Prepub Alert

Addonizio, Kim. Little Beauties. S. & S. Aug. 2005. 256p. ISBN 0-7432-7182-3. $23. Addonizio's fiction debut sounds as interestingly skewed as her poetry, which has won her a National Book Award nomination. With her life in freefall—she's even gone off her obsessive compulsive disorder medication—Diana McBride decides to solve the problem by arranging to adopt the baby of a pregnant teen. But the baby has ideas of her own. With a seven-city tour.

Berger, John. Here Is Where We Meet. Pantheon. Aug. 2005. 256p. ISBN 0-375-42336-2. $24. In pulsingly hot Lisbon, a narrator named John encounters his long-dead mother, who informs him that the dead don't stay put, then finds himself transported from 1943 London to a Paleolithic cave to a Polish marketplace. Obviously not a strictly narrative work, but what did you expect of the redoubtable Berger?

Bernays, Anne. Trophy House. S. & S. Aug. 2005. 288p. ISBN 0-7432-7055-X. $24. After an upstart builds an ostentatiously ugly "trophy house" in her beachside neighborhood, Dannie's whole life seems to fall apart, and not just because of the townsfolk's equally ugly reaction to the structure. Dannie's husband moves out, and she's tempted to launch an ill-advised affair of her own.

Bezos, MacKenzie. The Testing of Luther Albright. Fourth Estate: HarperCollins. Aug. 2005. 256p. ISBN 0-06-075141-X. $23.95. There's in-house buzz about this first novel, which features dam builder Luther Albright. He's got everything under control in his personal and professional lives until an earthquake upends one of his dams. With a West Coast tour.

Blanchard, Alice. Life Sentences. Warner. Aug. 2005. 400p. ISBN 0-446-57672-7. $24.95. Daisy's sister is missing, and a serial killer owns up to her murder. But things turn out to be somewhat more complicated. From the author of the highly praised The Breathtaker.

Brown, Sandra. Chill Factor. S. & S. Aug. 2005. 416p. ISBN 0-7432-4554-7. $25.95. Cassette/CD: S. & S. Audio. Chief Dutch Burton is out looking for a reputed killer who leaves a blue ribbon at the site where each victim was last seen (but where are the bodies?). Meanwhile, driving to a mountain cabin in a snowstorm, his former wife literally bumps into an acquaintance and ends up taking him with her. Bad move. With a four-city tour.

Cooper, Dennis. God Jr. Black Cat: Grove Atlantic. Aug. 2005. 144p. ISBN 0-8021-7011-0. pap. $12. Disabled after the car wreck that killed his son, Jim becomes so obsessed with a series of strange drawings in his son's notebooks that he starts thinking and acting like the boy—with unsettling results. From cutting-edge author Cooper.

Gillespie, Karin. A Dollar Short: The Bottom Dollar Girls Go Hollywood. S. & S. Aug. 2005. 336p. ISBN 0-7432-5011-7. $19.95. With a sick baby on her hands, waitress Chiffon Butrell can't go to Hollywood after winning a local "Be a Movie Star" contest. But her husband can. When a starlet falls for him, the Bottom Dollar Girls must save the day. With a nine-city tour.

Harrison, Jim. The Summer He Didn't Die. Atlantic Monthly. Aug. 2005. 288p. ISBN 0-87113-892-1. $24. The near-legendary Harrison collects three short samples of prose: "The Summer He Didn't Die," featuring Michigan Indian Brown Dog, a Harrison stalwart; plus "Republican Wives" and "Where Are We?" With a five-city tour.

Kellerman, Faye. Straight into Darkness. Warner. Aug. 2005. 432p. ISBN 0-446-53040-9. $25.95; lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-446-57831-2. $27.95. Cassette/CD: Time Warner Audio. Kellerman traveled to Germany to research this thriller about the murder of upper-class women in 1920s Munich. Does the murderer have a personal grudge, or is he politically motivated?

McCaffrey, Anne & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. First Warning: Acorna's Children. Morrow. Aug. 2005. 304p. ISBN 0-06-052538-X. $24.95. The daughter of unicorn girl Acorna and her lifemate, Aari, Khorii has some adventures of her own as she battles a highly lethal plague sweeping through the universe. The launch of a trilogy.

Meyer, Deon. Dead at Daybreak. Little, Brown. Aug. 2005. 368p. ISBN 0-316-00012-4. $23.95. Popular throughout Europe, South African Meyer hit these shores with Heart of the Hunter. He returns with the tale of antiques dealer Smit, who has been tortured and killed. The first thing that former cop Zed van Heerden learns when asked to help investigate is that Smit wasn't at all what he seemed.

Phillips, Susan Elizabeth. Match Me If You Can. Morrow. Aug. 2005. 400p. ISBN 0-06-073455-8. $24.95; lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-06-079436-4. Cassette/CD: HarperAudio. Remember star quarterback Kevin Tucker from Phillips's This Heart of Mine? Now meet his impossible agent, Heath Champion. Heath is proving to be a real challenge for Annabelle Granger, who's taken over her grandmother's matchmaking business and is trying to find someone who'll date the arrogant man. With a five-city tour.

Reese, James. The Book of Spirits. Morrow. Aug. 2005. 432p. ISBN 0-06-056105-X. $24.95. In this follow-up to Reese's lushly praised The Book of Spirits, a witch named Herculine sails to Virginia in 1826. Little does she know that she's heading for turmoil (including erotic entanglements with a slave) that will make her search for missing mentor Sebastiana d'Azur all the more desperate.

Rubio, Gwyn Hyman. The Woodsman's Daughter. Viking. Aug. 2005. 400p. ISBN 0-670-03321-9. $24.95.In this follow-up to Oprah pick Icy Sparks, the bold daughter of a turpentine farmer in 1800s Georgia decides to make a life of her own. But she runs up against her father's long-hidden secrets. With a five-city tour.

Saunders, Kate. Bachelor Boys. St. Martin's. Aug. 2005. 320p. ISBN 0-312-33940-2. [ISBN 978-0-312-33940-1]. $21.95. Cassie was effectively raised by the family next door and especially by the warm-hearted mom, Phoebe Darling. Now that Phoebe is dying, she asks Cassie to pitch in and help her Peter Pan sons find wives. Film rights optioned by 2000.

Sfar, Joann. The Rabbi's Cat. Pantheon. Aug. 2005. 144p. ISBN 0-375-42281-1. $21.95. In this award-winning graphic novel from French comics artist Sfar, the rabbi's cat learns to speak after swallowing a parakeet and is soon demanding training in the Kabbalah. But then the rabbi's daughter creates a big distraction by falling for a young rabbi who's way too handsome. With a four-city tour.

Shute, Jenefer. User I.D. Houghton. Aug. 2005. 272p. ISBN 0-618-53906-9. $23. Vera de Sica makes a big mistake when she listens to the man in the short-sleeved shirt who tells her to leave her rental car under the Guests Parking sign. Soon she's the victim of identity theft. As scary as real life; Shute spent three years researching this novel.

Ayres, Chris. War Reporting for Cowards. Atlantic Monthly. Aug. 2005. 240p. ISBN 0-87113-895-6. $24. Based in Los Angeles, London Times reporter Ayres would rather party but didn't know how to refuse when his boss offered to send him to Iraq. He's no gung-ho correspondent—he describes the marines he's covering as "a disassembly line, churning out Iraqi body parts"—but he does come to see the joy in simply surviving.

Bradbury, Ray. Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars. Morrow. Aug. 2005. 256p. ISBN 0-06-058568-4. $25.95. Paris. John Huston. Space travel. Gene Kelly. These are only some of the topics that sf great Bradbury addresses in this essay collection.

Dabney, Lewis M. Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature. Farrar. Aug. 2005. 624p. ISBN 0-374-11312-2. [ISBN 978-0-374-11312-4]. $30. For many, Edmund Wilson defined intellectual life in America in the first half of the 20th century. Now English professor Dabney (Univ. of Wyoming), who has edited several volumes of Wilson's writings, shows how Wilson's life defined his work—and vice versa.

Kimmelman, Michael. The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa. Penguin Pr: Penguin Putnam. Aug. 2005. 208p. ISBN 1-59420-055-6. $24.95. Art: it's more than just pretty pictures. It's a journey that teaches us something about life itself, and it's around us in ways we don't comprehend. So argues the chief art critic for the New York Times in this meditation.

Menzer, Joe. Buckeye Madness: The Glorious, Tumultuous, Behind-the-Scenes Story of Ohio State Football. S. & S. Aug. 2005. 320p. ISBN 0-7432-5788-X. $24. Just in time for fall: a consideration of what has made Ohio State football so great over nearly four decades. With a four-city tour.

Murphy, Brian. The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery, and Lore of the Persian Carpet. S. & S. Aug. 2005. 320p. ISBN 0-7432-6419-3. $25. More than mere floor covering, each Persian carpet carries the history and mystery of the ancient Middle East in its many knots and fibers. This explanation of the carpet's origins, design, and production (wild madder is used to make red) is an in-house favorite.

Nicolson, Adam. Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar. HarperCollins. Aug. 2005. 400p. ISBN 0-06-075361-7. $26.95. Just in time for the 200th anniversary, Nicolson (God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible) once again fights the Battle of Trafalgar, which sent Napoleon back to the Continent and established Great Britain as the great sea power of the era.

Roberts, Selena. A Necessary Spectacle: Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs, and the Tennis Match That Leveled the Game. Crown. Aug. 2005. 304p. ISBN 1-4000-5146-0. $24.95. More than sports history: this reconstruction of the famed "Battle of the Sexes" between Bobby Riggs and Wimbledon champ King promises to tell us as much about 1970s culture in America as it does about the game of tennis.

Silber, Sherman J., M.D. How To Get Pregnant. Little, Brown. Aug. 2005. 496p. ISBN 0-316-01136-3. $27.95. Updating a classic that has sold more than 400,000 copies.