New Titles from Penguin
Pharmakon, or The Story of a Happy Family
Wittenborn, Dirk
An honest, insightful , and ruefully funny look at the fate of one American family vis-à-vis the rise of modern psychopharmacology, Pharmakon, or The Story of a Happy Family is nothing less than a contemporary epic. The novel follows William Friedrich, an ambitious professor of psychology at Yale in the early 1950s, who has stumbled upon a drug that promises happiness to those who ingest it and fame and fortune to the man who can synthesize it. But when a brilliant and troubled research subject commits murder, the consequences will haunt Friedrich and his family for years to come.
Killer Summer
Pearson, Ridley
Sun Valley sheriff Walt Fleming returns in this high-intensity thriller from New York Times- bestselling author Ridley Pearson. Sun Valley, Idaho-playground of the wealthy and politically connected-is home to an annual wine auction that attracts high rollers from across the country, and Blaine County Sheriff Walt Fleming is the one who must ensure it goes off without a hitch. The world's most elite wine connoisseurs have descended on Sun Valley to taste and bid on the world's best wines, including three bottles claimed to have been a gift from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams. With sky-high prices all but guaranteed for these historic items, it's no wonder a group of thieves is out to steal them. Walt is responsible for all aspects of the glitzy event, from security of the dignitaries to the physical safety of the auction site to the transportation and safeguard of the wines themselves. Walt is enjoying a rare afternoon of freedom, fly-fishing with his nephew, Kevin, when a passing truck catches his eye- his suspicions throwing him headlong into the discovery of a complicated plan to steal the rare wine. When a bomb detonates just as the auction revs up, the investigation explodes as well, pulling Walt in a dozen different directions. It seems Walt is caught in the middle of a heist of epic proportions-and not the heist he had prepared for-all orchestrated by the ingenious mind of Christopher Cantell, a man who appears to have covered everything, including the way Walt's own sheriff's office will react.
When the Whistle Blows
Slayton, Fran
Jimmy lives in Rowlesburg, West Virginia, during the 1940s. He does all the things boys do in the small mountain town: plays a mean game of football, pulls the unforgettable Halloween prank with his friends in ?the Platoon,? and promises to head off into the woods on the first day of hunting season? no matter what. He also knows his father belongs to a secret society, and is determined to uncover the mysteries behind it! But it is a midnight encounter with a train that shows Jimmy the man his father really is. Newcomer Fran Cannon Slayton?s powerful first novel captures the serendipity of boyhood by shining a spotlight on the peak adventures of Jimmy?s life. But at its heart, this is a story about a boy and his father in a time when trains reigned supreme. ?When the Whistle Blows is reminiscent of classic tales by Jack London, William Golding and Robert Louis Stevenson, yet carries the remarkable, fresh voice of its author. Fran Cannon Slayton should be extremely proud of this, her debut novel.??Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank and Identical.
Medusa
Cussler, Clive
For seven books, Clive Cussler has dazzled readers with the 'spine-tingling adventures' (Chicago Tribune) of Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala, and the rest of the NUMA® Special Assignments Team, but in Medusa the NUMA® team faces what may be its most perilous mission of all. In the Micronesian Islands, a top secret, U.S. government sponsored undersea lab conducting vital biomedical research on a rare jellyfish known as the Blue Medusa suddenly . . . disappears. At the same time, off Bermuda, a bathysphere is attacked by an underwater vehicle and left helpless a half mile below the surface, its passengers, including Zavala, left to die. Only Kurt Austin's heroic measures save them from a watery grave, but, suspecting a connection, Austin puts the NUMA® team on the case. He has no idea what he's just gotten them all into. A hideous series of medical experiments . . . an extraordinarily ambitious Chinese criminal organization . . . a secret new virus that threatens to set off a worldwide pandemic. Austin and Zavala have been in tight spots before, but this time it's not just their own skins they're trying to save; it's the lives of millions. Filled with the high-stakes suspense and boundless invention unique to Cussler, Medusa is the most thrilling novel yet from the grand master of adventure.
A Hero of Our Time
Lermontov, Mikhail
A brilliant new translation of a perennial favorite of Russian Literature The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled upon publication. Its dissipated hero, twenty-five-year-old Pechorin, is a beautiful and magnetic but nihilistic young army officer, bored by life and indifferent to his many sexual conquests. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov in Lermontov¿s own century, and finds its modern-day counterparts in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, the novels of Chuck Palahniuk, and the films and plays of Neil LaBute.
Farm City
Carpenter, Novella
Urban and rural collide in this wry, inspiring memoir of a woman who turned a vacant lot in downtown Oakland into a thriving farm Novella Carpenter loves cities-the culture, the crowds, the energy. At the same time, she can't shake the fact that she is the daughter of two back-to-the-land hippies who taught her to love nature and eat vegetables. Ambivalent about repeating her parents' disastrous mistakes, yet drawn to the idea of backyard self-sufficiency, Carpenter decided that it might be possible to have it both ways: a homegrown vegetable plot as well as museums, bars, concerts, and a twenty-four-hour convenience mart mere minutes away. Especially when she moved to a ramshackle house in inner city Oakland and discovered a weed-choked, garbage-strewn abandoned lot next door. She closed her eyes and pictured heirloom tomatoes, a beehive, and a chicken coop. What started out as a few egg-laying chickens led to turkeys, geese, and ducks. Soon, some rabbits joined the fun, then two three-hundred-pound pigs. And no, these charming and eccentric animals weren't pets; she was a farmer, not a zookeeper. Novella was raising these animals for dinner...
New Releases
for the Week of June 28, 2009
The Flying Carpet of Small Miracles
Jaber, Hala
The inspiring true story of a prizewinning foreign correspondent longing for a child, two small Iraqi girls in need of a mother, and what love and grief can teach us about family and hope. Zahra, age three, and Hawra, only a few months old, were the only survivors of a missile strike in Baghdad in 2003 that killed their parents and five siblings. Across the world, in London, foreign correspondent Hala Jaber was preparing to head to Iraq to cover the emerging war. After ten years spent trying to conceive, Jaber and her husband had finally resigned themselves to a childless future. Now she intended to bury her grief in her work, with some unusually dangerous reporting. Once in Iraq, though, Jaber found herself drawn again and again to stories of mothers and children, a path that led her to an Iraqi children's hospital, and to Zahra and Hawra and their heart-wrenching story. Almost instantly Jaber became entwined in the lives of these girls, and in a struggle to advocate on their behalf that reveals far more about the human cost of war than any news bulletin ever could. Beautifully written and deeply moving, The Flying Carpet of Small Miracles presents a genuinely fresh insight and perspective from a woman who, as an Arab living and working in the West, is able to uniquely straddle both worlds. In its attention to the emotional experiences of women and children whose lives are irrevocably changed by war, Jaber's story offers hope for redemption for those caught in its cross fires.
Rocket Men
Nelson, Craig
A richly detailed and dramatic account of one of the greatest achievements of humankind At 9:32 A.M. on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 rocket launched in the presence of more than a million spectators who had gathered to witness a truly historic event. It carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins to the last frontier of human imagination: the moon. Rocket Men is the thrilling story of the moon mission, and it restores the mystery and majesty to an event that may have become too familiar for most people to realize what a stunning achievement it represented in planning, technology, and execution. Through interviews, twenty-three thousand pages of NASA oral histories, and declassified CIA documents on the space race, Craig Nelson re-creates a vivid and detailed account of the Apollo 11 mission. From the quotidian to the scientific to the magical, readers are taken right into the cockpit with Aldrin and Armstrong and behind the scenes at Mission Control. Rocket Men is the story of a twentieth-century pilgrimage; a voyage into the unknown motivated by politics, faith, science, and wonder that changed the course of history.
Ignore Everybody
MacLeod, Hugh
When Hugh MacLeod was a struggling young copywriter, living in a YMCA, he started to doodle on the backs of business cards while sitting at a bar. Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog "gapingvoid.com" and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures. MacLeod has opinions on everything from marketing to the meaning of life, but one of his main subjects is creativity. How do new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world? Where does inspiration come from? What does it take to make a living as a creative person? Now his first book, Ignore Everyone, expands on his sharpest insights, wittiest cartoons, and most useful advice. A sample: * Selling out is harder than it looks. Diluting your product to make it more commercial will just make people like it less. * If your plan depends on you suddenly being 'discovered' by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain. * Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one. * The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will. After learning MacLeod's 40 keys to creativity, you will be ready to unlock your own brilliance and unleash it on the world.
Down Around Midnight
Sabbag, Robert
A bestselling author tells the terrifying and inspiring story of the plane crash he survived around midnight on June 17, 1979, Air New England flight 248 crashed into the woods on Cape Cod. The pilot died but the copilot and eight passengers survived with trauma both physical and emotional. Robert Sabbag, at the height of his fame for his bestselling book Snowblind, was among them. Down Around Midnight is Sabbag's gripping account of what exactly happened on that foggy night and his candid attempt to come to terms with the emotional ramifications of the crash. He reconnects with the other survivors and their rescuers for the first time in thirty years, weaving the narrative between past and present to create a thrilling and affecting story of survival and recovery. Like the best survivor tales, Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Joe Simpson's Touching the Void, Down Around Midnight is fast paced and mesmerizing. It is also a meditation on healing and the things we do to compartmentalize traumatic memories. Few people experience a plane crash and live to tell the story. Sabbag brings his striking, economical style to this personal tale of learning how to remember and how to endure.
Scandal Becomes Her
Busbee, Shirlee
New York Times bestselling author Shirlee Busbee weaves the intricate, unforgettable story of a chance meeting, a forced marriage-and the surprise of a love so passionate it cannot be denied... Love Is Sweetest When It's Unexpected Nell Anslowe and Julian, Earl of Wyndham, are an unlikely couple in every respect. Injured in a riding accident ten years ago, Nell was left with a fiancé who abandoned their engagement and the firm belief that she will never marry. The abrupt end of Julian's unhappy marriage formed his resolve to remain a bachelor until the end of his days. But as Julian chases down his reckless stepsister, he seeks shelter from a summer storm in a cottage-and finds it occupied by Nell, who has escaped from a fortune-seeking libertine bent on carrying her off to Gretna Green. Discovered together by Nell's family, the couple's hasty wedding is the only way to save Nell from scandal. But the polite union each of them expects soon ignites into something much more powerful...
Everything Matters
Currie, Jr., Ron
In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophesy: a comet will obliterate life on Earth in thirty-six years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: Does anything I do matter? While the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices, Junior's loved ones emerge with parallel stories; his anxious mother; his brother, a cocaine addict turned pro-baseball phenomenon; his exalted father, whose own mortality summons Junior's best and worst instincts; and Amy, the love of Junior's life and a North Star to his journey through romance and heartbreak, drug-addled despair, and superheroic feats that could save humanity. While our recognizable world is transformed into a bizarre nation at endgame, where government agents conspire in subterranean bunkers, preparing citizens for emigration from a doomed planet, Junior's final triumph confounds all expectation, building to an astonishing and deeply moving resolution. Ron Currie, Jr., gets to the heart of character, and the voices who narrate this uniquely American tour de force leave an indelible, exhilarating impression.
