Catch Me
By Lisa Gardner

It’s hard to imagine Boston detective D. D. Warren slowing down, but back to work after a blissful, eight-week maternity leave, she’s determined to strike some sort of balance in her life. Her first case, however, renders that an impossibility. An alleged serial killer is targeting pedophiles. While D. D. and her crew may sympathize with this vigilante murderer’s motives, they’re hell-bent on handling justice the right way and catching the killer. Meanwhile, D. D. is contacted by Charlie, a young woman who claims that she will be killed on January 21 . . .

She Reads: Best Books for Women, 2011
By Kaite Mediatore Stover

Women carry around the same question in the back of their minds every day: What does it mean to be a woman?

Readergal looked over some of the books she’s read this past year and reaffirmed something she’s always known. Books may never answer that Big Question, but along the way, they will deliver a good story, a few laughs, and some insight.

In The American Heiress, nineteenth-century media darling Cora Cash is a wealthy, beautiful socialite, but she’s snubbed by the doyennes of New York, prompting her to sail across the Atlantic toward a whirlwind marriage with an impoverished earl who owns a crumbling estate. Cora may know what it means to be an American woman, but an English one?

He Reads: 10 Manliest Books of 2011
By David Wright

Well, I’ve seen just about every other kind of 10 best list, so why not this? Not the best, or the most popular, but, pound for pound, the 10 most testosterone-drenched titles of 2011. Care to differ? Let’s take it outside.

When the going got too tough for John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, and Burt Reynolds, they all turned to mythic he-man Hal Needham, whose chiseled mug smiles out in triumph from the cover of Stuntman!, despite its being engulfed in flames. Needham’s memoir is everything you’d expect from the man who created the Smokey and the Bandit franchise: packed with stars and cars, swaggering machismo, broken bones, and good-old-boyish glee.

Carte Blanche: Columnist’s Choice
By Michael Cart

If it’s January, it’s time for me to (shudder) compile my annual best-books-of-the-year-just-past list. I shudder since such lists—by virtue of their selectivity—are inherently controversial, so I customarily start each of these annual columns with a lengthy apologia, begging forgiveness for having the awful temerity to even make such a list. But this year I seem to be in a capricious, devil-may-care mood—must be the meds—so I’ll skip that and, instead, muse a bit about the making of “best” lists.

I will start with that word, best. I don’t know what it means to you, but to me, it means exemplary, paradigmatic, a model of excellence that is rooted in literary merit.

Booklist Editors’ Choice: Media, 2011
By Sue-Ellen Beauregard

Video

All the World . 2011. 6min. Weston Woods, DVD, $59.95 (9780545325790). PreS–Gr. 1.

This lovely animated adaptation of the 2010 Caldecott Honor Book, beautifully illustrated by Marla Frazee and written by Liz Garton Scanlon, is warmly narrated by Joanne Woodward, whose voice matches the rhythmic text, which “follows a circle of family and friends through the course of one day.”

Bears of the Last Frontier . 2011. 3hr. PBS, DVD, $54.99.

An enthralling three-episode PBS Nature program hosted by bear ecologist and adventurer Chris Morgan . . .

The Manley Arts: Those Wacky Tudors
By Will Manley

The history of the world seems infinite. The number of rulers, the number of wars, and the number of affairs of state are uncountable. How is it, then, that certain eras and certain personages from the past keep reappearing in our films, our plays, and our television series? Why is it that our fascination with several small slices of human history is never quite satisfied, while we show little or no interest in entire centuries?

I suppose the answer lies in mystery. What made Hitler so evil? What drove Alexander to conquer worlds that even he did not know existed? Was the Kennedy family really the victim of a curse? How do you explain the attraction of Cleopatra to the most powerful men in the Roman Empire? How could a bloodthirsty, misogynist tyrant like King Henry VIII lead a lasting religious reformation?

Booklist Editors’ Choice: Adult Books for Young Adults, 2011
By Ian Chipman

Selected by the Books for Youth editors, the following titles constitute the year’s best personal reading for teenagers among adult books published in 2011. More on each book’s content and suggested audience can be found in the full-length Booklist review.

Nonfiction

21: The Story of Roberto Clemente . By Wilfred Santiago. Illus. by the author. Fantagraphics, $22.99 (9781560978923).

With vivid, kinetic artwork and a narrative that focuses on Clemente’s formative years, this dazzling graphic biography captures the athleticism, compassion, and legacy of the pioneering Puerto Rican ballplayer.