Great Discoveries

What's hot? That's the question everyone asks during BookExpo America, held this year at New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center May 29-31. With fewer galley giveaways, the interest was less in buzz than in the wide array of materials available. Here's what drew the LJ review editors. And, for a list of the titles cited at Day of Dialog, go to libraryjournal.com/DoDtitles.

As I reassumed the pleasurable task of editing LJ's monthly cooking column, I trolled BEA's aisles in search of the hottiest, tastiest fall cookbooks. Like other publishers, most cookbook publishers were fairly low key. Gone were the flashy cooking demonstrations by celebrity chefs of years past. And some major houses didn't even have booths, preferring to use designated meeting rooms to present their lists. Off the beaten path was the highly anticipated Gourmet Today (Houghton Harcourt, Sept.), featuring over 1000 all-new recipes embracing contemporary cooking trends and edited by Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl. Former LJ cookery columnist/author Judith Sutton, who also attended the show, noted that there didn't seem to be much going on for East Village culinary sensation David Chang's Momofuku (Potter, Oct.), coauthored with Peter Meehan, although serious foodies and fans of his popular Asian restaurant eagerly anticipate this volume.

A signing at the Chronicle Books booth by Top Chef contestants Hosea Rosenberg (Season 5 winner), Ariane Duartee (Season 5), and Hung Huynh (Season 3 winner) drew a crowd of enthusiastic fans. Although they signed copies of Top Chef: The Cookbook, the reality-show stars were also there to promote the forthcoming follow-up title, Top Chef: The Quickfire Cookbook (Oct.), which features 75 of the best recipes drawn from the show's Quickfire Challenge. Artisan: Workman was excited about French Laundry chef/proprietor Thomas Keller's first cookbook for the home chef, Ad Hoc at Home: Family Style Recipes (Nov.), which draws on the dishes served at the chef's more family-friendly, comfort-food restaurant Ad Hoc.

Also coming from Artisan is Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys (Oct.) by Lucina Scala Quinn, Martha Stewart's director of food and entertaining, and Anne Byrn's The Cake Mix Doctor Returns, a follow-up to one of the most popular baking books of all time (Sept.). For the budget-minded cook, there is food bloggers Alanna Kaufman and Alex Small's The Frugal Foodie Cookbook: 200 Gourmet Recipes for Any Budget (Adams Media, Sept.). Other titles noted on the floor and highlighted at the inaugural Librarians' Book Shout and Share program were Elena Kostioukovitch's narrative history, Why Italians Love to Talk about Food (Farrar, Oct.), the Italian Academy of Cuisine's La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy (Rizzoli, Oct.), Jason Epstein's Eating (Knopf, Oct.), and Gesine Bullock-Prado's Confections of a Closet Master Baker (Broadway, Sept.).—Wilda Williams

Of the fall 2009 titles that jumped out—even without the push that many of the buzzed books got—genre crossers stuck in my mind most. They're guaranteed to be original, and they might just attract a new crop of readers. Judith Fox's I Still Do: Loving and Living with Alzheimer's (powerHouse, Nov.) is a photo-essay tribute to the artist's husband, which may be a refreshing look at the subject for other caregivers. It was well received at BEA and especially attracted attention from women's magazines. Another health-related art book, Asylum (MIT, Sept.), with photographs by architect Christopher Payne and an essay by Oliver Sacks, documents 70 abandoned mental hospitals in 30 states. This book will appeal to anyone who's ever wanted to jump a fence and explore a decaying building but didn't have the nerve.

To publicize Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain's Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti (Arsenal Pulp, Sept.), a book for the younger or alternative fiber crafter, the publisher yarn-bombed the Javits—anyone who returned a knitted creation to their booth won a prize. Also for hobbyists who may be growing tired of traditional approaches, Don Grussing's The Seasons of the Robin (Univ. of Texas, Oct.) is the story of the first year of a robin's life, narrated by the bird itself—fiction for the nonfiction reader and a new view for birders sans binocs.—Anna Katterjohn

Blackstone Audio's biggest draw was The Wild Things (reader TBA), Dave Eggers's adult novelization of Maurice Sendak's iconic 1963 children's book, Where the Wild Things Are. The audio and Ecco print editions of the Eggers' novel as well as a Spike Jonze–directed Where the Wild Things Are film adaptation (whose screenplay Eggers also cowrote) will all drop in October.

Also popular was HighBridge Audio's recording of The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Jun. 2009), Muriel Barbery's New York Times best-selling 2008 novel about a precocious 12-year-old girl's unlikely friendship with a Parisian concierge. Attendees lined up at the HighBridge booth to get CDs autographed by the title's narrators, Barbara Rosenblat and Cassandra Morris.

And you might have caught writer/novelist Lorrie Moore, who was well received on Saturday's Book & Author Luncheon panel, talking up her first book ever to appear on audio, A Gate at the Stairs (BBC Audiobooks America, Sept.). Anticipation was high: the novel, set in post-9/11 America and due for simultaneous print release (Knopf), is her first in over a decade.

I'm most excited about Eric Irivuzumugabe's My Father, Maker of the Trees: How I Survived Rwandan Genocide (Christianaudio Seed, Sept., reader TBA). It is an account of the 1994 Rwanda horror as seen from the vantage point of a cypress tree, where the young author perched fearfully for 15 days.—Raya Kuzyk

Disregard all past assumptions! Be ready to reassess! That's what the books at BEA said to me, whether they concerned the rankings of the U.S. Presidents, both those long held in low regard (Joan Waugh's U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth, Univ. of North Carolina, Oct.) and long admired (Steven Lomazow and Eric Fettmann's FDR's Deadly Secret, Public Affairs, Jan., and The Enduring Reagan, ed. by Charles W. Dunn, Univ. Pr. of Kentucky, Sept.), or a mythic part of American history (Philip Thomas Tucker's Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth, Casemate, Nov.). There's the reassessing of a reassessment (Paul Shankman's The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy, Univ. of Wisconsin, Dec.) and deeper looks at an icon of the Right (Jennifer Burns's Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, Oxford Univ., Oct.) and The Future of Islam (by John Esposito, Oxford Univ., Feb.).

Maybe you think you're safe if you just stay home and tend your garden, but don't think there aren't changes afoot there, too (Paul Bonine's Black Plants: 75 Striking Choices for the Garden, Timber, Sept.). And as the year draws to a close, consider whether it's really advisable to give presents over the holidays (Joel Waldfogel's Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays, Princeton Univ., Nov.)!—Margaret Heilbrun

Essays by Arundhati Roy and Wallace Shawn, plus reflections on the contemporary world by Noam Chomsky and Breyten Breytenbach. Top picks from a big New York house, right? Wrong. These authors are all being published this fall by Chicago-based Haymarket Press, truly a small press that thinks big and my top find of the convention. Roy's Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers (Sept.) argues that Hindu nationalism and economic reform are thwarting India's democratic efforts, turning the country into a police state. Shawn's Essays (Sept.), his first collection and ranging over his entire career, move from the act of playwriting to considerations of privilege, while Breytenbach's Notes from the Middle World (Nov.) considers the artist's role in a shrinking global environment. Chomsky's Hopes and Prospects ponders political activism in the Western Hemisphere.

I ran into lots of promising titles on the show floor, from R.J. Ellory's A Quiet Belief in Angels (Overlook, Sept.), an international best seller by a British author that's set mostly in 1940s–50s Georgia, to Sonny Brewer's moody new novel, The Widow and the Tree (MacAdam Cage, Oct.), to Nobel Prize winner J.M.G. Le Clézio's Desert (Godine, Sept.). And, having thrilled us with A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, Gil Courtemanche is back with A Good Death (Douglas & McIntyre, Aug.), the tale of a family coping with its tough, old patriarch's demise. But it was really intriguing to wander into Manic D's booth and discover award-winning actress Amber Tamblyn's poetry collection, Bang Ditto (Sept.). Punchy, spiky, and flush with a young writer's love of language, the collection often deglamourizes the acting business. A great find for YAs who have been put off poetry by unsympathetic teaching.—Barbara Hoffert

Debbie Macomber spoke at the Librarian's Day lunch at the Romance Writers of America conference in Dallas in 2003 about her determination to become a writer—and the rest is publishing history. I was lucky enough to be there then and to discover her forthcoming work at this year's BookExpo. With a number of successful series to her credit, Macomber did a solo autographing at the convention, along with a group signing at the Mira: Harlequin booth. The next step in her “Cedar Cove” series is92 Pacific Boulevard (Sept.). But fans will have an opportunity to experience their author in her natural environment with the first-ever Cedar Cove Days event, August 26–30, in Macomber's hometown of Port Orchard, WA. For more info, go to cedarcoveassociation.com/cedarcovedays.html.

Remember, BEA isn't just about books. Two items I discovered on the lower level of the Jacob Javits Convention Center will make reading all those wonderful books a bit easier. The Book Seat™ is from Australian-based Emerging Products Ltd. (www.thebookseat.com). Basically a cushy book holder, it allows you to read without using your hands, especially when lying down (like at the beach or on a bed), adjusting the position of the book for maximum comfort; it retails for $30. The Bookpod (also marketed as the Studypod) from Genio, LLC (www.bookpod.us), is another book/document holder that keeps the book/page upright (or flat on your lap) while your hands are free for note-taking, keyboarding, even cooking. It retails for $20.—Bette-Lee Fox