Night Film

Marisha Pessl (Get this book)
An inventive--if brooding, strange and creepy--adventure in literary terror. Think Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King meet Guillermo del Toro as channeled by Klaus Kinski. In her sophomore effort, Pessl hits the scary ground running.  Pessl's book does a good imitation of a multimedia extravaganza, interspersed with faux web pages and images. All it needs is for a voice to croak out "boo" from the binding, and it'd be complete unto itself. A touch too coyly postmodern at times, but a worthwhile entertainment all the same--Kirkus

UFO Hunters, Book One

William J. Birnes (Get this book)
The official companion to the eponymous hit History Channel TV series, this book is a fun and fascinating peek behind the scenes of the short-lived show, and into the world of real-life UFO hunters. Each chapter focuses on a different episode, covering the sighting in question, background information, the making of the segment, and Birnes's own thoughts on the finished episode and the case itself. The author's attention to detail and dedication to covering every angle makes this a must-have for devotees of the program, and it's engrossing enough to lure newcomers into the weird world of UFOs.--Publisher's Weekly

Claire of the Sea Light

Edwidge Danticat (Get this book)
In this gorgeous, arresting, and profoundly vivid new novel, Danticat once again tells a story that feels as mysterious and magical as a folk tale and as effective and devastating as a newsreel. Claire Limye Lanme ("Claire of the Sea Light") is turning seven, and yet her birthday has always been marked by both death and renewal. Claire's mother died in childbirth, and she has been raised by her fisherman father in a shack near the sea.Danticat (Krik? Krak!) paints a stunning portrait of this small Haitian town, in which the equally impossible choices of life and death play out every day.--Publisher's Weekly

The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential

N. T. Wright (Get this book)
Prolific New Testament scholar Wright fears that the contemporary praise-song is crowding out the ancient Hebrew prayer-songs that have traditionally informed Christian liturgy and personal devotion. The Psalms constituted Jesus' and his followers' hymnal, he reminds us, and then proceeds in three chapters to argue their merits for those who read, recite, and sing them regularly. Wright advances his explanation of the Psalms' special efficacies through generous quotations, and he uses a final chapter to tell some stories of particular psalms' effects on his spiritual development. He also writes a context for what he quotes that is almost as graceful, if not as stunningly beautiful, as the Psalms themselves.--Booklist

Early Decision: Based on a True Frenzy

Lacy Crawford (Get this book)
This entertaining tale of upper class parents and adolescent learning curves points a keen eye at the college application process and the agony and ecstasy of getting that acceptance letter. Sprinkled with tips for writers "it isn't so much about editing as it is about aligning execution to intention," essays in various forms of re-write, and a very satisfying twist at the end, the reader is lead through a long, dark supervised High School hallway and off to the freedom of the great lawn.--Publisher's Weekly

A Beautiful Truth

Colin McAdam (Get this book)
McAdam (Fall) investigates the social dynamics of great apes within the cages of a Florida research institute. Researcher David Kennedy watches over a troupe of chimpanzees, monitoring their interactions, administering social and cognitive tests in order "to defy Noam Chomsky's assertion that humans were unique for being born with language." Weighty themes underlie McAdam's spartan prose depicting the inner lives of research chimps. Craftily blurring species lines, McAdam doesn't limit himself to the chimp colony; alongside scenes at the Girdish Institute runs the story of Vermont couple Walt and Judy Ribke and their adopted chimp, Looee. Brimming with ambition, McAdam delivers a thought-provoking foray into the not-so-dissimilar minds of our ape relatives--Publisher's Weekly

Who Asked You?

Terry McMillan (Get this book)
The years pass, and McMillan's characters have moved from buppiedom to grandmotherhood. Betty Jean is not having a good day when we first meet her. She's in the kitchen, frying chicken, when her wayward 27-year-old daughter, Trinetta, calls, begging for money and adding, "the good news is I might have a job and I was wondering if I could bring the boys over for a couple of days." Moving from character to character and their many points of view, McMillan writes jauntily and with customary good humor, though the sensitive ground on which she's treading is not likely to please all readers; even so, her story affirms the value of love and family, to say nothing of the strength of resolute women in the absence of much strength on the part of those few men who happen to be in the vicinity. McMillan turns in a solid, well-told story.--Kirkus

Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice

Martha Nussbaum (Get this book)
The latest book from University of Chicago law and ethics professor Nussbaum stimulates readers with challenging insights on the role of emotion in political life. Her provocative theory of social change shows how a truly just society might be realized through the cultivation and studied liberation of emotions, specifically love. In contrast to thinkers like John Rawls, who imagined an already just world, Nussbaum addresses how to order our society to reach such a world. A plea for recognizing the power of art, symbolism, and enchantment in public life, Nussbaum's cornucopia of ideas effortlessly commands attention and debate.--Publisher's Weekly

The Maid's Version

Daniel Woodrell (Get this book)
A grandson becomes obsessed with his grandmother's story about a small-town disaster from many years ago. Set in the Ozarks, the book is inspired by history and is far less noir-tinged than the author's earlier works (The Outlaw Album, 2011, etc.). Loosely based on the real-life West Plains Dance Hall Explosion of 1928, it centers on Alma DeGeer Dunahew, a maid with three children in fictional West Table, Mo. A commanding fable about trespass and reconstruction from a titan of Southern fiction.--Kirkus

Hanns and Rudolf: The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz

Thomas Harding (Get this book)
British documentary filmmaker and journalist Harding traces the lives of Auschwitz Kommandant Rudolf Hoss and Hanns Alexander, a Jewish refugee from Nazism who hunted him down and brought him to justice. Harding's portrayal of both men's lives before the war sets the scene for the hunt and its aftermath. The protagonists' individual choices and family backgrounds give this biographical history a unique, intimate quality.--Kirkus

The Silent Wife

A. S. A. Harrison (Get this book)
Canadian author Harrison's first novel is a smart, nuanced portrait of a dying marriage. Accepting the peccadillos of her adulterous husband is one thing, but when Todd takes his infidelity to the next level and tells her that he's leaving her, the existence she's clung to so dearly is destroyed. And Jodi will do anything to take it back. And she does. Harrison breathes life into Adlerian psychology, and weaves theory into a heart-pounding thriller that will keep you up at night.--Publisher's Weekly

The Cancer Chronicles: Unlocking Medicine's Deepest Mystery

George Johnson (Get this book)
Not quite "abandon all hope," but there's not much to cheer about in this wide-angled survey of where we are in the fight against cancer. Science writer Johnson has steeped himself in cancer lore, attended conferences and interviewed experts to conclude that the more we learn about the disease, the more complex it gets. Yes, there have been declines in incidence, but new cases will offset those declines simply because people are living longer; cancers essentially reflect the accumulation of DNA hits to a cell as it divides and divides again over time. A thorough and nuanced presentation of the state of the science of cancer research, refreshing in its honest appraisal that the war is far from over.--Kirkus

Someone

Alice McDermott (Get this book)
Readers who love refined, unhurried, emotionally fluent fiction will rejoice at National Book Awardwinner McDermott's return. McDermott is a master of hidden intensities, intricate textures, spiked dialogue, and sparkling wit. A marvel of subtle modulations, McDermott's keenly observed, fluently humane, quietly enthralling novel of conformity and selfhood, of lace-curtain pretensions as shield and camouflage, celebrates family, community, and the grace of a shared past.--Booklist

The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty

Nina Munk (Get this book)
Vanity Fair contributing editor Munk spent six years chronicling the Millennium Villages Project, the pet project that lauded economist Sachs launched in 2006. The project's goal was an audacious attempt to prove Sachs's well-intentioned, but ultimately naive theories about ending extreme poverty in Africa by focusing on a handful of carefully selected villages with the expectation that their halo effect would spread throughout the country. Students of economic policy and altruistic do-gooders alike will find Munk's work to be a measured, immersive study of a remarkable but all-too-human man who let his vision get the best of him.--Kirkus

The Autobiography of Jack the Ripper

James Willoughby Carnac (Get this book)
Is the memoir purporting to be the confessions of the notorious serial killer actually that, or just a hoax? Carnac traces his path to infamy from his childhood, when he's traumatized by the murder of his mother by his father, who then turns the fatal knife on himself. He discusses his compulsion to kill, attributing it to his ancestral line of French executioners. In an appendix, Ripper expert Paul Begg does a good job of addressing and countering problems raised by the account, but in the end, it could be taken for simply a clever work of historical fiction.--Publisher's Weekly

The Painted Girls

Cathy Marie Buchanan (Get this book)
Buchanan brings the unglamorous reality of the late-19th-century Parisian demimonde into stark relief while imagining the life of Marie Van Goethem, the actual model for the iconic Degas statue Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. Marie is the middle Van Goethem sister, the plain one who loves reading. Seven-year-old Charlotte has the looks and charm, while street-wise 17-year-old Antoinette is burdened with raising her sisters because their widowed mother spends most of her meager income as a washerwoman on absinthe. Buchanan does a masterful job of interweaving historical figures into her plot, but it is the moving yet unsentimental portrait of family love, of two sisters struggling to survive with dignity, that makes this a must-read.--Kirkus

Circle of Friends: The Massive Federal Crackdown on Insider Trading - And Why the Markets Always Work Against the Little Guy

Charles Gasparino (Get this book)
A senior correspondent for Fox Business Network profiles the ongoing insider trading prosecutions that have secured convictions for more than 70 hedge fund traders. Gasparino describes his book as "an attempt to provide some perspective on what regulators view as the white-collar crime of the century." He details the investigations that have ensnared such multibillion-dollar outfits as Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon hedge fund and are closing in on Steve Cohen's huge SAC Capital. A thoughtful, provocative investigation and assessment.--Kirkus

Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life

Melody Moezzi (Get this book)
An Iranian-American political activist and writer's memoir of how she came to terms with her bicultural heritage and bipolar disorder. Moezzi grew up affluent and surrounded by a huge extended family of other Persian exiles. But at 18, when her "westoxified" body rebelled against her for two years, Moezzi was forced to deal with both a life-threatening case of pancreatitis and what appeared to be a case of depression. The author's candor about her experiences in and with the medical establishment is bracing. A bold, courageous book by a woman who transforms mental illness into an occasion for activism.--Kirkus

Brilliance

Marcus Sakey (Get this book)
Brilliance posits that, in 1980, 1 in every 100 children born in the U.S. proved to be a savant. Three decades later, these unique geniuses have changed the U.S.; the abnormals are titans, and ordinary Americans are irrelevant. Sakey's premise is utterly compelling; no committed thriller aficionado will be able to set the book down. His complex characters are deeply engaging, and his writing is propulsive. Best, however, is his insightful evocation of government and popular reaction to the brilliants. We've already seen it: in doctrines of preemptive war, enhanced interrogation techniques, the Patriot Act, the civil rights struggle, and the ginned-up, gnawing fear that sets Americans against Americans. Brilliance is disturbing and brilliant.--Booklist

Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch

Barbara A. Perry (Get this book)
Perry gained access to 300 boxes of Rose Kennedy's personal letters and journals, now held at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. From these, Perry dug out new information about the Kennedy clan and saw how Rose forged through a lifetime with much sorrow and loss. Perry's biography is a finely crafted, comprehensive account of one of the most driven women in the shadows of American political history, who found solace in her Catholic faith to overcome the disappointments of her marriage, the deaths of her sons and daughter, and the burdens from a mentally challenged daughter. Kennedy completists and novices alike are sure to find the book fascinating as it further reveals the perspective of the strong woman behind the dynasty.--Library Journal

A Street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life

James Bowen (Get this book)
Books abound on the subject of how a dog or a cat can rehabilitate a person's life, but this account of such an event is stellar. Only a heart of stone will not be movedeven to tearsin bearing witness to the love of a London street musician for the gorgeous ginger tomcat he found one day in his apartment building hallway. The cat, soon called Bob, was injured, so Bowen took him in but planned to nurse him only for a short while. This is a beautiful, never maudlin story of second chances for both man and beast and a poignant testimony to how much caring for someoneor some felinecan give you renewed direction when you're down and out. Understandably, this was a best-seller when first published in Great Britain.--Booklist

The Sound of Things Falling

Juan Gabriel Vasquez (Get this book)
Juan Gabriel Vasquez uses this history as a backdrop in The Sound of Things Falling, as he tries to come to terms with years of drug-related violence that many Colombians would prefer to forget. Vasquez examines, eloquently, how memories can cripple and heal at the same time, how the past must be exorcised before a real future is viable--Shelf Awareness

A Question of Honor: A Bess Crawford Mystery

Charles Todd (Get this book)
Bestseller Todd once again demonstrates his talent at depicting the horrors of war in his excellent fifth mystery featuring English nurse Bess Crawford. As the carnage of WWI finally nears its end, Bess finds herself investigating murders committed a decade earlier on two different continents. In 1908, Bess was living in India with her parents when a member of her father's regiment, Lt. Thomas Wade, came under suspicion of killing his parents. But before he could be apprehended, Wade vanished near the Khyber Pass. The extremely clever plot builds to a satisfying resolution.--Publisher's Weekly

Tell No Lies

Gregg Hurwitz (Get this book)
A San Francisco silver spoon heir trying to do good becomes entangled in a serial murder case in Hurwitz's latest thriller. Daniel Brasher, last heir to a family fortune that can be traced back to the Union Pacific's golden spike, left the private investment business to become a counselor for violent offenders. The only child of widowed Evelyn Brasher, a community mover and shaker more powerful and feared than appreciated and respected, Brasher strayed further by marrying Cristina, a Hispanic community organizer. Another winner from a top-tier thriller writer.--Kirkus