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 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.

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.

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.

Former Alaskan Governor and Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s autobiography, Going Rogue: An American Life, hit stores this week. I haven’t read it. Very few people have so far. But that hasn’t stopped a whole lot of people from forming an opinion.

In terms of content, this probably is going to be just another politician’s self-serving autobiography. But in terms of reaction, this is something different altogether. Pre-orders were so strong that Going Rogue has been on top of the major best seller lists for weeks. Thousands, literally thousands, of people sat outside a bookstore in the cold Michigan November night for a shot at getting their book signed by Governor Palin. The Associated Press devoted 11 reporters to fact checking an advanced copy of the book.

None of this is normal for a politician’s autobiography.

The AP fact checkers, for example, did not review President Obama’s book for accuracy. Nor did they check Joe Biden’s, Ted Kennedy’s, Rudy Guilliani’s, or either Clinton’s. The AP didn’t even assign a bevy of fact checkers to Newt Gingrich’s book, and he’s not exactly one of the AP’s favorite people.

But Sarah Palin’s book has been checked and rechecked. It has been paid in advance on pre-order by fans who will probably never even read it. It has generated so much hype that it cannot possibly live up to the high expectations of her devotees nor can it descend to the depths expected by her detractors.

The merits of the book itself, the actual literary work under discussion, probably will never get a fair airing anywhere. There is too much political divide, too much ulterior motive, too much bias. Whether the folksy style that made Palin so popular with hockey moms across the fruited plain will translate into a good read is likely to be lost in the hubbub.

The book will, in all likelihood, be subsumed by the person. So despite, or maybe because of, the general hysteria surrounding Going Rogue, I think I’ll pass. If anyone out there actually reads the book, beginning to end, I’d love to hear your thoughts… on the book, not the person.

Catch up in fiction and non-fiction books as we discuss the newest releases in books.

Biographies

You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas by Augusten Burroughs. Relive his past and present Christmas experiences. He recalls how Christmas can bring out the worst and best in every person.

Fiction/Literature

In A Perfect World by Laura Kasischke is a new novel about marriage and motherhood and people’s choices when there seems to be no more choices left.

History

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor recalls Normandy, France, and its invasion. From June 6, 1944, to the liberation of Paris on August 25, 1944, it is a first major account from a world class historian.

Kids

Dog Days is a part of the series of books called Diary of A Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. The main character, Greg, has gone on a summer vacation with his family.

Science Fiction

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan is the final book in the Wheel Of Time series.

Young Adult

Tempted: A House Of Night novel by P.C. Cast is the sixth in the A House Of Night series of books. This time around, Zoey Redbird, a High Priestess in training finds herself getting to know three different guys, one of which protects her so much, he almost senses her power.

Psychology

Malcolm Gladwell is one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. And now, he’s back with a new book, What The Dog Saw: And Other Adventures. This book features the author’s best writing featured on the New Yorker.

Got more than enough choices? I hope so. Now go and start reading those books!