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From the opening pages of Domenica Ruta's memoir about her chaotic childhood with her flamboyant, contradictory mother, her own eventual descent into addiction, and her painful journey back to health, we knew we had to get this book into as many hands as possible. With or Without You may delve into a good deal of anguish, but it is a joy to read.

Ruta looks back on her tumultuous life through shrewd eyes, fiercely unsentimental and unflinchingly honest. Yet throughout, her voice remains wryly playful:

I didn't have many friends growing up; then I hit puberty and things got even worse. Here begins my angry phase, the self-centered, quietly homicidal years, that special hiccup of time between my first bra and my first joint.

Ruta's real triumph, however, is in portraying her raucous, exasperating family members as sympathetic, if flawed, human beings. This takes imagination, unwavering self-examination, and determined honesty. But more importantly, it takes genuine heart, which is what ultimately elevates With or Without You. As Kathryn Harrison observes, "Difficult childhoods are plentiful, the talent to transform adversity into art in short supply." That talent is evident on every page.

We love the Scots. Kate Atkinson, Iain Banks, Alasdair Gray... The country regularly produces writers with a penchant for black humor and a delicious turn of phrase. So we weren't entirely surprised when we were drawn into Lisa O'Donnell's debut novel from its arresting first sentences. The Death of Bees is the macabre — and hilarious — coming-of-age story of two young sisters, Marnie and Nelly, who we first encounter as they're burying their parents in the backyard. The novel contains a sort of murder-mystery, but at heart it's an exploration of family and community — those we're born with and those we choose to create. Alison Espach, author of The Adults, raves, "The Death of Bees is completely addictive. A beautiful and darkly funny story of two sisters building a fantasy within a nightmare." We agree, and we're proud to have chosen The Death of Bees as our Indiespensable Volume #37.

After J. Robert Lennon's last two books, Castle and Pieces for the Left Hand, the New York Times Book Review wrote, "Over the last decade, J. Robert Lennon's literary imagination has grown increasingly morbid, convoluted and peculiar — just as his books have grown commensurately more surprising, rigorous and fun." We agree (especially about that second part). Lennon's new novel, Familiar, is his most remarkable, unusual, and moving to date.

Familiar is an eerie, riveting exploration of identity and meaning. Elisa Brown is driving back from visiting her son's grave when, in an instant, everything changes. She finds herself in a different car, wearing different clothes — in a different life! In this strange parallel world, both her sons are alive and her relationship with her husband has dramatically changed. In lucid, intelligent prose, Lennon chronicles with page-turning urgency Elisa's struggle to understand what has happened, who she is, and what she can do — or wants to do — about this ...

We've loved John Brandon for quite a while now. He caught our attention with Arkansas, his debut novel, and when the bleak, haunting Citrus County came out last year, we shivered and marveled in equal measure. So, when we heard from our friends at McSweeney's about his third novel, A Million Heavens, we hoped that maybe this was the time to introduce him to our Indiespensable subscribers. Once we got through our advance copies, we were sure of it.

A Million Heavens showcases Brandon's deadpan, precise, and inventive language with an eerie, semi-magical story and lots of fascinatingly flawed characters — though they're not quite as dark as the characters in Citrus County. As Brandon says in his interview with Jill, "It was obvious to me while I was writing [the new book] that these were better people, people you'd more like to know in real life." The characters in A Million Heavens struggle with loss, music, and the concept of innocence, including ...

From start to finish, The Age of Miracles had us mesmerized.

Faced with the everyday insecurities and turmoil of adolescence, 11-year-old Julia wakes one morning to the mysterious news that the earth's rotation is growing markedly slower each day. Repercussions of the slowing manifest dramatically: people suffer from a multitude of physical and mental disorders, birds die off, and the rays of the sun become more and more intense. As the days lengthen, society tries to adapt. But relationships fracture, especially in the growing divide between people who adhere to the state-mandated "clock time" and those who try to maintain "real time" by staying awake for days and sleeping when darkness arrives again. With grace, intelligence, and startling realism, Karen Thompson Walker, in her haunting debut, creates a snapshot of a world changing beyond recognition.

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly writes,

While the apocalypse looms large — has in fact already arrived — the narrative remains fiercely grounded in the surreal and horrifying day-to-day and the personal decisions that persist even though no one knows what to do. A triumph of vision, language, and terrifying momentum,

...

Leni Zumas's debut novel, The Listeners, hit us like a bolt of lightning. Arch, witty, intelligent, impressionistic, hypnotic, and above all dazzlingly written, we couldn't put this deeply moving and disquieting book down. Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask, raves, "Just listen to The Listeners. You'll hear the prose of one of our most exciting young writers. Zumas has already proven herself a remarkable maker of short stories. Now she has sustained and heightened the exhilaration of her writing in this striking novel." And Miranda July writes, "Leni Zumas understands your quiet agony and describes it with such wry, unflinching familiarity that even the gory details ring true." So, together with our neighbors, independent publisher Tin House Books, we created an exclusive hardcover edition of The Listeners (with an embossed purple octopus on the cover, which is probably our favorite detail). And Leni (which, by the way, is pronounced laynee), who's a local author, was wonderfully funny and gracious when she came in to sign our books.

When we started Stephen Dau's debut novel, The Book of Jonas, we were impressed. (Kim, Michal, and Jill all raved about the beauty of the language within the first 10 pages.) And by the time we got to the end, we were more than impressed: we were moved to tears by Jonas's story.

Jonas is a 15-year-old boy from an unnamed Muslim country, orphaned by an American military attack on his village. Through a charitable organization, he is sent to the United States to live in Pittsburgh, with a host family, and grows up divided between his present life and his past memories. Jonas's story is interwoven with the stories of Christopher, a missing American soldier who may have saved Jonas's life, and Rose, Christopher's mother, who is trying to make sense of her own life after Christopher's disappearance. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Dau's novel offers deeply resonating truths about war and culture, about family and loss that only art can reveal. A literary tour de force."

Happy 2012! We're looking forward to another year filled with literary wonder. So far, 2012 has found us rekindling our Indiespensable relationship with Algonquin Books. Algonquin, an independent (and Southern!) publisher, is beloved by authors, readers, and booksellers alike for their hand-picked gems that other houses might overlook. We had the perfect opportunity to work with them again when Naomi Benaron's debut novel, Running the Rift, blew us away.

Running the Rift is the story of Jean Patrick Nkuba, a boy growing up in Rwanda before and during the genocide. He plans to become an Olympic runner, hoping that that might secure some measure of safety for his family and people. As Benaron says in her interview: "[T]his isn't a just book about genocide. It's about what human beings can do to each other. But it's also, more importantly, about how humans rise above what is done. It's about the strength of the human spirit. It's not a book of graphic violence; it's a book of beauty. I hope, anyway. " Barbara Kingsolver awarded Running the Rift the Bellwether Prize, which ...

Jeffrey Eugenides hit the ground running with his first novel in 1993. Not only did The Virgin Suicides receive rave reviews and go on to be made into a critically acclaimed movie by Sofia Coppola, it also possessed that rare, intangible quality that garners certain particularly visceral novels an enduring cult following. Nine years later, his second book, Middlesex, achieved more traditional markers of success. It received the Pulitzer Prize and was selected by Oprah for her book club, virtually guaranteeing it would become a bestseller (which it did) — and it continues to be a Powell's favorite among staff and customers.

Obviously, Eugenides' next book would have a lot to live up to. And we're here to say, it succeeded. As Publishers Weekly put it, "[The Marriage Plot] so impressively, ambitiously breaks the mold of its predecessor that it calls for the founding of a new prize to recognize its success both as a novel — and as a Jeffrey Eugenides novel."

Very different in scope and scale than Middlesex, The Marriage Plot centers on ...

When we first heard about Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus from our head buyer, Gerry, we were skeptical. It sounded a bit fantastical for our sensibilities. But his defense was swift. "I don't usually read books about... well, circuses," he said, "or books that could be described as magical or romantic. But this one is an exception to the rule. Read it. It's amazing." We promptly complied and then thanked Gerry profusely. We were bewitched. At Book Expo America in June, it became apparent that booksellers from across the country felt the same way. And the critics haven't been far behind; in a starred review, Publishers Weekly raved, "Debut author Morgenstern doesn't miss a beat in this smashing tale of greed, fate, and love set in a turn-of-the-20th-century circus....[A] giant, magical story destined for bestsellerdom. This is an electric debut." We're also excited to include Megan's interview with Erin Morgenstern, wherein the author admits, "It's funny, everything anyone ever told me never happened to debut authors is happening to me."

Jill was also charmed by a very early advance reader's copy that seemed to be a good fit with The Night Circus — it has magic, darkness, whimsy, and flat-out great writing. The Vanishers, by acclaimed novelist and Believer editor Heidi Julavits, is the remarkable story of Julia, a student, at an elite institute for psychics, who is attacked (psychically, but with devastating physical effects) by her one-time mentor. At the same time, she's also trying to unravel the mystery of her mother's life. The Vanishers is original, whip-smart, and extremely funny, and not due out until March of next year — so you can enjoy it a full six months before the rest of the world does.