In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White (Perennial $14.99) Following conviction for bank fraud, White spent a year in a minimum-security prison in Carville, La., housed in the last leper colony in mainland America. His fascinating memoir reflects on the sizable group of lepers living alongside the prisoners, social outcasts among the motley inmate crew of drug dealers, mob types and killers.

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The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine (Spiegel & Grau $14) Levine, a doctor at the Mayo clinic, was inspired to write this heartbreaking and terrifying novel when he was interviewing homeless children in Mumbai as part of his medical research. In the "Street of Cages", child prostitutes ply their trade, literally encaged by their neglectful and abusive overseers (who pocket all the profits).

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Shimmer by Eric Barnes (Unbridled Books $14.95) This topical fiction debut from Memphis news publisher Barnes is a cautionary thriller about ambition and corruption in corporate America.

I Thought You Were Dead by Pete Nelson (Algonquin $23.95) I laughed, I cried, and I was envious of the conversations Paul has with his dog, Stella. (Can you imagine explaining stress to a dog?) This is the first book with a dog as a central character that I've read, and I was hooked after the following sentence, as I've always wondered what my dog thought when my sons left for school: “Stella had no sense of permanence and therefore assumed Paul was dead whenever he was out of sight,
hearing, or smell.” You'll enjoy this book. -- Sandra

Aimee Bender's new novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (Random House $25.95) deserves its good reviews. Its protagonist discovers at age nine that she "can literally taste the emotions of whoever prepares her food, giving her unwanted insight into other people's secret emotional lives—including her mother's, whose lemon cake betrays a deep dissatisfaction." Her father and brother also possess special gifts, and Bender's blend of magic realism and lyrical language made this a compelling read for me.
-- Nancy

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Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (Dover $5.95) What better way to beat the summer heat and escape the worries of the city than a relaxing boat ride down the Thames? Only Jerome's hapless boaters encounter trouble at every turn, from disappearing locks to capsizing boats to the surprising difficulty of assembling a test to the most astoundingly complete hypochondria. Jerome's dry wit is as hilarious today as it was when written over a hundred years ago. -- Ted

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