Library Journal

For Julianna Baggott, who has panic attacks in book stores, libraries are “like animal shelters. All the books are tended to; they have a home.” For Val McDermid, deadpanning, the librarian’s habit of fostering reading is positively dangerous: “children walk in innocent and leave as crackheads.” Alex George wants to say “thanks as a writer but especially as a reader.” And Robert Leleux, told by his partner that the women in his family are “ladies but also badasses,” says that librarians fit the pattern: “I had the wrong idea that you were just tweedy, but you’re badasses, too.”

Badasses or not, the 150 or so librarians attending the Association of American Publishers’ Third Annual Midwinter Breakfast at ALA Midwinter in Dallas knew they were loved. And they reciprocated in kind; hardly a seat was empty, hardly a soul left even as the breakfast ran over (well past the opening of the exhibit doors), and everyone hung around for the book signings. I had the pleasure of introducing the six authors featured. Here’s a rundown.

Coolest mom…with a movie coming soon. In Julianna Baggott’s Pure (Grand Central. Feb. 2012), the Detonations have left a ruined landscape and survivors fused with whatever was at hand. The Pures, though, were mysteriously safe from the Detonations inside the Dome. Doll-fisted teenager Pressia and her bird-backed friend Bradwell join forces with one Pure, Partridge, who has escaped the Dome in search of his mother. For Baggott, the book became a bridge to her 16-year-old daughter, who hadn’t liked her award-winning mom’s work until reading an early version of Pure and declaring it the best thing she had written. “The teen world is dystopian,” mused Baggott. The book is the first in a trilogy, with rights to all three books purchased by Fox 2000 Pictures. How cool is that?

He’s a good American. Alex George’s The Good American (Amy Einhorn Books: Putnam. Feb. 2012) tells the story of this country through the story of an immigrant German couple and their descendents, with reflections on American music forming a nice background beat. An immigrant himself (he came here from England in 2003), George is a natural for this job. “You hear ‘Write what you know,’ which is a fine theory if you know something worth writing about,” he observed. “Packing up my life and moving halfway around the world is something worth writing about.” Fear of the unknown, hope for a better life, wanting to adapt—they’re all part of the larger immigrant story that George makes his own in this debut work.

Learning from grandma. Okay, Robert Leleux’s grandmother JoAnn did advise him to get a little meaner every day, one lesson the outgoing author seems not to have absorbed. But in The Living End: A Family Memoir of Forgetting and Forgiving (St. Martin’s, Jan. 2012), an account of Leleux’s coping with scaldingly witty, tough-cookie JoAnn’s descent into Alzheimer’s, it’s clear that he inherited his own nonstop wit from her. Perceptive as well as funny and poignant, Leleux’s book explains that Alzheimer’s can be a kind of gift; certainly, it allowed JoAnn to forget enough to reconcile with the daughter she hadn’t seen for decades. “Sometimes our memoires deceive us and keep us from being who we are,” said Leleux. But JoAnn herself remains memorable.

Crime pays. “I hold you all responsible for my being here today,” barked Val McDermid in her fabulous Scots accent. “I would be asleep now, but, no, you had to go make me successful.” McDermid is successful—she’s a Cartier Diamond Dagger Award winner whose books have sold ten million copies worldwide. But crime started paying for her long before she wrote a single word. Growing up in a household where books were a luxury, McDermid stole her mother’s library card to get into the adult library. Years later, one of the librarians was surprised to find that McDermid’s mum, supposedly an invalid for whom the borrowed books were destined, was still alive. Reading helped McDermid hone her skills and produce a pile of chilly thrillers, like just-out The Retribution (Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 2012), which could be the end of everything for series regulars Tony Hill and Det. Carol Jordan.

The book enters you. Ron Rash said that he remembers the exact moment when he did not enter a book but found the book entering him—it was Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment—and readers will find themselves positively invaded by his heartbreakingly beautiful new novel, The Cove (Ecco: HarperCollins, Apr. 2012). Having grown up on a  snatch of land considered cursed, siblings Hank and Laurel are generally shunned by townsfolk, but Hank is getting married and Laurel sees the possibility of happiness with a mysterious stranger who can’t speak but plays the flute beautifully. The story was inspired by research Rash did on America’s internment camps for Germans during World War I; among the interned were the crew and passengers, including an orchestra, on a German ship stranded in New York’s harbor. “I told myself if I couldn’t write a novel about that, I’d have to give up,” volunteered Rash. No need for him to stop.

Astrophysicist-approved fiction. Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles (Random. Jun. 2012), which blends worldwide calamity with the small but looming hurts of preadolescence, started with a science factoid. Thompson learned that after the earthquake-inspired tsunami that swept the Pacific a few years back, the earth’s axis adjusted ever so slightly. Of course, an axis adjustment can change the length of the day, and Walker contemplates what would happen if the earth’s rotation suddenly started slowing for no discernible reason. Obviously, the days would get longer, but much of what Thompson reported is drawn from her imagination, and after the book was signed she did run it by an astrophysicist to make sure she wasn’t too far off. With a few suggestions, she got a stamp of approval. In the end, though, this debut novel is her exploration of the impact of apocalypse on the everyday: “When you have a looming threat, in a way it presents an opportunity to explore the magic and meaning in ordinary life.”

Heller, Peter. The Dog Stars. Knopf. Aug. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780307959942. $25.95; eISBN 9780307960931. CD: Random Audio. POP FICTION
Great expectations for this first novel by Heller, featuring a pilot lost in a world gutted by a flu pandemic. When he receives a random radio transmission, he realizes that he’s not alone. Heller comes naturally by the edgy adventure promised here. A contributing editor at Outside Magazine and National Geographic Adventure, he is also author of Hell or High Water, an account of a daring whitewater expedition through eastern Tibet’s Tsangpo Gorge—inspiration for Shangri-La and so remote and dangerous that it had never been fully navigated. Heller’s status as an NPR contributor will help move the book along; with a 60,000-copy first printing.

Itani, Frances. Requiem. Atlantic Monthly. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780802120229. $24; eISBN 9780802194602. LITERARY
During World War II, Canada interned citizens of Japanese descent, just as the United States did. Here, Itani recaptures history through fiction by imagining the story of young Bin Okuma and his family, who were transported from their British Columbia home to a desolate area 100 miles from the “Protected Zone” and only grudgingly given access to food, plumbing, and electricity. Fifty years later, after his wife dies, Bin returns to the area, hoping to find the father whose awful decision at the time nearly destroyed the family. Itani’s Deafening won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, so her new novel is one that I’m really anticipating.

Koontz, Dean. Odd Apocalypse. Bantam. Aug. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780553807745. $28; eISBN 97803455335867. lrg. prnt. THRILLER
Lots of things happening for Odd Thomas this year, aside from this latest novel, featuring a showdown between our hero and the bad guys in a moody, tumble-down mansion. An enovella called Odd Interlude, taking place between the events in Odd Hours and Odd Apocalypse, will be released in weekly installments leading up to publication of the latter, the fifth book in the series. The first four books will be reissued in a shiny new trade paperback format in May, following publication of the graphic novel House of Odd. And Deeply Odd, the sixth novel in the series, is promised sometime after the projected fall release of a film based on the series. Time to get Odd again; these books are always No. 1 New York Times best sellers.

Logevall, Fredrik. Twilight War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam. Random. Aug. 2012. 880p. ISBN 9780375504426. $40; eISBN 9780679645191. HISTORY
Yes, many, many books have been written about Vietnam. But Cornell history professor Logevall is presented as leading a new generation of scholars now investigating the debacle. Over the course of 12 years, he did original research in diplomatic archives in Hanoi, Paris, and Washington, finally concluding that, like France, America failed to recognize the realities of Vietnam. Covering the four-decade buildup to the war, this book is called definitive. We’ll see, but it’s certainly important—and certainly scarily relevant today.

Amis, Martin. Lionel Asbo: The State of England. Knopf. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780307958082. $26.95; eISBN 9780307958099. LITERARY
Self-named after England’s notorious Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, thuggish Lionel Asbo aims to persuade daydreamy nephew Desmond Pepperdine to drop the books and get interested in pit bulls, porn, and the like. Desmond resists, but things get infinitely more complicated when Lionel wins the lottery and hires a public relations firm. Lionel remains almost honorably true to his nasty self, and one can expect Amis to remain true to his own arch and acidulous vision. But the publisher hints that this book could be a commercial breakout for the author of London Fields, who will be living in New York at the time of publication and will be around to promote. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Dilloway, Margaret. The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns. Putnam. Aug. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780399157752. $25.95. POP FICTION
Gal Garner distracts herself from the high school biology class she teaches and the rigors of kidney disease (though she’s only 36) by cultivating roses, which she carefully cross-pollinates with the hope of winning Queen of Show in competition. Then her teenage niece, daughter of her estranged sister, arrives without warning and upends everything. Not an uncommon plot, but there’s lots of enthusiasm for this second novel, with a special emphasis on book-club promotion, and Dilloway’s affecting How To Be an American Housewife won strong reviews (including four stars from People).

Fesperman, Dan. The Double Game. Knopf. Aug. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780307700131. $26.95; eISBN 9780307960900. THRILLER
Winner of a couple of daggers from the Crime Writers’ Association, plus the Dashiell Hammett Award from the International Association of Crime Writers, Fesperman knows the spy genre well enough to introduce echoes of John le Carré, Len Deighton, and others into his newest thriller. No word yet on plot—this just dropped into the schedule—but settings in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest suggest dark glamour and events rooted in the Cold War legacy of World War II.

Griffin, W.E.B. & William E. Butterworth IV. The Spymasters: A Men at War Novel. Putnam. Aug. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780399157516. $26.95. THRILLER
Bad news: with Operation Overlord and the Manhattan Project hanging in the balance, someone is feeding secrets to the Soviets. Obviously, FDR turns to OSS top spy Wild Bill Donovan for help. After 2007’s The Double Agents, not the strongest “Men at War” novel, the series seems to have needed a breather. Now it’s back; check this one out for fans.

Robards, Karen. The Last Victim. Ballantine. Aug. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780345535405. $26; eISBN 9780345535443. PARANORMAL ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
The Boardwalk Killer is back, having destroyed two vacationing families in Virginia Beach, and FBI agents Ryan Sinclair and Buzz Crane turn to Dr. Charlotte Stone for expert advice. Aside from her clinical knowledge, she was the only person to have survived his killing spree 15 years ago. Switching publishers to start a new series, Robards stays the course with romantic suspense but evidently adds some paranormal aspects I haven’t yet gleaned. Comparisons are to Iris Johansen’s “Eve Duncan” trilogy and to Jayne Anne Krentz’s “Arcane Society” and “Dark Legacy” series.

Schlink, Bernhard. Summer Lies. Pantheon. Aug. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780307907264. $24.95; eISBN  9780307907295. STORIES
Author of The Reader, a mega-best-selling novel worldwide, Schlink triumphs in short fiction as well. It’s thrilling to hear that he’s back with a new collection over a decade after the compact, insightful Flights of Love. That collection dealt with love in all its twistedness (e.g., an East German husband informs on his wife as a way to protect her), so you can imagine how he deals with lies.

Shreve, Susan Richards. You Are the Love of My Life. Norton. Aug. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780393082807. $25.95. POP FICTION
It’s the Watergate era, and Lucy Painter is as secretive as the Nixon administration. A book illustrator and single mother of two who’s just moved into the Washington, DC, home where she grew up, she won’t tell her children about their father (a married man) or about her own father’s suicide. The author of 12 novels, including the recent A Student of Living Things, as well as many children’s books, PEN/Faulkner cochair Shreve does nicely with intimate stories connected to larger issues. Look for the reading group guide.

Watkins, Claire Vaye. Battleborn: Stories. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781594488252. $25.95. STORIES
Story collections can be a hard sell in public libraries, but this one merits a good look. As she sweeps from Gold Rush to ghost town in ten stories, Watkins captures the American West, particularly her home state of Nevada, persuasively enough to have been snatched up by agent Nicole Aragi, who takes on only one new client a year. Watkins’s pieces have been published in top-drawer venues like Granta and Paris Review. And though one hopes that the personal will not overshadow the page, Watkins’s backstory—her father was an important member of Charles Manson’s “Family”—will spur interest and in fact features in some of her writing.

Wiesel, Elie. Hostage. Knopf. Aug. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780307599582. $25.95; eISBN 9780307958600. CD: Random Audio. LITERARY
Captured by an Arab and an Italian, blindfolded, and tied to a chair in a dark Brooklyn basement, Shaltiel Feigenberg doesn’t know why, but he’s been chosen to be exchanged for three Palestinian prisoners. To keep down his terror, he tells stories to himself and his jailers, recalling a childhood spent hiding from the Nazis (it’s now 1975), liberation by the Soviets, Sixties political unrest, and more. Nobel Peace Prize winner and novelist Wiesel will never exhaust his exploration of the Holocaust’s continuing ramifications.

Brick, Michael. Saving the School: The True Story of a Principal, a Teacher, a Coach, a Bunch of Kids, and a Year in the Crosshairs of Education Reform. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781594203442. $25.95. EDUCATION
Aiming to show education reformers that charter schools are not necessarily the answer, Brick recounts the near-death of John H. Reagan High School, where students were failing standardized tests even as truancy and teenage pregnancy rates soared. Then Anabel Garza, pregnant at 16, widowed at 25, and an English teacher to Mexican immigrants, agreed to be principal. She hunted down dropouts, fired slack teachers, and individualized tutoring efforts while bringing back the old-fashioned aspects of high school, like plays, dances, and yearbooks. So far, it’s working. Inspired reading.

Carvajal, Doreen. The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9781594487392. $26.95. MEMOIR
Though raised Catholic in America, Carvajal discovered that her ancestors might have been Spanish Jews forced to convert during the Inquisition. So she traveled to the Andalucian town of Arcos de la Frontera to try to dig up her roots, then investigated documents about a Carvajal family burned at the stake in 1500s Mexico. What she discovered, above all else, is that the past is a river running very, very deep. Such an intriguing topic, and Carvajal, a Paris-based reporter for the New York Times (her beat was once book publishing), certainly knows how to write.

Everitt, Anthony. The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World’s Greatest Empire. Random. Aug. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9781400066636. $30; eISBN 9780679645160. HISTORY
British historian Everitt chronicles the rise of Rome from a sleepy market town in the eighth century B.C.E. to the world’s greatest empire, stretching from the British Isles to the Middle East and smartly assuring strength and stability by offering citizenship to defeated peoples. Will folks be eager to read classical history? Well, the film Gladiator and the HBO series Rome were hits, and Everitt’s biographies Cicero, Augustus, and Hadrian together have sold more than 300,000 copies.

Gorra, Michael. Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece. Liveright: Norton. Aug. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780871404084. $29.95. LITERATURE
Not so much the biography of a writer as the biography of a book, this work uses fact, critique, and travelog to explain how Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady came to be written. At the same time, we come to understand both James’s world and the psychological forces that compelled him to write. Essential for literati.

Kantrowitz, Stephen. More Than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829–1889. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2012. 496p. ISBN 9781594203428. $36. HISTORY
A history professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Kantrowitz wants us to rethink our understanding of the abolitionist movement, which we tend to see as focused solely on the emancipation of the slaves. But as early as the 1820s, black men and women began calling themselves colored citizens and fighting not just for the end of slavery but for rights, respect, and equal treatment as well. Had they not, argues Kantrowitz, emancipation might never have come. Heady reading during the Civil War’s sesquicentennial.

Klinkenborg, Verlyn. Several Short Sentences About Writing. Knopf. Aug. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780307266347. $22.95; eISBN 9780307958495. WRITING
Klinkenborg’s meditative pieces for the New York Times, for which he serves on the editorial board, are models of concise, persuasive excellence. He’s also been teaching writing for more than 25 years, so this work packs in a whole lot of hard-earned knowledge. It’s the anti-guide, actually, arguing that we should toss out everything we’ve heard about spurring creativity, brainstorming ideas, and outlining and instead remember that writing is a matter of close observation and thinking caught in the very act. Aimed at a broad spectrum of writers, including bloggers, journal keepers, and tweeters; I’ll need to get this, too.

Morris, Errol. A Wilderness of Error: A Murder Mystery. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781594203435. TRUE CRIME
The Academy Award–winning director of films like The Thin Blue Line and Tabloid, Morris bravely goes where others have dared to go before—namely, Joe McGinniss in Fatal Vision and Janet Malcolm in The Journalist and the Murderer. Morris investigates the mystery surrounding Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret doctor convicted of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters in the 1970s, and concludes that MacDonald may be innocent. Along the way, he considers the nature of proof and how truth can be twisted. Bound to be in demand, especially with all that promotion.

Muller, Richard A. Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines. Norton. Aug. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780393081619. $26.95. SCIENCE
We still haven’t resolved issues like global warming, dependence on foreign oil, and the challenges of nuclear energy—in fact, we hardly understand them. Surely Muller, a Berkeley physics professor and MacArthur fellow responsible for the best-selling Physics for Future Presidents, can lend us a hand.

Orwell, George. Diaries. Liveright: Norton. Aug. 2012. 608p. ISBN 9780871404107. $39.95. LITERATURE
Orwell kept diaries throughout his life. Only 11 survive, all collected here, but they reflect on everything from his early visits with miners to the horror of World War II to his composition of Animal Farm and 1984. This first U.S. publication will attract attention from smart readers.

Ruhlman, Michael & Brian Polcyn. Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing. Norton. Aug. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780393068597. $39.95. COOKERY
With cooking the top-circulating nonfiction subject in public libraries, even a non-meat-eater like me feels obliged to recommend this book on the Italian method of dry curing meats. (It’s how we get pancetta and prosciutto.) From the authors of the best-selling Charcuterie; with a four-city tour to New York, Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago.

Spitz, Bob. Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child. Knopf. Aug. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780307272225. $28.95; eISBN 9780307961129. lrg. prnt. CD: Random Audio. BIOGRAPHY
Journalist/biographer Spitz does celebrities well; he’s responsible, for instance, for the hugely best-selling The Beatles: The Biography. This book, publishing on August 15, the 100th anniversary of Julia Child’s birth, has the support of Child’s estate and promises to be the definitive account. The 100,000-copy first printing says it all.

Big-name authors like Jeffrey Eugenides and Alan Hollinghurst, plus show-stopping newcomer Teju Cole (Open City). Three books treating war: Adam Hochschild’s To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918, Maya Jasanoff’s Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War, and Amanda Foreman’s A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War.

Giant biographies on giants like Malcolm X, George F. Kennan, and Karl Marx. Autobiography often investigating intimate tragedy, like Diane Ackerman’s One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing and Mira Bartók’s The Memory Palace.

Criticism that captures works by old hands like Geoff Dyer and Joanthan Lethem, plus Ellen Willis’s much-anticipated posthumous Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music. Old hands in poetry, too, like Laura Kasischke (Space, in Chains, an LJ Best Book of 2011, along with Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot and Willis’s Out of the Vinyl Deeps) and Yusef Komunyakaa (The Chameleon Couch), plus promising upstart Aracelis Girmay (Kingdom Animalia).

These are some of the finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards, announced at a gala event in the wide-open Artists Space in downtown Manhattan, not far from LJ‘s offices. The morning snow and afternoon slush didn’t dim spirits one bit.  Also announced: Robert Silvers, longtime editor of the New York Review of Books, won the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, and Kathryn Schulz won the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.

Winners of the book awards will be announced Thursday, March 8, at 6:00 p.m. at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium in New York. But first, here is a complete list of finalists.

Fiction
Teju Cole, Open City (Random House)
Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Alan Hollinghurst, The Stranger’s Child (Knopf)
Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision (Lookout Books)
Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia (Scribner)

Nonfiction
Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War (Random)
James Gleick, The Information (Pantheon)
Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War (Knopf)
John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead: Essays (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux)

Autobiography
Diane Ackerman, One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing (W.W. Norton)
Mira Bartók, The Memory Palace (Free Press)
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America (Little, Brown)
Luis J. Rodríguez, It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing (Touchstone)
Deb Olin Unferth, Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War (Henry Holt)

Biography
Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of the Revolution (Little, Brown)
John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life (Penguin Press)
Paul Hendrickson, Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 (Knopf)
Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Viking)
Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Belknap Press: Harvard University Press)

Criticism
David Bellos, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything (Faber & Faber)
Geoff Dyer, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews (Graywolf)
Jonathan Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence (Doubleday)
Dubravka Ugresic, Karaoke Culture (Open Letter)
Ellen Willis, Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music (University of Minnesota Press)

Poetry
Forrest Gander, Core Samples from the World (New Directions)
Aracelis Girmay, Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions)
Laura Kasischke, Space, in Chains (Copper Canyon Press)
Yusef Komunyakaa, The Chameleon Couch (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
Bruce Smith, Devotions (University of Chicago Press)

Amirrezvani, Anita. Equal of the Sun. Scribner. Jun. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781451660463. $26. HISTORICAL FICTION
Based roughly on the life of Iranian princess Pari Khan Khanoom, a powerhouse right out of The Arabian Nights, this novel opens in 1576. The shah has died without an heir, and his daughter and closest adviser, Princess Pari, tries to establish order in the court, even as dissent and resentment brew. At least she has her faithful servant and a mother lode of secrets to help her. Amirrezvani’s luscious first novel, The Blood of Flowers, was an international best seller, and I’m eager to see this follow-up. With a five-city tour to Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.

Cleave, Chris. Gold. S. & S. Jul. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781451672725. $27; eISBN 9781451672749. CD: S. & S. Audio. POP FICTION
Gold—as in Olympic gold—is what Zoe and Kate both want. Sure, they’re friends, but they’re also been rivals as they’ve trained for world-class athletic events and competed against each other to win. Now they’re facing their last Olympics, the 2012 games in London. Aside from the multilayered emotions of love, betrayal, guilt, and forgiveness, the book explores the question of sacrificing what you care about most for the sake of someone you care for most. The author of the No. 1 New York Times best seller Little Bee has surely hit upon a newsworthy idea; bet this will be popular with book clubs.

Klaussmann, Liza. Tigers in Red Weather. Little, Brown. Jul. 2011. 336p. ISBN 9780316211338. $25.99. HISTORICAL FICTION
Along with a particularly evocative title and cover, this book has a red-hot plot. Having long summered together at Tiger House, the family estate on Martha’s Vineyard, Nick and her cousin Helena go their separate ways: Nick with her husband, back from World War II, and newly married Helena to Hollywood. Alas, life never stays golden: Nick’s husband has been snuffed out emotionally by the war, while Helena’s is not what she had thought. The cousins meet at Tiger House to reassess, but a nasty murder throws their expectations further into turmoil. Lots of buzz for first novelist Klaussman, a New York Times reporter, with a two-book deal, a huge advance, and rights sold to 18 territories and counting. Don’t miss.

Kean, Sam. The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code. Little, Brown. Jul. 2011. 400p. ISBN 9780316182317. $25.99. SCIENCE
There’s enough DNA in a single body to stretch nearly to the moon, and that DNA can tell us not only how humans evolved from the muck but why a few of us turn into brilliant violinists while others adore cats. Kean, who scored a New York Times best seller with The Disappearing Spoon, about the periodic table, is a Washington, DC–based science journalist with a flair for words; from what I have seen, the language is fluid and accessible, even for the science-challenged. With a four-city tour to Boston, Washington, DC, Seattle, and Philadelphia.

Macintyre, Ben. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies. Crown. Jul. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780307888754. $26; eISBN 9780307888761. lrg. prnt. CD/Downloadable: Random House Audio. HISTORY
D-Day, June 6, 1944. Some 150,000 Allied troops land successfully on the beaches of Normandy, sustaining only 5000 casualties. How did they manage it? Through a vast act of deception called Operation Bodyguard aimed at persuading the Germans that attacks would come at Calais and Norway, where German armies then massed. The spies drafted to perpetuate this trickery ranged from a Polish pilot to the wild daughter of a Peruvian diplomat to a Serbian playboy codenamed Agent Tricycle. Actually, sounds like a great movie; meanwhile, best-selling author Macintyre (Operation Mincemeat) should turn in an absorbing read about a little-acknowledged facet of the war.

Tóibín, Colm. New Ways To Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families. Scribner. Jun. 288p. ISBN 9781451668551. $25. ESSAYS
Nobody writes about families like novelist and short story master Tóibín, a Costa Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner and author of The Empty Family, an LJ Best Book of 2011. Here he looks at how the families of other authors have influenced their writing, for better or for worse, moving from Jane Austen’s aunts and W.B. Yeats’s father to Thomas Mann’s children, Tennessee Williams and his mentally ill sister, and John Cheever’s general crankiness about everyone around him. If this is half as good as Tóibín’s fiction, it will still be great.

Abbott, Megan. Dare Me. Reagan Arthur Bks: Little, Brown. Jul. 2011. 240p. ISBN 9780316097772. $24.99. THRILLER
When Coach French took over the cheerleading squad Addy Hanlon and Beth Cassidy have cattily dominated, the I’m-on-top order gets switched around, but all the girls remain loyal to her and the squad. Then a police investigation homes in on the coach, and the girls have to wonder. Edgar and Barry Award winner Abbott reminds us why high school made us nervous. A sure bet; with a seven-city tour to New York, Boston, Phoenix, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

Anderson, Howard. Albert of Adelaide. Twelve: Hachette. Jul. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9781455509621. $24.95. POP FICTION
Actually, Albert is a platypus, escaped from Australia’s Adelaide Zoo and making a break for it through the Outback. Along the way he encounters two drunken bandicoots, a pyromaniac wombat, a combative Tasmanian devil, kangaroos, dingoes, and more while learning bravery and some other important life lessons. Watership Down in the Down Under, reputedly a charmer with rights sales to a half–dozen countries; Anderson is publishing his first novel at 66.

Bailey, Paul. Chapman’s Odyssey. Bloomsbury USA. Jul 2012. 224p. ISBN 9781608198214. pap. $16. LITERARY
As Harry Chapman languishes in a hospital bed, heavily medicated, he hears a series of voices. His mother, querulous as ever. His father…fighting World War I? Pip from Great Expectations, Babar and Céleste (who’s partnered by Fred Astaire), Jane Austen’s Emma, and a man selling T.S. Eliot’s teeth. Clearly, Harry’s imagination has run amok, and Somerset Maugham Award winner Bailey lets his imagination run amok, too, as he tells us about one person’s lives and loves in a very distinctive way. An in-house favorite that could be great fun for reading groups.

Burke, James Lee. Creole Belle: A Dave Robicheaux Novel. S. & S. Jul. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9781451648133. $27.99; eISBN 9781451648157. CD: S. & S. Audio. THRILLER
Dave Robicheaux is in a recovery unit in New Orleans, right where we left him in his last outing, The Glass Rainbow. He’s visited by the lovely Creole girl Tee Jolie Melton, who brings him an iPod including the song “Creole Belle”—and promptly disappears. Dave goes looking for her but instead finds her sister, encased in a block of ice floating (and likely melting fast) in the gulf. Then there’s an oil-rig blowout. Burke is a star; get multiples.

Faletti, Giorgio. A Pimp’s Notes. Farrar. Jul. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780374231408. $27. THRILLER
In 1978 Italy, Aldo Moro has been kidnapped by the Red Brigade, but the rich keep right on dancing, and Bravo, who lives to serve them, launches an affair with the mysterious Carla. Soon he’s being chased by the police, the Mafia, and even the Red Brigade. Faletti, whose I Kill sold over five million copies in Europe and did nicely here, will appeal especially to readers of moody, psychological thrillers.

Giffin, Emily. Where We Belong. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780312554194. $27.99; eISBN 9781429957861. CD: Macmillan Audio. POP FICTION
As the saying goes, mid-thirties Marian Caldwell has it all—a happy relationship and a terrific career as a television producer in New York. Then the past literally comes knocking as Marian finds 18-year-old Kirby Rose on her doorstep. The author of five blockbusters (e.g., Something Borrowed), Giffin should revitalize this standard pop plot—or so the 1000-plus Goodreads folks already hankering to read this book clearly expect. With a one-day laydown on July 31 and a big national tour.

Goolrick, Robert. Heading Out to Wonderful. Algonquin. Jun. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781565129238. $24.95. POP FICTION
In Goolrick’s debut novel, A Reliable Wife, a mysterious woman named Catherine Land arrives on a snowy Wisconsin train platform in 1909 with no good intentions. In this follow-up, a mysterious man named Charlie Beale arrives in 1948, Brownsberg, VA, and begins working at the butcher’s. His intentions might not be bad, but his relationships with the butcher’s five-year-old son and the gorgeous, quirky teenaged bride of the town’s richest man upend the whole community. A Reliable Wife was a highly praised No. 1 New York Times best seller that, interestingly, polarized readers; his new work comes with a 100,000-copy first printing and a 12-city tour. Disarmingly low-keyed in style, if not content, it will be much anticipated where the first book was loved.

Grebe, Camilla & Åsa Träff. Some Kind of Peace. Free Pr: S. & S. Jun. 2012. 356p. ISBN 9781451654592. $24.
THRILLER Living alone outside of Stockholm, where she runs a private psychotherapy practice with her best friend, the recently widowed Dr. Siri Bergman is convinced that someone has been peering through her window at nighttime. Then the body of one her patients is found floating in the waters near her cottage, and she knows that she’s in trouble. Billed as a rule-breaking thriller, this book by a pair of Swedish sisters was a hit in Europe. Sounds like daytime reading to me!

Harbison, Beth. When in Doubt Add Butter. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780312599096. $25.99; eISBN 9781250015020. CD: Macmillan Audio. POP FICTION
Private chef Gemma Craig does wonders for other people, from picky department store owner Lex and morbidly obese Willa to allergy-prone Anglea and “Mr. Tuesday,” who she never sees. But only when the unexpected happen does she start taking care of herself. Lots of publicity, from chick lit blogs to an Indiebound campaign.

Harris, Tip “T.I.” & David Ritz. Untitled: Bk. 2: Power & Beauty. Morrow. Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780062067685 $23.99; eISBN 9780062067708. CD: HarperAudio. STREET LIT
In Grammy Award–winning rapper T.I.’s first novel, Power & Beauty, the eponymous teenagers are taken under the wing of notorious Atlanta gangster Charles “Slim” Simmons, but Beauty breaks away. Now she’s ready to fight for Power. Some mixed response to the first, but the 100,000-copy first printing says that expectations are high.

Johansen, Iris & Roy Johansen. Close Your Eyes. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780312611613. $27.99; eISBN 9781429942515. THRILLER
Possessed of keenly developed senses because she was blind for the first 20 years of her life, music therapist Kendra Michael is a genius of observation and hence much in demand by the FBI. She doesn’t care for police work and isn’t interested in helping manipulative former agent Adam Kyle with his latest case—until she discovers that it involves a former flame possibly in the clutches of a serial killer. Johanesen mère et fils produce endless best sellers; this one has a one-day laydown on July 17.

Kepler, Lars. The Nightmare. Farrar. Jul. 2012. 512p. ISBN 9780374115333. $27; CD: Macmillan Audio. THRILLER
A young woman is found dead on a boat floating about the Stockholm archipelago, her lungs full of salt water (suggesting that she drowned) but her clothes and body bone dry. A man hangs from a lamp-hook in his state apartment and would be ruled a suicide but for the absence of furniture to clamber on in the high-ceilinged room. Just two more mysteries to solve for Det. Joona Linna, first seen in last year’s The Hypnotist, well regarded by those who like swift and twisty reads.

Kramer, Julie. Shunning Sarah. Atria: S. & S. Jul. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9781451664638. $23.99; eISBN 9781451664652. THRILLER
A young woman, her face damaged beyond recognition, is found dead in a small Minnesota town, and she is finally identified as Sarah Yoder, a member of the nearby Amish community. The Amish seems more forgiving than concerned with catching the killer, but Riley Spartz finally spots a clue that leads her to some very un-Amish like doings in Sarah’s community. Fifth in a series that has won some awards and been nominated for more (biggies like the Anthony and the Barry).

Netzer, Lydia. Shine Shine Shine. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781250007070. $24.95. POP FICTION
Sunny is the perfect wife leading the perfect life in small-town Virginia, with a husband she’s managed to make look pretty standard-issue, too, though he’s a brainy-to-distraction astronaut slated to help colonize the moon. (He’s in charge of the robots.) Then a minor car crash sends Sunny’s blonde wig flying, revealing that she’s bald, and the normalcy these two have built up since meeting as oddball children starts to tumble. Lots of in-house enthusiasm for what seems to be a juicily wacky and charming first novel.

Patterson, James & Michael Ledwidge. I, Michael Bennett. Little, Brown. Jul. 2011. 416p. ISBN 9780316097468. $27.99; lrg. prnt. CD/Downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Cops shot on the street and judges in their courtrooms: there’s lots of violence in New York as a South American crime lord takes over. Det. Michael Bennett takes his ten kids upstate for a breather, but the violence follows; that nasty crime lord is targeting him and his family. Fifth in a series that has more than 12 million copies in print worldwide; obviously, buy multiples, though I wish he wouldn’t make New York look quite so jungly.

Phillips, Susan Elizabeth. The Great Escape. Morrow. Jul. 2012.  384p. ISBN 9780062106063. $25.99; eISBN 9780062106100. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. ROMANCE
In last year’s Call Me Irresistible (a New York Times best seller, of course), Lucy Jorik—daughter of the former President of the United States and heretofore as dutiful as one can get—left picture-perfect Ted Beaudine at the altar, where he was snatched up by Lucy’s chaotic best friend. Meg. Here Lucy is looking for adventure—by climbing on when a bad-boy stranger offers her a ride on his motorcycle. Interesting fact: Phillips has won the Romance Writers of America Favorite Book of the Year Award more than any other author. With a one-day laydown on July 7, a 250,000-copy first printing, and an eight-city author tour to Albuquerque, Ann Arbor, Coeur d’ Alene, Fort Collins, Lansing, Phoenix, Sacramento, Spokane; essential where romances are read.

Verdon, John. Let the Devil Sleep. Crown. Jul. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780307717924. $25; eISBN 9780307717948. THRILLER
Medal-heavy NYPD homicide detective Dave Gurney leaves the force for some peace and calm upstate, but no such luck. His basement is booby-trapped, and a super-sharp arrow lands in his yard. Soon he’s rethinking the case of the “Good Shepherd,” a mad-as-hell-at-society type who wreaked havoc a decade ago and disappeared. No one but Gurney believes that he’s back. Verdon’s Think of a Number was a best seller worldwide, so don’t back off from this one.

Toutonghi, Pauls. Evel Knievel Days. Crown. Jul. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780307382153. $24; eISBN 9780307955722. LITERARY
Half-Egyptian and raised by a single mother, who’s a descendant of copper baron William Andrews Clark, Khosi Saqr doesn’t exactly feel at home in Butte, MT. When Natasha, his best friend (and secret heartthrob), decides to get married, Khosi heads to Cairo to reconnect with his father and his heritage. Zoetrope/Pushcart winner Toutonghi, who writes for esteemed book sites like The Millions and The Rumpus, turns out a second novel (after Red Weather) with a high charming-quirky factor and a touch of relevance. Watch.

Weiner, Jennifer. The Next Best Thing. Atria: S. & S. Jul. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9781451617757. $26.99; eISBN 9781451617771. CD/Downloadable: S. & S. Audio. POP FICTION
It’s westward ho for Ruth Saunders, who settles in Los Angeles with her grandma and finally has a sitcom accepted for production. (It’s called, not surprisingly, The Next Best Thing.) Alas, the actors are prima donnas, the executives all bottom-liners, and the boss oblivious to Ruth’s big crush on him. Then there’s grandma’s upcoming wedding. Weiner is, of course, huge; there’s a ten-city tour, a book-club push, and lots of promotion plans—no one sneers at full-page ads in People.

Woodman, Betsy. Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes. Holt. Jul. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780805093490. pap. $15. POP FICTION Scotswoman Jana Bibi has inherited her grandfather’s house in India, and in she moves with her chatty parrot, meeting wacky locals like Feroze Ali Khan of Royal Tailors and the Gurkha who plays bagpipes to keep the monkeys quiet. All’s well until waters from a proposed government dam threaten to inundate the town, and our card-shuffling heroine sets out to attract tourists by founding Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes. Woodman lived in India for ten years as a child. This series starter could be a hoot, if you like funny natives.

Yu, Charles. Sorry Please Thank You: Stories. Pantheon. Jul. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780307907172. $24.95. STORIES
Expect the author of the weirdly imaginative How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe to come up with stories that are…weirdly imaginative. Here, a company outsources grief for profit (“Don’t feel like having a bad day? Let someone else have it for you”), and an employee working the night shift at a big-box store has an easier time with a zombie than the girl he wants to date. Since Science Fictional Universe was a New York Times Notable Book, a Discover and Indie Next pick, no. 22 on Amazon’s Top 100 of 2010l, and more, this should get attention.

Anthony, Lawrence & Graham Spence. The Last Rhinos: My Battle To Save One of the World’s Greatest Creatures. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9781250004512. $25.99. NATURE/WILDLIFE
If the Northern White Rhino dies out, it will be the largest mammal since the woolly mammoth to pass from existence. And not so long ago, Anthony (The Elephant Whisperer), winner of a UN Earth Day Award for his work at a South African wildlife reserve, found that only 15 White Rhinos were left in the wild. Alas, they lived in a part of Uganda controlled by the violently subversive Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), but the savvy and persevering Anthony managed to convince the LRA to protect the rhinos—and ended up as a chief negotiator between the LRA and the Uganda government. The conservation aspect is important enough, but the political aspect is truly persuasive.

Barghouti, Mourid. I was Born There, I Was Born Here. Walker. Jul. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780802779977. $25. MEMOIR
Esteemed Palestinian poet Barghouti has lived a life of relentless exile. Forced out of Israel after the Six-Day War, he lived in Egypt and then Hungary, not returning to visit Palestine until 1996, which for a moment became “here” again, not “there.” As recounted here, he went back again to introduce his Cairo-born son, Tamim, to his Palestinian relatives. After they returned to Egypt, Tamim was arrested for protesting against the Iraq War and was held in the same prison cell his father had occupied before he was expelled for a time from Egypt. At first glance meditative and pointed; for anyone interested in the Middle East.

Carr, Cynthia. Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz. Bloomsbury USA. Jul 2012. 448p. ISBN 9781596915336. $30.  BIOGRAPHY/ARTS
Arts journalist Carr offers a first biography of cutting-edge artist David Wojnarowicz, denizen of the 1970s–80s East Village arts scene, who with colleagues like Keith Haring, Nan Goldin, and Jean-Michel Basquiat remade the art world (and our world), then died of AIDS in 1992 at age 37. He was in the news in December 2010 when the National Gallery in Washington removed a part of his A Fire in My Belly after protests from the Catholic League. For smart readers.

Harris, Jake & Josh Harris with Steve Springer. Captain Harris: The Daring and Dramatic Life of a Crab Boat King. S. & S. Jul. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781451666045. $25; eISBN 9781451666083. MEMOIR
Star of the Discovery Channel’s popular Deadliest Catch, a fisherman for 32 years and captain and co-owner of the Cornelia Marie, which plied the Bering Strait in search of king crab, Phil Harris died in February 2010 from stroke and heart failure. He was only 53. His sons, authors Jake and Josh, who also worked the deck of the Cornelia Marie, tell the story of a tough but loving father and his tough and tempestuous life. Intriguing, though perhaps best for those who have seen the show.

Kirby, David. Death at SeaWorld: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781250002020. $26.99; eISBN 9781250008312. NATURE/ANIMAL RIGHTS
SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau’s death in 2010 after being attacked by a killer whale made headlines, but the story goes deeper. As Kirby shows, marine biologist and animal advocate Naomi Rose had already spent two decades challenging SeaWorld’s captivity of killer whales as dangerous to both whales and humans, and the attack on Brancheau was just one of many that have occurred at marine mammal parks nationwide. Lives are at stake here, and Kirby can be trusted to tell the story, having won a passel of awards for his investigate work in Evidence of Harm.

Lawson, Guy. Octopus: Sam Israel, the Secret Market, and Wall Street’s Wildest Con. Crown. Jul. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780307716071. $26; eISBN 9780307716095. BUSINESS/TRUE CRIME
When managers of the Bayou Hedge Fund were shown to have overstated gains, understated losses, and misappropriated funds for personal use, founder Sam Israel committed suicide by leaping off the Bear Mountain Bridge. No, not really, he just faked his death—the way he faked everything else—in an effort to avoid the long prison sentence that was eventually handed down. Rolling Stone investigative journalist Lawson got exclusive access to Israel. Get ready to have your blood boil.

Mahama, John Dramani. My First Coup d’Etat: And Other True Stories from the Lost Decades of Africa. Bloomsbury USA. Jul 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781608198597. $24. MEMOIR/CURRENT EVENTS
Not every vice-president writes good books, but Mahama seems to be a different kind of vice-president. Using memoir, fable, and political and social analysis, he offers a meditation on his country, Ghana, and its meteoric rise from the postcolonial ashes while also pondering the human condition. Touted as not just politics as usual but deeply literary in voice and intent; worth watching.

Marmorstein, Gary. A Ship Without A Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart. S. & S. Jul. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9781416594253. $30; eISBN 9781416598435. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
Imagine a world without “Blue Moon” or “My Funny Valentine.” Imagine Richard Rodgers without Lorenz Hart. Not possible, and arts journalist Marmorstein (Hollywood Rhapsody) gives a full-scale account of the lyricist, infusing his text with plenty of Hart’s own magical words.

Neel, Armon, Jr. & Bill Hogan. Are Your Prescriptions Killing You?: How to Prevent Dangerous Interactions, Avoid Deadly Side Effects, and Be Healthier with Fewer Drugs. Atria: S. & S. Jul. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781451608397. $25; eISBN 9781451608410. HEALTH/MEDICINE Prescription drugs cause an estimated 100,000 deaths a year in this country and lead to injury requiring hospitalization for another 1.5 million people. Most of the victims are older folks. So this book by board-certified pharmacist Armon and investigative journalist Hogan, who have both had work featured in AARP Bulletin, could not be more timely or important.

Roig-Franzia, Manuel. Marco Rubio: A Biography. S. & S. Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781451675450. $25; eISBN 9781451675474. BIOGRAPHY
Florida freshman senator Marco Rubio was just in the news for withdrawing his support for the Protect Intellectual Property Act, which he had originally cosponsored. But before that he had already been called things like the “crown prince of the Tea Party movement” and the “Michael Jordan of Republican politics.” LJ’s recent book-buying survey suggests that books on politics aren’t so hot in libraries right now, but if they’re still bubbling where you are, definitely consider, especially where political beliefs are right.

Rubin, Gretchen. Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life. Crown Archetype. Jul. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780307886781$26. SELF-HELP
Former editor in chief of the Yale Law Review and then a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Rubin decided that she’d rather be writing and produced books like the best-selling Forty Ways To Look at Winston Churchill. Then she decided that happiness was her goal and launched her own personal happiness project, followed by The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Here’s a follow-up to that book, generally regarded as smart and entertaining.

Shlaes, Amity. Coolidge. Harper: HarperCollins. Jul. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9780061967559. $27.99; eISBN 9780062097972. CD: Harper Audio. BIOGRAPHY
Director of the George W. Bush Institute’s economic growth project and author of the New York Times best-selling The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, Shlaes offers a sympathetic biography of our 30th president, comparing him to Abraham Lincoln and presenting him as a model to emulate during these economically stressed times. One biography that might provoke fierce discussion in book clubs; with a one-day laydown on June 26 and a 150,000-copy first printing.

Smith, Daniel. Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety. S. & S. Jul. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781439177303. $25; eISBN 9781439177327. MEMOIR
Lots of memoirs out there about fighting depression but not a lot about fighting anxiety, a quieter condition that nevertheless painfully hampers the lives of 40 million Americans. Smith (Muses, Madmen, and Prophets), whose work appears frequently in places like the Atlantic and Slate, should articulate his own experience with anxiety in a way that will make us understand and empathize.

Coming in April: more graphic novels with Middle Eastern flavors. In both April and May, look for a slew of impressive-sounding compendia: adaptations of classics, commentaries on “bests,” and ethnicity studies. Beyond topic areas, future-watchers might take note of Kickstarter as an increasingly important locus of innovative comics projects. This past November, indie film entrepreneur Matt Pizzolo Kickstarted the right-now-topical anthology Occupy Comics: Art + Stories Inspired by Occupy Wall Street. He realized double on his funding goal within a month and pulled in, among creators, the original V for Vendetta team: David Lloyd and Alan Moore, the guys behind those stylized Guy Fawkes masks worn by Occupiers. According to Pizzolo, the finished collection should appear in “mid to late” 2012. Thanks to Steve Raiteri for several title suggestions below.

Abouet, Marguerite (text) & Clément Oubrerie (illus.). Aya: Life in Yop City. Book 1. Drawn & Quarterly. May 2012. 384p. ISBN 9781770460829. pap. $24.95. F
An Aya omnibus! Loosely based upon Abouet’s late-1970s youth in Africa’s Côte d’Ivoire, the series has pulled in numerous commendations and been tagged as great for teens by YALSA. This first volume includes the three installments already published in English. Book two will include three more not yet translated from the French.

Araki, Hirohiko. Rohan at the Louvre. NBM. Apr. 2012. 128p. ISBN 9781561636150. $19.99. F
Trust a manga artist to come up with a stunning and creepy story about a manga artist (natch) and a painting with a curse on it. Check out the gonzo color art here and click on the slide show. Originally published in French, it’s the latest volume in a series produced by the great museum, following Glacial Period, The Museum Vaults, On the Odd Hours, and The Sky Over the Louvre. Rohan is a character in Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, published here by Viz.

Austen, Jane & Nancy Butler (text & adapt.) & Janet Lee (illus.). Northanger Abbey. Marvel. May 2012. 120p. ISBN 9780785164401. $19.99. LIT
Austen goes parody-gothic in this fourth of her Butler-adapted classics from Marvel. Besotted with lurid novels about mysterious goings-on, Catherine Morland expects the Tilneys’ residence, Northanger Abbey, to be a romantic fortress of spooky secrets. She runs into mysteries, all right, but it’s all about jockeying for love and money among the Tilney and Thorpe families. Lee’s charming art can be seen in Marvel’s previous Austen volume, Emma. Note that Trina Robbins and Anne Timmons did a shorter, black-and-white Northanger Abbey for Gothic Classics: Graphic Classics, vol. 14.

The Avengers: Legion of the Unliving. Various writers & artists. Marvel. Apr. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780785159681. pap. $29.99. F
Avenger history here meets the current zombie craze. In these sagas from the past (apparently 1975–98), the superhero team must face hordes of undead heroes and villains, both former comrades and former enemies. With the Avengers film coming out in May, interest may be up.

Bechdel, Alison. Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. Houghton Mifflin. May 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780618982509. $22. MEMOIR
This story of Bechdel’s gifted mother will not be exactly “comic,” just as Fun Home, about her closeted gay father, isn’t best described by the word “fun.” Yet it will share, we’re sure, the engaging blend of drama, poignancy, humor, and intellectual bricolage that brought the first, bestselling work a slew of awards. We’re promised a story that folds Dr. Seuss, 20th-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, Virginia Woolf, childhood journals, and Bechdel’s love life into an account of the mother-daughter bond, from Bechdel’s childhood to recent years.

Bellstorf, Arne. Baby’s in Black: Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe, and the Beatles in Hamburg. First Second. May 2012. 208p. ISBN 9781596437715. $24.99. BIOG
This drama of doomed romance between “fifth Beatle” Stuart Sutcliffe and electric photographer/artist Astrid Kirchherr draws from real life, with the Fab Four as bit players. Bellstorf’s black-and-white art manages to look period-appropriate, smoky-sad, and a touch cute all at once. See sample with original German dialog.

Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them. Mad Norwegian Press. Ed. by Lynne M. Thomas & Sigrid Ellis. Apr. 2012. paging UNK. ISBN 9781935234050. pap. $14.95. GRAPHIC ARTS
Notables among the femigencia of comics creators sound off about the characters and series they love and how they got into the industry. The volume will include essays by Gail Simone (Birds of Prey), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother), and many others. At least some of the contributions will be in comics form. Sounds gossipy and inspirational.

Crane, Roy. Buz Sawyer, Vol. 2: Sultry’s Tiger. Fantagraphics. May 2012. 316p. ISBN 9781606994993. $35. F
World War II has ended, and flying ace Buz Sawyer has snagged a civilian job at last: troubleshooter for International Airways, which has him traveling to hotspots all over the world. Of course, he always flies into adventure, here visiting a dangerous woman he first met during the war, taking on the Mad Baron, discovering Mayan treasure, and being kidnapped by mysterious thugs. But whatever the adventure, somehow Buz always gets mixed up with a pretty girl. This volume includes both daily and full-color Sunday strips, originally published between 1945 and 1947, drawn in Crane’s clean, realistic style that in retrospect looks remarkably European.

Crime Does Not Pay Archives. Vol. 1. Dark Horse. Apr. 2012. 280p. ISBN 9781595822895. $49.99. F
Behold some of the comics that ticked off Dr. Fredric Wertham and other censors of the 1950s: frankly lurid and wildly entertaining pulps of crime and criminals, supposedly based on real cases. Lavishing overspiced detail on a smorgasbord of violence and vileness, issues sold in the hundreds of thousands. (According to David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague, many of the scripts were ghostwritten by a bright, pleasant woman named Virginia Hubbell.) Ironically, it was J. Edgar Hoover who had kicked true crime comics into legitimacy with a 1930s War on Crime newspaper strip, supposedly based on FBI files. Yet CDNP’s gruesomeness is not explicit by modern standards, in terms of either sex or gore, and this volume is publisher-rated for ages 14 up. Indispensible for historical and pop culture collections.

Critical Survey of Graphic Novels: Heroes & Superheroes. 2 vols. Ed. by Bart Beaty & Stephen Weiner. Salem. Apr. 2012. 1000p. indexes. ISBN 9781587658655. $295. GRAPHIC ARTS
Designed for fans as well as academic institutions and libraries, some 130 essays each cover one title or series and include information on editions, read-alikes, publication history, characters, artistic style, impact, and related works in other media. The essays focus on the “most popular and studied” graphic novels, not just superhero series but manga, imports, nonfiction, and “indie” titles. Forthcoming Salem sets will address manga and “Independent and Underground Classics,” and a thematic overview volume of additional essays is planned. According to the publisher, this Critical Survey series aims to establish the graphic novel medium as an important academic discipline and research topic in libraries. More details and sample entries here.

Delisle, Guy. Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City. Drawn & Quarterly. Apr. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781770460713. $24.95. MEMOIR/POL SCI
Québécois artist-journalist Delisle (Pyongyang) spent 2008–09 with his family in East Jerusalem as part of his wife’s work with Doctors Without Borders and was there during the short but brutal Gaza War. He interweaves accounts of suffering and interactions with the emergency medical teams with droll anecdotes of quotidian family life. This graphic memoir/travelogue will doubtless take a prominent place among the many other new titles covering events in the Middle East with sensitivity and from varied perspectives. See preview in French here (click on “Extraits”).

Devarajan, Sharad & Ron Marz (text) & Mukesh Singh & Liquid Comics (illus.). Silver Scorpion. Vol. 1. Liquid Comics/Open Hands Initiative. Apr. 2012. 160p. ISBN TBA. pap. $14.99. F
In an unnamed Middle Eastern country, orphaned teen Bashir, who lives with his uncle, creates scrap-metal sculptures to distract himself from life in their village, which is dominated by a violent gang. But scavenging for parts one day, he triggers a buried landmine that blows off his legs and kills his best friend. Despairing of his future, he visits the mysterious Tarek to have his wheelchair repaired and learns that Tarek can control metal psychokinetically. When the gang kills Tarek for refusing to work for them, Tarek bestows his ability on Bashir, who dubs himself the Silver Scorpion and sets about putting the gang out of business. The first issue was given out at Free Comic Book Day last May. A rare and appealing disabled superhero of Arabic ethnicity.

El Shafee, Magdy. Metro: A Graphic Novel. Metropolitan: Holt. May 2012. 108p. ISBN 9780805094886. pap. $20. F
This novel was originally to be published in Egypt in 2008, but the police broke in and seized it, and both author and publisher were arrested. The adult-level story is set in Mubarak’s Cairo, a hotbed of corruption, and the Egyptian police do not come off as angels. Homosexuality is also mentioned, which did not sit well with El Shafee’s critics. According to The National, Metro offers a young antihero for Egypt’s youth: a software engineer in debt to loan sharks who decides to rob a bank to pay them back. See a preview here.

Gaiman, Neil (text) & Dave McKean (illus.). Black Orchid Deluxe Edition. Vertigo. Apr. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9781401233358. $24.99. F
Gaiman takes a walk in the garden of the DC plant people. After botanist Susan Linden-Thorne is murdered by her abusive husband, her nice-guy botanist boyfriend revives her as a plant-human hybrid with superpowers: Black Orchid. Now she seeks the truth about her origins while attempting to cope with a corrupt world of humans. According to one reviewer, Gaiman successfully connects all the DC super-horticulturals to a common point of origin, giving cameo roles to Poison Ivy and Swamp Thing. The limited series came out originally in 1988 and has been collected before, but this deluxe edition presumably will include extras. With its ecological message, the story could become more popular now than earlier. Scroll down here to preview McKean’s striking, orchidy art.

Gallagher, Fred & Rodney Caston. Megatokyo Omnibus. Dark Horse. Apr. 2012. 670p. ISBN 9781595828231. pap. $19.99. F
Probably one of the best-known and most popular examples of “Amerimanga,” this series began in 2002 and currently has six volumes in print in addition to the webcomics version. The saga follows the cultural and romantic (mis)adventures of young Americans Piro and Largo, who find themselves stranded in Tokyo without money to fly home, and pulls heavily from their otaku-style appreciation of anime, manga, and gaming. The webcomic has won several Web Cartoonists’ Choice Awards, and this collection reprints the first three volumes. A good bet for libraries that didn’t buy the originals or whose copies have worn out.

The Graphic Canon, Volume 1: From Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons. Seven Stories. Apr. 2012. 448p. ed. by Russ Kick. ISBN 9781609803766. pap. $29.95. LIT
Editor Kick (Everything You Know Is Wrong) gives me the scoop: “My vision from the start was to essentially create The Norton Anthology of Literature in graphic form”—and he’s getting three volumes to play with. “Lyric poems and short stories are contained [in these volumes] in their entirety,” he continues. “But novels, plays, and epic poems are usually excerpted. Not always, though. Lysistrata, Medea, the Book of Revelation, and a handful of others contain the complete narrative, though they are condensed/abridged.” About 80 percent is new material; the rest reprints. Looks like a must-buy for all academic libraries, many public libraries, and many high schools, and an exciting new benchmark for comics! Expect volume 2 in July and volume 3 in October.

Heske, Robert (text) & Diago Yapura (illus.). The Night Projectionist. Studio 407. Apr. 2012. 140p. ISBN 9781935385080. pap. $12.99. F
The fright-flick geeks of Crosstown Falls have packed the all-night Draculathon film fest, the closing show for the old town theater, now condemned. But the horror erupts beyond the screen when a horde of vampires lays siege to the theater and the night projectionist up in the balcony turns out to be a sinister vampire with a three-centuries-old Yugoslavian tragedy on his resume. Preview the eerily colored, realist art here.

Johns, Geoff (text) & Jim Lee (illus.). Justice League, Vol. 1: Origin. DC. May 2012. 176p. ISBN 9781401234614. $24.99. F
The Green Lantern pops over to Gotham in pursuit of an alien Parademon, but whoops! Gotham is Batman territory, and the two squabble over turf issues before deciding to question another alien: Superman. But Superman isn’t impressed by Lantern’s youthful overconfidence, either. Eventually the trio set aside their ego problems to work together on dealing with the now-more-numerous Parademons, and the fledgling team is joined in the fight by the Flash and then by Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg. This is the re-envisioned origin of the Justice League of America superhero team (JLA), as appearing in DC’s “The New 52” relaunch.

Kio, Shimoku. Genshiken Omnibus 1: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture. Kodansha. May 2011. c.600p. ISBN 9781935429364. pap. $19.99. F
This nine-volume slice-of-life manga about a college club for otaku (obsessive fans of manga/anime/videogames) is known for being “made by an otaku for otaku” and is beloved for memorable character development even more than for the realistic yet funny plots and plentiful references to Japanese pop culture. Originally released 2005–07 by Del Rey, Genshiken has begun in a second series in Japan: Genshiken Nidaime. It seems possible that Kodansha will officially translate this new series, currently scanlated into English on several websites, and is issuing the omnibus to pave the way. Good for libraries that don’t have the original series as well as for replacement of worn volumes.

Kirby, Jack. Spirit World. DC. Apr. 2012. 108p. ISBN 9781401234188. $39.99. F
Kirby, one of the late grandmasters of Marvel Comics, known for co-creating its major superheroes, put in some time-out years with DC Comics, where, among other projects, he created striking stories of the supernatural for a magazine titled Spirit World. Only one issue was ever published, but several additional finished stories turned up in the Weird Mystery Tales anthologies. The idea of a magazine aimed at an end run around the Comics Code, which did not apply to magazine-format publications. According to Robot 6, the stories cover “heavy political and social commentary” as well as a “dose of horror.”

Kolor Klimax: Nordic Comics Now. Fantagraphics. Apr. 2012. 250p. ed. by Matthias Wivel. ISBN 9781606995204. pap. $29.99. F
This lavish sampler of work from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden offers a wide variety of artistic styles and short plots, some with a more adult focus. See samples here; click “Expand” for the wonderful cover plus 20 pages. Wivel is a veteran of the Danish comics scene who currently lives in New York.

Lee, Stan (text) & Moebius (illus.). Silver Surfer: Parable. Marvel. May 2012. 168p. ISBN 9780785162094. $24.99. F
The terrible alien Galactus has landed on Earth, and humans are worshipping him as a savior at the urging of a fake “disciple.” It’s up to Galactus’s former servant, the Silver Surfer, to unmask this false messiah. The two-issue miniseries first appeared in the late 1980s, winning an Eisner Award, but was last reprinted over ten years ago. Also included is a second story, published in 1990 as a stand-alone, in which the Surfer saves Earth as well as his own home world of Zenn-La from the Enslavers, another powerful alien race. Moebius (real name: Jean Giraud) is a French comics artist much better known in Europe than in the United States. See samples of his beautiful art together with commentary here.

Magica Quartet (text) & Hanokage (illus.). Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Vol. 1. Yen Pr. May 2012. 192p. ISBN 9780316213875. pap. $11.99. F
Madoka can have her dearest wish granted, but she must become a magical girl in return. Not such an easy bargain: being a magical girl means dealing with death and with loss of her own humanity as well as fighting witches and suchlike. Unsure, she delays her decision. But some of her friends take up the challenge, and as events unroll she feels compelled to become a magical girl in order to stop witches throughout the world. The three-volume series is based on a popular anime and has sold well in Japan.

Manning, Stuart (text) & Aaron Campbell (illus.). Dark Shadows. Vol. 1. Dynamite. Apr. 2011. 96p. ISBN 9781606902752. pap. $16.99. F
Originally a daily soap opera in the 1960s and ’70s, Dark Shadows quickly picked up a cult following. More recently, swoonmeister Johnny Depp admitted to fandom and was signed up to play “hero” vampire Barnabas Collins in a forthcoming Tim Burton film. No stranger to comics after appearances in an early Dark Shadows newspaper strip and a couple of comic book series, Barnabas now returns to comics for a third time. The 200-year-old vampire hopes his doctor can find a serum to break the curse placed on him by his ex-lover. The rest of his family is in no shape to help him, and everyone harbors deep, dark secrets. See a preview here.

Mantella, Mauro (text) & Leandro Rizzo (illus.). Fictionauts. Studio 407. Apr. 2012. 88p. ISBN 9781935385042. pap. $12.99. F
Want to get lost in a good book? These adventurers really do that, using special technologies to dive into the worlds of fictional works to “protect our world from the dangerous psychic anomalies that can occur when stories overlap.” Plenty else can go wrong, too, like bleed-through between fiction and reality. Sounds like a real treat for fans of Fables and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as well as lovers of Jasper Fforde’s prose novels. Preview the cool retro-realist art here.

McCulloch, Derek (text) & Colleen Doran (illus.). Gone to Amerikay. Vertigo. Apr. 2012. 144p. ISBN 9781401223519. $24.99. F
This sweeping saga by McCulloch (Stagger Lee) intertwines stories of three immigrants from Ireland: a single mother raising her child in an 1870s Manhattan slum, a struggling actor drawn to Greenwich Village’s folk scene of the 1960s, and a present-day Irishman visiting New York City. Here’s McCulloch’s engaging description: “It’s a great big historical epic with a crime story and a ghost story and a couple of love stories and all kinds of things in it.” Plus it has Doran’s splendid art.

Misiroglu, Gina. The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic-Book Icons and Hollywood Heroes. 2d ed. Visible Ink Pr. Apr. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9781578593750. pap. $24.95. GRAPHIC ARTS
Originally published in 2004, this encyclopedia attracted praise from librarians, but fans wanted more entries, analysis, and illustrations. Whether the second edition delivers a little more or a lot more, it’s an inexpensive way to fill in some eight years of new and updated superheroes. The publisher is promising 200 entries covering over 1,000 supers across all media, with full color illustrations.

Oliver, José (text) & Bartolo Torres (illus.). Young Lovecraft. Vol. 2. KettleDrummer Bks. Apr. 2012. 104p. ISBN 9788415153337. pap. $19.95 F
With the appeal of a demented Peanuts, this volume continues the reimagined life of little “Howie” Lovecraft and his, um, odd friends as they confront homework, the opposite sex, and other perils of growing up. See LJ’s review of volume 1 here.

Pratt, Hugo. Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea. Rizzoli: Universe. Mar. 2012. 254p. ISBN 9780789324986. pap. $25. F
Described by one commentator as a “Tintin for grownups,” sailor-adventurer Corto Maltese takes on smugglers and pirates in the World War I-era Pacific. First appearing in Italian in 1967 and soon afterwards in French, the popular swashbuckler series has been translated into numerous languages and won an Angoulême award. Several English volumes came out from NBM in the 1980s. The numerous stories about the “rogue with a heart of gold” have been described as both elegant and complex, and this reappearance offers a new translation. See a selection of the cover art here.

Rice, Anne & Anne Elizabeth (text & adapt.) & Siya Oum (illus.). Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana: The Graphic Novel. Sea Lion Bks. Apr. 2012. 198p. ISBN 9780983613145. $24.99. RELIGION
Rice’s finely-crafted novels based on the life of Christ have been widely praised, and this adaption could enlarge the footprint of serious biblical comics. Certainly Oum’s concept drawing of Jesus shows a simple, attractive humanity as well as strength of character. Verily, you’ll want to buy this. Rice’s Servant of the Bones will also see graphic novel embodiment in the same month, from IDW.

Riordan, Rick (text) & Orpheus Collar (illus.). The Kane Chronicles, Book One: The Red Pyramid. Hyperion. May 2012. 192p. ISBN 9781423150695. pap. $12.99. F
Following right after the graphic adaptation of the first book in Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians comes the graphic version of the first volume of his Egyptian saga of Carter and Sadie Kane, biracial teens who learn they are descended from pharaohs and have hidden powers. Unfortunately, the god Set has entombed their father and wants to get them too. The 2010 original novel was chosen as a School Library Journal Best Book. The second volume in the Kane series, The Throne of Fire, is scheduled for comics in August and the second Percy Jackson book in September.

Strömberg, Fredrik. Black Images in the Comics. Fantagraphics. May 2012. 296p. illus. bibliog. ISBN 9781606995624. pap. $19.99. GRAPHIC ARTS
First published by Fantagraphics in 2003 and nominated for an Eisner Award, this history of racial depictions in comics has been updated in both its content and its source list. Over 100 entries, each featuring a representative illustration and an instructive short essay, cover an international range of comics, from Moon Mullins through Tintin, Will Eisner, R. Crumb, Peanuts, Boondocks, and beyond. Strömberg is a Swedish comics journalist, editor, and educator who has published numerous books in several languages.

Strömberg, Fredrik. Jewish Images in the Comics. Fantagraphics. May 2012. 304p. illus. bibliog. ISBN 9781606995280. $26.99. GRAPHIC ARTS
Another of Strömberg’s books, in a similar format: over 150 entries from internationally-originating comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels stretching back “over the last five centuries” that feature Jewish characters and Jewish themes. The works of Art Spiegelman and Will Eisner are well known to comics aficionados in the United States, but many of the other examples, some “far less savory,” may not be.

Tatsumi, Yoshihiro. Fallen Words. Drawn & Quarterly. May 2012. 264p. ISBN 9781770460744. pap. $19.95. F
A founder of the gekiga movement promoting realistic, serious manga, Tatsumi is known for Abandon the Old in Tokyo (2006), a collection of stories originally published in Japan in the 1970s, and the autobiographical A Drifting Life (2009). This volume includes eight new stories, modern yet whimsical, that draw on rakugo (“fallen words”), a Japanese storytelling form that originated in the Edo era. See a striking panel here.

Thomas, Roy (text) & Sal Buscema, Neal Adams, & John Buscema (illus.). Avengers: Kree/Skrull War. Marvel. May 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780785164791. $29.99. F
An early crossover-type story featuring a large cast of superheroes, the Kree-Skrull War saga from 1971–72 is considered of major importance in the Marvel Universe. Thomas modestly stated in his afterword to the 2000 reprint collection that he didn’t have much of a master plan for the story, just that “rapacious, galaxy-spanning races…would be at war in the far reaches of space, and that their conflict would be threatening to spill over onto the Earth.” The collection was republished in 2008, and some libraries may have that edition.

Trautmann, Eric & Brandon Jerwa (text) & Steve Lieber (illus.). Shooters. Vertigo. Apr. 2012. 144p. ISBN 9781401222154. $22.99. F
A tragic injury sustained under friendly fire sends a solder home from battle in the Persian Gulf. But he re-ups as a private military contractor, reporting to the corporation rather than the U.S. Army. Little information is available about the story, but it looks as if this new gig will challenge the soldier in ways he was unprepared for, calling him to question his marriage and his faith as well as his choice of career. Lieber (Whiteout; many other titles) has an excellent command of black-and-white and is certainly a good pick for the art.

Vance, Jack (text) & Humayoun Ibrahim (illus.). The Moon Moth. First Second. May 2012. 128p. ISBN 9781596433670. pap. $17.99. F
The planet Sirene boasts a fascinating culture very different from Earth’s: the natives communicate social status through artful masks, use music in social intercourse, and risk dangerous consequences if etiquette is breached. Alas, the new consul from Earth has trouble adjusting and must wear the lowest status mask: that of the lowly Moon Moth. Then the consul is assigned to arrest a notorious assassin newly arrived from off-world, who is thoroughly savvy with Sirenean custom and has vanished into the local populace with a stolen mask. Now the consul must hunt his quarry out from behind the masks and survive harrowing cultural challenges along the way. Vance has won numerous Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards for his speculative fiction, and this 1961 story is a sci-fi classic.

Vidaurri, Shane-Michael. Iron: Or, the Propagandist: The Story of the War After. Archaia. Jul. 2012. 136p. ISBN 9781936393282. $19.95 F
In Mouse Guard, Archaia’s done very well with stalwart, four-footed warriors fending off predators. Now it’s the Resistance vs. the Regime, with animal-headed characters and a rabbit-faced spy setting the plot in motion. Archaia is billing this as Animal Farm meets The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Page through the chillingly lovely azure art here.

In keeping with the short week (as least for some people), this is a short Prepub Alert. Partly, it’s because I’ve been working on LJ‘s annual book-buying survey—where I’ve learned, for instance, that horror circs better in the suburbs than the cities and rural communities are big on history but not so big on self-help. This week’s pick focuses on David Vann, an esteemed author now on his second novel whom I’m glad to single out. Fiction features six big thrillers, a category that this year’s book-buying survey placed fourth in the fiction circulation ranks, right after mystery, general fiction, and romance. Nonfiction features two important current events titles. To find out what happened to current events in this year’s survey, look for my story in the February 15 issue. I was pretty looped.