If you haven’t checked ‘em out, what are you waiting for?

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart

Hard Work by Roy Williams and Tim Crothers

The debut novel A Reliable Wife is just out in paperback–which makes for a fantastic start in 2010. Click here to see a video interview with the author, Robert Goolrick.

Happy New Year from all of us at Algonquin!

-christina

For Her

Going Away Shoes
By Jill McCorkle

Eleven short stories, full of longing and laughter, from the “guardian angel of short fiction.”

The Dinner Diaries: Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World
By Betsy Block

A humorous, life-changing book on mom’s mission to achieve the ultimate of all makeovers: improving the family meal. Complete with helpful charts, food lists, recipes, tips, and suggested culinary and farm programs for kids.

Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance
By Nancy Verde Barr

Casey Costello, an executive chef at morning television show, is too busy for men…that is until she’s unexpectedly whisked off her feet by the adorable Danny O’Shea, a rising chef from Ireland who seems like he may be more trouble than he’s worth.

For Him

Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court
By Roy Williams with Tim Crothers

An inspiring memoir from the head coach of the UNC Tar Heels Men’s Basketball team.

Boone: A Biography
By Robert Morgan

This rich, authoritative biography offers a wholly new perspective on a man who has been an American icon for more than two hundred years.

Far Bright Star: A Novel
By Robert Olmstead

Napoleon Childs, an aging cavalryman,  leads an expedition of inexperienced soldiers into the mountains of Mexico to hunt down Pancho Villa and bring him to justice.

For the Gardener

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
By Amy Stewart

An A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.

A Rose by Any Name: The Little-Known Lore and Deep-Rooted History of Rose Names
By Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello

With full-color art throughout, this eclectic little volume is a marvelous miscellany starring what is arguably the world’s most popular flower.

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden
By William Alexander

Part humor tale and part garden memoir, The $64 Tomato follows Bill Alexander on his journey from organic idealist to pragmatic food producer, and from eager backyard gardener to tired gentleman farmer–taking time along the way to reflect on ecology, nature, and the meaning of it all.

For the Foodie

The Feasting Season
By Nancy Coons

Meg Parker is a harried mom in a lackluster marriage until she lands a dream assignment: to write a guidebook about French history. Follow her adventures as lamb daube, paella and rosé, bull steak and anchioade, Brebis and strawberries awaken her senses.

Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover’s Companion to the South
By John T. Edge

Spark a delicious road-trip with this guide to savory, Southern restaurants!

Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home
By Bill Smith

Structured around the seasons and the freshest seasonal foods, this cookbook offers up marvelously uncomplicated recipes— Tomato and Watermelon Salad, Fried Green Tomatoes with Sweet Corn and Lemon Beurre Blanc, Pork Roast with Artichoke Stuffing, and his signature dish, Honeysuckle Sorbet—the new bistro food of the South.

For the 20-Something

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small
By John Cook with Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance

The exuberant story–in words and pictures–of a much-loved indie record label that, despite the odds, has become a major success story.

Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers
Illustrated by Edward Hemingway; Text by Mark Bailey

The perfect blend of classic cocktail recipes, literary history, and tales of the good old days of extravagant Martini lunches and delicious excess.

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad
By Dan Kennedy

Kennedy chronicles his misadventures at a major record label. Whether he’s directing a gangsta rapper’s commercial or battling his punk roots to create an ad campaign celebrating the love songs of Phil Collins, Kennedy’s in way over his head in this power-ballad to office life and rock and roll.

For the Travel Enthusiast

A  Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure
By Marlena de Blasi

In search of the rhythms of country living, Marlena and her husband move to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. Together, they discover the soul of Tuscany and explore all the land has to offer.

Very Washington DC: A Celebration of the History and Culture of  America’s Capital City
By Diana Hollingsworth Gessler

A travel guide with character, this fact-filled keepsake offers all the history, beauty, charm, and culture of our nation’s capital city. Also included are an index of sites and a useful appendix of addresses, Web sites, Metro stops, and phone numbers.

New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City
By Andrei Codrescu

New Orleans has been author Andrei Codrescu’s hometown for over twenty years. This collection of essays is an epic love song , a clear-eyed elegy, a cultural celebration, and a thank-you note to New Orleans in its Golden Age.

For the Pet Lover

My Therapist’s Dog: Lessons in Unconditional Love
By Diana Wells

An intriguing exploration into the rewards of relationships–both the canine and human varieties–begins when the author agrees to dog-sit for her therapist. What follows is an exploration of our canine connection: what we name our dogs, how we breed them, how we’ve explored the wilderness with them, the kinds of literature we write about them, why we love them, and, most important, what we can learn from them.

First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Best Friends
By Roy Rowan and Brooke Janis

A lighthearted romp through American history, packed with drawings and paintings from early America, plus photographs, starting with Abraham Lincoln’s Fido all the way to Obama’s Bo.

Enslaved by Ducks
By Bob Tarte

Bob gets more than he bargains for when he marries Linda and moves to rural Michigan: there’s Binky, a belligerent rabbit who craves high voltage wires; Ollie, a tyrannical parakeet who brutally attacks the Tartes; and Stanely Sue, the gender-bending parrot; and more. This hilarious account gives us the other side of animal ownership: the complicated logistics of blending species under one roof, the intricate routines that evolve before you realize it, and ultimately, the distinct and insistent personalities of every animal inside—and outside—the house.

-christina

Tim Crothers,

Algonquin: How did you come to write this book with Coach Williams? Did you approach him with the idea?

Tim: I have been stalking Coach Williams for years to do the book. He is a very private man in a very public job and I knew he would not be comfortable with the idea of sharing the intimate details of his life publicly, but I guess I finally wore him down. I think Coach Williams is the only person in his universe who wasn’t really sure that a story about a North Carolina mountain kid growing up poor with an alcoholic father and no idea of what college was who becomes a Hall of Fame coach at the University of North Carolina would make a good book. Parts of his story are so dramatic that they read like a novel.

Algonquin: What was your working process with Coach? Where were the interviews conducted, and how long did they take?

Tim: We usually did the interviews at night either at his house or at his office. We’d spend three or four hours each night. We began with him telling me his life story from childhood to the present and then we went back and filled in the details later. I originally asked him for 12 hours to accomplish that and my guesstimate was a bit light. We actually spent 64 hours doing interviews and that was before the many hours of editing and proofreading. He will not let me forget that all of the hours he spent on the book this summer totally ruined his golf game.

Algonquin: Is Hard Work the story that you expected it would be when you set out to write it?

Tim: I don’t think I really knew what to expect and that is part of the fun as a co-author. I had no idea he would dig so deeply into the intimate details of his past to bring out a story so raw and touching. In fact, I didn’t know most of the story we tell in the book at all until he was sharing it with me. But after hearing it, I wanted readers to be able to experience his passion for the story as strongly as I did.

Algonquin: After the interviews were completed, what was your process to craft it into a story? How much time did you have between the interviews and when the manuscript needed to be turned in to work on the book?

Tim: Basically I was interviewing Coach Williams right up until the day before the book was due, but the manuscript was written largely over the final two weeks before the deadline. Fourteen chapters. Fourteen days. Fourteen-hour days. My writing style is anecdotal, which meshed well with Coach Williams, whose speaking style is anecdotal. We tried to maintain his unique voice as much as possible in the text and present his story in a dramatic fashion with plenty of teases along the way to make the reader anxious to turn the page.

Algonquin: Now that the months of tight deadlines and late nights of editing are over, what are you planning for your next project?

Tim: My next project will be catching up on my sleep and reintroducing myself to my wife and children. All of that could take a while, but eventually I hope to write another book. Because my literary oeuvre now consists of The Man Watching, the biography of UNC women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance, and Hard Work, I’d guess that if there is another book, it will not involve a UNC coach. I’m in danger of getting pigeonholed.

To find out more about Tim Crothers, Roy Williams, and Hard Work, visit www.roywilliamsbook.com.

-Katie

Coach Roy Williams

Coach’s next book signing event will be this Friday, 7:30pm at The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC. And remember, you still have two more days to enter to win one of FIVE signed copies of Coach Williams’ new book, just by commenting on the blog. See complete rules here.

A great piece about the new book ran in the News & Observer recently; you can read the article here and check out an excerpt from the book here. Later this month Coach Williams will be appearing on “The Charlie Rose Show,” NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon, and NPR’s Morning Edition, and he’ll be interviewed in USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Check back on the blog for more media updates.

Coach Williams will be signing books in the North Carolina area; a full list of events can be found here. If you can’t make it to one of his signings, we are giving away 5 SIGNED copies to 5 lucky blog readers!!! Here’s how to win:

• Write a comment on any Algonquin blog post this week; you may comment on as many blog posts as you wish to increase your chances of winning!
• Only comments before 12 pm ET on Friday, November 13th will count, so get your comments in before this deadline!
• We’ll randomly select from all entries by 5pm ET on November 13th!

If you haven’t already, be sure to head over to www.roywilliamsbook.com to watch the video trailer, read an excerpt, listen to the first chapter on HighBridge audio, and see some of Coach Williams’ family photos!

We are so excited for this book to finally be available. Head on over to your local independent bookstore, or to a Borders, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon.com and pick up your copy today. (Or, even better, join us tonight at McIntyre’s Fine Books!)

We can’t wait to hear what you think!

Katie