New Releases – 11/12

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HARDCOVER FICTION

Hild by Nicola Griffith

A brilliant, lush, sweeping historical novel about the rise of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages: Hild. Hild is a young woman at the heart of the violence, subtlety, and mysticism of the early Middle Ages—all of it brilliantly and accurately evoked by Nicola Griffith’s luminous prose. Working from what little historical record is extant, Griffith has brought a beautiful, brutal world to vivid, absorbing life.

A Permanent Member of the Family by Russell Banks

A masterly collection of new stories from Russell Banks, acclaimed author of The Sweet Hereafter and Rule of the Bone, which maps the complex terrain of the modern American family. Moving between the stark beauty of winter in upstate New York and the seductive heat of Florida, A Permanent Member of the Family charts with subtlety and precision the ebb and flow of both the families we make for ourselves and the ones we’re born into, as it asks how we know the ones we love and, in turn, ourselves.

Death of the Black-Haired Girl by Robert Stone

An illicit romance and powerful tale of infidelity, accountability, the allure of youth, the promise of absolution, and the notion that madness is everywhere, in plain sight. In an elite college in a once-decaying New England city, Steven Brookman has come to a decision. A brilliant but careless professor, he has determined that for the sake of his marriage, and his soul, he must extract himself from his relationship with Maud Stack, his electrifying student, whose papers are always late and too long yet always incandescent.

Dust by Patricia Cornwell

From the world’s number-one bestselling crime writer comes the extraordinary new Kay Scarpetta novel. In Dust, Scarpetta and her colleagues are up against a force far more sinister than a sexual predator who fits the criminal classification of a “spectacle killer.” The murder of Gail Shipton soon leads deep into the dark world of designer drugs, drone technology, organized crime, and shocking corruption at the highest levels. With unparalleled high-tension suspense and the latest in forensic technology, Patricia Cornwell once again proves her exceptional ability to surprise—and to thrill.

Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith

In Tatiana, Martin Cruz Smith, “the master of the international thriller” (The New York Times) creates the most compelling heroine of his career and the most realistic, damning portrait of modern Russia in contemporary literature. More than a mystery, Tatiana is a story rich in character, black humor, and romance, with an insight that is the hallmark of Martin Cruz Smith.

The First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitch Albom

“What if the end is not the end?” From the beloved author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven comes his most thrilling and magical novel yet–a page-turning mystery and a meditation on the power of human connection. Moving seamlessly between the invention of the telephone in 1876 and a world obsessed with the next level of communication, Mitch Albom takes readers on a breathtaking ride of frenzied hope.

White Fire by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Special Agent Pendergast arrives at an exclusive Colorado ski resort to rescue his protégée, Corrie Swanson, from serious trouble with the law. His sudden appearance coincides with the first attack of a murderous arsonist who–with brutal precision–begins burning down multimillion-dollar mansions with the families locked inside. After springing Corrie from jail, Pendergast learns she made a discovery while examining the bones of several miners who were killed 150 years earlier by a rogue grizzly bear. Her finding is so astonishing that it, even more than the arsonist, threatens the resort’s very existence.

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PAPERBACK FICTION

A True Novel by Minae Mizumura

A remaking of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights set in postwar Japan. A True Novel begins in New York in the 1960s, where we meet Taro, a relentlessly ambitious Japanese immigrant trying to make his fortune. Flashbacks and multilayered stories reveal his life: an impoverished upbringing as an orphan, his eventual rise to wealth and success and an obsession with a girl from an affluent family that has haunted him all his life. A True Novel then widens into an examination of Japan’s westernization and the emergence of a middle class.

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HARDCOVER NONFICTION

Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson

A bare-knuckled, tell-all memoir from Mike Tyson, the onetime heavyweight champion of the world—and a legend both in and out of the ring. Philosopher, Broadway headliner, fighter, felon—Mike Tyson has defied stereotypes & expectations. Bullied as a boy in Brooklyn, Tyson grew up to become the youngest heavyweight champion ever. But his brilliance in the ring was often compromised by reckless behavior. Years of hard partying, violent fights, and criminal proceedings took their toll. Yet he fought his way back; the man who once admitted being addicted “to everything” regained his success, his dignity, and the love of his family.

Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution by Fred Vogelstein

Behind the bitter rivalry between Apple and Google—and how it’s reshaping the way we think about technology. The rise of smartphones and tablets has altered the business of making computers. At the center of this change are Apple and Google, two companies whose philosophies, leaders, and commercial acumen have steamrolled the competition. In the age of the Android and the iPad, these corporations are locked in a feud that will play out not just in the marketplace but in the courts and on screens around the world.

Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon

The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a monument to racial harmony in blighted south Memphis during the civil rights movement. Their success soon pits the siblings against each other, and the brother abandons his sister for a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, the heights they achieve result in their tragic demise. They fall, losing everything, and the sanctuary they created is torn to the ground. A generation later, Stax is rebuilt brick by brick and is once again transforming disenfranchised youth into stellar young musicians.

A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 by Victoria Wilson

Fifteen years in the making, the first volume of the full-scale astonishing life of one of our greatest screen actresses whose career in pictures spanned four decades beginning with the coming of sound. Frank Capra called her, “The greatest emotional actress the screen has yet known.” She was one of its most natural, timeless, and underrated stars. Now, Victoria Wilson gives us the first full-scale life of Barbara Stanwyck, whose astonishing career in movies (88 in all) spanned four decades.

What If by Shirley MacLaine

Beloved actress and bestselling author Shirley MacLaine contemplates a host of intriguing topics from the everyday to the esoteric in this all-new collection of ideas and observations, each of which begins with two simple, powerful words: “What if?” Shirley explores a wide range of matters–spiritual and secular, humorous and profound, earthbound and inter-galactic, personal and universal. A famous trailblazer in making topics such as reincarnation and past-life therapy mainstream, Shirley now takes the lead in opening her mind to crucial questions about the existence of life on other planets, what that means for those of us on Earth, and about the true genetic ancestry of humankind.

The Crash of 2016 by Thom Hartmann

The United States is more vulnerable today than ever before-including during the Great Depression and the Civil War-because the pillars of democracy that once supported a booming middle class have been corrupted, and without them, America teeters on the verge of the next Great Crash. Although we are in the midst of what could become the most catastrophic economic crash in American History, a way forward is emerging, just as it did in the previous great crashes of the 1760s, 1856, and 1929. The choices we make now will redefine American culture.

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PAPERBACK NON-FICTION

Fresh Off the Boat by Eddie Huang

Assimilating ain’t easy. Eddie Huang was raised by a wild family of FOB (“fresh off the boat”) immigrants—his father a cocksure restaurateur with a dark past back in Taiwan, his mother a fierce protector and constant threat. This is the story of a Chinese-American kid in a could-be-anywhere cul-de-sac blazing his way through America’s deviant subcultures, trying to find himself, ten thousand miles from his legacy and anchored only by his conflicted love for his family and his passion for food.

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HARDCOVER PLAYS

William Shakespeare & Others: Collaborative Plays by Jonathan Bate & Eric Rasmussen

Edited by renowned Shakespeare scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen and published in coordination with the Royal Shakespeare Company, this is the first edition in over 100 years of the fascinatingly varied body of plays that has become known as “The Shakespeare Apocrypha”. Featuring introductions and background on each play, key fact boxes with information on sources and the distribution of parts, on-page notes explaining difficult or obsolete vocabulary, and interviews with directors and actors who have staged the plays, this work will be an essential addition to the library of any Shakespeare buff.