By Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger with Jeffrey Zaslow
HarperCollins ©2009 | Hardcover 340pgs
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Russ Imamura
Rarely do I read autobiographies of contemporary people. I find many of these writings are usually shallow stories of egotistical movie stars, sports figures, politicians or tele-evangelists. These books hardly ever leave me with any lasting worthwhile impressions.
However, after seeing Captain “Sully” Sullenberger on television earlier this year being interviewed by many people about his courageous handling of the Airbus plane on the icy Hudson River, I was immediately impressed by this human being. The qualities exuded by this person as he spoke were very genuine, upright, and commanding. When his book was published I had to get it right away to find out more about him.
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By Tami Hoag
Dutton Adult | 432pgs
Release Date: December 29, 2009
Tami Hoag takes readers on an intense hunt for a serial killer in her latest thriller, Deeper Than the Dead. The story opens in 1984, when three children stumble upon a partially buried corpse in the woods. The female victim’s eyes and mouth have been glued shut, and Detective Tony Mendez quickly recognizes this as the work of a serial murderer. In this time, DNA matching and internet searches are still the stuff of science fiction. But, Mendez hopes to use the most cutting edge techniques available to catch the killer, and reaches out to the FBI’s newly formed criminal profiling unit for help. They soon zero in on a suspect, and enlist the assistance of school teacher Anne Navarro to learn more about the man and his young son. If their suspicions are true, and this pillar of the community really is a cold-blooded killer, the affluent town of Oak Knoll, CA will be rocked to its foundations.
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By Terry Teachout
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 496pgs
Release Date: December 2, 2009
In this new biography of jazz legend Louis Armstrong, Wall Street Journal columnist Terry Teachout mines a trove of previously unpublished material to show the complexity of Armstrong’s character. The narrative voice of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong reverberates with warmth and soul, echoing the core of Satchmo’s music. Teachout gained access to hundreds of Armstrong’s private recordings of backstage and late-night conversations, made mostly during the last half of the musician’s life. His inner strength and sheer love of music shine through in these personal exchanges, and are the foundation of his ability to overcome the racial tensions of the times. “Faced with the terrible realities of the time and place into which he had been born,” Teachout writes, “he didn’t repine, but returned love for hatred and sought salvation in work.”
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After 50 years of writing mystery novels, author P.D. James knows a thing or two about crafting a well-written plot. In her new non-fiction book, Talking About Detective Fiction, James discusses the history of the mystery genre and the construct of a good crime novel. “There must be a central mystery,” she explains, “and one that by the end of the book is solved satisfactorily and logically, not by good luck or intuition, but by intelligent deduction from clues honestly if deceptively presented.” James focuses primarily on British authors, and her opinions of some of the genre’s icons are surprising and amusing. Agatha Christie, she posits, “hasn’t in my view had a profound influence on the later development of the detective story.” Though James does offer this backhanded compliment to mystery legend: “Perhaps her greatest strength was that she never overstepped the limits of her talent.” James also prefers Dr. Watson over Sherlock Holmes, finding his character more genuine and relatable, though she does raise some questions about the coziness of their household.
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By Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Atria | 320pgs
Release Date: December 15, 2009
Nanny Returns, the much-anticipated sequel to the The Nanny Diaries, picks up twelve years after the original hit novel left off. Nan and her husband, “Harvard Hottie” Ryan, have returned to New York after a long period of living abroad to begin a new life. Amid the chaos of starting a business, renovating their home and adjusting to a new position at a pretentious private school, Nan re-connects with Grayer X, and his younger brother Stilton. To placate their feelings of abandonment at her departure over a decade ago, she vows to help the boys through their parents’ nasty divorce. As she is again sucked into the X family’s vicious society of privilege and power, she witnesses the damage that this life has done to the boys. These realizations, along with Ryan’s push to start a family, make Nan question whether or not she has the stomach for motherhood.
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Last year, close friends and business partners, Tom Matlack and James Houghton, engaged in several deep discussions about the true meaning of manhood. From those discussions, The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood was born. The new book features 31 essays by men from all walks of life, and portrays a wide spectrum of the male experience, from heartbreak to redemption. A 53-minute film documentary, of the same name, has also been released. “We really wanted to spark a national conversation on what it means to be a man, and to help the 30 million boys and girls in our country who don’t have a father,” states Tom Matlack in an interview with L.A. Times’ Jacket Copy. The goal for this project is to help men realize they are not alone. Many feel they have to struggle with emotional issues and societal pressures in silence. Matlack and Houghton hope the men’s real-life stories will be relatable in a non-threatening way. “By getting to know them and reading their stories, I’m better for it. Our hope is that the people who read the book feel the same way,” explains Matlack.
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By Greg Mortenson
Viking Adult | 448pgs
Release Date: December 1, 2009
Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan is Greg Mortenson’s touching follow-up to the bestselling Three Cups of Tea, and details his dogged efforts to fulfill his promise to build a school in the Wakhan Corridor. The Corridor, situated in a desolate part of northeastern Afghanistan, is home to the Kirghiz, and receives little government support for health or education. Mortenson and the international staff of his Central Asia Institute (CAI), affectionately called the “Dirty Dozen”, choose the village of Bozai Gumbaz as the site for the school, and work with local leaders to obtain building materials and labor for construction. The CAI must overcome threats of Taliban violence, an earthquake, ingrained opposition to educating girls, and even Mortenson’s own 8-day abduction, in order to finish the school and give the village children an opportunity for a better life.
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By Sue Grafton
Putnam Adult | 416pgs
ReleaseDate: December 1, 2009
Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone returns in U is for Undertow, the 21st installment of Sue Grafton’s beloved series. The book opens in April of 1988, when a man named Michael Sutton arrives at Kinsey’s office, claiming to have recovered memories related to an unsolved kidnapping of a young girl in 1972. Though Kinsey is skeptical about Sutton’s story, his offer to pay in cash induces her to take on the case, and an unmarked grave is soon discovered. As Kinsey begins to uncover decades-old secrets, new information comes to light about Sutton’s past and the validity of his memories is called into question. It is up to Kinsey to unravel the truth from a tangled web of falsehoods, and get justice for the young girl abducted decades ago.
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By Michael Crichton
Harper | 320 pages
Release Date: November 24, 2009
Michael Crichton’s last book Pirate Latitudes is a swashbuckling tale of adventure, full of intrigue, Spanish gold and bloody betrayal. Set in the untamed colony of Jamaica in 1665, the capital city of Port Royal teems with rowdy taverns and raucous bordellos. The only laws that rule the population are greed and self-preservation. When Captain Charles Hunter learns that the galleon, El Trinidad, has just arrived in port heavy with gold, he seizes the opportunity to make his own fortune. Aligning himself with an influential ally, Hunter gathers a team of cutthroats to hijack the gallon and relieve the reviled Spanish of their riches. This ragged band of thieves faces deadly opposition in Cazalla, a commander favored by the King of Spain, who fiercely guards the ship and her cargo. The raid erupts in a violent, adrenaline-filled attack, with both sides willing to fight to the death in order to possess the treasure.
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When Judith Fox and Ed Ackell married in 1995 they cut quite the figure as a power couple. Judith was the owner of a successful staffing company and well known in art circles for her fine art photography. Ed was an accomplished physician, pilot, and university president. But after just three years of marriage, the couple was dealt a crushing blow when Ed was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. At first they lived in denial, with Ed reluctant to tell anyone out of fear that people would treat him differently. But as Judith watched his memory fade, and began to see the man she loved slowly slip away, she reached for her camera to document the moments they still had together. When she began to take the photos, the idea of a book had not entered her mind. As she told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the pictures were her way “to celebrate Ed and remember him.” I Still Do: Loving and Living with Alzheimer’s (PowerHouse Books, 128pgs) is a compilation of Judith’s precious moments with Ed. The stunning photographs of her husband’s daily life, accompanied with her poetic text, form a visual love letter to him.
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