"Last Rituals"

New from William Morrow: Last Rituals: An Icelandic Novel of Secret Symbols, Medieval Witchcraft, and Modern Murder by Yrsa Sigurdardottir.

About the book, from the publisher:

The spellbinding debut and international sensation being published in thirty countries featuring Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, a smart, sexy lawyer and investigator whose hunt for a modern murderer points to a very odd — and evil — chapter in Iceland's past

After the body of a young German student — with his eyes cut out and strange symbols carved into his chest — is discovered at a university in Reykjavík, the police waste no time in making an arrest. The victim's family isn't convinced they have the right man, however, so they ask Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, attorney and single mother of two, to investigate. The fee is considerable — more than enough to make things a bit easier for the struggling lawyer and her children.

It's not long before Thóra and Matthew Reich, her new associate, discover something unusual about the deceased student: He had been obsessed with the country's grisly history of torture, execution, and witch hunts — a topic made all the more peculiar by the fact that unlike witch hunts in other countries, those in Iceland had targeted men . . . not women.

As Thóra and Matthew dig deeper, they make the connection between long-bygone customs and the student's murder. But the shadow of dark traditions conceals secrets in both the past and the present, and the investigators soon realize that nothing is as it seems . . . and that no one can be trusted.

"Churchill and the Jews"

New from Henry Holt: Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship by Martin Gilbert.

About the book, from the publisher:

An insightful history of Churchill’s lifelong commitment—both public and private — to the Jews and Zionism, and of his outspoken opposition to anti-Semitism

Winston Churchill was a young man in 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was convicted of treason and sent to Devil’s Island. Despite the prevailing anti-Semitism in England as well as on the Continent, Churchill’s position was clear: he supported Dreyfus, and condemned the prejudices that had led to his conviction.

Churchill’s commitment to Jewish rights, to Zionism — and ultimately to the State of Israel — never wavered. In 1922, he established on the bedrock of international law the right of Jews to emigrate to Palestine. During his meeting with David Ben-Gurion in 1960, Churchill presented the Israeli prime minister with an article he had written about Moses, praising the father of the Jewish people.

Drawing on a wide range of archives and private papers, speeches, newspaper coverage, and wartime correspondence, Churchill’s official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, explores the origins, implications, and results of Churchill’s determined commitment to Jewish rights, opening a window on an underappreciated and heroic aspect of the brilliant politician’s life and career.

"The Worst Thing I’ve Done"

New from Touchstone Books: The Worst Thing I've Done by Ursula Hegi.

About the book, from the publisher:

-- ask me, Annie. Ask me what's the worst thing I've done. Ask, goddammit. Because then you'll know I'll never go beyond last night.

Tonight, Annie is driving alone from North Sea to Montauk and back again, as she has every night since her husband, Mason, challenged what she believed about herself and about their marriage. Eating junk food and listening to talk radio, Annie tries to shut out her rage, her pain, but Mason's voice persists within her, as urgent as the voices of the anonymous callers who confess their misery to the radio psychologists.

Once again, Ursula Hegi writes along that border where bliss and sorrow meet. Sensuous, funny, and mysterious, her new novel takes us into an exuberant and troubled friendship. Since early childhood, Annie, Jake, and Mason have had a special bond. When Annie's parents die on the same night that she and Mason are married, the three friends decide to raise Annie's newborn sister, Opal, together.

Annie struggles to be both a sister and a mother to Opal, a wife to Mason, and a friend to Jake. Not surprisingly, their relationships, already entangled, grow dangerous, too close, on the line. One fateful night the three friends miss the moment when they could still turn back, and they goad each other to step across the line, with shocking, unforeseen consequences.

Set on the East End of Long Island, The Worst Thing I've Done is an incandescent story of love, friendship, and marriage; of joy and betrayal; of an artist's struggle to reconnect with her work; and of how we can choose our mothers, our families. Beautifully written and brilliantly vivid, it explores the resilience in the protagonists' lives, and their courage to move forward despite an uncertain future.

Read Cherie Thiessen's review of The Worst Thing I’ve Done in January Magazine.

"The Dead Guy Interviews"

New from Penguin Books: The Dead Guy Interviews: Conversations with 45 of the Most Accomplished, Notorious, and Deceased Personalities in History by Michael A. Stusser.

About the book, from the publisher:

The interviewees in this irreverent book may not have a pulse, but, boy, can they talk!

Ever wanted to ask Nostradamus for the winning lotto numbers or van Gogh about the whole ear episode? How about Napoleon about his complex, or if Frida might consider a brow wax? In The Dead Guy Interviews, journalist Michael Stusser has created forty-five interviews with some of the most famous personalities of all time, asking them probing questions about their lives, accomplishments, and what’s on their iPods. Based on his column in the acclaimed magazine mental_floss, this collection of conversations is incredibly funny, but each interview is also based on serious research, so in addition to laughing, readers actually learn real history.

The Dead Guy Interviews includes discussions with:
Alexander the Great
Beethoven
Napoléon Bonaparte
Buddha
Julius Caesar
Caligula
George Washington
Carver
Catherine the Great
Winston Churchill
Cleopatra
Confucius
Crazy Horse
Salvador Dalí
Charles Darwin
Emily Dickinson
Albert Einstein
Benjamin Franklin
Sigmund Freud
Genghis Khan
Vincent van Gogh
Henry VIII
J. Edgar Hoover
Harry Houdini
Thomas Jefferson
Joan of Arc
Robert Johnson
Frida Kahlo
Leonardo da Vinci
Abraham Lincoln
Mao Tse-tung
Karl Marx
Michelangelo
Montezuma
Mozart
Nostradamus
Edgar Allan Poe
William Shakespeare
Sun Tzu
Mae West
Oscar Wilde

"Grub"

New from The Toby Press: Grub by Elise Blackwell.

About the book, from the publisher:

A long overdue retelling of New Grub Street — George Gissing’s classic satire of the Victorian literary marketplace — Grub chronicles the triumphs and humiliations of a group of young novelists living in and around New York City.

Eddie Renfros, on the brink of failure after his critically acclaimed first book, wants only to publish another novel and hang on to his beautiful wife, Amanda, who has her own literary ambitions and a bit of a roving eye. Among their circle are writers of every stripe — from the Machiavellian Jackson Miller to the ‘experimental writer’ Henry who lives in squalor while seeking the perfect sentence. Amid an assortment of scheming agents, editors, and hangers-on, each writer must negotiate the often competing demands of success and integrity, all while grappling with inner demons and the stabs of professional and personal jealousy. The question that nags at them is this: What is it to write a novel in the twenty-first century?

Pointedly funny and compassionate, Grub reveals what the publishing industry does to writers — and what writers do to themselves for the sake of art and to each other in the pursuit of celebrity.

Read an excerpt from Grub.

"Slicing the Silence"

New from Harvard University Press: Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica by Tom Griffiths.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Scott and Shackleton to sled dogs and penguins, stories of Antarctica seize our imagination. In December 2002, environmental historian Tom Griffiths set sail with the Australian Antarctic Division to deliver the new team of winterers. In this beautifully written book, Griffiths reflects on the history of human experiences in Antarctica, taking the reader on a journey of discovery, exploration, and adventure in an unforgettable land.

He weaves together meditations on shipboard life during his three-week voyage with fascinating forays into the history and nature of Antarctica. He brings alive the great age of sail in the initiation of travelers to the great winds of the "roaring forties." No continent is more ruled by wind, and Griffiths explains why Antarctica is a barometer of global climatic health. He charts the race to the South Pole, from its inception as part of the drive to map Earth's magnetism, to the reasons for Robert Scott's tragic death. He also offers vivid descriptions of life in Antarctica, such as the experience of a polar night, the importance of food for morale, and coping with solitude.

A charming narrative and an informative history, Slicing the Silence is an intimate portrait of the last true wilderness.

"Deadly Vintage"

New from Perseverance Press: Elaine Flinn's Deadly Vintage.

About the book, from the author's website:

Life is sweet for Molly Doyle. Treasures Antiques, the Carmel shop she manages, is doing well. Her niece, Emma, continues to enrich her life, and her personal relationship with Randall, the chief of police, has reached an interesting plateau. Eager to branch out into interior decorations, Molly takes on a lucrative commission to refurbish the wine tasting rooms at Bello Lago, a prestigious family-owned winery in Carmel Valley. But Molly soon finds herself in the middle of the dysfunctional family’s squabbles when they end in murder - and she’s a prime suspect! Even worse, Emma’s future is at stake when a stranger walks into Treasures and…

"Exit Ghost"

New from Houghton Mifflin: Philip Roth's Exit Ghost.

About the book, from the publisher:

Like Rip Van Winkle returning to his hometown to find that all has changed, Nathan Zuckerman comes back to New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England mountain, Zuckerman has been nothing but a writer: no voices, no media, no terrorist threats, no women, no news, no tasks other than his work and the enduring of old age.

Walking the streets like a revenant, he quickly makes three connections that explode his carefully protected solitude. One is with a young couple with whom, in a rash moment, he offers to swap homes. They will flee post-9/11 Manhattan for his country refuge, and he will return to city life. But from the time he meets them, Zuckerman also wants to swap his solitude for the erotic challenge of the young woman, Jamie, whose allure draws him back to all that he thought he had left behind: intimacy, the vibrant play of heart and body.

The second connection is with a figure from Zuckerman’s youth, Amy Bellette, companion and muse to Zuckerman’s first literary hero, E. I. Lonoff. The once irresistible Amy is now an old woman depleted by illness, guarding the memory of that grandly austere American writer who showed Nathan the solitary path to a writing vocation.

The third connection is with Lonoff’s would-be biographer, a young literary hound who will do and say nearly anything to get to Lonoff’s “great secret.” Suddenly involved, as he never wanted or intended to be involved again, with love, mourning, desire, and animosity, Zuckerman plays out an interior drama of vivid and poignant possibilities.

Haunted by Roth’s earlier work The Ghost Writer, Exit Ghost is an amazing leap into yet another phase in this great writer’s insatiable commitment to fiction.

"The Snake Stone"

New from Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Sarah Crichton Books: The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin.

About the book, from the publisher:

The captivating return of Yashim, the eunuch investigator from the intelligent, elliptical and beguilingly written" (The Times, London) bestseller The Janissary Tree

When a French archaeologist arrives in 1830s Istanbul determined to track down a lost Byzantine treasure, the local Greek communities are uncertain how to react; the man seems dangerously well informed. Yashim Togalu, who so brilliantly solved the mysterious murders in The Janissary Tree, is once again enlisted to investigate. But when the archaeologist’s mutilated body is discovered outside the French embassy, it turns out there is only one suspect: Yashim himself.

The New York Times celebrated The Janissary Tree as “the perfect escapist mystery,” and The Daily Telegraph called it “[A] tremendous first novel . . . Beautifully written, perfectly judged, humane, witty and captivating.”

With The Snake Stone, Jason Goodwin delights us with another transporting romp through the back streets of nineteenth-century Istanbul. Yashim finds himself racing against time once again, to uncover the startling truth behind a shadowy society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, encountering along the way such vibrant characters as Lord Byron’s doctor and the sultan’s West Indies–born mother, the Valide. Armed only with a unique sixteenth-century book, the dashing eunuch leads us into a world where the stakes are high, betrayal is death — and the pleasure to the reader is immense.

"Sword of God"

New from Jove Books: Chris Kuzneski's Sword of God.

About the book, from the author's website:

Off the coast of South Korea, a young boy discovers a cave that is soaked in human blood. Less than a week later, everyone in his village disappears….

In Saudi Arabia, a female archaeologist unearths an artifact that threatens the historical foundation of Islam. To some Muslims, it is a discovery that must be silenced at all costs.

Meanwhile, in a secret bunker run by U.S. intelligence, the unthinkable has happened. While interrogating one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, a former member of the MANIAC Special Forces squad is brutally executed.

Jonathon Payne and D.J. Jones, his former commanders, offer to spearhead the investigation. They quickly realize that there is more to this atrocity than terrorist reprisal — there is a plot in motion that will burn the world in the fires of a holy war. And it's up to them to stop it.