BREEZY FIELD GUIDE to collecting and enjoying wild mushrooms focuses on New England varieties. Yummy recipes!

AUTHORITATIVE BIOGRAPHY of Thomas de Quincey, famed writer, opium addict, and Wordsworth/Coleridge groupie.

STANDARD LAD-LIT schlub’s breakup ‘n’ makeover story told crisply, engagingly, but nothing new here. SOLID B

THE EX-BOYFRIEND’S HANDBOOK
Sourcebooks Landmark
2010

THOUGHTFUL, UPBEAT, sometimes hilarious memoir by a lesbian mom whose partner was birth mom to their daughter. B PLUS

SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE YOU: A MEMOIR OF (NONBIOLOGICAL LESBIAN) MOTHERHOOD
Beacon
2010

FASCINATING, RIVETING, sometimes funny, true story of physicists working to unlock the secret of dark matter. B PLUS

THE 4 PERCENT UNIVERSE: DARK MATTER, DARK ENERGY, AND THE RACE TO DISCOVER THE REST OF REALITY
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)
2011

CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT new Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries? If so, Jill Paton Walsh’s continuations will delight. SOLID B

ATTENBURY EMERALDS
Minotaur Books
2011

CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER Charles Hamilton Houston, mentor to Thurgood Marshall, profiled in engaging book. B PLUS

ROOT AND BRANCH: CHARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON, THURGOOD MARSHALL, AND THE STRUGGLE TO END SEGREGATION
Bloomsbury USA
2010

INSIDE THE STRANGER-THAN-FICTION world of endangered reptile smuggling; picaresque, quirky, ultimately sobering. B PLUS

STOLEN WORLD: A TALE OF REPTILES, SMUGGLERS, AND SKULDUGGERY
Crown Publishing Group
2011

A DECAYING HIGH-SOCIETY family and its wild dysfunctions, made vivid in this memoir by a Vanderbilt descendant. B PLUS

DEAD END GENE POOL: A MEMOIR
Gotham Books
2010

TRUE CRIME SUPERSTAR Ann Rule details a family’s quest to have a suspicious death declared murder, not suicide. SOLID B

IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT: THE STRANGE DEATH OF RONDA REYNOLDS AND HER MOTHER’S UNCEASING QUEST FOR THE TRUTH
Free Press
2010