Library Journal

Brom. Krampus: The Yule Lord. Morrow. Nov. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780062095657. $27.99. FANTASY
One Christmas Eve in Boone County, WV, a songwriter manqué named Jesse intervenes when he sees men in black attacking a white-bearded gent in a sleigh. Yes, it’s Santa, but he’s the bad guy here—and that’s Krampus’s bag left at the scene. According to Krampus, an age-old trickster demon who punishes wrongdoing, Santa locked him up and stole his magic 500 years ago. Now he’s free and wants his magic back—along with the holiday Santa so rudely usurped. Illustrator/author Brom’s big hit, The Child Thief, went through four printings; fans will be looking for this one. With a 40,000-copy first printing, plus 35 black-and-white illustrations and eight pages of color.

Carr, Caleb. The Legend of Broken. Random. Nov. 2012. 688p. ISBN 9781400062836. $27; eISBN 9780812994087. HISTORICAL
Back in 1994, Carr landed like a meteorite with The Alienist, which has sold over two million copies in all formats to date. Subsequent titles, also big sellers—though nowhere near as big as The Alienist—ricocheted from Victorian England to 2023. Here Carr goes way back in time to the medieval era, where a fortress may fall to the roiling invaders without or to undermining forces within. Evidently lots of juicy characters, e.g., a noble warrior and a scientist condemned for sorcery. Will this outsell The Alienist? We’ll see.

Chiaverini, Jennifer. The Giving Quilt: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel. Dutton. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780525953609. $25.95. POP FICTION
Post-Thanksgiving at Elm Creek Manor, aspiring quilters are enjoying a special winter session of quilt camp. Their aim? To create warm, colorful quilts for Project Linus, a real-life charity Chiaverini supports that gives handmade quilts and blankets to needy children. Not a dry eye after finishing this book; with a reading group guide and eight-city tour.

Engelmann, Karen. The Stockholm Octave. Ecco: HarperCollins. Nov. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780061995347. $26.99. LITERARY HISTORICAL
Engelmann sets her debut novel in 1790s Stockholm—the city’s Golden Age, though with our spare knowledge of Swedish history, as Francine du Plessix Gray points out, we wouldn’t know much about it—and invents a card game called Octave that drives the action. When the fortune-telling Mrs. Sophia Sparrow foresees a golden future for smug bureaucrat Emil Larsson, she lays an Octave for him so that he can find the eight people who will help him realize that vision. Soon, however, Larsson realizes that his search is tied up with the fate of his country, which is verging on chaos. Historical fiction with heft—and some hefty buzz; there’s a 50,000-copy first printing, and rights have been sold to ten countries.

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds. Pantheon. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780307907332. $24.95; eISBN 9780307907349. MYSTERY
Boasting more than one million copies in print, the Isabel Dalhousie series is right up there in popularity with McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. In this ninth entry, a Scottish landowner robbed of a Nicolas Poussin painting slated for the Scottish National Gallery asks Isabel’s help in dealing with the thieves, who have approached him privately. Just who are they, and does the hapless victim actually know them? With a reading group guide and a tour that will include Atlanta, Boston, Mobile, and New York, plus locales in Vermont and Canada.

Mayle, Peter. The Marseille Caper. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780307594198. $24. CD/downloadable: Random House Audio. MYSTERY
Mayle introduced charming, roguish sleuth Sam Levitt in The Vintage Caper, which has sold nearly 100,000 copies in hardcover, paperback, and ebook. (And he didn’t go on tour to plump for it, as the publisher hastens to point out; his tour for this second in the series is expected to push up the numbers.) Sam is happily ensconced in Los Angeles with charming Elena Morales when rich Francis Reboul calls him back to Marseille. Alas, helping out Francis puts Sam in the midst of a major real estate hustle, with the danger escalating as the battle over Marseille’s valuable waterfront heats up. Mayle’s tour will hit Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Munro, Alice. Dear Life: Stories. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780307596888. $26.95; eISBN 9780307961044. CD/downloadable: Random House Audio. SHORT STORIES
The highly admired Munro has won virtually every award imaginable (e.g., three Governor General’s Literary Awards and the Man Booker International Prize) and also sells books; her last title, Too Much Happiness, sold nearly 133,000 copies. The stories in her new collection, which revisits the towns and countryside around Lake Huron, highlight key moments when one’s life changes forever. Don’t miss.

Pullman, Philip. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version. Viking. Nov. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780670024971. $27.95. FAIRY TALES
Yes, it’s been 200 years since the publication of the first volume of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Children’s and Household Tales, and we’ll be seeing celebrations. Norton is reissuing an update of Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Brothers Grimm, and now Pullman has jumped in with his own versions of 50 of the immortal tales, from perennials like “Cinderella” to less familiar gems like “Briar-Rose.” The dark edginess of Pullman’s own work (like the famed Dark Materials trilogy) seems a good match for the Grimm tone of these stories.

Schutt, Christine. Prosperous Friends. Grove. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780802120380. $24. LITERARY
National Book Award finalist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and two-time O. Henry Prize winner, Schutt is a writer’s writer whose elegant prose seems chiseled out of diamonds. Here, golden boy Ned Bourne and his wife, Isabel, seek fulfillment of their artistic promise by traveling to London, New York, and Maine but are less successful in managing their emotional and sexual lives. Understanding comes when they meet older painter Clive Harris and his poet wife, Dinah. With a reading group guide; for discriminating folks.

Sussman, Paul. The Labyrinth of Osiris. Atlantic Monthly. Nov. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780802120410. $25. THRILLER
With Sussman’s The Last Secret of the Temple and The Lost Army of Cambyses having each sold over a million copies worldwide, you can bet that readers will be interested in this next work. Det. Arieh Ben-Roi is stumped by the murder of crusading Israeli journalist Rivka Kleinberg, found dead in a Jerusalem cathedral (of all places). So for help he turns to long-time buddy Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police. Kleinberg had been digging into the death of a British Egyptologist in the 1930s, which might provide some clues. Fun.

Alexie, Sherman. Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories. Grove. Oct. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780802120397. $25. SHORT STORIES
Winner of the PEN/Faulkner and PEN/Malamud awards—not to mention a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian—Alexie writes sculpted prose that lands like a punch. His stories, especially, are knockouts. So this juicy collection of 15 of his best-known stories (e.g., “The Toughest Indian in the World”) and 15 new stories (which range in topic from donkey basketball leagues to dangerous wind turbines) should be a winner. With a first serial sold to Harper’s and a 13-city tour to Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Nashville, Milwaukee, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Albuquerque, Phoenix, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Bellingham (WA), and Spokane.

Leon, Donna. The Jewels of Paradise. Atlantic Monthly. Oct. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780802120649. $25.95. POP FICTION
No, not another of Leon’s engaging mysteries starring Commissario Guido Brunetti but a stand-alone novel—though it’s still set in Venice. An expert on baroque opera, Caterina Pellegrini has returned home to oversee the opening of two just-discovered trunks containing the effects of a baroque composer who once reigned supreme and is now pretty much history. She’s to check the papers and see if there’s a will (already two descendants are fighting), but the trunks could contain much, much more. Lovely to see Leon spread her wings, and she writes persuasively about music; a related CD recorded by a world-famous singer is said to be in the works.

Morton, Kate. The Secret Keeper. Atria: S. & S. Oct. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9781439152805. $29.99. HISTORICAL FICTION
Sounds like classic Morton: escaping from a noisy summer party, 16-year-old Laurel Nicolson sits dreaming away in her childhood tree house when she spies her mother speaking to a man she doesn’t now. Later, she witnesses a terrible crime. But not until 50 years have passed, when she’s attending her mother’s 90th birthday party, she can ask the pertinent questions—which leads to a story involving three strangers in wartime London. Morton’s best-selling work is always classy and nuanced; I loved The Distant Hours. Great for reading groups.

Mozingo, Joe. The Fiddler on Pantico Run. Free Pr: S. & S. Oct. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781451627480. $24.99. MEMOIR
Blue-eyed, fair-skinned Mozingo didn’t know the origin of his family name until a colleague told him that it came from the Congo. Doing some digging (not a hard job for a Pulitzer Prize finalist at the Los Angeles Times), Mozingo discovered that Edward Mozingo, probably a prince from the Kingdom of Kon, landed in Jamestown in 1644 as a slave. He eventually won his freedom, then set up a tobacco farm on a Virginia road called Pantico Run and married a white woman, thus launching one of the country’s first mixed-race families. Mozingo continues through the family’s split as some members sought to pass for white, the presence of relatives on both sides during the Civil War, and his grandfather’s move to Hollywood to pursue his own dreams. If this works out right, it will capture the complexities of American history.

Abrams, David. Fobbit. Black Cat: Grove Atlantic. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780802120328. pap. $15. LITERARY/MILITARY FICTION
A number of Iraq veterans have returned home to give us fiction explaining what the war was really like (see, for instance, Kevin Powers’s forthcoming novel, The Yellow Birds; and in poetry don’t miss award winner Brian Turner). Next in line is Abrams, who served in the U.S. Army for 20 years and was deployed in Iraq as part of a public affairs team. (He was named the Department of Defense’s Military Journalist of the Year in 1994.) His debut novel is set at a Forward Operating Base, where the battle-hardened sleep between missions and everyone else has a desk job; fobbits fear fighting more than anything. Abrams’s antihero is Staff Sergeant Chance Gooding, who writes white-washed press releases. Billed as dark humor in the vein of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

Beckett, Samuel. Echo’s Bones. Grove. Sept. 2012. 128p. ISBN 9780802120458. $24. LITERARY
A new story from Beckett, one of the defining writers of the 20th century? Yes! In 1933, when Beckett was preparing for the publication of More Pricks Than Kicks, a collection of ten interrelated stories, his publisher asked for a final story to round out the collection. Having killed off the stories’ protagonist, Beckett found the writing hard going, and the piece was finally rejected for publication. Now, eight decades after he wrote it, here is “Echo’s Bones”—distinct from Beckett’s poem and collection of the same name. Mark Nixon, director of the Beckett International Foundation at the University of Reading, explains what this story has to tell us about all of Beckett’s work.

Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781592407330. $25. SELF-HELP
Quoting Theodore Roosevelt in her title, Brown urges us to throw ourselves out there and take risks—that is, to be vulnerable. Okay, so I’m leery of anyone called a thought leader, but since Brown’s 2010 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk has had 2.3 million views on TED.com (she was back for TED 2012)  and her book The Gifts of Imperfection, the basis of a PBS special, has sold 150,000 copies, she’s clearly got followers.

Echols, Damien. Damien Echols. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780399160202.  $26.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. MEMOIR
With Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., Echols is one of the West Memphis Three—young men accused of killing three Arkansas boys in 1993. After a trial burdened by hearsay and public hysteria, Baldwin and Misskelley were given life sentences and Echols, considered the ringleader, was sentenced to death at age 18. In 2007, new forensic tests of crime-scene evidence found no genetic material belonging to the men, and finally they were released in August 2011. Echols here recalls a painful childhood, his teenaged outsider status, and his 18 years on death row. An attention getter; the case remains controversial, and many famous musicians and actors (Eddie Vedder, Johnny Depp) have supported the West Memphis Three.

Fancher, Hampton. The Shape of the Final Dog and Other Stories. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780399158230.  $25.95. SHORT STORIES
You can expect the original screenwriter for the cult classic Blade Runner to write off-the-wall, over-the-line stories, and it seems that he has. One of his characters is an escaped lab rat that bats about philosophical ideas with a wakeful man, another a failed actor reincarnated as garden snail out for revenge. Watch.

Geragos, Mark & Pat Harris. Mistrial: An Inside Look at How the Criminal Justice System Works . . . and Sometimes Doesn’t. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781592407729. $27. LAW
Big trials are media events, but do we really know how the justice system works? Absolutely not, say the authors, who are here to offer an insider’s look at what really happens in the courts, some of it disheartening. Since Geragos has represented the likes of Michael Jackson and Winona Ryder and Harris regularly serves as his cocounsel, this could be interesting.

Johnson, Steven. Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9781594488207. $26.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. SOCIAL SCIENCE
A best-selling author (e.g., Where Good Ideas Come From) and the guy most likely to tackle your precious assumptions, Johnson here proclaims that we’re undergoing a period of rapid political change, facilitated by the Internet but not high-tech in nature, that obviates terms like liberal and conservative. A great nonfiction title for book clubs; imagine the arguments.

Koryta, Michael. The Prophet. Little, Brown. Sept. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780316122610.  $29.95. lrg. prnt. Downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Two brothers, one a popular high school football coach and the other a long-suffering bail bondsman, live separate lives in a small Midwestern town—but not for the reasons you might think. When they were teenagers, their sister was raped and murdered, and the trauma has driven them apart. Now a similar crime rocks their town, forcing the brothers together again. From a perennially rising star in the thriller firmament with a couple of nice movie deals under his belt.

LaVette, Bettye with David Ritz. A Woman Like Me. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780399159381. $26.95. MEMOIR
R&B great LaVette had a hit single as a Detroit teenager, then subsided into poverty, turning tricks in New York to survive. A tough few decades followed until her recent starburst comeback, which has included CDs, appearances on the Jay Leno and David Letterman shows, and performances at the Kennedy Center and President Obama’s inauguration. Anyone who’s worked with a rafter of stars from Cab Calloway to the Rolling Stones has got to be cool.

Lelic, Simon. The Facility. Penguin. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780143120681 pap. $15. THRILLER
Lelic has been gathering steam since the 2010 publication of his first novel, A Thousand Cuts, a Betty Trask Award winner that was also shortlisted for a Crime Writers’ Association New Blood Dagger Award. Here, he offers a chillingly plausible near-future Britain where antiterrorism laws allow the police to “disappear” anyone they choose. But when mild-mannered dentist Arthur Priestley vanished, his estranged wife swings into action.

Norfolk, Lawrence. John Saturnall’s Feast. Grove. Sept. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780802120519. $25. LITERARY
You can bet that the author of the Somerset Maugham Prize winner Lemprière’s Dictionary will serve up a lusciously detailed feast with his new novel—12 years in the making. After his mother starves to death, having been driven with him from their village because she is deemed a witch, John sees her starve to death, then becomes kitchen boy at Buckland Manor. He ends up a master chef—but not before becoming entangled with Lady Lucretia, the lord’s daughter, for whom he must cook meals meant to break the fast she’s declared so that her father will call off her engagement to her ridiculous fiancé. Love, food, and a riveting historical setting—it’s the English Civil War, and Cromwell’s Roundheads are descending; essential for literate readers.

Slinkachu. Little People: The Global Model Village. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. 120p. ISBN 9780399160745. $16.95.  HUMOR/ART
A pseudonymous London-based street artist, Slinkachu roams the city, setting up vignettes with hand-painted figurines for passersby to discover. His first book, Little People in the City, sold 150,000 copies in the U.K. and 11,000 copies here in an export edition. This new book features his “little people” in settings worldwide, from Greece, Israel, and South Africa to China, Qatar, and the United States. This is billed as humor, though I understand the vignettes can be quite poignant. An artist who’s getting hot; the publisher will use this book to push him to the U.S. media.

Smilevski, Goce. Freud’s Sister. Penguin. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780143121459. pap. $16. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. LITERARY Winner of the European Union Prize for Literature and sold to 23 countries, Macedonia-born Smilevski’s novel is all the more remarkable—and unsettling—because it’s based on fact. When Freud was granted an exit visa from Vienna in 1938 and asked to list those he would take with him, he named his entire household, including the maids and the dog, but left off his four sisters. They ended up in the Terezín concentration camp. This novel ranges over the life of Freud’s sister Adolfina, a sweet, sensitive soul who was close to her brother, dreamed of marriage, and spent time with Gustav Klimt’s sister in a psychiatric hospital. A hardcover-worthy paperback original.

Bowker, Gordon. James Joyce: A New Biography. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 624p. ISBN 9780374178727. $35. BIOGRAPHY
The biographer of Malcolm Lowry, George Orwell, and Lawrence Durrell, Bowker now takes on the literary Everest that is James Joyce. Working with newly discovered materials, he aims to reveal more of the author’s interior landscape, exploring his commitment to writing despite poverty, censorship, and relentless criticism. Richard Ellmann’s monumental biography still tops the charts; let see how this one does.

Coates, John. The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings, and the Biology of Boom and Bust. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9781594203381. $27.95. BUSINESS/SCIENCE
The French refer to twilight as entre le chien et le loup—between the dog and the wolf, the time when one has trouble telling the two apart.Wall Streeters use the term to highlight that shifty moment when a trader can take a risk or retreat to cut possible losses. Coates, a research fellow in neuroscience and finance at Cambridge, once worked in derivatives and came to believe that trading behavior was deeply related to hormones. His experiments showed that testosterone, bolstered by success, reduces the fear of risk in men, particularly young men (but not women), while failure causes an increase in cortisol, which inhibits risk taking. This biology of risk helps us understand how mind and body work together for success, separating the dogs from the wolves in a wide range of endeavors. For smart readers; makes sense, right?

Cohen, Rich. The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780374299279. $27. BIOGRAPHY
Arriving in America in 1891, Samuel Zemurray started out as a fruit peddler and ended up as head of the United Fruit Company—and one of the richest men in the world. As told by Cohen, his is both a rags-to-riches success story and a cautionary tale about the damage done by corporate greed and the exploitation of other countries. A Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair contributing editor with a bunch of best sellers to his name, Cohen should pull this off nicely.

Dolan, Marc. Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock ’n’ Roll. Norton. Jun. 2012. 592p. ISBN 9780393081350. $29.95. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
Associate professor of English, American studies, and film studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, and at the City University of New York Graduate Center, Dolan would seem to have the background to write something more than a flashy account of Springsteen’s rise to fame. And that’s what he intends, probing the cultural and political forces that shaped Springsteen while drawing on numerous sources, including unreleased studio recordings and bootlegs of live performances. For serious fans.

Gallagher, Michael & Jonathan Fetter-Vorm. Trinity: Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb. Hill & Wang. Jun. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780809094684. $22. GRAPHIC NOVEL/HISTORY
Fetter-Vorm has illustrated a number of literary sources, including Beowulf and Moby-Dick, but here he takes on an important aspect of history, chronicling the development of the atomic bomb. The book moves from early research and a vividly rendered depiction of a nuclear chain reaction to the launching of the Manhattan Project and the ethical quandaries of those involved. Strongly consider wherever graphic nonfiction moves.

Jarnow, Jesse. Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). 288p. ISBN 9781592407156. $18. MUSIC
Yo La Tengo has been around for three decades, defining indie rock and refusing to go glam by joining a big record label. Music journalist and radio show host Jarnow (The Frow Show, WFMU) tells their story. Note the paperback original format, absolutely fitting to the content and the audience. Get wherever music books beyond those celeb bios circulate.

Johnson, Boris. Johnson’s Life of London: The People Who Made the City That Made the World. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9781594487477. $27.95. HISTORY
London is a fascinating city, and who better to tell its story that the mayor himself, familiarly known as Boris. This he does by focusing not on events but individuals, from Hadrian to Shakespeare to the Rolling Stones. Before serving in the House of Commons and then becoming mayor, Johnson was a journalist (he was eventually editor of the Spectator), so he should be able to write. Just in time for the 2012 Olympics, this should be an entertainingly irreverent take on a powerhouse city.  

Kemper, Steve. A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa. Norton. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780393079661. $27.95. HISTORY
Never heard of Heinrich Barth? Acting for the British government, this German national became part of an expedition through North and Central Africa in 1849, enduring a five-and-a-half year trek over 10,000 miles and the deaths of most of his comrades before finally reaching that shining, legendary city, Timbuktu. But because of Europe’s changing political landscape and Barth’s concern with learning about the African peoples rather than figuring out how to exploit them, he didn’t get the attention at the time that he deserved. His story is known primarily by scholars, to whom his discoveries remain invaluable, which makes this an important corrective to our understanding of Africa’s exploration. And it sounds fascinating.  

Koslow, Sally, Slouching Toward Adulthood: Observations from the Not-So-Empty Nest. Viking. Jun. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780670023622. $25.95. CURRENT EVENTS
A novelist (With Friends Like These) and journalist (O: The Oprah Magazine, Huffington Post), Koslow draws on her own experience, as well as research and interviews, to talk about a crucial issue these days: the number of adult children who have returned home to live with their parents. She calls these children adultescents, and her book seems less a discussion of why this is happening and what (if anything) to do about it than a portrait of the adjustments families are now making.

 Mann, James. The Obamians: How a Band of Newcomers Redefined American Power. Viking. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780670023769. $26.95. CURRENT EVENTS
In his best-selling Rise of the Vulcans, Mann profiled the advisers who helped shape George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Here he looks at the idealistic young advisers Obama brought with him to the White House who found themselves up against both the messy realities of world politics and an older, more seasoned group of advisers (e.g., Joseph Biden, Hilary Clinton) who had a different view of things. Food for the political nuts among us, and there are lots.

Rees, Martin. From Here to Infinity: A Vision for the Future of Science. Norton. Jun. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780393063073. $23.95. SCIENCE
A lot of folks are intimated by science, and Cambridge astrophysicist Rees wants them to get over it. After all, many of the crucial issues we face today, from health care to energy policy to climate change, demand an understanding of science. Rees here makes a case for increased communication between scientists and nonscientists so that we can all be better informed. It’s an important idea that I hope finds readers.

Sullivan, Randall. Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson. Grove. Jun. 2012. 388p. ISBN 9780802119629. $26.95; eISBN 9780802195654. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
As the subtitle suggests, this book by a former Rolling Stone contributing editor and writer recounts not only Jackson’s in-the-spotlight upbringing and the controversies of his adult life—the business errors, pedophilia accusations, savaged reputation, and comeback album and 50 megaconcerts he was planning at his death—but the death itself, including the public’s reaction, the estate battles, and the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray. Seems there’s an effort here at balance; likely lots of demand.

Wahls, Zach. My Two Moms: Everything I Needed To Know About Gay Marriage I Learned in Boy Scouts. Gotham Bks: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781592407132. $26. MEMOIR
There are plenty of charming, Eagle Scout engineering students about, but only one testified before the Iowa House of Representatives in January 2011 that the sexual orientation of his two moms had had, as he said, “zero effect on the content of his character.” That was Wahls, just 19, and his speech subsequently appeared on YouTube, soon racking up more than two million views. Here he expands on his life story, speaking first to youngers like himself, raised by a same-sex couple, and then to all those who feel like outsiders, telling them that they are not alone. A needed book, and Wahls is now a known quantity.

Zuckerman, Peter & Amanda Padoan. Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2’s Deadliest Day. Norton. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780393079883. $26.95. MOUNTAINEERING
As long as Westerners have been scaling the Himalayas, Sherpas—inhabitants of Nepal’s most mountainous regions—have climbed with them, not merely as porters but as expert mountaineers. Yet they have never been given their due. Here is the story of Chhiring Dorje Sherpa and Pasang Lama, who participated in the 2008 assault on K2 that left 11 climbers dead, though they themselves survived. The book takes pains to explore their culture and the burden felt by such impoverished young men who take on dangerous work that pays well yet remains an offense to the mountains they revere. Sobering.