Books! Brand new, hot off the presses and on the shelves today (blurbs, as usual, provided by the books’ publishers):
HARDCOVER FICTION
The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus
A terrible epidemic has struck the country and the sound of children’s speech has become lethal. Radio transmissions from strange sources indicate that people are going into hiding. All Sam and Claire need to do is look around the neighborhood: In the park, parents wither beneath the powerful screams of their children. With Claire nearing collapse, it seems their only means of survival is to flee from their daughter, Esther, who laughs at her parents’ sickness. But Sam and Claire find it isn’t so easy to leave the daughter they still love, even as they waste away from her malevolent speech. On the eve of their departure, Claire mysteriously disappears, and Sam, determined to find a cure for this new toxic language, presses on alone into a world beyond recognition.
***Ben Marcus will be here speaking & signing The Flame Alphabet on Tues, Jan 24, 7p. It’s the first event we’re doing in cooperation with American Short Fiction, a literary magazine we highly recommend you check out.***
Raylan by Elmore Leonard
New York Times bestselling author Leonard brings his trademark style and wit to this new novel featuring U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, hero of the hit FX series Justified. With the closing of the Harlan County, Kentucky, coal mines, marijuana has become the biggest cash crop in the state. A hundred pounds of it can gross $300,000, but that’s chump change compared to the quarter million a human body can get you—especially when it’s sold off piece by piece. So when Dickie and Coover Crowe, dope-dealing brothers known for sampling their own supply, decide to branch out into the body business, it’s up to U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens to stop them.
Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card
Ender’s Shadow explores the stars in this all-new novel… At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean flees to the stars with three of his children–the three who share the engineered genes that gave him both hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. The time dilation granted by the speed of their travel gives Earth’s scientists generations to seek a cure, to no avail. In time, they are forgotten–a fading ansible signal speaking of events lost to Earth’s history. But the Delphikis are about to make a discovery that will let them save themselves, and perhaps all of humanity in days to come.
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
The Living End by Robert Leleux
From the author of The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy: Robert Leleux’s grandmother JoAnn was a steel magnolia, an elegant and devastatingly witty woman: quick-tongued, generous in her affections, but sometimes oddly indifferent to the emotions of those who most needed her. When JoAnn began exhibiting signs of Alzheimer’s, she’d been estranged from her daughter, Robert’s mother Jessica, for decades. As her disease progressed, JoAnn lost most of her memories, but she also forgot her old wounds and anger. The Living End is a tribute to an unforgettable woman, and a testimony to the way a disease can awaken an urgent desire for love and forgiveness.
***Robert Leleux is here TONIGHT to speak & sign this new memoir! He’ll be joined by special guest (and long time BookPeople favorite) Sarah Bird!***
PAPERBACK FICTION
The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen
Saudi-born author Keija Parssinen’s stunning debut offers the intricate, emotionally resonant story of an American expatriate who discovers that her husband, a Saudi billionaire, has taken a second bride—an emotionally turbulent revelation that blinds them both to their teenaged son’s ominous first steps down the road of radicalization. Readers who enjoyed The Septembers of Shiraz will enjoy Parssinen’s story of love and betrayal, fundamentalism, family and country in the Middle East.
***Keija Parssinen will be here this Sat, Jan 21, 4p to speak & sign her new novel!***
The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
How does one talk about love? Is it even possible to describe something at once utterly mundane and wholly transcendent, that has the power to consume our lives completely, while making us feel part of something infinitely larger than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this age-old problem, the nameless narrator of David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary constructs the story of a relationship as a dictionary. Through these sharp entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of coupledom, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time.
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