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Alice Walker

Stories differ from advice in that, once you get them, they become a fabric of your whole soul. That is why they heal you.

Attribution

Alice Walker

March 17, 2017

It’s confession time. Though my last name is Fitzgerald, I am not one bit Irish. And my husband Tom, well, he is something like 1/4 Irish and the rest German. That said, we are cooking corned beef and cabbage (which I know from our readers of true Irish heritage is not an authentic Irish meal, but then again we are imposters, so I can see why we are making an imposter meal). We agree with Mary Kay Andrews that boiled potatoes are rather boring with corned beef. Thus, after seeing her Facebook Live event the other night, I am making the Scalloped Potatoes from her BEACH HOUSE COOKBOOK that will be in stores on May 2nd. Here’s the recipe, and you can watch MKA whip up this recipe here.

Mark Kurlansky, author of Havana: A Subtropical Delirium

Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky presents an insider's view of Havana: the elegant, tattered city he has come to know over more than 30 years. Part cultural history, part travelogue, with recipes, historic engravings, photographs, and Kurlansky's own pen-and-ink drawings throughout, HAVANA celebrates the city's singular music, literature, baseball and food; its five centuries of outstanding, neglected architecture; and its extraordinary blend of cultures.

Michael Finkel, author of The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

In 1986, a shy and intelligent 20-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death.

Jacqueline Winspear, author of In This Grave Hour: A Maisie Dobbs Novel

At the moment Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain broadcasts to the nation Britain’s declaration of war with Germany, a senior Secret Service agent breaks into Maisie Dobbs' flat to await her return. Dr. Francesca Thomas has an urgent assignment for Maisie: to find the killer of a man who escaped occupied Belgium as a boy, some 23 years earlier during the Great War. In a London shadowed by barrage balloons, bomb shelters and the threat of invasion, within days another former Belgian refugee is found murdered.

Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West

In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet --- sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors --- doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice.

Editorial Content for Without Warning: A J. B. Collins Novel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Melanie Reynolds

J. B. Collins, chief foreign correspondent for the New York Times, has survived a terrorist attack on what would have been a historic peace agreement meeting between Israel and Palestine. He has met with and interviewed the head of the attacking jihadist ISIS forces, Abu Khalif, and heard the terrorist outline the plans he has to go to war against all who do not swear loyalty to him. The journalist has helped rescue the president of the United States, Harrison Taylor, held captive by Khalif. Read More

Teaser

As he prepares to deliver the State of the Union address, the President of the United States is convinced that the Islamic State is on the run, about to be crushed by American forces once and for all. But New York Times foreign correspondent J. B. Collins tells the President he’s dead wrong. With the Middle East on fire, the Israeli prime minister dead, and Amman in ruins, Collins fears a catastrophic attack inside the American homeland is imminent. He argues that only an all-out manhunt to capture or kill Abu Khalif --- the leader of ISIS --- can stop the attack and save American lives. But will the President listen and take decisive action before it’s too late?

Promo

As he prepares to deliver the State of the Union address, the President of the United States is convinced that the Islamic State is on the run, about to be crushed by American forces once and for all. But New York Times foreign correspondent J. B. Collins tells the President he’s dead wrong. With the Middle East on fire, the Israeli prime minister dead, and Amman in ruins, Collins fears a catastrophic attack inside the American homeland is imminent. He argues that only an all-out manhunt to capture or kill Abu Khalif --- the leader of ISIS --- can stop the attack and save American lives. But will the President listen and take decisive action before it’s too late?

About the Book

As he prepares to deliver the State of the Union address, the President of the United States is convinced that the Islamic State is on the run, about to be crushed by American forces once and for all. But New York Times foreign correspondent J. B. Collins tells the President he’s dead wrong. With the Middle East on fire, the Israeli prime minister dead, and Amman in ruins, Collins fears a catastrophic attack inside the American homeland is imminent. He argues that only an all-out manhunt to capture or kill Abu Khalif --- the leader of ISIS --- can stop the attack and save American lives. But will the President listen and take decisive action before it’s too late?

Audiobook available, read by David de Vries

Editorial Content for all Grown Up

Reviewer (text)

Dunja Bonacci Skenderovic

Andrea Bern will soon turn 40. Her life is a mess and has been for a long time. Her father, a musician and a drug addict, died from an overdose when she was in her early teens. Her mother was an activist who, after her father’s death, made a living by throwing parties, until Andrea almost got hurt during one. Andrea wanted to become a painter, but left school and never fulfilled her dreams. Read More

Teaser

Who is Andrea Bern? When her dippy therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it’s what she leaves unsaid --- she’s alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh --- that feels the most true. Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult, though. But when Andrea’s niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart?

Promo

Who is Andrea Bern? When her dippy therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it’s what she leaves unsaid --- she’s alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh --- that feels the most true. Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult, though. But when Andrea’s niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart?

About the Book

Who is Andrea Bern? When her dippy therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it’s what she leaves unsaid --- she’s alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh --- that feels the most true. Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult, though.

But when Andrea’s niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart? Told in gut-wrenchingly honest, mordantly comic vignettes, ALL GROWN UP is “[an] exquisitely of-the-moment novel” (Oprah Magazine) about “what is means to be a woman and a grown-up in today’s times” (PopSugar).

Audiobook available, narrated by Mia Barron

Editorial Content for The Hearts of Men

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

I admit that I was initially drawn to Nickolas Butler’s new novel, THE HEARTS OF MEN, more for its setting than for its premise. It’s not the sort of book I ordinarily read. Steeped in male characters and masculine traditions (like the Boy Scouts), with few female characters, the novel would at first glance seem very far away from my own experience. Read More

Teaser

Camp Chippewa, 1962. Thirteen-year-old Nelson Doughty, a social outcast and an overachiever, is the Bugler, sounding the reveille proudly each morning. Yet this particular summer marks the beginning of an uncertain and tenuous friendship with a popular boy named Jonathan. Over the years, Nelson, irrevocably scarred from the Vietnam War, becomes Scoutmaster of Camp Chippewa, while Jonathan marries, divorces and turns his father’s business into a highly profitable company. And when something unthinkable happens at a camp get-together with Nelson as Scoutmaster and Jonathan’s teenage grandson and daughter-in-law as campers, the aftermath demonstrates the depths --- and the limits --- of Nelson’s selflessness and bravery.

Promo

Camp Chippewa, 1962. Thirteen-year-old Nelson Doughty, a social outcast and an overachiever, is the Bugler, sounding the reveille proudly each morning. Yet this particular summer marks the beginning of an uncertain and tenuous friendship with a popular boy named Jonathan. Over the years, Nelson, irrevocably scarred from the Vietnam War, becomes Scoutmaster of Camp Chippewa, while Jonathan marries, divorces and turns his father’s business into a highly profitable company. And when something unthinkable happens at a camp get-together with Nelson as Scoutmaster and Jonathan’s teenage grandson and daughter-in-law as campers, the aftermath demonstrates the depths --- and the limits --- of Nelson’s selflessness and bravery.

About the Book

An epic novel of intertwining friendships and families set in the Northwoods of Wisconsin at a beloved Boy Scout summer camp --- from the bestselling author of SHOTGUN LOVESONGS

Camp Chippewa, 1962. Nelson Doughty, age 13, social outcast and overachiever, is the Bugler, sounding the reveille proudly each morning. Yet this particular summer marks the beginning of an uncertain and tenuous friendship with a popular boy named Jonathan.

Over the years, Nelson, irrevocably scarred from the Vietnam War, becomes Scoutmaster of Camp Chippewa, while Jonathan marries, divorces and turns his father’s business into a highly profitable company. And when something unthinkable happens at a camp get-together with Nelson as Scoutmaster and Jonathan’s teenage grandson and daughter-in-law as campers, the aftermath demonstrates the depths --- and the limits --- of Nelson’s selflessness and bravery.

THE HEARTS OF MEN is a sweeping, panoramic novel about the slippery definitions of good and evil, family and fidelity, the challenges and rewards of lifelong friendships, the bounds of morality --- and redemption.

Audiobook available, performed by Adam Verner

Editorial Content for White Tears

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

WHITE TEARS is many things. It begins as the story of a partnership between two young men and ends as a tale of revenge and justice with supernatural elements. What occurs in between is a hallucinatory journey in which the past and present meet and commingle. The resulting work is puzzling in parts, haunting in others, and compulsively readable. Read More

Teaser

Seth is a shy, awkward twentysomething. Carter is more glamorous, the heir to a great American fortune. But they share an obsession with music --- especially the blues. One day, Seth discovers that he's accidentally recorded an unknown blues singer in a park. Carter puts the file online, claiming it's a 1920s recording by a made-up musician named Charlie Shaw. But when a music collector tells them that their recording is genuine --- that there really was a singer named Charlie Shaw --- the two white boys, along with Carter's sister, find themselves in over their heads, delving deeper and deeper into America's dark, vengeful heart.

Promo

Seth is a shy, awkward twentysomething. Carter is more glamorous, the heir to a great American fortune. But they share an obsession with music --- especially the blues. One day, Seth discovers that he's accidentally recorded an unknown blues singer in a park. Carter puts the file online, claiming it's a 1920s recording by a made-up musician named Charlie Shaw. But when a music collector tells them that their recording is genuine --- that there really was a singer named Charlie Shaw --- the two white boys, along with Carter's sister, find themselves in over their heads, delving deeper and deeper into America's dark, vengeful heart.

About the Book

Ghost story, murder mystery, love letter to American music --- WHITE TEARS is all of this and more, a thrilling investigation of race and appropriation in society today.

Seth is a shy, awkward twentysomething. Carter is more glamorous, the heir to a great American fortune. But they share an obsession with music --- especially the blues. One day, Seth discovers that he's accidentally recorded an unknown blues singer in a park. Carter puts the file online, claiming it's a 1920s recording by a made-up musician named Charlie Shaw. But when a music collector tells them that their recording is genuine --- that there really was a singer named Charlie Shaw --- the two white boys, along with Carter's sister, find themselves in over their heads, delving deeper and deeper into America's dark, vengeful heart.

WHITE TEARS is a literary thriller and a meditation on art --- who owns it, who can consume it, and who profits from it.

Audiobook available; read by Lincoln Hoppe, Danny Campbell and Dominic Hoffman