Caribou Island: A Novel
by
David Vann
Harper, 01/01/2011
A noir novel rooted in a world of profound violence and regret,
Caribou Island is an exploration of marriage and exile set against the interminable ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family
by
Tamara Chalabi
Harper, 01/01/2011
For Tamara Chalabi, Iraq is more than a country of war and controversy; it is a place of poignant memory. For much of the twentieth century, the ...
more
Biography/Memoir
Somebody's Daughter: The Hidden Story of America's Prostituted Children and the Battle to Save Them
by
Julian Sher
Chicago Review Press, 01/01/2011
They are America's forgotten children, the hundreds of thousands of child prostitutes who walk the Las Vegas Strip, the casinos of Atlantic City, the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Stars in the Bright Sky
by
Alan Warner
Vintage, 01/01/2011
Just into their twenties and as wild as ever, they've added acrylic nails, pedicures, mobile phones and credit cards to their arsenal, but are still ...
more
Literary Fiction
The Romeo And Juliet Code
by
Phoebe Stone
Reagan Arthur, 01/01/2011
Felicity's glamorous parents have a secret. When they leave her with distant relatives in Maine, Felicity hopes they won't leave her long. Her new ...
more
Literary Fiction
The Still Point: A Novel
by
Amy Sackville
Counterpoint Press, 01/01/2011
At the turn of the twentieth century, Arctic explorer Edward Mackley sets out to reach the North Pole and vanishes into the icy landscape without a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Water Wars
by
Cameron Stracher
Sourcebooks, 01/01/2011
Welcome to a future where water is more precious than oil or gold...
Hundreds of millions of people have already died, and millions more will soon ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Under the Mercy Trees: A Novel
by
Heather Newton
HarperPaperbacks, 01/01/2011
Thirty years ago, Martin Owenby came to New York City with dreams of becoming a writer. Now his existence revolves around cheap Scotch and weekend ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Unearthly
by
Cynthia Hand
HarperTeen, 01/01/2011
In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees ...
Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Walk the Wild Road
by
Nigel Hinton
Sourcebooks, 01/01/2011
A runaway's fearless determination is brought to vivid life in this timeless adventure.
Forced to flee his home by a cruel aristocrat, 13-year-old ...
more
Historical Fiction
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
A Lonely Death: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery
by
Charles Todd
William Morrow, 01/04/2011
Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge returns in his most exciting and shocking case yet in this latest entry in the bestselling series hailed as "...
more
A Special Relationship: A Novel
by
Douglas Kennedy
Atria Books, 01/04/2011
About an hour after I met Tony Hobbs, he saved my life.
Thirty-seven-year-old American journalist Sally Goodchild quite literally married her hero. ...
more
Damage
by
John Lescroart
Dutton, 01/04/2011
The Curtlees are the most powerful family in San Francisco, unscrupulous billionaires who've lined every important pocket in the Bay Area in pursuit ...
more
Destiny and Desire: A Novel
by
Carlos Fuentes
Random House, 01/04/2011
Carlos Fuentes, one of the world's most acclaimed authors, is at the height of his powers in this stunning new novel--a magnificent epic of passion, ...
more
Dream of Ding Village
by
Yan Lianke
Grove Press, 01/04/2011
Officially censored upon its Chinese publication, and the subject of a bitter lawsuit between author and publisher,
Dream of Ding Village is Chinese ...
more
Flirt Club
by
Cathleen Daly
Roaring Brook Press, 01/04/2011
When two self-professed middle school drama geeks––Isabelle and Annie (a.k.a. Cisco and The Bean)––fail at their attempts in ...
more
Left Neglected: A Novel
by
Lisa Genova
Gallery Books, 01/04/2011
Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her ...
more
Molotov's Magic Lantern: Travels in Russian History
by
Rachel Polonsky
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 01/04/2011
When the British journalist Rachel Polonsky moves to Moscow, she discovers an apartment on Romanov Street that was once home to the Soviet elite. One ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery
by
Jennie Erin Smith
Crown, 01/04/2011
Tortoises disappear from a Madagascar reserve and reappear in the Bronx Zoo. A dead iguana floats in a jar, awaiting its unveiling in a Florida ...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Debut Author
The Lake of Dreams: A Novel
by
Kim Edwards
Viking, 01/04/2011
With revelations that prove as captivating as the deceptions at the heart of her bestselling phenomenon
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards now ...
more
The Lover's Dictionary: A Novel
by
David Levithan
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 01/04/2011
A sweet and touching modern love story, told through dictionary entries
basis, n.
There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder ...more
The Memory of Love
by
Aminatta Forna
Atlantic Monthly Press, 01/04/2011
Adrian Lockheart is a psychologist escaping his life in England. Arriving in Freetown in the wake of civil war, he struggles with the intensity of the...
more
The Soul Mirror: A Novel of the Collegia Magica
by
Carol Berg
Penguin Books, 01/04/2011
In a royal city beset by hauntings, plagues of birds, and strange sinkholes that swallow light and buildings, whispers of necromancy swirl about the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World
by
Carl Safina
Henry Holt and Company, 01/04/2011
Beginning in his kayak in his home waters of eastern Long Island, Carl Safina's
The View from Lazy Point takes us through the four seasons to the four...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Three Seconds
by
Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom
Silver Oak, 01/04/2011
Three Seconds is a gripping tour de force from Sweden’s #1 bestselling crime writing duo Roslund & Hellström about a former criminal who ...
more
Toward the Setting Sun: John Ross, the Cherokees and the Trail of Tears
by
Brian Hicks
Atlantic Monthly Press, 01/04/2011
Toward the Setting Sun chronicles one of the most significant but least explored periods in American history, recounting the little known story of...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Winter Garden
by
Kristin Hannah
St. Martin's Griffin, 01/04/2011
Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other ...
more
Being Polite to Hitler: A Novel
by
Robb Forman Dew
Little Brown & Company, 01/06/2011
After teaching and raising her family for most of her life, Agnes Scofield realizes that she is truly weary of the routine her life has become. But ...
more
The Poison Tree: A Novel
by
Erin Kelly
Pamela Dorman Books, 01/06/2011
This taut psychological thriller begins when Karen and her nine-year-old daughter, Alice, pick up Rex from a ten-year stint in prison for murder. ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun: An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery
by
Lois Winston
Midnight Ink, 01/08/2011
When Anastasia Pollack's husband permanently cashes in his chips at a roulette table in Vegas, her comfortable middle-class life is suddenly kaput. ...
more
The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality
by
Richard Panek
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 01/10/2011
Over the past few decades, a handful of scientists have been racing to explain a disturbing aspect of our universe: only 4 percent of it consists of ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Across the Universe
by
Beth Revis
Razorbill, 01/11/2011
Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed. She expects to wake up on a new planet, 300 years in the future. But fifty...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Debut Author
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
by
Sherry Turkle
Basic Books, 01/11/2011
Consider Facebook's human contact, only easier to engage with and easier to avoid. Developing technology promises closeness. Sometimes it delivers, ...
more
Science, Health and the Environment
Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories
by
Edith Pearlman
Lookout Books, 01/11/2011
In this sumptuous offering, one of our premier storytellers provides a feast for fiction aficionados. Spanning four decades and three prize-winning ...
more
Clara and Mr. Tiffany: A Novel
by
Susan Vreeland
Random House, 01/11/2011
Against the unforgettable backdrop of New York near the turn of the twentieth century, from the Gilded Age world of formal balls and opera to the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance
by
Parag Khanna
Random House, 01/11/2011
Here is a stunning and provocative guide to the future of international relations - a system for managing global problems beyond the stalemates of ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Border Lords: A Charlie Hood Novel
by
T. Jefferson Parker
Dutton, 01/11/2011
ATF agent Sean Ozburn is deep undercover supporting the
sicarios of the Baja Cartel when he suddenly goes completely dark, his only communications ...
more
The Longest War: Inside the Enduring Conflict between America and al-Qaeda
by
Peter Bergen
Free Press, 01/11/2011
Ten years have passed since the shocking attacks on the World Trade Center, and after seven years of conflict, the last U.S. combat troops left ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Sentry: A Joe Pike Novel #3
by
Robert Crais
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 01/11/2011
Dru Rayne and her uncle fled to L.A. after Hurricane Katrina; but now, five years later, they face a different danger. When Joe Pike witnesses Dru's ...
more
The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery, and a Trial of Faith
by
Bill Briggs
Broadway Books, 01/12/2011
Part detective story and part courtroom drama—with a touch of the supernatural-
The Third Miracle exposes, for the first time ever, the secret ...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Among Others
by
Jo Walton
Tor Books, 01/18/2011
Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Cold Shot to the Heart
by
Wallace Stroby
Minotaur Books, 01/18/2011
Crissa Stone is a career criminal. A complete pro, she never works too close to her New York City home, rarely signs on with the same crew, and never ...
more
Drinking Closer to Home: A Novel
by
Jessica Anya Blau
HarperCollins Publishers, 01/18/2011
Paperback Original. There is nothing like ten days with one's family to bring forth old obsessions and stir up childhood memories. When Anna, Portia, ...
more
Literary Fiction
I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
by
Maxine Hong Kingston
Knopf, 01/18/2011
In her singular voice - humble, elegiac, practical - Maxine Hong Kingston sets out to reflect on aging as she turns sixty-five.
Kingston's swift, ...
more
Outrageous Fortunes: The Twelve Surprising Trends That Will Reshape the Global Economy
by
Daniel Altman
Times Books, 01/18/2011
As individuals, companies, and countries struggle to recover from the economic crisis, many are narrowly focused on forecasts for the next week, month...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Panorama: A Novel
by
H. G. Adler
Random House, 01/18/2011
Published for the first time in English,
Panorama is a superb rediscovered novel of the Holocaust by a neglected modern master. One of a handful of ...
more
The October Killings
by
Wessel Ebersohn
Minotaur Books, 01/18/2011
Abigail Bukula was fifteen when her parents were killed in a massacre of anti-apartheid activists by white security forces. A young soldier spoke up ...
more
The Officers' Club
by
Ralph Peters
Forge Books, 01/18/2011
Spring, 1981. Vietnam is over, but the repercussions linger. The military strives to recover as society reels from the excesses of the ...
more
The Witch's Daughter
by
Paula Brackston
Thomas Dunne Books, 01/18/2011
My name is Elizabeth Anne Hawksmith, and my age is three hundred and eighty-four years. Each new settlement asks for a new journal, and so this Book ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Debut Author
Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth
by
Mark Hertsgaard
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 01/19/2011
For twenty years, Mark Hertsgaard investigated climate change, but it took the birth of his daughter to bring the truth home. Another revelation came ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Heartstone: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery #5
by
C. J. Sansom
Viking, 01/20/2011
Summer, 1545. England is at war, and Matthew Shardlake is about to encounter the most politically dangerous case of his career. While a massive French...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
by
Jane McGonigal
Penguin Press, 01/20/2011
More than 174 million Americans are gamers, and the average young person in the United States will spend ten thousand hours gaming by the age of ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Separate Beds: A Novel
by
Elizabeth Buchan
Viking, 01/20/2011
Tom and Annie's kids have grown up, the mortgage is do-able, and they're about to get a gorgeous new, state-of-the-art French stove. Life is good - or...
more
Small Persons With Wings
by
Ellen Booraem
The Dial Press, 01/20/2011
Ever since she was teased for believing in fairies, Mellie has adopted a strictly scientific and logical approach to life. But when her parents ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Death Instinct
by
Jed Rubenfeld
Riverhead Books, 01/20/2011
Under a clear blue September sky, America's financial center in lower Manhattan became the site of the largest, deadliest terrorist attack in the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Diviner's Tale
by
Bradford Morrow
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 01/20/2011
Walking a lonely forested valley on a spring morning in upstate New York, having been hired by a developer to dowse the land, Cassandra Brooks comes ...
more
The Weird Sisters
by
Eleanor Brown
Amy Einhorn Books, 01/20/2011
A major new talent tackles the complicated terrain of sisters, the power of books, and the places we decide to call home.
There is no problem ...more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Janus Stone: A Ruth Galloway Mystery
by
Elly Griffiths
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 01/21/2011
It's been only a few months since archaeologist Ruth Galloway found herself entangled in a missing persons case, barely escaping with her life. But ...
more
The Cypress House
by
Michael Koryta
Little Brown & Company, 01/24/2011
Arlen Wagner has seen it in men before--a trace of smoke in their eyes that promises imminent death. He is never wrong.
When Arlen awakens on a ...
more
A Prayer for the Night: An Amish-Country Mystery
by
P. L. Gaus
Penguin Press, 01/25/2011
Three young friends disappear while traveling on their Amish rite of passage, Rumschpringa, or wild days. In a race against the clock, the sheriff ...
more
J. D. Salinger: A Life
by
Kenneth Slawenski
Random House, 01/25/2011
One of the most popular and mysterious figures in American literary history, J. D. Salinger eluded fans and journalists for most of his life. Now ...
more
Juno's Daughters: A Novel
by
Lise Saffran
Plume, 01/25/2011
Paperback Original. Jenny Alexander has sought refuge from a troubled past on a tiny, verdant island, off the coast of Washington state. Surrounded by...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Miss Me When I'm Gone: A Novel
by
Philip Stephens
Plume, 01/25/2011
Paperback Original. After years of indie-label exile, folk singer Cyrus Harper returns to Apogee, Missouri, to tend to his mother. But the musical and...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
by
James D. Hornfischer
Bantam Books, 01/25/2011
With
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and
Ship of Ghosts, James D. Hornfischer created essential and enduring narratives about America's World ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Pictures of You
by
Caroline Leavitt
Algonquin Books, 01/25/2011
Paperback Original. Two women running away from their marriages collide on a foggy highway, killing one of them. The survivor, Isabelle, is left to ...
more
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
by
Brian Greene
Knopf, 01/25/2011
In recent years, a growing body of work - based on the principles of quantum mechanics, cosmology, and string theory - has been steadily converging ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Red Garden
by
Alice Hoffman
Crown, 01/25/2011
"
The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts. Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse of small-town ...
more
While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction
by
Kurt Vonnegut
Delacorte Press, 01/25/2011
Smart, whimsical, and often scathing, the fiction of Kurt Vonnegut influenced a generation of American writers - including Dave Eggers, author of this...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
World Tree: Pitt Poetry Series
by
Professor David Wojahn
University of Pittsburgh Press, 01/28/2011
World Tree is in many respects, David Wojahn’s most ambitious collection to date; especially notable is a 25-poem sequence of ekphrastic poems, "...
more
Poetry & Novels in Verse
A Box of Darkness: The Story of a Marriage
by
Sally Ryder Brady
St. Martin's Press, 02/01/2011
In the tradition of Joan Didion's
The Year of Magical Thinking, comes a poignant memoir about a marriage that was as deep and strong as it was ...
more
A Decadent Way To Die: A Savannah Reid Mystery
by
G. A. McKevett
Kensington, 02/01/2011
Plus-sized P.I. Savannah Reid prides herself on cracking even the toughest cases. But her latest investigation is leaving her hungry for answers as ...
more
Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer
by
Wesley Stace
Picador, 02/01/2011
England, 1923. A gentleman critic named Leslie Shepherd tells the macabre story of a gifted young composer, Charles Jessold. On the eve of his ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Delirium: Delirium Trilogy
by
Lauren Oliver
HarperCollins Publishers, 02/01/2011
Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Enough About Love
by
Herve Tellier
Other Press, 02/01/2011
Any man - or woman - who wants to hear nothing - or no more - about love should put this book down.Anna and Louise could be sisters, but they don’...
more
Fatal Error: An Alison Reynolds Novel
by
J.A. Jance
Touchstone, 02/01/2011
New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance delivers another pulse-pounding tale of suspense where no one is safe from a ...
Fatal Error.
Ali ...
more
Ghost Light: A Novel
by
Joseph O'Connor
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 02/01/2011
In 1907 Edwardian Dublin is a city of whispers and rumors. At the Abbey Theatre W. B. Yeats is working with talented John Synge, his resident ...
more
Gone
by
Mo Hayder
Atlantic Monthly Press, 02/01/2011
November in the West Country. Evening is closing in as murder detective Jack Caffery arrives to interview the victim of a car-jacking. He's dealt with...
more
Head Off & Split: Poems
by
Nikky Finney
Northwestern University Press, 02/01/2011
The poems in Nikky Finney's breathtaking new collection
Head Off & Split sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Heaven Is High: A Barbara Holloway Novel
by
Kate Wilhelm
Minotaur Books, 02/01/2011
Barbara Holloway is a low-key attorney in Eugene, Oregon who left her father's high powered firm to handle small legal problems for local residents ...
more
House Arrest
by
Ellen Meeropol
Red Hen Press, 02/01/2011
Home-care nurse Emily Klein can't get out of her new assignment – weekly prenatal visits to Pippa Glenning, a young Isis cult member under house ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Miracles, Inc.: A Novel
by
T.J. Forrester
Simon & Schuster, 02/01/2011
Vernon L. Oliver, still a young man, lives in a six-by-ten cell in a Florida prison. He has chosen the needle over the chair, has no desire to ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
My Friend the Mercenary
by
James Brabazon
Grove Press, 02/01/2011
In a fly-blown bar in West Africa, British war reporter James Brabazon found himself being briefed on covert military plans to overthrow the ...
more
Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age
by
Susan Jacoby
Pantheon Books, 02/01/2011
Susan Jacoby, an unsparing chronicler of unreason in American culture, now offers an impassioned, tough-minded critique of the myth that a radically ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Paradise Tales: and Other Stories
by
Geoff Ryman
Small Beer Press, 02/01/2011
Geoff Ryman writes about the other and leaves us dissected in the process. His stories are set in recognizable places - London, Cambodia, tomorrow - ...
more
Short Stories
Shot Through Velvet: A Crime of Fashion Mystery
by
Ellen Byerrum
Signet Classics, 02/01/2011
Fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian is touring a failing velvet factory in Virginia on its final day of operations - and finds one of the factory ...
more
Mysteries
Solo
by
Rana Dasgupta
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 02/01/2011
With an imaginative audacity and lyrical brilliance that puts him in the company of David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, Rana Dasgupta paints a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Bird House: A Novel
by
Kelly Simmons
Washington Square Press, 02/01/2011
From the critically acclaimed author of
Standing Still comes a psychologically charged novel about the power and failure of family.
The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
by
Edward Dolnick
Harper, 02/01/2011
As presented in this pivotal history, the prime movers of the 17th century scientific revolution were men of their time, yet against it. Newton, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Devotion of Suspect X
by
Keigo Higashino
Minotaur Books, 02/01/2011
Winner of the prestigious Naoki Prize for Best Novel— the equivalent of the National Book Award.
Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced, single mother ...
more
The Glory Wind
by
Valerie Sherrard
Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, 02/01/2011
A young boy must come to terms with the moral prejudices of his small town in rural 1950s Ontario when he befriends the daughter of a young widow who ...
more
Historical Fiction
The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian's Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker
by
Sami al Jundi
Nation Books, 02/01/2011
As a teenager in Palestine, Sami al Jundi had one ambition: overthrowing Israeli occupation. With two friends, he began to build a bomb to use against...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
The Last Brother: A Novel
by
Nathacha Appanah
Graywolf Press, 02/01/2011
As 1944 comes to a close, nine-year-old Raj is unaware of the war devastating the rest of the world. He lives in Mauritius, a remote island in the ...
more
The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle
by
Sara Wheeler
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 02/01/2011
More than a decade ago, Sara Wheeler traveled to Antarctica to understand a continent nearly lost to myth and lore. In the widely acclaimed, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Mother Who Stayed: Stories
by
Laura Furman
Free Press, 02/01/2011
In nine strikingly perceptive stories set miles and decades apart, Laura Furman mines the intricate, elusive lives of mothers and daughters - and of ...
more
The Oracle of Stamboul: A Novel
by
Michael David Lukas
Harper, 02/01/2011
Late in the summer of 1877, a flock of purple-and-white hoopoes suddenly appears over the town of Constanta on the Black Sea, and Eleonora Cohen is ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Debut Author
The Tudor Secret: The Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles
by
C. W. Gortner
St. Martin's Press, 02/01/2011
The era of the Tudors was one of danger, intrigue, conspiracy, and, above all, spies.
Summer 1553: A time of danger and deceit. Brendan Prescott, an...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The View from Here
by
Deborah McKinlay
Soho Press, 02/01/2011
When Frances was twenty-two, she was drifting, scraping by giving English lessons in Mexico, when she met up with a glamorous group of vacationing ...
more
The World Beneath
by
Cate Kennedy
Grove Press, 02/01/2011
The first novel from acclaimed author Cate Kennedy is a compassionate and unswerving portrait of a broken family whose members go to extraordinary ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Though Not Dead: A Kate Shugak Novel
by
Dana Stabenow
Minotaur Books, 02/01/2011
In the newest entry in Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series, Kate and the rest of the Park rats are stunned by the death of Old Sam, Kate’s eighty-...
more
13, rue Thérèse: A Novel
by
Elena Mauli Shapiro
Reagan Arthur, 02/02/2011
American academic Trevor Stratton discovers a box full of artifacts from World War I as he settles into his new office in Paris. The pictures, letters...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore
by
Benjamin Hale
Twelve Books, 02/02/2011
Bruno Littlemore is quite unlike any chimpanzee in the world. Precocious, self-conscious and preternaturally gifted, young Bruno, born and raised in a...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Winter Ghosts
by
Kate Mosse
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 02/03/2011
In the winter of 1928, still seeking some kind of resolution to the horrors of World War I, Freddie is traveling through the beautiful but forbidding ...
more
The Terror of Living: A Novel
by
Urban Waite
Little Brown & Company, 02/07/2011
Phil Hunt is in deep trouble.
Hunt is on the run from two men: Drake, the deputy sheriff who intends to catch him, and Grady, the vicious hitman ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Voyager: New California Poetry
by
Srikanth Reddy
University of California Press, 02/07/2011
Srikanth Reddy's second book of poetry probes this world's cosmological relation to the plurality of all possible worlds. Drawing its name from the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Debut Author
A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel
by
Alan Bradley
Delacorte Press, 02/08/2011
Award-winning author Alan Bradley returns with another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia ...
more
Agent X: A Novel
by
Noah Boyd
William Morrow, 02/08/2011
Ex-FBI Steve Vail is visiting Kate Bannon, the Assistant Director at the FBI, for what he thinks is a well-earned and romantic New Year's Eve in ...
more
Amaryllis in Blueberry
by
Christina Meldrum
Gallery Books, 02/08/2011
In the stirring tradition of
The Secret Life of Bees and
The Poisonwood Bible, Amaryllis in Blueberry explores the complexity of human relationships...
more
I Think I Love You: A Novel
by
Allison Pearson
Knopf, 02/08/2011
1974, Wales. Thirteen-year-old Petra and her best friend, Sharon, are in love with David Cassidy and obsessed with The Ultimate David Cassidy Quiz, a ...
more
Mr. Chartwell: A Novel
by
Rebecca Hunt
Dial Press, 02/08/2011
July 1964. Chartwell House, Kent: Winston Churchill wakes at dawn. There’s a dark, mute "presence" in the room that focuses on him with rapt ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Open City: A Novel
by
Teju Cole
Random House, 02/08/2011
"The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float. Nigeria was like...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth
by
Lisa Napoli
Crown Journeys, 02/08/2011
Lisa Napoli was in the grip of a crisis, dissatisfied with her life and her work as a radio journalist. When a chance encounter with a handsome ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
The Floating Islands
by
Rachel Neumeier
Knopf Books for Young Readers, 02/08/2011
When Trei loses his family in a tragic disaster, he must search out distant relatives in a new land. The Floating Islands are unlike anything Trei has...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Foremost Good Fortune
by
Susan Conley
Knopf, 02/08/2011
Susan Conley, her husband, and their two young sons say good-bye to their friends, family, and house in Maine for a two-year stint in a high-rise ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life
by
Bettany Hughes
Knopf, 02/08/2011
We think the way we do because Socrates thought the way he did; in his unwavering commitment to truth and in the example of his own life, he set the ...
more
The Matchmaker of Kenmare: A Novel
by
Frank Delaney
Random House, 02/08/2011
"And there's a legend - she had only vague details - that all couples who are meant to marry are connected by an invisible silver cord which is ...
more
The Secret Soldier: A John Wells Novel
by
Alex Berenson
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 02/08/2011
John Wells may have left the CIA, but it hasn't left him. A mysterious call brings a surprise meeting with the aged monarch of Saudi Arabia, King ...
more
Thrillers
White Cat (Curse Workers)
by
Holly Black
Margaret K. McElderry Books, 02/08/2011
White Cat introduces Holly Black's new world! Cassel has always known he killed Lila, but now the pieces are starting not to fit.
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage
by
Douglas Waller
Free Press, 02/08/2011
He was one of America’s most exciting and secretive generals—the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Wingshooters: A Novel
by
Nina Revoyr
Akashic Books, 02/08/2011
Michelle LeBeau, the child of a white American father and a Japanese mother, lives with her grandparents in Deerhorn, Wisconsin--a small town that had...
more
We, the Drowned
by
Carsten Jensen
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 02/09/2011
Carsten Jensen's debut novel has taken the world by storm. Already hailed in Europe as an instant classic,
We, the Drowned is the story of the port ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
A Heartbeat Away
by
Michael Palmer
St. Martin's Press, 02/15/2011
On the night of the State of the Union address, President Max Hilliard expects to give the speech of his career. But no one anticipates the terrifying...
more
Thrillers
And Furthermore
by
Judi Dench
St. Martin's Press, 02/15/2011
From the moment Judi Dench appeared as a teenager in the York Mystery Plays it was clear that acting would be her career. Trained at London's Central ...
more
Fire the Sky: Book Two of Contact: The Battle for America
by
W. Michael &
Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Gallery Books, 02/15/2011
An itinerant trader and outcast from his tribe, Black Shell was swept into the Spirit World and returned a transformed man. Now, carrying his white-...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home
by
Mark Richard
Nan A. Talese, 02/15/2011
Called a "special child," Southern social code for mentally - and physically - challenged children, Richard was crippled by deformed hips and was told...
more
Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World
by
Maya Jasanoff
Knopf, 02/15/2011
At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal to the British cause fled the United States and became refugees throughout the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Morning, Noon, and Night: Growing Up and Growing Old with Literature
by
Arnold Weinstein
Random House, 02/15/2011
From Homer and Shakespeare to Toni Morrison and Jonathan Safran Foer, major works of literature have a great deal to teach us about two of life's most...
more
On Borrowed Time
by
David Rosenfelt
Minotaur Books, 02/15/2011
Richard Kilmer is in love, and after proposing to Jennifer Ryan, she takes him on a drive up to Kendrick Falls. Rumor has is that no man has ever gone...
more
Red Wolf: Annika Bengtzon #5
by
Liza Marklund
Atria Books, 02/15/2011
A journalist is murdered in the frozen white landscape of a northern Swedish town. Annika Bengtzon, a reporter at a Stockholm-based tabloid, was ...
more
The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir
by
Chil Rajchman
Pegasus Books, 02/15/2011
Certain to become a cornerstone of Holocaust historiography - a devastatingly stark memoir from one of the lone survivors of Treblinka.
"Before me ...more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
The Raven's Bride: A Novel
by
Lenore Hart
St. Martin's Press, 02/15/2011
When eight-year-old Virginia "Sissy" Clemm meets her handsome cousin, Edgar Allan Poe, he seems the very image of the make-believe husband she ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Second Son: The Berlin Trilogy #3
by
Jonathan Rabb
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 02/15/2011
On the eve of Hitler's Olympics, Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, a half Jew, has been forced out of the Kriminalpolizei. Luckily, Hoffner's focus is ...
more
West of Here
by
Jonathan Evison
Algonquin Books, 02/15/2011
Set in the fictional town of Port Bonita, on Washington State's rugged Pacific coast,
West of Here is propelled by a story that both re-creates and ...
more
The Old Romantic
by
Louise Dean
Riverhead Books, 02/17/2011
A long-estranged family discovers that blood is thicker than water in this hilarious and moving domestic comedy.
It's been a couple of decades since ...
more
The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death
by
David Shields,
Bradford Morrow (Editors)
W.W. Norton & Company, 02/21/2011
What is death and how does it touch upon life? Twenty writers look for answers.
Birth is not inevitable. Life certainly isn't. The sole inevitability...
more
Gideon's Sword
by
Douglas Preston
Grand Central Publishing, 02/22/2011
At twelve, Gideon Crew witnessed his father, a world-class mathematician, accused of treason and gunned down.
At twenty-four, summoned to his dying ...
more
Night Vision: A Doc Ford Book #18
by
Randy Wayne White
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 02/22/2011
A lot is going on in the trailer park known as Little Guadalajara, inhabited principally by illegal laborers. The park manager is the hired gun of a ...
more
Now You See Her
by
Joy Fielding
Atria Books, 02/22/2011
Fifty-year-old Marcy Taggart’s life is in shambles. Two years ago, her twenty-one-year-old daughter, Devon, perished in a canoeing accident. Her ...
more
Portraits of a Marriage
by
Sándor Márai
Knopf, 02/22/2011
A masterwork from the famed Hungarian novelist Sándor Márai,
Portraits of a Marriage is in fact a portrait of a triangle - three passionate,...
more
River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana's Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon
by
Buddy Levy
Bantam Spectra, 02/22/2011
From the acclaimed author of
Conquistador comes this thrilling account of one of history’s greatest adventures of discovery. With cinematic ...
more
Travel & Adventure
Shadow Pass: A Novel of Suspense
by
Sam Eastland
Bantam Books, 02/22/2011
Pekkala: He was the Romanovs' most trusted investigator. Now he’s Stalin's greatest fear.
He operates in the shadows of one of history's most ...
more
Thrillers
Slog's Dad
by
David Almond & Dave McKean
Candlewick Press, 02/22/2011
The ineffable nature of grieving and belief inspires a tender, gritty, and breathtaking work of graphic storytelling from the creators of
The Savage."...
more
Snowdrops: A Novel
by
A.D. Miller
Doubleday, 02/22/2011
Nick Platt is a British lawyer working in Moscow in the early 2000s - a place where the cascade of oil money, the tightening grip of the government, ...
more
The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War
by
Ben Shephard
Knopf, 02/22/2011
A groundbreaking book that offers a radical reassessment of the aftermath of World War II.
As newly formed relief organizations began to grapple ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World
by
Laura J. Snyder
Broadway Books, 02/22/2011
The Philosophical Breakfast Club is a rich work of biography and history in the tradition of Richard Holmes's bestselling
The Age of Wonder. ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Sea Captain's Wife: A Novel
by
Beth Powning
Plume, 02/22/2011
A gripping novel of love and adventure on the high seas that introduces an unforgettable young heroine.
Growing up on the Bay of Fundy in the 1860s, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
When the Killing's Done: A Novel
by
T.C. Boyle
Viking, 02/22/2011
Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T.C. Boyle's powerful new novel combines pulse-...
more
And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road
by
Margaret Roach
Grand Central Publishing, 02/23/2011
Margaret Roach worked at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for 15 years, serving as Editorial Director for the last 6. She first made her name in ...
more
Georgia Bottoms: A Novel
by
Mark Childress
Little Brown & Company, 02/23/2011
Georgia Bottoms is known in her small community of Six Points, Alabama, as a beautiful, well-to-do, and devoutly Baptist Southern belle.
Nobody ...
more
Death of a Chimney Sweep: A Hamish Macbeth Mystery
by
M. C. Beaton
Grand Central Publishing, 02/25/2011
In the south of Scotland, residents get their chimneys vacuum-cleaned. But in the isolated villages in the very north of Scotland, the villagers rely ...
more
The Sweet Relief of Missing Children: A Novel
by
Sarah Braunstein
W.W. Norton & Company, 02/28/2011
In New York City, a girl called Leonora vanishes without a trace. Years earlier and miles upstate, Goldie, a wild, negligent mother, searches for a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
A Dog's Way Home
by
Bobbie Pyron
Katherine Tegan Books, 03/01/2011
Daddy says, "Most folks got a north star in their life - something that gives their life extra meaning. Mine is music."
Without even thinking, I say...
more
A Widow's Story: A Memoir
by
Joyce Carol Oates
Ecco, 03/01/2011
In a work unlike anything she's written before, National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Oates unveils a poignant, intimate memoir about the unexpected ...
more
Blowback: Enzo Files Series
by
Peter May
Poisoned Pen Press, 03/01/2011
When France's top chef, Marc Fraysse, summoned the world's press to make a shattering announcement, rumors abounded that he was about to lose one of...
more
Body Line: A Bill Slider Mystery
by
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Severn House, 03/01/2011
David Rogers was a doctor, handsome, charming and rich. He lived the lifestyle of a consultant – expensive clothes, top ...
more
Mysteries
Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction That Changed America
by
Les Standiford
Ecco, 03/01/2011
Before Adam Walsh there were no faces on milk cartons, no Amber Alerts, no National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, no federal databases of...
more
Clarity
by
Kim Harrington
Scholastic, 03/01/2011
When you can see things others can't, where do you look for the truth?
This paranormal murder mystery will have teens reading on the edge of their...
more
Cleaning Nabokov's House: A Novel
by
Leslie Daniels
Touchstone, 03/01/2011
"I knew I could stay in this town when I found the blue enamel pot floating in the lake. The pot led me to the house, the house led me to the book, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Echoes of the Dead: A Monika Paniatowski Mystery
by
Sally Spencer
Severn House, 03/01/2011
The third book in the new series featuring DCI Monika Paniatowski - When a recently released prisoner claims in a deathbed confession that he is ...
more
Falling Sideways: A Novel (Copenhagen Quartet)
by
Thomas E. Kennedy
Bloomsbury USA, 03/01/2011
There seems to be no shortage of business at the Tank, a high-profile firm in Copenhagen. There are meetings to attend, memos to write, colleagues to ...
more
Inside Out and Back Again
by
Thanhha Lai
HarperCollins Publishers, 03/01/2011
No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama.
For all the ten years of her life, Hà has only ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Kids First: Five Big Ideas for Transforming Children's Lives and America's Future
by
David Kirp
Public Affairs, 03/01/2011
It may "take a village to raise a child," but most American families are struggling, with diminishing social support, to do the job on their own. ...
more
Advice
Lyrics Alley: A Novel
by
Leila Aboulela
Grove Press, 03/01/2011
Lyrics Alley is the evocative story of an affluent Sudanese family shaken by the shifting powers in their country and the near-tragedy that threatens ...
more
Minding Frankie: A Novel
by
Maeve Binchy
Knopf, 03/01/2011
Maeve Binchy is back with a tale of joy, heartbreak and hope, about a motherless girl collectively raised by a close-knit Dublin community.
When ...
more
Montecore: The Silence of the Tiger
by
Jonas Hassen Khemiri
Knopf, 03/01/2011
At the start of this dazzlingly inventive novel from Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Abbas, a world-famous photographer and estranged father to a young novelist...
more
Murder in Passy: An Aimee Leduc Investigation Set in Paris
by
Cara Black
Soho Press, 03/01/2011
The village-like neighborhood of Passy, home to many of Paris's wealthiest residents, is the last place one would expect a murder. But when Aimée ...
more
Past Tense: A Sloan and Crosby Mystery
by
Catherine Aird
Minotaur Books, 03/01/2011
DCI Sloan and Constable Crosby are on the case again. A young girl has been murdered, found dead in the river. But what connection does she have to ...
more
Recovery Road
by
Blake Nelson
Scholastic, 03/01/2011
From acclaimed author Blake Nelson, the story of girl meets boy...in rehab.
Madeline is sent away to Spring Meadows to help with a drinking and ...
more
Rodin's Debutante: A Novel
by
Ward Just
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 03/01/2011
Tommy Ogden, a Gatsbyesque character living in a mansion outside robber-baron-era Chicago, declines to give his wife the money to commission a bust of...
more
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth
by
Helen Castor
Harper, 03/01/2011
When Edward VI died in 1553, the extraordinary fact was that there was no one left to claim the title of king of England. For the first time, England ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Sing You Home: A Novel
by
Jodi Picoult
Atria Books, 03/01/2011
Every life has a soundtrack. All you have to do is listen.
Music has set the tone for most of Zoe Baxter's life. There's the melody that reminds ...
more
Strings Attached
by
Judy Blundell
Scholastic, 03/01/2011
From National Book Award winner Judy Blundell, the tale of a sixteen-year-old girl caught in a mix of love, mystery, Broadway glamour, and Mob ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe
by
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Harper, 03/01/2011
The life Kamila Sidiqi had known changed overnight when the Taliban seized control of the city of Kabul. After receiving a teaching degree during the ...
more
The Hidden Gallery: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book II
by
Maryrose Wood
Balzer + Bray, 03/01/2011
Of especially naughty children it is sometimes said, "They must have been raised by wolves."
The Incorrigible children actually were.
Thanks to ...
more
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
by
James Gleick
Pantheon Books, 03/01/2011
James Gleick, the author of the best sellers
Chaos and
Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive
by
Brian Christian
Doubleday, 03/01/2011
The Most Human Human is a provocative, exuberant, and profound exploration of the ways in which computers are reshaping our ideas of what it means to ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Night Season
by
Chelsea Cain
Minotaur Books, 03/01/2011
Chelsea Cain launches the next stage of her bestselling series as Archie Sheridan works to regain his life and Susan Ward steps in to share the ...
more
To a Mountain in Tibet
by
Colin Thubron
Harper Perennial, 03/01/2011
Mount Kailas is the most sacred of the world's mountains - holy to one fifth of humanity. Isolated beyond the central Himalayas, it is claimed by myth...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Travel & Adventure
To Timbuktu: Nine Countries, Two People, One True Story
by
Casey Scieszka
Roaring Brook Press, 03/01/2011
Casey and Steven met in Morocco, moved to China then went all the way to Timbuktu. This illustrated travel memoir tells the story of their first two ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Travel & Adventure
Witches on the Road Tonight
by
Sheri Holman
Atlantic Monthly Press, 03/01/2011
As a child growing up in Depression-era rural Virginia, Eddie Alley's quiet life is rooted in the rumors of his mother's witchcraft. But when he's ...
more
Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went In Search of Them
by
Donovan Hohn
Viking, 03/03/2011
When the writer Donovan Hohn heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Books Burn Badly
by
Manuel Rivas
Vintage, 03/07/2011
On August 19, 1936 Hercules the boxer stands on the quayside at Coruña and watches Fascist soldiers piling up books and setting them alight. It ...
more
Satori: A Novel Based on Trevanian's Shibumi
by
Don Winslow
Grand Central Publishing, 03/07/2011
Nicholai Hel--genius, mystic, and the perfect, formidable assassin--was first introduced to readers in Trevanian's 1979 bestseller
Shibumi. Now, Don ...
more
The Complaints
by
Ian Rankin
Reagan Arthur, 03/07/2011
Nobody likes The Complaints--they're the cops who investigate other cops. It's a department known within the force as "The Dark Side," and it's where ...
more
Blink & Caution
by
Tim Wynne-Jones
Candlewick Press, 03/08/2011
Boy, did Blink get off on the wrong floor. All he wanted was to steal some breakfast for his empty belly, but instead he stumbled upon a fake ...
more
Butterfly's Child: A Novel
by
Angela Davis-Gardner
The Dial Press, 03/08/2011
When three-year-old Benji is plucked from the security of his home in Nagasaki to live with his American father, Lt. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, and ...
more
Liar, Liar: The Theory, Practice and Destructive Properties of Deception
by
Gary Paulsen
Wendy Lamb Books, 03/08/2011
Kevin doesn't mean to make trouble when he lies. He's just really good at it, and it makes life so much easier. But as his lies pile up, he finds ...
more
Love You More: A Novel
by
Lisa Gardner
Bantam Books, 03/08/2011
Who do you love?
One question, a split-second decision, and Brian Darby lies dead on the kitchen floor. His wife, state police trooper Tessa ...
more
One of Our Thursdays Is Missing: Thursday Next Series #6
by
Jasper Fforde
Viking, 03/08/2011
Jasper Fforde's exuberant return to the fantastical BookWorld opens during a time of great unrest. All-out Genre war is rumbling, and the BookWorld ...
more
Silent Mercy: A Novel
by
Linda Fairstein
Dutton, 03/08/2011
It's the middle of the night. Prosecutor Alexandra Cooper is called to Harlem's Mount Neboh Baptist Church, a beautiful house of worship originally ...
more
The Piper's Son
by
Melina Marchetta
Candlewick Press, 03/08/2011
Award-winning author Melina Marchetta reopens the story of the group of friends from her acclaimed novel
Saving Francesca - but five years have passed...
more
The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
by
David Brooks
Random House, 03/08/2011
With unequaled insight and brio, David Brooks, the
New York Times columnist and bestselling author of
Bobos in Paradise, has long explored and ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Vanishing of the Mona Lisa: A Novel
by
Martin Caparros
Washington Square Press, 03/08/2011
On August 22, 1911, the world was shocked by an audacious crime: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. Although some people ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Debut Author
Three Stages of Amazement: A Novel
by
Carol Edgarian
Scribner, 03/08/2011
Many love stories end in marriage; rare is the love story that begins with one - already promised, already worn. Set in San Francisco during the...
more
Twice a Spy
by
Keith Thomson
Doubleday, 03/08/2011
In the tradition of Robert Ludlum, with a witty twist, Thomson's second novel featuring a former spy and his son once again poses the question: What ...
more
When the Thrill Is Gone: A Leonid Mcgill Novel
by
Walter Mosley
Riverhead Books, 03/08/2011
Lately, Leonid McGill is getting job offers only from the criminals he's worked so hard to leave behind. Meanwhile, his life grows ever more ...
more
A World Without Heroes: Beyonders
by
Brandon Mull
Aladdin, 03/15/2011
Jason Walker has often wished his life could be a bit less predictable--until a routine day at the zoo ends with Jason suddenly transporting from the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Almost a Family: A Memoir
by
John Darnton
Knopf, 03/15/2011
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and best-selling author: a beautifully crafted memoir of his lifelong chase after his father's shadow....
more
America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation
by
David Goldfield
Bloomsbury USA, 03/15/2011
In this spellbinding new history, David Goldfield offers the first major new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson's
Battle Cry...more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War
by
J. Hoberman
Newmarket, 03/15/2011
An Army of Phantoms is a major new work of history and film criticism from the highly regarded critic J. Hoberman. Here he applies the same dynamic ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
An Empty Death: A Thriller
by
Laura Wilson
Minotaur Books, 03/15/2011
Summer, 1944. After almost five years of conflict, London's inhabitants are exhausted. War-weary DI Ted Stratton is no exception, but he cannot ...
more
Death in a Scarlet Coat: A Lord Francis Powerscourt Investigation
by
David Dickinson
Soho Press, 03/15/2011
Instead of leading his riders to the hunt, the fifteenth Earl of Candlesby is found dead, his body wrapped in blankets atop his horse, a corner of his...
more
Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth
by
Curt Stager
Thomas Dunne Books, 03/15/2011
In this major new book, paleoclimatologist Curt Stager vividly shows how what we do to the environment in the 21st century will affect the next 100,...
more
Science, Health and the Environment
Debut Author
Devil Red: Hap and Leonard
by
Joe R. Lansdale
Knopf, 03/15/2011
Hap Collins and Leonard Pine return in a red-hot, mayhem-fueled thriller to face a vampire cult, the Dixie Mafia, and the deadliest assassin they’...
more
Dogtag Summer
by
Elizabeth Partridge
Bloomsbury Children's Books, 03/15/2011
Twelve-year-old Tracy - or Tuyet - has always felt different. The villagers in Vietnam called her
con-lai, or "half-breed," because her father was an ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988
by
Michael Palin
Thomas Dunne Books, 03/15/2011
Michael Palin has kept a diary since he was newly married in the late 1960s, when he was beginning to make a name for himself as a TV scriptwriter, ...
more
Miles from Ordinary: A Novel
by
Carol Lynch Williams
St. Martin's Griffin, 03/15/2011
Thirteen-year-old Lacey wakes to a beautiful summer morning excited to begin her new job at the library, just as her mother is supposed to start work ...
more
Moondogs: A Novel
by
Alexander Yates
Doubleday, 03/15/2011
A singularly effervescent novel pivoting around the disappearance of an American businessman in the Philippines and the long-suffering son, jilted ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan
by
Del Quentin Wilber
Henry Holt and Company, 03/15/2011
On March 30, 1981, President Reagan walked out of a hotel in Washington, D.C., and was shot by a would-be assassin. For years, few people knew the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
So Much Pretty: A Novel
by
Cara Hoffman
Simon & Schuster, 03/15/2011
When she disappeared from her rural hometown, Wendy White was a sweet, family-oriented girl, a late bloomer who'd recently moved out on her own, with ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Alice Behind Wonderland
by
Simon Winchester
Oxford University Press, 03/15/2011
In the summer of 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church in Oxford, Charles Dodgson--better known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll--dressed the six-year-...
more
Poetry & Novels in Verse
The King of Diamonds
by
Simon Tolkien
Minotaur Books, 03/15/2011
With the publication of
The Inheritance, Simon Tolkien was acclaimed as a naturally gifted storyteller who possesses a terrific command of language ...
more
The Moral Lives of Animals
by
Dale Peterson
Bloomsbury USA, 03/15/2011
Wild elephants walking along a trail stop and spontaneously try to protect and assist a weak and dying fellow elephant. Laboratory rats, finding other...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Chime
by
Franny Billingsley
Dial Books, 03/17/2011
Before Briony's stepmother died, she made sure Briony blamed herself for all the family's hardships. Now Briony has worn her guilt for so long it's ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Emily, Alone: A Novel
by
Stewart O'Nan
Viking, 03/17/2011
A sequel to the bestselling, much-beloved
Wish You Were Here, Stewart O'Nan's intimate new novel follows Emily Maxwell, a widow whose grown children ...
more
Lucifer's Tears: An Inspector Vaara Novel
by
James Thompson
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 03/17/2011
The Sufia Elmi case left Kari Vaara with a scarred face, chronic insomnia, a constant migraine, and a full body count's worth of ghosts. Now it's a ...
more
All the Time in the World: New and Selected Stories
by
E.L. Doctorow
Random House, 03/22/2011
From
Ragtime and
Billy Bathgate to
World’s Fair,
The March, and
Homer & Langley, the fiction of E. L. Doctorow comprises a towering achievement ...
more
Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian with Practical Advice for Aspergians, Misfits, Families & Teachers
by
John Elder Robison
Crown, 03/22/2011
"I believe those of us with Asperger's are here for a reason, and we have much to offer. This book will help you bring out those gifts."
In his ...
more
Between Shades of Gray: A Novel
by
Ruta Sepetys
Philomel, 03/22/2011
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Bloodline Rising
by
Katy Moran
Candlewick Press, 03/22/2011
A young thief known as "the Ghost" roams seventh-century Constantinople, tangling in political feuds and petty theft, using his eerie gifts of ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Cold Wind: A Joe Pickett Nove
by
C. J. Box
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 03/22/2011
When Earl Alden is found dead, dangling from a wind turbine, it's his wife, Missy, who is arrested. Unfortunately for Joe Pickett, Missy is his mother...
more
Hummingbird Lake: An Eternity Springs Novel
by
Emily March
Ballantine Books, 03/22/2011
Haunted by painful memories, pediatric surgeon Sage Anderson gives up medicine and moves to Eternity Springs. There she finds a place to call home, ...
more
Live Wire: Myron Bolitar Series
by
Harlan Coben
Dutton, 03/22/2011
Myron Bolitar has always dreamed about the voluptuous femme fatale walking into his office and asking for help. The woman standing in his doorway has ...
more
No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf
by
Carolyn Burke
Knopf, 03/22/2011
The iconic French singer comes to life in this enthralling, definitive biography, which captures Edith Piaf's immense charisma along with the time and...
more
Second Fiddle
by
Rosanne Parry
Random House Children's Publishing, 03/22/2011
The author of
Heart of a Shepherd offers another sensitive portrayal of military families, this time stationed abroad, in the city of Berlin at that ...
more
Seven Years: A Novel
by
Peter Stamm
Other Press, 03/22/2011
Alex has spent the majority of his adult life between two very different women - and he can't make up his mind. Sonia, his wife and business partner, ...
more
The Four Ms. Bradwells: A Novel
by
Meg Waite Clayton
Ballantine Books, 03/22/2011
Meg Waite Clayton’s national bestseller
The Wednesday Sisters was a word-of-mouth sensation and book club favorite. Now the beloved author is ...
more
The Peach Keeper: A Novel
by
Sarah Addison Allen
Bantam Books, 03/22/2011
The New York Times bestselling author of
The Girl Who Chased the Moon welcomes you to her newest locale: Walls of Water, North Carolina, where the ...
more
Literary Fiction
The Silent Land: A Novel
by
Graham Joyce
Doubleday, 03/22/2011
In the French Pyrenees, a young married couple is buried under a flash avalanche while skiing. Miraculously, Jake and Zoe dig their way out from under...
more
Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy)
by
Lauren DeStefano
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 03/22/2011
The first book in an exciting new series by first time author Lauren DeStefano.
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Debut Author
The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe
by
Peter Godwin
Little Brown & Company, 03/23/2011
Journalist Peter Godwin has covered wars. As a soldier, he's fought them. But nothing prepared him for the surreal mix of desperation and hope he ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Funeral for a Dog: A Novel
by
Thomas Pletzinger
W.W. Norton & Company, 03/28/2011
Journalist Daniel Mandelkern leaves Hamburg on assignment to interview Dirk Svensson, a reclusive children's book author who lives alone on the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
An Evil Eye: A Novel
by
Jason Goodwin
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 03/29/2011
When the admiral of the Ottoman fleet defects to the Egyptians, Yashim attempts to uncover the man's motives. But Fevzi Pasha is no stranger to Yashim...
more
Mysteries
Come to the Edge: A Memoir
by
Christina Haag
Spiegel & Grau, 03/29/2011
The Love Story of JFK Jr. and Christina Haag. An elegy to first love, a lost New York, and a young man who led his life with surprising and abundant ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation
by
Andrea Wulf
Knopf, 03/29/2011
From the author of the acclaimed
The Brother Gardeners, a fascinating look at the founding fathers from the unique and intimate perspective of their ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Galore: A Novel
by
Michael Crummey
Other Press, 03/29/2011
Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book, Caribbean & Canada and the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award; finalist for the ...
more
My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park
by
Cindy Jones
Avon Books, 03/29/2011
A delightful novel about a contemporary woman's foray into the past during one magical summer spent re-enacting Jane Austen's
Mansfield Park
Lily ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Outside Wonderland: A Novel
by
Lorna Jane Cook
St. Martin's Griffin, 03/29/2011
A transcendent tour de force that explores the question "How will my loved ones carry on without me?"
When they were just children, two tragedies ...
more
Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean
by
Alex Von Tunzelmann
Henry Holt and Company, 03/29/2011
During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the Caribbean was in crisis. The men responsible included, from Cuba, the charismatic ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Sticky Fingers: A Roxy Abruzzo Mystery
by
Nancy Martin
Minotaur Books, 03/29/2011
Roxy Abruzzo stays one step ahead of trouble - especially now that her cash flow is less than stellar, and she's "doing favors" for her slippery ...
more
The Beloved Dead: An Arthurian Mystery
by
Tony Hays
Forge Books, 03/29/2011
Malgwyn ap Cuneglas was one of King Arthur's earliest companions and now is his most trusted counselor. Despite the malice of his enemies, and the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Civilized World: A Novel in Stories
by
Susi Wyss
Henry Holt and Company, 03/29/2011
When Adjoa leaves Ghana to find work in the Ivory Coast, she hopes that one day she'll return home to open a beauty parlor. Her dream comes true, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Short Stories
Debut Author
The Free World: A Novel
by
David Bezmozgis
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 03/29/2011
Summer, 1978. Brezhnev sits like a stone in the Kremlin, Israel and Egypt are inching towards peace, and in the bustling, polyglot streets of Rome, ...
more
The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World
by
Paul Gilding
Bloomsbury USA, 03/29/2011
It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. We need instead to brace for impact because global crisis is no longer ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Mighty Walzer: A Novel
by
Howard Jacobson
Bloomsbury USA, 03/29/2011
From the beginning, Oliver Walzer is a natural - at ping-pong. Even with his improvised bat (the Collins Classic edition of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde) he...
more
The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72
by
Molly Peacock
Bloomsbury USA, 03/29/2011
Mary Delany was seventy-two years old when she noticed a petal drop from a geranium. In a flash of inspiration, she picked up her scissors and cut out...
more
The Paperbark Shoe: A Novel
by
Goldie Goldbloom
Picador, 03/29/2011
From 1941 to 1947, eighteen thousand Italian prisoners of war were sent to Australia. The Italian surrender that followed the downfall of Mussolini ...more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The School of Night: A Novel
by
Louis Bayard
Henry Holt and Company, 03/29/2011
An ancient mystery, a lost letter, and a timeless love unleash a long-buried web of intrigue that spans four centuries...
In the late sixteenth ...
more
The Troubled Man: A Kurt Wallander Novel
by
Henning Mankell
Knopf, 03/29/2011
The much-anticipated return of Henning Mankell's brilliant, brooding detective, Kurt Wallander.
On a winter day in 2008, Håkan von Enke, a retired...
more
What You See in the Dark: A Novel
by
Manuel Muñoz
Algonquin Books, 03/29/2011
Bakersfield, California, in the late 1950s is a dusty, quiet town too far from Los Angeles to share that city's energy yet close enough to Hollywood ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Bent Road: A Novel
by
Lori Roy
Dutton, 03/31/2011
For twenty years, Celia Scott has watched her husband, Arthur, hide from the secrets surrounding his sister Eve's death. As a young man, Arthur fled ...
more
The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead
by
Paul Elwork
Amy Einhorn Books, 03/31/2011
The innocence of childhood,
the unknown of adulthood,
and the search for forgiveness...
Emily Stewart is the girl who claims to stand between ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
A Lesson in Secrets: A Maisie Dobbs Novel
by
Jacqueline Winspear
Harper, 04/01/2011
In the summer of 1932, Maisie Dobbs' career goes in an exciting new direction when she accepts an undercover assignment directed by Scotland Yard's ...
more
Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry
by
David Orr
HarperCollins Publishers, 04/01/2011
For most readers, contemporary poetry is a foreign country. And because they've barely visited poetry, let alone lived there, readers struggle to ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Cleopatra the Great: The Woman Behind the Legend
by
Joann Fletcher
Harper, 04/01/2011
In the tradition of biographies by Stacy Shiff, Duane Roller, and Adrian Goldsworthy, and drawing on astonishing new evidence about Cleopatra's life -...
more
Crunch Time: A Novel of Suspense
by
Diane Mott Davidson
William Morrow, 04/01/2011
Colorado caterer Goldy Schulz cooks up big trouble as she tries to help her longtime friend and fellow chef Yolanda Garcia. When the rental house ...
more
Dead by Midnight: A Death on Demand Mystery
by
Carolyn Hart
William Morrow, 04/01/2011
Carolyn Hart is unstoppable - and her
Death on Demand mystery series seems to get better with every book. The proof?
Dead by Midnight, once again ...
more
Expiration Date: A Novel
by
Sherril Jaffe
The Permanent Press, 04/01/2011
In a dream, a vision - or, perhaps, reality - Flora finds herself in the Heavenly Court, where her expiration date is proclaimed: She is to die in ...
more
How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything
by
Mike Berners-Lee
Greystone Books, 04/01/2011
Is it more environmentally friendly to ride the bus or drive a hybrid car? In a public washroom, should you dry your hands with paper towel or use the...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Last Train from Liguria
by
Christine Dwyer Hickey
Atlantic Monthly Press, 04/01/2011
A sweeping tale of consequences spanning the 1930s to the 1990s, moving between fascist Italy and modern Ireland
In 1933, Bella Stuart leaves ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II
by
Michael Burleigh
Harper, 04/01/2011
Pre-eminent WWII historian Michael Burleigh delivers a brilliant new examination of the day-to-day moral crises underpinning the momentous conflicts ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
One With Others: [a little book of her days]
by
C.D. Wright
Copper Canyon Press, 04/01/2011
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Poetry Award
Investigative journalism is the poet's realm when C.D. Wright returns to her native ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Quiet Chaos: A Novel
by
Sandro Veronesi
Ecco, 04/01/2011
The winner of the Strega Prize, Italy's top literary award, and the basis of an internationally acclaimed motion picture,
Quiet Chaos is now available...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Space, In Chains
by
Laura Kasischke
Copper Canyon Press, 04/01/2011
Laura Kasischke's poems have the same haunting qualities and truth as our most potent memories and dreams. Through ghostly voices, fragmented ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
The Crepe Makers' Bond
by
Julie Crabtree
Milkweed Editions, 04/01/2011
Ariel is the head chef in her family kitchen. Cucumber salads, fettuccine carbonara, fish tacos, and peanut butter pie are just a few of the dishes ...
more
Literary Fiction
The Gathering: Darkness Rising, Book 1
by
Kelley Armstrong
HarperCollins Publishers, 04/01/2011
Strange things are happening in Maya's tiny Vancouver Island town. First, her friend Serena, the captain of the swim team, drowns mysteriously in the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments
by
Jim Baggott
Oxford University Press, 04/01/2011
Utterly beautiful. Profoundly disconcerting. Quantum theory is quite simply the most successful account of the physical universe ever devised. Its ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Toward You: A Novel
by
Jim Krusoe
Tin House Books, 04/01/2011
Bob has spent the past several years maintaining a successful upholstery business, but in between re-covering sofas he's also been working in a ...
more
Drawing Conclusions: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery
by
Donna Leon
Atlantic Monthly Press, 04/04/2011
Late one night, Brunetti is called away from dinner to investigate the death of a widow in her modest apartment. Though there are some signs of a ...
more
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
by
Manning Marable
Viking, 04/04/2011
Of the great figure in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his ...
more
One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing
by
Diane Ackerman
W.W. Norton & Company, 04/04/2011
Everyone who cherishes the gift of language will cherish Diane Ackerman's narrative masterpiece, an exquisitely written love story and medical miracle...
more
Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh: The Theodosia Series
by
R. L. LaFevers
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 04/04/2011
In this fourth book in the series, Theodosia sets off to Egypt to return the Emerald Tablet—embedded with the knowledge of some of the ancient ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Touch: A Novel
by
Alexi Zentner
W.W. Norton & Company, 04/04/2011
In Sawgamet, a north woods boomtown gone bust, the cold of winter breaks the glass of the schoolhouse thermometer, and the dangers of working in the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS
by
Jennet Conant
Simon & Schuster, 04/05/2011
Bestselling author Jennet Conant brings us a stunning account of Julia and Paul Child's experiences as members of the Office of Strategic Services (...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley and the Partnership that Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe
by
Jonathan W. Jordan
NAL, 04/05/2011
The true story of the friendship - and rivalry - among the greatest American generals of World War II.
Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower,...
more
Daughters-in-Law: A Novel
by
Joanna Trollope
Touchstone, 04/05/2011
As Anthony and Rachel Brinkley welcome their third daughter-in-law to the family, they don't quite realize the profound shift that is about to take ...
more
Elizabeth I: A Novel
by
Margaret George
Viking, 04/05/2011
One of today's premier historical novelists, Margaret George dazzles here as she tackles her most difficult subject yet: the legendary Elizabeth Tudor...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth
by
Marc Kaufman
Simon & Schuster, 04/05/2011
Are we alone in the universe? Almost certainly not.
In
First Contact, Marc Kaufman provides a gripping tour of the magnificent new science of ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Flip
by
Martyn Bedford
Wendy Lamb Books, 04/05/2011
One December night, 14-year-old Alex goes to bed. He wakes up to find himself in the wrong bedroom, in an unfamiliar house, in a different...
more
Friendship Bread: A Novel
by
Darien Gee
Ballantine Books, 04/05/2011
It's more than just a recipe - it's a way of life.
For fans of Kristin Hannah and Kate Jacobs, Darien Gee's deeply felt and utterly charming ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet
by
Tim Flannery
Atlantic Monthly Press, 04/05/2011
Beginning at the moment of creation with the Big Bang,
Here on Earth explores the evolution of Earth from a galactic cloud of dust and gas to a planet...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems
by
Billy Collins
Random House, 04/05/2011
Billy Collins is widely acknowledged as a prominent player at the table of modern American poetry. And in this new collection,
Horoscopes for the Dead...more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Jasper Jones
by
Craig Silvey
Knopf Books for Young Readers, 04/05/2011
Charlie Bucktin, a bookish thirteen year old, is startled one summer night by an urgent knock on his bedroom window. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Literary Fiction
Potsdam Station
by
David Downing
Soho Press, 04/05/2011
In April 1945, Hitler's Reich is on the verge of extinction. Assaulted by Allied bombs and Soviet shells, ruled by Nazis with nothing to lose, Berlin ...
more
Red Glove: Curse Workers, Book 2
by
Holly Black
Margaret K. McElderry Books, 04/05/2011
Curses and cons. Magic and the mob. In Cassel Sharpe's world, they go together. Cassel always thought he was an ordinary guy, until he realized his ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Red on Red: A Novel
by
Edward Conlon
Spiegel & Grau, 04/05/2011
From the author of the celebrated and bestselling memoir
Blue Blood ("May be the best account ever written of life behind the badge." -
Time) comes ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Shadows Bright as Glass: The Remarkable Story of One Man's Journey from Brain Trauma to Artistic Triumph
by
Amy E Nutt
Free Press, 04/05/2011
On a sunny fall afternoon in 1988, Jon Sarkin was playing golf when, without a whisper of warning, his life changed forever. As he bent down to pick ...
more
Biography/Memoir
The Arctic Marauder
by
Jacques Tardi
Fantagraphics Books, 04/05/2011
In its ongoing quest to showcase the wide range of Jacques Tardi's bibliography, Fantagraphics reaches all the way back to one of his earliest, and ...
more
Graphic Novels
The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs
by
Jim Rasenberger
Scribner, 04/05/2011
The U.S.-backed military invasion of Cuba in 1961 remains one of the most ill-fated blunders in American history, with echoes of the event ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Fifth Witness: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel
by
Michael Connelly
Little Brown & Company, 04/05/2011
Mickey Haller has fallen on tough times. He expands his business into foreclosure defense, only to see one of his clients accused of killing the ...
more
The FitzOsbornes in Exile: The Montmaray Journals, Book II
by
Michelle Cooper
Knopf Books for Young Readers, 04/05/2011
Michelle Cooper combines the drama of pre-War Europe with the romance of debutante balls and gives us another compelling historical page turner.
...
more
Literary Fiction
The Love of My Youth: A Novel
by
Mary Gordon
Pantheon Books, 04/05/2011
Miranda and Adam, high-school sweethearts now in their late fifties, arrive by chance at the same time in Rome, a city where they once spent a summer ...
more
The Philosopher's Kiss: A Novel
by
Peter Prange
Atria Books, 04/05/2011
Paris, 1747. Betrayed by God and humanity, Sophie moves to the seething capital of the kingdom. To survive, she works at Café Procope, the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Uncoupling: A Novel
by
Meg Wolitzer
Riverhead Books, 04/05/2011
When the elliptical new drama teacher at Stellar Plains High School chooses for the school play
Lysistrata - the comedy by Aristophanes in which women...
more
Treason at Lisson Grove: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel
by
Anne Perry
Ballantine Books, 04/05/2011
Anne Perry's very special world of mystery, passion, and danger has attracted an entire generation of readers to her bestselling Victorian novels.
...more
Mysteries
Where She Went
by
Gayle Forman
Dutton Children's Books, 04/05/2011
It's been three years since the devastating accident ... three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.
Now living on opposite coasts, Mia ...
more
Bismarck: A Life
by
Jonathan Steinberg
Oxford University Press, 04/06/2011
Otto von Bismarck transformed Europe more completely than anybody in the nineteenth century - except for Napoleon. He unified - and indeed, created - ...
more
The Company Man
by
Robert Jackson Bennett
Orbit, 04/11/2011
The year is 1919.
The McNaughton Corporation is the pinnacle of American industry. They built the guns that won the Great War before it even began. ...
more
Mysteries
Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them
by
Randy Christensen M.D.
Broadway Books, 04/12/2011
The unforgettable inspiring memoir of one extraordinary doctor who is saving lives in a most unconventional way
Ask Me Why I Hurt is the touching and ...
more
Bird in a Box
by
Andrea Pinkney
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 04/12/2011
Otis, Willie, and Hibernia are three children with a lot in common: they've all lost a loved one, they each have secret dreams, and they won't stop ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Global Girlfriends: How One Mom Made It Her Business to Help Women in Poverty Worldwide
by
Stacey Edgar
St. Martin's Press, 04/12/2011
Seven years ago, Stacey Edgar had a $2,000 tax return and a deep desire to help provide economic security for women in need. She knew that of the 1.3 ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Minding Ben: A Novel
by
Victoria Brown
Voice, 04/12/2011
Minding Ben invites readers into the private world of one of the anonymous West Indian babysitters who have peopled the lives of so many young urban ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Nightshade: A Hugh Corbett Medieval Mystery
by
P. C. Doherty
Minotaur Books, 04/12/2011
An unscrupulous manor lord has reneged on his promise to hand over a priceless ornate cross stolen from the Templars during the Crusades. Furthermore,...
more
Mysteries
One Was a Soldier: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery
by
Julia Spencer-Fleming
Minotaur Books, 04/12/2011
On a warm September evening in the Millers Kill community center, five veterans sit down in rickety chairs to try to make sense of their experiences ...
more
Other People's Money: A Novel
by
Justin Cartwright
Bloomsbury USA, 04/12/2011
In a world still uneasy after the financial turmoil of 2008, Justin Cartwright puts a human face on the dishonesties and misdeeds of the bankers who ...
more
Stolen Lives: A Jade de Jong Investigation Set in South Africa
by
Jassy Mackenzie
Soho Press, 04/12/2011
When wealthy Pamela Jordaan hires PI Jade de Jong as a bodyguard after her husband Terrance disappears, Jade thinks keeping an eye on this anxious ...
more
Swim Back to Me
by
Ann Packer
Knopf, 04/12/2011
From Ann Packer, author of the
New York Times best-selling novels
The Dive from Clausen's Pier and
Songs Without Words, a collection of burnished, ...
more
The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water
by
Charles Fishman
Free Press, 04/12/2011
The water coming out of your kitchen tap is four billion years old and might well have been sipped by a
Tyrannosaurus rex. Rather than only three ...
more
Science, Health and the Environment
The Bird Sisters: A Novel
by
Rebecca Rasmussen
Crown, 04/12/2011
Love is timeless. So too is heartbreak.
Whenever a bird flies into a window in Spring Green, Wisconsin, sisters Milly and Twiss get a visit. Twiss ...
more
The Crimean War: A History
by
Orlando Figes
Metropolitan Books, 04/12/2011
The Charge of the Light Brigade, Florence Nightingale—these are the enduring icons of the Crimean War. Less well-known is that this savage war (...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Kitchen Daughter: A Novel
by
Jael McHenry
Gallery Books, 04/12/2011
After the unexpected death of her parents, painfully shy and sheltered 26-year-old Ginny Selvaggio seeks comfort in cooking from family recipes. But ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Field Gray: A Bernie Gunther Novel
by
Philip Kerr
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 04/14/2011
Bernie on Bernie:
I didn't like Bernhard Gunther very much. He was cynical and world-weary and hardly had a good word to say about anyone, least of ...more
The Long Goodbye: A Memoir
by
Meghan O'Rourke
Riverhead Books, 04/14/2011
What does it mean to mourn today, in a culture that has largely set aside rituals that acknowledge grief? After her mother died of cancer at the age ...
more
Toxicology: A Novel
by
Jessica Hagedorn
Viking, 04/14/2011
Jessica Hagedorn's edgy and entertaining new novel centers on the lives of two women who are neighbors in Manhattan's West Village. Mimi Smith is a ...
more
Plastic: A Toxic Love Story
by
Susan Freinkel
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 04/18/2011
Plastic built the modern world. Where would we be without bike helmets, baggies, toothbrushes, and pacemakers? But a century into our love affair with...
more
Science, Health and the Environment
A Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout
by
Carl Safina
Crown, 04/19/2011
Carl Safina has been hailed as one of the top 100 conservationists of the 20th century (Audobon Magazine) and
A Sea in Flames is his blistering ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Eona
by
Alison Goodman
Viking, 04/19/2011
Eon has been revealed as Eona, the first female Dragoneye in hundreds of years. Along with fellow rebels Ryko and Lady Dela, she is on the run from ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Eve: An Eve Duncan Novel
by
Iris Johansen
St. Martin's Press, 04/19/2011
Eve Duncan's mission in life is to bring closure to the families who have experienced the agony of a missing child. As a forensic sculptor, she is ...
more
Small Acts of Amazing Courage
by
Gloria Whelan
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 04/19/2011
It is 1918, six months after the end of World War I, and Rosalind awaits the return of her father from the war. While it is common practice for ...
more
The Body in the Gazebo: A Faith Fairchild Mystery
by
Katherine Hall Page
William Morrow Paperbacks, 04/19/2011
From award-winning author Katherine Hall Page comes the next book in the Faith Fairchild mystery series, where the caterer and amateur sleuth must ...
more
The Coffins of Little Hope: A Novel
by
Timothy Schaffert
Unbridled Books, 04/19/2011
Timothy Schaffert has created his most memorable character yet in Essie, an octogenarian obituary writer for her family's small town newspaper. When a...
more
Literary Fiction
The River of Shadows
by
Robert V. S. Redick
Del Rey, 04/19/2011
The latest novel in Robert V.S Redick's stunning and original fantasy epic is a taut race against time that takes the Chathrand across the seas in a ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Sojourn
by
Andrew Krivak
Bellevue Literary Press, 04/19/2011
A 2011 National Book Award Finalist in Fiction,
The Sojourn is the story of Jozef Vinich, who was uprooted from a 19th-century mining town in Colorado...
more
The Tragedy of Arthur: A Novel
by
Arthur Phillips
Random House, 04/19/2011
The Tragedy of Arthur is an emotional and elaborately constructed tour de force from bestselling and critically acclaimed novelist Arthur Phillips.
...
more
Guilt by Association
by
Marcia Clark
Mulholland, 04/20/2011
Los Angeles D.A. Rachel Knight is a tenacious, wise-cracking, and fiercely intelligent prosecutor in the city's most elite division. When her ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
In Zanesville: A Novel
by
Jo Ann Beard
Little Brown & Company, 04/25/2011
The beguiling fourteen-year-old narrator of
In Zanesville is a late bloomer. She is used to flying under the radar - a sidekick, a third wheel, a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Adventures of the Karaoke King
by
Harold Taw
AmazonEncore, 04/26/2011
In Harold Taw's entertaining, sometimes bawdy, and often moving novel,
Adventures of the Karaoke King, readers are quickly pulled into the vortex of ...
more
Literary Fiction
Bel-Air Dead: A Stone Barrington Novel
by
Stuart Woods
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 04/26/2011
Stone Barrington receives a rather unexpected phone call from Arrington Calder, the ex-girlfriend with whom he has a son. Arrington's much older ...
more
Thrillers
Carmen
by
Walter Dean Myers
Egmont USA, 04/26/2011
Into the summer heat of New York's Spanish Harlem strides Carmen, a
chica who is as hot as the sizzling city streets. When she first meets José, ...
more
Literary Fiction
On Black Sisters Street: A Novel
by
Chika Unigwe
Random House, 04/26/2011
On Black Sisters Street tells the haunting story of four very different women who have left their African homeland for the riches of Europe - and who ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India
by
Miranda Kennedy
Random House, 04/26/2011
When twenty-something reporter Miranda Kennedy leaves her job in New York City and travels to India with no employment prospects, she longs to immerse...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
The Fallen Angel: A Nic Costa Novel
by
David Hewson
Delacorte Press, 04/26/2011
Acclaimed author David Hewson returns with this mesmerizing new thriller featuring Nic Costa and the detectives of Rome's Questura. This time Costa ...
more
The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush
by
Howard Blum
Crown, 04/26/2011
It is the last decade of the 19th century. The Wild West has been tamed and its fierce, independent and often violent larger-than-life figures – ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Great Night: A Novel
by
Chris Adrian
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 04/26/2011
On Midsummer Eve 2008, three people, each on the run from a failed relationship, become trapped in San Francisco's Buena Vista Park, the secret home ...
more
The Medusa Amulet: A Novel
by
Robert Masello
Bantam Spectra, 04/26/2011
Benvenuto Cellini - the master artisan of Renaissance Italy: goldsmith, sculptor... necromancer. Creator of a beautifully carved amulet that was once ...
more
The Sly Company of People Who Care: A Novel
by
Rahul Bhattacharya
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 04/26/2011
In flight from the tame familiarity of home in Bombay, a twenty-six-year-old cricket journalist chucks his job and arrives in Guyana, a forgotten ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Summer Without Men: A Novel
by
Siri Hustvedt
Picador, 04/26/2011
"And who among us would deny Jane Austen her happy endings or insist that Cary Grant and Irene Dunne should get back together at the end of The Awful ...
more
The Watery Part of the World: A Novel
by
Michael Parker
Algonquin Books, 04/26/2011
Michael Parker has created a wholly original world from two known facts: (1) Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of the controversial vice president Aaron...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
What?: Are These the 20 Most Important Questions in Human History--Or is This a Game of 20 Questions?
by
Mark Kurlansky
Walker & Company, 04/26/2011
What is What? Could it be that noted author Mark Kurlansky has written a very short, terrifically witty, deeply thought-provoking book entirely in the...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
A Tale of Two Castles
by
Gail Carson Levine
HarperCollins Children's Books, 05/01/2011
A handsome cat trainer, black-and-white cats, thieves on four legs and two, suspicious townsfolk, a greedy king, a giddy princess, a shape-shifting ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Compulsion
by
Heidi Ayarbe
Balzer + Bray, 05/01/2011
Today has to be perfect.
Magic.
I look at the clock.
10:14 AM.
Ten fourteen. One plus one is two plus four is six plus ten is sixteen minus one is...
more
Divergent: Divergent Trilogy
by
Veronica Roth
Katherine Tegan Books, 05/01/2011
In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue - Candor (the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Debut Author
Faith: A Novel
by
Jennifer Haigh
HarperCollins Publishers, 05/01/2011
In the spring of 2002, a perfect storm hits Boston: trusted priests are accused of the worst possible betrayal.
Faith explores the fallout for one ...
more
Snitch: A Novel
by
Booker T. Mattison
Revell, 05/01/2011
In Jersey City the code of the streets is simple. No matter what, you don't talk to the cops. You don't snitch. But when young bus driver Andre Bolden...
more
The Sisters Brothers: A Novel
by
Patrick Dewitt
Ecco, 05/01/2011
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Pocket-47
by
Jude Hardin
Oceanview Publishing, Inc, 05/02/2011
Fifteen-year-old Brittney Ryan has taken to the streets. Leitha, her older sister and legal guardian, hires private investigator Nicholas Colt to find...
more
Thrillers
Debut Author
The Sentimentalists: A Novel
by
Johanna Skibsrud
W.W. Norton & Company, 05/02/2011
Haunted by the vivid horrors of the Vietnam War, exhausted from years spent battling his memories, Napoleon Haskell leaves his North Dakota trailer ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Caleb's Crossing: A Novel
by
Geraldine Brooks
Viking, 05/03/2011
Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Deceptions: A Novel
by
Rebecca Frayn
Washington Square Press, 05/03/2011
How well can a mother ever really know her child?
Julian and Annie have only just announced their forthcoming marriage when Annie's twelve-year-old...
more
Doc: A Novel
by
Mary Doria Russell
Random House Reader's Circle, 05/03/2011
The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cattle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Exposure: A Novel
by
Therese Fowler
Ballantine Books, 05/03/2011
In
Exposure, Therese Fowler has written her most gripping novel to date - a ripped-from-the-headlines story of ardent young love and a nightmarish ...
more
For the Love of Physics: From the End of the Rainbow to the Edge Of Time - A Journey Through the Wonders of Physics
by
Walter Lewin
Free Press, 05/03/2011
"You have changed my life" is a common refrain in the emails Walter Lewin receives daily from fans who have been enthralled by his world-famous video ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won't)
by
Betty White
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 05/03/2011
Drawing from a lifetime of lessons learned, seven-time Emmy winner Betty White's wit and wisdom take center stage as she tackles topics like ...
more
Advice
Prophecy: An Historical Thriller
by
S.J. Parris
Doubleday, 05/03/2011
It is the year of the Great Conjunction, when the two most powerful planets, Jupiter and Saturn, align - an astrological phenomenon that occurs ...
more
The Burning Lake: The Fourth Volk Novel
by
Brent Ghelfi
Poisoned Pen Press, 05/03/2011
Another prominent journalist is found murdered in Putin's Russia, shot to death on the banks of the Techa River near the radioactive village of ...
more
Thrillers
The Devil's Light: A Novel
by
Richard North Patterson
Scribner, 05/03/2011
The Devil's Light tells the story of an Al Qaeda operative named Amer Al Zaroor, who, on orders from Osama Bin Laden, directs the theft of a nuclear ...
more
The Lake
by
Banana Yoshimoto
Melville House, 05/03/2011
While
The Lake shows off many of the features that have made Banana Yoshimoto famous - a cast of vivid and quirky characters, simple yet nuanced prose...
more
The Moment: A Novel
by
Douglas Kennedy
Atria Books, 05/03/2011
Thomas Nesbitt is a divorced writer in the midst of a rueful middle age. Living a very private life in Maine, in touch only with his daughter and ...
more
The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared
by
Alice Ozma
Grand Central Publishing, 05/03/2011
When Alice Ozma was in 4th grade, she and her father decided to see if he could read aloud to her for 100 consecutive nights. On the hundreth night, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
The Year We Left Home: A Novel
by
Jean Thompson
Simon & Schuster, 05/03/2011
From National Book Award finalist Jean Thompson comes a mesmerizing, decades-spanning saga of one ordinary American family - proud, flawed, hopeful - ...
more
Uglies
by
Scott Westerfeld
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 05/03/2011
Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. In just a few weeks she'll have the operation that will turn her from a repellent ugly into a ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Walking to Hollywood: Memories of Before the Fall
by
Will Self
Grove Press, 05/03/2011
One of the most remarkably inventive voices of his generation, author Will Self delivers a new and stunning work of fiction. In
Walking to Hollywood, ...
more
Where Things Come Back
by
John Corey Whaley
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 05/03/2011
In the summer before Cullen's senior year, a nominally-depressed birdwatcher named John Barling thinks he spots a species of woodpecker thought ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Your Voice in My Head: A Memoir
by
Emma Forrest
Other Press, 05/03/2011
Emma Forrest, a British journalist, was just twenty-two and living the fast life in New York City when she realized that her quirks had gone beyond ...
more
The Story of Beautiful Girl: A Novel
by
Rachel Simon
Grand Central Publishing, 05/04/2011
It is 1968. Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are locked away in an institution, ...
more
Tabloid City: A Novel
by
Pete Hamill
Little Brown & Company, 05/05/2011
In a stately West Village town house, a wealthy socialite and her secretary are murdered. In the 24 hours that follow, a flurry of activity surrounds ...
more
The Informant: An Otto Penzler Book
by
Thomas Perry
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 05/05/2011
In Thomas Perry's Edgar-winning debut
The Butcher's Boy, a professional killer betrayed by the Mafia leaves countless mobsters dead and then ...
more
A Queer History of the United States
by
Michael Bronski
Beacon Press, 05/10/2011
The first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present.
Michael Bronski's
A Queer ...more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Bitter End
by
Jennifer Brown
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 05/10/2011
When Alex falls for the charming new boy at school, Cole -- a handsome, funny, sports star who adores her - she can't believe she's finally found her ...
more
Buried Prey
by
John Sandford
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 05/10/2011
A house demolition provides an unpleasant surprise for Minneapolis - the bodies of two girls, wrapped in plastic. It looks like they've been there a ...
more
Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany
by
Frederick Taylor
Bloomsbury USA, 05/10/2011
The collapse of the Third Reich in 1945 was an event nearly unprecedented in history. Only the fall of the Roman Empire fifteen hundred years earlier ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Hidden
by
Helen Frost
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 05/10/2011
When Wren Abbott and Darra Monson are eight years old, Darra's father steals a minivan. He doesn't know that Wren is hiding in the back. The hours and...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
by
Erik Larson
Crown, 05/10/2011
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World
by
Catherine E. McKinley
Bloomsbury USA, 05/10/2011
For almost five millennia, in every culture and in every major religion, indigo - a blue pigment obtained from the small green leaf of a parasitic ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Life on Mars: Poems
by
Tracy K. Smith
Graywolf Press, 05/10/2011
You lie there kicking like a baby, waiting for God himself
To lift you past the rungs of your crib. What
Would your life say if it could talk?
...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery
by
Steve Ulfelder
Minotaur Books, 05/10/2011
"Tander Phigg was an asshole, but he was also a Barnburner. Barnburners saved my life. I help them when I can. No exceptions."
The job seems simple...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Mysteries
Debut Author
Ruby Red: Ruby Red - Trilogy
by
Kerstin Gier
Henry Holt and Company, 05/10/2011
Gwyneth Shepherd's sophisticated, beautiful cousin Charlotte has been prepared her entire life for traveling through time. But unexpectedly, it is ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism
by
Deborah Baker
Graywolf Press, 05/10/2011
What drives a young woman raised in a postwar New York City suburb to convert to Islam, abandon her country and Jewish faith, and embrace a life of ...
more
The Daughter of Siena: A Novel
by
Marina Fiorato
St. Martin's Griffin, 05/10/2011
Marina Fiorato, international bestselling author of
The Glassblower of Murano and
The Botticelli Secret, is back with her latest novel that once again...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Nature Principle
by
Richard Louv
Algonquin Books, 05/10/2011
The immediacy of Richard Louv's message in
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder galvanized an international ...
more
Advice
The Quantum Thief
by
Hannu Rajaniemi
Tor Books, 05/10/2011
Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Debut Author
The Snowman: A Novel
by
Jo Nesbo
Knopf, 05/10/2011
Internationally acclaimed crime writer Jo Nesbø's antihero police investigator, Harry Hole, is back: in a bone-chilling thriller that will take ...
more
The Summer Before Boys
by
Nora Raleigh Baskin
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 05/10/2011
Julia and Eliza are best friends, spending the summer together. Julia's mother is serving in the National Guard and Julia spends all of her time ...
more
Those in Peril
by
Wilbur Smith
Thomas Dunne Books, 05/10/2011
Hazel Bannock is the heir to the Bannock Oil Corp, one of the major oil producers with global reach. While cruising in the Indian Ocean, Hazel's ...
more
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away
by
Christie Watson
Other Press, 05/10/2011
When their mother catches their father with another woman, twelve year-old Blessing and her fourteen-year-old brother, Ezikiel, are forced to leave ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Waiting For Spring
by
R.J. Keller
AmazonEncore, 05/10/2011
The pain in Tess Dyer's heart stems from a lifetime of rejection: by her distant mother, by a string of one-night stands, and by her husband, Jason. ...
more
Literary Fiction
When God Was a Rabbit: A Novel
by
Sarah Winman
Bloomsbury USA, 05/10/2011
This is a book about a brother and a sister. It's a book about secrets and starting over, friendship and family, triumph and tragedy, and everything ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
You Don't Know About Me
by
Brian Meehl
Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, 05/10/2011
Sixteen-year-old Billy Allbright is about to bust out of his sheltered cocoon and go on a gonzo road trip. He just doesn't know it yet. His ticket to ...
more
Literary Fiction
Small Memories
by
Jose Saramago
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 05/11/2011
José Saramago was eighteen months old when he moved from the village of Azinhaga with his father and mother to live in Lisbon. But he would ...
more
A Drop of the Hard Stuff
by
Lawrence Block
Mulholland, 05/12/2011
Matthew Scudder is finally on the straight and narrow when he runs into "High-Low" Jack Ellery, a childhood friend from the Bronx. In Scudder, Jack ...
more
Sparrow Road
by
Sheila O'Connor
Putnam Juvenile, 05/12/2011
It's the summer before seventh grade, and twelve-year-old Raine O'Rourke's mother suddenly takes a job hours from home at mysterious Sparrow Road - a ...
more
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Oil on Water: A Novel
by
Helon Habila
W.W. Norton & Company, 05/16/2011
In the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Nigerian Delta, the wife of a British oil executive has been kidnapped. Two journalists - a young ...
more
A Conflict of Interest
by
Adam Mitzner
Gallery Books, 05/17/2011
Alex Miller is a criminal defense attorney and, at thirty-five, the youngest partner in one of the most powerful law firms in New York City. He’s...
more
Thrillers
On China
by
Henry Kissinger
Penguin Press, 05/17/2011
In this sweeping and insightful history, Henry Kissinger turns for the first time at book-length to a country he has known intimately for decades, and...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Fires Beneath the Sea: a novel
by
Lydia Millet
Big Mouth House, 05/17/2011
Cara's mother has disappeared. Her father isn't talking about it. Her big brother Max is hiding behind his iPod, and her genius little brother Jackson...
more
Literary Fiction
The Sweetness of Tears: A Novel
by
Nafisa Haji
William Morrow Paperbacks, 05/17/2011
Wise and assured,
The Sweetness of Tears is a powerful reminder of the ties that bind us, the choices that divide us, and the universal joys and ...
more
The Tender Mercy of Roses: A Novel
by
Anna Michaels
Gallery Books, 05/17/2011
While the body of rodeo star Pony Jones lies motionless in the northern Alabama woods, her spirit is on a mission to find her killer. ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Unlikely Brothers: Our Story of Adventure, Loss, and Redemption
by
John Prendergast
Crown, 05/17/2011
"You don't look like brothers..."Peace activist and cofounder of the Enough Project, John Prendergast is known as a champion of human rights in Africa...
more
America Pacifica: A Novel
by
Anna North
Reagan Arthur, 05/18/2011
Eighteen-year-old Darcy lives on the island of America Pacifica - one of the last places on earth that is still habitable, after North America has ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
An Empty Room: Stories
by
Mu Xin
Newmarket, 05/23/2011
A dazzling cycle of short stories by one of China's most revered contemporary writers and one of the world’s leading artist-intellectuals.
An ...more
Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum
by
Jason Felch
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 05/24/2011
In recent years, several of America's leading art museums have voluntarily given up their finest pieces of classical art to the governments of Italy ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
If I Could Fly
by
Judith Ortiz Cofer
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 05/24/2011
Fifteen-year-old Doris is used to taking care of herself. Her musician parents have always spent more time singing in nightclubs than watching after ...
more
Junonia
by
Kevin Henkes
Greenwillow Books, 05/24/2011
Returning to the beach cottage - a cottage named Scallop - where she has always celebrated her birthday is a special occasion for Alice Rice.
Who ...
more
One Day
by
David Nicholls
Vintage, 05/24/2011
Paperback Original. It's 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. They both know that the next day, after college graduation, they ...
more
Secret of the White Rose: A Novel
by
Stefanie Pintoff
Minotaur Books, 05/24/2011
The murder of Judge Hugo Jackson is out of Detective Simon Ziele's jurisdiction in more ways than one. For one, it's high-profile enough to command ...
more
Silver Sparrow: A Novel
by
Tayari Jones
Algonquin Books, 05/24/2011
With the opening line of
Silver Sparrow, "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist," author Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man's...
more
Summer in the South
by
Cathy Holton
Ballantine Books, 05/24/2011
Cathy Holton, author of the popular
Beach Trip, returns with an intriguing and mysterious tale of dark deeds and family secrets in a small Southern ...
more
The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths
by
Michael Shermer
Times Books, 05/24/2011
In this work synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist, historian of science, and the world's best-known skeptic Michael Shermer upends the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Devil She Knows: A Novel
by
Bill Loehfelm
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 05/24/2011
Life isn't panning out for Maureen Coughlin. At twenty-nine, the tough-skinned Staten Island native's only excitement comes from... well, not much. A ...
more
They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children: The Global Quest to Eradicate the Use of Child Soldiers
by
Roméo Dallaire
Walker & Company, 05/24/2011
As the leader of the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda, Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire came face-to-face with the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Welcome to Bordertown
by
Holly Black (Editor), Ellen Kushner (Editor)
Random House Children's Publishing, 05/24/2011
Bordertown: a city on the border between our human world and the elfin realm. Runaway teens come from both sides of the border to find adventure, to ...
more
Short Stories
The Arrivals: A Novel
by
Meg Mitchell Moore
Reagan Arthur, 05/25/2011
It's early summer when Ginny and William's peaceful life in Vermont comes to an abrupt halt.
First, their daughter Lillian arrives, with her two ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Centuries of June: A Novel
by
Keith Donohue
Crown, 05/31/2011
Set in the bathroom of an old house just before dawn on a night in June,
Centuries of June is a black comedy about a man who is attempting to tell the...
more
Dreams of Joy: A Novel
by
Lisa See
Random House, 05/31/2011
Lisa See continues the story of sisters Pearl and May from
Shanghai Girls, and Pearl's strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy.
Reeling from ...
more
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
by
David Eagleman
Pantheon Books, 05/31/2011
If the conscious mind — the part you consider to be you — is just the tip of the iceberg, what is the rest doing?
In this sparkling...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Jerusalem Maiden: A Novel
by
Talia Carner
HarperPaperbacks, 05/31/2011
In the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, a young Orthodox Jewish woman in the holy city of Jerusalem is expected to marry and produce many sons to ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America
by
Richard White
W.W. Norton & Company, 05/31/2011
The transcontinental railroads of the late nineteenth century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Post-American World (Release 2.0)
by
Fareed Zakaria
W.W. Norton & Company, 05/31/2011
"This is not a book about the decline of America but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's blockbuster on the United ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
State of Wonder: A Novel
by
Ann Patchett
Harper, 06/01/2011
Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson,...
more
The Beekeeper's Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America
by
Hannah Nordhaus
Harper Perennial, 06/01/2011
The honey bee is a willing conscript, a working wonder, an unseen and crucial link in America's agricultural industry. But never before has its ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Debut Author
The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War
by
Andrew Roberts
Harper, 06/01/2011
On 2 August 1944, in the wake of the complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre in Belorussia, Winston Churchill mocked Adolf Hitler in the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Alice Bliss: A Novel
by
Laura Harrington
Pamela Dorman Books, 06/02/2011
"Outside the back window Alice can see the outlines of the garden, some of the furrows visible under the snow, stretching away in long thin rows. She...more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead: A Novel
by
Sara Gran
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 06/02/2011
Claire DeWitt is not your average private investigator. She has brilliant deductive skills and is an ace at discovering evidence. But Claire also uses...
more
To Be Sung Underwater: A Novel
by
Tom McNeal
Little Brown & Company, 06/02/2011
Judith Whitman always believed in the kind of love that "picks you up in Akron and sets you down in Rio." Long ago, she once experienced that love. ...
more
What Alice Forgot: A Novel
by
Liane Moriarty
Amy Einhorn Books, 06/02/2011
What would happen if you were visited by your younger self, and got a chance for a do-over?
Alice Love is twenty-nine years old, madly in love ...
more
Bloodmoney: A Novel of Espionage
by
David Ignatius
W.W. Norton & Company, 06/06/2011
Someone in Pakistan is killing the members of a new CIA intelligence unit that is trying to buy peace with America's enemies. It falls to Sophie Marx,...
more
Blood Red Road: Dustlands Series
by
Moira Young
Margaret K. McElderry Books, 06/07/2011
Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Exiles: A Novel
by
Cary Groner
Spiegel & Grau, 06/07/2011
Opening the door to a Nepal few Westerners have encountered,
Exiles tells the haunting story of an American doctor and his teenage daughter caught in ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Misery Bay: An Alex McKnight Novel
by
Steve Hamilton
Minotaur Books, 06/07/2011
On a frozen January night, a young man loops one end of a long rope over the branch of a tree. The other end he ties around his neck. A snowmobiler ...
more
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
by
Ransom Riggs
Quirk Books, 06/07/2011
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs.
It all waits to be discovered in
Miss Peregrine's ...more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Now You See Me
by
S. J. Bolton
Minotaur Books, 06/07/2011
One night after interviewing a reluctant witness at a London apartment complex, Lacey Flint, a young detective constable, stumbles onto a woman ...
more
Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church
by
Jason Berry
Crown, 06/07/2011
The Sunday collection in every Catholic church throughout the world is as familiar a part of the Mass as the homily and even Communion. There is no ...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Robopocalypse: A Novel
by
Daniel H. Wilson
Doubleday, 06/07/2011
In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Debut Author
Sister: A Novel
by
Rosamund Lupton
Crown, 06/07/2011
Nothing can break the bond between sisters... When Beatrice gets a frantic call in the middle of Sunday lunch to say that her younger sister, Tess, is...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Something for Nothing: A Novel
by
David Anthony
Algonquin Books, 06/07/2011
Martin Anderson has a racehorse, a deep-sea fishing boat, a vacation home in Tahoe, and a Caddy in the garage. But his life is in freefall. It's the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel
by
Eleanor Henderson
Ecco, 06/07/2011
A sweeping, multigenerational drama, set against the backdrop of the raw, roaring New York City during the late 1980s,
Ten Thousand Saints ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Art of Saying Goodbye: A Novel
by
Ellyn Bache
William Morrow Paperbacks, 06/07/2011
In the tradition of Kristin Hannah and Marisa de los Santos's heartfelt novels comes this beautiful and touching full-bodied contemporary story sure ...
more
The Borgia Betrayal: A Poisoner Mystery Novel
by
Sara Poole
St. Martin's Griffin, 06/07/2011
Before the Tudors, there were the Borgias. More passionate. More dangerous. More deadly.
In the summer of 1493, Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI, has...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Fatal Touch: A Commissario Alec Blume Novel
by
Conor Fitzgerald
Bloomsbury USA, 06/07/2011
Alec Blume returns to action in this intricate and heart-pounding new novel. With the help of his associate Caterina, Blume is called to the scene of ...
more
The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century
by
Alex Prud'homme
Scribner, 06/07/2011
As Alex Prud'Homme and his great-aunt Julia Child were completing their collaboration on her memoir,
My Life in France, they began to talk about the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Summer of the Bear: A Novel
by
Bella Pollen
Atlantic Monthly Press, 06/07/2011
With her fifth novel, critically acclaimed writer and journalist Bella Pollen takes readers into the private dynamics of a family grappling with the ...
more
The Upright Piano Player: A Novel
by
David Abbott
Nan A. Talese, 06/07/2011
An adroit first novel of exceptional grace and emotional power by a legendary British ad executive.
Henry Cage seems to have it all: a successful ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading
by
Nina Sankovitch
Harper, 06/07/2011
Catalyzed by the loss of her sister, a mother of four spends one year savoring a great book every day, from Thomas Pynchon to Nora Ephron and beyond. ...
more
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men
by
Mara Hvistendahl
Public Affairs, 06/07/2011
Lianyungang, a booming port city, has China's most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every 100 girls. These numbers don't ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Joy For Beginners: A Novel
by
Erica Bauermeister
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 06/09/2011
At an intimate, festive dinner party in Seattle, six women gather to celebrate their friend Kate's recovery from cancer. Wineglass in hand, Kate ...
more
Epigenetics: The Ultimate Mystery of Inheritance
by
Richard C. Francis
W.W. Norton & Company, 06/13/2011
Time to worry again - our lifestyle choices do impact our genetic code and that of our children (and even grandchildren!).
Epigenetic means "on ...
more
Science, Health and the Environment
Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America
by
David S. Reynolds
W.W. Norton & Company, 06/13/2011
Uncle Tom's Cabin is likely the most influential novel ever written by an American. In a fitting tribute to the two hundredth anniversary of Harriet ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Folly Beach: A Lowcountry Tale
by
Dorothea Benton Frank
William Morrow, 06/14/2011
Experience the wild beauty and sultry magic of New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank's Carolina Lowcountry - where the pull of ...
more
Literary Fiction
Imaginary Girls
by
Nova Ren Suma
Penguin Young Readers Group, 06/14/2011
Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby's friends goes ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Debut Author
Lime Creek: Fiction
by
Joe Henry
Random House, 06/14/2011
Spencer Davis, his wife, Elizabeth, and their sons, Luke, Whitney, and Lonny, work with horses and with their hands. They spend long relentless days ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Maine: A Novel
by
J. Courtney Sullivan
Knopf, 06/14/2011
For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. Their ...
more
One Summer
by
David Baldacci
Grand Central Publishing, 06/14/2011
It's almost Christmas, but there is no joy in the house of terminally ill Jack and his family. With only a short time left to live, he spends his last...
more
Sisterhood Everlasting: A Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Novel
by
Ann Brashares
Random House, 06/14/2011
Return to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants... ten years later.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Brashares comes the welcome ...
more
The Glass Demon: A Novel
by
Helen Grant
Bantam Books, 06/14/2011
Teenager Lin Fox is a stranger in a strange land - Germany, where her father has come on a quixotic quest to locate a priceless artifact. The medieval...
more
The Inspector and Silence: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
by
Hakan Nesser
Pantheon Books, 06/14/2011
It is summer in Sweden. A secretive and dubious religious sect comes under investigation when a girl on the cusp of adolescence is found dead in the ...
more
The Profession: A Thriller
by
Steven Pressfield
Crown, 06/14/2011
The year is 2032. The third Iran-Iraq war is over; the 11/11 dirty bomb attack on the port of Long Beach, California is receding into memory; Saudi ...
more
Tigerlily's Orchids: A Novel
by
Ruth Rendell
Scribner, 06/14/2011
When Stuart Font decides to throw a house-warming party in his new flat he invites everyone in his building. The party will be one everyone remembers....
more
The Girl in the Garden: A Novel
by
Kamala Nair
Grand Central Publishing, 06/15/2011
The redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer when her ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Wreckage: A Thriller
by
Michael Robotham
Mulholland, 06/16/2011
An international thriller based on one of the bigest bank heists in history.
Billions of dollars are missing from Iraqi banks, and journalist Luca ...
more
A Bad Night's Sleep: A Mystery
by
Michael Wiley
Minotaur Books, 06/21/2011
Working late-night surveillance at a luxury condominium development, Chicago private investigator Joe Kozmarski encounters a burglary crew. Two of the...
more
Mysteries
Breaking Silence: A Kate Burkholder Mystery
by
Linda Castillo
Minotaur Books, 06/21/2011
The Slabaugh family are model Amish farmers, prosperous and hardworking, with four children and a happy extended family. When the parents and an uncle...
more
Buried Secrets: A Nick Heller Novel
by
Joseph Finder
St. Martin's Press, 06/21/2011
Joseph Finder introduced Nick Heller, a "private spy" who finds out things powerful people want to keep hidden, to widespread acclaim from the critics...
more
Heat Wave: A Novel
by
Nancy Thayer
Ballantine Books, 06/21/2011
Unerringly perceptive, superbly written, every page packed with the warmth and compassionate wisdom that have become Nancy Thayer's trademark,
Heat ...more
Long Gone: A Novel
by
Alafair Burke
Harper, 06/21/2011
What if everything you thought you knew turned out to be a lie?
After a layoff and months of struggling, Alice Humphrey finally lands her dream ...
more
Long Story Short
by
Siobhan Parkinson
Roaring Brook Press, 06/21/2011
From Ireland's first laureate for children's literature comes a story of abuse and neglect told with sincerity, heart, and a healthy dose of humor.
...
more
Miss Timmins' School for Girls: A Novel
by
Nayana Currimbhoy
HarperCollins Publishers, 06/21/2011
In 1974, three weeks before her twenty-first birthday, Charulata Apte arrives at Miss Timmins' School for Girls in Panchgani. Shy, sheltered, and ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Mysteries
Debut Author
Revenger: A Novel of Tudor Intrigue
by
Rory Clements
Bantam Books, 06/21/2011
In his critically acclaimed debut thriller,
Martyr, Rory Clements introduced readers to the unforgettable John Shakespeare, chief intelligencer to ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Silver Girl: A Novel
by
Elin Hilderbrand
Reagan Arthur, 06/21/2011
Desperate and facing homelessness, Meredith receives a call from her old best friend, Constance Flute. Connie's had recent worries of her own, and the...
more
Romance
Smokin' Seventeen: A Stephanie Plum Novel
by
Janet Evanovich
Bantam Books, 06/21/2011
Dead bodies are showing up in shallow graves on the empty construction lot of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. No one is sure who the killer is, or why the ...
more
Thrillers
The American Heiress: A Novel
by
Daisy Goodwin
St. Martin's Press, 06/21/2011
Be careful what you wish for. Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Hypnotist: A Novel
by
Lars Kepler
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 06/21/2011
In the frigid clime of Tumba, Sweden, a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna, who demands to investigate ...
more
The Quest for Anna Klein: An Otto Penzler Book
by
Thomas H. Cook
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 06/21/2011
Thomas Danforth has lived a fortunate life. The son of a wealthy importer, he traveled the world in his youth, and now, in his twenties, he lives in ...
more
Mysteries
The Storm at the Door: A Novel
by
Stefan Merrill Block
Random House, 06/21/2011
The past is not past for Katharine Merrill. Even after two decades of volatile marriage, Katharine still believes she can have the life that she felt ...
more
Trespasser: A Novel
by
Paul Doiron
Minotaur Books, 06/21/2011
In Paul Doiron' riveting follow-up to his Edgar Award–nominated novel,
The Poacher's Son, Maine game warden Mike Bowditch's quest to find a ...
more
Before Versailles: A Novel of Louis XIV
by
Karleen Koen
Crown, 06/28/2011
Louis XIV is one of the best-known monarchs ever to grace the French throne. But what was he like as a young man - the man before Versailles?
After...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
City of Ruin
by
Mark Charan Newton
Bantam Spectra, 06/28/2011
In the frozen north of a far-flung world lies Villiren, a city plagued by violent gangs and monstrous human/animal hybrids, stalked by a serial killer...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Ladies and Gentlemen
by
Adam Ross
Knopf, 06/28/2011
After his widely celebrated debut,
Mr. Peanut, Adam Ross now presents a darkly compelling collection of stories about brothers, loners, lovers, and ...
more
Lions of Kandahar: The Story of a Fight Against All Odds
by
Rusty Bradley
Bantam Books, 06/28/2011
One of the most critical battles of the Afghan War is now revealed as never before.
Lions of Kandahar is an inside account from the unique perspective...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Deal from Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers
by
James O'Shea
Public Affairs, 06/28/2011
In 2000, after the Tribune Company acquired Times Mirror Corporation, it comprised the most powerful collection of newspapers in the world. How then ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Girl in the Blue Beret: A Novel
by
Bobbie Ann Mason
Random House, 06/28/2011
Inspired by the wartime experiences of her late father-in-law, award-winning author Bobbie Ann Mason has written an unforgettable novel about an ...
more
Things We Didn't Say: A Novel
by
Kristina Riggle
William Morrow Paperbacks, 06/28/2011
Twenty-six-year-old Casey thought love and a fierce stubbornness would be enough to hold together her fragile new family with fiance Michael and his ...
more
Untold Story: A Novel
by
Monica Ali
Scribner, 06/28/2011
When Princess Diana died in Paris's Alma tunnel, she was thirty-seven years old. Had she lived, she would turn fifty on July 1, 2011. Who would the ...
more
The Ascension: A Super Human Clash
by
Michael Carroll
Philomel, 06/30/2011
They'd done it. Not only had Roz, Abby, Lance, and Thunder survived their first battle with a super villain, they'd defeated him. Krodin was dead, and...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Beginners: A Novel
by
Rebecca Wolff
Riverhead Books, 06/30/2011
Theo and Raquel Motherwell are the only newcomers to the sleepy town of Wick in fifteen-year-old Ginger Pritt's memory. Hampered by a lingering ...
more
Burnt Mountain: A Novel
by
Anne Rivers Siddons
Grand Central Publishing, 07/01/2011
Growing up, the only place tomboy Thayer Wentworth felt at home was at her summer camp - Camp Sherwood Forest in the North Carolina Mountains. It was ...
more
Flashback: A Novel
by
Dan Simmons
Reagan Arthur, 07/01/2011
The United States is near total collapse. But 87% of the population doesn't care: they're addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Growing Up Amish: A Memoir
by
Ira Wagler
Tyndale House Publishers, 07/01/2011
One fateful starless night, 17-year-old Ira Wagler got up at 2 AM, left a scribbled note under his pillow, packed all of his earthly belongings into ...
more
Guantanamo Boy
by
Anna Perera
Albert Whitman & Company, 07/01/2011
Innocent until proven guilty? Not here you're not. Robbed of his childhood, this is one boy's fictional experience of the supposed war on terror. ...
more
This Is Not Your City: Stories
by
Caitlin Horrocks
Sarabande Books, 07/01/2011
In stories as darkly comic as they are unflinching, people isolated by geography, emotion, or circumstance cut imperfect paths to peace - they have no...
more
A Death in Summer: A Novel
by
Benjamin Black
Henry Holt and Company, 07/05/2011
On a sweltering summer afternoon, newspaper tycoon Richard Jewell - known to his many enemies as Diamond Dick - is discovered with his head blown off ...
more
Creep: A Thriller of Deadly Attraction
by
Jennifer Hillier
Gallery Books, 07/05/2011
Pulsing with the dark obsession of Radiohead's song "Creep," this taut thriller - Jennifer Hillier's superb debut - rockets from its seductive opening...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Escape: A Novel
by
Barbara Delinsky
Doubleday, 07/05/2011
In her luminous new novel, Barbara Delinsky explores every woman's desire to abandon the endless obligations of work and marriage - and the idea that ...
more
Literary Fiction
House Divided: A Joe DeMarco Thriller
by
Mike Lawson
Atlantic Monthly Press, 07/05/2011
When the NSA was caught wiretapping U.S. citizens without warrants, a scandal erupted and the program came to a screeching halt. But the man who ...
more
Infernal Angels: An Amos Walker Novel
by
Loren D. Estleman
Forge Books, 07/05/2011
Much like author Loren D. Estleman, Detroit private investigator Amos Walker has long been reluctant to embrace technology - he only recently got his ...
more
Millennium People
by
J. G. Ballard
W.W. Norton & Company, 07/05/2011
The explosive J.G. Ballard renaissance, which began with the 2009 publication of
The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard, continues with the appearance ...
more
Never Knowing
by
Chevy Stevens
St. Martin's Press, 07/05/2011
From the acclaimed author of
Still Missing comes a psychological thriller about one woman’s search into her past and the deadly truth she ...
more
Now Is the Time for Running
by
Michael Williams
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 07/05/2011
Just down the road from their families, Deo and his friends play soccer in the dusty fields of Zimbabwe, cheered on by Deo's older brother, Innocent. ...
more
Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear: A Novel
by
Katharine Weber
Broadway Books, 07/05/2011
Harriet Rose, 26, is an American photographer just winning recognition for her work. A travel fellowship brings her to visit her best friend and ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
One Dog Night: An Andy Carpenter Mystery
by
David Rosenfelt
Minotaur Books, 07/05/2011
For six years Noah Galloway has lived with a horrible secret and the fear that his rebuilt life could be shattered at any moment. Now his dread has ...
more
Mysteries
Smuggled: A Novel
by
Christina Shea
Black Cat, 07/05/2011
Sweeping from post-WWII rural Romania to the cosmopolitan Budapest of 1990, Christina Shea's
Smuggled is the story of Eva Farkas, who loses her ...
more
Literary Fiction
The Gap Year: A Novel
by
Sarah Bird
Knopf, 07/05/2011
From the widely praised author of
The Yokota Officers Club and
The Flamenco Academy, a novel as hilarious as it is heartbreaking about a single mom ...
more
The Return of Captain John Emmett: A Mystery
by
Elizabeth Speller
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 07/05/2011
London, 1920. In the aftermath of the Great War and a devastating family tragedy, Laurence Bartram has turned his back on the world. But with a well-...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Mysteries
Debut Author
The Silent Girl: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel
by
Tess Gerritsen
Ballantine Books, 07/05/2011
Every crime scene tells a story. Some keep you awake at night. Others haunt your dreams. The grisly display homicide cop Jane Rizzoli finds in Boston'...
more
White Crow
by
Marcus Sedgwick
Roaring Brook Press, 07/05/2011
Some secrets are better left buried; some secrets are so frightening they might make angels weep and the devil crow.
Thought provoking as well as ...
more
You're Next: A Novel
by
Gregg Hurwitz
St. Martin's Press, 07/05/2011
Mike Wingate, abandoned by his father at four and raised in foster care, is finally living the life he always dreamed of - he's happily married with a...
more
Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal: A Thriller
by
Michael Van Rooy
Minotaur Books, 07/05/2011
The truth frequently hurts and rarely sets you free.
Ex-criminal Montgomery "Monty" Haaviko would prefer to be known as the friendly neighborhood ...
more
The End of Everything: A Novel
by
Megan Abbott
Reagan Arthur, 07/07/2011
Thirteen-year old Lizzie Hood and her next door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable. They are best friends who swap bathing suits and field-hockey ...
more
The Last Letter from Your Lover: A Novel
by
Jojo Moyes
Pamela Dorman Books, 07/07/2011
It is 1960. When Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital, she can remember nothing - not the tragic car accident that put her there, not her ...
more
Very Bad Men: A Novel
by
Harry Dolan
Amy Einhorn Books, 07/07/2011
David Loogan returns! Loogan is living in Ann Arbor with Detective Elizabeth Waishkey and her daughter, Sarah. He's settled into a quiet routine as ...
more
A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five
by
George R.R. Martin
Bantam Books, 07/12/2011
Dubbed “the American Tolkien” by
Time magazine, George R. R. Martin has earned international acclaim for his monumental cycle of epic ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Children of the Street: An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery
by
Kwei Quartey
Random House, 07/12/2011
In the slums of Accra, Ghana's fast-moving, cosmopolitan capital, teenagers are turning up dead. Inspector Darko Dawson has seen many crimes, but this...
more
Conquistadora
by
Esmeralda Santiago
Knopf, 07/12/2011
An epic novel of love, discovery, and adventure by the author of the best-selling memoir
When I Was Puerto Rican.
As a young girl growing up in Spain, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life
by
Sandra Beasley
Crown, 07/12/2011
Like twelve million other Americans, Sandra Beasley suffers from food allergies. Her allergies - severe and lifelong - include dairy, egg, soy, beef, ...
more
Hotwire: A Maggie O'Dell Novel
by
Alex Kava
Doubleday, 07/12/2011
On a crisp fall evening in western Nebraska, what started as a group of kids filming their drug-fueled party ends in an explosive light show, leaving ...
more
I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59
by
Douglas Edwards
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 07/12/2011
Comparing Google to an ordinary business is like comparing a rocket to an Edsel. No academic analysis or bystander's account can capture it. Now Doug ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Iron House: A Novel
by
John Hart
Thomas Dunne Books, 07/12/2011
An old man is dying.
When the old man is dead they will come for him.
And they will come for her, to make him hurt.
At the Iron Mountain Home for ...
more
Misterioso: A Crime Novel
by
Arne Dahl
Pantheon Books, 07/12/2011
After successfully - but bloodily - dismantling a complicated hostage situation at a bank in the suburbs of Stockholm, Detective Paul Hjelm is faced ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Original Sin: A Sally Sin Adventure
by
Beth Mcmullen
Hyperion, 07/12/2011
This summer, sin is in. In the hilarious debut
Original Sin, a former U.S. spy turned stay-at-home mother of a toddler tries to find a most elusive ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Shut Your Eyes Tight: Dave Gurney Thriller, No. 2
by
John Verdon
Crown, 07/12/2011
When he was the NYPD's top homicide investigator, Dave Gurney was never comfortable with the label the press gave him:
super detective. He was simply ...
more
Stone Arabia: A Novel
by
Dana Spiotta
Scribner, 07/12/2011
From National Book Award nominee Dana Spiotta, a startlingly original and compelling novel about an eccentric artist and his sister.
In the sibling...
more
Texas Gothic
by
Rosemary Clement-Moore
Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, 07/12/2011
Amy Goodnight's family is far from normal. She comes from a line of witches, but tries her best to stay far outside the family business. Her summer ...
more
The Devil All the Time: A Novel
by
Donald Ray Pollock
Doubleday, 07/12/2011
In
The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock has written a novel that marries the twisted intensity of Oliver Stone's
Natural Born Killers with the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Things We Cherished: A Novel
by
Pam Jenoff
Doubleday, 07/12/2011
Set during the Holocaust and rich in historical detail, this suspenseful story of love and betrayal by the author of
The Kommandant's Girl is a ...
more
The Third Wave: A Volunteer Story
by
Alison Thompson
Spiegel & Grau, 07/12/2011
Alison Thompson, a filmmaker living in New York City, was enjoying Christmas with her boyfriend in 2004 when she saw the news reports online: a 9.3 ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers
by
Peter Tomsen
Public Affairs, 07/12/2011
As Ambassador and Special Envoy on Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992, Peter Tomsen has had close relationships with Afghan leaders and has dealt with ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
We All Fall Down
by
Michael Harvey
Knopf, 07/12/2011
Chicago cop turned private investigator Michael Kelly is racing to save his city from a deadly new foe: a biological weapon unleashed underground.
...
more
Bloodline: A Tom Thorne Novel
by
Mark Billingham
Mulholland, 07/14/2011
A killer is on the loose. The victims: children whose mothers can't protect them.
The past is coming back to haunt the people of London: a murderer...
more
Pigeon English
by
Stephen Kelman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 07/19/2011
Lying in front of Harrison Opuku is a body, the body of one of his classmates, a boy known for his crazy basketball skills, who seems to have been ...
more
Portrait of a Spy
by
Daniel Silva
Harper, 07/19/2011
Haunted by his failure to stop a suicide bomber in London, Gabriel Allon is summoned to Washington and drawn into a confrontation with the new face of...
more
Thrillers
Split Second: An FBI Thriller
by
Catherine Coulter
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 07/19/2011
A serial killer is on the loose, and it's up to FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock to bring him down. They soon discover that the killer has ...
more
Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human
by
Grant Morrison
Spiegel & Grau, 07/19/2011
The first superhero comic ever published,
Action Comics no. 1 in 1938, introduced the world to something both unprecedented and timeless: Superman, a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities
by
Katharine Weber
Crown, 07/19/2011
The Memory of All That is Katharine Weber's memoir of her extraordinary family.
Her maternal grandmother, Kay Swift, was known both for her own...
more
The War That Came Early: The Big Switch
by
Harry Turtledove
Delta, 07/19/2011
In this extraordinary World War II alternate history, master storyteller Harry Turtledove begins with a big switch: what if Neville Chamberlain, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Taint of Midas: A Novel
by
Anne Zouroudi
Reagan Arthur, 07/20/2011
Gabrilis Kaloyeros is a bee-keeper on the beautiful Greek island of Arcadia. The ruined Temple of Apollo has been in his care for decades, and he has ...
more
The Nightmare Thief: A Jo Beckett Thriller
by
Meg Gardiner
Dutton, 07/21/2011
Autumn Reiniger expects something special for her twenty-first birthday. Daddy's already bought her the sports car, the apartment, and admission to ...
more
The Paradise Prophecy: A Novel
by
Robert Browne
Dutton, 07/21/2011
A spectacular thriller inspired by John Milton's Paradise Lost in which the final chapter of the War in Heaven is about to play out on Earth, with the...
more
Thrillers
The Night Train: A Novel
by
Clyde Edgerton
Little Brown & Company, 07/25/2011
In 1963, at the age of 17, Dwayne Hallston discovers James Brown and wants to perform just like him. His band, the Amazing Rumblers, studies and ...
more
In Search of the Rose Notes: A Novel
by
Emily Arsenault
William Morrow Paperbacks, 07/26/2011
At age eleven, Nora and Charlotte are the best of friends - until their teenager babysitter, Rose, disappears under mysterious circumstances. They ...
more
Northwest Corner: A Novel
by
John Burnham Schwartz
Random House, 07/26/2011
Twelve years after a tragic accident and a cover-up that led to prison time, Dwight Arno, now fifty, is a man who has started over without exactly ...
more
Rules of Civility: A Novel
by
Amor Towles
Viking, 07/26/2011
Set in New York City in 1938,
Rules of Civility tells the story of a watershed year in the life of an uncompromising twenty-five-year-old named Katey ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
by
Ben Loory
Penguin Books, 07/26/2011
Loory's collection of wry and witty, dark and perilous contemporary fables is populated by people - and monsters and trees and jocular octopi - who ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Short Stories
Debut Author
The Woodcutter
by
Reginald Hill
Harper, 07/26/2011
Wolf Hadda's life has been a fairy tale. From his humble origins as a Cumbrian woodcutter's son, he has risen to become a hugely successful ...
more
Thick as Thieves: A Novel
by
Peter Spiegelman
Knopf, 07/26/2011
A new thriller that takes us inside a hair-raising heist, where paranoia hangs as heavy as the tropical heat, and the only law is Murphy's.
Carr - ex-...
more
Busy Monsters: A Novel
by
William Giraldi
W.W. Norton & Company, 08/01/2011
An exuberant modern-day picaresque about the cost of love-struck obsession and the inevitable monsters of every human heart.
Memoirist of mediocre ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Farishta: A Novel
by
Patricia McArdle
Riverhead Books, 08/01/2011
Twenty-one years ago, diplomat Angela Morgan witnessed the death of her husband during the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Devastated by her ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers
by
Michael Holroyd
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 08/02/2011
On a hill above the Italian village of Ravello sits the Villa Cimbrone, a place of fantasy and make-believe. The characters that move through Michael ...
more
A Murder in Tuscany: A Mystery
by
Christobel Kent
Minotaur Books, 08/02/2011
Sandro Cellini, P. I., Florence's answer to Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti, returns in this atmospheric mystery set in a forbidding castle.
As Sandro ...
more
Adios, Happy Homeland!
by
Ana Menéndez
Grove Press, 08/02/2011
Adios, Happy Homeland! is a wildly innovative collection of interlinked tales that challenge our preconceptions of storytelling. This critical look at...
more
Back of Beyond: A Novel
by
C.J. Box
Minotaur Books, 08/02/2011
Cody Hoyt, while a brilliant cop, is an alcoholic struggling with two months of sobriety when his mentor and AA sponsor Hank Winters is found burned ...
more
Bed: A Novel
by
David Whitehouse
Scribner, 08/02/2011
A darkly funny and surprisingly tender debut novel about two brothers, one of whom refuses to leave his bed on his 25th birthday.
Mal Ede, a child ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Before Ever After: A Novel
by
Samantha Sotto
Crown, 08/02/2011
Three years after her husband Max's death, Shelley feels no more adjusted to being a widow than she did that first terrible day. That is, until the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Flowering Judas: A Gregor Demarkian Novel
by
Jane Haddam
Minotaur Books, 08/02/2011
Twelve years ago, Chester Morton disappeared from his hometown in Mattuck, New York, leaving no trace and never to be heard from again. For the past ...
more
I Gave My Heart to Know This: A Novel
by
Ellen Baker
Random House, 08/02/2011
In January 1944, Grace Anderson, Lena Maki, and Lena's mother, Violet, have joined the growing ranks of women working for the war effort. Though they ...
more
Just One Catch: A Biography of Joseph Heller
by
Tracy Daugherty
St. Martin's Press, 08/02/2011
Joseph Heller was a Coney Island kid, the son of Russian immigrants, who went on to great fame and fortune. His most memorable novel took its ...
more
Queen of Hearts: Coming of Age... In a Hospital Bed
by
Martha Brooks
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 08/02/2011
On the prairies of Canada during World War II, a girl and her two young siblings begin a war of their own. Stricken with ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Call
by
Yannick Murphy
HarperTrophy, 08/02/2011
The daily rhythm of a veterinarian's family in rural New England is shaken when a hunting accident leaves their eldest son in a coma. With the lives ...
more
The Gentlemen's Hour: A Novel
by
Don Winslow
Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 08/02/2011
Boone Daniels lives to surf.
Laid back, ultra–California cool, the former cop turned PI begins each day with the Dawn Patrol, a close-knit ...
more
The Good Muslim: A Novel
by
Tahmima Anam
Harper, 08/02/2011
Pankaj Mishra praised
A Golden Age, Tahmima Anam's debut novel, as a "startlingly accomplished and gripping novel that describes not only the tumult ...
more
The Good Thief's Guide to Venice: A Mystery
by
Chris Ewan
Minotaur Books, 08/02/2011
Charlie, a gentleman thief to rival Cary Grant in 'To Catch a Thief,' gallivants around Venice in the next caper in this 'sparkling' series.
After ...
more
The Killer Is Dying: A Novel
by
James Sallis
Walker & Company, 08/02/2011
A hired killer on his final job, a burned-out detective whose wife is dying slowly and in agony, a young boy abandoned by his parents and living alone...
more
This Beautiful Life: A Novel
by
Helen Schulman
Harper, 08/02/2011
When the Bergamots move from a comfortable upstate college town to New York City, they're not quite sure how they'll adapt - or what to make of the ...
more
You: A Novel
by
Joanna Briscoe
Bloomsbury USA, 08/02/2011
Dora Bannan hopes for a new life when she moves her husband and their three children to the wild moorland. She finds a job teaching music at a ...
more
Island's End: A Novel
by
Padma Venkatraman
Putnam Juvenile, 08/04/2011
Uido is ecstatic about becoming her tribe's spiritual leader, but her new position brings her older brother's jealousy and her best friend's mistrust....
more
Silent Enemy: A Novel
by
Thomas W. Young
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 08/04/2011
Four years after the events of
The Mullah's Storm ("an irresistible adventure story" -
USA Today), jihadists strike the Afghan National Police ...
more
White Heat: A Novel
by
M. J. McGrath
Viking, 08/04/2011
Half Inuit and half outsider, Edie Kiglatuk is the best guide in her corner of the Arctic. But as a woman, she gets only grudging respect from the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
A Small Hotel: A Novel
by
Robert Olen Butler
Grove Press, 08/06/2011
Set in contemporary New Orleans but working its way back in time,
A Small Hotel chronicles the relationship between Michael and Kelly Hays, who have ...
more
Lights Out in Wonderland: A Novel
by
DBC Pierre
W.W. Norton & Company, 08/08/2011
Gabriel Brockwell—aesthete, philosopher, disaffected twenty-something decadent—is thinking terminal. He's decided to kill himself—but ...
more
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
by
Charles C. Mann
Knopf, 08/09/2011
From the author of
1491 - the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas - a deeply engaging new history that explores the most momentous ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Acceptable Loss: A William Monk Novel
by
Anne Perry
Ballantine Books, 08/09/2011
When the body of a small-time crook named Mickey Parfitt washes up on the tide, no one grieves; far from it. But William Monk, commander of the River ...
more
All the Pretty Hearses: A Bed-and-Breakfast Mystery
by
Mary Daheim
William Morrow Paperbacks, 08/09/2011
Cormac McCarthy has nothing on Mary Daheim - whose fabulous Bed-and-Breakfast mysteries win hands down when it comes to outrageous zaniness. In
All ...more
Angelina's Bachelors: A Novel with Food
by
Brian O'Reilly
Gallery Books, 08/09/2011
Far too young to be a widow, Angelina D'Angelo suddenly finds herself facing a life without her beloved husband, Frank. Late one night shortly after ...
more
Literary Fiction
Bad Intentions: An Inspector Sejer Mystery
by
Karin Fossum
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 08/09/2011
In
Bad Intentions, the newest installment in the Inspector Sejer series since
The Water's Edge in 2009, Konrad Sejer must face down his memories and ...
more
Chike and the River
by
Chinua Achebe
Anchor Books, 08/09/2011
The more Chike saw the ferry-boats the more he wanted to make the trip to Asaba. But where would he get the money? He did not know. Still, he hoped.
...
more
City of Promise: A Novel of New York's Gilded Age
by
Beverly Swerling
Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 08/09/2011
Beverly Swerling’s critically acclaimed epic saga continues as New York emerges from the Civil War into the Gilded Age—a city marked by ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Darkness, My Old Friend: A Novel
by
Lisa Unger
Crown, 08/09/2011
After giving up his post at the Hollows Police Department, Jones Cooper is at loose ends. He is having trouble facing a horrible event from his past ...
more
Eight Keys
by
Suzanne LaFleur
Wendy Lamb Books, 08/09/2011
Elise and Franklin have always been best friends. Elise has always lived in the big house with her loving Uncle and Aunt, because Elise's parents died...
more
Girls in White Dresses
by
Jennifer Close
Knopf, 08/09/2011
Wickedly hilarious and utterly recognizable,
Girls in White Dresses tells the story of three women grappling with heartbreak and career change, family...
more
How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive
by
Christopher Boucher
Melville House, 08/09/2011
A hilarious radical debut novel that breaks every rule - yet also spins a tender, bittersweet tale about a single dad struggling to raise his son.
...
more
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures and What We Can Do About It
by
Don Peck
Crown, 08/09/2011
The Great Recession is not done with us yet. While the most acute part of the economic crisis is past, the recession's most significant impact on ...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Magician King: A Novel
by
Lev Grossman
Viking, 08/09/2011
The Magicians was praised as a triumph by readers and critics of both mainstream and fantasy literature. Now Grossman takes us back to Fillory, where ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Thirteen Million Dollar Pop: A Frank Behr Novel
by
David Levien
Doubleday, 08/09/2011
In an Indianapolis underground parking structure, Frank Behr is on an executive protection detail for Bernard "Bernie Cool" Kolodnik, a hard-driving ...
more
Wyatt
by
Garry Disher
Soho Press, 08/09/2011
Garry Disher's cool, enigmatic anti-hero Wyatt has a job - a jewel heist. The kind Wyatt likes. Nothing extravagant, nothing greedy. Stake out the ...
more
An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life
by
Mary Johnson
Spiegel & Grau, 08/16/2011
At seventeen, Mary Johnson saw Mother Teresa's face on the cover of
Time and experienced her calling. Eighteen months later, she entered a convent in ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
Hideout: A Mystery
by
Kathleen George
Minotaur Books, 08/16/2011
The new book in Kathleen George's stunning Pittsburgh-set police procedural series begins when a young mother dies in a hit-and-run accident caused by...
more
Low Town: A Novel
by
Daniel Polansky
Doubleday, 08/16/2011
Drug dealers, hustlers, brothels, dirty politics, corrupt cops... and sorcery. Welcome to Low Town.
In the forgotten back alleys and flophouses ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Debut Author
Ready Player One
by
Ernest Cline
Ballantine Books, 08/16/2011
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Second Grave on the Left: Charley Davidson, Book 2
by
Darynda Jones
St. Martin's Press, 08/16/2011
When Charley is rudely awakened in the middle of the night by her best friend who tells her to get dressed quickly and tosses clothes out of the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Lunch Wars: How to Start a School Food Revolution and Win the Battle for Our Children?s Health
by
Amy Kalafa
Tarcher, 08/18/2011
There's a battle going on in school lunchrooms around the country...and it's a battle our children can't afford for us to lose.
The average kid ...
more
Advice
Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein
by
Julie Salamon
Penguin Press, 08/18/2011
In
Wendy and the Lost Boys bestselling author Julie Salamon explores the life of playwright Wendy Wasserstein's most expertly crafted character: ...
more
Anatomy of a Disappearance: A Novel
by
Hisham Matar
Dial Press, 08/23/2011
Nuri is a young boy when his mother dies. It seems that nothing will fill the emptiness that her strange death leaves behind in the Cairo apartment he...
more
Flash and Bones: A Temperance Brennan Novel
by
Kathy Reichs
Scribner, 08/23/2011
Just as 200,000 fans are pouring into town for Race Week, a body is found in a barrel of asphalt next to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The next day, a...
more
Little Black Dress: A Novel
by
Susan McBride
William Morrow Paperbacks, 08/23/2011
Since leaving her hometown of Blue Hills, Antonia Ashton has worked hard for twenty-five years, building a thriving career and a solid relationship ...
more
Mimi
by
John Newman
Candlewick Press, 08/23/2011
One hundred and forty-nine days ago, Mimi's mam died. Everyone's given up. Dad keeps burning pizzas, and he doesn't smile anymore. Sally wears only ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Buddha in the Attic: A Novel
by
Julie Otsuka
Knopf, 08/23/2011
A tour de force about a group of women brought from Japan to San Francisco in the early 1900s as mail-order brides.
In six sections, the novel ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Dragon's Tooth: Ashtown Burials #1
by
N. D. Wilson
Random House Children's Publishing, 08/23/2011
For two years, Cyrus and Antigone Smith have run a sagging roadside motel with their older brother, Daniel. Nothing ever seems to happen. Then a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation
by
Elizabeth Letts
Ballantine Books, 08/23/2011
Harry de Leyer first saw the horse he would name Snowman on a bleak winter afternoon between the slats of a rickety truck bound for the slaughterhouse...
more
The Most Dangerous Thing
by
Laura Lippman
William Morrow, 08/23/2011
A brilliant and psychologically suspenseful stand-alone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of
I'd Know You Anywhere
One of the most ...
more
The Power of Six: Lorien Legacies Series #2
by
Pittacus Lore
HarperCollins Publishers, 08/23/2011
I've seen him on the news. Followed the stories about what happened in Ohio. John Smith, out there, on the run. To the world, he's a mystery. But to ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein
by
Kenneth Oppel
Simon & Schuster, 08/23/2011
Victor and Konrad are the twin brothers Frankenstein. They are nearly inseparable. Growing up, their lives are filled with imaginary adventures... ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Who Am I?: And If So, How Many?
by
Richard David Precht
Spiegel & Grau, 08/23/2011
What is truth? What is love? Does life have meaning? Bestselling author Richard David Precht, “the Mick Jagger of the nonfiction book” (
...more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Cut: A Spero Lucas Novel
by
George Pelecanos
Reagan Arthur, 08/29/2011
Spero Lucas has a new line of work. Since he returned home after serving in Iraq, he has been doing special investigations for a defense attorney. He'...
more
A Bitter Truth: A Bess Crawford Mystery
by
Charles Todd
William Morrow, 08/30/2011
Already deservedly lauded for the superb historical crime novels featuring shell-shocked Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge (
A Lonely Death, A Pale ...more
A Trick of the Light: Armand Gamache Series #7
by
Louise Penny
St. Martin's Press, 08/30/2011
"Hearts are broken," Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. "Sweet relationships are dead."
But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the ...
more
Anna Dressed in Blood
by
Kendare Blake
Tor Books, 08/30/2011
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Awakenings
by
Edward Lazellari
Tor Books, 08/30/2011
Cal MacDonnell is a happily married New York City cop with a loving family. Seth Raincrest is a washed-up photographer who has alienated even his ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Black Diamond
by
Martin Walker
Knopf, 08/30/2011
The third installment in Martin Walker's delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno.
Something dangerous is afoot...
more
Boxer, Beetle: A Novel
by
Ned Beauman
Bloomsbury USA, 08/30/2011
Kevin "Fishy" Broom has his nickname for a reason - a rare genetic condition that makes his sweat and other bodily excretions smell markedly like ...
more
End of Days
by
Robert Gleason
Forge Books, 08/30/2011
Lydia Lozen Magruder - the great-granddaughter of a female Apache war-shaman - has seen visions of the End since childhood. She has constructed a ...
more
LIE
by
Caroline Bock
St. Martin's Press, 08/30/2011
Everybody knows, nobody’s talking...
Seventeen-year-old Skylar Thompson is being questioned by the police. Her boyfriend, Jimmy, stands ...
more
Northwest Angle: A Cork O'Connor Novel
by
William Kent Krueger
Atria Books, 08/30/2011
With his family caught in the crosshairs of a group of brutal killers, detective Cork O’Connor must solve the murder of a young girl in the ...
more
Only Time Will Tell: The Clifton Chronicles #1
by
Jeffrey Archer
St. Martin's Press, 08/30/2011
The epic tale of Harry Clifton's life begins in 1920, with the words "I was told that my father was killed in the war." A dock worker in Bristol, ...
more
Pretty: A Novel
by
Jillian Lauren
Plume, 08/30/2011
Bebe Baker is an ex-everything: ex-stripper, ex-Christian, ex-drug addict, ex-pretty girl.
It's been one year since the car accident that killed ...
more
Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints
by
Sam Brower
Bloomsbury USA, 08/30/2011
From the private investigator who cracked open the case that led to the arrest of Warren Jeffs, the maniacal prophet of the polygamous Fundamentalist ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Burning
by
Jane Casey
Minotaur Books, 08/30/2011
A determined young police constable goes it alone against an enigmatic killer and her bosses in a series debut for fans of Sophie Hannah and Tana ...
more
The Emperor of Lies: A Novel
by
Steve Sem-Sandberg
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 08/30/2011
In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second-largest Jewish ghetto, in the Polish city of Lódz. The leader they ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Fox Inheritance: The Jenna Fox Chronicles
by
Mary E. Pearson
Henry Holt and Company, 08/30/2011
Once there were three. Three friends who loved each other—Jenna, Locke, and Kara. And after a terrible accident destroyed their bodies, their ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress
by
Beryl Bainbridge
Europa Editions, 08/30/2011
In the tumultuous spring of 1968 a young English woman, Rose, travels from London to the United States to meet a man she knows as Washington Harold. ...
more
The Map of Me
by
Tami Lewis Brown
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 08/30/2011
The note Momma left on the fridge says only: "I HAVE TO GO." But go where? Twelve-year-old Margie is convinced that Momma’s gone to the Rooster ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Stranger You Seek: A Novel
by
Amanda Kyle Williams
Bantam Books, 08/30/2011
The papers have called me a monster. You’ve either concluded that I am a braggart as well as a sadist or that I have a deep and driving need to ...more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
The Unwanteds
by
Lisa McMann
Aladdin, 08/30/2011
Every year in Quill, thirteen-year-olds are sorted into categories: the strong, intelligent Wanteds go to university, and the artistic Unwanteds are ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Train Dreams: A Novella
by
Denis Johnson
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 08/30/2011
Robert Grainer is a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert
by
Marc Aronson
Atheneum Books, 08/30/2011
In early August 2010, the unthinkable happened when a mine collapsed in Copiapo, Chile, and 33 miners were trapped 2,000 feet below the surface. For ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
We the Animals: A Novel
by
Justin Torres
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 08/30/2011
An exquisite, blistering debut novel.
Three brothers tear their way through childhood— smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Where You Left Me
by
Jennifer Gardner Trulson
Gallery Books, 08/30/2011
Lucky - that's how Jennifer would describe herself. She had a successful law career, met the love of her life in Doug, married him, had an apartment...
more
With Fate Conspire
by
Marie Brennan
Tor Books, 08/30/2011
Marie Brennan returns to the Onyx Court, a fairy city hidden below Queen Victoria's London. Now the Onyx Court faces its greatest challenge....
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
You Deserve Nothing: A Novel
by
Alexander Maksik
Europa Editions, 08/30/2011
William Silver is a talented and charismatic young teacher whose unconventional methods raise eyebrows among his colleagues and superiors. His ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Palimpsest
by
Charles Stross
Subterranean Press, 08/31/2011
By mastering the mysteries of the
Timegate, the
Stasis has repeatedly steered mankind away from the brink of utter extinction. Through countless ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
A Book of Horrors
by
Stephen Jones (editor)
St. Martin's Press, 09/01/2011
Many of us grew up on
The Pan Book of Horror Stories and its later incarnations. For the first time in a decade or more, there's a successor:
A Book ...more
Short Stories
Arguably: Essays
by
Christopher Hitchens
Twelve Books, 09/01/2011
The first new book of essays by Christopher Hitchens since 2004,
Arguably offers an indispensable key to understanding the passionate and skeptical ...
more
Cold Cruel Winter: A Richard Nottingham Mystery
by
Chris Nickson
Crème de la Crime, 09/01/2011
Second in the highly-acclaimed Richard Nottingham historical mystery series 1732. Richard Nottingham, Constable of the City of Leeds, is grieving the ...
more
Plugged: A Novel
by
Eoin Colfer
Overlook, 09/01/2011
Lincoln McEvoy has a problem. Well, really, he has several, but for this Irish ex-pat bouncer at a seedy, small-time casino the fact that his ...
more
The Book of Life
by
Stuart Nadler
Reagan Arthur, 09/01/2011
Forced together on a trip from Manhattan to Rhode Island, a father and son attempt to renew their bond over lobster, cigarettes, and a buried secret. ...
more
That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back
by
Thomas L. Friedman
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 09/05/2011
America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In
That Used to Be Us, Thomas...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
A Crack in Everything: Susan Callisto Mysteries, Book 1
by
Angela Gerst
Poisoned Pen Press, 09/06/2011
Politics, money, love...what could go wrong?
Susan Callisto is pushing thirty and taking stock. Before she traded financial security at a ...
more
All These Things I've Done: Birthright Trilogy, Volume 1
by
Gabrielle Zevin
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 09/06/2011
In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed, and New York City is rife with crime and...
more
Assassins of the Turquoise Palace
by
Roya Hakakian
Grove Press, 09/06/2011
On the evening of September 17, 1992, eight leading members of the Iranian and Kurdish opposition had gathered at a little-known restaurant in Berlin ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
by
Danielle Evans
Penguin Books, 09/06/2011
In each of her stories, Danielle Evans explores the non-white American experience with honesty, wisdom, and humor. They are striking in their ...
more
Short Stories
Birds of Paradise: A Novel
by
Diana Abu-Jaber
W.W. Norton & Company, 09/06/2011
A multilayered, beautifully textured novel about family and self, self-indulgence and generosity, against the vivid backdrop of contemporary Miami.
...
more
Short Stories
Broken Irish
by
Edward J. Delaney
Turtle Point Press, 09/06/2011
Broken Irish is a passionately written novel about revenge, redemption, and alcoholism. It's a story driven by character, community, and coincidence ...
more
City of Orphans
by
Avi
Atheneum Books, 09/06/2011
The streets of 1893 New York are full of life: crowded, filthy, dangerous. If you are a newsboy like thirteen-year-old Maks Geless, you need to watch ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Cross Currents
by
John Shors
NAL, 09/06/2011
Thailand's pristine Ko Phi Phi island attracts tourists from around the world. There, struggling to make ends meet, small-resort owners Lek and Sarai ...
more
Literary Fiction
Damage Control: A Novel
by
Denise Hamilton
Scribner, 09/06/2011
Critically acclaimed author Denise Hamilton weaves an engrossing story of teenage friendship and adult betrayal, featuring a high-powered crisis ...
more
Hellbent: Cheshire Red Reports, Book 2
by
Cherie Priest
Bantam Spectra, 09/06/2011
Vampire thief Raylene Pendle doesn’t need more complications in her life. Her Seattle home is already overrun by a band of misfits, including Ian...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem
by
Harold Schechter & Kurt Brown (editors)
Everyman's Library, 09/06/2011
A spine-tingling collection of terrifically creepy poems about the deadly art of murder.
In poems as various as the colorful melodramas of old Scottish...
more
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Loose Diamonds: ...and other things I've lost (and found) along the way
by
Amy Ephron
William Morrow, 09/06/2011
In
Loose Diamonds, an engaging collection of essays and observations, Amy Ephron, the acclaimed, award-winning author of the
One Sunday Morning and
A ...more
Naughty In Nice: A Royal Spyness Mystery
by
Rhys Bowen
Berkley Books, 09/06/2011
Lady Georgiana Rannoch has once again been called into service by Her Majesty the Queen. This time she's sent to Nice on a secret assignment that's ...
more
Salvage the Bones: A Novel
by
Jesmyn Ward
Bloomsbury USA, 09/06/2011
A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A ...
more
Sanctus: Ruin Trilogy, Volume 1
by
Simon Toyne
William Morrow, 09/06/2011
One man’s sacrifice shocks the world ...
One woman’s courage threatens a conspiracy as old as humankind ...
And some will do anything...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Second Nature: A Love Story
by
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Random House, 09/06/2011
New York Times bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard’s novels, with their riveting stories and unforgettable characters, have won the hearts of ...
more
The Burning Soul: A Charlie Parker Thriller
by
John Connolly
Atria Books, 09/06/2011
What's the worst thing you've ever done?
"There are some truths so terrible that they should not be spoken aloud, so appalling that even to ...
more
The Eloquence of Blood: A Charles Du Luc Novel
by
Judith Rock
Berkley Books, 09/06/2011
Christmas in Paris, 1686. The spirit of the season is shattered when Martine Mynette is murdered while trying to prove that she is the adopted ...
more
Historical Fiction
Debut Author
Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State
by
Dana Priest
Little Brown & Company, 09/06/2011
The top-secret world that the government created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has become so enormous, so unwieldy, and so secretive that ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Trackers
by
Deon Meyer
Atlantic Monthly Press, 09/06/2011
Lemmer’s first rule is: "Don’t get involved". A highly skilled bodyguard with a violent, criminal past, he has settled into a quiet life in ...
more
What It Is Like to Go to War
by
Karl Marlantes
Atlantic Monthly Press, 09/06/2011
"I wrote this book primarily to come to terms with my own experience of combat. So far - reading, writing, thinking - that has taken over thirty years...more
Wunderkind: A Novel
by
Nikolai Grozni
Free Press, 09/06/2011
Life in Sofia, Bulgaria, in the late 1980s is bleak and controlled. The oppressive Communist regime bears down on all aspects of people's lives much ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
On Canaan's Side: A Novel
by
Sebastian Barry
Viking, 09/08/2011
From the two-time Man Booker shortlisted author of
The Secret Scripture comes a magnificent new novel that is the story of the twentieth century in ...
more
The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945
by
Ian Kershaw
Penguin Press, 09/08/2011
From the preeminent Hitler biographer, a fascinating and original exploration of how the Third Reich was willing and able to fight to the bitter end ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Blood Wounds
by
Susan Beth Pfeffer
Houghton Mifflin Books For Children, 09/13/2011
Blood can both wound and heal ... Willa is lucky: She has a loving blended family that gets along. Not all families are so fortunate. But when a ...
more
Bright and Distant Shores: A Novel
by
Dominic Smith
Washington Square Press, 09/13/2011
From the award-winning author of
The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre and
The Beautiful Miscellaneous comes a sweeping historical novel set amid the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
City of Secrets: A Miranda Corbie Mystery Series
by
Kelli Stanley
Minotaur Books, 09/13/2011
When Pandora Blake is murdered at San Francisco's 1940 World Fair and her body marked with an anti-Semitic slur, Miranda is soon entangled ...
more
Down the Mysterly River
by
Bill Willingham & Mark Buckingham
Starscape, 09/13/2011
Down the Mysterly River is the children’s book debut of Bill Willingham, the creator of the #1
New York Times bestselling graphic novel ...
more
King of the Badgers: A Novel
by
Philip Hensher
Faber and Faber, 09/13/2011
Hanmouth, situated where the Hand River flows into the Bristol Channel, is usually quiet and undisturbed. But it becomes the center of national ...
more
Lamb
by
Bonnie Nadzam
Other Press, 09/13/2011
Lamb traces the self-discovery of David Lamb, a narcissistic middle aged man with a tendency toward dishonesty, in the weeks following the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Life Itself: A Memoir
by
Roger Ebert
Grand Central Publishing, 09/13/2011
Roger Ebert is the best-known film critic of our time. He has been reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and was the first film critic...
more
Push Has Come to Shove: Getting Our Kids the Education They Deserve - Even If It Means Picking a Fight
by
Dr. Steve Perry
Crown, 09/13/2011
Have you been to a school lately? Have you sat through the six hours and forty-five minutes of excruciating tedium we send our kids to every day...more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Devil Finds Work: An Essay
by
James Baldwin
Vintage, 09/13/2011
Baldwin's personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also an appraisal of American racial politics. Offering a look at ...
more
Essays
The Isle of Blood: Monstrumologist Trilogy, Book 3
by
Rick Yancey
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 09/13/2011
An old friend of Dr. Warthrop's comes asking for help to track down Warthrop's colleague, the sociopathic Dr. John Kearns. At first, Warthrop is ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Ronin's Mistress: A Sano Ichiro Novel
by
Laura Joh Rowland
Minotaur Books, 09/13/2011
Japan, 1703. On a snowy night, 47 warriors murder the man at the center of the scandal that turned them from samurai into masterless ronin two years ...
more
Mysteries
The Unforgotten Coat
by
Frank Cottrell Boyce
Candlewick Press, 09/13/2011
When two Mongolian brothers inexplicably appear one morning in Julie's Year Six class, no one, least of all Julie, knows what to make of them. But ...
more
The Vault: An Inspector Wexford Novel
by
Ruth Rendell
Scribner, 09/13/2011
Wessex is retired - or would be, if murder and danger would only leave him alone.
The impossible has happened. Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has ...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
There But For The: A Novel
by
Ali Smith
Pantheon Books, 09/13/2011
At a dinner party in the posh London suburb of Greenwich, Miles Garth suddenly leaves the table midway through the meal, locks himself in an upstairs ...
more
Wonderstruck
by
Brian Selznick
Scholastic, 09/13/2011
Ben and Rose secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known. Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
You Against Me
by
Jenny Downham
David Fickling Books, 09/13/2011
If someone hurts your sister and you're any kind of man, you seek revenge.
If your brother's accused of a terrible crime but says he didn't do it, you ...more
Back to Pakistan: A Fifty-Year Journey
by
Leslie Noyes Mass
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 09/15/2011
In 1962, a newly-minted college graduate answered the call of President John F. Kennedy and joined the fledgling Peace Corps. Leslie Noyes Mass was ...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Blood Feud: The Man Who Blew the Whistle on One of the Deadliest Prescription Drugs Ever
by
Kathleen Sharp
Dutton, 09/20/2011
Blood Feud is the electrifying true tale of Big Pharma's power, regulatory weakness, and the terrifying vulnerability of millions of innocent patients...
more
Science, Health and the Environment
Columbus: The Four Voyages
by
Laurence Bergreen
Viking, 09/20/2011
Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a trading route to China, and his unexpected landfall in the Americas, is a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
by
Candice Millard
Doubleday, 09/20/2011
James A. Garfield may have been the most extraordinary man ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Ghosts by Daylight: Love, War, and Redemption
by
Janine di Giovanni
Knopf, 09/20/2011
An enthralling, deeply moving memoir from one of our foremost American war correspondents.
Janine di Giovanni has spent most of her career—...
more
Goliath: Volume 3, Leviathan Trilogy
by
Scott Westerfeld
Simon Pulse, 09/20/2011
Alek and Deryn are on the last leg of their round-the-world quest to end World War I, reclaim Alek’s throne as prince of Austria, and finally ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Habibi
by
Craig Thompson
Pantheon Books, 09/20/2011
Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter,
Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child ...
more
I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel
by
William Deverell
McClelland & Stewart, 09/20/2011
This fifth in the bestselling, award-winning Arthur Beauchamp series finds the outwardly crusty, poetry-loving, wily old lawyer compelled, by new ...
more
Mysteries
Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World
by
Lisa Randall
Ecco, 09/20/2011
The bestselling author of
Warped Passages, one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World," and one of Esquire's "75 Most ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Last Man in Tower
by
Aravind Adiga
Knopf, 09/20/2011
Searing. Explosive. Lyrical. Compassionate. Here is the astonishing new novel by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of
The White Tiger, a book ...
more
Pregnant Pause
by
Han Nolan
Harcourt Children's Books, 09/20/2011
A thought-provoking and courageous new novel by National Book Award winner Han Nolan.
Nobody gets away with telling Eleanor Crowe what to do. But ...
more
The Dolphin in the Mirror: Exploring Dolphin Minds and Saving Dolphin Lives
by
Diana Reiss
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 09/20/2011
Dolphins aren't just beloved, they are brilliant and conscious. So why do we treat them so terribly?
Diana Reiss is one of the world’s leading...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman
by
Meg Wolitzer
Dutton Children's Books, 09/20/2011
At first glance, Duncan Dorfman, April Blunt, and Nate Saviano don't seem to have much in common. Duncan is trying to look after his single mom and ...
more
The Girl of Fire and Thorns
by
Rae Carson
Greenwillow Books, 09/20/2011
Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.
Elisa is the chosen one.
But she is also the younger of two princesses. The one who has ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Debut Author
The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens
by
Brooke Hauser
Free Press, 09/20/2011
Some walked across deserts and mountains to get here. Others flew in on planes. One arrived after escaping in a suitcase. And some won't say how they ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Debut Author
The Orchard: A Memoir
by
Theresa Weir
Grand Central Publishing, 09/21/2011
The Orchard is the story of a street-smart city girl who must adapt to a new life on an apple farm after she falls in love with Adrian Curtis, the ...
more
The End of the Wasp Season: A Novel
by
Denise Mina
Reagan Arthur, 09/26/2011
When a notorious millionaire banker hangs himself, his death attracts no sympathy. But the legacy of a lifetime of selfishness is widespread, and the ...
more
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
by
Stephen Greenblatt
W.W. Norton & Company, 09/26/2011
One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos
by
Dava Sobel
Walker & Company, 09/27/2011
By 1514, the reclusive cleric Nicolaus Copernicus had written and hand-copied an initial outline of his heliocentric theory - in which he defied ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Abarat: Absolute Midnight
by
Clive Barker
HarperCollins Publishers, 09/27/2011
"I know that many of you here have waited years for this Hour," Mater Motley said, using that voice that, though it was barely conversational in ...
more
Aleph
by
Paulo Coelho
Knopf, 09/27/2011
Transform your life. Rewrite your destiny.
In his most personal novel to date, internationally best-selling author Paulo Coelho returns with a ...
more
Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere
by
André Aciman
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 09/27/2011
Celebrated as one of the most poignant stylists of his generation, André Aciman has written a luminous series of linked essays about time, place,...
more
Essays
Breadcrumbs
by
Anne Ursu
HarperCollins Publishers, 09/27/2011
A stunning modern-day fairy tale from acclaimed author Anne Ursu
Once upon a time, Hazel and Jack were best friends. But that was before he ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
by
Laini Taylor
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 09/27/2011
Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America
by
David M. Kennedy
Bloomsbury USA, 09/27/2011
Gang- and drug-related inner-city violence, with its attendant epidemic of incarceration, is the defining crime problem in our country. In some ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Everything Happens Today
by
Jesse Browner
Europa Editions, 09/27/2011
Jesse Browner's dazzling new novel records a single day in the life of Wes, a seventeen-year-old who attends Manhattan's elite Dalton School and lives...
more
Feast Day of Fools: A Hack Holland Novel
by
James Lee Burke
Simon & Schuster, 09/27/2011
Sheriff Hackberry Holland patrols a small Southwest Texas border town, meting out punishment and delivering justice in his small square of this ...
more
Ganymede: Clockwork Century Series 4
by
Cherie Priest
Tor Books, 09/27/2011
The air pirate Andan Cly is going straight. Well, straight
er. Although he's happy to run alcohol guns wherever the money's good, he doesn't think the ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Ghost Hero: A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Novel
by
S. J. Rozan
Minotaur Books, 09/27/2011
Jeff Dunbar, art world insider, wants American-Born Chinese PI Lydia Chin to track down a rumor. Contemporary Chinese painting is sizzling hot ...
more
L.A. Mental: A Thriller
by
Neil McMahon
Harper, 09/27/2011
A respected judge goes berserk, destroying his home...
A wealthy celebrity widow is found floating unconscious in her pool...
A brilliant ...
more
Nightwoods: A Novel
by
Charles Frazier
Random House, 09/27/2011
The extraordinary author of
Cold Mountain and
Thirteen Moons returns with a dazzling new novel of suspense and love set in small-town North Carolina ...
more
No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Novel
by
Howard Jacobson
Bloomsbury Children's Books, 09/27/2011
Frank Ritz is a television critic. His partner, Melissa Paul, is the author of pornographic novels for liberated women. He watches crap all day; she ...
more
Operation Napoleon
by
Arnaldur Indridason
Minotaur Books, 09/27/2011
Prepare for sizzling action in a riveting stand alone thriller from Arnaldur Indridason, the award-winning author of the Inspector Erlunder series. &#...
more
River of Smoke: Ibis Trilogy, Part 2
by
Amitav Ghosh
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 09/27/2011
The
Ibis, loaded to its gunwales with a cargo of indentured servants, is in the grip of a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal; among the dozens flailing for ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Affair: A Reacher Novel (Jack Reacher)
by
Lee Child
Delacorte Press, 09/27/2011
Everything starts somewhere... For elite military cop Jack Reacher, that somewhere was Carter Crossing, Mississippi, way back in 1997. A lonely ...
more
The Barbarian Nurseries: A Novel
by
Héctor Tobar
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 09/27/2011
With
The Barbarian Nurseries, Héctor Tobar gives our most misunderstood metropolis its great contemporary novel, taking us beyond the glimmer of ...
more
The Flint Heart
by
Katherine Paterson
Candlewick Press, 09/27/2011
An ambitious Stone Age man demands a talisman that will harden his heart, allowing him to take control of his tribe. Against his better judgment, the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Hum and the Shiver
by
Alex Bledsoe
Tor Books, 09/27/2011
No one knows where the Tufa came from, or how they ended up in the mountains of East Tennessee. When the first Europeans came to the Smoky ...
more
The Kingdom of Childhood
by
Rebecca Coleman
Mira, 09/27/2011
The Kingdom of Childhood is the story of a boy and a woman: sixteen-year-old Zach Patterson, uprooted and struggling to reconcile his knowledge of his...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore: A Novel
by
Stella Duffy
Penguin Books, 09/27/2011
Roman historian Procopius publicly praised Theodora of Constantinople for her piety - while secretly detailing her salacious stage act and maligning ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes
by
William Kennedy
Viking, 09/29/2011
A tale of revolutionary intrigue, heroic journalism, crooked politicians, drug-running gangsters, Albany race riots, and the improbable rise of Fidel ...
more
If Jack's in Love: A Novel
by
Stephen Wetta
Amy Einhorn Books, 09/29/2011
It's 1967. Jack Witcher is a twelve-year-old boy genius living in a Virginia suburb at an address the entire neighborhood avoids. Jack's father has ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Thousand-Year Flood: The Ohio-Mississippi Disaster of 1937
by
David Welky
University Of Chicago Press, 09/30/2011
In the early days of 1937, the Ohio River, swollen by heavy winter rains, began rising. And rising. And rising. By the time the waters crested, the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
A Different Sky
by
Meira Chand
Random House, 10/01/2011
Singapore - a trading post where different lives jostle and mix. It is 1927, and three young people are starting to question whether this in-between ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Icefall
by
Matthew J. Kirby
Scholastic, 10/01/2011
Trapped in a hidden fortress tucked between towering mountains and a frozen sea, Solveig, along with her brother the crown prince, their older sister,...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Pie
by
Sarah Weeks
Scholastic, 10/01/2011
When Alice's Aunt Polly passes away, she takes with her the secret to her world-famous pie-crust recipe. Or does she? In her will, Polly leaves the ...
more
The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale
by
Carmen Agra Deedy
Peachtree Publishers, 10/01/2011
Skilley, an alley cat with an embarrassing secret, longs to escape his hard life dodging fishwives brooms and carriage wheels and trade his damp alley...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Towman's Daughters: Wild Onion Ltd. Mysteries
by
David. J Walker
Severn House, 10/01/2011
Being a hero is definitely not on lawyer Dugan's to-do list when he goes to retrieve his towed car one early morning. But when he comes across a crime...
more
Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
by
Michael Lewis
W.W. Norton & Company, 10/03/2011
The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker, 1)
by
Paolo Bacigalupi
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 10/03/2011
In America's flooded Gulf Coast region, oil is scarce, but loyalty is scarcer. Grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts by crews of young ...
more
Cain: A Novel
by
Jose Saramago
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 10/04/2011
In this, his last novel, Saramago daringly re-imagines the characters and narratives of the Bible through the story of Cain. Condemned to wander ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself - And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future.
by
Harriet A. Washington
Doubleday, 10/04/2011
Think your body is your own to control and dispose of as you wish? Think again. The U.S. Patent Office has either granted patents, or has them pending...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Doctor Zhivago: (Vintage International)
by
Boris Pasternak
Vintage, 10/04/2011
Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between ...
more
Literary Fiction
Falling Together: A Novel
by
Marisa De Los Santos
William Morrow, 10/04/2011
What if saying hello to an old friend meant saying good-bye to life as you know it?
It's been six years since Pen Calloway watched her best friends...
more
Lionheart: A Novel
by
Sharon Kay Penman
Marian Wood Books, 10/04/2011
They were called "The Devil's Brood," though never to their faces. They were the four surviving sons of Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine. ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Magebane
by
Lee Arthur Chane
DAW Books, 10/04/2011
Four centures ago, the world changed. A devastating war swept the lands, and the MageLords, who had long ruled by virtue of their spell powers, were ...
more
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend
by
Susan Orlean
Simon & Schuster, 10/04/2011
He believed the dog was immortal.
So begins Susan Orlean's sweeping, powerfully moving story of Rin Tin Tin's journey from orphaned puppy to movie...
more
Shock Wave: A Virgil Flowers Novel
by
John Sandford
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 10/04/2011
The superstore chain PyeMart has its sights set on a Minnesota river town, but two very angry groups want to stop it: local merchants, fearing for ...
more
The Apothecary
by
Maile Meloy
Putnam Juvenile, 10/04/2011
It's 1952 and the Scott family has just moved from Los Angeles to London. Here, fourteen-year-old Janie meets a mysterious apothecary and his son, ...
more
The Killing Season
by
Priscilla Royal
Poisoned Pen Press, 10/04/2011
Baron Herbert's return from crusade should have been a joyous occasion. Instead, he grows increasingly morose, withdraws from his family, and refuses ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True
by
Richard Dawkins
Free Press, 10/04/2011
Magic takes many forms. Supernatural magic is what our ancestors used in order to explain the world before they developed the scientific method. The ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Night Strangers: A Novel
by
Chris Bohjalian
Crown, 10/04/2011
In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long ...
more
The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity
by
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Random House, 10/04/2011
For more than three decades, Jeffrey D. Sachs has been at the forefront of international economic problem solving. But Sachs turns his attention...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Sacred Band: Book Three of the Acacia Trilogy
by
David Anthony Durham
Doubleday, 10/04/2011
With the first two books in the Acacia Trilogy,
Acacia and
The Other Lands, David Anthony Durham has created a vast and engrossing canvas of a world ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Sandburg Connection: The Sam Blackman Mysteries
by
Mark de Castrique
Poisoned Pen Press, 10/04/2011
A simple assignment for private investigator Sam Blackman and his partner Nakayla Robertson: follow Professor Janice Wainwright, who's suing a surgeon...
more
Variant
by
Robison Wells
HarperTeen, 10/04/2011
Benson Fisher thought that a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life.
He was wrong.
Now he's trapped in a ...
more
After the Apocalypse: Stories
by
Maureen F. McHugh
Small Beer Press, 10/11/2011
In her new collection, Story Prize finalist Maureen F. McHugh delves into the dark heart of contemporary life and life five minutes from now and how ...
more
Short Stories
Ashfall
by
Mike Mullin
Tanglewood Press, 10/11/2011
Many visitors to Yellowstone National Park don't realize that the boiling hot springs and spraying geysers are caused by an underlying supervolcano. ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Thrillers
Debut Author
Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America
by
Shawn Lawrence Otto
Rodale Books, 10/11/2011
"Whenever the people are well informed," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "they can be trusted with their own government."
But what happens in a world ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
Grant's Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant's Heroic Last Year
by
Charles Bracelen Flood
Tyndale House Publishers, 10/11/2011
Shortly after losing all of his wealth in a terrible 1884 swindle, Ulysses S. Grant learned he had terminal throat and mouth cancer. Destitute and ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All
by
Jim Collins
Harper, 10/11/2011
The new question
Ten years after the worldwide bestseller
Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another groundbreaking work, this time to ask:
Why ...more
Advice
In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination
by
Margaret Atwood
Nan A. Talese, 10/11/2011
In Other Worlds: Science Fiction and the Human Imagination is Margaret Atwood's account of her relationship with the literary form we have come ...
more
Making an Exit: From the Magnificent to the Macabre - How We Dignify the Dead
by
Sarah Murray
St. Martin's Press, 10/11/2011
With the surprising humor of Mary Roach's
Stiff and the globe-spanning bravado of Anthony Bourdain's
No Reservations, this is a journey into the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
My Name Is Mina
by
David Almond
Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, 10/11/2011
Mina loves the night. While everyone else is in a deep slumber, she gazes out the window, witness to the moon's silvery light. In the stillness, she ...
more
Snuff: A Novel of Discworld
by
Terry Pratchett
Harper, 10/11/2011
For nearly three decades, Terry Pratchett has enthralled millions of fans worldwide with his irreverent, wonderfully funny satires set in the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
by
Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant (Editors)
Candlewick Press, 10/11/2011
Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and re-craft a world of automatons, clockworks, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Silence of Murder
by
Dandi Daley Mackall
Knopf Books for Young Readers, 10/11/2011
Seventeen-year-old Hope Long's life revolves around her brother Jeremy. So when Jeremy is accused of killing the town's beloved baseball coach, ...
more
The Survival Kit
by
Donna Freitas
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 10/11/2011
When Rose's mom dies, she leaves behind a brown paper bag labeled Rose's Survival Kit. Inside the bag, Rose finds an iPod, with a to-be-...
more
The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic
by
Allan Wolf
Candlewick Press, 10/11/2011
Millionaire John Jacob Astor hopes to bring home his pregnant teen bride with a minimum of media scandal. A beautiful Lebanese refugee, on her way to ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Bad Moon Rising: A Sam McCain Mystery
by
Ed Gorman
Pegasus Books, 10/12/2011
A hippie commune has invaded Black River Falls. While the majority of the townspeople believe that the bohemians have the right to stay - despite how ...
more
The Train of Small Mercies: A Novel
by
David Rowell
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 10/13/2011
In New York, a young black porter struggles through his first day on the job - a staggering assignment aboard Robert F. Kennedy's funeral train. In ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Wandering Falcon
by
Jamil Ahmad
Riverhead Books, 10/13/2011
Traditions that have lasted for centuries, both brutal and beautiful, create a rigid structure for life in the wild, astonishing place where Iran, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Bonnie: An Eve Duncan Forensics Thriller
by
Iris Johansen
St. Martin's Press, 10/18/2011
When Eve Duncan gave birth to her daughter, she experienced a love she never knew existed. Nothing would stand in the way of giving Bonnie a wonderful...
more
Ed King: A Novel
by
David Guterson
Knopf, 10/18/2011
A sizzling, darkly funny, propulsive new novel - his most daring yet - by the author of
Snow Falling on Cedars: a sweeping, dazzling story of destiny,...
more
How to Save a Life
by
Sara Zarr
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 10/18/2011
Jill MacSweeny just wishes everything could go back to normal. But ever since her dad died, she's been isolating herself from her boyfriend, her best ...
more
Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion
by
Robert Morgan
Shannon Ravenel Books, 10/18/2011
From Thomas Jefferson's birth in 1743 to the California Gold rush in 1849, America's Manifest destiny comes to life in Robert Morgan's skilled hands. ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Nanjing Requiem: A Novel
by
Ha Jin
Pantheon Books, 10/18/2011
In 1937, with the Japanese poised to invade Nanjing, Minnie Vautrin - an American missionary and the dean of Jinling Women's College - decides to ...
more
The Infernals: A Novel
by
John Connolly
Atria Books, 10/18/2011
From
New York Times bestselling author John Connolly, a wonderfully strange and brilliant novel about a boy, his dog, and their struggle to escape the...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Lady of the Rivers: A Novel (The Cousins' War)
by
Philippa Gregory
Touchstone, 10/18/2011
Descended from Melusina, the river goddess, Jacquetta has always had the gift of second sight. As a child visiting her uncle, she meets his prisoner, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
The Scorpio Races
by
Maggie Stiefvater
Scholastic, 10/18/2011
It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici
by
Elizabeth Lev
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 10/18/2011
The astonishing life of a long-misunderstood Renaissance virago
Wife, mother, leader, warrior. Caterina Riario Sforza was one of the most ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Biography/Memoir
Debut Author
Red Alert: How China's Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life
by
Stephen Leeb
Grand Central Publishing, 10/19/2011
The American Dream is close to being replaced by a living nightmare:
- Key commodities that are essential to our daily lives and that are widely ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Steve Jobs
by
Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster, 10/24/2011
Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years - as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, ...
more
A Christmas Homecoming: A Novel
by
Anne Perry
Ballantine Books, 10/25/2011
In
A Christmas Homecoming, a familiar face from the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels - Charlotte's mother, Caroline - travels with her young husband, ...
more
An Elephant in the Garden
by
Michael Morpurgo
Feiwel & Friends, 10/25/2011
Lizzie and Karl's mother is a zoo keeper; the family has become attached to an orphaned elephant named Marlene, who will be destroyed as a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick
by
Joe Schreiber
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 10/25/2011
It's prom night - and Perry just wants to stick to his own plan and finally play a much anticipated gig with his band in the Big Apple. But when his ...
more
Chalice of Blood: A Mystery of Ancient Ireland
by
Peter Tremayne
Minotaur Books, 10/25/2011
Ireland AD 670: When an eminent scholar is found murdered in his cell in the Abbey of Lios Mor, fear spreads among his brethren. His door was secured ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Desert Angel
by
Charlie Price
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 10/25/2011
Fourteen-year-old Angel wakes up one morning at her desert trailer home to discover her mother has been murdered by a lowlife named Scotty, who has ...
more
Eva Braun: Life with Hitler
by
Heike B. Gortemaker
Knopf, 10/25/2011
In this groundbreaking biography of Eva Braun, German historian Heike B. Görtemaker delves into the startlingly neglected historical truth about ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Jerusalem: The Biography
by
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Knopf, 10/25/2011
Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgement Day and the...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Mastiff: The Legend of Beka Cooper #3
by
Tamora Pierce
Random House Children's Publishing, 10/25/2011
The Legend of Beka Cooper gives Tamora Pierce's fans exactly what they want - a smart and savvy heroine making a name for herself on the mean streets ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
by
Tony Horwitz
Henry Holt and Company, 10/25/2011
Bestselling author Tony Horwitz tells the electrifying tale of the daring insurrection that put America on the path to bloody war.
Plotted in ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Of Beasts and Beings
by
Ian Holding
Europa Editions, 10/25/2011
In this searing and timely novel, the devastating effects of a country's economic and moral collapse provide the backdrop for a story about individual...
more
Pulphead: Essays
by
John Jeremiah Sullivan
FSG Originals, 10/25/2011
In
Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on an exhilarating tour of our popular, unpopular, and at times completely forgotten culture. ...
more
Essays
Ranchero: A Mystery
by
Rick Gavin
Minotaur Books, 10/25/2011
In Rick Gavin's rollicking series debut set squarely in the Mississippi Delta, Nick Reid has a simple job to do: repossess a flat screen TV from...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Mysteries
Debut Author
Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle over Health Care Reform
by
Paul Starr
Yale University Press, 10/25/2011
In no other country has health care served as such a volatile flashpoint of ideological conflict. America has endured a century of rancorous debate on...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Schott's Quintessential Miscellany
by
Ben Schott
Bloomsbury USA, 10/25/2011
In 2003, a curious, old-fashioned, pocket-size book transformed the way we look at information. Since then,
Schott's Original Miscellany and its two ...
more
Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution
by
David Rothenberg
Bloomsbury Children's Books, 10/25/2011
"The peacock's tail," said Charles Darwin, "makes me sick." That's because the theory of evolution as adaptation can't explain why nature is so ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples
by
David Gilmour
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 10/25/2011
Did Garibaldi do Italy a disservice when he helped its disparate parts achieve unity? Was the goal of political unification a mistake? These questions...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food
by
Adam Gopnik
Knopf, 10/25/2011
Never before have we cared so much about food. It preoccupies our popular culture, our fantasies, and even our moralizing - "You
still eat meat?" With...
more
The Territory: A Mystery
by
Tricia Fields
Minotaur Books, 10/25/2011
At the end of State Road 170 and just past a ghost town lies Artemis, population 2,500. The townspeople had sought out this remote ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Mysteries
Debut Author
Tides of War: A Novel
by
Stella Tillyard
Henry Holt and Company, 10/25/2011
Tides of War opens in England with the recently married, charmingly unconventional Harriet preparing to say goodbye to her husband, James, as he ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Twelve Drummers Drumming: A Mystery
by
C. C. Benison
Delacorte Press, 10/25/2011
Introducing Father Tom Christmas, the wise, warmhearted new vicar of a picturesque English village that seems to be a haven of peace. But appearances ...
more
Walking with the Comrades
by
Arundhati Roy
Penguin Press, 10/25/2011
"The terse, typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed my appointment with India's single biggest internal security ...more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
A History of the World in 100 Objects
by
Neil MacGregor
Viking, 10/27/2011
From the renowned director of the British Museum, a kaleidoscopic history of humanity told through things we have made.
When did people first start...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Charles Dickens: A Life
by
Claire Tomalin
Penguin Press, 10/27/2011
When Charles Dickens died in 1870, The Times of London successfully campaigned for his burial in Westminster Abbey, the final resting place of England...
more
Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans
by
Capt. Charles Moore, Cassandra Phillips
Avery, 10/27/2011
In the summer of 1997, Charles Moore set sail from Honolulu with the sole intention of returning home after competing in a trans-Pacific race. To get ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Science, Health and the Environment
On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling
by
Michael Dirda
Princeton University Press, 10/30/2011
A passionate lifelong fan of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda is a member of The Baker Street Irregulars - ...
more
Biography/Memoir
Send Me Work: Stories
by
Katherine Karlin
Northwestern University Press, 10/31/2011
Unlike the heroines of domestic fiction, Katherine Karlin's women face their biggest challenges outside of the house. The characters in this debut ...
more
Zero Day
by
David Baldacci
Grand Central Publishing, 10/31/2011
From David Baldacci - the modern master of the thriller and #1 worldwide bestselling novelist - comes a new hero: a lone Army Special Agent taking on ...
more
Blue Nights
by
Joan Didion
Knopf, 11/01/2011
From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and ...
more
Civilization: The West and the Rest
by
Niall Ferguson
Penguin Press, 11/01/2011
The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Crossed: Matched trilogy, 2
by
Ally Condie
Dutton Children's Books, 11/01/2011
In search of a future that may not exist and faced with the decision of who to share it with, Cassia journeys to the Outer Provinces in pursuit of Ky ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows: A Flavia de Luce Novel
by
Alan Bradley
Delacorte Press, 11/01/2011
It's Christmastime, and the precocious Flavia de Luce - an eleven-year-old sleuth with a passion for chemistry and a penchant for crime-solving - is ...
more
Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945
by
Max Hastings
Knopf, 11/01/2011
From one of our finest military historians, a monumental work that shows us at once the truly global reach of World War II and its deeply personal ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Mozart's Last Aria: A Novel
by
Matt Rees
Harper Perennial, 11/01/2011
In Vienna to pay her final respects, Nannerl soon finds herself ensnared in a web of suspicion and intrigue - as the actions of jealous lovers, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years
by
Gregory Maguire
William Morrow, 11/01/2011
Hailed as "bewitching," "remarkable," "extraordinary," "engrossing," "amazing," and "delicious," Gregory Maguire's Wicked Years series - a ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Proof of Heaven: A Novel
by
Mary Curran Hackett
William Morrow, 11/01/2011
A mother's faith, a child's courage, a doctor's dedication - a moving and thought-provoking tale of hope, love, and family.
He might be young, but ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Corn Maiden: and Other Nightmares
by
Joyce Carol Oates
Mysterious Press, 11/01/2011
An incomparable master storyteller in all forms, in
The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares Joyce Carol Oates spins six imaginative tales of suspense.
...more
The Day Before Happiness
by
Erri DeLuca
Other Press, 11/01/2011
Just after World War II, a young orphan living in Naples comes under the protection of Don Gaetano, the superintendent of an apartment building. He is...
more
The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel
by
Anthony Horowitz
Mulholland, 11/01/2011
Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective in literary history. For the first time since the death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a new Holmes story has ...
more
Until Thy Wrath Be Past
by
Asa Larsson
Silver Oak, 11/01/2011
As spring arrives in the far north of Sweden, a young woman's body surfaces through the breaking ice of the River Thorne. At the same time, visions of...
more
Love and Shame and Love: A Novel
by
Peter Orner
Little Brown & Company, 11/07/2011
Alexander Popper can't stop remembering. Four years old when his father tossed him into Lake Michigan, he was told,
Sink or swim, kid. In his mind, he...
more
11/22/63: A Novel
by
Stephen King
Scribner, 11/08/2011
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King's ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
A Burial at Sea: A Charles Lenox Mystery
by
Charles Finch
Minotaur Books, 11/08/2011
Charles Lenox, Member of Parliament, sets sail on a clandestine mission for the government. When an officer is savagely murdered, however, Lenox...
more
And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
by
Charles J. Shields
Henry Holt and Company, 11/08/2011
In 2006, Charles Shields reached out to Kurt Vonnegut in a letter, asking for his endorsement for a planned biography. The first response was no ("A ...
more
Blind Goddess: A Reader on Race and Justice
by
Alexander Papachristou, Patricia J. Williams
Newmarket, 11/08/2011
Blind Goddess brings together the most significant writings of practitioners, professors, and advocates to make sense of what is perhaps the nation's ...
more
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Finding Somewhere
by
Joseph Monninger
Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, 11/08/2011
Two girls: Best friends Hattie and Delores feel that life in their small New Hampshire town is a dead end.
One horse: Old and about to be put down, ...
more
Literary Fiction
Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords, and One Woman's Journey Through Afghanistan
by
Fariba Nawa
HarperCollins Publishers, 11/08/2011
When veteran reporter Fariba Nawa returned home to Afghanistan - the nation she had fled as a child with her family during the Soviet invasion nearly ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Rain Falls Like Mercy: The Paint Trilogy, #3
by
Jack Todd
Touchstone, 11/08/2011
Tom Call, the young sheriff running the investigation, falls in love with Juanita, the wife of Eli Paint, whose son Leo and grandson Bobby Watson are ...
more
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War
by
Peter Englund
Knopf, 11/08/2011
A highly original and revelatory narrative history of World War I that brings into focus its least examined, most stirring component: the experience ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Boy in the Suitcase: A Nina Borg Mystery
by
Lene Kaaberbol
Soho Press, 11/08/2011
Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is a compulsive do-gooder who can't say no when someone asks for help - even when she knows ...
more
The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.
by
Jonathan Lethem
Doubleday, 11/08/2011
What's a novelist supposed to do with contemporary culture? And what's contemporary culture supposed to do with novelists? In
The Ecstasy of ...more
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
by
Philip K. Dick
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 11/08/2011
Edited and introduced by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, this will be the definitive presentation of Dick's brilliant, and epic, final work. In&#...
more
Biography/Memoir
The Ionia Sanction: A Mystery
by
Gary Corby
Minotaur Books, 11/08/2011
"Corby has not only made Greek history accessible - he's made it first-rate entertainment." - Kelli Stanley, award-winning author of Nox Dormienda
and...more
The Prague Cemetery: A Novel
by
Umberto Eco
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 11/08/2011
Nineteenth-century Europe, from Turin to Prague to Paris, abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Conspiracies rule history. Jesuits plot against...
more
The Sharp Time
by
Mary O'Connell
Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, 11/08/2011
Sandinista Jones is a high school senior with a punk rock name and a broken heart. The death of her single mother has left Sandinista alone in the ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Time In Between: A Novel
by
Maria Duenas
Atria Books, 11/08/2011
The inspiring international bestseller of a seemingly ordinary woman who uses her talent and courage to transform herself first into a prestigious ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Tolstoy: A Russian Life
by
Rosamund Bartlett
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 11/08/2011
In November 1910, Count Lev Tolstoy died at a remote Russian railway station. At the time of his death, he was the most famous man in Russia, with a ...
more
George F. Kennan: An American Life
by
John Lewis Gaddis
Penguin Press, 11/10/2011
Drawing on extensive interviews with George Kennan and exclusive access to his archives, an eminent scholar of the Cold War delivers a revelatory ...
more
Kill Alex Cross: Alex Cross Series #18
by
James Patterson
Little Brown & Company, 11/14/2011
The President's son and daughter are abducted, and Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene. But someone very high-up is using the FBI, ...
more
The Space Between
by
Brenna Yovanoff
Razorbill, 11/14/2011
Everything is made of steel, even the flowers. How can you love anything in a place like this?
Daphne is the half-demon, half-fallen angel daughter of ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
V is for Vengeance: A Kinsey Millhone Mystery
by
Sue Grafton
Zondervan, 11/14/2011
A woman with a murky past who kills herself - or was it murder? A dying old man cared for by the son he pummeled mercilessly. A lovely woman whose ...
more
Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life
by
Ann Beattie
Scribner, 11/15/2011
Pat Nixon remains one of our most mysterious and intriguing public figures, the only modern First Lady who never wrote a memoir. Beattie, like many of...
more
The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories
by
Don DeLillo
Scribner, 11/15/2011
From one of the greatest writers of our time, his first collection of short stories, written between 1979 and 2011, chronicling - and foretelling - ...
more
Bleak House
by
Charles Dickens
Penguin Books, 11/16/2011
"Jarndyce and Jarndyce" is an infamous lawsuit that has been in process for generations. Nobody can remember exactly how the case started but many ...
more
Literary Fiction
Oxford Messed Up
by
Andrea Kayne Kaufman
Grant Place Press, 11/17/2011
Oxford Messed Up is a unique literary love story that transports readers on a meaningful and emotional journey where the academic world of Oxford, the...
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Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Future of Us
by
Jay Asher
Razorbill, 11/21/2011
It's 1996, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet.
Emma just got her first computer and an America Online...
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Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Impossible Dead
by
Ian Rankin
Reagan Arthur, 11/21/2011
The Complaints: that's the name given to the Internal Affairs department who seek out dirty and compromised cops, the ones who've made deals with the ...
more
Three Day Town
by
Margaret Maron
Grand Central Publishing, 11/21/2011
Judge Deborah Knott and Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant are on a train to New York, finally on a honeymoon after a year of marriage. January in New ...
more
Dead Man's Grip: A Detective Superintendent Roy Grace Novel
by
Peter James
Minotaur Books, 11/22/2011
Carly Chase is still traumatized ten days after being in a fatal traffic accident that kills a teenage American student from Brighton University. ...
more
Somewhere Beneath Those Waves
by
Sarah Monette
Prime Books, 11/22/2011
The first non-themed collection of critically acclaimed author Sarah Monette's best short fiction. To paraphrase Hugo-award winner Elizabeth Bear's ...
more
The Printmaker's Daughter: A Novel
by
Katherine Govier
Harper Perennial, 11/22/2011
Recounting the story of her life, Oei plunges us into the colorful world of nineteenth-century Edo, in which courtesans rub shoulders with poets, ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Queen of America: A Novel
by
Luis Alberto Urrea
Little Brown & Company, 11/28/2011
After the bloody Tomochic rebellion, Teresita Urrea, beloved healer and "Saint of Cabora," flees with her father to Arizona. But their plans are ...
more
The Drop: Harry Bosch
by
Michael Connelly
Little Brown & Company, 11/28/2011
Harry Bosch has been given three years before he must retire from the LAPD, and he wants cases more fiercely than ever. In one morning, he gets two.
...
more
Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit
by
Joseph Epstein
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 11/29/2011
A dishy, incisive exploration of gossip - from celebrity rumors to literary
romans à clef, personal sniping to political slander - by one our "...
more
Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World
by
Richard Rhodes
Doubleday, 11/29/2011
What do Hedy Lamarr, avant-garde composer George Antheil, and your cell phone have in common? The answer is spread-spectrum radio: a revolutionary ...
more
Legend
by
Marie Lu
Putnam Juvenile, 11/29/2011
What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Silence
by
J. Sydney Jones
Severn House, 12/01/2011
Vienna, 1900. Lawyer Karl Werthen is puzzling over the suicide of a local councilman when he is assigned by Karl Wittgenstein, a powerful ...
more
Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil
by
Tom Mueller
W.W. Norton & Company, 12/05/2011
The sacred history and profane present of a substance long seen as the essence of health and civilization.
For millennia, fresh olive oil has been one ...
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Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
The Uninnocent: Stories
by
Bradford Morrow
Pegasus Books, 12/05/2011
Bradford Morrow's stories have garnered him awards such as the O. Henry and Pushcart Prizes and have given him a devoted following. Now gathered here ...
more
Winter Town
by
Stephen Emond
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 12/05/2011
Every winter, straight-laced, Ivy League bound Evan looks forward to a visit from Lucy, a childhood pal who moved away after her parents' divorce. But...
more
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World
by
H.H. Dalai Lama
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 12/06/2011
Ten years ago, in his best-selling
Ethics for a New Millennium, His Holiness the Dalai Lama first proposed an approach to ethics based on universal ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Egypt: The Book of Chaos
by
Nick Drake
Harper, 12/06/2011
The future of Egypt lies in the hands of the Medjay's chief detective Rahotep in the final, gripping installment of Nick Drake's acclaimed Ancient ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Red Mist: A Scarpetta Novel (#19)
by
Patricia Cornwell
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 12/06/2011
Determined to find out what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months earlier, Kay Scarpetta travels to the Georgia ...
more
Thrillers
Slash and Burn: A Dr. Siri Mystery Set in Laos
by
Colin Cotterill
Soho Press, 12/06/2011
Dr. Siri might finally be allowed to retire (again). Although he loves his two morgue assistants, he's tired of being Laos's national coroner, a job ...
more
The Artist of Disappearance
by
Anita Desai
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 12/06/2011
Overwhelmed by their own lack of purpose, the men and women who populate these tales set out on unexpected journeys that present them with a fresh ...
more
The Thirteen Hallows
by
Michael Scott
Tor Books, 12/06/2011
The Hallows. Ancient artifacts imbued with a primal and deadly power. But are they protectors of this world, or the keys to its destruction?
...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
The Probability of Miracles: A Novel
by
Wendy Wunder
Razorbill, 12/08/2011
Dry, sarcastic, sixteen-year-old Cam Cooper has spent the last seven years in and out of hospitals. The last thing she wants to do in the short life ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Leopard: A Harry Hole Novel
by
Jo Nesbo
Knopf, 12/13/2011
Two young women are found murdered in Oslo, both drowned in their own blood. Media coverage quickly reaches fever pitch: Could this be the work of a ...
more
1222: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel
by
Anne Holt
Scribner, 12/27/2011
A train is on its way to the northern reaches of Norway derails during a massive blizzard, 1,222 meters above sea level. The passengers abandon the ...
more
A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living
by
Luc Ferry
Harper Perennial, 12/27/2011
French superstar philosopher Luc Ferry encapsulates an enlightening treatise of pop-philosophy in a lively narrative of Western thought - explaining ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
History, Current Affairs and Religion
A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life
by
John Kralik
Hyperion, 12/27/2011
A Simple Act of Gratitude was previously published and reviewed in hardcover as
365 Thank Yous.
One recent December, at age 53, John Kralik ...
more
A Vine in the Blood: A Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation
by
Leighton Gage
Soho Press, 12/27/2011
It is the eve of the FIFA World Cup, the globe's premier sporting event. The host country is Brazil. A victory for the home team is inextricably ...
more
All the Flowers in Shanghai: A Novel
by
Duncan Jepson
William Morrow Paperbacks, 12/27/2011
A sweeping debut novel set in 1930s Shanghai for fans of Lisa See,
Empress, and
Memoirs of a Geisha.
In 1930s Shanghai, following the path of duty ...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
Conqueror: A Novel of Kublai Khan
by
Conn Iggulden
Delacorte Press, 12/27/2011
Intrigue and treachery roil the vast Mongol nation as the heirs of Genghis Khan fight for control of his unprecedented empire - and of his mighty ...more
Critics' Consensus:
Historical Fiction
Down the Darkest Road: Oak Knoll Series
by
Tami Hoag
Dutton, 12/27/2011
Deeper Than the Dead introduced Tami Hoag's millions of fans to Oak Knoll, a small California town that, in the mid-eighties, seemed as idyllic as any...
more
Island of Wings: A Novel
by
Karin Altenberg
Penguin Books, 12/27/2011
Exquisitely written and profoundly moving,
Island of Wings is a richly imagined novel about two people struggling to keep their love, and their family...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
The Bungalow: A Novel
by
Sarah Jio
Plume, 12/27/2011
In the summer of 1942, twenty-one-year-old Anne Calloway, newly engaged, sets off to serve in the Army Nurse Corps on the Pacific island of Bora-Bora....
more
The Devil's Elixir
by
Raymond Khoury
Dutton, 12/27/2011
What if there was an herb, previously lost to history in the jungles of Central America, capable of inducing an experience so momentous it might shake...
more
The House at Tyneford: A Novel
by
Natasha Solomons
Plume, 12/27/2011
It's the spring of 1938 and no longer safe to be a Jew in Vienna. Nineteen-year-old Elise Landau is forced to leave her glittering life of parties and...
more
The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel
by
Taylor Stevens
Crown, 12/27/2011
Eight years ago, a man walked five-year-old Hannah out the front doors of her school and spirited her over the Mexican border, taking her into the ...
more
The Nun
by
Simonetta Agnello Hornby
Europa Editions, 12/27/2011
August 15, 1839. Messina, Italy. In the home of Marshall don Peppino Padellani di Opiri, preparations for the feast of the Ascension are underway. ...
more
Treasure Island!!!
by
Sara Levine
Europa Editions, 12/27/2011
When a college graduate with a history of hapless jobs (ice cream scooper; gift wrapper; laziest ever part-time clerk at The Pet Library) reads Robert...
more
Critics' Consensus:
Literary Fiction
Debut Author
