Music: Rumer -- 2012's Best New Artist

RUMER -- SEASONS OF MY SOUL **** out of ****

The US is finally catching up with Rumer. A critical and commercial success all over the world, Rumer's gorgeous debut album Seasons of My Soul is finally getting a proper release in North America. It's early days yet, but she's certain to be one of the best new acts of 2012 and the early buzz is proving it. The album hit #1 on the iTunes album chart and #3 on Amazon, thanks in part to a profile on CBS (the video is posted below).

With the pop smarts of Adele, the mellow vibe of Norah Jones, a voice and sound that echoes Karen Carpenter, and songcraft that follows in the footsteps of Burt Bacharach, Rumer's talent is built to last. With just one Top 20 hit in the UK (the gorgeous "Slow") Rumer sold out the Royal Albert Hall. When she performed a showcase in New York in 2011, the New York Daily News rightly named it one of the best live shows of the year. If you're in Chicago, Toronto, Philadelphia, New York or Boston, make sure you catch her in the next week or so while she's still playing intimate clubs.

If success is making her head spin, it doesn't show. In concert and in person, Rumer is sweet, funny, self-effacing and nice, even as she's clearly navigating the terrain and dealing with new issues like giving a string of back to back interviews. The first question is what to call her -- does she go strictly by Rumer or do friends call her by Sarah, her given name?

"I'm kind of both," says Rumer, chatting by phone from the UK about a week ago.

"I don't mind if someone calls me Sarah. I just don't like it if people change it halfway through [a conversation]," she laughs. "I get confused."

Born in Pakistan to her English parents, Rumer spent her childhood there as the youngest of seven children. They always fell back on entertaining themselves so it was natural for Rumer to grab an instrument and sing or play. It was a sheltered, strange existence but also one that inspired a lot of creativity. When she was 11, Rumer discovered her biological father was their Pakistani cook. Her parents moved back to the UK and divorced. Later Rumer's mother suffered from depression (quietly alluded to in the second single "Aretha") and ultimately died from breast cancer.



Rumer wandered off into a commune based in a stately home and somehow wound up in the music business creating songs with a calm and sureness that belie the rather dramatic events of her early life. It's not so dramatic when you're living it, of course. That commune was more of a company than a cult, for example.

"It wasn't a cult, explains Rumer. "There's a man called Sir Richard Glyn. His family has owned thousands of acres of land since the 1400s. But he happens to be a hippie. He's this guy with long silver hair and he got married in Marrakech. It's like a hippie hotel. One week you get all these luminous people with yoga mats and then they leave and all these guys show up with giant gongs. Then they leave and you get the past life regression groups. And they're quite weird."

Things got even weirder when Rumer dove into music seriously.

"When I was about 18 I started to write a few songs where I thought, this is quite good," she remembers. "Later on I spent time learning structure and song writing. I've definitely done my apprenticeship. But I've done my apprenticeship part one. The first thing that you learn is that there's so much more to learn."

Obviously, she learned quickly. Rumer was in a couple of bands and even recorded a solo album under her given name of Sarah Joyce that was released in South Korea. But when she partnered up with Steve Brown, their collaboration proved magic. Brown is famous in the UK for writing songs for TV shows like Spitting Image and the massive West End hit musical Spend Spend Spend. Her record label thought Rumer was daft when she wanted to work with him, even though he's never produced an album before. The buzz surrounding their work was instantaneous.

Burt Bacharach flew Rumer out to his home so he could hear her sing and share some new songs. Elton John later invited her to be part of his annual charity show. And UK personality Jools Holland debuted her live on national television even before her album came out by giving Rumer a slot on his concert series where a string of musical acts all take turns playing music.

"It's quite interesting with live tv when you've never done anything like that before. Suddenly, it's 5, 4, 3, 2  1...live! It's like jumping off a building," says Rumer. "Especially because you have all these people from the record company saying, if she does a great job we'll jump up and down and decide she's the best thing ever. If she does a bad jump we'll go all quiet and moody. This position I'm in right now is kind of a conditional love nightmare."

Was the show itself intense? As a new artist whose album hadn't even been released yet, Rumer was surrounded by talented veterans.

"Nick Cave was on my right hand side and Brandon Flowers was on my left and Scissor Sisters was in front," she says. "It's lovely. There's a kind of folkiness to it because you've got all these other musicians there. It's a bit like doing an open mike night. If you watch the video of me singing "Slow" online, there's a point where I kind of look to my right, and that's me checking out Nick Cave because he's looking at me like, "Hmm." I caught him looking at me and thought, oh my god Nick Cave is looking at me!"



Clearly, things went well. The album is poised to go double platinum in the UK and now Rumer is set to introduce her music to America. If the songs you hear sound sturdy and well-crafted, it's no surprise. But these things take time.

"Each song for me is like a painting," explains Rumer. "It takes time. I try and let them emerge. I want them to have a soul; I want them to live forever. I let them grow naturally. I start with the sentiment, the emotion, the feeling and then gradually let the song emerge and structure it around that. I don't like to rush it. I definitely have some songs cooking but it takes as long as it takes."

So even though this music was recorded almost two years ago she's happy to keep living with these tunes. Rumer is in fact back in the studio, but she's recording an album of covers.

"I've always wanted to do this project," says Rumer about the album focused on Seventies songwriters, dubbed Boys Don't Cry and set for a spring UK release. "There's a part of me that admires people like Linda Ronstadt who can take songs and make them her own. They make great, great choices. I'm covering Leon Russell, Tim Hardin, Isaac Hayes, Richie Havens, Paul Williams, Jimmy Webb, P.F. Sloan. I love to learn and I love other people's work. If I were an actor I would never limit myself to just performing my own work."

And apparently she won't limit herself quite yet to just one man. Ask Rumer if she's dating anyone and she laughs.

"I've realized I'm the kind of girl who needs more than one man. I do! I realized that. I did the Albert Hall and about five of my ex-boyfriends were there...with some of their parents, which is quite hilarious. My friends were laughing about that. They said, 'Did you see Rumer's boyfriends all standing having a cigarette outside?' My little sister said, 'That's nothing. At her birthday picnic eight of them showed up and they all brought [mail].'

"I haven't got a boyfriend. I've decided that I'm not looking for a boyfriend anymore. I'm looking for a husband," she declares. "I'm 32. The next one's going to have to marry me. I'm going to find a nice American."

Here's the interview that aired on CBS:




Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.  Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available  for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and  gain access to thousands of ratings and reviews.

Note: Michael Giltz was provided with the CD and free tickets to a Rumer concert with the understanding that he would be writing a feature.

DVDs: Should Steven Soderbergh Retire From Directing?

CONTAGION ($29.98 BluRay; Warner Bros.) -- Director Steven Soderbergh has insisted he'll stop directing movies soon, after a few more projects are finished up. He has Haywire out January 20 with a kick-ass female action hero; Magic Mike, a film about male strippers; and a Liberace biopic with Michael Douglas as the pianist and Matt Damon the down-low love interest. Why walk away from a profitable and interesting career? If Contagion is any indication, he might simply be bored. It's a fine rough draft for a smart contemporary drama/thriller about what would help if a pandemic truly broke out in the world, rather than just being a scare like the avian flu or other genuine health threats that don't follow a worst-case scenario. This film does follow that scenario and dutifully covers all the bases, from regular guy Matt Damon (whose wife Gwyneth Paltrow and son are dead in the blink of an eye) to CDC officials like Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet down to conspiracy theory bloggers like Jude Law. After a promising start, the only surprise here is how dull the movie turns out to be. In one typical subplot, Marion Cotillard is a health expert taken prisoner by villagers in China who want to ensure their children are given a vaccine as soon as possible after most of them drop dead. A fine, compelling set-up. Then she is promptly forgotten for most of the film until we pick up her story thread right near the end. The score by Cliff Martinez is not his best; the performances are fine as far as they go. But no one seems to have had their heart in it. This is not a frightening, unnerving film the way it should be. And it's all the more frustrating because all the elements were there. It seemed odd for Soderbergh to announce his retirement, and surely he'll make more movies some day. But perhaps a break isn't such a bad idea.

















BOARDWALK EMPIRE SEASON ONE ($59.99; HBO)
JUSTIFIED COMPLETE SECOND SEASON ($49.95 BluRay; Sony)
SHAMELESS COMPLETE FIRST SEASON ($49.99 BluRay; Warner Bros.)
ROYAL PAINS SEASON THREE VOLUME ONE ($26.98; Universal)

By and large, American television does a TERRIBLE job releasing their new shows on DVD. In the UK, TV shows and movies and miniseries come out on DVD the minute the current season of the show has ended, sometimes even before. In America, the studios rather idiotically have decided to wait until right before the new season has begun to release the previous season. This has two results: one, most people writing about TV write about the new season, rather than the old season coming out on DVD six months after it ended. Two, fans who might want to "join" a show by catching up can't do so because the previous season comes out so close to the new season. Even worse are kids shows, which often see a single season broken up into multi-DVD releases that make them expensive and annoying to collect. HBO has added a new wrinkle to this. They want to encourage people to subscribe to HBO and access their entire library via HBO To Go, so they delayed the DVD release of their high profile series Boardwalk Empire (with the pilot directed by executive producer Martin Scorsese) until one month after the finale of Season TWO! This is a lavish series with a top-notch cast and a very familiar story of gangsters and the feds during Prohibition. I can't speak to its quality yet since I'm still catching up with episodes that aired some 16 months ago and many people have said the show didn't catch fire until season two. But it's certainly well-acted and intelligent. But HBO has it wrong. The more people that watch their shows the more likely they will be to subscribe.

Hiding a show from DVD for a  year longer than necessary goes against everything we've learned about creative content: make it available to consumers any way they want, whether it's digital, on a tablet, on BluRay, on demand, or via their cable subscription. Keeping Boardwalk Empire from DVD doesn't make HBO more desirable. It keeps their shows less well-known and therefore less important. For 16 months, I haven't even been able to discuss Boardwalk Empire or read a single story to avoid spoilers. How is that a good idea? Season two debuted to lower numbers than the season one finale. On the bright side, it's only $60 retail on DVD, far lower than HBO's usual premium price.

No one else has gone as extreme as HBO but they don't do it right, either. Anyone wanting to catch up with one of the wittiest action dramas on TV -- Timothy Olyphant's Justified -- has one week to watch 13 hours before season three debuts on January 17 on FX. I can't quite get over the idea that Shameless is an unnecessary remake of a raunchy UK show. But it has a fun cast and I've been hearing good buzz. Maybe I would have caught up with it before season two debuted on Showtime last Sunday, and if I'd watched one episode a night since the DVD was released on December 27, I could have just barely done that. Imagine if it had come out right after the season one finale, just over nine months ago.

Finally, the USA network show Royal Pains is good junk food with a doctor catering to the filthy rich in the Hamptons. But now they've split up the season into two sets, releasing volume one now and volume two later. Fans don't care about scheduling. In this case, 10 episodes aired from June through August and another six will be broadcast starting January 18. Is that any reason to split the DVD release up? No. wait 'til February 22 and put it all out at once. As you can see, if they can screw up the DVD release of a TV show, they will. The major studios need to radically rethink their approach and understand that putting out the DVD in as timely a manner as possible in a reasonably priced package will increase the long-term value of the show.





MONEYBALL ($40.99 BluRay combo; Sony) -- I don't actually play fantasy baseball but that's about the only way this movie could be more up my alley. I love baseball (I have season tickets to the Yankees in the bleachers). I watch the off-season moves with alarm and interest. I appreciate the revolution that statistics have achieved in how players are measured (though it's gone too far and statistics can be just as misleading as your "gut".) And I loved director Bennett Miller's Capote. And yet this film left me cold on many levels. It never transmitted a love of the game. it never brought the players alive. And it certainly didn't help that Brad Pitt's character avoided the stadium during games. I have enjoyed Jonah Hill, who stars here as a geeky numbers guy feeding to Pitt ideas on who to value on the team and who to let go. But Hill spent the entire film frozen, as if someone were holding a gun to his head and telling him that this was a "real" film, not one of his dumb comedies and if he ever loosened up or got jokey by God they would let him have it. It's arid and unpersuasive emotionally and as a look at the changes roiling the game. I think perhaps the way to humanize the story would have been to focus on the players -- as hard as that is. Watching a catcher like Scott Hatteberg face the trial by fire of adjusting to first base and getting royally mocked by fans and the media while his bosses insist it'll all work out -- that's a sidebar in this film but maybe it's where the real drama lies. I suppose sabermetrics would tell you to focus on Brad Pitt's character, but sometimes you have to go with your gut.





GREATEST SUPER BOWL MOMENTS ($14.93 VIVENDI/NFL) -- Sports coverage provides endless amounts of packaging -- greatest touchdown passes, greatest goal line stands, greatest dunking of coach with water! But this modestly priced DVD contains more than two and a half hours of highlights from the first Super Bowl game to the most recent, including Joe Namath, Tom Brady, Marcus Allen and most every other highlight that springs to mind when you think of the Super Bowl. If you're an addict, this is a good fix and probably a lot more fun to watch than the pre-game shows that will go on and on and on this February 5.





MILDRED PIERCE($49.99 BluRay; HBO) -- This carefully crafted HBO miniseries by director Todd Haynes spared no expense in bringing the James M. Cain novel to life. But what director Michael Curtiz told so deftly in under two hours, this miniseries drags out interminably in over five. The adult cast is solid, with Kate Winslet winning the Emmy as the self-made, self-loathing career gal and Guy Pearce snagging a supporting actor Emmy for his work as a dissolute man about town. But the insufferable, poorly written role of the daughter Mildred sacrifices everything for is not well played by Morgan Turner for the first three, dragging episodes, while the excellent actress Evan Rachel Wood does a little better in the final two. But it doesn't matter: the miniseries includes a plot twist in the fourth episode that is so absurdly laughable that the entire miniseries goes off the rails for good. It's the sort of ludicrous detail that you might include in an old movie where audiences were more gullible but for a modern remake simply readjust at least a little. Seriously, couldn't the daughter have turned out to be a good pop singer, rather than a full-blown coloratura operatic superstar overnight when it's a skill that takes literally a lifetime to master? Plus, drawn out to this length just makes your impatience with Mildred grow and grow. After all, unless the child is a bad seed, it's her fault for raising such a spoiled brat.

THE GUARD ($35.99 BluRay; Sony Pictures Classics)
DR. WILLOUGHBY ($29.99; Acorn)
BLACKTHORN ($29.98 BluRay; Magnolia)
FILM SOCIALISME ($29.95; Kino Lorber)

Four DVDs to catch up on. Don Cheadle is enjoying some of the best reviews of his career for the new Showtime sitcom House Of Lies. Maybe that will bring renewed attention to The Guard, a seemingly standard odd couple paring of Cheadle as a tightly wound FBI agent and Brendan Gleeson as a shoot-from-the-hip Irish cop. I ignored it when it came out but have seen the movie popping up here and there on end of the year lists as unfairly overlooked. With AbFab back on the air (if briefly) Joanna Lumle fans who want to double down on their favorite acerbic actress can catch Doctor Willoughby, a 90s sitcom about a soap star desperate to maintain her position playing a brilliant surgeon on the sleaziest soap on telly. What if Butch and Sundance didn't die but retired to Bolivia? That's the premise for Blackthorn, a western starring Sam Shepard that went completely under my radar. But an online friend touted it as one of his favorite films of the year and I love westerns so it's on my to-do list. Finally, Jean-Luc Godard is one of the giants of cinema but I've let his prickly personality color my appreciation for his films. (I'm a Truffaut man all the way, always valuing story over intellectual ideas.) Yet, I find an increasing number of his classic films appealing to me and can't deny it when his latest work Film Socialisme ranks at #11 on Film Comment's survey of film critics about the best movies of the year. You simply can't talk about the best films of the year until you've checked it out. And that's one reason I haven't put out my list: Godard is waiting.

READERS: So tell me what you think. Should director Steven Soderbergh retire from directing? Or just take a break? And what's your favorite Soderbergh film?

MOST TITLES LISTED HERE WILL BE AVAILABLE IN MULTIPLE FORMATS AND IN MULTIPLE COMBINATIONS, INCLUDING DVD, BLURAY, DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, VOD, STREAMING AND THE LIKE. THE FORMAT LISTED IS THE FORMAT PROVIDED FOR REVIEW, NOT ALL THE FORMATS AVAILABLE. IT IS OFTEN THE MOST EXPENSIVE VERSION WITH THE MOST EXTRAS. DO CHECK INDIVIDUAL TITLES FOR AVAILABILITY IN ALL THEIR VARIOUS GUISES AND PRICE POINTS.

Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available  for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and  gain access to thousands of ratings and reviews.

Note: Michael Giltz is provided with free copies of DVDs and BluRays with the understanding that he would be considering them for review. Generally, he does not guarantee to review and he receives far more titles than he can cover.

Book Galley Release Date

Week of 6-10-12

Mission To Paris by Alan Furst

Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead

Niceville by Carsten Stroud

6-17-12

Existence by David Brin

Mrs Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale

6-24-12

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood

7-1-12

Imperfect Bliss by Susan Fales-Hill

House Blood by Mike Lawson

Advent by James Treadwell

The Crowded Grave by Martin Walker

7-8-12

True Believers by Kurt Andersen

The Absolutist by John Boyne

The Impeachment Of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L Carter

The Red Chamber by Pauline Chen 

7-15-12

Chapman's Odyssey by Paul Bailey

Murder in Mumbai by Calamur

Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card

Skin by Mickey Spillane and Collins

The fear artist by Hallinan

7-22-12

Big Sky Mountain by Linda Lael Miller

The Thing About Thugs by Tabish Khair

7-29-12

Four Views on The Apostle Paul by Campbell et al

Dead Stars by Bruce Wagner

Jam On food book

8-5-12

The Wondeous Journals of Dr Wendell Wiggins by Lesley MM Blume ya

The Crime of Julian Wells by Thomas H Cook

The Exceptions by Cristofano

Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood

Requiem by Frances Itani

Emily and Jackson Hiding Out by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor ya

Wizywig by Piskor

12.21 by Dustin Thomason

8-12-12

The Inn at Rose Harbor by Debbie Macomber

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Om Love by George Minot

Scott Pilgrim Vol 1 by Bryan Lee O'Malley

8-19-12

Wards Of Faeries by Terry Brooks

The Survivor by Gregg Hurwitz

The Devil In Silver by Victor LaValle

The Guardian Of All Things by Michael S Malone

We Sinners by Hanna Pylvainen

8-26-12

The Art Of Haiku by Stephen Addis

Death Warmed Over by Kevin J Anderson

Pets at the White House by Barbara Bush

A Floating Life by Tad Crawford sci-fi literary(Borges)

My First Guitar by Julia Crowe

Final Table by Jonathan Duhamel

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

Freedom Burning by Richard Huzzey

Best of Rivals by Adam Lazarus

Every Day by David Levithan ya

A Soldier's Secret by Marissa Moss

Mud Puddle by Munsch

Thrall by Natasha Trethewey

Planet Taco -- growth of Mexican food

9-2-12

The Serpent's Bite by Warren Adler

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom

Higgs by Jim Baggott

the Water Theatre by Lindsay Clarke

The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech ya

Edge Of Nowhere by Elizabeth George

Garment of Shadows by Laurie R King

The vanishing Point by Val McDermid

The Art of making Magazines by Navasky

Shadow on the Mountain by Margi Preus

John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk

Wilderness by Lance Weller

Pendulum by Williams

An Enemy We Created by Alex Strick van Linschoten & Felix Kuehn

9-9-12

Oscar Peterson by Jack Batten

Prayers of a Stranger by Davis Bunn

The Five Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward Burger

Malice of Fortune by Michael Ennis

Grand Old Party by Lewis Gould 

Victory Lab by Sasha Issenberg

Wild Grace by Max Lucado

White Forest by Adam McOmber

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

Everglades Patrol by Shirley

pie in the Sky by Jane Smiley ya

Following Grandfather by Rosemary Wells

9-16-12

San Miguel by T C Boyle

Low pressure by Sandra Brown

Strange Bedfellows by Rob Byrnes

Michael Douglas bio by Eliot

Unstoppable by Tim Green ya

The rest of the story by Arthur Laurents

Syria by Lesch

Unaccountable by Marty Makary

Waiting for the Barbarians by Daniel Mendelsohn

The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore

Beam, Straight Up by Noe

The Lincoln Conspiracy by Timothy L O'Brien

Bucko by Jeff Parker

The Black Count by Tom Reiss (Abe digital)

Forever Young by John W Young

What's Left Of Me by Kat Zhang ya

9-23-12

The Assault by Brian Falkner ya

Bad Glass by Richard E Gropp

May We Be Forgiven by AM Homes

Live By Night by Dennis Lehane

A Woman Like Me by betty Lavette

Syria by David Lesch

The Secret Lives of Codebreakers by McKay

An Outlaw's Christmas by Linda Lael Miller

Don't Buy It by Osorio (economics primer)

The Forgiven by Lawrence Osborne

Ike's Bluff by Evan Thomas (Eisenhower admin bio)

The Other Normals by Ned Vizzini ya

American SciFi five classic novels and another four by Various Artists

9-30-12


Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson (Wired editor)

Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Bjork

Ghosts of Manhattan by Douglas Brunt

The Hot Country by Robert Olen Butler

My Last Empress by Da Chen

William E Dodd biography by Robert Dallek

The Quick Fix by jack Ferrialo

The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde

Studio Glass in America by Ferdinand Hampson

Peaches For Father Francis by Joanne Harris

In Sunlight and In Shadow by Mark Helprin

Picturing Illinois by Jackle

That's Not A Feeling by Dan Josefson (pb)

Invisible Murder by Leena Kaaberbol

From The Closet to the Altar by Klarman

The Jewels of Paradise by Donna Leon

Lenin's Kisses by Lianke

Finder: Talisman by McNeil

The Heart Broke In by James Meek 

Little White Duck by Na Liu ya

Fighting To Serve by Nicholson

Islam and the Arab Awakening by Tariq Ramadan

Shakespeare's Common Prayers by Daniel Swift

The Other by Thomas Tryon

10-7-12

Short Nights of the Shadow catcher by Timothy Egan

The Guy Under The Sheets by Chris Elliot

Pop-Up Cards by Mari Kumada

Noighties by Ben Masters

Becoming Holmes by Shane Peacock

Island of Bones by Imogen Robertson

Jesus: A Theography by Leonard Sweet

The Wisdom of Failure by Laurence Weinzimmer

The News From Spain by Joan Wickersham

Skulls by Simon Winchester

10-14-12

Bowl of Heaven by Gregory Benford

Through the Eye of a Needle by Peter Brown

Duck Boy by Bill Bunn ya

The Panther by Nelson deMille

The Story of America by Jill LePore

Princess Elizabeth's Spy by Susa Elia MacNeal RH

This Is Not Forgiveness by Celia Rees (ya)

The Drive On Moscow, 1941 by Niklas Zetterling

10-21-12

Paradox by Jim Al-Khalili

Commediannes by Littleton (look at female comics)

Bright Island by Mabel L Robinson ya

Light and Shade by Brad Tolinski

10-28-12

Crazy Sexy Kitchen by Kris Carr

Under The Eye of God by Jerome Charyn

Ghost Planet by Sharon Lynn Fisher (sci fi romance)

Misunderstanding Financial Crises by Gary G. Gorton

Need by Todd Gregory (gay erotica)

Entering The Shift Age by David Houle

Assholes by Aaron James

Biographical Dict of Popular Music by Dylan Jones

An Amish Gift by Cynthia Keller

Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King

Jews and Words by Amos Oz

Scrivener's Moon by Philip Reeve

Elsewhere by Richard Russo

Of Africa by Wole Soyinka

11-4-12

Pray The Gay Away by Barton

Among The Islands by Tim Flannery

Return of the Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

If We Survive by Andrew Klavan (ya)

The Last Lion by William Manchester

The Boy In The Snow by MJ McGrath (mystery)

Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks

11-11-11

Under The Bridge by Michael Harmon ya

Beirut, I Love You NYRB

The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Rian Malan

New techniques by Jacques pepin cookbook

My Bookstore edited by Ronald Rice

Bartholemew Biddle by Gary Ross ys

11-18-12

Beyond The Checklist: What Else Healthcare can learn from....by Gordon

Picturing The Cosmos by Elizabeth Kessler

Jews and Words by Amos Ox

The City War by Sam Starbuck (gay erotica)

All The Emperor's Men: Shooting Tora Tora Tora by Tasogawa 

11-25-12

Never Hug A Nun -- by Killeen (suburban memoir 60s)

Creamy and Crunch History of Peanut Butter by Krampner

The Scientific Sherlock Holmes by James O'Brien (OUP)

12-2-12

38 Nooses by Scott Berg

Spilt Milk by Chico Buarque

Creative Strategy by William Duggan

Climates by Andre Maurois

Mac & Cheese Please cookbook by Werlin

12-9-12

12-16-12

Olympic Affair by Terry Frei

12-23-12

12-30-12

Broken by AE Rought (ya)

Kiku's Prayer by Endo Shusaku (first English translation)

1-6-13

A Killer In The Wind by Anfrew Klavan

What We Saw At Night by Jacquelyn Mitchard (ya)

Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates

Encyclopedia of a Life in Russia by Jose Manuel Prieto

Umbrella by Will Self

1-13-13

the Drowning House by Elizabeth Black

Empire Of Ideas: US Foreign Diplomacy by Justin Hart (OUP)

1-20-13

1-27-13

Mating Intelligence Unleashed (OUP great cover) by Geher and Kaufman

On Constitutional Disobedience by Seldman (OUP)

2-3-13

Lonesome Melodies: Stanley Brothers music bio by david Johnson

2-10-13

2-17-13

2-24-13

3-3-13

Finding Florida by TD Allman

Exploding The Phone by Lapsley

3-10-13

3-17-13

3-24-13

3-31-13

4-7-13

4-14--13

Jerusalem by Boaz Yakin

4-21-13

4-28-13

5-6-13

5-12-13

Operation Storm: Japans Secret Subs by John Geoghegan (war nonfiction)

5-19-13

5-26-13




6-3-13



6-10-13


Queen Of The Air: True Story Love at the Circus by Dean Jensen


6-17-13


6-24-13


7-1-13


7-8-13


7-15-13



7-22-13


7-29-13


8-5-13



8-12-13


8-19-13



8-26-13


9-2-13


9-9-13


9-16-13


9-23-13


9-30-13


10-7-13


10-14-13


10-21-13


10-28-13


11-4-13


11-11-13


11-18-13


11-25-13


12-2-13


12-9-13


12-16-13


12-23-13