Adam Haslett’s “intensely atmospheric, psychedelically tinged debut novel” (Elle) is on sale today! Written over the course of five years and finished the week that Lehman Brothers’ collapse set off the Wall Street panic of 2008, it portrays the gilded age of the first decade of the 21st century and the conflicts over class, corporate power, and personal identity that shape contemporary life.

Read New York Magazine’s profile of Haslett and the early review from Bookslut. And visit Haslett’s website to find out about upcoming events.

About the book:
In 1974, the Sellers family is transplanted from London to Sheffield in northern England. On the day they move in, the Glover household across the street is in upheaval: convinced that his wife is having an affair, Malcolm Glover has suddenly disappeared. The reverberations of this rupture will echo through the years to come as the connection between the families deepens. But it will be the particular crises of ten-year-old Tim Glover—set off by two seemingly inconsequential but ultimately indelible acts of cruelty—that will erupt, full-blown, two decades later in a shocking conclusion.

Expansive and deeply felt, The Northern Clemency shows Philip Hensher to be one of our most masterly chroniclers of modern life, and a storyteller of virtuosic gifts.

Read an excerpt.

From the Reading Group Guide:
• Who is the main character in this novel? Is there more than one? Who did you most, and least, enjoy spending time with? Which character undergoes the greatest transformation? In what ways is he/she transformed?

• The notion of keeping secrets—anything from Nick’s double life to Tim’s obsession with Sandra—is a major theme in the novel. Who benefits by being circumspect, and who is damaged by it? What do you think the novel demonstrates about secrets?

View the complete reading group guide here.

Q: Pictures at an Exhibition tells a story that centers on the looting of European art in Paris during World War II. What drew you to this time and place, and where did the idea for this novel come from?
A: My father’s family lived in Paris after the war. My grandfather was officially working for the Marshall Plan, but was in fact a member of the OSS—the precursor to the CIA—gathering information about French bridges in preparation for the possible next war. My grandmother Fiora’s stories from this time made me feel as if I had been living on rue Scheffer in the 1940s. She told me about the Russian count who lived across the courtyard, about the rationing of butter and gasoline, and how she was recognizable as an American to Frenchmen on the street by her shiny hair: the French used the same soap to wash their hair as they did the floor and the dishes. Only Americans used shampoo, imported in their suitcases, alongside silk stockings, cigarettes, and coffee. My father’s memories are a child’s memories: pushing a toy boat in the Luxembourg Garden fountain; wearing short pants even in winter; sharing the tub with my grandmother’s friend’s children since the French family couldn’t afford to heat the water for their bath; being surprised that French children did not like peanut butter. I found this contrast between adult and childhood memories intriguing. I knew I wanted to write about France in this post-war period, and I knew I wanted to write about Edouard Manet’s paintings, which I find beautiful and unsettling. Whenever I was stuck in the novel, I would study a new painting and see where it took me.

Read the complete interview here.

Keep clicking:
• Read an excerpt
• Print a free reading group guide

“Kirstin Downey’s lively, substantive and—dare I say—inspiring new biography of Perkins…not only illuminates Perkins’ career but also deepens the known contradictions of Roosevelt’s character.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air

One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s closest friends and the first female secretary of labor, Perkins capitalized on the president’s political savvy and popularity to enact most of the Depression-era programs that are today considered essential parts of the country’s social safety network.

Frances Perkins is no longer a household name, yet she was one of the most influential women of the twentieth century. Based on eight years of research, extensive archival materials, new documents, and exclusive access to Perkins’s family members and friends, this biography is the first complete portrait of a devoted public servant with a passionate personal life, a mother who changed the landscape of American business and society.

Frances Perkins was named Secretary of Labor by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. As the first female cabinet secretary, she spearheaded the fight to improve the lives of America’s working people while juggling her own complex family responsibilities. Perkins’s ideas became the cornerstones of the most important social welfare and legislation in the nation’s history, including unemployment compensation, child labor laws, and the forty-hour work week.

Arriving in Washington at the height of the Great Depression, Perkins pushed for massive public works projects that created millions of jobs for unemployed workers. She breathed life back into the nation’s labor movement, boosting living standards across the country. As head of the Immigration Service, she fought to bring European refugees to safety in the United States. Her greatest triumph was creating Social Security.

Written with a wit that echoes Frances Perkins’s own, award-winning journalist Kirstin Downey gives us a riveting exploration of how and why Perkins slipped into historical oblivion, and restores Perkins to her proper place in history.

Keep clicking:
• Read an excerpt
• Print a free reading group guide
• View author tour events

Intrigued? Learn more about how it all works from the knowledgeable folks over at TechCrunch in this recent article on GetGlue. Or just hit up GetGlue.com and get started yourself. The You Are Not a Gadget giveaway is going on now, with giveaways for A Dark Matter and The Jazz Loft Project to follow later this month.

And for more on these authors visit:

• You Are Not a Gadget:  www.jaronlanier.com
• The Jazz Loft Project:  www.jazzloftproject.org
• A Dark Matter:  www.peterstraub.net

YOURS EVER by Thomas Mallon
What’s more romantic than receiving a hand-written letter, especially a love letter? Why, in the age of email, do we still feel the need to write letters? Yours Ever will remind readers of the pleasures found in letters, even the ones not addressed to you.

Skip to chapter five and you’ll find an entire section on love letters. Perhaps this will inspire your loved one to put his/her feelings for you into written words, and if that’s not possible or likely, Mallon writes about an escritorio publico, a professional “letter writer,” whose job it is to express sentiments on paper—feelings the sender is incapable of scribbling him/herself.
Order your copy

THE LOCUST AND THE BIRD by Hanan al-Shaykh
In search of a gift for your mother or girlfriend? Look no further. Hanan al-Shaykh, known as “one of the most daring female writers of the Middle East,” has written an extraordinary tale of undying love. Recreating the dramatic life of her mother, Kamila, Shaykh describes Kamila’s forced marriage at the age of thirteen to a much older man (despite the fact that she was in love with a young man named Mohammed), the scandalous affair she continued during that marriage, and of the shame she brings to her family by divorcing. While Shaykh has written a beautiful account of her mother’s life, the core of the story is the passion between Kamila and Mohammed and of the risks she takes for love.

Order your copy and check out the reading group guide.

A PIGEON AND A BOY by Meir Shalev
From the internationally acclaimed Israeli writer Meir Shalev comes a mesmerizing novel of two love stories, separated by half a century but connected by one enchanting act of devotion.

A Pigeon and a Boy is the profound and lively story of lovers then and now, about how deeply we love, what home is, and what it all comes to in the end. Meir Shalev tells a story as intimate as a winged declaration of love.

Order your copy and check out the reader’s guide.

CHICKEN WITH PLUMS by Marjane Satrapi
Perhaps you feel a different kind of love this Valentine’s Day. Perhaps the love of an object? You are not alone. The main character of Marjane Satrapi’s Chicken with Plums, Nasser Ali Khan, is a celebrated Iranian musician who gives up his life for music and love.

The poignant story of one man, Chicken with Plums is also stunningly universal—a luminous tale of love, life, and death, and the courage and passion they require of us.

Order your copy and check out other books by Marjane Satrapi.

LA’S ORCHESTRA SAVES THE WORLD by Alexander McCall Smith
Perhaps you’re recovering from a shattered relationship and need a pick-me-up? We have the perfect remedy. From the best-selling author of The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series comes La’s Orchestra Saves the World, a delightful and moving story that celebrates the healing powers of love, friendship, and music.
With his all-embracing empathy and his gentle sense of humor, Alexander McCall Smith makes of La’s life—and love—a tale to enjoy and cherish.

Order your copy and check out the reading group guide.

THE BOOK OF NEW ISRAELI FOOD by Janna Gur
Need a recipe for a romantic Valentine’s dessert to cook for your loved one? Look no further than Janna Gur’s stunning Book of New Israeli Food, which is at once a coffee-table book and a complete cookbook.

For a treat that will end the night right, try out the ISRAELI CHEESECAKE recipe – one of the most popular and easy to make. This cake is prepared with gvina levana, soft low-fat white cheese, but if unavailable you can use cream cheese.

And make sure to order your copy!

Ingredients (for a 20×20 cm / 8×11 inch rectangular baking dish):
The Crust and Topping:
200 g (7 oz, 1 2/3 cups) crumbled petit-beurre cookies
120 g (4 oz) melted butter
25 g (1 oz, 2 tablespoons) sugar

The Filling:
200 g (7 oz) butter
200 g (7 oz, 1 cup) sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
250 g (one small container, 9 oz) soft white cheese (gvina levana)
200 g (one small container, 7 oz) sour cream

1. Prepare the crust and the topping: Combine the crumbled cookies with the sugar and melted butter.
2. Press two-thirds of the mixture onto the bottom of the baking dish. Freeze for 15 minutes until the crust solidifies. Keep the rest for the topping.
3. Prepare the filling: Beat the butter with the sugar, egg and egg yolk in a mixer for 10 minutes until creamy and fluffy.
4. Gently fold in the cheese and the sour cream and pour the filling into the prepared crust. Coat with the remaining cookie crumb mixture and refrigerate for 24 hours before serving.

Variation: Replace gvina levana with an equal amount of cream cheese.

Recipe excerpted from BOOK OF NEW ISRAELI FOOD by Janna Gur. Copyright 2008 by Janna Gur. Excerpted with permission from Schocken Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

New York Magazine explains the novel’s winding road toward fruition thus: “[Haslett] had decided to imagine himself inside the Fed’s massive, impregnable doors ten years ago, before he went to Yale Law School and before he wrote a collection of stories, You Are Not a Stranger Here, that earned Haslett a 2003 Pulitzer nomination and a plug from his former teacher at Swarthmore, Jonathan Franzen. Haslett finished his law degree soon after his book unexpectedly hit the best-seller list, but he has never practiced.

“Union Atlantic is an unlikely follow-up to those intensely insular stories. The new novel, which deftly interweaves harrowing plot twists and tragic character studies, also manages to probe the twin fatal obsessions of the aughts: military hubris and a manic banking spree untethered from any sense of public accountability. But the biggest shock came the week Haslett finished the book, which was also the week Lehman Brothers collapsed.”

Find out more about Union Atlantic on Haslett’s website. Look for it on shelves February 9th.

Kirkus writes, “The Newman that emerges from Hotchner’s remembrances is an immensely likable figure, compulsively unpretentious and self-deprecating, hungry for fun and adventure. There are a few scenes highlighting Newman’s movie-star milieu, including a beer-fueled tennis match with Robert Redford and MPAA head Jack Valenti, and a taste test administered by Newman neighbor Martha Stewart. But the author focuses on the actor away from Hollywood, engaged in his passions for racing, boating and just hanging out and shooting the breeze. Sections on the suicide of Newman’s troubled son and a heartbreaking account of the actor’s failing health add melancholic notes to the story, but Hotchner’s memoir is ultimately an inspirational portrait of an extraordinary man.”