Here Comes the Dress in ‘The Magic Room’

Jeffrey Zaslow was looking for his next nonfiction narrative when he came across Becker’s Bridal, a family-owned boutique in a small town outside Detroit “where there were more dresses than people,” he says of the setting of his latest, The Magic Room.

Read more new and notable nonfiction in January.

The store is also where generations of Becker women—and more than 100,000 brides from all over the Midwest—have come to buy their wedding dresses since 1934. Zaslow fell under the spell of the “Magic Room,” a softly lit space with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, where a bride-to-be can ...

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Want a Job? Google Me This…

In a competitive job market, what stands between a candidate and gainful employment at a prestigious tech company is not just his or her credentials, but also how well the candidate performs under pressure.

Read more new and notable nonfiction in January.

In Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, his follow-up to the career guide How Would You Move Mount Fuji?, William Poundstone gives readers an inside look at some of the most challenging interview questions—and their solutions—from the hiring managers at Google. 

Where did you find the examples to use in your book?

I had ...

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Indie Children's Spotlight on Robb Johnston: 'The Woodcutter and the Most Beautiful Tree'

The Woodcutter and the Most Beautiful Tree earned a Kirkus Star for its witty dialogue and colorful illustrations that evoke the majesty of the four seasons with strokes of watercolor, ink pen, colored pencil and acrylic paint. First-time author Robb N. Johnston was teaching English in Tsukuba, Japan, when he got the idea to craft a children’s book about a beautiful, cunning tree who foils a woodcutter’s efforts to chop it down. But the interview took a surprising turn when we asked the part-time writer and illustrator about his current job in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Read more of ...

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Indie Nonfiction Spotlight on Matt Taylor: 'Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard'

Matt Taylor was only 2 years old when camera crews arrived on Martha’s Vineyard in 1974 to film Jaws. But when internationally renowned collector of movie memorabilia Jim Beller approached him in 2006 with an idea for a coffee-table book about the making of Steven Spielberg’s classic shark thriller, Taylor, a 15^th-generation Vineyard resident, went door-to-door to find snapshots and other production artifacts that had gone unseen for over 35 years.

It was an angle so fresh that Spielberg volunteered to write the book’s foreword, and we awarded the book, named Jaws: Memories from Martha ...

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Hyperlocal Hero Craig McManus

Craig McManus is a psychic medium with a knack for talking to spirits and the people who love them. He’s also an independent author with a knack for selling books.

By combining his four-volume Ghosts of Cape May series—about the haunting and history of America’s original seaside resort of Cape May, N.J. (founded in the 1700s)—with ghost-themed trolley tours and group channeling sessions held in some of Cape May’s lovely—and spooky—Victorian-era bed-and-breakfasts, McManus has sold over 30,000 copies of his books and owned the term “hyperlocal.” Here, he talks about the ...

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Amanda Ward: 'Close Your Eyes'

When Lauren and Alex climbed into their tree house, they had no idea it would be their last night in New York. Close Your Eyes follows the siblings, all grown up and living in Austin, Texas, as they uncover the truth about their mother’s murder and why their father took the blame. Amanda Eyre Ward (Sleep Toward Heaven, 2003, etc.) found inspiration for this page-turner in her own backyard. Here the Austin-based author explains why her hometown of Rye, N.Y., was not the idyllic place it seemed.

View the entire Best of Fiction list here.

I understand the ...

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The Other Woman Revealed in ‘Mistresses’

Mistresses: A History of the Other Woman, the second installment in a trilogy of books that includes A History of Celibacy and A History of Marriage, is a detailed and often heartbreaking portrait of history’s most scandalous women. Here, Elizabeth Abbott shares her insights on the ladies who live and love but never seem to learn.

Read more new and notable books for September at Kirkus.

You profile mistresses from different time periods all over the world.  What do all these women have in common?

The whole institution of mistress-dom is parallel to marriage. Mistresses exist in many ways ...

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Amy Waldman: ‘The Submission’

In her debut novel The Submission, former New York Times reporter Amy Waldman writes about an American Muslim architect whose winning design for a 9/11 memorial sparks controversy in a community already divided by grief, prejudice and fear. The author’s fictional account emerges not long after construction plans for a mosque near Ground Zero made a splash in the media. Is it a case of life imitating art or the other way around? Waldman explains.

Read more of our best of 2011 fiction.

The Submission is fiction, but it reads as though it were ripped straight from the ...

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‘Sugar Nation’: This is Why You're Diabetic

Jeff O’Connell was the picture of health. Tall and thin, the Men’s Health writer never thought he’d have to worry about Type 2 diabetes, a disease that seemed to only afflict the overweight. But his father was diabetic, and O’Connell would be too if he didn’t act quickly. Sugar Nation follows the author’s 18 month-long quest to improve his health sans medication through exercise and a low-carb diet. Here, he tells us about the unexpected coincidences that led to his recovery.

Read more new and notable nonfiction books for July. 

Would you have been ...

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Melissa de la Cruz: ‘Witches of East End’

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‘Morning Joe’s’ Mika Brzezinski on Getting Paid

Asking for a raise is never easy, even for successful women like Mika Brzezinski. Famous for her on-air refusal to read a report about Paris Hilton’s release from jail, the outspoken journalist nearly quit her job as co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe when she found out that her male counterpart, Joe Scarborough, was making 14 times her salary.  In her candid memoir, Knowing Your Value, Brzezinski shares how she found her voice and finally got the raise she deserved.

Real-world advice can come from TV! Check out Maria Menounos and Katie Couric's latest books.

You speak frankly ...

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'Little Bets': Peter Sims on Breakthrough Ideas and Small Discoveries

It’s a story of gambling, experimentation and repeated failure, but Little Bets is not a cautionary tale. Peter Sims interviewed more than 200 leaders in innovation to compile a thoughtful, compelling look at the creative process as a model for success. So, what can your old-school company learn from the founders of Twitter and comedian Chris Rock? Sims gives us the details.

Read more great books about innovatiove thinkers: Tina Rosenberg's Join the Club and Steven Levy's In the Plex.

How did you put the book together?

I co-authored a book called True North: Discover Your Authentic ...

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‘Global Girlfriends,’ helping women in poverty one product at a time

Stacey Edgar started Global Girlfriend, an organization that distributes handmade goods made by women worldwide, with a $2,000 tax return and a dream to transform women’s lives in under-developed countries. In her book, Global Girlfriends, Edgar describes how she built a fair-trade marketplace for apparel and gifts, and the girlfriends she made in the process. Making a difference, she tells Kirkus, is surprisingly simple.

Read more great books on international aid efforts. 

Why did you decide to write a book about Global Girlfriend?

We all understand how important having a job is in the United States. We know ...

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Maria Menounos: ‘The EveryGirl’s Guide to Life’

Whether she’s corresponding for Access Hollywood, reporting for NBC’s Nightly News or producing and starring in films, Maria Menounos always manages to stay organized, fit and camera-ready. In her new book, The EveryGirl’s Guide to Life, Menounos shares the secrets she picked up from other celebrities and experts on her amazing journey from the Dunkin Donuts in Medford, Mass., to the red carpet in Hollywood.

Want more advice on living your best life? You may also like titles by Tina Rosenberg and Geneen Roth.

Why did you decide to write a book?

I get stopped in the ...

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Julia Child Bio Delves Into the War Years

Before Julia Child could write Mastering the Art of French Cooking she had to master the art of espionage. During World War II the future television chef joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Asia, where she met her husband Paul Child and served her country faithfully, or so she thought, until Paul became a suspect a McCarthy-era investigation. Jennet Conant was on a book tour for the New York Times bestseller The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington (2008) when the National Archives released the classified personnel files of Julia and Paul Child ...

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Kirkus Q&A: Mark Coker

Mark Coker and his wife self-published their novel Boob Tube, a fictional behind-the-scenes look at the world of soap operas, when their top New York agent was unable to sell the manuscript to a publisher. Frustrated with the outdated practices of the publishing industry, Coker founded Smashwords, a platform for independent writers and publishers to convert their e-books into multiple formats and distribute them to major retailers including Barnes & Noble, Apple, Sony, Komo and, soon, Amazon. Here Coker gives valuable advice to authors who are ready to self-publish their manuscripts.

What should writers look for in a publishing platform?

I ...

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‘The Blind Side’s’ Michael Oher

Michael Oher, offensive lineman for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, won hearts as the subject of the The Blind Side, the New York Times bestselling book by Michael Lewis and the film for which Sandra Bullock snagged a best-actress Oscar last year.

Growing up in the projects in Memphis, Oher and his siblings were taken away from their drug-addicted mother and placed in a series of foster homes. But Oher was determined to rise above his surroundings. In I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond, the athlete picks up where The Blind Side left off ...

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2010 Best Books: Salvation City, by Sigrid Nunez

In Salvation City, Sigrid Nunez (The Last of Her Kind, 2005, etc.) explores with emotional precision what would happen if Americans faced a worse pandemic than the Great Flu of 1918. The author sets the story in the near future, when the elbow bump has replaced the handshake, and bodies are piling up in the streets faster than coroners can wheel them away. Cole Vining, a budding young artist, is still reeling from the loss of his liberal, atheist parents when a preacher and his wife take him home to the rural sanctuary they call Salvation City. “We live in ...

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2010 Best Books: Take One Candle, Light a Room, by Susan Straight

“Rivers are completely indifferent,” says Susan Straight (A Million Nightingales, 2006, etc.). She was thinking of her own home in Riverside, Calif., when she created the fictitious city of Rio Seco, which translates to “dry river” in Spanish. In the book, travel writer Fantine returns to Rio Seco where, five years earlier, her childhood friend Glorette had been found strangled to death in a shopping cart. It’s an event based on a real-life tragedy Straight found in her local newspaper. “[In the article, the girl’s] mother said, ‘She was a black teenager. No one’s going to care ...

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Kirkus Q&A: Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly has always been light years ahead in reporting on technological trends. An expert on technology and its place in our culture, Kelly (New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World, 1998, etc.) currently serves as an editor-at-large for Wired magazine, which he helped launch and edited for almost six years. His latest book, What Technology Wants, is a compilation of posts from his blog, The Technium. Here, Kelly discusses technology’s place in the natural world, human culture—even his own home.

In the book, you trace the evolution of technology from the ...

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