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In Nunn's debut album she explores apartheid South Africa through a framework of a dark crime novel. Set in 1952, the apartheid laws have recently taken effect and divided the nation. When an Afrikaner policeman is found dead English Detective Emmanual Cooper begins an investigation. What follows is a tale of murder, corruption, passion, and the double standard of an apartheid nation.

Based on biographical events, Drood fictionalizes the last five years of Charles Dicken's life told from the point of view of his friend and fellow writer Wilkie Collins. Following a near-fatal accident on June 9, 1865, Dickens descends into a world filled with corpses, crypts, cemeteries, opium dens, and the seamy underbelly of London. This hefty 700+ page volume explores the mysteries of the famous author's last years and a possible key to unlocking his final, unfished work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Arahab, the water witch, has been scheming for years to find a way to awaken the Leviathan. She wants to bring him and the other old gods back to their former glory and in the process destroy the human race. The problem is that Arahab can't accomplish this task without the help of a human. This task proves too difficult for the Spanish sea pirate José Gaspar. Arahab bides her time until the depression era 1930s when she discovers Bernice and her cousin Nia. When Bernice commits a deadly crime, Nia won't cover for her actions and she turns on Nia, chasing her into the waves. Bernice is recruited for Arahab's plans and Nia is turned into a strange and powerful new creature to aid the fight against the coming apocalypse. Part horror, fantasy, and thriller, this novel makes rural Florida seem not quite so sleepy.

When Truly Plaice's mother was pregnant with her, the whole town placed bets on what the weight of the baby would be. When Truly's mother dies in childbirth, her father blames her for her mother's death. When Truly's father dies, she and her polar opposite sister, Serena Jane, are sent to live with two separate families. Serena Jane into a life of privilege, and the enormous Truly into an outcast family on a run-down farm. As Truly grows older and larger, her destiny becomes linked with her sister and her sister's wolf-like husband Bob Bob Morgan, the town doctor. When Truly discovers a centuries-old book with Morgan family secrets penned by the first town doctor's witch-wife, Tabitha, she soon confronts life-altering decisions about whether or not to use her newfound knowledge. Full of love, dark humor, and magic, I predict this debut novel will be a bookclub favorite.

This Latina chic lit will delight audiences looking for a light and funny read. Cuban-American Rosie Caballeros's humdrum life is turned upside down when she wins the largest lottery in history, $600 million! Rosie shares her newfound wealth with her abuela, her dog Tootie, and her cousin Cheeto. She also attracts schemers, scammers, paparrazi and nefarious ex-boyfriends. In between shopping sprees Rosie has to find out who she can trust and what money can't buy.

An old-school gothic ghost story, this book begins with a painting. The old Cambridge professor, Theo Parmitter, recounts to his former student, Oliver, the story of how he obtained the mysterious painting depicting a Venetian carnival. Instead of art imitating life, it has the power to entrap it as it is imbued with vengeful spirit of a former owner.

In Burke's first venture into the paranormal, The Messenger is a thriller that explores a vendetta, damnation, and redemption. A deep sea salvage diver explores a nineteenth century ship and uncovers the remains of Lucien Adrian deVille. The ghostly Adrian calls to him and strikes a deal to hunt down Tyler Hawthorne in return for riches that the diver will come to regret. Ten year later in Los Angeles, Amanda Clark becomes curious about her neighbor, the young, handsome, and rich Tyler Hawthorne. Tyler is a Messenger who conveys the final thought of the dying to their loved ones. Tyler and Amanda find themselves drawn to each other and entwined in their efforts to defeat Tyler's old enemy Adrien who will stop at nothing to destroy him.

In this gritty, urban odyssey, twelve year old Joon is a Korean immigrant growing up in the Bronx in the 1980s. Her unfaithful father has left the family and mental illness has left her mother completely unresponsive. Joon decides she would be better off on her own. We follow Joon as she suffers drugs, sex violence, and the difficult street life in New York City. Joon faces insurmountable odds with a fierce determination to survive.

This slim volume tells a story of drama, intrigue, jealousy, and retribution set against the backdrop of the Peking Opera. During a 1979 production of the Moon Opera, the rising diva Xiao Yanqui disfigures her understudy in a fit of rage and jealousy. Pressured by her troupe she turns to teaching. Twenty years later, she is offered the opportunity to reprise her role in the cursed opera. She chooses one of her gifted students as her understudy and the stage is set for yet another confrontation. Renowned as a gifted writer in China, this is the author's first translated work for English speaking audiences.

Louise Erdich is the author of twelve novels including the National Book Critics Circle Award winner, Love Medicine, and the recent bestseller Plague of Doves. This volume collects together three decades of short stories; thirty works that first appeared in magazines, and six never before published stories. Readers will follow Erdich's evolution in narrative styles and be pleasantly rewarded with stories of spellbinding beauty, boldness, and depth of human spirit.

Hope Jones, is whisked away by a 1978 Nebraska tornado and with her goes her big dreams for her tiny town. Twenty five years later, her three children gather for their father's funeral after he is killed by a lightning strike. Larken, the eldest, is a professor with a fear of flying who seeks answers in food; Gaelen, the only son, is a weatherman with too many women in his life; and Bonnie, the baby, is a self-proclaimed activist who keeps herself employed with odd jobs around town. Together again, they are forced to relive the childhood tragedy at the center of their lives

Critchley writes, "My hope is that, if read from beginning to end, a cumulative series of themes will emerge that will add up to a specific argument about how philosophy might teach one how to die, and by implication, how to live." That is exactly what this, at times simultaneously morbid and funny, volume does. Critchley explores 190 philosophers, some more famous than others, and their preoccupation with what constitutes “a good death” in comparison with how the philosophers' actually died. Bizarre tales ranging from suffocating in cow dung to having their body stuffed and put on display, this read is anything but uninteresting.

In 1997, Susette Kelo, an EMT, left her husband and bought a small fixer-upper in a blue-collar neighborhood on the seacoast of New London, Connecticut. She painted her house pink. Months later, the city government began trying to muscle residents out of their houses to make way for a research and development complex for Pfizer, Inc. by exercising eminent domain. Kelo and her neighbors refused to sell and over eight years battled their way to the Supreme Court where it brought about one of their most controversial rulings ever made.

This volume, compiled by now-deceased officer and mystery author Hugh Holton, relates twenty eight stories of African-American law enforcement officials told in their own words. While most of the officers work for large, metropolitan forces, there are also stories of those who work for sheriff's departments, prisons, and state agencies. Dedicated to “serve and protect” these officers' stories are profound, terrifying, funny, sad, and powerful.

Full of anecdotes and humorous examples this book explores the tools we need to rebuild the face-to-face conversation skills that many of us are losing in this technologically advanced age. In fifteen packed chapters it answers such questions as “How can you make bores interesting?” and “Why should you laugh at your own jokes?” As Publisher's Weekly put it, “Blyth's book is a delightful encouragement to rediscover conversation as the best communication technology. “

This beautiful book is designed with the beginning stargazer in mind. It is divided into four sections. The first section introduces the basics of astronomy and the night sky. Part two explores the solar system. Part three identifies all 88 constellations and provides the mythology of each one. Part four provides sky maps for the northern and southern hemispheres for each month. All of these are accompanied by amazing photos and sky charts.

Full of fascinating lore and history of gardening, Liz Primeau explores her lifelong passion for gardening. From the time she was a little girl and would steal green onions from her father's vegetable garden to the time she found her son growing funny tomatoes amidst her seedlings, Primeau recounts the joys and challenges of her gardening life.

George Rodrigue is a Cajun artist who grew up in Acadian Louisiana. Inspired by the Cajun legend of the loup-garou and his deceased dog, Tiffany, he painted the first Blue Dog piece in 1984. This magnificent collection compiles over 160 pieces from the past twenty years of Blue Dog paintings and is the first book to feature Rodrigue's witty titles that play such an important part of each piece.

Using one of the best-known mysteries of all time, French author and psychoanalyst, Pierre Bayard, points out the differences in the way literary academics read versus the way real people read. Arguing that Sherlock Holmes drew false conclusions he proposes that not only did he get the identification of the murderer wrong but that he even got the murder victim wrong! As the inside jacket describes, “Part intellectual entertainment, part love letter to crime novels, and part crime novel in itself, Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong turns one of our most beloved stories delightfully on its head.”

This book has the distinction of being the first book expressly published for the Big Read Program which was created by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Written with U.S. Readers in mind, these twenty short stories written by Mexico's finest writers will serve as a catalyst to discussion and understanding between the people of Mexico and the U.S.

A bestseller in the United Kingdom, and shortlisted for the 2008 Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction, Blood River is a harrowing journey recounting journalist Tim Butcher's fourty-four day journey through the Congo. When Butcher is sent to Africa as a reporter in 2000 he quickly become intrigued with the journey of the legendary explorer, Henry Morgan Stanley, who first charted the Congo in 1874. Despite protests from friends, family, and politicians he decided to follow that journey a hundred plus years later. Butcher intertwines the past with the harsh reality of the present and tells it like it is.

Using a cache of letters from Mary Lincoln discovered in the twenty years since her last biography as well as additional research, Catherine Clinton, explores the life of the wife of one of the most revered U.S. president in history. Although her life and story has been inextricably linked with that of her husband and the nation, her life in and of itself is quite remarkable. Born an aristocratic and educated Southern daughter, she became a Northern wife, a situation mirrored by thousands of women during that time. She also has the distinction of being the first presidential wife known as “the First Lady.” After her husband's assassination her mental health declined and she went into exile in later years. Her mysterious and tragic life symbolizes the loss and pain of Civil War Era America.