Authors On Tour – Live!

Will Schwalbe is the founder and CEO of Cookstr.com. Prior to that, he was editor-in-chief of Hyperion Books and a journalist, writing for such publications as the New York Times and Business Traveller. Schwalbe reads from and signs his new book The End of Your Life Book Club, a memoir about the two years he spent reading and discussing books with his mother as she was dying from pancreatic cancer. Schwalbe’s book is a profoundly moving tale of loss that is also a joyful, and often humorous, celebration of life: Will’s love letter to his mother, and theirs to the printed page. ($25.00) Knopf ISBN # 9780307594037. You can visit Will Schwalbe’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Hedrick Smith is a bestselling author, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, and Emmy Award-winning producer. His books The Russians and The Power Game were critically acclaimed bestsellers and are widely used in college courses today. Smith discusses his important new book Who Stole the American Dream?, an eye-opening account of how, over the past four decades, the American Dream has been dismantled and we became two Americas. ($30.00) Random House ISBN # 9781400069668. You can visit Hedrick Smith’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Can people change? That’s the central theme of this gritty, debut novel by author Mark Rubinstein, a longtime psychiatrist and Cornell University professor. Mad Dog House follows Roddy Dolan, a suburban surgeon who thinks he’s left behind a past—one that nearly landed him in jail at 17. But when Dolan agrees to invest in a Manhattan restaurant with his childhood “blood brother,” events spin out of control, threatening the new lives they’ve built–and their families. Struggling with a monster he thought he’d buried, Roddy must make momentous choices, and none are good. But he has a daring plan… ($12.99) Thunder Lake Press ISBN # 978-0985626846. You can visit Mark Rubinstein’s official web site as well. The book is also available as an eBook on Kindle for $2.99 (for a limited time only). Click here to buy now. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Legendary baseball manager Tony La Russa discusses his new book One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and a Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season. In addition to his fifty years in baseball, La Russa, the winner of four Manager of the Year awards-who led his teams to six Pennant wins and three World Series crowns-chronicles the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals’ World Series win, one of the most exciting end-of-season runs in baseball history. ($27.99) HarperCollins ISBN # 9780062207388. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Stephen Tobolowsky is a character actor – one of the most prolific screen and stage presences of our time – having appeared in productions that range from Deadwood to Glee, from Mississippi Burning to Groundhog Day. Tobolowsky discusses his new collection of essays and stories The Dangerous Animals Club. “Stephen Tobolowsky has found his true calling as a storyteller. He is candid, insightful, often profound, and very, very funny, especially when he recounts his adventures in show business. By blending sharp memories of his childhood with astute, adult observations of the world around him, he weaves a spell not unlike Jean Shepherd or Garrison Keillor… but he has a voice all his own, and I love it.” – Leonard Maltin, film critic and author ($24.00) Simon & Schuster ISBN # 9781451633153. You can visit Stephen Tobolowsky’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Since her arrival in the United States from Venezuela, Valentina Goldman isn’t exactly living the American Dream. She’s living the American Nightmare. Her late husband, Max, has left her a young widow, a step-daughter whom Valentina didn’t want, and a bi-polar ex-wife. And oh, having given up her dream job in New York, Valentina is also unemployed in Arizona. Part Bridget Jones Diary, part Modern Family, Valentina Goldman’s Immaculate Confusion is the story of a woman trying to get a handle on her whacky life in America. In breathless, blog-like snippets, Valentina compares her own story with that of her eccentric sister, Azucena, who has bizarre troubles of her own down in the tropics. Valentina Goldman’s Immaculate Confusion is a funny and moving story about what happens when a passionate South American woman moves to the USA and, like so many of us, ends up with a life she never imagined. ($6.99 e-book) HIPSO MEDIA ISBN #9780984055654. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Writer David Abrams, who served in the U.S. Army for twenty years, and was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as part of a public affairs team, reads from and discusses his debut novel Fobbit. Abrams’ book is a darkly ironic novel of the Iraq war that marks the acclaimed debut of a new voice in literary fiction. Based on his own experiences serving in Iraq and the diary he kept there, Fobbit takes us into the cha­otic world of Baghdad’s Forward Operating Base Triumph. Like Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, Fobbit fuses pathos with dark humor to cre­ate a brilliantly witty and profound work about the ugly and banal truth of life in the modern-day war zone. ($15.00) Grove Press ISBN #9780802120328. You can visit David Abrams’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Hollywood icon Molly Ringwald defined the teenage experience in such classic films as Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles. Currently she stars in the ABC Family hit series, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and is also the author of the bestselling book Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family and Finding the Perfect Lipstick. Here Molly Ringwald reads from and discusses her debut as a fiction writer, When It Happens to You: A Novel in Stories, a collection of linked stories about the heartbreak of betrayal in all its forms that the Washington Post says “succeeds as much on the page as her acting has done on screen.” ($24.99) It Books ISBN #9780061809460. You can visit Molly Ringwald’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android! Photo Credit: Fergus Greer

Selden Edwards, the author of the beloved New York Times bestselling novel The Little Book, reads from and discusses his new book The Lost Prince, a novel about a love that is capable of bridging unfathomable distances. “Brilliant. Selden Edwards is a writer of great intellect and wit, and his books are a joy to read. I love The Lost Prince. The Little Book made such an impression on me; The Lost Prince is even better.” – Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain ($26.95) Dutton ISBN #9780525952947. You can visit Selden Edwards’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discusses Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948. This moving and thoughtful memoir of her formative years in Czechoslovakia, during the tumult of Nazi occupation, World War II, fascism, and the onset of the Cold War, shows readers Albright’s intensely personal journey into the past that offers vital lessons for the future. Prague Winter combines the intimacy of an autobiography with the drama of an exciting and well-told story-all underpinned by the gravity and intelligence of a serious work of history. ($29.99) HarperCollins ISBN #9780062030313. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Internet star Jenny Lawson, a.k.a. The Bloggess, reads from and discusses her literary debut Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir). “The Bloggess writes stuff that actually is laugh-out-loud, but you know that really you shouldn’t be laughing and probably you’ll go to hell for laughing, so maybe you shouldn’t read it. That would be safer and wiser.” – Neil Gaiman ($25.95) Penguin ISBN #9780399159015. You can visit Jenny Lawson’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Christian Kiefer joins us, in conversation with bestselling author Pam Houston, to read from and discuss The Infinite Tides, a stunning debut novel about an astronaut’s return to earth and the losses he must confront. “Maybe the most beautiful subject in literature, when it is handled with grace and intelligence, is the realization and release of long denied grief. Christian Kiefer created Astronaut Keith Corcoran to travel that galaxy of earthbound loss and regret, after one brief and glorious trip into orbit. The Infinite Tides is the most emotionally and syntactically sophisticated debut I have seen, possibly ever. Keith Corcoran’s space walk is so powerfully rendered, it keeps showing up in my dreams.”-Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted ($26.00) Bloomsbury ISBN #9781608198108. You can visit Christian Kiefer’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Rajiv Chandrasekaran is an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post. Prior to that, he was bureau chief in Baghdad, before, during, and after the war. Chandrasekaran, the award-winning author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City, discusses his new book Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan. Meticulously reported, hugely revealing, Little America is an unprecedented examination of a failing war-and an eye-opening look at the complex relationship between America and Afghanistan. ($27.95) Knopf ISBN #9780307957146. You can visit Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

Chris Cleave, the author of Incendiary and the New York Times bestseller Little Bee, reads from and discusses his new novel Gold. Set against the backdrop of the 2012 Olympics and echoing the adrenaline-fueled rush of a race around the Velodrome cycling track, Gold is a triumph of superbly paced, heart-in-throat storytelling. With great humanity and glorious prose, Chris Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line. ($27.00) Simon & Schuster ISBN #9781451672725. You can visit Chris Cleave’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!

G. Willow Wilson, the author of award-winning graphic novels, reads from and discusses her new book Alif the Unseen, a stunning and propulsive debut novel, blending cyberpunk adventure with the enchantment of Middle Eastern mythology. “G. Willow Wilson has a deft hand with myth and with magic, and the kind of smart, honest writing mind that knits together and bridges cultures and people. You should read what she writes.” — Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods ($25.00) Grove ISBN #9780802120205. You can visit G. Willow Wilson’s official web site as well. Listen to Authors On Tour – Live! podcasts anywhere – Download our FREE apps for iPhone or Android!