By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There

A Memoir
by Tom Sizemore with Anna David
Atria Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

A harrowing, deeply personal memoir of the acclaimed actor’s wild ride through Hollywood, fueled by his crippling addiction to methamphetamines, exposing the darkest side of fame and how one man found a path to recovery.

Tom Sizemore has been called many things. Brilliant. Brutal. Fiercely talented. Angry. Drug-addicted. In reality, he’s all of them. He’s a survivor of the Detroit ghetto, the father of twin boys, and a veteran of dozens of movies. He’s also now sober, after his addiction took his life as far down, arguably, as any human being could go.

Through screen-stealing performances in the 1990s movies True Romance, Heat, and Natural Born Killers, Sizemore was so in demand that even when his drug problem was widely known, directors such as Steven Spielberg offered him roles and begged him to stay sober for them. Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Robert Downey, Jr., and Johnny Depp each went out of their way to befriend him. But the same man who once romanced Elizabeth Hurley and Juliette Lewis was accused of domestic violence by the world’s most famous madam and moved from Beverly Hills to solitary confinement in state prison.


For years, Sizemore’s days were filled with overdoses, suicide attempts, and homelessness. By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There is a harrowing journey into the heart of his addiction, told in riveting and often shocking detail. By turns gritty and heartbreaking, it is also one man’s look at a particular moment in entertainment history—a window into the drug-fueled spotlight that sent Robert Downey, Jr., to jail and killed River Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Chris Farley, and many others far before their time.

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Living Like a Runaway

A Memoir
by Lita Ford
Dey Street Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In this long-awaited, emotionally powerful memoir,  “HEAVY METAL’S LEADING FEMALE ROCKER” (Rolling Stone) opens up about the ’70s and ’80s music scene and her trailblazing life as the lead guitarist of the “pioneering band” (New York Times) the Runaways and her platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated solo career. Hailed as “the mother of all metal” (Los Angeles Times) and “one of the greatest female electric guitar players to ever pick up the instrument” (Elle), Lita Ford bares her soul in Living Like a Runaway.

Murder at Camp Delta

A Staff Sergeant's Pursuit of the Truth About Guantanamo Bay
by Joseph Hickman
Simon & Schuster
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

The revelatory inside story about Guantánamo Bay—and the US government cover up—by the Staff Sergeant who felt honor-bound to uncover it: “A disturbing account…made with compelling clarity and strength of character” (Publishers Weekly).

Staff Sergeant Joe Hickman was a loyal member of the armed forces and a proud American patriot. For twenty years, he worked as a prison guard, a private investigator, and in the military, earning more than twenty commendations and awards. When he re-enlisted after 9/11, he served as a team leader and Sergeant of the Guard in Guantánamo Naval Base. From the moment he arrived at Camp Delta, something was amiss. The prions were chaotic, detainees were abused, and Hickman uncovered by accident a secret facility he labeled “Camp No.” On June 9, 2006, the night Hickman was on duty, three prisoners died, supposed suicides, and Hickman knew something was seriously wrong. So began his epic search for the truth, an odyssey that would lead him to conclude that the US government was using Guantánamo not just as a prison, but as a training ground for interrogators to test advanced torture techniques.


For the first time, Hickman details the inner workings of Camp Delta: the events surrounding the death of three prisoners, the orchestrated cover-up, and the secret facility at the heart of it all. From his own eyewitness account and a careful review of thousands of documents, he deconstructs the government’s account of what happened and proves that the military not only tortured prisoners, but lied about their deaths. By revealing Guantánamo’s true nature, Sergeant Hickman shows us why the prison has been so difficult to close. “Murder at Camp Delta is a plainly told, unsettling corrective to the many jingoistic accounts of post-9/11 military action” (Kirkus Reviews).

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Version Control

A Novel
by Dexter Palmer
Pantheon Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The acclaimed author of The Dream of Perpetual Motion returns with a compelling novel about the effects of science and technology on our friendships, our love lives, and our sense of self.

Rebecca Wright has reclaimed her life, finding her way out of her grief and depression following a personal tragedy years ago. She spends her days working in customer support for the internet dating site where she first met her husband. But she has a strange, persistent sense that everything around her is somewhat off-kilter: she constantly feels as if she has walked into a room and forgotten what she intended to do there; on TV, the President seems to be the wrong person in the wrong place; her dreams are full of disquiet. Meanwhile, her husband’s decade-long dedication to his invention, the causality violation device (which he would greatly prefer you not call a “time machine”) has effectively stalled his career and made him a laughingstock in the physics community. But he may be closer to success than either of them knows or can possibly imagine.
Version Control is about a possible near future, but it’s also about the way we live now. It’s about smart phones and self-driving cars and what we believe about the people we meet on the Internet. It’s about a couple, Rebecca and Philip, who have experienced a tragedy, and about how they help–and fail to help–each other through it. Emotionally powerful and stunningly visionary, Version Control will alter the way you see your future and your present.

You're Better Than me

A Memoir
by Bonnie McFarlane
Anthony Bourdain Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

In the spirit of Mindy Kaling, Kelly Oxford, and Sarah Silverman, a compulsively readable and outrageously funny memoir of growing up as a fish out of water, finding your voice, and embracing your inner crazy-person, from popular actress, writer, and comedian Bonnie McFarlane.

 It took Bonnie McFarlane a lot of time, effort, and tequila to get to where she is today. Before she starred on Last Comic Standing and directed her own films, she was an inappropriately loud tomboy growing up on her parents’ farm in Cold Lake, Canada, wetting her pants during standardized tests and killing chickens. Desperate to find “her people”—like-minded souls who wouldn’t judge her because she was honest, ruthless, and okay, sometimes really rude—Bonnie turned to comedy. In her explosively funny and no-holds-barred memoir, Bonnie tells it like it is, and lays bare all of her smart (and her not-so-smart) decisions along her way to finding her friends and her comedic voice.

From fistfights in elementary school to riding motorcycles to the World Famous Comic Strip, to Late Night with David Letterman, and through to her infamous “c” word bit on Last Comic Standing, You’re Better Than Me is her funny and outrageous trip through the good, bad, and ugly of her life in comedy. McFarlane doesn’t always keep her mouth shut when she should, but at least she makes people laugh. And that’s all that matters, right?

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Online Marketing for Busy Authors

A Step-by-Step Guide (available 4/19/16)
by Fauzia Burke
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Trade Paperback

 "Fauzia Burke has been on the web promoting books from the very beginning . . . She knows exactly what kinds of web promotion will drive book sales, and doesn't waste your time or money with distractions."
-- Madeline McIntosh, President, Penguin Random House

There has truly never been a better time to be an author. For the first time, you have direct access to your readers via the Internet -- you can create a community eagerly awaiting your next book (and telling their friends about it too). But where do you start? How do sort through the dizzying range of online options? Where is it most worth spending your time -- what is a "must do" and what is a "might do"?

Enter Fauzia Burke, a digital book marketing pioneer and friend of overwhelmed writers everywhere. She not only makes the job of building your online brand doable, but she proves that it can be fun and fulfilling, too.

Burke takes authors step by step through the process of identifying their unique personal brand, defining their audience, clarifying their aspirations and goals, and setting priorities. Once that foundation is established, she walks you through the process of developing a personalized, sustainable long-term online marketing plan. She offers advice on designing a successful website, building a mailing list of super fans, blogging, creating an engagement strategy for social media, and more.

"Once you build your brand," Burke writes, "no one can take it away from you." Your digital brand is a conversation about your book that builds your community one relationship at a time. By following Burke's expert advice, any author can conquer the Internet and still get their next manuscript in on time.

Author Bio

Fauzia Burke is the founder and president of FSB Associates, an online publicity and marketing firm specializing in creating awareness for books and authors. She's the author of Online Marketing for Busy Authors (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, April 2016). Fauzia has promoted the books of authors such as Alan Alda, Arianna Huffington, Deepak Chopra, Melissa Francis, S. C. Gwynne, Mika Brzezinski, Charles Spencer and many more. A nationally recognized speaker and online branding expert, Fauzia writes for the Huffington Post, Maria Shriver and MindBodyGreen. For online marketing, book publishing and social media advice, follow Fauzia on Twitter (@FauziaBurke) and Facebook (Fauzia S. Burke). For more information on the book, please visit: www.FauziaBurke.com.

Endorsements

Authors

"Fauzia delivered more than I imagined was possible, plus she's fun to work with."
-- Alan Alda, award winning actor and author of two New York Times bestsellers

"I've known Fauzia for over twenty years, and I can honestly say that no one knows more about the ins and outs of online marketing for books. Fauzia gives authors the practical advice they need to find as wide an audience as possible for their books."

-- R. J. Palacio, author of The New York Times bestseller, Wonder

"Fauzia Burke is intelligent, well connected, and effective. With her considered online publicity campaigns, she reaches the parts of the media that conventional PR either doesn't understand, or wrongly ignores."

-- Charles Spencer, author of Killers of the King and other bestselling books

"In these days, an author needs a steady, capable guide to navigate the many difficulties of getting books seen and heard. Fauzia Burke and her small but mighty team offer not only smart thinking when it comes to online marketing but support and friendship every step of the way. Fauzia's hands-on and kind approach works and the steps she has outlined in her book will help any author build a base of readers.
She's simply the best."

-- Jan Jarboe Russell, author of The New York Times Bestseller The Train To Crystal City

"Fauzia creativity and diligent commitment to online publicity and social media are unsurpassed. Unequivocally, she is the premier "Go-To" online marketer."

-- Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, author of We Can All Do Better

Publishers

"Fauzia Burke has been on the web promoting books from the very beginning, and I have consistently admired her perfect balance of creativity with practicality. She knows exactly what kinds of web promotion will drive book sales, and doesn't waste your time or money with distractions. She gets results, and is also a pleasure to work with."
-- Madeline McIntosh, President, Penguin Random House

"Fauzia Burke was talking about online marketing years before the rest of us even knew what that meant, and she continues to lead the way.  We should consider ourselves lucky that she is as generous in sharing her hard-won knowledge as she is ahead of the curve in gaining it."
-- Bob Miller, President and Publisher of Flatiron Books/Macmillan

"Always innovative and effective, I have no reservations in recommending Fauzia Burke."
-- Judith Curr, President and Publisher, Atria Publishing Group/Simon & Schuster

"Fauzia Burke knows better than anyone how to utilize the broad and sometimes confusing array of digital marketing tools on behalf of books."
-- Walter Weintz, Chief Marketing & Sales Officer, Workman Publishing

"Fauzia Burke is one of the most innovative marketing experts in the publishing industry. Her tireless dedication to her clients, paired with her tenacity for exploring new marketing opportunities, is unmatched in my view. Her arsenal is highly sought after and she brings positive, pragmatic, and powerful expertise to any author's table."
-- Kate Rados, Director, Community Development for The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Agents

"With her industry savvy, creative thinking, passion for online PR and brand development, and boundless energy, Fauzia is a true asset to any author."
-- Sandra Dijkstra – Literary Agent and Founder of Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency

"When it comes to publicizing a book on the web, nobody has the range and expertise of Fauzia Burke."
-- Larry J. Kirshbaum – Literary Agent with The Waxman Leavell Literary Agency

"Fauzia Burke is an industry leader in the world of online publicity and marketing . I have recommended Fauzia to many clients, with total confidence , and they have all been thrilled with the results."
-- Wendy Sherman, Literary Agent and Founder of Wendy Sherman Associates

"Armed with years of experience, Fauzia has been successfully pioneering the world of online marketing to help authors connect with their readers, and produce terrific, long lasting results."
-- Amy Hughes, Literary Agent with Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency 

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Going into the City

Portrait of a Critic as a Young Man
by Robert Christgau
Dey Street Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

One of our great essayists and journalists—the Dean of American Rock Critics, Robert Christgau—takes us on a heady tour through his life and times in this vividly atmospheric and visceral memoir that is both a love letter to a New York long past and a tribute to the transformative power of art.

Lifelong New Yorker Robert Christgau has been writing about pop culture since he was twelve and getting paid for it since he was twenty-two, covering rock for Esquire in its heyday and personifying the music beat at the Village Voice for over three decades. Christgau listened to Alan Freed howl about rock ‘n’ roll before Elvis, settled east of Manhattan’s Avenue B forty years before it was cool, witnessed Monterey and Woodstock and Chicago ’68, and the first abortion speak-out. He’s caught Coltrane in the East Village, Muddy Waters in Chicago, Otis Redding at the Apollo, the Dead in the Haight, Janis Joplin at the Fillmore, the Rolling Stones at the Garden, the Clash in Leeds, Grandmaster Flash in Times Square, and every punk band you can think of at CBGB.

Christgau chronicled many of the key cultural shifts of the last half century and revolutionized the cultural status of the music critic in the process. Going Into the City is a look back at the upbringing that grounded him, the history that transformed him, and the music, books, and films that showed him the way. Like Alfred Kazin’s A Walker in the City, E. B. White’s Here Is New York, Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel, and Patti Smith’s Just Kids, it is a loving portrait of a lost New York. It’s an homage to the city of Christgau’s youth from Queens to the Lower East Side—a city that exists mostly in memory today. And it’s a love story about the Greenwich Village girl who roamed this realm of possibility with him.

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Playing Against the House

The Dramatic World of an Undercover Union Organizer
by James D. Walsh
Scribner
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Fascinating and groundbreaking: a talented young journalist goes undercover to work as a casino labor-union organizer in Florida in this rare, smart look at the ongoing struggle between the haves and the have-nots.

Salting is a simple concept—get hired at a non-union company, do the job you were hired to do, and, with the help of organizers on the outside, unionize your coworkers from the inside. James Walsh spent almost three years as a “salt” in two casinos in South Florida, working as a buffet server and a bartender. Neither his employers at the casinos nor the union knew about Walsh’s intentions to write about his experience. Now he reveals little-known truths about how unions fight to organize workers in the service industries, the vigorous corporate opposition against them, and how workers are caught in the battle.

During his time as an undercover worker, Walsh witnessed the oddities of casino culture, the cultish nature of labor organizing, and surprising details of service industry employment. His revelations show the ferocious conflict between large service corporations and their hourly wage employees, who are hanging onto economic survival by their fingernails.

The hotel and service union Walsh worked with employs young, college-educated activists and learning how salts use their skills to great success or failure is riveting. Walsh transports us directly to the hot, humid backroom of the Miami casino and shows how it feels to be grilled by a union organizer as to whether you have enough grit for the job. A clear-eyed and fascinating portrait of labor-organizing, Playing Against the House explores the trials of day-to-day life for the working poor to its effects on the middle class and the face of twenty-first century union busting in unprecedented detail.

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If I Run

by Terri Blackstock
Zondervan
Trade Paperback

From the author's website:

Casey Cox’s DNA is all over the crime scene. There’s no use talking to police; they have failed her abysmally before. She has to flee before she’s arrested . . . or worse. The truth doesn’t matter anymore.

But what is the truth? That’s the question haunting Dylan Roberts, the war-weary veteran hired to find Casey. PTSD has marked him damaged goods, but bringing Casey back can redeem him. Though the crime scene seems to tell the whole story, details of the murder aren’t adding up. Casey Cox doesn’t fit the profile of a killer. But are Dylan’s skewed perceptions keeping him from being objective? If she isn’t guilty, why did she run?

Unraveling her past and the evidence that condemns her will take more time than he has, but as Dylan’s damaged soul intersects with hers, he is faced with two choices. The girl who occupies his every thought is a psychopathic killer . . . or a selfless hero. And the truth could be the most deadly weapon yet.

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Lovecraft Country

Lovecraft Country
by Matt Ruff
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy.

Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.

At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.

A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.

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So As I Was Saying...

My Somewhat Eventful Life
by Frank Mankiewicz with Joel Swerdlow
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

“I first met Robert Kennedy because I spoke Spanish. I spoke Spanish because the U.S. Army taught me that before sending me to France, Belgium, and Germany to fight Hitler’s Army. This makes complete sense if you are familiar with military bureaucracy.”

Such is the trademark wit of Frank Mankiewicz. With his dry sense of humor and self-deprecating humility—despite his many accomplishments—Frank’s voice speaks from the pages of So as I was Saying... in a way that is both conversational and profound. Before he died in 2014 Frank’s fascinating life took him from Beverly Hills to the battlefields of Europe; from the halls of power in Washington D.C. to the far corners of the world. A lifelong student of humanity and mentor to many, including presidents, Frank was a loving father, husband, and friend, and his legacy is will endure for generations.

Born into Hollywood royalty but determined to make his own way, Frank served in World War Two, wrote speeches for Robert Kennedy, ran a presidential campaign, carried messages to Fidel Castro, helped found National Public Radio, and served as a regional director for the Peace Corps. Naturally such a long and interesting life gave rise to a myriad of opinions, and Frank was not afraid to share them. In this intriguing, insightful, and often humorous memoir, Frank recalls his favorite memories while sharing his opinions on everything from Zionism to smartphones. Imbued with the personality of one of the twentieth century’s most gifted raconteurs, So As I Was Saying... invokes nostalgia for the past even as it gives hope for the future.

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BookSpin Review:

My Father, the Pornographer
by Chris Offutt
Atria Books
Hardcover

The complicated relationships between fathers and sons are germinated seeds for many of the memoirs on the shelves of the world's bookstores.  Frequent readers of this blog will already know that I lean toward memoirs which focus on this particular dynamic.

Chris Offutt's father, Andrew, also a writer, died in 2013 and Chris inherited nearly a ton of porn -- over 40 years of accumulated work by his dad, who had been referred to as the "king of twentieth-century smut".

For many years, Chris and his siblings were left mostly to their own pursuits, even as children, as his dad was hard focused on the writing.  His mom served as typist, editor, and support staff for her husband after deciding it was the best of her options to keep the peace.

At first intending to compile a comprehensive bibliography of his dad's work , it is while going through this mountain of paperwork that Chris begins to understand the moody, brilliant, and controlling man who ruled over his early years.  The cycle of emotions that Chris runs through while getting deeper and deeper into his dad's world was difficult for him. (It is not all spit and vinegar, however.  Chris discovers and remembers a lot of good to go with the bad.) But, he expresses at one point that if he had known how difficult it would be that he wouldn't have done it.

It is a beautiful irony that while learning more about his father -- and his mother -- Chris learns in large part  about himself.  I can't speak for Chris Offutt but, as a middle-aged man myself, it was disconcerting when I found uncomfortable similarities between myself and my father.  It is not an emotion that can be confused with comfort.

We are all products of our formative years, our environment, and our education.  For many boys, our fathers loom large inside the men we ourselves become.  The trick is learning how to live with it.

I highly recommend this book. I am certain it is much easier to read than it was to write.

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BookSpin Review

The Girl Behind the Door: A Father's Quest to Understand his Daughter's Suicide
by John Brooks
Scribner
Hardcover

Many of us have been touched by the tragedy of suicide --whether it is a friend, a relative, or an acquaintance. When someone chooses to end their own life, it is difficult for those left behind to deal with the reality and all the emotions.

John Brooks and his wife Erika adopted Casey at fourteen months of age in Poland.  Their story is fraught with emotional twists and turns from the beginning -- we follow along as they navigate the adoption process in Eastern Europe; deal with a baby with apparent emotional issues, and learn to compromise with a difficult teenager.

The door of the title is Casey's bedroom door and the door is a literal and metaphoric barrier between her and her parents.

There is no getting around that this story is a sad one.  Thankfully, John Brooks has crafted the narrative in such a way as to try and help others with what his family discovered about mental health issues.  Perhaps you or someone you love can benefit from their wake-up call.

My heart was broken by their story but I'm glad I  learned about Casey.  This is a very important book, please share.

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The Battle for Room 314

My Year of Hope and Despair in a New York City High School
by Ed Boland
Grand Central Publishing
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In a fit of idealism, Ed Boland left a twenty-year career as a non-profit executive to teach in a tough New York City public high school. But his hopes quickly collided headlong with the appalling reality of his students' lives and a hobbled education system unable to help them: Freddy runs a drug ring for his incarcerated brother; Nee-cole is homeschooled on the subway by her brilliant homeless mother; and Byron's Ivy League dream is dashed because he is undocumented.

In the end, Boland isn't hoisted on his students' shoulders and no one passes AP anything. This is no urban fairy tale of at-risk kids saved by a Hollywood hero, but a searing indictment of schools that claim to be progressive but still fail their students. Told with compassion, humor, and a keen eye, Boland's story is sure to ignite debate about the future of American education and attempts to reform it.

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Liar

A Memoir
by Rob Roberge
Crown Publishing
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

When Rob Roberge learns that he’s likely to have developed a progressive memory-eroding disease from years of hard living and frequent concussions, he is terrified by the prospect of becoming a walking shadow. In a desperate attempt to preserve his identity, he sets out to (somewhat faithfully) record the most formative moments of his life—ranging from the brutal murder of his childhood girlfriend, to a diagnosis of rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, to opening for famed indie band Yo La Tengo at The Fillmore in San Francisco. But the process of trying to remember his past only exposes just how fragile the stories that lay at the heart of our self-conception really are.

As Liar twists and turns through Roberge’s life, it turns the familiar story of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll on its head. Darkly funny and brutally frank, it offers a remarkable portrait of a down and out existence cobbled together across the country, from musicians’ crashpads around Boston, to seedy bars popular with sideshow freaks in Florida, to a painful moment of reckoning in the scorched Wonder Valley desert of California. As Roberge struggles to keep addiction and mental illness from destroying the good life he has built in his better moments, he is forced to acknowledge the increasingly blurred line between the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves.

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Fiction Friday!

Ginny Gall
by Charlie Smith
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

A sweeping, eerily resonant epic of race and violence in the Jim Crow South: a lyrical and emotionally devastating masterpiece from Charlie Smith, whom the New York Public Library has said “may be America’s most bewitching stylist alive.”

Delvin Walker is just a boy when his mother flees their home in the Red Row section of Chattanooga, accused of killing a white man. Taken in by Cornelius Oliver, proprietor of the town’s leading Negro funeral home, he discovers the art of caring for the aggrieved, the promise of transcendence in the written word, and a rare peace in a hostile world. Yet tragedy visits them near daily, and after a series of devastating events—a lynching, a church burning—Delvin fears being accused of murdering a local white boy and leaves town.

Haunted by his mother’s disappearance, Delvin rides the rails, meets fellow travelers, falls in love, and sees an America sliding into the Great Depression. But before his hopes for life and love can be realized, he and a group of other young men are falsely charged with the rape of two white women, and shackled to a system of enslavement masquerading as justice. As he is pushed deeper into the darkness of imprisonment, his resolve to escape burns only more brightly, until in a last spasm of flight, in a white heat of terror, he is called to choose his fate.

In language both intimate and lyrical, novelist and poet Charlie Smith conjures a fresh and complex portrait of the South of the 1920s and ’30s in all its brutal humanity—and the astonishing endurance of one battered young man, his consciousness “an accumulation of breached and disordered living . . . hopes packed hard into sprung joints,” who lives past and through it all.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The Good Liar
by Nicholas Searle
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:


Spinning a page-turning story of literary suspense that begins in the present and unwinds back more than half a century, this unforgettable debut channels the haunting allure of Atonement as its masterfully woven web of lies, secrets, and betrayals unravels to a shocking conclusion.

Veteran con artist Roy spots an obvious easy mark when he meets Betty, a wealthy widow, online. In no time at all, he’s moved into Betty’s lovely cottage and is preparing to accompany her on a romantic trip to Europe. Betty’s grandson disapproves of their blossoming relationship, but Roy is sure this scheme will be a success. He knows what he’s doing.

As this remarkable feat of storytelling weaves together Roy’s and Betty’s futures, it also unwinds their pasts. Dancing across almost a century, decades that encompass unthinkable cruelty, extraordinary resilience, and remarkable kindness, The Good Liar is an epic narrative of sin, salvation, and survival—and for Roy and Betty, there is a reckoning to be made when the endgame of Roy’s crooked plot plays out.

 * * * * * * * * * *

Wicked Sexy Liar (Book #4 of Wild Seasons)
by Christina Lauren
Gallery Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

When three college besties meet three hot guys in Vegas, anything can—and does—happen. Book Four in the New York Times Wild Seasons series that began with Sweet Filthy Boy (the Romantic Times book of the year that Sylvia Day called “a sexy, sweet treasure of a story”), Dirty Rowdy Thing, and Dark Wild Night.

For two people ambivalent about dating and love, they sure get naked around each other an awful lot . . .

London Hughes is very content to surf daily, tend bar, hang out with her group of friends, and slowly orient herself in the years after college. Everything’s going great and according to the non-plan.

But when a wave knocks her for a loop one morning, then Luke Sutter’s flirtatious smile knocks her for another that evening, she veers slightly off course…and into his path. Sure, he’s a total player, but the Why not—it’s only one night is a persistent voice in her ear.

For his part, Luke’s been on hookup autopilot for so long that he rarely ever pauses to consider what he’s doing. But after an amazing time with London, he realizes that he hasn’t been moving on from a devastating heartbreak so much as he’s been drifting to wherever—and whomever—the current takes him. With London he wants more.

Every relationship involves two people…plus their pasts. And as much as she enjoys her fling with Luke, when London learns about his past—more specifically, who’s in it—everything becomes the brand of complicated she strives to avoid. It’s up to Luke then to change some things in order to try and ensure he’s not something she’ll outright avoid as well.

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Cobain on Cobain

Interviews and Encounters
Edited by Nick Soulsby
Chicago Review Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Cobain on Cobain places the reader at the key moments of Kurt Cobain's roller-coaster career, telling the tale of Nirvana entirely through his words and those of his bandmates. Each interview is another knot in a thread running from just after the recording of their first album, Bleach, to the band's collapse on the European tour of 1994 and Cobain's subsequent suicide. Interviews have been chosen to provide definitive coverage of the events of those five years from as close as possible, so that the reader can see Cobain reacting to the circumstances of each tour, each new release, each public incident, all the way down to the end. Including many interviews that have never before seen print, Cobain on Cobain will long remain the definitive source for anyone searching for Kurt Cobain's version of his own story.

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Every Last Tie

The Story of the Unabomber and His Family
by David Kaczynski
Duke University Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In August 1995 David Kaczynski's wife Linda asked him a difficult question: "Do you think your brother Ted is the Unabomber?" He couldn't be, David thought. But as the couple pored over the Unabomber's seventy-eight-page manifesto, David couldn't rule out the possibility. It slowly became clear to them that Ted was likely responsible for mailing the seventeen bombs that killed three people and injured many more. Wanting to prevent further violence, David made the agonizing decision to turn his brother in to the FBI.

 

Every Last Tie is David's highly personal and powerful memoir of his family, as well as a meditation on the possibilities for reconciliation and maintaining family bonds. Seen through David's eyes, Ted was a brilliant, yet troubled, young mathematician and a loving older brother. Their parents were supportive and emphasized to their sons the importance of education and empathy. But as Ted grew older he became more and more withdrawn, his behavior became increasingly erratic, and he often sent angry letters to his family from his isolated cabin in rural Montana. 

 

During Ted's trial David worked hard to save Ted from the death penalty, and since then he has been a leading activist in the anti–death penalty movement. The book concludes with an afterword by psychiatry professor and forensic psychiatrist James L. Knoll IV, who discusses the current challenges facing the mental health system in the United States as well as the link between mental illness and violence. 

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On My Own

On My Own
by Diane Rehm

Knopf Doubleday
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In a deeply personal and moving book, the beloved NPR radio host speaks out about the long drawn-out death (from Parkinson’s) of her husband of fifty-four years, and of her struggle to reconstruct her life without him.

With John gone, Diane was indeed “on her own,” coping with the inevitable practical issues and, more important, with the profoundly emotional ones. What to do, how to react, reaching out again into the world—struggling to create a new reality for herself while clinging to memories of the past. Her focus is on her own roller-coaster experiences, but she has also solicited the moving stories of such recently widowed friends as Roger Mudd and Susan Stamberg, which work to expose the reader to a remarkable range of reactions to the death of a spouse.

John’s unnecessarily extended death—he begged to be helped to die—culminated in his taking matters into his own hands, simply refusing to take water, food, and medication. His heroic actions spurred Diane into becoming a kind of poster person for the “right to die” movement that is all too slowly taking shape in our country. With the brave determination that has characterized her whole life, she is finding a meaningful new way to contribute to the world.

Her book—as practical as it is inspiring—will be a help and a comfort to the recently bereaved, and a beacon of hope about the possibilities that remain to us as we deal with our own approaching mortality.

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Sing to Me

My Story of Making Music, Finding Magic, and Searching for Who's Next
by L.A. Reid with Joel Selvin
Harper Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In this long-awaited memoir, illustrated with over 100 never-before-seen photos from his personal collection, the groundbreaking record producer chronicles his struggles, his success, and the celebrated artists that made him a legend.

Over the last twenty-five years, legendary music producer and record man LA Reid—the man behind artists such as Toni Braxton, Kanye West, Rihanna, TLC, Outkast, Mariah Carey, Pink, Justin Bieber, and Usher—has changed the music business forever. In addition to discovering some of the biggest pop stars on the planet, he has shaped some of the most memorable and unforgettable hits of the last two generations, creating an impressive legacy of talent discovery and hit records.

Now, for the first time, he tells his story, taking fans on an intimate tour of his life, as he chronicles the fascinating journey from his small-town R&B roots in Cincinnati, Ohio, and his work as a drummer to his fame as a Grammy Award-winning music producer and his gig as a judge on the hit reality show, The X Factor. In Sing to Me, Reid goes behind the scenes of the music industry, charting his rise to fame and sharing stories of the countless artists he’s met, nurtured, and molded into stars. With fascinating insight into the early days of artists as diverse as TLC, Usher, Pink, Kanye West, and Justin Bieber, his story offers a detailed look at what life was like for stars at the start of their meteoric rise and how he always seemed to know who would be the next big thing.

What emerges is a captivating portrait from the inside of popular music evolution over the last three decades. Part music memoir, part business story of climbing to the top, this beautifully designed book, jam packed with photos, showcases Reid's trademark passion and ingenuity and introduces a multifaceted genius who continues to shape pop culture today.

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