Title: Lincoln In The Bardo

Author: George Saunders

In his long-awaited first novel, American Literary master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln In The Bardo is an experience unlike any other–for no one by Saunders could conceive it.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold hiss boy’s body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state–called, in the Tibetan traditions, the bardo–a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

Lincoln In The Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a treatment to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices–living and dead, historical and invented–to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?

Title: Company Confessions

Author: Christopher Moran

Spies are supposed to keep quiet, never betraying their agents or discussing their operations. Somehow, this doesn’t apply to the CIA, whose officers have written memoirs commanding huge advances and attracting enormous publicity. As an intelligence service dependent on its ability to protect sensitive information, however, it’s no surprise that the CIA has fought back.

In Company Confessions, award-winning author Christopher Moran digs deep into this tumultuous relationship between the CIA and former agents who try to go public about their careers. He delves into the motivations of spies like CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose identity was leaked by the Bush White House and who reportedly received $2.5 million for her book Fair Game, and exposes the politics and practices of the CIA and its Publications Review Board, including breaking into publishing houses and secretly authorizing pro-agency “memoirs.”

Drawing on interviews; the private correspondence of such legendary spies as Allen Dulles, William Colby, and Richard Helms; and declassified CIA files, Company Confessions examines why America’s spies are so willing to share their stories, the damage inflicted when they leak the nation’s secrets, and the fine line between censorship on the grounds of security and censorship for the sake of reputation.

Title: The Assassination Complex

Author: Jeremy Scahill

Drones are a tool not a policy. The policy is assassination. Proponents of drone warfare, however, prefer the euphemism “targeted Killings.” But drone strikes often kill people other that the intended target. Unless it can be proven otherwise, the government refers to these unintended victims as “enemies killed in action.” These deaths, which have included women and children, dwarf the number of actual combatants who have been assassinated by drones. They have generated anger toward the United States among foreign populations and have even become a recruiting tool for jihadists.

The first drone strike outside a declared war zone was conducted more that twelve years ago, but it was not until May 2013 that the White House released a set of standards and procedures for conducting such strikes. However, there was no explanation of the internal process used to determine whether a suspect should be killed without being indicted or tried, even if that suspect is an American citizen. The implicit message of the Obama administration has been Trust, but don’t verify.

Jeremy Scahill and his colleagues on The Intercept obtained a cache of slides from a source within the intelligence community that provides a window onto the inner working of the U.S. military’s drone operations. These documents make it possible to begin the long overdue debate about the policy of drone warfare and how it is conducted.

Title:  Out Smarting Alzheimer’s

Author:  Kenneth S. Kosik, MD with Alisa Bowman

Do you have a family history of Alzheimer’s disease?  Outsmarting Alzheimer’s  can help you reduce your risk of ever developing this debilitating disease.  Have you experienced a little forgetfulness?  Outsmarting Alzheimer’s can help you determine whether that’s related to normal aging or whether you should mention it to your doctor.  If you do have mild cognitive impairment, Outsmarting Alzheimer’s includes 80 simple lifestyle prescriptions to slow the progression of symptoms as much as possible.  And if you or a family member already have a dementia diagnosis, these prescriptions can help you manage symptoms, improve your quality of life, and maintain your current lifestyle for as long as possible.

Plus, Outsmarting Alzheimer’s features:

a personalized 3-week plan to help you put these prescriptions into action

more than 40 easy and delicious brain-boosting recipes

almost 30 interactive brain-training games

a simple and effective 7-minute workout

special sections for caregivers to help them help their loved ones put the plan into effect

No matter how you’ve been affected by this frightening disease, Outsmarting Alzheimer’s can help you protect the health of your body.