It’s a little chillier and wetter than I’d like as I write this week, but it finally feels like we’re moving on past spring and summer will announce itself in full glory next week. Time to think about vacations, getting away and, of course, reading. Here’s what we’re excited about this week:

Who would have guessed than an author would take the basic premise of Adam Sandler’s “50 First Dates” and turn it into one of the year’s most gripping thrillers? S. J. Watson does exactly that with Before I Go to Sleep. Just like the movie, a young woman wakes up every morning with no memory of what’s happened before, due to a brain injury that wipes her memory every time she sleeps. Her husband is a stranger every time the sun comes up. Following the advice of her doctor, she starts to write down each day’s events. When she wakes one morning to read a cryptic message to herself about her husband, the fun really begins. Who can she trust? Her husband? Herself? What kind of accident caused her condition? A stay-up-way-too-late-reading kind of book.

I’ve had a special fondness for Greek cuisine ever since a stint in a Greek-American restaurant kitchen several careers ago. So, if a new comprehensive book on Greek cooking arrives, I get both excited and a little skeptical. Food from Many Greek Kitchens by Tessa Kiros is the real deal. Great recipes, authentic without being overly fussy or complex, and photos so well done you can almost smell the aroma of the dish being described.

Sometimes I have to throw a book in here just because I’ve never seen anything else quite like it. Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur’s Business Model Generator qualifies this week. It’s a systematic, graphically organized workbook, of sorts, designed to help you either ask the right questions to create a successful start-up business model; or to take an in-depth critical look at your existing business in order to fully understand where you are and how to improve. I didn’t have it in my head that I was needing to construct a business model when I picked up the book, but I couldn’t put it down for quite some time.

Lots of great books were released in paperback this week:

• The Deadliest Sea by Kalee Thompson (Google eBook)
• On Booze by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst (Google eBook)
• Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann (Google eBook)
• The Woman I Was Born to Be by Susan Boyle (Google eBook)

As always, I’d like to invite you to comment on my ramblings, or send your own reviews. We’re here to be a good neighbor, so let me know if you have any questions about pricing or delivery of our books.

Until next week,

Neil
neil@schulerbooks.com