 By Al Gore
A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism,
and blind faith has combined with the degration of the public sphere to
create an environment dangerously hostile to reason. Al Gore explains
how the public sphere itself has evolved into a place hospitable to
reason's enemies, to make us more aware of the forces at work on our
own minds, and to lead us to an understanding of what we can do,
individually and collectively, to restore the rule of reason and
safeguard our future. Drawing on a life's work in politics as well as
on the work of experts across a broad range of disciplines, Al Gore has
written a farsighted and powerful manifesto for clear thinking.
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 Valentino Achak Deng is a Sudanese civil war refugee now living in the United States. We follow his life as he's driven from his home as a boy and walks, with thousands of orphans, to Ethiopia, where he finds safety—for a time. Valentino's travels, truly Biblical in scope, bring him in contact with government soldiers, janjaweed-like militias, liberation rebels, hyenas and lions, disease and starvation—and a string of unexpected romances. Ultimately, Valentino finds safety in Kenya and, just after the millennium, is finally resettled in the United States, from where this novel is narrated. Reading What Is the What makes it impossible to pretend that Valentino Achak Deng and the other Lost Boys and all the men and women and children who have suffered, and continue to suffer, fates like his do not exist. Dave Eggers has made the outlines of the tragedy in East Africa — so vague to so many of us — not only sharp and clear but indelible. An eloquent testimony to the power of storytelling, What Is the What is an extraordinary work of witness, and of art.
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 There is September 11 and then there are the days after, and finally the years. Falling Man begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and tracks the aftermath of this global tremor in the intimate lives of a few people. First there is Keith, walking out of the rubble into a life that he'd always imagined belonged to everyone but him. Then Lianne, his estranged wife, memory-haunted, trying to reconcile two versions of the same shadowy man. And their small son Justin, standing at the window, scanning the sky for more planes. These are lives choreographed by loss, grief and the enormous force of history. Brave and brilliant, Falling Man traces the way the events of September 11 have reconfigured our emotional landscape, our memory and our perception of the world. It is cathartic, beautiful, heartbreaking.
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 This mystery from critically acclaimed Japanese author Natsuo Kirino (after 2005's Edgar Award-nominated Out) revolves around the brutal murder of two Tokyo prostitutes. The unfathomably complex circumstances behind the killings, however, reveals startling insights into the unpleasant underpinnings of Japanese society… Could the girls' deaths somehow be linked to Japan's hierarchal, ultra-competitive culture, or was it simply a matter of chance that they crossed paths with a sociopathic Chinese immigrant? Authors like Natsuo Kirino are not only supplying genre fans with exciting new narrative voices, unique themes, and innovative writing styles -- they are also providing invaluable insights into unfamiliar cultures and lifestyles. Kirino's Grotesque is one of those wonderful novels that not only entertains but also educates. Mystery fans with a taste for the exotic will absolutely devour this profoundly moving literary Japanese delicacy.
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