FIRST PERSON
November BookPage interviews:

Joseph Ellis: Assessing the life of an American legend

Like many of us, historian Joseph Ellis long considered George Washington a distant, almost unapproachable icon, "aloof and silent, like the man in the moon." Then Ellis began research for a chapter about Washington's farewell address in Founding Brothers, his brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller about America's revolutionary generation. And he discovered sides of Washington—the man, not the monument we've made of him—that surprised him.

Russian homicide detective Arkady Renko's cases have mirrored the historic upheavals within the Soviet Union during the past quarter of a century. He has battled his old-guard bosses and the KGB in Gorky Park, been thrown into exile aboard a Soviet trawler in Polar Star, returned to confront the rise of the post-Soviet Mafia in Red Square and, in a busman's holiday, investigated a friend's murder during a tour of Russia's orphan, Cuba, in Havana Bay. In his latest adventure, the indomitable inspector confronts crimes against man and nature when a murder trail leads into the frightening, fascinating world of modern man's biggest technological blunder, Chernobyl.

FEATURES

SPOTLIGHT: A preview of the season's best in the Gift Gallery

Alice Munro's latest story collection is another gem

Children's Books: Anniversary editions celebrate timeless classics

Gifts for the star-struck

FICTION

Banishing Verona by Margot Livesay

The Courage Consort by Michel Faber

Oh, Play That Thing by Roddy Doyle

The Pacific by Mark Helprin

Savannah by John Jakes

The Virtues of War by Steven Pressfield

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

Double Shot by Dian Mott Davidson

The Painting by Nina Schuyler

Early Leaving by Judy Goldman

SCIENCE FICTION

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Marque and Reprisal by Elizabeth Moon

The Night Room by Peter Straub

BOOK CLUBS

Selections in new paperback releases

Childrens classics: Anniversary editions celebrate timeless classics

The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

The Bark of the Bog Owl by Jonathan Rogers

The Race to Save the Lord God Bird by Phillip Hoose

Antarctica by Walter Dean Myers

Ella's Big Chance by Shirley Hughes

I, Doko by Ed Young

The Train of States by Peter Sís

Doctor Illuminatus by Martin Booth

NONFICTION

Current Events
Free World by Timothy Garton Ash

Memoir
Tattoo for a Slave by Hortense Calisher

Exploration
Race to the Pole by Sir Ranulph Fiennes

History
Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour by Joseph E. Persico

AUDIO
The Spoken Word: Sukey's favorite is Little Scarlet

MYSTERIES
Whodunit?: November's new mysteries

COOKING
Good and good for you

ROMANCE
Holding court in deadly olde England: The Virgin's Lover