LEAFING THROUGH THE ISSUES
Fall book releases feature plenty on politics and let’s not forget our environment
Along with autumn’s yellow, orange and brown the coming book season favors red, white and blue – plus green. With the White House awaiting a changing of the guard, it’s no surprise that more books about John McCain, Barack Obama and
George W. Bush will hit shelves in the weeks before the presidential showdown. Many disguise what is essentially hardbound advertising for one or another party’s candidate. But until there’s TiVo for readers, it’s hard to block the buzz of new books on candidates for leader of the free world.
The most noteworthy political book is likely to be the fourth installment in journalist-in-chief Bob Woodward’s examination of Bush’s presidency. The publisher of “The War Within” says it “declassifies the secrets” of America’s political and military involvement in Iraq.
But everything isn’t red, white and blue: Thomas Friedman focuses on the environment in “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” while other authors continue to offer tips on living and buying green.
The fall season is also typically when some of the biggest names in literature release new books. Expect famous fiction writers including Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Stephen King, Marilynne Robinson and John Updike to rake in a different kind of green.
Here are highlights of forthcoming fall titles. Information is culled from publishers, the Internet and news services. Release schedules are subject to change.
SEPTEMBER
FICTION
• “Indignation,” by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin). Set in 1950s America, a butcher’s son fears that if he fails college, he’ll be shipped off to Korea.
• “When Will There Be Good News?” by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown). The underappreciated Scottish writer offers her third novel with PI Jackson Brodie.
• “Supreme Courtship,” by Christopher Buckley (Twelve). Has government become television? A tart reality-show judge is nominated for the Supreme Court in Buckley’s newest satire.
• “Liberty,” by Garrison Keillor (Viking). It’s the Fourth of July in Lake Wobegon, and the 60-year-old parade chairman has fallen for a young temptress. Keillor exercises his right to sex up his stories for print more than he does on NPR.
• “The Heretic’s Daughter,” by Kathleen Kent (Little, Brown). Novel features the historic case of a Salem woman who was executed as a witch.
• “Fine Just the Way It Is,” by Annie Proulx (Scribner). Proulx, always attracted to harsh settings, mines Wyoming for a third collection of powerful stories.
• “Home,” by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). In a companion book to the much-acclaimed “Gilead,” Robinson tells the story of Jack Boughton, prodigal son of an ailing minister.
• “American Wife,” by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House). The “Prep” author’s new novel is rumored to be based on Laura Bush.
NONFICTION
• “Letter to My Daughter,” by Maya Angelou (Random House). Inspirational wisdom and essays from the poet about her life. Dedicated to an imagined daughter.
• “A Promise to Ourselves,” by Alec Baldwin (St. Martin’s). The actor embarrassed in a custody tussle with his ex-wife complains that divorce law isn’t fair. Maybe his daughter (whom he called a “pig” in a phone message) will tell her side one day.
• “The Third Term,” by Paul Begala (Simon & Schuster). The former aide to President Clinton argues that a vote for John McCain is really a vote for George W. Bush’s “third term.”
• “If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans,” by Ann Coulter (Three Rivers Press). More of the same from the author of “Treason” and “Godless.”
• “Unintended Consequences,” by Peter Galbraith (Simon & Schuster). The Iraq War has strengthened America’s enemies, the author says.
• “Patriotic Grace,” by Peggy Noonan (Collins). Wall Street Journal writer says America needs to come together and support the next president, whoever he is.
• “The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama’s War on American Values,” by Brad O’Leary (WND). “Sky-is-falling” attack on Obama.
• “A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity,” by Bill O’Reilly (Broadway). Another memoir by the TV commentator with an insatiable interest in himself.
• “Change We Can Believe In” edited by Obama for America (Three Rivers Press). Policy statements and speeches from presidential candidate Barack Obama and his staff.
• “Bob Schieffer’s America,” by Bob Schieffer (Putnam). Plainspoken essays collected from CBS newsman’s commentaries on topics from politics to the country’s changing culture.
• “Give Me Liberty,” by Naomi Wolf (Simon & Schuster). A serious pep talk and guide about using democracy to change the nation.
• “The War Within,” by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster). Information about Woodward’s new book, subtitled “A Secret White House History 2006-2008,” is almost as classified as any CIA file. The journalist’s fourth look at the Bush administration and its conduct regarding the Iraq War goes on sale Monday.
OCTOBER
FICTION
• “The Brass Verdict,” by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown). Mickey Haller, alias the Lincoln Lawyer, inherits the case-load of a gunned-down defense lawyer.
• “Scarpetta,” by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam). Kay Scarpetta heads to New York to examine an injured man in Bellevue Hospital’s psych prison ward. Is the man a stalker, or is his paranoid tale about another killer true?
• “I See You Everywhere,” by Julia Glass (Pantheon). Author of “Three Junes” offers arty chick-lit about two restless, well-bred sisters.
• “A Most Wanted Man,” by John le Carre (Scribner). Terrorists, spies and an average guy caught up in intrigue and danger.
• “Lulu in Marrakech,” by Diane Johnson (Dutton). Women have it all these days: CIA agent Lulu arrives in Morocco to rekindle a romance and trace the flow of Western money to radical Islamic groups.
• “The Widows of Eastwick,” by John Updike (Knopf). Depressed widows are usually less exciting than energetic divorcees, so wariness may be warranted with this sequel to “The Witches of Eastwick.”
NONFICTION
• “How to Break a Terrorist,” by Matthew Alexander, with John R. Bruning (Free Press). Alexander takes readers into the interrogation room and advocates nonviolent methods he’s used in Iraq such as flattery, cajolery and anger. But the author’s name is a pseudonym, which may detract from his credibility.
• “Sea of Poppies,” by Amitav Ghosh (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Picaresque epic of a ship transporting Indian “girmitiyas” (coolies) to Mauritius in 1838.
• “The American Way of War,” by Eugene Jarecki (Free Press). Documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki says the United States has become a militarized society, allowing presidents to grab power from Congress.
• “Titanic’s Last Secrets,” by Bradford Matsen (Twelve). Divers look for more clues about how and why the Titanic sank.
• “Called Out of Darkness,” by Anne Rice (Knopf). Memoir of “Interview With a Vampire” novelist who spent her childhood in New Orleans, became a radical in Berkeley and, now, after 38 years as an atheist, is once again a believer.
• “John Lennon,” by Philip Norman (Ecco). Publisher says the biographer has drawn from previously unseen letters and other sources to provide a new look at the life of the deceased music star.
NOVEMBER
FICTION
• “Divine Justice,” by David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing). With their friend and unofficial leader in hiding, the members of the Camel Club risk everything to save him.
• “Swallowing Darkness,” by Laurell K. Hamilton (Ballantine). Seventh book in the Hamilton’s fey Merry Gentry series.
• “The Hour I First Believed,” by Wally Lamb (HarperCollins). Lamb’s first new novel in a decade involves a couple who leave Colorado after the Columbine massacre.
• “A Mercy,” by Toni Morrison (Knopf). Nobel Prize-winning writer imagines a 17th-century slave mother who gives up her daughter in order to save her, but the girl struggles to overcome that abandonment.
NONFICTION
• “Outliers,” by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown). “The Tipping Point” author says figuring out why some people are high achievers means looking at how they were raised: culture, family and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing.
• “Somebody,” by Stefan Kanfer (Knopf). Portrait of the “reckless life and remarkable career” of actor Marlon Brando.
• “The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath,” by Robert J. Samuelson (Random House). U. S. inflation rose to about 14 percent from 1 percent from 1960 to 1979. Samuelson says its effects were immense and long-lasting.
