A preview of the most anticipated fiction and non-fiction titles among book releases this fall.
Of making many books there is no end. So it was written in the Bible, and more than 2,000 years later it still is true. Like bread and brick, the book goes on, issuing from presses, outliving all notions of technological change. Perhaps it's as a Victorian do-gooder once said: "A good book is the best of friends, the same today as forever."
Well, dear reader, get ready for a horde of friends to overrun your house this fall: The sheer volume of book production is breathtaking. It's as if publishers had decided to bring out a book by every established author they could think of and tossed in a slew of fresh-faced novices for good measure. We've never experienced anything quite like this. Bleary-eyed editors stand in the doorway of our overstuffed book room mumbling something akin to the Duke of Gloucester's lamentations: "Another damned, thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble!"
Here then, to guide you through the deluge, is a short list of books you'll soon see reviewed on these pages. My advice? Plunge in, look through; the list is bound to offer up a friend or two.
- By Marie Arana
Book World Live
Editor Marie Arana discusses the flurry of blockbusters slated for bookstores this fall, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 3 ET
The Assassins' Gate
, by George Packer (FSG, Oct.). America in Iraq, from the first glimmers of policy to the insurgency on the ground.
Cosmopolitanism
, by Kwame Anthony Appiah (Norton, Jan.). Princeton professor challenges the notion of "a clash of civilizations" with his theory about "the power of one."
Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide
, by Gerard Prunier (Cornell, Sept.). Why it happened, why it should not be ignored and its implications for the continent.
The Google Story
, by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed (Delacorte, Oct.). In six short years, this search engine became a social phenomenon that has revolutionized the way we use information.
Identity and Violence
, by Amartya Sen (Norton, March) and
The Argumentative Indian
, by Amartya Sen (FSG, Oct.). In the first book, the Nobel Prize-winner smashes the notion of a monolithic Middle East; in the second, he examines India's long history of public discourse.
Illicit
, by Moises Naim (Doubleday, Sept.). From the editor of Foreign Policy, an expose of how traffickers and criminals are mauling the global economy.
Imperial Grunts
, by Robert D. Kaplan (RH, Sept.). American power may be pursued in the corridors of Washington, but it is advanced worldwide by our elite military forces.
Incendiary Circumstances
, by Amitav Ghosh (Houghton, Jan.). The novelist-essayist on the turmoil of our times, from Sept. 11 to the tsunami that ravaged his childhood home.
Love My Rifle More Than You
, by Kayla Williams (Norton, Sept.). What it's like to be young, female, in the army and over there.
The Next Attack
, by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon (Times, Oct.). The authors of The Age of Sacred Terror warn that we're losing the war against al Qaeda.
Night Draws Near
, by Anthony Shadid (Holt, Sept.). From a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter -- how the war is affecting Iraq's ordinary people.
One Bullet Away
, by Nathaniel Fick (Houghton, Oct.). A young Marine, working clandestinely and behind enemy lines in Afghanistan and Iraq.
History
The Accidental Empire
, by Gershom Gorenberg (Times, March). The origins of Israel's settlement venture.
After the Victorians
, by A.N. Wilson (FSG, Oct.). The decline of Britain in little more than a generation.
America's Constitution
, by Akhil Reed Amar (RH, Sept.). Just how democratic was our original Constitution? And why must the president be at least 35 years old?
City of Falling Angels
, by John Berendt (Penguin, Sept.). The author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil on Venice and its unique inhabitants.
The Cold War
, by John Lewis Gaddis (Penguin, Dec.). Fifty years ago, communism seemed on the rise. An eminent historian traces its complicated downfall.
A Crack in the Edge of the World
, by Simon Winchester (HC, Oct.). The 1906 California earthquake that shook 200 miles of coast and destroyed the gold rush capital.
Creating Black Americans
, by Nell Irvin Painter (Oxford, Nov.). Painter uses rich visuals to tell the history of America from the point of view of African Americans.
Forever Free
, by Eric Foner (Knopf, Nov.). A sage Columbia professor on the vital years of emancipation and Reconstruction.
Grant and Sherman
, by Charles Bracelen Flood (FSG, Oct.).Two dramatically different generals forged a friendship that helped win the Civil War.
Lincoln's Melancholy
, by Joshua Wolf Shenk (Houghton, Sept.). How Lincoln's battles with depression prepared him for greatness.
Restless Giant
, by James T. Patterson (Oxford, Sept.). America's passage from Watergate to the bitter race between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
The Rise of American Democracy
, by Sean Wilentz (Norton, Oct.). How a government framed by elitists became the gritty democracy of Lincoln's day.
The River of Doubt
, by Candice Millard (Doubleday, Oct.). Theodore Roosevelt's little-known foray into the far tributaries of the Amazon.
The Third Reich in Power
, by Richard J. Evans (Penguin, Oct.). A Cambridge historian on the transformative 1930s and Hitler's implacable rise to power.
A War Like No Other
, by Victor Davis Hanson (RH, Oct.). The sieges of the Peloponnesian War, seen through post-9/11 eyes.
Biography
Andrew Jackson
, by H.W. Brands (Doubleday, Oct.). The story of the president who ushered in the Age of Democracy, by the author of The First American .
First Man
, by James R. Hansen (S and S, Oct.). How Neil Armstrong rose in the ranks, accomplished the impossible and then was misunderstood.
The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson
, by Robert Hofler (Carroll and Graf, Oct.). How a closeted right-winger discovered Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter and "beefcake."
Mao
, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (Knopf, Oct.). By the author of Wild Swans , a fat tome of revelations about the chairman.
Mencken
, by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (Oxford, Oct.). The bad boy of Baltimore gets the full treatment from the editor of his correspondence.
My Face Is Black Is True
, by Mary Frances Berry (Knopf, Sept.). Callie House, Nashville washerwoman, and her rise to founder of the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association.
The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis
, by Alan Jacobs (HarperSF, Oct.). The beloved teacher and children's book author -- and his inimitable mind.
President Reagan
, by Richard Reeves (S and S, Dec.). The crafty, willful, often deceptive politician who became the most effective president of superpower America.
The Solitude of Self
, by Vivian Gornick (FSG, Sept.). Gornick proclaims Elizabeth Cady Stanton the greatest feminist thinker of the 19th century.
Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It
, by Kaleem Aftab (Norton, Sept.). The life of the provocative filmmaker.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S and S, Oct.). The popular historian turns her attention to the 16th president.
Dean and Me
, by Jerry Lewis and James Kaplan (Doubleday, Oct.). The 10-year partnership of two entertainment giants.
How to Cook Your Daughter
, by Jessica Hendra (Regan, Oct.). The daughter of Tony Hendra ( Father Joe ) tells of her sexual abuse by her famous father.
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading
, by Maureen Corrigan (RH, Sept.). Our very own mysteries reviewer -- and NPR personality -- remembers the books that shaped her life.
Mirror to America
, by John Hope Franklin (FSG, Nov.). One of America's preeminent historians describes his personal struggle for civil rights.
My Detachment
, by Tracy Kidder (RH, Sept.). The author of The Soul of a New Machine on his anxious, often comic days as a soldier in the Vietnam War.
Tab Hunter Confidential
, by Tab Hunter with Eddie Muller (Algonquin, Oct.). Hollywood's gift to women (and men, it turns out) on his scandals, joys and sacrifices.
Talking Back
, by Andrea Mitchell (Viking, Sept.). The NBC correspondent recounts a glass-ceiling-shattering rise from girl reporter to big-time interlocutor.
Two Lives
, by Vikram Seth (HC, Nov.). The author of A Suitable Boy tells the love story of his Indian father and German-Jewish mother.
The Year of Magical Thinking
, by Joan Didion (Knopf, Oct.). Didion turns an unblinking eye on her husband's sudden death as they struggled to save their sick daughter.
Religion
God's Choice: Pope Benedict XVI
, by George Weigel (HC, Nov.). The author of Witness to Hope gives an inside account of the papal election.
Jesus and Yahweh
, by Harold Bloom (Riverhead, Oct.). The celebrated Yale scholar examines the Prince of Peace and the Battling God.
Parish Priest
, by Douglas Brinkley and Julie M. Fenster (Morrow, Jan.). The story of Father Michael McGivney and the founding of the Knights of Columbus.
The Rosary
, by Garry Wills (Viking, Sept.). In this age of self-help, there is no better way to reconnect with ourselves, writes Wills, than with a strand of beads and a crucifix.
Politics and Social Issues
The Chosen
, by Jerome Karabel (Houghton, Oct.). Who got into Harvard, Yale or Princeton, who didn't, and how that has shaped us all.
Cities
, by John Reader (Atlantic, Sept.). Sewers, prostitution, cathedrals, markets -- an exploration of how such things can define civilizations.
The 50% American
, by Stanley A. Renshon (Georgetown, Oct.). We're the only nation that allows its citizens to hold other citizenships, vote and run for office in foreign elections. What are the implications in this terrorist age?
Pornified
, by Pamela Paul (Times, Sept.). Porn has become ubiquitous, and it is dramatically affecting our lives.
Science
The Discoveries
, by Alan Lightman (Pantheon, Nov.). The great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century and the human dramas that drove them.
Generation Rx
, by Greg Critser (Houghton, Oct.). How has this drug-company-averse nation become so dependent on pills?
The Planets
, by Dava Sobel (Viking, Oct.). From astrophysics to astrology to poetry -- a full tour of the solar system.
Spook
, by Mary Roach (Norton, Oct.). The author of Stiff talks to cardiologists, engineers and mediums to find out just how much scientists know about the afterlife.
Sports
Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling
, by David Margolick (Knopf, Sept.). The 1930s heavyweight fights between a black man and a white man that galvanized a prewar nation.
Driven From Within
, by Michael Jordan (Atria, Oct.). The basketball phenom remembers the teachers, mentors and friends who molded his life.
Last Dance
, by John Feinstein (LB, Feb.). The NCAA Final Four -- what drives it and why it is one of the most revered sports events of the year.
Literature and Poetry
Slouching Toward Nirvana
, by Charles Bukowski (Ecco, Jan.). New, previously unpublished poems by a literary iconoclast.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel
, by Jane Smiley (Knopf, Sept.). From a writer of dramatically diverse novels, an investigation into the process of creativity.
The Trouble with Poetry
, by Billy Collins (RH, Oct.). Good poetry doesn't have to be difficult -- as the former poet laureate and author of these poems well knows.
Music
Beethoven: The Universal Composer
, by Edmund Morris (Eminent Lives, Oct.). From the biographer of presidents, a slender volume about an outsize talent.
Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams
, by Paul Hemphill (Viking, Sept.). Born dirt-poor, raised in mean, low-down Depression honky-tonks, the man could sing.
Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer
, by Chris Salewicz (Faber and Faber, Nov.). The Clash's front man was always wailing about racism, war, even the economy; he put a conscience in punk.
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