Here are this week’s new book releases.

Cooking

The Food Stylist’s Handbook (Denise Vivaldo)

Renowned food stylist Denise Vivaldo shares her tips and secrets in this latest book, The Food Stylist’s Handbook. It doesn’t matter if it’s for food blogs, tv, books, movies or ads, this book will help food stylists or photographers or those who want to be to plate, tweak and arrange the food to look like a work of art.

Business

The Art Of Public Strategy (Geoff Mulgan)

A former head of policy for the UK prime minister, Geoff Mulgan discusses public strategies and its effects in The Art Of Public Strategy. He further discusses how strategies take shape and how different factors, including money and people, are needed to mobilize and achieve important goals. It also includes common mistakes and how to avoid them. Anyone involved in public organizations will benefit from this book.

Biography

A Journey: My Political Life (Tony Blair)

Tony Blair is one of the most popular politicians in the world today. As a Labour Party leader, he became an influential part of British politics. In A Journey, Tony Blair shares his political experiences starting from his first years in office to Princess Diana’s death to the war in Iraq. He gives us the good and bad of being a leader and what he has to look forward to.

Fiction

Temple Of My Familiar (Alice Walker)

A follow-up to The Color Purple and first published in 1990, Temple Of My Familiar follows the stories of interrelated characters of African descent, from African tribes to the mixed bloods of Latin America, and its emergence and contribution to the African-American life in America.

History

Naked In Da Nang: A Forward Air Controller In Vietnam (Mike Jackson, Tara Dixon-Engel)

Forward air controllers (FACs) were regarded by many of their naval and air force brothers as either insane, suicidal or both. Author Mike Jackson capitalizes on the absurd reactions and experiences he had during his time.

Here is a rundown of this week’s newest book releases.

Self-Improvement

More Time For You (Rosemary Tator, Alesia Latson)

Rosemary Tator and Alesia Latson have been in the business of teaching their clients how to handle their stress to become effective leaders. In More Time For You, they will share their secrets and teach you how to handle stress so you become one, too. The book shows how to make better and faster decisions according topriorities and how to handle distractions and interruptions, among others.

History

King Philip’s War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance and the End of Indian Sovereignty (Daniel R. Mandell)

Daniel Mandell explores the colonial expansion of Indian sovereignty for decades and how it affected their society. He also reveals the shifting relationships of and between the Natives and colonists. King Philip’s War is a great account about the war that greatly affected Native-Anglo relations and the United States of America.

Fiction

Motion To Suppress (Perri O’Shaughnessy)

Nina Reilly, a lawyer from San Francisco, has just left her husband and her old job and relocated to a simpler life in Lake Tahoe. To start her new life, she decides to help out a friend, Misty Patterson, divorce her abusive husband. But when the husband turns up murdered, Nina’s case quickly changes to a murder case. And there are big, blank spots in Misty’s memory, making it harder for Nina to defend her. Will they be able to bring back Misty’s memory and find the identity of the real killer before it’s too late?

Business

Traders, Guns and Money (Satyajit Das)

A finance expert, Satyajit Das shows us, in Traders, Guns and Money, an exposé on the culture, games and deceptions played out every day in trading rooms with other people’s money. From an insider’s view, the book gives us a lowdown on the business of trading and marketing derivatives.

Nonfiction

Portraits and Persons (Cynthia Freeland)

Cynthia Freeland, a leading philosopher of art, discusses and answers fascinating and fundamental questions on art and the art form in Portraits and Persons. A widely published Professor of Philosophy at the University of Houston, Freeland answers through philosophy how the art form is made.

Don’t forget to check these books out on your next book shopping trip!

Here are this week’s newest releases.

Fiction

Red Queen (Philippa Gregory)

Red Queen is a fictional account of Margaret Beaufort, future queen of Scotland, from the time she was an innocent nine-year-old, full of grand dreams of her own, to an unloved wife and widow at 13, and a mother at 14, determined to give her son everything, even if it could cost her her life.

Business

Mentor Leader (Tony Dungy)

“Your only job is to help your players be better.” Tony Dungy heard this from one of his earlier mentors and has been his guiding principle ever since. This simple principle has led to his success as a leader and coach in the NFL. Dungy shares the seven keys of mentoring leaderships and how it’s effective.

History

War (Sebastian Junger)

Sebastian Junger recounts his experiences as a single platoon in a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. He gives breathtaking insights about war and its truth and the fear, honor, and trust shared among the troops on an everyday basis.

Nonfiction

Women In Politics: Outsides and Insiders (Lois Duke Whitaker)

Using a feminist theoretical framework, Women In Politics discusses and analyzes gender differences in the political world.

Here is a line-up of the newest releases.

Entertainment

Sliding Into Home (Kendra Wilkinson)

We all know Kendra Wilkinson as one of Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends and one of the stars of The Girls Next Door. In Sliding Into Home, Kendra talks about growing up without a father, messing up and how she recovered to  graduate from high school. She also talks about life with her husband, NFL star Hank Baskett and their newborn son, and their secret relationship while she was still living in the Playboy Mansion.Learn more about Kendra in this riveting and entertaining biography.

Mystery

Star Island (Carl Hiaasen)

In Star Island, twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye has been living a rock star life since she was fourteen, including the drugs and alcohol. Ann DeLusia is Cherry Pye’s stand-in or “undercover stunt double”, who fills in for Cherry Pye whenever she’s too wasted. And it is also Ann DeLusia who gets kidnapped by an obssessed paparazzo. Now, Cherry Pye’s entourage must rescue Ann before the public and Cherry Pye finds out about her.

Business

Mojo: How To Get It, How To Keep It, How To Get It Back If You Lose It (Marshall Goldsmith)

“Mojo is the moment when we do something that’s purposeful, powerful, and positive and the rest of the world recognizes it. This book is about the moment—and how we can create it in our lives, maintain it, and recapture it when we need it.”

This Mojo toolkit enumerates fourteen practical tool to achieve both happiness and meaning in business and in life.

Children’s Fiction

My Little People School Bus (Doris Tomaselli, Carolyn Bracken)

This little playbook explores early learning concepts by transforming the little people school bus. The book teaches about shapes, colors, counting and opposites. Recommended for infants and preschool children.

Fiction

One Day (David Nicholls)

Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have just met in 1988, and they must go their separate ways after tomorrow, their college graduation, but they cannot stop thinking about each other. They begin to lead separate lives but they find themselves still attracted to each other and they strike up a unique relationship.

Non Fiction

97 Orchard (Jane Ziegelman)

Jane Ziegelman takes us into a journey of five families around the turn of the century living in 97 Orchard St. New York. Germans, Italians, Russians and other immigrants used food to adjust better to life in New York. Pretty soon, their American neighbors begin to seek them and welcome them into their land.

I cannot decide if I think that e-readers will eventually replace all books, or if books are here to stay. I sure hope that the latter is correct; I would hate to live in a world where I would have to stare at a screen to read everything (yes, I know these things are supposed to have screens on them that make it look like you are reading from the pages of a book). I already spend too much time staring at the computer, why add another screen to my life?

Many people see the Kindles, Sony readers, iPads, Nooks, and more as a step towards a “greener” environment. Well, just how much good does an e-reader do for the environment in comparison to a book with paper pages? Here are some fun comparisons.

Most of these comparisons come from an article in the NY Times a while back. They obtained their conclusions by doing a life-cycle assessment. This assessment evaluates the ecological impact of a product at the different stages in its life. Here is a summary of what they found.

In terms of the materials, one e-reader uses about 33 pounds of minerals such as columbrite-tantalite. It also needs about 79 gallons of water during its production. In comparison, a book uses about 2/3 of a pound of materials and 2 gallons of water to make the pulp for the paper. During the manufacturing process, an e-reader uses 100 kilowatt hours of fossil fuels that result in 66 pounds of CO2 while books (recycled or not) use 2 kilowatt hours and don’t even produce 1/100th of the greenhouse gasses that the manufacturing of an e-reader entails. In terms of transportation, driving 5 miles  to the bookstore and back to get a book will cause about 10 times the pollution and resource use as what went into the making the book. However, you’ll need to drive to a store 300 miles away to create the amount of toxic impacts that result from making the e-reader. As for the actual reading– your e-reader wins this battle because of its high energy efficient screen (unless you read your book without a light).

The NY Times has come to the conclusion that “with respect to fossil fuels, water use and mineral consumption, the impact of one e-reader payback equals roughly 40 to 50 books. When it comes to global warming, though, it’s 100 books; with human health consequences, it’s somewhere in between.”

Another reading list for the summer. This time, let’s take a look at Stephen King’s recommendations.

The Millenium Trilogy (Stiegg Larsson)

The Millenium Trilogy is Swedish author Stiegg Larsson‘s first murder mystery novel. Composed of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest, it’s the story of journalist Mikael Blomkvist, investigating the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, who belongs to one of Sweden’s wealthiest families, the Vanger family. Together with Lisbeth Salamander, a 24-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker, they uncover the truth about the Vanger family and the corruption of Swedish industrialism.

The Passage (Justin Cronin)

The first part of a trilogy, The Passage is about FBI agent Brad Wolgast, who breaks protocol and the rules of his job, to save Amy Harper Bellafonte, a six-year-old refugee from the FBI’s doomed scientific project that has triggered the apocalypse. Together with Brad, Amy must go back to where it started to finish it once and for all.

The Unnamed (Joshua Ferris)

In The Unnamed, Tim Farnsworth walks everywhere, all the time. He walks out of bed, out of the house, in the cold, under the heat, out of meetings, away from his job. He walks without stopping, until he gets tired and falls asleep, wherever he may be. His wife tries to make sure he’s always safe, including midnight trips to pick him up. But how long can they last?

Strip (Thomas Perry)

Manco Kapak, strip club owner and LA gangster, has been repeatedly robbed by a masked gunman. He sends out his security to find out the culprit. Meanwhile, Lt. Nick Slosses, the detective in charge of his case, has his own worries, including how to send his oldest sons, from different wives, to college without the other mother knowing.

Storm Prey (John Sandford)

Three big men break into a pharmacy and tie up the two workers before they clean the place out, but things don’t go according to plan when one of the workers dies. They hustle out to their truck and, for a brief second, comes to face-to-face with a blonde woman: Weather Karkinnen, a surgeon, who just happens to be the wife of investigator, Lucas Davenport. Worried she might have seen them, their only choice is to eliminate the witness.

Ordinary Thunderstorms (William Boyd)

Adam Kindred is in London for a job interview and he’s feeling quite good. He stops by for a meal at a little Italian bistro and strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner. In a quick second, he loses everything, his home, family, friends, reputation, passport, everything. He’s now being hunted by a hired killer and has no choice but to go underground to find himself, together with an army of the disappeared, like him.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think? Did you like it?

Travel

Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places (Bill Streever)

Bill Streevers is not one to shy away from any challenge and adventure. He ventures out in a year-long adventure to the world’s coldest places – all 40-below cold. In July, he’s dressing down to take a dip in a 35-degree Arctic swimming hole. In September, he’s using his tools to dig the planet’s ancient ice ages. And in October, he’s exploring the hibernation habits of different animals, including humans, wood frogs and bears. He will visit where no other normally visits and he will take the challenge no one normally takes.

Business

Outliers: The Story of Success (Malcolm Gladwell)

Malcolm Gladwell is back with a new success book and this time he shares the success secrets of the high achievers. It’s not enough to find out what they are like, but we have to determine where they came from and how they use it to their advantage. Their culture, family and upbringing contributed to their high-achieving personality and success.

Fiction

Safe Haven (Nicholas Sparks)

Katie arrives mysteriously in the town of Southport in North Carolina. Nobody knows anything about her and she doesn’t talk about her past. She refuses to tie herself to the small town and form relationships but she can’t help it with Alex and Jo. Alex is a widower with two kids and a store. Jo is Katie’s neighbor, single and plainspoken. Katie lets down her guard with them and allows them to know more about her, but a dark secret continues to plague her and now she must choose to stay safe or risk it all for love.

Cooking

Cake Pops (Angie Dudley)

Famous food blogger Bakerella, aka Angie Dudley, shares with foodies her secrets to making cake pops! Cake Pops are cute little cakes on a stick, and Martha Stewart even featured Dudley on her show because she loved the Cake Pops so much. In her book, Cake Pops, Dudley will show us how to recreate these cute cakes in our own home with tips on presentation, decorating, coloring and melting chocolate, and a lot more.

Biography

Coming Back Stronger (Drew Brees)

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees suffered a potentially career-ending shoulder injury and NFL coaches wondered, will he be able to come back to play football again? This is the story of how Drew Brees came back to football and how he inspired the city of New Orleans to come back and come back stronger than before.

All of these books are coming out in July. Jot them down in your book list so you don’t forget them on your next book shopping trip.

This week’s bestsellers are an interesting combination. There’s some fiction, a lot of business books and a comedy book about philosophical musings.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest (Stieg Larsson)

The third and last book of the millennium trilogy from Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest kicks off with Lisbeth Salander in the intensive care unit of a Swedish hospital, fighting for her life. But the battle’s not over after she gets well. She’ll have to stand up in court and face trial for three murder charges. Together with her journalist-friend, Mikael Blomkvist, she’ll have to prove her innocence and the people who framed her and how to get her revenge.

S**t My Dad Says (Justin Halpern)

When Justin Halpern moved in with his seventy-three year old dad after his girlfriend dumps him, he begins to write down and record all the things his dad says. All of them are brutally honest, wise and smart, after all, Justin’s dad doesn’t really mince his words. What started out as a Twitter page became a big social media phenomenon and expanded to this book, with all the wise musings on the same page.

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh)

Tony Hsieh, the CEO of the widely-acclaimed online shoe retailer, Zappos, shares his philosophy and successes in his new book, Delivering Happiness: A Path To Profits, Passion and Purpose. In Delivering Happiness, he shares his quest to finding and sharing happiness and why he needs to understand it. And in the rest of the book, he explains the ten core values of Zappos, including “Deliver WOW Through Service” and “Create Fun And A Little Weirdness”.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (Michael Lewis)

Michael Lewis talks about the housing and credit financial troubles that swept the nation in the 2000s. He discusses the stories of the key players in the financial crisis from 2007 to 2010, including Meredith Whitney (who predicted the demise of Citi Group and Bear Stearns), the founders of Cornwall Capital (who managed to build a $120 million hedge fund from a mere $100,000 from their garage) and Howie Hubler (who lost $9 billion in trade, making the largest single loss in history).

The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak)

Marcus Zusak has written an inspiring young adult novel about the power of words, even during World War II and the Holocaust. Liesel Meminger is a foster child living just outside of Munich. She survives the only way she knows how: stealing. But it’s not the usual things she steals. She steals books.

If you’re a voracious reader, you’ve probably read all the new releases already and can’t wait for the new ones to come out. Here’s a sneak peek on some of the upcoming releases in fiction.

The Passage, Justin Cronin

Hailed by USA Today as a must-read book for summer, The Passage is an engrossingly horrific account of vampiric fiction about a world almost wiped out by vampires. The remaining human survivors call themselves “The Colony” and discovers a young girl named Amy, who shared vital traits with the vampires, but not their mindless hunger. Now they embark on a journey to find out more information about her condition.

Pub. Date: June 8, 2010

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender

Nine-year-old Rose Edelstein takes a bite of her mother’s lemon cake and discovers an unusually sad gift: she could taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She tastes her mother’s sadness and despair and now, food becomes a bane and peril for Rose.

Pub. Date: June 1, 2010

Safe Haven, Nicholas Sparks

Renee was studying in Italy with her best friend, Audrey, when she meets and falls in love with a handsome local, but reality intervened and she goes back to North Carolina to finish school and marry her college boyfriend. She continues to live a predictable, unfulfilling life for the next twenty years, but then, she finds out Audrey is dying from cancer and has a little surprise for Renee.

Looking for new fiction books to read? Here’s a list of new releases to read.

Swan: A Novel by Frances Mayes

From the author of Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes brings us another story about the family secrets and mysteries in the deep South. In her first novel, Mayes depicts the story of the Masons, a prominent family living in generations at Swan, Georgia. The Mason children have to deal with the death of their mother nineteen years ago, through suicide. And now, after a mysterious exhumation, they find out that suicide might not have the cause after all.

Sweet Tooth Vol. 1: Out of the Woods by Jeff Lemire

The Sweet Tooth series is the first graphic novel series from Jeff Lemire. Sweet Tooth is the story of Gus, a rare new breed of human/animal hybrid children. He’s been raised in isolation as a result of a pandemic a decade earlier. With the death of his father, he tries to find his way to The Preserve, a refuge for hybrids. Along the way, he meets a drifter named Jepperd and challenges to test him.

The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

Eleanor Catton recounts the fictional story of girls and gossip at Abbey Grange School in The Rehearsal. Scandalous news has been revealed about the affair between a teacher and an underage student. Students gossip about it but, underneath the judgments, feel remorse that they weren’t included. A particular group of girls confide in their saxophone teacher, who is not as innocent as they think.

An Amish Gathering: Life in Lancaster County by Beth Wiseman & Barbara Cameron

An Amish Gathering is a collection of three stories about Amish life. A Change of Heart is the story of Leah who cannot cook, clean, sew or garden, and just wants to write stories. But the Amish life doesn’t exactly think highly of this occupation. A Place Of His Own is the story of Josiah, who comes back after leaving ten years ago, but his best friend cannot understand what happened to her best friend. When Winter Comes is the story of Rebecca, who tries to move on with the death of her twin sister, Lizzie. Ben has waited for her to heal all this time but is unsure if she’s ready.

Day For Night by Frederick Reiken, Laurel Merlington, & George K. Wilson

A New Jersey’s mysterious family past is the backdrop of Day For Night. Traveling from New Jersey to Utah to Florida to Israel, Day for Night is the story of Beverly Rabinowitz, as she tackles Holocaust, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict to family.

I’ll be back with more books for you. But feel free to grab any book that interests you.