What are you reading this summer? Here's a short list of new and noteworthy books on our list, including three sure to make our best of the year, Apples are from Kazakhstan, The Fruit Hunters and Come Ashore and We Will Kill and Eat You All

		E-mail Print
Select Item

	The Fruit Hunters, A Story of Nature, Obsession, Commerce and Adventure  •  Adam Leith Gollner SCIENCE •  2008 •  HARD COVER  • 288 PAGES The coco-de-mer, found only in the Seychelles, Asia's repugnant and coveted durian and all many exotic and wonderful fruits that you've never heard of take the starring role in this surprisingly juicy account of the history, pleasure and business of fruit. Admittedly addled, Gollner chronicles his travels all over the planet in search of Galangal, chempedak, salak, jambu, sapote, voavanga, farkleberry, ballion and other such marvels. (NAT138, $25.00)
	Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All, A New Zealand Story  •  Christina Thompson BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2008 •  HARD COVER  • 268 PAGES In this story of cultural collision, and ultimate harmony, Harvard Review editor Thompson interweaves memoir and history as she tells two stories: the western encounter with New Zealand's Maori tribe, and a personal lovestory about how she met her Maori husband. With an elegant touch, she examines racial stereotypes and cultural misconceptions. (NZL96, $24.99)
	Apples are from Kazakhstan, The Land That Disappeared  •  Christopher Robbins TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2008 •  HARD COVER  • 304 PAGES In this richly observed portrait, the British journalist weaves tales of the Scythians and Sarmatians with anecdote, impressions and an appreciation for the diversity, beauty and future of Kazakhstan. (CAS160, $24.00)
	Shopping for Porcupine, A Life in Arctic Alaska  •  Seth Kantner BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2008 •  HARD COVER  • 256 PAGES Kantner evokes in these interconnected essays and photographs life on the Kobuk River on the Chukchi coast in northwest Alaska, a beautiful wild place, rich in resources, where he was raised by his Ohioan back-to-the-land, igloo-dwelling parents in the 1960s and where he still lives. Winner of the 2005 Whiting Writer's Award (he includes a chapter on his fish-out-of-water trip to New York), Kantner honors inupiat friends with stories, sharply drawn portraits and a lovingly conveyed feel for living close to the land. (ALA272, $28.00)
	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao  •  Junot Diaz LITERATURE •  2008 •  PAPER  • 368 PAGES The Dominican-born New Yorker's long-awaited, family saga. It's a dark, entertaining multi-layered tale of the hopes and dreams and tumult of the hugely overweight, hopelessly confused and endearing young New Jerseyite of the title -- his romantic aspirations, confounding bad luck, many neighbors, bewitched family and roots in the Dominican Republic, where he returns by the end of the novel. (CRB213, $24.95)
	The Discovery of France  •  Graham Robb HISTORY •  2007 •  HARD COVER  • 454 PAGES Winner of the 2008 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, Graham's erudite portrait, the result of equal parts time in the library and on his bicycle, marvelously illuminates the rural byways, intricate history and charting of France. (FRN770, $27.95)
	The Enchantress of Florence  •  Salman Rushdie LITERATURE •  2008 •  HARD COVER Deeply absorbing and mysterious, this novel conjures life in Renaissance Florence and the Mughal court of emperor Akbar with vivid detail and humor. It begins with a Florentine stranger in Sikra and then proceeds to reveal many secrets and tell many tales. Combine a page-turning plot with Rushdie's masterful prose and philosophical complexity, and you have a thoroughly rewarding read. (ITL948, $26.00)
	Mister Pip  •  Lloyd Jones LITERATURE •  2008 •  PAPER  • 272 PAGES A transcendent tale of the power of storytelling, well-grounded in the politics and society of the modern South Pacific. Jones, a New Zealander, draws on his travels and recent events in Bougainville, largest of the Solomon Islands and a break away province of Papua New Guinea, for his story. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mister Pip deservedly won both the Commonwealth Prize and Kiriyama Prize. (PNG22, $12.00)
	How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone  •  Sasa Stanisic LITERATURE •  2008 •  HARD COVER  • 304 PAGES Powerful, vivid and funny, Stanisic's devastating tale shows the calamity of war through the eye's of the young Bosnian refugee Aleksandar Krsmanoviae. The boy keeps holds onto his grandfather Slavko's credo "the most valuable gift of all is invention, imagination is your greatest wealth, remembering life in Bosnia before it was town apart by ethnic violence. (BOS32, $24.00)
	Zoli  •  Colum McCann LITERATURE •  2008 •  PAPER  • 347 PAGES The acclaimed author of "Dancer" and "This Side of Brightness" delivers a sensuous novel about exile, belonging, and survival, based loosely on the true story of the Romani poet Papsuza. It spans the 20th century and travels the breadth of Europe. (EUR305, $15.00)
	Away, A Novel  •  Amy Bloom LITERATURE •  2008 •  PAPER  • 256 PAGES Bloom's marvelous fifth novel draws from the real-life particulars of Lillian Leyb, a remarkable Russian immigrant who, settled in New York, took off across America, determined to walk to Siberia and reunite with her young daughter. Bloom draws the reader into 1920s Yiddishkeit New York, Chicago, rough-and-tough Seattle, the Alaskan wilderness in this tender, absorbing tale. The reviewer in Publisher's Weekly raved, "Encompassing prison, prostitution and poetry, Yiddish humor and Yukon settings, Bloom's tale offers linguistic twists, startling imagery, sharp wit and a compelling vision of the past. Bloom has created an extraordinary range of characters, settings and emotions. Absolutely stunning." (USA162, $14.00)
	In Europe, A Journey Through the Twentieth Century  •  Geert Mak HISTORY •  2008 •  PAPER  • 896 PAGES Dutch journalist Mak's big, bold account of Europe on the threshold of the 21st century bridges travel, journalism and history. He reports from Lisbon and Helsinki to Moscow, Istanbul, the D-day beaches and other momentous sites, deftly profiling the people and events that have defined modern Europe. (EUR254, $20.00)
	We Die Alone, A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance  •  David Howarth  •  Stephen Ambrose EXPLORATION •  2007 •  PAPER  • 208 PAGES A 1955 account by British historian David Howarth of courage, determination and valor in Nazi-occupied Norway. It's the story of Jan Baalrud -- and his extraordinary escape across the Lyngen Alps, as reconstructed from interviews with Baalrud and the brave people who helped him escape. Stumbling half-dead into an Arctic village, he is nursed back to health by the local people and, finally, makes his way to neutral Sweden. (NOR14, $16.95)
	The Sea Lady, A Late Romance  •  Margaret Drabble LITERATURE •  2008 •  PAPER  • 345 PAGES Drabble brings marine biologist Humphrey Clark and long-lost childhood sweetheart Ailsa Kelman, also a celebrated academic, together by the sea in this digressive, playful novel, her 17th. She doles out plenty of asides, salting the narrative with musings on the sex lives of fish, mermaids, and watery imagery. The setting of postwar Ornemouth, a gray beachtown on the North Sea, is arfully rendered. (GBR725, $14.00)
	Innocents Abroad (Or the New Pilgrims Progress)  •  Mark Twain TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2003 •  PAPER  • 523 PAGES On June 8, 1867, young journalist Samuel Longhorne Clemens, not yet famous as Mark Twain, set sail on a grand tour of Europe. With his disarming wit, Clemens makes the very best traveling companion in this classic account. The section on his visit to "the land which was the mother of civilization" is a celebrated highlight of the book. Twain has few rivals in art of reporting the horrors of travel with humor. "Paris, England, Scotland, Switzerland, Italy--Garibaldi! The Grecian Archipelago! Vesuvius! Constantinople! Smyrna! The Holy Land! Egypt and 'our friends the Bermudians'!" are among the main ports of call. (MDE08, $14.95)
	The Maytrees  •  Annie Dillard LITERATURE •  2008 •  PAPER  • 240 PAGES Dillard evokes the character and texture of Provincetown, its history, artists, seaside setting, nature and Bohemian spirit, with offhand grace in this loving tale. (USE405, $13.95)
	The Fragile Edge, Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific  •  Julia Whitty TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2008 •  PAPER  • 304 PAGES Whitty (A Tortoise for the Queen of Tonga) illuminates coral reefs and their inhabitants and the pleasures of diving in this memoir of underwater adventures in Rangiroa, Tuvalu and Moorea. Winner of the 2008 Kiriyama Prize and John Burroughs Medal. (PAC173, $14.95)
	Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations  •  Georgina Howell BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •  2008 •  PAPER  • 481 PAGES Archaeologist, spy, Arabist, linguist (fluent in six languages), author, photographer, mountaineer, and army major, the intoxicating, intrepid Major Miss Bell, who made her home in Baghdad, with T. E. Lawrence and Churchill, created modern Iraq. Howell quotes liberally from Bell's diaries, letters and books, bringing out the character of this remarkable woman. (ARB82, $15.00)

	Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer  •  David Winner   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  This odd book, all about soccer but not really about the sport at all, conveys the wry Dutch character in anecdote, image and history. (NTH56, $14.95)
	The Classical World, An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian  •  Robin Lane Fox   • HISTORY • NEW  •  Fox conjures tyrants, conquerors and enthralling personalities in this marvelously well-written history of ancient Greece and Rome. (GRE293, $18.95)
	Into the Wild  •  Jon Krakauer   • EXPLORATION  •  The gripping tale of a young man searching for experience, wilderness and self, who meets his end in the wilds north of Mt. McKinley. (ALA52, $13.95)
	Travels With Herodotus  •  Ryszard Kapuscinski   • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR  •  In this most personal book, and his last, the great Polish journalist and writer weaves tales of his youthful encounters in India, China, Egypt, Congo, Iran and Ethiopia with a meditation on Herodotus. (MED106, $14.95)
	China, A Traveler's Literary Companion  •  Kirk Denton   • ANTHOLOGY  •  An introduction both to China's finest modern writers and the diversity of cultures, concerns and landscapes, 12 diverse writers take the reader not just to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong but to the mountains and streams of West Hunan, silk-worm raising country of Zhejiang and the high plateau of western Sichuan in this richly evocative anthology of short fiction. (CHN520, $14.95)
	City of Thieves  •  David Benioff   • LITERATURE  •  Benioff turns his grandfather's stories of surviving the infamous Siege of Leningrad into a wise and touching novel of coming of age. (RUS380, $24.95)
	On Chesil Beach  •  Ian McEwan   • LITERATURE  •  McEwan's masterful 13th work of fiction, which unfolds on Edward Mayhew and the Florence Ponting's wedding day in Dorset 1963, shows the subtle horror of social convention and the damage it can inflict on a young, impressionable couple. (GBR716, $13.95)
	The Fish Can Sing  •  Halldor Laxness  •  Magnus Magnusson   • LITERATURE  •  A quirky, moving coming-of-age tale set in Reykjavik at the turn of the last century, featuring an unforgettable cast of Icelandic characters. Laxness, who also wrote "Independent People" (ICL01), won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955. (ICL14, $14.00)
	The Gathering  •  Anne Enright   • LITERATURE  •  The Hagerty clan gathers in Dublin to mourn ths loss of a son in this family saga, winner of the 2007 Booker Prize. Enright draws you in with raw emotion, unblinking prose and promise of redemption. (IRE229, $14.00)
	The Road Home  •  Rose Tremain   • LITERATURE  •  Tremain's affecting novel, winner of the 2008 Orange Prize, charts the course of one broken-hearted man from Eastern Europe in London. (GBR790, $24.99)
	The Shadow Catcher  •  Marianne Wiggins   • LITERATURE  •  Wiggins effortlessly weaves the tale of her own father and that of Edward S. Curtis, the great photographer of the American West, in this beautful novel of family and discovery. (USA160, $15.00)
	The Size of the World  •  Joan Silber   • LITERATURE  •  Set in wartime Vietnam, Thailand and Florida in the 1920s, Mexico, WWII Sicily and present-day Indiana, Joan Silber's loosely linked stories illuminate the difficulty of finding one's place in the world in just 300 heartfelt pages. Drawing on her travels in Asia (her characters often circle back to Thailand), Silber brings a depth of experience in the region to her richly imagined tales. (WLD143, $23.95)
	The Summer Book  •  Tove Jansson  •  Thomas Teal   • LITERATURE  •  Tove Jansson's slender novel is a season told in episodes in the lives a six-year-old girl, awakening to existence, and her grandmother, who is nearing the end of hers. (SCN56, $14.00)
	The Yiddish Policemen's Union  •  Michael Chabon   • LITERATURE  •  Chabon's marvelous and wildly imaginative detective story is set in Alaska, but not an Alaska that anyone would recognize. It's Sitka gone Eastern Europe, filled with Jews saved from the holocaust and refugees from an Israel that never was. (ALA243, $15.95)

Here are some other groups of books that might interest you. Click to view a listing:

More Books