Prepub Alert, December 2010
Dec 15, 2010FICTION
Barnes, Julian. Pulse: Stories. Knopf. May 2011. 240p. ISBN 9780307595263. $25; eISBN 9780307595997.
Apparently, there’s a lot of good, sharp conversation in this third collection from the witty and incisive Barnes (he’s done 14 books in all). For one thing, the characters can be seen gathering over dinner to share insights—and maybe some salacious gossip. From Flaubert’s Parrot to Arthur & George, Barnes is a delicious read; fun for all.
Bauer, Belinda. Darkside. S. & S. May 2011. 256p. ISBN 9781451612752. pap. $15.
Following up a particularly successful debut, British author Bauer offers another tale of intense and sharply rendered psychological suspense. In a small English town, the murder of an elderly woman sets off a string of like killings. But policeman Jonas Holly, who’s been forced to settle here owing to his wife’s illness, is oddly steered off the case. Bauer is powerful; recommend to all thriller fans.
Block, Lawrence. A Drop of the Hard Stuff. Mulholland: Little, Brown. May 2011. 336p. ISBN 9780316127332. $25.99.
Mulholland, Little, Brown’s new thriller imprint, enters its second month with just one book—but it’s a big one. Leading Block protagonist Matthew Scudder is back (after 2005’s All the Flowers Are Dying), and he’s aiming to stay sober. But when a friend from the old neighborhood is murdered, Scudder has an investigation and serious temptation on his hands. Mulholland is all set to remind readers why this series has been so hot.
Brooks, Albert. 2030: The Real Story of What Happens To America. St. Martin’s. May 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780312583729. $25.99.
Yes, that’s actor/director Brooks, launching his fiction career with an unusually sober book. In the near future, cancer has been cured; old folks keep on living, and the younger generation resents being stuck with the bill. Then, on June 12, 2030, an earthquake all but obliterates Los Angeles, and the government is too stretched financially to respond. Tough questions; I’d look into this one.
Brooks, Geraldine. Caleb’s Crossing. Viking. May 2011. 320p. ISBN 9780670021048. $26.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
In 1665, Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Here, Pulitzer Prize winner Brooks imagines that Caleb was befriended by Bethia Mayfield, whose minister father wants to convert the neighboring Wampanoag and makes educating Caleb one of his goals. Bethia, herself desperate for book learning, ends up as an indentured servant in Cambridge, watching Caleb bridge two cultures. What Brooks does best; I’m anticipating. With a 15-city tour.
Brown, Dale. A Time for Patriots. Morrow. May 2011. 384p. ISBN 9780061989995. $26.99. lrg. prnt.
Recession has led to severe cuts in government services, forcing citizens to band together for protection. Only the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, acts for the common good. The Nevada branch—run by Brown stalwart Patrick McLanahan and his son Bradley—even intends to train a new generation to hunt terrorists. Currently a mission pilot in the Civil Air Patrol, Brown should deliver some exacting details. Well, it’s certainly au courant; with a 125,000-copy first printing.
Collins, Jackie. Goddess of Vengeance. St. Martin’s. May 2011. 512p. ISBN 9780312567460. $26.99.
Lucky Santangelo owns the wildly successful casino-hotel complex The Keys, and billionaire businessman Armand Jordan wants it—even if it’s not for sale. Collins has not faded away, and neither have her fans.
Dallas, Sandra. The Bride’s House. St. Martin’s. May 2011. 352p. ISBN 9780312600167. $24.99.
The Bride’s House is a gorgeous Victorian, under construction in 1880s Georgetown, CO, where 17-year-old hired girl Nealie Bent dreams of living one day. Her future is ultimately the house’s future, tracked through three generations of strong women (a phrase that pops up a lot with regard to contemporary women’s fiction). For Dallas’s many fans.
Donohue, Keith. Centuries of June. Crown. May 2011. 352p. ISBN 9780307450289. $24; eISBN 9780307450302. Download: Random Audio.
Donohue caught everyone’s attention with his fine-tuned debut, The Stolen Child, and did well with the subsequent Angels of Destruction. Here, his protagonist tries to explain why he is lying on the floor of a bathroom with a bullet in his head, but the suspects in his murder—eight women lying in a nearby bedroom—keep complicating matters. Seems darker, less whimsical, but as imaginative as Donohue’s preceding works; definitely watch.
Gee, Darien. Friendship Bread. Ballantine. May 2011. 400p. ISBN 9780345525345. $25; eISBN 9780345525369. CD: Random Audio.
This book has been on my radar since the publicist started raving about it a few weeks back. Julia Everts, still mourning the death of her son, finds a loaf of Friendship Bread and some extra starter on her porch. Baking the bread helps Julia reconnect with her bereaved family and might even set things straight with estranged sister Livvy, who’s responsible for the death. Bought in a two-book deal at a hotly contested auction, this novel is being pushed for fans of Kristin Hannah and of Kate Jacobs’s The Friday Night Knitting Club. Rights sold to eight countries; I’m betting this will do well.
Goldberg, Amanda & Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper. Beneath a Starlet Sky. St. Martin’s. May 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780312544423. $24.99.
CEO of Julian Tennant Inc., a fashion line that must make it now or fold, Lola Santisi has turned her back on the acting world but is at the Cannes Film Festival, where she might get a break; one of Tennant’s wedding dresses appears in the festival’s top film. Will this book do well? Is this a book about the celebrity film world by the authors of the best-selling Celebutantes? Come on.
Haigh, Jennifer. Faith. Harper: HarperCollins. May 2011. 304p. ISBN 9780060755805. $25.99. lrg. prnt.
Haigh’s The Condition was an especially clear-eyed and sensitive portrait of the alienation wrought by a serious medical issue. So I have high hopes for her handling of the controversy surrounding child abuse by Catholic priests. Estranged from her Irish American family, Sheila McGann nevertheless returns home to Boston when her brother Art, a popular priest, is caught up in the scandal. She wants to defend him, but her oblivious mother, accusatory brother, and Art himself, who remains silent, all conspire against her. A real thought-provoker for book clubs; with a 150,000-copy first printing and an eight-city tour.
Hamill, Pete. Tabloid City. Little, Brown. May 2011. 272p. ISBN 9780316020756. $25.99.
Strange bedfellows—from a tabloid editor in chief to an NYPD sergeant to an angry Iraq vet—are brought together by the murder of a socialite and her secretary in New York’s West Village. Classic territory for best-selling novelist and highly regarded journalist Hamill and an in-house favorite; don’t miss.
Headley, Maria Dahvana. Queen of Kings. Dutton. May 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780525952176. $25.95.
What does Cleopatra do when her beloved Antony kills himself? She strikes a bargain with the warrior goddess Sekhmet and becomes a vampire…I mean, a shapeshifting immortal with a thirst for blood. What follows is a series of fierce battles in the realm of the supernatural and possibly a meditation on the power of love. However this sounds, Headley has interesting credentials; she’s a playwright, founder of the Memoirists Collective, and author of the offbeat The Year of Yes.
Lobo Antunes, António. The Land at the End of the World. Norton. May 2011. 256p. ISBN 9780393077766. $24.95.
Hugely honored abroad—he’s won the France Culture, Juan Rulfo, and Jerusalem prizes, aside from prizes in his native Portugal—Lobo Antunes is making a name for himself here among the cognoscenti. This work, freshly transalted by the redoubtable Margaret Jull Costa, features a narrator just back from fighting in Angola who feels compelled to confess all he has seen and done to a nameless lover. Recommend to your smart readers.
Michaud, Jon. When Tito Loved Clara. Algonquin. Mar. 2011. 304p. ISBN 9781565129498. $25.99.
Here’s a March book I can’t let pass. written by the head librarian at The New Yorker. The heroine, Clara, has escaped her restrictive Dominican neighborhood in upper Manhattan and enjoys professional and personal satisfaction. Then her former boyfriend, Tito, comes calling. In demand at a recent AAP Book Buzz for librarians in New York; “It may not be our next Water for Elephants,” said the publicist, “but it is certainly going to be our next Mudbound. ” And Mudbound was good!
Miéville, China. Embassytown. Del Rey: Ballantine. May 2011. 208p. ISBN 9780345524492. $25; eISBN 9780345521859.
On a distant planet in the distant future, humans and aliens regard each other suspiciously but manage to coexist. Then a new group of humans drop in. Billed as an author of literary sf, Miéville has won the British Fantasy Award (twice), the Arthur C. Clarke Award (three times), and the Locus Award (four times). Now I want to read this, and I don’t even read sf. With a five-city tour.
Mukherjee, Bharati. Miss New India. Houghton Harcourt. May 2011. 336p. ISBN 9780618646531. $25.
Lower-middle-class Anjali has nothing to look forward to but an arranged marriage—until her expat teacher gets her a job in the fast-growing city of Bangalore. Now she can throw off the past—and her caste—but there’s always a price to pay for freedom. From the author of The Middleman and Other Stories , a National Book Critics Circle award winner; fiction set in India charms so many readers.
Nesbø, Jo. The Snowman. Knopf. May 2011. 400p. ISBN 9780307595867. $25.95. lrg. prnt.; eISBN 9780307599575. CD: Random Audio.
After his mother disappears, young Jonas finds a snowman on the lawn with her pink scarf about its neck. Other women vanish into Oslo’s frigid air, and police investigator Harry Hole finds himself driven to the brink by a particularly dexterous and menacing killer. A Glass Key award winner who has helped put Scandinavian crime fiction on top (five million copies of his books have been sold worldwide), Nesbø here switches to a new American publisher—the very one that gave us Stieg Larsson. Essential for thriller collections; with a six-city tour.
O’Brien, Edna. Saints and Sinners: Stories. Little, Brown. May 2011. 160p. ISBN 9780316122726. pap. $14.99.
A James Joyce Ulysses Medal and Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner, called one of Ireland’s ten great writers of all time by Oprah.com Book Club News (an interesting source), the eagle-eyed O’Brien returns with stories about family, class, the “Troubles,” and a librarian awaiting a great poet at a Dublin hotel. Listen for a major O’Brien program from NPR on May 25, 2011.
Parker, Robert B. Sixkill. Putnam. May 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780399157264. $26.95.
Alas for fans, this is Spenser’s final outing, as Parker died last January. Spenser is up against a wall when he’s asked to investigate accusations that movie star Jumbo Nelson raped and murdered a young woman; Nelson has a well-deserved bad-boy reputation. But things get clearer—and nastier—after Spenser hooks up with Nelson’s bodyguard, a former football player and Native American named Zebulon Sixkill. Readers will be lining up to say good-bye.
Prose, Francine. My New American Life. Harper: HarperCollins. May 2011. 320p. ISBN 9780061713767. $25.99.
Trust the admired Prose, former president of the PEN American Center, to take on a thorny topic—in the age of immigrants, what it means to be an American. Lula, a 26-year-old Albanian whose tourist visa is about to expire, lucks into a job tending an out-of-control high school senior in suburban New Jersey. All’s well—until some Albanian “brothers” show up, wanting to bask in the glow of her new American life. Can’t wait to read this one; with a 50,000-copy first printing (not more?).
Sandford, John. Buried Prey. Putnam. May 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780399157387. $27.95.
Back in 1985, two girls disappeared, and fledgling cop Lucas Davenport couldn’t get over it, even when his boss declared the case closed. Now a house has been torn down, the bodies of two girls wrapped in plastic have been found, and Davenport is back on the case. Best seller Sandford is relentless.
Shaara, Jeff. The Final Storm: A Novel of World War II in the Pacific. Ballantine. May 2011. 448p. ISBN 9780345497949. $28; eISBN 9780345526434. CD: Random Audio.
Shaara wrapped up the Civil War trilogy his father had launched with the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Killer Angels, then went on to his own series about World War II—all best sellers. Now that series is itself wrapping up with this fourth title, which centers on the flight of the Enola Gay. Buy wherever Shaara has fans; with a five-city tour.
Simon, Rachel. The Story of Beautiful Girl. Grand Central. May 2011. 352p. ISBN 9780446574464. $24.99. lrg prnt. CD: Hachette Audio
Simon triumphed with Riding the Bus with My Sister, her account of bonding with a mentally retarded sibling. Her new novel focuses on the developmentally impaired Lynnie and Homan, a deaf African American man, who meet and fall in love after being shut away in the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded (it’s mid-20th-century America). Excellent, popular writer; poignant story; I’m betting on this one.
Smith, Wilbur. Those in Peril. St. Martin’s. May 2011. 656p. ISBN 9780312567255. $27.99.
Now residing in London, Smith was born in what was then Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and writes two best-selling historical series set in Central Africa and one set in Ancient Egypt. Now he jumps to the 21st century as African Muslim pirates highjack the yacht of oil heir Hazel Bannock. She’s not on board, but her teenage daughter is, and Hazel hires wily security man Hector Cross to rescue her child. The publisher wants you to think Clive Cussler.
Spiegelman, Peter. Circus Time. Knopf. May 2011. 320p. ISBN 9780307263179. $24.95; eISBN 9780307596802.
Spiegelman’s new thriller caught my eye because all his works— Black Maps, which won the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel, plus Death’s Little Helpers and Red Cat —got the “highly recommended” stamp of approval from LJ. Here, a former CIA agent who’s gone bad plans the heist of the century; diamonds and money laundering are involved. But little things start going wrong. Thriller fans should investigate.
NONFICTION
Albers, Patricia. Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter; A Life. Knopf. May 2011. 544p. ISBN 9780375414374. $40; eISBN 9780307595980.
Mitchell was a steel heiress and debutante who won ice-skating competitions and went on to marry Barney Rosset Jr., owner/publisher of Grove Press. Oh, and she was one of the more remarkable figures in 20th-century American painting. Mitchell’s life is intriguing enough; as told by Albers, author of the excellent Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti, it should make for a nonstop read. Pair with Gail Levin’s Lee Krasner, out in March 2011 from Morrow.
Burns, Sarah. The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding. Knopf. May 2011. 272p. ISBN 9780307266149. $25; eISBN 9780307596598.
On April 20, 1989, a young woman was found in New York’s Central Park, raped and beaten so badly that she had lost most of her blood. Five black and Latino teenagers confessed to the crime and served full prison terms before serial rapist Matias Reyes admitted his guilt. Recent Yale grad Burns considers not just the case itself but the circumstances that allowed it, in particular, the violence and racial tensions endemic in the city at that time. Expect interest, especially in the New York area; Ken Burns will helm a documentary.
Carroll, James. Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited the Modern World. Houghton Harcourt. Mar. 2011. 448p. ISBN 9780547195612. $28. eISBN 9780547549057.
Another March book not to miss. Author of the admirable Constantine’s Sword, Carroll here explores not Jerusalem but the idea of Jerusalem—how, from the Crusades to Christopher Columbus’s Jerusalem-centric view to the founding of Israel, the city has inspired passionate idealism and hence conflict. With a seven-city tour; one of my nonfiction favorites.
Gladstone, Brooke (text) & Josh Neufeld (illus.). The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media. Norton. May 2011. 192p. ISBN 9780393077797. $23.
A history of the media, beginning with newspapers in Caesar’s Rome, as told by the cohost of NPR’s much-heard On the Media in graphic format via the illustrations of the popular and award-winning Neufeld. The book brings us right up to the present, with the media no longer outside our door but something we all participate in ourselves. Highlighted by the publicist; sounds absolutely fascinating.
Greene, Melissa Fay. No Biking in the House Without a Helmet. Farrar. May 2011. 320p. ISBN 9780374223069. $26.
Twice a National Book Award finalist, Greene has a life beyond standout reporting. When the first of her four children headed to college, she and her husband launched a policy to “bring in another” as each child left, ultimately adopting five children from orphanages in Ethiopia and Bulgaria. For Greene, this has meant 21 years of making cupcakes for school events. Billed as domestic comedy in the tradition of Erma Bombeck, but stronger writing.
Kempe, Frederick. Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth. Putnam. May 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780399157295. $28.95.
In Cold War Berlin, the United States and the Soviet Union stood nose to nose, with the possibility of nuclear war just a misstep away. Kempe, a former Wall Street Journal editor/writer and currently president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, uses new documents and conducted his own interviews to bring that time back to life.
Magner, Mike. Poisoned Legacy: British Petroleum’s Deadly Path of Destruction. St. Martin’s. May 2011. 448p. ISBN 9780312554941. $27.99.
Adding to the trail of books on the BP oil disaster, Magner chronicles BP’s history of shoddy work and environmental disregard, from its blithe refusal to clean up contaminants at a Kansas refinery it had acquired to an explosion killing 15 in Texas. Journalist Magner, who has been tracking BP for years, inked a six-figure deal for this book; expect a big push.
Morgenson, Gretchen & Joshua Rosner. Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon. Times: Holt. May 2011. 352p. ISBN 9780805091205. $28.
Morgenson, the Pulitzer Prize–winning business columnist of the New York Times, joins with Rosner to show how mortgage behemoth Fannie Mae resisted government oversight (never mind the subsidies) and how the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and more went right along with that game plan instead of protecting the public interest.
Murkoff, Heidi & Sharon Mazel. What To Expect: The Second Year. Workman. May 2011. 500p. ISBN 9780761152774. $NA.
No, not a revision of What To Expect: The Toddler Years but an all-new book to be followed by What To Expect: The Preschool Years. Once that has been released, Toddler will be retired. Essential.
Ryan, Rex. Play Like You Mean It. Doubleday. May 2011. 304p. ISBN 9780385534444. $26.95.
Head coach for the New York Jets, Ryan is both outspoken and respected, a nice combination that recommends his look at how playing football like you mean it ties in with qualities of leadership and motivation generally. The publisher’s one really big title this month.
Smith, Ian K., M.D. EAT: The Effortless Weight Loss Solution. St. Martin’s. May 2011. 224p. ISBN 9780312548438. $24.99. CD: Macmillan Audio.
Author of top-spot best sellers like The Fat Smash Diet, Smith goes after folks who can’t even start to diet with a stress-free regimen based on simple rules like “Whole Grains All the Time” and “Gorge at the Protein Bonanza.” I know what he means; maybe not surprising but sure to be popular.
White, Betty. If You Ask Me: (and of Course You Won’t). Putnam. May 2011. NAp. ISBN 9780399157530. $NA.
More Hollywood anecdotes, plus insights on issues like love, sex, television, and celebrity. White is hot, and not just in Cleveland; last May she became the oldest person ever to host Saturday Night Live after a huge Facebook campaign.
White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America. Norton. May 2011. 736p. ISBN 9780393061260. $35.
A MacArthur Fellowship and Parkman Prize winner, White reminds us that the railroads didn’t just rearrange our sense of space and time but also introduced the idea of large-scale corporate culture—and the attendant greed. American history fans who don’t mind some myth busting.
Wood, Gordon. The Idea of America. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). May 2011. NAp. ISBN 9781594202902. $29.95.
Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize winner Wood has been writing persuasively about the American Revolution for a half century. This collection of essays, which range over his entire career, reveal how the Revolution has defined us as a nation.
My Picks
Adrian, Chris. The Great Night. Farrar. May 2011. 304p. ISBN 9780374166410. $26.
I could be highlighting this latest from Adrian because The New Yorker recently included him among America’s top young writers in its “20 Under 40” feature. But in fact I’m doing it mostly because I’m entranced by the plot: a fresh and wild retelling of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s midsummer eve 2008 in San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park, where Titania, Oberon, and the other faerie folk now reside in exile. Her adopted son dead, a grief-stricken Titania releases terrible forces upon the world—not good news for three mortals trapped in the park and inside the memories of a loved one whom each had lost or forsaken. Meanwhile, a homeless man wants to depose the city’s evil mayor by staging a musical version of Soylent Green. Decidedly darker and crazier than Shakespeare’s play, this should appeal to literary types of all stripes.
Lovell, Mary S. The Churchills: In Love and War. Norton. May 2011. 640p. ISBN 9780393062304. $35.
Having done so splendidly with Beryl Markham (Straight on Till Morning) and the notorious Mitfords (The Sisters), Lovell should be spot-on when chronicling the family of Winston Churchill. She starts with the first Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722), whose triumphs as a soldier were celebrated with the building of Blenheim. Through the centuries, Blenheim’s upkeep nearly ruined the family, with the wild ways of some of Winston’s ancestors adding to the burden. The huge dowries from Winston’s mother, Jenny, and from Consuelo Vanderbilt, wife of Winston’s cousin, rescued the situation. Great context for all those books on (and by) Churchill and, I’m thinking, an absorbing good read even for folks who don’t typically indulge in history.
