New Books: Dec 2022

"Campbell describes the mechanics of these jobs in comprehensive detail and with a measured levity that keeps the dour stench of death from overwhelming the pages . . . Her thesis holds true as rising death tolls fade into normalcy and the living forge on with a new numbness: 'Death is everywhere, but it’s veiled, or it’s fiction.'" ―The New York Times

"Going beyond the gravedigger and the embalmer, [Campbell] approaches her subjects with kindness and humor, highlighting an industry that will always be in demand. Reading this book because the hidden world of death workers is fascinating is reason enough, but one may find in reading it . . . that attending to death deepens one’s understanding of its mystery and, by extension, the mystery of life." ―Los Angeles Review of Books

"Lively, succinct, altogether admirable... [American Rascal's] fair-mindedness never dims the pleasure of a speedy narrative."— The Wall Street Journal
"A gripping biography of a 19th century robber baron.” – Fortune

Routledge

"A timely and erudite book...incisive." -The Financial Times

**A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice!**
**Washington Post, "10 Best Audiobooks of 2022"**
Book Riot, "16 Mystery, Thriller, True Crime Books to Read" (August 2022)
Philadelphia Inquirer, "The best new books to read in September"
"Highbrow brilliant."―New York Magazine
"[A] fast-paced, entertaining narrative… Mr. Weiss is an enthusiastic storyteller, and he does a terrific job synthesizing a dizzying amount of information.”―Wall Street Journal

“Ambitious and engrossing. … The prose is tight, direct, and often bracing. … A thoughtful, nuanced discussion of the practical and political challenges [of] trying to turn the public education system back toward public purpose.” — New York Times Book Review

“A thoughtful, and deeply unsettling, new meditation on the value of a college education. … Offers a searing indictment not only of college culture but also of the broader American culture that he argues, persuasively and frighteningly, created schisms in American life that have left huge sectors of this country unable to speak to each other, understand each other, and respect each other. … Compelling.” — Boston Globe

Routledge

2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
A New York Times Editors' Choice Pick

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“Black Cake is a character-driven, multigenerational story that’s meant to be savored. . . . Thought-provoking and poignant.”—Time

“A thrilling debut novel about sibling ties and hidden family history.”—Glamour

Crime
WINNER OF THE EDGAR® AWARD
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • The Washington Post • NPR • The Guardian • Library Journal

WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

"Without sentimentality, the author imparts an affecting story of isolation, the search for identity, and loneliness at home, as well as in the large, hostile capital of a foreign nation where Salim is clearly not wanted . . . Compelling, drawing the reader directly into the life of young Salim and his pursuit of answers and understanding." - Library Journal

Memoir, WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel!
Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel!

Science fiction. New York Times Bestseller. Included in best-of-year and year-end roundups by The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, New York Public Library, Amazon, Boston Globe,
“Whimsical.” —Washington Post, named one of the 15 Feel-Good Books Guaranteed to Lift Your Spirits
"An absorbing but comfortable read...a vision of limitless possibility, of new roads taken, of new lives lived, of a whole different world available to us somehow, somewhere, might be exactly what’s wanted in these troubled and troubling times.” —The New York Times
“Charming...a celebration of the ordinary: ordinary revelations, ordinary people, and the infinity of worlds seeded in ordinary choices.” —The Guardian
“A brilliant premise and great fun.” —Daily Mail

“Sofía Segovia is already a famed author in Mexico, and with The Murmur of Bees she’s poised to become an international favorite too.” ―POPSUGAR

“A unique and deftly penned novel by an author with a genuine flair for the kind of narrative storytelling that holds the readers rapt attention from beginning to end, The Murmur of Bees is unreservedly recommended.” ―Midwest Book Review

Science fiction. WINER of the 2021 Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards!

Winner of the 2021 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. "The voices of the dead tell the unhappy story of Please See Us, Caitlin Mullen’s spellbinding debut novel about a series of murders in Atlantic City." ― The New York Times Book Review
“Finally, the Atlantic City mystery we’ve all been waiting for!” ― CrimeReads

WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE IN POETRY
FINALIST FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY

Nonfiction. Journalistic investigation of stories behind works of fiction popular in the 1970s. Business Insider Best True Crime Books.
"Unmask Alice by Rick Emerson goes a long way to showing what investigative journalism could be in the right hands. The investigation into the work of Beatrice Sparks and her bibliography is intriguing and worth reading. Her motives were questionable, her history suspect, her subjects tragic, but this book is undeniably buzzworthy." —Portland Book Review

"One of life’s great treats, for a lover of books (especially fantasy books), is to open a cover to find a map secreted inside and filled with the details of a land about to be discovered. . . . The Writer’s Map contains dozens of the magical maps writers have drawn or that have been made by others to illustrate the places they’ve created."
― Atlas Obscura
"This handsome tome is a pure expression of that love [of maps] and of the interplay between magical prose and imaginary cartography. Sumptuous maps of notable fantasy worlds jostle for space alongside essays from fantasy writers. The Writer's Map charts the landscapes of literary imagination with passion and care." ― NPR

New York Times Bestseller

Oxford University Press
Barry Cunliffe taught archaeology in the Universities of Bristol and Southampton and was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2008, thereafter becoming Emeritus Professor. He has excavated widely in Britain (Fishbourne, Bath, Danebury, Hengistbury Head, Brading) and in the Channel Islands, Brittany, and Spain, and has been President of the Council for British Archaeology and of the Society of Antiquaries, Governor of the Museum of London, and a Trustee of the British Museum. He is currently a Commissioner of English Heritage. His many publications include The Ancient Celts, Facing the Ocean, and The Druids: A Very Short Introduction. He received a knighthood in 2006.
"Cunliffe steers a masterful course thorugh more than 11 millennia of human development ... This beautifully produced and informative work of synthesis and interpretation will provide an ideal starting point for those interested in the British past and a useful point of re-engagement for those who feel that they are already over-familiar with the basic narrative." ―BBC History Magazine
"Sweeping from the end of the last Ice Age to the eve of the Norman Conquest, this book contains a vast amount of information, accessibly presented. It is an enjoyable journey, and one that never loses sight of the wider picture." ―Current Archaeology

Winner of 2022 Pulitzer Prize
Named a Best Book of the Year by: NPR and ArtNews,
“One-of-a-kind . . . Chasing Me to My Grave is a stunning piece of visual truth-telling. Featuring a foreword by Bryan Stevenson, it's a stark reminder of our nation's ugly history, and the power in reclaiming such history through art.” ―Chicago Review of Books

“Confidence Man [is] Maggie Haberman’s much anticipated biography of the president she followed more assiduously than any other journalist. No doubt, there are revelations aplenty here. But this is a book more notable for the quality of its observations about Trump’s character than for its newsbreaks. It will be a primary source about the most vexing president in American history for years to come.” —Joe Klein, The New York Times
“[A] monumental look at Donald Trump and his presidency . . . it may be first among equals.” — David Shribman, Los Angeles Times

Wall Street Journal Bestseller
USA Today Bestselle

*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
“[A] heartrending, lyrical account of a young girl’s survival during the Holocaust.”—Reader’s Entertainment Magazine
“This is the real thing, the horrors of the Holocaust brought shudderingly to life, and all from the point of view of a small child who could barely read or recognize numbers… It is an angry book, but it is also required reading.”—The Jewish Chronicle

“Ackerman’s prose successfully transports the reader to the battlefield and into the midst of ambiguities facing young combatants required to make life-and-death decisions. He writes lovingly of his comrades, bringing them to life and heightening the poignancy of the stories he tells.” —Foreign Affairs

“Confirms not only the danger British fascists posed to the nation but also the government’s embarrassing, often inexplicable unwillingness to take steps against them. . . . A cautionary tale for today [when] Democratic institutions are fragile and many of the problems roiling the waters of the ’30s are ascendant again.” — Library Journal

New York Times Bestseller

'Vividly relating what life was like in pre-Roman Britain' Choice Magazine
Francis Pryor is always good value... He cherrypicks the most interesting recent discoveries about Britain's past before the Romans' Spectator, Books of the Year

Oxford University Press
"A scintillating tour de force from probably the greatest scholar of European archaeology." -- Simon Sebag Montefiore, BBC History Magazine, Books of the Year 2019

A] highly readable and well conceived volume
Journal of Indo-European Studies

Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in History
Finalist for the 2022 Lincoln Prize
Winner of the 2022 John Nau Book Prize in American Civil War Era History
One of NPR's Best Books of 2021 and a New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2021
"At a time when definitions of citizenship and civil rights are again under assault, Masur's careful accounting of the ways Americans came to understand such terms provides an informed perspective to appreciate that such concepts never were, and thus never are, self-evident. They require due diligence and vigilance to secure and sustain at all levels of government. An essential book."
― Library Journal (starred review)

WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NONFICTION
"A gripping account of the overthrow of the elected government of a Black-majority North Carolina city after Reconstruction that untangles a complicated set of power dynamics cutting across race, class and gender." —2021 Pulitzer Prize Committee for General Nonfiction

“A fascinating insight into groups belonging to the same Homo genus as us that lived alongside us for much of their existence. . . . Higham devotes whole chapters, sometimes multiple chapters, to each extinct hominin group. He packs in startling discoveries, impressive insights and the occasional debunking of a foolish idea.”—Michael Marshall, New Scientist
“A clear and lucid account of how to study archaic DNA. [Higham] tells an engaging story”—Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Literary Review

"Winner of the 2016 Sarasvati Award for Best Nonfiction Book in Women and Mythology, Association for the Study of Women & Mythology"
"2015 Silver Medal Winner in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, World History category"
"Selected for The New York Times Book Review’s “The Year in Reading” 2016"
"Shortlisted for the 2014 London Hellenic Prize"
"One of Foreign Affairs’ Best Military, Scientific, and Technological Books of 2015"
"Selected for American Scientist’s Science Book Gift Guide 2014"

Highly recommended for all libraries. Library Journal

Oxford University Press
Barry Cunliffe is Emeritus Professor of European Archaeology at Oxford University.

Holmes engagingly conveys … It’s a smart idea for anyone to try, given that life will always include episodes and events that almost seem designed to lower our spirits. ‘Happiness is a choice, she writes. ‘How we decide to approach our hours and spend our days determines the happiness we get to enjoy in life.’” —The Wall Street Journal

In this collaboration between a Druid and a witchcraft researcher, Jon G. Hughes and Sophie Gallagher describe in intricate detail the arcane rituals, ancient beliefs, and secret rites of the Welsh Marches, the borderlands between Celtic Wales and Anglo-Saxon England--one of the oldest and most significant locations for early witchcraft and a lasting repository for ancient Druidic lore.

First edition. Wolfgang Palz is a German physicist. For more than half a century, he has been a global leader of the development of solar energy and other renewables. As an official of the European Commission in Brussels, he was the manager of PV development in Europe for 20 years. From 2000 to 2002, he was a member of an "Enquête Commission" of the German Parliament on the German energy perspective on the horizon 2050. Later, he was a consultant for the EU Commission on PV programmes for the underprivileged in Latin America. Dr. Palz has received numerous awards, including the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) Global Leadership Award in Advancing Solar Energy Policy (2011). He is a bearer of an Order of Merit of the German Republic.

“Mr. Stashower spins a seamless narrative of the grisly crime wave filled with vivid detail.” –The Wall Street Journal

“Stashower provides shrewd analysis and paints each scene with vivid, macabre details. You’ll sweat reading it.” –The Washington Post

“Hang on for the ride…[American Demon] places you right on the scene, describing the ghastly horrors of [America's] Jack the Ripper while also recounting how crime fighter Eliot Ness started piecing the investigation together, one puzzle piece at a time.” --Forbes

Time Must-Read Book of 2019
NPR Favorite Book of 2019
Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of 2019
Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2019
Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2019
Fortune Best Business Book of 2019
Bloomberg Best Book of the Year
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2019
Library Journal Best Social Science Book of 2019

WINNER • 2022 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY
Finalist • National Book Award for Nonfiction
Best Books of the Year • TIME, Smithsonian, Boston Globe

“Editor’s Choice” -- New York Times
“Best New Southern Books of March” -- Southern Review of Books
Investigative Reporters & Editors Book Award.Winner

“[A] richly reported and dramatically rendered investigative work…a sweeping story about racism, oil, big business, and climate change. Part thriller, part courtroom drama, and part environmental crusade.”--Fortune
"[A] powerful story...thoughtful and thoroughly researched. Although many of these events occurred more than 40 years ago, there is a queasy topicality to the fight for the Texas Gulf."--The Economist

WINNER • 2021 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY
Winner • 2022 James Beard Foundation Book Award [Writing]

“After describing the environmental and physiological ‘toxic stressors’ on girls, Nakazawa offers simple but powerful ways to combat them. And she doesn’t only explain why it’s beneficial to keep your children from certain online influences as long as you can—she actually has a step-by-step program for how to do it.”—Judith Newman, The New York Times Book Review

WSJ Bestseller. Business Insider Best True Crime Book. “An unsettling stunner about sibling love, courage, and resilience.” —People Magazine (book of the week)

“Mr. Petrow….gives us a blueprint for aging gracefully.” —The New York Times
An instant classic, USA Today and Washington Post etiquette reporter Steven Petrow’s touching, thoughtful, and often witty look at how life changes as you move into your golden years – and how to meet those changes with humor, grace, intention, and plenty of chocolate.

New York Times bestseller
"Fans of true crime will love every page of Unmasked. It is a wildly engaging and painfully honest read that will appeal to anyone curious about the lives of those who pursue justice for voiceless victims."
―San Francisco Chronicle

“A vibrant account of the lives of street children in Lusaka…. [the authors] allow us to slip inside this world as effortlessly as one might slip into a swimming pool…. a fluid, elegant crime story, without an ounce of excess, all the more powerful because it is true….. it evokes a world in its entirety: the fleshy, sticky smell of a subtropical bus station, the grimy windows and dark hallways of a police precinct. It shows how fluctuations in the price of oil reverberate, reaching the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people. Its pages vibrate with life. Most of all, it tells the story of children who, under impossible circumstances, manage to survive.” –New York Times Book Review