Our top twelve hardcover FICTION and NON-FICTION bestsellers are always 20% off for P&P members. This week, to help your holiday shopping, we are printing our complete bestseller lists along with our booksellers' recommendations from our catalogue. Click here to read our 2009 Holiday Newsletter and more about all of our favorite books which we are discounting 20% until the end of the month!
WOLF HALL By Hilary Mantel
The
latest Booker Prize-winner opens in 1527, as Henry VIII is trying to
get rid of his wife of sixteen years, Katherine. He is interested in
Anne Boleyn, a well-connected young woman at court who has kept him
interested by refusing to consummate their relationship until they are
married. Thomas Cromwell is the King’s man to move things along.
Cromwell’s eye is on the main chance. “You don’t get on by being
original. You don’t get on by being bright. You don’t get on by being
strong. You get on by being a subtle crook.” Although society no longer
burns people at the stake or beheads them, jockeying for political
position and religious hysteria endure. The book’s appeal is not only
in its oft-told story, but Mantel’s particular telling of the story.
Humor and horror are close together—that is a characteristic of
Mantel’s writing and what gives her narrative so much power. - Mark LaFramboise
THE LACUNA By Barbara Kingsolver
The Lacuna
is an engrossing historical fiction, told as the journals of Harrison
Shepherd, a fictional author who reflects on the crowds, caprices, and
injustices of 20th-century North America. This is the first novel in
nine years by Barbara Kingsolver, and it boasts her courageous—but
always literary—concern for injustice and cultural difference. Born
into a confused heritage—his father absent, his mother
Mexican—Harrison’s experience encapsulates that of both countries:
through his eyes we witness the Bonus Army riots, the murals of Diego
Rivera, Trotsky’s assassination, World War II metal drives, and the
McCarthy trials. Lively renderings of Frida Kahlo, Trotsky, and even
Richard Nixon combine with documentary support from Times articles
(authentic and fabricated) and a heartbreaking concern for the fate of
truth in the infancy of the media age to create the rare sort of novel
that is both totally absorbing in its fiction and yet profoundly
engages the reader with the world of fact beyond its pages. - Lila Stiff
TOO MUCH HAPPINESS: Stories By Alice Munro
THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE By Orhan Pamuk
Kemal
is a rising young businessman about to become engaged to the ideal
woman, when he falls in love with 18-year-old Fusun, a boutique clerk.
As this new relationship bursts over him, Kemal is so impassioned that
he doesn’t see why he can’t have a wife and a lover. Both women dump
him, but he remains obsessed with Fusun, eventually tracking her down
and courting her for eight years, even though she’s married by then.
Kemal, though self-absorbed, is so earnest and inventive in his plans
and theories that he’s an unexpectedly engaging protagonist. And the
inward focus of his emotional story is balanced by his habit of
collecting objects for his museum. Started as part of his obsession,
this collection of figurines, candles, glasses—anything related to
Fusun—expands to document a wide range of Turkish life from the
mid-1970s on. In fact Pamuk, the Nobel laureate, has been working for
the last decade to establish such a museum as a tribute to his own
enduring beloved, Istanbul. - Barbara Meade
THE CHILDREN'S BOOK By A.S. Byatt
This big, bold, and ambitious novel tells the story of a group of
artists—playwrights, potters, puppeteers, and writers—in the last years
of the 19th century and leading up to the onset of the First World War.
At the center is Olive Wellwood, a writer of fairy stories, her large
family, and a close-knit group of Fabians (a progressive British
political movement that laid the foundation of today’s Labour Party)
and their children. The two families share parties, vacations, artistic
workshops, and trips abroad, oblivious of the dark political clouds
that will so dramatically change everything. This is a rich historical
novel of ideas and aesthetics, showcasing a fascinating and
too-little-explored period.
A GATE AT THE STAIRS By Lorrie Moore
Lorrie
Moore taps into 21st-century unease through her young protagonist,
Tassie Keljin. Tassie grew up in a hick town in the Middle West and
reflects on the world she moves into at the prestigious state
university. In order to make ends meet, she applies for a position in
child care and finds one with Sarah Brink, a woman who owns a French
restaurant in town. She accompanies the woman when she adopts a
biracial two-year-old and becomes a nanny for the child. All of this
provides opportunities for Tassie to reflect on food culture, residual
racism, urban/rural discontinuities. Furthermore, Tassie’s brother
enlists in the Army because his grades aren’t good enough to get him
into college. Moore tackles the gut issues of our times: war/peace,
race, and class. She does so in her distinctive voice, joking and
punning so that we are laughing and nodding at the same time.
THE HELP By Kathryn Stockett
Kathryn
Stockett brings the early civil rights era to life through the
perspectives of four women - two black and two white, who all are
attempting to maintain the course of their lives within strict societal
limiting factors - Jim Crow segregation, family and peer expectations,
Southern courtesy, and the Junior League. Shifting the narrative voice
among the women, The Help reveals their
various personal desires, motivations, and struggles, which result in
deep changes in their small town in Mississippi. A gripping and
insightful representation of this painful time in our country's
history. - Andrew Getman
BROOKLYN By Colm Toibin
Elis is an Irish girl pushed by her more energetic sister to immigrate
to Brooklyn, where the prospects for work and romance seem more
promising. Elis herself is doubtful about leaving her beloved mother
and small town, in spite of the constricted life there. The Brooklyn
she finds in the early 1950s, the rooming house and her job in the
small department store, are part of a world that I remember well, with
the hominess and the conservatism of those years. In time Elis finds
love and a second family with Tony, an Italian-American. When she is
called back to Enniscorthy after a sudden death in the family, she
finds herself a different person than the one she was. Colm Tóibín‘s
considerable talent and finesse are well displayed in this charming
story. - Carla Cohen
LA'S ORCHESTRA SAVES THE WORLD By Alexander McCall Smith
BRIGHT WINGS: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds By Billy Collins, David Allen Sibley
This
year David Sibley has also ventured into literary anthologies. His
sparkling, full-color paintings of birds, with informative captions,
accompany the more than 100 selections in Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds.
Gathered by the former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, this collection
includes Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sandpiper,” Robert Penn Warren’s “Evening
Hawk,” poems by no fewer than seven different poets on owls, and many
more, by writers from Chaucer to Whitman to Mary Oliver. - Barbara Meade
HALF BROKE HORSES: A True-Life Novel By Jeannette Walls
As she did in her memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls spins
family dysfunction into a riveting, triumphant tale. Walls writes Half
Broke Horses, a “true-life novel,” in the voice of her
spirited, defiant grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. Lily grew up in the
Depression’s grueling rural poverty, moving from a Texas dugout to a
failing New Mexico ranch. She was forced to leave school when her
father spent her tuition money on a pack of great Danes, but she still
became a teacher, a rancher, and a pilot. Think Little House on the
Prairie, with a bit more grit and a lot more sass. - Elizabeth Sher
NEW YORK: The Novel By Edward Rutherfurd
STONES INTO SCHOOLS By Greg Mortenson
Greg Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea
left off in 2003, recounting his efforts to establish schools for girls
in Afghanistan; his work in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan after a massive
earthquake hit the region in 2005; and the unique ways he has built
relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal
leaders. He shares his vision to promote peace through education and
literacy.
WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED By Gail Collins
READ MY PINS: Stories from a Diplomat's Jewel Box By Madeleine Albright
HALF THE SKY By Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn
THE HAWK AND THE DOVE By Nicholas Thompson
It was George Kennan who promulgated the containment policy. In his
famous long telegram from Moscow, he guessed at Soviet intentions and
urged that the U.S. had to contain the USSR. In his perceptive and
intriguing book, the very young Nicholas Thompson offers a joint
biography of Kennan and Paul Nitze, who opposed Kennan’s position of
waiting patiently until the USSR imploded. He advocated a strong
military buildup, although, in truth, he was very cautious about
deploying the weapons. Both men came from the same upper class
background and Ivy League schools. Both served in important civilian
positions during World War II and both believed deeply in public
service. Kennan had served in the Embassy in the Soviet Union and was
able to hold opposing views about our one-time ally. Nitze seemed to
see the situation as either/or – either the Soviets were our friends or
they were our enemies. Thompson does an admirable job of crafting a
vast trove of material into a readable history. It is still not clear
whether the military build-up prolonged the Cold War with a paranoid
foe or contributed to its fall.
OPEN: An Autobiography By Andre Agassi
THE PLEASURES OF COOKING FOR ONE By Judith Jones
The great Knopf editor who played an instrumental role in bringing
Julia Child’s recipes to American cooks, follows her memoir, The Tenth Muse,
with a useful cookbook about taking care of and nurturing yourself.
After her husband died, Jones taught herself how to cook and savor a
good meal for one. “This book is for those of you who want to roll up
your sleeves and enjoy, from day to day, one of the great satisfactions
of life.”
WHAT THE DOG SAW: And Other Adventures By Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell, the master of the quirky mashup and incomparable author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, serves up a feast of his favorite New Yorker pieces in What The Dog Saw.
The eponymous essay is a profile of the charismatic dog trainer, Cesar
Millan; in his signature counterintuitive approach, Gladwell is less
interested in Millan than he is in what’s going on inside Millan’s
dog’s head, and by the end of the piece, even cat people will be eager
to know. Gladwell’s insatiable curiosity about other people’s
motivations and desires leads to such diverse ruminations as who’s most
likely to be hired, who’s most likely to make a killing in investments,
and why there are so many kinds of mustard but only one ketchup. - Barbara Meade
SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT By Matthew B. Crawford
Matthew Crawford began to question his satisfaction as a “knowledge
worker,” and opened a motorcycle repair shop in Richmond. Shop Class as Soulcraft
is an absorbing personal labor-history-cum-memoir, a philosophical
treatise on the essence of work, and an analysis of America’s economic
and vocational future, reminiscent of the classic Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance. Following Crawford through the mental and
mechanical process of a manual trade will order, link, and electrify
many of the vague discontents and notions you might have about the
nature and quality of work and a good life in our times. This is an
especially thought-provoking choice for college students or recent
graduates.
INSIDE OF A DOG: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know By Alexandra Horowitz
THE LEXICOGRAPHER'S DILEMMA By Jack W. Lynch