Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins $26.95)

“This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew...This book tells the story of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air.”     —Barbara Kingsolver

In her first full-length nonfiction narrative, bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver opens your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: you are what you eat. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life, and diversified farms at the center of the American diet. (from HarperCollins)

 

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin $13.95)

"The circus, the Great Depression, a complex elephant, equally complex love, the mists and twists of memory articulated in the utterly winning voice of a very old man who's seen it all: these are the irresistible elements of Water for Elephants. Sara Gruen has written an utterly transporting novel richly full of the stuff of life." (Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler)

 

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig (Harvest $14)

“Can’t cook but doesn’t bite.” So begins the ad offering the services of an “A-1 housekeeper” that draws the attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. And so also begins the unforgettable season that deposits the non-cooking, non-biting, ever-whistling Rose

Llewellyn and her font-of knowledge brother, Morris Morgan, in Marias Coulee, Montana. When

the schoolmarm runs off with an itinerant preacher, Morris is pressed into service, setting the stage for the “several kinds of education”— none of them of the textbook variety—Morris and Rose will bring to Oliver, his three sons, and the rambunctious students in the region’s one-room schoolhouse.

A paean to a vanished way of life and the eccentric individuals and idiosyncratic institutions that made it fertile, The Whistling Season is Ivan Doig at his evocative best. (from Harvest)

 

The Penny by Joyce Meyer with Deborah Bedford (Faithwords $21.99)

 

 

 

 

 

Best-selling author Joyce Meyer collaborates on her first ever fiction project with author Deborah Bedford to tell a captivating story or restoration and true forgiveness, springing out of Joyce’s real-life experiences as a childhood victim of abuse.  Jenny Blake has a theory about life: big decisions often don’t amount to much, but little decisions sometimes transform everything. Her theory proves true the summer she’s 14, when she makes the decision to pick up a penny embedded in asphalt and consequently ends up stopping a robbery, getting a job, and meeting someone who changes her life forever—Miss Shaw. This unexpected relationship transforms them both in ways neither could have anticipated, and the ripple effect that begins that summer goes on to bring new life to the people around them, revealing how God works in the smallest details.  (from Publisher)

FINALLY IN PAPERBACK!—We’ve waited two long years— Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay $15.99)

Gladwell, a journalist, not a scientist, gives us lots to think about as he explains in terms easy to understand, what those in the know, know about the way we think. How do police mistake a man reaching for his wallet with a man reaching for a gun? How do we react to authority? What makes us choose one thing over another? Who decides what music will play on the radio? If people fascinate you and you’ve always wanted to know why they think the way they do, don’t miss this entertaining and fascinating book.

Body Surfing by Anita Shreve (Little Brown $25.99)

At 29, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to regain her footing, she has answered an ad to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do couple as they spend a summer in their New Hampshire cottage. But when Edward’s grown sons, Ben and Jeff, arrive at the beach house, Sydney finds herself caught up in a destructive web of old tensions and bitter division. With subtle wit, lyrical language, and brilliant insight into the human heart  Shreve weaves a novel about marriage, family, and the courage it takes to love. (from Publisher)

Atherton: The House of Power by Patrick Carman (Little Brown $16.99)

A riveting adventure set in an extraordinary satellite world—created as a refuge from a dying Earth that begins to collapse and forever change the lives of its inhabitants. Edgar, a gifted climber, is a lonely boy scaling the perilous cliffs that separate the 3 realms of Atherton: a humble fig grove: a mysterious highland world of untold beauty and sinister secrets; and a vast wasteland where he must confront unspeakable danger that could destroy the people of Atherton. (from Little Brown)

That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell (Hyperion $16.99)

Emily Brown’s rabbit, Stanley, is NOT FOR SALE. Not even to her Most Royal Highness, Queen Gloriana the Third. Not even for all the toys Emily could ever desire. So when naughty Queen Gloriana steals “Bunnywunny” away, Emily Brown sets out to get him back. Along the way, she shows the queen how to love a special toy of her very own.

Daddy’s Girl by Garrison Keillor. Now available as a Board Book! (Hyperion $6.99)

“Oh, Baby, won’t you dance with me?” From the familiar pleasures of baby’s favorite food to the joy of dancing together, this collection of three songs celebrates the special relationship between a daddy and his little girl. (from Hyperion)

Need more Marley?? Bad Dog, Marley! By John Grogan HarperCollins $16.99)

Mommy, Daddy, Cassie, and Baby Louie welcome Marley, a new Labrador puppy, into their home. Marley grows and grows...and grows. His eagerness and energy grow with him, getting him into trouble in a great big way. Marley’s behavior could be called over the top, but this time around, it actually saves the day. (from HarperCollins)