Captain Saturday
by Robert Inman
Published 2002 by Little Brown and Company

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780316415026

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REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 11/19/2001

At once deeply affecting and warmly humorous, this fourth novel by Inman (Dairy Queen Days) faintly echoes the bittersweet inflections of such literary forebears as Flannery O'Connor. After 20 years of minor celebrity as a TV weatherman, Will Baggett is fired when the station is sold to a conglomerate. While rushing to meet a deadline to collect his $50,000 contract buyout, he injures his knee. A photo of him on an EMS gurney winds up on the front page of the newspaper, the headline charging him with running a red light and resisting arrest; he's now not only out of a job, but also unemployable in the only professional persona he has ever known. Meanwhile, Will's marriage grows ever more shaky as his wife establishes a successful career in upscale real estate by cozying up to her boss. Retreating to the homestead of his eccentric cousins, Will (now Wilbur again) licks his wounds and contemplates both his past and future. When he returns to face the traffic charges, he unluckily wears his medical-student son's jacket to court and winds up charged with possession of marijuana a felony offense in North Carolina. Wilbur soon discovers that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Only a couple of years shy of age 50 and suddenly an unemployed ex-con after a brief stay in jail, Wilbur now has to reconstruct his identity. Peopled with vivid, endearingly quixotic characters and filled with dead-on insights into a shallow New South that defines itself by club memberships and designer labels, this richly textured epic is a paean to the vagaries of the human heart. Southern author tour. (Jan. 8)

Peace Like a River
by Leif Enger
Published 2002 by Atlantic Monthly Press

Paperback, English. ISBN: 9780802139252

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Hailed as one of the year's top five novels by "Time, " and selected as one of the best books of the year by nearly all major newspapers, national bestseller "Peace Like a River" is now available in paperback. In "lyrical, openhearted prose" (Michael Glitz, "The New York Post"), Enger tells the story of 11-year-old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy who has reason to believe in miracles.

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
by Ruth Reichl
Published 2005 by Penguin Press

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781594200311

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REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 02/14/2005

As the New York Times 's restaurant critic for most of the 1990s, Reichl had what some might consider the best job in town; among her missions were evaluating New York City's steakhouses, deciding whether Le Cirque deserved four stars and tracking down the best place for authentic Chinese cuisine in Queens. Thankfully, the rest of us can live that life vicariously through this vivacious, fascinating memoir. The book--Reichl's third--lifts the lid on the city's storied restaurant culture from the democratic perspective of the everyday diner. Reichl creates wildly innovative getups, becoming Brenda, a red-haired aging hippie, to test the food at Daniel; Chloe, a blonde divorce, to evaluate Lespinasse; and even her deceased mother, Miriam, to dine at 21. Such elaborate disguises--which include wigs, makeup, thrift store finds and even credit cards in other names--help Reichl maintain anonymity in her work, but they also do more than that. "Every restaurant is a theater," she explains. Each one "offer[s] the opportunity to become someone else, at least for a little while. Restaurants free us from mundane reality." Reichl's ability to experience meals in such a dramatic way brings an infectious passion to her memoir. Reading this work--which also includes the finished reviews that appeared in the newspaper, as well as a few recipes--ensures that the next time readers sit down in a restaurant, they'll notice things they've never noticed before. Agent, Kathy Robbins. (On sale Apr. 11)