Not since The Glass Castle has there been such a controversial parenting memoir, though this parenting example goes to the other extreme. When her own two daughters were born, Amy Chua decided to re-create the strict Asian parenting methods she grew up under. I'm still trying to figure out how a Yale Law School Professor could have so much time and energy to oversee every aspect of her children's lives. -Jill Hendrix, store owner

Looking for your next BEST read?  Start with this one. Not just a compilation of book suggestions and reviews, Read This Next is a GREAT read itself.  Very funny and informative and offers a good mix of titles I was and wasn't familiar with. I read it through in two sittings and started my 2011 to-be-read list immediately. -Cyndi Clack, store employee

 

Blacklands by Belinda Bauer
(S&S, paperback, $14.00, avail 1/11/11)

Blacklands is the beautifully written story of 12-year-old Steven, who wants nothing more than to try and make his family whole again. It is a haunting tale of the toll that grief can take on a family across generations and the determined innocence of a child who hopes to bring closure by finding the body of his uncle Billy, who disappeared as a child years ago and was assumed to be the victim of a convicted pedophile. - Nancy McFarlane, store employee



Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
(HarperCollins, hardcover, $17.99)
This young adult paranormal romance stars Clara, a charming, smart, funny, and sometimes a little snarky teenage girl who is also part angel. She's torn between fulfilling her *purpose* in this world and pursuing what she truly desires, which gets complicated by her entanglement in a love triangle. This is a fun, enjoyable read recommended for fans of Twilight and Nightshade. -Emily McFarlane, store reader

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin
(Bantam, paperback, $15.00)
Part love story, part literary mystery, Melanie Benjamin's spellbinding historical novel leads readers on an unforgettable journey down the rabbit hole, to tell the story of a woman whose own life became the stuff of legend. Her name is Alice Liddell Hargreaves, but to the world she'll always be known simply as "Alice," the girl who followed the White Rabbit into a wonderland of Mad Hatters, Queens of Hearts, and Cheshire Cats. Now, nearing her eighty-first birthday, she looks back on a life of intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy.

Keys to the Castle by Donna Ball
(Berkley, paperback, $14.00)
When a dashing French poet swept forty-something workaholic Sara Graves off her feet, she did something completely unexpected: She married him. Then three weeks later he died, leaving her a house she can't afford to keep in a country she's never been to. Traveling to France to settle the estate, Sara is shocked to discover that the estate he left her is a 400-year-old crumbling castle in the Loire Valley. Now Sara must sell Chateau Rondelais before it (not to mention her late husband's disarmingly handsome lawyer and best friend) makes her question her decision to leave--and opens her heart to change and all its unexpected possibilities.

One Amazing Thing by Chitra Divakaruni
(Voice, paperback, $13.99)
Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive. There's little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, "one amazing thing" from their lives, which they have never told anyone before.

Then Came Evening by Brian Hart
(Bloomsbury, paperback, $15.00)
Bandy Dorner, home from Vietnam, awakes with his car mired in a canal, his cabin reduced to ashes, and his pregnant wife preparing to leave town with her lover. Within moments, a cop lies bleeding on the road. Nearly two decades later, Bandy is released from prison, and on the family's Idaho ranch, he faces an unexpected reunion. Tracy, his now teenage son, has come to claim the father he's never known. Iona, Bandy's ex-wife, has come on the heels of her son. Haunted and hardened, the three struggle toward a shared future and a sense of family in this beautiful novel of devastating power.

Imprisoned and tortured for months by Pinochet's henchmen for teaching political poetry to his students, Bernardo Greene is visited by two angels, who promise him that he will survive to experience beauty and love once again. Months later, at the Torture Rehabilitation Center in Copenhagen, the Chilean exile befriends Michela Ibsen, herself a survivor of domestic abuse. In the long nights of summer, the two of them struggle to heal, to forgive those who have left them damaged, and to trust themselves to love.

Roses by Leila Meacham
(Grand Central, paperback, $13.99)
Spanning the 20th century, the story of Roses takes place in a small East Texas town against the backdrop of the powerful timber and cotton industries, industries controlled by the scions of the town's founding families. Cotton tycoon Mary Toliver and timber magnate Percy Warwick should have married but unwisely did not, and now must deal with the deceit, secrets, and tragedies of their choice and the loss of what might have been-not just for themselves but for their children, and children's children. 

Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changinge Seasons by Il Sung Na (Knopf, hardcover, $15.99, releases 1/11/11)

What do the animals do when the snow falls to the ground and all the trees are bare? Some fly long distances, while some swim to warmer waters. Some take a long, warm sleep where they live, while others have a thick, cozy coat and can stay in the snow! As with Il Sung Na's previous books, Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit is filled with rich illustrations, charming animals, and a simple, lyrical text-all wrapped up in a gorgeous package. It's a gentle introduction to the ideas of adaptation, hibernation, and migration, and an exuberant celebration of changing seasons.

Young Fredle by Cynthia Voigt
(Knopf, hardcover, $16.99, releases 1/11/11)
Cynthia Voigt crafts a novel about discovery, perspective, and the meaning of home-all through the eyes of an affable and worried little mouse. Fredle is an earnest young fellow suddenly cast out of his cozy home behind the kitchen cabinets-into the outside. It's a new world of color and texture and grass and sky. But with all that comes snakes and rain and lawnmowers and raccoons and a different sort of mouse (field mice, they're called) not entirely trustworthy. Do the dangers outweigh the thrill of discovery?