Okay, here are some new titles that caught my eye:

A Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure. From Booklist: "McClure details her attempts to become the first woman to row across the Atlantic, interspersed with reflections on challenges she has faced in the past. She recounts her struggles to protect her developmentally disabled brother, Lamar, from abuse by neighborhood children; her time at Harvard’s divinity school; and her work with the homeless, all the while describing her battles through towering waves and fierce storms."

I'm a sucker for "woman against the odds" type stories especially when the involve tiny ships in the middle of the sea. Plus she meets Muhammad Ali.

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen. I'm not a huge Dessen fan (I think she's fine but I also think she gets plenty of press without my column), but her new one sounds especially good. From Booklist:

Auden is about to start college in the fall, and decides to escape her control-freak professor mom to spend the summer with her novelist father, his new young wife, and their brand-new baby daughter, Thisbe. Over the course of the summer, Auden tackles many new projects: learning to ride a bike, making real connections with peers, facing the emotional fallout of her parents’ divorce, distancing herself from her mother, and falling in love with Eli, a fellow insomniac bicyclist recovering from his own traumas. The cover may mislead readers, as despite the body language of the girl in pink and the hunky blue-jeaned boy balanced on a bike, this is no slight romance: there’s real substance here.

It's the "insomniac bicyclist" bit that really appeals to me but man - I do wish just once that covers for teen girls did not have to be so blatantly romantic sometimes.

Four Freedoms by John Crowley. A starred review from Booklist:

Although nominally about life at an American aircraft factory during World War II, Crowley’s complex and subtle novel is much grander. He explores the minds and hearts of people compelled by history to radically change their lives. Unaccountably optimistic Prosper Olander, orphaned as a child and crippled by a failed surgery, discovers that even he can find important work at a distant aircraft company in rural Oklahoma. Connie Wrobleski, frightened of nearly everything except her infant son, also travels to Oklahoma to reunite with her domineering husband, only to see him desert his family by enlisting. Prosper, Connie, and half a dozen other characters are developed in intricate detail and used as lenses on the massive relocation, dislocation, and societal change caused by the war. Crowley’s characters offer depth, nuance, and pathos to the traditional image of Rosie the Riveter. Four Freedoms is also a triumph of both research and imagination.

An airplane factory during WWII? I must read this one.

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman. I'm hot and cold on Hoffman - but Donna gave this one a starred review in Booklist and the Little Women comparison makes it sound very appealing:

The Story sisters, Elv, Meg, and Claire, are dark-haired beauties clustered in the attic of their old Long Island house, while their lonely mother broods below. Their all-female household, a sly variation on Little Women, is under a grim fairy-tale spell, and not even sojourns with their fairy-godmother-like grandmother in Paris can protect them. As always in Hoffman’s glimmering universe, nature is an awesome presence reflected in the mercurial human heart, and consequently, the Story girls are preternaturally sensitive to storms, ghosts, and plant and animal spirits. Meg is practical, while Elv and Claire share a tragic secret, and Elv channels her anguish into elaborate, demon-haunted tales of an imaginary parallel world until she discovers more effective means of self-punishment. The always dazzling Hoffman has outdone herself in this bewitching weave of psychologically astute fantasy and shattering realism, encompassing rape, drug addiction, disease, and fatal accidents.

Big Fish by Richard Ellis. When it comes to the world's oceans and what lives within them, Ellis is THE author of choice. I haven't heard much about this book which surprises me as as it is so freaking timely. From Abrams Books:

From Richard Ellis, America's foremost painter and chronicler of undersea life, comes Big Fish, a natural history of the largest fish on Earth. Blending art and science with historical, cultural, and personal stories, Ellis illustrates the giants of the sea, incorporating anecdotes, archival images, and photos related to legendary catches and discoveries. Along the way, we meet big-game fishermen like Ernest Hemingway and Zane Grey, as well as naturalists and explorers. We also meet all manner of tuna, from bluefin and yellowfin to albacore and bigeye; billfish, from marlins to the mighty swordfish; and sharks, from the long-extinct Megamouth to the very much extant great white.

He also has a book on polar bears due out this fall. (I really have no excuse for my literary laziness - check his output and then ask yourself what you did this morning.)

In other news, I am currently reading six books at the same time (I have no idea how this happened but I'm unwilling to pause even one of them); just finished the rewrites on my "little girl" chapter and back to rewriting the final chapter of Geographies ("Flying Over the Wild"); just reviewed a rather dull book for Booklist that should have been much better but I think the author went for the easy write rather than the thorough one (not a bad book but not a good one either); turned in my May column on Friday and now working on two reviews for June so I can finish that one way way way ahead of time (yea!); bought new running shoes that really want to run! Fabulous! (Started running again last week - nothing impressive but so happy to be back out there) and...drum roll please....I CLEANED OUT MY CLOTHES CLOSET!!!

Okay, that is not even remotely literary related (other than the 20 books I found lurking in there) but it's my big happy news of the weekend. I have three bags of "clothes I will never wear and no longer wish to have staring at me" ready to be donated this week. I feel quite virtuous right now. Maybe I'll tackle my office next. (Now that would be something.....)