New in hardcover Don't Vote It Just Encourages the Bastards by P. J. O'Rourke Put the country’s big, fat political ass on a diet. Lose that drooping deficit. Slim those spreading entitlement programs. Firm up that flabby pair of butt cheeks that are the Senate and the House. Having had a lot of fun with what politicians do, P. J. O’Rourke now has a lot of fun with what we should think about those politicians. Nothing good, to be sure. Instead of starting with deep political thinkers of yore such as Hume, Locke, and John Stuart Mill, in his new book, DON’T VOTE—It Just Encourages the Bastards, O’Rourke starts with a party game of late-night giggle sessions in all-girls boarding schools: “Kill, F@#%, Marry.” Pick three men—or, in O’Rourke’s version, three political ideologies, i.e., Democrat, Republican, and Independent (a.k.a. Confused). Then you choose which to terminate with extreme prejudice, which to go for a roll in the hay, and which to settle down with permanently for a boring life in the suburbs. This astute tool of political analysis works on the parts of government as well as on the political thinking that led to those parts: kill the Department of Education, screw Social Security, and marry the Armed Forces. New in paperback War Dances by Sherman Alexie Winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award The Progressive Favorite Book of the Year One of Globe & Mail's Best-reviewed Foreign Fiction Releases of 2009 Pacific Northwest Independent Booksellers Bestseller List (#6 on 9-21-2009) Mountains and Plains Indie Bestseller list (#10 on 9-27-09) In his first new fiction since winning the National Book Award for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, best-selling author Sherman Alexie delivers a virtuoso collection of tender, witty, and soulful stories that expertly capture modern relationships from the most diverse angles. War Dances brims with Alexie’s poetic and revolutionary prose, and reminds us once again why he ranks as one of our country’s finest writers.           With bright insight into the minds of artists, entrepreneurs, fathers, husbands, and sons, Alexie populates his stories with average men on the brink of exceptional change: In the title story, a son recalls his father’s “natural Indian death” from alcohol and diabetes, just as he learns that he himself may have a brain tumor; “The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless,” dissects a vintage clothing store owner’s failing marriage and courtship of a Puma-clad stranger in airports across the country; and “Breaking and Entering” recounts a film editor’s fateful confrontation with an thieving adolescent.           Brazen and wise War Dances takes us to the heart of what it means to be human. The new beginnings, successes, mistakes, and regrets that make up our daily lives are laid bare in this wide-ranging new work that is quintessential Alexie. New in hardcover The Witch of Hebron A World Made by Hand Novel by James Howard Kunstler An Indie Next List Notable selection (September 2010) In this sequel to his best-selling World Made by Hand, Kunstler expands on his vision of a post-oil society with a new novel about an America in which the electricity has flickered off, the Internet is a distant memory, and the government is little more than a rumor. In the tiny hamlet of Union Grove, New York, travel is horse-drawn and farming is back at the center of life. But it’s no pastoral haven. Wars are fought over dwindling resources and illness is a constant presence. Bandits roam the countryside, preying on the weak. And a sinister cult threatens to shatter Union Grove’s fragile stability. In a book that is both shocking yet eerily convincing, Kunstler seamlessly weaves hot-button issues such as the decline of oil and the perils of climate change into a compelling narrative of violence, religious hysteria, innocence lost, and love found. New in paperback The Farmer's Daughter Novellas by Jim Harrison Selected as a New York Times Book Review and a Denver Post Editor’s Choice Jim Harrison is one of the most cherished and popular authors in American fiction, and his latest collection of novellas, The Farmer’s Daughter, finds him writing at the height of his powers, and in fresh and audacious new directions. The three stories in The Farmer’s Daughter are as different as they are unforgettable. Written in the voice of a home-schooled fifteen-year-old girl in rural Montana, the title novella is an uncompromising, beautiful tale of an extraordinary character whose youth intersects with unexpected brutality, and the reserves she draws upon to make herself whole. In another, Harrison’s beloved recurring character Brown Dog, still looking for love, escapes from Canada back to the States on the tour bus of an Indian rock band called Thunderskins. And finally, a retired werewolf, misdiagnosed with a rare blood disorder brought on by the bite of a Mexican hummingbird, attempts to lead a normal life but is nevertheless plagued by hazy, feverish episodes of epic lust, physical appetite, athletic exertions, and outbursts of violence under the full moon.  A memorable portrait of three decidedly unconventional American lives, The Farmer’s Daughter reminds us why Jim Harrison is one of the most important authors at work today. New in paperback The Hidden Oasis by Paul Sussman International bestseller Paul Sussman delivers another heart-pounding, action-packed read with Hidden Oasis, a thriller set in Egypt's Western Desert and revolving around a legendary desert paradise. The Hidden Oasis begins with the murder of Alex Hannen, a former CIA agent living in Egypt. Her sister, Freya, a world-class mountain climber from the United States, travels to Cairo to help bury Alex, and once there immediately becomes suspicious of the doctor’s news that Alex had taken her own life. How, she asks, could Alex have injected herself with a lethal dose of morphine, given her lifelong fear of needles? The mysterious circumstances surrounding Alex’s death lead Freya on a search for the truth. She soon meets her sister’s dear friend, Flin Brodie, a world-renowned authority on predynastic Egypt searching for a mythic hidden oasis deep within the Egyptian desert and supposedly housing a valuable, mythic stone untouched for millennia. In this propulsive, fascinating thriller, Freya and Flin are led on an extraordinary adventure—sometimes violent, often dangerous, always thrilling—for the answer to one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries: the location of the legendary lost oasis of Zerzura, and the key to the astonishing, terrifying secret that lies at its heart. New in hardcover The Last Narco Inside the Hunt for El Chapo, the World's Most Wanted Drug Lord by Malcolm Beith The dense hills of Sinaloa, Mexico, are home to the most powerful drug lord since Pablo Escobar: Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Responsible for uncountable murders since taking charge of the Sinaloa cartel in the 1990s, and a central figure in the recent surge in drug-related violence and bloodshed, Guzman is among the world’s ten most-wanted men and also appeared on Forbes magazine’s 2009 billionaire list. With his massive wealth, his army of professional killers, and a network of informants that reaches into the highest levels of government, catching Guzman was considered impossible—until now. The all-out war between the Mexican cartels has isolated Guzman from former partners at the same time that the Mexican government has intensified its fight to restore order and end the terror. With El Chapo vulnerable as never before, Mexican and DEA authorities are closing in, and journalist Malcolm Beith, a Newsweek contributor who has spent years reporting on the drug wars, follows the chase with full access to senior officials and exclusive interviews with soldiers and drug traffickers in the region, including members of Guzman’s cartel. The Last Narco combines fearless reporting with the story of El Chapo’s legendary rise from a poor farming family to the “capo” of the world’s largest drug empire. New in paperback Vida by Patricia Engel Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers (11/2/10 to 1/31/11) Fresh, accomplished, and fearless, Vida marks the debut of Patricia Engel, a young author of immense talent and promise. Vida follows a single narrator, Sabina, as she navigates her shifting identity as a daughter of the Colombian diaspora and struggles to find her place within and beyond the net of her strong, protective, but embattled family. In “Lucho,” Sabina’s family—already “foreigners in a town of blancos”—is shunned by the community when a relative commits an unspeakable act of violence, but she is in turn befriended by the town bad boy who has a secret of his own; in “Desaliento,” Sabina surrounds herself with other young drifters who spend their time looking for love and then fleeing from it—until reality catches up with one of them; and in “Vida,” the urgency of Sabina’s self-imposed exile in Miami fades when she meets an enigmatic Colombian woman with a tragic past. Patricia Engel maps landscapes both actual (New Jersey, New York, Miami, Bogotá) and interior in this stunning debut, and the constant throughout is Sabina—serious, witty, alternately cautious and reckless, open to transformation yet skeptical of its lasting power. Infused by a hard-won, edgy wisdom, Vida introduces a sensational new literary voice. New in paperback The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville One of More magazine’s Fall Books We’re Buzzing About Barnes & Noble Review Best Historical Fiction of the Year An Indie Next List Notable selection (September 2009) Winner of the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction A stunning follow-up to her Commonwealth Writers’ Prize-winning book, The Secret River, Grenville’s The Lieutenant is a gripping story about friendship, self-discovery, and the power of language set along the unspoiled shores of 1788 New South Wales. As a boy, Daniel Rooke was an outsider. Ridiculed in school and misunderstood by his parents, Daniel could only hope that he would one day find his place in life. When he joins the marines and travels to Australia as a lieutenant on the First Fleet, Daniel finally sees his chance for a new beginning. As his countrymen struggle to control their cargo of convicts and communicate with nearby Aboriginal tribes, Daniel constructs an observatory to chart the stars and begin the work he prays will make him famous. But the place where they have landed will prove far more revelatory than the night sky. Out on his isolated point, Daniel comes to intimately know the local Aborigines and forges a remarkable connection with one girl that will change the course of his life. The Lieutenant is a remarkable story about the poignancy of a friendship that defies linguistic and cultural barriers, and shows one man that he is capable of exceptional courage. New in hardcover The Typist A Novel by Michael Knight An Indie Next List Notable selection (August 2010) Rife with the crisp dialogue, complex characters, and economy of language for which Knight’s previous work has been praised, The Typist chronicles the early rehabilitation of the Pacific theater of the Second World War—specifically occupied Japan, where Western bureaucrats flooded into Tokyo, taking charge of their former enemies. When Van joins the army in 1944, he expects his term of service to pass uneventfully. After all, the war is winding down and Van’s singular talent—typing ninety-five words a minute—keeps him off the battlefield and in General MacArthur’s busy Tokyo headquarters, where his days are filled with paperwork and letters of dictation. Little does Van know that the first year of the occupation will prove far more volatile for him than for the Army. Bunked with a troubled combat veteran cum-black marketer and recruited to babysit MacArthur’s son, Van is suddenly tangled in the complex personal lives of his compatriots. As he brushes shoulders with panpan girls and Communists on the streets of Tokyo, Van struggles to uphold his convictions in the face of unexpected conflict—especially the startling news that reaches his barracks from his young war bride, a revelation that threatens Van with a kind of war wound he could never have anticipated. New in hardcover Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer Shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger Award Internationally acclaimed, prize-winning thriller writer Deon Meyer has been heralded as the “King of South African Crime.” In Thirteen Hours, his latest novel, morning dawns in Cape Town, and for homicide detective Benny Griessel it promises to be a very trying day. A teenage girl’s body has been found on the street, her throat cut. She was an American—a PR nightmare in the #1 tourist destination in South Africa. And she wasn’t alone. Somewhere in Cape Town her friend, Rachel Anderson, an innocent American, is hopefully still alive. On the run from the first page of Thirteen Hours, Rachel is terrified, unsure where to turn in the unknown city. Detective Griessel races against the clock, trying to bring her home safe and solve the murder of her friend in a single day. Meanwhile, he gets pulled into a second case, the murder of a South African music executive. Griessel’s been sober for nearly six months—156 days. But day 157 is going to be tough. A #1 best seller in South Africa published to rave reviews, Thirteen Hours is an atmospheric, intensely gripping novel from a master storyteller. You simply can’t put it down. For assistance with this site please contact sales@groveatlantic.com GroveAtlantic Online created by Peter Grand, Inc. Privacy Policy Term of use