Fiction & Nonfiction
 Zone One
by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Many readers' eyes glaze over at the mention of zombies. Our sensationally conditioned minds conjure outlandishly campy struggles to the death with a brain-craving horde. With Zone One, Whitehead has thrown down the literary gauntlet, delivering a more reasoned take on how society would fare should the undead rise. Rather than focusing on gruesome slaughter, this adventure conjures some humorous, yet perhaps depressingly prescient outcomes of societal collapse. If heady satire isn't your bag, don't worry, there is still a healthy dose of good old-fashioned undead mayhem within these pages. Satisfy that literary craving, and sink your teeth into this cerebral tale. -Jamil
 Blue Nights
by Joan Didion (Knopf)
Six years after the publication of her stunning memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion brings us a deeply moving account of the loss of her thirty-nine-year-old daughter, Quintana. Didion begins with what would be the seven-year anniversary of Quintana's wedding, and moves back and forth through time to reflect on her daughter's life and her own role as a parent. The deaths of her husband and daughter forced Didion to face her own mortality, and to acknowledge the majesty of what she once considered ordinary blessings. Didion once again gives us an unflinching chronicle written in her signature succinct prose. -Laurie
 How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive
by Christopher Boucher (Melville House)
So, the narrator's son is a Volkswagen Beetle, his father's heart attack came from a tree, and that really nice woman with the black hair is just so—"window." Any questions? Such is the world Boucher has created, and it has to be experienced to be believed. Objects and relationships don't act like they're supposed to, but that doesn't stop them from offering up a poignant meditation on life, love, and death. This is an astonishing exploration of what a book is capable of, and it is also the very best kind of sensitive and courageous nonsense—the kind that rings true. -Casey O.
 The Stranger's Child
by Alan Hollinghurst (Knopf)
It's hard to believe that Hollinghurst is a contemporary novelist. Written with detail and breadth reminiscent of Dickens, and echoes of Austen's pre-Victorian romance, intrigue, and satire, The Stranger's Child is the kind of novel that has become an anomaly in the post-modern literary world. It is at once both dense and juicy, filled with small gossip, illicit love affairs, and long kept secrets. When Cecil Valance—an up-and-coming poet—visits George Sawles's family and writes what will become his most famous poem in the young Miss Sawles's autograph book, lives are forever changed, and in a series of dramatic revelations, a truth that was hidden over decades, finds its way out. -Candra
 Lightning Rods
by Helen DeWitt (New Directions)
Joe is an unsuccessful salesman—returning to his trailer at the end of the day not with sales, but with pies. Pies and lots of time on his hands to concoct ever more elaborate fantasies about women. Until one fantasy in particular promises to increase office productivity, curtail sexual harassment, and make Joe lots of money. Ten years after her sublime, incomparable debut, The Last Samurai, we have, at last, a new book from Helen DeWitt—an absurdist tale of the corporate world and sex in modern America, where the satire of Nathanael West meets the provocation of Nicholson Baker. -Molly
 Caravaggio
by Andrew Graham-Dixon (Norton)
Graham-Dixon captures Caravaggio in this way: "Caravaggio lived his life as if there were only Carnival and Lent with nothing in between." Graham-Dixon brings this dichotomy to life as he deftly captures Caravaggio's infamous exploits, gleaning truth from contemporary biographies, court records, and perceptive critique of Caravaggio's oeuvre. Caravaggio provides a thorough examination of one of art's true geniuses. -Alex
 Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
by Alexandra Fuller (Penguin)
With the fortuitous combination of Alexandra Fuller's adventurous and charismatic family, and her terrific storytelling skills, this memoir (following Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight) presents the story of her mother's remarkable life. Born in Scotland and raised in Kenya, Nicola Fuller's passion, bravery, and uniquely wry sense of humor are evident throughout, from settling onto four different farms in southern Africa, to the heart-breaking personal and political challenges that threaten her mental stability. This tribute to an exceptional woman, who, with a bit of wine, her beloved animals nearby, and an occasional song to fit the moment, agreed to be the subject of another (revealing) "awful book," returns us to the fabulous Fullers with renewed curiosity and pleasure. -Erica
 The Barbarian Nurseries
by Héctor Tobar (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)
Whether Los Angeles is beginning to resemble the rest of the United States, or the US is beginning to resemble Los Angeles, these days there is less of a sense of LA exceptionalism. Hard times bring empathy. Award-winning journalist H&eqacute;ctor Tobar's remarkable debut novel is resolutely set in LA, but its narrative undertow carries shimmers of nation-wide resonance; financial distress is causing the loss of jobs (particularly domestic immigrant labor), to say nothing of other forms of wreckage. One abandoned woman's story of desperate searching serves to tell the tale of many, giving readers a bracing portrait of a city and its time. -Rick
 Shards
by Ismet Prcic (Black Cat)
A young Bosnian man named Ismet Prcic escapes the war as a member of a theater troupe. Now, safe in California, he continually has to survive what he has already lived through. Visions of a similar man who remained in Bosnia to became an elite soldier slowly infiltrate his life, and memories collide with terrible versions of what his life could have been. Before long it is unclear who he actually is. A voice that is at once brutally honest, brave, and vulnerable combines with an innovative structure to create an arresting work of art. –Casey O.
 And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
by Charles J. Shields (Henry Holt)
Acclaimed biographer Charles Shields shines an unprecedented light onto Kurt Vonnegut Jr.—that smirking master of American letters. Working directly with the author before his death, Shields seamlessly weaves together a wealth of personal letters and first-hand anecdotes, interviews, and photographs. From Vonnegut's early days of anonymity as a struggling short-story writer and his grappling with success and life as a family man to a horrific recreation of the bombings in Dresden and tracing how those events gave rise to Slaughterhouse-Five. Intimate and heartfelt without pulling punches, And So it Goes is a fittingly scribbly sketch of this off beat literary icon, both on and off the page. -Matthew
 Feynman
by Jim Ottaviani
illus. by Leland Myrick (First Second)
One difference between the genius mind and the average mind is the ability to view the world from unexpected angles. According to this biographical graphic novel, that ability paired with a great sense of humor are physicist Richard Feynman's gifts. They undoubtedly helped the scientist with his contribution to the Nobel Prize winning work on the theory of quantum electrodynamics. However, the author also makes a point of showing that they helped Feynman improve the teaching of physics. His desire to make physics more accessible spurred a series of popular lectures. In the end, this achievement vies with those scientific feats as his single greatest work. -Pamela
 Fantastic Women
by Rob Spillman (Tin House Books)
Fairytales and folklore are alive and well in the contemporary world. The grandchildren of tradition come to us with a female voice, and they bear mischievous weapons. From shape-shifting to human-filled stews, the tales herein are hallucinatory and relevant progressions of the mythic journey. At times, they are somber and reflective while at other times they unfold fast and funny. A few skirt the erotic and some sit haunting in their austerity. Selkies, mermaids, and miniature universes mix with the modern and mundane. And amongst these beautiful yarns, for authenticity's sake, there's even the requisite "little cottage in the wilds." -Shannon
 On Canaan's Side
by Sebastian Barry (Viking)
Lilly Bere writes what she calls her "confession" over a seventeen-day period following her grandson Bill's suicide. Barry's novel recounts Lilly's flight from Ireland to North America after World War I, and the ensuing drama of her life over seven decades filled with sorrow, but also with joy. Lilly's loss and forbearance is conveyed with a quiet intensity. The revelations in her story come at a price and are indeed a surprise to the reader. Barry's prose is crystalline, understated, and compassionate—he is incomparable. -Greg
 Mr. Fox
by Helen Oyeyemi (Riverhead)
No stranger to the somewhat eerie narrative, Oyeyemi brings us lighter fare than her previous novels, but note, the depth is no less and the surreal is never too far off. Author St. John Fox conjures stories that tend to leave their female characters lifeless, if not terribly wounded. His muse, Miss Mary Foxe, enters into his world to lure him away from such endings. With a shifting voice, slipping back and forth through time, and in and out of fantasy and fact, Mary, Mr. Fox, and his wife, Daphne, travel through what it means to love and yearn, pushing and pulling against each other in this beautiful read. -Shannon
 I Married You For Happiness
by Lily Tuck (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Nina's husband, Philip, has just died in their bed. As Nina sits by his side, she travels through memories of their life together, and as one memory spawns another the nature of intimacy is revealed like a spider's web after a rainfall. Glimmering with hope, heavy with doubts and deceits, but strung with care and devotion, the complex and delicate balance that two individuals find and nurture in order to spend a lifetime together is depicted with remarkable dexterity and insight in Lily Tuck's new novel. Never saccharine or sentimental, Tuck unveils a complicated and enduring love with astonishing brevity and honesty. -Candra
 South With the Sun
by Lynne Cox (Knopf)
As a girl, Lynne Cox read about Roald Amundsen, which led her to follow her own dream of open-water swimming. Cox writes about Amundsen's exploration of the Northwest Passage, and the Antarctic, and about being the first to the South Pole. Amundsen stands out amongst explorers because he planned better, only took calculated risks, and assembled the best possible crew, which led to his great success. It is through Amundsen's story that Cox aspired to her own challenges, and in doing so grew to understand the explorer's life. A century after Amundsen conquered the South Pole it still stands as an incredible human achievement, a remarkable testament to courage and tenacity. -Greg
 The Buddha In the Attic
by Julie Otsuka (Knopf)
Julie Otsuka's much awaited second novel is a spare, poetic work told from the points of view of a wave of female immigrants. The author takes a risk, perhaps inspired by her reallife subjects, that more than pays off. We meet these women in their homes before they cross the ocean as Japanese picture brides, get to know them as individuals and as a group, and ride their wave of experiences until they are evacuated and incarcerated as World War II era, West Coast, Japanese Americans. Lifted into the realm of art by powerful, incantatory prose, this novel is both inspired and unforgettable. -Karen
 The Swerve
by Stephen Greenblatt (Norton)
Swerve tells the tale of how Lucretius's poem "On The Nature of Things" was returned to the world to the benefit of the burgeoning Renaissance. Greenblatt leads the reader through the life of Poggio Bracciolini, humanist, book-hunter, ex-Papal secretary, and discoverer of an ancient poem that would change the world. Greenblatt stops along the way to explain the history of books, their preservation, and the humanist spirit which spurred on the quest for these ancient tomes. Greenblatt sets out to write an accessible history for the curious, and succeeds. -Alex
 Midnight Lantern: New & Selected Poems
by Tess Gallagher (Graywolf)
There may not be a more enduring publishing relationship than the one between Port Angeles-born poet Tess Gallagher and Port Townsend-born Graywolf Press. Thirty-five years ago, Graywolf began with its 1976 publication of Instructions to the Double, and continued on with five other major collections. Now, Graywolf and Gallagher—both at the heights of their power— join together again for this major volume that includes a generous selection of heretofore unpublished poems. Tess Gallagher is a poet whose work and words have traveled far in the world, but have always carried the strong spirit and sense of the Northwest—this corner of the continent's shadows, tides, human struggles, and hopes. -Rick
 The Emperor of Lies
by Steve Sem-Sandberg
trans. by Sarah Death (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)
Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski has been called many things over the years: a savior, an opportunist, a monster. Every act and speech that Rumkowski made as the chairman of the Lódz Ghetto, the second largest Jewish ghetto of the Holocaust, has been heatedly debated. In his stirring new novel, Steve Sem-Sandberg has, through exhaustive research, shed further light on the Lódz Ghetto and the complicated sixty-three-year-old businessman and orphanage director who became the leader of a people fated to die at the hands of the Nazis. Already a sensation overseas, The Emperor of Lies is a once in a generation literary event. -Casey S.
 The Death of King Arthur
by Sir Thomas Malory
adapted by Peter Ackroyd (Viking)
According to acclaimed biographer Peter Ackroyd, Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur has been continually in print since 1485 when it was originally published by Caxton's Press. In this modern, abridged adaptation, all of Camelot's glory and treachery are given new life. The principles of courtly love and the code of chivalry were perhaps already fading during Malory's life, but his epic tale of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table has entranced generations with its adventures and ideals. Peter Ackroyd's wonderful retelling will introduce a whole new generation to this classic of literature. -Holly
 The Keeper of Lost Causes
by Jussi Alder-Oslen (Dutton)
In the tradition of fellow Scandinavians Mankell, Nesbo, and Larsson comes Jussi Adler-Olsen. An award winning and bestselling author in his own country, Adler-Olsen's US debut novel brings us an intriguing, whodunit, crime story. After a career failure, Carl Morck, a tortured soul, is relegated to a dark basement and the cold case files. There he uncovers a five-year-old missing person's case full of political intrigue and family tragedy. Motive, torture, and revenge unfold in past and present, keeping us in a brilliant state of suspense. -Seth
 The Night Circus
by Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday)
The best stories transport us to worlds that seem richer and more vibrant than our own. Realms so extraordinary that you feel bereft upon turning the final page and are forced to return to boring old reality. Between the covers of Morgenstern's enchanting debut lies one of the most remarkable places you'll ever encounter, a tantalizing playground of the mind that manifests true wonders of the imagination. A world where anything is possible, but everything comes at a price. Readers who enjoy the uncommon alchemy that blends atmospheric prose with an amazing story will delight in the transcendence to be discovered here. -Jamil
 The Better Angels of Our Nature
by Steven Pinker (Viking)
Harvard Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker ventures into the darkest regions of the human condition with this sweeping survey of violence and conflict. Using today's seemingly ceaseless stream of blood-soaked headlines as his starting point, Pinker asks how our current state compares to the past. He arrives at a startling conclusion: we are less violent now than ever before. With a potent display of historical documents to support his claim, The Better Angels of Our Nature can certainly be a distressing read, but Pinker's lucid prose and sheer intellectual acuity make this book, despite its hideous subject, a luminous and deeply moving experience. -Matthew
 The Apple Lover's Cookbook
by Amy Traverso (Norton)
Is there anything more delicious for a snack than a cubed Gala apple and sharp cheddar cheese? According to apple-lover Amy Traverso, there is, and she has collected a hundred recipes—both sweet and savory—using those bountiful, beautiful globes. From appetizers to condiments, and nearly everything imaginable in-between. In her hands, apples are not just for baking. Her sumptuously illustrated cookbook includes enticing recipes and an invaluable apple primer that showcases sixty varieties of apples with in-depth notes on each apple's season, flavor, and best use. -Holly
 Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline (Crown)
The phrase, "grabs you from the first page," may be one of the most overused lines in the book review world, and it's almost never true. This story is one of the few that actually grabs you from page-one and refuses to let go. Wade Watts has spent a considerable amount of his life jacked into the OASIS (a computer generated utopia that most of humanity uses to escape from an increasingly desolate world), engaged in a 1980s-themed hunt set up by one of the original OASIS programmers. Success could change Watts's life forever, while failure could result in the collapse of an already teetering society. -Rich
 What It Is Like To Go To War
by Karl Marlantes (Atlantic Monthly Press)
The author of the modern classic Vietnam war novel Matterhorn has now written a nonfiction book that he calls his "song." It is written for civilians, soldiers, and policy makers, and the result is a veteran's searing philosophical and psychological meditation about being a warrior. He loved war and he hated it. For Marlantes, fighting in battle was the crack cocaine of all highs. Yet, reflecting back on it now he feels sadness. His meditation is an important one that fills the gap between the silence of our warriors and our society. -Carl
 The Absent Sea
by Carlos Franz (McPherson)
Previously unknown in the US, Carlos Franz is Chile's most celebrated novelist. The Absent Sea is the story of Laura Larcos, a brilliant and idealistic judge posted to the remote desert city of Pampa Hundida just before the military coup that toppled the Allende regime. Within weeks the town is occupied by the military, which established concentration camps for dissidents, forcing Laura to eventually flee to Germany. After a twenty-year absence, Laura returns, and is forced to confront the real-life consequences of justice and complicity, remembrance and reconciliation, and the overriding question of what the individual is capable of when faced with a criminally brutalizing society. This book will leave you disturbed and elevated long after your first reading. -Peter
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Beauty Queens
My Woodland Wish
The Apothecary
The Chronicles of Harris Burdick
Wonderstruck
Bumble-Ardy
