Shortly after the attacks on September 11, 2001, author Barbara Kingsolver published a series of op-ed pieces in several major U.S. newspapers calling for a meaningful national dialog and asking leaders to consider dissenting opinions, and was shocked at the harsh criticism and hate mail she received. “A lot of people were frightened, and when people are frightened, they want to burn witches. They want to run somebody up the flagpole…,” she explains in an interview with The Guardian. “It was really one of the worst times of my life.” A few months later, Kingsolver decided to channel all that fear and anger into something positive and started research on a new project, which would grow to be The Lacuna. “I have to make something of this,” she thought at the time. “I have to take all this bile and hatred and make something beautiful.”
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Steve Jobs’ presentation at the Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday revealed some interesting facts about the iPad’s eBook sales and the new features planned for the iBooks app. Engadget reported on Job’s impressive announcement that in the few short months since the iPad’s release, Apple has won 22 percent of the eBook market. In the first 65 days that the “magical” device was available to the public, five million eBooks were downloaded by iPad users. To capitalize on this success, Jobs also announced some great new features set to be added to the iBooks app later in the month. Users will be able to read PDF documents with iBooks, as well as utilize new note-taking and bookmarking functions.
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By Dan Ariely
Harper | 352pgs
Release Date: June 1, 2010

Summary:
Duke Professor Dan Ariely further explores behavioral economics, and draws some interesting conclusions on human behavior in The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home, his follow-up to the bestselling Predictably Irrational. This time the focus is on the positive, and sometimes negative effects, that irrationality has on our personal and professional lives. Using his own creative experiments, he studies behavior influenced by the IKEA effect – the act of building something instills a sense of ownership that causes us to overvalue the object, and analyzes why huge monetary bonuses can actually be detrimental to job performance. (Hmm, maybe this book should be required reading on Wall Street?) Ariely uses the data from these experiments and his own experience recovering from a painful accident in his youth, to suggest solutions in overcoming negative behavior as individuals, and as a society. Yes, we may be irrational. But, that’s not all bad.
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David Sedaris at WBUR studios in June 2008.

June is National Audiobook Month, and according to writer David Sedaris, also National Cornbread Stuffing Month. In honor of audiobooks and carbs, the author of Naked and When You Are Engulfed in Flames worked with the Get Caught Listening campaign to record a couple of promos to support National Audiobook Month. Entertainment Weekly has the audio files posted exclusively on their site. In his characteristic absurd and humorous style, Sedaris extols the virtues of Sam Lipsyte’s writing in The Ask, the voice work of narrator Dylan Baker, and the ability to eat cornbread stuffing while listening to an audiobook. All for a good cause.
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By Stephen King
Scribner | 144pgs
Release Date: May 25, 2010

Just in time for the lazy days of summer and baseball season, comes the release of Blockade Billy, the latest novella from Stephen King. In sharp contrast to the mammoth 1,000+ page Under the Dome released last fall, Blockade Billy is a slim volume centered around Major League Baseball circa 1957. An elderly George “Granny” Grantham, former third-base coach of the New Jersey Titans, recounts the fateful season that an unknown Iowa farm league catcher was called up to help his pro team hobbled by injuries. William Blakely is an odd young man, but boy can he play baseball. He quickly becomes a fan favorite, blowing out rookie batting records and guarding home plate with a fierceness that earns him the nickname “Blockade Billy”. As to be expected in a Stephen King story, the plot takes a dark twist as Billy’s oddness turns sinister and players start to get hurt. His short stint with the Titans is effectively erased from the baseball record books, and only “Granny” can reveal the dangerous truth.
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Chandra Levy's remains were found in Rock Creek Park, about a year after she disappeared.

When Washington intern, Chandra Levy, went missing on May 1, 2001, the news of her disappearance and revelations of an illicit affair with California congressman Gary Condit churned up a media circus. Police and press instantly seized on Condit as a likely suspect, but with the attacks on September 11 several months later, media interest waned and the police investigation stalled. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz launched a fresh journalistic investigation into the disappearance in 2007, and uncovered several key errors in the handling of the case. A book chronicling their discoveries, Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery (Scribner, 287pgs) was released this month, and is based on their series of articles published in 2008 by The Washington Post.
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By Stieg Larsson
Knopf | 576pgs
Release Date: May 25, 2010

Rabid fans of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy rejoice! The final installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest arrives in stores tomorrow. The third novel, following The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire opens right where the second novel leaves off. “The Girl” in question, crazy-smart computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, lies in a hospital bed under police guard, suffering a gunshot wound to the head. The man who shot her, arch enemy and father, Alexander Zalachenko, is located a few doors down, convalescing from an ax wound in the head, the blow dealt by his daughter. Besides fighting for her life, Salander must also fight for her freedom as she stands accused of three murders, and will face a trial back in Stockholm, if she survives. She again teams up with journalist Mikael Blomkvist, to clear her name. Working with Salander, mainly through digital communications, and recruiting a group of hackers and journalists to aid in the fight, Blomkvist uncovers a long-term government conspiracy that has hurt many innocent people, chief among them, Lisbeth Salander herself.
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Laura Ingalls Wilder

A couple of years ago, author Wendy McClure made an impromptu revisit of a childhood favorite: the Little House series of books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In an interview with Knee-Jerk, McClure discusses her re-discovery of the classic childrens’ series and the work that they inspired. “…I was always kind of afraid to go back and reread them, because I feared that they wouldn’t be as good as I remembered,” she explains. “I think I wanted to re-immerse myself and see where it went…I was reading the books and loving them and started telling everyone I knew, ‘It’d be fun to see these places and write a book about it sometime’.” Supportive prodding from a friend in the publishing industry prompted McClure to write The Wilder Life (set to be released in early 2011), a travelogue of sorts, about the author’s experiences visiting historical sites related to the books. “I liked the idea of seeing all these places I felt I knew so well but had never actually been to.”
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When writer Justin Halpern moved back into his parents’ house after the breakup of his relationship, he took what might have been a depressing situation and turned it into a comedic goldmine. In August of last year, Halpern began tweeting the foul-mouthed witticisms spouted by his father, Samuel, on topics as varied as Pringles flavors and raising children. His Twitter feed (shitmydadsays) quickly became a web sensation, now boasts over a million followers, and has recently been turned into a book. Sh*t My Dad Says, which hit stores earlier this month and is now on the New York Times Bestsellers List, expands on the 140-character tweets and includes a few short essays about Halpern’s childhood and his relationship with his father. In a blog post for Powell’s Books, Halpern acknowledges his father’s input and support while writing the book. “Despite his editorializing, reviewing my manuscript with him was a great experience. I was reliving my childhood, and he was reliving that time in our lives, too, except through my eyes.”
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By Brady Udall
W. W. Norton & Company | 602pgs
Release Date: May 3, 2010

Golden Richards struggles with indecision and loneliness while surrounded by his four wives and 28 children in The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall’s second novel. The Mormon patriarch is under tremendous strain as he divides his time between his family’s three separate households in remote Utah and tries to keep his failing construction business afloat, all while grieving over the death of his young daughter. In an effort to support his family, he goes against his religious beliefs and takes a contacting job building a brothel in Nevada, though he glosses over the truth with his family and tells them it is a retirement home. Richards may have a “God-given patriarchal authority”, yet he constantly struggles to keep up with the demands of his wives, and further complicates his life when he develops romantic feelings for a woman he meets at the construction site. Udall’s story of a man in crisis and a family in chaos encompasses the tragic and comedic elements of real life, with an ultimate message of love and redemption.
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