Lonely Planet
Envy-magnet Nell Freudenberger is back with a smart and rueful tale of a Chinese fish out of water.
• The Dissident, By Nell Freudenberger, Ecco; August 15 ($25.95).
Tragicomic
The Illustrated 9/11 Report, a comic-book condensation of the best-selling document.
• The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, Hill and Wang; September 4 ($30).
Richard Ford’s Manly Meditations
Reading Ford, you can feel uplifted and empowered in a way that might make you wonder if his books are not some sublime species of self-help.
• The Lay of the Land, By Richard Ford, Knopf; October 24 ($26.95).
Waiting for Lefty
Frank Rich connects the dots from the Green Zone to Hollywood.
• The Greatest Story Ever Sold, By Frank Rich, Penguin Press; September 19 ($25.95).
Both Sides Now
The big questions, seen from the left and the right.
Shrink Rap
Heidi Julavits’s twisty tale of Freudian mind games.
• The Uses of Enchantment, By Heidi Julavits, Doubleday; October 17 ($24.95).
A Hard Look in the Mirror
Recent years have witnessed a sneaky shift in the portrayal of plastic surgery.
• Beauty Junkies, By Alex Kuczynski, Doubleday; October 17 ($24.95).
Song of Himself
No one knows how much readers anticipate Thomas Pynchon’s sixth novel—his first in nine years—more than Pynchon.
• Against the Day, By Thomas Pynchon, Penguin Press; November 21 ($35).
The Best of the Rest
Freud, foodies, Franzen, the Apocalypse, and more.
The Best of the Rest
Freud, foodies, Franzen, the Apocalypse, and more.
The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History
by Jonathan Franzen
The angsty Midwestern novelist’s first memoir, cobbled together from his essays.
• FSG; September 5.
The Interpretation of Murder
by Jed Rubenfeld
While visiting New York, Freud solves murders! A mystery with a debt to Caleb Carr.
• Henry Holt; September 5.
Forgetfulness
by Ward Just
Former journalist’s timely thriller about a spy out to avenge his wife’s killing by terrorists.
• Houghton Mifflin; September 6.
A Spot of Botherby Mark Haddon A satire about a smug, troubled English family, the follow-up to Haddon’s beloved The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. • Doubleday; September 6.
Nicole Kidman
by David Thomson
Stalwart critic’s obsessive analysis of the star, with minimal help from the subject.
• Knopf; September 8.
Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance
by Ian Buruma
Dutch-born journalist delves into the aftermath of the filmmaker’s notorious assassination by an Islamist.
• Penguin Press; September 12.
The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation
by David KampA cultural history of the Greenmarket revolution. Think Bobos in Paradise, but with more jícama.
• Broadway; September 12.
The Meaning of Night: A Confession
by Michael Cox
A Raskolnikov-ish narrator bares his guilty, effusive Victorian soul.
• W. W. Norton; September 18.
Moral Disorder and Other Stories
by Margaret Atwood
The dystopianist goes domestic, with linked stories following a Toronto family over 60 years.
• Nan A. Talese; September 19.
Cancer Vixen: a true story
by Marisa Acocella Marchetto A graphic memoir of New York soirées and long hospital stays.
• Knopf; September 26.
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
The cowboy mythologizer switches up with a postapocalyptic parable.
• Knopf; September 26.
Easter Rising
by Michael Patrick MacDonald
The author’s salvation via the New York punk scene. Hey! Ho! Let’s go!
• Houghton Mifflin; September 27.
What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentio Achak Deng
by Dave Eggers
Do-gooder ironist’s picaresque about an orphan’s journey after fleeing civil war in Sudan.
• McSweeney’s; October 1.
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
by Michael Lewis Liar’s Poker author follows a bootstrapping college-football recruit.
• Norton; October 2.
Blood and Thunder
by Hampton Sides
Ghost Soldiers writer offers a revisionist history of Manifest Destiny.
• Doubleday; October 3.
Thirteen Moons
by Charles Frazier
The life of a frontiersman—a follow-up to Cold Mountain. Heath Ledger, call your agent.
• Random House; October 3.
The Echo Maker
by Richard Powers
DeLillo-y novelist chronicles a man’s dissociative disorder and his relationship with an Oliver Sacks–ish author.
• FSG; October 3.
Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York
by Adam Gopnik
Recovered Francophile in Manhattan.
• Knopf; October 10.
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town
by John Grisham
Millionaire thriller writer’s nonfiction debut.
• Doubleday; October 10.
One Good Turn
by Kate Atkinson
Brainy Brit’s sequel to her suspense novel Case Histories.
• Little, Brown; October 11.
Will Eisner’s New York
intro by Neil Gaiman
Posthumous collection of four of the great cartoonist’s novellas, with notes by another famous fantasist.
Norton; October 16.
Frost
by Thomas Bernhard
First novel by the infamously dour, transgressive Austrian writer—who died in 1989—published in German in 1963 but translated into English for the first time.
• Knopf; October 17.
The Ladies of Grace
Adieu and other Stories
by Susanna Clarke
Short stories set in a magical England similar to the setting of her debut best-seller, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
• Bloomsbury; October 17.
The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
Brilliant but cantankerous scientist exhorts us to shed our straitjacket superstitions.
• Houghton Mifflin; October 18.
The Ghost Mapby Steven Johnson
Pop systems theorist tells how an 1854 London cholera epidemic spawned new ideas.
• Riverhead; October 19.
Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir
by Gore Vidal
The controversialist’s latest life history meanders through triumph, grief, and famous friends and enemies.
• Doubleday; November 7.
The View from Castle Rock
by Alice Munro
The Canadian master of the short story expands her purview with linked tales of the immigrant experience.
• Knopf; November 7.
The Godfather’s Revenge
by Mark Winegardner
Puzo’s authorized sequelizer enmeshes the Corleones in politics.
• Putnam; November 7.
The Book of Dave
by Will Self
Scathing novelist’s blend of dystopia and postmodern satire, whereby a cabbie’s screed becomes the sacred dogma of a future London.
• Bloomsbury; November 14. Back to Books Preview