Whatever your religious leanings, or lack thereof, children and adults alike will no doubt find delight in the highly rated children's book Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth, author, illustrator and artist. The book follows a simple format: three siblings notice with amazement that a giant panda has come to live next door. The eldest, Michael, introduces himself; the girl, Addy, then introduces herself and Karl, the youngest, because he was shy "around bears he didn't know." The sweetness from that sentence alone melted my heart....more

Towering pillars of rage, claws extended, maws gaping – the bear in all of its raw, powerful glory. That’s the look Jill Greenberg was going for when she set out to compose a selection of photographs profiling the bear. Burned by some harsh criticism of her latest portrait exhibit, celebrity photographer Greenberg set out to encapsulate the human aggression she was receiving on a canvas of bearskin. One look at the cover of Bear Portraits is enough to let you in on the fact that she changed her mind during the process....more

Writing an icon’s biography must be a daunting task. You have scads of material to sift through and an adoring public ready to criticize any false turn you may take regarding said idol. That was evident with the biographies of John Lennon and Michael Jackson. Then some rock star biographies have so many career twists and turns to cover, any controversy is just gravy. Marc Spitz's book Bowie: A Biography is one of those books. Spitz explores David Bowie's chameleon-like personas, from Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to the Thin White Duke. David Bowie championed reinvention long before Madonna. Rock journalist Marc Spitz, (whose last rock bio was about Green Day), obviously did a lot of research via magazines, other books and original interviews....more

When you begin to read Houri, you are descending into Iranian airspace through the voice of Shahed, a man returning to his homeland on the third anniversary of his father's death. His name means “witness',” and through his eyes, Mehrdad Balali allows you to see his country juxtaposed in a time warp of culture. Shahed left Iran as a youth, running away to America. His father died in 1979, but this pilgrimage takes him back to a Post-Revolutionary Iran, a new world for Shahed. He steps out of the plane into a strikingly different climate upon his return. There is evidence of subjugation and authoritarian rule everywhere. The obvious, bearded men and veiled women. The more subtle changes would only be noticed by a “witness” from the past, missing landmarks, renamed streets, businesses that have vanished....more

In What the Bayou Saw, the familiar adage, “The truth will set you free” is portrayed in vivid and sometimes uncomfortable detail. Community college instructor, Sally Stevens harbors a secret that eats away at everything she touches, mostly her marriage and her soul. When Sally’s favorite student implicates three of her other students in a brutal assault, the burden of her past comes back to haunt her. Can she find healing from harmful traditions and the secret she swore to keep? This isn’t a formulaic story where readers will sit back in their easy chair able to predict what happens next. Layer by layer, the story unfolds exposing the cruelty of racism and the bitter pill of betrayal, mixed with the beauty and heartache of a hidden friendship....more

As an only child, whose parents were also only children, I value memories as something rare and fragile. Sometimes a doctor asks me something about my childhood medical history and I simply don’t know – and there’s no one alive who is likely to remember the answer to the question. So I’m inclined to value memory. But after reading Viktor Mayer-Schonberger’s The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, I’m now seriously inclined to also value the reverse. There are, from my youth, as is I think the case with most people, plenty of incidents that can still produce an inward cringe when I’m remind of them – and no doubt there were many more similar events over which my brain has drawn a merciful veil....more

Nightlight follows the misadventures of high school student Belle Goose who falls for Edwart Mullen, a classmate she believes to be a vampire. Nightlight opens with Belle Goose leaving Phoenix and moving to Oregon for the sake of her mother's relationship with street-hockey player Bill in what she describes as a "self-exiled, exile." Belle states "It's no big deal. I want to go. I want to leave all of my friends and the sunlight for a small, rainy town. Making you happy makes me happy." This is one of the first of many jabs at some of the blatant flaws in the original Twilight series....more

This fantastic follow-up to The Rossetti Letter finds Claire Donovan in London teaching history at Cambridge. Claire is thrilled to be in London and even more thrilled to be near fellow professor Andrew Kent. That is, until fellow professor Derek Goodman is murdered — a professor the entire college saw her argue with. Shortly before Derek's murder Claire had shared with him that she'd run across an amazing find in the Cambridge libraries, the diary of a female physician from the 1600's. Hannah Devlin had been physician to the king's mistress — an amazing feat considering that it was illegal for women to practice medicine in those days....more

Jeannette Walls is shaping up to be one of this decade's most fascinating storytellers. The adventures of her family in The Glass Castle were mesmerizing and truly an unforgettable read. With a pen that glows with brilliance, her writing in Half Broke Horses is bedazzling. In her words, this is the true life novel of her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, who died when the author was eight. Half Broke Horses portrays her grandmother’s life told through all of the many stories she heard as a child. ...more

In choosing to marry a man with children, Stepmonster author Wednesday Martin joined a grim statistic: over half of all adult women marry a man with children, and seven percent of those partnerships will fail. So, one in two women will do this, ignoring the warning signs, not fully sure where to fit in, and not wanting to ‘rock the boat’ early on. As Martin found firsthand, the longer a woman with stepchildren waits to find her way into the family, the harder it is for her to ever draw the line or be taken seriously as an adult with authority. There is a skill to learning when to take a stand and when to disengage. ...more