Library Journal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Erdrich, Louise. The Round House. Harper: HarperCollins. Oct. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780062065247. $26.99; eISBN 9780062065261. lrg. prnt. LITERARY FICTION
Erdrich continues the trilogy begun with The Plague of Doves—not to mention her luscious, long-standing oeuvre—with the story of an Ojibwe woman named Geraldine Coutts who is ruthlessly attacked one summer morning in 1988. Because she refuses to speak about the event, instead retreating to her bed, her husband, Bazil, and their 13-year-old son, Joe, try to answer the most basic questions: Was the attacker Indian or white? Did the attack occur on the reservation or on state land (the state being North Dakota)? Frustrated with their ineffectual efforts, Joe rounds up three friends and hunts for the truth himself. Erdrich is such a natural that one almost forgets how good she is; with a 100,000-copy first printing and a seven-city tour to Boston, Minneapolis, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Helprin, Mark. In Sunlight and in Shadow. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 720p. ISBN 9780547819235. $28. LITERARY FICTION
Home from the war and basking in the bright lights of 1947 New York, wealthy Harry Copeland encounters heiress and aspiring actress Catherine Thomas Hale on the Staten Island ferry, and a great passion is born. Alas, Catherine is engaged to a much older man, but she and Harry pursue a romance against the backdrop of Broadway theaters and Long Island mansions, with financiers and gangsters among the walk-on players in this grand pageant from the author of A Soldier of the Great War. What I’ve read so far is glorious and golden, truly like reentering another world where another sensibility prevails and even the sunlight and shadow have a different weight; the 100,000-copy first printing seems right.

Lehane, Dennis. Live by Night. Morrow. Oct. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780060004873. $27.99; eISBN 9780062200297. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. HISTORICAL THRILLER
A New York Times best-selling author with multiple awards to his name, Lehane writes vividly enough to have seen three books turned into movies (e.g., Shutter Island). Not surprisingly, the promotion for his latest, set in Roaring Twenties Boston, Florida, and Cuba, brings up HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Youngest son of an upright Boston police sergeant, Joe Coughlin opts for the dark side, working his way to the top of organized crime as he enjoys the money, the thrills, and the femmes fatales but setting himself up, inevitably, for betrayal and revenge. With a one-day laydown on October 2 and a 400,000-copy first printing; hard not to imagine this one triumphing, as long as readers like Lehane in hot-jazz historical mode.

Wolfe, Tom. Back to Blood. Little, Brown. Oct. 2012. 608p. ISBN 9780316036313. $30; lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. LITERARY FICTION
About every eight to ten years since the 1987 publication of Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe writes a novel summing up America’s zeitgeist. This wide-lens view of Miami’s Biscayne Bay sounds no different. Here we meet the Cuban mayor and black police chief, the ambitious young journalist (a Wolfe in character’s clothing?) and a light-skinned Creole from Haiti (whose darker brother preens like a gangster), the billionaire porn addict and the artists at the Miami Arts Basel Fair, the spectators at the regatta and the former New Yorkers at an “Active Adult” condo—not to mention some suspicious-looking Russians. What are they up to? You must read this book to find out.

Egan, Timothy. Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780618969029. $28. BIOGRAPHY
Curtis was a famed photographer and outdoorsman when in 1900 he became determined to chronicle Native American culture before it vanished entirely. He worked mightily to photograph more than 80 tribes—it took six years to persuade the Hopi to let him see their Snake Dance—and eventually produced 20 volumes. Even as he became a fierce advocate of the people captured by his lens, his family life and reputation splintered, and he died penniless. (Marianne Wiggins’s exquisite novel, The Shadow Catcher, captures the turmoil of his life and would make a great companion read.) From Egan, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and National Book Award winner for The Worst Hard Time; with a 75,000-copy first printing and a ten-city tour to New York, Boston, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Denver, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Portland, and Seattle.

Gompertz, Will. What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of One Hundred Years of Modern Art. Dutton. Oct. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780525952671. $27.95. FINE ARTS
Few of us would have the nerve to do a stand-up show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. But BBC arts editor Gompertz does, appearing there in 2009 and, in a one-man piece called Double Art History, styling himself as a substitute art teacher explaining modern art. That show, a sell-out, bodes well for his new book, which covers the artists, movements, and signal works of modern art while asking some unpretentious questions, e.g., why do we instinctively love or hate it. Former director of Tate Media (as in the wonderful Tate Britain and its wild sister, the Tate Modern) and named one of the world’s top 50 creative thinkers by Creativity magazine, Gompertz apparently has an eye for the telling anecdote. A great art history lesson; New Yorkers, note that he’s bringing his show to you.

DeMille, Nelson. The Panther. Grand Central. Oct. 2012. 600p. ISBN 9780446580847. $27.99; lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
The author’s most recent novel, The Lion, which featured his popular hero John Corey, debuted in a tie for the top spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list in 2010. So readers will rejoice that Corey is back, working in antiterrorist capacity with his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, in Sana’a, Yemen. Their assignment? To track down the al-Qaeda operative responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole. Alas, things are not quite as they appear. Roar.

Donoghue, Emma. Astray. Little, Brown. Oct. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780316206297. $24.99. lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. SHORT STORIES
Emigrants, runaways, and lovers; counterfeiters and slaves. The characters in Donoghue’s new story collection have all wandered far from home, and they’ve pushed psychological boundaries as well. The author of the uniquely voiced Man Booker finalist Room, which has sold over a million copies, does something interesting here. Aside from writing eye-popping stories, she provides endnotes for each story detailing its historical background—especially intriguing when her writing ranges from the Puritans’ Massachusetts to antebellum Louisiana to 1960s Toronto. Can’t wait to read.

Dunmore, Helen. The Greatcoat.  Atlantic Monthly. Oct. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780802120601. $24. HISTORICAL
Having moved to Yorkshire in winter 1952 with her doctor husband, who’s often absent, Isabel Carey is feeling isolated. One night she wakes up freezing and, finding an RAF greatcoat abandoned in a cupboard, huddles under it for warmth. Then she hears a knock on the window and discovers a young man wearing a greatcoat just like hers. What follows is an intense affair, but who is this mysterious stranger? Orange Prize winner Dunmore makes the past shimmer, but here she’s making it spooky, too.

Harrison, Kim. Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond. Morrow. Oct. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780061974328. $24.99; eISBN 9780062207906. SHORT STORIES
With this short fiction collection, Harrison offers a new view of the Hollows—haunt of bounty hunter and witch Rachel Morgan, the star of Harrison’s best-selling series—while spinning out a few new fantasy worlds. Included are three new novellas, e.g., “Million Dollar Baby,” featuring elven tycoon Trent Kalamack’s efforts to rescue his daughter with the help of a pixy named Jenks, plus all her previously published short fiction. Bonbons for fans of a series that just keeps ramping up.

Kiesbye, Stefan.Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone. Penguin: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780143121466. $15. HORROR
I’ve been promised that this is a really spooky novel—chilling right down to the title, taken from the dark nursery rhyme; its billing as Shirley Jackson meets the X-Files just cements the feeling. The setting is Hemmersmoor, a place seemingly out of time where fear creeps around every corner; there’s a manor whose inhabitants despise the townsfolk, an old mill no one dares mention, and dark talk of revenants in the pub. Four village children are about to find out what’s going on. A  novel for the brave; from the author of There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby—clearly, Kiesbye has a macabre turn of mind.

Locke, Attica. The Cutting Season. Harper: HarperCollins. Oct. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780061802058. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097743. lrg. prnt. THRILLER
Locke follows up her multiple-prize-nominated debut, Black Water Rising, with a story set in contemporary Louisiana but freighted with implications from the past. A young woman is found with her throat cut on the antebellum plantation Belle Vie, regarded nostalgically by some and reviled by others as a living reminder of slavery. Locals are angry about migrant labor and the corporate takeover of the area’s small family farms, but estate manager Caren Gray turns elsewhere for a solution. Fingers crossed for this sophomore effort.

Patterson, James. Free Alex Cross. Little, Brown. Oct. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780316097512. $28.99; lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. THRILLER
Alex Cross arrested hotshot plastic surgeon Elijah Creem for sleeping with underage girls, but Creem is now out of prison and has used his skills to change his face. Meanwhile, a young woman is found hanging, having just given birth, but the baby is missing. More young bodies pile up, and Alex hardly realizes that he is being watched. I think that we can guess where this is going. With 75 million copies of his books in print, Patterson is the king of crime.

Sharratt, Mary. Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780547567846. $25. HISTORICAL
A noted writer of historical fiction, Sharratt is also editor of the contrarian anthology Bitch Lit. So she should effectively capture the contrarian spirit of Hildegard von Bingen, who was tithed to the church at age eight and eventually broke out of servitude to a punishingly pious nun and system to become a powerful abbess, scholar, and composer who preached her own brighter vision of God. Not the biggest book on the list but with strong appeal for those interested in religious debate, strong female characters, and the High Middle Ages.

Anastas, Benjamin. Too Good to Be True: A Memoir. New Harvest: Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780547913995. $25. MEMOIR
Appreciated by the cognoscenti, the author of novels like An Underachiever’s Diary that should be better known, Anastas was broke and frustrated with his career when his pregnant wife left him for another man (a writer, no less).  This is an account of how he fought to maintain a relationship with his son—especially important because his own childhood was so fractured. (What can you say about a mom who lets her nutty therapy group hang a sign around her three year old’s neck proclaiming “Too Good To Be True”?) Expect something different—but nakedly there.

Casteel, Seth. Underwater Dogs. Little, Brown. Oct. 2012. 144p. ISBN 9780316227704. $19.99. PHOTOGRAPHY
An award-winning pet photographer and (bless him) an animal adoption activist, Casteel got the bright idea of photographing dogs swimming, working mostly from below to create spooky-adorable images and the occasional fierce shot of a sharp-toothed canine going straight for a ball. Since he began posting them online, his images of doggie-paddling pooches have garnered 150 million views. Possible cult status here.

Colbert, Stephen. America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t. Grand Central. Oct. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780446583978. $28.99. CD/Downloadable: Hachette Audio. HUMOR
America is No. 1, except that it’s not, really, proclaims political satirist Colbert. We don’t make anything anymore, and our future is in the hands of the Chinese. Does Colbert have recommendations? “Feel free to deep-fry this book—it’s a rich source of fiber.” Maybe laughing will help.

Douglas, Tom. The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle. Morrow. Oct. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780062183743. $35. COOKBOOKS
Here’s what you could be eating if you get this latest book from Douglas, James Beard Association Award winner for Best Northwest Chef and Bon Appétit Best Restaurateur of 2008: cinnamon sugar and mascarpone doughnuts, streusel-topped monkey bread with caramel dipping sauce, and a triple coconut cream pie that Serious Eats founder Ed Levine calls one of the best pies in the country. Not to mention some yummy savory treats, too. What are you waiting for? With a 75,000-copy first printing.  

Eisenberg, John. Ten-Gallon War: The NFL’s Cowboys, the AFL’s Texans, and the Feud for Dallas’s Pro Football Future. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780547435503. $27. SPORTS
Award-winning sports author Eisenberg tells an appropriately Texas-sized story. In the early 1960s, with pro football everywhere on the ascendant but for Texas, where college football still held sway, two young oil tycoons founded rival pro football teams in Dallas. The Cowboys’ Tom Landry looked to winning games, while the Texans’ Lamar Hunt aimed to build a fan base, and each triumphed in his own way. Eisenberg is a natural to tell the story since he grew up in 1960s Texas. An obvious purchase unless everyone in your town hates sports.

Elliott, Chris. The Guy Under the Sheets: The Unauthorized Autobiography. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780399158407. $26.95. HUMOR
Um, hot affairs with Lee Radziwill and Kathie Lee Gifford? Time spent dismembering bodies for the Mob? I think it’s safe to say that this book is not meant as a wholly accurate reminiscence. Expect entertainment from out-there comic Elliot, star of Adult Swim’s Eagleheart, author of The Shroud of the Thwacker, and part of a comic dynasty: his father is Bob Elliott of Bob & Ray and daughter Abby is a Saturday Night Live cast member.

Gershon, Gina. In Search of Cleo: How I Found My Pussy and Lost My Mind. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 176p. ISBN 9781592407668. $22.50. MEMOIR/PETS
She’s done movies (Showgirls), television (Curb Your Enthusiasm), and theater (as a founding member of the group Naked Angels), but when her beloved cat vanishes, Gershon plays her most important role ever: impassioned cat lady hunting obsessively for her missing pet. As she wanders L.A.’s byways, she encounters an array of quirky and sometimes helpful folks, from an earnest newspaper deliveryman to a Santeria priest who clobbers her with a chicken to Ellen DeGeneres’s know-it-all pet psychic. And of course in finding Cleo she finds out some things about herself. A cat-loving, colorful travelog.

Gómez, Carlos Andrés. Man Up: Cracking the Code of Modern Manhood. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9781592407781. $26. MEMOIR/SELF-HELP
“I will not rest until one dream is made real: that we might redefine what it is to be a man. That we redefine what it means to say, ‘man up.’ ” Sound too dreamy? Will men, especially young men, listen? In fact, Gomez, New York’s Slam King in 2006 and a two-time International Poetry Slam Champion, as well as an actor (he costarred in Spike Lee’s Inside Man) and a former social worker in Harlem and the South Bronx, is an energized example of street-smart credibility. As detailed in one of his spoken-word poems, his epiphany came when, on the verge of a bar fight, he found his eyes welling with tears. We’ve heard that men should feel free to show such emotion, but obviously the message needs repeating. Gómez delivers it for the 21st century.

Howe, Sean. True Believers: The Secret Origins of Marvel Comics. Harper: HarperCollins. Oct. 2012. 496p. ISBN 9780061992100. $25.99. POPULAR CULTURE/BUSINESS
In the early 1960s, minor-player Marvel Comics introduced a host of brightly bedecked and brave but sometimes humanly fallible superheroes like Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk; now it’s the No. 1 comics company in the world. Here’s an unauthorized history from former Entertainment Weekly editor Howe; the 35,000-copy first printing seems small.

Janzen, Rhoda. Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?: A Mennonite Finds Faith, Meets Mr. Right, and Solves Her Lady Problems. Grand Central. Oct. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9781455502882. $24.99; lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. MEMOIR
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Janzen’s pointedly funny memoir of returning home to her cheerily faithful family when her life was at low ebb, dwelled on the New York Times best sellers list for more than 40 weeks, sometimes in the top spot. Her new memoir charts her growing comfort with faith, though she goes for the hallelujah-swaying Pentecostals rather than the staid Mennonites, and eventually meets the right guy. If this is anything like her last memoir, hang on; with a multicity tour and reading group guide.

Jillette, Penn. Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780399161568. $25.95. HUMOR
Half of Penn & Teller, the world-famous magic act whose long-running Showtime series was nominated for 13 Emmys, Jillette has also flown solo, having appeared often on TV talk shows and written a bunch of best sellers. This new collection of essays gleefully stomps on Christmas carols, Halloween, children’s over-the-top birthday parties, and more while recalling the finer moments in life. Wildly funny, but not for the honk-if-you-love-Jesus folks.

Khan, Salman. The One World Schoolhouse: A New Approach to Teaching and Learning. Twelve: Hachette. Oct. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9781455508389. $26.99. EDUCATION
While tutoring his niece online in algebra, hedge fund analyst Khan got a bright idea. Wouldn’t it be cool to provide a free, first-class education online to anyone who wanted it? Now, the Khan Academy is flourishing on YouTube, with millions viewing and subscribing to courses in every area imaginable. Khan is routinely approached by schools interested in learning how to reach students more effectively with digital tools, and he was just named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. A book on the all-important topic of education that’s not all theory.

Lagasse, Emeril. Emeril’s Kicked-Up Sandwiches: Stacked with Flavor. Morrow. Oct. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780061742972. pap. $24.99; eISBN 9780062210432. COOKBOOKS
A sandwich cookbook with a 100,000-copy first printing? Okay, this is Emeril Lagasse, proprietor of 12 restaurants, author 16 best-selling cookbooks, cookware baron, and host of cooking shows on the Hallmark and Cooking channels. Included are kicked-up classics like Fried Soft Shell Crab with Lemon Caper Mayo, plus wraps, breakfast sandwiches, pressed and grilled sandwiches, and even sweet stuff (Red Velvet Whoopee Cushions). Lots of fans, so buy one—or more; this is a paperback original, and it wouldn’t last for long in my kitchen.

Milgrim, David. Siri & Me: A Modern Love Story. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 112p. ISBN 9780399161599. $15.95. HUMOR
Our hero Dave practically lives online; cyberspace is his space. So it’s no wonder that his deepest, most touching relationship is with cybergirl Siri, the voice inside his iPhone. She really understands him. From the author of the best-selling Goodnight, iPad; did you know that there are more than 37 million iPhone users out there who love Siri, too?

O’Brien, Geoffrey, ed. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. 18th ed. Little, Brown. Oct. 2012. 1472p. ISBN 9780316017596. $50. REFERENCE
The immortal Bartlett’s, which contains more than 25,000 quotations, is published once a decade. This 18th edition, brought to you by Library of America editor in chief O’Brien, includes 2500 new quotes and more than  800 newcomers ranging from Julia Child to David Foster Wallace. Quotes have been culled to bring in more foreigners and women and more material from fiction and poetry; a companion app brings this chestnut into the 21st century. My favorite featured quote, from Walter Benjamin: “Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.”

The Onion. The Onion Book of Known Knowledge. Little, Brown. Oct. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780316133265. $29.99; CD: Hachette Audio. HUMOR
Onion books are usually New York Times best sellers, and Onion online has won 19 Webbys, so forgive this offbeat journalistic entity its pride as it boasts that this comprehensive reference source is the last book ever published. A typical entry: Woodstock, “landmark music festival that brought together half a million future bankers and hedge fund managers.” Lots of folks groove to this kind of humor.

Patronite, Rob & Robin Raisfeld. In Season: More Than 140 Fresh and Simple Recipes Inspired by Farmer’s Market Ingredients. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780399161100. $35. COOKBOOKS
Eating what’s in season: it seems like common sense, but until recently it was not common practice. But now it’s the rage, with farmer’s markets sprouting up in just about every state. The authors drawn on their popular “In Season” for New York magazine to offer 140 recipes—from chefs nationwide—that show us, for instance, how best to use fiddlehead fern. Yes!

Robles, Anthony. Unstoppable. From Underdog to Undefeated: How I Became a Champion. Gotham: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9781592407774. $26. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. MEMOIR/SELF-HELP
Three-time all-American wrestler. The 2011 NCAA National Wrestling Champion. Nike-sponsored athlete (with his brand-name “Unstoppable” apparel). Robles would seem to have it all, but he was born without a right leg. Here’s the story of how he persevered, from coming in last in his first wrestling season to his current championship heights and an intensive speaking tour that has already introduced him to 15,000 high school and college students and their coaches.

Skinner, David. The Story of Ain’t: America, Its Language, and the Most Controversial Dictionary Ever Published. Harper: HarperCollins. Oct. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780062027467. $25.99; lrg. prnt. HISTORY/POPULAR CULTURE
Published in 1961, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary abandoned the traditionally prescriptive approach and offered straightforward description of how language was actually being used at the time. It even included the word ain’t. A seemingly sensible (and scientific) move, but it caused an uproar, and Dwight Macdonald decried it as the end of civilization. Editor of Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities publication where an early version of this work first appeared, Skinner covers not just the making of the new dictionary but the tumultuous reaction. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Strogatz, Steven. The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780547517650. $27. MATHEMATICS
Strogatz, a Cornell professor of applied mathematics, doesn’t stick with x but shows that math is intimately involved with art, science, philosophy, business, and humdrum, everyday life in ways you might never have imagined. Trust the author of the New York Times column “The Elements of Math,” which appeared online in 2010, to explain everything from how Google searches the Internet to how many people you should date before making that big choice. If you think this book will have only a select audience, think again; Strogatz’s column always made the most-emailed list and got hundreds of comments. With 50,000-copy first printing.

Weil, Andrew, M.D., & Sam Fox with Michael Stebner. True Food: Seasonal, Sustainable, Simple, Pure. Little, Brown. Oct. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780316129411. $29.99. COOKBOOKS
The high-profile promoter of both our mental and our physical well-being, Weil—best-selling author (e.g., Spontaneous Healing) and founder/director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine—opened True Food Kitchen in 2008 with Fox, three-time James Beard Restaurateur of the Year nominee. The aim? Really tasty food that also assures our well-being. With over 125 recipes—personally, I’m down with the Corn and Ricotta Cheese Ravioli and the Pomegranate Martini (and I don’t even drink martinis)—and note that Weil and Fox hope to open 20 True Food restaurants over the next few years. 

Dean, Debra. The Mirrored World. Harper: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780061231452. $25.99; lrg. prnt. HISTORICAL
Author of the affecting The Madonnas of Leningrad, an ALA Notable Book and a No. 1 BookSense Pick, Dean returns to her favorite city but in an earlier era. In 1700s St. Petersburg, fervent daydreamer Xenia is happily married to Andrei, but when tragedy strikes she withdraws from friends and family to dedicate herself to the poor, eventually vanishing—into a “mirrored world”? Sounds like a Russian novel indeed! With a 75,000-copy first printing and a reading group guide; good for book groups.

Follett, Ken. Winter of the World. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 1008p. ISBN 9780525952923. $36. HISTORICAL
In 2010, Follett launched “The Century Trilogy” with the No. 1 New York Times best seller, Fall of Giants, which traced the lives of five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—through the early years of the 20th century. Encompassing World War I and the Russian Revolution, that lusciously detailed 1000-pager did daunt a few readers. But most will be back for this follow-up (just as big), featuring the same families but moving them along to the rise of the Third Reich and World War II.

Harman, Patricia. The Midwife of Hope River. Morrow. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062198891. pap. $14.99. HISTORICAL
A practicing midwife who has authored two memoirs, The Blue Cotton Gown and Arms Wide Open—both small-press publications that found an appreciative audience—Harman turns to fiction with a heroine appropriately named Patience Murphy. Patience, a midwife just getting started in 1930s Appalachia, willingly takes on hard-luck cases even as she carefully guards her own secrets. The 75,000-copy first printing, five-city tour (Atlanta, Birmingham, Charleston, WV, Knoxville, and Nashville), and reading group guide bespeak hope for this book; watch closely, especially in Appalachia.

Kadrey, Richard. Devil Said Bang. Harper Voyageur: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780062094575. $24.99. FANTASY
If you’ve been following the Sandman Slim novels (Amazon Top Tenner Kill the Dead; Sandman Slim, among BN.com’s best paranormal fantasies of the decade; and Indie Next Pick Aloha from Hell), you’ll know that James Starker, aka Sandman Slim, managed to break out of hell to revenge his girlfriend’s murder and has since done time in a very unlovely Los Angeles. Aloha sent him back to Hell, where he’s now the new Lucifer, ready for another breakout and with everyone in Heaven and Hell lining up to take shots at him. When Cory Doctorow calls this movie-bound series “wryer-than-wry and violenter-than-violent,” you know the audience. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Oates, Joyce Carol. Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 240p. ISBN 9780062195692. $24.99.
SHORT STORIES
Deluxe author Oates offers a collection of 11 previously uncollected stories, whose borderland scenarios range from a well-off wife’s eloping with a spotted hyena to visitors surprised by what they discover at a maximum security prison. The title story is most significant, however, as it tracks the friendship between Elizabeth Short, famously known as the Black Dahlia, the victim of a markedly brutal murder in 1940s Los Angeles that remains unsolved, and her roommate, Norma Jeane Baker—who of course became Marilyn Monroe. The 25,000-copy first printing seems a bit low for this master; as Monroe fever hits, starting in August, this could be part of the mix.

Santo, Courtney Miller. The Roots of the Olive Tree. Morrow. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062130518. $24.99; eISBN 9780062130532. lrg. prnt. POP FICTION
Multigenerational sagas featuring indomitable women are the stuff of contemporary fiction, but this debut is noteworthy because it represents a full five generations, still living together in a house surrounded by an olive grove in Sacramento Valley. Family matriarch Anna is in fact 112, and great-great-granddaughter Erin has just returned home pregnant after singing opera for two years; now a geneticist wants to study all the women to determine the secret of the family’s longevity. But as Anna worries, that might mean revealing secrets about the family’s origins that she’s hidden for over a century. One of those big-push debuts with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Thilliez, Franck. Syndrome E. Viking. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780670025787. $26.95. THRILLER
Subliminal images packed into a little-known film from the 1950s are so truly horrifying that a friend of Det. Lucie Hennebelle has gone blind after watching it. Meanwhile, Inspector Franck Sharko is investigating five murders that seem to be related to the film. As terror escalates worldwide, it appears that in its early stages neuroscience was used not for good but for evil. Trust the French to go for a thoughty thriller; this one was a big best seller in France, with rights sold to 11 countries.

Tropper, Jonathan. One Last Thing Before I Go. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780525952367. $26.95; CD: Penguin Audio. POP FICTION
No wonder Silver is feeling slightly desperate; his ex-wife is about to marry a terrific guy, his Princeton-bound daughter announces that she’s pregnant, and if he doesn’t acquiesce to an operation, he will soon drop dead. Having broken out in 2009 with This Is Where I Leave You, a New York Times best seller, Tropper returns with another darkly funny, queasily heartwarming tale.

Boyle, T.C. San Miguel. Viking. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780670026241. $27.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. LITERARY
In 1888, ailing Marantha Waters moves to the desolate isle of San Miguel Island off Southern California’s coast with her Civil War veteran husband, who runs a sheep farm there and does everything he can to keep their aspiring-actress daughter from slipping her bonds and returning to the mainland. In 1930, New York City librarian Elise Lester and her gung-ho World War I veteran husband choose to settle on San Miguel and like the Waters family achieve only an uncertain peace. As always, Boyle gives us sharp moral conundrum in a distinctive setting; with an eight-city tour.

Chabon, Michael. Telegraph Avenue. Harper: Harper Collins. Sept. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9780061493348. $27.99; eISBN 9780062124609. CD: HarperAudio. LITERARY
Race, corporatism, and last-stand idealism: core themes of contemporary American life, and who better to explore them than Pulitzer Prize winner Chabon, whose linguistic razzle-dazzle discloses acute observations about our shared culture—and, especially, its borders. It’s 2004, and longtime band mates Achy Stallings and Nat Jaffe still preside over Brokeland Records, a used-record emporium and de facto town center in a fictional space somewhere between Berkeley and Oakland. Their wives are the Berkeley Birth Partners, beloved local midwives. All’s well until a former NFL quarterback, one of the country’s richest African Americans, decides to build his latest Dogpile megastore on nearby Telegraph Avenue. Not only could this spell doom for the little shop and its cross-race, cross-class dream but it opens up past history regarding Archy’s untethered dad and a crime dating back to the Black Panther era. With a one-day laydown on September 11, a 300,000-copy first printing, and a 13-city Tour to Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami (for the book fair) Nashville, New York, Raleigh/Durham, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Washington, DC. Get it!

Coplin, Amanda. The Orchardist. Harper: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780062188502. $25.99. HISTORICAL
At the turn of the 20th century, when two dirty, pregnant girls steal from an orchard in the foothills of the Pacific Northwest’s Cascade Mountains that Talmadge has tended for 50 years, he lets them. Soon they return, tentatively befriending this sweet, solitary soul, as rooted as the trees in the land he loves. Then armed and angry men invade the orchard, and Talmadge steps up to protect his new charges, even as he’s reminded of the past’s sorrowful secrets. Exceptional in-house cheering for this debut, with rights sold to a half-dozen countries so far and a 75,000-copy first printing. Surely this is meant as an evocative understanding of the American West and its continued grip on our psyche, and I can’t wait to see how it works.

Ennis, Michael. The Malice of Fortune. Doubleday. Sept. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780385536318. $26.95; eISBN 9780385536325. Downloadable: Random Audio. THRILLER
When his son Juan is murdered in distant Imola, Pope Alexander asks the courtesan Damiata to discover what happened—and holds her young son hostage until she does. In Imola, Damiata is so undercut by the political intrigue originating with the pope’s other son, the Duke Valentino, that she turns to a little-known Florentine diplomat named Niccolo Machiavelli for help; the observational skills she needs to catch the killer are ultimately furnished by one Leonardo da Vinci. Now that sounds like fun reading; the publisher’s big fiction title of the month.

Smith, Zadie. NW: A Novel. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781594203978. $25.95. LITERARY
It’s been seven years since Smith last published a novel, so we’re all really chaffing to read this one. NW stands for northwest, that is, northwest London, where a group of friends living on an estate make their way through school and on to adulthood, staying more or less true to their ideals. Smith, herself was born in London’s diverse northwest, will surely provide her usual gorgeous, almost scary understanding of that society and the world at large.

Toobin, Jeffrey. The Oath: The Obama White House vs. The Supreme Court. Doubleday. Sept. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780385527200. $27.95; eISBN 9780385536301. Downloadable: Random Audio LAW/CURRENT EVENTS
Having laid bare the working of the Supreme Court in his prize-winning The Nine, Toobin returns to assess how the Court—and, specifically, Chief Justice John Roberts—stack up against President Obama. From the moment that Roberts blew administering the Oath of Office at Obama’s inauguration, he and the administration have been ideologically at odds. Toobin argues that the two men are both charismatic and ambitious, though Obama’s actually the conservative one; he aims for step-by-step change, building on the past, while Roberts wants to unstitch everything accomplished by the New Deal. Essential reading as we gear up for the election.

Badman, Keith. Marilyn Monroe: The Final Years. St. Martin’s. Jul. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780312607142. $25.99; eISBN 9781250012388. BIOGRAPHY
Having disposed of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Stones, Badman goes after another celebrity icon. Among his putative revelations: the identity of Marilyn Monroe’s biological father, what really happened with JFK, and her exploitation by mobsters at a hotel owned by Frank Sinatra. Another on the Monroe bandwagon.

Gemmell, Nikki. With My Body. HarperPerennial: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 480p. ISBN 9780062122636. pap. $14.99; eISBN 9780062122643. POP FICTION
Gemmell follows up her sensationalist best seller, The Bride Stripped Bare, with another fictional exploration of female sexuality. Here, a woman who feels suffocated by marriage and children recalls the one love affair that really did something for her. With a 100,000-copy first printing and a reading group guide—for those, I guess, who don’t blush easily.

Joyce, Rachel. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Random. Jul. 2012. 286p. ISBN 9780812993295. $25. LITERARY FICTION
A leading actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company, then an award-winning author of plays for the BBC, Joyce is taking on another role: novelist. And a successful one at that, it seems, with rights for this debut sold to more than 25 countries. When cranky retiree Harold Fry gets a letter from an old friend he’s not seen in two decades, revealing that she’s in hospice, he decides to visit her. And he decides that to do so he’ll walk the 600 miles from Kingsbridge to Berwick upon Tweed. Refreshing premise; let’s all watch.

Lepore, Jill. The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death. Knopf. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780307592996. $27.95; eISBN 9780307958501. HISTORY
Okay, grand subtitle, but Lepore—Harvard historian, New Yorker staff writer, and author (e.g., New York Burning)—has something focused in mind and will likely pull it off. Here she explores how ideas about life and death have shaped American history and politics. For your thoughtful readers.

Locke, Kate. God Save the Queen.(Immortal Empire, Bk 1.). Orbit: Hachette. Jul. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780316196123. $16.99. STEAMPUNK
It’s called the steampunk debut of the year, and it opens in 2012 with an undead Queen Victoria still ruling and the aristocracy made up mostly of vampires and werewolves. Elite Guard Xandra Vardan goes looking for her missing sister and starts doubting everything she once believed. Meanwhile, conspiracy brews. From best-selling YA author Kady Cross (like Kate Locke, a pseudonym); should be big.

Mantel, Hilary. Bring Up the Bodies: A Novel. Holt. May 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780805090031. $28. HISTORICAL FICTION
Deservedly a winner of both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Mantel’s best-selling Wolf Hall is audaciously good historical fiction portraying Thomas Cronwell’s rise to power as Henry VIII’s adviser. In this follow-up, Henry is ready to get rid of Anne Boleyn, a job that falls to Cromwell—which means that he must ally himself with his archenemies, the papist aristocracy. We’ll all been waiting for this one.

Mawer, Simon. Trapeze. Other Pr. May 2012. 352p. ISBN 9781590515273. pap. $15.95. HISTORICAL THRILLER
Only 19, native French speaker Marian Sutro is trained as an agent by the Special Operations Executive and parachuted into wartime France. Her mission, to join the WORDSMITH resistance network, has been hijacked by yet another secret organization, which wants her to persuade a research scientist in Paris to join the Allied effort. Mawer’s The Glass Room was both a New York Times best seller and a Man Booker Prize shortlisted title, so this looks promising indeed.

Sharpe, Katherine. Coming of Age on Zoloft: How Antidepressants Cheered Us Up, Let Us Down, and Changed Who We Are. Harper Perennial: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780062059734. pap. $14.99. SOCIAL SCIENCE
In 2005, antidepressants surged past blood-pressure medication as the most frequently prescribed drug in America, with an astonishing ten percent of the population using them (and that was then). The former editor and community manager of Seed magazine’s ScienceBlogs.com, Sharpe has the background to understand this phenomenon, but she also has personal experience; she was prescribed Zoloft in college after a panic attack. Here she explores the consequences of antidepressant use by increasingly younger patients, whose self-understanding and coping skills are thus distorted. Important information to consider; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Solomon, John. DSK: The Scandal That Brought Down Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin’s. Jun. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781250012630. $25.99; eISBN 9781250013057. CURRENT EVENTS
Director of news and investigative reporting at The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company, Solomon aims to get to the heart of the case involving a New York hotel maid’s accusation that she was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former managing director of the International Monetary Fund—a case that saw the media gunning first on the accused and then on the accuser.

Zafón, Carlos Ruiz. The Prisoner of Heaven. Harper: HarperCollins. 416p. Jun. 2012. ISBN 9780062206282. $27.99. lrg. prnt. CD: HarperAudio LITERARY THRILLER
As entertainingly twisted as Gaudi’s architecture, only darker, Zafón’s best-selling fiction (e.g., The Shadow of the Wind) inhabits a distinctive Barcelona. At Christmas in 1957, Daniel Sempere and his wife are enjoying their new son and the prospect of their friend Fermín’s marriage when a stranger arrives at their bookshop, prepared to reveal a dark secret harking back to Franco’s early days. With a 200,000-copy first printing and a seven-city tour to Boston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Washington, DC; don’t miss.

Vann, David. Dirt. Harper: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 272p. ISBN 9780062121035 $25.99. LITERARY
This just in: Vann, author of the splendid Caribou Island, as well as Legends of a Suicide, named to 40 best books list worldwide, who’s also winner of 14 awards for his fiction and nonfiction, including France’s Prix Médicis Etranger 2010, Spain’s Premi Llibreter 2011, the Grace Paley Prize 2007, and the AWP Nonfiction Award 2009, returns with a second novel that was scheduled for June but has just been pushed up for an April 24 pub date. Set in 1985, this novel features 22-year-old Galen, a bulimic vegetarian and dedicated New Ager who with his mother lives off an inheritance that nasty Aunt Helen and her teenaged daughter want for themselves. Things come to a head at a cabin in Sierras. Don’t miss.