Rep Picks: Laura Webb

Laura Webb is our Simon & Schuster rep. Here are her holiday picks this season:

Just After Sunset
by Stephen King
Price: $28.00
I’ve long been a fan of Stephen. I haven’t long been a fan of short stories. I like getting drawn in to a story, feel a bond with the characters and then get the daylight scared out of me! But with Stephen, it doesn’t matter if I’m reading his article in Entertainment Weekly, a major opus or his short stories, I always walk away satisfied. Just After Sunset is a fantastic collection that displays King’s phenomenally broad readership (stories published in the New Yorker, Playboy and McSweeney’s and including the 25,000 word story “Gingerbread Girl” published in Esquire)—the first collection since King guest edited the bestselling Best American Short Stories 2007.

Team of Rivals
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Price: $21.00
Team of Rivals is an oldie, but it is current enough to be carried by President Elect Barack Obama. I love Doris’ ability to make you feel like you are in the room, listening to history being made. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires. It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.

Bakewise
by Shirley O. Corriher
Price: $40.00
I am not one to make you leave without dessert. If you have ever seen Shirley school Alton Brown on the why, wherefores and how tos of Baking on TV Food network, then you know she is a charmer. This book will answer all your, “but I followed the directions!” questions and offer up a tasty new bunch of recipes to test your new found skills on.