A BLEAK IRISH-AMERICAN CHILDHOOD in working-class Philadelphia in a surprisingly vivid and searingly funny memoir. B PLUS

CLOSING TIME: A MEMOIR
Penguin Group (USA)
2009

ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND comes alive in this fast-paced mystery rich in historical detail, vivid characters. B PLUS

MARTYR: A NOVEL OF TUDOR INTRIGUE
Bantam
2009

ABSORBING LOOK at 19th-c. man who led 2 lives: publicly as a white scientist, privately as a black Pullman porter. B PLUS

PASSING STRANGE: A GILDED AGE TALE OF LOVE AND DECEPTION ACROSS THE COLOR LINE
Penguin Group (USA)
2009

TURKEY’S HISTORY, politics, and culture are the rich background to this vivid, quirky, spooky, Nabokov-esque novel. B PLUS

SONGS MY MOTHER NEVER TAUGHT ME
Telegram Books
2009

BIGFOOT SIGHTINGS, research, controversies are put into cultural context in this fascinating, well-researched book. B PLUS

BIGFOOT: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A LEGEND
University Of Chicago Press
2009

SPOOKY, EVOCATIVE mystery set in Iceland; no-nonsense attorney investigates deaths at a farm-country health spa. SOLID B

MY SOUL TO TAKE
HarperCollins Publishers
2009

RUTHLESSLY CANDID, fresh memoir looks at a writer’s addiction to sex and love with a series of inappropriate men. B PLUS

LOVE JUNKIE: A MEMOIR
Bloomsbury USA
2008

FUNNY, CLEVER, IRREVERENT, this third private-eye family comedy in Lisa Lutz’s magnificent Spellman series rocks. SOLID A

REVENGE OF THE SPELLMANS
Simon & Schuster
2009

BREEZY, CHATTY BOOK by senior astronomer at the SETI Institute gives overview of scientists’ search for alien life. SOLID B

CONFESSIONS OF AN ALIEN HUNTER: A SCIENTIST’S SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE
National Geographic Society
2009

A POET’S MEMOIR of injury, pain, surgery, and recovery is candid and eloquent. Not an easy read, but rewarding. A MINUS

THE BODY BROKEN: A MEMOIR
Random House
2009