And just like that, we find ourselves in a new month, and preparing for the first Five Book Friday of May.  It’s quite the auspicious month…in addition to Mother’s Day, which is the highest grossing day for collect calls and one of the busiest travel days of the year, and don’t forget to go get a card for the maternal people in your lives, and Memorial Day, which commemorates the end of the American Civil War and was established to honor American serviceperons killed in wars….May is also  when publishers really start getting ready for rising sales during the summer travel and vacation season, which means that we are getting spoiled for choices over which books to feature here today!

New books are, in and of themselves a cause for celebration, and goodness knows we are huge fans of throwing parties here at the Free For All.  But in case you would like a slight bit more justification to throw a party, here are some uniquely May holidays for which you can begin preparing:

May 12: Our one year anniversary!  You know this is going to be a cause of enormous festivities

May 15: Family Festival at Brooksby Farm!  This celebration is brought to you courtesy of the City of Peabody, as the kick-off of the “Peabody 100” celebrations this year (marking Peabody’s centennial year as a city).  You can find more information on this event, and all the other neat things that are going on this year right here.

May 19: Hummus Day: I really, really love food holidays, if you hadn’t yet noticed, but it appears that there are a great many other people who also enjoy Hummus Day.  In fact, Hummus Day has its own website, which you can visit here.

May 25: National Tap Dance Day: Originally signed into law in by President George H.W. Bush in 1989 to commemorate the birthday of famous tap dancer and film star Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, this is a holiday that has been unofficially celebrated by fellow tap dancers ever since.  So get your clickety-clackety shoes on and have at it!

May 28: National Hamburger Day: I am almost positive this is just a very good excuse to get people to buy hamburgers for their Memorial Day cookouts, but far be it from me to get in the way of a national holiday!

So now that your social calendar has been attended to, let’s take a look at some of the books that have made it onto our shelves this week!

Father’s Day: Publishers have a very interesting sense of humor, so the interesting timing of Simon Van Booy’s was, I’m sure, calculated by someone.  But this moving story about loss, love, and family in all its many forms is timely, no matter the month.  A tragedy leaves six-year-old Harvey alone in the world, except for her Uncle Jason, a haunted, disabled felon.  There is, perhaps, no one less qualified to care for a young child, but, left with no other choice, Jason and Harvey set out to create a new life for themselves out of their past heartbreak.  This book moves between the past and Harvey’s present, making for a tale that Publishers Weekly adored, calling it a “Moving, redemptive new novel…The third-person narrative gives both characters their own, distinctive voices that nonetheless change over time. Van Booy creates refreshing, humorous, yet poignant childhood milestones that the two reach with emotional honesty.”

Quiet Neighbors:  In Catriona McPherson’s latest book, Jude, a young woman on the run comes back to the one place where she knows she can find answers–an old bookstore in a small, isolated town.  Welcomed, as ever, by the books and by the shop’s owner, Lowell, Jude is grateful for a place to settle down…even if it is in the gravedigger’s cottage.  But there are as many secrets as there are books around Jude, and as the darkness of her own past creeps ever closer, Jude finds that the idyllic village is hardly the haven she first thought.  Mystery Scene magazine loved this one, saying “Quiet Neighbors is a cleverly conceived, skillfully executed, decidedly nontraditional small-town mystery that is bursting at the seams with warmth, wit, moxie, and menace.”

Hystopia: David Mean’s first novel is an alternate history, novel-within-a-novel mind-bender of a book, but it’s also being hailed as a literary triumph…and a darned good read.  It opens in President John F. Kennedy’s third term (after surviving an assassination attempt during his first term), with the Vietnam War raging to ever more horrific heights.  In order to deal with the nation’s ‘moral hygiene’ and the overwhelming mental trauma with which returning veterans are forced with grapple, the President has unveiled the Psych Corps, an agency dedicated to wiping out unpleasant memories, and isolating those who minds are too scarred to be ‘healed’.  Into the maelstrom comes twenty-two-year old Eugene Allen, a Vietnam veteran who is determined to exorcise his demons through writing a great American novel, which makes up the heart and soul of this work.  The New York Times loved this book, hailing, “It’s a meditation on war (not just Vietnam, Mr. Means suggests, but the continuum of combat that links veterans through history) and the toll it takes on soldiers and families and loved ones. It’s also a portrait of a troubled America in the late 1960s and early ’70s…and uncannily familiar, in many ways, to America today.”

The Naturalist : Theodore Roosevelt, a lifetime of exploration, and the triumph of American natural history: There is a lot, both good and bad, to say about Teddy Roosevelt–as witnessed by the sheer number of books published on his life, deeds, and legacy.  One of his most enduring, and least contested legacies, however, is his devoted to biology, environmentalism, and the American landscape, and it is this passion that Darrin Lunde(himself a Supervisory Museum Specialist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History) captures in his newest book on the great man.  Though ostensibly a biography of Roosevelt, it is also a chronicle of his lifelong love of natural biology, beginning with his avid studies as a child, and continuing all the way through to his post-presidential work, championing the cause of nature and environmentalism, in a work that publisher’s weekly calls a “mix of biography and examination of the field of natural history preservation. Lunde covers Roosevelt’s environmental activism and his accomplishments in political office, most notably his lobbying for the establishment of Yellowstone National Park, and impressively narrates how Roosevelt was able to pursue his passions during a contentious political career.”

Flavorwalla: Floyd Cardoz built a name for himself by bringing extraordinary flavors to everyday foods and using spice to turn a dish into something distinct and memorable–and in this book, he gives you all his tips and tricks for turning even the most familiar dishes into a culinary marvel.  With a keen understanding of spices–how they taste, how they taste together, and how precisely they enrich a particular flavor–and an honest love of the act of cooking, Cardoz’s book makes you want to try all your old favorites for the first time…and the stunning photographs by Lauren Volo certainly help, too!  Publisher’s Weekly devoured this book (hardy har), saying “Cardoz’s emphasis is on flavor and the final product, rather than culinary showmanship. . . . A fun, fresh, and inspiring collection that deserves room on any self-respecting home cook’s bookshelf.”