New Release Picks for the Week!

Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s inside account of the crises, choices, and challenges she faced during her four years as America’s 67th Secretary of State, and how those experiences drive her view of the future. “All of us face hard choices in our lives,” Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the center of world events. “Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become.” This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted.

HARDCOVER FICTION

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
Joe’s new release pick of the day!
“To tell you the truth, it’s hard talking about this book because the twists and turns are heartbreaking, sometimes heartwarming, and even both at the same time. I want you to enjoy every page of this book. I want you to savor the characters who will do anything, even lay down their lives, for Melanie. And I want you to fall in love with Melanie, who will do anything to protect the people she loves even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice…”

Robogenesis by Daniel H. Wilson
In Robogenesis, we see that Archos has survived. Spread across the far reaches of the world, the machine code has fragmented into millions of pieces, hiding and regrouping. In a series of riveting narratives, Robogenesis explores the fates of characters new and old, robotic and human, as they fight to build a new world in the wake of a devastating war. Readers will bear witness as survivors find one another, form into groups, and react to a drastically different (and deadly) technological landscape. All the while, the remnants of Archos’s shattered intelligence are seeping deeper into new breeds of machines, mounting a war that will not allow for humans to win again.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman
Tom Rachman—an author celebrated for humanity, humor, and wonderful characters—has produced a stunning novel that reveals the tale not just of one woman but of the past quarter-century as well, from the end of the Cold War to the dominance of American empire to the digital revolution of today. Leaping between decades, and from Bangkok to Brooklyn, this is a breathtaking novel about long-buried secrets and how we must choose to make our own place in the world. It will confirm Rachman’s reputation as one of the most exciting young writers we have.

Written in My Heart’s Own Blood by Diana Gabaldon
1778: At this moment, Jamie Fraser returns from a presumed watery grave to discover that his best friend has married his wife, his illegitimate son has discovered (to his horror) who his father really is, and his beloved nephew, Ian, wants to marry a Quaker. Meanwhile, Jamie’s wife, Claire, and his sister, Jenny, are busy picking up the pieces. The Frasers can only be thankful that their daughter Brianna and her family are safe in twentieth-century Scotland. Or not. In fact, Brianna is searching for her own son, who was kidnapped by a man determined to learn her family’s secrets. Her husband, Roger, has ventured into the past in search of the missing boy . . . never suspecting that the object of his quest has not left the present. Now, with Roger out of the way, the kidnapper can focus on his true target: Brianna herself.

So Much a Part of You by Polly Dugan
Peter Herring was the center of Anne’s universe in college, and now, a few years later, he’s become the center of Anna’s, and merely a minor player in his ex-girlfriend’s world. That is, until Peter and Anna are invited into Anne’s parents’ home to visit with her dying mother, and he finds himself drawn back into her orbit. Years later, when her own mother is dying, Anna will find herself yearning to reach out to Anne, with whom she had shared such a brief but intimate bond, and find solace in that moment from long ago.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

Within Arm’s Length by Dan Emmett
Within Arm’s Length is a revealing and compelling inside look at the Secret Service and the elite Presidential Protective Division (PPD). With stories from some of the author’s more high-profile assignments in his twenty-one years of service, where he provided arm’s length protection worldwide for Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, both as a member of the PPD and the Counter Assault Team, Dan Emmett describes the professional, physical and emotional challenges faced by Secret Service agents. Included are never before discussed topics such as the complicated relationship between presidents, first ladies and their agents, the inner workings of Secret Service protective operations as well as the seldom-mentioned challenges faced by an agent’s family.

The Spanish Armada by Robert Hutchinson
Popular history dictates that the defeat of the Spanish Armada was a David versus Goliath victory, snatched by plucky and outnumbered English forces. In this fascinating new history, Robert Hutchinson explodes this myth, revealing the true destroyers of the Spanish Armada—inclement weather and bad luck. In this dramatic hour-by-hour, blow-by-blow account of the Spanish Armada’s attempt to destroy Elizabeth’s England, Hutchinson spins a compelling and unbelievable narrative. Using everything from contemporary eyewitness accounts to papers held by the national archives in Spain and the United Kingdom, Robert Hutchinson re-creates one of history’s most famous episodes in an entirely new way.

Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew by Max Egremont
The hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of what many believed would be the war to end all wars is in 2014. And while World War I devastated Europe, it inspired profound poetry—words in which the atmosphere and landscape of battle are evoked perhaps more vividly than anywhere else. The poets—many of whom were killed—show not only the war’s tragedy but also the hopes and  disappointments of a generation of men. Some Desperate Glory includes a chronological anthology of the poets’ works, telling the story of the war not only through the lives of these writers but also through their art. This unique volume unites the poetry and the history of the war—so often treated separately—granting readers the pride, strife, and sorrow of the individual soldier’s experience coupled with a panoramic view of the war’s toll on an entire nation.

The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar: Living with a Tawny Owl by Martin Windrow
Martin Windrow was a war historian with little experience with pets when he adopted an owl the size of a corncob. Adorable but with knife-sharp talons, Mumble became Windrow’s closest, if at times unpredictable, companion, first in a South London flat and later in the more owl-friendly Sussex countryside. In The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar, Windrow recalls with wry humor their finer moments as well as the reactions of incredulous neighbors, the awkwardness of buying Mumble unskinned rabbit at Harrods Food Hall, and the grievous sense of loss when Mumble nearly escapes.

PAPERBACK FICTION

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel, where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant shining power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.” This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of “The Shining” and satisfy anyone new to this icon in the King canon.

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
What if—whoosh, right now, with no explanation—a number of us simply vanished?  Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside down? In The Leftovers, that’s what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out. Because nothing has been the same since it happened—not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children.

Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson, the New York Times-bestselling author of science fiction masterworks such as the Mars trilogy and 2312, has, on many occasions, imagined our future. Now, in Shaman, he brings our past to life as never before. There is Thorn, a shaman himself. He lives to pass down his wisdom and his stories — to teach those who would follow in his footsteps. There is Heather, the healer who, in many ways, holds the clan together. There is Elga, an outsider and the bringer of change. And then there is Loon, the next shaman, who is determined to find his own path. But in a world so treacherous, that journey is never simple — and where it may lead is never certain.

BOOKKIDS PICK OF THE WEEK!

Little Green Men at the Mercury Inn by Greg Leitich Smith
Twelve-year-old Aidan lives and works at his parents’ motel on the Space Coast in Florida, so he’s seen a lot of weird stuff. Even his best friend, Louis, is a little bit crazy—he’s obsessed with UFOs and swears he saw one two years ago. But things at the Mercury Inn are about to get a whole lot weirder. When an actual unidentified flying object suddenly appears in the sky over the motel, Aidan begins to realize that some of the residents of the Mercury Inn may be much more unusual than he thought. And Louis might not be so crazy after all. Filled with quirky characters and atmosphere, this beachy alien caper, like the aging motel where it takes place, is anything but ordinary.
On Saturday, June 14 at 2PM, Greg Leitich Smith will be at BookPeople with Jennifer Ziegler and Varian Johnson for MIDDLE GRADE MADNESS with their brand new novels! Pre-order signed copies today!