Library Journal

Dean, Debra. The Mirrored World. Harper: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780061231452. $25.99; lrg. prnt. HISTORICAL
Author of the affecting The Madonnas of Leningrad, an ALA Notable Book and a No. 1 BookSense Pick, Dean returns to her favorite city but in an earlier era. In 1700s St. Petersburg, fervent daydreamer Xenia is happily married to Andrei, but when tragedy strikes she withdraws from friends and family to dedicate herself to the poor, eventually vanishing—into a “mirrored world”? Sounds like a Russian novel indeed! With a 75,000-copy first printing and a reading group guide; good for book groups.

Follett, Ken. Winter of the World. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 1008p. ISBN 9780525952923. $36. HISTORICAL
In 2010, Follett launched “The Century Trilogy” with the No. 1 New York Times best seller, Fall of Giants, which traced the lives of five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—through the early years of the 20th century. Encompassing World War I and the Russian Revolution, that lusciously detailed 1000-pager did daunt a few readers. But most will be back for this follow-up (just as big), featuring the same families but moving them along to the rise of the Third Reich and World War II.

Harman, Patricia. The Midwife of Hope River. Morrow. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062198891. pap. $14.99. HISTORICAL
A practicing midwife who has authored two memoirs, The Blue Cotton Gown and Arms Wide Open—both small-press publications that found an appreciative audience—Harman turns to fiction with a heroine appropriately named Patience Murphy. Patience, a midwife just getting started in 1930s Appalachia, willingly takes on hard-luck cases even as she carefully guards her own secrets. The 75,000-copy first printing, five-city tour (Atlanta, Birmingham, Charleston, WV, Knoxville, and Nashville), and reading group guide bespeak hope for this book; watch closely, especially in Appalachia.

Kadrey, Richard. Devil Said Bang. Harper Voyageur: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780062094575. $24.99. FANTASY
If you’ve been following the Sandman Slim novels (Amazon Top Tenner Kill the Dead; Sandman Slim, among BN.com’s best paranormal fantasies of the decade; and Indie Next Pick Aloha from Hell), you’ll know that James Starker, aka Sandman Slim, managed to break out of hell to revenge his girlfriend’s murder and has since done time in a very unlovely Los Angeles. Aloha sent him back to Hell, where he’s now the new Lucifer, ready for another breakout and with everyone in Heaven and Hell lining up to take shots at him. When Cory Doctorow calls this movie-bound series “wryer-than-wry and violenter-than-violent,” you know the audience. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Oates, Joyce Carol. Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780062195692. $24.99.
SHORT STORIES
Deluxe author Oates offers a collection of 11 previously uncollected stories, whose borderland scenarios range from a well-off wife’s eloping with a spotted hyena to visitors surprised by what they discover at a maximum security prison. The title story is most significant, however, as it tracks the friendship between Elizabeth Short, famously known as the Black Dahlia, the victim of a markedly brutal murder in 1940s Los Angeles that remains unsolved, and her roommate, Norma Jeane Baker—who of course became Marilyn Monroe. The 25,000-copy first printing seems a bit low for this master; as Monroe fever hits, starting in August, this could be part of the mix.

Santo, Courtney Miller. The Roots of the Olive Tree. Morrow. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062130518. $24.99; eISBN 9780062130532. lrg. prnt. POP FICTION
Multigenerational sagas featuring indomitable women are the stuff of contemporary fiction, but this debut is noteworthy because it represents a full five generations, still living together in a house surrounded by an olive grove in Sacramento Valley. Family matriarch Anna is in fact 112, and great-great-granddaughter Erin has just returned home pregnant after singing opera for two years; now a geneticist wants to study all the women to determine the secret of the family’s longevity. But as Anna worries, that might mean revealing secrets about the family’s origins that she’s hidden for over a century. One of those big-push debuts with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Thilliez, Franck. Syndrome E. Viking. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780670025787. $26.95. THRILLER
Subliminal images packed into a little-known film from the 1950s are so truly horrifying that a friend of Det. Lucie Hennebelle has gone blind after watching it. Meanwhile, Inspector Franck Sharko is investigating five murders that seem to be related to the film. As terror escalates worldwide, it appears that in its early stages neuroscience was used not for good but for evil. Trust the French to go for a thoughty thriller; this one was a big best seller in France, with rights sold to 11 countries.

Tropper, Jonathan. One Last Thing Before I Go. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780525952367. $26.95; CD: Penguin Audio. POP FICTION
No wonder Silver is feeling slightly desperate; his ex-wife is about to marry a terrific guy, his Princeton-bound daughter announces that she’s pregnant, and if he doesn’t acquiesce to an operation, he will soon drop dead. Having broken out in 2009 with This Is Where I Leave You, a New York Times best seller, Tropper returns with another darkly funny, queasily heartwarming tale.

Annan, Kofi. Interventions: A Life in War and Peace. Sept. 2012. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). NAp. ISBN 9781594204203. $36. MEMOIR/CURRENT EVENTS
Few memoirs coming out this year will be as interesting and as important as this one by Annan, seventh Secretary-General of the UN from January 1997 to December 2006 and a corecipient (with the UN itself) of the Nobel Peace Prize for having founded the Global AIDS and Health Fund. Check in on how the world turned during his time in office.

Bar-Zohar, Michael & Nissim Mishal. Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062123404. $26.99; eISBN 9780062123442. HISTORY
Official biographer of David Ben-Gurion and Shimon Peres, Bar-Zohar joins with leading Israeli TV personality Mishal to document the history of Israel’s crack intelligence service, focusing on high-profile cases ranging from Eichmann’s apprehension to the killing of important Iranian nuclear scientists—which makes the book particularly relevant. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Bawer, Bruce. Children of the Revolution: How Identity Studies Have Destroyed American Higher Education. Broadside: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780061807374. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097064. HISTORY/EDUCATION
Since Bawer’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within was a New York Times best seller and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and his Stealing Jesus a PW Best Book of the Year, it’s worth paying attention to his latest, a critique of how identity politics have shaped the academy in the last four decades. Not everyone will agree with Bawer that Chicano, African American, and Women’s Studies courses are exercises strictly in power struggle and victimhood that have gotten in the way of objective reasoning, but then listening to all sides of the argument is exactly what thoughtful readers should do. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Gitlin, Todd. Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street. It: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 176p. ISBN 9780062200921. pap. $10. CURRENT EVENTS
Wall Street may not be occupied right now, but the Occupy Wall Street movement has changed our way of thinking; we all know what that “99 percent” means. Arguing that the movement has been misrepresented by both the Left and the Right, Gitlin—author, Columbia journalism/sociology professor, and former president of Students for a Democratic Society—considers the causes and consequences of the movement and where it might go next. Not a huge printing, but right for the right readers; note the 99 percent–friendly paperback price.

Greenberg, Andy. This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim To Free the World’s Information. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780525953203. $26.95. TECHNOLOGY/CURRENT EVENTS
In the Sixties we marched in the streets. Now many young men and women fed up with the government, the military, and the corporations slip into silent whistleblower mode, anonymously uploading institutional secrets that they feel should be exposed. Think WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and OpenLeaks, and think about the long-term impact, as Forbes reporter Greenberg has us do here.

Johnson, Joyce. The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac. Viking. Sept. 2012. 512p. ISBN 9780670025107. $32.95. BIOGRAPHY
Nine months before On the Road was published, aspiring novelist Johnson met Jack Kerouac on a blind date set up by Allen Ginsberg. Minor Characters, her National Book Critics Circle Award winner, detailed their relationship. Here Johnson looks at Kerouac the young artist, showing that his French Canadian background, which left him suspended between two languages and two cultures, deeply influenced his work. For literati everywhere.

Lofgren, Mike. The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted. Viking. Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780670026265. $24.95. CURRENT EVENTS
Lofgren, a Republican who worked as a Congressional staffer for 28 years—the last 16 as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees—made news in September 2011 when he angrily quit over the debt ceiling crisis. Critical though he is of the tired Democrats, he saves his real bashing for the Republicans, whom he called lunatics in a piece he subsequently wrote for Truthout. That piece got so many hits so fast that the site crashed; reading the book might be just as tumultuous an experience.

McCord, Catherine. Weelicious: Fast, Easy, and Fresh Recipes Your Kids Want To Eat! Morrow Cookbooks. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780062078445. $27.50. COOKING
With a new baby and a culinary degree, McCord was well positioned to launch Weelicious.com, which began as a compendium of baby food purees and now fosters family eating that is healthful and tasty and suggests how to teach kids to make smart choices about food. The site gets more than 500,000 hits a day and was among the New York Observer’s Top Ten “Must Read” Websites for Parents, so this should be in demand. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Max, D.T. Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. Viking. Sept. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780670025923. $26.95. BIOGRAPHY
Appearing in The New Yorker a year after David Foster Wallace’s suicide at age 46, Max’s “The Unfinished: David Foster Wallace’s Struggle To Surpass Infinite Jest” really fired up readers. Now Max offers what is less a portrait of the man than of the artist, detailing Wallace’s struggles to become a novelist while circumventing depression and addiction. He also explores Wallace’s powerful impact on American letters—particularly as a symbol of integrity in an increasingly slick world.

Mazower, Mark. Governing the World: The Rise and Fall of an Idea, 1815 to the Present. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781594203497. $25.95. HISTORY
Having ranged from Duff Cooper Prize winner Salonica City of Ghosts to Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Hitler’s Empire, among many other titles, Oxford-trained historian Mazower—now director of the Center for International History at Columbia University—seems good and ready to discuss world government from the post-Napoleonic era forward. Go for it, history fans.

Mendez, Antonio & Matt Baglio. Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History. Viking. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780670026227. $26.95. Downloadable: Random Audio. HISTORY
In 1979, after Iranian militants stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, creating a hostage situation that lasted 444 days, six Americans escaped. Then a CIA agent, Mendez arranged for their rescue by bringing a bunch of Hollywood directors, producers, and actors to Iran, ostensibly to scout locations for a film they dubbed Argo but in fact to contact the escapees and smuggle them out. A crazy plan, but it worked, and Mendez is sharing the details only now. Yes, a film about the rescue is forthcoming, starring Ben Affleck and releasing in September.

Miller, Carol. Up All Night: My Life and Times in Rock Radio. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780061845246. $24.99. MEMOIR/MUSIC
You bet that there are readers anticipating this memoir by the country’s top female disc jockey, who was raised in a staunchly intellectual Jewish household in Queens, got into progressive rock radio while at the University of Pennsylvania, worked with legends like Cousin Brucie, went all chatty with Paul McCartney and dated Steve Tyler, and eventually made it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, having hugely shaped the business with her distinctive on-air approach. Here she tells her story, revealing her battle with cancer and fears about an unnamed illness that has taken many family members early in life, which gave her a real incentive to accomplish.

Perry, Michael. Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace. Harper: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780061894442. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097798. BIOGRAPHY
Perry recently returned home to a 37-acre farm in New Auburn, WI (see his Population: 485), where he serves on the local rescue service when not commenting for NPR or acting as a contributing editor to Men’s Health. He’s also neighbors with octogenarian Tom Hartwig, who builds his own cannons, runs a shop seemingly “stocked by Rube Goldberg, curated by Hunter Thompson, and rearranged by a small earthquake,” and defies the four-lane interstate that was shoved through his front yard a few decades back. Perry is a good author—2009’s Coop was an Indie best seller and won a bunch of regional awards—and this portrait of an individual is also a welcome portrait of an underrepresented place and lifestyle. So check it out, especially if Perry come to your neighborhood; his driving tour takes him to Iowa City, Des Moines, Chicago, Wichita, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, St. Louis, Omaha, Lincoln, and Nashville, as well as Northfield, Stillwater, and Minneapolis, MN, and Madison, Rice, Red Wing, and Milwaukee, WI.

Ricks, Thomas E. The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today. Sept. 2012. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. ISBN 9781594204043. $36. CURRENT EVENTS
Once a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, currently with the Center for a New American Security and a Foreign Policy blogger, Pulitzer Prize winner Ricks has already given us two best-selling books on our recent venture in Iraq, The Gamble and Fiasco. Here he steps back to provide a broader picture of military leadership—and particularly the decline in sound military leadership—since World War II. No doubt sobering.

Silver, Nate. The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781594204111. $27.95. SOCIAL SCIENCE
In 2008, Silver created the polling website and blog FiveThirtyEight.com (named for the number of electors in the electoral college), then relaunched the blog with the New York Times two years later. Here he challenges the very idea of making predictions in everything from weather to politics (interesting position for a pollster), so I won’t venture to say how this book will do. But it has a built-in audience.

Simmons, Sylvie. I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780061994982. $27.99. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
A music journalist who’s profiled folks like Neil Young and Johnny Cash and recently won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for her liner notes for Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, Simmons conducted more than 100 interviews with friends and musicians (ranging from Judy Collins to, interestingly, Phillip Glass) to craft this portrait of the man who gave us such immortal songs as “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire.” Music lovers of a certain age will want, and since Cohen has just wrapped up a sold-out three-year world tour after a 15-year hiatus, he’ll be on their minds.

Weiss, Luisa. My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes). Viking. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670025381. $26.95. MEMOIR/COOKING
When cookbook editor Weiss launched Thewednesdaychef.com, now an award-winning blog that boasts 100,000 unique visitors per month, it was just the beginning of a dramatic story. As she wrote about cooking her way through a stack of recipes, she was inspired to dump her fiancé, then her job, then her home, leaving New York for Berlin, where she had been partly raised by her Italian mother. Yummy tales, like foraging for plums in an abandoned orchard; even the curmudgeonly might want to head for the kitchen. With an eight-city tour.

White, Kate. Sweet Success: How To Get It, Run with It, Savor It. Harper Business: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062122124. $24.99. BUSINESS
Here’s what White is doing when she’s not at her desk as editor in chief of Cosmopolitan or writing best sellers like the Bailey Weggins mystery series: she’s writing a career guide for women aiming to make it today’s tumultuous business world. To achieve success, says White, you’ve got to “Get It”—that is, take a risk that will land you ahead of the curve, as White did when she put Lady Gaga on Cosmo’s cover—then keep building on what you’ve done and learn to enjoy it (or why bother?). With a 40,000-copy first printing and lots of publicity through social media.

Ford, Richard. Canada. Ecco: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780061692048  $26.99; eISBN 9780062096807. lrg. prnt. LITERARY
Fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons feels pretty much abandoned; not only are his parents jailed for robbing a bank but his twin sister is humiliated enough to have run away. He’s rescued by a family friend, who sends him across the border from Montana to Canada, where he’s taken in by a charismatic fellow American who turns out to have a dark and dangerous side. In the short run, however, Dell takes advantage of Saskatchewan’s wide open spaces to remake himself. Switching publishers, the ever beautifully apt Ford gets a 200,000-copy first printing and a grand tour that includes Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Oxford/Jackson (MS), Portland (ME), Portland (OR), Raleigh/Durham, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Joinson, Suzanne. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar. Bloomsbury USA, dist. by Macmillan. Jun. 2012. 9781608198115. $26. LITERARY
Kashgar: an ancient city along the Silk Road, now in western China, and the destiny of missionaries Evangeline (Eva) and sister Lizzie in 1923. Lizzie is imbued, while Eva simply wants to get away from home and has cleverly contracted to write about her experiences. Meanwhile, in contemporary London, a young woman named Frieda contends with a Yemeni refuge she’s found sleeping outside her door and news that she’s inherited the contents of a flat whose occupant she doesn’t know. So far, this looks charming and dusky and imbued with a wonderful sense of history and place. Aside from first novelist, Joinson has two amazing-sounding jobs: she works in the literature department of the British Council, specializing in the Middle East, North Africa, and China, and she is writer in residence at the UK’s Shoreham Airport. That alone makes this book sound promising, but let us not forget that Bloomsbury is the publisher that brought you this year’s National Book Award winner, Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones. 

Pratchett, Terry & Stephen Baxter. The Long Earth. Harper: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780062067753. $25.99; eISBN 9780062067760. SF
Big news: Discworld master Pratchett is here creating a new world for the first time in three decades, a series of parallel earths called the Long Earth. World-class misanthrope Larry Lynsey has relocated to the Long Earth’s farthest reaches; he’s the only person around for ten planets. Unfortunately, he’s got visitors—two lost souls who took a wrong turn a few stars back—and Larry is going to have to get rid of them. Pratchett keeps going strong—last October’s Snuff debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times best sellers list, his highest spot there ever—and there’s a 75,000-copy first printing. Essential wherever sf is read.

Brinkley, Douglas. Cronkite. Harper: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 752p. ISBN 9780061374265. $34.99; eISBN 9780062196637. lrg. prnt. BIOGRAPHY
We all think we know Walter Cronkite, consummate journalist and “the most trusted man in America,” as he was often called. But, having dug into the just opened Cronkite Archive at the University of Texas at Austin and interviewed over 200 people, from Morley Safer to Katie Couric, Brinkley should tell us much more. This one’s big; with a one-day laydown on 5/29, a 250,000-copy first printing, and a seven-city tour to Austin, Boston, Dallas, Houston, New York, Philadelphia ,and Washington, DC.

Maraniss, David. Barack Obama: The Story. S. & S. Jun. 2012. 608p. ISBN 9781439160404. $32.50. BIOGRAPHY
So we’ve read a lot about President Obama lately—David Remnick’s The Bridge came out just last year. But Maraniss, the Pulitzer Prize–winning associate editor of the Washington Post and author of books on subjects ranging from Bill Clinton to the 1960 Rome Olympics, is a force to be reckoned with. Maraniss examines not simply what Obama has accomplished but the forces that have shaped him, going back generations. Lots of interviews, including with the President himself. Expect a big boom.

Ariely, Dan, M.D. The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves. Harper: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062183590. $26.99; eISBN 9780062183620. PSYCHOLOGY
It’s not just Enron; we all cheat, from sneaking extra cookies to padding our résumés to buying imitation Coach bags. Behavioral economist Ariely, author of the best-selling The Upside of Irrationality, isn’t here to lecture us but to examine why we cheat, what the consequences are, and how we can become more honest. A book we’ll all have to sneak to read; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Bernd, Heinrich. Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death. Houghton Harcourt. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780547752662. $25; eISBN 9780547752693. NATURAL HISTORY
Humans face death with trepidation and elaborate rituals, but what about animals? Proffering lessons both spiritual and ecological, the author of the lovely The Mind of a Raven shows us the animal way of death, with examples ranging from carrion beetles burying field mice to wolves, large cats, eagles, and weasels working in tandem to get rid of killed prey. Not just for animal lovers.

Blum, Andrew. Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet. Ecco: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780061994937. $26.99; eISBN 9780062096753. TECHNOLOGY
Cyberspace just seems so out there, but in fact the Internet really does happen in places—huge data centers and the fiber optic cables carrying all those little pulsing bits of information worldwide. Taking stock of these “concrete” manifestations, Wired correspondent Blum clarifies how the Internet developed and how it works. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Cameron, Bruce. A Dog’s Journey. Forge: Tor. May 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780765330536. $24.99. PETS
Another dog book? You bet. And since Cameron’s 2010 A Dog’s Purpose was on the best sellers lists for nearly five months in hardcover and remains on the best sellers lists in paperback, you can also bet that this book will be big. Cameron’s multi-hanky read talks about what we all know about our dogs: we don’t take care of them, they take care of us.

Crowley, Monica. What the (Bleep) Just Happened?: The Happy Warrior’s Guide to the Great American Comeback. Broadside: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780062131157. $26.99; eISBN 9780062131164. CURRENT EVENTS
A regular Fox contributor and guest host for shows like The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity, Crowley offers (as one might expect) a sharp-tongued critique of the Obama years. A 200,000-copy first printing—and you know if you’ll need it!

Forbes, Steve & Elizabeth Ames. Freedom Manifesto: Why Markets Are Moral and Big Government Isn’t. Crown Business. Jun. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780307951571. $26; eISBN 9780307951595. BUSINESS
The chair, CEO, and editor in chief at Forbes Media carries a big stick when he argues for limited government, proclaiming that “money is the root of all good” and “markets enhance humanity.” This follow-up to How Capitalism Will Save Us has a build-in audience.

Hayes, Christopher L. Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy. Crown. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780307720450. $26; eISBN 9780307720474. CD/downloadable: Random Audio. CURRENT EVENTS
America is defined by the concept of meritocracy, and that concept is failing. As argued by Hayes, host of his own MSNBC show, crises from the Wall Street meltdown to Major League corruption to pedophile priests have destroyed our trust in basic institutions and driven a wedge between the top dogs and everyone else. The problem: policies are made by and for the elite, with little reference to the country’s need as a whole. Hayes identifies the problem; now we need to find the solution.

Jurek, Scott with Steve Friedman. Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness. Houghton Harcourt. Jun. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780547569659. $26; eISBN 9780547722078. SPORTS/LIFESTYLE
Listen up, meat eaters! You don’t need all that dead protein to be a great athlete. Jurek won the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run seven years in a row, all on a plant diet. Here he explains how he came to running and then to veganism as he began thinking about food specifically as fuel (not as holiday yummies). He’s obviously one enduring guy, and this book is motivational in the larger sense. With a ten-city tour to Boulder/Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

Karp, Harvey. M. The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep: Simple Solutions for Kids from Birth to 5 Years. Morrow. Jun. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780062113313. $24.99; eISBN 9780062113337. PARENTING
The UCLA pediatrician who gave us The Happiest Baby on the Block goes for what’s really important: how to send that happy baby straight to the Land of Nod. Karp upends the big myths (e.g., that it’s best to let babies cry themselves to sleep) while offering two-step training to help sleep happen naturally. Since Karp been on all over television and has sold over one million copies of his two previous titles (plus over 1.6 million DVDs), this is a no-brainer purchase if there are families in your midst. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Marcus, Norman B. End Back Pain Forever: Without Surgery or Drugs. Atria: S. & S. Jun. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781439167441. pap. $16; eISBN 9781439167458. HEALTH
Drugs are often mind-numbing, and back surgery works only half the time, so what can the eight in ten of us who will suffer back pain at some time in our adult lives do? Marcus focuses on muscles, not discs or nerves, as the main source of back pain, and his 21 exercises could do the trick. Lots of books on this subject, but consider Marcus’s credentials: he is director of muscle pain research at NYU School of Medicine and a former president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

Merry, Robert W. Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians. S. & S. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781451625400. $28. HISTORY
The author of a leading biography on James Polk (A Country of Vast Designs), National Interest editor Merry adds a twist to Rating the Presidents, a game historians love to play. In part, he makes his calls by turning to the voters, looking at whether Presidents were reelected and, if so, whether their parties held sway in the next election. Setting aside Lincoln, Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt as “Men of Destiny” who pulled the nation in a new direction, Merry comes up with the near-greats, the failures, and the presidents whose status keeps bobbing about. (I’ll let you guess on those.) This book is meant to cause arguments.

Patterson, Scott. Dark Pools: The Rise of Artificially Intelligent Trading Machines and the Looming Threat to Wall Street. Crown Business. Jun. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9780307887177. $27; eISBN 9780307887191. Downloadable: Random Audio. BUSINESSS
Wall Street loves computers because they can make stock transactions happen at lightning speed; one company recently shelled out $300 million to gain 3 millionths of a second. The problem, says former Wall Street Journal reporter Patterson, is that humans are starting to lose control. There’s even an idea out and about to create a program that could learn from various trades so that eventually supercomputers would be talking to one another and we puny mortals wouldn’t know what was happening. Scary but real; the author of the best-selling The Quants knows his stuff.

Powell, Colin L. & Tony Koltz. It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership. Harper: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062135124. $27.99; eISBN 9780062135148. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. MEMOIR
Not a memoir, really—that job was handled by Powell’s two-million-copy best seller, My American Journey. This is a series of anecdotes used to illustrate leadership lessons or, as Powell calls them, his “13 Rules.” Those rules range from “Trust your people” to “Get mad, then get over it,” something I have yet to learn. With a 750,000-copy first printing; buy multiples.

Rosenstrach, Jenny. Dinner: A Love Story: It All Begins at the Family Table. Ecco: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780062080905. $27.99. COOKING/LIFESTYLE
Like Rosenstrach and her husband, I cook dinner every night, but I wasn’t smart enough to launch a blog about it that ranks number four on the top 100 food mom blogs on Babble, averages 107,000 monthly visits, won Rosenstrach coverage in the New York Times and Martha Stewart’s Whole Living, and has even been optioned for film. Recipes, photos, illustrations, tips, and anecdotes—all in the interest of quality time with the kids over a good meal. With 150,000-copy first printing.

Royal, Barbara. The Royal Treatment: How To Keep Your Animals Wildly Healthy. Atria: S. & S. Jun. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9781451647693. $25. PETS
Anxious, chubby, arthritic, allergic? No, not you, your pet. Domesticated animals suffer the same ills as we domesticated humans, and to help them licensed veterinarian Royal would like first to remind us that our domesticated friends have not lost their wild needs. To address those needs, she offers a blend of Western and Eastern practices. She’s been on Oprah, so people will ask.

Sanger, David E. An Age of Reckoning: Obama’s Unorthodox Use of American Power. Crown. Jun. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780307718020. $28; eISBN 9780307718044. CD/downloadable: Random Audio. CURRENT EVENTS
In The Inheritance, Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, considered the issues President Obama faced when he first came to office. Here he considers how Obama has handled everything from the ongoing war in Afghanistan to troubles with Pakistan after the death of Osama Bin Laden. More crucially, he takes the long view, pondering how Obama’s approach to national security and foreign policy has differed from that of previous Presidents and whether it will make a difference. Not just for wonks.

Sullenberger, Chesley B. with Douglas Century. Making a Difference: Stories of Vision and Courage from America’s Leaders. Morrow. Jun. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780061924705. $26.99; eISBN 9780062101365. lrg. prnt. MEMOIR
Sullenberger’s best-selling Highest Duty covered his 42-year career as a pilot, including his miraculous landing on the Hudson in 2009, saving all 155 people aboard his aircraft. Here he offers reflections on leadership—where do the best leaders come from and how do they inspire?—while highlighting top leaders like baseball manager Tony La Russa and Michelle Rhee, founder of the New Teacher Project. Obviously a great book to pair with Colin Powell’s It Worked for Me, previewed above; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Swarns, Rachel L. American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama. Amistad: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780061999864. $27.99. HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY
Taking off from a piece she cowrote for the New York Times, Swarms delineates the First Lady’s ancestry, including not only those who endured the horrors of slavery but a white great-great-great-grandfather revealed for the first time. (There’s information here even Michelle Obama didn’t know.) Since black, white, and multiracial strands crisscross in so many Americans and indeed inform our entire history, this story is ours, too, and should interest a wide range of readers. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Swofford. Anthony. Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails. Twelve: Hachette. Jun. 2012. 300p. ISBN 9781455506736. $26.99; lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. MEMOIR
A New York Times best seller with currently 250,000 copies available, Jarhead recounted Swofford’s service as a marine sniper in the Gulf War. Here he illuminates his postwar experience as he tamped down painful memories with alcohol, drugs, fast cars, and bad sex, then pulled himself together by taking a series of road trips with his terminally ill father, a Vietnam vet. Jarhead was a hit, postwar memoirs are gaining momentum, and there’s a ten-city tour to New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Iowa City, Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, suggesting great expectations.

Tillman, Marie. The Letter. Grand Central. Jun. 2012. 200p. ISBN 9780446571456. $23.99; lrg. prnt. MEMOIR
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, NFL star Tillman wrote a letter to his wife, to be opened in case he was killed in action. As we know, Tillman died in Afghanistan in 2004, and his wife explains how that letter got her through the years of mourning. She also chronicles how she sought relief through career, travel, and, finally, her decision to head the Pat Tillman Foundation. Inspirational.

Wolf, Naomi. Vagina: A New Biography. Ecco: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780061989162. $27.99; eISBN 9780062096968. SOCIAL SCIENCE
Like Wolf’s classic The Beauty Myth, this work explores the juncture of women’s bodies and women’s lives. Looking into the relationship between sex and creativity, Wolf discovered a wealth of evidence showing that the vagina is not just flesh but intimately bound to the female brain and hence female consciousness, which has made the historical control of the female body crippling in every sense. Wolf is always provocative and always a best seller. With a 60,000-copy first printing and an author tour including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, and upon request.