Must-read Monday: new in paperback!

If the price of hardcover books is beyond your budget, have we got good news for you!  This week, many of 2010's most beloved titles are released in the budget-friendly paperback editions.  Here are a few of the ones we're most excited about:

 Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich.  Irene and Gil share many passions -- art, writing, their three children, and unfortunately, alcohol. After years of marriage, their obsessive love for each other transforms from a creative force to a destructive one.  This book is unflinching in its honesty--both in the portrayal of an obsessive relationship and the damages it does to the bystanders, in this case, their children--but it is also luminous in its language.  This is Erdrich's best and most intimate work to date.  (Odyssey Bookseller recommendation: Emily)

 Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian.  Set in a small Vermont town and told from multiple points of view, we see what happens when a shocking murder/suicide rocks the community to its very core  A local minister whose faith is shaken by the crime, a no-nonsense police investigator, and a charismatic but flaky author who believes that angels walk among us share the story-telling in this novel.  We get Bohjalian's trademark narration here where each layer becomes more nuanced and introduces more shades of grey--in this world, nothing is as absolute as black & white.  (Odyssey Bookseller recommendation: Emily)

The Three Weismanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine.  The New York Times named this one of their Notable Books of the Year for 2010.  Now's your chance to pick up this modern novel of manners, which readers have been raving about. 

"Schine’s homage to Jane Austen has it all....A sparkling, crisp, clever, deft, hilarious, and deeply affecting new novel, her best yet . . . Schine is clearly a writer who loves to read as much as she loves to write. And it is great fun to play English major with her.” —Dominique Browning, New York Times Book Review.

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake.  This New York Times bestseller, set in coastal Massachusetts in the 1940s is a tale of two worlds--one shattered by violence, the other willfully naive--and of two women whose job is to deliver the news, yet who find themselves unable to do so. Through their eyes and the eyes of everyday people caught in history's tide, it examines how stories are told and how the fact of war is borne, even in the face of everyday life.

"Matching harrowing action with reflection, romance with pathos, Blake's emotional saga of conscience and genocide is poised to become a best-seller of the highest echelon" ~Booklist (starred review)

~Emily