Prepub Alert
By Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 5/15/2006
Fiction | Nonfiction
Fiction
Blachman, Jeremy. Anonymous Lawyer. Holt. Aug. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-8050-7981-5 [ISBN 978-0-8050-7981-4]. $25.Blachman leaps from his hot new blog (anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com) to a debut novel about a high-power law partner whose acidulous blogging efforts are not as anonymous as he thought. Yes, there's a virtual tour.
Bourne, Sam. The Righteous Men. HarperCollins. Sept. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-06-113829-0 [ISBN 978-0-06-113829-4]. $24.95.
Legend has it that every generation boasts 36 righteous men, and it looks as if this generation's contenders are being systematically eliminated. Great expectations for this pseudonymous debut by British journalist Jonathan Freedland.
Danielewski, Mark Z. Only Revolutions. Pantheon. Sept. 2006. 384p. ISBN 0-375-42176-9 [ISBN 978-0-375-42176-1]. $26.
Two wayward kids named Sam and Hailey bounce through American history on the ultimate road trip. With (appropriately) a 12-city tour; from the author of the noteworthy House of Leaves.
Emley, Dianne. The First Cut. Ballantine. Sept. 2006. 352p. ISBN 0-345-48617-X [ISBN 978-0-345-48617-2]. $23.95.
Detective Nan Vining has been viciously assaulted—and her assailant might just be the murderer she's now assigned to find. A hot debut with multiple foreign sales.
Fitch, Janet. Paint It Black. Little, Brown. Sept. 2006. 352p. ISBN 0-316-18274-5. $24.99.
Disavowing her sad-sack family, Josie ends up in Los Angeles—and in love with brilliant Michael, whose suicide leads Josie to out-and-out battle with his formidable mom.
Forsyth, Frederick. The Afghan. Putnam. Aug. 2006. 352p. ISBN 0-399-15394-2. $26.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
Someone has to infiltrate al Qaeda—if not Taliban commander Izmat Khan, longtime prisoner at the notorious Guantánamo Bay prison, then Col. Mike Martin, who will pretend that he's “the Afghan.”
Gilmore, Jennifer. Golden Country. Scribner. Sept. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-7432-8863-7. $25.
What links Seymour, a Prohibition-era gangster–turned–Broadway producer, to door-to-door salesman Joseph? Joseph's childhood friend, starlet Frances, and later the engagement of Seymour's son and Joseph's daughter. A new take on the great Jewish American novel; with a three-city tour.
Harris, Robert. Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome. S. & S. Sept. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-7432-6603-X. $26. CD: S. & S. Audio.
Harris reimagines a lost biography of Cicero actually written by Cicero's secretary, Tiro. With a ten-city tour.
Hobb, Robin. Forest Mage: Book Two of the Soldier Son Trilogy. Eos: HarperCollins. Sept. 2006. 624p. ISBN 0-06-075763-9 [ISBN 978-0-06-075763-2]. $25.95.
Saved by magic from the plague, Nevare Burvelle returns home to family tragedy and the lure of an even more powerful magic; it tells you what to do. With a five-city tour.
Jones, Edward P. All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories. Amistad: HarperCollins. Sept. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-06-055756-7 [ISBN 978-0-06-055756-0]. $25.95.
Short fiction from National Book Award finalist Jones.
Just, Ward. Forgetfulness. Houghton. Sept. 2006. 320p. ISBN 0-618-63463-0 [ISBN 978-0-618-63463-7]. $25.
Part-time CIA spook Thomas Railles retires to the French countryside, but when his wife is killed by Moroccan terrorists, he realizes that he cannot leave the world behind. With a national tour.
Le Carré, John. The Mission Song. Little, Brown. Sept. 2006. 480p. ISBN 0-316-01674-8 [ISBN 978-0-316-01674-2]. $26.99; lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-316-01772-8. CD: Time Warner Audio.
A callow young interpreter stumbles upon a nasty plot and ends up courting danger from London to Congo to an island off Denmark. Everyone's reading mission this fall.
Ledgard, J.M. Giraffe. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2006. 304p. ISBN 1-59420-099-8 [ISBN 978-1-59420-099-1]. $24.95.
In 1975, Czech secret police surrounded a small-town zoo and slaughtered the world's largest captive herd of giraffes. From this sorrowful beginning, Ledgard, foreign correspondent for the Economist, crafts a debut novel that examines issues of complicity under Communist rule.
Lehane, Dennis. Coronado. Morrow. Sept. 2006. 224p. ISBN 0-06-113967-X [ISBN 978-0-06-113967-3]. $24.95; lrg. prnt. ISBN 0-06-114596-3. CD: HarperAudio.
The cream of Lehane's short fiction; look for “Until Gwen,” basis of Lehane's recent Off-Broadway venture, Coronado. With a six-city tour.
McDermott, Alice. After This. Sarah Crichton Bks: Farrar. Sept. 2006. 304p. ISBN 0-374-16809-1 [ISBN 978-0-374-16809-4]. $24.
While siblings Michael and Annie swing during the Sixties, their big brother heads for Vietnam. With a national tour.
Marlette, Doug. Magic Time. Farrar. Sept. 2006. 512p. ISBN 0-374-20001-7 [ISBN 978-0-374-20001-5]. $25.
Following up The Bridge, a debut proclaimed the best novel of 2002 by the Southeast Booksellers Association, Pulitzer Prize–winning political cartoonist Marlette sends a burned-out New York City newspaperman home to Mississippi to face an uncompromising father and a long-unsolved civil rights murder.
Mosley, Walter. Fear of the Dark. Little, Brown. Sept. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-316-73458-6 [ISBN 978-0-316-73458-5]. $25.99. CD: Time Warner Audio.
When family is involved, everyone is out for revenge. Fearless Jones and Paris Minton regroup in Mosley's latest.
Rubenfeld, Jed. The Interpretation of Murder. Holt. Sept. 2006. 384p. ISBN 0-8050-8098-8 [ISBN 978-0-8050-8098-8]. $26. CD: Random Audio.
Someone is killing rich young women in 1909 New York, and Freud himself is asked to probe the buried memories of one intended victim. A really big debut, sold to 28 countries; with a 15-city tour.
Setterfield, Diane. The Thirteenth Tale. Atria: S. & S. Sept. 2006. 400p. ISBN 0-7432-9802-0. $26.
Vida Wagner is about to spill a terrible secret she has been hiding for 60 years. One of those highly touted debuts; with a 14-city tour.
Tolkin, Michael. The Return of the Player. Grove. Sept. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-8021-1801-1 [ISBN 978-0-8021-1801-1]. $24.
Remember The Player? He's sick of Hollywood, nearly broke, nearly divorced, and about to hook up with nearly billionaire Phil Ginsberg for the deal of a lifetime. With an eight-city tour.
Wagner, Bruce. Memorial. S. & S. Sept. 2006. 432p. ISBN 0-7432-7235-8 [ISBN 978-0-7432-7235-3]. $25.
A family crashes and nearly burns, with natural disaster and spiritual crisis as a ­backdrop.
Winspear, Jacqueline. Messenger of Truth: A Maisie Dobbs Novel. Holt. Sept. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-8050-7898-3 [ISBN 978-0-8050-7898-5]. $24. CD: Audio Renaissance.
Did hot new artist Nick Bassington-Hope really leap to his death? Ask British sleuth Maisie Dobbs. With a 14-city tour.
Nonfiction
Bremmer, Ian. The J Curve: The Shape of the World. S. & S. Sept. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-7432-7471-7. $26.Can the democratic nations that fall along Eurasia Group president Bremmer's J Curve help their authoritarian brethren open up? With a five-city tour.
Buruma, Ian. Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2006. 320p. ISBN 1-59420-108-0 [ISBN 978-1-59420-108-0]. $24.95.
Journalist Buruma goes home to investigate the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (great-grandnephew of the artist), who had made a film with anti-Islam Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali that the devout considered blasphemous.
Clash, Kevin. My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught Me About Life, Love and Laughing Out Loud. Broadway. Sept. 2006. 208p. ISBN 0-7679-2375-8. $19.95. CD: Random Audio.
Good vibrations from the multi–Emmy Award winner behind a furry red monster named Elmo.
Cooper, Christopher & Robert Block. Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security. Times Bks: Holt. Sept. 2006. 304p. ISBN 0-8050-8130-5 [ISBN 978-0-8050-8130-5]. $25.
Two Wall Street Journal correspondents argue that the government's lack of preparedness for Katrina reveals much deeper problems.
Danforth, Sen. John C. Faith and Politics: How the “Moral Values” Debate Divides America and How To Move Forward Together. Viking. Sept. 2006. 224p. ISBN 0-670-03787-7. $24.95.
A former Republican senator from Missouri and an ordained Episcopal minister, Danforth argues that his party has taken politics too far from the mainstream. With an eight-city tour.
Edgar, Bob. Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right. S. & S. Sept. 2006. 288p. ISBN 0-7432-8949-8. $25.
A former Democratic representative from Pennsylvania and an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church (sound familiar?), Edgar argues that the religious Right is skirting the real moral issues of peace and justice. With a three-city tour.
Ferguson, Niall. The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2006. 624p. ISBN 1-59420-100-5 [ISBN 978-1-59420-100-4]. $32.95.
Why did the 20th century, which seemed to promise a better life for everyone, devolve into bloodshed? Best-selling author (Empire) and Harvard/Oxford professor Ferguson considers.
Fournier, Ron & others. Applebee's America: What Political, Business, and Religious Leaders Can Learn from Each Other. S. & S. Sept. 2006. 352p. ISBN 0-7432-8718-5. $27.
Journalist Fournier, Clinton strategist Doug Sosnik, and Bush-Cheney strategist Matthew Dowd: improving leadership by addressing what Americans really want. With a three-city tour.
Franzen, Jonathan. The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History. Farrar. Sept. 2006. 208p. ISBN 0-374-29919-6 [ISBN 978-0-374-29919-4]. $22.
Portrait of the artist as he grows from a “small and fundamentally ridiculous person” in the 1970s Midwest to a National Book Award winner.
Friend, David. Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11. Farrar. Sept. 2006. 448p. ISBN 0-374-29933-1 [ISBN 978-0-374-29933-0]. $30.
Reconsidering the events of 9/11 by examining 50 photographs taken that day. With a national tour.
Iversen, Jeremy. High School Confidential. Atria: S. & S. Sept. 2006. 272p. ISBN 0-7432-8363-5. $25.
Iversen, who at 24 has already written a novel (21), served as a political consultant, and worked at Merrill Lynch, attended Anaheim's Mirador High School in the guise of a senior transfer student to discover what makes American youth tick—or not. With an eight-city tour.
Jacobson, Sid & Ernie Colón. The 9/11 Report. Farrar. Sept. 2006. 160p. ISBN 0-8090-5738-7 [ISBN 978-0-8090-5738-2]. $30; pap. ISBN 0-8090-5739-5 [ISBN 978-0-8090-5739-9]. $16.95.
Have you read the 9/11 Commission's report? Don't you think this graphic format will make it accessible to more folks?
Klosterman, Chuck. Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas. Scribner. Sept. 2006. 288p. ISBN 0-7432-8488-7. $24.
From trend pieces (“Things That Are True”) to opinion pieces (“Things That Might Be True”) to a short story (“Things That Are Not True at All”). With a 15-city tour.
Kynge, James. China Shakes the World: A Titan's Breakneck Rise and Troubled Future—and the Challenge for America. Houghton. Sept. 2006. 288p. ISBN 0-618-70564-3 [ISBN 978-0-618-70564-1]. $25.
China's future and the consequences of our dependency on its economy; from the former China bureau chief of the Financial Times.
Lemann, Nicholas. Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War. Farrar. Sept. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-374-24855-9 [ISBN 978-0-374-24855-0]. $24.
Guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments, the rights of newly freed slaves were quickly obviated by white violence, begun with an Easter 1873 massacre in Colfax, LA. From the dean of Columbia's School of Journalism.
Li, Laura Tyson. Madame Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Eternal First Lady. Atlantic Monthly. Sept. 2006. 512p. ISBN 0-87113-933-2 [ISBN 978-0-87113-933-7]. $25.
First Lady or Dragon Lady? From a Mandarin-speaking journalist who has reported from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
MacDonald, Michael Patrick. Easter Rising. Houghton. Sept. 2006. 240p. ISBN 0-618-47025-5 [ISBN 978-0-618-47025-9]. $24.
In a sequel to the lacerating All Souls: A Family Story from Southie, MacDonald relates his escape from Boston's Irish American ghetto, where his four siblings eventually perished, to funky 1970s East Village Life, more crises, and a final redemption. With a seven-city tour.
Marcus, Greil. The Shape of Things To Come: Prophecy and the American Voice. Farrar. Sept. 2006. 336p. ISBN 0-374-10438-7 [ISBN 978-0-374-10438-2]. $25.
Like a Rolling Stone author Marcus considers the prickly issue of American identity, part of public discourse in the 19th century and now, he argues, better reflected in the nation's art.
Mendelsohn, Daniel. The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. HarperCollins. Sept. 2006. 560p. ISBN 0-06-054297-7 [ISBN 978-0-06-054297-9]. $27.95.
Critic/journalist Mendelsohn relates his search for evidence of the six relatives who perished in the Holocaust and have haunted his family ever since. “Huge,” insists the publicist.
Michaels, Walter Benn. The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned To Love Identity and Ignore Inequality. Metropolitan: Holt. Sept. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-8050-7841-X [ISBN 978-0-8050-7841-1]. $23.
We're so happy with our show of diversity that we are ignoring real problems of poverty and social injustice, argues University of Illinois professor Michaels.
Moyers, William Cope with Katherine Ketcham. Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption. Viking. Sept. 2006. 368p. ISBN 0-670-03789-3. $25.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
Following the son of media star Bill Moyers from a crack house to work as vice president for external affairs at the Hazelden Foundation. What would James Frey think? With a ten-city tour.
Noonan, William Sylvester with Robert Huber. Forever Young: Growing Up with John F. Kennedy, Jr. Viking. Sept. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-670-03810-5. $25.95.
Hyannisport glamour from a best friend of JFK Jr.; embargoed until publication.
O'Reilly, Bill. Culture Warrior. Broadway. Sept. 2006. 224p. ISBN 0-7679-2092-9 [ISBN 978-0-7679-2092-6]. $26.
More controversy from O'Reilly.
Pomfret, John. Chinese Lessons: An American, His Classmates, and the Story of the New China. Holt. Aug. 2006. 352p. ISBN 0-8050-7615-8 [ISBN 978-0-8050-7615-8]. $26.
A prize-winning reporter from the Washington Post, Pomfret here recalls the year he spent at Nanjing University with students just recovering from the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
Prager, Joshua. The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca, and the Shot Heard Round the World. Pantheon. Sept. 2006. 496p. ISBN 0-375-42154-8 [ISBN 978-0-375-42154-9]. $26.95.
The shenanigans that won the Giants the 1951 pennant.
Rich, Frank. The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2006. 304p. ISBN 1-59420-098-X [ISBN 978-1-59420-098-4]. $25.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
The acerbic Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times on the President's predilection for myth-making instead of fact. With a national tour.
Ricks, Thomas E. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2006. 416p. ISBN 1-59420-103-X [ISBN 978-1-59420-103-5]. $27.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
Why the war in Iraq angers the military, as told by senior officers to the Washington Post's top Pentagon correspondent.
Smolin, Lee. The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next. Houghton. Sept. 2006. 416p. ISBN 0-618-55105-0 [ISBN 978-0-618-55105-7]. $26.
Bad news from a leading physicist: string theory is absorbing everyone's time and money, but it can't be proven.
Stone, Peter H. Heist: Super­lobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies, and the Buying of Washington. Farrar. Sept. 2006. 256p. ISBN 0-374-29931-5 [ISBN 978-0-374-29931-6]. $24.
A debut for National Journal reporter Stone; with a national tour.
