Library Journal

A question that has intrigued me since the dawn of the digital age is technology’s impact on writing, by which I mean not everyday discourse but the works of those who write (more or less) for a living—that is, the works I’ve been making (more or less) of a living reviewing for the past 26 years. Does the ease of composing on a keyboard make for sleek, deft reads or long, baggy ones? Does the Internet’s casual ethos encourage less carefully crafted language or argument? Certainly, technology can help writers write more books, something Gabriel García Márquez said he would have done if he’d had a computer from the beginning.

These thoughts are prompted by a front-page story in the Sunday New York Times reporting something that most people in the book world already know: some authors are writing more, up to two or three books a year compared with the traditional once-a-year release, largely because of technology. The Internet has conditioned us to expect instant gratification; omnipresent online media keep authors to the fore, feeding the frenzy; ebooks let us get whatever we want to read whenever we want it.

So folks from Stuart Woods to David Balducci to Lisa Scottoline, who was interviewed for the Times piece, are giving fans more, more, more. Other authors might produce only one full-scale work a year while also writing a short story or novella that sells for a dollar online (no profit there) yet has the advantage of keeping the creator in the public eye and priming readers for the next big book. Often, those works are related to the forthcoming biggie and serve as excellent marketing tools.

As the Times piece points out, literary authors like Jeffrey Eugenides don’t feel obliged to churn out works in the same way. Theirs is a different audience, willing to wait. Theirs is a different kind of writing, too; implicit here is the idea that commercial fiction can be written faster than literary fiction, since mysteries, thrillers, and women’s weepers hone more closely to a formula.

Certainly, successful writers of commercial fiction are a skilled and disciplined bunch. (Scottoline says she writes 2000 words a day, seven days a week.) But writing is still writing, and pressing oneself to produce too much too fast can make for sloppy, uninteresting work. I’ll bet any one of us can cite a recent work from a favorite author that feels hurried along, with unexpectedly lackluster language and an unrefreshed, that’s-been-done-to-death plot. Meet that schedule!

Bad books aren’t always the result of rushed writing, less prolific authors can produce half-baked disappointments after years of trying, and more books from García Márquez would no doubt have been good for everyone. But for today’s energetic crew, wasn’t the once-a-year grind enough? Readers might be sated and publishers enriched, but for authors burnout is real. If the writing suffers (and the writing is everything), is squeezing out one more book really worth it?  I think not.

I suspect I’m up against a tidal wide and can’t fight the zeitgeist. All I can do is worry about the future of good writing. Just know, authors, that at least one reader wouldn’t mind if you stepped back and took a few deep, sweet breaths before giving us your next big book.

Bolaño, Roberto. Woes of the True Policeman. Farrar. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780374266745. $25. LITERARY FICTION
Herralde, Rómulo Gallegos, and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Bolaño isn’t just a literary phenomenon, brought to the attention of U.S. readers after his untimely death in 2003. He’s a popular phenomenon as well, his mammoth 2666 having sold over 70,000 copies in hardcover, 36,000 in a boxed set, and 40,000 in paperback. So there will be interest in this final, unfinished novel, which Bolaño began in the 1980s and worked on until his death. The novel stars Chilean professor Amalfitano, widowed and with a teenaged daughter, who is forced from Barcelona by scandal and lands in Santa Teresa, Mexico, a border town plagued by the murder of many women. Here he meets folks like Spanish Civil War veteran Sorcha and magician/writer Arcimboldi, whose works (like Bolaño’s) reveal life’s earthquake-like instability. Keen Bolaño readers will recognize key characters and plot points from 2666 and will be intrigued; expect lots of attention.

Wallace, David Foster. Both Flesh and Not: Essays. Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780316182379. $26.99. lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. ESSAYS
So the Pulitzer people didn’t think he deserved a prize. Wallace is still the great, original, uncompromised voice of the last few decades of American literature, at once brilliant and maddening. This collection of 15 essays never available in book format includes early work not easily accessed, along with classics like “Federer Both Flesh and Not.” After Infinite Jest, we’ll always think of Wallace as a key fiction writer, but his essays shine, and the collections Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again jointly count over 300,000 copies in print.

Easterbrook, Gregg. The Leading Indicators. Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781250011732. $24.99; eISBN 9781250011749. POP FICTION
It’s the usual have-it-all situation: Margo and Tom Helot boast a gorgeous home, super-achieving kids, and satisfied goals. What upends them is not violence or a secret from the past, as in most fiction with that set-up, but the economy.  Tom’s company goes bankrupt, and as he flails about, landing repeatedly at companies going under, the family collapses into a financially unsettled heap. A prolific journalist and contributing editor (at the Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Monthly, and the New Republic, no less), Easterbrook here writes a novel for the times.

Millet, Lydia. Magnificence. Norton. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780393081701. $25.95. LITERARY
Still mourning the death of her husband, Susan Findley is given a chance at reclamation when she inherits her grand-uncle’s rambly, enchanting Pasadena mansion. Symbolically, she immediately sets about to restore the mansion’s taxidermy collection to pristine perfection. Alas, a few less than pristine relations drop in to stay. More eerily incisive work from Pulitzer Prize finalist Millet.

Rain, David. The Heat of the Sun. Holt. Nov. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780805096705. $26; eISBN 9780805096712. HISTORICAL
Like Angela Davis-Gardner’s Butterfly’s Child, Australian-born, London-based author Rain imagines what happened to the child left behind when the heroine of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly kills herself after discovering Lt. Benjamin Pinkerton’s perfidy. Davis-Gardner’s Benji, passed off as an orphan, suffers intolerance; Rain’s Ben “Trouble” Pinkerton is a charismatic young man worshiped by his private-school classmates—especially narrator Woodley Sharpless, a crippled orphan—who eventually finds himself in the midst of world-defining events from the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression to the bombing of Nagasaki. So, a dramatic rather than meditative work, billed as genre-bending and an in-house favorite.

Thúy, Kim. Ru. Bloomsbury USA dist. by Macmillan. Nov. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9781608198986. pap. $14. LITERARY
Thúy was ten in 1978 when her family fled lotus-scented Saigon for Quebec, trading a large house for flea-infested mattresses. She picked vegetables and sewed clothes to put herself through school, married, and worked variously as a lawyer, translator, and restaurateur. Then she got the urge to write. The result Is not a memoir, however, but this fictionalized account of Thúy’s immigrant experiences—and it won Canada’s Governor General Award. Good for discussion, especially as we are still not settled about the Vietnam War and its consequences; the early buzz campaign should draw in readers.

Trasandes, Monica. Broken Like This. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9781250006837. $24.99; eISBN 978125001833. POP FICTION
The fiery and inspiring beloved of both Louis Reed and Angela Agnelli for 15 years, Kate Harrington now lies broken, comatose after a car accident in Ibiza. Her two paramours having flown in to be by her side, one might expect a story of seesawing tight and tender emotions, but it gets really dramatic when Kate’s dark-force stepfather arrives. Director of Spanish-Language Media for GLAAD, Uruguayan-born Transandes offers a first novel that’s getting some push.

Baldacci, David. The Forgotten. Grand Central. Nov. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780446573054. $27.99. lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Last year’s first John Puller thriller debuted in the top spot on the New York Times best sellers list and so far has sold an impressive 237,000 copies in ebooks alone. So fans will be waiting for this second in the series. Here, Puller doesn’t believe that his Aunt Betsy’s drowning death in her backyard pool was an accident—she sent a letter before she died saying that something was scaring her—and starts investigating. Basic thriller premise, Baldacci writing, buy multiples.

Connelly, Michael. The Black Box. Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780316069434. $27.99; lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
LAPD Det. Harry Bosch is back, smart enough to connect a current murder with the 1992 killing of a young female photographer during riots in Los Angeles. That killing, never solved by the Riot Crimes Task Force, now seems a whole lot more personal than anyone ever thought. Bosch must search for the “black box,” that one piece of information that will explain the link between the two deaths that’s just been proved by ballistics. Look for special promotions this year for Connelly, who’s releasing his 25th book in 20 years of publishing.

Haas, Derek. The Right Hand. Mulholland: Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780316198462. $25.99; Downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
In this latest from Haas, a Hollywood screenwriter (e.g., 3:10 to Yuma) and author of the Silver Bear thrillers, Austin Clay does down-and-dirty deep-secret jobs for the government that would be disavowed if ever he were caught. Here, he starts by hunting for a missing American operative held somewhere outside Moscow and soon teams with a woman who’s convinced that a mole sits somewhere in the top echelons of U.S. government. Let’s see where that goes. Meanwhile, note that Haas is editor of PopcornFiction.com, a site the publisher runs for him that presents short stories by top novelists and screenwriters.

Littell, Robert. Young Philby. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781250005168. $24.99; eISBN 9781250013651. CD: Macmillan Audio. THRILLER
The story of double agent Kim Philby is well known but little understood. What were his motivations and, finally, his ideals? Best-selling author and Gold Dagger winner Littell tries to answer those questions by reconstructing Philby’s early life, as told from the perspectives of 20 real-life characters. If truth is stranger than fiction, fictionalized truth can really shake you up. Look for excerpts at Scrib’d, Watpad, and Issuu.

Ochse, Weston. SEAL Team 666. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781250007353. $24.99; eISBN 9781250013460. THRILLER
Cadet Jack Walker doesn’t know what he’s in for when he’s plucked from SEAL training and sent on a secret mission with four full-fledged SEALs and their dog (a Belgian Malinois?). SEAL Team 666’s members soon discovery that the enemy is literally out of this world, as they battle demons and possessed humans, animated by an ancient cult, who are intent on taking over not just the United States but the world. Since Ochse’s Scarecrow Gods won the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel, you might take a chance on this paranormal thriller; his Pushcart Prize nomination is added confirmation of his writing skills.

Patterson, James & Michael Ledwidge. Merry Christmas, Alex Cross. Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780316210683. $19.99; lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Wow, a Christmas thriller (and another Christmas book from Patterson after last year’s The Christmas Wedding, which is being reissued in November). On a cozy Christmas Eve, Alex Cross has just wrapped up a little case—someone robbing the church’s poor box—when he gets word of a hostage situation that could tie his holidays in knots. The last Alex Cross novel has sold over a million copies (so far).

Manchester, William & Paul Reid. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill. Vol. 3: Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965. Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 976p. ISBN 9780316547703. $40. BIOGRAPHY
With the help of notable journalist Reid, Manchester here wraps up his magisterial biography of Winston Churchill, begun with 1983’s Visions of Glory, 1874–1932 and 1988’s Alone, 1932–1940. (After he became ill in late 2003, Manchester asked Reid to complete the work; he died in 2004.) It’s no surprise that this final volume has been over 20 years in the making, given the period it covers—starting with the war, which truly showed how Churchill could roar. Something like 440,000 copies of the first two volumes are currently in print (after all these years); expect big numbers (and demand) for this last, crucial piece.

Meacham, Jon. Jefferson: The Art of Power. Random. Nov. 2012. 752p. ISBN 9781400067664. $35; eISBN 9780679645368. CD/downloadable: Random House Audio. BIOGRAPHY
Executive editor of Random House, former editor of Newsweek, and author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning American Lion (on Andrew Jackson), Meacham has the wherewithal to write a big biography of our third President, especially with the subtitle The Art of Power. His aim is not critical/revisionist (see, for instance, Henry Wiencek’s forthcoming Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves) but large-scale thoughtful; he’s here to paint a full, birth-to-death portrait of Jefferson’s political and intellectual accomplishments. But if you think this is just a brainy ready, remember that American Lion has sold a quarter of a million copies in various formats and that Meacham’s other two books were New York Times best sellers as well.

Von Drehle, David. 1862: Abraham Lincoln and the Making of America. Holt. Nov. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9780805079708. $30; eISBN 9780805096088. HISTORY
If you remember 2003’s Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, a best seller and multi-award winner, you’ll know that Time editor at large Von Drehle is an indelible writer. So this look at what 1862 meant for America should be good reading. At that time, the Union was flagging, with the U.S. Treasury short on cash and the army nearly leaderless. Von Drehle highlights the strength of character that allowed Abraham Lincoln to turn it all around. Von Drehle’s April 2011 piece on the legacy of the Civil War (and our need to acknowledge that slavery was the signal cause) should suggest this book’s sensibility and direction.

Manchester, William & Paul Reid. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill. Vol. 3: Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965. Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 976p. ISBN 9780316547703. $40. BIOGRAPHY
With the help of notable journalist Reid, Manchester here wraps up his magisterial biography of Winston Churchill, begun with 1983’s Visions of Glory, 1874–1932 and 1988’s Alone, 1932–1940. (After he became ill in late 2003, Manchester asked Reid to complete the work; he died in 2004.) It’s no surprise that this final volume has been over 20 years in the making, given the period it covers—starting with the war, which truly showed how Churchill could roar. Something like 440,000 copies of the first two volumes are currently in print (after all these years); expect big numbers (and demand) for this last, crucial piece.

Meacham, Jon. Jefferson: The Art of Power. Random. Nov. 2012. 752p. ISBN 9781400067664. $35; eISBN 9780679645368. CD/downloadable: Random House Audio. BIOGRAPHY
Executive editor of Random House, former editor of Newsweek, and author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning American Lion (on Andrew Jackson), Meacham has the wherewithal to write a big biography of our third President, especially with the subtitle The Art of Power. His aim is not critical/revisionist (see, for instance, Henry Wiencek’s forthcoming Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves) but large-scale thoughtful; he’s here to paint a full, birth-to-death portrait of Jefferson’s political and intellectual accomplishments. But if you think this is just a brainy ready, remember that American Lion has sold a quarter of a million copies in various formats and that Meacham’s other two books were New York Times best sellers as well.

Von Drehle, David. 1862: Abraham Lincoln and the Making of America. Holt. Nov. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9780805079708. $30; eISBN 9780805096088. HISTORY
If you remember 2003’s Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, a best seller and multi-award winner, you’ll know that Time editor at large Von Drehle is an indelible writer. So this look at what 1862 meant for America should be good reading. At that time, the Union was flagging, with the U.S. Treasury short on cash and the army nearly leaderless. Von Drehle highlights the strength of character that allowed Abraham Lincoln to turn it all around. Von Drehle’s April 2011 piece on the legacy of the Civil War (and our need to acknowledge that slavery was the signal cause) should suggest this book’s sensibility and direction.

Binelli, Mark. Detroit City Is the Place To Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis. Holt. Nov. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780805092295. $28; eISBN 9781429974615. SOCIAL SCIENCE
For most Americans, Detroit epitomizes contemporary urban blight. Here, native son and Rolling Stone contributing editor Binelli shows that while Detroit may be down it’s not out. In fact, current developments—organic farming on empty lots, a realignment plan to shift residents from desolate neighborhoods to a vibrant new center—suggest how not just Detroit but all troubled cities can rise again. Expect good writing on a freighted topic.

Coddington, Grace. Grace. Random. Nov. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780812993356. $30; eISBN 9780679645214. CD/Downloadable: Random House Audio. MEMOIR
Stunning British model. Then creative director of British Vogue. Then head of Calvin Klein’s operations in New York. Then creative director of American Vogue. And true star of the 2009 documentary The September Issue, in which she famously upstaged Anna Wintour. Here’s a memoir about Coddington’s 40 years in fashion, beautifully designed by the author herself. Go, fashionistas!

Fellowes, Jessica & Matthew Sturgis. The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era for Family, Friends, Lovers and Staff. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781250027627. $29.99; eISBN 9781250027634. TELEVISION
Former deputy editor of Country Life and niece of lead Downton Abbey author Julian Fellowes, Fellowes has already written about the public television phenomenon in The World of Downton Abbey. Here she returns with critic/author Sturgis to give an official preview of Season 3, which launches on PBS in January 2013. Downtown Abbey fever does not appear to be abating (though not yet commissioned, Seasons 4 and 5 are in discussion), so this should be popular.

Fornatale, Peter & Bernard M. Corbett. 50 Licks: An Album’s Worth of Stories from the 50-Year History of the Rolling Stones. Bloomsbury USA, dist. by Macmillan. Nov. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9781608199211. pap. $17. MUSIC
Fifty years, 50 cool stories (or “Licks”), each named for a different Rolling Stones song, and often drawn from previously unavailable material. FM rock pioneer Fortanale, who died on April 26, joined with Corbett—the radio voice of Harvard University football and a lifelong Rolling Stones nut—to deliver another celebratory piece on the Band That Played On…and On.

Greene, Robert. Mastery. Viking. Nov. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670024964. $28.95; Downloadable: Penguin Audio. PSYCHOLOGY
Want to be the master of your universe? Greene shows you how by looking at the folks who have done it before you, from middling-student Charles Darwin to Temple Grandin, Henry Ford, and more. Since Greene’s books (e.g., The 48 Laws of Power) have sold more than a million copies, he must have something to say to folks out there. Be prepared.

Kelley, Kitty. Capturing Camelot: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the Kennedys. Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780312643423. $29.99; eISBN 9781250018830. PHOTOGRAPHY
Assigned by United Press International to cover John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign, Stanley Tretick became friendly enough with the candidate that he was given access to the White House once Kennedy was elected. He took many pictures readers will recognize immediately, often of JFK with his family. But of course never-before-seen shots are here, too. Best-selling author Kelley, a friend of Tretick, provides an upbeat text. Big publicity push.

Lil Wayne. Gone Till November. Grand Central. Nov. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781455515264. $25.99. MEMOIR
Rapper Lil Wayne has won four Grammies and sold millions of albums; he also did time in Rikers Island Penitentiary in 2010 for criminal possession of a weapon. Here are the journals he kept at the time, reportedly smart, detailed, and thoughtful. Since he has five million Twitter followers and 33.7 million Facebook fans (decidedly the biggest numbers I’ve keyed in for those venues), this book will have an audience.

Love, Courtney & Anthony Bozza. Untitled. Morrow. Nov. 2012. 464p. ISBN 9780062127952. $29.99. eISBN 9780062127990. MEMOIR
These rock memoirs just keep coming. Now the contrarian, controversial Love, loved and hated by the media (and the rest of us), widow of Kurt Cobain and a scalding musician in her own right, tells her own story. With a 250,000-copy first printing and author appearances in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle (but not Portland?).

Mount, Jane (illus.). & Thessaly La Force (ed). My Ideal Bookshelf. Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780316200905. $24.99. LITERATURE
If you’re like me, you judge people by what’s on their bookshelves. Here’s a book that lets you see what folks like Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Chabon, Jennifer Egan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Bittman, Patti Smith, and more have stashed on theirs. Each contributor weighs in on his or her favorites (“There’s no cumulative purpose—it’s just an excellent way to waste your life,” says Jonathan Lethem), and Mount provides whimsical drawings of side-by-side spines. Sweet.

Nelson, Willie & Kinky Friedman. The Troublemaker: A Story of Faith, Redemption, and Staying True to Your Deepest Beliefs. Morrow. Nov. 2012. 192p. ISBN 9780062193643. $22.99; eISBN 9780062193650. lrg. prnt. MEMOIR
Nelson is such a famed singer/songwriter/activist that next year Austin will place an eight-foot-tall bronze statue of him on Willie Nelson Boulevard. Meanwhile, here’s a memoir cum inspirational tale—and just right for the holidays. With his career stuttering and his personal life in shreds, Nelson wasn’t facing the greatest Christmas in 1971. Even his house burned down. So he decided to change everything, shrugging off pressures to sound Nashville and heading in a new creative direction that landed him where he is today. With a 125,000-copy first printing; note the large print, not surprisingly since this hardy 78-year-old has some mature fans.

Scottoline, Lisa & Francesca Serritella. Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim. St. Martin’s. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780312640088. $25.99; eISBN 9781250025074. CD: Macmillan Audio. RELATIONSHIPS
Scottoline is doing so well with her juicily acerbic essays collections, particularly those written with daughter Serritella, that one wonders whether they will start taking precedence over her best-selling fiction. Here, mother and daughter deal with separation anxiety of an adult sort, as Serritella moves to the big city, Scottoline looks about her suburban empty nest, and both think about shifting boundaries. Cozy.

Standiford, Les. Desperate Sons: The Secret Band of Radicals Who Led the Colonies to War. Harper: HarperCollins. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780061899553. $27.99; eISBN 9780062218124. HISTORY
This chronicle of the Sons of Liberty in the American Revolution is billed as a political thriller, so expect excitement. Author of the best-selling Bringing Adam Home, Standiford goes behind the glossy surface of iconic events like the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere’s midnight gallop to explain how dangerous (and admittedly illegal) they really were. His aim: to show that we are more bound together by the chances these “desperate Sons” took than divided by the petty politics of today. Well, we can hope.

Tapper, Jake. The Outpost: The Untold Story of American Valor. Little, Brown. Nov. 2012. 608p. ISBN 9780316185394. $28.99. CD/downloadable: Hachette Audio. CURRENT EVENTS
After Combat Outpost Keating was abandoned, the Pentagon determined that the camp, located in the desolate mountains of Afghanistan just 14 miles from the Pakistan border, should never have been established. But first came the October 3, 2009, attack by nearly 400 Taliban fighters, which the 53 U.S. troops held off at considerable cost. A senior White House correspondent for ABC News, Tapper did hard investigate work to understand how this fiasco came about. Lots of buzz about Tapper as a rising media star.

Along with coverage of big title for November 2012, starting now, this newsletter includes a roundup of key summer poetry. Why poetry, you might ask. It’s not collected as propulsively as, say, thrillers by libraries nationwide. Aside from my passionate interest in the subject and the desire to keep the flame alive, I recall a librarian at a focus group years back saying that what she really needed was astute coverage in areas that typically get brushed aside, citing poetry as an example. So I’m happy to do periodic roundups of current and forthcoming titles, dividing them up in ways I hope will be helpful; the roundup in this newsletter ended up working by sensibility (tricky indeed, but intriguing to compile). That leaves me with one question, of course. What other areas are crying out for overview?

“No matter how much za’atar you eat/ you still gotta work to be an/ Arab/writer/woman.” I love that line, actually a section title from Laila Halaby’s My Name Is on His Tongue, a poetry collection out this month from Syracuse University Press. You’ll soon see a starred review in Library Journal (and elsewhere, I bet), but one of my great frustrations as poetry editor is that I cannot manage to review all the good books that come my way. Hence my periodic poetry roundups, framing the possibilities for interested readers. This roundup covers summer titles (May 2012–September 2012); surely, pop fiction isn’t the only good beach reading around.

In the past, I’ve often divided roundups into core works and up-and-comers or standard categories like nature poetry, political poetry, and so forth. This time ’round, I was struck more by the idea of affect, or the experience of reading; some collections are obviously outer-directed, discussing a community or heritage; others more personal, unfolding layers of the self; still others almost philosophical meditations, delineating the life of the mind. Of course, as the Halaby quote shows, poetry doesn’t like to confine itself to such categories, and I expect that I will get emails protesting this or that category, this or that placement. But this is how I saw it—anything that gets more poetry delivered to you.

The World at Large
A Discover Great New Writers and PEN/Beyond Margins honoree for her fiction, Laila Halaby leaps genres with a debut poetry collection  (My Name Is on His Tongue. Syracuse Univ. May 2012. 136p. ISBN 9780815632948. pap. $17.95) that explores her dual reality as an Arab American woman, using vivid imagery (“My name rests in the mouth of a man on horseback”) to negotiate past and present, East and West. Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey’s Thrall (Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 96p. ISBN 9780547571607. $23) considers the forces that have shaped her life as a mixed-race person. Trethewey won the first Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a first-book award for African American poets that most recently went to Nicole Terez Dutton’s lyrical, edgy If One of Us Should Fall (Univ. of Pittsburgh. Aug. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9780822962236. pap. $15.95).

Barton Sutter uses mostly formal structure and quietly unadorned language to chronicle village life on the Canadian border and the culture of ancient Siberian reindeer herders in The Reindeer Camps (BOA. May 2012. 126p. ISBN 9781934414842. pap. $16). Michael McGriff, a 2007 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize winner, brings alive the forests, wildlife, and blue-collar struggles of the Pacific Northwest in Home Burial (Copper Canyon. May 2012. 120p. ISBN 9781556593840. pap. $15). And in her first collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon. May 2012. 124p. ISBN 9781556593833. pap. $16), Natalie Diaz writes with heartfelt grandeur (and occasional needling wit) about the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation in Needles, CA, where she was raised.

In Murder Ballad (Alice James. May 2012. 80p. ISBN 9781882295937. pap. $15.95), a Beatrice Hawley Award winner, Jane Springer visualizes the complexities of her Southern heritage in rich, ropy lines. In A Night in Brooklyn (Knopf. Jul. 2012. 96p. ISBN 9780307959324. $26), D. Nurske uses personal memory to construct an image of his distinctive hometown. Michael Dickman and twin brother Matthew go nationwide with 50 American Plays (Poems) (Copper Canyon. Jun. 2012. 110p. ISBN 9781556593932. pap. $16), which aims for summing-up witticism about each state.

Bringing in History
In The Crossed-Out Swastika (Copper Canyon. May 2012. 210p. ISBN 9781556593796. pap. $16), multi-award winner Cyrus Cassells uses figures both historical and fictionalized to commemorate a group of young people who suffered during World War II. Eugene Gloria takes on the interesting task of reenvisioning 16th-century Japanese warlord Hideyoshi in My Favorite Warlord (Penguin Poets. Jun. 2012. 80p. ISBN 9780143121404. pap. $18).

In Rough, and Savage (Coffee House, dist. by Consortium. Sept. 2012. 114p. ISBN 9781566893145. pap. $16), Sun Yung Shin expresses her own sense of isolation through epic-style writing and an exploration of Korean history (“My fact a vast blank/ a half-savage nomad, I admit, I/ admire my advance”). Cofounder with Juliana Spahr of the literary magazine Chain and now coeditor with Spahr of the ChainLinks Book series, multi-award winner Jena Osman draws on a slide lecture to offer a meditation on public statuary in Philadelphia, particularly those bearing arms (Public Figures. Wesleyan Univ. Sept. 2012. 96p. ISBN 9780819573117. $22.95).

Up Front and Personal
One of our most courageous poets (and a James Laughlin Award winner), Brenda Shaughnessy makes us feel the anguish of traumatic childbirth and fractured faith in Our Andromeda (Copper Canyon. Sept. 2012. 130p. ISBN 9781556594106. pap. $16), even imagining an alternate world as she writes “with heart/ fighting fire with fire/ flightless.” Craig Morgan Teicher, a Colorado Prize for Poetry winner (and Shaughnessy’s husband) offers clear-eyed, blazing verse as he tracks a path from son (who lost a mother young) to husband and father in To Keep Love Blurry (BOA. Sept. 2012. 110p. ISBN 9781934414934.pap. $16).

Ever capable of keen-eyed, keenly detailed chronicles of the everyday, Sharon Olds limns the end of her marriage in Stag’s Leap (Knopf. Sept. 2012. 112p. ISBN 9780307959904. $26.95). Lucia Perillo, whose Pulitzer Prize finalist, Inseminating the Elephant, treated her multiple sclerosis, examines her life more broadly in the viscerally dark and edgy On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths (Copper Canyon. May 2012. 120p. ISBN 9781556593970. $22).

Sandra Meek sends sharp-edged poems flying in Road Scatter (Persea. May 2012. 96p. ISBN 9780892554195. pap. $15.95) as she mourns her mother’s fall toward death yet remains acutely aware of the larger world. In Dorset Prize winner After Urgency (Tupelo. May 2012. 71p. ISBN 9781932195415. pap. $16.95), Rusty Morrison contemplates the death of both parents in still, deeply contemplative verse.

Jo Sarzotti’s debut collection, Mother Desert (Graywolf. May 2012. 72p. ISBN 9781555976156. pap. $15) captures an interior landscape by taking us through exterior ones, from the desert to the cold North (“Death was a kind of earth I walked on”). A multiple prize winner (e.g., National Poetry Series, Fence Modern Poets), Elizabeth Robinson also initiates a search for the self in Counterpart (Ahsahta. Sept 2012. ISBN NA. $NA.): “I, a hand, reached into the sea for a piece of the sea.”

Catherine Barnett, winner of a Whiting Writer’s Award, considers the unsteady light of love (family or passionate) in her second collection, The Game of Boxes (Graywolf. Aug. 2012. 88p. ISBN 9781555976200. pap. $15). Winner of the 2011 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry, Laura Cronk’s Having Been an Accomplice (Persea. Sept. 2012. 96p. ISBN 9780892554133. pap. $15) also considers love—especially as it is remade during times of war.

Francesca Abbate’s Troy, Unincorporated (Phoenix Poets: Univ. of Chicago. May 2012. 96p. ISBN 9780226001203. pap. $18) retells Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde as a story of shattered teenage love in contemporary, slightly grungy middle America (“I was a boy./ I believed what Beauty said”). The inaugural Aleda Shirley Prize winner in 2008, Paula Bohince looks back at nature’s enduring and defining cycles in her new collection, The Children (Sarabande. May 2012. 69p. ISBN 9781936747283. pap. $14.95), finally concluding “In the end, we were landmark,/ compass.” Catherine Wing’s Gin & Bleach (Sarabande. Jul. 2012. 72p. ISBN 9781936747306. pap. $14.95) aims to burn us clear (as only corrosives like gin and bleach can do) to a better understanding of our place in the world.

Leslie Adrienne Miller’s Y (Graywolf. Sept. 2012. 96p. ISBN 9781555976224. pap. $15) dares to explore motherhood, capturing the growth of her son (like the math’s unknown variable, y, he’s something  to be discovered). In An Individual History (Norton. Jul. 2012. 80p. ISBN 9780393082494. $25.95), National Book Critics Circle finalist Michael Collier forthrightly tells the story of a life with reference to family and the pop cultural iconography of the late 20th century. Katrina Vandenberg’s unusual second collection, The Alphabet Not Unlike the World (Milkweed. Jul. 2012. 96p. ISBN 9781571314468. pap. $16) names its poems for letters of the Phoenician alphabet while considering how we struggle to forgive.

“Finding My Elegy”
Hayden Carruth’s gentle and eloquent good-bye, Last Poems (Copper Canyon. May 2012. 120p. ISBN 9781556593819. pap. $16)—acknowledging “Loneliness and the absurd atrocities of/ Foreign policy”—include his last works plus the final poems of each of his previous volumes. Three poets taking the long perspective include Ursula K. Le Guin, doyenne of imaginative fiction, who offers 30 selected and 90 new poems encompassing her life (Finding My Elegy: New and Selected Poems. Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780547858203. $22). In his usual sparkling verse (cancer falling into one’s mouth “like stardust”), Stanley Plumly looks for reconciliation in Orphan Hours (Norton. Jun. 2012. 112p. ISBN 9780393076646. $25.95), while at 93 Lawrence Ferlinghetti stays enviably feisty in Time of Useful Consciousness (New Directions. Sept. 2012. 88p. ISBN 9780811220316. $22.95).

Meditation
Pressing language to its limit—not to mention image, as he evokes the monochromatic painter Yves Klein—Brooklyn Rail arts editor John Yau draws on art criticism and social theory to write engagingly cutting poetry in Further Adventures in Monochrome (Copper Canyon. May 2012. 96p. ISBN 9781556593963. pap. $15). As he says in these lines from “Exhibits”: “Signing up for Free Membership works best in a failing economy./ In case of emergency, please vacuum the premises.” Joyelle McSweeney’s Percussion Grenade: Poems & Plays (Fence. May 2012. 96p. ISBN 9781934200520. pap. $15.95) lands with a boom, challenging our notion of beauty and iamge while creatively deconstructing the world.

Looking closely at nature, two-time PEN Center USA Award winner Donald Revell continues his heartfelt search for the otherworldly in Tantivy (Alice James. Sept. 2012. 80p. ISBN 9781882295975. pap. $15.95): “starvation,/ Like a pack of dogs with jeweled mouths,/ Pauses a moment, howls, and the young woman/ Recites a poem to herself.” In Pity the Beautiful (Graywolf. May 2012. 80p. ISBN 9781555976132. pap. $15), former National Endowment for the Arts chair Dana Gioia reflects on our limits (“Blessed is the road that keeps us homeless./ Blessed is the mountain that blocks our way”).

Polish poet Jacek Gutorow’s bilingual The Folding Star: And Other Poems (BOA. Jun. 2012. 92p. ISBN 9781934414880. pap. $16), translated by Piotr Florczyk, captures our angst in sleek, chiseled verse (“Joy thinks I’m on its side/ when I run through a snowy field/ but death keeps its eyes open”). In calm, liquid language, Herder Prize–winning Romanian poet Nichita Stanescu tips beautifully over the edge, representing a real world that seems mystical (Wheel with a Single Spoke: And Other Poems. Archipelago. Jun. 2012. 265p. ISBN 9781935744153. pap. $18).

Two intellectually bracing works from Ahsahta: Dan Beachy-Quick (Circle’s Apprentice) and Matthew Goulish (39 Microlectures) join forces in Work from Memory (Sept. 2012. ISBN NA. $NA.), which reflects on the writings of Marcel Proust. David Mutschlecner’s Enigma and Light (May 2012. 96p. ISBN 9781934103289. pap. $17.50) shows us how ideas are born by juxtaposing Dante and Heidegger, American abstract painter Agnes Martin and the Gee’s Bend quilters.

Finally, Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize winner Marjorie Welish’s out-there In the Futurity Lounge / Asylum for Indeterminacy (Coffee House, dist. by consortium. May 2012. 112p. ISBN 9781566893022. pap. $16) is an experimental double-header. The first part is a matrix for works being constructed, while the second offers translations free-ranging from prior ones. Obviously, it’s a work to be grasped in the reading—and rereading.

So Surreal
The word surreal comes up freuqently with regard to three poets publishing this summer. Dean Young, whose vivid writing explores the enduring issues of life, death, and self, returns with an overview in Bender: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon. Sept. 2012. 300p. ISBN 9781556594038. $26). An American poet of Ethiopian, Arabic, Greek, Armenian, and Moorish ancestry, Sotère Torregian has a lot to say about current politics and culture, which he does with punchy, over-the-edge lyricism in On the Planet Without Visa: Selected Poetry and Other Writings (Coffee House, dist. by Consortium. Aug. 2012. 300p. ISBN 9781566893015. pap. $18.) National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Michael O’Brien treads thruogh astonishing dreamscapes in Avenue (Flood. Jun. 2012. 64p. ISBN 9780983889311. pap. $12.95).

The Contemporary World Is Insane
Selected for the National Poetry Series by Lucie Brock-Broido, Julianne Buchsbaum’s The Apothecary’s Heir (Penguin Poets. Jun. 2012. 80p. ISBN 9780143121411. pap. $18) focuses on the particular—microchips, gas stations, bomb shelters—to examine our contemporary lack of connectedness. Using different voices for context, ever-cheeky Cathy Park Hong’s Engine Empire (Norton. May 2012. 96p. ISBN 9780393082845. $24.95) portrays our current dislocation by ranging from the Old West to a fictionalized boomtown recalling contemporary Shenzhen, China, to a shattered far future world.

Through his urgent narrator, Matthew Pennock steps right up to examine war and surveillance, economic boom and collapse in his first collection, Sudden Dog (Alice James. Apr. 2012. 80p. ISBN 9781882295920. pap. $15.95). Sharon Dolin’s Whirlwind (Univ. of Pittsburgh. Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9780822962212. pap. $15.95), which has just come to my attention, should expand on the Donald Hall Prize winner’s edgy examination of contemporary life.

Mekong Delta–born Hoa Nguyen’s As Long as Trees Last (Wave. Sept. 2012.  88p. ISBN 9781933517612. pap. $16.) gives an up-to-the-minute, street-smart take on being alive in the 21st century. (You have to love a poet who founded a literary magazine called Skanky Possum.) Finally, Lidija Dimkovska’s pH Neutral History (Copper Canyon. May 2012. 72p. ISBN 9781556593758. pap. $16), translated by Ljubica Arsovska and Peggy Reid,  shows us that life’s little snags and snares are the same anywhere, including in the ravaged Balkans: “I exorcise zombies professionally! Be free again!”

Collections
Collections can be tricky. Do you really need the collected works of a poet whose individual titles adorn your shelves? Just how interesting is the theme of a multi-author collection? Actually, The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of “Poetry” Magazine (Univ. of Chicago. Sept. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780226750705. $20), edited by Don Share and Christian Wiman, sounds pretty invaluable. Poetry lovers should lso be intrigued by Sunken Garden Poetry: 1992–2011 (Wesleyan. Jun. 2012. 280p. ISBN 9780819572905. $24.95; pap. ISBN 9780819572912. $16.95), edited  by Brad Davis, which represents works from the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival at Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT.

Three individual collections stand out. Recently deceased, National Book Award and Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize winner Lucille Clifton will be honored with The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 (BOA. Sept. 2012. 720p. ISBN 9781934414903. $35), essential for most poetry collections. Lew Welch, a noted Beat poet believed to have committed suicide in 1971, though his body was never found, is represented by a new and expanded edition of Ring of Bone: Collected Poems (City Lights. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780872865792. pap. $17.95).  Still with us, Michael Heller, a veteran poet who often combines examination of the avant-garde with Jewish and post-Holocaust themes, gets the full-blown treatment with This Constellation Is a Name: Collected Poems 1965–2010 (Nightboat. Jun. 2012. 600p. ISBN 9781937658021. $22.95).

Kimmel, James, Jr. The Trial of Fallen Angels. Amy Einhorn: Penguin Group (USA). Nov. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780399159695. $25.95. THRILLER
Brek Cuttler walks into a store with her daughter—and suddenly finds herself on a deserted train platform, with only arrivals indicated on the timetable board. What’s more, she’s drenched in blood. Brek soon learns that she has died and, as a crack lawyer, has been assigned to the special team that prosecutes and defends the souls of the dead on Judgment Day. Her very first case teaches her some awful secrets about her life, her death, and what she can expect for all eternity. Word has it that this debut by a lawyer specializing in the intersection of law and spirituality is unlike anything you have ever read. With foreign rights sold to eight countries and a reading group guide.

Kingsolver, Barbara. Flight Behavior. Harper: HarperCollins. Nov. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780062124265. $28.99; eISBN 9780062124289. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. LITERARY FICTION
Always beloved, Kingsolver shot into the heavens with her last novel, The Lacuna, a booming best seller that also won the Orange Prize. Said to be her most accessible work (but aren’t they all?), this new novel features Dellarobia Turnbow, who dreamed of going beyond Feathertown, TN, but married young and is now stuck raising kids on a hardscrabble farm. On the way to a rendezvous—her first break with life as it is—Dellarobia comes upon a forested glen filled with silent red fire. Fundamentalists, climate scientists, politicians, and the media mob—all come to weigh in fervently on the cause and meaning of this phenomenon, as Dellarobia and her neighbors fend off the invasion. Exciting; with a one-day laydown on November 11, a 500,000-copy first printing, a reading group guide, and an eight-city tour to Asheville (NC), Boston, Nashville, New York, Portland (OR), San Francisco, Tucson, and Washington, DC.

McEwan, Ian. Sweet Tooth. Nan A. Talese: Doubleday. Nov. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780385536820. $26.95; eISBN 9780385536837. LITERARY THRILLER
Since this is coming from the acute and masterly author of Atonement, don’t expect a standard thriller but a study of love, betrayal, and the compromising forces of history. In 1972, beautiful Serena Frome is finishing her maths degree at Cambridge when she is tapped by M15 for Operation Sweet Tooth, which aims to fund artists and writers whose political views M15 would like to nurture. For her first assignment, she’s supposed to charm upcoming writer Tom Healey but instead falls in love with him and prepares to tell him the truth when her cover is blown. The thrills here will come not simply from watching the M15 house of cards fall but from figuring out who caused the ruckus—and why.

Bailyn, Bernard. The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600–1675. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 656p. ISBN 9780394515700. $35. HISTORY
A historian with clout (his shelves groan with a Bancroft Prize, a National Book Award, and two Pulitzer Prizes), Bailyn shows that the settlement of British North America was not one of humanity’s more glorious moments. As folks poured in from Britain, the Continent, and Africa, bringing with them the culture and class structure of their particular regions, violence often resulted—not simply between indigenous peoples and settlers or settlers and those they enslaved but between various groups of settlers themselves. An eye-opener that might disturb a few readers; I’m jumping on this one.

Russo, Richard. Elsewhere: A Memoir. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780307959539. $25.95; eISBN 9780307959546. CD/Downloadable: Random House Audio. MEMOIR
One can certainly imagine the pleasures of reading a memoir by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls, who’s ever attentive to the details of time and place, character and struggle. Russo recounts his upbringing in 1950s Gloversville, NY, a tannery town (as its name suggests) much like the locales that make his fiction so memorable. But what should make this work truly arresting is his account of his mother, who wanted something better for herself and her son, even as the folks around them sank into poverty and despair with the closing of the tannery.