Escape

Escape

Seventeen years after being forced into a polygamous marriage, Jessop escaped from the cultlike Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints with her eight children. She recounts the horrid events that led her to break free from the oppressive world she knew and how she has managed to survive since escaping, despite threats and legal battles with her husband and the Church. Though sometimes her retelling overflows with colorful foreshadowing and commentary on how exceptional she is, the everyday details she reveals about this polygamous society are devastating and tragic. Frasier delivers Jessop's words in a soft voice that develops intriguingly from an innocent and naïve tone into a more assertive and self-confident one that mirrors Jessop's journey. She maintains the same rhythm, but through the inspired words of the text, she really embraces Jessop's persona. The bonus telephone interview with Jessop on the final disc suffers from poor sound quality and, unfortunately, doesn't add any new information. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover.

For One More Day

For One More Day

In Albom's, second novel, retired baseball player Charley "Chick" Benetto—facing the pain of unfulfilled ambitions, alcohol abuse, divorce, and estrangement from a grown daughter—returns to his abandoned childhood home and attempts suicide in a bungling fit of rage. He encounters the spirit of his deceased mother, Pauline "Posey" Benetto, who Chick thoughtlessly took for granted during both his formative years as cocky athlete and his booze-soaked adulthood. Miraculously, Chick can now apologize to Posey for his ingratitude concerning the sacrifices she made as a single, working mother. Albom narrates with finesse, particularly in Chick's wistful litany of his mother's pearls of wisdom, "A child embarrassed by his mother is just a child who hasn't lived long enough." If Posey's truisms may not necessarily break new literary ground, Albom deserves credit for giving her depth and complexity that transcend familiar pop culture notions of motherhood in '50s America. The gentle strumming of musical accompaniment befits Albom's brand of writing. This "ghost story" provides an affirming tale of moral instruction and emotional catharsis.

Twenty Wishes (A Blossom Street Book #4)

Twenty Wishes (A Blossom Street Book #4)

Macomber returns to Seattle's fictional Blossom Street of A Good Yarn (and others) for a hopeful tale of four widows who meet at 38-year-old Anne Marie Roche's bookstore. Separated from her husband after he refused to have a baby with her, Anne Marie felt certain they would reconcile until he suddenly died. Lillie Higgins lost her husband in the same plane crash that claimed the husband of their daughter, Barbie Foster. Elise Beaumont entered widowhood after cancer claimed her husband. Together, the four make life-fulfillment wish lists. With Elise's prodding, Anne Marie decides to fulfill one of her wishes do good for someone else and becomes a lunch buddy to an at-risk third grader. Anne Marie, meanwhile, must deal with the reappearance of her adult stepdaughter, Melissa, who always held her in disdain. Elise mainly serves as a catalyst for Anne Marie's journey, but there is plenty of focus on Lillian and Barbie, who find purpose in unexpected and difficult relationships. Though stilted dialogue can pull readers out of the moment, Macomber's assured storytelling and affirming narrative is as welcoming as your favorite easy chair.

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

How did we go from Lyndon Johnson's landslide Democratic victory in 1964 to Richard Nixon's equally lopsided Republican reelection only eight years later? The years in between were among the most chaotic in American history, with an endless and unpopular war, riots, assassinations, social upheaval, Southern resistance, protests both peaceful and armed, and a "Silent Majority" that twice elected the central figure of the age, a brilliant politician who relished the battles of the day but ended them in disgrace. In Nixonland Rick Perlstein tells a more familiar story than the one he unearthed in his influential previous book, Before the Storm, which argued that the stunning success of modern conservatism was founded in Goldwater's massive 1964 defeat. But he makes it fresh and relentlessly compelling, with obsessive original research and a gleefully slashing style--equal parts Walter Winchell and Hunter S. Thompson--that's true to the times. Perlstein is well known as a writer on the left, but his historian's empathies are intense and unpredictable: he convincingly channels the resentment and rage on both sides of the battle lines and lets neither Nixon's cynicism nor the naivete of liberals like New York mayor John Lindsay off the hook. And while election-year readers will be reminded of how much tamer our times are, they'll also find that the echoes of the era, and its persistent national divisions, still ring loud and clear.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Stephenie Meyer, creator of the phenomenal teen-vamp Twilight series, takes paranormal romance into alien territory in her first adult novel, The Host. Those wary of sci-fi or teen angst will be pleasantly surprised by this mature and imaginative thriller, propelled by equal parts action and emotion. A species of altruistic parasites has peacefully assumed control of the minds and bodies of most humans, but feisty Melanie Stryder won't surrender her mind to the alien soul, called Wanderer, that inhabits her. Overwhelmed by Melanie's memories of fellow resistor Jared, Wanderer yields to her body's longing and sets off into the desert to find him. Likely the first love triangle involving only two bodies, The Host is unabashedly romantic, and the characters (human and alien) genuinely endearing. Readers intrigued by this familiar-but-alien world will gleefully note that the story's end leaves the door open for a sequel--or another series