New Releases – 1/14/14

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HARDCOVER FICTION

The Polaris Protocol by Brad Taylor

Brad Taylor‘s bestselling thrillers are fueled by his more than twenty years of experience in the US Army, including eight years in Delta Force. Taskforce operators Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill are used to putting their lives at risk, but in The Polaris Protocol it’s Jennifer’s brother and countless more innocents who face unfathomable violence and bloodshed.

MysteryPeople Presents Brad Taylor on Wednesday, Jan 15 at 7PM speaking & signing copies of The Polaris Protocol. Pre-order your signed copy of the book by clicking here.

Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin

Rebus and Malcolm Fox go head-to-head when a 30-year-old murder investigation resurfaces, forcing Rebus to confront crimes of the past. Rebus is back on the force, albeit with a demotion and a chip on his shoulder. He is investigating a car accident when news arrives that a case from 30 years ago is being reopened. Rebus’s team from those days is suspected of helping a murderer escape justice to further their own ends.
MysteryPeople Presents Ian Rankin on Tuesday, Jan 21 at 7PM. The speaking portion of this event is free & open to the public. A ticket for the signing line is required & can only be purchased with a copy of Saints of the Shadow Bible from BookPeople.

Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was a surprise bestseller, an unprecedented mix of YA fantasy and vintage photography that enthralled readers and critics alike. This second novel from Riggs, Hollow City, begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine’s island by the skin of their teeth. Complete with dozens of newly discovered (and thoroughly mesmerizing) vintage photographs, this new adventure will delight readers of all ages.

Ransom Riggs will be in the store on Tuesday, Jan 21 at 7PM to speak & sign copies of Hollow City. Pre-order you signed copy by clicking here.

The Visionist by Rachel Urquhart

An enthralling debut novel about a teenage girl who finds refuge–but perhaps not–in an 1840s Shaker community. In this exquisite, transporting debut, 15-year-old Polly Kimball sets fire to the family farm, killing her abusive father. She and her young brother find shelter in a Massachusetts Shaker community called The City of Hope. It is the Era of Manifestations, when young girls in Shaker enclaves all across the Northeast are experiencing extraordinary mystical visions. The City of Hope has not yet been blessed with a Visionist, but that changes when Polly arrives and is unexpectedly exalted. As she struggles to keep her dark secrets concealed in the face of increasing scrutiny.

Perfect by Rachel Joyce

A spellbinding novel that will resonate with readers of Mark Haddon, Louise Erdrich, and John Irving, Perfect tells the story of a young boy who is thrown into the murky, difficult realities of the adult world with far-reaching consequences. As she did in her debut, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce has imagined bewitching characters who find their ordinary lives unexpectedly thrown into chaos, who learn that there are times when children must become parents to their parents, and who discover that in confronting the hard truths about their pasts, they will forge unexpected relationships that have profound and surprising impacts.

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley

On a spring morning in 1951, eleven-year-old chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce gathers with her family at the railway station, awaiting the return of her long-lost mother, Harriet. After departing the train, Flavia is approached by a tall stranger who whispers a cryptic message into her ear. Moments later, he is dead, mysteriously pushed under the train by someone in the crowd. Who was this man, what did his words mean, and why were they intended for Flavia? Following a trail of clues sparked by the discovery of a reel of film stashed away in the attic, she unravels the deepest secrets of the de Luce clan, involving none other than Winston Churchill himself.

Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh

The futuristic hardboiled noir that Lauren Beukes calls “sharp as a paper-cut” about a garbage man turned kill-for-hire. Spademan used to be a garbage man.  That was before the dirty bomb hit Times Square, before his wife was killed, and before the city became a blown-out shell of its former self. Now he’s a hitman. Adam Sternbergh has written a dynamite debut: gritty, violent, funny, riveting, tender, and brilliant.

Andrew’s Brain by E. L. Doctorow

This brilliant new novel by an American master, the author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, Billy Bathgate, and The March, takes us on a radical trip into the mind of a man who, more than once in his life, has been the inadvertent agent of disaster. Written with psychological depth and great lyrical precision, this suspenseful and groundbreaking novel delivers a voice for our times—funny, probing, skeptical, mischievous, profound.

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HARDCOVER NONFICTION

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War  by Robert Michael Gates

From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vividly written account of his experience serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In relating his personal journey as secretary, Gates draws us into the innermost sanctums of government and military power during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, illuminating iconic figures, vital negotiations, and critical situations in revealing, intimate detail.

Signed copies are available while supplies last in-store & via bookpeople.com. Write that you want a “signed copy” in the comments section at the time of purchase.

The Answer to the Riddle is Me: A Memoir of Amnesia by David Stuart MacLean

The Answer to the Riddle Is Me, drawn from David MacLean’s award-winning This American Life essay, is a deeply felt, closely researched, and intensely personal book. It asks every reader to confront the essential questions of our age: In our geographically and chemically fluid world, what makes me who I am? And how much can be stripped away before I become someone else entirely?

David Stuart MacLean will be in the store on Friday, Jan 31 at 7PM. Pre-order signed copies of The Answer to the Riddle is Me by clicking here.

The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Briliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News–And Divided a Country by Gabriel Sherman

A deeply reported journey inside the secretive world of Fox News and the life of its combative, visionary founder. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Fox News insiders past and present, Sherman documents Ailes’s tactical acuity as he battles the press, business rivals, and countless real and perceived enemies inside and outside Fox. Roger Ailes’s life is a story worthy of Citizen Kane. The Loudest Voice in the Room is an extraordinary feat of reportage with a compelling human drama at its heart.

Waking from the Dream: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr. by David L. Chapell

Waking from the Dream is a revealing and resonant look at civil rights after King as well as King’s place in American memory. It illuminates a time, explores a cause, and explains how a movement labored to overcome the loss of its leader. Waking from the Dream documents this struggle, including moments when the movement seemed on the verge of dissolution, and the monumental efforts of its members to persevere. For this watershed study of a much-neglected period, Chappell spent ten years sifting through a voluminous public record.

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PAPERBACK FICTION

Vampires in the Lemon Grove: And Other Stories by Karen Russell

“In Vampires in the Lemon Grove, her second story collection, Russell continues to hone her unique voice and to stretch the limits of her readers’ imaginations. She also lets her stories get a little darker than before. Despite the playfulness of their conceits, most have realistic, even somber, emotional cores. Vampires in the Lemon Grove is guaranteed to make you giddy and sad and delighted and filled with awe—the best ways a story collection can make you feel.” –Liz W.

Benediction by Kent Haruf

“Everyone should know Kent Haruf. The emotional power he packs into deceptively simple sentences left me crying into cocktail napkins on a crowded airplane as I tore through the end of this wonderful novel. Regret, loss, mortality, love; this book covers it all in chapters that move between characters…This is one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time, crafted by a master of the form. This is how great literature is done, folks, beautiful sentences laid down one at a time, steady and even, brilliant and gorgeous, building a story right inside your heart. Everyone should read this book. I want to read it again.” –Julie W.