Everyday Workers Explored in ‘Hidden America’

Jeanne Marie Laskas has been 500 feet down in a coal mine. She’s helped herd cattle in Texas, followed migrant workers during a Maine blueberry harvest and spent time with a long-haul female trucker named Sputter.

These are the stories of real, everyday working Americans who labor behind-the-scenes to make what most of us take for granted—the power when you flick a switch, the hamburgers you grilled last weekend, the plane you took on vacation. All these things require—no depend on—the hard work of dedicated Americans who often labor under the radar, hard hours for even ...

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Calling All Jennifer Weiner Fans

When it comes to women's fiction, Jennifer Weiner is a powerhouse. Her New York Times bestselling books have hit home with many of the ladies, and she just keeps on cranking out more.

Weiner's new novel, The Next Best Thing, returns her to the "single girl narrative" with Ruth Saunders trying to make it as a writer in Hollywood. To help launch the book, Weiner is holding a sweepstakes. Readers can send in their receipts on any pre-ordered book by July 1 to enter a contest to receive a personal visit from Weiner to their book club or ...

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‘We Learn Nothing’: Tales and Other Manifestos from Tim Kreider

Political cartoonist and writer Tim Kreider is known for telling it like it is. An unabashed critic of George W. Bush’s administration, which he covered in his cartoon strip The Pain—When Will It End?, Kreider gained fans for his darkly funny take on some very serious times.

Kreider’s comics have been published in such colorfully named collections as The Pain—When Will It End? (2004), Why Do They Kill Me? (2005) and Twilight of the Assholes (2011), which combined his essays with his cartoons. In addition to being an artist, Kreider also contributes essays to the New ...

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Life to the Extremes

At 37, Francis Slakey lived a life with no commitments and no permanent attachments. His primary goal was to travel the world, no strings attached.

Read more new and notable nonfiction this May.

Slakey’s job as a physics lecturer at Georgetown allowed him to take off lengthy stretches of time to climb while also serving as the means to fund his travel. Teaching was “mechanical” to Slakey, nothing more. There were no houses, no serious girlfriends—and certainly no marriage or kids—in the professor’s future. And he was content with that.

Until he started his quest.

Slakey ...

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Sobering Days

Recovery experts say to attend 90 meetings in 90 days if you really want to get sober. Post-rehab, those 90 days are exactly what was staring Bill Clegg down as he returned to his old using grounds of lower Manhattan.

Read more new and notable nonfiction in April.

A rising star in the literary world and a talented agent, Clegg chronicled his addictions, especially to crack, in his acclaimed 2010 memoir, Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man. In Ninety Days: A Memoir of Recovery, he tackles the aftermath—continuing to work on his sobriety in downtown New York ...

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Going Forth with ‘Wild’

Many of us wish we’d done this or that—taken that trip, quit that job, or started a project—but Cheryl Strayed put a chance moment in an outdoor store’s checkout line to good use. Due to a glance at the back of a Pacific Crest Trail guidebook, she got the itch to do it. Then actually did.

Read more new and notable nonfiction this March.

The story of how she did it, however, is not that easy. In her memoir, Wild, Strayed is wrestling with some mighty beasts by her mid-20s—divorce, her mother’s illness and ...

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Drawing a Monster in ‘My Friend Dahmer’

Artist Derf Backderf turns to a most fascinating—and grisly—subject for his latest graphic novel My Friend Dahmer.

In the book, Backderf pulls from his own memories of attending high school with the infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, as well as hours of detailed interviews with his friends and acquaintances who were there at the time, and news reports and interviews that covered Dahmer’s crimes when he was caught. The result is a portrait of a young man on the brink of a dark, depraved place almost impossible to imagine. In a starred review, we called it “a ...

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The Grace of ‘Heft’

Liz Moore’s second book, Heft, follows the story of an obese recluse in Brooklyn and a teen baseball star in Yonkers, N.Y.—and the intricate ties that intersect their difficult lives.

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The story centers around a former academic, Arthur, who fell in love with a student, Charlene, who later had the teen Kel. While Arthur and Kel both wrestle with the difficulties they face in their lives—fractured families, substance abuse, depression and acceptance—Moore expertly weaves together their stories as they eventually work toward one another.

It’s truly one of ...

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Indie Icon J.A. Konrath

J.A. Konrath is one of the biggest names in self-publishing, and his blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, is all but required reading for independent authors. When we talked to Konrath at the beginning of this year, he had just enjoyed a very successful month, moving more than 18,000 e-books on Kindle and made about $42,000 online, including sales on SmashWords, CreateSpace and Barnes & Noble, for the month of January. As Konrath puts it on his blog, “ ‘Amazed’ is no longer strong enough a word.”

Read more of the Best Indie Books of 2011.

Compare that ...

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Shann Ray: ‘American Masculine’

Shann Ray won the Bakeless Prize for his book of short stories, American Masculine, a collection that is most welcome on our Best Fiction of 2011 list:  “Almost every story is set under the great blue steel dome of the Montana sky. Almost every story follows a hard man who cannot understand where hardness should end. Almost every story watches as a lonely woman attempts to love such a man without understanding the anger, the hurt and the loneliness beneath the iron. Think Hemingway or Jim Harrison.”

Discover more of the best short story collections of 2011.

Here, Ray discusses ...

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Duff McKagan's ‘It’s So Easy’

Talk to any rock ’n’ roll fan who was around in the late ’80s about their favorite albums and you’re likely to hear Appetite for Destruction near the top of their list. The gritty, raunchy, dirty album blew apart the L.A. hair-band scene and secured Guns N’ Roses a place in history as one of the most important bands. Ever.

Read more new and notable nonfiction this October.

In true Behind the Music style, Guns imploded in the ’90s, its members taking on other projects here and there, including front man Axl Rose’s epic quest to put ...

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Men Behaving Badly in ‘Hooked’

It’s a story as old as time itself. In the novel Hooked, John Franc (a pseudonym) delves into a sordid world of a group of well-to-do men as they frequent their sophisticated city’s brothels. The men remain nameless throughout, only identified by a few physical traits or affectations, their true identities not that crucial to the overall story. What is important here are the very comfortable, somewhat sterile, lives they’re leading, complete with wives, families, nice homes and all.

Read more can't-miss fiction new this fall.

Conflict arises after one of the men panics about what ...

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Suzanne Morrison: ‘Yoga Bitch’

To outsiders, yoga may appear like one of those activities that yuppie urbanites take up—like knitting and shopping at Whole Foods. Yoga Bitch author Suzanne Morrison was one of those skeptics—granted a more rock’n’roll, smoking version of a skeptic—as to what all the hoopla was about when it came to downward dogging your way to bliss. But after Morrison became hooked on the practice in Seattle—and her instructor convinced her to take a foreign retreat—she learned that there is something to giving up coffee, sweets and sweating her ass off in Bali.

Read ...

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Oprah’s Book Club: Authors Share ‘What It Meant to Me’

Since its inception in 1996, getting selected for Oprah’s Book Club has been a very big deal. So big, in fact, that it could be considered the Holy Grail of authorhood—being picked pretty much guaranteed bestseller status and that you never had to worry about your publisher dropping you again. Over the years, Oprah has selected 65 books that have changed the course of many lives—from those who wrote them to those who adored them. Here, we talked to a few authors who made Oprah’s reading list and asked—what did it mean to you?

Read ...

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Chaz Bono Talks ‘Transition’ on ‘Oprah’

Growing up in Hollywood as the daughter of Sonny and Cher, Chaz Bono has always been in the spotlight. But it’s Bono's life as an adult that’s really captured interest. Chastity Bono, who came out as a lesbian in her 20s, has since undergone the transformation to become Chaz to match his body to the gender with which he identifies.

Take our Qrank quiz on Chaz Bono.

Bono revealed much about his life, the decision and the process in his new memoir Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man and the documentary Becoming Chaz, which ...

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Lies, Lies, Lies, Chelsea Handler Style

If you are even remotely familiar with late-night E! television programming (and let’s be honest, you probably are), then you know what Chelsea Handler is all about. The host of Chelsea Lately is known for pulling elaborate pranks, a part of her personality that is on full display on her show’s spinoff, After Lately. Now, Handler’s staff, family and friends sound off about the worst—or best—lies, hoaxes and schemes that she’s tormented them with in Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me. Here are just a few of the highlights:

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'It Was Over When…Tales of Romantic Dead Ends'

We all know that moment—he compares you to his mom; she figured out your PIN and lifted two grand from your checking account; he shows up for the first date in full-on Ren Faire garb—it’s the moment when you realize that it is so very over.

Don't forget to enter our one-day "It Was Over When..." Twitter and Facebook contest.

Thankfully, there’s good company in commiserating with others regarding the very worst dating stories—and their endings. Robert Elder started compiling these tales of woe in his website, itwasoverwhen.com, which got a huge bump ...

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From 'Housewives' to 'A Place of Yes': Bethenny Frankel

She may have made her first mark on reality television as the runner-up on Martha Stewart’s Apprentice, but she quickly distinguished herself from the pack on The Real Housewives of New York City. Bethenny Frankel has become the first breakout star from that Bravo juggernaut to land her own series, Bethenny Getting Married? and Bethenny Ever After..., which began airing this March. Here, the New York Times bestselling author talks to us about her third book, A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life.

When you barbecued that first version of this book ...

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It Gets Better offline—Dan Savage and Terry Miller’s project now a book

It launched last September as a video on YouTube that quickly went viral—sex columnist and author Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller’s testimonial to LGBT kids that it gets better. The video quickly became a movement, amassing thousands of proud, brave, trusted voices in its campaign. The project came about after a series of tragic suicides, bullied kids who felt so hopeless that they took their own lives, and was met with overwhelming enthusiasm and support—more than 10,000 user-created videos generating over 30 million pageviews have been made to date.

READ MORE LGBT TITLES HERE ...

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Neil Strauss' 'Everyone Loves You When You're Dead'

He wrote one of the most iconic rock biographies of all time with The Dirt. He bared the truth about many a talented pickup artist in The Game. And he’s covered some of the greatest musicians in the world for Rolling Stone, the New York Times, among many others. Neil Strauss is one of the most prolific rock writers and biographers working today. So, his next book took a natural turn—a collection of the most telling moments behind the more than 3,000-plus interviews he’s conducted over his career. Here, Strauss talks to us about Everyone Loves ...

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