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Each week Entertainment Weekly reviews a small selection of popular new books. Titles available for the Kindle reviewed in the August 16th/26 double issue include:

The Lantern, by Deborah Lawrenson. Harper, 2011. Print length: 400 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "Lawrenson's poetic prose vibrantly conjures up both the beauty of southern France and the ghosts, real or imagined, from different eras." - Beth Johnson. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (52 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $17.15. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom in Switzerland, their whirlwind relationship leads them to Les GenÉvriers, an abandoned house set among the fragrant lavender fields of the South of France. Each enchanting day delivers happy discoveries: hidden chambers, secret vaults, a beautiful wrought-iron lantern. Deeply in love and surrounded by music, books, and the heady summer scents of the French countryside, Eve has never felt more alive. But with autumn’s arrival the days begin to cool, and so, too, does Dom. Though Eve knows he bears the emotional scars of a failed marriage - one he refuses to talk about - his silence arouses suspicion and uncertainty. The more reticent Dom is to explain, the more Eve becomes obsessed with finding answers - and with unraveling the mystery of his absent, beautiful ex-wife, Rachel..." - Publisher.

Yossarian Slept Here, by Erica Heller. Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print length: 288 p. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $15.83. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"...when people learned that Joseph Heller was her father, they often remarked, 'How terrific!' But was there a catch? Yossarian Slept Here is Erica Heller’s wickedly funny but also poignant and incisive memoir about growing up in a family - her iconic father; her wry, beautiful mother, Shirley; her younger brother, Ted; her relentlessly inventive grandmother Dottie - that could be by turns caring, infuriating, and exasperating, though anything but dull. From the forbidden pleasures of ordering shrimp cocktail when it was beyond the family’s budget to spending a summer, as her father’s fame grew, at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Erica details the Hellers’ charmed - and charmingly turbulent— - trajectory. She offers a rare glimpse of meetings with the Gourmet Club, where her father would dine weekly with Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel, and Mario Puzo, among others (and from which all wives and children were strictly verboten). She introduces us to many extraordinary residents of the Apthorp, some famous—George Balanchine, Sidney Poitier, and Lena Horne, to name a few—and some not famous, but all quite memorable...It is a story about achieving a dream; about fame and its aftermath; about lasting love, squandered opportunities, and how to have the best meal in Chinatown." - Publisher.

The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Ballantine Books, 2011. Print length: 336 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "Diffenbaugh effortlessly spins this enchanting tale, making even her prickly protagonist impossible not to love." - Sara Vilkomerson. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (43 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $13.15. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating grief, mistrust, and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen and emancipated from the system, Victoria has nowhere to go and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. Soon a local florist discovers her talents, and Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them..." - from the hardcover edition.

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, by Alexandra Fuller. Penguin Press, 2011. Print length: 256 p. MEMOIR. EW's slant: "This is a memoir that a mother could love - which is good, since the author's own mum hated her last one...both hilarious and tragic." - Melissa Maerz. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $12.99; Hardcover $14.27. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"A sardonic follow-up to her first memoir about growing up in Rhodesia circa the 1970s, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, this work traces in wry, poignant fashion the lives of her intrepid British parents, determined to stake a life on their farm despite the raging African civil war around them. Fuller's mother is the central figure, Nicola Fuller of Central, as she is known, born 'one million percent Highland Scottish'; she grew up mostly in Kenya in the 1950s, was schooled harshly by the nuns in Eldoret, learned to ride horses masterfully, and married a dashing Englishman before settling down on their own farm, first in Kenya, then Rhodesia, where the author (known as Bobo) and her elder sister, Vanessa, were born in the late 1960s. The outbreak of civil war in the mid-1970s resolved the family to dig in deeper on their farm in Robandi, rather than flee, to order to preserve a life of colonial privilege and engrained racism that was progressively vanishing... another beautifully wrought memoir." - Publishers Weekly.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Crown, 2011. Print Length: 384 p. NOVEL. EW's slant: "...give Cline credit for crafting a fresh and imaginative world from our old toy box and finding significance in there among the collectibles." - Anthony Breznican. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (71 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $12.70. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune - and remarkable power - to whoever can unlock them. For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved - that of the late twentieth century. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.Suddenly the whole world is watching..." - Publisher.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.