Fiction
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Michael Chabon
In Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon’s brilliant new novel set in Sitka, Alaska (reimagined as a “temporary homeland” for Jews displaced by World War II) Yiddish speaking Orthodox sects clad in breeches and furred hats battle it out on the snowbound streets for control of a brisk black-market trade in drugs and guns.
Amidst the madness, the perennially world-weary and cynical detective Meyer Landsman once an upstanding member of the Yiddish Policeman’s Union, now slouching, shambling and usually half-drunk— attempts to puzzle his way through a murky mystery set off by the discovery of a skull. A hard-boiled noir pulsing with ambition and imagination, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union is “bloody brilliant” (Library Journal) and may just be one of 2007’s most entertaining and over-the-top fiction enterprises.
Non-fiction
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Barbara Kingsolver
After years of living in Tucson—a desert city where virtually every unit of food is shipped in by refridgerated truck, and water is pumped in via hundreds of miles of open ditch Barbara Kingsolver and her family had enough. They felt disconnected from the food they ate and the land that grew it. In a spirit of adventure, they decide to move to a farm in Appalachia, with a grand plan to live off the land and realign themselves with the food chain and the natural world.
Naturally, their first stop on the road is to buy junk food and fossil fuel. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, is an entertaining memoir of one family’s year of living and eating locally. As Kingsolver says, “Our highest shopping goal was to get our food from so close to home, we’d know the person who grew it. Often, that turned out to be ourselves.”
Business
Miracle Punk Marketing: Get off Your Ass and Join the Revolution
Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons
TiVo. iTunes. Blogs. YouTube. With tools like these, customers are now more in charge than ever of what they see and buy, running the economy from their iPods, BlackBerries and remote controls. As a result, advertisers and marketers have lost much of their traditional power and no longer have a fraction of the influence they once had over consumer buying habits.
Punk Marketing introduces a radical new approach and a new lexicon to a discipline much in need of an overhaul. Founded upon a completely revised set of assumptions about how customers interact with brands, it is more than just theoretical analysis; it is a set of usable tools for the modern marketing revolutionary
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Food
King of the Q’s Blue Plate BBQ
Ted Reader
TiVo. iTunes. Blogs. YouTube. With tools like these, customers are now more in charge than ever of what they see and buy, running the economy from their iPods, BlackBerries and remote controls. As a result, advertisers and marketers have lost much of their traditional power and no longer have a fraction of the influence they once had over consumer buying habits.
Punk Marketing introduces a radical new approach and a new lexicon to a discipline much in need of an overhaul. Founded upon a completely revised set of assumptions about how customers interact with brands, it is more than just theoretical analysis; it is a set of usable tools for the modern marketing revolutionary
Beach read
The Continuity Girl
Leah McLaren
Meredith Moore is the perfect continuity girl. An on-set film script supervisor, it is her job to make sure every frame of the picture is consistent with the one before. She is the error catcher. The needle-in-the-haystack finder. A cigarette in the left hand when it should be in the right, a prematurely melted ice cube in a half-empty glass of Scotch, a stray lock of an actor’s hair-these are the details by which she measures out her life. But when Meredith wakes up on the morning of her 35th birthday yearning for a baby, her personal sense of continuity is thrown into flux. Determined not to marry, she impulsively flees to London. Her covert plan: to become a Sperm Bandit and find an unsuspecting donor to father her child. Navigating London’s murky social waters, Meredith is thrown into a strange new story, one that quickly spins out of control. In her quest to get pregnant on her own terms, she will accidentally uncover a web of secrets that will change the way she envisions both her working life and the nature of love. An instant bestseller when released last year in paperback, Globe & Mail columnist Leah McLaren’s first novel is the thinking girl’s perfect beach read—or the perfect read for the man who wants to know what the thinking girl is really thinking.
Memoir
The Man Who Forgot How to Read
Howard Engel
One hot mid-summer morning, bestselling crime novelist Howard Engel got up to fetch his morning paper and discovered he could no longer read it. Overnight, while he slept, Engel had experienced a stroke, and now suffered from a rare condition called alexia sine agraphia. While he could still write, he could no longer read. As soon as he committed a word to the page, it appeared to him to be in some kind of alien cipher. Street signs, soup can labels, billboards, even his own street address were transformed into unintelligible symbols. Desperate, he contacted famed neurologist Oliver Sacks, who became transfixed by his unusual case. This extraordinary memoir traces Engel’s journey through this life-changing episode. Despite the devastation of his disability and the almost certain loss of his career, Engel prepares to reconcile himself to his new life. An absorbingly detailed and uplifting story, filled with sly wit and candid insights, The Man Who Forgot How to Read is a mesmerizing and ultimately hopeful story about identity, loss, and being.
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Entertaining
Instant Entertaining
Donna Hay
Following on the worldwide success of her last book, The Instant Cook, Donna Hay is back with fresh, easy-to-follow recipes and clever styling ideas for entertaining family and friends. From an impromptu week night dinner-for-two to a celebration for twelve, instant entertaining is everything you need to make your occasion an instant success, whether it’s a weeknight, the weekend, special occasion, brunch, barbecue or find yourself pressed for time.
Health
The Bone Building Solution
Sam Graci, Dr. Carolyn DeMarco, Dr. Leticia Rao
Osteoporosis is a major health threat already affecting an estimated 44 million Americans—and not just the elderly. Written by three respected health experts, The Bone-Building Solution is a comprehensive guide to building bone health from the teen years on, and even suggests solutions to help reversing of existing conditions of osteopenia and osteoporosis. Based on recommendations in the 2005 Surgeon General’s Report, this is an accessible, upbeat guide that helps identify osteoporosis risk factors and provides practical guidance on essential supplements, exercise, nutrition, and the important relationship between healthy bones and a healthy heart.
