Title: Angels of Vengeance
Author: John Birmingham
Genre: sci fi
Publisher: Random House
Publishing Date: April 10
Summary: When an inexplicable wave of energy slammed into North America, millions died. In the rest of the world, wars erupted, borders vanished, and the powerful lost their grip on power. Against this backdrop, with a conflicted U.S. president struggling to make momentous decisions in Seattle and a madman fomenting rebellion in Texas, three women are fighting their own battles—for survival, justice, and revenge.

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Title: The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
Author: Jonathan Gottschall
Genre: nonfiction
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Date: April 10
Summary: Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It’s easy to say that humans are “wired” for story, but why?
In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life’s complex social problems—just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.
Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic?

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Title: Paris in Love: A Memoir
Author: Eloisa James
Genre: nonfiction
Publisher: Random House
Publishing Date: April 3
Summary: With no classes to teach, no committee meetings to attend, no lawn to mow or cars to park, Eloisa revels in the ordinary pleasures of life—discovering corner museums that tourists overlook, chronicling Frenchwomen’s sartorial triumphs, walking from one end of Paris to another. She copes with her Italian husband’s notions of quality time; her two hilarious children, ages eleven and fifteen, as they navigate schools—not to mention puberty—in a foreign language; and her mother-in-law Marina’s raised eyebrow in the kitchen (even as Marina overfeeds Milo, the family dog).

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Are you a mystery fan? Simon & Schuster’s Atria Mystery Tour information is up – follow the authors and books on their tour across the country!

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ABA announced their Indie Choice winners!

• fiction: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
• nonfiction: Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton
• debut: The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
• YA:Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Happy reading!