Building a Stack of Great New Reads

It's been another HUGE week in the book publishing world. I know I'm going to miss some biggies, but here's just a taste of some of the many tantalizing new books on our shelves, just waiting to find a good home with a happy reader:

New fiction in hardcover from Roddy Doyle, Jane Smiley, Scott Turow, Chuck Palahniuk, Isabel Allende, Julie Orringer, and Robert B. Parker (yes, dead people do publish new books). New fiction in paperback: The Little Stranger (Sarah Waters), South of Broad (Pat Conroy), Woods Burner (John Pipkin), Dark Places (Gillian Flynn), Valeria's Last Stand (Marc Fitten), and The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (Reif Larsen).

Not to be left out, there's plenty of good new nonfiction to be had as well. At the top of the list of books arriving this week I'd have to put the new one by Nathaniel Philbrick, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn -- which I have already purchased and moved very near to the top of my staggeringly tall to-be-read stack. Another new hardback nonfiction book we got this week is Sh*t My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern -- this Twitter feed is usually good for laughs, and the book offers the same. And then there's that new memoir by someone named Bush -- Laura, I think -- Spoken from the Heart. Another new nonfiction book in hardcover is by the author of a favorite of mine, Agent Zigzag, and that is Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre.

A nonfiction book many people have been waiting for in paperback arrived this week: Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder, author of Mountains Beyond Mountains, along with The Wilderness Warrior, by Douglas Brinkley (about Theodore Roosevelt);  Coop: A Family, a Farm, and the Pursuit of One Good Egg, by Michael Perry (who if I might say so is one good egg himself, and a good friend to independent booksellers); and the book I'm sorry to say I have too quickly grown into: The Creaky Knee Guide: The 80 Best Easy Hikes, by Seabury Blair Jr.

And the last book I'll mention is the one I wrote about earlier this week: the first book in the new series by Rick Riordan (he of Percy Jackson fame): The Red Pyramid: Book One in The Kane Chronicles. I'm reading it now and it's terrific! Anyone who is a fan of the Percy Jackson books or the books in the 39 Clues series will be all over this book in a big way.

The number of terrific new reads in the store is beyond staggering, but as always we're happy to help you sort through and find just the right new read for you or as a gift. And speaking of gifts, don't forget about our table full of delightful gifts for Mom -- and time is running out on that one! Hope to see you soon.