By Brooke Newman
Harmony | 320pgs
Release Date: March 30, 2010

Brooke Newman recounts the true story of the unusual, yet enduring friendship between her father, James and his African-American housekeeper Jenniemae, in Jenniemae & James: A Memoir in Black and White. James Newman was a brilliant and distinguished mathematician, well known for defining the “googol” (google) concept in math and authoring the important work The World of Mathematics. In contrast, Jenniemae Harrington was a poor, uneducated, heavy-set woman, who though deeply religious, loved to play the lottery with numbers that came to her in dreams. During the ’40′s and ’50′s, the unlikely pair bonded through their sharp minds and shared love of numbers. As racial tensions rose throughout the country, planting the seeds for the Civil Rights Movement, household tensions grew due to James’ infidelities and his wife’s emotional problems. Through it all, Jenniemae became a steady, loving force in the home. This bi-racial friendship may have been outside the cultural norm of the time, yet it blossomed into a wellspring of calm, caring and loyalty for Jenniemae, James, and his family.
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By Patti Smith
Ecco | 304pgs
Release Date: January 19, 2010

Patti Smith, the “Godmother of Punk”, details her path to fame and her enduring relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe in Just Kids. Before the musical and artistic success, the pair met as young drifters in New York City, during the social upheavals of the late ’60′s. They made a pact to care for each other, in good times and bad, and foster each other’s dreams. Smith’s poetic prose tells of their days living at the Hotel Chelsea, long nights at Max’s Kansas City, and time spent with friends Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and William Burroughs. As they both gained celebrity, Smith for her music and poetry, and Mapplethorpe for his provocative photography, their bond strengthened. What started out as a youthful romance grew into a deep, lasting friendship that would be a source of support and inspiration throughout the artists’ lives.
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By Elizabeth Gilbert
Viking Adult | 304pgs
Release Date: January 5, 2010

Elizabeth Gilbert is forced to reconcile her doubts about the institution of marriage in Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, the sequel to her 2006 breakout hit Eat, Pray, Love. The memoir opens with Gilbert and Felipe, the Brazilian-born Australian man she met in Indonesia, still blissfully in love. But, upon returning to Dallas, the couple gets a bitter shock when Felipe is detained and then deported by Homeland Security. The only way for him to re-enter the country is for the couple to marry, something they both vowed never to do again. Essentially, “sentenced to marry by the Homeland Security Department,” the pair spend the next year traveling the world while waiting for Felipe’s visa to be approved. Gilbert immerses herself in matrimonial research, interviewing women around the globe, and trying to come to terms with her ambivalence towards marriage.
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