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Featured Titles New titles - selected on the basis of good reviews. Nonfiction, fiction and mystery titles are included on these lists. Books for kids and teens (fiction and nonfiction) are also listed.
June 2006
Nonfiction
- Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Author: Bechdel, Alison
Publisher: Houghton $ 19.95 ISBN: 0618477942 Date: 2006
PWKirkusBooklist
This breakout book by Alison Bechdel takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr. It"s a father-daughter tale pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel"s sweetly gothic drawings and--like Marjane Satrapi"s Persepolis--a story exhilaratingly suited to the graphic memoir form. - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Graphic Works & Comic Stars | All Stars
Updated 3.16.06 - Burning Rainbow Farm: Stoner Utopia and the War on Weed
Author: Kuipers, Dean
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 24.95 ISBN: 1596911425 Date: 2006PWKirkus
The gripping story of two marijuana advocates gunned down by the FBI after a five-day standoff. On a mission to build a peaceful, pot-friendly Shangri-La, Tom Crosslin and his lover Rollie Rohm founded Rainbow Farm, a well-appointed campground and concert venue tucked away in rural Southwest Michigan. The farm quickly became the center of marijuana and environmental activism in Michigan, drawing thousands of blue-collar libertarians and hippie liberals, evangelicals and militiamen to its annual hemp festivals. Obscured by the attacks of September 11, their stories will be told here for the first time. - Publisher Marketing
Updated 5.10.06 - Stuart: A Life Backwards
Author: Masters, Alexander
Publisher: Delacorte $ 20 ISBN: 0385340001 Date: 2006PWBooklist
Hailed in Britain as "devastating," "inspirational" ("Saturday Telegraph"), "heartbreaking" ("Saturday Telegraph Magazine") and "hilarious" ("The Spectator"), Stuart is the tragic yet ultimately uplifting story of a boy whose life left the rails early and just kept going. - Guardian First Book Award Winner, Whitbread Wward Nominee.
Updated 5.4.06 - Uncommon Carriers
Author: McPhee, John
Publisher: FSG $ 24 ISBN: 0374280398 Date: 2006PWKirkus
Here, at his adventurous best, the author chronicles his eight years of being out and about with people who work in freight transportation. The prose is distinguished, as always, by its author's warm humor, keen insight, and rich sense of human character.
Updated 4.24.06
Fiction
- Sufficient Grace
Author: Arnoult, Darnell
Publisher: Free $ 23 ISBN: 074328447x Date: 2006PW
This spellbinding debut novel explores the power of personal transformation and redemption, and the many extraordinary ways they come to pass.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 4.17.06 - Winkie
Author: Chase, Clifford
Publisher: Grove $ 17.95 ISBN: 0802118305 Date: 2006PWKirkus Booklist
In Cliff Chase's scathingly funny and surprisingly humane debut novel, the zeitgeist assumes the form of a one-foot-tall ursine Everyman--a mild-mannered teddy bear named Winkie who comes to life and finds himself on the wrong side of America's war on terror. After suffering decades of neglect from the children who once loved him, Winkie realizes that taking charge of his fate is as simple as knowing that he can do it, and so he hurls himself off the shelf, jumps out the window, and takes to the forest. But just as he is discovering the joys and wonders of mobility, self-determination, even true love, this small brown creature of indeterminate gender gets trapped in the jaws of a society gone rabid with fear and paranoia. Having come upon the cabin of the mad professor who stole his beloved, Winkie is suddenly surrounded by the FBI, who instantly conclude that he is the evil mastermind behind dozens of terrorist attacks that have been traced to the forest. Terrified and confused, Winkie is brought to trial, where the prosecution attempts to seal the little bear's fate by calling upon witnesses from the trials of Galileo, Socrates, John Scopes, and Oscar Wilde. Emotionally gripping and intellectually compelling, Winkie introduces the most memorable protagonist since the Velveteen Rabbit, and--with the help of a lesbian Moslem cleaning woman, a stuttering attorney, and a Lacan-spewing bear cub--brilliantly exposes the cruel absurdities of our age and explores what it means to be human in an increasingly barbaric world. - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Debuts | All Stars
Updated 5.16.06 - Old Filth
Author: Gardam, Jane
Publisher: Europa $ 14.95 ISBN: 1933372133 Date: 2006KirkusBooklist
Filth is a lawyer with a practice in the Far East. A few remember that his nickname stands for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. But Old Filth is not as pompous as people imagine, and his past contains many secrets and dark hiding places.
Updated 5.5.06 - The Whole World Over
Author: Glass, Julia
Publisher: Pantheon $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375422749 Date: 2006PWLJKirkus
In this new work by the bestselling author of Three Junes, Greenie Duquette, the fiery proprietor of her own Greenwich Village pastry business, becomes the personal chef for the governor of New Mexico, setting in motion a period of adventure and upheaval that culminates in the tragedy of 9/11.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Reading Group Best Bets
Updated 3.20.06 - Song of the Crow
Author: Maheu, Layne
Publisher: Unbridled $ 23.95 ISBN: 1932961186 Date: 2006LJ
A narrating crow wonders why a lanky old man would build such an oddly shaped home--this 'ark'--so far from the waters. At a time when many are searching for meaning, Maheu's extraordinary debut novel asks readers to ponder the unsettled state of the world.
Updated 4.3.06 - Castle Waiting
Author: Medley, Linda
Publisher: Fantagraphics $ 29.95 ISBN: 1560977477 Date: 2006BooklistPW
The multiple Harvey and Eisner award-winning fantasy is now collected in one volume!
The 450-page Castle Waiting graphic novel tells the story of an isolated, abandoned castle, and the eccentric inhabitants who bring it back to life. A fable for modern times, Castle Waiting is a fairy tale that's not about rescuing the princess, saving the kingdom, or fighting the ultimate war between Good and Evil--but about being a hero in your own home.
For the first time, Fantagraphics' Castle Waiting collects the entire story into one mammoth volume--and includes the concluding chapter written and drawn especially for this volume. - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Graphic Works Stars
Updated 4.10.06 - The Futurist
Author: Othmer, James P.
Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.95 ISBN: 038551722x Date: 2006KirkusPW
From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, The Futurist manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.
Updated 3.8.06 - Triangle
Author: Weber, Katharine
Publisher: FSG $ 23 ISBN: 0374281424 Date: 2006PW
The last living survivor of the notorious 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire has told her story countless times. Even so, her death at the age of 106 leaves unanswered many questions. Are the discrepancies in her various accounts over the years just ordinary human fallacy, or is there a hidden story in Esther's recollections of that terrible day?
Updated 4.3.06
Crime Fiction
- The Pale Blue Eye
Author: Bayard, Louis
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060733977 Date: 2006PWKirkus
In this ingenious tale of murder and revenge at West Point, a retired New York City detective recruits a young cadet named Edgar Allan Poe to help him narrow down the suspects, even as they deal with their own personal demons.
Suggested Reading: Edgar Allan Poe Stars
Updated 4.24.06 - See Delphi and Die: Marcus Didius Falco
Author: Davis, Lindsey
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312357656 Date: 2006KirkusBooklistLJ
Humor, surprises, and domestic irony await Roman sleuth Falco as he attempts to solve the disappearance of two newlyweds on their honeymoon trip to Ancient Greece.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 4.3.06 - Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night
Author: Patterson, James (edt)
Publisher: Mira $ 24.95 ISBN: 0778322998 Date: 2006PW
Written by a cadre of major thriller authors, this collection's contributors include James Grippando, Alex Kava, John Lescroart, Eric Van Lustbader, and Douglas Preston.
Suggested Reading: Thrillers | Top 10 Thrillers
Updated 4.3.06 - Shakedown
Author: Stella, Charlie
Publisher: Pegasus $ 24 ISBN: 1933648058 Date: 2006KirkusBooklist
Get married, have a kid - it's not much to ask. Unless you've got to first divorce the mob. And Bobby Genarro only thinks he has, in this brutal, funny new crime novel from Charlie Stella, "who," says the "Chicago Sun-Times, "may just be the best crime writer you've never read." - Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled | Noir Stars
Updated 5.4.06
Books for Kids, Teens & Readers of All Ages
Age and grade designations are approximate, parental judgement should be used.
- Rash
Author: Hautman, Pete
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 15.95 ISBN: 0385340001 Date: 2006
PW
In this futuristic satire by a National Book Award winner, a teen is sent to work at a pizza factory in the Canadian tundra after being accused of causing a rash that plagues his school.
Ages: 12-17 Category: Speculative Fiction | Thriller - The Foreshadowing
Author: Sedgwick, Marcus
Publisher: Wendy Lamb $ 16.95 ISBN: 0385476466 Date: 2006
Booklist Kirkus
As World War I rages, 15-year-old Sasha, a well-to-do and sheltered English girl, wants to become a nurse. When she helps at a hospital, Sasha is able to see when someone is going to die. When she sees her brother in a premonition, she pretends to be a nurse and goes behind the front lines to prevent his death.
Ages: 13-17 Category: Historical Fiction