a series of exclusive interviews with Eric Rudolph, the prime suspect in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing, a celebrated author tells the untold story of an archetypal American terrorist.
Updated 9.25.06
December | November
| October | September
| August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
October
- A Mermaid's Tale: A Personal Search for Love and Lore
Author: Adams, Amanda
Publisher: Greystone $ 24.95 ISBN: 1553651170 Date: 2006Booklist
Elusive, seductive, otherworldly, the mermaid is one of the most resonant of female archetypes, persisting across cultures and eras. In this singular study, Amanda Adams uses poetic language and invokes a wide range of representations and disciplines -- from literature, poetry, and mythology to anthropology and folklore -- to reclaim this icon of female power for modern readers. Beginning with Melusina, the bathing mermaid par excellence, Adams describes the seductive sirens and their honeyed songs, the powerful Arctic sea goddess Sedna, and the long-haired "rusalki" of Russian lore, among other legendary mermaids. As she tells their stories, she considers the womanly, passionate, rage-filled, and seductively sweet sides of the mermaid and how those traits reflect the lives and moods of women who live on drier shores. In discovering mermaids and their stories, the author presents a striking narrative of uncovering the unusual, the beautiful, and the extraordinary in her own life. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 9.18.06 - Satyr Square: A Year, A Life in Rome
Author: Barkan, Leonard
Publisher: FSG $ 24 ISBN: 0374254052 Date: 2006Kirkus
The bewitching story of Rome teaching a lonely scholar how to discover himself, Satyr Square--part memoir, part literary criticism, part culinary and aesthetic travelogue--is a poignant, hilarious narrative about an American professor spending a magical year in Rome.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 7.11.06 - The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
Author: Bryson, Bill
Publisher: Broadway $ 25 ISBN: 076791936x Date: 2006Kirkus
From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language comes a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the middle of the United States in the middle of the last century.
Updated 7.11.06 - We Tell Ourselves in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction
Author: Didion, Joan
Publisher: Everymans $ 30 ISBN: 0307264874 Date: 2006LJ
For the first time, all of Didion's nonfiction writing on place, politics, lifestyle, and cultural figures from the 1960s to 2003 have been gathered together in one volume.
Updated 9.18.06 - Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran
Author: Elliot, Jason
Publisher: St Martins $ 26.95 ISBN: 031230191x Date: 2006PWKirkus
The bestselling author of An Unexpected Light conducts a fascinating journey through the cultural and artistic landscape of Iran, both past and present.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 8.28.06 - Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King
Author: Fraser, Antonia
Publisher: Nan Talese $ 32.50 ISBN: 0385509847 Date: 2006Booklist
Updated 8.7.06 - Watching the World Change
Author: Friend, David
Publisher: FSG $ 30 ISBN: 0374299331 Date: 2006KirkusPWLJ
In this collection, Friend tells the unforgettable stories behind the haunting yet defining images of the September 11th terrorist attacks and shows how advances in television, digital photography, and the Internet produced an effect whereby more than two billion people saw that day's terrible events as they happened.
Suggested Reading: 9/11 | All Stars
Updated 7.11.06 - Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide
Author: Goldberg, Jeffrey
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0375412344 Date: 2006PWBooklist
This riveting, deeply affecting story follows an American Jew and a Palestinian who, over the course of more than 15 years, forge a friendship out of what appear to be reconcilable differences.
Updated 9.19.06 - Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York
Author: Gopnick, Adam
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 1400041813 Date: 2006Booklist
Following Gopnik's bestselling Paris to the Moon and set in New York, Through the Children's Gate is at once a celebration of a newly fragile city and a poignant study of a family trying to find its way, and joy, within it.
Updated 9.18.06 - The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
Author: Hager, Thomas
Publisher: Crown $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400082137 Date: 2006Kirkus
Fast-paced, suspenseful, and utterly satisfying, this is the sweeping history of the discovery of the first antibiotic and its dramatic effect on the world of medicine and beyond
Updated 7.11.06 - Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime
Author: Hempl, Patricia
Publisher: Harcourt $ 22 ISBN: 0151015066 Date: 2006BooklistPW
In Blue Arabesque, Hampl explores the allure of that woman, immersed in leisure, so at odds with the increasing rush of the modern era. Her tantalizing meditation takes us to the Cote d'Azur and North Africa, from cloister to harem, pondering figures as diverse as Eugene Delacroix, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Katherine Mansfield. Returning always to Matisse and his obsessive portraits of languid women, Hampl discovers they were not decorative indulgences but surprising acts of integrity. Moving with the life force that Matisse sought in his work, Blue Arabesque is a dazzling tour de force. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 9.18.06 - White Masai: An Exotic Tale of Love and Adventure
Author: Hofmann, Corinne
Publisher: Amistad $ 24.95 ISBN: 0061131520 Date: 2006PW
This page-turning tale puts an African spin on Not Without My Daughter when a woman abandons her business, family, and own country to follow a Masai warrior.
Updated 6.1.06 - Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir
Author: Hughes, Robert
Publisher: Knopf $ 27.95 ISBN: 1400044448 Date: 2006KirkusPW
The outspoken cultural critic and author of the bestselling The Shock of the New and The Fatal Shore now turns his eye inward in an intimate memoir of his early life and times.
Updated 6.1.06 - Climbing the Mango: A Memoir of a Childhood in India
Author: Jaffrey, Madhur
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 1400042951 Date: 2006KirkusPW
Today's most highly regarded writer on Indian food pens an enchanting memoir of her childhood in Delhi in an age and a society that has since disappeared. Includes a dozen family recipes.
Updated 8.17.06 - The Ghost Map
Author: Johnson, Steven
Publisher: Riverhead $ 26.95 ISBN: 1594489254 Date: 2006PWBooklist
This thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London is a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world.
Updated 10.20.06 - Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia
Author: Keneally, Thomas
Publisher: Talese $ 26.95 ISBN: 038551459x Date: 2006Kirkus
With the authority of a brilliant historian and the narrative grace of a great novelist, Keneally recounts the founding of the first penal colony in Australia in 1788.
Updated 7.11.06 - Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Author: Lewis, Michael
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 039306123x Date: 2006BooklistPWLJ
The bestselling author of Coach, Moneyball and Liar's Poker delivers a multidimensional story that traces the upbringing of a young boy through to young adulthood, all through the lens of sports and his community of support.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 10.16.06 - Cancer Vixen: A True Story
Author: Marchetto, Marisa Acocella
Publisher: Knopf $ 22 ISBN: 0307263576 Date: 2006Kirkus
Marchetto tells the story of her 11-month, ultimately triumphant bout with breast cancer--from diagnosis to cure, and every challenging step in between. It is a portrait of one woman's supercharged life in Manhattan, and a wonderful love story.
Updated 7.11.06 - Cross-X: A Turbulent, Triumphant Season With an Inner-City Debate Squad
Author: Miller, Joe
Publisher: FSG $ 26 ISBN: 0374131945 Date: 2006Kirkus
Miller follows an "academically deficient" inner-city school's debate squad through the 2002 season that ends with a top-ten finish at the national championships in Atlanta.
Updated 7.11.06 - Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford
Author: Mitford, Jessica & Peter Y. Sussman (edt)
Publisher: Knopf $ 35 ISBN: 0375410325 Date: 2006PWBooklist
The letters of "Decca" Mitford give readers a luminous self-portrait of an inimitable woman, and of 20th-century society, from the inside out.
Updated 9.18.06 - Truck: A Love Story
Author: Perry, Michael
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060571179 Date: 2006Booklist
As with his popular "Population: 485," Perry delivers a truckload of humor, heart, and gardening tips in this chronicle of a year in which he grows his own food, seeks to live peaceably with his neighbors, and sort out his love life.
Updated 9.18.06 - The Shakespeare Wars: The Battle to Explain the Bard
Author: Rosenbaum, Ron
Publisher: Random $ 35 ISBN: 0375503390 Date: 2006KirkusPWBooklist
Rosenbaum's provocative and illuminating encounters with scholars and directors gives readers new ways of thinking about Shakespeare.
Suggested Reading: All Stars |Shakespeare
Updated 9.18.06 - The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder
Author: Stashower, Daniel
Publisher: Dutton $ 25.95 ISBN: 052594981x Date: 2006Kirkus
Readers who flocked to Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City will love Stashower's true story of murder and media mania--including the controversial involvement of Edgar Allan Poe--in 1840s New York.
Updated 7.11.06 - Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution
Author: Weber, Caroline
Publisher: Holt $ 27.50 ISBN: 0805079491 Date: 2006PW
In this dazzling new vision of the ever-fascinating queen, a dynamic young historian reveals how Marie Antoinette's bold attempts to reshape royal fashion changed the future of France.
Suggested Reading: Marie Antoinette
Updated 7.31.06 - Blood Brother: Among the Soldiers of Ward 57
Author: Weisskopf, Michael
Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 0805078606 Date: 2006KirkusLJ
A powerful account of 18 months in the lives of three soldiers and a journalist, all patients in Ward 57, Walter Reed's amputee wing. A chronicle of devastation and recovery, this is a deeply affecting portrait of the private aftermath of combat casualties.
Updated 9.18.06 - The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond
Author: Winder, Simon
Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 0374299382 Date: 2006PW
Ian Fleming fabricated an icon that has endured long past its maker's death. Winder lovingly and ruefully re-creates the nadirs and humiliations of fandom while illuminating what Bond's evolution says about the conservative movement, sex, the monarchy, food, attitudes toward America, class, and everything in between.
Updated 8.28.06
December | November
| October | September
| August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
September
- The Mystery Guest: An Account
Author: Bouillier, Gregoire
Publisher: FSG $ 18 ISBN: 0374185700 Date: 2006PWKirkus
This translation marks the English-language debut of an iconoclast who has attracted one of the most passionate cult followings in French literature today. This is the story of how one man got over a broken heart and learned to love again.
Updated 7.17.06 - Wake-Up Call
Author: Breitweiser, Kristen
Publisher: Warner $ 24.99 ISBN: 0446579327 Date: 2006Kirkus
This is the eye-opening, moving, and politically explosive story of a woman who was catapulted from a quiet suburban family life into a courageous battle for justice after her husband was killed in the Trade Center attacks.
Suggested Reading: 9/11
Updated 7.11.06 - Orson Welles: Hello Americans
Author: Callow, Simon
Publisher: Viking $ 32.95 ISBN: 0670872563 Date: 2006PWBooklistKirkusLJ
In this volume of his masterful, highly acclaimed biography, Callow captures the genius of Orson Welles, revealing a life even more extraordinary than the myths that have surrounded it.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 7.17.06 - Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China
Author: Delisle, Guy
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly $ 19.95 ISBN: 1894937791 Date: 2006Kirkus
The follow-up graphic novel to the acclaimed Pyongyang: A Journey to North Korea, Shenzhen is entertainingly compact, with Guy Delisle's observations of life in a cold urban city in southern China that is sealed off from the rest of the country by electric fences and armed guards.
Updated 7.11.06 - Creationists
Author: Doctorow, E. L
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400064953 Date: 2006 Kirkus Booklist
Through the eyes of a great American writer, readers will consider the secrets of literary creativity and whether they're different for science or slapstick comedy.
Updated 8.7.06 - The First Seven Years, Plus a Few More: A Memoir
Author: Fo, Dario
Publisher: Thomas Dunne $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312359179 Date: 2006PW
An extraordinary coming-of-age memoir by the Nobel-Prize-winning playwright My First Seven Years is Dario Fo's fantastic, enchanting memoir of his youth spent in Northern Italy on the shores of Lago Maggiore. As a child, Fo grew up in a picturesque village teeming with glass-blowers, smugglers and storytellers. Of his teenage years, Fo recounts the struggles of the Fascists and Partisans, the years of World War II, and his own tragicomic experience trying to desert the Fascist army. In a series of colorful vignettes, Fo draws us into a remarkable early life filled with characters and anecdotes that would become the inspiration for his own creative genius. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 8.28.06 - The Discomfort Zone
Author: Franzen, Jonathan
Publisher: FSG $ 22 ISBN: 0374299196 Date: 2006PWKirkus
Sparkling, daring, arrestingly honest, this work narrates the formation of a unique mind and heart in the crucible of an everyday American family.
Updated 6.9.06 - There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children
Author: Greene, Melissa Fay
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 25.95 ISBN: 1596911166 Date: 2006PW Booklist
This volume is the story of Haregewoin Tefarra, a middle-aged Ethiopian woman of modest means whose home has become a refuge for hundreds of children orphaned by AIDS. Today, Haregewoin runs a school, a daycare system, and a shelter for sick mothers.
Updated 8.7.06 - A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII
Author: Helms, Sarah
Publisher: Nan Talese $ 27.50 ISBN: 038550845x Date: 2006PWLJ
Once rumored to have been the inspiration for Ian Fleming's Miss Moneypenny, Vera Atkins climbed her way to the top in Special Operations Executive, or SOE, Britain's secret service created to help the resistance efforts in Nazi-occupied countries. Drawing on recently released government files and unprecedented access to family papers, Helm vividly reconstructs a complex and extraordinary life.
Suggested Reading: WWII
Updated 7.11.06 - The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century
Author: Hodes, Martha
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393052664 Date: 2006LJ
"What a terrific book! I could hardly put it down... A story of triumph over adversity."--James McPherson. Award-winning historian Hodes presents the true, extraordinary story of Eunice Connolly, a woman whose misfortune and defiance make up the grand themes of American history--opportunity and racism, war and freedom.
Updated 8.29.06 - The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation
Author: Jacobson, Sid/Ernie Colon
Publisher: Hill & Wang $ 30/16.95 ISBN: 0809057387/0809057395 Date: 2006Kirkus
This accessible version of the 9/11 Commission's official report on the terrorist attacks, released in 2005, puts at every American's fingertips the most defining event of the century. Jacobson's text faithfully captures the report's investigative thoroughness, while Colon's stunning artwork powerfully conveys the facts, insights, and urgency of the original.
Suggested Reading: 9/11
Updated 7.11.06 - All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone
Author: MacPherson, Myra
Publisher: Scribner $ 35 ISBN: 0684807130 Date: 2006KirkusLJPWBooklist
Boasting equal parts scholarship and style, this is a groundbreaking and timely portrait of I.F. Stone, one of the 20th century's most independent and revered American journalists.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 9.18.06 - I'm Proud of You: My Friendship With Fred Rogers
Author: Madigan, Tim
Publisher: Gotham $ 20 ISBN: 1592402275 Date: 2006PW
When journalist Madigan met "Mister" Fred Rogers in 1995, his personal life was in shambles. Here is the story of the relationship between a man struggling with living life and the person he calls "the human embodiment of heaven."
Updated 5.15.06 - Internal Combustion: The Story of a Marriage and a Murder in the Motor City
Author: Maynard, Joyce
Publisher: Jossey-Bass $ 24.95 ISBN: 0787982261 Date: 2006Kirkus
As in Joyce Maynard's previous books - including To Die For, based on a true crime, and her best selling memoir, At Home in the World - Joyce Maynard's themes here involve family secrets, the deep fissures that lie below the surface of the glittering exteriors, and the deep, potentially fatal, fissures in the American Dream. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 8.28.06 - The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
Author: Mendelsohn, Daniel
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 27.95 ISBN: 0060542977 Date: 2006PW Booklist
Mendelsohn grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust--an unmentionable subject during his childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939, he embarked on a hunt for the remaining eyewitnesses of his relatives' fates. This is their story.
Updated 8.7.066 - The Medici Giraffe: And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power
Author: Ommanney, Francis Downes
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.99 ISBN: 0316525650 Date: 2006PWLJ
This fascinating exploration spans 2,000 years to look at the central role exotic animals have played in war, diplomacy, and the pomp of princes and potentates.
Updated 8.10.06 - Tigers in Red Weather: A Quest to See the Last Wild Tigers
Author: Padel, Ruth
Publisher: Walker $ 26.95 ISBN: 0802715443 Date: 2006Kirkus
Poet, writer, and descendant of Charles Darwin, Ruth Padel set out to visit a tropical jungle and wildlife sanctuary in India-- and her visit turned into a remarkable two-year journey through eleven countries in search of that most elusive and most beautiful animal: the tiger. Armed with her grandmother's opera glasses and Tunisian running shoes, she set off across Asia to ask the question: can the tiger be saved from extinction in the wild? - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 7.11.06 - James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
Author: Phillips, Julie
Publisher: St Martins $ 27.95 ISBN: 0312203853 Date: 2006KirkusBooklistPW
Tiptree burst onto the science fiction scene in the 1970s with a series of hard-edged, provocative short stories. Then the cover was blown: the author was actually a 61-year-old woman named Alice Sheldon--world traveler, debutante, chicken farmer, CIA agent, and experimental psychologist. This fascinating biography is based on full access to her papers.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 7.11.06 - Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
Author: Prose, Francine
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060777044 Date: 2006 PW
Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.
Updated 4.24.06 - Wonga Coup: A Tale of Guns, Germs and the Steely Determination to Create Mayhem in Oil-Rich Corners of Africa
Author: Roberts, Adam
Publisher: Public Affairs $ 26 ISBN: 1586483714 Date: 2006PW
Roberts investigates why in 2004, the tiny, oil-rich African nation of Equatorial Guinea became the target of a group of salty British, South African and Zimbabwean mercenaries, traveling on an American-registered ex-National Guard plane.
Updated 8.16.06 - Prince of the Marshes: A Year of Governing in Iraq
Author: Stewart, Rory
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151012350 Date: 2006 Kirkus
In August 2003, Rory Stewart, a Farsi-speaking British diplomat, was appointed deputy governor of Amarah and then Nasiriyah, provinces in the remote, impoverished marsh regions of southern Iraq. This is the story of his eleven months of negotiating hostage releases, holding elections, and splicing together some semblance of an infrastructure.
Updated 6.9.06 - A Three Dog Life
Author: Thomas, Abigail
Publisher: Harcourt $ 22 ISBN: 0151012113 Date: 2006Booklist
When Abigail Thomas's husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institu-tion. He has no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life. How she built that life is a story of great courage and great change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude. It is also about her relationship with Rich, a man who lives in the eternal present, and the eerie poetry of his often uncanny perceptions. This wise, plainspoken, beautiful book enacts the truth Abigail discovered in the five years since the accident: You might not find meaning in disaster, but you might, with effort, make something useful of it. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 8.7.06 - The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, And Why They Matter
Author: Tudge, Colin
Publisher: Crown $ 27.95 ISBN: 1400050367 Date: 2006KirkusBooklist
One of Britain's most highly regarded science writers looks at trees in exquisite, comprehensive detail: what they are, how they live, how they came into being, and the communities known as forests where they live.
Updated 9.18.06 - Leaving Microsoft to Change the World
Author: Wood, John
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 006112107x Date: 2006LJPW
Wood, the executive who made it his business to bring books and schools to children around the developing world, chronicles his life and work, from the start-up years at Microsoft to his life-changing decision to leave, and includes the methods he uses to manage Room to Read with "the efficiency of General Electric and the compassion of Mother Teresa."
Updated 8.10.06 - Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Lost Its Way
Author: Zielenziger, Michael
Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385513038 Date: 2006Kirkus
The world's second wealthiest country, Japan once seemed poised to overtake America. But its failure to recover from the economic collapse of the early 1990s was unprecedented, and today it confronts an array of disturbing social trends.
Updated 7.11.06
December | November
| October | September
| August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
August
- The Ice Cave: A Woman's Adventures from the Mojave To the Antarctic
Author: Bledsoe, Lucy Jane
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin $ 19.95 ISBN: 0299218449 Date: 2006PW
For Lucy Jane Bledsoe, wilderness had always been a source of peace. But during one disastrous solo trip in the wintry High Sierra she came face to face with a crisis: the wilderness no longer felt like home. The Ice Cave recounts Bledsoe's wilderness journeys as she recovers her connection with the wild and discovers the meanings of fear and grace. - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 8.28.06 - Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death in the Dawn of the 20th Century
Author: Blum, Deborah
Publisher: Penguin $ 25.95 ISBN: 1594200904 Date: 2006PW
At the close of the 19th century, William James, the great philosopher, a founder of the American Psychological Association and brother of author Henry James, proclaimed his belief in ghosts and embarked on a determined, lifelong pursuit of scientific evidence to prove it.
Updated 7.17.06 - The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban
Author: Chayes, Sarah
Publisher: Penguin $ 25.95 ISBN: 1594200963 Date: 2006 Kirkus
From a beloved former NPR "crisis jumper" reporter comes a news-breaking eyewitness account of how the U.S. government and armed forces allowed, and even abetted, the tragic return to violent warlordism in Afghanistan following the defeat of the Taliban.
Updated 6.9.06 - Back from the Dead: One Woman's Search for the Men Who Walked Off America's Death Row
Author: Cheever, Joan M.
Publisher: Halsted $ 24.95 ISBN: 0470017503 Date: 2006LJ
After representing Walter Whitman, a convicted murderer and Texan Death Row inmate, as a young lawyer, Joan Cheever wanted to discover whether he could have been rehabilitated into the community? Had his execution protected society or was it simple revenge? To find the answers she left her white-picket world and young family and went in search of former residents of Death Row. Her journey led her across the United States, into the lives of these killers. She heard their stories at first hand, sometimes in seedy motels and sometimes at danger to herself. In Back from the Dead Joan reveals these tales of tragedy and failure, of racism and injustice, but also in some cases of triumph and redemption.
Updated 9.18.06 - I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors
Author: Eisenstein, Bernice
Publisher: Riverhead $ 23.95 ISBN: 1594489181 Date: 2006 Kirkus PW
In a truly innovative memoir, the author combines her skills as a writer and illustrator to recount her early childhood in the 1950s and fragmented stories of family members lost in the war.
Updated 6.9.06 - Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York
Author: Gilfoyle, Timothy J.
Publisher: Norton $ 27.95 ISBN: 0393061906 Date: 2006KirkusLJ
Meet George Appo, pickpocket, con man, mayor of underworld New York in the late nineteenth century. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 5.15.06 - Malory: The Knight Who Became King Arthur's Chronicler
Author: Hardyment, Christina
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 29.95 ISBN: 0066209811 Date: 2006Kirkus
Christina Hardyment has not only given Sir Thomas Malory a biography worthy of King Arthur's greatest chronicler, she has also set it against a fascinating background: an age that would see the high-water mark of medieval chivalry and would also come to be seen as a bridge between the Middle Ages and the modern world. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 7.11.06 - Unquiet Grave: The FBI's Secret War Against American Indians
Author: Hendricks, Steve
Publisher: Thunders Mouth $ 30 ISBN: 1560257350 Date: 2006PWKirkus
In 1976 the body of Anna Mae Aquash, an American Indian activist, was found frozen in the Badlands of South Dakota--or so the FBI said. First-time author Hendricks offers a gripping and long-overdue reexamination of the FBI's decades-long undeclared war against American Indians.
Updated 7.17.06 - The Things Between Us: A Memoir
Author: Montgomery, Lee Begole
Publisher: Free $ 23 ISBN: 0743292634 Date: 2006 Kirkus
Peopled by eccentrics and sparkling with humor and grace, Montgomery's memoir tracks her father's illness and death and her fragmented family's reunion.
Updated 6.9.06 - The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism
Author: Sachs, Aaron
Publisher: Viking $ 25.95 ISBN: 0670037753 Date: 2006Kirkus
Cornell University history and American studies professor Aaron Sachs offers a masterly intellectual history of the impact of 19th-century explorer Alexander von Humboldt on American culture and science.
Updated 7.11.06 - Sailing From Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World
Author: Wells, Colin
Publisher: Norton $ 22 ISBN: 0553803816 Date: 2006PWLJ
This fascinating intellectual adventure story takes readers back to the fall of a magnificent empire and beyond in order to reveal how a rich cultural heritage traveled the crossroads of history.
Updated 6.1.06 - The Looming Tower: Al Queda and the Road to 9/11
Author: Wright, Lawrence
Publisher: Knopf $ 27.95 ISBN: 037541486x Date: 2006KirkusPWBooklist
This sweeping narrative history of 9/11 includes important new information about the people, ideas, events, and intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks, told for the first time from both the American and Arab sides of the story.
Suggested Reading: 9/11 | All Stars
Updated 8.16.06
December | November
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| August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
July
- Lorenzo Da Ponte: The Adventures of Mozart's Librettist in the Old and New Worlds
Author: Bolt, Rodney
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 27.95 ISBN: 1596911182 Date: 2006PW
Updated 4.17.06 - Friendship: An Expose
Author: Epstein, Joseph
Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 0618341498 Date: 2006LJ
The author sketches a witty and incisive anatomy of the modern friendship: its duties and requirements, the various kinds of friendships, the differences between male and female friendships, the complications marriage creates, and even what happens when sex enters the equation.
Updated 5.4.06 - Monique And the Mango Rains: Two Years With a Midwife in Mali
Author: Holloway, Kris
Publisher: Waveland $ 17.95 ISBN: 1577664353 Date: 2006 Kirkus
Updated 6.9.06 - Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina And the Drowning of New Orleans
Author: Horne, Jed
Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 1400065526 Date: 2006 Kirkus
Updated 6.9.06 - Cockeyed: A Memoir of Blindness
Author: Knighton, Ryan
Publisher: Public Affairs $ 23.95 ISBN: 1586483293 Date: 2006KirkusPW
Oliver Sacks meets David Sedaris--this irreverent, tragicomic, politically incorrect, astoundingly articulate memoir about going blind and growing up illuminates not just the author's reality, but the reader's own.
Updated 4.10.06 - The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destory America and an Epic Hunt for Justice
Author: Millman, Chad
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.99 ISBN: 0316734969 Date: 2006PWKirkus
Twenty years after blowing up Black Tom Island in the New York Harbor, the German government had still evaded responsibility for the crime. Three lawyers made it their mission to solve a mystery that began during the first World War and barely ended before the second.
Updated 7.11.06 - The Shark God: Enounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in the South Pacific
Author: Montgomery, Charles
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 006076516x Date: 2006LJ
Alternately terrifying, moving, and hilarious, with overtones of Melville and Conrad, The Shark God is Montgomery's extraordinary and piercingly intelligent account of both Melanesia's transformation and his own. This defiantly original blend of history and memoir, anthropology and travel writing, marks the debut of a singular new talent. - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 4.18.06 - Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: A Love Affair With the Sea
Author: Norton, Trevor
Publisher: Da Capo $ 25 ISBN: 0306814870 Date: 2006PW
A celebration of the creatures, the science, and the wonders of the ocean, by the marine biologist known as "Bill Bryson Underwater," this memoir takes readers to depths where the shapes of creatures living without sunlight defy imagination.
Updated 3.27.06 - The History of Swimming
Author: Powers, Kim
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 24.95 ISBN: 0786717238 Date: 2006 Kirkus
Powers details his frantic search for his twin brother Tim who disappears from Manhattan one weekend while in his late 20s. He falls in with two eccentric traveling companions who guide him on the last leg of his quest, driving through the night to the one final place where Tim might be.
Updated 6.9.06 - The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution
Author: Quammen, David
Publisher: Norton $ 22.95 ISBN: 0393059812 Date: 2006PWLJ
Drawing from Charles Darwin's secret "transmutation" notebooks and his personal letters, Quammen has sketched a vivid life portrait of the man whose work never ceases to be controversial.
Updated 7.11.06 - Cross Country: Fifteen Years and Ninety Thousand Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America Lewis and Clark, a Lot of Bad Motels
Author: Sullivan, Robert
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 24.95 ISBN: 1582345279 Date: 2006 Kirkus
Sullivan, who has driven cross-country more than two dozen times, recounts his family's annual summer migration from Oregon to New York, and of moving his family back and forth from coast to coast. In his trademark celebration of the mundane, he investigates everything from the history of the gas pump to the origins of fast food and rest stops.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 4.24.06
December | November
| October | September
| August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
June
- The Afterlife: A Memoir
Author: Antrim, Donald
Publisher: FSG $ 20 ISBN: 0374299617 Date: 2006Kirkus
From "a fiercely intelligent writer" ("The New York Times") comes a wry, poignant story of the difficult love between a mother and a son. Antrim comes to terms with--and fails to comes to terms with--the nature of addiction and the broken states of loneliness, shame, and loss that remain beyond his power to fully repair.
Updated 2.28.06 - The Stolen Prince: Gannibal, Adopted Son of Peter the Great, Great-Grandfather of Alexander Pushkin, and Europe's First Black Intellectual
Author: Barnes, Hugh
Publisher: Ecco $ 27.95 ISBN: 0066212650 Date: 2006Kirkus
In 1703, a seven-year-old African boy in chains stepped off a slave ship in Constantinople. He claimed to be a prince of Abyssinia and was rescued by Peter the Great. Under the tsar's tutelage, he soared to dizzying heights. This is the extraordinary story of an African slave who became slave-owner and one of the 18th century's most astonishing characters.
Updated 3.8.06 - Chameleon Days
Author: Bascom, Tim
Publisher: Houghton $ 12 ISBN: 0618658696 Date: 2006 PW
At the age of three, in 1964, Tim Bascom is thrust into a world of eucalyptus trees and stampeding baboons when his family moves from the Midwest to Ethiopia. Unflinchingly observant, young Tim reveals his missionary parents' struggles in a sometimes hostile country.
Updated 4.24.06 - Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Author: Bechdel, Alison
Publisher: Houghton $ 19.95 ISBN: 0618477942 Date: 2006PWKirkusBooklist
This breakout book by Alison Bechdel takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr. It"s a father-daughter tale pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel"s sweetly gothic drawings and--like Marjane Satrapi"s Persepolis--a story exhilaratingly suited to the graphic memoir form. - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Graphic Novels & Comic Stars | All Stars
Updated 3.16.06 - Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
Author: Buford, Bill
Publisher: Knopf $ 25.95 ISBN: 1400041201 Date: 2006PW
Expanding on his August 2002 "New Yorker" article, Buford offers a richly evocative chronicle of his experience as "slave" to Mario Batali in the small, chaotic, highest-standards kitchen of Batali's three-star New York restaurant, Babbo.
Updated 4.3.06 - The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
Author: Buzbee, Lewis
Publisher: Graywolf $ 17 ISBN: 1555974503 Date: 2006PWBooklist
Buzbee, a former bookseller and sales representative, celebrates the unique experience of the bookstore--the smell and touch of books, getting lost in the deep canyons of shelves, and the silent community of readers.
Updated 7.11.06 - Secret Daughter: A Mixed-Race Daughter and the Mother Who Gave Her Away
Author: Cross, June
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 067088555x Date: 2006Kirkus
This powerful memoir is a deftly drawn portrait of the ultimately loving relationship between a black girl and the white mother who gave her away.
Updated 3.8.06 - The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky: A True Story
Author: Dorenstein, Ken
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375503595 Date: 2006Booklist LJ
In this stunning, emotionally charged memoir, Dornstein pens a heartbreaking but profoundly hopeful book about finding beauty in the midst of tragedy. Dornstein weaves his own coming-of-age story with that of his brother David, who was killed in the 1988 crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Updated 3.20.06 - But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl's Surprising Adventures Through the Celebrity Looking Glass
Author: Dunn, Jancee
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060843640 Date: 2006LJ
This funny, touching, and surprisingly romantic memoir brings readers deep inside the culture of celebrity while introducing them to a hilarious and lovable real-life heroine--a Jersey girl-next-door who finds herself working at "Rolling Stone" magazine.
Updated 5.15.06 - Indefensible: One Lawyer's Journey into the Inferno of American Justice
Author: Feige, David
Publisher: Little Brown $24.96 ISBN: 031615623X Date: 2006 Kirkus
With verve and insider know-how, a young lawyer reveals his outrageous and heartbreaking long day's journey into night court.
Suggested Reading: Legal Nonfiction
Updated 4.24.06 - Big Coal
Author: Goodell, Jeff
Publisher: Houghton $ 25.95 ISBN: 0618319409 Date: 2006PWKirkus
Despite a century-long legacy that has claimed millions of lives and ravaged the environment, why has coal become hot again? In a compelling blend of hard-hitting investigative reporting, history, and business analysis, this work illuminates the stark economic imperatives America faces.
Updated 4.24.06 - We Are on Our Own
Author: Katin, Miriam
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly $ 19.95 ISBN: 1896597203 Date: 2006BooklistPW
A stunning memoir of a mother and her daughter's survival in WWII and their subsequent lifelong struggle with faith In this captivating and elegantly illustrated graphic memoir, Miriam Katin retells the story of her and her mother's escape on foot from the Nazi invasion of Budapest.
Suggested Reading: Graphic Works
Updated 3.27.06 - Burning Rainbow Farm: Stoner Utopia and the War on Weed
Author: Kuipers, Dean
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 24.95 ISBN: 1596911425 Date: 2006PWKirkus
The gripping story of two marijuana advocates gunned down by the FBI after a five-day standoff. On a mission to build a peaceful, pot-friendly Shangri-La, Tom Crosslin and his lover Rollie Rohm founded Rainbow Farm, a well-appointed campground and concert venue tucked away in rural Southwest Michigan. The farm quickly became the center of marijuana and environmental activism in Michigan, drawing thousands of blue-collar libertarians and hippie liberals, evangelicals and militiamen to its annual hemp festivals. Obscured by the attacks of September 11, their stories will be told here for the first time. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 5.10.06 - Reduced Shakespeare: The Attention-Impaired Reader's Guide to the World's Best Playwright, Abridged
Author: Martin, Reed
Publisher: Hyperion $ 17.95 ISBN: 1401302203 Date: 2006LJ
In one slim volume, Reduced Shakespeare delivers the play, the life, and the legend in 12 easy pieces--from the theater troupe whose sidesplitting production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged is the longest-running comedy in London's history.
Updated 4.18.06 - Stuart: A Life Backwards
Author: Masters, Alexander
Publisher: Delacorte $ 20 ISBN: 0385340001 Date: 2006PWBooklist
Hailed in Britain as "devastating," "inspirational" ("Saturday Telegraph"), "heartbreaking" ("Saturday Telegraph Magazine") and "hilarious" ("The Spectator"), Stuart is the tragic yet ultimately uplifting story of a boy whose life left the rails early and just kept going. - Guardian First Book Award Winner, Whitbread Wward Nominee.
Updated 5.4.06 - Every Second Counts: The Race to Transplant the First Human Heart
Author: McRae, Donald
Publisher: Putnam$ 25.95 ISBN: 0399153411 Date: 2006PW
In the tradition of The Right Stuff comes the true story of four men locked in a race to transplant the first human heart--a riveting tale of surgical daring, unyielding ambition, and scientific adventure.
Updated 4.17.06 - The Good Good Pig
Author: Montgomery, Sy
Publisher: Ballantine $ 21.95 ISBN: 0345481372 Date: 2006Booklist
This charming memoir chronicles Montgomery's touching friendship with a generous soul, who just so happens to be a pig, and the valuable lessons she learns about family, community, and the pleasures of the sweet, green Earth.
Updated 3.16.06 - Secrets of the Savanna: The Survival of the Gray Spirits of the Savanna
Author: Owens, Mark & Delia
Publisher: Houghton $ 26 ISBN: 0395893100 Date: 2006PW
The authors spent 23 years in the Zambian wilderness where they started a unique program to lift the villagers out of poverty and allow the wildlife populations to recover from poaching. After more than two decades of work, they were driven out of the country by poachers and ivory smugglers.
Updated 4.3.06 - Mayflower: An American Beginning
Author: Philbrick, Nathaniel
Publisher: Viking $ 29.95 ISBN: 0670037605 Date: 2006PWBooklistLJ
The startling story of the Plymouth Colony--from the flight to religious freedom to the war that ravaged New England--is told by the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 4.24.06 - The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich: A Son's Memoir
Author: Reich, Howard
Publisher: Public Affairs $ 22.95 ISBN: 1586483625 Date: 2006Booklist
A son's memoir of his mother's mental illness and post traumatic stress disorder stemming from the Holocaust reveals the long-hidden horrors of her past and sheds new light on the trauma and persistence of memory.
Updated 5.16.06 - A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler
Author: Roberts, Jason
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 0007161069 Date: 2006 Kirkus PW
In an era when the blind were routinely warehoused in asylums, James Holman was studying medicine, fighting the slave trade in Africa, hunting rogue elephants, surviving a frozen captivity in Siberia, and circumnavigating the world alone in the 19th century.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 4.24.06 - The Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur
Author: Safina, Carl
Publisher: Holt $ 27.50 ISBN: 0805078916 Date: 2006PWBooklist
In his peerless prose, Safina captures the delicate interaction between these gentle giants--the ancient leatherback turtle whose ancestry can be traced back 125 million years--and the humans who are finally playing a significant role in their survival.
Updated 5.16.06 - Rumspringa: To Be or Not to be Amish
Author: Schachtman, Tom
Publisher: North Point $ 24 ISBN: 086547687x Date: 2006PW
Through vivid portraits of teenagers in Ohio and Indiana, the author offers an account of Amish life as a mirror to the soul-searching and questing recognized as a generally intrinsic part of adolescence.
Updated 3.16.06 - Song of My Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and White
Author: Sancton, Tommy
Publisher: Other $ 24.95 ISBN: 159051243x Date: 2006PWLJ
Set in New Orleans in the 1950s and 1960s, Sancton's passionate memoir pays tribute to the white father who raised him and to the black founding fathers of Jazz, "the mens" of Preservation Hall, who inspired and encouraged him as he grew, as a musician, and as a man.
Updated 5.16.06 - Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal - Building St. Peter's
Author: Scotti, R.A.
Publisher: Viking $ 25.95 ISBN: 0670037761 Date: 2006Kirkus
It was the splendor and the scandal of the age. In 1506, the ferociously ambitious Renaissance Pope Julius II tore down the most sacred shrine in Europe--the millennium-old St. Peter's Basilica built by the Emperor Constantine. Construction of the new St. Peter's spanned two centuries, embroiled 27 popes, and consumed the genius of the greatest artists of the age.
Updated 3.8.06 - Getting Stoned With Savages
Author: Troost, J. Maarten
Publisher: Broadway $ 12.95 ISBN: 0767921992 Date: 2006Kirkus
A rip-roaringly funny account of life in the farthest corners of the world, Getting Stoned with Savages again reveals the wry appreciation of the absurd and infectious joy of discovery that make Troost one of the most engaging and original travel writers around.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 4.10.06 - The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit and Desire
Author: Zoellner, Tom
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312339690 Date: 2006PWKirkus
Uncovering the truth about diamonds, The Heartless Stone is a journey to the cold heart of the world's most unyielding gem.
Updated 4.10.06
December | November
| October | September
| August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
July | June | May | April | March | February | January
May
- The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs
Author: Albright, Madeline with Bob Woodward
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060892579 Date: 2006LJPWBooklist
The former secretary of state offers a provocative and very personal look at the role of religion in America's foreign policy. She argues that understanding the place and power of religion--and knowing how best to respond to it--is essential if America is to lead successfully around the world.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 5.15.06 - Let Me Finish
Author: Angell, Roger
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151013500 Date: 2006PWKirkusBooklist
Intimate, funny, and moving portraits form this book's centerpiece as Angell remembers his eccentric relatives, his childhood love of baseball in the time of Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio, and his vivid colleagues during his long career as a "New Yorker" writer and editor.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Sports Stars
Updated 3.6.06 - Guests of the Ayatollah
Author: Bowden, Mark
Publisher: Atlantic $ 26 ISBN: 0871139251 Date: 2006Kirkus
Bowden tells the sweeping story of the 1979 Tehran hostage situation through the eyes of the captives, the soldiers sent to free them, the radical, naive Islamist students, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. This is a remarkably detailed, brilliantly re-created, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world.
Updated 3.8.06 - House of War: The Pentagon, a History of Unbridled Power
Author: Carroll, James
Publisher: Houghton $ 30 ISBN: 0618187804 Date: 2006KirkusLJPW
This landmark, myth-shattering work chronicles the Pentagon, the most powerful institution in America, the people who created it, and the pathologies it has spawned. Carroll proves a controversial thesis: the Pentagon is the biggest, loosest cannon in American history, and no institution has changed this country more.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 4.10.06 - Blood and Roses: One Family's Struggle and Triumph During England's Tumultuous Civil War
Author: Castor, Helen
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0007148089 Date: 2006PW
Revealing the tapestry of an age, this history of one family's struggle during the War of the Roses is crafted from a rare trove of letters found in a tumbledown stately home.
Updated 3.8.06 - Island of Seven Cities: Where the Chinese Settled When They Discovered America
Author: Chiasson, Paul
Publisher: St Martins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0312361866 Date: 2006LJ
Using maps, charts, aerial photos, and his own architectural expertise, Chiasson sweeps the reader along as he pieces together the clues and finds that a large Chinese colony thrived in North America long before the European Age of Discovery.
Updated 5.15.06 - The Great Match Race
Author: Eisenberg, John
Publisher: Houghton $ 25 ISBN: 0618556125 Date: 2006BooklistKirkus
In a fast-paced narrative--colorful, rich, and full of record-setting performances and towering personalities--Eisenberg chronicles the tremendous story of the year in which two horses would come to embody a nation galloping inevitably toward civil war.
Suggested Reading: Horse Tales
Updated 3.16.06 - Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life On the Inside
Author: Firlik, Katrina
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400063205 Date: 2006LJ
This compelling tell-all by a brilliant young doctor cracks open the demanding, fascinating world of brain surgery, doing for the neurosurgeon what Kitchen Confidential did for the professional chef.
Updated 5.4.06 - Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World's Most Valuable Coin
Author: Frankel, Alison
Publisher: Norton $ 25.95 ISBN: 0393059499 Date: 2006PW
Stolen from the U.S. Mint in the depths of the Great Depression, shipped via diplomatic pouch to Egypt, hidden for forty years, seized in a 1996 government sting at the Waldorf-Astoria, and finally sold in a record-setting auction, the only known 1933 twenty-dollar Double Eagle in the world, has inspired the passions of thieves and collectors, lawyers and charlatans.
Updated 2.13.06 - Journey of the Jihadist: Inside the Muslim Militancy
Author: Gerges, Fawaz A.
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 015101213x Date: 2006LJBooklist
In a book that is both deeply personal and brilliantly illuminating, a renowned Middle Eastern expert and media commentator takes readers into the mindset of the jihadi--or holy warrior--who lies behind so many front-page headlines yet remains nearly impenetrable.
Updated 2.28.06 - Unknown Soldiers: The Story of the Missing of the First World War
Author: Hanson, Neil
Publisher: Knopf $ 28.95 ISBN: 0307263703 Date: 2006PW
In a moving story of how the grave of the Unknown Soldier and the ritual of Remembrance Day came to be, this text examines the valiant effort of Rev. David Railton who convinced Prime Minister Lloyd George to create a symbolic burial of one unknown soldier.
Updated 4.3.06 - Seed to Seed: The Secret Life of Plants
Author: Harberd, Nicholas
Publisher: Bloomsbury $24.95 ISBN: 1582344132 Date: 2006 Kirkus
A brilliant evocation of the natural and genetic beauty of the plant world, in the form of a year-long journal from one of the world's leading biologists. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 4.24.06 - Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present
Author: Hessler, Peter
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 0060826584 Date: 2006PWKirkus
From the acclaimed author of River Town comes a rare portrait, both intimate and epic, of 21st-century China as it opens its doors to the outside world.
Updated 2.28.06 - Strange Piece of Paradise
Author: Jentz, Terri
Publisher: FSG $ 27 ISBN: 0374134987 Date: 2006LJ
Powerful and paced like the most riveting of thrillers, this is the electrifying account of Jentz's investigation into the mystery of her near murder. A startling profile of a psychopath, and a moving record of a brave inner journey from violence to hope, this searing, unforgettable work is certain to be one of the most talked about books of the year.
Suggested Reading: True Crime
Updated 5.15.06 - Death in Belmont
Author: Junger, Sebastian
Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393059804 Date: 2006PWKirkusLJ
In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking sex murder that exactly fits the pattern of the Boston Strangler. This spare, powerful narrative chronicles three lives that collide--and ultimately are destroyed--in the vortex of one of the first and most controversial serial murder cases in America.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | True Crime
Updated 4.3.06 - Hooked: A True Story of Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish
Author: Knecht, G. Bruce
Publisher: Rodale $ 24.95 ISBN: 1594861102 Date: 2006PW
Hooked is a fish story, a global whodunit, a courtroom drama--and a critically important ecological message all rolled into one."--Tom Brokaw. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 3.8.06 - Doing Nothing: A History of Loungers, Loafers, Bums, and Slakcers in America
Author: Lutz, Tom
Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 0865476500 Date: 2006PW
Moving with verve and wit through a series of fascinating case studies that illuminate the changing place of leisure in the American republic, this text revises the way readers understand slackers and work itself.
Updated 2.13.06 - American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds: The Lives of Five Top Spellers and they Compete for Glory and Fame
Author: Maguire, James
Publisher: Rodale $ 24.95 ISBN: 15948621414 Date: 2006LJ
Every spring after a starting pool of 10 million kids narrows to 250 finalists, America's top young spellers face off in a nail-biting contest. This narrative book immerses the reader in a unique subculture, portraying the endearing fraternity of brilliant, eccentric young word nerds who vie for a gold trophy, a hefty check, and a glorious moment of national fame.
Updated 5.15.06 - Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero
Author: Maraniss, David
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 26 ISBN: 0743217810 Date: 2006PWLJKirkus
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of When Pride Still Mattered comes a book destined to become a modern classic--a full-scale biography of great baseball player and humanitarian Roberto Clemente, who lived, played, and died with enduring passion and grace.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Sports Stars
Updated 3.8.06 - Uncommon Carriers
Author: McPhee, John
Publisher: FSG $ 24 ISBN: 0374280398 Date: 2006PWKirkus
Here, at his adventurous best, the author chronicles his eight years of being out and about with people who work in freight transportation. The prose is distinguished, as always, by its author's warm humor, keen insight, and rich sense of human character.
Updated 4.24.06 - Man O' War: A Legend Like Lightning
Author: Ours, Dorothy
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312340990 Date: 2006Booklist
"Written with an effortless command of history and language, Man o' War frees thoroughbred racing's greatest icon from nearly a century of mythology and mystery . . . A riveting work, researched meticulously and told brilliantly."--Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit.
Updated 5.4.06 - Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home
Author: Parrado, Nando
Publisher: Crown $ 25 ISBN: 1400097673 Date: 2006Kirkus
The harrowing personal story of the hero of the international bestseller Alive gives a day-by-day account of what happened during the 1972 Andes plane crash and its aftermath and shows how Parrado coped with the stresses; how he kept from giving up; and where he found strength to climb out alive.
Updated 3.8.06 - The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Author: Pollan, Michael
Publisher: Penguin $ 26.95 ISBN: 1594200823 Date: 2006 Kirkus
The bestselling author of the Botany of Desire explores the ecology of eating to unveil why man consumes what he consumes in the 21st century.
Updated 4.24.06 - Walking Zero: How We Found Our Place in Space And Time And Why It Matters
Author: Raymo, Chet
Publisher: Walker $ 23.95 ISBN: 0802714943 Date: 2006 Kirkus
Noted science writer Chet Raymo explores how we found our place in space and time, and what it has meant to humankind. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 4.24.06 - Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War
Author: Sallah, Michael
Publisher: Little Brown $ 25.95 ISBN: 0316159972 Date: 2006PWLJ
In the spirit of the smash bestsellers Flyboys and Black Hawk Down, Tiger Force puts readers smack in the middle of overwhelming military action and turmoil, telling the story of unspeakable atrocity and unquestionable heroism.
Updated 4.3.06 - The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East
Author: Tolan, Sandy
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 24.95 ISBN: 1582343438 Date: 2006KirkusPWBooklistLJ
Based on a 43-minute radio documentary that Tolan produced for "Fresh Air," this volume pursues the story into the homes and histories of the two families at its center through the present day. Their stories form a personal microcosm of the last 70 years of Israeli-Palestinian history.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 5.4.06 - Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
Author: Wade, Nicholas
Publisher: Penguin $ 24.95 ISBN: 1594200793 Date: 2006PW
Based on a groundbreaking synthesis of recent scientific findings, this work by an acclaimed "New York Times" science reporter tells a provocative story of mankind's ancient ancestors and the evolution of human nature.
Updated 2.28.06 - Bitter Ocean: The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939-1945
Author: White, David Fairbank
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 26 ISBN: 0743229290 Date: 2006PW
White pens a masterful account of one of the least-known battles of World War II, the Battle of the Atlantic in which U.S., Canadian, and British air and sea forces fought German U-boats for Britian's fate at a dreadful cost.
Updated 3.27.06 - Letters to a Young Mathematician
Author: Stewart, Ian
Publisher: Basic $ 22.95 ISBN: 0465082319 Date: 2006LJPW
From a renowned mathematician and writer comes an insightful and lively exploration of why mathematics matters.
Updated 4.18.06
December | November
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April
- The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Or Religious Traditions
Author: Armstrong, Karen
Publisher: Knopf $ 30 ISBN: 0375413170 Date: 2006BooklistPWLJ
From one of the world's leading writers on religion and the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling A History of God comes a major new work: a chronicle of the ninth century BCE, when the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity into the present day.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 4.3.06 - The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science
Author: Ball, Philip
Publisher: FSG $ 26 ISBN: 0374229791 Date: 2006PW
Called an enemy of the 16th century's medical establishment, Paracelsus attracted myths even before he died. Who was the man behind these stories? Ball exposes a more complex truth--one that emerges only by entering into Paracelsus's time.
Updated 12.5.05 - Untold Stories
Author: Bennett, Alan
Publisher: FSG $ 27 ISBN: 0374281033 Date: 2006Kirkus
Untold Stories brings together some of the finest and funniest writing by one of England's best-known literary figures. Bennett's first major collection since "Writing Home" contains previously unpublished work, along with his much celebrated diary for the years 1996 to 2004, and numerous other exceptional essays, reviews, and comic pieces.
Updated 1.10.06 - The Last Season
Author: Blehm, Eric
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060583002 Date: 2006LJ
Blehm delves into the life of Randy Morgenson, who spent 28 summers as a backcountry ranger in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains before he mysteriously vanished. Five years later, his remains were found at the base of a waterfall.
Updated 5.15.06 - Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894
Author: Brown, Daniel James
Publisher: Lyons $ 22.95 ISBN: 1592288634 Date: 2006Booklist
On September 1, 1894 two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, Minnesota, trapping over 2,000 people. Daniel J. Brown recounts the events surrounding the fire in the first and only book on to chronicle the dramatic story that unfolded. Brown has woven together numerous survivors' stories, historical sources, and interviews with forest fire experts in a gripping narrative that tells the fascinating story of one of North America's most devastating fires and how it changed the nation. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 5.4.06 - Flaubert: A Biography
Author: Brown, Frederick
Publisher: Little Brown $ 35 ISBN: 0316118788 Date: 2006LJKirkusPWBooklist
From the highly acclaimed author of Zola: A Life comes the definitive biography of Gustave Flaubert on the 150th anniversary of Madame Bovary's publication.
Suggested Reading: Authors | All Stars
Updated 3.17.06 - It Hit Me Like a Ton of Bricks: A Memoir of Mother and Daughter
Author: Burns, Catherine Lloyd
Publisher: North Point $ 23 ISBN: 0865477086 Date: 2006Kirkus
Witty and direct, weaving back and forth in time, this volume charts the transformation of a volatile and unique mother-daughter relationship from longing to connection.
Updated 2.28.06 - Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet Union of Dominion of Space
Author: Cadbury, Deborah
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060845538 Date: 2006KirkusBooklist
The basis for a four-part "National Geographic" series, this spellbinding account of the race into space includes, for the first time in history, the Russian side of the story.
Updated 2.28.06 - Our Town: A Lynching, the Town It Haunted, and My Search for the Truth and Reconciliation
Author: Carr, Cindy
Publisher: Crown $ 25.95 ISBN: 0517705060 Date: 2006KirkusLJ
Intensely compelling, Our Town is Carr's epic account of a brutal lynching that took place in 1930 in Marion, Indiana, and the town's struggle to forget the events of that terrible night.
Updated 2.14.06 - My Life in France
Author: Child, Julia & Alex Prud'Homme
Publisher: Knopf $ 25.95 ISBN: 1400043468 Date: 2006KirkusPW
This delightful memoir of Julia's years in Paris, Marseille, and Provence opens with Paul and Julia--a tall, wide-eyed girl from Pasadena who can't cook and doesn't speak a word of French--disembarking in Le Havre, and ends with the launching of the two "Mastering" cookbooks and Julia winning the heart of America as "The French Chef."
Suggested Reading: Memoirs | Cooked Books
Updated 2.13.06 - Sweet and Low
Author: Cohen, Rich
Publisher: FSG $ 25 ISBN: 0374272298 Date: 2006LJ
Sweet and Low is the amazing, bittersweet, hilarious story of an American family and its patriarch, a short-order cook named Ben Eisenstadt who, in the years after World War II invented the sugar packet and Sweet 'N Low, converting his Brooklyn cafeteria into a factory and amassing the great fortune that would destroy his family.
Updated 2.28.06 - Songbird Journeys: The Four Seasons in the Lives of Migratory Birds
Author: Chu, Miyoko
Publisher: Walker $ 23 ISBN: 0802714684 Date: 2006LJBooklist
Suggested Reading: For the Birds
Updated 2.14.06 - Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life
Author: Dirda, Michael
Publisher: Holt $ 17 ISBN: 0805078770 Date: 2006LJ
Drawing on sources as diverse as Dr. Seuss and Simone Weil, P. G. Wodehouse and Isaiah Berlin, Pulitzer prize-winning critic Dirda shows how the wit, wisdom, and enchantment of the written word can inform and enrich nearly every aspect of life, from education and work to love and death.
Updated 5.4.06 - Mom's Cancer
Author: Fies, Brian
Publisher: Abrahms $ 12.95 ISBN: 0810958406 Date: 2006LJ
The winner of the 2005 Eisner Award in the category of Best Digital Comic for the original Web version, Mom's Cancer is now available as a graphic novel. It offers an honest, unflinching, and sometimes humorous look at the practical and emotional effect that serious illness can have on patients and their families.
Suggested Reading: Graphic Works
Updated 5.15.06 - Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines Inspired by Living Things
Author: Frenay, Robert
Publisher: FSG $ 30 ISBN: 0374113270 Date: 2006Kirkus
Written in lively prose for lay readers, Pulse shows how ideas that have shaped Western science, industry, and culture for centuries are being displaced by the rapid and dramatic rise of a "new biology"--by human systems and machines that work like living things.
Updated 1.10.06 - The First Human
Author: Gibbons, Ann
Publisher: Doubleday $ 26 ISBN: 0385512260 Da