Prepub Alert

By Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 4/1/2006

Fiction | Nonfiction

Bahr, Howard. The Judas Field: A Novel of the Civil War. Holt. Aug. 2006. 304p. ISBN 0-8050-6739-6 [ISBN 978-0-8050-6739-2]. $25. Another Civil War novel in the wake of E.L. Doctorow’s The March and Robert Hicks’s The Widow of the South, this tale focuses on Confederate veteran Cass Wakefield, who journeys from Mississippi to Tennessee 20 years after the smoke has cleared to help a friend finally recover the remains of her father and brother. With a national tour.

Balogh, Mary. Simply Love. Delacorte. Aug. 2006. 304p. ISBN 0-385-33883-X. $22. Is it “simply love” for Anne Jewell, the popular teacher at Miss Martin’s School for Girls, first encountered in Simply Unforgettable? Maybe so, but Peninsular War hero Sydnam Butler, whom Anne meets while vacationing in Wales, must first be put to the test.

Booth, Stephen. One Last Breath. Bantam. Aug. 2006. 416p. ISBN 0-385-33905-4. $25.  A serial killer lurks in the caves beneath England’s Peak District, and Detective Constable Ben Cooper is out to get him.

Brewer, Sonny. A Sound Like Thunder. Ballantine. Aug. 2006. 272p. ISBN 0-345-47633-6. $23.95.  It’s the eve of World War II, but teenaged Rove MacNee has more immediate troubles, namely, his whoring, hard-drinking father, Capt. Dominus MacNee, who makes life miserable for everyone in the Alabama Gulf Coast town of Lanaux’s Landing. From the author of The Poet of Tolstoy Park.

Brockmann, Suzanne. Into the Storm. Ballantine. Aug. 2006. 384p. ISBN 0-345-48014-7. $21.95.  SEAL Team Sixteen’s petty officer Mark Jenkins is really worried: family friend Tracy Shapiro is missing in the New Hampshire woods, the weather is near-Arctic, and a serial killer is on the loose. The only thing keeping him warm is the possibility of romance with Lindsey Fontaine, who’s helping to look for Tracy. With an East Coast tour by request.

Egan, Jennifer. The Keep. Knopf. Aug. 2006. 256p. ISBN 1-4000-4392-1. $24.  Egan follows up Look at Me, a National Book Award finalist, with the story of slacker Danny, who finds himself in Central Europe helping to renovate a medieval castle for now-rich cousin Howard. Alas, a nasty prank he played on Howard as a child comes back to haunt him spectacularly. With a 100,000-copy first printing; an eight-city tour.

Frey, Stephen. The Power Broker. Ballantine. Aug. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-345-48060-0. $24.95.  Christian Gillette finds himself caught between a mysterious organization that wants to partner with him and a politician’s politician who wants his help in running for President, so he turns to Protégé Allison Wallace. Then he discovers that maybe he can’t trust her either.

Malarkey, Tucker. Resurrection. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2006. 352p. ISBN 1-59448-919-X. $24.95.  Listen up, Da Vinci Code fans: Tin House founder Malarkey (An Obvious Enchantment) has dreamed up a story featuring Mary Magdalene as the first apostle. At least, that’s the idea Gemma Bastian starts chasing after traveling to post–World War II Cairo to follow up on her late archaeologist father’s final project: uncovering the Gnostic Gospels. With a national tour.

Quindlen, Anna. Rise and Shine. Random. Aug. 2006. 240p. ISBN 0-375-50224-6 [ISBN 978-0-375-50224-8]. $24.95; lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-7393-2644-9 [ISBN 978-0-7393-2644-2]. $26.95.  When Rise and Shine radio show host Meghan Fitzmaurice is caught mouthing a few bad words with her mike open, her career—and her life—end up in ruins. But it does allow her to remake her tentative relationship with younger sister Bridget. With a national tour.

Robbins, David L. The Assassins Gallery. Bantam. Aug. 2006. 464p. ISBN 0-553-80441-3. $25.  What if an assassin had targeted President Roosevelt as World War II powers down, and what if the only way the expert called in to help can thwart said cutthroat is to pretend to be after the President himself?

Saul, John. In the Dark of the Night. Ballantine. Aug. 2006. 352p. ISBN 0-345-48701-X. $25.95.  Whiling away the summer with their family at an idyllic Phantom Lake cabin, the teenaged Brewster boys discover a strange room whose contents suggest that the cabin’s former inhabitant was a murderer. Soon the strange room is making them do strange things—maybe even commit murder themselves. With a five-city tour.

Seigel, Andrea. To Feel Stuff. Harvest: Harcourt. Aug. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-15-603150-7. pap. $14.  Will this book be anything Like the Red Panda, Seigel’s signal debut? Here her protagonist is college student Elodie Harrington, who’s stuck in the Brown University infirmary with an unending parade of illnesses so puzzling that professor Mark Kirschling, M.D., decides there’s a mystery worth cracking.

Silva, Daniel. The Messenger. Putnam. Aug. 2006. 384p. ISBN 0-399-15335-7. $25.95.  Images found on the computer of an al Queda suspect in London suggest that a big attack is in the offing. So who gets called in to investigate? Gabriel Allon, art restorer and master spy, of course. With a three-week tour.

Slaughter, Karin. Triptych. Delacorte. Aug. 2006. 400p. ISBN 0-385-33946-1. $25; lrg. prnt. Random. ISBN 0-7393-2653-8. $27. CD: Random Audio.  Atlanta detective Michael Ormewood squares off against an ex-con with nothing left to lose. Let the Slaughter begin!

Yehoshua, A.B. The Woman of Jerusalem. Harcourt. Aug. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-15-101226-1. $25.  When an anonymous woman who worked off the books at a Jerusalem bakery is killed in a suicide bombing, the bakery’s owner feels compelled to investigate her past and find a way to bury her properly. With a four-city tour.

Nonfiction

Barron, James. Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand. Times Bks: Holt. Aug. 2006. 288p. ISBN 0-8050-7878-9 [ISBN 978-0-8050-7878-7]. $24.  Barron, who’s covered everything from 9/11 to Christo’s The Gates for the New York Times, takes on the creation of a single Steinway grand.

Brizendine, Louann, M.D. The Female Brain. Broadway. Aug. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-7679-2009-0 [ISBN 978-0-7679-2009-4]. $24.95.  It’s all in our heads: clinical psychiatry professor Brizendine, founder of the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic, explains the distinctive workings of the female brain.

Buchan, James. The Authentic Adam Smith: His Life and Ideas. Enterprise: Atlas Bks., dist. by Norton. Aug. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-393-06121-3. $23.95.  Historian/novelist Buchan rescues Smith from the neoconservatives, showing us how complex his thought really is.

Eisenstein, Bernice. I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors: A Graphic Memoir. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2006. 224p. ISBN 1-59448-918-1. $23.95.  The Canadian-born Eisenstein uses both text and graphics to reconstruct her parents’ memories of World War II and capture the searing pain of being the child of Holocaust survivors.

Kean, Thomas H. & Lee H. Hamilton. Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission. Knopf. Aug. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-307-26377-0. $25.95.  Chair and vice-chair, respectively, of the 9/11 Commission, former New Jersey governor Kean and Hamilton, president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, recount the commission’s efforts to deliver the truth despite a slender budget, 2004 election tensions, and the resignation of the first chair (Henry Kissinger) and vice-chair (George Mitchell). With a 150,000-copy first printing; a five-city tour.

Kushner, Harold S. Overcoming Life’s Disappointments. Knopf. Aug. 2006. 192p. ISBN 1-4000-4057-4. $21.95; lrg. prnt. Random. ISBN 0-7393-2650-3. $25. CD: Random Audio.   Author of the classic When Bad Things Happen to Good People, whose title has entered the lexicon of mourning, Rabbi Kushner here examines the story of Moses to suggest how to deal with life’s inevitable setbacks. With a 100,000-copy first printing; a 14-city tour.

McConnell, Patricia B. For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend. Ballantine. Aug. 2006. 272p. ISBN 0-345-47714-6. $24.95.  Do dogs have emotions? Does my dog love me? Dog owners everywhere who get up before 6 a.m. to give their pups outdoor time would say yes, but zoology professor McConnell (The Other End of the Leash) goes further, discussing the similarities and differences between canine and human brains.

Masters, Brooke A. Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer. Times Bks: Holt. Aug. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-8050-7961-0 [ISBN 978-0-8050-7961-6]. $26.  New York State attorney general Spitzer takes on troublemakers from Wall Street to the insurance industry—and wins. A Washington Post staff writer who’s been following his every move offers this assessment.

Nasr, Vali. The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future. Norton. Aug. 2006. 304p. ISBN 0-393-06211-2. $25.95.  In Islam, Shia and Sunni regard each other over a huge divide that’s little understood in the West. Here to explain it is Nasr, a professor of Middle East politics at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Department of National Security and a media regular.

Pease, Allan & Barbara Pease. The Definitive Book of Body Language. Bantam. Aug. 2006. 400p. ISBN 0-553-80472-3. $23.  How to understand the 50 percent of human communication that isn’t verbal; an international best seller.

Severgnini, Beppe. La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind. Broadway. Aug. 2006. 288p. ISBN 0-7679-1439-2 [ISBN 978-0-7679-1439-0]. $23.95.  You’ve read Under the Tuscan Sun, now read an insider’s account of Italy. Corriere della Sera columnist Severgnini has authored numerous best sellers, including Ciao, America!

Sokol, Jason. There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945–1975. Knopf. Aug. 2006. 416p. ISBN 0-307-26356-8. $27.95.  Still completing his doctorate (at Berkeley), Sokol has written a big book showing how white Southerners rethought their perception of African Americans over the course of the Civil Rights Movement. With a five-city tour.

Sullivan, James. Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2006. 288p. ISBN 1-59240-214-3. $26.  Everything you ever wanted to know about denim but were afraid to ask.