Biography - Autobiography

Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man

Mark Kurlansky

(Doubleday Books, $25.95, HC, 9780385527057)

Break out the TV dinners! From the author who gave us Cod, Salt, and other informative bestsellers, here is the first full-length biography of Clarence Birdseye, the eccentric genius inventor whose fast-freezing process revolutionized the food industry and American agriculture.

Also New in Biography - Autobiography:

• The Doper Next Door... Andrew Tilin
• Salt to Summit: A Vagabond Journey from Death Valley to Mount Whitney... Daniel Arnold
• To the Last Breath: A Memoir of Going to Extremes... Francis Slakey
• The Voluntourist: A Six-Country Tale of Love, Loss, Fatherhood, Fate, and Singing Bon Jovi in Bethlehem... Ken Budd

Cooking & Food

The Brokeass Gourmet Cookbook

Gabi Moskowitz

(Dynamic Housewares, $16.95, TP, 9780983859512)

BrokeAss Gourmet is the premier food and lifestyle blog for folks who want to live the high life on the cheap. The blog features recipes that are always under $20, along with great advice on inexpensive but delicious beers, wines, and cocktails, plus other topics relating to the BrokeAss Gourmet lifestyle. The site and its vivacious founder, Gabi Moskowitz, has now written the first ever The BrokeAss Gourmet Cookbook which offers more than 200 delicious and easy recipes for a variety of meals, from soups and starters to main dishes and desserts.

Also New in Cooking & Food:

• The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities... Will Allen
• Greenhorns: 50 Dispatches from the New Farmers' Movement... Edited by Paula Manalo, Severine Von Tscharner Fleming and Zoe Ida Bradbury
• How to Cook Like a Man: A Memoir of Cookbook Obsession... Daniel Duane
• The Juice: Vinous Veritas... Jay McInerney
• Pike Place Market Recipes: 130 Delicious Ways to Bring Home Seattle's Famous Market... Jess Thomson
• The Truck Food Cookbook: 150 Recipes and Ramblings from America's Best Restaurants on Wheels... John T. Edge
• Urban Farms... Sarah Rich, Photography by Matthew Benson

Crafts

Cut Up This Book!

Emily Hogarth

(Running Press Book Publishers, $19.00, TP, 9780762444052)

The appeal of paper cutting is that anyone can do it, the equipment is readily available, and the results are stunning. This totally fun and interactive book features inspirational ideas for crafters of all skill levels. In an easy-to-follow, fully illustrated format, Cut Up This Book! shows readers how to create exquisite works of art such as: Greeting cards, Bird Mobiles, Tree ornaments, Window displays, Shadow puppets and much more!

Family & Parenting

Handy Dad in the Great Outdoors

Todd Davis

(Chronicle Books, $24.95, TP, 9781452102139)

In this awesome follow-up to the immensely popular Handy Dad, extreme sports athlete and TV host Todd Davis gathers more than 30 projects and activities sure to get kids outside and entertained for hours. With easy-to-follow instructions, helpful photographs, and detailed line illustrations, Handy Dad in the Great Outdoors is packed with all the essentials. From simple campsite know-how to more ambitious building projects (tepee anyone?), plus a few pranks for good measure, this book has something for every family and every place--be it the back country or the backyard.

Fiction

Havana Requiem

Paul Goldstein

(Farrar Straus Giroux, $26.00, HC, 9780809053933)

In Goldstein's brilliant third thriller featuring litigator Michael Seeley, we find Seely trying to regain his footing after the loss of his successful law firm and marriage to pride and alcohol. Now he slowly recovers his reputation only to risk everything by accepting a case from an aging Cuban musician who with six other composers seeks to reclaim copyrights to culturally significant Cuban songs. Seeley find himself entangled in Havana's violent underbelly and a decades-long conspiracy that runs from the partners in his firm to the U.S. State Department to Cuba's security police, who are willing to do anything to suppress the truth. In the heat of Havana, Seeley will lose himself to his worst and best passions as his pursuit of justice becomes a desperate gambit to save his client.

Also New in Fiction:

• I Am Forbidden... Anouk Markovits
• The Invitation... Anne Cherian
• We, the Drowned... Carsten Jensen, Translated by Charlotte Barslund and Emma Ryder

Gardening

Maximizing Your Mini Farm: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre

Brett L. Markham

(Skyhorse Publishing, $16.95, TP, 9781616086107)

Mini farming describes a holistic approach to small-area farming that will show you how to produce 85 percent of an average family's food on just a quarter acre--and earn $10,000 in cash annually while spending less than half the time that an ordinary job would require. Now expanding exponentially on his bestselling Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on Quarter Acre, Brett Markham gives you tips, tricks, and planning advice on how to make the most of your mini farm.

Also New in Gardening:

• Winter Gardening in the Maritime Northwest: Cool Season Crops for the Year-Round Gardener... Binda Colebrook

Health & Healing

The Pure Cure: A Complete Guide to Freeing Your Life from Dangerous Toxins

Sharyn Wynters

(Soft Skull Press, $19.95, TP, 9781593765002)

In The Pure Cure naturopath Sharyn Winters takes readers to a new level of awareness regarding the dangers of the toxins in everyday products and services. Taking a thorough and comprehensive approach, the book goes through every room in the house and beyond, identifying problematic toxins and a course of action for eliminating them. The author also points to surprising new areas of concern, makes suggestions for healthy solutions, and provides a lists of products and companies that can offer safer alternatives.

History

The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--And the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation

Jim Donovan

(Little Brown and Company, $29.99, HC, 9780316053747)

The Blood of Heroes is a gripping and definitive chronicle of the iconic battle that inspired a nation--a sweeping saga of 200 brave Americans who stood tall against an overwhelmingly superior Mexican force. Drawing upon newly available primary sources and populated by larger-than-life characters--including Davy Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis--it is a dynamic story of courage, sacrifice, and redemption.

Also New in History:

• Discovering Totem Poles: A Traveler's Guide... Aldona Jonaitis

Humor

Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity

Joel Stein

(Grand Central Publishing, $26.99, HC, 9780446573122)

After his son is born, Joel Stein fell into panic mode while questioning his "manliness." In Man Made, Stein begins his quest to confront his effete nature whether he likes it or not (he doesn't), by doing a twenty-four-hour shift with L.A. firefighters, going hunting, rebuilding a house, driving a Lamborghini, enduring three days of boot camp with the U.S. Army, day-trading with $100,000, and going into the ring with UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture. Seeking help from a panel of experts, including his manly father-in-law, a race car driver, Boy Scouts, former NFL star Warren Sapp, former MLB All-Star Shawn Green, Adam Carolla, and a pit bull named Hercules, he expects to learn that masculinity is defined not by the size of his muscles, but by the size of his heart (also, technically, a muscle). This is not at all what he learns.

Also New in Humor:

• Robots Feel Nothing When They Hold Hands... Alec Sulkin, Mike Desilets, Artie Johann, Illustrated by Joe Vaux and Dominic Bianchi

Language Arts

Alphabetter Juice: Or, the Joy of Text

Roy Blount, Jr.

(Sarah Crichton Books, $15.00, TP, 9780374533373)

No man of letters savors the ABC's, or serves them up, like language-loving humorist Roy Blount Jr. His glossary, from ad hominy to zizz, is hearty, full bodied, and out to please discriminating palates coarse and fine. In 2008, he celebrated the gists, tangs, and energies of letters and their combinations in Alphabet Juice, to wide acclaim. Now, Alphabetter Juice. Which is better. This follow up book to Alphabet Juice is for anyone--novice wordsmith, sensuous reader, or career grammarian--who loves to get physical with words. Now in paperback

Nature

Great Ranches of Today's Wild West: A Horseman's Photographic Journey Across the American West

Mark Bedor

(Skyhorse Publishing, $29.95, HC, 9781616085056)

In this beautiful collection, veteran travel writer Mark Bedor takes readers on a journey through twenty of the great ranches of today's Wild West. With over 200 stunning full-color photographs, reading Great Ranches of Today's Wild West is almost as good as being there. Take a horseback ride through the snowy woods at Vista Verde Ranch in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, or follow in the footsteps of Butch Cassidy on the Outlaw Trail at Utah 's Tavaputs Ranch it's all just another part of the American ranch experience.

Also New in Nature:

• Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story... Daphne Jenkins Sheldrick

Photography

Locals Only: California Skateboarding 1975-1978

Steve Crist

(Ammo Books, $19.95, HC, 9781934429839)

One afternoon in 1975, a young photographer named Hugh Holland drove up Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Los Angeles and encountered skateboarders carving up the drainage ditches along the side of the canyon. Immediately transfixed by their grace and athleticism, he knew he had found an amazing subject. For the next three years Holland never tired of documenting skateboarders surfing the streets of Los Angeles, parts of the San Fernando Valley, Venice Beach, and as far away as San Francisco and Baja California, Mexico. Now readers can see these images in this beautifully designed, large-format photography book featuring some of the most quintessential images ever made during the earliest days of skateboard culture.

Also New in Photography:

• Swell: A Year of Waves... Evan Slater, Photographs edited by Peter Taras

Science

DNA USA: A Genetic Portrait of America

Bryan Sykes

(Liveright Publishing Corporation, $27.95, HC, 9780871404121)

The best-selling author of The Seven Daughters of Eve now turns his sights on the United States, one of the most genetically variegated countries in the world. From the blue-blooded pockets of old-WASP New England to the vast tribal lands of the Navajo, Bryan Sykes takes us on a historical genetic tour, interviewing genealogists, geneticists, anthropologists, and everyday Americans with compelling ancestral stories. An unprecedented look into America's genetic mosaic and how we perceive race, DNA USA challenges the very notion of what we think it means to be American.

Social Science

Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character

Jack Hitt

(Crown Publishing Group, $26.00, HC, 9780307393753)

America's self-invented tinkerers are back at it in their metaphorical garages--fiddling with everything from solar-powered cars to space elevators. In Bunch of Amateurs, Jack Hitt visits a number of different garages and looks at America's current batch of amateurs and their pursuits. Hitt not only tells the stories of people in the grip of a passion but argues that America's history is bound up in a cycle of amateur surges. He argues that America is now poised to pioneer at another frontier that will lead, one more time, to the newest version of the American dream.

Also New in Social Science:

• Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth... Adharanand Finn

Technology

The Eskimo and the Oil Man: The Battle at the Top of the World for America's Future

Bob Reiss

(Business Plus, $27.99, HC, 9781455525249)

A look at the struggle over offshore oil exploration through the eyes of two men, one an Inupiat Eskimo leader on Alaska's North Slope, the other the head of Shell Oil's Alaska venture. Their saga is set against the background of an undersea land rush in the Arctic, with Russian bombers appearing off Alaska's coast, and rapid changes in ice that put millions of sea mammals at risk. The men's decisions will affect the daily lives of all Americans, in their cities and towns and also in their pocketbooks. The story begins as a fight and ends with a surprise. In the spirit of Thomas L. Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded, bestselling author and journalist Bob Reiss traveled in America's High North over three years and spent time with scientists, diplomats, military planners, Eskimo whale hunters and officials at the highest levels of the government to gives us a rewarding glimpse behind the Alaska oil headlines.