Prepub Alert, September 1, 2011
Sept. 1, 2011IMAGE TK
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TOP COMMERCIAL FICTION
Barr, Nevada. The Rope: An Anna Pigeon Novel. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780312614577. $25.99. THRILLER
Bear, Greg. Halo: Primordium. Tor. Jan. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780765323972. $25.99. SF
Chiaverini, Jennifer. Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel. Dutton. Feb. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780525952640. $25.95.POP FICTION
Gardner, Lisa. Catch Me. Dutton. Feb. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780525952763. $26.95. THRILLER
Hannah, Kristin. Home Front. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780312577209. $27.99. POP FICTION
Herbert, Brian & Kevin J. Anderson. Sisterhood of Dune. Tor. Jan. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780765322739. $27.99. SF
Reilly, Matthew. Scarecrow Returns. S. & S. Jan. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781416577591. $25. THRILLER
Robb, J.D. Celebrity in Death. Putnam. Feb. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780399158308. $27.95. THRILLER
Willig, Lauren. The Garden Intrigue. Dutton. Feb. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780525952541. $25.95. CD: Penguin Audio. HISTORICAL ROMANCE
FICTION
Ammaniti, Niccolò. Me and You. Black Cat: Grove Atlantic. Feb. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780802170903. pap. $14. LITERARY
Social outcast Lorenzo tells his anxious parents that he’s been invited on the ski trip with the snooty kids, then persuades his mother to drop him off a block from the train station so that he can slip back home and live unbothered for a week in a secret cellar in the family’s apartment building. All’s well until his obnoxious half-sister materializes. A best seller in Italy, and—here’s the rub—Bernardo Bertolucci is directing the film version.
Berenson, Alex. The Shadow Patrol. Putnam. Feb. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780399158292. $26.95. THRILLER
Not so long ago, a source that had promised to deliver Osama bin Laden to agents at the CIA’s Kabul station instead blew up the place. With the station still in disarray and agents still dying, high-ups suspect Taliban infiltration and send John Wells to investigate. It’s not a pretty sight—Wells gets wind of a drug-trafficking operation that could involve agents, the military, and the Taliban working together—but Edgar Award winner Berenson should deliver a good read.
Caplan, Thomas M. The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen. Viking. Jan. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780670023219. $26.95. CD: Penguin Audio. THRILLER
Founder of the Pen/Faulkner Award for fiction and the author of three novels, Caplan jumps into frothier territory with this thriller featuring covert operative–turned–Hollywood superstar Ty Hunter. Asked to help keep a bunch of nuclear warheads from passing into the wrong hands, Hunter uses all his actorly skills as he goes up against billionaire Ian Santal. Sounds promising, and you can’t ignore the introduction by President Bill Clinton.
Chaon, Dan. Stay Awake: Stories. Ballantine. Feb. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780345530370. $25; eISBN 9780345532305. STORIES
Distinctive, hurting, and brave, Chaon’s characters suffer life’s little jolts but scramble to get back on the path, their journey to self escalating to the tenth power as the prose flows. That’s evident in his novels, like multiple best-book pick You Remind Me of Me, and even more evident in his short stories; they’re often Pushcart, O. Henry, and Best American Short Stories honorees, and Among the Missing, his second collection, was a National Book Award finalist. Here’s another collection featuring individuals in love or in mourning, always desperate to connect. Important whether or not you typically read short stories.
Evanovich, Janet & Dorien Kelly. Love in a Nutshell. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780312651312. $27.99. ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Plummy best seller Evanovich and Kelly, president of Romance Writers of America, have joined forces to write this romantic suspense novel, featuring out-of-work, just-separated Kate Appleton. Kate has gone to Keen Harbor, MI, with dreams of turning her parents’ summer cottage, the Nutshell, into a bed-and-breakfast. To get the funds she needs, she’s agreed to help Matt Culhane discover who has been sabotaging his brewery. Alas, she hates beer, and she’s also getting sweet on Matt. This will draw readers of both authors; here’s hoping they’ll stay after the one-day laydown on January 3.
Franklin-Willis, Amy. The Lost Saints of Tennessee. Atlantic Monthly. Feb. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780802120052. $25. LITERARY
Told from the perspectives of middle-aged Ezekiel Cooper and his estranged mother, Lillian, this novel details the fracturing of one working-class Southern family. Derailed by his twin brother’s drowning and his wife’s departure, Zeke heads east from Tennessee, his brother’s old dog and his copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn his only companions. Lots of in-house enthusiasm for this debut author, winner of an Emerging Writers Grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. Watch closely.
George, Alex. A Good American. Amy Einhorn: Penguin Group (USA). Feb. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780399157592. $25.95. CD: Penguin Audio. LITERARY
Meet the Meisenheimer family, new to America and eager to fit in. And meet the offbeat characters in their little town, from the seductive schoolteacher to the mean-spirited, bicycle-riding dwarf. Englishman George, a lawyer in London for eight years until he moved to Columbia MO, where he now runs his own law firm, should have some insight into the experience of becoming an American. Likely an affecting debut, pitched big; with a reading group guide.
Gilvarry, Alex. From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant. Viking. Jan. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670023196. $26.95. LITERARY
Aspiring hopeful Boyet Hernandez just about has it made in the New York fashion world with his (B)oy label when he’s detained late one night and taken to Gitmo, where he’s accused of terrorist connections. He’s also handed a Quran—never mind that Hernandez is an ex-Catholic from Manila. There’s some good noise about this debut from Gilvarry, editor of the website Tottenville Review, so pay careful attention.
Hayder, Mo. Hanging Hill. Atlantic Monthly. Feb. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780802120069. $25. THRILLER
The author of dark and disturbing works that have received short-list attention, Hayder turns out another stylish-sounding work featuring two sisters, one a policewoman. In Bath, England, Zoe Benedict is investigating the murder of beautiful teenager Lorne Woods, good friends with the daughter of Zoe’s divorced sister, Sally. Zoe soon uncovers evidence that model-hopeful Lorne had gotten herself mixed up in amateur porn. Hayder will keep you up at night.
Jones, Darynda. Third Grave Dead Ahead. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781250001542. $23.99. MYSTERY/PARANORMAL ROMANCE
Charley Davidson, a private eye of the paranormal persuasion—she doubles as a Grim Reaper—is straining to solve a missing-persons case and keep a motorcycle gang in line. She’s also trying to forget Reyes Farrow, the devilishly handsome son of Satan whom she’s imprisoned for eternity. As the title signals, this is the third in a series that started out with a bang—the first book won a Golden Heart Award for Best Paranormal Romance manuscript—so snatch this up.
Knox, Tom. The Lost Goddess. Viking. Jan. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780670023189. $26.95. THRILLER
What links two startling discoveries, a weathered skull with a hole neatly smacked through the forehead, found in a French cave, and something possibly creepier at Laos’s 2000-year-old Plain of Jars? Modern-day forces clearly want the finds suppressed, and it all leads to one spooky and obsessed woman out to avenge a terrible wrong. Indiana Jones meets Grand Guignol, with a touch of Holmes-like puzzling. Knox is rumored to be building a dedicated audience, so keep an eye on this one.
Landay, William. Defending Jacob. Delacorte. Feb. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780385344227. $26; eISBN 9780345527592. THRILLER
The publisher’s big push for the season, this thriller stars Andy Barber, who’s managed nicely for 20 years as assistant district attorney of his small Massachusetts county. Then comes a case that will truly slay him: his own son, Jacob, stands accused of murder. Landay’s Mission Flats won the Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for Best First Novel; this book is being positioned as a breakout. With a national tour; watch to see if you’ll need extras.
Lively, Penelope. How It All Began. Viking. Jan. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780670023448. $26.95. LITERARY
A chance encounter between a retired schoolteacher and a petty thief sets off an unexpected chain of events. A marriage is undone by a misdirected cell phone call revealing an affair, for instance, while an old-timey historian gets an idea for a snappy miniseries. The moral—life always has other plans for us—should be beautifully conveyed by Man Booker Award winner Lively. Especially nice for book groups.
O’Nan, Stewart. The Odds: A Love Story. Viking. Jan. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780670023165. $25.95. LITERARY FICTION
Art and Marion Fowler are jobless and facing foreclosure, even as their marriage teeters on the brink. So what do they do? Head to Niagara Falls, book the bridal suite at the area’s fanciest casino, and risk all at the roulette wheel. Another from the beloved O’Nan, who so sensitively makes the everyday hurts of everyday people real and important. This book will resonate profoundly in today’s strapped environment; great for book clubs.
Ryan, William. The Darkening Field. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780312586515. $24.99. THRILLER
Ryan proved himself with The Holy Thief, which introduced Capt. Alexei Korolev of the Moscow Militia’s Criminal Investigation Division. Here, it’s 1937, and Korolev is heading to Odessa to investigate the suspect suicide of young party loyalist Maria Alexandrovna Lenskaya. He gets some help from writer friend Isaac Babel while slowly uncovering intimations of treason. Buy wherever Thief was popular.
Solomons, Natasha. The House at Tyneford. Plume: NAL. Jan. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780452297647. pap. $15. HISTORICAL
“When I close my eyes I see Tyneford House.” That’s a Rebecca-like opening, but this intent and detailed work by the author of the delightful Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English goes beyond romantic suspense. In spring 1938, Elise Landau gets out of an increasingly dangerous Vienna by applying to be a servant in a grand English home—never mind that she’s wealthy and privileged, with an opera star mother and novelist father. Once she’s at Tyneford, she must deal not only with the upstairs-downstairs mentality of the British but with inevitable prejudice because she is Jewish. Charming yet serious; book clubs should relish.
Taylor, Brad. All Necessary Force. Dutton. Feb. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780525952626. $25.95. THRILLER
The terrorists are coming, but nobody knows where they’ll hit or when. It’s up to TaskForce, which operates outside the law, to track down clues. After an attack in Egypt, Taylor hero Pike Logan ends up in charge with partner Jennifer Cahill, who’s worried about the legality of their mission. They’ll still triumph. Retired Delta Force officer Taylor had a big hit with his first Pike Logan work, One Rough Man, and has since been speaking up on Fox News, MSNBC, and elsewhere, so expect interest.
Yallop, Jacqueline. Obedience. Penguin. Feb. 2012. 288p.
ISBN 9780143120674. pap. $15. HISTORICAL
Part of a paperback series aimed at introducing American readers to new voices from around the world, this book takes place at a convent in southern France that must finally close its doors. Among the three gray-haired nuns still there is Sister Bernard, who reflects on a terrible act of betrayal she committed during World War II. Craving human love, she had an affair with a German soldier that has wider repercussions. Yallop is author of the McKitterick-shortlisted Kissing Alice; great for book clubs.
TOP COMMERCIAL FICTION
Bowers, Scotty with Lionel Friedberg. Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars. Grove. Feb. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780802120076. $25. MEMOIR
Covey, Stephen M.R. & Gordon Link. Smart Trust: How People, Companies, and Countries Are Prospering from High Trust in a Low Trust World. Free Pr: S. & S. Jan. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781451651454. $27. CD: S. & S. Audio. SELP-HELP/BUSINESS
Isay, Dave. All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Feb. 2012. 176p. ISBN 9781594203213. $24.95. ORAL HISTORY
NONFICTION
Andrews, Lori. Facebook Nation. Free Pr: S. & S. Jan. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781451650518. $24.99. TECHNOLOGY/LAW
Social media allow us to stay intimately connected and as movers and shakers in our own milieu, but they also profoundly threaten our rights. Colleges and employers base their rejections on information found on the web, for instance, and at one school administrators used laptop cameras to spy on students at home. Director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology at Illinois Institute of Technology, Andrews has a lot to say on the subject. First, she wants to establish a Constitution for the web to assure our rights. An important conversation; let’s get started.
Barry, John M. Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty. Viking. Jan. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780670023059. $35. HISTORY
At a time when folks were roundly debating the relationship between government and God, as well as government and the individual, Roger Williams proposed the separation of church and state and linked religious freedom to individual liberty. Then he practiced what he was preaching by setting up his own government in the wilderness (the colony of Providence Plantation). Author of best-selling prize winner The Great Influenza, Barry should ably articulate Williams’s ideas and their lasting importance. Not just for history majors.
Druckerman, Pamela. Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Feb. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781594203336. $25.95. PARENTING
After moving to Paris and having a baby, former Wall Street Journal reporter Druckerman noticed that French women just weren’t that uptight about child-rearing issues. Meanwhile, French children turned out to be well behaved but hardly repressed. Druckerman investigated and discovered that French parents are in some ways deeply strict and in some ways surprisingly permissive—no beat-the-odds enrichment classes at age three. Never mind French women staying chic or not getting fat, this is a really important work.
Fitzpatrick, Robert & Jon Land. Betrayal. Forge: Tor. Jan. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780765335500. pap. $14.99. TRUE CRIME
Finally arrested in June 2011, fugitive South Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, among the scariest gang lords in the nation, was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for 16 years. Veteran FBI agent Fitzpatrick swore to get him but was stymied by corruption within his own agency. Here Fitzpatrick joins with best-selling thriller writer Land to tell a story that sounds pretty distressing.
Fox, Julia. Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castille. Ballantine. Feb. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780345516046. $28; eISBN 9780345532312. Download: Random Audio. HISTORY
Katherine of Aragon was rudely shoved aside by husband Henry VIII in favor of Anne Boleyn, while sister Juana, wife of Philip of Burgundy and mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, remained so besotted with her husband even after his early death (she refused to bury his coffin) that she was eventually confined by her family. Fox won great attention with Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford; for all Anglophiles.
Khalil, Ashraf. Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781250006691. $25.99. CURRENT EVENTS
Egyptian American journalist Khalil has lived in Cairo since 1997, so he can provide the necessary historical context of Egypt’s recent revolution even as he documents the efforts of the protestors, which he saw firsthand. He also comments on the forthcoming Egyptian elections, giving us a comprehensive past-present-future package that would seem well worth consulting as we try to understand Egypt today.
Krauss, Lawrence M. A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing. Free Pr: S. & S. Jan. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781451624458. $24.99. SCIENCE
Famed cosmologist Krauss takes us back to the creation to show that the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is not religious but scientific. In the process, he explains that new scientific discoveries reveal that something not only can but must come from nothing, so it’s no surprise that Richard Dawkins calls this perhaps the most important scientific study with implications for atheism since Darwin’s work. Bound to touch off a few fireworks.
Laqueur, Walter. After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9781250000088. $26.99. HISTORY
Director of London’s Institute of Contemporary History, Laqueur foreshadowed Europe’s current difficulties six years ago with the publication of The Last Days of Europe. Here he shows what’s roiling the waters now, from dependence on imported oil and gas to the absence of a common foreign policy. Definitely consider for high-end readers.
Leleux, Robert. The Living End: A Family Memoir of Forgetting and Forgiving. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780312621247. $19.99. MEMOIR
Leleux’s gutsy, blackly funny The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy starred his over-the-top mom. This new memoir focuses on Leleux’s grandmother, JoAnn, estranged from her daughter and slowly caving in to Alzheimer’s. A likely candidate wherever memoirs are popular.
Masters, Alexander. The Genius in My Basement: A Sumography of the Genius Simon Norton, Who Disappeared Mysteriously at the End of the Last Century.
Delacorte. Feb. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780385341080. $25; eISBN 9780345532213. BIOGRAPHY
When still in his early twenties, math prodigy Simon Norton published the hugely significant The Atlas of Finite Groups. He’s well known to the author, not because Masters studied math and physics but because Norton is Masters’s landlord, living in the basement of his building. How Norton got there after his early triumphs is a story Masters can tell; he wrote Stuart: A Life Backwards, a Guardian First Book award winner about a homeless man.
Powell, Margaret. Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey.” Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 192p. ISBN 9781250005441. $22.99. MEMOIR/HISTORY
Born in 1907, Powell began working at age 13, soon becoming a kitchen maid and eventually cook in a grand old home. Her 1968 memoir, now being reissued (Powell died in 1984), brought her fame and led to the Masterpiece classic Upstairs, Downstairs. Great fun but also the personal details of history that are often hidden. With a reading group guide
Silver, Charlotte. Charlotte au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Feb. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781594488153. $25.95. MEMOIR
Recalling Upstairs at the Pudding, a chandeliered restaurant in Harvard Square owned and run by her mother, Silver discusses the offbeat staff, her growing resentment that so much of her mother’s time went to the restaurant, and her understanding, finally, of how much her mother had sacrificed to keep business and family intact. Sounds charming and refreshingly venom free, and who doesn’t like to read about food?
Treuer, David. Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through Reservation Life. Atlantic Monthly. Feb. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780802119711. $26. CURRENT EVENTS
Noted for his fiction about Native American life (e.g., The Hiawatha) and himself a member of the Ojibwe, Pushcart Prize winner Treuer here details life on the reservation, explaining sovereignty, treaty rights, and natural-resource conservation while also assessing charged issues from casinos to preservation of Native American culture. An important resource well worth investigating.
Unger, David C. The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of National Security at All Costs. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Feb. 2012. 352p.
ISBN 9781594203244. $27.95. CURRENT EVENTS
As reported last year in the Washington Post, national security has become so unwieldy that even those in charge don’t know how or whether it works. Unger, long on the New York Times editorial board, argues that our enduring obsession with security issues, fostered by Presidents of both parties, has damaged the country. For your smart political readers.
Ausubel, Ramona. No One Is Here Except All of Us. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Feb. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9781594487941. $26.95. LITERARY FICTION
When danger threatens, would that we could simply change reality’s rules. That’s what one little Romanian village tries to do in 1939, as war thunders on the horizon. At the suggestion of an 11-year-old girl and a stranger who’s washed into their midst, the townsfolk decide that they can hold danger at bay by using their imagination; they completely remake their lives by throwing out everything they once knew, reassigning jobs and even spouses, and forgetting history altogether. It works for a while, but eventually our heroine grows up and must leave the village’s parameters to save her husband and children. A wonderfully fresh and inventive premise replicating exactly what literature can do, and award-winning debut author Ausubel reputedly writes with warmth and flare. I’m excited about this one.
Judt, Tony with Timothy Snyder. Thinking the Twentieth Century. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Feb. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9781594203237. $35. HISTORY
University Professor at New York University, founder of the Remarque Institute, and the hugely distinguished author of 15 books, including Pulitzer Prize finalist Postwar, the recently deceased Judt was a major figure in public discourse. This book represents conversations he had with friend Snyder, himself no slouch; he’s a Yale professor of history and the award-winning author of five books, including the recent, riveting Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. The two authors range over the entire 20th century, focusing on the ideas that shaped it rather than events. It was a time when public intellectuals held sway (you could say that Judt was one of a dying breed), and here we can see how influential they were. Essential reading for anyone who purports to be well educated.
