What's up for January

This month, to start the new year, I've chosen to read various books whose authors are new to me. This doesn't necessarily mean that they are new books (meaning published in 2008), but they're new to me all the same. I will denote these books with a *, to separate them from my ongoing reading down of my houseful of tbr books. So it will be a totally mixed bag here. I'm not a professional reviewer, but I do know what I like & don't like.