The House of Tomorrowby Peter Bognanni
A debut novel about first friendships and teenage alienation.
Sixteen-year-old Sebastian Prendergast leads a sheltered life in a geodesic dome with his grandmother, who doubles as a parent and his home-school teacher. However, all that changes when his grandmother has a stroke and he is forced to leave his little bubble and enter the real world, where he meets Jared Whitcomb, who exemplifies everything that Sebastian is not. Whitcomb is a chain-smoker who sports a leather jacket, listens to punk rock, and is the recipient of a heart transplant. Through Jared, Sebastian is introduced to the new world of grape soda, The Stooges, Sid Vicious, and girls. Eventually the two friends form a punk band and life seems good, but before Sebastian can truly embrace his new life, he must decide if he is ready to let his old one go. Peter Bognanni’s debut novel is a moving narrative of personal freedom, teenage exploration, and revolt. “The boys here don't come of age—girls are just beginning to exist and lifelong struggles are only taking root—but their connection is an honest, noisy, and raucous look at friendship and how loud music can make almost everything better,” Publishers Weekly wrote.
The Devil and Sherlock Holmesby David Grann
A New Yorker writer’s elegant exploration of 12 mysteries just strange enough to be true.
The truth is always stranger than fiction, even when it comes to murder mysteries. That’s the take-home lesson of New Yorker writer David Grann’s latest collection, which brings together 12 stories of real-life mysteries, each one stranger and more gripping than the last. From a Sherlock Holmes expert found dead as he’s on the cusp of a major discovery to a scientist on a Moby-Dick-esque search for a giant squid, Grann’s expertly crafted stories also explore the effects of obsession, providing a fascinating (sometimes morbidly so) look at human nature. After the blockbuster success of his last book, The Lost City of Z, which The New York Times called “suspenseful” and “rollicking” with “all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller and all the verisimilitude of firsthand reportage,” this new one is sure to please fans.
Major Pettigrew’s Last Standby Helen Simonson
An unexpected love story set in a typically atypical small town.
In her pitch-perfect first novel, Helen Simonson follows the plight of Major Ernest Pettigrew, a staunchly traditional English widower having trouble navigating his changing circumstances. Much to his chagrin, Pettrigrew hasn’t managed to pass his values on to his son Roger, and Simonson knowingly takes the reader though the major’s efforts to recover family heirlooms from Roger and other careless relatives after the death of his younger brother. Along the way, Pettigrew slowly develops an unexpected romance with his Pakistani neighbor Jasmina Ali and the couple faces bumbling opposition from an endearingly bizarre cast of local characters. In what Publisher’s Weekly called a “charming debut novel” and “a vastly enjoyable traipse through the English countryside,” Simonson has crafted a classic comedy of love and manners in a small town.
Econnedby Yves Smith
Why economists are as guilty as Wall Street for the recession.
There has been endless finger-pointing in the wake of the financial crisis, but Econned is the first book to truly look at the damage done by the economists who first set out America’s flawed financial policies. Smith tells the frightening story of the way so-called financial “experts” were oblivious to the reality of the U.S. economy over the past several decades, ignored warning signs, and followed theories that have been discredited for years. Drawing on close to 30 years of experience working as an investment banker, a management consultant, and a corporate-finance adviser, Smith also turns a skeptical eye on measures taken by the Obama administration to stave off further crisis. Econned has earned the stamp of approval of some of the world’s best financial minds, including economist Nouriel Roubini, who said “the book must be read by everyone from Wall Street to Washington.”
Never Tell Our Business to Strangers: A Memoirby Jennifer Mascia
A startling memoir from a daughter of the Mob.
Jennifer Mascia grew up the daughter of a mobster, moving from place to place as her family tried to dodge the law. She didn’t realize it, though, until the day FBI agents came to her home and arrested her father, beginning a chain of discoveries about her family’s past, including her father’s murder conviction, various half-siblings, and the fake last name (“Cassese”) they’d been using for her entire life. Now a reporter for The New York Times, Mascia first honed her craft putting together the clues of her own twisted family history, and has retold their story with equal parts humor, skepticism, and sentimentality resulting in a memoir Helene Stapinski (author of Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family) called “remarkable and impossible to put down.”
