TOP SHELF
Recommendations of new books from the staffs of a rotating list of Bay Area independent bookstores. This week’s list is from Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera. (415) 927-0960. www.bookpassage.com.
FICTION
Seconds, The mind behind by Bryan “Scott Lee O’Malley: Pilgrim vs. the World” graphic returns novel with about a standalone house spirits, second cooking chances. and the cost of
Lucky friends Us, trek by across Amy 1940s Bloom: America Two in search along the of fame way find and a fortune, landscape and littered the smoggy with air abandoned of war. dreams and
California, and Frida leave by Edan the ruins Lepucki: of Los Cal Angeles forge their to own live in way the in wilderness a frighteningly and realistic near-future world in this gripping debut novel.
The Book of Life, by Deborah Harkness: Harkness brings her bestselling “All Souls Trilogy” to a climatic finish as Diana and Matthew must find the elusive missing pages of an ancient text or face the dire consequences.
NONFICTION The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee, by Marja Mills: This memoir offers a rare look into the daily life of Lee and her sister Alice, as told by a reporter who was given an opportunity to live next door to the siblings for nearly two years. The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl: How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis, by Arthur Allen: In a story so impossible it has to be true, Allen traces how a group of largely untrained inmates invented a viable cure for typhus from their confines in Buchenwald concentration camp. A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, by Ben Macintyre: Learn the truth behind master spy Philby and the double roles he played during the intelligence frenzy of the Cold War in this real-life version of a John le Carré thriller. The Nixon Defense, What He
Knew and When He Knew It, by John Dean: The former legal counsel to President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal connects the dots between what we’ve come to believe about our 37th president and what actually happened, using overlooked recordings of Nixon to bolster his case.