On Sale This Week
On Sale This Week previews a selection of Penguin Random House fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young readers books being published each week. The choices are a mix of titles by both bestselling and emerging authors. We hope this serves as a useful reference for hot new reads hitting shelves everywhere.
FICTION
HOME by Harlan Coben (Dutton)
A decade ago, kidnappers grabbed two boys from wealthy families and demanded ransom, then went silent. No trace of the boys ever surfaced. For ten years their families have been left with nothing but painful memories and a quiet desperation for the day that has finally, miraculously arrived: Myron Bolitar and his friend Win believe they have located one of the boys, now a teenager. Where has he been for ten years, and what does he know about the day, more than half a life ago, when he was taken? And most critically: What can he tell Myron and Win about the fate of his missing friend? Drawing on his singular talent, Harlan Coben delivers an explosive and deeply moving thriller about friendship, family, and the meaning of home.
INFERNO by Dan Brown (Anchor)
Now a major motion picture, the #1 worldwide bestseller is now available in a new movie tie-in edition. Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon awakens in an Italian hospital, disoriented and with no recollection of the past thirty-six hours, including the origin of the macabre object hidden in his belongings. With a relentless female assassin trailing them through Florence, he and his resourceful doctor, Sienna Brooks, are forced to flee. Embarking on a harrowing journey, they must unravel a series of codes, which are the work of a brilliant scientist whose obsession with the end of the world is matched only by his passion for one of the most influential masterpieces ever written, Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno.
REPUTATIONS by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (Riverhead)
Javier Mallarino is a living legend. He is his country’s most influential political cartoonist, the consciousness of a nation. A man capable of repealing laws, overturning judges’ decisions, destroying politicians’ careers with his art. His weapons are pen and ink. Those in power fear him and pay him homage. At sixty-five, after four decades of a brilliant career, he’s at the height of his powers. But this all changes when he’s paid an unexpected visit from a young woman who upends his sense of personal history and forces him to re-evaluate his life and work, questioning his position in the world.
THRICE THE BRINDED CAT HATH MEW’D by Alan Bradley (Delacorte Press)
In spite of being ejected from Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in Canada, twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce is excited to be sailing home to England. But instead of a joyous homecoming, she is greeted on the docks with unfortunate news: Her father has fallen ill, and a hospital visit will have to wait while he rests. Only too eager to run an errand for the vicar’s wife, Flavia hops on her trusty bicycle, Gladys, to deliver a message to a reclusive wood-carver. Finding the front door ajar, Flavia enters and stumbles upon the poor man’s body hanging upside down on the back of his bedroom door. The only living creature in the house is a feline that shows little interest in the disturbing scene. Curiosity may not kill this cat, but Flavia is energized at the prospect of a new investigation.
NONFICTION
HERO OF THE EMPIRE by Candice Millard (Doubleday)
From New York Times bestselling author Candice Millard, a thrilling narrative of Winston Churchill’s extraordinary and little-known exploits during the Boer War. Churchill would later remark that this period, “could I have seen my future, was to lay the foundations of my later life.” Millard spins an epic story of bravery, savagery, and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters—including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener, and Mohandas Gandhi—with whom he would later share the world stage. But Hero of the Empire is more than an adventure story, for the lessons Churchill took from the Boer War would profoundly affect 20th-century history.
MAKING SENSE OF GOD: An Invitation to the Skeptical by Timothy Keller (Viking)
We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, MAKING SENSE OF GOD shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.
BASED ON A TRUE STORY by Norm Macdonald (Spiegel & Grau)
Wild, dangerous, and flat-out unbelievable, here is the incredible memoir of the actor, gambler, raconteur, SNL veteran, and one of the best stand-up comedians of all time. As this book’s title suggests, Norm Macdonald tells the story of his life—more or less—from his origins on a farm in the-back-of-beyond Canada and an epically disastrous appearance on Star Search to his account of auditioning for Lorne Michaels and his memorable run as the anchor of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live—until he was fired because a corporate executive didn’t think he was funny. But BASED ON A TRUE STORY is much more than a memoir; it’s the hilarious, inspired epic of Norm’s life.
HOW TO MAKE A SPACESHIP: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight by Julian Guthrie (Penguin Press)
From the age of eight, when Peter Diamandis watched Apollo 11 land on the Moon, his singular goal was to get to space. When he realized NASA was winding down manned space flight, Diamandis set out on one of the great entrepreneurial adventure stories of our time. If the government wouldn’t send him to space, he would create a private space flight industry himself. The story of the bullet-shaped SpaceShipOne, and the other teams in the hunt, is an extraordinary tale of making the impossible possible. It is driven by outsized characters—Burt Rutan, Richard Branson, John Carmack, Paul Allen—and obsessive pursuits. In the end, as Diamandis dreamed, the result wasn’t just a victory for one team; it was the foundation for a new industry and a new age.
EYES ON THE STREET by Robert Kanigel (Knopf)
EYES ON THE STREET is a revelation of the phenomenal woman who raised three children, wrote seven groundbreaking books, saved neighborhoods, stopped expressways, was arrested twice, and engaged at home and on the streets in thousands of debates–all of which she won. Here is the child who challenged her third-grade teacher; the high school poet; the journalist who honed her writing skills at Iron Age, Architectural Forum, Fortune, and other outlets, while amassing the knowledge she would draw upon to write her most famous book, THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES. Here, too, is the activist who helped lead an ultimately successful protest against Robert Moses’s proposed expressway through her beloved Greenwich Village; and who, in order to keep her sons out of the Vietnam War, moved to Canada, where she became as well known and admired as she was in the United States.
POETRY
ODES by Sharon Olds (Knopf)
Following the Pulitzer prize-winning collection STAG’S LEAP, Sharon Olds gives us a stunning book of odes. Opening with the powerful and tender “Ode to the Hymen,” Olds addresses and embodies, in this age-old poetic form, many aspects of love and gender and sexual politics in a collection that is centered on the body and its structures and pleasures. The poems extend parts of her narrative as a daughter, mother, wife, lover, friend, and poet of conscience that will be familiar from earlier collections, each episode and memory burnished by the wisdom and grace and humor of looking back. Olds treats us to an intimate examination that, like all her work, is universal, by turns searing and charming in its honesty.
YOUNG READERS
OWL SEES OWL by Laura Godwin and Rob Dunlavey (Schwartz & Wade)
With just three or four words per page, this story follows a baby owl one night as he leaves the safety of his nest (Home/Mama/Brother/Sister) and explores the starry world around him (Soar/Glide/Swoop/Swoosh). Inspired by reverso poetry, the words reverse in the middle when the baby owl is startled upon seeing his reflection in the pond (Owl/Sees/Owl). Afraid of it, little owl takes off toward home, soaring over farms and forests (Swoosh/Swoop/Glide/Soar) until he is finally safely home again (Sister/Brother/Mama/Home).
OTIS AND THE KITTENS by Loren Long (Philomel)
On the farm where Otis the tractor lives, it hasn’t rained in a long time and farmers all over the valley have grown anxious with water in such short supply. One hot afternoon, when Otis and his friends are resting beneath the shade of the apple tree, Otis spots something moving down in the valley—an orange tabby cat headed straight for the old barn. But then Otis sees something else that causes his engine to sputter . . . a swirl of smoke coming from the same barn. A fire! Told with a sense of play and devotion, this is a heartwarming tale that reminds readers that sometimes even those who we count on to help us need a little help themselves.
THE GOLDEN COMPASS GRAPHIC NOVEL, VOLUME 2 by Philip Pullman (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
The eagerly awaited second volume in the graphic novel adaptation of Philip Pullman’s international bestseller THE GOLDEN COMPASS. This second volume of the graphic novel finds Lyra in the far North. With the help of Gyptian fighters, newfound witch allies, and the armored bear Iorek Byrnison, she means to rescue the children held captive by the notorious Gobblers. The stunning full-color art offers both new and returning readers a chance to experience the story of Lyra, an ordinary girl with an extraordinary role to play in the fates of multiple worlds, in an entirely unique way.
KIDS OF APPETITE by David Arnold (Viking Books for Young Readers)
Victor Benucci and Madeline Falco have a story to tell. It begins with the death of Vic’s father. It ends with the murder of Mad’s uncle. The Hackensack Police Department would very much like to hear it. But in order to tell their story, Vic and Mad must focus on all the chapters in between. This is a story about: a coded mission to scatter ashes across New Jersey, the momentous nature of the Palisades in winter, one dormant submarine, two songs about flowers, being cool in the traditional sense, sunsets & ice cream & orchards & graveyards, simultaneous extreme opposites, a narrow escape from a war-torn country, a story collector, how to listen to someone who does not talk, falling in love with a painting, falling in love with a song, and falling in love.