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By Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 06/01/2007

Fiction | Nonfiction

Fiction

Barclay, Linwood. No Time for Goodbye. Bantam. Oct. 2007. 352p. ISBN 978-0-553-80555-0. $22.
High schooler Cynthia wakes up to find that the rest of her family has vanished. Years later, she starts getting scary inklings of what really happened. From a Toronto Star columnist; multiple rights sales and the book’s inclusion in Bantam Dell’s podcast program promise good things to come.

Barrett, Andrea. The Air We Breathe. Norton. Oct. 2007. 320p. ISBN 978-0-393-06108-6. $24.95.
The dangers of talk: During World War I, at a sanitarium in the Adirondacks, a discussion group’s weekly conversations lead to tragedy and eventually anti-immigrant sentiment directed at some of the patients. With a 14-city tour; reading group guide.

Cornwell, Patricia. Book of the Dead. Putnam. Oct. 2007. 416p. ISBN 978-0-399-15393-8. $26.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
Kay Scarpetta just wants to settle down in Charleston and do her job, but suicide, ritual murder, and sabotage keep getting in the way. A BOMC, Literary Guild®, Doubleday Book Club®, and Mystery Guild® main selection.

Donaldson, Stephen R. Fatal Revenant: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Putnam. Oct. 2007. 640p. ISBN 978-0-399-15446-1. $27.95.
Never mind that Thomas Covenant was supposed to die in The Runes of the Earth. He’s back in this sequel, though he’s a changed and difficult man. With a national tour.

Follett, Ken. World Without End. Dutton. Oct. 2007. 992p. ISBN 978-0-525-95007-3. $35. CD: Penguin Audio.
Follett here follows up The Pillars of the Earth, an account of a cathedral’s construction in 12th-century England and his biggest best seller. Two centuries later, the cathedral is complete, but the intrigues continue.

Gold, August & Joel Fotinos. The Prayer Chest. Doubleday. Oct. 2007. 160p. ISBN 978-0-385-52023-2. $15.95.
A widowed father who’s about to lose his farm finds something we could all use: a prayer chest with three secrets that can change one’s life. By Interfaith minister Gold and Fotinos, Tarcher’s publisher and a New Thought minister; with a reading group guide.

Govrin, Michal. Snapshots. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2007. 288p. ISBN 978-1-59448-959-4. $25.95.
A leading Israeli intellectual is killed in a car accident, and her estranged husband must sort out the notes, drawings, and snapshots she left behind to understand who she really was. Winner of Israel’s Akum Prize for Book of the Year.

Harvey, Kenneth J. Inside. Harcourt. Oct. 2007. 304p. ISBN 978-0-15-101483-5. $24.
Released after 14 years in prison, a wrongfully convicted man finds that the past just won’t leave him alone. Picked by numerous Canadian newspapers as a Best Book of the Year.

Hospital, Janette Turner. Orpheus Lost. Norton. Oct. 2007. 368p. ISBN 978-0-393-06552-7. $24.95.
Mishka may be the musician, but it’s his lover, Leela, who descends into an underground of torture and kidnapping when it appears that he may have terrorist connections.

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner: Illustrated Edition. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2007. 352p. ISBN 978-1-59448-960-0. $29.95.
Adding to the four million copies already in print, this special edition illustrates Hosseini’s beloved story with color and black-and-white images of Afghanistan.

LaHaye, Tim & Jerry B. Jenkins. Mark’s Story. Putnam. (Jesus Chronicles). Oct. 2007. 320p. ISBN 978-0-399-15447-8. $24.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
The authors have “Left Behind” their popular series to tell the story of Jesus according to the Gospels, this time giving us Mark’s perspective (they’ve already done John).

Lehrer, Jim. Eureka. Random. Oct. 2007. 240p. ISBN 978-1-4000-6487-8. $24.95.
Fed up with his life and his nagging wife, insurance executive Otis Halstead rides away on his brand-new Cushman motor scooter—and promptly cracks up. Now’s he’s trapped in the hospital, but for how long?

O’Farrell, Maggie. The Vanishing Acts of Esme Lennox. Harcourt. Oct. 2007. 256p. ISBN 978-0-15-101411-8. $23.
Suddenly Iris discovers that she has a great-aunt, shunted away in a hospital for 60 years and just released. What’s she going to do? With a reading group guide.

Parker, Robert B. Now and Then: A Spenser Novel. Putnam. Oct. 2007. 320p. ISBN 978-0-399-15441-6. $25.95.
Spenser investigates, confirms that Dennis Doherty’s wife has been cheating, and suddenly has three corpses on his hands.

Russo, Richard. Bridge of Sighs. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 480p. ISBN 978-0-375-41495-4. $26.95. CD: Random Audio.
Contented at 60, Louis Charles (“Lucy”) Lynch is set to travel to Italy, where he will try to understand his past as he reconnects with a childhood friend who’s become a painter. With a 12-city tour; reading group guide.

Nonfiction

Aczel, Amir D. The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2007. 256p. ISBN 978-1-59448-956-3. $24.95.
The author of Fermat’s Last Theorem returns to December 1929, when the discovery of the prehuman skull now called Peking Man created a turmoil of belief for young Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin, who was participating in the dig.

Al-Qazwini, Imam Sayid Hassan. American Crescent: A Muslim Cleric’s Struggle for Islam in America. Random. Oct. 2007. 256p. ISBN 978-1-4000-6454-0. $25.95.
Head of the Islamic Center of America, the country’s oldest and largest Shi’a mosque, Al-Qazwini imparts his life story (including his family’s persecution by Saddam Hussein) as he argues that Islam and America can benefit one another. With a three-city tour.

Armitage, Simon, tr. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation. Norton. Oct. 2007. 352p. ISBN 978-0-393-06048-5. $27.95.
A classic newly rendered by an outstanding young poet; there’s even a parallel Middle English text.

Atkinson, Rick. The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944. Holt. Oct. 2007. 816p. ISBN 978-0-8050-6289-2. $35. CD: S. & S. Audio.
In the second book in a trilogy about the liberation of Europe (the first was the Pulitzer Prize–winning An Army at Dawn), Atkinson takes us along on the invasion of Sicily.

Auslander, Shalom. Foreskin’s Lament: A Memoir. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2007. 224p. ISBN 978-1-59448-955-6. $24.95.
Raised Orthodox, Auslander recalls his daily negotiations with the strictures of his religion and eventual “cease-fire” with God.

Belfort, Jordan. The Wolf of Wall Street. Bantam. Oct. 2007. 480p. ISBN 978-0-553-80546-8. $25.
Rich at 26, Belfort headed up the shady investment firm Stratton Oakmont and eventually was convicted of fraudulent practices, serving barely two years in prison. Here’s an account of his wild life.

Bergreen, Laurence. Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 448p. ISBN 978-1-4000-4345-3. $27.95. CD: Random Audio.
Your one and only chance to travel with Marco Polo; from a biographer who’s favored everyone from Louis Armstrong to Al Capone. With a four-city tour.

Bernstein, Paula & Elyse Schein. Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited. Random. Oct. 2007. 288p. ISBN 978-1-4000-6496-0. $25.95.
Seeking her roots, adoptee Schein discovers that she has an identical twin sister (Bernstein) and that they were separated as part of a hush-hush study on nature vs. nurture. With a five-city tour.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Annotated Secret Garden. Norton. Oct. 2007. 384p. ISBN 978-0-393-06029-4. $35.
With commentary from Burnett biographer and Dartmouth English professor Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina.

Chua, Amy. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—and Why They Fall. Doubleday. Oct. 2007. 256p. ISBN 978-0-385-51284-8. $26.
The birth and death of superpowers, from Persia, Rome, and the Mongols to Britain and the United States; from Yale law professor Chua.

Clapton, Eric. Clapton: The Autobiography. Broadway. Oct. 2007. 336p. ISBN 978-0-385-51851-2. $26; lrg. prnt. $28.95. CD: Random Audio.
Finally, the story of a rock legend from the legend himself. It’s pretty scary, though, to discover that this book will be available in large print.

Cote, David. Jersey Boys: The Story of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons. Broadway. Oct. 2007. 176p. ISBN 978-0-7679-2758-1. $40.
Companion to the Broadway show that has already been seen by a half million people.

Davis, Sampson & others. The Bond: Three Young Men Learn To Forgive and Reconnect with Their Fathers. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2007. 272p. ISBN 978-1-59448-957-0. $24.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
As recounted in The Pact, inner-city youngsters Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt agreed to get one another through life and into med school. Now they’re doctors, yet they still recall what life was like without a father.

Earley, Pete. Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War. Putnam. Oct. 2007. 352p. ISBN 978-0-399-15439-3. $25.95.
Post Cold War, Russia still had spies like Comrade J in America—but it turns out that he was a double agent.

Ellis, Joseph J. American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 304p. ISBN 978-0-307-26369-8. $26.95; lrg. prnt. $29.95. CD: Random Audio.
A Pulitzer Prize winner looks back at the Founding Fathers’ less-than-complete success; they created a republic but left slavery and hostilities with Native Americans intact. With a 12-city tour.

Figes, Orlando. The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia. Metropolitan: Holt. Oct. 2007. 576p. ISBN 978-0-8050-7461-1. $35.
What private life? How Stalin’s repression touched everyone, turning friends into denouncers and everyday citizens into collaborators.

Hampl, Patricia. The Florist’s Daughter: A Memoir. Harcourt. Oct. 2007. 240p. ISBN 978-0-15-101257-2. $24.
With her mother dying, elegant memoirist Hampl thinks back on being the dutiful florist’s daughter in St. Paul. With a six-city tour; reading group guide.

Heimann, Judith M. The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II. Harcourt. Oct. 2007. 336p. ISBN 978-0-15-101434-7. $26.
A career diplomat who has served in Southeast Asia, Heimann chronicles the adventures of a group of U.S. Navy airmen during World War II. Shot down by the Japanese over Borneo, they found themselves confronting loincloth-clad natives with a tradition of head-hunting.

Hitchcock, Susan Tyler. Frankenstein: A Cultural History. Norton. Oct. 2007. 352p. ISBN 978-0-393-06144-4. $25.95.
Trick or treat; the endless lure of Frankenstein.

Ivins, Molly & Lou Dubose. Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch’s Assault Against America’s Fundamental Rights. Random. Oct. 2007. 288p. ISBN 978-1-4000-6286-7. $24.95.
For 15 years, until her death in January 2007, the redoubtable Ivins regularly gave free speeches defending the Bill of Rights. Here she recalls the ordinary people she met who worked to defend those rights.

Jones, Danell. The Virginia Woolf Writers’ Workshop: Seven Lessons To Inspire Great Writing. Bantam. Oct. 2007. 176p. ISBN 978-0-553-80650-2. $24.
Jones digs up writing tips from Virginia Woolf’s essays, letters, and novels. Included in the Bantam Dell podcast program.

Jones, Judith. The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 288p. ISBN 978-0-307-26495-4. $24.95.
Knopf senior editor Jones recalls the delights of French food, even during World War II, and her decision to publish Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. With a seven-city tour.

Krugman, Paul. The Conscience of a Liberal. Norton. Oct. 2007. 352p. ISBN 978-0-393-06069-0. $25.95.
Krugman looks back at eight decades of U.S. economic history to try to understand what we’ve lost and how we can effect a “new New Deal.”

Kukla, Jon. Mr. Jefferson’s Women. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 304p. ISBN 978-1-4000-4324-8. $26.95.
The former director of historical research at the Library of Virginia, currently with the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation, considers Thomas Jefferson’s complex and sometimes suspect attitudes toward women.

Lipton, James. Inside Inside. Dutton. Oct. 2007. 512p. ISBN 978-0-525-95035-6. $27.95.
Visiting backstage with the executive producer, writer, and host of Inside the Actor’s Studio.

Long, Michael G., ed. First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson. Times Bks: Holt. Oct. 2007. 352p. ISBN 978-0-8050-8710-9. $26.
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, King—Robinson wrote to them all about his civil rights concerns and received personal responses.

Matthews, Chris. Life’s a Campaign: Everything I’ve Learned from the Big Shots. Random. Oct. 2007. 256p. ISBN 978-1-4000-6528-8. $24.95.
How politicians get us to go along with them, as observed by the host of MSNBC, and what a terrific life skill it is. With a seven-city tour.

Montefiore, Simon Sebag. Young Stalin. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 480p. ISBN 978-1-4000-4465-8. $35.
The making of a madman; from the author of History Book of the Year winner Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. With a six-city tour.

Murray, Craig. Dirty Diplomacy: The Rough and Tumble Adventure of a Scotch Drinking, Skirt Chasing Dictator Busting and Thoroughly Unrepentant Ambassador Stuck on the Frontline of the War Against Terror. Scribner. Oct. 2007. 352p. ISBN 978-1-4165-4801-0. $26.
Murray, Britain’s “unrepentant” ambassador to Uzbekistan, went mano a mano with head of state Islom Karimov over the torture of dissidents, never mind what London’s Foreign Office thought. He doesn’t have his job anymore, but he does have a movie deal with Paramount.

Perkins, Tom. Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins. Gotham Bks: Dutton. Oct. 2007. 320p. ISBN 978-1-59240-313-4. $27.50.
The adventures, both personal and professional, of the man who resigned from Hewlett-Packard’s board in 2006 to protest the company’s questionable efforts to chase down that embarrassing leak. With a national tour.

Petroski, Henry. The Toothpick: Technology and Culture. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 464p. ISBN 978-0-307-26636-1. $27.95.
The man who has considered the engineering behind small things like pencils goes even smaller. With a seven-city tour.

Rhodes, Richard. Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 400p. ISBN 978-0-375-41413-8. $28.95.
The author of the multiple-award-winning The Making of the Atom Bomb shows just how close we came to nuclear armageddon in the early 1980s. With a five-city tour.

Robb, Graham. The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War. Norton. Oct. 2007. 352p. ISBN 978-0-393-05973-1. $27.95.
Mapping out all of France and bringing together the republic; from a literary biographer who’s done practically all the 19th-century French greats.

Sacks, Oliver. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 256p. ISBN 978-1-4000-4081-0. $25. CD: Random Audio.
Everyone’s favorite neurologist considers how music affects us. With a six-city tour.

Strickland, Bill. Making the Impossible Possible. Currency: Doubleday. Oct. 2007. 288p. ISBN 978-0-385-52054-6. $23.95. CD: Random Audio.
A MacArthur genius whose Manchester Bidwell centers in Pittsburgh have trained thousands of disadvantaged children and adults in everything from ceramics to horticulture here tells anyone who’s emotionally impoverished how to have faith. With a national tour.

Unger, Craig. The Fall of the House of Bush: How a Group of True Believers Put America on the Road to Armageddon. Scribner. Oct. 2007. 368p. ISBN 978-0-7432-8075-4. $27. CD: S. & S. Audio.
Unger reenvisions the conflict in the Middle East as a battle between fundamentalists (Islamic, Orthodox Jewish, and Christian evangelical) and the post-Enlightenment world. With a three-city tour.

Updike, John. Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism. Knopf. Oct. 2007. 736p. ISBN 978-0-307-26640-8. $40.
Reviews, travelogs, tributes, essays, and other good stuff.

Vare, Robert, ed. The American Idea: The Best of the Atlantic Monthly. Doubleday. Oct. 2007. 688p. ISBN 978-0-385-52108-6. $35.
Celebrate the Atlantic Monthly’s 150th birthday by reading great essays, plucked from the magazine’s archives, by the likes of Thoreau, Hemingway, Frost, and Martin Luther King.