Prepub Exploded, Oct. 2010, Pt. 1
Featuring Lee Child, Stephenie Meyer, Oliver Sacks & More
By Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 04/01/2010
| Head back to BookSmack! for more stories |
This expanded online edition of Prepub Alert features big October titles, with authors ranging from Lee Child and Jish Gen to Bill Bryson and Robert Kaplan.
Fiction | Nonfiction | My Picks | This Just In | Coming Attractions
Anglada, Maria Angels. The Auschwitz Violin. Bantam. Sept. 2010. 128p. ISBN 978-0-553-80778-3. $20.
A Jewish violin maker has survived Auschwitz because of his carpentry skills. Then the camp commander throws down a challenge: make the perfect violin. This novel sold 100,000 when published in Catalan in 1994; since then, it’s been bought by 12 countries, and film rights have been optioned here. About time we had this to read; pair with Eugene Drucker’s The Savior for sophisticated readers.
Casey, John. Compass Rose. Knopf. Oct. 2010. 432p. ISBN 978-0-375-41025-3. $27.95.
Rose lives with her single mom, who does battle with Rose’s married fisherman father just down the street, and though Rose is none too happy at her elite school, she feels well loved in the town. Sounds likes a charming change of pace from the author of the National Book Award–winning Spartina.
Child, Lee. Untitled #15. Delacorte. Oct. 2010. 400p. ISBN 978-0-385-34431-9 $28. lrg. prnt. CD/Download: Random Audio.
Just months after triumphing with 61 Hours, Child returns with yet another thriller. It seems that both author and publisher think being a No. 1 best-selling award winner with books available in 51 countries just isn’t enough; a concerted effort is being made to shove Child into the stratosphere. No word on plot here, but it hardly matters; this is so unlikely to fail. Buy big.
Coben, Harlan. Back Spin. Delacorte. Oct. 2010. 336p. ISBN 978-0-385-34356-5. $24.
Coben has been building for years—right up to his no. 1 New York Times best-selling Hold Tight, his Edgar, Anthony, and Shamus awards, and the French film version (and prospective American film version) of Tell No One. This is the fourth Myron Bolitar thriller, published in the 1990s and in hardcover for the first time.
Coulter, Catherine. The Valcourt Heiress. Putnam. Oct. 2010. 336p. ISBN 0-399-15675-5. $25.95.
Having served the king, Garron of Kersey returns home to claim the baronetcy but finds the family castle badly hacked up by someone called the Black Demon, who’s hunting for gold. And there’s an odd child about named Merry who seems to understand everything. A change of pace for Coulter, who’s done historicals but is perhaps best known for her 13 recent back-to-back FBI thrillers—all best sellers.
Donaldson, Stephen R. Against All Things Ending: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Putnam. Oct. 2010. 640p. ISBN 978-0-399-15678-6. $29.95.
The “Chronicles of Thomas Covenant” commenced in 1977 and the “Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever” in 2004. This work, in which Thomas Covenant has been restored to life, thereby stirring up the Worm of the World’s End, is the penultimate novel in all the Covenant series. Donaldson seems to be building to a big-bang ending; Fatal Revenant, the previous title in the series, made the New York Times best sellers list, Donaldson’s first sojourn there since the mid-1980s. Read the first chapter and see where this is going.
Goldberg, Myla. The False Friend. Doubleday. Oct. 2010. 288p. ISBN 978-0-385-52721-7. $25.95.
Teenaged queen bees Celia and Djuna take a forbidden road home, Djuna disappears, and Celia spends 20 years believing the lies she told about what really happened. I love it! Goldberg combines the social acuity of Bee Season with the thrills of a Tana French novel, and we get the best of both. With an eight-city tour to New York, Washington, DC, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Portland (OR), and Los Angeles.
Jen, Gish. World and Town. Knopf. Oct. 2010. 384p. ISBN 978-0-307-27219-5. $26.95.
Hattie Kong is a direct descendant of Confucius, which is perhaps how she manages to cope with losing her husband and her best friend in the same year. She then settles in Riverlake, which, with its uneasy mix of fundamentalists, immigrants, and tapped-out farm families, doesn’t seem quite like your typical small New England town. Can’t wait for this one. Good to have a reading group guide; this would be great for book clubs.
Katz, Jon. Rose in a Storm. Villard. Oct. 2010. 256p. ISBN 978-0-345-50265-0. $24.
The lambs are newborn, the farmer tending them has been injured, and a blizzard is coming. Fortunately, strong and loyal sheep dog Rose saves the day—and narrates the tale, too. Katz’s dog books are always best sellers, and he’s branching into children’s books soon. This work should appeal to all audiences.
Keller, Cynthia. An Amish Christmas. Ballantine. Oct. 2010. ISBN 978-0-345-52378-5. $15.
After her husband loses his job and all their savings, Meg takes the family to live with her parents. A car accident en route leads them to shelter with an Amish family and learn the secret of happiness. Keller has published several novels as Cynthia Victor, but what’s important here is the intersection of Christmas and Amish life, two themes as hot as flaming plum pudding.
Khoury, Raymond. The Templar Salvation. Dutton. 400p. ISBN 978-0-525-95184-1. $26.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
In 1203, as Constantinople is besieged, a group of Templars enter the Imperial Library and make off with materials too incendiary for angry crusaders to see. Perhaps their exploits will be found in the Fondo Templari, a secret history of the Templars FBI agent Sean Reilly must locate in the Vatican’s sealed archives to save his kidnapped girlfriend. A sequel to The Last Templar, which has sold 335,000 copies in hardcover and over a million in paperback, so be prepared.
Koontz, Dean, creator; Fred Van Lente & Dean Koontz (text) & Queenie Chan (illus.). Odd Is on Our Side. Del Rey: Ballantine. Oct. 2010. 192p. ISBN 978-0-345-51560-5. pap. $10.99.
Having met success with his first Odd Thomas manga, In Odd We Trust—there are close to 75,000 copies in print—Koontz returns with a second story. The events here antedate the original Odd Thomas novel, and the setting is Pico Mundo, CA, during Halloween. Chan also illustrated the first manga. A good crossover title (teens flock to Odd); buy where Koontz or manga are popular.
Mustian, Mark L. The Gendarme. Amy Einhorn: Putnam. Sept. 2010. 304p. ISBN 978-0-399-15634-2. $25.95.
At 92, Emmet Conn finds himself hospitalized with a brain tumor. But he’s also having dark, dizzying dreams that turn out to be long-suppressed memories; Emmet was once someone else entirely, serving in the Ottoman Army as World War I descended. This first novel, acquired by a dynamite editor (she gave us Kathryn Stockett’s The Help), is getting some buzz; rights have been sold to six countries, and there’s that all-important reading group guide. A first look suggests that the dreamlike, staccato language opens up into a moving but fiercely unsentimental book. Not for your lighter time-traveler readers; recommend to smart book clubbers in search of something intriguing and different.
Perry, Anne. A Christmas Odyssey. Ballantine. Oct. 2010. 208p. ISBN 978-0-345-51858-3. $18.
What would the holidays be without a Perry Christmas mystery making things briefly a bit more chilly? Just before Christmas, a friend hires mathematician Henry Rathbone to find his son, Lucien, who’s much into wine, women, and song. Perry’s preceding Christmas mysteries average 50,000 copies or more in print; you’ll know if you have an audience.
Parker, Robert B. Painted Ladies. Putnam. Oct. 2010. 304p. ISBN 978-0-399-15685-4. $26.95.
Sadly, Parker left us in January 2010, but Spenser is still here. On his latest case, he’s been asked to serve as the muscle during a ransom exchange for a stolen painting—and starts expecting everyone of duplicity when the exchange falls through.
Rucka, Greg. The Last Run: A Queen & Country Novel. Bantam. Oct. 2010. 272p. ISBN 978-0-553-80475-1. $25.
Tara Chace would like to ditch the Special Section for a cushy desk job, but when a nephew of the late Ayatollah indicates that he would like to ditch Iran, Chace is tapped to head up the extraction team. Rucka is popular with those in the know, as his BookSense and mystery bookstore successes suggest, and the 2009 film version of Whiteout brought him a bigger audience. Maybe a breakout?
Willis, Connie. All Clear. Spectra. Oct. 2010. 640p. ISBN 978-0-553-80767-7. $26.
Willis here wraps up the story she began this spring in Blackout, featuring three time-traveling history researchers trapped in London during the Blitz. You can’t argue with someone who’s won a record six Nebulas and ten Hugos; for all sf readers.
Brands, H.W. American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865–1900. Doubleday. Oct. 2010. 512p. ISBN 978-0-385-52333-2. $35. CD: Random.
Brands, Dickson Allen Anderson Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, here shows how America moved from the agrarian Civil War era to Gilded Age capitalism in the course of a few decades. Instructive.
Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. Doubleday. Oct. 2010. 448p. ISBN 978-0-7679-1938-8. $28.95. lrg. prnt. CD: Random Audio.
Deciding that “houses…are where history ends up,” Bryson explores human social development by exploring the Victorian parsonage where he lives. The kitchen, for instance, inspires reflections on nutrition and the space trade. Should be great fun if it works; with a six-city tour to New York, Washington, DC, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco.
Burstein, Andrew & Nancy Isenberg. Madison and Jefferson. Random. Oct. 2010. 896p. ISBN 978-1-4000-6728-2. $35.
Once coholders of the Mary Frances Barnard Chair in Nineteenth-Century U.S. History at the University of Tulsa and now both professors at Louisiana State University, the authors offer a dual biography of presidents Madison and Jefferson, limning their friendship and working hard to show that Madison was no dullard. The book launches at Monticello—quite a coup. Books on the Founding Fathers just keep coming, with no saturation point in sight.
Dohrmann, George. Play Their Hearts Out. Ballantine. Oct. 2010. 432p. ISBN 978-0-345-50860-7. $25.
A Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at Sports Illustrated, Dohrmann looks at the recruitment and training of young NBA stars, focusing on one young player, his coach, and his teammates. Not just sports but the business of sports; recommend accordingly.
Ellis, Joseph. First Family: Abigail and John Adams. Knopf. Oct. 2010. 320p. ISBN 978-0-307-26962-1. $27.95. lrg. prnt. CD: Random Audio.
It’s a historical study. No, it’s a dual biography. No, it’s a love story. Here’s a portrait of our favorite Founding Couple from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Founding Brothers. Juicy good reading for all you Revolutionary fans; with a ten-city tour to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.
Ferriss, Timothy. The 4-Hour Body: The Secrets and Science of Rapid Body Transformation. Crown. Sept. 2010. 320p. ISBN 978-0-307-46363-0. $24. CD: Random Audio.
In The 4-Hour Workweek, Ferriss showed readers how to rethink their careers; here, he shows them how to remake their bodies. And since before writing Workweek his job was to pummel top athletes—he’s an ACE certified trainer and fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine—he’s got the credentials. Why do I think this might be the diet book of the year? Because Workweek went through 43 printings (before getting an expanded edition) and enjoyed 32 months on various best sellers lists in 35 countries.
Johnson, Steven. Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2010. 336p. ISBN 978-1-59448-771-2. $26.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
What sparks creativity? It’s a question often asked in the literature, but as the best-selling multidisciplinarian of books like The Invention of Air, Johnson should have something interesting and distinctive to say. Plus, he has more than 1.5 million Twitter followers, which makes for some readership.
Keller, Timothy. Generous Justice: Finding Grace in God Through Practicing Justice. Dutton. Oct. 2010. 172p. ISBN 978-0-525-95190-2. $19.95.
Pastor of New York’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, which he founded in the 1980s and now attracts 5000 congregants each Sunday, Keller explores the concept of justice in the Bible to counter those who would see Christianity as a less than progressive influence. Keller has an audience; his last book, The Reason for God, was a New York Times best seller, and 25,000 souls download his sermons each week.
Myron, Vicki with Bret Witter. Dewey’s Nine Lives: The Legacy of the Small-Town Library Cat Who Inspired Millions. Dutton. Oct. 2010. 288p. ISBN 978-0-525-95186-5. $19.95. CD: Penguin Audio.
It’s the cat’s meow. Myron’s Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World sold nearly a million copies, dwelt on the New York Times best sellers list for seven months, and is being made into a film starring Meryl Streep (but not in the title role). Now Myron returns with more stories from the “Dewey community”—folks who’ve shared their touching stories of living with and loving their cuddly felines.
Naipaul, V.S. The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief. Knopf. Oct. 2010. 256p. ISBN 978-0-307-27073-3. $26.95.
Nobel Prize winner Naipaul travels through Africa to assess the impact of its beliefs, surveying Christianity, Islam, and the cult of leaders but looking for “the older world of magic” and finding remarkable similarities in practices throughout the continent. And for Naipaul, that was “to be taken far back to the beginning of things.” Bound to shake you; I want to see.
Riding, Alan. And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris. Knopf. Oct. 2010. 400p. ISBN 978-0-307-26897-6. $27.95.
Paris didn’t stop being Paris when the Germans marched in. Chevalier and Piaf sang for French and German audiences alike, and while proto-Fascist writers like Céline published, so did Sartre—his No Exit was performed shortly before D-day. Intriguing-sounding cultural history from Riding, New York Times European cultural correspondent for two decades; with a three-city tour to Boston, New York, and Washington, DC.
Robinson, Eugene. Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America. Doubleday. Oct. 2010. 208p. ISBN 978-0-385-52654-8. $24.95.
A Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist/editor with the Washington Post and a former Nieman Fellow, Robinson argues that there is no longer a monolithic black America but four clear groups: a Mainstream middle-class majority, an Abandoned minority, a Transcendent elite that’s wealthy and pandered to by whites, and an Emergent mixed-race group. So what does it mean to be black in this country? Robinson is now part of that discussion.
Sacks, Oliver. The Mind’s Eye. Knopf. 2010. 256p. ISBN 978-0-307-27208-9. $25.95. CD: Random Audio.
A pianist loses the ability to read scores. A cross-eyed neurobiologist suddenly acquires binocular vision. And famed neurologist/author Sacks loses his depth perception owing to an eye tumor, which inspires him to write this exploration of vision. A no-brainer for the smart crowd; Sacks is so cool.
Sells, Michael A. The God of War: America in a World of Religion. Knopf. Oct. 2010. 480p. ISBN 978-0-375-41515-9. $30.
John Henry Barrows Professor of History and Literature of Islam at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Sells here considers the current religious militancy, identifying and decrying “clashism”—the idea that Islam and the Judeo-Christian West must eventually duke it out. This book has been postponed over several years so that it could go through rewrites and stay current. Sounds smart—and important. With a four-city tour to Boston, Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC.
Smiley, Jane. The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer. Doubleday. Oct. 2010. 304p. ISBN 978-0-385-52713-2. $25.95.
No, it’s not a novel. Smiley goes far afield to tell the story of John Vincent Atansoff, a physics professor who dreamed up a computing machine based on the binary number system in the late 1930s but never got the credit accorded Alan Turing and others. Smiley would not be the first person I would think of to write a book like this, but I know she'll give the story texture. First in the “Great Innovators” series.
Steinberg, Avi. Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian. Nan A. Talese: Doubleday. Oct. 2010. 336p. ISBN 978-0-385-52909-9. $24.95.
Disenchanted with that closed-in feeling he was getting from his Orthodox Jewish upbringing and Harvard education, Steinberg moved far, far away from both by taking a job as a prison librarian in Boston. There he finds himself mentoring mobsters and pimps while of course finding himself. Librarians, what do we think?
Timmer, Reed with Andrew Tilin. Into the Storm: Violent Tornadoes, Killer Hurricanes, and Death-Defying Adventures in Extreme Weather. Dutton. Oct. 2010. 304p. ISBN 978-0-525-95193-3. $26.95.
If you watch Discovery’s top-ranked Storm Chasers (it had 19.2 million viewers in 2008), you’ve already seen Timmer in action—over the years, he’s chased over 300 tornados, hurricanes, and blizzards. Okay, this is not something I would do, but the book surely seems exciting, and folks are endlessly fascinated by bad weather—it puts us in our place. Plus, Timmer is a doctoral candidate in meteorology, so it’s not just thrills.
TobyMac. City on Our Knees. Bethany. Sept. 2010. NAp. ISBN 978-0-7642-0865-2. $19.99.
Grammy Award winner TobyMac links up with Bethany House and the Baker Publishing Group to transform his No. 1 hit single, “City on Our Knees,” into his first solo book. (He did Jesus Freaks as a member of dc talk.) The aim? To bring a message of faith and love to the largest number of people possible. As TobyMac says, “If you gotta start somewhere why not here.” With a 200,000-copy first printing.
Wilentz, Sean. Bob Dylan in America. Doubleday. Oct. 2010. 240p. ISBN 978-0-385-52988-4. $28.95. CD: Random Audio.
The noted Princeton historian, who gave us The Age of Reagan, also earned a Grammy nomination for his liner notes to Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan, Live 1964: The Concert at Philharmonic Hall. And, since he discovered Dylan while growing up in the Village, he’s well situated to write this study of Dylan’s development and impact.
Wolff, Geoffrey. The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum. Knopf. Oct. 2010. 240p. ISBN 978-1-4000-4342-2. $25.95.
Not familiar with Joshua Slocum? After a nasty Nova Scotia childhood, he rose through the ranks from ordinary seaman to commander of his own vessel and then in the late 1800s became the first man to circumnavigate the world solo. Wolff should deliver his story well.
Mengestu, Dinaw. How To Read the Air. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Oct. 2010. 320p. ISBN 978-1-59448-770-5. $25.95.
Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears won the Guardian First Book Prize and the Los Angeles Times first novel award and was proclaimed a New York Times notable book. It also won Mengestu the prestigious 5 Under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation. An initial read suggests that this follow-up accomplishes exactly what Heaven accomplished. In quietly incisive language, the author captures both individual particularities (“This was how most if not all of my parents’ fights began. With a minor, almost invisible transgression”) and the larger immigrant experience (“Learning a new language was, in the end, not so different from learning to fall in love with your husband again”)—and ends up telling us all something important about the human condition. In this new work, protagonist Jonas tries to locate himself by tracing a trip his Ethiopian immigrant parents took before his birth. It’s the Great American Road Novel, updated for the 21st century.
Kaplan, Robert D. Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power. Random. Oct. 2010. 382p. ISBN 978-1-4000-6746-6. $28.
It virtually defines Islam in its sweep from the eastern edge of the Sahara to Indonesia, also serving as the locus of al-Qaeda activity present and future. It’s also the world stage for locked-horns superpowers China and India, not to mention numerous emerging Third World countries, and with its many shipping lanes it has become the world “busiest and most important interstate.” It’s the Indian Ocean, and it’s the subject of the latest study from Balkan Ghosts and Imperial Grunts author Kaplan. A quick look at Chapter 1 suggests that Kaplan has mastered a wealth of material (there’s plenty of documentation) and presents it in his usual lucid, readable, and entertaining fashion. With so many current events titles buried in the Middle East sands or focusing exclusively on India or China, here’s a big-picture book. Anyway, I’m convinced.
Ai. No Surrender. Norton. Sept. 2010. 144p. ISBN 978-0-393-07886-2. $24.95.
Noted for her dramatic monologs, National Book Award winner Ai—of mixed African American, Native American, Japanese, and Irish descent—died on March 20. Catch her final collection, appearing this fall.
James, Rebecca. Beautiful Malice. Bantam. Jul. 2010. 320p. ISBN 978-0-553-80805-6. $25.
After the death of her sister, Katherine Patterson falls under the sway of high-spirited Alice Parrie, who is perhaps not as innocent as she seems. Bumped up from August 31 to mid-July, this work was subject to a worldwide bidding war and has been sold to 33 territories. Lots of buzz; just the book to hand folks who’ve exhausted their pile of big-name thriller reads for summer.
Meyer, Stephanie. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella. Little, Brown Bks. for Young Readers. Jun. 2010. 192p. ISBN 978-0-316-12558-1. $13.99.
Just in time for the next Twilight film, Meyer returns to tell the story of a newbie vampire who first appeared in Eclipse. The new work goes on sale Saturday, June 5, at 12:01 a.m. with a 1.5 million-copy first printing; an e-book version will be available by 6:00 a.m, and the book can be read for free online from June 7 to July 5 at www.breetanner.com—Meyer’s gift to her fans.
Nather, David. The New Health Care System: Everything You Need To Know. Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin’s. ISBN NA. Jul. 2010. pap. $12.99.
Got questions about the new health-care bill? Check out this work by Washington-based journalist Nather, just acquired and being rushed into print as, the publisher hopes, the first book on the topic.
Fiction
Denning, Troy. Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Vortex. LucasBooks: Random. Dec. 2010. 256p. ISBN 978-0-345-50920-8. $27.
Robb, J.D. Indulgence in Death. Putnam. Nov. 2010. 368p. ISBN 978-0-399-15687-8. $25.95.
McGuane, Thomas. Driving on the Rim. Knopf. Nov. 2010. 320p. ISBN 978-1-4000-4155-8. $26.96.
Mosley, Walter. The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Putnam. Nov. 2010. 272p. ISBN 978-1-59448-772-9. $25.95. CD: Putnam Audio
Nonfiction
Black, Lewis. I’m Dreaming of a Black Christmas. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Putnam. Nov. 2010. 272p. ISBN 978-1-59448-775-0. $19.95. CD: Putnam Audio.
Brown, Mike. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. Spiegel & Grau. Dec. 2010. 288p. ISBN 978-0-385-53108-5. $25.
Chopra, Deepak. The Soul of Leadership: Applying Spiritual Intelligence to Business and to Life. Harmony, dist. by Crown. Dec. 2010. 304p. ISBN 978-0-307-40806-8. $25. CD: Random Audio.
