Best Sellers:

June 2008

Fiction:

A June BookSense Pick!

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Garth Stein

$23.95

If you've ever wondered what your dog is thinking, Stein's third novel offers an answer. Enzo is a lab terrier mix plucked from a farm outside Seattle to ride shotgun with race car driver Denny Swift as he pursues success on the track and off. Denny meets and marries Eve, has a daughter, Zoë, and risks his savings and his life to make it on the professional racing circuit. Enzo, frustrated by his inability to speak and his lack of opposable thumbs, watches Denny's old racing videos, coins koanlike aphorisms that apply to both driving and life, and hopes for the day when his life as a dog will be over and he can be reborn a man. When Denny hits an extended rough patch, Enzo remains his most steadfast if silent supporter. Enzo is a reliable companion and a likable enough narrator, though the string of Denny's bad luck stories strains believability. Much like Denny, however, Stein is able to salvage some dignity from the over-the-top drama.

Books on First offers 20% off this hardcover adult fiction!

 

The Miracle at Speedy Motors

Alexander McCall Smith

$22.95

In the ninth mystery of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Precious Ramotswe visits a game preserve to uncover the truth about an elderly American traveler whose safari proves to be his last journey.

If you're wondering whether one needs to have read the previous eight books featuring the pragmatic Precious and the rest of the engaging characters of her Botswanan world, let us say a resounding, No! (although after reading this one, we give fair warning that you may crave to go back and learn the winding history of them all).

Books on First offers 20% off this hardcover adult fiction!

A Heather (and Anita Rogers) pick!

Water for Elephants

Sara Gruen

$13.95

"Gritty," sensual and charged with dark secrets involving love, murder and a majestic, mute heroine (Rosie the Elephant), set in the circus world circa 1932, by the bestselling author of Riding Lessons, this was a BookSense Pick.

The Host

Stephanie Meyer

$25.99

The author of the #1-bestselling Twilight series delivers her brilliant first novel for adults that's also suitable for teen readers: a gripping story of love and betrayal in a future with the fate of humanity at stake, featuring what may be the first love triangle involving only two bodies.

Books on First offers 20% off this hardcover adult fiction!

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The Gathering

Anne Enright

$14.00

On the 2007 Booker Prize shortlist, this is the story of the nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gathering in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother, Liam, drowned in the sea. His sister, Veronica, collects the body and keeps the dead man company, guarding the secret she shares with him --something that happened in their grandmother's house in the winter of 1968. As Enright traces the line of betrayal and redemption through three generations her distinctive intelligence twists the world a fraction and gives it back to us in a new and unforgettable light. "The Gathering" is a daring, witty, and insightful family epic, clarified through Anne Enright's unblinking eye. It is a novel about love and disappointment, about how memories warp and secrets fester, and how fate is written in the body, not in the stars.

The Great Man

Kate Christensen

$14.95

Christensen pens a scintillating comedy of life among the avant-garde--of the untidy truths, needy egos, and jostling for position behind the glossy facade of artistic greatness--in this PEN Faulkner Award-winning story of a New York City painter living in the heroic generation of the 1940s and 1950s.

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Non Fiction:

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon: And the Journey of a Generation

Sheila Weller

$27.95

A groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America's most important musical artists--Carly Simon, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell--and offers an epic treatment of these mid-century women who dared to break tradition.

In Defense of Food

Michael Pollan

$21.95

"Eat Food.  Not Too Much.  Mostly Plants."

From the author of the bestselling "The Omnivore's Dilemma" comes this bracing and eloquent manifesto that shows readers how they might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich their lives and enlarge their sense of what it means to be healthy.

A New Earth

Eckhart Tolle

$14.00

Humanity now, perhaps more than in any previous time, has an opportunity to create a new, saner, more loving world. In very practical terms, Tolle leads readers into this new consciousness to learn to live and breathe freely.

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The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom

Simon Winchester

$27.95

Joseph Needham (1900-1995) is the man who made China "China", forming the West's understanding of a sophisticated culture with his masterpiece, Science and Civilization in China, says bestselling author Winchester (The Professor and the Madman, Krakatoa).  In a life devoted to recording the Middle Kingdom's intellectual wealth, Needham, an eccentric, brilliant Cambridge don, made a remarkable journey from son of a London doctor through scientist-adventurer to red scare target. In Winchester's estimable hands, Needham's story comes to life straightaway. From the biochemists arrival in WWII Chongqing (the smells -- of incense smoke, car exhaust, hot cooking oil, a particularly acrid kind of pepper, human waste, oleander, and jasmine) to his steely discipline when crafting his research into prose (to an old friend: I am frightfully busy. You come without an appointment, so I am afraid I cannot see you), Winchester plunges the reader into the action with hardly a break. As the author notes in an outstanding epilogue, a swirling 12-page trip through the kaleidoscope of contemporary China, he is at pains to place Needham front and center in our understanding of the nation that now plays such a huge role in American life.

A Brenda pick!

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Elizabeth Gilbert

$15.00

A celebrated writer pens an irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure, spiritual devotion, and what she really wanted out of life. Elizabeth Gilbert is currently writer-at-large for "GQ," Her journalism has been published in "Harper's Bazaar," "Spin," and the "New York Times" Magazine, and her fiction has appeared in "Esquire" and the "Paris Review."   This is a wonderful book, brilliant and personal, rich in spiritual insight. (Anne Lamott)

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Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation

Cokie Roberts

$26.95

In "Founding Mothers," Roberts paid homage to the women who helped establish America. Now she continues the story of more remarkable women and their achievements in moving the fledgling nation forward, from the election of John Adams in 1796 to the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828.

Limited time: 20% off this hardcover title!

A June BookSense Pick!

The Woman's Field Guide to Exceptional Living: Practical Steps for Living a Big, Bold, Beautiful Life!

Corrie Woods

$14.95

Your Passport to Creative Expression, Exploration, and Play! For many women-and men, too-life is a series of "supposed-to's" and "shoulds." You keep the lid on tight and plod along, knowing there's a place where life is big, bold, and beautiful but not sure how to get there, or even where to start. It's Time for a Cork-popping Change of Direction. The Woman's Field Guide to Exceptional Living will launch you directly into your own adventure. There are no limits here, no "shoulds," just a guided inner road trip to an extraordinary new outlook you can return to again and again for inspiration, tips, support, and motivation. You'll discover how to: *Get out of your head and into your life *Recognize your true callings and act on them *Overcome barriers to boldness, bliss, and beauty *Live without regrets, energy-drainers, and nay-saying

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Children's Bestsellers

Diary of a Wimpy Kid and

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

Jeff Kinney

$12.95 ea

An exciting new series begins. Greg Heffley is thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary.

Kinney's popular Web comic, which began in 2004, makes its way to print as a laugh-out-loud "novel in cartoons," adapted from the series. Middle school student Greg Heffley takes readers through an academic year's worth of drama. Greg's mother forces him to keep a diary ("I know what it says on the cover, but when Mom went out to buy this thing I "specifically "told her to get one that didn't say 'diary' on it"), and in it he loosely recounts each day's events, interspersed with his comic illustrations. Kinney has a gift for believable preteen dialogue and narration (e.g., "Don't expect me to be all 'Dear Diary' this and 'Dear Diary' that"), and the illustrations serve as a hilarious counterpoint to Greg's often deadpan voice. The hero's utter obliviousness to his friends and family becomes a running joke. For instance, on Halloween, Greg and his best friend, Rowley, take refuge from some high school boys at Greg's grandmother's house; they taunt the bullies, who then T.P. her house. Greg's journal entry reads, "I do feel a little bad, because it looked like it was gonna take a long time to clean up. But on the bright side, Gramma is retired, so she probably didn't have anything planned for today anyway." Kinney ably skewers familiar aspects of junior high life, from dealing with the mysteries of what makes someone popular to the trauma of a "wrestling unit" in gym class. His print debut should keep readers in stitches, eagerly anticipating Greg's further adventures. Ages 8-13.

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A Carolyn Pick!

A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L'Engle

$6.99

Meg's father mysteriously disappears after experimenting with the fifth dimension of time travel. Determined to rescue him, Meg and her friends must outwit the forces of evil on a heart-stopping journey through space and time. A commemorative edition (first published in 1962) of a timeless story with an Introduction by the author . A Newbery Medal winner.

Narnia Pop-Up Book

C.S. Lewis and Pop-ups by Robert Sabuda

$29.99

The wonderous world of Narnia comes to life! C.S. Lewis's classic Narnia books spring to life in the hands of award-winning paper engineer Robert Sabuda. Each of the seven books in the series has its own pop-up spread rendered in spectacular detail with stunning special effects. Experience a different adventure from Narnia on every spread in this beautiful addition to the Narnia library, sure to enchant fans of both C.S. Lewis and Robert Sabuda.