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Wolf Hall: a novel by Hilary Mantel (Find this book in our catalog)
We all know the story of Henry VIII, but what about his adviser and, finally, victim, Thomas Cromwell? Mantel makes Cromwell and indeed all Tudor England her own, giving us a whole new picture of the wily statesman in a rigorously written work full of careful detail but driven by the drama portrayed. A model not simply of historical fiction but of literary endeavor in general. (LJ 9/15/09)

All the Living by C E Morgan (Find this book in our catalog)
"All the Living" has the timeless quality of a parable, but it is also a perfect evocation of a time and place, a portrait of both age-old conflicts and modern life. This lyrical and moving debut novel is an ode to the starve-acre southern farm, the mountain landscape, and difficult love--an unforgettable book from a major new voice. (catalog notes)

Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen (Find this book in our catalog)
A mesmerizing novel about estranged sisters and the cultural and family history that binds them Van and Linny Luong are as baffling to each other as their parents' Vietnamese legacy is to them both. Van, the quintessential overachiever, has applied the same studied diligence to her law career and marriage-a beau ideal that vaporized when Mr. Right walked out. Linny-pretty, fashionable, untethered-is grasping for purpose when her affair with a married man takes a humiliating turn. Each is the last person her sister would call, but when Mr. Luong summons them home for his American citizenship party, Van and Linny find themselves communing about their past-their late mother, their father's obsession with his Luong Arm invention, even the irony of their romantic straits. As these unlikely confidantes chart the uncertainty that defines them, they forge a tentative new relationship and the wherewithal to overcome disappointment. (catalog notes)

Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips (Find this book in our catalog)
Lark and Termiteis set during the 1950s in West Virginia and Korea. It is a story of the power of loss and love, the echoing ramifications of war, family secrets, dreams and ghosts, and the unseen, almost magical bonds that unite and sustain us. At its center, two children: Lark, on the verge of adulthood, and her brother, Termite, a child unable to walk and talk but filled with radiance. Around them, their mother, Lola, a haunting but absent presence; their aunt Nonie, a matronly, vibrant woman in her fifties, who raises them; and Termite’s father, Corporal Robert Leavitt, who finds himself caught up in the chaotic early months of the Korean War. (catalog notes)

Cooking Dirty: A Story of Life, Sex, Love and Death in the Kitchen by Jason Sheehan (Find this book in our catalog)
Cooking Dirtyis a rollicking account of life “on the line� inthe restaurants, far from culinary school, cable TV, and theMichelin Guide—where most of us eat out most of the time. Ittakes the kitchen memoir to a rough and reckless place.From his first job scraping trays at a pizzeria at age fifteen,Jason Sheehan worked on the line at all kinds of restaurants: aFrench colonial and an all-night diner, a crab shack just off theinterstate and a fusion restaurant in a former hair salon. Restaurantwork, as he describes it in exuberant, sparkling prose, is a wayof life in which “your whole universe becomes a small, hot steelbox filled with knives and meat and fire.� The kitchen crew is afraternity with its own rites: cigarettes in the walk-in freezer, sexin the basement, the wartime urgency of the dinner rush. Cookingis a series of personal challenges, from the first perfectly donemussel to the satisfaction of surgically sliced foie gras. And thekitchen itself, as he tells it, is a place in which life’s mysteriesare thawed, sliced, broiled, barbecued, and fried—a place wherepeople from the margins find their community and their calling. (catalog notes)

The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels by Janet Soskice (Find this book in our catalog)
In 1892, identical twins Agnes and Margaret Smith discovered what remains to this day among the earliest known copies of the Gospels. Soskice vividly recounts the story of two unlikely and unsung heroines in their effort to discover the Bible as originally written. (catalog notes)

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper (Find this book in our catalog)
The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family-including Judd's mother, brothers, and sister-have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd's wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd's radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch's dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a family. As the week quickly spins out of control, longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed, and old passions reawakened. (catalog notes)

A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert (Find this book in our catalog)
A Short History of Women is a profoundly moving portrayal of the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters, chronicling five generations of women from the close of the nineteenth century through the early years of the twenty-first. (catalog notes)

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