Recommendations from Rona Brinlee at The BookMark in Atlantic Beach, Fla.
The Gendarme
By Mark T. Mustian; hardcover, 304 pages; Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, list price: $25.95
At 92 years old, Emmett Conn is experiencing dreams about his forgotten time spent as a Turkish gendarme responsible for Armenian deportees during World War I. Repressed memories of his cruel acts are tangled with a powerful love for one of his prisoners. She is both the object of Conn's hatred of Armenians and his greatest love. More than 70 years later and on the verge of senility and death, Emmett is disturbed by his own past actions and seeks forgiveness. The Gendarme highlights the power of memory and forgetting, the inspiration of love and regret, and the triumph of humanity and forgiveness over war and pain.
It's A Book
By Lane Smith; hardcover, 32 pages; Roaring Brook Press, list price: $12.99
This is every book lover's book. It proclaims what a perfect invention the book is and proves that it really can't be improved. The monkey introduces the jackass to a book. In amazement, the jackass asks a series of questions in rapid succession about how you scroll down, if it can blog and if it can tweet. The answer is always the same -- NO, it's a book! Mesmerized by the story and the book itself, the animal refuses to return it but promises in the end, "Don't worry, I'll charge it up when I'm done!" to which the monkey replies, "You don't have to ... it's a book, Jackass." Doesn't that just say it all?
My Name Is Not Isabella: Just How Big Can A Little Girl Dream?
By Jennifer Fosberry and Mike Litwin; hardcover, 32 pages; Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, list price: $16.99
Isabella is a little girl who dreams of being famous women in history. So when her mother wakes her to greet the day with "Good morning, Isabella," Isabella informs her she is not Isabella; she is Sally, the greatest astronaut who ever was. At each step in the day, Isabella is someone else, including Annie Oakley, who eats her breakfast; Rosa Parks, who waits for the school bus; and Marie Curie, who does her homework. To complete the circle, at the end of the day, Isabella is herself as she goes to sleep to dream about whom she'll be tomorrow. This book features delightful illustrations of a round-faced Isabella who has purple hair, and includes information on each of the famous women featured.
The Tower, The Zoo, And The Tortoise
By Julia Stuart; hardcover, 320 pages; Doubleday, list price: $24.95
Imagine a funny, poignant book, full of delightful and wacky characters, then add a bit of English history, and you've got The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise. When the Queen decides to house animals she's received as gifts from foreign countries in the moat around the Tower of London, she puts the Beefeaters (the Tower's guards) in charge. One in particular, who owns a 180-plus-year-old tortoise, is the perfect choice. Other noteworthy characters include his wife, who works in the lost and found for the London tube and worries about returning left-behind items -- including an urn and a glass eye -- to their rightful owners, and the reverend who writes erotica under the name Vivienne Ventress, but donates all his profits to help prostitutes. This is Carl Hiaasen for the Tower of London.
What Is Left The Daughter
By Howard Norman; hardcover, 256 pages; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, list price: $25
Like Howard Norman's previous novels, What is Left the Daughter begins with a confession. In this case, 43-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is writing a letter to his estranged daughter on the occasion of her 21st birthday to tell her about "the terrible incident that I took part in on Oct. 16, 1942," when he was 19. The entire book is Hillyer's letter to his daughter, written over the course of weeks to explain his life and, in the process, shed some light on hers as well. The novel unravels the interwoven and complex motives surrounding this event and exposes the force of love, revenge and xenophobia. With such universal themes, it is a tribute not only to the continued importance of the novel as a representation of society but also to the dying art of letter writing.
The Sound Of A Wild Snail Eating
By Elisabeth Tova Bailey; hardcover, 208 pages; Algonquin Books, list price: $13.99
This gem of a book proves that good things do come in small packages. Finding herself bedridden, the author becomes mesmerized by a snail delivered to her in a plant. She contemplates a slow life, the lives of creatures not usually examined and the place of humans in the realm of nature. Her fascination with her gastropod companion expands to the place of the snail in literature and poetry and evolution. Books like this one that quietly capture our hearts and minds are a welcome treat.
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