Davis, Bridgett M. The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life in the Detroit Numbers. Little, Brown. Jan. 2019. 320p. ISBN 9780316558730. $28; ebk. ISBN 9780316558716. lib. ebk. ISBN 9780316419031. Downloadable. MEMOIR Davis here recalls her bighearted mother, who in 1960s and 1970s Detroit supported her five children through the underground lottery called The Numbers. It's a glowing portrait of both the woman and the city. From a journalism/writing professor at Baruch College, CUNY, also a novelist and film director; with a 50,000-copy first printing. Dube, Siddharth. An Indefinite Sentence: A Personal History of Outlawed Love and Sex. Atria. Jan. 2019. 384p. ISBN 9781501158476. $27; ebk. ISBN 9781501158490. MEMOIR Clarifying his efforts to decriminalize same-sex relations and sex work in India and in developing countries worldwide, which he argues suffer from Western-style moralizing, Dube discloses his upbringing in a conservative Indian culture that vilified his sexuality and his coming of age at the time of AIDS. Backed by his work at Yale University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS and as senior adviser to the Executive Director of UNAIDS, among other work. Houston, Pam. Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country. Norton. Jan. 2019. 288p. ISBN 9780393241020.  $25.95; ebk. ISBN 9780393285499. MEMOIR Essayist and fiction writer Houston, who’s roped in readers with books ranging from Cowboys Are My Weakness to Contents May Have Shifted, here limns her relationship to nature by focusing on her 120-acre homestead in the Colorado Rockies. Way-below-zero temperatures, elk calves wandering by, and a 110,000-acre wildfire threatening her barn and her animals are only a part of the story. McColl, Sarah. Joy Enough: A Memoir. Liveright: Norton. Jan. 2019. 160p. ISBN 9781631494703. $21.95; ebk. ISBN 9781631494710. MEMOIR Pushcart Prize nominee McColl investigates the loss of her mother, even as her marriage founders, plunging us into her grief while also recalling moments of great happiness with her mom. As she said at LJ's Day of Dialog, “Overwhelmed with the experience of losing someone so foundational, I had no other way to understand it other than to write it.” Melville, Wilma with Paul Lobo. Hero Dogs: How a Pack of Rescues, Rejects, and Strays Became America's Greatest Disaster-Search Partners. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2019. 336p. ISBN 9781250179913. $28.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250179920. CD. MEMOIR| After volunteering as a canine search-and-rescue handler during the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Melville swiftly founded the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF), training canines like failed service dogs Ana and Hunter and left-for-dead Recon to help this country in time of need—from 9/11 to Katrina and onward. Dogs saving people, people saving dogs: bravo! Porter, Catherine. A Girl Named Lovely: One Child’s Miraculous Survival and My Journey to the Heart of Haiti. S. & S. Jan. 2019. 336p. ISBN 9781501168093. $27. MEMOIR Canada bureau chief for the New York Times, Porter covered the 2010 earthquake in Haiti as a fresh-on-the-beat international reporter, learning about a two-year-old who survived six days under the rubble. She followed the little girl’s story and eventually tossed journalistic objectivity to the winds and enrolled Lovely in school, visiting with her family over the next five years as she documented Haiti’s efforts to recover and finally counting herself as a friend. Tomlinson, Tommy. The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America. S. & S. Jan. 2019. 256p. ISBN 9781501111617. $27. MEMOIR A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist in commentary whose works have appeared in America’s Best Newspaper Writing and the "Best American Sports Writing" series, Tomlinson faced a big problem as he neared 50: he weighed 460 pounds. Here he examines weight and body-image issues in America while explaining how struggling to lose weight became its own journey of self-discovery. Torres, Tia. My Life Among the Underdogs: A Memoir. Morrow. Jan. 2019. 240p. ISBN 9780062419798. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062419804. MEMOIR Founder of Villalobos, the largest pit bull rescue center in the United States, and star of Animal Planet’s long-running, big-hit Pit Bulls & Parolees, Torres has long advocated for these misunderstood dogs, showing that they’re not dangerous but misused owing to their adaptable natures. Here she tells her story through that of 11 favorite dogs, from Tatanka to Taz. With a 50,000-copy first printing.