TBR

A fresh batch of tantalizing texts still steaming off the presses:

• Citrus County is a left of center crime tale involving a couple of disaffected Florida teens and a prank gone haywire. Author John Brandon's spare prose has been compared to Denis Johnson. Read the review by Daniel Handler in the NYT
• Medium Raw, Anthony Bourdain's latest, as it states in the subtitle, bloody valentine to the world of food and people who cook is really his follow up to the bestselling Kitchen Confidential. Bourdain injects his usual darkly dry sense of humor into essays ranging in subject from over-priced burgers to food porn. Read the review by Christine Muhlke in the NYT
• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan has garnered nothing but stellar reviews. This time she examines the ineluctable way things change as her characters age from punk rockers to parents. Read a review by Will Blythe
• Faithful Place by Tana French has been called her best book to date. Frank Mackey a Dublin detective is drawn back to his home town of Faithful Place that he left 22 years earlier, to investigate a cold case, which involves none other than his boyhood girlfriend. Read Janet Maslin's review
• No Way Down: Life and Death on K2 is New York Times reporter Graham Bowley's account of his experiences while scaling the world's penultimate peak. It gives new meaning to the old saw that says: going up is the easy part , it's getting down that's near impossible. Read Holly Morris's review in the NYT.