In the store: $22.49 Online: $18.74 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $24.99 Available April 5

Nearly a decade ago, Philip Connors ditched his job as an editor at the Wall Street Journal to spend his summers sitting in a glass-walled perch, 10,000 feet above sea level, watching for smoke. As a fire lookout, Connors follows in a venerable literary tradition--Jack Kerouac, Edward Abbey, Norman Mclean, and Gary Snyder were all firespotters--and in Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout (available April 5), Connors writes with eloquence and awe about his unusual job and the mythic landscape he watches.

"Philip Connors's remarkable account of his seasons as a fire lookout on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico is enlightening and well-informed. The surprise in the book is the author's willingness--his courage, actually--to examine his own naïveté about the natural world. His is a most welcome new voice."--Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams "The life of a lookout," Connors writes, "is a blend of monotony, geometry, and poetry, with healthy dollops of frivolity and sloth. It's a life that encourages thrift and self-sufficiency, intimacy with weather and wild creatures. We are paid to master the art of solitude, and we are about as free as working folk can be. To be solitary in such a place and such a way is not to be alone. Instead one feels a certain kind of dignity."

"What a wonderful book. Philip Connors went up to the mountaintop to serve as a lookout-and he has come down with a masterwork of close observation, deep reflection, and hard-won wisdom. This is an unforgettable reckoning with the American land."--Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families

Philip Connors has worked as a baker, a bartender, a house painter, a deliveryman, and an editor at the Wall Street Journal. His writing has appeared in Harper's, the Paris Review, n+1, and in Dave Egger's Best Nonrequired Reading anthology. Originally from Minnesota, he now lives in New Mexico with his wife and their dog.

Philip Connors talked to M&Q's manager Jay Peterson about Bill Holm, bourbon, and a lot more. You can read their conversation here in Metro magazine.

In the store: $13.50 Online: $11.25 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $15.00 Available Now

"One of the greatest black-humorists alive, Lipsyte has gone unnoticed for far too long. With his third novel, about the painfully hilarious adventures of a failed painter in a dead-end job, he should finally get the acclaim he deserves."--Details

Milo Burke, a development officer at a third-tier university, has "not been developing": after a run-in with a well-connected undergrad, he finds himself among the burgeoning class of the newly unemployed. Grasping after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is offered one last chance by his former employer: he must reel in a potential donor--a major "ask"--who, mysteriously, has requested Milo's involvement. But it turns out that the ask is Milo's sinister college classmate Purdy Stuart. And the "give" won't come cheap. Probing many themes--or, perhaps, anxieties--including work, war, sex, class, child rearing, romantic comedies, Benjamin Franklin, cooking shows on death row, and the eroticization of chicken wire, The Ask is a burst of genius by a young American master who has already demonstrated that the truly provocative and important fictions are often the funniest ones.

"If you're the sort of person who underlines amusing or thought-provoking lines in books, you best gird yourself, as Lipsyte is an inexhaustible fount of eloquent prurience, deftly mingling high- and low-mindedness."--Village Voice

Sam Lipsyte is the author of the story collection Venus Drive (named one of the top twenty-five books of its year by the Voice Literary Supplement) and two novels: The Subject Steve and Home Land, which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the first annual Believer Book Award. He lives in New York.

In the store: $22.50 Online: $18.75 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $25.00 Available Now

Mothers and Daughters is a rich and luminous novel about three generations of women in one family: the love they share, the dreams they refuse to surrender, and the secrets they hold.

"Rae Meadows has written a richly textured novel of three generations of mothers and daughters who by finding each other, find themselves. ...Mothers and Daughters is a powerful novel of women's secrets and strength."--Sandra Dallas, New York Times bestselling author of Prayers for Sale and Whiter Than Snow

Samantha is lost in the joys of new motherhood, but she is still mourning another loss: her mother, Iris, died just one year ago. When a box of Iris's belongings arrives on Sam's doorstep, she learns that her grandmother Violet left New York City as an eleven-year-old girl, traveling by herself to the Midwest in search of a better life. But what was Violet's real reason for leaving? And how could she have made that trip alone at such a tender age? Moving back and forth in time between the stories of Sam, Violet, and Iris, Mothers and Daughters is the spellbinding tale of three remarkable women connected across a century by the complex wonder of motherhood.

Rae Meadows is the author of Calling Out, which received the 2006 Utah Book Award for fiction, and No One Tells Everything, a Poets & Writers Notable Novel. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Minneapolis. Learn more at www.RaeMeadows.com.

In the store: $11.65 Online: $9.71 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $12.95 Available Now

Peg Meier takes readers inside a young teenage girl's escapades as part of St. Paul's social elite in the 1920s.

On Christmas Day, 1926, twelve-year-old Clotilde "Coco" Irvine received a blank diary as a present. Coco loved to write, and her new diary gave her the opportunity to explain her side of the messes she created: "I'm in deep trouble through no fault of my own," her entries frequently began. The daughter of a lumber baron, Coco grew up in a twenty-room mansion--which is now the governor's residence--on fashionable Summit Avenue at the peak of the Jazz Age, a time when music, art, and women's social status were all in a state of flux and the economy was still flying high.

Coco's diary carefully records her adventures, problems, and romances, written with a lively wit and a droll sense of humor. Whether sneaking out to a dance hall in her mother's clothes or getting in trouble for telling an off-color joke, Coco and her escapades will captivate and delight preteen readers as well as their mothers and grandmothers.

Peg Meier's introduction describes St. Paul life in the 1920s and provides context for the privileged world that Coco inhabits, while an afterword tells what happens to Coco as an adult--and reveals surprises about some of the other characters in the diary.

Peg Meier was a reporter at the Star Tribune for thirty-five years. She is the author of many popular books, including Wishing for a Snow Day, Bring Warm Clothes, and Too Hot, Went to Lake.

In the store: $23.35 Online: $19.46 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $25.95 Available April 14

For anyone who has ever wanted to step into the world of a favorite book, here is a pioneer pilgrimage, a tribute to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and a hilarious account of butter-churning obsession. The Wilder Life is a loving, irreverent, spirited tribute to a series of books that have inspired generations of American women. It is also an incredibly funny first-person account of obsessive reading, and a story about what happens when we reconnect with a childhood touchstone.

"Anyone who loved the Little House series is in for a treat, because in a new book, writer Wendy McClure really put her money where her sunbonnet is.--Jezebel.com

Wendy McClure is on a quest to find the world of beloved Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder--a fantastic realm of fiction, history, and places she's never been to, yet somehow knows by heart. She retraces the pioneer journey of the Ingalls family--looking for the Big Woods among the medium trees in Wisconsin, wading in Plum Creek, and enduring a prairie hailstorm in South Dakota. She immerses herself in all things Little House, and explores the story from fact to fiction, and from the TV shows to the annual summer pageants in Laura's hometowns. Whether she's churning butter in her apartment or sitting in a replica log cabin, McClure is always in pursuit of "the Laura experience." Along the way she comes to understand how Wilder's life and work have shaped our ideas about girlhood and the American West.

Wendy McClure has been writing about her obsessions online and in print for nearly a decade. In addition to her 2005 memoir, I'm Not the New Me, she is a columnist for BUST magazine and has contributed to The New York Times Magazine. McClure holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She lives in Chicago, where she is a senior editor at the children's book publisher Albert Whitman & Company. You can read more from Wendy at www.wendymcclure.net.

In the store: $14.35 Online: $11.46 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $15.95 Available April 12

While writing about economics in Ecuador for a nonprofit think tank straight out of undergrad, Mountford noticed his title was "Senior Associate" for a hedge fund he'd never heard of. It turned out the think tank was running the hedge fund out of its back office--and Mountford found the inspiration for his first novel.

"A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism is, quite simply, one of the most compelling and thought-provoking novels I've read in years. It's extraordinarily vivid, populated by characters whose fates I cared about desperately, beautifully written, timely beyond measure, but above all it conveys--with impressive precision and nuance--how we are vectors on the grid of global capital; how difficult it is to even attempt to be an authentic, let alone admirable, human being when we are, first and last, cash flow."--David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

On his first assignment for a rapacious hedge fund, Gabriel embarks to Bolivia at the end of 2005 to ferret out insider information about the plans of the controversial president-elect. If Gabriel succeeds, he will get a bonus that would make him secure for life. Standing in his way are his headstrong mother, herself a survivor of Pinochet's Chile, and Gabriel's new love interest, the president's passionate press liaison. Caught in a growing web of lies and questioning his own role in profiting from an impoverished people, Gabriel sets in motion a terrifying plan that could cost him the love of all those he holds dear.

"In Mountford's novel, the stakes of international finance and the personal lives of those involved intersect in a beautifully drawn Bolivia. A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism accomplishes that rare trick of being a book of ideas and politics while remaining, at its core, a profoundly intimate, character-driven story and a tremendously good read."--Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

Peter Mountford has lived in Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles, as well as Scotland, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, and Mexico. His fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices 2008, Boston Review, and Conjunctions. He currently lives in Seattle with his wife and daughter. Find him online at www.petermountford.com.

In the store: $22.49 Online: $18.74 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $24.99 Available April 14

Matt and Liz Logelin were high school sweethearts. After years of long-distance dating, the pair finally settled together in Los Angeles, and they had it all: a perfect marriage, a gorgeous new home, and a baby girl on the way. Liz's pregnancy was rocky, but they welcomed Madeline, beautiful and healthy, into the world on March 24, 2008.

Just twenty-seven hours later, Liz suffered a pulmonary embolism and died instantly, without ever holding the daughter whose arrival she had so eagerly awaited. Though confronted with devastating grief and the responsibilities of a new and single father, Matt did not surrender to devastation; he chose to keep moving forward--to make a life for Maddy. In this memoir, Matt shares bittersweet and often humorous anecdotes of his courtship and marriage to Liz; of relying on his newborn daughter for the support that she unknowingly provided; and of the extraordinary online community of strangers who have become his friends.

"No one wants to read a depressing book. But how can you possibly call depressing what is so filled with love and life and the unstoppable message of how lucky we are to have what we have."--Brad Meltzer, author of Heroes for my Son

"Two Kisses for Maddy is less a conscious piece of writing than a spontaneous eruption from the heart. It will make you cry but not only out of sadness. Some of your tears will be for the beauty of love and its miraculous power to heal even the deepest wounds."--John Grogan, author of Marley and Me

Born and bred in Minnesota, Matt Logelin was a project manager at Yahoo! until he left the company to focus on writing this book and raising his daughter, Madeline. The two live in Los Angeles, traveling often to see as much of the world as possible. Visit them at www.mattlogelin.com.

• Catherine Friend (May 12)
• Rebecca Rasmussen (May 19)
• John Sayles (May 31)
• John Jodzio, Dessa, and David Philip Mullins (June 2)
• Dean Bakopoulos (June 8)
• Sapphire (July 15)

• Magers & Quinn Booksellers
• Secrets of the City--the daily digest of Twin Cities culture
• duplex restaurant.bar

In the store: $13.45 Online: $11.21 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $14.95 Available Now

"A new classic of American fiction."--Time

"The smartest book you can get your hands on."--Los Angeles Times

In the store: $13.50 Online: $11.25 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $15.00 Available Now

Jared Whitcomb is a chain-smoking sixteen-year-old heart-transplant recipient who befriends Sebastian and begins to teach him about all the things he has been missing, including grape soda, girls, and Sid Vicious. They form a punk band called The Rash, and it's clear that the upcoming Methodist Church talent show has never seen the likes of them. Wholly original, The House of Tomorrow is the story of a young man's self-discovery, a dying woman's last wish, and a band of misfits trying desperately to be heard.