Simon&Schuster

Family drama with a rock-and-roll twist, Stone Arabia is the might-have- and should-have-beens for a pair of middle-aged siblings. Denise weathers her unexciting life, taking care of everyone, including the brother she can’t help but help. Nik’s poured all of his dreams and frustrations into the rock star he never was, chronicling his parallel, truer life in writing, absolving himself from responsibility for his honest one. A sad and true story; real, but cool.

Even at the brink of war, you believe your life will be normal; safe, though hardly anything to stir the heart, beyond the minimum required. A typewriter changes everything for Sira, whose passion and verve are sparked. Relying on talent and charm to navigate her way across heartache in strange countries, she finds herself not merely on a quest for her own happiness, but a key player in the intrigues determining the outcome of WWII.

This fun novel continues where the previous left off, with Kaala and her human fighting to prove wolves and humans can co-exist. At first, Kaala thinks she’s just struggling save her own pack, but soon discovers more is at stake. This is a good sequel, expanding characters and leaving you hanging. If you haven’t read the first book, this is a great time to do so, but the prologue can catch you up

What does a therapist do with a patient who seems really, extra deluded? Become obsessed with him (of course!). Such is the bizarre tale of Vick and her patient Y__, a tale only Klosterman - with his knack for capturing the absurdity of society, pop culture, and the concept of normality - could conceive. This is a dizzying, kaleidoscope of a novel, fast paced, and slyly funny.

Every year, the monarch butterflies fly more than two thousand miles to return to their winter home in Mexico. Now Luz Avila makes that same perilous journey south as she honors a vow to her beloved "abuela"--the grandmother who raised her--to return her ashes to her ancestral village. As Luz departs Milwaukee in a ramshackle old VW Bug, she finds her heart opened by a series of seemingly random encounters with remarkable women. This is a beautifully written story of family, place and the migration of the monarch butterfly.

We are thrilled to be carrying this cooking series from Hirsheimer and Hamilton, two fantastic food writers and photographers whose culinary credentials include Saveur magazine. Published three times a year, each small book has a specific focus and is packed with their great recipes and gorgeous photos. Both authors are foodies who cook for their families, so their recipes are interesting and creative, but still totally doable for home cooks. While we eagerly await Issue 8, you can pick up any of the previous volumes on our shelves.

Adler’s book, subtitled “Cooking with Economy and Grace,” is absolutely lovely, and reading it is likely to change how you cook and how you think about food—for the better. (It did for me.) “Cooking is both simpler and more necessary than we can imagine,” writes Adler. She encourages us to cook with instinct and shows us how to make the most of the ingredients we buy. Some recipes are included, but mostly this is a beautiful testament to the value of cooking. Fans of M.F.K. Fisher (who was a big influence on Adler), Michael Pollan, and Alice Waters (who contributed the foreword) will likely love this book as much as I do.

This is an excellent examination of the overlooked true history of our national pastime. The classic

baseball creation myth is just that, and Thorn

uncovers the more complex and expansive roots of the game. I would never have claimed to know much about the history of baseball, so I was delighted to delve into a funny, affectionate, and meticulously researched account of the rich history of my favorite sport.

Fans (like me) of Heather Armstrong’s blog, dooce.com, know what a funny, brutally honest writer she is—and what a devoted, loving mom. Collected here are some of the best of the monthly letters Heather wrote to her daughter Leta during the first five years of her life. They beautifully (and irreverently) capture the ups and downs of motherhood as well as chronicle the milestones and surprises of Heather and Leta’s lives together.

I love that the subtitle of this book is “The Story,” because that’s really how this book reads. David Maraniss has written a thorough, lyrical, and very literary biography of our 44th president, a book that includes hundreds of interviews (including some with the president himself), as well as letters, journals, and other documents. The result is a fascinating, un-put-downable narrative that circles the globe and lands in the White House.