Be the First to Read

If you're reading this, you have a lot of patience as I have been delinquent in writing.  Here's a little thank you -- if you'd like to read any of the below, let me know and I get it out to you.  These are all advance copies from Penguin Group so you can be ahead of the rest of the world.  I just ask that you let me know whether you liked it or not (since they're all ones I'd like to read someday).

Let's get started with a personal favorite:

1)  Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn, coming out in March 2011.  The cover alone is enough to make you want to read this.  "The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Environmentalists and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them."

Read the Harpers piece about the spill that occurred in January 2002 from a ship heading from Hong Kong to Tacoma and folks that started finding rubber duckies along the shore.

2)  The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure, coming out in April 2011.  "My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie." "...pioneer pilgrimage, tribute to Laura Ingalls Wilder and a hilarious account of butter-churning obsession."

3)  Moonwalking with Einstein:  The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer, due out in March 2011.  Hey, if the subtitle doesn't make you want to read it, look what it did for him: "Foer's unlikely journey from chronically forgetful science journalist to U.S. Memory Champion."  (I think I saw this was being made into a movie.)

4)  The Border Lords by T. Jefferson Parker, due out in January 2011.  "Parker has produced a body of work unsurpassed, perhaps unmatched, by any other contemporary writer of crime fiction" Kirkus Reviews.   Read a review of the book.  It sounds intense and action-packed.

5)  The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld, due out in January 2011.  Whoever reads this MUST provide a report back to me.

"Under a clear blue September sky, America's financial center in lower Manhattan became the site of the largest, deadliest terror attack in the nation's history.  It was September 16, 1920.  Four hundred people were killed or injured.  The country was appalled by the magnitude and savagery of the incomprehensible attack which remains unsolved to this day."

This historical mystery book blends fiction and fact. Read a little from the FBI on the 1920 bombing.

...on a totally unrelated note, I  think he's married to Amy Chua, also an author, who I saw last night talking about her new book (but that's for another day).