In the store: $22.50 Online: $18.75 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $25.00 Available March 6

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir about a life's work to find happiness. It's a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in an industrial town in the north of England north of England now changed beyond recognition; about the Universe as Cosmic Dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past that Jeanette thought she'd written over and repainted rose to haunt her, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother.

In the store: $15.30 Online: $12.74 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $16.99 Available March 6

Former staffer-turned-author William Alexander returns to Magers & Quinn to launch his new fantasy novel for middle grade readers.

"Goblin Secrets includes all my favorite things: mystery, magic, and plenty of thrills, a goblin theatrical troupe, a beautifully realized fantasy world, and an orphan boy searching for his lost brother."--Delia Sherman, author of The Freedom Maze

In the town of Zombay, there is a witch named Graba who has clockwork chicken legs and moves her house around. Graba takes in stray children, and Rownie is the youngest boy in her household. Rownie's only real relative is his older brother Rowan, who is an actor. But acting is outlawed in Zombay, and Rowan has disappeared. Desperate to find him, Rownie joins up with a theatrical troupe of goblins who skirt the law to put on plays. But their plays are not only for entertainment, and the masks they use are for more than make-believe. The goblins also want to find Rowan--because Rowan might be the only person who can save the town from being flooded by a mighty river.

"Goblin Secrets is a clockwork gem of a book. I became deeply enmeshed in the gears of Rownie's story, and found such delight in wandering the strange, twisty, mysterious streets of Zombay."--Sarah Prineas, author of The Magic Thief

William Alexander lives in the Twin Cities, teaches at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and writes weird fiction for young readers. Goblin Secrets is his first novel. One of his short stories was a finalist for the Calvino Prize. Two were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Several have received Honorable Mentions from The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, The Best Horror of the Year, and The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy. His short stories can be found in Interfictions 2, ParaSpheres 2, Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2008 and in the magazines Zahir, Postscripts, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and Weird Tales.

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Bring your Twin Cities Literary Punch Card to this event and collect a punch. Collect a dozen punches, and your card becomes a $15.00 gift certificate. Find more events on the Twin Cities Literary Calendar.

In the store:$14.35 Online (plus S/H): $11.96 Publisher's price: $15.95 Available Now

Joseph Mattson (editor of The Speed Chronicles) joins Eric Lorberer (editor of Rain Taxi Review of Books) for a public conversation about working with some legendary writers and editing work on a highly charged topic. Join us afterwards for a reception sponsored by Rain Taxi Review of Books!

It is no secret that speed has revved up the lives of writers including Jack Kerouac, Susan Sontag, and Philip K. Dick. Now Akashic Books dares to bring forth the first contemporary collection of all new literary short fiction on the drug from an array of today's most compelling and respected authors. These are no stereotypical tales of tweakers--the element of crime and the bleary-eyed, shaky zombies at dawn are here right alongside heart-wrenching narratives of everyday people, good intentions gone terribly awry, the skewed American Dream going up in flames, and even some accounts of pure joy.

The Speed Chronicles features brand-new stories by Sherman Alexie, William T. Vollmann, James Franco, Megan Abbott, Jerry Stahl, Beth Lisick, Jess Walter, Scott Phillips, James Greer, Tao Lin, Joseph Mattson, Natalie Diaz, Kenji Jasper, and Rose Bunch.

"Just reading the table of contents for this f*cker makes me want to hop in my time machine, zoom back to 1966, and find those two dubious physicians who used to write me scripts for Dexedrine, even though I was too tall and skinny to live already. Mainline this book now!"--James Ellroy

Following the international success of Akashic Books' Noir Series, this volume marks the launch of a new drug-based sister series.

Joseph Mattson is the author of the story collection Eat Hell and the novel Empty the Sun (A Barnacle Book), a novel with soundtrack by Six Organs of Admittance (you can read Rain Taxi's review here). He lives in Los Angeles.

In the store:$14.35 Online (plus S/H): $11.96 Publisher's price: $15.95 Available Now

Join us for an evening of stories and music. Authors Kevin Fox and Erin Hart--along with musician Paddy O'Brien--bring a touch of the old sod to Minnesota.

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Kevin Fox's debut novel Until the Next Time is cloaked in mystery and suspense and takes readers inside the rich heritage of Irish history and faith. For Sean Corrigan the past is simply what happened yesterday, until his twenty-first birthday, when he is given a journal left him by his father's brother Michael. The journal, kept after his uncle fled from New York City to Ireland to escape prosecution for a murder he did not commit, draws Sean into a hunt for the truth about Michael's fate. Sean too leaves New York for Ireland, where he is caught up in the lives of people who not only know all about Michael Corrigan but have a score to settle. As his connection to his uncle grows stronger, he realizes that within the tattered journal he carries lies the story of his own life and the key to finding the one woman he is fated to love forever.

Kevin Fox is a producer and writer for TV shows, and his professional screenwriter credits include the film The Negotiator. He divides his time between Los Angeles and New Jersey. Until the Next Time is his first novel.

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

Erin Hart's novel Haunted Ground delivers mystery, romance, suspense, and fascinating forensic detail. When farmers cutting turf in an Irish peat bog make a grisly discovery--the perfectly preserved head of a young woman with long red hair--Irish archaeologist Cormac Maguire and American pathologist Nora Gavin must use cutting-edge techniques to preserve ancient evidence. Because the bog's watery, acidic environment prevents decay, it's difficult to tell how long the red-haired girl has been buried--two years, two centuries, or even much longer. Who is she? The extraordinary find leads to even more disturbing puzzles. The red-haired girl is not the only enigma in this remote corner of Galway. Two years earlier, Mina Osborne, the wife of a local landowner, went for a walk with her young son and vanished without a trace. Could they, too, be hidden in the bog's treacherous depths, only to be discovered centuries from now? Or did Hugh Osborne murder his family, as some villagers suspect? Bracklyn House, Osborne's stately home, holds many secrets, and Nora and Cormac's inquiries threaten to expose them all.

In the store:$12.60 Online (plus S/H): $10.50 Publisher's price: $14.00 Available March 16

The conversation will be animated when Zak Sally and Dale Flattum discuss their new graphic novel collections with artist Andy Sturdevant.

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Sammy the Mouse: Volume 1 is a collection of the first three issues of Eisner Award Nominee Zak Sally's comic Sammy the Mouse (previously serialized as part the international Ignatz line of comics published simultaneously by Fantagraphics Books in the United States and Coconino Press in Italy). For this collection, Sally printed each copy on his own AB Dick 9810 offset press and is releasing it under his La Mano publishing house. Sally is personally responsible for every step in the bookmaking process; from conception to execution to reproduction to delivery, making each hand-signed copy the product of one artist's unique vision.

"A grimy, metaphysical malaise drips from every line of Sally's lush yet unwholesome artwork, especially when he's plundering the iconography of innocence and youth in the service of disorienting discomfort."--The Onion AV Club

Meticulously drawn and printed using a sophisticated two-color process, Sammy the Mouse: Volume 1 is an extremely funny, weird and intense introduction to what will be a truly unique series.

Zak Sally's work has appeared all over the place. He owns and operates La Mano, an award-winning "micro-publishing" house who has published work by John Porcellino, William Schaff, Nate Denver, Jason Miles, and Kim Deitch. He spent 12 years in the band Low, and was in that Shopgirl movie.

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Showcasing 25 years of graphic art from Dale Flattum, Tooth is a 250-page volume that mixes posters, illustrations & pointless propaganda into a semi autobiographical history, as told through a Xerox machine. (It also includes a CD of music pulled from the author's shady musical past.)

"Tooth's exquisite work looks so effortless. He can do in a moment what I have to STRUGGLE to do. I'm jealous!"--Art Chantry

When not watching Law & Order re-runs, Dale Flattum spends his time creating posters, art forgeries, and other screen printed propaganda under the alias: TOOTH. Before all of this, he pursued a career in music, touring the world for over nine years with the noisy San Francisco rock bands Steel Pole Bath Tub and Milk Cult.

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In the store:$12.60 Online (plus S/H): $10.50 Publisher's price: $14.00 Available Now

"[A] sly and emotionally complex debut collection... [Black's] unflinching candor allows her to mine extraordinary revelations."--Boston Globe

The thirteen stories in I Knew You'd Be Lovely offer up great entertainment, lucid writing, and a cast of vulnerable, memorable characters. From the teenage boy who attempts suicide while on a camping trip with his father in "The Only Way Out Is Through" to the twenty-something bookstore clerk struggling to find a beautiful path in life while everything around he goes wrong in "Mollusk Makes A Comeback" to the recently divorced man who strikes up an unusual conversation with a laryngitic doctor in "That of Which We Cannot Speak," the individuals who populate these stories are unforgettable, and their conundrums are beautifully portrayed.

"Alethea Black is downright brilliant at capturing the restless striving for a self that we all are feeling in this parlous and unsettling age. I Knew You'd Be Lovely is a splendidly resonant debut by an important young writer."--Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain

• Scott Wrobel--April 20
• Guy Delisle--May 1
• Tayari Jones--May 24

This year's featured author is Walter Mosley. Mosley is one of the most versatile and prolific writers working today. He is the author of more than 35 critically acclaimed books, ranging from crime novels to literary fiction, nonfiction, political essays, young adult and science fiction. The New York Review of Books called him "a literary master as well as a master of mystery," and The Boston Globe hailed him as "one of the nation's finest writers." In his fiction, Mosley has explored the black experience in America over the past seven decades, beginning with the migration of African Americans from the Deep South to his native Los Angeles in the post-World War II era and post-Obama-election-era New York City. In his nonfiction, Mosley has examined the ways that we can contribute to political, economic, and social progress in America.

Join us at Magers & Quinn for a discussion of Walter Mosely's book of criticism Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation--7:30pm, Monday, April 2.

In the store: $10.80 Online: $9.00 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $12.00 Available Now

In his late teens and early twenties, Walter Mosley was addicted to alcohol and cigarettes. Drawing from this intimate knowledge of addiction and recovery, Mosley explores the deviances of contemporary America and describes a society in thrall to its own consumption. Although Americans live in the richest country on earth, many citizens exist on the brink of poverty, and from that profound economic inequality stems self-destructive behavior.In Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation, Mosley outlines a guide to recovery from oppression. First we must identify the problems that surround us. Next we must actively work together to create a just, more holistic society. And finally, power must be returned to the embrace of the people.

Challenging and original, Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation confronts both self-understanding and how we define ourselves in relation to others.

All the Givens Black Books events are free and open to the public. Each event features one of the selected works by Walter Mosley and is facilitated by a local scholar, storyteller or community leader. The full list of events is here.

• Tuesday, March 6, 7:00pm, at the School II (600 Market St, Chanhassen)
• Tuesday, March 13, 7:00pm, at the Aster Cafe (125 SE Main Street, St Anthony Main, Minneapolis; call 612/379-3138 for table reservations)
• Tuesday, March 20, 6:15pm, at the Amsterdam Bar & Hall (6 W Sixth St, Saint Paul)

In the store: Used copies start at $7.99 New copies are $14.35 Online: $12.00 (plus S/H) Publisher's price: $16.00 Available Now

As Daniel grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra Del Viento, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind. A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.