Library Journal

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.

Clark, Clare. Beautiful Lies. Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780151014675. $26. HISTORICAL
In late Victorian London, presumed Chilean heiress Maribel Campbell Lowe enjoys a bohemian lifestyle, indulging her interest in poetry and photography even though she’s married to an MP, however dashing and daring. Then a newspaper editor starts sniffing around, and Maribel’s past returns to haunt her. The author of four respected novels, including Washington Post Best Book The Great Stink, Clark based her novel on the true story of the double life of an MP’s wife. With a reading group guide.

Cury, Augusto. The Dreamseller: The Revolution. Atria: S. & S. Sept. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9781439196052. $15; eISBN 9781439196076. POP FICTION
As we learned in Cury’s The Dreamseller: The Calling, the Christlike Dreamseller, shabbily dressed and beatifically philosophizing, helps those who have lost their hopes and aspirations. Here the Dreamseller shows us that there are many like him, unsung heroes from teachers who fight for their students to cancer patients who fight for their lives. With more than 12 million copies in print, Brazilian psychiatrist Cury’s inspirational fiction would seem to have broad appeal.

Erickson, Carolly. The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII’s Fifth Wife. St. Martin’s. Sept. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780312596910. $24.99; eISBN 9781250011022. HISTORICAL
Having given us the New York Times best-selling The Last Wife of Henry VIII (along with lots of other historical fiction and nonfiction titles), Erickson steps back to Henry’s penultimate bride, the vivacious Catherine Howard, who didn’t bother to inform Henry that she’d had three lovers before him. And thus, with his disillusionment and her failure to produce a son, even as the succession was threatened by Prince Edward’s serious illness, Catherine met the fate of her cousin Anne Boleyn. Yummy for Anglophiles.

Kenyon, Sherrilyn. Dance with the Devil. St. Martin’s. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781250009135. $25.99; eISBN 9781429976183. PARANORMAL
No, not a new entry in the Dark-Hunter series—just last month, I reported that Time Untime will appear in August. This is a hardcover release of the third in the series, so stock up if your copies are worn to shreds.

Kincaid, Jamaica. See Now Then. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 176p. ISBN 9780374180560. $23. CD: Macmillan Audio. LITERARY
Fans of Lannan Literary Award winner Kincaid’s Lucy and Mr. Potter have waited ten years for this novel, ostensibly a study of a Mother and a Father living with their two children in small-town New England. In fact, as the characters follow their proscribed routines, their minds work overtime to make sense of past, present, and future. An interior novel, then, that reflective readers will want.

Nicholas, Douglas. Something Red. Atria: S. & S. Sept. 2012. 374p. ISBN 9781451660074. $25; eISBN 9781451660234. HISTORICAL/FANTASY
An award-winning poet (e.g., Roberts Award), Nicholas decided to write a short story as a Christmas gift to his wife. It bloomed into this packed and spooky-sounding book, set in 1200s England during a particularly frost-bitten winter. Leader of a troupe that includes her lover, her granddaughter, and her apprentice, tough-minded Irishwoman Molly aims to cross the mountains before the snows descend, but something scary is following them in the woods. In the end, the story blends shape-shifters, Templars, Saracens, battling monks, Irish battle queens, frightening mastiffs, and more in a heightened tale reportedly written in resoundingly lyrical prose—after all, Nicholas is a poet. Sounds so promising.

Palma, Felix J. The Map of the Sky. Atria: S. & S. Sept. 2012. 576p. ISBN 9781451660319. $26; eISBN 9781451660333. FANTASY
In Spanish author Palma’s dazzling The Map of Time, his first book published here and a New York Times best seller, H.G. Wells is plunged headlong into the possibility of time travel. Wells figures in this follow-up, as New York socialite Emma Harlow agrees to marry millionaire Montgomery Gilmore—if he’ll stage the extraterrestrial invasion that appears in Wells’s War of the Worlds. A multilayered plot and more time travel (we even meet Edgar Allen Poe); crossed fingers that it’s as good as the first one.

Russinovich, Mark. Trojan Horse. St. Martin’s. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781250010483. $24.99; eISBN 9781250010490. THRILLER
What made the author’s feted debut thriller, Zero Day, so scary was how plausible it was—a Microsoft Technical Fellow, responsible for the Sysinternals tools, Russinovich obviously knows his tech stuff. Here’s another scarily plausible work. The Stuxnet virus, jointly created by the CIA and Mossad to disable Iran’s nuclear program, is getting a new iteration, and the anxious Chinese are preparing to retaliate with a nasty new virus of their own called the Trojan Horse. International relations hang in the balance, and so does the fate of cybersecurity analysts Jeff Aiken and Daryl Haugen, who have stumbled upon the virus. Really, old-fashioned shootouts were easier.

Weller, Lance. Wilderness. Bloomsbury USA, dist. by Macmillan. Sept. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781608199372. $25. HISTORICAL
Living in a driftwood shack on Washington’s beautiful rough-and-tumble coast 30 years after he was badly injured in the Civil War, elderly Abel Truman determines that he must hike across the snow-covered Olympic Mountains to confront personal issues left unresolved since before the war. During his journey, he recalls war’s horrors while fighting off two thugs who want to steal his beloved dog. Weller won Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers, and the Civil War backdrop seems especially fitting for these sesquicentennial times; watch.

Wilson, Antoine. Panorama City. Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780547875125. $24. LITERARY Thinking he’s on his deathbed, energetic and big-hearted Oppen Porter ricochets around town, from fast-food joints and storefront churches to his crotchety guardian-angel aunt, recording his determined effort to rise for the benefit of his unborn son. Wilson drew attention with his unsettling debut, The Interloper, and this follow-up is getting some buzz. Check out his tour to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.

Ashcroft, Frances. The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body. Norton. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780393078039. $28.95. SCIENCE
From the first stirrings in the primordial muck to our brain’s elaborate pulsings when we read or watch Shakespeare, electricity is life, and much-honored Oxford physiologist Ashcroft—recently winner of the top honor in the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO for Women in Science Awards—explains how it drives the body. Historical perspective, too (the book harks back to the Greeks); insight from a master.

The Best Science Writing Online 2012. ed. by Jennifer Ouellette. Scientific American/Farrar. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780374533342. pap. $16. SCIENCE
You have to love a science writer whose accomplishments include maintaining the Cocktail Party Physics blog. That’s Ouellette, who here guest edits the sixth edition of an anthology launched by Bora Zivkovic, editor of the blog network at Scientific American. With pieces ranging from fluids to fungi, written by rising stars, here’s online writing about science—how much more cutting edge can you get?

Brown, Lester R. Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity. Norton. Sept. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780393088915. $27.95. SCIENCE/POLICY
As the subtitle suggests, Brown—president of the Earth Policy Institute, a MacArthur Fellow, and a prolific author to boot (e.g., World on the Edge)—has something potent to say about the human-made aspect of the famines that keep stalking this planet. Dedicated readers will appreciate.

Cantu, Robert, MD & Mark Hyman. Concussions and Our Kids: America’s Leading Expert on How To Protect Young Athletes and Keep Sports Safe. Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780547773940. $27. SPORTS/HEALTH
Concussion has become a major issue in sports, plaguing professional athletes and youngsters alike. A clinical professor of neurosurgery and codirector of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, as well as chair of the Department of Surgery at Emerson Hospital, Cantu has treated of thousands of patients with brain trauma. Here he both explains how to treat concussions and, more important, how to prevent them. There will be national TV coverage, so expect interest.

Chafe, William H. Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780809094653. $28. BIOGRAPHY
That the personal is political is a well-worn adage, but it takes on new meaning when examining not one politician but two—specifically, Bill and Hillary Clinton, whose commitment to each other, as well as to key issues like race and gender equality, have shaped their careers. Duke history professor Chafe, whose numerous titles include The Rise and Fall of the American Century, considers their early years, “copresidency,” tempestuous relationship, and more.

Cotton, Dorothy. If Your Back’s Not Bent: The Role of the Citizenship Education Program in the Civil Rights Movement. Atria: S. & S. Sept. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780743296830. $25; eISBN 9781439187425. AUTOBIOGRAPHY
This autobiography by Cotton, former director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Citizens Education Project and the only woman in Martin Luther King’s inner circle, was featured here as a pick in September 2011. The subtitle change since then (from “How the Civil Rights Movement Gained Victory”) suggests a shift in focus that makes the book more personal.

Dauch, Richard. American Drive: The Road to More Jobs, a Stronger Economy, and Renewed Industrial Dominance in America. St. Martin’s. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781250010827. $27.99; eISBN 9781250010834. ECONOMICS
In 1994, after 30 years in the automotive industry, Dauch decided to get behind the wheel and bought an ailing axle and supply company, which included five crumbling plants in the center of Detroit. After rebuilding the plants, renegotiating with unions, and instituting job training, he opened up for business—and made a $60 million profit in the first month. His account is being positioned as a blueprint for fixing our economic woes.

Eco, Umberto. Inventing the Enemy: Essays. Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780547640976. $25. ESSAYS
Eco’s recent The Prague Cemetery proposed that countries needs enemies and invent them if none are to be found—an intriguingly relevant thought in today’s world and the basis of one of the essays in his new collection. Other topics: censorship, Wikileaks, James Joyce’s Ulysses, lost islands, and—not surprisingly from the author of the immortal The Name of the Rose—the medieval world. Bonbons for the literati and maybe others.

Elie, Paul. Soundabout: Reinventing Bach. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 496p. ISBN 9780374281076. $30. MUSIC
A senior fellow with Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs whose first book, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, received the PEN/Martha Albrand Prize, Elie explains how Bach shaped music—not simply through his ineffable compositions but by perfecting the tuning scheme we use today, for instance—and how subsequently Bach has been shaped by musicians from Albert Schweitzer to Pablo Casals, Glenn Gould, and Yo-Yo Ma. Today, technology from smartphones to multimedia presentations is allowing us to hear Bach’s multiple voices in different ways. Such a cool idea if it works.

Gottman, John & Nan Silver. What Makes Love Last?: How To Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal. S. & S. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9781451608472. $26; eISBN 9781451608496. SELF-HELP
Gottman runs the Love Lab at the University of Washington, Seattle, which sounds hippy-dippy until you realize that his 35 years of research into marriage have earned him honors from the National Institute of Mental Health and the American Psychological Association, among other organizations. Here he talks about maintaining trust, rebuilding after betrayal, and watching out for what he calls sliding door moments—pivotal points when a couple can connect more deeply or start to spin apart. Bigger than your standard self-help stuff.

Makary, Marty. MD. Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781608198368. $28. HEALTH
The Johns Hopkins surgeon who developed the checklist that inspired Atul Gawande’s best-selling The Checklist Manifesto, Makary here challenges the lack of transparency in health care, which leaves patients ignorant and error rates uncomfortably high despite efforts to curb them. Here he argues for accountability, aiming to reward the good doctors and ditch the bad ones. Let’s hear it from the inside! With a five-city tour to Baltimore, Boston, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York.

Marshall, Penny. My Mother Was Nuts. New Harvest: Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780547892627. $26. MEMOIR
Marshall started out as Laverne in the beloved sitcom Laverne and Shirley but made her mark as the first woman to direct films that made more than $100 million, namely, Big and A League of Their Own. Your chance to spend some more time in Hollywood.

Min, Janice. How To Look Hot in a Minivan: A Real Woman’s Guide to Losing Weight, Looking Great, and Dressing Chic in the Age of the Celebrity Mom. St. Martin’s. Sept. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780312658977. $26.99; eISBN 9781429960588. FITNESS/GROOMING
The former editor of US Weekly and current editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter, Min knows how Hollywood types make motherhood look glam. Now she’s sharing these secrets with ordinary mortals. Too late for me, but the rest of you might be interested; check out the author tour and heavyweight promotion, which will include fashion, parenting, and mommy blogs.

Pinsky, Drew. Recovering Intimacy. Atria: S. & S. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781451605716. $26; eISBN 9781451605730. SELF-HELP
Despite our in-your-face interconnectedness via social media, achieving true intimacy is hard—some would say harder than ever. Doctor, best-selling author, and TV personality, Pinsky explains how to sense when a relationship is faltering and to build and maintain deep personal bonds, whether with friends, family, or partners. Pinsky has fans.

Roth, Marco. The Scientists: A Family Romance. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 192p. ISBN 9780374210281. $23. MEMOIR
Dinnertime conversations about scientific advances and house concerts open to guests—that’s what it was like for Roth, who grew up in New York, the only child of a doctor and a concert pianist. Then his father started exhibiting the first signs of AIDS, which he had contracted in the 1980s, radically rearranging Roth’s world and leaving behind a legacy of silence. A cofounder of n + 1 and recipient of the 2011 Roger Shattuck Prize for Criticism, Roth can be expected to offer an elegant examination of what we learn from our parents and what we have to learn for ourselves.

Self, Robert O. All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s. Hill & Wang: Farrar. Sept. 2012. 512p. ISBN 9780809095025. $30. HISTORY
Here’s what family values have meant to the Left since the 1960s: first Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty, then the fight for racial and gender equality, then the fight for gay rights, health care reform, and welfare reform. Those multiplying interests have fractured Leftist ranks, allowing the Right to sweep in with its version of family values: a single-minded traditional take. So argues Brown history professor Self, a James A. Rawley Prize winner for American Babylon, who’s clarifying an idea many of us have sensed for some time. Intriguing to think of this as backdrop for the elections.

Silber, William L. Volcker: Central Banker. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781608190706. $30. BIOGRAPHY
We owe a lot to Paul A. Volcker. As Federal Reserve chair, he helped curb booming inflation in the 1970s, while as chair of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board he grappled with 2008’s financial implosion; Obama dubbed the centerpiece of his Wall Street regulation the Volcker Rule. Silber is not just director of the Glucksman Institute for Research in Securities Markets at NYU’s Stern School of Business but an author as well—from trade titles to the standard textbook Money, Banking and Financial Markets—so should be able to explain Volcker’s accomplishments to the financially challenged.

Sullivan, Robert. My American Revolution. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780374217457. $26. HISTORY
Maybe the shot heard ’round the world was fired in Lexington, MA, but most of the fighting during the Revolutionary War took place in the Middle Colonies. This I know, having grown up in a family deeply invested in supporting Trenton’s Old Barracks and in visiting Pennsylvania’s Valley Forge. Sullivan wanted to experience the war where it actually happened, so he witnessed reenactments of the crossing of the Delaware, tramped through New Jersey backyards, built a Colonial-style signal beacon, and even evacuated illegally from Brooklyn to Manhattan in a handmade boat. History as lived, not just read—which sounds great.

Tough, Paul. How Children Succeed: Rethinking Character and Intelligence. Houghton Harcourt. Sept. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780547564654. $27. EDUCATION
Listen up, pushy parents; intelligence is not necessarily the attribute children need to develop most. Psychologists, neuroscientists, and even economists are now refocusing on qualities like perseverance, optimism, and curiosity as the true catalysts of success. So may we now throw out the SATs? This book served as the basis of a New York Times magazine cover story, and there’s a 12-city tour to Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Montreal, so expect demand.

Tyler, Patrick. Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country—And Why They Can’t Make Peace. Farrar. Sept. 2012. 560p. ISBN 9780374281045. $30. POLITICAL SCIENCE
A longtime reporter at the Washington Post and then the New York Times whose The Great Wall won the 2000 Lionel Gelber Prize, Tyler here argues that Israel is not the democracy it proclaims itself to be but a military society built with the Holocaust in mind and now committed to maintaining war. Look for the controversy over this one.

Black, Benjamin. Vengeance. Holt. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780805094398. $26. CD: Macmillan Audio. THRILLER
Here’s John Banville in Quirke-y mode, as the consultant pathologist of Dublin’s Hospital of the Holy Family helps Detective Inspector Hackett investigate the bizarre death of hotshot businessman Victor Delahaye. Delahaye has taken his partner’s son out for a sail, then steadied the tiller as he shot himself in the chest. Quirke treads lightly while interviewing Delahaye’s reckless partner, gorgeous young wife, and distraught twin sons. And then a second bizarre death occurs. For literate thrills, Black can’t be beat.

Fossum, Karin. The Caller: An Inspector Sejer Mystery. Houghton Harcourt. Aug. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780547577524. $25; eISBN 9780547577623. MYSTERY
A young couple enjoying a midsummer’s meal check on their child, asleep in her stroller, and find her covered in blood. She’s not hurt, but later that night, as Inspector Sejer chats with the distraught parents, a shadowy figure leaves a postcard at the door saying “Hell begins here.” And one hell of a good reading from the high-profile Fossum, no doubt; the publisher is crowing that this is Fossum’s best since 2007’s The Indian Bride, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner. I wasn’t exactly aware that she’d leveled off, but I do know that readers will want this in spades.

Semple, Maria. Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Little, Brown. Aug. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780316204279. $25.99. Downloadable: Hachette Audio. POP FICTION
To her Microsoft husband and the other private school moms in Seattle, Bernadette Fox is a holy terror; to her 15-year-old, Bee, she’s her beloved mom. But when Bee demands the trip to Antarctica she was promised for delivering a slam-dunk report card, the increasingly agoraphobic Bernadette disappears (a virtual assistant somewhere in India is running her errands), and Bee must use all her smarts to find her. Huge in-house excitement about this book, which has sold to nine countries and is described as Aimee Bender meets Tom Perrotta. A perceptively funny piece of hers I just read in the 10/24/11 New Yorker has me convinced.

Bass, Rick. The Black Rhinos of Namibia: Searching for Survivors in the African Desert. Houghton Harcourt. Aug. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780547055213. $25; eISBN 9780547725826. NATURAL HISTORY
Actually grey-brown with white overtones that shimmer in the sun, the Black Rhinoceros is divided into four subspecies, all critically endangered and one (the Western Black Rhinoceros) declared extinct in November 2011. Here, renowned nature writer Bass visits the subspecies that lives primarily in Namibia, in Africa’s dry southwest. A nature writer of exceptional force and sensitivity, whether he’s purveying nonfiction (The Ninemile Wolves), fiction (Where the Sea Used To Be), or memoir (Why I Came West), Bass is just the man for the job; it will be instructive to see what happens when he leaves chilly Montana for Africa’s heat. For more, read Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence’s The Last Rhinos: My Battle To Save One of the World’s Greatest Creatures, out from St. Martin’s in July.

Mishra, Pankaj. From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia. Farrar. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780374249595. $27; eISBN 9781429945981. HISTORY
A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, the author of several smart studies crisscrossing East and West (e.g., Temptations of the West), and also a novelist—The Romantics won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction—Mishra brings knowledge and writerly verve to this profile of the 1900s thinkers who have shaped contemporary China, India, and the Muslim world. They aren’t fire-breathing terrorists or anticolonialists but folks from India’s Tagore to China’s Sun Yatsen to the dying Ottoman Empire’s Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. The more I look at this book, the more interested I am; I’m betting that it will be much discussed.

Auster, Paul. Winter Journal. Holt. Aug. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780805095531. $26. MEMOIR
This book is called a memoir, but as might be expected of the brilliantly offbeat award-winning author of The New York Trilogy, it’s not a standard retelling of life events. Instead, as he approaches his mid-Sixties, Auster considers bodily pain and pleasure, the passage of time, and the weight of memory, stirring in reflections on his mother’s life and death. High-minded readers will anticipate.

Banner, Lois. Revelations: The Passion and Paradox of Marilyn Monroe. Bloomsbury USA, dist. by Macmillan. Aug. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781608195312. $26. BIOGRAPHY
Yes, it’s the year of Marilyn; with the 50th anniversary of her death coming in August, she stars not only in nonfiction but in fiction (see J.I. Baker’s The Empty Glass, coming from Blue Rider in July, and Michel Schneider’s Marilyn’s Last Sessions: A Novel, previewed in fiction). This book is especially interesting for its author, not your standard celeb biographer but a founder of the field of women’s history, cofounder of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, and the first woman president of the American Studies Association. Obviously, she’s going to take Marilyn seriously.

Chaudhary, Arun. First Cameraman: The Improbable Story of How a Disheveled Film Professor Became the First Official White House Videographer, and What He Learned Inside. Times Bks: Holt. Aug. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780805095722. $28. MEMOIR/POLITICS
From 2009 to 2011, filmmaker and NYU film professor Chaudhary served as the White House’s first official videographer. He describes it best: “I [was] sort of like President Obama’s wedding videographer, if every day was a wedding with the same groom but a constantly rotating set of hysterical guests.” The insights range from observations of top political players to what it’s like being stuck in a White House bathroom as President Obama conducts a YouTube town hall on the other side of the door. Hmm, fun, and Chaudhary’s story has been featured in the media.

Cusk, Rachel. Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation. Farrar. Aug. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780374102135. $23. SOCIAL SCIENCE
One of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003 and a Whitbread and Somerset Maugham award winner, Cusk often writes perceptively in her fiction about domestic entanglements and their larger consequences. Here she switches to nonfiction, using her own painful separation to ponder the effects of divorce on both individual and society. Love her writing; a book I’m excited to see.

Garrett-Davis, Josh. Ghost Dances: Proving Up on the Great Plains. Little, Brown. Aug. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780316199841. $27.99. SOCIAL SCIENCE
Enough with the coasts; let’s get to the heart of things. We need more writing about the often overlooked Great Plains. Here,  Garrett-Davis, who was born in South Dakota and kept looking for a way out (he is now studying for a Ph.D. in American history at Princeton), returns to reflect on Native American ghost dancers, his homesteading great-great-grandparents, and the fate of the noble bison. Take a good look.

Kelly, John. The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People. Holt. Aug. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780805091847. $30. HISTORY
Author of the praised and popular The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time, Kelly moves on to a major catastrophe of the 19th century, the Great Irish Potato Famine, which cost twice as many lives as the American Civil War. Kelly investigates both causes and consequences, as the British used the famine as a pretext for further oppressing Irish society and desperate Irish emigrants remade the countries where they settled, especially America. Good popular history.

Malone, Michael S. The Guardian of All Things: The Epic Story of Human Memory. St. Martin’s. Aug. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780312620318. $25.99; eISBN 9781250014924. SCIENCE
A recurrent theme in fiction today is amnesia, depicting, I think, our recognition that we are utterly defined by memory, our fear of losing it, yet simultaneously how intrigued we are at the idea of wiping away the burdensome past. Malone, the ABCNew.com “Silicon Insider” columnist, here investigates how human civilization is rooted in memory and how our means of preserving it have evolved, from cave paintings to the Internet. Science ideas are so important, and it’s good to have them communicated by someone who talks regularly and felicitously to lay readers.  

Torregrosa, Luisita López. Before the Rain. Houghton Harcourt. Aug. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780547669205. $25; eISBN 9780547669236. MEMOIR
Former New York Times editor Torregrosa, author of The Noise of Infinite Longing, a memoir of her Puerto Rican family, here details how she fell in love with married reporter Elizabeth in the Eighties. Their love is played out in the Philippines, with the fall of Ferdinand Marcos as backdrop. Definitely different. Lots of reading group activity; investigate.

du Plessix Gray, Francine. The Queen’s Lover. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781594203374. $25.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. LITERARY
This queen is Marie Antoinette, and her lover is Swedish nobleman Count Axel von Fersen, though they don’t initially become intimate when they meet at a masked ball in 1774 and the 19-year-old Marie Antoinette is but a dauphine, married to the man who would become Louis XVI. Fersen becomes close to the entire royal family, learning their secrets, then, after enlisting in the cause of the American Revolution, returns to France’s own bloody upheaval. The rigorous and penetrating du Plessix Gray should do for Louis XVI’s France would Hillary Mantel did for Henry VIII in Wolf  Hall, that is, make real art, distinctively her own, of an already fascinating time, place, and cast of characters.

Lanchester, John. Capital: A Novel. Norton. Jun. 2012. 544p. ISBN 9780393082074. $26.95. LITERARY
It’s 2008, and even as the economy shudders and falls, something sinister is happening on Pepys Road, London. The residents are an interesting mix—a banker and his greedy wife, an older woman terminally ill with cancer and her graffiti-artist son, Pakistani shop owners, refugees, a soccer star, and more—and they’re all getting postcards reading “We Want What You Have.” What that is, no one knows, but the ominousness fits perfectly with the anxiety of society at large, even as the novel chronicles the small, personal dramas of each household. Lanchester’s award-winning novels (e.g., The Debt of Pleasure) show him to have a sharp eye for social detail, and this novel should serve well to capture our aching times.

Steele, Jon. The Watchers. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 560p. ISBN 9780399158742. $26.95. THRILLER
Corpses bearing the marks of torture are showing up around Lausanne Cathedral, where an innocent named Marc Rochat serves as le guet—the man who rings out the hour from the church’s belfry. Katherine Taylor, a high-priced American call girl, lives just across the square. Soon they encounter a British private eye named Jay Harper who’s been sent to investigate the murders—by whom he cannot remember, though he does seem to remember the Latin he never knew that he knew. In this atmospheric but (at first glance) sharply written story—called a mystical noir-thriller by the publisher, written in the spirit of recent works by Danielle Trussoni and Anne Rice—stone angels adorn the cathedral, but real angels, tumbled from heaven, may be the cause of the trouble. A first novel (and first in a series) from Steele, for years a master cameraman for Independent Television News and author of War Junkie, an underground classic; really smart work for serious thriller readers.

Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Dream of the Celt. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9780374143466. $28. LITERARY FICTION
A book from Nobel prize winner Vargas Llosa is always a treat, and this one is also something of a surprise. His subject is Irish nationalist Robert Casement, who in 1916 was hanged by the British government for treason. Casement had fought to improve the lives of oppressed people worldwide, from the Belgian Congo to the Amazon, but when he began highlighting injustices closer to home his fate was sealed. Casement’s legacy is not well known, and Vargas Llosa resurrects him—but in fictional form, allowing for a deeper exploration of motive and emotion. Obviously for all literary readers.

Collins, Gail. As Texas Goes…: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda. Norton. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780871404077. $25.95. POLITICS
“What happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas anymore.” That truth is delivered by the ever-perceptive Collins, New York Times columnist and best-selling author (When Everything Changed), who always thought of the country as two liberal coasts flanking a Republican heartland (she herself is from Ohio). Lately, she has come to understand that the country’s entire political agenda has been set by Texas, where a conservative ideology supporting deregulation, lowered environmental protections, tax cuts, and a states’ rights approach has been championed by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and now Rick Perry. To understand what’s going on with the nation, we need to look at Texas—exactly what the acerbically smart Collins does. All set to raise both cheers and hackles; get it. 

McLane, Maureen N. My Poets. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780374217495. $25. MEMOIR/LITERATURE
The author of two collections (2010’s World Enough was an LJ Best Poetry Book), McLane writes musically astute lines that deliver a sharp and gratifying sense of story, character, or place; her poems are wonderful to dwell in. So it’s a delight to learn that she’s offering this book, not a study of poetry but of how certain poets have shaped her writing, her thinking, her very life. She thus presents her own story and literary exegesis as two sides of the same bright coin, and we meet her as we meet Chaucer, Shelley, Louise Glück, and more. I’m expecting a lot of this book.

Atkins, Ace. The Lost Ones. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780399158766. $25.95. THRILLER
When he’s not continuing the Spenser novels, having been chosen for the honor by the Robert B. Parker Estate, Atkins writes nicely gritty thrillers on his own. This is his second Quinn Colson novel, about a former U.S. Army ranger who’s become sheriff of Tibbelah County, MS. Here Colson is contending with both a nasty case of stolen army guns, which have landed in the laps of a local Mexican drug gang, and an abused child whose situation leads Colson and toughie deputy Lillie Virgil to a bootleg baby racket. Atkins is looking up.

Avallone, Silvia. Swimming to Elba. Viking. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670023585. $25.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. POP FICTION
Childhood friends Anna and Francesca have bloomed as adolescents, and they start to imagine a life beyond sleepy little Piombino, where they live. Maybe it’s time to take the ferry to the resort town of Elba. The friends’ dreams and disappointments might sound like the stuff of YA novels, but as this was runner-up for Italy’s Premio Strega and has been sold to 14 countries, something more must be going on. Watch.

Brown, Eli. Cinnamon and Gunpowder. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780374123666. $26. HISTORICAL
Evocative title, and the plot sounds like a hoot. In 1819, the pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot kills the lord of a booming tea concern but spares his chef, the famous Owen Wedgwood, as long as he manages to serve her an extraordinary meal every Sunday. Soon understandably overwrought Owen has swept away the weevil-infested cornmeal for tea-smoked eel. Brown’s first novel, The Great Days, won the Fabri Prize for Literature, so this isn’t just a divertissement. Check it out.

Conway, James. The Last Trade. Dutton. Jun. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780525952824. $26.95. THRILLER
With his uncanny sense of the financial future, Drew Havens has helped make the Rising Fund a premier hedge operation—the only one that did not simply survive the mortgage crisis but benefited from it. Now, however, someone is murdering brokers associated with the Fund, starting with Havens’s protégé. The author himself is a pseudonymous hedge-fund insider, so the money details should be correct. Certainly au courant; buy where financial thrillers do well. 

Cussler, Clive & Graham Brown. The Storm. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780399160134. $27.95. CD/downloadable: Penguin Audio. THRILLER
Just as a NUMA research vessel in the Indian Ocean completes some water sampling, a veritable tide of little black particles comes along, attacks the vessel, and leaves everyone aboard dead. Seems that there’s a plan afoot to change the climate (beyond what we’ve already experienced); it will kill millions, and it’s up to NUMA stars Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala to stop it. More from the very busy Cussler, who seems only to be getting better. Buy multiples.

D’Amato, Brian. The Sacrifice Game. Dutton. Jun. 2012. 672p. ISBN 9780525952411. $29.95. THRILLER
In his debut, In the Courts of the Sun, D’Amato had a bunch of scientists send math prodigy Jed DeLanda back to 664 C.E. to see how the Maya went about predicting the apocalypse of 2012. Having arrived in the body of a human sacrifice and taken a good look around, Jed decided to bring on the apocalypse—because clearly humanity needs to be put out of its misery. Here, however, the scientists back in the future have gotten wind of Jed’s plans and work to stop him. Buy where Courts and other sf thrillers are popular.

Ellis, David. The Wrong Man. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780399158285. $25.95. CD/downloadable: Penguin Audio. THRILLER
The case looks pretty bleak when homeless Iraq War veteran Mike Stoller is accused of murdering a paralegal coming home from night-school class, as he suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder that badly affects his memory. But lawyer Jason Kolarich thinks that the young woman was killed because she had been tracing a money trail linking terrorists to some leading corporations. Interesting premise, and Ellis’s dual standing as an Edgar Award winner and James Patterson’s latest coauthor should attract readers.

Grecian, Alex. The Yard. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780399149542. $26.95. CD/downloadable: Penguin Audio. HISTORICAL THRILLER
After its failure to capture Jack the Ripper, Scotland Yard creates the Murder Squad—12 detectives charged with investigating the thousands of murders in grimy, crime-filled London. They’re not having much luck. Then one of their members is killed, and newly hired Walter Day teams with the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley, to track down the killer and figure out why he seems to be gunning for the entire squad. This is a new series, but Grecian is no newbie; he’s author of the long-running and critically acclaimed graphic novel series Proof. I’m intrigued.

Grenville, Kate. Sarah Thornhill. Grove. Jun. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780802120243. $25; eISBN 9780802194459. LITERARY
A novel of frontier violence in Australia, Grenville’s The Secret River won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for a bunch more. The Lieutenant continued the story. Now here’s the wrap-up, featuring Sarah, the youngest child of River’s pioneer William Thornhill. Alas, Sarah doesn’t know that her father’s fortune is built on cruel exploitation of the Aborigines. Grenville is forthright in her examination of the historical record—she’s drawing partly on family history—and the first two books were memorable, so I’m anticipating. With a reading group guide.

Healy, Dermot. Long Time, No See. Viking. Jun. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780670023608. $27.95. LITERARY
A multithreat author (he does novels, short stories, poetry, and memoir) with a stack of awards—and called Ireland’s finest living novelist by no less a luminary than Roddy Doyle—Healy here offers his first novel in more than a decade. It’s narrated by a young man called Mister Psyche, who lives in a remote coastal village and becomes involved in a series of escapades with grand uncle JoeJoe and JoeJoe’s neighbor, the Blackbird. Lots of Irish lit lovers out there for this book, but you don’t have to be one of them to give this a serious look. 

Kellerman, Jesse. Potboiler. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780399159039. $25.95. LITERARY THRILLER
Kellerman does not write classic thrillers like his famous parents, Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, but uses the genre to explore quirky ideas or philosophical questions in a way that hits his books into the cognoscenti’s court. In his latest, unavailing middle-aged college professor Arthur Pfeffenkorn gets some bright ideas when his phenomenally accomplished friend, best-selling thriller writer William de la Vallèe, is lost at sea. For starters, he searches out de la Vallèe widow, the woman he himself loved and lost. From there, things get darker. Watch this one for sophisticated thriller readers.

Makine, Andreï. The Life of an Unknown Man. Graywolf. Jun. 2012. 192p. ISBN 9781555976149. pap. $15. LITERARY
Both before and after the publication of his much-loved Dreams of My Russian Summers, Makine has written novels exploring the burden of Russian history in the 20th century, but this one has a twist. Having spent years exiled in Paris (like Makine himself), a disillusioned writer named Shutov revisits St. Petersburg and strikes up a friendship with an old man named Volsky, who recalls the siege of Leningrad, Stalin’s purges, and a grand love. In the end, Makine brings things up to date and shakes them up a bit by showing that the old man is clearly happier than the desperate go-getters of contemporary Russia. I always enjoy Makine’s books and hope you’ll take a look at this one.

Medina, Pablo. Cubop City Blues. Grove. Jun. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780802119841. $25; eISBN 9780802194558. LITERARY
A novelist (The Cigar Roller), poet (Floating Island), and translator (most recently of Federico García Lorca’s immortal Poeta en Nueva York), Medina puts all his talents to use in this tale of a reimagined New York at the time Latin jazz emerged. In Cubop City, a child is born nearly blind and is homeschooled. But when he’s 25, the Storyteller, as he is called, must care for his parents, Cuban exiles now dying of cancer, which he does by spinning stories from his fervid imagination. Outside the windows, Afro-Cuban jazz patters along. I must say that I don’t know Medina’s work as well as I should, but this does sound gorgeous, no? 

 Moriarty, Laura. The Chaperone. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9781594487019. $26.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. LITERARY
Imagine having to chaperone boldly defiant, black-bobbed actress Louise Brooks, who even at 15 must have been a handful. That job falls to traditional but thoughtful Cora Carlisle, a mid-thirties married woman with her own reasons for agreeing to escort Louise from Wichita to New York, where she will be studying dance. Louise will surely light up the book as she did the screen (I do love her), but the brave thing here is to make Cora’s transformative experience the center of the book. Especially appealing to book clubs, so the reading group guide is a plus.

Palahniuk, Chuck. Invisible Monsters Remix. Norton. Jun. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780393083521. $25.95. POP FICTION
Published as a paperback original in 1999, Palahniuk’s tale of a fashion model who loses everything when she is badly disfigured in a drive-by shooting gets a makeover here, featuring new chapters, new scenes, and special design elements. It’s being billed as a “director’s cut,” which Palahniuk fans will definitely want.

Pearson, Ridley. The Risk Agent. Putnam. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780399158834. $25.95. THRILLER
You have to love the guy. Not only is he the author of 16 best-selling novels, not only is he the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in detective fiction at Oxford University, but he’s a founding member (with Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Greg Iles) of the Rock Bottom Remainders. In his latest, a Chinese national working for an American firm in Shanghai is hustled away by bad guys, along with his security guard and a pile of top-secret papers. Rutherford Risk operative Grace Chua, a forensic accountant, tracks down the money, while colleague John Knox uses his combat expertise—a lot—as he looks for the hostage. The start of a new series; likely big.

Rice, Luanne. Little Night. Pamela Dorman: Viking. 336p. ISBN 9780670023561. $26.95. POP FICTION
Lots of novels feature estranged sisters, but Clare and Anne are divided for especially astonishing reasons—Clare tried to protect Anne from an abusive husband and ended up in jail for assault, with Anne’s spurious defense of her husband the main reason for the conviction. Years later, Clare finds her niece Grit on her New York doorstep, and they work at building a relationship; there’s even a hint that Anne may be in town looking for reconciliation. Rice’s 30th novel should follow the rest to bestsellerdom; buy multiples, and think about this one for book clubs.

Walcott, Derek. Moon-Child: A Play. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 128p. ISBN 9780374533397. pap. $16. DRAMA
No, not poetry from Nobel prize winner Walcott but a play—the first I’ve ever featured in Prepub Alert, unless memory fails me. On lush St. Lucia, a wicked Planter who’s apparently the Devil in disguise aims to turn the island over for development but meets his match in the matriarch of the Bouton family. Not a big, big work but a likely a delight for the literati.

Wright, Tom. What Dies in Summer. Norton. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780393064025. $25.95. POP FICTION
When Jim and cousin L.A., who’s just moved in with him and his grandmother, discover the body of a raped and murdered girl in a field, Jim’s special gift—he’s got the Sight—comes in handy. Unfortunately, it also leads them into big trouble. The publisher is putting a lot of effort behind this debut, billed as coming-of-age Southern gothic; buy where such titles are popular and otherwise keep an eye on this one. 

Zimmerman, Jean. The Orphanmaster. Viking. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780670023646. $27.95. HISTORICAL
In 1663 New Amsterdam, orphan children are disappearing, and 22-year-old trader Blandine von Couvering wants to know why—not least because she herself is an orphan. She joins forces (in more ways than one) with British spy Edward Drummond, but before they can find the culprit—is it the governor’s decadent nephew, a crazed Algonquin trapper, or the shady orphanmaster?—Blandine is accused of witchcraft and Edward is caught and sentenced to hanging. Lots of excitement, and not just in the narrative; the house is really behind this debut. Watch.

Bowker, Gordon. James Joyce: A New Biography. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 624p. ISBN 9780374178727. $35. BIOGRAPHY
The biographer of Malcolm Lowry, George Orwell, and Lawrence Durrell, Bowker now takes on the literary Everest that is James Joyce. Working with newly discovered materials, he aims to reveal more of the author’s interior landscape, exploring his commitment to writing despite poverty, censorship, and relentless criticism. Richard Ellmann’s monumental biography still tops the charts; let see how this one does.

Coates, John. The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings, and the Biology of Boom and Bust. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9781594203381. $27.95. BUSINESS/SCIENCE
The French refer to twilight as entre le chien et le loup—between the dog and the wolf, the time when one has trouble telling the two apart.Wall Streeters use the term to highlight that shifty moment when a trader can take a risk or retreat to cut possible losses. Coates, a research fellow in neuroscience and finance at Cambridge, once worked in derivatives and came to believe that trading behavior was deeply related to hormones. His experiments showed that testosterone, bolstered by success, reduces the fear of risk in men, particularly young men (but not women), while failure causes an increase in cortisol, which inhibits risk taking. This biology of risk helps us understand how mind and body work together for success, separating the dogs from the wolves in a wide range of endeavors. For smart readers; makes sense, right?

Cohen, Rich. The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King. Farrar. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780374299279. $27. BIOGRAPHY
Arriving in America in 1891, Samuel Zemurray started out as a fruit peddler and ended up as head of the United Fruit Company—and one of the richest men in the world. As told by Cohen, his is both a rags-to-riches success story and a cautionary tale about the damage done by corporate greed and the exploitation of other countries. A Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair contributing editor with a bunch of best sellers to his name, Cohen should pull this off nicely.

Dolan, Marc. Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock ’n’ Roll. Norton. Jun. 2012. 592p. ISBN 9780393081350. $29.95. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
Associate professor of English, American studies, and film studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, and at the City University of New York Graduate Center, Dolan would seem to have the background to write something more than a flashy account of Springsteen’s rise to fame. And that’s what he intends, probing the cultural and political forces that shaped Springsteen while drawing on numerous sources, including unreleased studio recordings and bootlegs of live performances. For serious fans.

Gallagher, Michael & Jonathan Fetter-Vorm. Trinity: Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb. Hill & Wang. Jun. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780809094684. $22. GRAPHIC NOVEL/HISTORY
Fetter-Vorm has illustrated a number of literary sources, including Beowulf and Moby-Dick, but here he takes on an important aspect of history, chronicling the development of the atomic bomb. The book moves from early research and a vividly rendered depiction of a nuclear chain reaction to the launching of the Manhattan Project and the ethical quandaries of those involved. Strongly consider wherever graphic nonfiction moves.

Jarnow, Jesse. Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). 288p. ISBN 9781592407156. $18. MUSIC
Yo La Tengo has been around for three decades, defining indie rock and refusing to go glam by joining a big record label. Music journalist and radio show host Jarnow (The Frow Show, WFMU) tells their story. Note the paperback original format, absolutely fitting to the content and the audience. Get wherever music books beyond those celeb bios circulate.

Johnson, Boris. Johnson’s Life of London: The People Who Made the City That Made the World. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9781594487477. $27.95. HISTORY
London is a fascinating city, and who better to tell its story that the mayor himself, familiarly known as Boris. This he does by focusing not on events but individuals, from Hadrian to Shakespeare to the Rolling Stones. Before serving in the House of Commons and then becoming mayor, Johnson was a journalist (he was eventually editor of the Spectator), so he should be able to write. Just in time for the 2012 Olympics, this should be an entertainingly irreverent take on a powerhouse city.  

Kemper, Steve. A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa. Norton. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780393079661. $27.95. HISTORY
Never heard of Heinrich Barth? Acting for the British government, this German national became part of an expedition through North and Central Africa in 1849, enduring a five-and-a-half year trek over 10,000 miles and the deaths of most of his comrades before finally reaching that shining, legendary city, Timbuktu. But because of Europe’s changing political landscape and Barth’s concern with learning about the African peoples rather than figuring out how to exploit them, he didn’t get the attention at the time that he deserved. His story is known primarily by scholars, to whom his discoveries remain invaluable, which makes this an important corrective to our understanding of Africa’s exploration. And it sounds fascinating.  

Koslow, Sally, Slouching Toward Adulthood: Observations from the Not-So-Empty Nest. Viking. Jun. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780670023622. $25.95. CURRENT EVENTS
A novelist (With Friends Like These) and journalist (O: The Oprah Magazine, Huffington Post), Koslow draws on her own experience, as well as research and interviews, to talk about a crucial issue these days: the number of adult children who have returned home to live with their parents. She calls these children adultescents, and her book seems less a discussion of why this is happening and what (if anything) to do about it than a portrait of the adjustments families are now making.

 Mann, James. The Obamians: How a Band of Newcomers Redefined American Power. Viking. Jun. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780670023769. $26.95. CURRENT EVENTS
In his best-selling Rise of the Vulcans, Mann profiled the advisers who helped shape George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Here he looks at the idealistic young advisers Obama brought with him to the White House who found themselves up against both the messy realities of world politics and an older, more seasoned group of advisers (e.g., Joseph Biden, Hilary Clinton) who had a different view of things. Food for the political nuts among us, and there are lots.

Rees, Martin. From Here to Infinity: A Vision for the Future of Science. Norton. Jun. 2012. 160p. ISBN 9780393063073. $23.95. SCIENCE
A lot of folks are intimated by science, and Cambridge astrophysicist Rees wants them to get over it. After all, many of the crucial issues we face today, from health care to energy policy to climate change, demand an understanding of science. Rees here makes a case for increased communication between scientists and nonscientists so that we can all be better informed. It’s an important idea that I hope finds readers.

Sullivan, Randall. Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson. Grove. Jun. 2012. 388p. ISBN 9780802119629. $26.95; eISBN 9780802195654. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
As the subtitle suggests, this book by a former Rolling Stone contributing editor and writer recounts not only Jackson’s in-the-spotlight upbringing and the controversies of his adult life—the business errors, pedophilia accusations, savaged reputation, and comeback album and 50 megaconcerts he was planning at his death—but the death itself, including the public’s reaction, the estate battles, and the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray. Seems there’s an effort here at balance; likely lots of demand.

Wahls, Zach. My Two Moms: Everything I Needed To Know About Gay Marriage I Learned in Boy Scouts. Gotham Bks: Penguin Group (USA). Jun. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781592407132. $26. MEMOIR
There are plenty of charming, Eagle Scout engineering students about, but only one testified before the Iowa House of Representatives in January 2011 that the sexual orientation of his two moms had had, as he said, “zero effect on the content of his character.” That was Wahls, just 19, and his speech subsequently appeared on YouTube, soon racking up more than two million views. Here he expands on his life story, speaking first to youngers like himself, raised by a same-sex couple, and then to all those who feel like outsiders, telling them that they are not alone. A needed book, and Wahls is now a known quantity.

Zuckerman, Peter & Amanda Padoan. Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2’s Deadliest Day. Norton. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780393079883. $26.95. MOUNTAINEERING
As long as Westerners have been scaling the Himalayas, Sherpas—inhabitants of Nepal’s most mountainous regions—have climbed with them, not merely as porters but as expert mountaineers. Yet they have never been given their due. Here is the story of Chhiring Dorje Sherpa and Pasang Lama, who participated in the 2008 assault on K2 that left 11 climbers dead, though they themselves survived. The book takes pains to explore their culture and the burden felt by such impoverished young men who take on dangerous work that pays well yet remains an offense to the mountains they revere. Sobering.