More November Bestsellers!

Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan

Publishers Weekly –

Fifteen years after Waiting to Exhale, McMillan brings back Savannah, Gloria, Bernadine, and Robin--now in their 50s--for a disappointing and uninspired outing. As the story opens, Gloria is very happy, Savannah believes she might be happy, Bernadine is fighting addiction and losing ground, and single mother Robin is trying to resign herself to being alone while things at her job begin to unravel. Within the first few chapters, Gloria and Savannah are struck by disaster, and things go rapidly downhill from there for everyone. Most of the misery has to do with men who lie, steal, cheat, or disappear, or with adult children who face similar problems. Unfortunately, the beloved cast isn't given a story worthy of them; instead, this reunion reads like a catalogue of personal catastrophes annotated with very long, rambling discussions, with more emphasis on simple drama than character.

Gingerbread Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke, Laura Levine, and Leslie Meier

Publishers Weekly –

Fluke, Levine, and Meier each offer a yuletide whodunit treat in this entertaining follow-up to 2007's Candy Cane Murder. In Fluke's wry "Gingerbread Cookie Murder," Hannah Swensen of the Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minn., wants her neighbor Ernie Kusak to simply lower the volume on his too loud Christmas outdoor display, but she soon discovers Ernie with his head bashed in. In Levine's hilarious "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies," Jaine Austen's holiday stay at her parents' home in the Tampa Vistas retirement community is enlivened by the murder of elderly lothario Dr. Preston McCay, whose neck gets broken during his star turn in an amateur play called The Gingerbread Cookie That Saved Christmas. Rounding out the volume is Meier's less cheery but poignant "Gingerbread Cookies and Gunshots," about Maine reporter Lucy Stone's investigation of a four-year-old boy's disappearance. Recipes enhance two of the selections.

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

Publishers Weekly –

The three central questions of philosophy and science: Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why this particular set of laws and not some other? No one can make a discussion of such matters as compulsively readable as the celebrated University of Cambridge cosmologist Hawking (A Brief History of Time). Along with Caltech physicist Mlodinow (The Drunkard's Walk), Hawking deftly mixes cutting-edge physics to answer those key questions. For instance, why do we exist? Earth occupies a "Goldilocks Zone" in space: just the perfect distance from a not-too-hot star, with just the right elements to allow life to evolve. On a larger scale, in order to explain the universe, the authors write, "we need to know not only how the universe behaves, but why." While no single theory exists yet, scientists are approaching that goal with what is called "M-theory," a collection of overlapping theories (including string theory) that fill in many (but not all) the blank spots in quantum physics; this collection is known as the "Grand Unified Field Theories." This may all finally explain the mystery of the universe's creation without recourse to a divine creator. This is an amazingly concise, clear, and intriguing overview of where we stand when it comes to divining the secrets of the universe. 41 color illus. throughout, 7 b&w cartoons.