New and Noteworthy

Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese food

Dunlop, Fuchsia

Cook Fuchsia Dunlop explores the history, philosophy, and techniques of Chinese culinary culture. In each chapter, she examines a classic dish to reveal a distinctive aspect of Chinese gastronomy, whether it's the importance of the soybean, the lure of exotic ingredients, or the history of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. Meeting food producers, chefs, gourmets, and home cooks as she tastes her way across the country, Fuchsia invites listeners to join her on an unforgettable journey into Chinese food as it is cooked, eaten, and considered in its homeland.

The Horse: A Novel

Vlautin, Willy

Willy Vlautin explores loneliness, art, regret, and hard-won empathy in this poignant novel--his most personal to date--that captures the life of a journeyman musician unable to escape the tragedies of his past. Al Ward lives on an isolated mining claim in the high desert of central Nevada fifty miles from the nearest town. A grizzled man in his sixties, he survives on canned soup, instant coffee, and memories of his ex-wife, friends and family he's lost, and his life as a touring musician. Hampered by insomnia, bouts of anxiety, and a chronic lethargy that keeps him from moving back to town, Al finds himself teetering on the edge of madness and running out of reasons to go on--until a horse arrives on his doorstep: nameless, blind, and utterly helpless. Al hopes the horse will vanish as mysteriously as he appeared. Yet the animal remains, leaving him in a conundrum. Is the animal real, or a phantom conjured from imagination? As Al contemplates the horse's existence--and what, if anything, he can do--his thoughts are interspersed with memories, from the moment his mother's part-time boyfriend gifts him a 1959 butterscotch blonde Telecaster, to the day his travels begin. He joins various bands--all who perform his songs once they discover his talent--playing casinos, truck stops, clubs, and bars. He falls in love, and finds pockets of companionship and minor success along the way. Never close to stardom or financial success, he continues as a journeyman for decades until alcoholism and a heartbreaking tragedy lead him to the solitude of the barren Nevada desert. A poignant meditation on addiction, heartbreak, and the reality of life on the road in smalltime bands, The Horse is a beautiful, haunting tale from an author working at the height of his powers.

On Palestine

Chomsky, Noam; Pappé, Ilan; Barat, Frank

On Palestine is Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe's indispensable update on a suffering region. What is the future of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement directed at Israel? Which is more viable, the binational or one state solution? Ilan Pappe and Noam Chomsky, two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, discuss these critical questions and more in this urgent and timely book, a sequel to their acclaimed Gaza in Crisis. Chomsky is a global phenomenon ... he may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet. (The New York Times Book Review). Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian. (John Pilger). This sober and unflinching analysis should be read and reckoned with by anyone concerned with practicable change in the long-suffering region. (Publishers Weekly (on Gaza in Crisis)). Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling and influential political books, including Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, Interventions, Hopes and Prospects, Gaza in Crisis, Making the Future and Occupy. Ilan Pappe is the author of the bestselling The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, A History of Modern Palestine, and The Israel/Palestine Question. Frank Barat is a human rights activist and coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.

Tom Clancy's Op-Center: For Honor: A Novel

Rovin, Jeff

In 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent a convoy of nuclear missiles to Cuba. The crisis that followed almost triggered World War III. However, while all eyes were on the Caribbean, not all of the missiles were sent to Cuba. Several ships slipped from the flotilla and headed for a fishing village in a remote, frigid, northeastern Soviet frontier. There, a silo was constructed not far from Alaska. More than sixty years later, that silo and its lethal contents are intact. Now, Iranian scientists team with a Russian agent and his estranged, arms-smuggling father to bring those missiles to Tehran. When an intel officer at Op Center starts picking up hints of the deal, the government's off-the-grid unit must track the unknown actors - and try to decide whether they can count on data provided by an Iranian defector, a man who has more at stake than anyone realizes. At the same time, Op-Center sends a lone agent to Havana to try and find an aging revolutionary, a woman, who may hold the key to pinpointing the location of the silo. Complicating matters is a turf war between Op Center, the White House, and the FBI that threatens to compromise the investigation...as the time to act grows perilously short.

Death Sentence: The Inside Story of the John List Murders

Sharkey, Joe

The true account of the man who murdered his family in their New Jersey mansion--and eluded a nationwide manhunt for eighteen years. Until 1971, life was good for mild-mannered accountant John List. He was vice president of a Jersey City bank and had moved his mother, wife, and three teenage children into a nineteen-room home in Westfield, New Jersey. But all that changed when he lost his job. Raised by his Lutheran father to believe success meant being a good provider, List saw himself as an utter failure. Straining under financial burdens, the stress of hiding his unemployment, as well as the fear that the free-spirited 1970s would corrupt the souls of his children, List came to a shattering conclusion. 'It was my belief that if you kill yourself, you won't go to heaven," List told Connie Chung in a television interview. "So eventually I got to the point where I felt that I could kill them. Hopefully they would go to heaven, and then maybe I would have a chance to later confess my sins to God and get forgiveness.' List methodically shot his entire family in their home, managing to conceal the deaths for weeks with a carefully orchestrated plan of deception. Then he vanished and started over as Robert P. Clark. Chronicling List's life before and after the grisly crime, Death Sentence exposes the truth about the accountant-turned-killer, including his revealing letter to his pastor, his years as a fugitive with a new name--and a new wife--his eventual arrest, and the details of his high-profile trial.

The Dark Wives

Cleeves, Ann

As New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves's beloved Vera series explodes in popularity in print and on TV, this stunning eleventh book explores the web of secrets surrounding a young man's death. The man's body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who was due to work the previous night but never showed up. DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate the death, with her only clue being the disappearance of one of the home's residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence. Vera can't bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can't dismiss the possibility. Vera, Joe and new team member Rosie Bell, are soon embroiled in the case, and when a second connected body is found near the Three Dark Wives monument in the wilds of the Northumberland countryside, superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact. Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth, and the dark secrets in their community that may be far more dangerous than she could have ever believed possible.

The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2023

Amor Towles selects the best mystery short stories of the year 2023, including tales by Andrew Child, Jeffrey Deaver, and T.C. Boyle.

By Any Other Name: A Novel

Picoult, Jodi

A captivating novel about two women, centuries apart, fighting to be heard -- one of whom may be the real author of Shakespeare's plays -- from the New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here. As an undergraduate, Melina Green had a rare opportunity to have one of her first plays judged by famous theater critic Jasper Tolle, only to be publicly humiliated by a harsh and biased critique. Ten years later, her confidence as a playwright has never recovered, although she has just completed a work that she thinks is her best yet. It is based on the life of her ancestor Emilia Bassano, the first published female poet in England -- and rumored to be the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets -- but whom some scholars suspect may be the real author of a number of his plays. Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, and then her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits it to a festival under a male pseudonym. In 1581, the young orphan Emilia Bassano is being raised in the ways of English aristocracy by the Baron Willoughby and his sister. Her lessons on languages, reading, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling. But like most women of her day, she has no control over her fate, and is ripped from her old life and forced to become a courtesan to Lord Hunsdon, a man knighted by Queen Elizabeth as the Lord Chamberlain in charge of all theater in London. Though she has no other freedoms, and inspired by the work of the most brilliant playwrights of the time, she pseudonymously sets her own pen to paper to tell a story. Told in dual intertwining timelines, this sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. As Emilia alters the course of her life and therefore the course of the world, she blazes a trail. Centuries later, will Melina face the same terrible fate -- to have her work celebrated, but only at the price of letting another take credit?

The Making of a King: King Charles III and the Modern Monarchy

Hardman, Robert

No British monarch has had a tougher act to follow. Now, after seventy years of waiting and preparation, King Charles III is not just the head of the most famous family in the world. He is the custodian of a thousand-year-old institution that must redefine its place in the digital age while others insist on rewriting the past. With unrivaled access to the king, the royal family, and the court, leading royal authority Robert Hardman brings us the inside story on the most pivotal and challenging year for the monarchy in living memory. From the death of Elizabeth II through to the ancient spectacle of the Coronation, from the rise of a new Prince and Princess of Wales to the latest truth bombs from the Sussexes, this is the story of the making of a monarch.

The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men who Keep Us Free

Hegseth, Pete

Pete Hegseth joined the Army to fight extremists. Then that same Army called him one. The military Pete joined twenty years ago was fiercely focused on lethality, competency, and color blindness. Today our brass are following the rest of our country off the cliff of cultural chaos and weakness. Americans with common sense are fighting this on many fronts, but if we can't save the meritocracy of our military, we're definitely going to lose everywhere else. The War on Warriors uncovers the deep roots of our dysfunction--a society that has forgotten the men who take risks, cut through red tape, and get their hands dirty. The only kind of men prepared to face the dangers that the Left pretends don't exist. Unlike issues of education or taxes or crime, this problem doesn't have a zip code solution. We can't move away from it. We can't avoid it. We have only one Pentagon. Either we take it back or surrender it altogether. Combining his own war experiences, tales of outrage, and an incisive look at how the chain of command got so kinked, this book is the key to saving our warriors--and winning future wars. The War on Warriors must be won by the good guys, because when the shooting really starts, they're the only ones who can save us.

Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti were Gods on Earth

Darnell, John Coleman; Darnell, Colleen

Two celebrated Egyptologists bring to vivid life the intriguing and controversial reign of King Tut's parents Akhenaten has been the subject of radically different, even contradictory, biographies. The king has achieved fame as the world's first individual and the first monotheist, but others have seen him as an incestuous tyrant who nearly ruined the kingdom he ruled. The gold funerary mask of his son Tutankhamun and the painted bust of his wife Nefertiti are the most recognizable artifacts from all of ancient Egypt. But who are Akhenaten and Nefertiti? And what can we actually say about rulers who lived more than three thousand years ago? November 2022 marks the centennial of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun and although "King Tut" is a household name, his nine-year rule pales in comparison to the revolutionary reign of his parents. Akhenaten and Nefertiti became gods on earth by transforming Egyptian solar worship, innovating in art and urban design, and merging religion and politics in ways never attempted before. Combining fascinating scholarship, detective suspense, and adventurous thrills, Egypt's Golden Couple is a journey through excavations, museums, hieroglyphic texts, and stunning artifacts. From clue to clue, renowned Egyptologists, John and Colleen Darnell, reconstruct an otherwise untold story of the magnificent reign of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

Reversing Alzheimer's: The New Toolkit to Improve Cognition and Protect Brain Health

Sandison, Heather; Hanley, Kate; Bredesen, Dale E.

One of the foremost Alzheimer's dementia-care clinicians presents an individualized, step-by-step, whole-body, evidence-based approach to reversing and preventing cognitive decline, aiming to help people with dementia return to themselves and help those who are living in fear of developing dementia take good care of their current and future brain health.

Ancient Remedies: Secrets to Healing with Herbs, Essential Oils, CBD, and the Most Powerful Natural Medicine in History

Axe, Dr. Josh

Draws on centuries of traditional Chinese, Ayurvedic, and biblical medicine to identify specific dietary choices, medicinal herbs, and mind-body practices for more than seventy common conditions, from hypothyroidism to autoimmune diseases. In Ancient Remedies, Dr. Axe explores the foundational concepts of ancient healing--eating right for your type and living in sync with your circadian clock. Readers will learn how traditional practitioners identified the root cause of each patient's illness, then treated it with medicinal herbs, mushrooms, CBD, essential oils, and restorative mind-body practices. What's more, they'll discover how they can use these ancient treatments themselves to cope with dozens of diseases, from ADHD to diabetes, hypothyroidism, autoimmune disease, and beyond. Through engaging language and accessible explanations, Ancient Remedies teaches readers everything they need to know about getting, and staying, healthy--without toxic, costly synthetic drugs.