Across the Endless River, by Thad Carhart (Doubleday, Sept 2009, $26.95).  From the bestselling author of The Piano Shop on the Left Bank comes a historical novel about Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea.  Baptiste acts as a guide for natural scientist Duke Paul Wilhelm of Wurttemberg.  Impressed by Baptiste’s knowledge, Paul invites him to travel to Europe and assist him in cataloguing his North American treasures, launching a five-year adventure full of lavish balls, charming women, French gentry, a musical soiree with Schubert, and more.  There are plenty of books out there about the Lewis and Clark expedition and Sacagawea, but very little about Baptiste’s  story.  Fans of historical fiction with a romantic story line will enjoy this.

The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker (S&S, Sept 2009, $25).  Paul Chowder, a poet and former academic, has created an anthology of rhyming poetry and only needs to write the introduction…. and therein lies the problem.  Baker uses this seemingly simple premise to delight us with this original and touching story of procrastination in the extreme.  As Chowder’s life falls apart around him, we are treated to wonderful insights into the value of poetry, reading and life.  Funny, romantic, and illuminating.

 

Blame, by Michelle Huneven (FS&G, Sept 2009, $25).  I am a huge fan of Huneven’s writing (Jamesland  and Round Rock) and she does not disappoint here.  Themes of alcoholism, integrity and redemption again play central roles.  The book opens in the 80’s and spans a 20 year period in the life of Patsy MacLemoore , a smart, functioning- alcoholic college professor whose life is turned upside down when she wakes up in the drunk tank of the Altadena sheriff’s department and can’t remember what she has done.  Without giving away too much of the plot, she goes to prison and attempts to rebuild and redeem her life.  Huneven again turns complicated moral issues into utterly riveting reading.

The Children’s Book, by A.S. Byatt (Knopf, Oct 2009, $26.95).  Byatt’s latest begins in 1895 Victorian England and goes through the end of WWI, alighting on such diverse subjects as puppetry, socialism, women’s suffrage, and the Boer War.  The story centers on two deeply troubled families of the British artistic intelligentsia: the Fludds and the Wellwoods.  Olive Wellwood, the matriarch, seems the model New Woman – a popular author of books that reinvent fairy tales for contemporary children, tolerant wife to Fabian Society stalwart Humphrey, devoted mother pregnant with her seventh baby.  She takes in Philip Warren, a working class boy who longs to make art, and connects him with Benedict Fludd, a master potter whose family belongs to the Wellwoods’ progressive, artistic circle.  As the narrative unfolds, we see the dark side of these idealists’ lives.  A large, rich cast of characters populate this spellbinding tale.  Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Chronic City, by Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday, Oct 2009, $27.95). Lethem’s previous novels, Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude (both wonderful) take place in Brooklyn, but here he shifts to Manhattan in the indeterminate near future.  The story focuses on an unusual friendship between Perkus, a wayward cultural critic, and former child star Chase Insteadman, along with various other colorful characters.  Lethem weaves elements of postapocalyptic sci-fi with magical realism and actual recent events to create his own surreal urban landscape.  Beautifully written, weird, and insightful regarding the truthfulness of reality.  

A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore (Knopf, Sept 2009, $25.95).  Moore’s first novel in 15 years is told through the eyes of 20 year old college student Tassie Keltgin.  Set shortly after 9/11 as the country gears up for war, Tassie is not completely part of her small Wisconsin farming community, and feels adrift in the college town of Troy.  She takes a part time job as a nanny for an older white couple who have adopted a biracial baby and falls into her first serious romance.  Through the events of the year, which include sexual initiation, brushes with racism, heartbreaking revelations, and family tragedy, she discovers the realities of the adult world.  Moore’s writing is beautiful, textured, and wise. 

Generosity: An Enhancement, by Richard Price (FS&G, Sept 2009, $25).  Price, National Book Award winning author of The Echo Maker, again explores the world of science and the brain.  Russell Stone, a failed author of creative nonfiction turned reluctant writing instructor, encounters a student who has survived the horrors of the Algerian civil war, yet is so possessed by preternatural happiness that she is nicknamed “Miss Generosity” by her classmates.  When word gets out that she may be the carrier of a gene that produces happiness, all hell breaks loose in the media.  A perfect depiction of our annoying cultural habit of creating, exalting and disposing of celebrities within the span of a few minutes.  A suspenseful, intellectual drama.

A Good Fall: Stories, by Ha Jin (Pantheon, Nov 24, 2009, $ 24.95).  National Book Award winner Jin (Waiting) presents a short story collection that focuses on Flushing, one of New York City’s largest Chinese immigrant communities.  Jin explores the challenges, loneliness and uplift associated with discovering one’s place in America.  Many different generational perspectives are laid out and Jin paints a vast, fascinating portrait of a neighborhood and a people in flux.

Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger (Scribner, Sept 2009, $26.99). A perfect gothic ghost story to read as fall approaches…  When Elsbeth Noblin dies, she leaves everything to the 20-year old American born twin daughters of her own long-estranged twin, Edie.  The twins move into Elspeth’s London flat bordering Highgate Cemetery in a building occupied by Elspeth’s lover, Robert; neighbor Martin, who is a crossword puzzle maker suffering from OCD; and…. Elsbeth’s ghost.  A bewitching and unnerving tale from the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Homer & Langley, by E.L. Doctorow (RH, Sept 2009, $26).  Brothers Homer & Langley lead a privileged life in early 1900’s New York.  Then Homer goes blind and Langley goes off to and returns from war a different person (eccentric or deranged?).  Their parents die, and they are left on their own in their 5th Ave apartment that slowly decays as Langley stuffs it with all the articles and magazines he collects.  The epic events of the century play out in the lives of the brothers, and history seems to pass through their cluttered lives, along with immigrants, prostitutes, society women, government agents, gangsters and jazz musicians.  This is an imaginative retelling of the lives of New York’s fabled Collyer brothers.

The Humbling, by Philip Roth (Houghton, Nov 2009, $22).  Another short (160 pages) but mind-blowing novella from Roth. Sixty-five-year-old Simon Axler was one of the leading American stage actors of his generation.  One evening at the Kennedy Center he suffers a complete meltdown and ends up retreating to his country estate.  When the daughter of old friends appears, the stage is set for a recurring Roth theme – the pathos of the aging artist seeking revitalization through an all-encompassing (and increasingly kinky) sexual liason.  

Invisible, by Paul Auster (Holt, Oct 27, 09, $25).  I am a big fan of Auster and can’t wait to get my hands on this – it is getting RAVE reviews!  Adam Walker, an introspective young poet and student at Columbia in 1967, meets his nemesis, Rudolph Born, a professor in the School of International Affairs.  He can’t resist Born’s offer to bankroll a literary magazine and put Adam in charge.  This philosophical thriller pilots readers from New York to Paris to California to a fortress-like island in the Caribbean.  “With fascinating characters, a spiraling structure, and a Heart of Darkness-like conclusion, this is a sublimely suspenseful, insightful, and disquieting novel.” Booklist (8/1/09).

Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby (Riverhead, Sept. 2009, $25.95).  Fans of Hornby’s High Fidelity will enjoy this related take on the lives of the musically obsessed.  Tucker Crowe is a has-been American musician, destined to fade into obscurity save for a handful of devoted listeners.  Scholar Duncan Thomson is one of the loyal followers, much to the chagrin of his significant other, Annie.  The release of an acoustic version of Crowe’s best known album, Juliet, sparks an email correspondence between Crowe and Annie.  Humor and romance abound!

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper, Nov 3, 2009, $26.99).  Kingsolver’s first novel in nine years is set in leftist Mexico in the 1930s and the U.S. in the ‘40s and ‘50s.   The story is told through a compilation of diary entries, newspaper clippings (real and fictional), snippets of memoirs, letters and archivist’s commentary, all concerning Harrison Shepherd.  Harrison is the product of a divorced American father and a Mexican mother.  After getting kicked out of his American military academy, Harrison spent his formative years in Mexico in the household of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky.  He eventually returns to the U.S. and is drawn into the House Un-American Activities Committee (with a young Dick Nixon on the panel!).  A dark period of American history told by a true literary artist.

Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving (RH, October 27, 2009, $28).  Irving is a natural born storyteller and his 12th novel is bursting with story, character and emotion.  It opens in 1954 in a New Hampshire backwoods logging camp overlooking the Twisted River where Dominic Cookie Baciagalupo and his son Danny work the kitchen.  Following an appearance of bears (this is Irving, so what do you expect!?) a series of adventures, both literary and culinary, are precipitated.  We follow father and son over a fifty year span to a Boston Italian restaurant, an Iowa City Chinese joint and finally a Toronto French café.  The father’s culinary career is dovetailed with the son’s literary career.  Warning: this is another doorstopper (over 500 pages), but fans of Irving will love every page.

Love & Summer, by William Trevor (Viking, Sept 2009, $25.95).  Masterful Irish author William Trevor’s 14th novel is set in rural, small town Ireland in the 1950’s where the tragic consequences of a woman’s lost honor and a family’s shame haunt several generations.  Ellie Dillahan is raised in a Catholic orphanage and eventually farmed out to keep house for an area widower farmer.  The two stumble into marriage and a satisfactory life until one summer, when Ellie meets a young photographer who has returned to the region to sell his family property and leave Ireland altogether. Trevor beautifully portrays the fluster beneath the surface of ordinary lives. “An archetypal Irish love story and a perfect novel – sweet, desperate, sad, unforgettable.” Kirkus Reviews (8/1/09) 

Spooner, by Pete Dexter (Grand Central, Sept 2009, $26.99).  Like the fictional Warren Spooner, National Book Award winner Pete Dexter was raised in Georgia, worked as a newspaper reporter in Philadelphia, and was almost beaten to death in a bar fight.  Dexter follows his alter ego Spooner from childhood to semi-retirement on Whidbey Island in Washington.  It’s hilarious, full of bar fights, bad divorces, car repossessions and a childhood compulsion to piss in his neighbor’s shoes. The glue that holds it all together is the relationship between Spooner and his stepfather, Calmer (the name says it all!).  Fans of The World According to Garp (John Irving) and The English Major (Jim Harrison) will enjoy this big, satisfying almost-memoir.

Summertime, by JM Coetzee (Viking, Dec 24, 2009, $25.95).  An inventive work of fiction from Nobel Prize winning author, Coetzee (Disgrace), that allows him to imagine his own life with a critical eye.  A young English biographer is researching a book about the late South African writer John Coetzee, focusing on Coetzee in his thirties, at a time when he was living in a rundown cottage in the Cape Town surburbs with his widowed father.  Never having met the man himself, the biographer interviews five people who knew Coetzee well, including a married woman with whom he had an affair, his cousin Margot, and a Brazilian dancer whose daughter took English lessons with him.

Too Much Happiness, by Alice Munro (Knopf, Nov 17, 2009, $25.95).  The only thing wrong with Munro’s latest short story collection is that there aren’t enough stories in it!  She is such a master of the art of short storytelling, that the reader is left awestruck.  Her psychological depictions of ordinary mothers, fathers, lovers, and neighbors, primarily set in rural and small-town Ontario, are quite amazing.  The last and longest story is a poignant fictionalization of the professional and personal life of an actual late19th/early 20th century female mathematician.

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (Holt, Oct 2009, $27).  Much has been written about the life and times of Henry VIII, but Mantel presents a unique focus by telling the story of Thomas Cromwell.  The book spans eight years (1527-35) of Henry’s long reign.  Mixing fact with fiction, Mantel captures the atmosphere of the times and brings to life the key players - Henry VIII and his wife, Katherine of Aragon; the bewitching Boleyn sisters; and the difficult Thomas More.  Historical fiction lovers, rejoice!  You have 560 well researched and wonderfully written pages to enjoy!  Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize.

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood (Nan A. Talese, Sept 2009, $26.95). While not exactly a sequel, this is the interconnected other “half” of Atwood’s last novel, Oryx and Crake.  In Oryx, Atwood depicted a dystopic planet tumbling toward the apocalypse.  She revisits that same world in The Year of the Flood which opens just after the catastrophe and then tracks back in time over the corrupt and degenerate world that preceded it.  This novel focuses more on the world of the plebes, an edgy no-man’s land inhabited by criminals, sex workers, dropouts, and the few individuals who are trying to resist the grip of the corporations.  Characters and plots from Oryx overlap and intersect.  Full of despicable villains, resilient and contemplative heroes, scientific knowledge and ecological and ethical insights.

 

The English Major, by Jim Harrison (Grove Press, Oct 2009, $14).  This is a classic male, mid-to-late life crisis book.  (I, a mid-life female, LOVED it and laughed out loud repeatedly as I read it).  Cliff, a 60ish year old former high school teacher, bids adieu to his Michigan family farm (lost in a shady real estate deal), wife of 38 years (who has been cheating on him), and dear departed dog, Lola, to set off  on a year-long, countrywide road trip.  He meets a bunch of quirky characters and ruminates about life along the way.  I loved the message – change can be beneficial at any point in life!

The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane (Harper, Sept 2009, $15.99).  Lehane’s (Mystic River) first full-scale historical epic, a detail-rich exploration of America at the end of WWI.  Focusing on the Boston Police Strike of 1919, the novel follows multiple characters through the years before the strike, setting the stage by portraying a country in the grip of panic over all forms of labor strife, and then bringing the disparate cast together for the crippling strike itself.  At the heart of the story is the unexpected friendship between Irish American policeman, Danny Coughlin, and African American Luther Laurence, on the run from gangsters and police. Lehane blends his stories of human tragedy and hope with the larger cultural and political conflicts in which the action unfolds.  

Handle With Care, by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square Press, Sept 2009, $16).  Picoult  (My Sister’s Keeper) is known for her topical family dramas, tackling themes of medical ethics, faith, and the law.  In her sixteenth novel, Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe are the parents of six year old Willow, who has brittle bone disease, which requires Charlotte to act as a full time caregiver and has strained the family’s emotional and financial limits.  When a lawyer broaches the possibility of a wrongful-birth lawsuit, which would find Charlottes ob-gyn (and also her best friend) guilty of failing to diagnose Willow’s illness early enough for a possible abortion, the family falls apart.  Another unforgettable novel from Picoult about the fragility of life and the lengths we will go to protect it.

The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry (Harper, Sept 2009, $14.99).  Part historical, part mystery/suspense novel set in Salem, Massachusetts.  Towner Whitney returns to Salem following her beloved great-aunt’s mysterious disappearance.  As she tries to discern details about her aunt, she must also come to terms with her own earlier near-loss of sanity.  Multiple narratives, often told in flashback by various long-standing Salem residents, moves the story to its shattering conclusion.  Perfect reading for a chilly autumn evening!

The Piano Teacher, by Janice Lee (Penguin, Nov 17, 2009, $15).  In 1952 Hong Kong, Claire Pendleton, newly married to a postwar British government official, lucks into a job as piano teacher to the untalented young daughter of the powerful and wealthy Victor and Melody Chen.  Its not long before she enters into a passionate affair with the Chen’s driver, Will Truesdale.  The author then takes her readers back to 1941 Hong Kong and Will’s passionate love affair with Trudy Liang.  Other wonderful books about this time period are Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls, Bo Caldwell’s Distant Land of My Father and When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Precious, by Sapphire (Vintage, Oct 20, 2009, $13).  The movie Push, which won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, is based on this 1999 novel.  This “horrific, hope-filled story” centers on Precious Jones, 16 years old and pregnant by her father with her second child.  She meets a determined and highly radical teacher who takes her on a journey of transformation and redemption.  

 

Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh (Picador, Sept 2009, $15.00).  This fast flowing historical novel about England’s ruthlessly run opium industry in occupied India begins in a sea of poppies in Bengal and culminates on board the Ibis, an old slave ship carrying a motley group of outcasts.  Think Melville and Dickens as you read this first volume of an intended trilogy.

 

Serena, by Ron Rash (Ecco, Oct 2009, $14.99).  Good old-fashioned storytelling at its best!  The story opens in Depression era 1929 when George Pemberton returns from Boston to the North Carolina mountains with his new bride, Serena.  They are greeted at the station by George’s business partners and by Rachel, who is pregnant with George’s baby, and Rachel’s angry father.  Lets just say that none of their lives are improved by the arrival of Serena!  Ruthless is too mild a word to describe the Pembertons as they log the North Carolina mountains with no regard for the safety of their workers or the future of the land the are pillaging.  In the backdrop is the US government’s efforts to buy back swaths of privately owned land to establish national parks – if you have been enjoying Ken Burns documentary on the National Parks, you will particularly enjoy this novel.  Rash is a gifted storyteller and creates vivid characters – I loved the conversations and comraderie among the loggers.  The story builds steam as the plot unfolds and by the end you will jump out of your skin!!

2666, by Roberto Bolano (Picador, Sept 2009, $18).  Bolano (Savage Detectives), who died in 2003 and is widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation, intended this 5 part saga to be published as 5 separate books.  There is a huge, rambling cast of characters, and the 5 parts are interconnected, but there is no real plot that ties up neatly at the end.  The first part follows the adventures and love affairs of a small group of scholars dedicated to the work of a reclusive German author, Benno von Archimboldi.  They trace the writer to the Mexican border town of Santa Teresa (a thinly veiled Juarez).  The second part centers on a professor in Santa Teresa, also a fan of Archimboldi, who may be losing his mind as he questions his decision to move to Santa Teresa with his beautiful daughter, Rosa.  The third part follows an African American reporter who is sent to Santa Teresa to cover a prize fight.  The fourth, and longest, part is a tormenting catalogue of the rapes and murders of women in Santa Teresa and a view into the power system that is either covering up for the real criminal or too incompetent to find him (or both).  This is particularly brutal reading.  The final part. “The Part About Archimboldi” brings us back to the elusive Archimboldi and contains great passages about writing, publishing and yes, bookselling!  I kept referring to the experience of reading this book as being enslaved to “book heroin”.  It is so dark, unsettling and disturbing, yet I couldn’t wait to get home each day and get back into it.  The book is full of long, meandering passages that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the “plot”, but they are incredible to read.  In fact, the whole book looks intimidating when you first pick it up because there can be pages with no paragraphs, and single sentences that go on and on, but trust me, they read “like butter” and I was often stunned by passages or laughed out loud.  If you are up for it, crack open this bad boy and embark on a magical mystery tour!

Sweetsmoke, by David Fuller (Hyperion, Sept 2009, $14.99).  Part mystery, part narrative of American slave life, the story is set on a Virginia tobacco plantation in 1862.   In the words of Connie Goetz, Village Books bookseller extraordinaire, “I enjoy reading historical fiction.  I find that a well-written book imparts not only historical information but the atmosphere and climate and attitudes and emotions of a period as well.  Sweetsmoke, the name of a tobacco plantation, and David Fuller’s debut novel, is a beautifully written and well-researched book that I highly recommend to anyone who loves to read. Sweetsmoke is set during the Civil War and is the story of Cassius, a slave around 30 years old whose owner named him for a character from Shakespeare.  Cassius is an extraordinary human being in spite of all the horrors he has lived through and observed.  The book is not only historical, but is also a mystery and a love story.  Cassius, a skilled carpenter, risks everything to find out who murdered Emoline, a freed slave who had secretly taught him to read and who once saved his life.  His determination and honesty and perseverance and intelligence and loving heart and bravery are amazing – he is a character you grow to know and respect.  I could not wait to get back to the page; I needed to find out what happens next and I cared about Cassius a lot!  Your mind and your heart are fully engaged.  This is a terrific read.”

Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor, by Tad Friend (Little Brown, Sept 2009, $24.99).  The subtitle says it all! Friend was an award winning high-school student and a Harvard graduate.  His father was president of Swarthmore College and his mother was an aspiring poet and youthful rival of Sylvia Plath.  This is a suave, sharp-witted, generally intoxicating but occasionally sobering expose of his native culture.  Friend writes “I am a WASP because I harbored a feeling of disconnection from my parents, as they had from their parents, and their parents had from their parents.” Cheerful Money is Friend’s funny and enlightening way of piecing together all that disconnect.

Have a Little Faith: A True Story, by Mitch Albom (Hyperion, Sept 2009, $23.99).  Albom weaves parallel stories about two men of faith.  When Albom was in his thirties, his rabbi asked Albom to deliver his eulogy at his funeral when the day came.  Albom consented and asked to spend time with Rabbi Albert to get to know him better as a man.  In eight years, what started as a reluctant assignment grew into a treasured friendship.  Albom moved to Detroit, where he developed a charitable foundation, and met Henry Covington, pastor of a dilapidated inner-city church and former drug dealer and ex-con.  Albom began to witness the faith of Covington and his congregation, struggling to overcome poverty, addictions and hopelessness.  Albom parallels time spent with Rabbi Lewis, Pastor Covington and his own personal spiritual journey.

Lit: A Memoir, by Mary Karr (Harper, Nov 2009, $25.99).  Karr’s childhood memoir, Liar’s Club, is one of my top 10 favorite books of all time.  It was followed in 2000 by Cherry and now we FINALLY get the next installment!   If you haven’t read Karr yet, you should definitely start with Liar’s Club.  Karr is also a poet, and her writing is infused with poetry and humor.  The new book picks up with her escaping her toxic childhood in small-town Texas for the California coast. We follow her ups and downs, including marriage, motherhood, alcoholism, and slow conversion to Catholicism.  She is never sentimental and does not proselytize – this promises to be an absolute gem.

Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father and Son, by Michael Chabon (Harper, Oct 2009, $25.99).  The Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union turns his considerable talents to the personal essay.  An attentive, honest father and a fairly observant Jew, living in Berkeley, raising four children with his wife, Ayelet Waldman (who is also an author), Chabon writes about his life as a husband and father, and revisits his own years of growing up in the 70’s.  Essays are arranged around themes of manly affection, styles of manhood, and patterns of early enchantment such as his delight in comic books, sci-fi and stargazing.  Warm, humorous, and wonderfully written.

The Murder of King Tut: The Plot to Kill the Child King – A Nonfiction Thriller, by James Patterson (Little Brown, Sept 2009, $26.99). Thrust onto Egypt’s most powerful throne at the age of nine, King Tut’s reign was fiercely debated from the outset.  Behind the palace’s veil of prosperity, bitter rivalries and jealousy flourished among the Boy King’s most trusted advisors, and after only nine years, King Tut suddenly perished, his name purged from Egyptian history.  Enchanted by the ruler’s tragic story and hoping to unlock the answers to the 3,000 year old mystery, Howard Carter made it his life’s mission to uncover the pharaoh’s hidden tomb.  He began his search in 1907, but encountered countless setbacks and dead-ends before he finally uncovered the long-lost crypt.  Patterson and Martin Dugard dug through stacks of evidence – x-rays, Carter’s files, forensic clues, and stories told through the ages – to arrive at their own account of King Tut’s life and death.  And don’t miss The Egyptologist, a quirky and wonderful novel by Arthur Phillips that includes Carter as a side character and is an amazing read!

The Queen Mother: The Official Biography, by William Shawcross (Knopf, Oct 27, 2009, $40).  Historian Shawcross was selected to write the authorized, Buckingham Palace approved biography of Queen Mother Elizabeth, the late consort of George VI and mother of the current sovereign.  The Queen Mother remained, until her death at 102 in 2002, the most popular member of the royal family, an affectionate, floral-hatted reminder of a more genteel era.  As queen, she stood as a beacon of hope during the dark days of WWII, and after the premature death of her husband the king, she continued to work diligently at putting both a human and dignified face on the public image of the royal family during the many decades of her widowhood.  This is both a revelatory biography and a history of Britain in the twentieth century (and a true doorstopper at 1,000 pages!!).

Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, by Steven Levitt (Morrow, Oct 20, 2009, $29.99)  The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling over four million copies in 35 languages and changing the way we look at the world.  Now Levitt and Dubner return with Superfreakonomics and the “freakquel” is even more surprising than the first.  Questions include: How is a street prostitute like a departments store Santa?  Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands? How much good do car seats do? What’s the best way to catch a terrorist?  Did TV cause a rise in crime? What do hurricanes, heart attacks and highway deaths have in common? Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Which adds more value: a pimp or a realtor?  Fascinating and fun… think outside that box!

True Compass: A Memoir, by Edward Kennedy (Twelve, Sept 2009, $35).  New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani summed it up best – “(A) deeply affecting memoir…he writes with searching candor about the losses, joys and lapses of his life; the love and closeness of his family; the solace he found in sailing and the sea; his complex relationships with political allies and rivals.  Mr. Kennedy’s conversational gifts as a storyteller and his sense of humor – so often remarked on by colleagues and friends – shine through here, as does his old-school sense of public service and his hard-won knowledge, in his son Teddy Jr.’s words, that ‘even our most profound losses are survivable.’

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown, Oct 20, 2009, $27.99).  Gladwell has changed the way we think about most everything (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers).  This is a collection of his best writings in The New Yorker.  We find the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill; the inventions of the pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz; visiting with Ron Popeil, the king of the American kitchen as he sells rotisserie ovens; and the secrets of Cesar Milan, the “dog whisperer”.  He explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and “hindsight bias” and why it was that everyone in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate.   Lots of fun and stimulating reading!

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by Jon Krakauer (Doubleday, Sept 2009, $27.95).  The bestselling author of Into the Wild, Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven delivers an eloquent account of Pat Tillman’s haunting journey.  In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the U.S. Army.  He was deeply troubled by 9/11 and felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.  Two years later he died in Afghanistan.  Although his death was the result of friendly fire, the Army aggressively maneuvered to keep this information from Tillman’s wife, other family members, and the American public, and President Bush repeatedly invoked Tillman’s name to promote the administration’s foreign policy.  Krakauer draws on Tillman’s journals and letters, interviews with his wife and friends, conversations with the soldiers who served alongside him, and extensive research on the ground in Afghanistan to render a profile of this complex person, as well as the definite account of the events and actions that led to his death.

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, by Niall Ferguson (Penguin, Oct 2009, $16).  Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of our financial system, from its genesis in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance.  He also reveals financial ancient history as the essential backstory behind all history, arguing that the evolution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization.  Ferguson offers compelling new insights into the rise and fall of not just money, but western power as well.

 

 

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, by Annette Gordon-Reed (Norton, Sept 2009, $18.95).  Historian and legal scholar Gordon-Reed presents this epic work that tells the story of the Hemings, an American slave family, and their close blood ties to Thomas Jefferson.  On many “best book of the year” lists and winner of the National Book Award.

 

Hot, Flat and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution – And How It Can Renew America, by Thomas L. Friedman (Picador, Nov 24, 2009, $16).  Friedman’s bestseller The World is Flat helped millions of readers to see globalization in a new way.  Now the author brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy.

 

 

Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom.. (Anchor, Nov 3, 2009, $15).  Kritzler tells the tale of an unlikely group of swashbuckling Jews who ransacked the high seas in the aftermath of the Spanish Inquisition.  At the end of the fifteenth century, many Jews had to flee Spain and Portugal.  The most adventurous among them took to the seas as freewheeling outlaws.  They attacked and plundered the Spanish fleet while forming alliances with other European powers to ensure the safely of Jews living in hiding.  Filled with high-sea adventures, including encounters with Captain Morgan and other legendary pirates, Kritzler reveals a hidden chapter in Jewish history as well as the cruelty, terror and greed that flourished during the Age of Discovery. 

Love Junkie: A Memoir, by Rachel Resnick (Bloomsbury, Sept 2009, $14).  This compulsively readable and raw account of L.A. writer Resnick’s descent into self-abasement through her lifelong attraction to unsuitable, and often dangerous, men. Resnick tells of  her appalling, loveless childhood with a neglectful, hard-drinking mother, who lost custody of her and her younger brother when Resnick was 12. As a teenager, she bounced around foster homes because she was not welcome in the new household of her remarried father.  Despite this, she managed to graduate from Yale and found the wherewithal to heal and reground herself.  

Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines, by Richard A. Muller (Norton, Sept 2009, $16.95).  Muller is a professor of physics at UC Berkeley.  The book is based on his renowned course for non-science students.  A readable and level-headed explanation of basic science and how it relates to the issues in today’s world.  For example, is Iran’s nascent nuclear capability a genuine threat to the West?  Are biochemical weapons likely to be developed by terrorists?  Are there viable alternatives to fossil fuels that should be nurtured and supported by the government?  Should nuclear power be encouraged?  Can global warming be stopped?  This is information that presidents – and citizens – of the 21st century need to know. Includes 73 illustrations.

The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008, by Paul Krugman (Norton, Sept 2009, $16.95).   The Nobel Prize-winning economist warns that, like diseases that have become resistant to antibiotics, the economic maladies that caused the Great Depression have made a comeback.  He lays bare the 2008 financial crisis, tracing it to the failure of regulation to keep pace with an out-of-control financial system.  He also tells us how to contain the crisis and turn around a world economy sliding into a deep recession.  A hard-hitting new foreword takes the paperback edition right up to the present moment.

 

 

Simon’s Cat, by Simon Tofield (Grand Central, Sept 2009, $12.99).  Tofield’s animations have taken YouTube by storm.  Now the feline Internet phenomenon makes his way onto the page in this book based on the popular series.  Simon’s Cat depicts and exaggerates the hilarious relationship between a man and his cat.  

 

 

Wishful Drinking, by Carrie Fisher (S&S, Sept 2009, $13.99).  Fisher reveals what it was really like to grow up a product of Hollywood inbreeding (Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher), come of age on the set of a little movie called Star Wars, and became a cultural and bestselling action figure at the age of 19. 

The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead, Oct 2009, $16).  America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means, and what it should mean.  What she discovers is something far different from what the uptight reputation of the Puritans might suggest. Focusing on the Puritans who settled in 1692 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, she finds them a highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty people, whose story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas and bloody vengeance.  Rich in historical fact, humorous insight, and social commentary.