Fervent Reader

Plot summary (from the publisher): Lamour Harrington’s husband died two years ago. Since then, she has immersed herself in her landscape architecture, but even creating beautiful outdoor “rooms” can’t bring back her sense of peace. When she’s faced with a devastating truth about the husband she adored, Lamour needs a place to recharge. She returns to the house on the Amalfi coast where she’d lived with her father during the happiest years of her childhood.

But the house of her memories has secrets all its own, forcing her to face new truths about another man she once loved. Was her father’s death truly accidental? Or was he hiding something that caused his early demise? Torn between two mysterious and compelling men, Lamour discovers that the past has a way of returning when you least expect it. And someone wants to ensure that Lamour doesn’t uncover the secrets of this idyllic, dreamy coastal getaway. As the past and the present collide in a shattering and suspenseful climax, Lamour must face the things she fears the most, in order to find the courage to live life to the fullest.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The descriptions of Amalfi and Lamour’s daily life in that place sounded rather idyllic. It made me want to live a similarly simple existence — or at the very least, visit the coast at some point.
• I enjoyed reading about Lamour’s job as a landscape architect. I think it was cool that she designed wood pergolas, outdoor rooms, and other interesting features, and wish the author had spent more time showing this competent side of the protagonist instead of focusing almost entirely on the fish-out-of-water stuff.

Disliked:

• Lamour acted like such a spoiled brat most of the time that I couldn’t believe she was supposed to be 38 years old. I mean, she was so damn naive and simple-minded! What ADULT would just assume a childhood home from 30 years ago still legally belonged to her via her deceased father? Ever heard of a will? Or property taxes? Houses don’t just sit unoccupied for decades like that unless someone is paying the government. If Lamour wasn’t doing it, then why would she think the house was hers? And when Lorenzo said he owned it, her response was typical of a child: “It’s mine and you can’t make me leave no matter how many lawyers you get!” Oh, really? Want to test that theory in the real world???
• The names in this book were beyond ridiculous. Lamour. Jon-Boy (the MOST ANNOYING). Jammy. Good lord.
• The stuff with Aurora and Lamour at the end of the book was laughable. I mean, Aurora tries to KILL Lamour, but Lamour suddenly flares up with sisterly “loyalty” for this young woman and refuses to tell Lorenzo that Aurora intentionally tried to kill her? Yeah, right. Regardless of how much “medication” Aurora gets after that incident, how could Lamour ever really trust her again? I mean, why even add such a dumb angle to the already transparent “twist” of having Aurora turn out to be Jon-Boy’s long-lost daughter. There was no suspense in that scene on the boat; just stupidity.
• Lamour made it a point to say that she wasn’t interested in the playboy Nico because she didn’t want to end up with a man like her father. And then she ends up with….Nico’s 62-year-old dad. Allllll riiiiighty, then.

Rating:

I’ve read one other Elizabeth Adler title before, so I kind of knew not to expect anything great. However, The House in Amalfi didn’t even manage to reach that low bar. It is a boring story with a bratty, unlikable heroine and an uninteresting outcome. The only thing that surprised me about this book was that I was able to finish it. I give it 1 star out of 5.

Summary (from the publisher): Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They’ve tested France’s first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way.

In this fascinating, ennobling account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries—from the anatomy labs and human-sourced pharmacies of medieval and nineteenth-century Europe to a human decay research facility in Tennessee, to a plastic surgery practice lab, to a Scandinavian funeral directors’ conference on human composting. In her droll, inimitable voice, Roach tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.

Liked:

• A lot of the information in the book was interesting. I think Roach did a fairly good job of keeping things moving along. I don’t really recall any parts that bogged me down and made progress slow going, so that’s a plus. For example, she didn’t spend too much time telling readers about how the hospitals bought medication carts at Howard-Medical.com or how often the FBI field lab has to “replenish” their supply of cadavers. Almost everything (with a couple of glaring exceptions listed below) was relevant to the topic.
• I liked the stories about how cadavers are used at medical schools. I think it’s great that the students are so respectful of the cadavers and get attached enough that they have solemn memorial services at the end of their Anatomy courses.
• It’s kind of sad that so few people think of leaving their bodies to science for research. (I admit that I have never done so either.) Even in this day and age of high-tech computer modeling, it seems that actual cadavers are still critically needed for a lot of different applications, so the option of donating your body to science should be talked about a bit more.
• In these kinds of books, there is a fine line between giving sufficient details and delving into, well, nastiness. Roach navigated that line well, IMO.

Disliked:

• I didn’t like Roach’s NUMEROUS attempts at humor. After so many other reviewers called this “hilarious” and so forth, I was expecting to get quite a few laughs out of it. But I found Roach’s jokes and puns to be sophomoric at best and tiresome at worst. I would have no objection to several well-placed one-liners throughout the book, but she just tried way too hard.
• I thought the chapters about animal experimentation (especially the head transplants on dogs and monkeys) to be rather disturbing — and out of place. This was, after all, supposed to be a book on what happens to human cadavers, not one about scientific experimentation on live animals gone awry.

Rating:

I guess I don’t really have that much to say about Stiff by Mary Roach. The book was interesting for the most part, but due to the two issues I had with it, I’m only going to give it 3 stars out of 5.

Here are the current New York Times bestsellers in a handful of the more popular categories.

Combined Print & E-Book Fiction:
HOME FRONT, by Kristin Hannah
THE CAPTURE OF THE EARL OF GLENCRAE, by Stephanie Laurens
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer
THE SUMMER GARDEN, by Sherryl Woods
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett

Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction:
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
AMERICAN SNIPER, by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
AMERITOPIA, by Mark R. Levin
QUIET, by Susan Cain

Hardcover Fiction:
HOME FRONT, by Kristin Hannah
PRIVATE: #1 SUSPECT, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
TAKEN, by Robert Crais
DEFENDING JACOB, by William Landay
DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, by P. D. James

Hardcover Nonfiction:
AMERICAN SNIPER, by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
AMERITOPIA, by Mark R. Levin
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
QUIET, by Susan Cain

Paperback Trade Fiction:
NIGHT ROAD, by Kristin Hannah
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer
THE TIGER’S WIFE, by Téa Obreht
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction:
THE CAPTURE OF THE EARL OF GLENCRAE, by Stephanie Laurens
THE SUMMER GARDEN, by Sherryl Woods
BONNIE, by Iris Johansen
44 CHARLES STREET, by Danielle Steel
AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, by Tom Clancy with Peter Telep

Paperback Nonfiction:
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
BOSSYPANTS, by Tina Fey
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, by Rebecca Skloot
UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIPS, by Jennifer S. Holland
OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell

Plot summary (from the publisher): It’s 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They’ve been best friends almost as long – at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh’s family gets a free AOL CD in the mail,his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they’re automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn’t been invented yet. And they’re looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.

By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they’re forced to confront what they’re doing right – and wrong – in the present.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• Josh and Emma were a couple that the reader could root for. Both had their flaws and were annoying at certain points, but they seemed destined to be together.
• The concept of stumbling on Facebook as a future portal and glimpse into your life 15 years down the road was an intriguing one. It was funny how Emma and Josh thought it was absolutely insane to “put their lives” on the Internet like that. I agree with that sentiment, and imagine if Facebook had come around a decade earlier, it might not have exploded into a worldwide phenomenon.
• This was a very quick read and didn’t get bogged down with a lot of unnecessary scenes.

Disliked:

• Josh and Emma didn’t really exhibit behavior that is consistent with teenagers. I mean, they showed amazing self-control by ONLY looking at Facebook when the other was present and NOT looking up everyone they knew to see how that person life turned out. Really??? Looking up everyone in the school is the FIRST thing 99.9% of teens would do! Hell, adults would do it too!
• When you get a glimpse into the future like that, would you really only be concerned about your future spouse, whether or not you were happy, and food allergy information regarding your children? I doubt it. I’d look for posts on who won the Super Bowl or World Series in a certain year so I could make some cash!
• I thought Emma acted way out of control in regards to Kellan’s future child. Emma herself said that Kellan seemed really happy with Lindsay, so WHY would Emma go out of her way to prevent Kellan from having sex and/or getting pregnant in high school? That was really none of her damn business.
• I felt the book should have ended with a final glimpse into the future so we could see what became of Josh and Emma. Were they together still? Were they at least Facebook friends? That would have tied things up nicely.

Rating:
I downloaded this audiobook from my public library and didn’t realize it was a Young Adult title until I started listening to it. This would probably appeal more to the target audience than it did to me, but I thought it was a bit simplistic in places and fairly shallow overall. I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

Summary (from the publisher): The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since.
Timothy Egan’s critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect” (New York Times).

In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature.

Liked:

• This book is full of interesting tidbits about the dust storms that ravaged the Great Plains. My knowledge of the Dust Bowl is limited to whatever Steinbeck said about it in Grapes of Wrath, so most of this was new to me. For example, I had no idea that there was just so DAMN MUCH of the stuff blowing around that people and animals ingested it and died because dirt and silica clogged up their lungs. Wow.
• Speaking of silica, I didn’t know that was one of the main components of Great Plains dirt. Can you imagine having that stuff cutting into your skin all the time? Egan did a nice job with the descriptions of what the dirt did not only to houses and farm equipment, but also to people, clothing, and food.
• I liked the parts where Egan talked about the wider ramifications of the dust storms, such as how the worst ones reached all the way to New York or whatever. Again, I simply didn’t know that anything like that happened, so this account was enlightening in many respects.
• Another thing that I’d never heard mentioned before was the fact that the dust storms also created a lot of static electricity. It was fascinating to read how people couldn’t shake hands for fear of electrocuting each other and how they had to trail chains off the backs of their cars to ground them.

Disliked:

• The story was told from too many different perspectives. I understand and appreciate why Egan would want to use so many different diaries and interviews from people who lived through that period, but the names were impossible for me to keep straight and I didn’t feel a personal connection to ANY of the individuals or families portrayed in the book. As a result, I think it would have been better to pare things down and stick to just a few firsthand sources instead of cramming everything in there.
• I did not need to read such gory details about the rabbit slaughters. Seriously, a brief mention would have been fine, but for Egan to go on and on about how thousands of rabbits were herded into a pen and then clubbed to death with baseball bats and axe handles was just nasty. I understand that those folks considered rabbits a pest, but still… my god.
• The information got to be extremely repetitive after a while. One dust storm wasn’t all that different from the others, so it became tiresome getting the details about so many of them. They all caused huge amounts to topsoil to be blown away; created massive dunes in some places; reduced visibility to zero; caused people to stay in their homes; made farming impossible; caused numerous deaths; and created general mayhem. Again, a few descriptions of a few storms would have been sufficient.
• I would have liked to have read more about the recovery process. I know this book was focused on the “hard times,” but after so many depressing tales, I wanted a bit more of an uplifting ending instead of the meager paragraphs about how much of the area is now protected grassland. Maybe I’ve just been over-conditioned by Hollywood to expect the best!

Rating:

I was looking forward to The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan because the book covered a topic I knew little about and because it was the 2006 National Book Award winner for nonfiction. While there were some good things about the book, I found it to be more tiresome and repetitive than not, which seriously detracted from my enjoyment of it. Overall I give this work 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the publisher): Willa Cather’s first published novel, set in Boston, London, and Paris, is the story of a man unable to resolve the contradictions in his own nature. The central figures are Bartley Alexander, a world-famous engineer; his wife; Winifred, a Boston society matron; and his former love, Hilda Burgoyne, a London actress. Long considered an uncharacteristic production, in the light of recent scholarship Alexander’s Bridge is seen to be closely linked to the body of Cather’s work, thematically as well as in its use of myth and symbol.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• This was a short, quick read that took no more than a few hours to get through.
• Although this book was in no way, shape, or form up to typical Willa Cather standards, it should at least be somewhat appreciated as having contributed to the author’s overall experience as a writer.

Disliked:

• The heavy-handed, transparent symbolism found throughout the novel was one of the clearest indications of Cather’s inexperience.
• Bartley wasn’t a sympathetic character at all. While I guess I can understand wanting to recapture his youth, he really had no reason to cheat on Winifred and try to resume a relationship with Hilda. It was unfair to both women, actually.
• The death scene was sort of melodramatic. It was rather convenient that the bridge held up just long enough for Bartley to arrive, and then started crumbling. And of course Winifred was waiting around until the body was pulled out of the water, completely unaware of her husband’s recent infidelities.

Rating:

Well, what is there to say about a book that the author herself basically disowned? Alexander’s Bridge is only noteworthy because it was written by Willa Cather. Others have called it “Edith Wharton lite,” and I tend to agree with that assessment. Still, because it was so short and to the point, I think it deserves at least 3 stars out of 5.

Summary (from the publisher): Since the publication of Angela’s Ashes in 1996, Frank McCourt has become one of literature’s superstars. He is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Booksellers Association ABBY Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. More than four million copies of Angela’s Ashes are now in print; its sequel, ‘Tis, has sold more than two million in America; and the books have been published in more than twenty countries and languages.

In Teacher Man Frank turns his attention to the subject that he most often talks about in his lectures-teaching: why it’s so important, why it’s so undervalued. He describes his own coming of age-as a teacher, a storyteller, and, ultimately, a writer. He is alternately humble and mischievous, downtrodden and rebellious. He instinctively identifies with the underdog; his sympathies lie more with students than administrators. It takes him almost fifteen years to find his voice in the classroom, but what’s clear in the thrilling pages of Teacher Man is that from the beginning he seizes and holds his students’ attention by telling them memorable stories. And then it takes him another fifteen years to find his voice on the page.

With all the wit, charm, irreverence, and poignancy that made Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis so universally beloved, Frank McCourt tells his most exhilarating story yet-how he became a writer.

Liked:

• McCourt seemed like a wonderful teacher. In my academic career, I’ve had teachers that I’ve liked or admired, but none that truly inspired me. I have a feeling that MANY of McCourt’s students did receive a fair amount of inspiration along with their instruction, and for that I envy them. He mainly taught English, but I have a feeling that even if he taught wood shop or beginner guitar lessons, he would have been just as lovable.
• This book is funny and poignant in many places. This was the first McCourt book I’ve ever read, so I didn’t know what to expect. I really like his style, though, and will be looking at his other works soon.
• The best parts of the book were the ones that dealt with students and classroom happenings. I liked hearing McCourt’s impression of his students (didn’t we all want to know what our teachers REALLY thought about us?), and thought it was fantastic when he ran into a former student on the street a few years after the kid graduated and told the young man that he loved him like a son. Wow!
• McCourt’s insight into teenagers’ feelings regarding teachers was absolutely spot-on. Every time he talked about what he should or shouldn’t do in the classroom and weighed the effect it would have on his students, I found myself nodding in agreement with him. Yes, when I was a high school student, that’s EXACTLY what I would have thought if my teacher did this, that, or the other.
• I giggled imagining McCourt struggling through a whole year with a class of 29 black girls and 2 Hispanic boys. What an odd grouping that sounded like. And when the “ringleader” of the class (I forgot her name…Serena, maybe?) moved away and then wrote back to tell McCourt that she was going to go to college and become a teacher…well, that just shows how much of a profound effect he had on students.

Disliked:

• There wasn’t much I disliked about this book, but I do have to say that the parts that veered into McCourt’s personal relationships with women, his odd jobs on the docks or wherever, and his adventures in grad school in Ireland weren’t that interesting to me. I skimmed most of those sections in order to get back to the kids and the classroom more quickly.

Rating:

I thought Teacher Man by Frank McCourt was a wonderful book. It brought back tons of memories from my own school days, along with a fair amount of wistfulness about never having had a teacher like McCourt. The digressions into his other jobs and his own schooling prevent me from giving this book a perfect rating, but it definitely deserves 4 stars out of 5.

Summary (from the publisher): It-girl Betty White delivers a hilarious, slyly profound take on love, life, celebrity, and everything in between.

Drawing from a lifetime of lessons learned, seven-time Emmy winner Betty White’s wit and wisdom take center stage as she tackles topics like friendship, romantic love, aging, television, fans, love for animals, and the brave new world of celebrity. If You Ask Me mixes her thoughtful observations with humorous stories from a seven- decade career in Hollywood. Longtime fans and new fans alike will relish Betty’s candid take on everything from her rumored crush on Robert Redford (true) to her beauty regimen (“I have no idea what color my hair is and I never intend to find out”) to the Facebook campaign that helped persuade her to host Saturday Night Live despite her having declined the hosting job three times already.

Featuring all-new material, with a focus on the past fifteen years of her life, If You Ask Me is funny, sweet, and to the point-just like Betty White.

Liked:

• I listened to the audiobook version, which was read by Betty herself. She seems like such a truly sweet person that I couldn’t help but perk up and pay attention the whole time.
• I love that Betty has a whole room in her house devoted to stuffed animals and that she actually talks to them — out loud — whenever she walks into the room. I only have a few stuffed animals, but I do exactly the same thing!
• I enjoyed hearing a little bit about the show business side of Betty’s life, including the Snickers Super Bowl commercial that revived her popularity and the SNL hosting gig. She talks about Hot in Cleveland too, but not as much as I expected she would.
• I’m glad that Betty says being 89 (or 90 now, I guess) isn’t an “achievement”, that it “just happens”. That’s so true. Betty shouldn’t be celebrated just because she’s 90. She should be celebrated because she’s 90 and is still going strong in show biz!
• There were a few mentions of The Golden Girls and her work on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I’m all for nostalgia and loved the little tidbits Betty shared.

Disliked:

• There’s no way I’m going to be too harsh on Betty, but one thing I didn’t like was that this book was very short! I just borrowed it from the library, so it wasn’t that big a deal to me, but I can’t imagine paying $25 for the hardcover as some people surely did. I heard there were practically more photos in the book than text, which is pretty crazy!

Rating:

New Betty White fans might be disappointed that there isn’t much substance to If You Ask Me; to those folks I say check out her previous two memoirs (Here We Go Again: My Life in Television and Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo) for a fuller account of her life. I think this new book is just fine to bring people up to date with the latest happenings in Betty’s life, and I for one am glad that she wrote it (and that I read it). That doesn’t automatically make the work fine literature, though. I give the book 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the publisher):

The perfect life
A successful lawyer and loving mother, Nina Bloom would do anything to protect the life she’s built in New York–including lying to everyone, even her daughter, about her past. But when an innocent man is framed for murder, she knows that she can’t let him pay for the real killer’s crimes.

The perfect lie
Nina’s secret life began 18 years ago. She had looks to die for, a handsome police-officer husband, and a carefree life in Key West. When she learned she was pregnant with their first child, her happiness was almost overwhelming. But Nina’s world is shattered when she unearths a terrible secret that causes her to run for her life and change her identity.

The perfect way to die
Now, years later, Nina risks everything she’s earned to return to Florida and confront the murderous evil she fled. In a story of wrenching suspense, James Patterson gives us his most head-spinning, action-filled story yet–a Hitchcock-like blend of unquenchable drama and pleasure.

Liked:

• As with most of Patterson + fill-in-the-blank co-author’s works, this book featured a ton of short chapters and plenty of twists and turns to the storyline. I bet if I took the time to analyze 3-4 of these type of books, I could walk away with an almost page-by-page template of how to write a thriller. Maybe that should be my next summer project!
• I liked when the FBI agent approached Jeanine (before she became Nina) and told her she had to get away from Peter. That was very cryptic; and when Jeanine researched Peter’s history at the library, her situation became downright scary.
• I liked that Charlie Baylor (the Key West lawyer for falsely accused murderer Justin Miller) and Nina ended up together. They seemed like a good match, and really, after all that time with the wrong man and then alone, Nina deserved some happiness. Here’s hoping they get to review medical malpractice insurance Florida laws together for a long time to come!

Disliked:

• I didn’t think that Peter’s wife-killing tendency was explained adequately. Did he just get tired of these women, so he killed them? Was it because he didn’t want them to have babies? If the former, what the hell was wrong with a simple divorce(or why even get married in the first place)? If the latter, why not use contraception even after marriage or get a vasectomy or something?
• Along similar lines, I wish the authors had explained why Peter decided to get married AND have children after Jeanine left him. Why the sudden change of heart? That seemed like an important thing to know.
• Why in the world would Nina stop at New York? I don’t know about you, but if I had a psycho ex out there like that, I would have gone clear across to the other side of the country. Sure, at first glance NY might seem far enough away from Key West, but with Peter’s Boston connection I would still be worried. Wouldn’t Seattle or San Diego have been much safer? I realize Nina didn’t have any money when she started out, so she had to stop in New York, but after she got herself together, she could have moved again.
• I don’t buy for one second that Nina never felt compelled to Google Peter to see what he was up to. She was surprised that he was still in Key West, had become the Chief of Police down there, etc. If she truly feared for her life all those years, I’m SURE she would have been Googling him to make sure he didn’t transfer to New York or something.
• I found it pretty amazing (in a bad way) that the Jump Killer so miraculously happened to pick Jeanine up on the highway — right after she staged her own disappearance to make it look like the Jump Killer caught her. How lucky!!
• Speaking of the Jump Killer, Peter just happened to have that guy under his thumb too and managed to set Charlie and Nina up on an empty dinner boat with that guy? Um, okaaaay.

Rating:

At this point, I know enough to have limited expectations regarding James Patterson’s assembly line works. As such, even though my Dislikes greatly outnumbered my Likes for Now You See Her, I’m still going to give the book 3 stars out of 5. It’s a fast-paced book meant to be consumed in a weekend, and in that regard it serves its purpose.

Here are the current New York Times bestsellers in a handful of the more popular categories:

Combined Print & E-Book Fiction

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
BELIEVING THE LIE, by Elizabeth George
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer

Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
AMERICAN SNIPER, by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
BOSSYPANTS, by Tina Fey

Hardcover Fiction
BELIEVING THE LIE, by Elizabeth George
PRIVATE: #1 SUSPECT, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
GIDEON’S CORPSE, by Douglas Preston
STAR WARS: DARTH PLAGUEIS, by James Luceno
DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, by P. D. James

Hardcover Nonfiction
AMERICAN SNIPER, by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
THROUGH MY EYES, by Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
THINKING, FAST AND SLOW, by Daniel Kahneman

Paperback Trade Fiction
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer
THE TIGER’S WIFE, by Téa Obreht
10TH ANNIVERSARY, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
SKELETON COAST, by Clive Cussler with Jack Du Brul
THE JEFFERSON KEY, by Steve Berry
HIDDEN SUMMIT, by Robyn Carr

Paperback Nonfiction
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
BOSSYPANTS, by Tina Fey
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, by Rebecca Skloot
_____ FINISH FIRST, by Tucker Max
OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell