"Ravens in the Storm"

New from Scribner: Ravens in the Storm: A Personal History of the 1960s Anti-War Movement by Carl Oglesby.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1964, Carl Oglesby, a young copywriter for a Michigan-based defense contractor, was asked by a local Democratic congressman to draft a campaign paper on the Vietnam War. Oglesby's report argued that the conflict was misplaced and unwinnable. He had little idea that its subsequent publication would put him on a fast track to becoming the president of the now-legendary protest movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In this book, Oglesby shares the triumphs and tribulations of an organization that burgeoned across America, only to collapse in the face of surveillance by the U.S. government and infighting.

As an SDS leader, Oglesby spoke on the same platform as Coretta Scott King and Benjamin Spock at the storied 1965 antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C. He traveled to war-ravaged Vietnam and to the international war crimes tribunal in Scandinavia, where he met with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. He helped initiate the Venceremos Brigade, which dispatched thousands of American students to bring in the Cuban sugar harvest. He reluctantly participated in the protest outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention and was a witness for the defense at the trial of the Chicago Seven the following year. Eventually, after extensive battles with those in SDS who saw its future more as a vanguard guerrilla group than as an open mass movement, Oglesby was drummed out of the organization. Shortly after, it collapsed when key members of its leadership quit to set up the Weather Underground.

This beautifully written and elegiac memoir is rich in contemporary echoes as America once again must come to terms with an ill-conceived military adventure abroad. Carl Oglesby warns of the destructive frustrations of a peace campaign unable to achieve its goals. But above all, he captures the joyful liberation of joining together to take a stand for what is right and just -- the soaring and swooping of a protest movement in full flight, like ravens in a storm.

"Manic: A Memoir"

New from William Morrow: Manic: A Memoir by Terri Cheney.

About the book, from the publisher:

"I didn't tell anyone that I was going to Santa Fe to kill myself."

On the outside, Terri Cheney was a highly successful, attractive Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer. But behind her seemingly flawless façade lay a dangerous secret — for the better part of her life Cheney had been battling debilitating bipolar disorder and concealing a pharmacy's worth of prescriptions meant to stabilize her moods and make her "normal."

In bursts of prose that mirror the devastating highs and extreme lows of her illness, Cheney describes her roller-coaster life with shocking honesty — from glamorous parties to a night in jail; from flying fourteen kites off the edge of a cliff in a thunderstorm to crying beneath her office desk; from electroshock therapy to a suicide attempt fueled by tequila and prescription painkillers.

With Manic, Cheney gives voice to the unarticulated madness she endured. The clinical terms used to describe her illness were so inadequate that she chose to focus instead on her own experience, in her words, "on what bipolar disorder felt like inside my own body." Here the events unfold episodically, from mood to mood, the way she lived and remembers life. In this way the reader is able to viscerally experience the incredible speeding highs of mania and the crushing blows of depression, just as Cheney did. Manic does not simply explain bipolar disorder — it takes us in its grasp and does not let go.

In the tradition of Darkness Visible and An Unquiet Mind, Manic is Girl, Interrupted with the girl all grown up. This harrowing yet hopeful book is more than just a searing insider's account of what it's really like to live with bipolar disorder. It is a testament to the sharp beauty of a life lived in extremes.

Visit Terri Cheney's website.

"The Devil's Bones"

New from William Morrow & Company: The Devil's Bones by Jefferson Bass.

About the book, from the publisher:

In two previous New York Times bestselling novels, Jefferson Bass enthralled readers with ripped-from-the-headlines forensic cases, memorable characters, and plots that "rival Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). Drawing on research at the Body Farm—three acres of land in the backwoods of Tennessee, where bodies are left to the elements to illuminate human decomposition—Bass has moved fiction to a fascinating new realm, with forensics expertise drawn from his five decades of work as the world's leading forensic anthropologist. But this latest novel cements Jefferson Bass as one of the finest writers of suspense working today, and in a work of drama, cunning, and heartbreak, thrills the reader with fiction that feels all too real.

A woman's charred body has been found inside a burned car perched atop a hill in Knoxville. Is it accidental death, or murder followed by arson? Forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton's quest for answers prompts an experiment straight from Dante's Inferno: In the dark of night, he puts bodies to the torch, researching how fire consumes flesh and bone.

In the meantime, Brockton is sent a mysterious package—a set of cremated remains that looks entirely unreal. With the help of a local crematorium, he investigates and discovers a truth too horrifying to believe: A facility in another state has not been disposing of bodies properly, instead scattering them all around the grounds.

Little does Brockton know that his research is about to collide with reality—with the force of a lit match meeting spilled gasoline. En route to trial, his nemesis, medical examiner Garland Hamilton, has escaped from custody. What follows is a deadly game of cat and mouse, played for the ultimate stakes: Brockton's own life. With help from his loyal graduate assistant, Miranda, and ace criminalist Art Bohanan, Brockton eventually tracks Hamilton, but when the police arrive, they find only a smoldering ruin. Sifting through the ashes, Brockton finds the incinerated remains of Hamilton ... or does he? The answer—along with Brockton's ultimate test—comes in a searing moment of truth.

Visit the official Jefferson Bass website.

"Primal Threat"

New from Ballantine Books: Primal Threat by Earl Emerson.

About the book, from the publisher:

On a late August day in the foothills of the Cascades, five bicyclists climb into the hot, dry air, the breeze of their movement cooling their overheated bodies, the stress of a workweek slipstreaming behind them. But another group has entered the park, too. They’re in cars, for pleasure and for vengeance. In Earl Emerson’s gripping new novel, a grudge turns an idyllic setting into a terrifying landscape of men and nature at their most dangerous.

Zak Polanski doesn’t do long-term relationships, doesn’t like rich people, and, after saving Nadine Newcastle from an accident scene, isn’t ready to be loved back. When the improbable affair sours, Zak returns to his old ways. But Nadine’s former boyfriend, William Potter III, can’t let it go. Potter knows that Zak is one of five mountain bikers at an isolated camping ground at Panther Creek, and has come for a little payback.

What starts as a nasty prank soon escalates. Someone has a gun. Someone makes a move. And a spark ignites amid a volatile mix of anger and alcohol, pride and betrayal. Now, men and women cut off from their urban environment are making choices, choosing sides, facing one another’s demons and their own. And when human hatred merges with nature’s fury, the only goal is to get out alive.

A mesmerizing novel that weaves the story of a charged love affair with a drama of sheer survival, Primal Threat is a thriller delivered with the brawny, vivid, and lyrical style that makes Earl Emerson one of the most compelling storytellers of our time.

"Hope's Boy "

New from Hyperion: Hope's Boy by Andrew Bridge.

About the book, from the official website:

From the moment he was born, Andrew Bridge and his mother Hope shared a love so deep that it felt like nothing else mattered. Trapped in desperate poverty and confronted with unthinkable tragedies, all Andrew ever wanted was to be with his mom. But as her mental health steadily declined, and with no one else left to care for him, authorities arrived and tore Andrew from his screaming mother's arms. In that moment, the life he knew came crashing down around him. He was only seven years old. Hope was institutionalized, and Andrew was placed in what would be his devastating reality for the next eleven years – foster care. After surviving one of our country's most notorious children's facilities, Andrew was thrust into a savagely loveless foster family that refused to accept him as one of their own. Deprived of the nurturing he needed, Andrew clung to academics and the kindness of teachers. All the while, he refused to surrender the love he held for his mother in his heart.

Ultimately, Andrew earned a scholarship to Wesleyan, went on to Harvard Law School, and became a Fulbright Scholar. Andrew has dedicated his life's work to helping children living in poverty and in the foster care system. He defied the staggering odds set against him, and here in this heartwrenching, brutally honest, and inspirational memoir, he reveals who Hope's boy really is.

Read more about Hope's Boy.

"Johnny One-Eye"

New from W. W. Norton: Johnny One-Eye: A Tale of the American Revolution by Jerome Charyn.

About the book, from the publisher:

This comic masterpiece reimagines the American Revolution with a one-eyed spy, a heroic whorehouse madam, and a cunning George Washington.

Praised for one of the most “singular and remarkable [careers] in American literature” (Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World), Jerome Charyn now delights with this picaresque tour de force. He reanimates a war-torn Manhattan overrun by Redcoats and deserted by all but the Loyalists — and Mrs. Gertrude Jennings, the tempestuous, redheaded queen of Manhattan’s most spectacular bordello. When the novel opens, young double agent John Stocking is being interrogated by Washington, a rebel commander far removed from the dour, silent man of most history books. As Johnny seeks to unlock the mystery of his birth and grapples with his allegiances, he falls in love with Clara, a gorgeous, green-eyed octoroon, the most coveted harlot of Gertrude’s house. The wild parade of characters he encounters includes Benedict Arnold, the Howe brothers, “Sir Billy” and “Black Dick,” and a manipulative Alexander Hamilton.

Not since John Barth’s The Sotweed Factor and Gore Vidal’s Burr has a novel so dramatically re-created America’s historical beginnings.

Visit Jerome Charyn's website.

"I'm Looking Through You"

New from Broadway Books, I'm Looking Through You by Jennifer Finney Boylan.

About the book, from the publisher's website:

From the bestselling author of She’s Not There comes another buoyant, unforgettable memoir — I’m Looking Through You is about growing up in a haunted house...and making peace with the ghosts that dwell in our hearts.

For Jennifer Boylan, creaking stairs, fleeting images in the mirror, and the remote whisper of human voices were everyday events in the Pennsylvania house in which she grew up in the 1970s. But these weren’t the only specters beneath the roof of the mansion known as the “Coffin House.” Jenny herself — born James — lived in a haunted body, and both her mysterious, diffident father and her wild, unpredictable sister would soon become ghosts to Jenny as well.

I’m Looking Through You is an engagingly candid investigation of what it means to be “haunted.” Looking back on the spirits who invaded her family home, Boylan launches a full investigation with the help of a group of earnest, if questionable, ghostbusters. Boylan also examines the ways we find connections between the people we once were and the people we become. With wit and eloquence, Boylan shows us how love, forgiveness, and humor help us find peace — with our ghosts, with our loved ones, and with the uncanny boundaries, real and imagined, between men and women.

Visit Jenny Boylan's website and her blog.

"What Never Happens"

New from Grand Central Publishing: What Never Happens by Anne Holt.

About the book, from the publisher:

All over Oslo, the city's luminaries are turning up dead in the most macabre of ways in a depraved version of poetic justice: a talk show host with her tongue cut out, a literary critic stabbed in the eye. It's clear that the killer seeks some kind of retribution, but for what?

Police commissioner Adam Stubo and former FBI profiler Johanna Vik have just had their first baby together but are reluctantly drawn into the investigation. As Stubo leads the inquiry, Johanna is haunted by a pattern that is too terrifying to be true. Time is running out to stop the killer or killers who show no sign of stopping....

"An Incomplete Revenge"

New from Henry Holt: An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear.

About the book, from the author's website:

In her fifth outing, Maisie Dobbs, the extraordinary Psychologist and Investigator, delves into a strange series of crimes in a small rural community.

With the country in the grip of economic malaise, and worried about her business, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment from an old friend to investigate certain matters concerning a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something is amiss. Mysterious fires erupt in the village with alarming regularity, and a series of petty crimes suggests a darker criminal element at work. As Maisie discovers, the villagers are bitterly prejudiced against outsiders who flock to Kent at harvest time — even more troubling, they seem possessed by the legacy of a wartime Zeppelin raid. Maisie grows increasingly suspicious of a peculiar secrecy that shrouds the village, and ultimately she must draw on all her finely honed skills of detection to solve one of her most intriguing cases.

Rich with Jacqueline Winspear’s trademark period detail, this latest installment of the bestselling series is gripping, atmospheric, and utterly enthralling.

"A Grave in Gaza"

New from Soho Press: A Grave in Gaza (An Omar Yussef Mystery) by Matt Beynon Rees.

About the book, from David Keymer's Library Journal review:

In Rees's exceptionally fine follow-up to his highly praised debut, The Collaborator of Bethlehem, the Palestinian government in Gaza is a fiction: warring gangs collaborate only to loot. Omar Yussef, the principal of a girls' school in Bethlehem, arrives on an inspection tour of schools and is soon drawn into efforts to secure the release of a university lecturer arrested on a trumped-up charge of spying. One of his colleagues is kidnapped, a UN van is blown up, and a UN observer killed. At 56, Yussef is neither supersleuth nor superhero, just an honorable man striving to find justice for the disenfranchised in a thoroughly corrupt society, where violence is the preferred, indeed, the only tool of governing. A virtue of this outstanding novel is its prose: evocative and sensual in describing setting and character, forceful in moving along the action. A compelling mystery story and a sympathetic portrait of a wounded society, this novel is truly excellent popular fiction. Strongly recommended for mystery and general collections.

The Page 69 Test: The Collaborator of Bethlehem.

My Book, The Movie: The Collaborator of Bethlehem.