A slew of last year's bestselling titles have just been published in paperback, and several have promptly landed on indie bookstore bestseller lists. Here are a few to look for:
Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris. Is there a funnier, wittier,
and more clever essay writer in the world? I don't think so, and I'm sure his legion of fans would agree. This latest collection from Sedaris offers hilarious perspectives on French health care and shopping at Costco, an unsparing account of his inept handling of captured baby sea turtles, a surprising colonoscopy experience, and much more. In addition, Sedaris includes several first-person monologues written in other (fictional) voices that allow him to comment on social and cultural mores from a different perspective.
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini. In his newest novel, t
he author of
The Kite Runner and
A Thousand Splendid Suns explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another - and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe - from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos - Hosseini delivers an assured family saga that underscores how the choices we make resonate through generations.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. A master of the fantasy genre, Gaiman first made his mark with comic book writing and graphic novels. He then built legions of fans, both teens and adults,
with novels like Stardust and American Gods and his latest was an immediate bestseller last
year. The story is told by an unnamed, middle-aged narrator, who returns to his childhood home in Sussex to attend a funeral. There he's drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson. Prepare to be transported back in time to one extraordinary American summer, courtesy of the accomplished and always entertaining Bryson. It began with Charles Lindbergh cro
ssing the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Babe Ruth was closing in on the home run record. In Newark, New Jersey, Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly sat atop a flagpole for 12 days, and in Chicago, the gangster Al Capone was tightening his grip on bootlegging. The first true "talking picture," Al Jolson's
The Jazz Singer, was filmed, forever changing the motion picture industry. All this and much, much more transpired in the summer of 1927, and Bryson captures it all with a telling eye for detail and his trademark humor.
ather than face her wrath - because she is a bear, after all! - they go in search of a replacement. They travel all over and meet many odd characters, but they don't find what they seek until they're looking in the right place. Art and text are perfectly balanced and full of nuances that, taken together, make a simple tale something wonderful. Three Bears in a Boat will become a classic!" 
, but nothing works. This is a wonderful interactive book featuring pandas! The pages are fun as they fold this way and that. I love the big eyes that are open in the bamboo forest while everyone else sleeps. Chengdu's solution is a wonderful surprise."