Prepub Alert, September 15, 2011
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| In this Article |
| My Picks |
TOP COMMERCIAL FICTION
Bazell, Josh. Wild Thing. Reagan Arthur Bks: Little, Brown. Feb. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780316032193. $25.99; eISBN 9780316125826. CD/downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Crombie, Deborah. No Mark Upon Her. Morrow. Feb. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780061990618. $24.99; eISBN 9780062100696.
lrg. prnt. MYSTERY
Delaney, Frank. The Last Storyteller. Random. Feb. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9781400067855. $26; eISBN 9780679644224. HISTORICAL FICTION
Dorsey, Tim. Pineapple Grenade. Morrow. Feb. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780061876905. $24.99; eISBN 9780062100733. lrg. prnt. THRILLER
Garrison, Paul. Robert Ludlum’s™ The Janson Command. Grand Central. Feb. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780446564502. $27.99; eISBN 9780446576758. lrg. prnt. CD/downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Hand, Elizabeth. Available Dark. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Feb. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780312585945. $23.99. THRILLER
Houston, Pam. Contents May Have Shifted. Norton. Feb. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780393082654. $25.95. POP FICTION
Leonard, Elmore. Raylan. Morrow. Feb. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062119469. $26.99; eISBN 9780062119483. CD: HarperAudio. THRILLER
Patterson, James & Maxine Paetro. Private: #1 Suspect. Little, Brown. Feb. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780316097406. $27.99; eISBN 9780316097413. lrg. prnt. CD/downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Pearl, Matthew. The Technologists. Random. Feb. 2012. 496p. ISBN 9781400066575. $26; eISBN 9780679605072. CD/downloadable: Random Audio. THRILLER
Robinson, Peter. Before the Poison. Morrow. Feb. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780062004796. $25.99; eISBN 9780062101297. lrg. prnt. THRILLER
FICTION
Baggott, Julianna. Pure. Grand Central. Feb. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9781455503063. $25.99; eISBN 9781455503049. Downloadable: Hachette Audio. DYSTOPIAN FICTION
The author of fiction, poetry, and children’s books, Baggott here offers the first in a postapocalyptic trilogy being compared to Justin Cronin’s The Passage and Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games. After the Detonations, the burned and scarred survivors must turn themselves over to the authorities at age 16, to become either soldiers or live targets. Now 16 and (understandably) on the run, Pressia encounters Partridge, one of the Pures—so-called because they were inside the Dome during the Detonations and hence are undamaged. Partridge has just left the Dome’s safety, having learned that his mother might be outside, still alive. This book is really building (film rights went to theTwilight producers); don’t miss.
Duffy, Erin. Bond Girl. Morrow. Feb. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780062065896. $24.99; eISBN 9780062065919. POP FICTION
Alex Garrett wants to make it big in bond sales at Wall Street’s estimable Cromwell Pierce, but for now she’s learning the basics from a forbidding boss while running low-level errands and shrugging off the nickname Girlie. Then she becomes an associate, and all’s reasonably well until the 2008 recession hits. This debut novel is reportedly sparkly and hilarious, as is the author, who has worked on Wall Street herself. Lots of in-house enthusiasm and a 75,000-copy first printing to boot.
Funder, Anna. All That I Am. Harper: HarperCollins. Feb. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780062077561. $25.99; eISBN 9780062077585. HISTORICAL FICTION
While visiting her cousin Dora in Munich, teenaged Ruth falls for charismatic journalist Hans Wesemann, and the three try to get World War I hero Ernst Toller released from prison. Then Hitler comes to power, Ernst is forced out of the country, and the four friends end up in London, trying to persuade the British that the danger Hitler poses is very, very real. This book isn’t getting the biggest first printing—only 30,000 copies—but the buzz is starting to build and rights have been sold to over a dozen countries. Also, Funder’s first book, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, won Britain’s Samuel Johnson Prize.
Fury, Dalton. Black Site: A Delta Force Novel. St. Martin’s. Jan. 2012. 340p. ISBN 9780312668372. $25.99. CD: Macmillan Audio. THRILLER
A former Delta Force operator, Kolt Raynor made a bad decision that got his teammates killed or captured. Now he’s set to redeem himself by finding the captives, held somewhere in Pakistan’s badlands. Instead, he stumbles upon a nasty al-Qaeda plot. Former Delta Force troop commander Fury, the senior ranking military officer at the 2001 Battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan, wrote the best-selling Kill bin Laden, about his assignment to do just that, so expect authentic detail.
Hore, Rachel. A Place of Secrets. Holt. Feb. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780805094497. pap. $15. LITERARY/MYSTERY
The recently widowed Jude hopes to overcome her grief by accepting an assignment outside of London to assess the value of a collection of scientific instruments belonging to 18th-century astronomer Anthony Wickham. She soon learns that Wickham’s life has spooky links to her own, which might explain a recurring nightmare she had as a child—a nightmare now being visited upon her niece. Having sold over 100,000 copies in the UK, this book looks good for those who enjoy literary mystery with historic threads.
Ivey, Eowyn. The Snow Child. Reagan Arthur Bks: Little, Brown. Feb. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780316175678. $24.99; eISBN 9780316192958. LITERARY
I was intrigued by this book after learning that galleys would be available at BEA and ALA—impressive for a first novel that’s not a slash-and-dash thriller. Then I chatted with the publicist, who reported that Ivey’s work is why we all in our various ways go into this book business. In 1920s Alaska, newcomers Jack and Mabel struggle against despair, finally building a snow child to distract themselves. The next morning, their creation is gone, but they spot a blonde-haired girl running in the forest and soon come to regard her as the daughter they never had. A fairy tale with an edge.
Livesey, Margot. The Flight of Gemma Hardy. Harper: HarperCollins. Feb. 2012. 464p. ISBN 9780062064226. $25.99; eISBN 9780062064240. lrg. prnt. LITERARY
Attention, Jane Eyre fans. Here is a modern retelling with enough echoes to please you and enough variations to keep you guessing. In the early 1960s, the orphaned Gemma must leave Iceland to live with her uncle, whose death puts her at the mercy of her nasty aunt. After boarding school, she becomes tutor to a troubled child whose alluring guardian has a dark and dirty secret. Livesey’s The House on Fortune Street got multiple best-book nods; get her new one for book clubs.
Mallon, Thomas. Watergate. Pantheon. Feb. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780307378729. $27.95; eISBN 9780307907080. HISTORICAL
Author of such celebrated novels as Dewey Defeats Truman, Mallon would seem to have the right mix of historical understanding and fresh whimsy that a crazily earthshaking event like Watergate requires. As he unfolds the story from the perspectives of seven characters, Mallon takes on some of the abiding questions of this scandal (e.g., who erased those crucial moments on the tape?). This will be popular.
Mason, Richard. History of a Pleasure-Seeker. Knopf. Feb. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780307599476. $25.95; eISBN 9780307957528. LITERARY
Take one head-turningly handsome young man, put him in a leading bourgeois household in Amsterdam as a tutor during Europe’s Belle Epoque, and what do you get? This new novel from the author of the award-winning The Drowning Peopleand 2009’s original and ambitiousNatural Elements . This story of dashing Piet Barol’s affair with the older woman who heads the household in which he works is at once windswept historical romance and focused social commentary. Good for a wide range of readers, and there’s a reading group guide.
Neuman, Andrés. Traveler of the Century. Farrar. Feb. 2012. 528p. ISBN 9780374119393. $30. LITERARY
Having helped launch Roberto Bolaño in America, the publisher now turns to promising young Argentine author Neuman, chosen as one of Granta’s Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists. An Alfaguara prize winner, this novel focuses on mysterious traveler Hans, who engages in philosophical debate with an organ-grinder in a small town on the Saxon-Prussian border, then launches an affair with spirited nonconformist Sophie. Clearly a novel of ideas; I can’t wait to see what the writing is like.
Odell, Jonathan. The Healing. Nan A. Talese: Doubleday. Feb. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780385534673. $26. Downloadable: Random Audio. LITERARY
Devastated by the loss of her child, plantation mistress Amanda Satterfield does the unthinkable, taking a newborn slave child (whom she names Granada) and raising her as her own. Meanwhile, illness is overwhelming the plantation’s slaves, so Master Satterfield buys Polly Shine, renowned as a healer. Polly see that Granada, too, has the healer’s gift, and her presence at the plantation brings roiling trouble. Odell, author of The View from Delphi, set in pre–Civil Rights Mississippi, researched the WPA’s first-person slave narratives to get the details right. Nice noises about this book.
Robotham, Michael. Bleed for Me. Mulholland: Little, Brown. Feb. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780316126380. $25.99; eISBN 9780316193078. Downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Trouble for psychologist Joe O’Loughlin, a Robotham standby: 14-year-old Sienna Hegarty arrives at his doorstep covered with the blood of her father, a retired cop found murdered back at home. Sienna has no memory of what happened—and not a lot of grief regarding her father’s death. Is she a traumatized bystander or a killer? Also coming from Mulholland in February: the paperback reprint of Shatter, which Stephen King picked as a top ten thriller of 2009.
Romano-Lax, Andromeda. The Detour. Soho. Feb. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781616950491. $25. LITERARY
It’s 1938, and already the Sonderprojekte is at work, bringing the great art of Europe to Germany for the Führer. Young Ernst Vogler is sent to Rome to collect a valuable statue, The Discus Thrower . He expects to head straight for the border, but Italian escorts Cosimo and Enzo take him on a wild ride that sets quirky and lively humanity against the grinding, impersonal forces of war, history, and power. A good look at the manuscript suggests that this is nicely paced, brisk with dialog, and lyric at the right moment. Great for book clubs.
Ruff, Matt. The Mirage. Harper: HarperCollins. Feb. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780061976223. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097934. THRILLER
On 11/9/01, Christian fundamentalists hijack four jetliners, crashing two into the Tigris & Euphrates World Trade Towers in Baghdad and another into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh. Years later, a suicide bomber interrogated by Arab Homeland Security agent Mustafa al Baghdadi reveals the dirty truth: the Arab states’ supremacy is just a mirage, and the real superpower is the United States. Okay, the author did well with Bad Monkeys , but this new thriller could go either way, stimulating some readers while outraging others. Your choice; with a 40,000-copy first printing.
St. Aubyn, Edward. At Last. Farrar. Feb. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780374298890. $25. LITERARY
In this wrap-up to a trilogy on the Melrose family (the second novel,Mother’s Milk , was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize), Patrick Melrose’s do-gooding but negligent heiress mom has finally died, and Patrick is waiting for the sense of relief to dawn. Good stuff for thoughtful readers and with Ellen Ullman’s By Blood the publisher’s lead fiction for the month.
Scott, Kim. That Deadman Dance. Bloomsbury USA, dist. by Macmillan. Feb. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9781608197057. $25. HISTORICAL
When Europeans arrive in Australia, Bobby Wabalanginy cheerfully hunts and farms with them and eventually enters a wealthy white household. But the colony isn’t thriving, odd accidents are plaguing both whites and Aborigines, and soon Bobby will have to take sides. The son of a white mother and Aboriginal father, Scott should invest this story with great understanding, and the book won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the South East Asia and Pacific Region. Watch closely.
Ullman, Ellen. By Blood. Farrar. Feb. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780374117559. $27. LITERARY
In 1970s San Francisco, an ousted professor takes an office downtown, hears a patient conversing with her therapist in the room next door, and is soon wrapped up in the patient’s story. The woman has tracked her roots back to a Catholic charity that trafficked in freshly baptized orphans after World War II, and the professor quickly (if anonymously) helps carry the quest from there. An intriguing premise, and lots of in-house enthusiasm.
FOUR TOP MEMOIRS
Alford, Mimi. Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath. Random. Feb. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9781400069101. $25;
eISBN 9780679603443. CD/ downloadable: Random Audio. MEMOIR
Bartels, Peggielene & Eleanor Herman. King Peggy: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village. Doubleday. Feb. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780385534321. $25.95. Downloadable: Random Audio. MEMOIR
Walsh, Mikey. Gypsy Boy: My Life in the Secret World of the Romany Gypsies. Thomas Dunne: St. Martin’s. Feb. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780312622084. $24.99. MEMOIR
Wentworth, Ali. Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales. Harper: HarperCollins. Feb. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780061998577. $25.99; eISBN 9780062098092. MEMOIR
FIVE ESSENTIAL HISTORY TITLES
Crowley, Roger. City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Sea. Random. Feb. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9781400068203. $32; eISBN 9780679644262. HISTORY
Denton, Sally. The Plots Against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. Jan. 2012. 288p .
ISBN 9781608190898. $28. HISTORY
Holland, Tom. The Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire. Doubleday. Feb. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9780385531351. $28.95. HISTORY Kanigel, Robert.
On an Irish Island. Knopf. Feb. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780307269591. $26.95; eISBN 9780307957481. HISTORY
Lind, Michael. Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States. Broadside: HarperCollins. Feb. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780061834806. $26.99; eISBN 9780062097729. HISTORY/ECONOMICS
Platt, Stephen R. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War. Knopf. Feb. 2012. 496p.
ISBN 9780307271730. $30; eISBN 9780307957597. HISTORY
NONFICTION
Bonner, Raymond. Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong. Knopf. Feb. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780307700216. $25.95. LAW/CRIME
In early 1980s South Carolina, a white widow was found beaten to death, and young Edward Lee Elmore—African American, mentally retarded, and a sweet soul beloved by his family—was quickly convicted and sentenced to death. Bonner, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who also has a law degree—examines this miscarriage of justice and the appeals process, led by a young female lawyer who fought for two decades to get Elmore a fair trial. Another wake-up call about the inadequacies of our legal system.
Edsall, Thomas. The Age of Scarcity: How Austerity Will Remake American Politics. Doubleday. Feb. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780385535199. $23.95; eISBN 9780385535205. CURRENT EVENTS
How long do we continue unemployment benefits? How do we cope with local cuts in garbage collection, police protection, and, yes, library budgets? Political editor at the Huffington Post, Edsall doesn’t necessarily have answers. But he shows us how to frame the questions, stressing that we are currently facing a world without enough to go around. Drawn on a high-profile New Republic story; serious stuff.
Gordon, Michael R. & Gen. Bernard E. Trainor. The End Game: The Hidden History of America’s Struggle To Build Democracy in Iraq. Pantheon. Feb. 2012. 640p. ISBN 9780307377227. $30; eISBN 9780307906977. Downloadable: Random Audio. CURRENT EVENTS
Gordon, chief military correspondent for the New York Times, and Trainor, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general who served as military correspondent for the paper in the late 1980s, offer a comprehensive overview of our venture in Iraq. They cover not just military but political and diplomatic moves and interview not just important U.S. figures but Sunni and Shia leaders, Kurdish politicians, former insurgents, and more. Important.
Lewis, Ricki. The Forever Fix: Gene Therapy and the Boy Who Saved It. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780312681906. $25.99. MEDICINE
Geneticist and science journalist Lewis here explains how gene therapy works and why it’s “forever”—by effecting a cure at the genetic root of a problem, it obviates the need for further treatment or surgery. Lewis illustrates by relating the story of eight-year-old Corey Haas, nearly blind from a hereditary disorder, who in a historic procedure had viruses bearing healing genes injected into the DNA of his eyes. A few days later he could see again. Exciting for the medically up-to-date.
Press, Eyal. Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times. Farrar. Feb. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780374143428. $25. SOCIAL SCIENCE
From a Swiss police captain in 1938 who knowingly breaks the law banning Jews from entering his country to a contemporary whistleblower who loses her job after refusing to sell a product she knows is falsely advertised, this book profiles individuals who follow their conscience rather than personal interest. Maybe not as splashy as some other nonfiction titles, but I was drawn to this one.
Sacco, Joe. Journalism. Metropolitan: Holt. Feb. 2012. 176p. ISBN 9780805094862. $24. CURRENT EVENTS/GRAPHIC NOVELS
A standout in comics journalism (you’ll remember Eisner Award winners Footnotes in Gaza and Safe Area Gorazde), Sacco turns his hand to the short form in sobering accounts that range from the trial of Bosnian warlord Milan Kovacevic to Abu Ghraib. Previously unpublished pieces address Sacco’s time with troops in Iraq. Should be classic.
Smith, Jean Edward. Eisenhower in War and Peace. Random. Feb. 2012. 944p. ISBN 9781400066933. $40; eISBN 9780679644293. BIOGRAPHY
Leading biographer Smith, whose works include Pulitzer finalistGrant and FDR, a national best seller and winner of the Francis Parkman Prize, here revisits Dwight Eisenhower. She pegs him as one of the most successful Presidents of the 20th century, right after FDR. Solid.
Stanley, Timothy. The Crusader: The Life and Tumultuous Times of Pat Buchanan. Thomas Dunne: St. Martin’s. Feb. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780312581749. $27.99. BIOGRAPHY
A research fellow at Harvard University and Royal Holloway College, London, Englishman Stanley was a Labour Party candidate in 2005 and writes for venues like the Utopian, an out-there rag on culture and politics. That might lead one to expect him to skewer American Conservative Buchanan—but there will be copromotions with organizations like American Cause and Gun Owners of America. Intriguing.
Taylor, Craig. Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now—As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It. Ecco: HarperCollins. Feb. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780062005854. $29.99. TRAVEL
Not a travel guide, precisely, but something more fun: a themed account of stories reflecting London. The subjects range from the actress who is the voice of the London Underground to a rickshaw driver. Five years in the making and a big push.
Tyson, Neil deGrasse. Space Chronicles. Norton. Feb. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780393082104. $24.95. SCIENCE
Expect Tyson, astrophysicist extraordinaire and director of the Hayden Planetarium at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, to deliver a series of sharp, smart essays on the future of space travel—and particularly its importance for America’s economy, security, and spirits. More than just science lovers should read.
Yardley, Jim. Brave Dragons: A Chinese Basketball Team, an American Coach, and Two Cultures Passing in the Night. Knopf. Feb. 2012. 320p.
ISBN 9780307272218. $26.95; eISBN 9780307957702. SPORTS/CURRENT EVENTS
A former Beijing bureau chief for the New York Times , Yardley recounts how NBA coach Bob Weiss was hired to improve the fortunes of the Shanxi Brave Dragons, China’s worst team, but ran afoul when he tried to grant his players the freedom and individuality necessary to achieve the “advanced basketball culture” he was supposed to be teaching them. A book about both sports and cultural differences; with a six-city tour.
de Rosnay, Tatiana. The House I Loved. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780312593308. $25.99. CD: Macmillan Audio. HISTORICAL FICTION
As all Francophiles know, Paris was remade in the 1860s by order of Emperor Napoleon III, with Baron Haussmann initiating a plan that included the long, straight, sweeping boulevards that give the city its dramatic character (and got rid of many crooked little alleys where rebellious types could hide). Author of the beloved Sarah’s Key, de Rosnay takes us back to the Haussmann era, as Rose Bazelet fights to keep her family home from being demolished while confronting a secret she’s kept for 30 years. I’m a Paris nut, so of course I’ll read this, but the combination of de Rosnay’s popularity and the subject matter—our attachment to home, something felt keenly at this time of foreclosures—truly recommends this book. With a one-day laydown on February 14.
Boo, Katherine. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. Random. Feb. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781400067558. $28; eISBN 9780679643951. CD: Random Audio. SOCIAL SCIENCE
You’ll know Boo from her work at the Washington Post and now as staff writer for The New Yorker, which has brought her any number of honors, including the MacArthur “genius” award. Her writing is marked by a persuasive sense of humanity, never more than in this study of the hopeful and go-getting inhabitants of the slums surrounding the luxury hotels at the Mumbai airport. Teenaged Abdul aims to better his family with finds from the trash rich tourists have discarded, for instance, while Asha works to make her promising daughter the slum’s first female college graduate. Of course, abuse, envy, and political and religious tensions turn up as well. Comparisons to Slumdog Millionaire are inevitable, but this would also match up nicely with fiction from Aravind Adiga (e.g., The White Tiger). For all informed readers; with a seven-city tour.
