Here’s Looking at Euclidby Alex Bellos
A delightful worldwide tour of the most interesting and weirdest in math.
Journalists and math usually do not mix, which is just one of the things that make Here’s Looking At Euclid: A Surprising and Delightful Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math so, well, delightful. Alex Bellos, an international newspaper correspondent, traveled all over the world to find out about history’s greatest mathematical achievements and mysteries. Some of the places he explores: an Amazon-based tribe in South America who never count above five; a club of schoolchildren in Japan who add up three-digit numbers in their heads almost instantaneously; and gamblers in Reno casinos to figure out why some win but most don't. While there’s plenty of theory for the math geeks out there, Bellos also has stories for people who may not have the fondest memories of math class. Booklist calls Here’s Looking at Euclid “intellectual entertainment of the first order.”
The Loversby Vendela Vida
A moving page-turner from a master of creating unforgettable heroines.
Vendela Vida’s latest novel The Lovers is the captivating account of a woman seeking escape and discovering emotional clarity. Vida tells the story of Yvonne, a widow who, in an attempt to abandon her sorrow over her husband’s death and relax, visits her children in Turkey. There she finally gains insight into herself and her relationship with her children, but an accident turns her world upside down. The Lovers is both a meditation on grieving and a gripping page-turner that Joyce Carol Oates calls “riveting and suspenseful.”
TreacheryEdited by Otto Penzler
Never-before-published spy fiction from today’s bestselling suspense-masters.
Legendary mystery bookseller Otto Penzler has compiled the first-ever collection of original international espionage stories. Agents of Treachery’s impressive roster of contributors includes Lee Child, Joseph Finder, Stephen Hunter, and David Morrell. From a look at the formation of a special ops cell to the life of an undercover FBI agent, the variety of thrilling stories and distinctive voices in Agents of Treachery will satisfy any spy fiction fan.
Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s Language by Robert McCrum
A daring revisionist history of the English language.
History buffs and linguistics junkies alike will devour this love letter to the English language. McCrum, biographer of P.G. Wodehouse, chronicles the influx of the English language into other cultures and its rise to prominence as the language of the world. From the birth of language to its export to America to Google as the ultimate purveyor of English, McCrum’s Globish is “brilliantly and provocatively” argued, so says Malcom Gladwell.
A Desirable Residenceby Madeleine Wickham
Chick-lit soap? Unexpected turns in suburban desperation, deception and devaluation.
"Sometimes I wonder why we didn't just stay put, with our nice little comfortable lives. But, you know, life's about more than just being comfortable," muses Liz, the self-centered main character in Madeleine Wickham’s latest novel, A Desirable Residence. It’s a new American release of one of her earliest books, a 1997 story, published before she began writing as Sophie Kinsella but somehow timely-all-over-again, set in desperate, bubble-bursting suburbia. As Liz speaks, so she lives—in her desperation to keep her comfortable life, Liz has an affair, almost loses her home, her business, and her daughter while everyone falls in love with everyone else’s spouse, like the soap opera Liz’s new tenant aims to star in. Born to be the perfect beach read, this pre-Sophie Kinsella work is, as Publishers Weekly called it, “a lighthearted romp through other people's lives, with a ring of truth that adds a bittersweet edge.”
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