New Releases

So many good books on sale today! As usual, blurbs provided by the books’ publishers.

HARDCOVER FICTION

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway

The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun” Spork, Joe Spork has turned his back on his family’s mobster history and aims to live a quiet life fixing antique clocks. That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism that turns out to be a 1950s doomsday machine. With Joe’s once-quiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help his client complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old gun . . .

The Good Father by Noah Hawley

In the harrowing opening scene of this provocative and affecting novel, Dr. Allen, Chief of Rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, is home with his family when a televised news report announces that the Democratic candidate for president has been shot at a rally, and his son Daniel is caught on video as the assassin. The Good Father is an absorbing and honest novel about the responsibilities—and limitations—of being a parent and our capacity to provide our children with unconditional love in the face of an unthinkable situation.

Noah Hawley will be here to speak about & sign his new book Monday, March 26, 7p!

A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer Dubois

In St. Petersburg, Russia, world chess champion Aleksandr Bezetov begins a quixotic quest, launching a dissident presidential campaign against Vladimir Putin. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, thirty-year-old English lecturer Irina Ellison is on an improbable quest of her own. Certain she has inherited Huntington’s disease—the same cruel illness that ended her father’s life—she struggles with a sense of purpose. When Irina finds an old, photocopied letter her father had written to the young Aleksandr Bezetov, she makes a fateful decision. Spanning two continents and the dramatic sweep of history, A Partial History of Lost Causes reveals the stubbornness and splendor of the human will even in the most trying times.

Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates

From the author of the New York Times bestseller A Widow’s Story comes a riveting novel that explores the high price of success in the life of one woman–the first female president of a lauded Ivy League institution–and her hold upon her self-identity in the face of personal and professional demons.

 

The Book of Jonas by Stephen Dau

Jonas is fifteen when his family is killed during an errant U.S. military operation in an unnamed Muslim country. With the help of an international relief organization, he is sent to America, where he struggles to assimilate-foster family, school, a first love. Eventually, he tells a court-mandated counselor and therapist about a U.S. soldier, Christopher Henderson, responsible for saving his life, a move which builds to a shattering conclusion.

 

The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsey Faye

1845. New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever. One night while returning from his rounds as an NYPD officer, Timothy Wilde runs into a girl dashing through the dark in her nightshift . . . covered head to toe in blood. She spins wild stories, claiming that dozens of bodies are buried in the forest north of 23rd Street. Timothy isn’t sure whether to believe her or not, but, as the truth unfolds, the reluctant copper star finds himself engaged in a battle for justice that nearly costs him his brother, his romantic obsession, and his own life.

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HARDCOVER NONFICTION

Dust to Dust by Benjamin Busch

Dust to Dust is an extraordinary memoir about ordinary things: life and death, war and peace, the explorations of childhood and revelations of adulthood by Busch–a U.S. Marine who served two combat tours in Iraq, an actor on “The Wire,” and son of celebrated novelist Frederick Busch.

 

Some Assembly Required by Anne Lamott

Stunned to learn that her son, Sam, is about to become a father at nineteen, Lamott begins a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax’s life. In careful and often hilarious detail, Lamott and Sam struggle to balance their changing roles with the demands of college and work, as they both forge new relationships with Jax’s mother, who has her own ideas about how to raise a child. Over the course of the year, the rhythms of life, death, family, and friends unfold in surprising and joyful ways.

Pakistan on the Brink by Ahmed Rashid

What are the possibilities-and hazards-facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and as it reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both these countries? What does the immediate future hold and what are America’s choices as President Obama considers our complicated history and faces reelection? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid- Pakistan’s preeminent journalist-takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.

Tough Sh*t by Kevin Smith

That Kevin Smith? The guy who did “Clerks” a million years ago? What could you possibly learn from the director of “Cop Out”? How about this: he changed filmmaking forever when he was twenty-three, and since then, he’s done whatever the hell he wants. He makes movies, writes comics, owns a store, and now he’s built a podcasting empire with his friends and family, including a wife who’s way out of his league. So here’s some tough sh*t: Kevin Smith has cracked the code.  Or, he’s just cracked.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

Imagine by Jonah Lehrer

From the best-selling author of How We Decide comes a sparkling and revelatory look at the new science of creativity. Shattering the myth of muses, higher powers, even creative “types,” Jonah Lehrer demonstrates that creativity is not a single gift possessed by the lucky few. It’s a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively. We’ll learn about Bob Dylan’s writing habits and the drug addiction of poets. We’ll meet a bartender who thinks like a chemist, and an autistic surfer who invented an entirely new surfing move. We’ll see why Elizabethan England experienced a creative explosion, and how Pixar designed its office space to get the most out of its talent.