Little Wolves (9781616951900 $25) ~Thomas Maltman

A tragic act of violence echoes through a small Minnesota town
Set on the Minnesota prairie in the late 1980s during a drought season that’s pushing family farms to the brink, “Little Wolves” features the intertwining stories of a father searching for answers after his son commits a heinous murder, and a pastor’s wife (and washed-out scholar of early Anglo-Saxon literature) who has returned to the town for mysterious reasons of her own. A penetrating look at small-town America from the award-winning author of “The Night Birds,” “Little Wolves” weaves together elements of folklore and Norse mythology while being driven by a powerful murder mystery; a page-turning literary triumph.

On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes (9781439191255 $27) ~Alexandra Horowitz

Alexandra Horowitz’s brilliant “On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes “shows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary-to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, “the observation of trifles.” “On Looking “is structured around a series of eleven walks the author takes, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, with experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, the well-known artist Maira Kalman, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. She also walks with a child and a dog to see the world as they perceive it. “What “they see, “how “they see it, and why most of us do “not “see the same things reveal the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer.

As the million-plus readers of “Inside of a Dog “have discovered, Alexandra Horowitz is charmingly adept at explaining the mysteries of human perception. Trained as a cognitive scientist, she discovers a feast of fascinating detail, all explained with her generous humor and self-deprecating tone. “On Looking “presents the same engaging combination, this time in service to understanding how human beings encounter their daily worlds and each other.

Page by page, Horowitz shows how much more there is to see-if only we would really look. “On Looking “is nutrition for the considered life, serving as a provocative response to our relentlessly virtual consciousness. So turn off the phone and other electronic devices and “be “in the real world-where strangers communicate by geometry as they walk toward one another, where sounds reveal shadows, where posture can display humility, and the underside of a leaf unveils a Lilliputian universe-where, indeed, there are worlds within worlds within worlds.

The Last Runaway (9780525952992 $26.95) ~Tracy Chevalier

“New York Times “bestselling author of “Girl With a Pearl Earring “Tracy Chevalier makes her first fictional foray into the American past in “The Last Runaway,” bringing to life the Underground Railroad and illuminating the principles, passions and realities that fueled this extraordinary freedom movement.
In “New York Times “bestselling author Tracy Chevalier’s newest historical saga, she introduces Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker who moves to Ohio in 1850, only to find herself alienated and alone in a strange land. Sick from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape.
Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of slavery. In her new home Honor discovers that principles count for little, even within a religious community meant to be committed to human equality.
However, drawn into the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a network helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, Honor befriends two surprising women who embody the remarkable power of defiance. Eventually she must decide if she too can act on what she believes in, whatever the personal costs.
A powerful journey brimming with color and drama, “The Last Runaway “is Tracy Chevalier’s vivid engagement with an iconic part of American history.

The Happy Life: The Search for Contentment in the Modern World (9780307907714 $19.95) ~David Malouf

By Australia’s greatest contemporary author, an elegant, succinct meditation on what makes for a happy life.;-)
“Happiness surely is among the simplest of human emotions and the most spontaneous,” says David Malouf. But what exactly are we looking for when we chase happiness? At this particular moment in history, privileged, industrialized nations have lessened much of what makes us unhappy: widespread poverty, illness, famine. Yet we are still unfulfilled, turning increasingly to yoga, church, Match.com, drugs, clinical therapy and retail therapy. What is at the root of our collective stress, and how can we find our way to contentment?
Drawing on mythology, philosophy, art and literature, Malouf traces our conception of happiness throughout history, distilling centuries of thought into a lucid narrative. He discusses the creation myths of ancient Greece and the philosophical schools of Athens, analyzes Thomas Jefferson’s revolutionary declaration that “the pursuit of happiness” is a right, explores the celebration of sensual delight in Rembrandt and Rubens and offers a perceptive take on a modern society growing larger and more impersonal.
With wisdom and insight, Malouf investigates that simplest, most spontaneous of feelings and urges us to do the same.

A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time #14) (9780765325952 $34.99) ~Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson

Since 1990, when Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time(R) burst on the world with its first book, “The Eye of the World, ” readers have been anticipating the final scenes of this extraordinary saga, which has sold over forty million copies in over thirty languages.

When Robert Jordan died in 2007, all feared that these concluding scenes would never be written. But working from notes and partials left by Jordan, established fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson stepped in to complete the masterwork. With “The Gathering Storm” (Book 12) and “Towers of Midnight “(Book 13) behind him, both of which were # 1 “New York Times” hardcover bestsellers, Sanderson now re-creates the vision that Robert Jordan left behind.

Edited by Jordan’s widow, who edited all of Jordan’s books, “A Memory of Light” will delight, enthrall, and deeply satisfy all of Jordan’s legions of readers.

Meatless: More Than 200 of the Very Best Vegetarian Recipes (9780307954565 $25) ~The Editors of Whole Living Magazine

For anyone new to a vegetarian diet-flexitarians who adopt plans like Meatless Mondays-as well as committed vegetarians and fans of “Power Foods,” here is a comprehensive collection of easy, meat-free mains for everyday.
As inspiring as it is practical, “Meatless” features 200 recipes-each accompanied by a gorgeous photograph-for full-fledged vegetarians and meat-eaters alike. You’ll find recipes for classics and new favorites, plus plenty of low-fat, vegan, and gluten-free options, too.
More than just a cookbook, “Meatless” is also a roadmap to embracing a vegetable-based lifestyle. Here are dozens of versatile recipes that can be easily adapted, such as pizza with a variety of toppings, salads made from different whole grains, and pestos with unexpected flavors and ingredients. You’ll also find advice on stocking your pantry with vegetarian essentials (dried beans, pasta, herbs and spices), a collection of basic recipes and techniques (vegetable stock, tomato sauce, polenta), and make-ahead flavor-boosters (caramelized onions, roasted peppers, and quick pickles).
Comprehensive and indispensable, “Meatless” makes it easy to prepare flavor-packed dinners for any day, any occasion. And no one will miss the meat.

The Lifeboat (9780316185912 $14.99) ~ Charlotte Rogan

Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.
In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying Grace and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize has exceeded capacity. For any to live, some must die.
As the castaways battle the elements and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she’d found. Will she pay any price to keep it?
THE LIFEBOAT is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes.

Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, a WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure (9780061802546 $27.99) ~Christopher Stewart

On April 6, 1940, explorer and future World War II spy Theodore Morde (who would one day attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler), anxious about the perilous journey that lay ahead of him, struggled to fall asleep at the Paris Hotel in La Ceiba, Honduras.

Nearly seventy years later, in the same hotel, acclaimed journalist Christopher S. Stewart wonders what he’s gotten himself into. Stewart and Morde seek the same answer on their quests: the solution to the riddle of the whereabouts of Ciudad Blanca, buried somewhere deep in the rain forest on the Mosquito Coast. Imagining an immense and immaculate El Dorado-like city made entirely of gold, explorers as far back as the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes have tried to find the fabled White City. Others have gone looking for tall white cliffs and gigantic stone temples-no one found a trace.

Legends, like the jungle, are dense and captivating. Many have sought their fortune or fame down the Rio Patuca-from Christopher Columbus to present-day college professors-and many have died or disappeared. What begins as a passing interest slowly turns into an obsession as Stewart pieces together the whirlwind life and mysterious death of Morde, a man who had sailed around the world five times before he was thirty and claimed to have discovered what he called the Lost City of the Monkey God.

Armed with Morde’s personal notebooks and the enigmatic coordinates etched on his well-worn walking stick, Stewart sets out to test the jungle himself-and to test himself in the jungle. As we follow the parallel journeys of Morde and Stewart, the ultimate destination morphs with their every twist and turn. Are they walking in circles? Or are they running from their own shadows? Jungleland is part detective story, part classic tale of man versus wild in the tradition of The Lost City of Z and Lost in Shangri-La. A story of young fatherhood as well as the timeless call of adventure, this is an epic search for answers in a place where nothing is guaranteed, least of all survival.

The River Swimmer: Novellas (9780802120731 $25) ~Jim Harrison

im Harrison is one of America’s most beloved and critically-acclaimed authors-on a par with American literary greats like Richard Ford, Anne Tyler, Robert Stone, Russell Banks, and Ann Beattie. His latest collection of novellas, “The River Swimmer,” is Harrison at his most memorable: a brilliant rendering of two men striving to find their way in the world, written with freshness, abundant wit, and profound humanity.
In “The Land of Unlikeness,” sixty-year-old art history academic Clive-a failed artist, divorced and grappling with the vagaries of his declining years-reluctantly returns to his family’s Michigan farmhouse to visit his aging mother. The return to familiar territory triggers a jolt of renewal-of ardor for his high school love, of his relationship with his estranged daughter, and of his own lost love of painting. In “Water Baby,” Harrison ventures into the magical as an Upper Peninsula farm boy is irresistibly drawn to the water as an escape, and sees otherworldly creatures there. Faced with the injustice and pressure of coming of age, he takes to the river and follows its siren song all the way across Lake Michigan.
“The River Swimmer” is a striking portrait of two richly-drawn, profoundly human characters, and an exceptional reminder of why Jim Harrison is one of the most cherished and important writers at work today.

World War Two: A Short History (9780465013722 $25) ~Norman Stone

After the unprecedented destruction of the Great War, the world longed for a lasting peace. The victors, however, valued vengeance even more than stability and demanded a massive indemnity from Germany in order to keep it from rearming. The results, as eminent historian Norman Stone describes in this authoritative history, were disastrous.
In “World War Two,” Stone provides a remarkably concise account of the deadliest war of human history, showing how the conflict roared to life from the ashes of World War One. Adolf Hitler rode a tide of popular desperation and resentment to power in Germany, promptly making good on his promise to return the nation to its former economic and military strength. He bullied Europe into giving him his way, and in so doing backed the victors of the Great War into a corner. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany-a decision that, Stone argues, was utterly irrational. Yet Hitler had driven the world mad, and the rekindling of European hostilities soon grew to a conflagration that spread across the globe, fanned by political and racial ideologies more poisonous-and weaponry more destructive-than the world had ever seen. With commanding expertise, Stone leads readers through the escalation, climax, and mournful denouement of this sprawling conflict.
“World War Two” is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the twentieth century and its defining struggle.

The Kashmir Shawl (9781468302462 $26.95) ~Rosie Thomas

Over three decades of writing, bestselling novelist Rosie Thomas has earned an untold number of awards and glowing critical praise. Like Penny Vincenzi, Thomas has long enthralled readers around the world. Her latest, “The Kashmir Shawl, ” is her most ambitious and captivating book yet and is currently dominating the bestseller lists in London. It is 1941 and World War II has engulfed the globe. Newlywed Nerys Watkins leaves rural Wales for the first time in her life, to accompany her husband on a missionary posting to India. When her husband leaves her in the exotic lakeside city of Srinagar to take on a more dangerous mission, Nerys discovers a new world. Here, in the heart of romantic Kashmir, the colonists dance, flirt, and gossip as if there is no war. Nerys becomes caught up in a dangerous liaison, and by the time she is reunited with her husband, she is a different woman.
Years later, when Mair Ellis clears out her dead father’s house, she finds an exquisite shawl. Wrapped in its folds is a lock of child’s hair. Tracing her grandparents’ roots back to Kashmir, Mair embarks on a quest that will change her life forever . . .
A sweeping multigenerational tale of marriage, isolation, and finding love in a magical place, “The Kashmir Shawl” is the inimitable Rosie Thomas at her very best.

The Host (9780316218511 $9.99) ~Stephenie Meyer

Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy that takes over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. But Wanderer, the invading “soul” who occupies Melanie’s body, finds its former tenant refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
As Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of Jared, a human who lives in hiding, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she’s never met. Soon Wanderer and Melanie-reluctant allies-set off to search for the man they both love.
Featuring one of the most unusual love triangles in literature, THE HOSTis a riveting and unforgettable novel about the persistence of love and the essence of what it means to be human.