What’s Next

January 3   At The Kings Pleasure: Secrets of the Tudor Court By Kate Emerson $16      Married to one man. Desiring another. Beautiful Lady Anne Stafford, lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon, is torn between her love for her husband, George, Lord Hastings... and the king’s boon companion, the attentive Sir William Compton. But when King Henry VIII, amorous as always, joins the men clustering around her, Anne realizes she has become perilously enmeshed in the intrigues of the court. Will she be forced to decide between the two men she desires—and the one she doesn’t? Kate Emerson charms again with a heroine who steps out of the pages of history to win our hearts in this sumptuous novel of Tudor scandal and intrigue.   The Balfour Declaration By Jonathan Schneer $17      Issued in London in 1917, the Balfour Declaration was one of the key documents of the twentieth century. It committed Britain to supporting the establishment in Palestine of “a National Home for the Jewish people,” and its reverberations continue to be felt to this day. Now the entire fascinating story of the document is revealed in this impressive work of modern history.     A Devil is Waiting: A Sean Dillon Nove By Jack Higgins $26.95      The President is coming to London, but not to an entirely warm welcome. A fanatical mullah is offering a blessing to anyone who will assassinate the President, and though most London Muslims think the mullah has crossed the line, a few think otherwise.      Urgently, Sean Dillon, General Charles Ferguson, and the rest of the small band known as the "Prime Minister's private army" are called in, augmented by an extraordinary new recruit, an intelligence captain and Afghan war hero named Sara Gideon. She has her own deep contacts, but the more she investigates, the more she discovers herself in a very dark place indeed.   The Hunter By John Lescroart $26.95        Raised by loving adoptive parents, San Francisco private investigator Wyatt Hunt never had an interest in finding his birth family-until he gets a chilling text message from an unknown number: "How did ur mother die?"      The answer is murder, and urged on by curiosity and the mysterious texter, Hunt takes on a case he never knew existed, one that has lain unsolved for decades. His family's dark past unfurls in dead ends. Child Protective Services, who suspected but could never prove that Hunt was being neglected, is uninformed; his birth father, twice tried but never convicted of the murder, is in hiding; Evie, his mother's drug-addicted religious fanatic of a friend, is untraceable. And who is the texter, and how are they connected to Hunt?   India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking By Anand Giridharadas $14.99      Anand Giridharadas sensed something was afoot as his plane from America prepared to land in Bombay. An elderly passenger looked at him and said, "We're all trying to go that way," pointing to the rear. "You, you're going this way?" Giridharadas was returning to the land of his ancestors, amid an unlikely economic boom. But he was more interested in its cultural upheaval, as a new generation has sought to reconcile old traditions and customs with new ambitions and dreams. Love In A Nutshell By Janet Evanovich $27.99      Kate Appleton needs a job. Her husband has left her, she’s been fired from her position as a magazine editor, and the only place she wants to go is to her parents’ summerhouse, The Nutshell, in Keene’s Harbor, Michigan. Kate’s plan is to turn The Nutshell into a Bed and Breakfast. Problem is, she needs cash, and the only job she can land is less than savory.      Matt Culhane wants Kate to spy on his brewery employees. Someone has been sabotaging his company, and Kate is just new enough in town that she can insert herself into Culhane’s business and snoop around for him. If Kate finds the culprit, Matt will pay her a $20,000 bonus. Needless to say, Kate is highly motivated. But several problems present themselves. Kate despises beer. No one seems to trust her. And she is falling hard for her boss.   The Social Animal By David Brooks $16      With unequaled insight and brio, New York Times columnist David Brooks has long explored and explained the way we live. Now Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multi-layered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life. This is the story of how success happens, told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica. Drawing on a wealth of current research from numerous disciplines, Brooks takes Harold and Erica from infancy to old age, illustrating a fundamental new understanding of human nature along the way: The unconscious mind, it turns out, is not a dark, vestigial place, but a creative one, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm where character is formed and where our most important life decisions are made—the natural habitat of The Social Animal. Brooks reveals the deeply social aspect of our minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ. January 6   Be The Miracle: 50 Lessons For Making The Impossible Possible By Regina Brett $22.99      Want to live your dreams--or even surpass them? Want the world to change for the better? Want to see a miracle? What are we waiting for? Why not be the miracle?      That's the challenge Regina Brett sets forth in Be the Miracle. To be a miracle doesn't necessarily mean tackling problems across the globe. It means making a difference, believing change is possible, even in your own living room, cubicle, neighborhood, or family. January 10   Believing the Lie: An Inspector Lynley Novel By Elizabeth George $29.95      Inspector Thomas Lynley is mystified when he's sent undercover to investigate the death of Ian Cresswell at the request of the man's uncle, the wealthy and influential Bernard Fairclough. The death has been ruled an accidental drowning, and nothing on the surface indicates otherwise. But when Lynley enlists the help of his friends Simon and Deborah St. James, the trio's digging soon reveals that the Fairclough clan is awash in secrets, lies, and motives.   January 17   Perilous Fight: America’s Intrepid War With Britain on the High Seas By Stephen Budiansky $17.95      Through vivid re-creations of riveting and dramatic encounters at sea, Budiansky shows how this underdog coterie of seamen and their visionary secretary of the navy combined bravery and strategic brilliance to defeat the British, who had dominated the seas for more than two centuries.  A gripping and essential history, this is the military and political story of how the U.S. Navy became a permanent and essential part of the nation’s defense.     Silk Road: Monks, Warriors & Merchants By Luce Boulnois $27.95      Luce Boulnois has poured a lifetime of prodigious, passionate scholarship into this seminal book. She explores the encounter between East and West across the vast continental expanse that separates the Mediterranean world from the Chinese one. She unravels in a clear and compelling way the complex threads that weave the history of great overland trade routes, which allowed the transmission of ideas and beliefs, techniques and works of art, helping to shape the civilizations that flourished along the way. She loves silk, its history, and all its paths to Europe. But the importance of Central Asia is not just a thing of the past, and the author discusses its significance in the modern world in cultural and geopolitical terms, including the implications of the most recent events taking place there. The Odds: A Love Story By Stewart O’Nan $25.95      Valentine's weekend, Art and Marion Fowler flee their Cleveland suburb for Niagara Falls, desperate to recoup their losses. Jobless, with their home approaching foreclosure and their marriage on the brink of collapse, Art and Marion liquidate their savings account and book a bridal suite at the Falls' ritziest casino for a second honeymoon. While they sightsee like tourists during the day, at night they risk it all at the roulette wheel to fix their finances-and save their marriage. A tender yet honest exploration of faith, forgiveness and last chances, The Odds is a reminder that love, like life, is always a gamble. January 24   All In: The Education of General David Petraeus By Paula Broadwell $29.95      General David Petraeus is the most transformative leader the American military has seen since the generation of Marshall. In All In, military expert Paul Broadwell examines Petraeus's career, his intellectual development as a military officer, and his impact on the U.S. military. Pineapple Grenade: A Serge Storms Novel By Tin Dorsey $25.99      Gloriously unrepentant Florida serial killer Serge Storms is back—and he’s finagled his way into becoming a secret agent in Miami—in another outrageous crime comedy from New York Times best-selling author, Tim Dorsey. In Pineapple Grenade, the incomparable Serge takes up spying for the president of a banana republic, and now Homeland Security wants to bring him down. It’s always a wild ride when Dorsey’s at the wheel, and with Pineapple Grenade he delivers his most explosively hilarious road trip to date.

February 2
	Scapegoat: A History of Blaming Other People By Charlie Campbell $19.95      We may have come a long way from the days when a goat as a symbol was saddled with all the iniquities of the children of Israel and driven into the wilderness, but is our desperate need to find some organization or person to pin the blame on and absolve ourselves of responsibility really any more advanced?      Charlie Campbell highlights the plight of all those others who have found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, illustrating how God needs the Devil as Sherlock Holmes needs Professor Moriarty or James Bond needs "Goldfinger."
February 7
	What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories By Nathan Englander $24.95      These eight new stories from the celebrated novelist and short-story writer Nathan Englander display a gifted young author grappling with the great questions of modern life, with a command of language and the imagination that place Englander at the very forefront of contemporary American fiction.
	Sibley Backyard Birding Flashcards By David Allen Sibley $14.99      The best selling Sibley Field Guide to Birds is transformed into 100 easy-to-reference cards housed in a handsome pull-drawer gift box. Each card shows a beautifully colored illustration of a particular bird while the other side provides the species name, salient identification points, information about habitat and voice, and a migratory range map.
February 14
	James Madison & the Making of America By Kevin R.C. Gutzman $27.99      In James Madison and the Making of America, historian Kevin Gutzman looks beyond the way James Madison is traditionally seen -- as "The Father of the Constitution” -- to find a more complex and sometimes contradictory portrait of this influential Founding Father and the ways in which he influenced the spirit of today's United States.  Instead of an idealized portrait of Madison, Gutzman treats readers to the flesh-and-blood story of a man who often performed his founding deeds in spite of himself: Madison’s fame rests on his participation in the writing of The Federalist Papers and his role in drafting the Bill of Rights and Constitution. -------
	Private Games By James Patterson & Mark Sullivan $27.99      Private, the world's most renowned investigation firm, has been commissioned to provide security for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Its agents are the smartest, fastest, and most technologically advanced in the world, and 400 of them have been transferred to London to protect more than 10,000 competitors who represent more than 200 countries.
	Winston Churchill - The Wilderness Years: Speaking out Against Hitler in the Prelude to War By Martin Gilbert $17      In 1928, Winston Churchill was at the height of his career. Chancellor of the Exchequer and a powerful and popular orator, leadership of the Conservative Party seemed within his grasp. A year later, however, all had changed. The Conservatives were defeated, and when a National Government was formed in 1931, Churchill was not asked to join it. Though he was a lone figure from this point, his acute political sense, foresight, and courage were undiminished. Fed with secret inside information by a group of brave men, Churchill consistently warned of the Nazi danger, even before the rise of Hitler. The government fought him at every turn, even refusing him the right to broadcast. But he never gave up. It was as a direct result of his brave perseverance that the British public came to realize the truth of his warnings—a bond formed that would be so vital in the years to come.
	Robert Ludlum's The Janson Command By Paul Garrison $27.99      Reformed from his days of as a covert operative and assassin for the US government, Paul Janson has a new mission and a new partner. Working independently with highly skilled sharpshooter Jessica Kincaid, Janson only takes operations he believes contributes to the world's greater good. When his latest job rescuing a doctor abducted in international waters by African pirates goes haywire, Janson realizes he's caught in the middle of something much bigger.
	The Wolf Gift By Anne Rice $25.95      A daring new departure from the inspired creator of The Vampire Chronicles, Lives of the Mayfair Witches, and the angels of The Songs of the Seraphim. A whole new world—modern, sleek, high-tech—and at its center, a story as old and compelling as history: the making of a werewolf, re-imagined and reinvented as only Anne Rice, teller of mesmerizing tales, conjurer extraordinaire of other realms, could create.
February 20
	The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest By Stieg Larsson $15.95      In the concluding volume of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, Lisbeth Salander lies in critical condition in a Swedish hospital, a bullet in her head.      But she's fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she'll stand trial for three murders. With the help of Mikael Blomkvist, she'll need to identify those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she'll seek revenge--against the man who tried to killer her and against the corrupt government institutions that nearly destroyed her life.
	Death of a Kingfisher: A Hamish Macbeth Mystery By M.C. Beaton $24.99      When Scotland is hit by the recession, Police Constable Hamish Macbeth notices that the Highland people are forced to come up with inventive ways to lure tourists to their sleepy towns. The quaint village of Braikie doesn't have much to offer, other than a place of rare beauty called Buchan's Wood, which was bequeathed to the town. The savvy local tourist director renames the woods "The Fairy Glen," and has brochures printed with a beautiful photograph of a kingfisher rising from a pond on the cover.
	Yes Ma'am, No Sir: The 12 Essential Steps for Success in Life By Coach Carter $24.99      Accountability... Overcoming adversity... Taking charge of your life... Learning how to succeed when others expect you to fail. These are the essences of Coach Carter's basic building blocks for winning in life. From learning about the quality of one's character to the love of learning-as well as the importance of self-discipline and spirituality-Coach Carter takes you through his own life experiences and shows you how you, too, can become successful in your everyday life. His fundamental belief is that you must start with respect for others, your community, and your environment before you can attain your own goals, both personally and professionally.
February 28
	The Strongman By Angus Roxburgh $28     Russia under Vladimir Putin has proved a prickly partner for the West, a far cry from the democratic ally many hoped for when the Soviet Union collapsed. Abroad, Putin has used Russia’s energy strength as a foreign policy weapon, while at home he has cracked down on opponents, adamant that only he has the right vision for his country’s future.
	Small-Space Container Gardens: Transform Your Balcony, Porch, or Patio with Fruits, Flowers, Foliage, and Herbs By Fern Richardson $19.95      A concrete slab populated solely with plastic chairs and an abandoned grill? Not anymore. Chances are your balcony, porch, or patio could use a major makeover. Fern Richardson, charismatic creator of the Life on the Balcony blog, is here to walk you through the process of beautifying a small space--even when you have a similarly small budget.
	Trail of the Spellmans: Document #5 By Lisa Lutz $25      For the first time in Spellman history, Isabel Spellman, PI, might be the most normal member of her family. Mom has taken on an outrageous assortment of extracurricular activities—with no apparent motive. Dad has a secret. Izzy’s brother and sister are at war—for no apparent reason. And her niece keeps saying “banana” even though she hates bananas.      That’s not to say that Izzy isn’t without her own troubles. Her boyfriend, Henry Stone, keeps wanting “to talk,” a prospect Isabel evades by going out with her new drinking buddy, none other than Gertrude Stone, Henry’s mother.