Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity, and the Perfect Knuckleball

by R.A. Dickey      (Find the Book)
Most professional baseball players pen a memoir after they retire. But pitcher R.A. Dickey-who spent four seasons with four different Major League Baseball teams and is MLB's only active knuckleballer-boasts a story compelling enough to be told forthwith. A heralded 1996 first-round draft choice, Dickey's $810,000 signing bonus with the Texas Rangers was yanked after doctors discovered the right-handed pitcher was missing an ligament in his right elbow. Thus began a dramatic up-and-down journey through the professional ranks, sustained by Dickey's determination, as evidenced by the book's proverbial Latin epigraph, "Dum spiro, spero"-"While I breath, I hope." He and co-author Coffey (The Boys of Winter) write with startling candor not only about the game-Dickey's fellow players, steroids in baseball, his disdain for rookie hazing-, but also about his tumultuous upbringing-being a victim of sexual abuse as an 8-year-old at the hands of his babysitter, growing up in Nashville with an alcoholic mother, sleeping in vacant houses as a teenager, and becoming a Christian. Dickey credits his faith with overcoming myriad trials both personal and professional, but it never feels as if he's preaching. Once an English-lit major and now a starting pitcher for the New York Mets, the author emerges as one of baseball's good guys, and someone who can write as well as he pitches. Dickey has set a new standard for athlete autobiographies. -- Publisher's Weekly

The family Corleone

by Edward Falco.       (Find the Book)
Opinion remains divided on Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1969). Was it a pulp masterpiece or did it merely benefit from the glow cast by Francis Coppola's films? Falco's prequel provides ample opportunity for reevaluation. Based on an unproduced screenplay by Puzo, it channels the original so well that readers will be vividly reminded of Puzo's strengths (family politics, abrupt violence) and weaknesses (important characters who never evolve beyond plot pawns). Set in 1933, the story finds all of the New York families, including the relatively humble Corleones, bracing for the end of Prohibition. That means power shifts and that means blood. Falco's populous, chatty, gory novel focuses on two characters, Don Corleone's hotheaded 17-year-old son, Sonny, who longs to break into his father's business, and Luca Brasi, a loose-cannon psychopath who throws the entire crime world into chaos. For better or worse, Falco follows every esoteric character with the same steadicam curiosity. His moments of blam-blam-blam, though, are ace. Best of all, he supplies a grand set-piece finale a parade that will have readers dreaming of just one more movie. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Over 21 million copies of Puzo's original are in print, and legions of Puzo and Coppola fans are still out there, making this an offer they can't refuse. --Booklist 

No time to lose : a life in pursuit of deadly viruses

by Peter Piot.               (Find the Book)
Belgian physician Piot has been on the front lines of infectious disease research for the last three and one-half decades, and he details the battle against Ebola and AIDS in his timely and accessible memoir. In 1976, Piot and his colleagues received a blood sample from Kinshasa, Zaire, taken from a patient suffering from a new, terrifying syndrome. Though the virulent disease, christened Ebola after a nearby river, flamed out quickly due to its high mortality rate, Piot was saddened to discover that unsanitary conditions in the missionary hospital operated by Flemish nuns contributed to its spread. Piot next turned his attention to sexually transmitted diseases in Africa, a specialty that put him in a key position when the world witnessed the rise of a deadly virus that attacks the immune system. As new AIDS cases cropped up in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Africa, sprung from unprotected sex, blood transfusions, and intravenous-drug use, Piot realized that there was not going to be one AIDS epidemic in the world but many different ones, depending on behavior and culture, and that any kinds of solutions . . . were going to have to be tailor-made. Piot's race to make a difference in the face of this overwhelming epidemic makes for enthralling reading, and his determination, efforts, and accomplishments are inspiring. --Booklist

The lower river

by Paul Theroux.             (Find the Book)
Ellis Hock runs a men's clothing store in Massachusetts. A dutiful husband, father, and boss, he's spent his life going through the motions. The only time he felt truly alive was as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi. When his marriage and the store both fail, Hock returns to the small village of Malabo on the Lower River with a bag of cash and the hope of starting again. But he finds the villagers don't want to rebuild the schoolhouse, they want his money. Caught between their need and his naivete, Hock soon finds himself trapped in a slow-moving nightmare. There is striking resonance here with Dark Star Safari (2003), in which Theroux recounts his own return to Africa (he taught in Malawi in the 1960s) and his discovery that, despite decades of well-intentioned foreign aid, most countries are even poorer than before. In this hypnotically compelling fiction, he wrestles with questions of good intentions and harsh reality, addressing what may be the central conundrum of Africa: our own influence is the very thing that makes it impossible for us to save it. And what does saving it mean, anyway? A gripping and vital novel that reads like Conrad or Greene in short, a classic. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Publisher plans for considerable publicity to accompany the release of Theroux's new book reflect his status as a major international writer. --Booklist 

Prague winter [large print] : a personal story of remembrance and war, 1937-1948

By Madeleine Albright.        (Find the Book)
Albright learned, when secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, that her ancestry was Jewish and that many of her relatives perished in the Holocaust. Impelled to research her family history, she here integrates her discoveries and a historical narrative of Czechoslovakian politics in the WWII era, focusing on why we make the choices we do. Born in 1937 to a Czech diplomat, Albright recalls her earliest memories of German-bombed England, to which her family had escaped from their Nazi-conquered homeland. She fondly remembers her elder cousin, Daaa, but wonders why Daaa's younger sister, Milena, had been left behind in Prague. A prewar picture of the three girls poignantly depicts the stakes of Albright's core concern, which she applies to numerous political crises that afflicted Czechoslovakia. Should the country have fought in 1938? Should its exiled leaders have assassinated Reinhard Heydrich in 1942? Could Democrats have staved off the Communists in 1948? Through the connection of her father to Czechoslovak leaders, Albright shows the impact on individuals of such historical questions, accessing political history for a wide readership, which she seals with her powerfully somber accounting of the fates of her extended family, Milena included. No reader will close her memoir unmoved. --Booklist

Stolen prey

by John Sandford.           (Find the Book)
A horrific crime-the torture murders of Patrick Brooks, his wife, son, daughter, and three dogs at their palatial lakeside home in Wayzata, Minn.-propels bestseller Sandford's solid 22nd novel featuring Lucas Davenport of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (after 2011's Buried Prey). That DEA officials believe the killings to be the work of Los Criminales del Norte brings Mexican detective David Rivera and assistant Ana Martinez to the Twin Cities area, though Brooks's Spanish-language company, Sunnie Software, which peddled its product in Mexico, appears to have been an unlikely money laundry. Since the author makes it clear who the bad guys are early on, the slow revelation of what they've done and how they've done it gives the story its kick. Meanwhile, Lucas, after a couple of meth addicts rob him at an ATM, turns for help to series regular Virgil Flowers, who gets surprising results. Once again, Sandford smoothly blends action and suspense with a soupcon of humor. --Publishers Weekly

Pakistan on the brink : the future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan

by Ahmed Rashid.           (Find the Book)
With the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 and the U.S. scheduled to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in 2014, growing attention is focused on Afghanistan's far more populous and politically volatile eastern neighbor. Native son and journalist Rashid-who has written four previous books on Pakistan and on radical Islam in the region (including Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia) takes a closer look at his country's prospects and finds them extremely tenuous, given high illiteracy and poverty rates, as well as disputes between a weak civilian government and the military and intelligence service (ISI). Rashid maintains that Pakistan's approach to militant Islam is contradictory; it fights some Jihadists that directly threaten the country's interests, while utilizing others as proxies against India in Kashmir. Meanwhile, relations with the U.S. have sharply deteriorated since the assassination of bin Laden, which gave rise to differing accounts from Washington and Islamabad regarding Pakistani intelligence concerning bin Laden's whereabouts. Rashid unsparingly details Pakistan's multiple problems, along with those of the American-Pakistani relationship. His tone is too dire at times, but generally, this is a clear-headed, sobering look at a country whose ties with the U.S. are becoming ever more frayed. --Publishers Weekly

Comeback love : a novel

by Peter Golden.       (Find the Book)
Award-winning journalist Golden's first novel resonates with the great experiences typical of a life love, sorrow, loss, lessons, resolutions. Gordon Meyers has 50-plus years of living to reflect on when we meet him struggling through deep snow drifts as he tries to reach his family's New Jersey cemetery plot. The first-person narrative weaves between the past and the present, depicting a young, idealistic Gordon and the present-day Gordon filled with fears, regrets, and the tiniest possibility of hope. Glenna Rising was a med student in the 1960s when Gordon met her and fell irrevocably in love with her wit, passion, and drive. But those qualities later served to break them apart. The sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic emotional dancing Gordon and Glenna engage in reads as honestly and accurately as any love story between two people who come together, come apart, then reconnect decades later. The repositioning of the characters between past and present never jars and should suit those who enjoy love stories along the lines of those by Nicholas Sparks and Sarah Pekkanen. --Booklist

Crossing the borders of time : a true story of war, exile, and love reclaimed

by Leslie Maitland.       (Find the Book)
Former New York Times reporter Maitland grew up listening to her mother Janine's romantic tales of her first love. Janine fell in love with Roland, a French Catholic, and they planned to marry when the impending Nazi invasion of France in 1942 forced Janine's German Jewish family to flee. Janine journeyed with her family from Marseilles to Casablanca to a Cuban detention camp before they finally reached New York. The war and family secrets prevented Janine from reuniting with her fiance. Janine eventually married Maitland's father and settled into a sometimes acrimonious family life, and she never forgot Roland. Maitland, haunted by her mother's romantic story of first love, set out to find out what happened to Roland and to trace her family's long history in Germany and perilous flight to avoid Nazi persecution. This is a fascinating story of thwarted love, longing, and the travails of one woman and one family within the broader context of war and persecution. Maitland includes a treasury of old family photographs and documents to enhance this incredible story of the gauzy intersection of memory and fact. --Booklist 

Burroughs, whose best-selling memoir, Running with Scissors (2002), documented horrific childhood abuse, is uniquely qualified to write a self-help book. He is a survivor, with intimate knowledge of many of the topics addressed in the genre. His advice here, whether about addiction, aggression, self-loathing, or denial, can be summed up in three words: get over yourself. Life is too short, he says, to do anything but live in the moment and focus on the good. Burroughs is bracingly honest, offering remedies for the world-weary, from teenage girls molested by their fathers to adults coming to terms with the death of a life partner. Burroughs, whose struggles with alcohol were documented in Dry (2003), doesn't believe in Alcoholics Anonymous, which requires members to admit powerlessness. A person needs power, he says, to abolish alcohol from his or her life. With his trademark blend of black humor and heart, Burroughs serves up tough love and reasons for hope: If you hate life, you haven't seen enough of it, he writes in a chapter about suicide. If you hate your life, it's because your life is too small and doesn't fit you. However big you think your life is, it's nothing compared to what's out there. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With a first printing of 350,000 copies and extensive promotion in print and online, Burroughs' one-of-a-kind take on the how-to book will have his fans standing in line for advice.

by Augusten Burroughs.
Burroughs, whose best-selling memoir, Running with Scissors (2002), documented horrific childhood abuse, is uniquely qualified to write a self-help book. He is a survivor, with intimate knowledge of many of the topics addressed in the genre. His advice here, whether about addiction, aggression, self-loathing, or denial, can be summed up in three words: get over yourself. Life is too short, he says, to do anything but live in the moment and focus on the good. Burroughs is bracingly honest, offering remedies for the world-weary, from teenage girls molested by their fathers to adults coming to terms with the death of a life partner. Burroughs, whose struggles with alcohol were documented in Dry (2003), doesn't believe in Alcoholics Anonymous, which requires members to admit powerlessness. A person needs power, he says, to abolish alcohol from his or her life. With his trademark blend of black humor and heart, Burroughs serves up tough love and reasons for hope: If you hate life, you haven't seen enough of it, he writes in a chapter about suicide. If you hate your life, it's because your life is too small and doesn't fit you. However big you think your life is, it's nothing compared to what's out there. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With a first printing of 350,000 copies and extensive promotion in print and online, Burroughs' one-of-a-kind take on the how-to book will have his fans standing in line for advice. --Booklist

The newlyweds : a novel

by Nell Freudenberger.      (Find the Book)
Amina grew up in Bangladesh, and her family always dreamed of sending her to the United States. She gets her chance when she meets George, an engineer in Rochester, NY, on an online dating site. As Amina adjusts to married life with the kind but somewhat rigid George, she slowly assimilates to American culture while planning to bring her parents to Rochester. Family feuds in Bangladesh, a rough patch in her marriage, and the economic downturn put this plan in jeopardy. With delicate precision, Freudenberger in her second novel (after The Dissi-dent) slowly builds a story that feels utterly real and present. The subtle and detailed observation of human relations is reminiscent of Alice Munro, and the bittersweet humor and struggles of modern immigrant life are captured in a manner similar to the work of Bharati Mukherjee. VERDICT Other than a deranged cousin in Bangladesh, there are no real villains here, just imperfect humans who don't always make the right choices but do the best they can in their given circumstances. Highly recommended. --Library Journal

The admirals : Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--the five-star admirals who won the war at sea

by Walter R. Borneman.            (Find the Book)
Only four men have risen to five-star admiral in the U.S. Navy: Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, William Leahy, and William Halsey. Their careers began at the turn of the 20th century and culminated in WWII. Each had a different personality; each played a different role. Halsey was the profane, hard-driving sea dog. Nimitz, imperturbable and measured, developed as arguably history's greatest naval strategist. The abrasive King spoke eloquently for sea power while a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Leahy, as discreet as he was blunt-spoken, was chief of staff and unofficial national security adviser to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. The four had in common "an enduring sense of duty, mission, and love of country," and shared an unusually high level of ability and a clear understanding of the military's place in a republic. Freelance historian Borneman (1812) demonstrates comprehensive command of published and unpublished sources, fingertip understanding of the period, and a polished writing style in this unique collective biography of the four men who "with a combination of nimble counsel, exasperating ego, studied patience, and street-fighter tactics" shaped the modern U.S. Navy to win WWII at sea. --Publishers Weekly.

Whatever you love : a novel

by Louise Doughty.                 (Find the Book)
Laura Needham lives a parent's worst nightmare when her nine-year-old daughter, Betty, on her way to a dance class after school, is hit by an errant driver and killed. Laura's grief, raw and horrible, is truly shared only by her ex-husband, David, who left the family for his attractive young assistant, Chloe, with whom he has an infant son. With the accident in the opening pages, the narrative alternates between Laura's life before and after the event, detailing her early life as the only child of a widowed, middle-aged mother stricken with Parkinson's and her passionate courtship and marriage, followed by the births of Betty instantly the apple of her father's eye and Rees, now a preschooler. Afterwards, Laura vows that she will find whatever the driver loves and take it from him. Bonded by tragedy with David, who must deal with an increasingly unstable Chloe, Laura behaves dangerously and puts herself at risk. Seldom have the subjects of love, loss, and retribution been treated with such emotional power as they are here. Award-winning English author Doughty, who is intrigued by the effects of accidents, has written a masterfully structured novel that is as indelible as it is painful. --Booklist

The man who planted trees : lost groves, champion trees, and an urgent plan to save the planet

by Jim Robbins       (Find the Book)
 Inspired, some would say driven, by a near-death experience, Michigan nurseryman David Milarch expanded his innate love of trees into a decade-long quest to seek out and protect the world's oldest and largest trees from the mass extinction he foresaw as their fate. Nearly alone in his belief that such long-lived relics must possess genetic traits of resiliency, Milarch founded the Champion Tree Project, a global mission to clone these majestic trees in order to ensure their species' survival against increased threats of extreme weather, higher temperatures, deadlier diseases, and invasive pests promised by global warming. Weaving together an intensely personal character study of Milarch and equally distinctive profiles of iconic trees and groundbreaking botanic research, respected science journalist Robbins adroitly draws parallel portraits of this dedicated champion of trees and the endangered champion trees themselves. This provocative and stimulating look at an emerging aspect of environmental study should serve as a clarion call to those concerned with the fate of the world's forests as well as of the stately shade trees in their own backyards. --Booklist

The captive heart

by Dale W. Cramer.        (Find the Book)
Faced with religious persecution in his Amish home in Ohio in the early 1920s, father and leader Caleb Bender felt that he had no choice but to move his family to Mexico. As well-known Amish inspirational writer Cramer (Paradise Valley, 2011) continues the story of the Bender family in the newest novel in the Paradise Valley series, the newly established colony is experiencing further growth. Yet, despite hopeful expectations, these brave pilgrims find themselves beset by escalating violence and heartbreak and wonder if this will ever be the blissful home they seek. In a way that only Cramer can, the lives of these plucky, authentic characters are skillfully woven into the fabric of a richly researched historical tapestry, making for a strong series, sure to please readers of this inspirational fiction niche as well as readers who appreciate fictionalized accounts of family chronicles. The tender ending of the second novel will leave readers anxiously awaiting the third. --Booklist

Imagine : how creativity works

by Jonah Lehrer.        (Find the Book)
Creativity a flash in the pan or 99-percent perspiration? A-list journalist Lehrer (How We Decide, 2009) tackles the question in broad strokes, covering topics as diverse as office layouts, urban planning, drug use, and brain chemistry. It turns out that the question isn't easy to answer, for it seems that a method used by one creative person doesn't translate for another. Lehrer describes the creative activities of such luminaries as David Byrne and the CEO of Pixar, then dissects why each approach works for that individual or group. Some examples are a bit of a stretch. The section on Shakespeare, for instance, is eye-rollingly speculative. But, just as Lehrer points out that explicit instruction is anathema to creative play and discovery, he seems to say in each section, Isn't this neat? and leave the bulk of the work to the reader's imagination. In that sense, Imagine is a great introduction for anyone curious about the nature and dynamics of creativity. --Booklist

A dog's journey

 by W. Bruce Cameron.            (Find the Book)       
Introduced in Cameron's A Dog's Purpose (2010), good dog Buddy finds a new role in life after his beloved master, Ethan, dies when he rescues Ethan's toddler granddaughter, Clarity, from a near-fatal accident. When Clarity's self-absorbed and dog-hating mother whisks her away, Buddy wonders if he'll ever see her again. Buddy doesn't, but Molly does. As all good dogs must, Buddy dies, but his spirit and mission live on in Molly, a dog the now-teenage Clarity adopts at a time when she battles her mother's psychological abuse and a violent ex-boyfriend's threats. In the years ahead, a self-destructive and emotionally fragile Clarity will manage to find her own purpose, but only with the help of Max, a spitfire chihuahua, and a gentle beagle named Toby, who carry on Buddy's protective devotion. Once again endearing himself to animal lovers, Cameron explores the concept of canine karma with acute sensitivity and exhibits cunning insight into life from a dog's perspective. --Booklist 

Psychology's ghosts : the crisis in the profession and the way back

by Jerome Kagon.           (Get a Copy)
Kagan (psychology, emeritus, Harvard Univ.; What Is Emotion? History, Measures, and Meanings) combines a frank but sympathetic critique of the present state of psychological research with a bold call for reform. The author ruminates on the history of the field, from psychology's early attempts to model itself after physics to a split in focus between the United States and Europe, where the former emphasized acquired behaviors and conditioning and the latter, mental states, childhood events, and sexuality. As psychology's search for a grand, unifying theory failed and biological psychiatry has become more important, Kagan believes the field has declined in prominence. Moving from theory to application, the book devotes considerable attention to mental illness. The author recounts the great paradigm shift from talk to drug therapy in the 1960s and successfully points out the limitations of this approach. In conclusion, he challenges psychologists to question common assumptions and accepted dogmas in their field. Verdict A valuable synthesis of ideas forcefully expressed in graceful prose, this book is highly recommended for academic and professional mental health collections. --Library Journal 

The Sleepy Hollow family almanac : a novel

 by Kris D'Agostino. With a sense of humor that suggests Bart Simpson, Calvin Moretti approaches the challenges laid out before him. He's stuck in a job he dislikes. He lives at home with his parents, beef-head brother, and little sister (student-loan payments make it impossible for him to move-out). Not to mention that his father is suffering from cancer, his mother is struggling to keep the house from foreclosure, and his 17-year-old sister just announced that she's pregnant. The best thing he has going for him right now is that one of his friends just had knee surgery, which means he can get a supply of prescription pain-killers to distract himself over the weekend. When things seem as if they couldn't get worse, they do. D'Agostino's tragicomic first novel is an insatiably readable tale of a family held together with duct tape and string. Yet when the going gets tough, Calvin knows how to see the humor in life and pull himself and his family out of an emotionally perilous situation. A memorable debut by a writer who bears watching. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The shadow catcher: a U.S. agent infiltrates Mexico's deadly crime cartels

 by Hipolito Acosta.  Illegal immigration across the southern U.S. border remains a hot-button political issue, especially when it is linked to the various organized criminal gangs in Mexico. So this timely, tense, if uneven account by a U.S. Border Patrol agent is likely to elicit considerable interest and even controversy. Acosta, born in south Texas to Mexican-American migrant farmworkers, writes with compassion about those who illegally cross the border in an often desperate search for a better life. Yet he makes clear that the vulnerability of illegal migrants makes many of them willing or unwilling accomplices to the gangs who engage in drug smuggling, human trafficking, counterfeiting, and murder on a systemic basis. Acosta's own exploits, including decades working undercover on both sides of the border, are chronicled in sometimes sensational and sometimes rather methodical fashion, which may well reflect the nature of his tasks. Still, he provides an interesting and often gripping glimpse of the seamiest aspects of an ongoing problem that both the U.S. and Mexico must confront. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The good father

 by Diane Chamberlain.  Prolific author Chamberlain (Kiss River) explores themes of family loyalty, grief, and healing around Travis Brown, a good man in an impossible situation. Twenty-three-year-old single dad Travis is struggling to get by with his young daughter, Bella, before a fire destroys their home and kills his mother. Now without child care, Travis finds it hard to secure work, and grows desperate. So when his neighbor suggests a business opportunity in Raleigh, N.C., Travis jumps at the chance. He takes Bella to Raleigh, where he discovers that the work he's accepted is trafficking cocaine. Though he balks at first, Travis decides that he has little choice. He leaves Bella with Erin, a local coffee shop waitress who recently lost her own daughter, and does the job, which goes awry, leaving Travis and Bella's lives in danger. Erin tries to take Bella to safety, but the drug dealers find them and hold them hostage until Travis can bring them a shipment of drugs that he's already abandoned. Chamberlain's keen grasp of regret and grief makes for a surprisingly thoughtful and compelling tale. --Publishers Weekly (Check Catalog)

Games primates play : an undercover investigation of the evolution and economics of human relationships

 by Dario Maeistripieri Relationships play a central role in human lives, and people who don't have good relationships with other people are generally not happy. Why is this so? Although the study of human relationships is generally the purview of psychologists, to fully understand the underlying pattern of relationships, the researcher (or interested lay reader) must step into the field of biology and, more specifically, into the realms of evolutionary biology and animal behavior. All animals exhibit social behavior to some degree, but humans are most similar to the other members of our order, the Primates, and we can learn a lot about why we act the way we do by studying our cousins. Maestripieri has analyzed human and primate behavior patterns the games individuals play with each other and in a group and shows us the similarities to other primates in this fascinating survey. Using wonderful comparative studies and conversational language, Maestripieri brings us back to our primate roots so that we can better understand why we do the things we do. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

A land more kind than home

 by Wiley Cash.  A church committed to handling poisonous snakes during worship services is the catalyst for tragedy in this debut novel. Pastor Carson Chambliss, horribly burned in a meth lab explosion, honed his preaching skills in a Georgia prison, but now he has a small North Carolina congregation in his thrall. He decides that a laying on of hands will cure an autistic boy, but instead his efforts lead to the boy's death and the destruction of a family. Cash employs three characters as narrators: Jess is the autistic boy's protective nine-year-old younger brother; Adelaide Lyle, an aged local midwife; and the county sheriff, who is drawn into the tragedy. Jess' narration is appropriately limited by his age and innocence. The county sheriff is taciturn, but Adelaide is voluble, a true southern storyteller, and her narration provides context that allows the novel to work and burnishes a compelling sense of rural place. Cash is a graceful and promising writer, and his story and characters will linger in readers' memories. --Booklist (Check C atalog)

The defining decade.

 by Meg Jay. The professional and personal angst of directionless twentysomethings is given a voice and some sober counsel in this engaging guide. Drawing on research and case studies from her clinical psychology practice, first-time author Jay shows how the decisions we make in our twenties radically affect the rest of our lives. Jay's twentysomething clients are well-educated, yet they lack focus and resist making decisions about love, work, family, and the future. Jay blames popular culture, the media, other researchers, and parents for spreading the idea that the twenties are a time for free exploration, not settling down. In clear but occasionally alarmist prose (e.g., "It would be reckless for us to focus on Kate's past when I knew her future was in danger"), Jay warns that lack of direction in one's 20s leads to cramming major life experiences (graduate school, marriage, children, professional success) into one's 30s. Stressed, over-burdened thirtysomethings end up in Jay's office, regretting their previous decade of deferring serious relationships, career-building jobs, and other life-defining events. While Jay maintains that facing difficulties in one's 20s "is a jarring-but efficient and often necessary-way to grow," the author is sincere and sympathetic, making this well-researched mix of generational sociology, psychotherapy, career counseling, and relationship advice a practical treatise for a much-maligned demographic. --Publishers weekly. (Check Catalog)

Waiting for Sunrise

 by William Boyd. Celebrated English literary virtuoso Boyd creates an express-train read. Once you're on board, you won't even think about stopping until the last page is turned. Lysander Reif, a stylish London actor with no illusions about emulating his late, revered actor father, is engaged to an actress; attentive to his aristocratic, half-Austrian mother; and close to his stalwart explorer uncle, who is living rather scandalously with his young, black male lover. If only Lysander could rid himself of his cursed sexual dysfunction. Hoping that the talking cure pioneered by Sigmund Freud will do the trick, he travels to Vienna, where he is happy to find an English analyst. His treatment is a raging success, but it precipitates a dire entanglement with sexy bohemian artist Hettie Bull. As WWI erupts, and his folly leads to his forcible recruitment into a dangerous spy-hunting mission, Lysander soon distrusts everyone, including his mother, and discovers that his acting skills give him a crucial edge. Boyd's delectably mercurial characters, astute use of this complex historical milieu and the dawn of psychoanalysis, superbly torqued plot, and exceptionally evocative language that is, by turns, lush and tensile, witty and wrenching coalesce into a long, dark night of the soul that has his resurgent, ultimately transformed hero waiting for sunrise. Sunrise and clarity. --Booklist (Check Catalog)