Looking For a Good Read Over the Thanksgiving Break — Here Are Some Ideas

NEW AND NOTABLE FICTION

KILL ALEX CROSS by James Patterson
The President's son and daughter are abducted, and Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene. But someone very high-up is using the FBI, Secret Service and CIA to keep him off the case and in the dark. 

V IS FOR VENGEANCE by Sue Grafton
A spiderweb of dangerous relationships lies at the heart of Sue Grafton's daring new Kinsey Millhone novel. 

AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY by Steve Martin
Lacey Yeager is prepared to take the NYC art world by storm. Hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders, she charms everyone who crosses her path. Her social ascension parallels the alluring evolution of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today. 

THE HYPNOTIST by Lars Kepler  (Nordic Fiction)
In the frigid clime of Tumba, Sweden, a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna, who demands to investigate. The killer is still at large, and there’s only one surviving witness --- the boy whose family was killed before his eyes. 

THE PRINTMAKER'S DAUGHTER by Katherine Govier
This evocative tale of 19th-century Tokyo tells of one of the world’s great unknown artists: Oei, the mysterious daughter of master printmaker Hokusai, painter of the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.

WHEN SHE WOKE by Hillary Jordan
 Hillary Jordan’s debut novel, MUDBOUND, won a number of prizes and became a reader favorite for its honest portrayal of a family struggling to make ends meet on its Mississippi Delta farm during the 1940s. The topic of WHEN SHE WOKE couldn’t be much more of a 180, as it’s a dystopian novel set in the not-too-distant future where criminals are referred to as Chromes. The skin color of all Chromes is dyed to reflect their crime. At the start of the sentence, their jail time is continuously filmed in a reality show kind of format, and their actions are broadcast nationwide. Once released from their original sentence, they remain dyed, and their skin tones define them and keep them ostracized from the general public. It’s chilling and haunting and a brilliant social commentary. 

NEW AND NOTABLE NON-FICTION 

GABBY: A Story of Courage and Hope by Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly
From one of the most admired and beloved couples in recent American history, GABBY is an extraordinarily moving story of public service, risk-taking, romance --- and the journey toward recovery. 

BACK TO WORK by Bill Clinton
President Bill Clinton discusses the challenges facing the United States today and articulates why government matters—explaining his ideas on energy, job creation, and financial responsibility and offering a plan to get America “back into the future business.”

I REMEMBER NOTHING by Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron takes a hilarious look at the past, the present, and the future, bemoaning the vicissitudes of modern life, and recalling with her signature clarity and wisdom everything she hasn’t (yet) forgotten. 

A COVERT AFFAIR: JULIA CHILD AND PAUL CHILD IN THE OSS by Jennet Conant
Julia Child's passion for French cuisine began when she and her husband, Paul, moved to Paris in 1948. The couple met in Ceylon in 1944 when both were in the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the CIA, and they married two years later. To tell their story, Conant combed through numerous archives to fill in the deep backgrounds of their OSS friends. Opening with OSS origins and the 1943 OSS recruits, the narrative follows the WWII trajectory of Julia Child, who volunteered for a post at the OSS base in India. At Mountbatten's mountaintop headquarters, the team included Julia, Paul, and the flamboyant Jane Foster. With the end of WWII, Jane flew to Java to record the war crimes testimonies of American POWs, while Paul and Julia's romance heated up in China and France.

The couple fell under suspicion when Jane was targeted with accusations of espionage, having "left a trail of Communist ties the FBI followed like breadcrumbs" (though Conant found no conclusive evidence that Jane was a Soviet spy). The bulk of this book is mostly about Jane, making the title somewhat misleading, but Conant's vivid tapestry of the 1940s skillfully interweaves interviews, oral histories, memoirs, and recently unclassified OSS and FBI documents with unpublished diaries and letters. The adventurous young OSS recruits spring to life throughout this meticulously researched, authoritative history. 

NEW AND NOTABLE BOOKS FOR KIDS AND TEENS

THE FUTURE OF US by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
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.

THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick 
Here is a true masterpiece—an artful blending of narrative, illustration and cinematic technique, for a story as tantalizing as it is touching. Twelve-year-old orphan Hugo lives in the walls of a Paris train station at the turn of the 20th century, where he tends to the clocks and filches what he needs to survive. Hugo's recently deceased father, a clockmaker, worked in a museum where he discovered an automaton: a human-like figure seated at a desk, pen in hand, as if ready to deliver a message. After his father showed Hugo the robot, the boy became just as obsessed with getting the automaton to function as his father had been. The plot grows as intricate as the robot's gears and mechanisms.
 
Selznick hints at the toymaker's hidden identity through impressive use of meticulous charcoal drawings that grow or shrink against black backdrops, in pages-long sequences. They display the same item in increasingly tight focus or pan across scenes the way a camera might. The plot ultimately has much to do with the history of the movies, and Selznick's genius lies in his expert use of such a visual style to spotlight the role of this highly visual media. Publishers Weekly gives this book a starred review and calls it "A standout achievement." 

WONDERSTRUCK by Brian Selznick
Ben and Rose secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known. Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his mother's room and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing.

All of these books can be found at www.baybooks.us  or at our bookstore

Bay Books
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San Ramon
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