Plenty of great reads are coming down the pipeline next month. Here are a few we have our eye on. Descriptions provided by the books’ publishers.
How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty
(On sale June 5)
In late January 2006, a young robotocist on the way to Google headquarters lost an overnight bag on a flight somewhere between Dallas and Las Vegas. In it was a fully functional head of the android replica of Philip K. Dick, cult science-fiction writer and counterculture guru. It has never been recovered. In a story that echoes some of the most paranoid fantasies of a Dick novel, readers get a fascinating inside look at the scientists and technology that made this amazing android possible. The author was a fellow researcher at the University of Memphis Institute of Intelligent Systems while the android was being built.
Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani
(On sale June 5)
Iran in 1576 is a place of peace, wealth, and dazzling beauty. But when the Shah dies without having named an heir, the court is thrown into tumult. Princess Pari, the Shah’s daughter and closest advisor, knows more about the inner workings of the state than almost anyone, but the princess’s maneuvers to instill order after her father’s sudden death incite resentment and dissent. Pari and her trusted servant, a eunuch able to navigate the harem as well as the world beyond the palace walls, are in possession of an incredible tapestry of secrets and information that reveals a power struggle of epic proportions.
The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
(On sale June 5)
Only a few years before becoming a famous actress and an icon for her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita to make it big in New York in 1922. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle is a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip. She has no idea what she’s in for: Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous blunt bangs and black bob, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will change their lives forever.
Electrified Sheep: Glass-eating Scientists, Nuking the Moon, and More Bizarre Experiments by Alex Boese
(On sale June 5)
Benjamin Franklin was a pioneering scientist, leader of the Enlightenment and a founding father. But perhaps less well known is that he was also the first person to use mouth-to-mouth to revive an electric shock victim. Odder still, it was actually mouth-to-beak on a hen that he himself had shocked. Filled with similiar stories, Electrified Sheep is packed with eccentric characters, irrational obsessions and extreme experiments. Watch as scientists attempt to nuke the moon, wince at the doctor who performs a self-appendectomy and catch the faint whiff of singed wool from an electrified sheep.
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