USA Today's Top Books of the Fall

The USA Today published a list of what they think will be the top 25 books of the fall. All are in the catalog if they look interesting to you. They are listed below with the reasons they think they will be popular:

J.K Rowling's The Casual Vacancy : they believe that everyone is going to want to see if Rowling can be as successful with adults as she was with the Harry Potter series.

Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe : Wolfe is 81 now but all of his books are always an event accord to USA Today.

The Price of Politics by Bob Woodward. Woodward is always popular and in an election year, this would be hard to miss.

Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly : he might have to books on the bestseller list at the same time as his Killing Lincoln is still very popular.

Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger : How honest will Arnold be? You have to read it to find out I guess.

Who Could That Be At This Hour by Lemony Snicket : A complex mystery, first in a four-book series, starring a detective who is almost 13, written the way Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye) might have written for kids with a sense of humor.

A Wanted Man by Lee Child : The indomitable Reacher burns up the pages of every book in Child’s series.

Winter of the World by Ken Follett: Readers of the first book, Fall of Giantswill be eager to follow the characters further along into the 20th century.

This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz : Readers and critics alike have been saying “Wow” about Junot Diaz since his story collection Drown, and the clamor only grew when he won the Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon :  Kirkus Reviews call this novel, by the Pulitzer-winning writer of Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, “a Joyce-an remix,” while The Atlantic has proclaimed it one of “the bigger literary events of the year.”
Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young : I just talked about this last week. One of the most invluencial singer/songwriters of his generation, his book ought to gain alot of attention.

Phantom by Jo Nesbo : Some say Nesbo, not Stieg Larsson, is the best crime writer Scandinavia has ever produced. Fuel for the literary fire: Martin Scorsese is set to direct the film adaptation of Nesbo’s global blockbuster Hole novel, The Snowman.
My Mother Was Nuts by Penny Marshall : A backstage pass to the comedian’s life in the limelight, starting with tap dancing as a kid back in the Bronx to her star status on Laverne & Shirley to directing Big and A League of Their Own.
Listening In : The Secret White House Recordings of John F Kennedy selected and edited by Ted Widmer : Annotated transcripts of White House conversations, previously available at the Kennedy Library, about the Cuban missile crisis and other key events of the Kennedy presidency.

Live By Night by Dennis Lehane :  Lehane’s books are irresistible to readers, critics and filmmakers alike. Mystic River, Shutter Island and Gone Baby Gone have all had successful movie adaptations

Who I Am by Pete Townshend : Once again, one of the music books I blogged about last week. Founder of the iconic rock ’n’ roll band The Who talks about it all — from first meeting Roger Daltrey to hanging out with Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix to the creation of the rock opera Tommy to his arrest and acquittal on child pornography charges.
NW by Zadie Smith : NW stands for Northwest London, the setting of Smith’s tragic-comic novel about the adult lives of four Londoners who grew up in the council estate of Caldwell. Publishers Weekly calls NW “excellent and captivating.”
Celebrate : A Year of Festivities for Families and Friends by Pippa Middleton : Just look who the author is - that's why it will be popular.

Hello, Gorgeous : Becoming Barbara Streisand by William J. Mann :
Streisand remains a superstar after all these years, proving once again by her quickly sold-out performances in Brooklyn in October. And Mann can tell a juicy Hollywood tale.

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver : Global warming, anyone? The author of The Poisonwood Bible is winning early raves for her “powerful new novel … (which is) too lucid and vivid for even skeptics to ignore” (Publishers Weekly).

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens : The celebrated essayist/reporter/atheist’s thoughts on mortality, written during the last 18 months of his life after he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. He died last December at 62

Astray by Emma Donoghue : The first book by the Dublin-born Donoghue since her breakthrough best seller Room.

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan : Doubleday’s press materials note that Sweet Tooth features McEwan’s first female protagonist since Atonement, perhaps his best-loved novel. Sweet!
Hidden America : From Coal Miners to Cowboys, An Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work by Jeanne Marie Laskas : True tales of the people who make our life run every day, but whom we rarely think about — long-haul truckers, coal miners, even cheerleaders — by a longtime columnist for The Washington Post.

Both Flesh and Not by David Foster Wallace : Provocative, previously published essays on topics ranging from tennis star Roger Federer to the future of fiction. Wallace, best known for 1996 novel Infinite Jest, was celebrated as one of the most original minds of his generation. He committed suicide in 2008 at age 46.

Other People's Opinions

Looks like the New York Times agrees with me on The Yellow Birds which I blogged about on Aug 18. Here is their review:

Soldiering Amid Hyacinths and Horror

‘The Yellow Birds’ by Kevin Powers

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

Published: September 6, 2012

Kevin Powers joined the Army when he was 17 and served as a machine-gunner in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. Drawing upon those experiences, he has written a remarkable first novel, one that stands with Tim O’Brien’s enduring Vietnam book, “The Things They Carried,” as a classic of contemporary war fiction.

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Patricia Wall/The New York Times

THE YELLOW BIRDS

By Kevin Powers

230 pages. Little, Brown & Company. $24.99.

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Marjorie Cotera

Kevin Powers

“The Yellow Birds” is brilliantly observed and deeply affecting: at once a freshly imagined story about a soldier’s coming of age, a harrowing tale about the friendship of two young men trying to stay alive on the battlefield in Iraq, and a philosophical parable about the loss of innocence and the uses of memory. Its depiction of war has the surreal kick of Mr. O’Brien’s 1978 novel, “Going After Cacciato,” and a poetic pointillism distinctly its own; they combine to sear images into the reader’s mind with unusual power.

Glimpses of ordinary life — a hyacinth garden, a swallow tracing the shape of an alley, an orchard on the edge of the city — alternate with scenes of horror that feel like something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting of hell: medics trying to stuff a young soldier’s insides back into his body; a corpse bomb exploding on a bridge; a castrated body, missing its ears and nose, thrown from a tower.

Bartle, the novel’s narrator, remembers that he and his fellow soldiers “stayed awake on amphetamines and fear,” trying to “stay alert” to “stay alive.” He talks about being taught to “get small” when there are incoming mortars, and about the “noise and light discipline” that the platoon employs on a march, putting black electrical tape over shiny, metallic gear and making sure nothing makes a sound.

Most memorably, he talks about how pointless the war in Iraq often seems to men on the ground — a perverse Groundhog Day loop (so unlike his grandfather’s war) in which there is no destination, no progress: “We’d go back into a city that had fought this battle yearly; a slow, bloody parade in fall to mark the change of season. We’d drive them out. We always had. We’d kill them. They’d shoot us and blow off our limbs and run into the hills and wadis, back into the alleys and dusty villages. Then they’d come back, and we’d start over by waving to them as they leaned against lampposts and unfurled green awnings while drinking tea in front of their shops. While we patrolled the streets, we’d throw candy to their children, with whom we’d fight in the fall a few more years from now.”

Mr. Powers has given his narrator a name that recalls the title character of Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” and “The Yellow Birds” is filled with echoes of that tale’s inquiries into the nature of freedom and free will. Bartle, we learn, is a 21-year-old soldier, who has been asked by the platoon’s sergeant to keep an eye on Murph, a naïve and emotionally fragile 18-year-old private. On the eve of their departure for the war, Murph’s mother asks Bartle to make sure that nothing happens to her son, and Bartle promises that he will “bring him home to you.”

Murph and Bartle are small-town boys from Virginia, boys with “small lives, populated by a longing for something more substantial than dirt roads and small dreams.” So they joined the Army, Bartle says, “where life needed no elaboration, and others would tell us who to be. When we finished our work we went to sleep, calm and free of regret.” That is before the realities of Iraq. The war there will not only give them lasting nightmares, but will also challenge every certainty they’d once held — about themselves, about human nature, about fate and the randomness of life.

In conveying to the reader just how terribly young his heroes are, Mr. Powers gives us a visceral sense of the arcs their lives will trace and their bone-weary yearning to “return to ordinary.” He somehow manages to write about the effect the war has on them — and, in Bartle’s case, its psychological aftermath — with enormous emotional precision. The recruits quickly learn the art of detachment as a survival mechanism in the face of constant violence and loss. They become aware of their “own savagery” — “the beatings and the kicked dogs, the searches and the sheer brutality of our presence.”

Bartle also learns the role that luck and chance play in war, the existential realization that there are “no bombs made just for us”: “Any of them would have killed us just as well as they’d killed the owners of those names. We didn’t have a time laid out for us, or a place. I have stopped wondering about those inches to the left or right of my head, the three-miles-an-hour difference that would have put us directly over an I.E.D.”

Though he’d been trained “to think war was the great unifier,” Bartle thinks it was actually “the great maker of solipsists: how are you going to save my life today? Dying would be one way. If you die, it becomes more likely that I will not. You’re nothing, that’s the secret: a uniform in a sea of numbers, a number in a sea of dust.”

This extraordinary novel shows that Bartle is wrong — that war, in fact, is about sacrifice, that it can bring “people closer together than any other activity on earth,” that those who risk their lives in the service of their country “in an unknown corner of the world” are not numbers, but unforgettable individuals forever linked to their battlefield comrades in life and in death.

October is a Month for Music

Among many other good titles coming out in October, we have five biographies about well known popular musicians. Why in October you might ask? Who knows would be my answer. HaperCollins is publishing 2 of the 5 but the others are all different publishers or at least different divisions of a publishing house. Some of these are bound to be more popular than others but they all ought to garner some interest.

On October 2nd, Philip Norman is publishing a biography of Mick Jagger. We all know that he has had quite an interesting life. Until Mick decides to write his own version, this title is suppose to be the definitive biography as Norman was able to interview several of Jagger's intimate acquaintances. There are bound to be some interesting tidbits in here for Rolling Stone fans.

We will go in a completely different direction with Kenny Rogers' Luck or Something Like It which also comes out on October 2. Rogers has been in the music business for 52 years. He has made 65 albums, sold more than 120 million records worldwide and is a beloved senior statesman in the music world. In this title, he talks about his upbringing - growing up in Depression-era Texas; living in the projects and surviving poverty with a mother who always tried to point him in the right direction. It is a heartwarming story of his rise from the New Christy Minstrels to the First Edition and finally to a popular single artist. Those who love his music won't want to miss the story of his life.

Neil Young also has a memoir coming out on Oct 2, Waging Heavy Peace. An iconic figure in the history of rock and pop culture, Young offers a kaleidoscopic view of his personal life and musical career, spanning his time in bands like Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crazy Horse; moving from the snows of Ontario through the LSD-laden boulevards of 1966 Los Angeles to the contemplative paradise of Hawaii today. This title is said to be candid, witty and revealing.  Young, never hesitant to express his views, is sure to have some controversy in his memoir.

Pete Townshend has been working on his memoir for nearly a decade. On October 8, Who I Am: A Memoir arrives. A founding member of The Who and the creator of the famous rock opera, Tommy, Townshend has long been acknowledged as one of rock music's most intelligent and literary performers. Raised in west London by an eccentric grandmother, while his parents were off living the early post-war, rock 'n' roll lifestyle, Townshend describes a frenetic childhood of displacement and abuse. Then, in high school, everything changed when he met Roger Daltrey and formed a band that would travel the world, earning fame, fortune and critical acclaim. In Who I Am,  Pete Townshend has been said to have created a work of literature that stands as a primary source for popular music's greatest epoch.

The last of the musical biographies is In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death , and Duran Duran by John Taylor. Taylor, a founding member of Duran Duran, comes out with his book on Oct 16. This band was THE band of the 80's. Taylor's story is a personal, candid one of living and playing hard, facing his demons, and managing to come through to the other side. It is told honestly and with humor and should garner interest from those who remember the 80's bands.

For those not interested in music:

OK - I admit it - I am a dog person. I tried to make myself not buy this one but - how cute is the cover. Pictures of dogs diving for that ball. I had to get it. I may be the only one to check it out but there has to be at least one or two other crazy dog people out there.

Lastly, Salman KhanIn has penned The One World Schoolhouse which comes out on Oct 2. Khan will present his remarkable story, as well as his vision for the future of education. More than just a solution, his book serves as a call for free, universal, global education, and an explanation of how his simple - yet revolutionary - method can help achieve this inspiring goal. A free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere: this is the goal of the Khan Academy, a project that grew from his online tutoring sessions with his niece, who was struggling with algebra, into a worldwide phenomenon. Today, millions have viewed and subscribed to the Khan Academy's YouTube videos, which have expanded to encompass nearly every conceivable subject. With an education system that seems to be having problems, this title ought to be in demand.

And the Books Continue

This week, I am going to start with some of the more popular authors who have books coming out next month. I'm not sure they need the publicity but just in case you didn't know, now you will.

Ken Follet is a perennial favorite. One of my most favorite books is his 'The Pillars of the Earth'. I read many different genres or types of books and in historical fiction, I think Follet excels. Now I kind of like Hilary mantel's Thomas Cromwell books too but Follet's work is outstanding. Follet published the very popular 'Fall of Giants' in 2010. It was the first in the Century Trilogy cover the time of WWI and the Russian Revolution and covering 5 families from different places (American, Russian, Welsh, English and German). On September 18, the second in the series arrives, Winter of the World, which will follow the same 5 families through the rise of Hitler through WWII.

Lee Child's books always go right up the charts. The Wanted Man comes out on September 11 and I am sure will head the same way. If you read 'Worth Dying For', Child's 2010 Reacher title, this book takes up minutes after that one ends. Reacher is picked by 2 men and a woman while attempting to hitchhike to Virginia. He realizes that something about them is off kilter and then becomes involved in a case involving almost every Federal agency. Reviews have been very strong but then, Child's is that type of author.

Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli & Isles series are also very popular. Her titles are always well written, suspenseful and full of surprises. In The Last to Die, which comes out on Aug 28, Policewoman Jane Rizzoli transports a charge to a special school in Main to protect the twice orphaned boy from future harm. When his story matches eerily with two other teens at the school,she decides that it's much more than a coincidence. And so the story goes..... Get ready for a roller coaster ride on this one.

OK - now on to some authors whose names you might not know.

Tim O'Brien, the executive editor of the Huffington Post, debuts a historical thriller, The Lincoln Conspiracy, on September 18. An Irish-American detective, Temple McFadden, comes upon two diaries immediately after Lincoln's assassination. One of the diaries is written by Mary Todd Lincoln and the other in code by John Wilkes Booth. Two different gangs are trying to gain control of the diaries. What could be in them that causes such concern. Lots of action, good historical detail and a very enthralling plot. Reviews are tremendous.

So I read Wolf Hall and loved it and am listening to Bring Up the Bodies and really enjoying that. I can't help it, I like historical fiction. Carolly Erickson, a prize-winning author of historical fiction and nonfiction, has penned  The Unfaithful Queen which comes out on September 18. Henry the VIII is a popular subject of fiction right now. This work tells the story of his 5th wife, Catherine Howard. She was young, lively and pretty so Henry married her. Henry was old, not particularly attractive, and close to impotent. Catherine had been involved with men before her marriage and she didn't stop when she became Queen. When the King is informed of her exploits, her family abandoned her and she ends up as her cousin, Anne Boleyn did. The sense of intrigue in the Tudor Court is fascinating.

Douglas Nicholas, an award winner poet, has written what started out in the form of a short story as a Christmas present for his wife and ended up has an exceptionally descriptive tale of 13th century England.  A woman, her lover, her "granddaughter", and an apprentice are travelling through an epic snowstorm, and "something" is killing people. A compelling plot, intriguing characters, nasty villains, sorcery, shape shifters, castles, and sword fights! What more could you ask for?! But what is best about this book is Nicholas' descriptions of people and places. He really transports you to a time and place. It is part fable, part fantasy and part mythology. People seem to have the need to reread this one and then read it again. That is usually the definition of a classic.

So Many Books, So Little Time

There are so many good books coming out in September. It is going to be hard to decide which to include in this blog. There are literary ones; suspense titles and even two nonfiction that I need to read. Let's get those nonfiction titles out of the way.

I have a confession to make. I have not cooked Thanksgiving dinner in......well YEARS! and I mean at least 12 years. That's what happens when someone else volunteers to hold the dinner and happens to like to cook. This year, I have family coming for Thanksgiving so will be cooking the traditional things for the first time in ages. Now, there was a time that I liked to cook. I've made pumpkin pies from pumpkins - the real pumpkins. But when you relinquish the cooking for so long, it is a little frightening when you have to go back to a full blown, complete, home cooked turkey dinner. That is why I was so excited to see Sam Sifton's title Thanksgiving: How To Cook It Well. Sifton is the national editor of the New York Times but he use to be its lead restaurant critic and manned its Thanksgiving Help Line. I'm cheating some here because this title doesn't come out until Oct 12 but I am so excited about his coming to my rescue, I had to include it.

I have always loved reading about the Civil War period and Abraham Lincoln. Walter Stahr's title Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man, which comes out on Sept 18, covers a figure who has not really been covered in popular history. Seward was the governor of New York and a U.S Senator before becoming Lincoln's Secretary of State and closest advisor. In addition, there are many stories about Seward's late night dinner parties. This title ought to add some clarity to Lincoln's 'Team of Rivals'.

Hank Phillipp Ryan is a multi talented author. Not only is she an award winning investigative reporter for the NBC station in Boston, she is an award winning mystery author. Her title, The Other Woman comes out on Sept 4. Here she center her story on Jane Ryland, a rising star in television news until she refused to reveal her sources and ended up disgraced and covering fluff for a local newspaper. In her spare time, she follows the mistress of a candidate running for the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, Detective Jake Brogan is tracking a serial killer who leaves the bodies of dead young women under a bridge. Then they realize that their cases are connected, - someone is covering up a dirty scandal by cold hearted, ruthless means.

Kevin Powers offers The Yellow Birds on Sept 11. Much has been written about this controversial title. The author is a poet and a veteran of the Iraq war (he enlisted when he was 17). In this story, he follows two very young soldiers who struggle with the facts of war while trying to survive in Iraq. Some critics laud the book for it's beautiful language while others slam it for it's lack of true plot. What the soldiers have to do to survive and have to see while they are doing it, destroys them. The one returning one, relives his experiences while trying to drown them in a bottle. Very effecting. You either hate it or love it. There doesn't seem to be an in between.

While Keven Powers gave us his impression of war at 17, David Abrams, a 20 year veteran of the U.S. Army who served in Iraq, gives us his impression in Fobbit which come out on Sept 4. The term fobbit refers to US soldiers stationed at a Forward Operating Base who rarely leave the safety of the base. Abrams was a journalist for the Army and kept a journal for a year while attached to the 3rd Infantry Division. Fobbit is a darkly comic look at this time based on his journal. Abrams' antihero is Staff Sergeant Change Gooding who writes edited and polished press releases of what is happening. It is funny and you will laugh but inside, you will ache. Humor about a very serious subject.

Because I don't want to end on a downer, I will end with this story of old time Hollywood. Emma Straub gives us Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures on Sept 4. Laura is a Midwestern girl who becomes a Hollywood star in the Golden Age of movies. This story follows her from the beginning as she tries to balance career, family, and personal happiness, all while remaining true to herself.It is written with warmth and is more character driven than a story of glitz and glamour.

Enjoy thinking about these titles until I add some more, next week.

More Fall Mysteries

I am continuing with the fall mysteries/suspense titles. Sometimes, it can be difficult telling the difference between mystery and suspense but the easiest way I know if is - if there is a reoccuring detective or investigator - it is probably a mystery. So - some of these fit that definition and some don't. See what you think. I am going to include quite a few on list list so I can move on to other genres next week.

Archer Mayor comes out with Paradise City in Oct. This is the 23rd in his Joe Gunther series. Joe and his Vermont Bureau of Investigation cohorts track a string of thefts across Vermont. Their trail leads them to a murder in Boston. Who is buying up all these things and can they find the killer? Of course, it is hard to defeat Joe.

Maggie Barbieri's title Extra Credit comes out in Dec. Her detective is Professor Alison Bergeron who is pulled into investigating when the estranged uncle of her two stepdaughters gives both of them $10,000 and then is found dead with $250,000 stuffed in his mattress. Is it a suicide? Can Alison get to the bottom of the mystery? This is part of a series which includes Murder 101, Extracurricular Activities, Third Degree, Quick Study and Final Exam.

Jane Tesh comes out with the 2nd in her Grace Street Mysteries featuring North Carolina based P.I. David Randall. He investigates a long-ago murder with the assistance of his psychic friend. Mixed Signals comes out in Oct.

Also in North Carolina (who knew that so many exciting things happened in the state) Snadra Balzo's Dead Ends investigates two murders in the North Carolina High Country. This title, the second in the Main Street Murders series featurning journalist AnnaLise Griggs, comes out in September.

Garment of Shadows, the next in Laurie R. King's Sherlock Holmes and wife Mary Russell series, comes out in September. Mary wakes up in Morocco, covered in blood, with no memory of how and why she got there. Has she killed someone? Holmes has been pulled into the intrigues surrounding a possible war between Spain and France when he realizes his wife is missing. Mary searches for her memory and Holmes searches for Mary while becoming involved in a highly charged political situation. The cultural atmosphere descriptions are fantastic. This is one of the best in the series.

OK - I admit it. I love San Francisco. My daughter lives in the area and I have an affinity to any of the fiction titles that use SF as a background. I can't say that isn't why I have included Death on Telegraph Hill in this list. Shirley Tallman's historical mystery series features Sarah Woolson, a female lawyer, comes out in Oct. It has the atmosphere of the 1880's San Francisco down perfectly. Walking home from listening to Oscar Wilde with her brother, a shot comes through the fog, strikes and injures her brother. Was he the target? What could be the reason?

Fall Mysteries

There are quite a few mysteries coming out in the fall. There are so many of them in fact, that I can't possibly cover them in one try. Not all of these will be in the catalog right away but I guarantee that the records will be coming within the next month.

Marcia Muller continues her Sharon McCone series in November with Looking for Yesterday. A woman who was accused and acquitted of her best friends murder is beaten badly and shows up on McCone's doorstep. Can McCone find the real killer before someone else dies?

I have lived in that area of North Carolina where Margaret Maron places her Judge Deborah Knott series. Maron's sense of place is outstanding. Every time I read one of her books, I think I am back there. Also in November, she continues the series with The Buzzard Table. A long lost nephew of an elderly wealthy woman arrives to study southern vultures. Something about the man tickles Knott's memory. A murder surfaces and Knott is off on the case working with the usual suspects.

Sandra Parshall writes a series with a Virginia based veterinarian Rachel Goddard and the local Sheriff Tom Bridger. The 5th in the series, Bleeding Through, is coming in September. Goddard and Bridger take on 2 cases at once. While taking a group of teens to clean up trash, the body of the sister of one of the teens is found wrapped in plastic. Also, Rachel's sister comes to visit claiming she is being stalked and the stalker turns his attention to Rachel. This is an exciting series and all of them will be added to the catalog within the next few weeks.

Max Allan Collins writes a sort of classic Spillane, hard boiled detective series starring Nathan Heller. Heller becomes involved in some historic cases: the death of Marilyn Monroe; the Lindbergh kidnapping; with characters like Huey Long; Clarence Darrow and Amelia Earhart. In Target Lancer, coming in November, he takes on the Kennedy assassination.

Tim O'Mara debuts with Sacrifice Fly in October with a former Brooklyn police office, Raymond Donne,  whose bad knees lead him to change professions. He becomes a teacher at a local Brooklyn high school. When one of his students, a star baseball player, stops showing up for class, Donne goes looking for him only to find the student's father beaten to death and the student and his sister missing.

Finally, one of my favorite mystery authors, Louise Penny gives us another Chief Inspector Gamache title, The Beautiful Mystery, in September. Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir investigate a murder at a monastery in the Quebec wilderness. OK - there is a murder and there are villains but something about this series is very peaceful. Penny's description of the countryside is idyllic.