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Featured Titles 2009

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 sometimes listed.

December 2009

Nonfiction

• On Thin Ice: The Changing World of the Polar Bear
  Author: Ellis, Richard
  $ 28.95 ISBN: 9780307270597 Date: 2009
  Booklist
  As global warming threatens the ice caps' integrity, the polar bear has come to symbolize the peril that faces all life on Earth. Here, the acclaimed science writer Ellis offers an impassioned and moving statement on behalf of polar bears--and all they stand for.
  Updated 11.25.09
• El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City
  Author: Ross, John
  $ 28.95 ISBN: 9781568584249 Date: 2009
  Kirkus
  There are 23,000,000 stories in Mexico City, 22,999,997 busted dreams, and 2 or 3 tales of overweening ambition and craven success: John Ross, the great chronicler of Mexico, tells them all.
  Updated 11.20.09
  

Fiction

• The Devil's Alphabet
  Author: Gregory, Daryl
  $ 15 ISBN: 9780345501172 Date: 2009
  PW
  Switchcreek is a normal town in eastern Tennessee--until a mysterious disease kill a third of its residents and mutates most of the rest into monstrous oddities. A new novel from the acclaimed author of Pandemonium.
  Updated 10.27.09
  
• Magnificent Bastards
  Author: Hall, Rich
  $ 14.95 ISBN:9780349119656 Date: 2009
  Booklist
  From the grouchy, deadpan, comic genius and brilliantly witty author of Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society and Things Snowball comes this wonderful new collection of stories of magnificent bastards and lost souls. Meet the man who vacuums bewildered prairie dogs out of their burrows; a smug, carbon-neutral eco-couple; a teenage girl who invites 45,000 MySpace friends to a house party; the author of a business book entitled "Highly Successful Secrets to Standing on a Corner Holding Up a Golf Sale Sign;" and a man whose attempts to teach softball to a group of indolent advertising executives sparks an international crisis. With his trademark humor, this is guaranteed to delight his loyal fanbase as well as draw in new readers. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 11.25.09
• My Unfair Lady
  Author: Kennedy, Kathryne
  $ 6.99 ISBN: 9781402229909 Date: 2009
  PW
  Pygmalion meets the Wild West in this lively and unusual historical romance by award-winning author Kennedy.
  Updated 10.27.09
  
• Becoming Jane Eyre
  Author: Kohler, Sheila
  $ 15 ISBN: 9780143115977 Date: 2009
  Kirkus
  A beautifully imagined tale of the Bronte sisters, Becoming Jane Eyre delicately unravels the connections between one of fiction's most indelible heroines and the remarkable woman who created her.
  Updated 11.20.09
  
• The Creed of Violence
  Author: Teran, Boston
  $ 25 ISBN: 9781582435251 Date: 2009
  Booklist
  Set against a backdrop of intrigue and corruption, The Creed of Violence is a saga about the scars of abandonment, the greed of war, and America's history of foreign intervention for the sake of oil.
  Updated 10.27.09

Crime Fiction

• Alone: A Valentino Mystery
  Author: Estleman, Loren D.
  $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780765315762 Date: 2009
  PW
  The second wacky comedic murder romp starring Hollywood film detective Valentino marvelously mixes movies and mayhem in a way sure to please film buffs and mystery fans alike (John Jakes, "New York Times"-bestselling author).
  Updated 10.27.09
  
• The Sting of Justice
  Author: Harrison, Cora
  $ 25.99 ISBN: 9780312372699 Date: 2009
  PW LJ
  The year is 1509 and autumn has come to western Ireland. When Mara attends the funeral of a local priest, the last thing she expects to discover is a corpse on the church steps. As Mara investigates, she is determined to bring a killer to justice.
  Updated 11.4.09
  
• Village of the Ghost Bears: Nathan Active
  Author: Jones, Stan
  $ 24 ISBN: 9781569476062 Date: 2009
  Kirkus PW
  Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active must figure out what connects a dead hunter on a remote Arctic lake with a year-old fatal plane crash in the Brooks Range and a fire at the Chukchi Recreation Center that killed eight people, including the town's basketball star. The case turns out to involve a lucrative polar bear poaching operation and the intense bond between a brother and sister from the village of Cape Goodwin, famous in the Arctic for twins, polar bears, and schizophrenia. The heart of the matter, he discovers, is a dead woman whose killer remembers her as having a mouth so sweet "it was like kissing a Hershey bar." - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 10.27.09
  
• Desert Lost: Lena Jones
  Author: Webb, Betty
  $ 22.95 ISBN: 9781590586822 Date: 2009
  LJ Booklist
  When private investigator Lena Jones discovers the body of a woman connected to an infamous polygamy cult, she soon uncovers a shocking secret about the group's practices.
  Updated 10.27.09