While Hitler considered western European resistance forces a minor annoyance, movies and popular writers invariably extol the havoc they wreaked behind enemy lines, perhaps tipping the balance toward victory. In this vein, Beavan (Fingerprints) delivers a lively account of the immense Allied effort to stir up trouble in occupied France in support of the Normandy invasion in June 1944. Since 1940, the British and Free French had sent agents into France, but the Nazis tracked them down with alarming efficiency. Backed by U.S. leaders, Operation Jedburgh was born in 1943: hundreds of American, British and French volunteers parachuted into France to organize resistance forces and then lead them in a campaign of sabotage and guerrilla action. Many operations failed, but there were plenty of triumphs-perhaps the most spectacular being the surrender of 20,000 German troops in September 1944. Beavan, whose grandfather was a "Jed," interviewed 30 operatives, including former CIA director William Colby and Green Beret founder Aaron Banks, and recounts Jedburgh's exploits through their eyes. This involves a good deal of recreated dialogue and speculation-but it rings true. Historians may not share the author's conviction of Jedburgh's crucial role in the Allied victory, but he makes an entertaining case. (May 8) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Reviewed by Sara NelsonFor a reviewer who's not all that clear on the difference between basketball and basket weaving, this book is a revelation. Former Esquire editor Blythe's debut is an examination of the rivalry between the University of North Carolina and Duke University college teams; in it, he interviews and profiles players and coaches, and even gives play-by-plays of key games. And yet, it is not "just" a sports book. At heart it's a memoir. Like Pat Conroy's My Losing Season and even Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes, to which the author Anthony Wofford compares it, To Hate Like This is about family and passion and people and parents and aging and, oh, yeah, some sports, too.Blythe is a native North Carolinan whose UNC passion was bred in the bone; he and his siblings were raised to be genteel and polite about all things, except while watching basketball games, particularly against arch-rival Duke. After living in New York for many years, Blythe returns home as his father is dying and reflects on the passion that has shaped him and, he suggests, his region. Forget the Mason Dixon line, the real division in this border war is between Carolinians who support the Blue Devils and those who live for the Tarheels.Sports fans can expect to enjoy the accounts of particular pivotal games recounted here, but the real revelations for the relatively uninitiated are Blythe's portraits of his characters: the tough-guy coaches like Mike Krzyzewski and Dean Smith, one of whom nearly breaks down confessing that he's still in love with his ex-wife; the nurse tending Blythe's dying father; and, most of all, the father himself, the kind of personality you expect to meet in great southern novels from Harper Lee to Pat Conroy. To call To Hate Like This a sports book is to be only about one-third right. An elegy to place and time and generation, it is also a story of fathers and sons and an elegant testament to the way pastimes are far more than ways to pass the time. (Mar. 1)Sara Nelson is the editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Four stepsiblings from two opposite sides of the world are sharing a summer together in one strange city: Los Angeles. NYC fashionista girl Annabel is determined to hate LA, where her dad and his family have relocated. But just when Annabel thinks her summer is beyond ruined, she gets a surprise from Down Under . . . and let's just say he's a good kisser. Lucy misses her home country, Australia, but thinks LA isn't so bad after all. If she could only get her stepsister Annabel on board to loving LA too -- and get that weird Wheaties boy to stop staring at her! Wheaties, boy-genius, doesn't mind where he's spending the summer, so long as lovable Lucy is nearby. He's trying not to worry about how his dad and stepmother's marriage problems will affect his living situation. And he'd really like to know the secret of that Ben dude's swoony appeal to the girls. Ben, the Aussie athlete god, would rather be spending his school break playing footy with his mates back in Melbourne. He'd also really rather not have his dad's loud girlfriend sharing their American vacation. And he'd definitely like to know how he got interested in the pretty Annabel girl all over again. Told from the alternating points of view of Annabel, Lucy, Wheaties, and Ben, Two Steps Forward is funny and genuine -- and shows how love can create all kinds of families.

This compulsively readable novel takes place in less than 24 hours. At a New York club one night, Nick convinces a stranger to pose as his girlfriend in order to fool Tris, the girl who broke his heart. He does not guess (though readers may) that kissing Norah will lead to a long, complicated evening, and a new chance for love. Levithan (Boy Meets Boy) and Cohn (Gingerbread) reveal the clever construction of the book in an authors' note: they sent chapters back and forth, he writing as Nick, she as Norah. The novel has that pumped-up feeling of a story passed among friends who each add a section, spontaneously incorporating unforeseen elements. Levithan again creates outrageous characters and witty wordplay (a "Playboygirl Bunny" bouncer asks Nick, "How long have the two of you been the two of you?"), and Cohn brings to life another rich punk rock girl. The two see a secret show on the Lower East Side, pig out in a Russian diner, and get caught making out in an ice room at the Times Square Marriott, all the time wondering if they can let go of their past loves and risk another heartbreak. Much of the novel's energy comes from the rapid-fire repartee between the two leads, plus perhaps the most vivid character, Tris-Nick's Id-driven ex and a classmate of Norah's, who ends up giving Nick advice and Norah kissing lessons. Readers will likely enjoy the ride, even if it is obvious where these two are headed. Ages 14-up. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Enlightenment thinker Thomas Paine would be pleased with this brisk, intellectually sophisticated study of his life. Nelson (The First Heroes) breezes through Paine's first 37 years, his attention tuned to 1774, when Paine moved from England to Philadelphia, bearing glowing letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. It was there that "his real life story would begin" with the writing of the hugely influential Common Sense, which attacked the divine right of kings and advocated American independence. Nelson follows Paine as he heads to Europe in 1787, and charts Paine's ambiguous relationship with the French Revolution. During the Reign of Terror, Paine got to work on The Age of Reason, and Nelson insists that, though his subject has been called an atheist, this work advocated 18th-century deism and was right in step with "mainstream Anglo-American religious discourse" of the era. Nelson concludes with a brief, intriguing discussion of Paine's legacy in the United States. The descriptions of Paine birthday galas in New York and Philadelphia 20 years after his 1809 death are fascinating in fact, an entire chapter could have been devoted to Paine's influence in the Jacksonian era. This volume won't replace Eric Foner's classic Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, but it's a welcome addition. (Sept. 25) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

In Dave's winning debut, narrator Emmy Everett is a sensitive and introspective young woman who is emotionally and geographically paralyzed. Ever since ditching her sleeping fianc in a Rhode Island motel, Emmy has lived in the quiet fishing village of Naragansett, working at a bait shop and putting together an interminable documentary on fishermen's wives. Three years pass, and her beloved big brother, Josh-funny, smart and successful-is getting married, forcing Emmy out of her self-imposed exile for a weekend in the New York City suburb of Scarsdale. With 72 hours to the wedding, Emmy finds Josh confused: does he want to marry Meryl, or be with Elizabeth, the woman he's been seeing on the side? Emmy agrees to join Josh on the eve of the wedding for a daylong trip to find Elizabeth and, hopefully, what "the right thing to do" really is. The intriguing Elizabeth, as well as the authenticity of the relationship between Emmy and Josh, make the conflict credible and involving. It's hard not to root for these vivid characters; even the heroine's high school flame, Josh's best friend Jaime Daniel Berringer, is distinctive and likable, making Emmy's interest in him contagious. Josh and Emmy's happy, exasperating parents and Josh's buoyant sister in-law-to-be round out the cast, giving readers plenty of reasons to enjoy this promising new author. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

• How to cope with the realities of life as an actor—if you don’t laugh, you'll cry • In-depth interviews with actors, agents, casting directors In this hip, warts-and-all look at acting, author Jason Pugatch shares his insights as a working "day player" to give an unvarnished look at theater, film, and television: how to be "discovered," what to expect from training programs, the grunt work of starting a career, how to keep going despite constant rejection, and much more. Packed with myth-shattering anecdotes and told in an intriguing personal tone, Acting Is a Job is the backstage guide that every aspiring actor must read.

Ryan's debut novel, suffused with an earnestness that might seem cloying were it not for his ease and control, follows Teresa Kerrigan as she struggles to raise four children, two from each of her two failed marriages. The novel covers 30 years from the mid-1960s. By the '70s, the family is in northeast Florida, with NASA launches nearby, and youngest son Frankie can't shake his boyhood obsession with spaceships and science fiction. As an adolescent Frankie happily embraces his belief that he is gay, dreaming wistfully of Luke Skywalker. Next oldest Joe, who narrates some chapters, has a more painful time sorting through his own messy sexuality, while the eldest, Matt, leaves the household at 18 to care for his sick father, and Karen, a high school dropout, marries at 21 and withdraws emotionally from her mother-as each child does in his or her own way. Ryan gets the dreariness and tumult of the Kerrigan lives right, presenting Teresa as flawed but sympathetic, and her brood as reactive in familiar but nicely specified ways. All are compassionately drawn through Joe's articulate bewilderment, particularly the sensitive and surprising Frankie, who comes to dominate Joe's own self-exploration. When AIDS eventually figures into the plot, Ryan maintains this impressive debut's nuance and sweetness to the end. (Feb. 7) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Hallie, a fortysomething successful lawyer and mother of two college kids, is devastated when her husband of 21 years tells her that he is leaving her for a woman half her age, named Ashlee--with two e's. After wallowing in self-pity and succumbing to an Oreo cookie and QVC coma, Hallie pulls herself together and decides that the past might hold the key to her happiness. She goes looking for her old boyfriends: Eric, a college boyfriend who is now an extremely rich investment broker; Barry, a sensitive guy she met while backpacking across Europe; Kevin, her old high-school boyfriend; and Dick, the one she thought she was going to marry and would now rather forget than find again. But it is in rekindling these old relationships that Hallie rediscovers who she is and what she wants out of life. Kaplan and Schnurnberger know how to craft a fun read that is perfect for those days when the most you want to do is lie around in your pajamas, watch QVC, and eat Oreos. Carolyn Kubisz Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Starred Review. A teenage Amish girl sits in her buggy, one hand dangling a cigarette while the other holds a cellphone in which she is loudly chatting away. This girl, like many Amish teens 16 and older, is in a period called rumspringa, when the strict rules of community life are temporarily lifted while an adolescent chooses whether to be baptized into the church and abide fully by its laws. Shachtman, a documentarian who began studying this phenomenon for the film The Devil's Playground, is a sensitive and nimble chronicler of Amish teens, devoting ample space to allowing them to tell their stories in their own words. And their stories are fascinating, from the wild ones who engage in weekend-long parties, complete with hard drugs and sexual promiscuity, to the more sedate and pious teens who prefer to engage in careful courtship rituals under the bemused eyes of adult Amish chaperones. Shachtman's tone is by turns admiring—of the work ethic, strong families and religious faith that undergird Amish life—and critical, especially of the sect's treatment of women and its suspicion of education beyond the eighth grade. Throughout, Shachtman uses the Amish rumspringa experience as a foil for understanding American adolescence and identity formation in general, and also contextualizes rumspringa throughout the rapidly growing and changing Amish world. This is not only one of the most absorbing books ever written about the Plain People but a perceptive snapshot of the larger culture in which they live and move. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Blue Lake Days captures the exhilaration of lake vacations. The playful text paired with the imaginative illustrations creates a picture book that is both amusing to read and captivating to behold. Blue Lake Days is a delight to dip into all year round.

The only thing that compares with America's obsession with sports is our passion for eating. No wonder tailgating is a national pastime. Whether it's football, baseball, NASCAR, or the kid's soccer game one thing is certain: have parking lot, will cook. Hungry spectators need look no further than The Tailgating Cookbook for sizzling recipes guaranteed to please. Packed with burgers and brats, chili and stew, tasty kabobs, ideal side dishes, desserts, and drinks to go with them, anyone can turn their simple hot-dog-and-beer party into a gastronomical glutton-fest of tasty delights. With expert tips on equipment, prep-ahead, timing, food storage, tailgating etiquette (try not to play Ozzy's Crazy Train too loud), and scoring the perfect spot to hunker down, this part cookbook/part handbook will get the party started, whether it's just two guys chomping hoagies or a multigenerational group of fans with a setup worthy of a professional kitchen. Two, Four, Six, Eight, We Love to Tailgate! .

Fabulous fabulist Svoboda (Trailer Girl) checks in to indulge a talent for wild, sketchy comedy. Laid in Willa Cather country, this quick take has some of Thomas Pynchon's quirky Americana crossed with the Indian tales of Jaime de Angulo. A conquistador rides through the Midwest of 500 years ago; his blue eyes make the Indians think he's God-and God in fact narrates the book. Flash to contemporary slackers Pork and Jim as they lose a bag of drugs in the same field, while God watches wryly, speaking with the crusty accents of a cracker-barrel philosopher. God feels at home in the Midwest, where everyone is waiting for His (or Her) signs. Bessie, the clairvoyant cleaner (she sees God in a tin hat) and the mother of Pork, is the daughter of a migrant worker; with Rolf, her bar-owner ally, she tries excavating the treasure she's glimpsed in her dreams, until alien light storms and the whispers in the grass scare them off-and, it is implied, destroy their budding romance. Back and forth the narrative moves, with Steinian The Making of Americans logic gluing together this eccentric vision of a God-driven Middle America. Svoboda loves her red-state mopes, and that warmth both illuminates and animates her eccentric prose. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Author of several novels (including Red Love), biographies (Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin) and the story collection The One-Star Jew, Evanier exhibits mastery in this new collection of eight stories. They unfurl as the ongoing spiel of New York writer Michael Goldberg, tortured by feelings of inadequacy in love, family and work. In the opening "The Tapes," middle-aged Michael, an editor at Jewish Punchers, unblocks the story of his life after his highly unorthodox psychiatrist dies, leaving him a trove of their taped sessions. Michael scrolls back 25-plus years through his marriage to the chronically self-effacing, alcohol-sodden Karen, whom he met as a young mother (and whose older first husband killed himself after her affair with Michael). In subsequent stories, such as "Scraps," a younger Michael casts about for a sympathetic surrogate family, such as the parents of his high school love Rachel, whose eventual rejection sets the tone for his future relations with women. Later in life, Michael attends his ailing parents ("borderline lunatics") and, in the title story, learns that his jealous mother kept a doting diary of his childhood. Evanier's stories boil with a satisfying sense of rage, stoked by sharp observation. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

It's time to rewrite George Plimpton's legendary observation on sports writing: the smaller the ball, the better the prose. How about this: the weirder the sport, the better the writing. Or so one might conclude after examining the latest edition of the always-satisfying Best American Sports Writing series. Guest editor Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball, 2003) brings together plenty of stories on mainstream sports, but the best of those look at the games from an angle beyond wins and losses (Linda Robertson's "XXL," for example, about the phenomenon of supersized NFL lineman). It's the oddballs, though, that really let the writers shine. Take Charlie Schroeder's "A (Fishing) Hole in One," about the off-the-grid "sport" of poaching fish from golf-course lakes. The jewel in this collection's crown, J. P. Moehringer's "The Unnatural Natural," profiles a sixtysomething St. Louis softball player ("the hobo Rob Hobbs") who is just this side of homeless. It isn't just the curiosity of the topic that elevates this story; it's Moehringer's refusal to pigeonhole his subject. That sense of the unexpected drives this thoroughly absorbing collection. Bill Ott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

As Richard Novak is perfecting a life of isolation, a series of bizarre and surreal events force him to reassess his position and reconnect with the world around him. Upon emerging, he is bombarded with a cast of eccentric characters, including an unappreciated soccer mom, a reclusive writer and a jovial doughnut-shop owner. Throughout this darkly humorous audio, Scott Brick supplies excellent tone and subtlety, easily seducing his audience with the opening scene between Novak and a 911 operator. The contrast between the two highlights Brick's ability and range. While his vocal depictions of characters match up and remain consistent, Brick almost falters with the Novak. For the most part, Brick keeps Novak steady but occasionally delivers a speaking voice that doesn't fit the profile range delivered previously. While his uniformity on Novak wavers, his projection of the anxiety and agitation that plague Novak's life cannot be understated. This book probably won't save your life, but it's likely to make you laugh and ponder your own connection with the world. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 23). (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

The acclaimed writer and performer Lisa Kron’s newest work is all about her mom. It explores the dynamics of health, family and community with the story of her mother’s extraordinary ability to heal a changing neighborhood, despite her inability to heal herself. In this solo show with other people in it, Kron asks the provocative question: Are we responsible for our own illness? But the answers she gets are much more complicated than she bargained for when the play spins dangerously out of control into riotously funny and unexpected territory..

Set on New York's Lower East Side, this first novel by Light (founding editor, Epiphany) introduces Morris Bliss, 35 years old and living with his widowed father. Morris has big dreams of traveling all over the world. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a job or the means to take his aspirations beyond a collection of travel brochures and pushpins in a map on his bedroom wall. This fun read boasts a likable protagonist, other quirky and interesting characters, and vivid and humorous descriptions of New York while also providing some significant social commentary. The scene in which Morris and a former high school classmate (and father of the 18-year-old girl with whom Morris is sleeping) storm a vacant building in the middle of the night to roust out a group of homeless squatters is both funny and disturbing. Recommended for large public libraries with an interest in new and unknown authors.-Karen Traynor, Sullivan Free Lib., Chittenango, NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Starred Review. A thoughtful, satisfying meditation on race and family history, Raboteau's novel is that rare debut by a young author that stands out not for its stylistic swagger or precocity, but for its simple grace and absolute wisdom. The title character, Emma Boudreaux, and her "twin" brother, Bernie, are the products of an interracial marriage and an unconventional household. But while Bernie embraces his blackness, Emma is less sure about who she is; still, she chooses to defer to her brother and their shared "skin." As an adolescent she only vaguely grasps the mysterious legacy of her black father, who went from an impoverished, segregated Mississippi childhood-his own father having been publicly lynched-to an esteemed academic career at Princeton University. That her father is often absent from family life only deepens Emma's connection with her brother. But when Bernie falls into a coma after a freak accident, Emma, now a freshman at Yale, is forced to reevaluate her identity. With shifting points of view, the novel weaves together unexpected fragments, like a paper Emma "wrote" for a post-colonial African novel class and her comatose brother's lucid dreams. Drawing from the traditions of African storytelling, the novel maps a mythically rich terrain without ever leaving the confines of American realism. Raboteau, who has already won awards for her fiction, has an assured voice that illuminates pain as acutely as love, and this book flaunts her exceptional storytelling talents. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition. From School Library Journal

In this offbeat coming-of-age novel, a biracial narrator tells of growing up in rural America and later escaping to a new life in a city. Early on, the boy witnesses his father’s struggles with idealism, alcoholism and an unrealized art career. The boy’s mother tries to comfort him with her own brand of Eastern wisdom, but her statements only create more confusion. After a series of almost surreal incidents involving parents, teachers and the children around him, the boy manages to move away to attend college. During and after school, he travels in search of companionship, but finds nothing that lasts. Eventually, he settles in a city and begins to build a life. Not surprisingly, his preoccupations dog his personal relationships—until he succeeds in putting his past in perspective.

"...A sharply observed, intelligent novel -- finely written and without excess, it portrays a love story that is not only factually interesting, and emotionally satisfying, but also psychologically sound. - Elizabeth Strout, author of "Amy and Isabelle" Based on true historical figures, "The Queen of Cups" is the story of Juliette, the enigmatic wife of brilliant post Civil War philosopher, Charles Pierce, a man plagued by drug addiction and manic depression. From the gypsy camps of Russia, to glittering Paris, France and New York to her final exile to obscurity, Juliette's journey traces the life of an independent women who, betrayed by those she loves, never loses her belief in the possibility of redemption and in the power of love and loyalty.

In her second novel, Southgate (The Fall of Rome) explores how one generation's liberation becomes another's idea of constraint. Nested narratives follow three black women—Mildred, daughter Angela, and granddaughter Tamara—briefly breaking tradition to define themselves. Tamara, an aspiring Spike Lee, frames the tale of Angela, who escapes a prosaic life playing the obligatory naked black woman in the blaxploitation films of the 1970s. Hollywood's limitations turn Angela's dreams to frustration, and her outsized sexual displays incur her mother's wrath. Bold decisions and compromises leave Angela, a single mother working in a doctor's office by day, watching videos of her glory days at night with her female lover, while insisting that she is not a "dyke." The narrative spirals back to Mildred, showing how movies—a conduit through which Mildred and teenage Angela connect—are a window to a better world. The narrative culminates in Tamara's documentary about Angela, Mildred and herself, black women in America, "making their lives mean something where they can." While what should invigorate—Tamara taking the creative reins of a form her elders limitedly participated in—lacks conviction because of a too-neat conclusion, the book's emotional intensity and its characters' complex motivation overcome occasional simplification. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

For a brief period just before the United States entered WWII, 7 Middagh Street, a shabby Brooklyn brownstone, was the unlikely setting for a unique arrangement in bohemian living and a circle that became the talk of fashionable Manhattan. At its center was the flamboyant literary editor George Davis, who, at loose ends after being sacked by Harper's Bazaar, invited several of his talented New York friends to form an art commune. Sharing a chaotic yet convivial life were poet Auden and his compatriot composer friend Britten, who busied themselves with an opera drawing on their developing experience of American life. Also present was the fragile, sherry-sipping Southerner Carson McCullers, who began her novel The Member of the Wedding at 7 Middagh Street, developed a lesbian crush and split with her failed novelist husband, Reeve; Paul Bowles, then a composer, who crafted a ballet score while his wife, Jane, wrote a novel and worshiped Auden (much to Bowles's consternation); the warm-hearted burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee, whom Davis helped to write a novel; the émigré political activist siblings Erika, Klaus and Golo Mann (children of Thomas Mann); and the distinguished theatrical designer Oliver Smith. Drawing on numerous archival and biographical sources, Tippins, formerly a public television producer, conveys with verve the pace and tenor of life in the house, reconstructing its wild parties, broken romances and supper talk. Her narrative interweaves biographical surveys and lively anecdotes gleaned from interviews with surviving contemporaries into a broader overview of wartime literary and artistic New York. This enjoyable and well-paced read should appeal to anyone interested in 1940s American intelligentsia and Brooklyn history alike. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Cruise ship entertainers fall in and out of love as they take their act from the seas to exotic luxury hotels in Tupper's promising debut. Karla, fresh out of music school, is thrilled to land a job that pays her to sing, dance and travel. When she performs with Jack, a 29-year-old British guitarist, they click, and soon they're going on dates in the passenger dining room, taking lazy off days on sandy beaches and sleeping together in Jack's tiny bunk while his cabin mate slumbers. They abandon the seaboard life to form a duo, but demeaning gigs playing covers in hotels in the United Arab Emirates and Shanghai deaden their passion and turn Jack into a boozer and Karla into a resentful musical hack. The novel, set in the 1990s, feels mustier than it should, and though the plot loses momentum as the depressed protagonists meander through countless bars on their trip to splitsville, Tupper proves herself a canny observer of the insular world of nomadic entertainers. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Wintle, a 40-year-old, gay, obsessive-compulsive New Yorker, rescues his 13-year-old niece, Tiffany, from her Connecticut home, where she fought with her recovering alcoholic mother, associated with delinquents and feared her mother's violent boyfriend. He has lived to tell the tale and does an exceptional job portraying Tiffany as a complex teenager, capable of eliciting sympathy one moment and animosity the next. She drinks, smokes and dabbles in drugs yet sings beautifully, writes poetry and excels in school when she tries; meanwhile, he struggles with his responsibilities as a guardian while trying to maintain his own life and career (he negotiates book-to-film deals). At times, Wintle comes off as a martyr: "I'd turned into a nasty, abusive parent," he writes after a fight with Tiffany. Yet her behavior is sometimes so atrocious, one can't help wondering why he doesn't yell at her more. Wintle is balanced in his portrayal, and glimpses of Tiffany's softer side explain why he has taken her in. The lighthearted tone makes a serious subject amusing, and Wintle is charmingly self-deprecating. Although the ending doesn't tie up all the loose ends, the journey is eye-opening, and anyone who's wondered about the mysterious lives of teenagers will enjoy Wintle's tale. Agent, Mitchell Waters. (June 15) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

This hard-hitting novel told in spare free verse poems exposes the plight of a 13-year-old Nepali girl sold into sexual slavery. Through Lakshmi's innocent first-person narrative, McCormick (Cut) reveals her gradual awakening to the harshness of the world around her. Even in their poverty-stricken rural home, Lakshmi finds pleasure in the beauty of the Himalayan mountains, the sight of Krishna, her betrothed, and the cucumbers she lovingly tends, then sells at market. After a monsoon wipes out their crops, her profligate stepfather sells Lakshmi to an "auntie" bound for the city. During her journey, the girl acquires a visual and verbal vocabulary of things she has never seen before: electric lights, a TV. Soon a hard-won sense of irony invades her narrative, too. Early on, a poem entitled "Everything I Need to Know" marks her step into womanhood (after her first menstrual cycle); later, "Everything I Need to Know Now" lists her rules as an initiated prostitute. In her village, Lakshmi had rebelliously purchased her first Coca-Cola for her mother, after her stepfather sold her; later, in Calcutta, she overhears two johns talking and realizes, "the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola at Bajai Sita's store./ That is what he paid for [a turn with] me." The author beautifully balances the harshness of brothel life with the poignant relationships among its residents; especially well-drawn characters include the son of one of the prostitutes, who teaches Lakshmi to read and speak some English and Hindi, and clever Monica, who earns her freedom but gets sent back by her shamed family. Readers will admire Lakshmi's grit and intelligence, and be grateful for a ray of hope for this memorable heroine at book's end. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

A city with eight million people has eight million ways to die For fifteen years, Shiya Ribowsky worked as a medicolegal investigator in New York City’s medical examiner’s office—the largest, most sophisticated organization of its kind in the world. Utilizing his background in medicine, he led the investigations of more than eight thousand individual deaths, becoming a key figure in some of New York’s most bizarre death cases and eventually taking charge of the largest forensic investigation ever attempted: identifying the dead in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies. Now, in this mesmerizing book, Ribowsky pulls back the curtain on the New York City’s medical examiner’s office, giving an enthralling, never-before-seen glimpse into death and the city. Born and raised in New York City’s orthodox Jewish community, Ribowsky seems an unlikely candidate for this macabre profession. Nevertheless he has forsaken a promising career of medical work with the living, descending instead into the realm of the dead, enticed by the challenge of confronting death on a daily basis. Taking you through the vermin-infested Bowery flophouses and posh Upper East Side apartments of the city’s dead, Ribowsky explores in gruesome detail the skeletons that hang in the Big Apple’s closets. Combing through the autopsy room, he also exposes the grim secrets that only a scalpel and a dead body can tell and explains how forensic investigation does not merely solve crimes—it saves lives. But it is in the aftermath of September 11 that the ME’s office is handed its biggest challenge: to identify as many of the fallen as possible. With poignant descriptions, Ribowsky provides a dramatic account of the office’s diligent and unflappable work with the families of the victims, helping them emerge from the ashes of this tragedy while displaying the strength, grit, intelligence, and compassion that Americans expect from true New Yorkers. At once compelling and heartbreaking, Dead Center is a story of New York unlike any other, blending the haunting with the sublime, while painting a striking portrait of death (and life) in the city that never sleeps.