Library Journal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. 

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.

Ariely, Dan, M.D. The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves. Harper: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062183590. $26.99; eISBN 9780062183620. PSYCHOLOGY
It’s not just Enron; we all cheat, from sneaking extra cookies to padding our résumés to buying imitation Coach bags. Behavioral economist Ariely, author of the best-selling The Upside of Irrationality, isn’t here to lecture us but to examine why we cheat, what the consequences are, and how we can become more honest. A book we’ll all have to sneak to read; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Bernd, Heinrich. Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death. Houghton Harcourt. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780547752662. $25; eISBN 9780547752693. NATURAL HISTORY
Humans face death with trepidation and elaborate rituals, but what about animals? Proffering lessons both spiritual and ecological, the author of the lovely The Mind of a Raven shows us the animal way of death, with examples ranging from carrion beetles burying field mice to wolves, large cats, eagles, and weasels working in tandem to get rid of killed prey. Not just for animal lovers.

Blum, Andrew. Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet. Ecco: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780061994937. $26.99; eISBN 9780062096753. TECHNOLOGY
Cyberspace just seems so out there, but in fact the Internet really does happen in places—huge data centers and the fiber optic cables carrying all those little pulsing bits of information worldwide. Taking stock of these “concrete” manifestations, Wired correspondent Blum clarifies how the Internet developed and how it works. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Cameron, Bruce. A Dog’s Journey. Forge: Tor. May 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780765330536. $24.99. PETS
Another dog book? You bet. And since Cameron’s 2010 A Dog’s Purpose was on the best sellers lists for nearly five months in hardcover and remains on the best sellers lists in paperback, you can also bet that this book will be big. Cameron’s multi-hanky read talks about what we all know about our dogs: we don’t take care of them, they take care of us.

Crowley, Monica. What the (Bleep) Just Happened?: The Happy Warrior’s Guide to the Great American Comeback. Broadside: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780062131157. $26.99; eISBN 9780062131164. CURRENT EVENTS
A regular Fox contributor and guest host for shows like The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity, Crowley offers (as one might expect) a sharp-tongued critique of the Obama years. A 200,000-copy first printing—and you know if you’ll need it!

Forbes, Steve & Elizabeth Ames. Freedom Manifesto: Why Markets Are Moral and Big Government Isn’t. Crown Business. Jun. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780307951571. $26; eISBN 9780307951595. BUSINESS
The chair, CEO, and editor in chief at Forbes Media carries a big stick when he argues for limited government, proclaiming that “money is the root of all good” and “markets enhance humanity.” This follow-up to How Capitalism Will Save Us has a build-in audience.

Hayes, Christopher L. Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy. Crown. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780307720450. $26; eISBN 9780307720474. CD/downloadable: Random Audio. CURRENT EVENTS
America is defined by the concept of meritocracy, and that concept is failing. As argued by Hayes, host of his own MSNBC show, crises from the Wall Street meltdown to Major League corruption to pedophile priests have destroyed our trust in basic institutions and driven a wedge between the top dogs and everyone else. The problem: policies are made by and for the elite, with little reference to the country’s need as a whole. Hayes identifies the problem; now we need to find the solution.

Jurek, Scott with Steve Friedman. Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness. Houghton Harcourt. Jun. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780547569659. $26; eISBN 9780547722078. SPORTS/LIFESTYLE
Listen up, meat eaters! You don’t need all that dead protein to be a great athlete. Jurek won the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run seven years in a row, all on a plant diet. Here he explains how he came to running and then to veganism as he began thinking about food specifically as fuel (not as holiday yummies). He’s obviously one enduring guy, and this book is motivational in the larger sense. With a ten-city tour to Boulder/Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

Karp, Harvey. M. The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep: Simple Solutions for Kids from Birth to 5 Years. Morrow. Jun. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780062113313. $24.99; eISBN 9780062113337. PARENTING
The UCLA pediatrician who gave us The Happiest Baby on the Block goes for what’s really important: how to send that happy baby straight to the Land of Nod. Karp upends the big myths (e.g., that it’s best to let babies cry themselves to sleep) while offering two-step training to help sleep happen naturally. Since Karp been on all over television and has sold over one million copies of his two previous titles (plus over 1.6 million DVDs), this is a no-brainer purchase if there are families in your midst. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Marcus, Norman B. End Back Pain Forever: Without Surgery or Drugs. Atria: S. & S. Jun. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9781439167441. pap. $16; eISBN 9781439167458. HEALTH
Drugs are often mind-numbing, and back surgery works only half the time, so what can the eight in ten of us who will suffer back pain at some time in our adult lives do? Marcus focuses on muscles, not discs or nerves, as the main source of back pain, and his 21 exercises could do the trick. Lots of books on this subject, but consider Marcus’s credentials: he is director of muscle pain research at NYU School of Medicine and a former president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

Merry, Robert W. Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians. S. & S. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9781451625400. $28. HISTORY
The author of a leading biography on James Polk (A Country of Vast Designs), National Interest editor Merry adds a twist to Rating the Presidents, a game historians love to play. In part, he makes his calls by turning to the voters, looking at whether Presidents were reelected and, if so, whether their parties held sway in the next election. Setting aside Lincoln, Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt as “Men of Destiny” who pulled the nation in a new direction, Merry comes up with the near-greats, the failures, and the presidents whose status keeps bobbing about. (I’ll let you guess on those.) This book is meant to cause arguments.

Patterson, Scott. Dark Pools: The Rise of Artificially Intelligent Trading Machines and the Looming Threat to Wall Street. Crown Business. Jun. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9780307887177. $27; eISBN 9780307887191. Downloadable: Random Audio. BUSINESSS
Wall Street loves computers because they can make stock transactions happen at lightning speed; one company recently shelled out $300 million to gain 3 millionths of a second. The problem, says former Wall Street Journal reporter Patterson, is that humans are starting to lose control. There’s even an idea out and about to create a program that could learn from various trades so that eventually supercomputers would be talking to one another and we puny mortals wouldn’t know what was happening. Scary but real; the author of the best-selling The Quants knows his stuff.

Powell, Colin L. & Tony Koltz. It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership. Harper: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062135124. $27.99; eISBN 9780062135148. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. MEMOIR
Not a memoir, really—that job was handled by Powell’s two-million-copy best seller, My American Journey. This is a series of anecdotes used to illustrate leadership lessons or, as Powell calls them, his “13 Rules.” Those rules range from “Trust your people” to “Get mad, then get over it,” something I have yet to learn. With a 750,000-copy first printing; buy multiples.

Rosenstrach, Jenny. Dinner: A Love Story: It All Begins at the Family Table. Ecco: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780062080905. $27.99. COOKING/LIFESTYLE
Like Rosenstrach and her husband, I cook dinner every night, but I wasn’t smart enough to launch a blog about it that ranks number four on the top 100 food mom blogs on Babble, averages 107,000 monthly visits, won Rosenstrach coverage in the New York Times and Martha Stewart’s Whole Living, and has even been optioned for film. Recipes, photos, illustrations, tips, and anecdotes—all in the interest of quality time with the kids over a good meal. With 150,000-copy first printing.

Royal, Barbara. The Royal Treatment: How To Keep Your Animals Wildly Healthy. Atria: S. & S. Jun. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9781451647693. $25. PETS
Anxious, chubby, arthritic, allergic? No, not you, your pet. Domesticated animals suffer the same ills as we domesticated humans, and to help them licensed veterinarian Royal would like first to remind us that our domesticated friends have not lost their wild needs. To address those needs, she offers a blend of Western and Eastern practices. She’s been on Oprah, so people will ask.

Sanger, David E. An Age of Reckoning: Obama’s Unorthodox Use of American Power. Crown. Jun. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780307718020. $28; eISBN 9780307718044. CD/downloadable: Random Audio. CURRENT EVENTS
In The Inheritance, Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, considered the issues President Obama faced when he first came to office. Here he considers how Obama has handled everything from the ongoing war in Afghanistan to troubles with Pakistan after the death of Osama Bin Laden. More crucially, he takes the long view, pondering how Obama’s approach to national security and foreign policy has differed from that of previous Presidents and whether it will make a difference. Not just for wonks.

Sullenberger, Chesley B. with Douglas Century. Making a Difference: Stories of Vision and Courage from America’s Leaders. Morrow. Jun. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780061924705. $26.99; eISBN 9780062101365. lrg. prnt. MEMOIR
Sullenberger’s best-selling Highest Duty covered his 42-year career as a pilot, including his miraculous landing on the Hudson in 2009, saving all 155 people aboard his aircraft. Here he offers reflections on leadership—where do the best leaders come from and how do they inspire?—while highlighting top leaders like baseball manager Tony La Russa and Michelle Rhee, founder of the New Teacher Project. Obviously a great book to pair with Colin Powell’s It Worked for Me, previewed above; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Swarns, Rachel L. American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama. Amistad: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780061999864. $27.99. HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY
Taking off from a piece she cowrote for the New York Times, Swarms delineates the First Lady’s ancestry, including not only those who endured the horrors of slavery but a white great-great-great-grandfather revealed for the first time. (There’s information here even Michelle Obama didn’t know.) Since black, white, and multiracial strands crisscross in so many Americans and indeed inform our entire history, this story is ours, too, and should interest a wide range of readers. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Swofford. Anthony. Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails. Twelve: Hachette. Jun. 2012. 300p. ISBN 9781455506736. $26.99; lrg. prnt. CD: Hachette Audio. MEMOIR
A New York Times best seller with currently 250,000 copies available, Jarhead recounted Swofford’s service as a marine sniper in the Gulf War. Here he illuminates his postwar experience as he tamped down painful memories with alcohol, drugs, fast cars, and bad sex, then pulled himself together by taking a series of road trips with his terminally ill father, a Vietnam vet. Jarhead was a hit, postwar memoirs are gaining momentum, and there’s a ten-city tour to New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Iowa City, Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, suggesting great expectations.

Tillman, Marie. The Letter. Grand Central. Jun. 2012. 200p. ISBN 9780446571456. $23.99; lrg. prnt. MEMOIR
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, NFL star Tillman wrote a letter to his wife, to be opened in case he was killed in action. As we know, Tillman died in Afghanistan in 2004, and his wife explains how that letter got her through the years of mourning. She also chronicles how she sought relief through career, travel, and, finally, her decision to head the Pat Tillman Foundation. Inspirational.

Wolf, Naomi. Vagina: A New Biography. Ecco: HarperCollins. Jun. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780061989162. $27.99; eISBN 9780062096968. SOCIAL SCIENCE
Like Wolf’s classic The Beauty Myth, this work explores the juncture of women’s bodies and women’s lives. Looking into the relationship between sex and creativity, Wolf discovered a wealth of evidence showing that the vagina is not just flesh but intimately bound to the female brain and hence female consciousness, which has made the historical control of the female body crippling in every sense. Wolf is always provocative and always a best seller. With a 60,000-copy first printing and an author tour including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, and upon request.