All That Is

James Salter

Knopf

From his experiences as a young naval officer in battles off Okinawa, Philip Bowman returns to America and finds a position as a book editor. It is a time when publishing is still largely a private affair-a scattered family of small houses here and in Europe-a time of gatherings in fabled apartments and conversations that continue long into the night. In this world of dinners, deals, and literary careers, Bowman finds that he fits in perfectly. But despite his success, what eludes him is love. His first marriage goes bad, another fails to happen, and finally he meets a woman who enthralls him-before setting him on a course he could never have imagined for himself.

Life After Life

Kate Atkinson

Reagan Arthur Books

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can -- will she?

There Was an Old Woman: A Novel of Suspense

Hallie Ephron

William Morrow

When Evie Ferrante learns that her mother has been hospitalized, she finds her mother's house in chaos. Sorting through her mother's belongings, Evie discovers objects that don't quite belong there, and begins to raise questions. Evie renews a friendship with Mina, an elderly neighbor who might know more about her mother's recent activities, but Mina is having her own set of problems: Her nephew Brian is trying to persuade her to move to a senior care community. As Evie investigates her mother's actions, a darker story of deception and madness involving Mina emerges.

The Smart One

Jennifer Close

Knopf

Weezy and Will Coffey raised their children, Martha, Claire, and Max, to be kind, smart, and independent. They gave them help with their homework, a dog, and homemade birthday cakes. It's true that Martha's a little too sensitive--she calls Claire several times a week to discuss natural disasters and local crime. And Claire has a short fuse with her sister--she becomes irate when Martha suggests that the two of them attend couples therapy. And Max, the baby and a senior in college, is a little too happy-go-lucky, though not as lucky as everyone would hope. Still, their parents did their best preparing them for the world. So why, Weezy wonders, is Martha living in her childhood bedroom after a career flameout? And why has Claire canceled her wedding and locked herself in her New York apartment? And how has Max managed to get himself into a girlfriend fiasco? A story about the ways in which we never really grow up, The Smart One is a witty, gossipy, perfectly-drawn portrait of family life.

No Way Back

Andrew Gross

William Morrow & Company

Wendy Gould is an attractive, happy suburban mom, and an experienced ex-cop. A chance meeting with a stranger in a hotel ends when the man is murdered and she's the only witness, forcing her to run from rogue federal agents determined to keep her silent, even if it means killing her. Things only get worse when the authorities--the wrong ones--find their way to her door, giving her no recourse but to flee from her only safe haven. Lauritzia Velez, meanwhile, is a devoted nanny. She's also a woman with a deadly secret that has driven her into hiding until she can prove her innocence. Scared and alone, these two women with nothing in common will eventually join forces and embark on a dangerous odyssey to find the truth and save their lives. It's a desperate hunt that leads them into a nefarious web of treachery, lies, and corruption involving drug lords, arms dealers, and shadowy figures in the highest echelons of government.

All You Could Ask for

Mike Greenberg

William Morrow

Three women are about to find their lives intertwined in ways none of them could ever have imagined. Brooke has been happily married to her college sweetheart for fifteen years. Even after the C-section, the stomach viruses, and the coffee breath, Scott still always winks at her at just the right moments. That is why, for her beloved, romantic, successful husband's fortieth birthday, she is giving him pictures. Of her. Naked. Samantha's newlywed bliss is steamrolled when she finds shocking evidence of infidelity on her husband's computer. She has been married for two days. She won't be for much longer. Katherine works eighteen hours a day for the man who irreparably shattered her heart fifteen years ago. She has a duplex on Park Avenue, a driver, a chef, and a stunning house in Southampton, and she bought it all herself. So what if she has to see Phillip every single workday for the rest of her natural life? Brooke, Samantha, and Katherine don't know one another, but all three are about to discover the conquering power of friendship--and that they have all they could ask for, as long as they have one another.

The Fever Tree

Jennifer McVeigh

Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam

Frances Irvine, left destitute in the wake of her father's sudden death, has been forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Southern Cape of Africa. 1880 South Africa is a country torn apart by greed. In this remote and inhospitable land she becomes entangled with two very different men-one driven by ambition, the other by his ideals. Only when the rumor of a smallpox epidemic takes her into the dark heart of the diamond mines does she see her path to happiness. But this is a ruthless world of avarice and exploitation, where the spoils of the rich come at a terrible human cost and powerful men will go to any lengths to keep the mines in operation. Removed from civilization and disillusioned by her isolation, Frances must choose between passion and integrity, a decision that has devastating consequences.

The House at the End of Hope Street

Menna van Praag

Pamela Dorman Books

Distraught that her academic career has stalled, Alba is walking through her hometown of Cambridge, England, when she finds herself in front of a house she's never seen before, 11 Hope Street. A beautiful older woman named Peggy greets her and invites her to stay, on the house's usual conditions: she has ninety-nine nights to turn her life around. With nothing left to lose, Alba takes a chance and moves in. She soon discovers that this is no ordinary house. Past residents have included Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Parker, who, after receiving the assistance they needed, hung around to help newcomers-literally, in talking portraits on the wall. As she escapes into this new world, Alba begins a journey that will heal her wounds-and maybe even save her life.

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

Mary Roach

W. W. Norton

"America's funniest science writer" (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn't the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of--or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. With Roach at our side, we travel the world, meeting murderers and mad scientists, Eskimos and exorcists (who have occasionally administered holy water rectally), rabbis and terrorists--who, it turns out, for practical reasons do not conceal bombs in their digestive tracts. Like all of Roach's books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies.

Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity

Alan Siegel, Irene Etzkorn

Twelve

For decades, Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn have championed simplicity as a competitive advantage and a consumer right. Consulting with businesses and organizations around the world to streamline products, services, processes and communications, they have achieved dramatic results. In SIMPLE, the culmination of their work together, Siegel and Etzkorn show us how having empathy, striving for clarity, and distilling your message can reduce the distance between company and customer, hospital and patient, government and citizen-and increase your bottom line. Examining the best and worst practices of an array of organizations big and small-including the IRS, Google, Philips, Trader Joe's, Chubb Insurance, and ING Direct, and many more-Siegel and Etzkorn recast simplicity as a mindset, a design aesthetic, and a writing technique. In these illuminating pages you will discover, among other things: Why the Flip camera became roadkill in the wake of the iPhone What SIMPLE idea allowed the Cleveland Clinic to improve care and increase revenue How OXO designed a measuring cup that sold a million units in its first 18 months on the market Where Target got the idea for their "ClearRX" prescription system How New York City simplified its unwieldy bureaucracy with three simple numbers By exposing the overly complex things we encounter every day, SIMPLE reveals the reasons we allow confusion to persist, inspires us to seek clarity, and explores how social media is empowering consumers to demand simplicity. The next big idea in business is SIMPLE.

Mom & Me & Mom

Maya Angelou

Random House

The story of Maya Angelou's extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother. For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence-a presence absent during much of Angelou's early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call "Lady," revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them. Delving into one of her life's most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou's rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights.

A Spoonful of Sugar: A Nanny's Story

Brenda Ashford

Doubleday

Brenda Ashford is the quintessential British nanny. Prim and proper, gentle and kind, she seems to have stepped straight out of Mary Poppins. For more than six decades Nanny Brenda swaddled, diapered, dressed, played with, sang to, cooked for, and looked after more than one hundred children. From the pampered sons and daughters of lords ensconced in their grand estates to the children of tough war evacuees in London's East End, Brenda has taught countless little ones to be happy, healthy, and thoroughly well bred. In this delightful memoir, Brenda shares her endearing, amusing, and sometimes downright bizarre experiences turning generations of children into successful adults. From the moment Brenda first held her baby brother David she was hooked. She became a second mother to him, changing his nappies, reading him stories, and giving him all the love her warm heart contained. Knowing a career caring for children was her calling in life, Brenda attended London's prestigious Norland College, famous for producing top-notch nannies. It was a sign of privilege and good taste for the children of the well-to-do to be seen being pushed in their Silver Cross prams by Norland nannies, who were recognizable by their crisp, starched black uniforms with white bib collars, and their flowing black capes lined with red silk. And what skills were these trainees tested on daily? Lullaby singing, storytelling, pram shining, bed making, all forms of sewing, cooking simple meals, and dispensing first aid-including knowing the best way to help the medicine go down. In A Spoonful of Sugar, Brenda recalls her years at Norland and her experiences during the war (after all, even if bombs are dropping, there's no reason to let standards slip), and recounts in lovely detail a life devoted to the care of other people's children. Sprinkled throughout with pearls of wisdom (you can never give children too much love, and you should learn how to sew a button, for goodness' sake), this delightful memoir from Britain's oldest living nanny is practically perfect in every way.

The Flower Recipe Book

Alethea Harampolia, Jill Rizzo

Artisan Publishers

Flower arranging has never been simpler or more enticing. The women behind Studio Choo, the hottest floral design studio in the country, have created a flower-arranging bible for today's aesthetic, filled with an array of stunning, easy-to-find flowers and hundreds of step-by-step photos. The 125 arrangements run the gamut of styles and techniques: some are wild and some are structured; some are time-intensive and some are astonishingly simple. Each one is paired with a "flower recipe'; ingredients lists specify the type and quantity of blooms needed; clear instructions detail each step; and 400 photos show how to place every stem. Readers will learn how to work with a single variety of flower to great effect, and to create vases overflowing with layered blooms. To top it off, the book is packed with ideas for unexpected vessels, seasonal buying guides, a source directory, a flower care primer, and all the design techniques readers need to know.

Dark Triumph

Robin LaFevers

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

Sybella's duty as Death's assassin in 15th-century France forces her return home to the personal hell that she had finally escaped. Love and romance, history and magic, vengeance and salvation converge in this thrilling sequel to Grave Mercy.

The Dark

Lemony Snicket, Jon Klassen

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Laszlo is afraid of the dark. The dark lives in the same house as Laszlo. Mostly, though, the dark stays in the basement and doesn't come into Lazslo's room. But one night, it does. This is the story of how Laszlo stops being afraid of the dark. With emotional insight and poetic economy, two award-winning talents team up to conquer a universal childhood fear.

The Pet Project: Cute and Cuddly Vicious Verses

Lisa Wheeler, Zachariah OHora

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

If you think you'd like a cute and cuddly pet, you may need to do some research. Formulate a query. Devise a scientific plan. And be sure to write down every observation of the animals you encounter. Join one budding young scientist as she catalogs the pros and pitfalls of potential pet ownership in this assortment of zany and relatable poems that will change the way you look at cuddly animals-and give you the giggles.

The Gatekeepers #5: Oblivion

Anthony Horowitz

Scholastic Press

Matt. Pedro. Scott. Jamie. Scar. Five Gatekeepers have finally found one another. And only the five of them can fight the evil force that is on the rise, threatening the destruction of the world. In the penultimate volume of The Gatekeepers series, a massive storm arose that signalled the beginning of the end. Now the five Gatekeepers must battle the evil power the storm has unleashed - and strive to stop the world from ending.