Westchester’s Independent Booksellers on Summer 2012’s Best Books

Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Powers of the Mind
Alex Stone
June 19
True magicians never reveal their tricks, but Alex Stone can shed some light into the world of master magicians, card cheats, secret societies, three-card-monte dealers, and others who populate the magic subculture. What he found went beyond simple tricks, and into the inner workings of the human mind.

The Orphanmaster
Jean Zimmerman
June 19
In the colony of New Amsterdam, orphans start going missing, and the two who set out to investigate get caught up in their own romance as much as they get tangled in the case. Zimmerman, an Ossining resident, is also a writer of nonfiction—have you read The Women of the House: How a Colonial She-Merchant Built a Mansion, a Fortune, and a Dynasty yet?—so expect the period details to be spot-on.

Between the Lines
Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer
June 26
We know famous writers like Jodi Picoult—author of My Sister’s Keeper—often enlist other scribes to help them flesh out novels, but this is something else: Samantha Van Leer, Picoult’s co-author, is also her high-school-aged daughter. Between the Lines, aimed at readers 12 and older, is about a girl who tries to free a teenage storybook character from the novel he’s trapped in.

Gold
Chris Cleave
July 3
The Summer Olympics are just a month away, but, if you can’t wait for the excitement of the games, author Chris Cleave releases his pulse-quickening drama weeks before the Opening Ceremonies. His novel focuses on Kate and Zoe, two track cyclists, and the lengths they’d go to for the gold. Who brings home the prize: the one with more natural talents, or the one with the more competitive spirit?

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child
Bob Spitz
August 7
Ditch Julie—she’s not the fun one anyway. In Dearie, author Bob Spitz recreates the life of the rebellious Julia Child, from her earliest days in Pasadena to her legendary cooking show. Spitz is no stranger to chronicling the lives of icons; he also wrote The Beatles: The Biography.

Motherland
Amy Sohn
August 14
Amy Sohn achieved infamy for her Park Slope-baiting Prospect Park West, and she once again has her sights on the rich and feckless. Motherland follows characters from Brooklyn, Cape Cod, and Manhattan through connected stories of infidelity, ambition, and reinvention. Of course, no Westchesterites
can relate.

Photo by Marta Kujawa