I'm ripping off Holly's post because I can't decide which to read after Look Me In the Eye. I was on vacation to Atlantic City this past weekend, and hit up Barnes and Noble and Borders while there. Because I don't have either of them within half a mile of me (I'm just kidding, it's actually how crazy close to my office they are. I get to go see Jen Lancaster next Friday at my Barnes and Noble!) Anyhow, I live for their sale tables (buy two, get one at Barnes and Noble and buy one get one half off at Borders). Here's this week's book additions

Look Me In the Eye- Ever since he was young, John Robison longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits- an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five foot holes(and stick his younger brother, Augusten Burroughs, in them)- had earned him the label "social deviant". It was not until he was forty that he was diagnosed with a form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome. That understanding transformed the way he saw himself-and the world. A born storyteller, Robison has written a moving, darkly funny memoir about a lige that has taken him from developing exploding guitar for KISS to building a family of his own. It's a strange, sly indelible account-sometimes alien yet always deeply human.

Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler- When Wade Rouse, who grew up more Hee-Haw than Dynasty, was hired as the director of publicity at the prestigious Tate Academy, he quickly discovered his real job: to make the very pretty, very rich, very mean mommies of the elite students very happy.
Enter Wade's VIP volunteer and perfectly coiffed nightmare, former beauty queen and sports star Katherine Isabelle Ludington- Kitsy to her friends. In between designing Louis Vuitton-inspired reunion invitations, dressing as Ronald Reagan for Halloween, and surviving surprise Botox parties, Wade tries to tame Kitsy and her pink Lilly Pulitzer-clad posse while retaining a shred of self-esteem.
Following a year in the life of the super rich and super spoiled, Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler is hilarious, heartbreaking, and deliciously catty.

Mommy by Mistake- When a spur-of-the-moment romantic weekend in Venice has an unexpected outcome, Natalie Curzon thinks she's ready to take on single motherhood. But while it's love at first sight between Natalie and baby Freddie, being on leave from the office, alone all day and her post-pregnancy hormones, makes her feel trapped in some alien body.
Just when she's at her wit's end, a major electrical issue in her London home leads Natalie to a whole new circle of friends. There's handsome, dependable Gary the electrician, and his assistant's young girlfriend Tiffany-also the mother of a surprise baby. A crazy impulse leads Natalie to invent a husband who's working in Dubai, but when she and Tiffany decide to start a baby group, Natalie finds her life spiraling out of control. Then Freddie's real father, Jack, unexpectedly reappears, and Natalie realizes just how much there is to win or lose...not just for herself, but for her baby as well.

The Sharper the Knife, the Less You Cry- Kathleen Flinn was a thirty-six year old middle manager trapped on the corporate ladder- until her boss eliminated her job. Instead of sulking,
she took the opportunity to check out of the rat race for good- cashing in her savings, moving to Paris, and landing a spot at the venerable Le Cordon Bleu cooking school. The Sharper the Knife, the Less You Cry is the funny and inspiring account of her struggle in a stew of hot-tempered chefs, competitive classmates, her own "wretchedly inadequate" French- and how she mastered the basics of French cuisine. Filled with rich, sensual details of her time in the kitchen- the ingredients, cooking techniques, wine and more than two dozen recipes- and the vibrant sights and sounds of the markets, shops and avenues of Paris, it is also a journey of self-discovery, transformation, and ultimately, love.

American Wife- A kind, bookish only child born in the 1940s, Alice Lindgren has no idea that she will one day end up in the White House, married to the president. In her small Wisconsin hometown she learns the virtues of politeness but a tragic accident when she is seventeen shatters her identity and changes the trajectory of her life. More than a decade later, when the charismatic son of a powerful Republican family sweeps her off her feet, she is surprised to find herself admitted into a world of privilege. And when her husband unexpectedly becomes governor and then president, she discovers that she is married to a man she both loves and fundamentally disagrees with- and that her private beliefs increasingly run against her public persona. As her husband's presidency enters its second term, Alice must confront contradictions years in the making and face questions nearly impossible to answer.

The Spare Wife- Ponce Morris is a beautiful, rich widow who's known as "the spare wife" because she's the perfect companion to the wealthy, powerful New York couples in her elite social circle. She'll throw elegant dinner parties, go to sports events with the husbands, and shop with the wives. She's both flawlessly appropriate and coolly nonthreatening- everyone knows Ponce doesn't have a romantic bone in her body. Over the years, she had managed other people's lives- and her own- perfectly.
Until Babette Steele, an ambitious, aspiring journalist, discovers that ponce is having an affair with a socially prominent, very married man, and decides to break the scandal, turning Ponce's carefully calibrated world upside down.
Witchel's sophisticated, witty, sexy satire provides a fascinating glimpse into the lives of upper-class New Yorkers, sharply exposing the foibles of the fabulous.

Shelter Me- Four months after her husband's death, Janie LaMarche remains undone by grief and anger. Her mourning is disrupted, however, by the unexpected arrival of a builder with a contract to add a porch onto her house. Stunned, Janie realizes the porch was meant to be a surprise from her husband- now his last gift to her.
As she reluctantly allows construction to begin, Janie clings to the familiar outposts of her sorrow- mothering her two small children with fierce protectiveness, avoiding friends and family, and stewing in a rage she can't release. Yet Janie's self imposed isolation is breached by a cast of unlikely interventionists: her chattering, ipecac-toting aunt; her bossy, over-manicured neighbor; her muffin-bearing cousin; and even Tug, the contractor with a private grief all his own.
As the porch takes shape, Janie discovers that the unknowable terrain of the future is best navigated with the help of others-even those we least expect to call on, much less learn to love.