At 33 years old, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dana Canedy was cynical about love, but when she met First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, she fell hard for the physically imposing but gentle-natured soldier. The two became engaged and decided to have a baby, but before son Jordan's birth, Charles was deployed to Iraq. There he kept a journal for his son, but a month before he was scheduled to return home, he was killed in the line of duty. Containing excerpts of Charles' journal, this heartrending memoir is Canedy's recollection of the pair's relationship as well her investigation into the circumstances surrounding Charles' death. Watch for this one in movie theatres next year.

Successful financier Herbert Hoover seemed like the ideal candidate for the U.S. presidency in 1928. But after his election, the Great Depression hit, and Hoover's background in business and dislike of big government proved to hinder rather than help the nation. In this well-written biography, respected New Deal historian William Leuchtenburg evaluates the 31st president, from his career before taking office to his failed policies and unsuccessful reelection campaign. "Vivid prose and strong opinions...a richly insightful biography," says Publishers Weekly.

In April 2007, professional photographer and new Wyoming resident Shreve Stockton adopted an unlikely pet: a 10-day-old orphaned coyote whose parents were shot for killing sheep. As Shreve raised the coyote, whom she named Charlie, she kept a blog about their life together. That online journal serves as the basis of this fascinating book, which will appeal to readers interested in human-animal relationships. If you like this memoir, check out Malcolm MacPherson's The Cowboy and His Elephant: The Story of a Remarkable Friendship, which also takes place in the American West.

If you've read historical novelist Anya Seton's epic Katherine, then you may have been curious about the life of Katherine Swynford, mistress and eventual wife of the powerful John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. In Mistress of the Monarchy, veteran biographer Alison Weir illuminates Katherine's life and times, from her first marriage to knight Hugh Swynford to her notorious affair with and subsequent marriage to John of Gaunt. With turbulent 14th-century England as its backdrop, this book is a vivid portrait of a strong woman as well as a touching true love story.

February 6, 1911. At the end of each day during his eight years in office, U.S. President Ronald Reagan recorded his thoughts in a series of handwritten diaries. Nearly two decades after Reagan left office, historian Douglas Brinkley compiled Reagan's diaries into this revealing book. From behind-the-scenes accounts of events like the Iran hostage crisis to Reagan's reactions to people like Margaret Thatcher, The Reagan Diaries is a must for anyone who wants to better understand the 40th president or America itself during the Reagan years.

February 12, 1809. This year marks the 200th anniversary of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's birth, so why not honor Honest Abe by reading one of the best recent books written about him? In Team of Rivals, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and gifted storyteller Doris Kearns Goodwin examines Lincoln's political acumen and details his decision to rally three of his former opponents--William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates--together in his cabinet. The New York Times calls this book an "elegant, incisive study."

February 21, 1934. If the theme song to The Golden Girls starts playing through your head when you pick up this book, don't be alarmed. Rue McClanahan, who is probably best known for her role as the flirtatious Blanche Devereaux on the 80s sitcom, details her colorful and eventful odyssey from a small town in Oklahoma to living it up in Hollywood. Not to mention all the men she met along the way: there's a reason this book is called My First Five Husbands...and the Ones Who Got Away! Publishers Weekly says that this lively memoir is "chatty, thoughtful and effervescent."

February 22, 1732. Drawing from newly catalogued archives at the University of Virginia, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Ellis (Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation) chronicles the life of one of the most important and mythologized figures in American history, President George Washington. Ellis surveys Washington's military career, personal life, struggle to keep an emerging America united, and his changing attitudes toward slavery. "A magisterial account," raves Publishers Weekly.

At 51 years old, radio correspondent Noah Adams, former cohost of NPR's All Things Considered and current reporter for NPR's National Desk, decided to fulfill a lifelong dream: to learn to play the piano. He bought a Steinway and--with the help of a computer program--went about trying to teach himself, though in order to finally master Robert Schumann's Traumerei he would eventually enroll in a week-long intensive course. Read Piano Lessons to follow Adams' progress up and down the keyboard; when you're finished, you may just be inspired to tickle the ivories yourself.

In The Importance of Music to Girls, British novelist and poet Lavinia Greenlaw describes the powerful influence of music on her adolescence in 1970s London and rural Essex. Throughout her girlhood, Greenlaw was surrounded by music, from her mother's lullabies to Bob Dylan's Lay Lady Lay to punk music; readers who grew up during the same time period will surely find that these tunes resonate with their own childhoods. If you like coming-of-age memoirs, you are sure to enjoy this "bewitching and subtly dazzling" (Kirkus Reviews) book.

"It's easy for me to recall the morning I was absorbed into the cult of heavy metal. As is so often the case with this sort of thing, it was all my brother's fault," writes journalist Chuck Klosterman at the outset of this candid and witty memoir. Growing up in the 1980s, Klosterman discovered big-hair bands like Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Poison, and Warrant, and with their music blaring in the background, he came of age and drove his parents crazy. Metal-heads or anyone nostalgic for the 80s is certain to relish Fargo Rock City.

Rob Sheffield is a well-known rock critic who makes frequent MTV and VH1 appearances; he is also a passionate maker of mix tapes. In fact, each of the chapters in this book opens with a compiled list of songs that represent an actual mix in his collection. Each mix serves as a method by which Sheffield shares the story of his romance with and marriage to Renée, with whom he had little in common except for the music that brought them together, and who died suddenly after only five years of marriage. Publishers Weekly calls his story a "celebratory eulogy" that is "wonderful, often hilarious and lovingly detailed."