Christopher Buckley

They Eat Puppies, Don't They?

Twelve; ISBN: 978-044654097-1; Pub.: 5/8/2012; $25.99

"Each of his novels may be light as air, but bit by bit they're building up into a significant social portrait, the beginnings of a vast Comédie-Washingtonienne...At a time of high political absurdity, Buckley remains our sharpest guide to the capital, and amore serious one than we may suppose."

--New York Times Book Review

Indie Bound Description & Reviews

Alison Bechdel

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; ISBN: 978-061898250-9; Pub.: 5/1/2012; $22.00

"Are You My Mother? is a work of the most humane kind of genius, bravely going right to the heart of things: why we are who we are.  It's also incredibly funny.  And visually stunning.  And page-turningly addictive.  And heartbreaking."

--Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated

Indie Bound Description & Reviews

Rick Riordan

The Serpent's Shadow:

The Kane Chronicles: Book Three

Disney/Hyperion; ISBN: 978-142314057-3; Pub.: 5/1/2012; $19.99

"Despite their best efforts, Carter and Sade Kane can't seem to keep Apophis, the chaos snake, down.  Now Apophis is threatening to plunge the world into eternal darkness, and the Kanes are faced with the impossible task of having to destroy him once and for all...To find the answer they need, the Kanes must rely on the murderous ghost of a powerful magician who might be able to lead them to the serpent's shadow...or might lead them to their deaths in the depths of the underworld."

--publisher description

Paul Krugman

End This Depression Now!

W.W. Norton & Co.; ISBN: 978-039308877-9; Pub.: 4/30/2012; $24.95

"The Great Recession is more than four years old and counting.  Yet, as Paul Krugman points out in this powerful volley, 'Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledge all the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for all remain in a state of intense pain.'  How bad have things gotten?...And above all, how do we free ourselves?  Krugman pursues these questions with his characteristic lucidity and insight.  He has a powerful message for anyone who has suffered over these past four years a quick, strong recovery is just one step away, if our leaders can find the 'intellectual clarity and political will' to end this depression now."

--publisher description

Laurent Binet; Sam Taylor, trans.

HHhH

Farrar, Straus & Giroux; ISBN: 978-037416991-6; Pub.: 4/24/2012; $26.00

[A] soul-stirring work...The account of the assassination attempt and its nail-biting aftermath is brilliantly suspenseful...Binet deserves great kudos for retrieving this fateful, half-forgotten episode, spotlighting Nazi infamy, celebrating its resisters, and delivering the whole with panache."

--Kirkus, starred review

Indie Bound Description & Reviews

Taras Grescoe

Straphanger:

Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile

Times Books; ISBN: 978-080509173-1; Pub.: 4/24/2012; $25.00

"Taras Grescoe rides the rails all over the world and makes an elegant and impassioned case for the imminent end of car culture and the coming transportation revolution.

'I am proud to call myself a straphanger,' writes Taras Grescoe.  The perception of public transportation in America is often unflattering—a squalid last resort for those with one too many drunk-driving charges, too poor to afford insurance, or too decrepit to get behind the wheel of a car.  Indeed, a century of auto-centric culture and city planning has left most of the country with public transportation that is underfunded, ill maintained, and ill conceived...Grescoe explores the ascendance of the straphangers—the growing number of people who rely on public transportation to go about the business of their daily lives...[He] profiles public transportation here and abroad, highlighting the people and ideas that may help undo the damage that car-centric planning has done to our cities and create convenient, affordable, and sustainable urban transportation—and better city living—for all."

--publisher description

Indie Bound Description & Reviews

Roberto Bolaño

The Secret of Evil

New Directions; ISBN: 978-081121815-3; Pub.: 4/30/2012; $22.95

"A North American journalist in Paris is woken at 4 a.m. by a mysterious caller with urgent information...Daniela de Montecristo (familiar to readers of Nazi Literature in the Americas and 2666) recounts the loss of her virginity...Belaño's son Geronimo disappears in Berlin during the Days of Chaos in 2005.  Memories of a return to the native land...Zombie schlock as allegory...

The various pieces in the posthumous Secret of Evil extend the intricate, single web that is the work of Roberto Bolaño."

--publisher description

Paul French

Midnight in Peking:

How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China

Penguin; ISBN: 978-014312100-8; Pub.: 4/24/2012; $26.00

"Clue by clue, Paul French uncovers the truth of a bizarre murder case that shocked Peking in 1937.  In doing so, he draws a chilling portrait of the city's decadent, violent and overly-privileged Euro-American expatriate community.  It is a feat comparable to that of White Mischief.   Fascinating and irresistible.  I couldn't put it down."

--John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Indie Bound Description & Reviews

Leonard Mlodinow

Subliminal:

How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior

Pantheon; ISBN: 978-030737821-7; Pub.: 4/24/2012; $25.95

"Leonard Mlodinow, the best-selling author of The Drunkard’s Walk and coauthor of The Grand Design (with Stephen Hawking), gives us a startling and eye-opening examination of how the unconscious mind shapes our experience of the world and how, for instance, we often misperceive our relationships with family, friends, and business associates, misunderstand the reasons for our investment decisions, and misremember important events.

Employing his trademark wit and lucid, accessible explanations of the most obscure scientific subjects, Leonard Mlodinow takes us on a tour of this research, unraveling the complexities of the subliminal self and increasing our understanding of how the human mind works and how we interact with friends, strangers, spouses, and coworkers.  In the process he changes our view of ourselves and the world around us."

--publisher description

Indie Bound Description & Reviews

Anna Quindlen

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

Random House; ISBN: 978-140006934-7; Pub.: 4/24/2012; $26.00

"In this irresistible memoir, the "New York Times" bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead—and celebrating it all—as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more...

From childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, Quindlen uses the events of her own life to illuminate our own.  Along with the downsides of age, she says, can come wisdom, a perspective on life that makes it satisfying and even joyful.  Candid, funny, moving, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is filled with the sharp insights and revealing observations that have long confirmed Quindlen’s status as America’s laureate of real life."

--publisher description

Indie Bound Description & Reviews

Michael Buckley

Sisters Grimm: Book 9: The Council of Mirrors

Amulet Books; ISBN: 978-141970186-3; Pub.: 4/19/2012; $15.95

In the final volume in the Sisters Grimm series, Sabrina, Daphne, and the rest of the Grimms and their friends must face off against the Master to decide the fate of Ferryport Landing—and the world.  When Mirror fails to escape the barrier using Granny Relda’s body, he turns to his plan B: killing all the Grimms so that the magical barrier collapses...This final chapter is the end of the road for several beloved characters, but the conclusion is sure to satisfy devoted fans of the series."

--publisher description

Françoise Mouly

Blown Covers:

New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant to See

Abrams; ISBN: 978-141970209-9; Pub.: 4/1/2012; $24.95

"Françoise Mouly takes us behind the scenes at the "New Yorker" and reveals how the magazine creates its signature covers commenting on the most urgent political and cultural events of the day.  She shows the shocking and hilarious sketches that didn’t make the cut and explains how these are essential stages in the evolution of a cover that stands the test of time but retains its edge...it shows how the magazine that exemplifies journalistic excellence in America also dares to cultivate a sense of humor when grappling with complex moral and political issues."

--publisher description

Dana Mackenzie

The Universe in Zero Words:

The Story of Mathematics as Told Through Equations

Princeton University Press; ISBN: 978-069115282-0; Pub.: 4/29/2012; $27.95

"The Universe in Zero Words tells the history of twenty-four great and beautiful equations that have shaped mathematics, science, and society--from the elementary (1+1=2) to the sophisticated (the Black-Scholes formula for financial derivatives), and from the famous (E=mc2) to the arcane (Hamilton's quaternion equations).  Mackenzie, who has been called "a popular-science ace" by "Booklist" magazine, lucidly explains what each equation means, who discovered it (and how), and how it has affected our lives.

Illustrated in color throughout, the book tells the human and often-surprising stories behind the invention or discovery of the equations, from how a bad cigar changed the course of quantum mechanics to why whales (if they could communicate with us) would teach us a totally different concept of geometry.  At the same time, the book shows why these equations have something timeless to say about the universe, and how they do it with an economy (zero words) that no other form of human expression can match."

--publisher description

William Boyd

Waiting for Sunrise

Harper; ISBN: 978-006187676-9; Pub.: 4/17/2012; $25.99

"Vienna, 1913.  Lysander Rief, a young English actor in town seeking psychotherapy for a troubling ailment of a sexual nature, becomes caught up in a feverish affair with a beautiful, enigmatic woman.  When she goes to the police to press charges of rape, however, he is stunned, and his few months of passion come to an abrupt end.  Only a carefully plotted escape--with the help of two mysterious British diplomats--saves him from trial...But the frenzied getaway sets off a chain of events that steadily dismantles Lysander's life as he knows it.

Moving from Vienna to London's West End...Waiting for Sunrise is a mesmerizing journey into the human psyche, a beautifully observed portrait of wartime Europe, a plot-twisting thriller, and a literary tour de force."

--publisher description

Indie Bound Description

Christopher Simon Sykes

David Hockney: The Biography, 1937-1975

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday; ISBN: 978-038553144-3; Pub.: 4/17/2012; $35.00

"Drawing on exclusive and unprecedented access to David Hockney’s extensive archives, notebooks, and paintings, interviews with family, friends, and on Hockney himself, Christopher Simon Sykes provides a colorful and intimate portrait of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century...In this, the first volume of Hockney’s biography, detailing his life and work from 1937 - 1975, Sykes explores the fascinating world of the beloved and controversial artist whose career has spanned and epitomized the art movements of the last five decades."

--publisher description

Indie Bound Description & Reviews

Lizzie K. Foley

Remarkable

Dial; ISBN: 978-080373706-8; Pub.: 4/12/2012; $16.99

"In the mountain town of Remarkable, everyone is extraordinarily talented, extraordinarily gifted, or just plain extraordinary.  Everyone, that is, except Jane Doe, the most average ten-year-old who ever lived.  But everything changes when the mischievous, downright criminal Grimlet twins enroll in Jane's school and a strange pirate captain appears in town...Thus begins a series of adventures that put some of Remarkable's most infamous inhabitants and their long-held secrets in danger.  It's up to Jane, in her own modest style, to come to the rescue and prove that she is capable of some rather exceptional things."

--publisher description

Indie Bound Description

Donna Leon

Beastly Things

Atlantic Monthly Press; ISBN: 978-080212023-6; Pub.: 4/3/2012; $25.00

When Brunetti begins to investigate a murder, the corpse turns out to have been a veterinarian beloved by all whose animals he treated.  Why, then, did such a man work in a slaughterhouse?  And what exactly was his role there?  As in many of the excellent Venetian mysteries of Leon, ethics are the true subject under investigation: the ethics of the abattoir and of the consumption of meat; the ethics of decent people who, when threatened, test the waters of illegality; and the ethics of the police--always a subject for dissection in the mind of Brunetti.  This may be Leon's best yet--high praise indeed."

--Betsy Burton, The King's English, Salt Lake City, UT

April 2012 Indie Next List

Levin Becker

Many Subtle Channels:

In Praise of Potential Literature

Harvard University Press; ISBN: 978-067406577-2; Pub.: 4/24/2012; $27.95

"What sort of society could bind together Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneau--and Daniel Levin Becker, a young American obsessed with language play?  Only the Oulipo, the Paris-based experimental collective founded in 1960 and fated to become one of literature's quirkiest movements.

An international organization of writers, artists, and scientists who embrace formal and procedural constraints to achieve literature's possibilities, the Oulipo (the French acronym stands for "workshop for potential literature") is perhaps best known as the cradle of Georges Perec's novel A Void, which does not contain the letter e.  Drawn to the Oulipo's mystique, Levin Becker secured a Fulbright grant to study the organization and traveled to Paris.  He was eventually offered membership, becoming only the second American to be admitted to the group..."

--publisher description

Indie Bound Description

Ian Knauer

The Farm:

Rustic Recipes for a Year of Incredible Food

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; ISBN: 978-054751691-2; Pub.: 4/17/2012; $30.00

"When Ian Knauer was a cook in the "Gourmet" test kitchen, he quickly became known for recipes so stupendously good that they turned the heads of the country’s top food editors—effortless combinations that made the best of seasonal produce or treats from the Pennsylvania farm that has been in his family since the eighteenth century.

In The Farm, Knauer brings his creations to your kitchen.  From Cold-Spring-Night Asparagus Soup to Brick Chicken with Corn and Basil Salad, the 150 recipes in this book will help you make the most of your market, garden, or CSA.  They are fresh, modern spins on American classics, with ingredients anyone can obtain.  Each one is simple, distinctive, and satisfying, getting the best food to the table in the least amount of time.  They are both homey and sophisticated."

--publisher description

Indie Bound Description

A.J. Jacobs

Drop Dead Healthy:

One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 978-141659907-4; Pub.: 4/10/2012; $26.00

"Anyone yearning to pursue a healthier lifestyle should read this book first!  Jacobs spent two years on a quest to improve his health, one body part at a time.  Besides being very funny--who knew there was a surgical procedure to change the timbre of your farts?--this book is a fount of useful information as Jacobs tries out all of the crazy medical advice so you don't have to.  P.S.: Laughing at this book will make you healthier.  (See Chapter 10.)"

--Susan Taylor, Market Block Books, Troy, NY

Indie Bound Description & Reviews