"Lost Dog"

New this month: Lost Dog by Bill Cameron.

About the book, from the author's website:

Peter McKrall is at a crossroads — out of work, fighting a klepto habit, and trying to figure out his next move. Life takes an unexpected turn when a search for his niece’s stuffed dog leads him to something else entirely: a bullet-riddled corpse. Talking to reporters lands Peter on the local news, which turns out to be a dangerous spotlight. And now Darla, the troubled daughter of the victim, is reaching out to him — but can she be trusted? When a second murder takes place and evidence is planted in his trash, the cops dredge up Peter’s painful history. The only ray of sunshine in this harrowing nightmare is Ruby Jane, whose warm smile melts the winter chill.

An unwitting player in a bizarre chain of events, Peter has no idea that the deranged killer is after him — until he takes a shot at Ruby Jane.

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Set against the sodden backdrop of Portland, Oregon, Lost Dog tells of the intersection of one man's struggle against and another's embrace of powerful and self-destructive impulses.

Visit Bill Cameron's website and read an excerpt from Lost Dog.

"American Leviathan"

New this month from Hill & Wang: American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier by Patrick Griffin.

About the book, from the publisher:

The war that raged along America’s frontier during the period of the American Revolution was longer, bloodier, and arguably more revolutionary than what transpired on the Atlantic coast.

Between 1763 and 1795 westerners not only participated in a War of Independence but engaged in a revolution that ushered in fundamental changes in social relations, political allegiances, and assumptions about the relationship between individuals and society. On the frontier, the process of forging sovereignty and citizens was stripped down to its essence. Settlers struggled with the very stuff of revolution: violence, uncertainty, disorder, and the frenzied competition to remake the fabric of society. In so doing, they were transformed from deferential subjects to self-sovereign citizens as the British Empire gave way to the American nation. But something more fundamental was at work. The violent nature of the contest to reconstitute sovereignty produced a revolutionary settlement in which race and citizenship went hand in hand. The common people demanded as much, and the state delivered. As westerners contended in a Hobbesian world, they also created some of the myths that made America American.

Patrick Griffin recaptures a chaotic world of settlers, Indians, speculators, British regulars, and American and state officials, vying with one another to remake the West during its most formative period.

Watch for American Leviathan in the Page 69 Test series.

"Super Mom Saves The World"

Published in March: Melanie Lynne Hauser's Super Mom Saves The World.

About the book, from the author's website:

At the end of a long day at work, saving the world, you'd think Super Mom would get a break. But no. She still has to do battle with a foe more terrifying than the most dastardly of super villains - teenagers.

It's six months after the Horrible Swiffer Accident that left her a superhero, and Birdie Lee is still adjusting. For starters, she's hearing voices and having lustful thoughts about Mr. Clean. Then there's the fact that her daughter is suddenly sporting a bright pink streak in her hair, courtesy of her new friend Vienna (and if recent history has taught us anything, we all know that a girl named after a foreign city is going to be trouble). Birdie's son is experiencing his first case of puppy love, her nerdy scientist love interest has just proposed marriage, and her annoying ex-husband is suddenly less annoying. Which can only mean he's up to no good.

But things get even more sinister when her hometown of Astro Park gets Little League fever in a big way. Rabid parents, performance-enhancing Gatorade and a domed stadium on shaky - potentially explosive - ground are just the beginning of Super Mom's problems; throw in a ticked off school janitor and a corrupt mayor, and Super Mom has her hands full.

Read Super Mom Saves The World to find out how one woman - one mother - struggles to keep her teenagers in tow with one hand while saving her hometown from disaster with the other. While trying to find time for herself amidst the very real, very messy job of blending families as she plans her marriage to her very own Super Man.

Read the first chapter of Super Mom Saves The World.

"Acceptance"

New from Farrar, Straus and Giroux: Susan Coll's Acceptance.

About the book, from the publisher:

A comic chronicle of a year in the life in the college admissions cycle

It’s spring break of junior year and the college admissions hysteria is setting in. “AP” Harry (so named for the unprecedented number of advanced placement courses he has taken) and his mother take a detour from his first choice, Harvard, to visit Yates, a liberal arts school in the Northeast that is enjoying a surge in popularity as a result of a statistical error that landed it on the top-fifty list of the U.S. News & World Report rankings. There, on Yates’s dilapidated grounds, Harry runs into two of his classmates from Verona High, an elite public school in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There’s Maya Kaluantharana, a gifted athlete whose mediocre SAT scores so alarm her family that they declare her learning disabled, and Taylor Rockefeller, Harry’s brooding neighbor, who just wants a good look at the dormitory bathrooms.

With the human spirit of Tom Perrotta and the engaging honesty of Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep, Susan Coll reveals the frantic world of college admissions, where kids recalibrate their GPAs based on daily quizzes, families relocate to enhance the chance for Ivy League slots, and everyone is looking for the formula for admittance. Meanwhile, Yates admissions officer Olivia Sheraton sifts through applications looking for something — anything — to distinguish one applicant from the next. For all, the price of admission requires compromise; for a few, the ordeal blossoms into an unexpected journey of discovery.

"Welcome to Everytown"

Published last month by Granta Books: Julian Baggini's Welcome to Everytown.

About the book, from the publisher:

What do the English think? Every country has a dominant set of beliefs and attitudes concerning everything from how to live a good life, how we should organize society, and the roles of the sexes. Yet despite many attempts to define our national character, what might be called the nation's philosophy has remained largely unexamined. Until now. Philosopher Julian Baggini pinpointed postcode S66 on the outskirts of Rotherham, as England in microcosm – an area which reflected most accurately the full range of the nation's inhabitants, its most typical mix of urban and rural, old and young, married and single. He then spent six months living there, immersing himself in this typical English Everytown, in order to get to know the mind of a people.

It sees the world as full of patterns and order, a view manifest in its enjoyment of gambling. It has a functional, puritanical streak, evident in its notoriously bad cuisine. In the English mind, men should be men and women should be women (but it's not sure what children should be). Baggini's account of the English is both a portrait of its people and a personal story about being an alien in your own land. Sympathetic but critical, serious yet witty, Welcome to Everytown shows a country in which the familiar becomes strange, and the strange familiar.

"Crazy '08"

Available on Opening Day: Cait Murphy's Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the perspective of 2007, the unintentional irony of Chance's boast is manifest—these days, the question is when will the Cubs ever win a game they have to have. In October 1908, though, no one would have laughed: The Cubs were, without doubt, baseball's greatest team — the first dynasty of the 20th century.

Crazy '08 recounts the 1908 season — the year when Peerless Leader Frank Chance's men went toe to toe to toe with John McGraw and Christy Mathewson's New York Giants and Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh Pirates in the greatest pennant race the National League has ever seen. The American League has its own three-cornered pennant fight, and players like Cy Young, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and the egregiously crooked Hal Chase ensured that the junior circuit had its moments. But it was the National League's — and the Cubs' — year.

Crazy '08, however, is not just the exciting story of a great season. It is also about the forces that created modern baseball, and the America that produced it. In 1908, crooked pols run Chicago's First Ward, and gambling magnates control the Yankees. Fans regularly invade the field to do handstands or argue with the umps; others shoot guns from rickety grandstands prone to burning. There are anarchists on the loose and racial killings in the town that made Lincoln. On the flimsiest of pretexts, General Abner Doubleday becomes a symbol of Americanism, and baseball's own anthem, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," is a hit.

Picaresque and dramatic, 1908 is a season in which so many weird and wonderful things happen that it is somehow unsurprising that a hairpiece, a swarm of gnats, a sudden bout of lumbago, and a disaster down in the mines all play a role in its outcome. And sometimes the events are not so wonderful at all. There are several deaths by baseball, and the shadow of corruption creeps closer to the heart of baseball — the honesty of the game itself. Simply put, 1908 is the year that baseball grew up.

Oh, and it was the last time the Cubs won the World Series.

Destined to be as memorable as the season it documents, Crazy '08 sets a new standard for what a book about baseball can be.

"On War"

Oxford University Press has just released a new edition of On War by Carl von Clausewitz, edited by Beatrice Heuser.

About the book, from the publisher:

On War is one of the most important books ever written on the subject of war. Clausewitz, a Prussian officer who fought against the French during the Napoleonic Wars, sought to understand and analyze the phenomenon of war so that future leaders could conduct and win conflicts more effectively. He studied the human and social factors that affect outcomes, as well as the tactical and technological ones. He understood that war was a weapon of government, and that political purpose, chance, and enmity combine to shape its dynamics. On War continues to be read by military strategists, politicians, and others for its timeless insights.

This abridged edition by Beatrice Heuser, using the acclaimed translation by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, selects the central books in which Clausewitz's views on the nature and theory of war are developed. Heuser's introduction explains the originality of Clausewitz's ideas, his education and background, and summarizes his key theories, while explanatory notes provide further information on the historical examples Clausewitz cites.

"Final Sins"

Due out tomorrow: Michael Prescott's Final Sins.

About the book, from the author's website:

A decade ago, artist Peter Faust murdered a woman and was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Today, unrepentant and living in Los Angeles, he's become a celebrity among the radical fringe. When one of his fans turns to stalking him, he hires rogue security consultant Abby Sinclair for protection. Unfortunately for Abby, her longtime adversary, FBI agent Tess McCallum, also gets drawn into the case.

Tess came face-to-face with Faust once before - and discovered the true meaning of evil. But both she and Abby have even more to learn. Because another series of murders has been uncovered ... because the stalker is no ordinary vigilante ... and because Faust has one more sin in which he has yet to indulge. And one final victim on his mind.

Coming soon: Final Sins and the Page 69 Test.

"Carved in Sand"

New this month from HarperCollins: Cathryn Jakobson Ramin's Carved in Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife.

About the book, from the author's website:

Anyone older than forty knows that forgetfulness can be unnerving, frustrating, and sometimes terrifying. In a dazzling book that examines these feelings with compassion and humor, journalist Cathryn Jakobson Ramin sets out to discover what midlife forgetfulness is all about—from the perspectives of physiology, psychology, and sociology. Relentless in her search for answers to questions about her own unreliable memory, she explores the factors that determine how well—or poorly—one’s brain will age. She consults experts in the fields of sleep, stress, traumatic brain injury, hormones, genetics, and dementia, as well as specialists in nutrition, cognitive psychology, and the burgeoning field of drug-based cognitive enhancement.

The stories of a wide array of midlife men and women will resonate with readers. You will glean spectacular insight into how to elicit the very best performance from a middle-aged brain. A groundbreaking work that represents the best of narrative nonfiction, this is a timely, highly readable, and much-needed book for anyone whose memory is not what it used to be.

"The Camel Bookmobile"

Due this month: The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Fiona Sweeney tells her family she wants to do something that matters, they do not expect her to go to Africa to help start a traveling library. But that is where Fiona chooses to make her mark: in the arid bush of northeastern Kenya, among tiny, far-flung communities, nearly unknown and lacking roads and schools, where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease.

In The Camel Bookmobile, Fi travels to settlements where people have never held a book in their hands. Her goal is to help bring Dr. Seuss, Homer, Tom Sawyer, and Hemingway to a largely illiterate and semi-nomadic populace. However, because the donated books are limited in number and the settlements are many, the library initiates a tough fine: if anyone fails to return a book, the bookmobile will stop coming.

Though her motives are good, Fi doesn't understand the people she seeks to help. Encumbered by her Western values, she finds herself in the midst of several struggles within the community of Mididima. There the bookmobile's presence sparks a feud between those who favor modernization and those who fear the loss of the traditional way of life in the African bush. The feud heightens when one young man—"Scar Boy"—doesn't return his books. As promised, the library stops all visits, but Fi goes to the settlement alone, determined to recover what has been lost.

Evocative, seamless, and haunting, The Camel Bookmobile is a powerful saga that challenges our fears of the unknown. It is a story that captures the riddles and calamities that often occur when two cultures collide. It follows an American librarian who travels to Africa to give meaning to her life, and ultimately loses a piece of her heart. In the end, this compelling novel shows how one life can change many, in spite of dangerous and seemingly immutable obstacles.

Visit Masha Hamilton's website.

The Page 69 test: The Camel Bookmobile.