New Release Books

Today’s first Featured New Release is 100 Days of Happiness: A Novel ($11.99 Kindle), by Fausto Brizzi [Pamela Dorman Books / Penguin].

Book Description
What would you do if you knew you only had 100 days left to live? For Lucio Battistini, it’s a chance to spend the rest of his life the way he always should have—by making every moment count.

Imperfect, unfaithful but loveable Lucio has been thrown out of the house by his wife and is sleeping at his father-in-law’s bombolini bakery when he learns he has inoperable cancer. So begins the last hundred days of Lucio’s life, as he attempts to right his wrongs, win back his wife (the love of his life and afterlife), and spend the next three months enjoying every moment with a zest he hasn’t felt in years. In 100 epigrammatic chapters–one for each of Lucio’s remaining days on earth–100 Days of Happiness is as delicious as a hot doughnut and a morning cappuccino.

Wistful, touching, and often hilarious, 100 Days of Happiness reminds us all to remember the preciousness of life and what matters most.

About the Author
Fausto Brizzi is an Italian director, screenwriter, and film producer. The Night Before Exams, his debut directorial work, won him numerous awards, including the David di Donatello. One Hundred Days of Happiness is his first novel, was a bestseller in Italy and has been sold in more than twenty countries.

Today’s second Featured New Release is Ancient Appetites ($7.99 Kindle), the first novel in The Wildenstern Saga by Oisín McGann [Open Road Media Teen & Tween].

Book Description
Shortlisted for the 2008 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize: Murder, betrayal, and power . . . Welcome to the Wildenstern empire

The slow collapse of the British Empire in the nineteenth century meant opportunity for anyone with ammunition and wit. Now the Wildensterns are by far the most powerful family—and the most ruthless. Trained from childhood in the arts of assassination and conspiracy and endowed with the supernatural ability to live for more than a century, the clan has grown rich, vicious, and seemingly invincible.

After nearly two years away, eighteen-year-old Nate has returned. But his homecoming is shattered when his eldest brother, Marcus, is mysteriously killed. Following the Rules of Ascension, which allow one male family member to murder another, Nate is being blamed. Nate knows he isn’t the murderer, but who is? With the help of his sister-in-law, Daisy, and his cousin Gerald, Nate intends to find out. Their investigation brings them into the underbelly of the Wildenstern empire, where living machines, conspiring relatives, and undercover mercenaries do their dirty work. But when a disaster uncovers the ancient remains of Wildenstern ancestors, the lives of the family members and their struggle for power will take a bizarre and gruesome turn.

Age Level: 12 – 17

About the Author
Born in Dublin, Oisín spent his childhood there and in Drogheda, County Louth. He started writing and illustrating stories in copybooks when he was about six or seven, setting himself on a path that would steer him well clear of ever obtaining of a proper job.

Despite his writing habit, he spent most of school convinced he was going to become a zoologist, an aspiration he lost after taking his first art exam in third year at St. Olivers Community College. Unable to conceive of a way to make a living from writing fiction after his Leaving Cert., he decided to fund his dreams of being an author by working as an illustrator. He signed up for a design and print foundation course in Ballyfermot Senior College, Dublin, in 1990 and then studied animation at Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design.

Oisín now works full-time as a writer and illustrator. He lives somewhere in the Irish countryside, where he won’t be heard shouting at his computer.

Today’s third Featured New Release is Preserving the Japanese Way: Traditions of Salting, Fermenting, and Pickling for the Modern Kitchen ($9.99 Kindle), by Nancy Singleton Hachisu [Andrews McMeel Publishing]. Quite a bit of the beginning of the book is about the traditional ways used in Japan, along with photos from the author’s family house. This is just in time for me to try out some of the recipes on the asian pears just starting to get ripe out in our orchard (I’ll be skipping the fish recipes, though!); maybe I’ll even get brave and dig up some of the burdock out in the field (we have lots of that, with no cultivation required). There are also some interesting ideas on how to use astringent persmimmons and we have plenty of those growing wild, as well.

Book Description
Preserving the Japanese Way: Traditions of Salting, Fermenting, and Pickling for the Modern Kitchen offers a clear road map for preserving fruits, vegetables, and fish through a nonscientific, farm- or fisherman-centric approach. An essential backdrop to the 125 recipes outlined in this book are the producers and the artisanal products used to make these salted and fermented foods. The more than 350 arresting photos of the barrel maker, fish sauce producer, artisanal vinegar company, 200 hundred-year-old sake producer, and traditional morning pickle markets with local grandmas still selling their wares document an authentic view of the inner circle of Japanese life. Recipe methods range from the ultratraditional— Umeboshi (Salted Sour Plums), Takuan (Half-Dried Daikon Pickled in Rice Bran), and Hakusai (Fermented Napa Cabbage)— to the modern: Zucchini Pickled in Shoyu Koji, Turnips Pickled with Sour Plums, and Small Melons in Sake Lees. Preserving the Japanese Way also introduces and demystifies one of the most fascinating ingredients to hit the food scene in a decade: koji. Koji is neither new nor unusual in the landscape of Japan fermentation, but it has become a cult favorite for quick pickling or marinades. Preserving the Japanese Way is a book about community, seasonality as the root of preserved food, and ultimately about why both are relevant in our lives today.

“In Japan, pickling, fermenting, and salting are elevated as a delicious and refined art form, one that Nancy Singleton Hachisu has mastered. This is a gorgeous, thoughtful—dare I say spiritual—guide to the world of Japanese pickling written with clarity and a deep respect for technique and tradition. Nancy understands that salting cherry blossoms and drying squid aren’t just about preserving foods—it’s about preserving a way of life.” —Rick Bayless, author of Authentic Mexican and owner of Frontera Grill

About the Author
Native Californian Nancy Singleton Hachisu has lived with her Japanese farmer husband and three sons in their traditional Japanese farmhouse for the last 26 years in rural Japan, where she was a former leader of a local Slow Food convivium. Her first book, Japanese Farm Food (Andrews McMeel, September 2012), was praised in the New York Times, the LA Times, and the London Times. It was selected by several well-respected U.S. cooking magazines as one of the top cookbooks of 2012 and was featured in Food & Wine’s Best of the Best Cookbooks, Vol. 16. It was nominated by IACP for the Julia Child Award (Best First Book). The French edition, Japon, la cuisine a la ferme (October 2013) includes a preface by Joel Robuchon and won the World Gourmand Award for Best Translation in 2014. Fuji TV is currently documenting Hachisu’s preserving and farm food life in rural Saitama as well as her visits to artisanal producers in more remote areas of Japan.

May be price matched at B&N, eBooks.com, iTunes or Kobo for those needing EPUB.

All prices current at the time the post is written. Most books remain at their listed price until “midnight” (each store operates on it’s own timezone and schedule), but prices can change at any moment. I have seen prices change within the hour or even minutes after posting.

from Books on the Knob http://ift.tt/1gwsg9E