You're Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation
by Deborah Tannen
Published 2006 by Random House

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 1400062586

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In her most commercial book to date, Tannen does for the mother-daughter relationship what she did for women and men in her #1 "New York Times" bestseller "You Just Don't Understand" by showing mothers and daughters how to improve communication by understanding the other's point of view.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 10/24/2005

Tannen (You Just Don't Understand ; That's Not What I Meant ; etc.) continues to study human interaction through conversation, this time attempting to peel back the layers of meaning that make up conversations between mothers and their teenage and older daughters. While Tannen intends to clarify the ways in which mothers and daughters relate to each other verbally (through direct conversation; indirect messages, or "metamessages"; compliments or insults disguised as judgment; etc.), her own message is muddled by an overabundance of anecdotes and examples and too much stating the obvious. In chapters such as "My Mother, My Hair: Caring and Criticizing" and "Best Friends, Worst Enemies: A Walk on the Dark Side," Tannen seeks to examine every angle of various discussions and makes obvious comments, like "Where the daughter sees criticism, the mother sees caring.... Most of the time, both are right." She then expands on her comment with lengthy and often unnecessary explanations. While Tannen is astute in her observation that "Our relationships with our mothers go on way beyond their lifetimes, no matter what age we are when we lose them," she fails to clear up the mysteries between mothers and daughters. Agent, William Morris. (On sale Jan. 24)

Don't Leave Me This Way: Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry
by Julia Fox Garrison
Published 2006 by HarperCollins Publishers

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 0061120618

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At the age of 37, the author suffered a massive stroke that doctors said would leave her wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life. Defying the odds, she not only taught herself to walk again, but taught others how to have faith in herself.

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 03/27/2006

Garrison, a 37-year-old Boston-area woman with a great husband and a fine three-year old boy, was busy at work when she suddenly felt "a throbbing pain in the right side of her head... a volcano erupting inside her skull." The next thing she knew, her family was gathered around her hospital bed, and she couldn't feel the whole left side of her body. She'd had a massive brain hemorrhage and had only survived thanks to some very risky surgery. Doctors were divided about why she'd had this stroke; indeed, Garrison spent the next weeks and months fending off a dire diagnosis, vasculitis, from the pseudonymous "Dr. Jerk." Most of the professionals she dealt with were negative, wanting her to accept that she'd never walk again or have a full, satisfying life. But Garrison, with the help of her supportive husband, brothers, parents, friends and a few gifted therapists and doctors, managed an extraordinary recovery. By book's end, she is walking (albeit with difficulties), actively parenting again, trying to sue the makers of the cold syrup that triggered her stroke and giving motivational talks to doctors' groups. Her humorous, tear-jerking, struggle-to-recover-against-all-odds story is a lesson in finding silver linings.(June 13)

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations...One School at a Time
by Greg Mortenson
Published 2006 by Viking Books

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 0670034827

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REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 01/09/2006

Some failures lead to phenomenal successes, and this American nurse's unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the world's second tallest mountain, is one of them. Dangerously ill when he finished his climb in 1993, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town's first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Coauthor Relin recounts Mortenson's efforts in fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen, Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright Muslims Mortenson met along the way. As the book moves into the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls. Captivating and suspenseful, with engrossing accounts of both hostilities and unlikely friendships, this book will win many readers' hearts.(Mar.)

My Life in France
by Julia Child
Published 2006 by Alfred A. Knopf

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 1400043468

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This delightful memoir of Julia's years in Paris, Marseille, and Provence opens with Paul and Julia--a tall, wide-eyed girl from Pasadena who can't cook and doesn't speak a word of French--disembarking in Le Havre, and ends with the launching of the two "Mastering" cookbooks and Julia winning the heart of America as "The French Chef."

REVIEW: Publisher's Weekly 02/13/2006

With Julia Child's death in 2004 at age 91, her grandnephew Prud'homme (The Cell Game ) completed this playful memoir of the famous chef's first, formative sojourn in France with her new husband, Paul Child, in 1949. The couple met during WWII in Ceylon, working for the OSS, and soon after moved to Paris, where Paul worked for the U.S. Information Service. Child describes herself as a "rather loud and unserious Californian," 36, six-foot-two and without a word of French, while Paul was 10 years older, an urbane, well-traveled Bostonian. Startled to find the French amenable and the food delicious, Child enrolled at the Cordon Bleu and toiled with increasing zeal under the rigorous tutelage oféminence grise Chef Bugnard. "Jackdaw Julie," as Paul called her, collected every manner of culinary tool and perfected the recipes in her little kitchen on rue de l'Université ("Roo de Loo"). She went on to start an informal school with sister gourmandes Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, who were already at work on a French cookbook for American readers, although it took Child's know-how to transform the tome-after nine years, many title changes and three publishers-into the bestsellingMastering the Art of French Cooking (1961). This is a valuable record of gorgeous meals in bygone Parisian restaurants, and the secret arts of a culinary genius. Photos.First serial in the New York Times Magazine and Bon Apptit. (Apr.)