If you’ve been watching the current season of Mad Men—set in the late 1960s era of experimental drugs, racial transformation, and a budding counter-cultural revolution—Walter Mosley’s Little Green should be required reading.

While Mad Men explores the changing tide on the east coast, Mosley’s detective Easy Rawlins investigates the disappearance of an L.A. party fixture, Evander “Little Green” Noon. It’s 1967, and Little Green disappears after a drug-fueled night on the Sunset Strip. Rawlins’ investigation leads him on a trip that offers a revealing roadmap of a simultaneously hopeful and foreboding moment in American history.

Mosley hinted that his previous Easy Rawlins’ mystery, Blonde Faith, would be his last, but I’m glad to see the always-insightful detective back and in fine form once again.

Tell Me:  Do you prefer east coast or west coast mysteries?

Mother’s Day shopping is never easy for me—it’s hard to express the love I feel for my mom and wife with a simple gift. I find that a gift that offers them an excuse for a little ‘me time’ is the best way to go. Giving the gift of a NOOK Book or NOOK App is the perfect way to say, ‘Here’s your chance to take an hour for yourself and relax doing something you love.’

With NOOK Instant Gifting, you can order NOOK Books or NOOK Apps now, and have them delivered whenever you choose. Learn more about NOOK Instant Gifting here. We’ve chosen some wonderful books and apps that we know the moms in our lives would love and put them all in one collection. We hope you’ll explore our full Mother’s Day Collection here and find a great gift for your mom, too.

I’m a lucky guy: I’ve never had a monster for a boss. Like everyone, I’ve had a few disagreements here and there, but for the most part, my bosses have been respectful and encouraging and everything else you look for in a good leader. Yet like a surfer who plays the Jaws theme in his head as he paddles out to the waves, I always worry that a nightmare boss is right around the corner!

So to prepare, I’ve already pre-ordered To My Assistant: Things I'll Never Do to You, But Many Other Crazy Bosses Will by Lydia Whitlock. The author’s an Ivy League grad who found out the hard way that life as a Hollywood assistant was light on glitz and heavy on abuse. Instead of wallowing in her sorrows, she created the popular blog ToMyAssistant.com, where she’s compiled a list of things that she promises never to do her assistant—based on the horrific things that real bosses have been known to do.

Sort my M&Ms by color! Play Rock Paper Scissors with the other assistants to decide who goes on a lunch run! These are the sorts of soul-crushing requests that Lydia has vowed never to make. So if you’re having a bad day at work, reading a few pages of this book will have you feeling better in no time—at least your boss isn’t that bad. Plus there’s plenty of great advice for managing-up, that rare skill of encouraging your boss to bend a little, before you finally break. Anyone who’s had a boss, or even been a boss, will find a lot to laugh (and cringe) about in To My Assistant.

Tell Me: What boss horror stories have you experienced or heard about?

As someone who loves food—and sometimes indulges in too much of a good thing—I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the human digestive system. Lucky for you, I’ll spare you the details; but lucky for readers of fun, accessible science writing, Mary Roach (Stiff, Bonk) won’t. In her new book, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Roach explores the hidden process of our digestive system. The parts of our body that do a lot of hard work that no one wants to talk about finally get their due.

Thanks to her quirky sense of humor and a great knack for storytelling, Roach’s book is an appetizing (I couldn’t resist!) piece of popular science writing. To help bring some attention to this worthy book, we recently asked our Twitter followers to provide their own #GulpLit titles—famous book titles with a digestive twist. Some of my favorite entries were: A Wrinkle in Chyme, Swallow and Amazons, Profiles in Roughage, and Infinite Ingest.

If you’re on Twitter, follow @nookBN and join the fun by offering your own #GulpLit book titles!

I really love when new technology adds a dimension to an old classic. So when I heard that my favorite childhood books by Robert McClosky—Make Way for Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal and One Morning in Maine—were coming to NOOK, I couldn’t wait to introduce them to  my daughter.

When I found out that these irresistible childhood classics are all narrated by Jake Gyllenhaal, one of my favorite actors, I was even more excited. Apparently he has great taste in kids’ books, too!

Within the pages of the Caldecott Medal-winning Make Way for Ducklings, readers will waddle along with an endearing family of ducks living in the famed Boston Public Garden.

In Blueberries for Sal, young readers will travel to the picturesque Maine coast as they accompany a young girl on a whimsical blueberry picking adventure.

Yet more Maine adventures await in the Caldecott Honor book, One Morning in Maine. This time, Sal spends a whimsical day exploring Buck’s Harbour with her dad—and even finally loses her pesky loose tooth along the way.

With these new NOOK Read to Me picture books, kids will experience a wonderful melding of the old and new.

 Tell Me: What childhood favorites have you shared with your kids on NOOK?

There’s nothing like the start of baseball season to get me itching for summer to begin. Great memories of my childhood trips to the ballpark and my own half-baked dreams of baseball stardom come flooding back every opening day.

As a young baseball fan, one of my favorite players—behind hometown hero Robin Yount—was the Iron Man Cal Ripken, Jr. With his talent, tenacity and good spirit, he was the ultimate role model for kids. Ripken retired a legend, and now he’s turned to writing inspiring children’s books, like his newest: Wild Pitch.

In Wild Pitch, Little League pitcher Robbie Hammond has gone from almost unhittable, to being unable to hit the strike zone. His team’s struggling as their star pitcher continues to lose his mojo, and no one—except Robbie—knows where the real problems lie. During last year’s All Star game, Robbie injured a batter with an errant pitch, and now he can’t shake the feeling that it’ll happen again.

As your little sluggers prepare to take to the field this season, teach them a lesson about overcoming challenges with Wild Pitch.

Tell Me: Who’s your favorite baseball player of all time?

Thanks to a series of hilarious, relatable books for middle-grade readers, and a popular film franchise, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is at the top of many kids’ reading lists. It’s important to keep children engaged once they’ve finished a new series, but it’s not always easy to figure out what they might like next.

If your kids have already memorized the full Wimpy Kid collection, here are some other books I think they’ll love:

Don’t let the name fool you, Timmy Failure is no slouch. In fact, he’s the 11 year-old founder of Total Failure, Inc., the best detective agency in town—and maybe the world. Cartoonist  Stephan Pastis brings this one-of-a-kind junior detective—and his polar bear sidekick—to life in his quirky new series. Timmy Failure even comes with a Wimpy Kid seal of approval, author Jeff Kinney says, ‘Timmy Failure is a winner!’

While boys might gravitate towards Diary of a Wimpy Kid protagonist Greg Heffley, girls have an equally plucky narrator in the Dear Dumb Diary series. Jamie Kelly is the snarky, one-of-a-kind middle schooler who’s not afraid to say how she really feels. Getting a peek into her ‘private’ diaries is like a porthole into the unique mind of the always-mysterious middle school girl.

The title of Stick Dog: A Really Good Story with Kind of Bad Drawings says it all. Stick Dog is an endearing canine who sets out on bumbling adventures with a cast of goofy friends. As they follow the trail of a hamburger cookout Holy Grail, their bumbling antics and loveable personalities will win young readers over.

Tell Me: Which book series do your kids love?

There’s something for every mystery and suspense fan with these new and upcoming NOOK Books:

Calculated in Death is the 36^th(!) book in J.D. Robb’s mega-bestselling ‘In Death’ series, and it’s another stunner. On Manhattan's Upper East Side a woman lies dead at the bottom of the stairs, stripped of all her valuables. Most cops would call it a mugging gone wrong, but Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows better.

In Harlan Coben’s latest novel, Six Years, a man pines for a lost love, only to find out that the woman he’s obsessed over for six years may not even exist.

Joanne Fluke serves readers another delicious cozy mystery in Red Velvet Cupcake Murder. A party on a hot summer night turns deadly when a guest falls—or is pushed—off the rooftop garden of a swanky new hotel.

In Deadly Stakes, J.A. Jance’s newest mystery, police academy-trained former reporter Ali Reynolds is hired to clear the name of a murder suspect who says she’s been framed. When another body appears, it’s clear that Ali may have taken on more than she expected.

Tell Me: What’s one element that every good mystery must have?

Whether you’re looking to stoke the fires leading up to Valentine’s Day, searching for a romantic read for a night in on February 14^th, or hoping to spread the love with your kids, our Valentine’s Day NOOK Book collection has something for you.

Romantics can escape into dozens of swoon-worthy reads, couples looking to spice things up have lots of advice to choose from, love-struck teens have plenty of YA options, and parents can share sweet children’s books with their little ones.

Tell Me:  Are you a born romantic or a Valentine’s Day skeptic?

Whenever the new year rolls around, I always feel like it’s time to tackle big projects—opportunity abounds!

Besides cleaning out the coat closet and waxing the floors, I’ve been looking for some great new book series that I can sink my teeth into this year. The new NOOK First in a Series collection is a great place to start. In addition to the time-tested offerings below, there are a bunch more multi-volume favorites to explore in the full collection.

If you’re only familiar with Matt Damon’s on-screen portrayal of Jason Bourne, you’ll absolutely want to get to know the literary character who inspired the hit film series, too. Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity is a classic of the genre, and I can almost guarantee you won’t want to stop until you’ve plowed through the entire series.

Book series are usually synonymous with fiction, but don’t forget about the many excellent multi-volume non-fiction offerings available for NOOK as well. Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert A. Caro  has devoted his life to writing the essential biography of Lyndon Johnson, and The Path to Power  is the book that started it all.

It seems that book series are a constant on the teen bestseller charts—the covers and characters change over the years, but young adults always support good series fiction. The Shadow Falls saga is one of today’s best YA series—featuring a fascinating camp for paranormal (you know, vamps, werewolves, witches and the like) outcasts. Get into the action with Born at Night, the bestselling first book.