"The Hundred Dresses"

New from Bloomsbury USA: The Hundred Dresses: The Most Iconic Styles of Our Time by Erin McKean, illustrated by Donna Mehalko.

About the book, from the publisher:

The dress is the last bit of femininity in our closets; it's the only item of clothing which (most) men and women don't share. Wearing a dress is a powerful way for women to express themselves--and every style conveys a different message. Inspired by the Eleanor Estes' children's classic The Hundred Dresses, Erin McKean's classic-to-be by the same title, with chic illustrations by Donna Mehalko, is a definitive look at the dresses, vintage and modern, that make an inarguable statement about the woman who wears them.

Each evocatively illustrated entry identifies one of a hundred different dresses accompanied by a witty and informative look at the history of that particular style, famous wearers (if applicable), and what message, subtle or overt, is conveyed by the dress. Notes on where such a style could be observed and accessories of the wearer are also included.

Featured are The Wench; The Sari; The Vreeland; The Wrap; The Austen; The Beckham; The Siren (any style, as long as it's red); The Chanel Ingenue; The Caftan; The Guinivere; The Jackie; The Slip Dress; The Biohazard (any dress dangerous to bystanders or the wearer: think Lady Gaga); and scores more. The book also includes a suggested reading list of fashion books, dresses from literature, and an index.

Part style commentary, part fashion blueprint, part clever field guide, The Hundred Dresses will ensure that no woman (or man) ever underestimates the power of the dress.

Visit Erin McKean's "A Dress A Day" blog.

The Page 69 Test: McKean's That's Amore.

Writers Read: Erin McKean (June 2007).

"Painted Hands"

New from Thomas Dunne Books: Painted Hands: A Novel by Jennifer Zobair.

About the book, from the publisher:

Muslim bad girl Zainab Mir has just landed a job working for a post-feminist, Republican Senate candidate. Her best friend Amra Abbas is about to make partner at a top Boston law firm. Together they’ve thwarted proposal-slinging aunties, cultural expectations, and the occasional bigot to succeed in their careers. What they didn’t count on? Unlikely men and geopolitical firestorms.

When a handsome childhood friend reappears, Amra makes choices that Zainab considers so 1950s—choices that involve the perfect Banarasi silk dress and a four-bedroom house in the suburbs. After hiding her long work hours during their courtship, Amra struggles to balance her demanding job and her unexpectedly traditional new husband.

Zainab has her own problems. She generates controversy in the Muslim community with a suggestive magazine spread and friendship with a gay reporter. Her rising profile also inflames neocons like Chase Holland, the talk radio host who attacks her religion publicly but privately falls for her hard. When the political fallout from a terrorist attempt jeopardizes Zainab's job and protests surrounding a woman-led Muslim prayer service lead to violence, Amra and Zainab must decide what they’re willing to risk for their principles, their friendship, and love.

Jennifer Zobair's Painted Hands is The Namesake meets Sex and the City, an engaging and provocative debut novel about friendship and the love lives of American Muslim women.

Visit Jennifer Zobair's website.

"The Society for Useful Knowledge"

New from Bloomsbury USA: The Society for Useful Knowledge: How Benjamin Franklin and Friends Brought the Enlightenment to America by Jonathan Lyons.

About the book, from the publisher:

With the "first Drudgery" of settling the American colonies now well and truly past, Benjamin Franklin announced in 1743, it was high time that the colonists set about improving the lot of humankind through collaborative inquiry. From Franklin's idea emerged the American Philosophical Society, an association hosted in Philadelphia and dedicated to the harnessing of man's intellectual and creative powers for the common good. The animus behind the Society was and is a disarmingly simple one-that the value of knowledge is directly proportional to its utility. This straightforward idea has left a profound mark on American society and culture and on the very idea of America itself-and through America, on the world as a whole.

From celebrated historian of knowledge Jonathan Lyons comes The Society for Useful Knowledge, telling the story of America's coming-of-age through its historic love affair with practical invention, applied science, and self-reliance. Lyons illustrates how a social movement in support of useful knowledge is key to understanding the flow of American history and the development of our society and culture from colonial times to our digital present.

Visit Jonathan Lyons's website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: Islam Through Western Eyes.

Writers Read: Jonathan Lyons.

"The Attacking Ocean"

New from Bloomsbury USA: The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels by Brian Fagan.

About the book, from the publisher:

The past fifteen thousand years--the entire span of human civilization--have witnessed dramatic sea level changes, which began with rapid global warming at the end of the Ice Age, when sea levels were more than 700 feet below modern levels. Over the next eleven millennia, the oceans climbed in fits and starts. These rapid changes had little effect on those humans who experienced them, partly because there were so few people on earth, and also because they were able to adjust readily to new coastlines.

Global sea levels stabilized about six thousand years ago except for local adjustments that caused often quite significant changes to places like the Nile Delta. So the curve of inexorably rising seas flattened out as urban civilizations developed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and South Asia. The earth's population boomed, quintupling from the time of Christ to the Industrial Revolution. The threat from the oceans increased with our crowding along shores to live, fish, and trade.

Since 1860, the world has warmed significantly and the ocean's climb has speeded. The sea level changes are cumulative and gradual; no one knows when they will end. The Attacking Ocean, from celebrated author Brian Fagan, tells a tale of the rising complexity of the relationship between humans and the sea at their doorsteps, a complexity created not by the oceans, which have changed but little. What has changed is us, and the number of us on earth.

Learn more about the author and his work at Brian Fagan's website.

The Page 99 Test: Fagan's The Great Warming.

"You Look Different in Real Life"

New from HarperTeen: You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle.

About the book, from the publisher:

For the rest of the world, the movies are entertainment. For Justine, they're real life.

The premise was simple: five kids, just living their lives. There'd be a new movie about them every five years, starting in kindergarten. But no one could have predicted what the cameras would capture. And no one could have predicted that Justine would be the star.

Now sixteen, Justine doesn't feel like a star anymore. In fact, when she hears the crew has gotten the green light to film Five at Sixteen, all she feels is dread. The kids who shared the same table in kindergarten have become teenagers who hardly know one another. And Justine, who was so funny and edgy in the first two movies, feels like a disappointment.

But these teens have a bond that goes deeper than what's on film. They've all shared the painful details of their lives with countless viewers. They all know how it feels to have fans as well as friends. So when this latest movie gives them the chance to reunite, Justine and her costars are going to take it. Because sometimes, the only way to see yourself is through someone else's eyes.

Smart, fresh, and frequently funny, You Look Different in Real Life is a piercing novel about life in an age where the lines between what's personal and what's public aren't always clear.

Visit Jennifer Castle's website and blog.

"Duel with the Devil"

New from Crown: Duel with the Devil: The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to Take on America's First Sensational Murder Mystery by Paul Collins.

About the book, from the publisher:

Duel with the Devil is acclaimed historian Paul Collins’ remarkable true account of a stunning turn-of-the-19th century murder and the trial that ensued – a showdown in which iconic political rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr joined forces to make sure justice was done. Still our nation’s longest running “cold case,” the mystery of Elma Sands finally comes to a close with this book, which delivers the first substantial break in the case in over 200 years.

In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic. Waging a fierce battle for its uncertain future were two political parties: the well-moneyed Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the populist Republicans, led by Aaron Burr. The two finest lawyers in New York, Burr and Hamilton were bitter rivals both in and out of the courtroom, and as the next election approached—with Manhattan likely to be the swing district on which the presidency would hinge—their animosity reached a crescendo. Central to their dispute was the Manhattan water supply, which Burr saw not just as an opportunity to help a city devastated by epidemics but as a chance to heal his battered finances.

But everything changed when Elma Sands, a beautiful young Quaker woman, was found dead in Burr's newly constructed Manhattan Well. The horrific crime quickly gripped the nation, and before long accusations settled on one of Elma’s suitors, handsome young carpenter Levi Weeks. As the enraged city demanded a noose be draped around the accused murderer’s neck, the only question seemed to be whether Levi would make it to trial or be lynched first.

The young man’s only hope was to hire a legal dream team. And thus it was that New York’s most bitter political rivals and greatest attorneys did the unthinkable—they teamed up.

At once an absorbing legal thriller and an expertly crafted portrait of the United States in the time of the Founding Fathers, Duel with the Devil is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction.

Visit Paul Collins's website.

"Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel"

New from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel by Diana López.

About the book, from the publisher:

It's summer before eighth grade, and Erica "Chia" Montenegro is feeling so many things that she needs a mood ring to keep track of her emotions. She's happy when she hangs out with her best friends, the Robins. She's jealous that her genius little sister skipped two grades. And she's passionate about the crushes on her Boyfriend Wish list. And when Erica's mom is diagnosed with breast cancer, she feels worried and doesn't know what she can do to help.

When her family visits a cuarto de milagros, a miracle room in a famous church, Erica decides to make a promesa to God in exchange for her mom's health. As her mom gets sicker, Erica quickly learns that juggling family, friends, school, and fulfilling a promesa is stressful, but with a little bit of hope and a lot of love, she just might be able to figure it out.

Confetti Girl author Diana Lopez returns with this sweet, funny, and utterly honest story about being a girl in a world full of good (and bad) surprises.

Learn more about the book and author at Diana López's website.

Writers Read: Diana López (July 2012).

"The Celestials"

New from Tin House: The Celestials by Karen Shepard.

About the book, from the publisher:

In June of 1870, seventy-five Chinese laborers arrived in North Adams, Massachusetts, to work for Calvin Sampson, one of the biggest industrialists in that busy factory town. Except for the foreman, the Chinese didn’t speak English. They didn’t know they were strikebreakers. The eldest of them was twenty-two.

Combining historical and fictional elements, The Celestials beautifully reimagines the story of Sampson’s “Chinese experiment” and the effect of the newcomers’ threatening and exotic presence on the New England locals. When Sampson’s wife, Julia, gives birth to a mixed-race baby, the infant becomes a lightning rod for the novel’s conflicts concerning identity, alienation, and exile.

Visit Karen Shepard's website.

"Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body"

New from W.W. Norton: Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body by Hugh Aldersey-Williams.

About the book, from the publisher:

An eye-opening, spine-tingling, heartwarming tour through the extraordinary history and secrets of the human body.

The human body is the most fraught and fascinating, talked-about and taboo, unique yet universal fact of our lives. It is the inspiration for art, the subject of science, and the source of some of the greatest stories ever told. In Anatomies, acclaimed author of Periodic Tales Hugh Aldersey-Williams brings his entertaining blend of science, history, and culture to bear on this richest of subjects.

In an engaging narrative that ranges from ancient body art to plastic surgery today and from head to toe, Aldersey-Williams explores the corporeal mysteries that make us human: Why are some people left-handed and some blue-eyed? What is the funny bone, anyway? Why do some cultures think of the heart as the seat of our souls and passions, while others place it in the liver?

A journalist with a knack for telling a story, Aldersey-Williams takes part in a drawing class, attends the dissection of a human body, and visits the doctor’s office and the morgue. But Anatomies draws not just on medical science and Aldersey-Williams’s reporting. It draws also on the works of philosophers, writers, and artists from throughout history. Aldersey-Williams delves into our shared cultural heritage—Shakespeare to Frankenstein, Rembrandt to 2001: A Space Odyssey—to reveal how attitudes toward the human body are as varied as human history, as he explains the origins and legacy of tattooing, shrunken heads, bloodletting, fingerprinting, X-rays, and more.

From Adam’s rib to van Gogh’s ear to Einstein’s brain, Anatomies is a treasure trove of surprising facts and stories and a wonderful embodiment of what Aristotle wrote more than two millennia ago: “The human body is more than the sum of its parts.”

Visit Hugh Aldersey-Williams's website.

"The Tower"

New from William Morrow: The Tower by Simon Toyne.

About the book, from the publisher:

After the rise comes the fall

When a cyber-attack at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland disables the Hubble telescope and the Nobel Prize–winning scientist in charge disappears, the only clues left behind are a cryptic countdown clock and a chilling message displayed on the missing man's computer: Mankind Must Look No Further.

Newly appointed FBI agent Joe Shepherd, a former academic star with degrees in astrophysics and computer science, is uniquely qualified to handle the investigation, but he is also hiding some secrets of his own. He discovers a note in the missing scientist's handwriting that reads "end of days" and further evidence linking the cyber-attack to a series of strange events from eight months earlier—an explosion at the Citadel, an ancient monastery in Turkey; the deadly viral outbreak that occurred in its wake; and the disappearance of an American journalist named Liv Adamsen and ex–special forces operative Gabriel Mann.

Liv has been trapped in the Syrian Desert, a prisoner of the prophecy that drove her there and now whispers of terrible things to come. Gabriel, infected and tormented by the deadly virus he carried out of the Citadel, is desperate to return before it spreads.

Shepherd's investigation takes him on a journey to the secrets at the very edge of the universe and also deep into his own past as the countdown clock continues and extraordinary events begin to manifest around the globe—animals migrating out of season, extreme weather battering the planet, people deserting the cities as they answer a growing urge to return to their original homes. In this exhilarating conclusion to the internationally bestselling Ruin trilogy, one woman's destiny weaves the past and present together in a way that will change the future for us all. But what is the "end of days" and what does it really mean for humankind—will it be revelation or devastation?

Learn more about the book and author at Simon Toyne's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: Sanctus.

Writers Read: Simon Toyne.

The Page 69 Test: Sanctus.