FICTION:
The Undertaker’s Assistant by Amanda Skenandore ($22). This local author’s second book is a historical novel about a freedwoman who becomes an embalmer after the Civil War. Meet-and-greet October 6, 2-4 p.m., Grouchy John’s Coffee, 6350 W. Charleston Blvd. #110
Alex McKenna & The Geranium Deaths by Vicki-Ann Bush ($15). Check out this paranormal thriller about a 17-year-old transgender medium.
On Swift Horses by Shannon Pufahl ($27, out November 5). A Stanford University creative writing lecturer offers up this literary novel, which meanders through Atomic Era Las Vegas.
Also: Ghastly Ghosts by Teresa Bateman, illustrated by Ken Lamug ($17).
NONFICTION:
Vegas Brews: Craft Beer and the Birth of a Local Scene by Michael Ian Borer ($30). This UNLV sociology professor turns his researcher’s eye toward the emerging craft beer scene in Las Vegas.
Healing Las Vegas: The Las Vegas Community Healing Garden in Response to the 1 October Tragedy by Stefani Evans & Donna McAleer ($20). Read about the creation of the Healing Garden through photos and stories of those who were there.
Shut Up and Listen!: Hard Business Truths That Will Help You Succeed by Tilman Fertitta ($15). The billionaire Fertitta family scion and owner of the Houston Rockets offers advice about entrepreneurship.
Also: Millennial Samurai: A Mindset for the 21st Century by George J. Chanos ($30)
HISTORY:
Becoming America’s Playground: Las Vegas in the 1950s by Larry D. Gragg ($25). In his third book about Las Vegas (others covered Bugsy Siegel and Vegas pop culture), Gragg chronicles the pivotal decade when tourism exploded.
Saving Grand Canyon: Dams, Deals, and a Noble Myth by Byron E. Perason ($40). This book explores 100 years of the water policy surrounding the Colorado River, including how the Grand Canyon was saved from damming three times.
Also: I’d Fight the World: A Political History of Old-time, Hillbilly, and Country Music by Peter La Chapelle ($20).
ANTHOLOGY, MEMOIR & POETRY:
A Change Is Gonna Come: Reinvention in the City of Second Chances ($14). The 10th annual Las Vegas Writes anthology asks new and returning Vegas authors to share essays, fiction and poetry. Participants include inaugural Clark County poet laureate Vogue Robinson, author Oksana Marafioti, poet Elizabeth Quiñones-Zaldaña, KNPR producer (and former Weekly staffer) Mike Prevatt, Las Vegas Newswire’s Steve Bornfeld, storyteller and lawyer Dayvid Figler and more. Reading October 17, 7 p.m., Clark County Library.
These Boys and Their Fathers: A Memoir by Don Waters ($17). A search for his absentee father brings the author through Nevada and even to Yucca Mountain. The fiction author has written The Saints of Rattlesnake Mountain and Desert Gothic.
Also: O.J.’s Co-Defendant in Vegas by Joyce Spizer Foy ($13).
