We Are Water

Wally Lamb (Get this book)
A searching novel of contemporary manners--and long-buried secrets--by seasoned storyteller Lamb. Lamb's latest opens almost as a police procedural, its point of view that of one Gualtiero Agnello (hint: agnello means "lamb" in Italian), rife with racial and sexual overtones. Fast-forward five decades, and it's a different world, the POV now taken by an artist named Annie Oh, sharp-eyed and smart, who is attending to details of her upcoming nuptials to her partner and agent, Viveca, who has chosen a wedding dress with a name, Gaia. We all know that life is tangled and messy. Still, in reminding readers of this fact, Lamb turns in a satisfyingly grown-up story, elegantly written.--Kirkus

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Malcolm Gladwell (Get this book)
A far- and free-ranging meditation on the age-old struggle between underdogs and top dogs. Beginning with the legendary matchup between the Philistine giant and the scrawny shepherd boy of the title, New Yorker scribe Gladwell returns continually to his main theme: that there are unsung advantages to being disadvantaged and overlooked disadvantages to being "advantaged." In addition to the top-notch writing one expects from a New Yorker regular, Gladwell rewards readers with moving stories, surprising insights and consistently provocative ideas.--Kirkus

The October List

Jeffery Deaver (Get this book)
Thriller Award winner Deaver delivers a clever, demanding stand-alone that moves backward in time over the span of a three-day weekend, from Sunday evening to early Friday morning. As the ingenious plot folds back on itself, the reader has to reevaluate and reinterpret the constantly shifting "facts" in the case. The finished picture finally emerges with a shock of recognition. This is brilliant craftsmanship in a vastly entertaining package.--Pubulisher's Weekly

Running Like a Girl: Notes on Learning to Run

Alexandra Heminsley (Get this book)
With humor and honesty, Elle UK books editor Heminsley details the anxiety and exhilaration she felt when she decided to try running in her mid-30s. Like most children, the author had enjoyed running around and playing, but over the years, she writes, she had forgotten she could run: "Somehow I had lost sight of the fact that not being a runner and being unable to run were not one and the same." For anyone contemplating running, Heminsley provides valuable insight into the mechanics and emotions inherent in the sport. The author also includes information regarding proper gear, physical ailments and preparing for a marathon. Useful insights into how to run and why one woman does so for sport and for its life-enhancing effects.--Kirkus

The Universe in the Rearview Mirror: How Hidden Symmetries Shape Reality

Dave Goldberg (Get this book)
A Drexel University physics professor offers readers an informative, math-free, and completely entertaining look at the concept of symmetry in physics. Goldberg begins by explaining that for something to be considered symmetrical, it must look the same after undergoing a transformation whether being flipped over, spun around, or reflected in a mirror. Intriguing asides cover topics like the veracity of Star Trek (it "could totally happen"), how black holes shrink the more matter they consume, and why you should never teleport a teaspoon of material from a neutron star into the cargo hold of your starship. Seasoning his expose with pop culture references that range from Doctor Who to Lewis Carroll to Angry Birds, Goldberg succeeds in making complex topics clear with a winning style--Publisher's Weekly

Blowback (Vanessa Pierson Novel)

Valerie Plame (Get this book)
Having told her real-life story in the memoir Fair Game (2007), former CIA agent Plame teams with Sarah Lovett to relate the adventures of undercover CIA operative Vanessa Pierson. Pierson is obsessed with tracking down the world's most dangerous terrorist, Bhoot, who is said to be stockpiling weapons of mass destruction in Iran. There are plenty of action scenes for Vanessa to fling herself into and, in this first installment in the series, a decently drawn, if not yet scare-inducing, villain. Making her spy fiction debut, Plame, with the seasoned Lovett's help, delivers a solid, entertaining thriller--Kirkus

Thank You for Your Service

David Finkel (Get this book)
Washington Post writer Finkel delivers one of the most morally responsible works of journalism to emerge from the post-9/11 era. In a series of interconnected stories, Finkel follows a handful of soldiers and their spouses through the painful, sometimes-fatal process of reintegration into American society. The author gives a cleareyed, frightening portrayal of precisely what it is like to suffer with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury and what it is like to have the specter of suicide whispering into your ear every day. The truly astonishing aspect of Finkel's work is that he remains completely absent from his reportage; he is still embedded. A real war story with a jarring but critical message for the American people.--Kirkus

Mortal Bonds

Michael Sears (Get this book)
Jason Stafford, on probation after imprisonment for fraud, certainly has the necessary skills to be a financial fraud consultant. When William von Becker is convicted of a huge Ponzi scheme and commits suicide, his son hires Stafford to find several billion dollars unaccounted for. A touching, tense, and terrific thriller.--Library Journal

The open-hearted way to open adoption : helping your child grow up whole

Lori Holden (Get this book)
Holden's debut is an insightful, heartfelt exploration of open adoption, an evolving arrangement that has been growing in popularity over the last 20 years. Her endorsement is personal; she has two children from open adoptions and maintains that openness helps heal adoption's split between a person's "biology" and "biography." She references open adoption as a "process" that encourages high-functioning relationships between birth parents, extended family members, and adopted parents. Holden skillfully covers many bases, including potential "bumps in the road," offering appendices and resources for further guidance.--Publisher's Weekly

The Rosie Project

Graeme Simsion (Get this book)
Polished debut fiction, from Australian author Simsion, about a brilliant but emotionally challenged geneticist who develops a questionnaire to screen potential mates but finds love instead. Simsion can plot a story, set a scene, write a sentence, finesse a detail. A pity more popular fiction isn't this well-written. If you liked Australian author Toni Jordan's Addition (2009), with its math-obsessed, quirky heroine, this book is for you. A sparkling, laugh-out-loud novel.--Kirkus

Masterminds & Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World

Rosalind Wiseman (Get this book)
A how-to guide on raising boys. "Boys don't demand our attention the way girls do,", but that does not mean they don't need guidance just as much as girls. In fact, she writes, "[b]oys profoundly want strong, comforting, honorable adults who admit how messy life is." Using scientific research and information gained directly from more than 150 boys, Wiseman examines the complex world of young men as they navigate school, the playground, locker room, playing fields and social arenas of modern life. A wealth of sensible information for parents of boys.--Kirkus

Save Yourself

Kelly Braffet (Get this book)
Braffet's excruciatingly rendered characters and locomotive plotting make her a writer's writer, though this novel shows all the signs of a popular breakthrough. Patrick, 26, lives with his older brother, Mike, and Mike's girlfriend, Caro, in a shabby house creaking with the ghost of their father, who a year ago killed a child in a drunk-driving accident and made social pariahs of his sons. Perceptive, nervy, and with broad cross-genre appeal.--Booklist

Slow Reading in a Hurried Age

David Mikics (Get this book)
Although University of Houston English professor Mikics presents the guidelines in this thoughtful book as an antidote to the "continuous partial attention" that comes with distracted reading on the Internet, they are in fact the ground rules of the lit-crit technique known as "close reading, " pioneered by American academics in the middle of the 20th century. As he ably demonstrates, those rules are still valid for understanding literature today, and for an enriched reading experience. The reader who picks up this volume will likely already have been won over to Mikics's argument, but the book's pedagogical value for students is considerable.--Publisher's Weekly

The October List

Jeffery Deaver (Get this book)
Thriller Award winner Deaver (Edge) delivers a clever, demanding stand-alone that moves backward in time over the span of a three-day weekend, from Sunday evening to early Friday morning. In the first chapter, office manager Gabriela McKenzie, whose six-year-old daughter, Sarah, has been kidnapped, waits in her Manhattan apartment for news from fund manager Daniel Reardon, who's attempting to deal with kidnapper Joseph Astor. This is brilliant craftsmanship in a vastly entertaining package--Publisher's Weekly

Their Fate Is Our Fate: How Birds Foretell Threats to Our Health and Our World

Peter Doherty (Get this book)
Like the canary in the coal mine, "[b]irds in the wild function as a roaming, natural detection system" for environmental pollution and may themselves spread potentially dangerous viruses, writes Nobel laureate Doherty. The author makes a strong case for the need for more citizen scientists to help monitor bird migration. The author, an enthusiastic bird-watcher, combines bird lore and cutting-edge science in an attractive mix that should inspire citizen scientists to pursue their hobby with renewed vigor and convince others to join in.--Kirkus

Three Can Keep a Secret: A Joe Gunther Novel

Archer Mayor (Get this book)
Hurricane Irene caused nearly every river and creek in Vermont to flood, taking lives, doing billions of dollars of damage, and leaving some towns cut off from outside aid for two weeks. But for Joe Gunther and his team of Vermont Bureau of Investigation detectives, Irene brings an unearthed coffin, filled with rocks instead of a cadaver; the suspicious death of a once-powerful state senator, who lived in a fabulously expensive retirement home; and a missing patient from the state's mental hospital. This twenty-fourth entry in a wonderful series is very close to Mayor's best.--Booklist

The Vikings

Neil Oliver (Get this book)
Scottish archaeologist Oliver explores the vast influence of the relatively short Viking Age. The Viking Age began with the raid on Lindisfarne in 793 and lasted until the Norman invasion in 1066. The Vikings invaded, and often stayed, in lands from Turkey, and possibly Persia, all the way to Greenland. The men sought land, escape from harsh rulers, adventure, power and, most importantly, riches. The author has studied his sources in depth and provides a great chronicle of these nation-shapers who stretched the limits of the known world--Kirkus

Loss of Innocence

Richard North Patterson (Get this book)
The prequel to Fall from Grace is a departure for Patterson. Unlike his previous novels, which usually fall into the thriller category, this latest is a bildungsroman set in the summer and fall of a pivotal year in American history, 1968. Patterson introduces us to a youthful Ben Blaine, whose death was the jumping-off point for Fall from Grace, through the eyes of bookish Whitney Dan, a budding writer from a blue-blooded family. The second in a planned trilogy, Patterson's latest offers up an appealing family drama set against the backdrop of a radically tumultuous and influential time.--Booklist

Impact Statement: A Family's Fight for Justice Against Whitey Bulger, Stephen Flemmi, and the FBI

Bob Halloran (Get this book)
Hard-boiled investigative look at murderous South Boston drug kingpin Whitey Bulger. TV journalist and author Halloran gives a no-nonsense, nuts-and-bolts portrait of South Boston's most notorious drug czar and mass murderer. Although there have been accounts of Bulger and his long and lethal reign over the Boston drug world, Halloran's book is more specifically about the relationship between Bulger and Southie cocaine-peddling rival Steve Davis. A tough-as-nails portrait of the close-knit connection among organized crime, the FBI and the deaths of innocent people.--Kirkus

The Lowland

Jhumpa Lahiri (Get this book)
A tale of two continents in an era of political tumult, rendered with devastating depth and clarity by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. The narrative proceeds from the simplicity of a fairy tale into a complex novel of moral ambiguity and aftershocks, with revelations that continue through decades and generations until the very last page. It is the story of two brothers in India who are exceptionally close to each other and yet completely different. Though Lahiri has previously earned greater renown for her short stories, this masterful novel deserves to attract an even wider readership.--Kirkus

In the Balance: Law and Politics on the Roberts Court

Mark Tushnet (Get this book)
A distinguished constitutional law scholar examines the complex, occasionally surprising interplay of law and politics that explains decisions from our closely divided, highest court. When politics and law mingle, as a number of the First Amendment decisions demonstrate, the "conservative versus liberal" narrative is not always so straightforward. Tushnet is an informed, experienced observer--he clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall and owes his Harvard appointment to then-dean Kagan--and he proves a sure-footed guide in difficult terrain. A treat for obsessive court watchers that's accessible to general readers.--Kirkus

Dissident Gardens

Jonathan Lethem (Get this book)
Lethem extends his stylistically diverse, loosely aligned, deeply inquiring saga of New York City with a richly saturated, multi-generational novel about a fractured family of dissidents headquartered in Queens. It's 1955, and witty, voluble, passionate Rose Zimmeran Eastern European Jew, worshipper of Abraham Lincoln, and street-patrolling leftisthas outraged her communist comrades by having an affair with Douglas Lookins, an African American policeman. A righteous, stupendously involving novel about the personal toll of failed political movements and the perplexing obstacles to doing good--Booklist

Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

Andrew J. Bacevich (Get this book)
Bacevich criticizes what he regards as the reckless application of military power, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike Vietnam, however, most American citizens feel disconnected from the true costs of the war in blood and treasure; taxes remain low and few worry that they or their sons or daughters will be placed in harm's way. So our support for our military is reduced to staged patriotic displays costing most citizens nothing. Bacevich clearly has a foreign-policy agenda beyond civil-military relations, but this is a serious, well-argued work that should engender discussion within society and government.--Booklist