On the paperback front, there are some great new bookstore arrivals to choose from, including the most recent Man Booker Prize winner, a memoir from a beloved journalist, a powerful contemporary war novel, and a new installment from one of the world's top-selling crime writers.
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - This sweeping historical novel centering on the downfall of Anne Boleyn is the second book of Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy and earne
d her a second Booker - England's top book prize - in four years, making her the first female to win twice. More remarkably, Mantel's previous Booker win was for
Wolf Hall, the first book of that trilogy, focused on the life of Thomas Cromwell and the court of Henry VIII. Mantel is now working on the final installment,
Mirror and the Light - no pressure, Hilary.
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen - The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and bestselling author got lots of praise last year
for this humorous and human memoir - reflections on motherhood and life at middle age in essays that illuminate and entertain.
A quick example - Quindlan's wise take on parenting:
"Being a parent is not transactional. We do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: We are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us." The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers - This first novel, written by an Iraq war veteran, earned rave reviews for its harrowing story of two young soldiers trying to stay alive on the battlefiel
d of Iraq. As their mission drags on, the pair do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. Powers paints a powerful portrait of modern war and what it can do to those fighting in it.
Phantom by Jo Nesbo - Comparisons to Stieg Larsson abound, but Nesbo needs no "as good as" stipulations. He's written ten novels in the down-and-dirty crime thriller series featuring Oslo police detective Harry Hole.
Phanton was
the seventh to be published in America, with #8 -
The Redeemer - due in hardcover in two weeks. Nesbo's books have been published in more than 40 languages and he's sold over a million and half copies in Norway alone.
In
Phantom, Harry Hole has moved to Hong Kong in an attempt to escape the traumas of his life in Oslo and his career as a detective for good. But now, the unthinkable has happened - Oleg, the boy he helped raise, has been arrested for killing a man. Harry can't believe that Oleg is a murderer, so he returns to hunt down the real killer.
Bet he gets him.
also debuted well nationally (#6), but she's a hometown fave in the Bay Area and her strong showing is no surprise. Maya's Notebook is a departure from Allende's magical realism style; her troubled (and in trouble) heroine is a Berkeley girl whose life goes to hell (mostly her doing) and eventually lands her in desperate straits in Las Vegas. But Maya also has a Chilean grandmother, who helps her escape to a remote island off the coast of Chile. There Maya begins a journal as she seeks redemption and revelation in a culture that Allende knows and writes about so well.
of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, Sedaris continues to chronicle and observe the world with wit, irony, and intelligence. He can be self-deprecating, silly, and politically astute. But, above all, he's just plain funny. Here's a perfect example of how his mind works - his description of the dress code of the American traveler: