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.

Brom. Krampus: The Yule Lord. Morrow. Nov. 2012. 368p. ISBN 9780062095657. $27.99. FANTASY
One Christmas Eve in Boone County, WV, a songwriter manqué named Jesse intervenes when he sees men in black attacking a white-bearded gent in a sleigh. Yes, it’s Santa, but he’s the bad guy here—and that’s Krampus’s bag left at the scene. According to Krampus, an age-old trickster demon who punishes wrongdoing, Santa locked him up and stole his magic 500 years ago. Now he’s free and wants his magic back—along with the holiday Santa so rudely usurped. Illustrator/author Brom’s big hit, The Child Thief, went through four printings; fans will be looking for this one. With a 40,000-copy first printing, plus 35 black-and-white illustrations and eight pages of color.

Carr, Caleb. The Legend of Broken. Random. Nov. 2012. 688p. ISBN 9781400062836. $27; eISBN 9780812994087. HISTORICAL
Back in 1994, Carr landed like a meteorite with The Alienist, which has sold over two million copies in all formats to date. Subsequent titles, also big sellers—though nowhere near as big as The Alienist—ricocheted from Victorian England to 2023. Here Carr goes way back in time to the medieval era, where a fortress may fall to the roiling invaders without or to undermining forces within. Evidently lots of juicy characters, e.g., a noble warrior and a scientist condemned for sorcery. Will this outsell The Alienist? We’ll see.

Chiaverini, Jennifer. The Giving Quilt: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel. Dutton. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780525953609. $25.95. POP FICTION
Post-Thanksgiving at Elm Creek Manor, aspiring quilters are enjoying a special winter session of quilt camp. Their aim? To create warm, colorful quilts for Project Linus, a real-life charity Chiaverini supports that gives handmade quilts and blankets to needy children. Not a dry eye after finishing this book; with a reading group guide and eight-city tour.

Engelmann, Karen. The Stockholm Octave. Ecco: HarperCollins. Nov. 2012. 432p. ISBN 9780061995347. $26.99. LITERARY HISTORICAL
Engelmann sets her debut novel in 1790s Stockholm—the city’s Golden Age, though with our spare knowledge of Swedish history, as Francine du Plessix Gray points out, we wouldn’t know much about it—and invents a card game called Octave that drives the action. When the fortune-telling Mrs. Sophia Sparrow foresees a golden future for smug bureaucrat Emil Larsson, she lays an Octave for him so that he can find the eight people who will help him realize that vision. Soon, however, Larsson realizes that his search is tied up with the fate of his country, which is verging on chaos. Historical fiction with heft—and some hefty buzz; there’s a 50,000-copy first printing, and rights have been sold to ten countries.

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds. Pantheon. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780307907332. $24.95; eISBN 9780307907349. MYSTERY
Boasting more than one million copies in print, the Isabel Dalhousie series is right up there in popularity with McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. In this ninth entry, a Scottish landowner robbed of a Nicolas Poussin painting slated for the Scottish National Gallery asks Isabel’s help in dealing with the thieves, who have approached him privately. Just who are they, and does the hapless victim actually know them? With a reading group guide and a tour that will include Atlanta, Boston, Mobile, and New York, plus locales in Vermont and Canada.

Mayle, Peter. The Marseille Caper. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 224p. ISBN 9780307594198. $24. CD/downloadable: Random House Audio. MYSTERY
Mayle introduced charming, roguish sleuth Sam Levitt in The Vintage Caper, which has sold nearly 100,000 copies in hardcover, paperback, and ebook. (And he didn’t go on tour to plump for it, as the publisher hastens to point out; his tour for this second in the series is expected to push up the numbers.) Sam is happily ensconced in Los Angeles with charming Elena Morales when rich Francis Reboul calls him back to Marseille. Alas, helping out Francis puts Sam in the midst of a major real estate hustle, with the danger escalating as the battle over Marseille’s valuable waterfront heats up. Mayle’s tour will hit Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Munro, Alice. Dear Life: Stories. Knopf. Nov. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780307596888. $26.95; eISBN 9780307961044. CD/downloadable: Random House Audio. SHORT STORIES
The highly admired Munro has won virtually every award imaginable (e.g., three Governor General’s Literary Awards and the Man Booker International Prize) and also sells books; her last title, Too Much Happiness, sold nearly 133,000 copies. The stories in her new collection, which revisits the towns and countryside around Lake Huron, highlight key moments when one’s life changes forever. Don’t miss.

Pullman, Philip. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version. Viking. Nov. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780670024971. $27.95. FAIRY TALES
Yes, it’s been 200 years since the publication of the first volume of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Children’s and Household Tales, and we’ll be seeing celebrations. Norton is reissuing an update of Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Brothers Grimm, and now Pullman has jumped in with his own versions of 50 of the immortal tales, from perennials like “Cinderella” to less familiar gems like “Briar-Rose.” The dark edginess of Pullman’s own work (like the famed Dark Materials trilogy) seems a good match for the Grimm tone of these stories.

Schutt, Christine. Prosperous Friends. Grove. Nov. 2012. 256p. ISBN 9780802120380. $24. LITERARY
National Book Award finalist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and two-time O. Henry Prize winner, Schutt is a writer’s writer whose elegant prose seems chiseled out of diamonds. Here, golden boy Ned Bourne and his wife, Isabel, seek fulfillment of their artistic promise by traveling to London, New York, and Maine but are less successful in managing their emotional and sexual lives. Understanding comes when they meet older painter Clive Harris and his poet wife, Dinah. With a reading group guide; for discriminating folks.

Sussman, Paul. The Labyrinth of Osiris. Atlantic Monthly. Nov. 2012. 448p. ISBN 9780802120410. $25. THRILLER
With Sussman’s The Last Secret of the Temple and The Lost Army of Cambyses having each sold over a million copies worldwide, you can bet that readers will be interested in this next work. Det. Arieh Ben-Roi is stumped by the murder of crusading Israeli journalist Rivka Kleinberg, found dead in a Jerusalem cathedral (of all places). So for help he turns to long-time buddy Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police. Kleinberg had been digging into the death of a British Egyptologist in the 1930s, which might provide some clues. Fun.

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. 

Cyrus, Billy Ray. Hillbilly Heart.  New Harvest: Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780547992655. $25. MEMOIR
Forget Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) and her screen ups and downs. Here’s a reminder that her dad broke out as a country singer and songwriter with “Achy Breaky Heart” and sold over 20 million copies of the album Some Gave All—the best-selling debut album to date of a solo male artist—before going on to a varied career in music and film. Here he writes a story of music, faith, and his travails once he and his family hit Hollywood. A ten- to 15-city tour featuring a new song, “Hillbilly Heart,” will help push this book; the 150,000-copy first printing suggests big-audience expectations.

Norman, Philip. Mick Jagger. Ecco: HarperCollins. Oct. 2012. 576p. ISBN 9780061944857 $34.99. BIOGRAPHY
Evidently, Jagger has proclaimed that he will never write a memoir, so we’ll have to depend on once-removed reporting from folks like Norman, author of the best-selling John Lennon: The Life. Norman interviewed many Jagger intimates, including some who have never spoken for the record, and promises to offer a larger, more complex picture of the star. We’ll see, but the book will surely be buzzing throughout 2012, the Stones’s 50th anniversary year. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Rogers, Kenny. Luck or Something Like It. Morrow. Oct. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780062071811. $27.99; eISBN 9780062071606. CD: Harper Audio. MEMOIR
The numbers certainly add up: In his 52-year career, pop/country singer Rogers has recorded more than 65 albums (so many it’s hard to count?), including one Diamond, 19 Platinums, and 31 Golds; he’s sold more than 120 million records worldwide and has nearly 250,000 fans on Facebook. His memoir will obviously touch on a lot of music making, plus those whose music making has touched him, from Ray Charles to Dolly Parton. And he’ll be promoting on his annual Christmas & Hits Tour.

Taylor, John. In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran. Dutton. Oct. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9780525958000. $26.95. Downloadable: Penguin Audio. MEMOIR
Founded in Birmingham, England, in the late 1970s by bassist Taylor and Nick Rhodes, Duran Duran went on to define pop music in the 1980s; their vibrant music videos, seen repeatedly on the newly launched MTV, pushed them into the stardust. Taylor offers an account of the band’s music making (the history gets complicated) and his battles with his personal demons, cocaine and alcohol, as he tried to fathom it all. Hey, the band has sold 80 million records, and recent reviews of their reportedly sold-out concerts have a “they’ve-still-got-it” ring. So there’s an audience.

Townshend, Pete. Who I Am: A Memoir. Harper: HarperCollins. Oct. 2012. 608p. ISBN 9780062127242. $29.99; eISBN 9780062127266. lrg. prnt. CD: Harper Audio. MEMOIR
Townshend has reportedly been working on this memoir for a decade—without the help of a ghostwriter. (It says something to see that fact emphasized.) Here he is as a child, raised by a mentally incapacitated grandmother as his parents led an early version of countercultural life; an adolescent, obsessed with music and founding the forerunner of the Who with buddy Roger Daltrey; and a full-fledged rock star wrestling (as rock stars do) with drugs, sex, fame, fortune, and notoriety. With a one-day laydown on October 8 and a 400,000-copy first printing; line up for author appearances in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Young, Neil. Waging Heavy Peace. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2012. 416p. ISBN 9780399159466. $30. MEMOIR
Canadian-born singer/songwriter Young has successfully explored so many different musical styles in his solo and collaborative work that his career could serve as a map of rock music in the last 50 years. Not every musician could have moved so silkily from the gentler sounds of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, & Nash to the hard-driving rock of Crazy Horse to experimentation that has led to Young’s being dubbed the godfather of grunge. A noncompromiser and an active environmentalist, too; here’s his story.

“I’m not a political person,” proclaimed Stephen Dau at the packed Public Library Association panel “Meet This Season’s Best in Debut Authors,” a new event initiated by Penguin library rep Alan Walker, to whom we can all be grateful. At first, it seemed like a surprising assertion, as his debut, The Book of Jonas, features a 15-year-old in an unnamed Muslim country orphaned when American troops decimate his village. But as Dau went on to explain, his real aim was to speak hopefully of individual responsibility, particularly in the face of daunting moral choice. It was a theme common to all four books featured on the panel, which would make them especially good book club selections. Here’s a rundown of the titles, which I was fortunate enough to introduce.

Charlotte Rogan, The Lifeboat. April 2012. Regan Arthur Bks: Little, Brown.
As Rogan commented, the lifeboat is an apt metaphor for our troubled world today, which makes her book an especially bracing read. It sets sail in the early 1900s, when a ship traveling from England to New York is sent to the ocean bottom by a fire—but not before Henry has managed to shove new bride Grace into a lifeboat and then vanish in the crowd. Unsentimental and even a bit of a go-getter, Grace is already the survivor of family tragedy, and the dead-on account of her ordeal will leave readers as shivering and conflicted as the lifeboat passengers themselves.
The book has two sources—the author’s growing up in a family of competitive sailors and a law case dating to 1841 concerning the “Custom of the Sea,” which included using lotteries to determine the fate of survivors on an overcrowded boat. Sometimes, it seemed, the weakest always got the short (and unlucky) stick in that draw, and the 1841 case involved charges of  murder, which surface here, too. Yes, Grace’s lifeboat is carrying too many passengers, and for some to live, others must die. Would one kill in order to live or consent to die so that others can go on? The challenge to the reader’s conscience is as stinging as it is inevitable.

Wiley Cash, A Land More Kind Than Home. April 2012. Morrow.
Though Cash was not raised among the wide-eyed snake-handling true believers at River Road Church of Christ in Signs Following featured in his first book, he was raised Southern Baptist, which helps to explain the sensitivity of his debut novel in both tone and content. With deft musicality and a pitch-perfect ear, he tells the story of small-town tragedy and complicity in three different voices. First, there’s Jess, a precocious boy who watches over his mute older brother, Stump, witness to something he should not have seen and subject to creepy Pastor Chambliss’s efforts to wrestle the demon out of him.
Then there’s upright, no-nonsense Adelaide, midwife in this tiny North Carolina town and brave enough to stand up to Chambliss; and Sheriff Clem Barefield, who says “people out in these parts can take hold of religion like it’s a drug” and who must in the end deal with the terrible consequences, even as he deals with his own sorry past. Never condescending to his characters, Cash (utterly sincere but very funny in person) explores the power of faith for good and for evil.

Kira Peikoff, Living Proof. February 2012. Tor Books.
It’s 2027, and the Department of Embryo Preservation (DEP) zealously oversees fertility clinics; if the destruction of a single embryo is discovered, if there’s even a hint of something as egregious as stem cell research, the doctor is charged with first-degree murder. Sound implausible? A quick look at the news today says that it’s not. In fact, Peikoff, a journalist writing for venues like Newsday and New York magazine, was inspired to write this book after covering President George W. Bush’s veto of funding for stem cell research.
At the panel, Peikoff spoke passionately about the importance of such research, pointing to recent advances it has prompted that restored sight to two legally blind women—especially telling to Peikoff, who recently came close to losing the sight in one eye. Her heroine, fertility specialist Arianna Drake, also has personal as well as science-based reasons for conducting her illegal research. The story is at once a thriller (a DEP agent goes undercover to uncover Drake’s suspected illegality), a love story (what about that DEP agent?), and a completely accessible discussion of both the scientific and the moral issues involved.

Stephen Dau, The Book of Jonas. March 2012. Blue Rider: Penguin Group (USA).
Dau has worked in postwar reconstruction and international development, including time spent in Sarajevo, so he understands the consequences of war for everyone involved. He was inspired to write this book when, back in 2003, he heard President George W. Bush respond to a question about civilian deaths in Iraq by saying offhandedly, “around 30,000,” as if it were a bowling score. Dau felt compelled to tell their stories, which he does here by focusing on 15-year-old Younis, who escapes the slaughter in his village with the help of an American soldier named Christopher.
Why did Christopher save Younis? And what happened to Christopher? These are pieces of a puzzle that comes together affectingly even as Younis—now called Jonas, seemingly well adjusted and living in America—starts coming apart. In the end, we see that both Christopher and Younis/Jonas have faced choices and taken responsibilities we can’t imagine. Brave, heartrending, and expertly written—and featuring three libraries, something the author didn’t even realize until after he was done—this book is a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and maybe a pick in your library, too.

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.

Annan, Kofi. Interventions: A Life in War and Peace. Sept. 2012. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). NAp. ISBN 9781594204203. $36. MEMOIR/CURRENT EVENTS
Few memoirs coming out this year will be as interesting and as important as this one by Annan, seventh Secretary-General of the UN from January 1997 to December 2006 and a corecipient (with the UN itself) of the Nobel Peace Prize for having founded the Global AIDS and Health Fund. Check in on how the world turned during his time in office.

Bar-Zohar, Michael & Nissim Mishal. Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062123404. $26.99; eISBN 9780062123442. HISTORY
Official biographer of David Ben-Gurion and Shimon Peres, Bar-Zohar joins with leading Israeli TV personality Mishal to document the history of Israel’s crack intelligence service, focusing on high-profile cases ranging from Eichmann’s apprehension to the killing of important Iranian nuclear scientists—which makes the book particularly relevant. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Bawer, Bruce. Children of the Revolution: How Identity Studies Have Destroyed American Higher Education. Broadside: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780061807374. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097064. HISTORY/EDUCATION
Since Bawer’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within was a New York Times best seller and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and his Stealing Jesus a PW Best Book of the Year, it’s worth paying attention to his latest, a critique of how identity politics have shaped the academy in the last four decades. Not everyone will agree with Bawer that Chicano, African American, and Women’s Studies courses are exercises strictly in power struggle and victimhood that have gotten in the way of objective reasoning, but then listening to all sides of the argument is exactly what thoughtful readers should do. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Gitlin, Todd. Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street. It: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 176p. ISBN 9780062200921. pap. $10. CURRENT EVENTS
Wall Street may not be occupied right now, but the Occupy Wall Street movement has changed our way of thinking; we all know what that “99 percent” means. Arguing that the movement has been misrepresented by both the Left and the Right, Gitlin—author, Columbia journalism/sociology professor, and former president of Students for a Democratic Society—considers the causes and consequences of the movement and where it might go next. Not a huge printing, but right for the right readers; note the 99 percent–friendly paperback price.

Greenberg, Andy. This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim To Free the World’s Information. Dutton. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780525953203. $26.95. TECHNOLOGY/CURRENT EVENTS
In the Sixties we marched in the streets. Now many young men and women fed up with the government, the military, and the corporations slip into silent whistleblower mode, anonymously uploading institutional secrets that they feel should be exposed. Think WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and OpenLeaks, and think about the long-term impact, as Forbes reporter Greenberg has us do here.

Johnson, Joyce. The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac. Viking. Sept. 2012. 512p. ISBN 9780670025107. $32.95. BIOGRAPHY
Nine months before On the Road was published, aspiring novelist Johnson met Jack Kerouac on a blind date set up by Allen Ginsberg. Minor Characters, her National Book Critics Circle Award winner, detailed their relationship. Here Johnson looks at Kerouac the young artist, showing that his French Canadian background, which left him suspended between two languages and two cultures, deeply influenced his work. For literati everywhere.

Lofgren, Mike. The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted. Viking. Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780670026265. $24.95. CURRENT EVENTS
Lofgren, a Republican who worked as a Congressional staffer for 28 years—the last 16 as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees—made news in September 2011 when he angrily quit over the debt ceiling crisis. Critical though he is of the tired Democrats, he saves his real bashing for the Republicans, whom he called lunatics in a piece he subsequently wrote for Truthout. That piece got so many hits so fast that the site crashed; reading the book might be just as tumultuous an experience.

McCord, Catherine. Weelicious: Fast, Easy, and Fresh Recipes Your Kids Want To Eat! Morrow Cookbooks. Sept. 2012. 288p. ISBN 9780062078445. $27.50. COOKING
With a new baby and a culinary degree, McCord was well positioned to launch Weelicious.com, which began as a compendium of baby food purees and now fosters family eating that is healthful and tasty and suggests how to teach kids to make smart choices about food. The site gets more than 500,000 hits a day and was among the New York Observer’s Top Ten “Must Read” Websites for Parents, so this should be in demand. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Max, D.T. Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. Viking. Sept. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780670025923. $26.95. BIOGRAPHY
Appearing in The New Yorker a year after David Foster Wallace’s suicide at age 46, Max’s “The Unfinished: David Foster Wallace’s Struggle To Surpass Infinite Jest” really fired up readers. Now Max offers what is less a portrait of the man than of the artist, detailing Wallace’s struggles to become a novelist while circumventing depression and addiction. He also explores Wallace’s powerful impact on American letters—particularly as a symbol of integrity in an increasingly slick world.

Mazower, Mark. Governing the World: The Rise and Fall of an Idea, 1815 to the Present. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781594203497. $25.95. HISTORY
Having ranged from Duff Cooper Prize winner Salonica City of Ghosts to Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Hitler’s Empire, among many other titles, Oxford-trained historian Mazower—now director of the Center for International History at Columbia University—seems good and ready to discuss world government from the post-Napoleonic era forward. Go for it, history fans.

Mendez, Antonio & Matt Baglio. Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History. Viking. Sept. 2012. 352p. ISBN 9780670026227. $26.95. Downloadable: Random Audio. HISTORY
In 1979, after Iranian militants stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, creating a hostage situation that lasted 444 days, six Americans escaped. Then a CIA agent, Mendez arranged for their rescue by bringing a bunch of Hollywood directors, producers, and actors to Iran, ostensibly to scout locations for a film they dubbed Argo but in fact to contact the escapees and smuggle them out. A crazy plan, but it worked, and Mendez is sharing the details only now. Yes, a film about the rescue is forthcoming, starring Ben Affleck and releasing in September.

Miller, Carol. Up All Night: My Life and Times in Rock Radio. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 208p. ISBN 9780061845246. $24.99. MEMOIR/MUSIC
You bet that there are readers anticipating this memoir by the country’s top female disc jockey, who was raised in a staunchly intellectual Jewish household in Queens, got into progressive rock radio while at the University of Pennsylvania, worked with legends like Cousin Brucie, went all chatty with Paul McCartney and dated Steve Tyler, and eventually made it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, having hugely shaped the business with her distinctive on-air approach. Here she tells her story, revealing her battle with cancer and fears about an unnamed illness that has taken many family members early in life, which gave her a real incentive to accomplish.

Perry, Michael. Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace. Harper: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 336p. ISBN 9780061894442. $25.99; eISBN 9780062097798. BIOGRAPHY
Perry recently returned home to a 37-acre farm in New Auburn, WI (see his Population: 485), where he serves on the local rescue service when not commenting for NPR or acting as a contributing editor to Men’s Health. He’s also neighbors with octogenarian Tom Hartwig, who builds his own cannons, runs a shop seemingly “stocked by Rube Goldberg, curated by Hunter Thompson, and rearranged by a small earthquake,” and defies the four-lane interstate that was shoved through his front yard a few decades back. Perry is a good author—2009’s Coop was an Indie best seller and won a bunch of regional awards—and this portrait of an individual is also a welcome portrait of an underrepresented place and lifestyle. So check it out, especially if Perry come to your neighborhood; his driving tour takes him to Iowa City, Des Moines, Chicago, Wichita, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, St. Louis, Omaha, Lincoln, and Nashville, as well as Northfield, Stillwater, and Minneapolis, MN, and Madison, Rice, Red Wing, and Milwaukee, WI.

Ricks, Thomas E. The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today. Sept. 2012. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. ISBN 9781594204043. $36. CURRENT EVENTS
Once a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, currently with the Center for a New American Security and a Foreign Policy blogger, Pulitzer Prize winner Ricks has already given us two best-selling books on our recent venture in Iraq, The Gamble and Fiasco. Here he steps back to provide a broader picture of military leadership—and particularly the decline in sound military leadership—since World War II. No doubt sobering.

Silver, Nate. The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t. Penguin Pr: Penguin Group (USA). Sept. 2012. NAp. ISBN 9781594204111. $27.95. SOCIAL SCIENCE
In 2008, Silver created the polling website and blog FiveThirtyEight.com (named for the number of electors in the electoral college), then relaunched the blog with the New York Times two years later. Here he challenges the very idea of making predictions in everything from weather to politics (interesting position for a pollster), so I won’t venture to say how this book will do. But it has a built-in audience.

Simmons, Sylvie. I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen. Ecco: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780061994982. $27.99. BIOGRAPHY/MUSIC
A music journalist who’s profiled folks like Neil Young and Johnny Cash and recently won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for her liner notes for Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, Simmons conducted more than 100 interviews with friends and musicians (ranging from Judy Collins to, interestingly, Phillip Glass) to craft this portrait of the man who gave us such immortal songs as “Suzanne” and “Bird on a Wire.” Music lovers of a certain age will want, and since Cohen has just wrapped up a sold-out three-year world tour after a 15-year hiatus, he’ll be on their minds.

Weiss, Luisa. My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes). Viking. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780670025381. $26.95. MEMOIR/COOKING
When cookbook editor Weiss launched Thewednesdaychef.com, now an award-winning blog that boasts 100,000 unique visitors per month, it was just the beginning of a dramatic story. As she wrote about cooking her way through a stack of recipes, she was inspired to dump her fiancé, then her job, then her home, leaving New York for Berlin, where she had been partly raised by her Italian mother. Yummy tales, like foraging for plums in an abandoned orchard; even the curmudgeonly might want to head for the kitchen. With an eight-city tour.

White, Kate. Sweet Success: How To Get It, Run with It, Savor It. Harper Business: HarperCollins. Sept. 2012. 320p. ISBN 9780062122124. $24.99. BUSINESS
Here’s what White is doing when she’s not at her desk as editor in chief of Cosmopolitan or writing best sellers like the Bailey Weggins mystery series: she’s writing a career guide for women aiming to make it today’s tumultuous business world. To achieve success, says White, you’ve got to “Get It”—that is, take a risk that will land you ahead of the curve, as White did when she put Lady Gaga on Cosmo’s cover—then keep building on what you’ve done and learn to enjoy it (or why bother?). With a 40,000-copy first printing and lots of publicity through social media.

Armstrong, Kelley. Thirteen. Dutton. Aug. 2012. 400p. ISBN 9780525952831. $26.95; CD/Downloadable: Penguin Audio. PARANORMAL THRILLER
Bittersweet news, Otherworld fans: after a dozen books, here’s the grand finale of the series. Savannah Levine has rescued her brother from supernatural medical testing, though he’s not exactly back on his feet, and with supernaturals battling one another—and in danger of exposure to the general population—she’s dredging up all her strength to summon spells that will keep her world intact. You bet that Otherworld familiars Adam, Paige, Lucas, Jaime, and Hope will be making appearances, along with hellhounds, genetically modified werewolves, and other creepy pleasers. This will be big; with a five-city tour and Comic-Con promotion.

Frankel, Laurie. Good-Bye for Now. Doubleday. Aug. 2012. 228p. ISBN 9780385536189. $25.95; eISBN 9780385536196. POP FICTION
Sam Elliot meets love-of-his-life Meredith at the Internet dating company where they both work, then gets fired when a competitor starts getting all the business. To comfort Meredith when her grandmother dies, Sam draws on all of grandma’s emails, Facebook posts, and Skype to create a computer program that simulates one last conversation between her and Meredith. Hence the couple’s new company, RePose, is born. It helps customers to assuage their grief, but it soon presents some sticky problems of its own. Now there’s a fresh premise, and this novel was the talk ofFrankfurt, selling to over 20 territories. Don’t miss out.

Lippman, Laura. Untitled. Morrow. Aug. 2012. 384p. ISBN 9780061706875. $25.99. THRILLER
Mega-award-winning author Lippman, always a best seller, here offers a standalone novel with a compelling plot: Heloise, a suburban madam, is worried when a man she helped put on death row is released after his sentence is overturned. That the man is her former pimp and the father of her son makes things even worse. The novel is based on a short story, “Scratch a Woman,” taken from Lippman’s 2008 collection Hardly Knew Her and nominated for both an Edgar and an Anthony. Currently, it’s a popular ebook, which should help with promotion. Note the 150,000-copy first printing and the official September 1 pub date; I’m including here because the book goes on sale August 14.

Brown, Jenny with Gretchen Primack. The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals. Avery: Penguin Group (USA). Aug. 2012. 304p. ISBN 9781583334416. $26. MEMOIR/ANIMAL RIGHTS
Having been comforted by her cat when she lost a leg to bone cancer at age ten, Brown grew up enamored of animals and eventually became concerned about those on farms. Soon she quit her job as a film and TV producer to document awful animal abuses in the Texas stockyards; as Brown emphasizes here, agribusiness treats domesticated animals like products, not living creatures. Brown went on to found the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, which has garnered coverage from top venues like the New York Times and Cosmopolitan. Here’s your chance to visit the sanctuary and meet Albie, the three-legged goat, and abandoned Easter duckling Quincy. Go, animals!