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Week of January 16, 2017

Paperback releases for the week of January 16th include RISE OF THE ROCKET GIRLS by Nathalia Holt, the riveting true story of the women who launched America into space; Kate Andersen Brower's FIRST WOMEN, an intimate, news-making look at the true modern power brokers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: the First Ladies, from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama; and three Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2016: THE WIDOW by Fiona Barton, GEORGIA: A Novel of Georgia O'Keeffe by Dawn Tripp, and THE THINGS WE KEEP by Sally Hepworth.

April 2016

April's roundup of History titles includes Nathalia Holt's RISE OF THE ROCKET GIRLS, the riveting true story of an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible; THE NATURALIST, Darrin Lunde's captivating new account of how Theodore Roosevelt’s lifelong passion for the natural world set the stage for America’s wildlife conservation movement and determined his legacy as a founding father of today’s museum naturalism; BRILLIANT BEACONS, an epic history from Eric Jay Dolin that traces the evolution of America's lighthouse system from its earliest days, highlighting the political, military and technological battles fought to illuminate the nation's hardscrabble coastlines; and TEXAS RANGER by John Boessenecker, the first biography to tell the full story of Frank Hamer, the lawman who killed Bonnie and Clyde.

Nathalia Holt, author of Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars

In the 1940s and ’50s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and plot trajectories, they didn't turn to male graduates. Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible.