Fall Books: A sampling of new works offers something for just about everybody
What a lot of books there are in the world, and what a lot of them are published in the fall. Today we take the second of our twice-yearly looks at upcoming books — focusing now on those due out this month through December. The powerhouses of literature such as Joan Didion, Stephen King, Garrison Keillor, Nadine Gordimer and Salman Rushdie are well represented, as are promising (relative) newcomers such as Jane Stevenson and Leif Enger.
Over the years, we have heard much gratitude for providing this sampling of fall books, but some exasperation on this point: The list appears in September, and eager readers think they should be able to go out and get the book. Then said readers discover their heart's desire won't be in stores until December.
To avoid these frustrations, we've organized the list by the usual categories, then sorted the books by month of publication. So save your fretting for the moment when you find out that publishers sometimes arbitrarily change release dates. In other words, what appears here as a publication date may change with those publishers' whims.
Meantime, here's The List. Happy reading.
LITERARY FICTION AND POETRY
SEPTEMBER
"Red Dog" by Louis de Bernières (Pantheon). Short stories about an Australian dog who became "a legend in his own time." By the author of "Corelli's Mandolin."
"After the Plague" by T.C. Boyle (Viking). Short-story collection by the author of "The Tortilla Curtain."
"All Families Are Psychotic" by Douglas Coupland (Bloomsbury). Coupland ("Generation X") serves up "the most disastrous family reunion in the history of fiction" in his latest novel — or so his publisher says.
"The Evidence Against Her" by Robb Forman Dew (Little, Brown). First volume in a prospective trilogy tracing the history of an Ohio family. By the author of "Dale Loves Sophie to Death."
"Peace Like a River" by Leif Enger (Atlantic Monthly). This first novel by a Minnesota writer, about a family on the run in the 1960s, is getting strong advance word from the likes of Jim Harrison and Rick Bass.
"The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The long-awaited third novel by the author of "The Twenty-Seventh City" and "Strong Motion" is a seriocomic family saga that takes on "American society and the American soul."
"The Marble Quilt" by David Leavitt (Houghton Mifflin). A new short-story collection by the popular and sometimes controversial gay writer ("Family Dancing," "While England Sleeps").
"He Sleeps" by Reginald McKnight (Holt). A new novel by the author of "White Boys" and "I Get on the Bus," about an African-American anthropologist getting caught up in "a surreal web of deception and betrayal" in Senegal.
"Middle Age: A Romance" by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco). In an upscale New York suburb, a charismatic sculptor has a powerful influence on his social circle after his death. By the author of "We Were the Mulvaneys." The ever-busy Oates also has a novella out in November, "Beasts" (Carroll & Graf), about some sinister Bohemian types working mischief on an idyllic New England college campus.
"Still She Haunts Me" by Katie Roiphe (Dial). A fictional guess at how the relationship between Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) became estranged from Alice Liddell, the girl who inspired "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass."
"Fury" by Salman Rushdie (Random). Satirical comedy by the author of "Midnight's Children" about a millionaire philosophy professor/doll inventor from Bombay trying to ditch his old life with a move to New York.
"London Bridges" by Jane Stevenson (Houghton Mifflin). A first novel about lost treasure, an unscrupulous lawyer and an oddball assortment of London types, by the British author whose debut novella collection, "Several Deceptions," was one of the literary highlights of last year.
"Riot: A Love Story" by Shashi Tharoor (Arcade). In his latest novel, the much-praised Indian writer ("Show Business") explores the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of a young American volunteer in India.
"A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage" by Mark Twain (Norton). First publication of a long-lost novella about "the fortunes of a humble farmer," by one of America's most beloved (and still controversial) authors.
"The Yellow Sailor" by Steve Weiner (Overlook). A novel about four shipwrecked sailors exploring "the failure of love, sex, religion, and friendship." Weiner's debut, "The Museum of Love," was striking, intense, surreal.
OCTOBER
"I, the Divine" by Rabih Alameddine (Norton). Experimental fiction by the Lebanese-American writer ("Koolaids: The Art of War") in which an artist from Beirut, attempting to write down the story of her life, can never make it past the first chapter.
"Super-Cannes" by J.G. Ballard (Picador). A novel about "the hidden cost of sanity," set in a high-tech "multinational business park" that's safely secured from the outside world — but not from its own inmates. By the author of "Crash" and "Empire of the Sun."
"The Billancourt Tales" by Nina Berberova, translated by Marian Schwartz (New Directions). Thirteen newly discovered tales by the Russian writer, originally written in Paris for a Russian émigré newspaper and now in their first English translation.
"The Stories of Paul Bowles" (Ecco). All the short fiction (almost 700 pages of it) by the expatriate American writer gathered into one volume.
"Falling Angels" by Tracy Chevalier (Dutton). A historical novel about the unlikely connection between two families of different social class in early 20th-century London. By the author of the surprise bestseller, "Girl with a Pearl Earring."
"Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems" by Billy Collins (Random). The new poet laureate of the U.S. offers a new collection of poems.
"The Devil's Larder" by Jim Crace (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Sixty short-short fictions by the British author whose "Being Dead" won the National Book Critics Circle Award earlier this year.
"The Wig My Father Wore" by Anne Enright (Grove). The Irish writer of the antic "What Are You Like" writes a story about a young Dublin woman who gets a guardian angel, whether she likes it or not.
"The Practical Heart" by Allan Gurganus (Knopf). Four novellas on wide-ranging themes, by the gay Southern writer ("Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All," "Plays Well with Others").
"Translated Accounts" by James Kelman (Doubleday). An unnamed, unstable country, apparently under military rule, provides the setting for the Glaswegian writer's first novel since his Booker Prize-winning "How Late It Was, How Late."
"Gabriel's Gift" by Hanif Kureishi (Scribner). A novel about the troubled son of a washed-up rock musician, by the author of "The Buddha of Suburbia" and "Intimacy."
"Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources" by David Mamet (Overlook). The noted playwright's latest stab at novel-writing depicts a futuristic world in which ex-First Wife Ginger Wilson attempts to recover the collective memory of the 21st century after the Internet crashes.
"The World Below" by Sue Miller (Knopf). A New England family saga stretching from 1919 to the present day and contrasting the fates of a woman and her granddaughter in love. By the author of "Inventing the Abbotts."
"Half a Life" by V.S. Naipaul (Knopf). In an effort to forge new identities for himself, a young man travels from India to bohemian London, and then Africa in its "last doomed days of colonialism," in the latest novel by the Trinidad-born writer ("Guerrillas").
"The Same Sea" by Amos Oz, translated by Nicholas de Lange (Harcourt). The acclaimed Israeli author delivers a novel in which the writer himself has to cope with phone calls from his characters, who are unhappy with the way he portrays them.
"The Nautical Chart" by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden (Harcourt). The latest novel by the Spanish author ("The Fencing Master") is about a mariner without a ship who signs on for a perilous voyage.
"Old Men at Midnight" by Chaim Potok (Knopf). A trilogy of novellas on Jewish themes by the author of "The Chosen."
"Fox" by Adrienne Rich (Norton). New poems by Rich that take on history, gender and other topics.
"Flights of Love" by Bernhard Schlink, translated by John E. Woods (Pantheon). Short stories about love, by the author of "The Reader."
"Austerlitz" by W.G. Sebald, translated by Anthea Bell (Random). The latest from the highly esteemed German writer ("Vertigo") is a novel taking the form of a 30-year conversation in the train stations and travelers' stops of England and Europe.
"The Tale of Genji" by Murasaki Shikibu (Viking). A new translation by Royall Tyler of the 11th-century Japanese classic.
"The Last Canyon" by John Vernon (Houghton Mifflin). A novel about John Wesley Powell's hazardous journey down the Grand Canyon in 1869, by one of our best historical novelists ("Peter Doyle"). A new nonfiction account of Powell's expedition, "Down the Great Unknown" by Edward Dolnick (HarperCollins), is also appearing this month.
"Argall" by William T. Vollmann (Viking). The latest volume in Vollmann's massive "Seven Dreams" series of historical novels re-examines the Jamestown of John Smith and Pocahontas.
NOVEMBER
"Portrait in Sepia" by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins). The latest by the Chilean-American author ("The House of the Spirits") is a historical novel about a privileged yet traumatized 19th-century woman haunted by her past and oppressed by her present.
"Collected Fiction" by Saul Bellow (Viking). A selection of the Nobel laureate's best stories and novellas.
"Coming Soon!!!" by John Barth (Houghton Mifflin). A tale of two writers, one at the end of his career and the other a youthful upstart. By the author of "The Sot-Weed Factor."
"Hotel of the Saints" by Ursula Hegi (Simon & Schuster). Short stories, set in Germany, Italy, Mexico and the United States, by the author of "Stones from the River." Hegi, a longtime Eastern Washington writer, now lives in New York state.
"The Long Marriage" by Maxine Kumin (Norton). New collection by the much-honored poet, featuring themes of loyalty, longevity and recovery.
"The Feast of the Goat" by Mario Vargas Llosa (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The latest from the great Peruvian writer ("The War at the End of the World," "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter") is a political thriller set in the Dominican Republic during the terror of Rafael Trujillo's regime.
"Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" by Alice Munro (Knopf). Nine new stories by one of Canada's finest writers — and perhaps the best short-story writer of our time.
"The Girl from the Golden Horn" by Kurban Said, translated by Jenia Graman (Overlook). A second novel by the mysterious author of "Ali and Nino," about Turkish royal exiles adrift in 1920s Berlin after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
"The Bulgari Connection" by Fay Weldon (Atlantic Monthly). Weldon's latest romp takes on sexual jealousy, social envy and other low behavioral points in London high society, as it tells the tale of an ex-con divorcee who isn't getting what she wants from life.
DECEMBER
"Wetware" by Craig Nova (Harmony). A real change of pace for the author of "The Good Son" and "Tornado Alley": a futuristic tale about a society in which fully formed humans can be created in laboratories.
"Three to See the King" by Magnus Mills (Picador). A new novel — part parable, part mystery — about "the messiah of a new building material." By the author of "The Restraint of Beasts."
POPULAR FICTION
SEPTEMBER
"The Holy Road" by Michael Blake (Villard). The author of "Dances With Wolves" pens a sequel, following Lt. John Dunbar as he attempts to make a peaceful life with his family, only to have white rangers descend on his village and slaughter half the inhabitants.
"Swift as Desire" by Laura Esquivel (Crown). The latest by the Mexican author ("Like Water for Chocolate") is about a telegraph operator with an unusual gift for getting people to communicate with one another.
"The Smoke Jumper" by Nicholas Evans (Delacorte). The author of "The Horse Whisperer" portrays a romantic triangle in a mountain fire-fighting setting.
"The Blue Last" by Martha Grimes (Viking). A mystery about two bodies found in a World War II bomb site in London.
"Long Time No See" by Susan Isaacs (HarperCollins). This sequel to Isaacs' "Compromising Positions" finds heroine Judith Singer a widow "surrounded by crime and chaos" who's still having trouble getting her erstwhile policeman lover out of her mind.
"Black House" by Stephen King and Peter Straub (Random). A novel about a boy's venture into a parallel universe, by a writerly match made in heaven or hell, depending on your tolerance for horrormeisters.
"The Other Wind" by Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt). A new Earthsea novel by the Portland author.
"The Associate" by Philip Margolin (HarperCollins). The Portland writer's latest legal thriller concerns a blackballed lawyer who's trying to clear his name.
"Money, Money, Money" by Ed McBain (Simon & Schuster). The 51st novel in McBain's 87th Precinct series starts with a mauled body and leads to a massive counterfeiting conspiracy.
"Total Recall" by Sara Paretsky (Delacorte). A new V.I. Warshawski novel by the Chicago thriller writer. V.I. discovers that behind her physician friend Lottie's no-nonsense exterior lie some tragic secrets that go back to the Holocaust.
"Pain Management" by Andrew Vachss (Knopf). Vachss' latest finds his hero (and native New Yorker) Burke lying low in the Pacific Northwest.
OCTOBER
"The Gryphon" by Nick Bantock (Chronicle). Bantock's new picturebook-for-grownups is a sequel to his "Griffin and Sabine" trilogy.
"Coldheart Canyon" by Clive Barker (HarperCollins). A supernatural tale about an aging Hollywood star who goes into hiding after botched plastic surgery — and a fan club president who tries to track him down.
"From the Dust Returned" by Ray Bradbury (Morrow). A novel by the science-fiction writer ("Farenheit 451") about a clan of Halloween creatures and their adopted son Timothy (the only one of them who can see his reflection in the mirror).
"Alma Mater" by Rita Mae Brown (Ballantine). A college-set novel about sexual awakening and conflicting loyalties, by the lesbian author ("Rubyfruit Jungle").
"Fleeced" by Carol Higgins Clark (Scribner). A new Regan Reilly mystery in which Clark's sleuth tracks down a missing cache of (murder-inspiring) diamonds.
"Isle of Dogs" by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam). Cornwell drops her forensic-thriller formula for something a little more political: a novel about a Chesapeake Bay island that secedes from Virginia when the governor announces a draconian highway speed-trap scheme.
"Up Country" by Nelson DeMille (Warner). The author of "The General's Daughter" tells the story of a retired Army investigator who is called back into service to look into a Vietnam War-era murder.
"The Fiery Cross" by Diana Gabaldon (Delacorte). Gabaldon's time-travel saga picks up where "Outlander" left off, as it chronicles the adventures of an 18th-century Scotsman and his 20th-century wife.
"The Sigma Protocol" by Robert Ludlum (St. Martin's). A tale of intrigue about an American investment banker who stumbles across an international conspiracy. By the late author of "The Prometheus Deception," who must have kept a couple of manuscripts tucked away for his executor.
"Killing the Shadows" by Val McDermid (St. Martin's Minotaur). The Manchester, England-based author of "A Place of Execution" writes about a serial killer who starts knocking off the writers of crime novels. We did not make this up.
"Death in Paradise" by Robert B. Parker (Putnam). Parker's latest finds police chief Jesse Stone investigating the murder of a troubled teenage girl in a supposedly idyllic New England town.
"Funeral in Blue" by Anne Perry (Ballantine). In Perry's new Victorian murder mystery, investigator William Monk and his wife Hester strive to save a friend accused of two killings.
"The Family" by Mario Puzo (ReganBooks). A historical novel about the infamous Borgia family, by the author of "The Godfather."
"Blood and Gold" by Anne Rice (Knopf). The latest installment in Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" follows her glamorous bloodsuckers from Imperial Rome, through the Dark Ages and Black Death, to Renaissance Italy — with stops in Dresden, Paris and an English castle.
"A Bend in the Road" by Nicholas Sparks (Warner). A novel by the author of "Message in a Bottle," about a man trying to cope after his wife is killed in a hit-and-run accident.
"The Kiss" by Danielle Steel (Delacorte). The pop novelist's latest romance concerns two adulterous lovers crushed (but not killed) by a double-decker bus just after they've shared their first kiss. Talk about guilt trips!
NOVEMBER
"Last Man Standing" by David Baldacci (Warner). The author of "Absolute Power" and "I Wish You Well" tells the story of a member of an FBI hostage-rescue team who becomes the last one left alive after an ambush of the team in London. Complications ensue.
"Hope to Die" by Lawrence Block (Morrow). The latest crime novel featuring private eye Matthew Scudder. By the author of "Hit List."
"Futureland" by Walter Mosley (Warner). The mystery writer turns science-fiction writer in this novel set in a "fast and furious" high-tech future.
"Violets Are Blue" by James Patterson (Little, Brown). Another Alex Cross mystery, this one concerning a killer who goes after joggers in different American cities.
"Midnight Bayou" by Nora Roberts (Putnam). The romance writer's latest is set in a haunted New Orleans mansion where visions of the past start haunting the new owner.
DECEMBER
"Jackdaws" by Ken Follett (Dutton). The "Eye of the Needle" author trains his sights on an all-woman brigade of French Resistance fighters trying to outwit the Nazis just before D-Day.
"Flesh and Blood" by Jonathan Kellerman (Random). New novel featuring psychologist Alex Delaware, about the murder of a "borderline-delinquent" teenage girl.
GENERAL NONFICTION
SEPTEMBER
"The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family" by William J. Bennett (Doubleday). The former Secretary of Education tells what's wrong with the American family and inveigles the people to set it right.
"Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir" by Matthew Chapman (Picador). The great-great grandson of Charles Darwin takes us back to Dayton, Tenn., site of the Scopes Trial, to see if attitudes have changed after 76 years.
"Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money and the Future of Food" by Daniel Charles (Perseus). The story of how genetic engineering of plants burst out of the laboratory and became a driving force that is changing the face of modern agriculture.
"Political Fictions" by Joan Didion (Knopf). A collection of Didion's pieces on government, as published in the New York Review of Books, that purport to show how we have become a nation governed by a handful of insiders increasingly detached from the nation.
"An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962" by William Doyle (Doubleday). An account of James Meredith's attempt to integrate the University of Mississippi, the ferocious white uprising that resulted and the federal government's role in sending in troops to enforce order.
"Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain" by Dr. Elio Frattaroli (Viking). A psychiatrist says people must connect with their souls, and that it is not possible to heal a soul's sickness with a pill. And in an October book, "Depression is a Choice" (Hyperion), psychotherapist A.B. Curtis argues that depression can be treated without drugs and endless therapy, and tells how to do it. Is there a trend here?
"Dematerializing: Taming the Power of Possessions" by Jane Hammerslough (Perseus). How to resist the Pottery Barn catalog, and other good advice for a recession.
"The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War" by Charles J. Hanley, Sang-Hun Choe and Martha Mendoza (Holt). The tragic story of Korean civilians massacred by American troops, written by the reporters who won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for their uncovering of the long-suppressed event.
"Leavenworth Train: Bitter Justice in the Vanishing West" by Joe Jackson (Carroll & Graf). The story of a daring prison escape in the early 20th century, in which five prisoners hijacked a supply train and rammed it through the prison's west gate. The FBI chased them for decades, with surprising results.
"The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years" by Haynes Johnson (Harcourt). The Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist reprises the 1990s through interviewing personalities from the media, politics, technology and Wall Street who helped shape it, including Microsoft's Nathan Myhrvold.
"Breaking Faith: The Pope, the People and the fate of Catholicism" by John Cornwell (Viking). The author of "Hitler's Pope" examines the divisions in today's Catholic Church and what he (a Catholic) believes the church must do to survive in the 21st century.
"Crescent & Star" by Stephen Kinzer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The former Istanbul bureau chief for the New York Times writes about Turkey, a nation of contradictions, straddling Europe and Asia and wrestling with its secular tilt and its Muslim traditions. The question at hand: Will it become a "great democratic state"?
"Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds: The Tragedy and Triumph of ASA Flight 529" by Gary Pomerantz (Crown). The true story of a commuter aircraft that crashed in Georgia in 1995. This minute-by-minute story of the crash, told by the survivors, is said to illuminate how human beings react under extreme stress.
"Like Water on Stone: The Story of Amnesty International" by Jonathan Power (Northeastern University Press). A look at the 40-year-old organization and its extraordinary, complex and controversial strategies to reduce human-rights abuses. Power, a former foreign-affairs correspondent with the International Herald Tribune, writes a widely syndicated column.
"Out of the Jungle: Jimmy Hoffa and the Remaking of the American Working Class" by Thaddeus Russell (Knopf). The author examines Hoffa's career, his tactics and how his leadership shaped the American labor movement.
"The Forgetting" by David Shenk (Doubleday). A book by the author of "Data Smog" that looks at Alzheimer's as a potential demographic time bomb.
"The Last Face You'll Ever See: The Private Life of the American Death Penalty" by Ivan Solotaroff (HarperCollins). Solotaroff, a journalist, traveled the country to interview the men who execute prisoners on death row in search of an answer to why the majority of Americans still support the death penalty.
"Where the Stress Falls" by Susan Sontag (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). A new collection of essays addressing aesthetic and moral issues. By the National Book Award-winning author of "In America."
"Admissions Confidential: An Insider's Account of the Elite College Selection Process" by Rachel Toor (St. Martin's). A former admissions officer at Duke University tells all. Toor now writes for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
"Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert" by Terry Tempest Williams (Pantheon). The author of "Refuge" writes essays on diverse topics, including the color red, rock formations and encounters with the desert.
OCTOBER
"I Thought My Father Was God And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project," edited and introduced by Paul Auster (Holt). A collection of 180 stories selected from National Public Radio's National Story Project, and featuring "hilarious blunders, wrenching coincidences, brushes with death, miraculous encounters, improbable ironies, premonitions, sorrows, pains, dreams."
"Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway" by Dave Barry (Random). The popular columnist examines the birth of our nation, the income-tax code, the growth of government and other easy targets.
"Indian Country" by Gwendolen Cates (Grove). A collection of photographs by a woman who has traveled the length and breadth of the tribes and nations of the United States. Seattle's Sherman Alexie writes the introduction.
"Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage" by Kenneth S. Deffeyes (Princeton University Press). Deffeyes, a professor emeritus at Princeton and a former Shell Oil researcher, is known by John McPhee readers as McPhee's guide in "Annals of the Former World." He warns that world oil production has peaked, and "while long-term solutions exist in the form of conservation and alternative energy sources," these won't surface in time to evade "short-term catastrophe." Oh, dear.
"Sputnik: The Shock of the Century" by Paul Dickson (Walker & Co.). Dickson tells the story of the unassuming Soviet satellite that shook the confidence of post-World War II America.
"This Man's Pill: Reflections on the 50th Birthday of the Pill" by Carl Djerassi (Oxford University Press). The inventor of the pill looks back at what he hath wrought.
"This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland" by Gretel Ehrlich (Pantheon). The author of "The Solace of Open Spaces" visits a place with a lot of them — Greenland, where she spent seven years visiting the land and studying the natives, explorers and other folks drawn to this snow-covered place.
"A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals" by Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten (Atlantic Monthly). Flannery, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, and renowned wildlife artist Schouten have created what looks like a sumptuous and sad catalog of 104 creatures who have vanished from the Earth since 1492, how they lived and how they met their fate.
"The Four Thirds Solution: Putting Children First in Your Working Life" by Dr. Stanley Greenspan with Jacqueline Salmon (Perseus). Greenspan proposes a solution to the day-care dilemma: that each parent work two thirds of the time.
"Harvest Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World and Agricultural Laborers in the American West, 1905-1930" by Greg Hall (Oregon State University Press). Though the Wobblies are mostly thought of as a timber worker group, this is a history of a lesser-known phenomenon: the Wobblies who worked to organize farm workers in the Great Plains, California and the Pacific Northwest.
"The Universe in a Nutshell" by Stephen Hawking (Bantam). Hawking's sequel to "A Brief History of Time," in which Hawking looks for "the Theory of Everything that lies at the heart of the cosmos." Illustrated.
"Fire" by Sebastian Junger (Norton). A collection of works, "explorations of danger," by the author of "A Perfect Storm." The title piece follows the progress of a raging forest fire in Idaho.
"The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish People" by Jonathan Kirsch (Viking). The author of "Moses: A Life" takes a tour through Jewish history.
"Travels with Cranes" by Peter Matthiessen; paintings and drawings by Robert Bateman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The renowned naturalist and writer recounts his journeys in search of 15 species of cranes in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Australia."To Begin Where I Am: The Selected Prose of Czeslaw Milosz" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and "New and Collected Poems 1931-2001" by Czeslaw Milosz (Ecco). Two overviews of the Nobel laureate's essays and verse.
"Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere" by Jan Morris (Simon & Schuster). The acclaimed travel writer says this will be her last book; about a place she first visited as a soldier in World War II and has been returning to ever since. A book about a city; a book about growing old.
"Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II" by Eric Muller (University of Chicago Press). Muller tells the story of the Japanese Americans who were drafted after being displaced into internment camps. Most entered the service. This is the story of those who resisted.
"In Mrs. Tully's Room: A Childcare Portrait" by Vivian Gussin Paley (Harvard University Press). Paley, an author ("The Kindness of Children") and former kindergarten teacher who won a MacArthur Award, writes about an exceptional childcare center and the gifted director who runs it.
"Blue" by Michel Pastoureau (Princeton University Press). The author of "The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric," the history of striped fabric, examines what the color blue has signified to different ages and what it means to an age in which blue jeans are a universal uniform.
"A History of Britain: Volume II, The Wars of the British 1603-1776" by Simon Schama (Talk Miramax). The second installment of the British historian's popular work, keyed to the second installment of the History Channel television series.
"The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior" by David Allen Sibley (Knopf). The sequel to Sibley's hugely popular "The Sibley Guide to Birds."
"Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance" by Peter Stark (Ballantine). An outdoor writer tells us what happens when people arrive at the brink of death through cold, altitude sickness, drowning, etc., etc.
"Hoop Roots" by John Edgar Wideman (Houghton Mifflin). An esteemed African-American writer discusses his 50-year love affair with basketball.
NOVEMBER
"The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971-2000" by Martin Amis (Talk Miramax). The collected nonfiction pieces, so far, of the British author ("London Fields," "Experience"). Talk Miramax is also bringing out "The Letters of Kingsley Amis," Kingsley being Martin's cranky novelist-dad ("Lucky Jim").
"The Sweet Hell Inside: A Family History" by Edward Ball (Morrow). The author of the National Book Award-winning "Slaves in the Family" tells the story of the Harlstons, an aristocratic black family in America whose advantages could not shield them from segregation and other troubles.
"The Raw and the Cooked" by Jim Harrison (Grove). The revered fiction writer has also penned numerous columns about his love for food and wine. They are collected here.
"Innovation and Its Enemies" by Lawrence Lessig (Random). Lessig, author of "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace," explores the issue of intellectual property in the digital world, and argues that if the concept of a public commons is not brought to the Internet, it will destroy the medium's potential for creativity and freedom.
"Go To" by Steve Lohr (Basic). A technology correspondent for the New York Times and author of "U.S. vs. Microsoft" returns to the pioneers of the early days of software programming and moves forward to the open-source movement of today.
"The Age of Science: What We Learned in the 20th Century" by Gerard Piel (Basic). The former editor and publisher of Scientific American gives us a sweeping summation of a century that saw more advancements in science than any other.
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith" by Studs Terkel (New Press). America's populist historian interviews a wide range of people on the inevitability of death and the possibility of life afterward.
"Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election" by Jeffrey Toobin (Random). Legal analyst Toobin, author of "A Vast Conspiracy" about the Monica sex scandal, casts his astute eye on the Florida election imbroglio. One of many books out on this subject, too numerous to list here.
"The Aging Brain" by Lawrence Whalley (Columbia University Press). An Alzheimer's expert tells us what causes some people's brains to age prematurely and others not, and how we may eventually be able to slow the rate of mental deterioration.
DECEMBER
"Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare" by Dorothy Roberts (Basic Civitas). A legal scholar examines the phenomenon of the disproportionate number of black children in the foster-care system.
"Reporting Back: Notes on Journalism" by Lillian Ross (Counterpoint). A New Yorker writer for the last half-century, Ross looks at what makes a good reporter and good journalism.
"Why Doctors Lie" by Mel Schechter (Carroll & Graf). The fibs and untruths doctors tell their patients, from the altruistically motivated to the self-serving.
Editor's note: "Why Doctors Lie," scheduled for release December 2001, was never published.
PEOPLE'S LIVES
SEPTEMBER
"Fugitive Days: A Memoir" by Bill Ayers (Beacon). Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois, tells of his life as a member of the violent Vietnam protest group the Weathermen, his years in hiding and his perspective on it all 30 years later.
"Iris Murdoch: A Life" by Peter Conradi (Norton). The biographer of Dostoevsky examines the life of the Dublin-born Oxford writer-philosopher ("The Bell," "The Sea, the Sea") whose novels blended passion, farce and intellectual inquiry.
"Holler if You Hear Me" by Michael Eric Dyson (Basic Civitas). The author of "I May Not Get There With You" examines the life of hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur five years after his death, and why he remains such an icon among black youth.
"Marie Antoinette: The Journey" by Antonia Fraser (Doubleday). The life of the last queen of France, by a distinguished biographer of several other queens and kings.
"Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay" by Nancy Milford (Random). The author of "Zelda" writes a biography of the flamboyant poet, about her genius, her legendary affairs and her intense attachment to her three sisters and mother.
"Mary Shelley" by Miranda Seymour (Grove). A biography of the author of "Frankenstein," much praised in England when it was published there.
OCTOBER
"Joseph Pulitzer: A Life" by Denis Brian (Wiley). A new look at the man who changed the face of American journalism.
"Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters" edited by Carla Kaplan (Doubleday). More than 500 letters by the great African-American author ("Their Eyes Were Watching God") who took part in the Harlem Renaissance, then languished in obscurity before finding a new audience late in the last century. In December, look for "Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folktales from the Gulf States" (HarperCollins), a gathering of nearly 500 folktales, collected and retold by Hurston.
"Norman Rockwell" by Laura Claridge (Random House). America's favorite painter and illustrator was a workaholic who was married three times and was a distant father, according to this new biography, but his art was "masterful, complex and far more manipulative than people realize."
"Out on the Deep Blue: Women, Men and the Oceans They Fish," edited by Leslie Leyland Fields (St. Martin's). Nineteen fishermen and women who are also writers take the reader fishing, from the Grand Banks to Alaska to Scotland, in a collection of nonfiction.
"My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson" by Alfred Habegger (Random). An in-depth look at one of America's most popular and elusive poets."Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir" by Tony Hillerman (HarperCollins). The popular author of a mystery series based on Navajo tribal life tells his story, which includes childhood poverty and the adoption of several children. In September, the University of Utah Press will publish "Tony Hillerman's Navajoland" by Laurance Linford, an encyclopedic guided tour to the haunts and hideouts of Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee.
"The Autobiography of Quincy Jones" (Doubleday). The jazz musician, composer and arranger tells his story, which includes his introduction to the trumpet as a teenager in Seattle.
"My Country Versus Me" by Wen Ho Lee with Helen Zia (Hyperion). The Los Alamos scientist who became the target of overzealous federal prosecutors tells his side of the story. And in November, journalists Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman examine the same case in "A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage" (Simon & Schuster).
"Limbo" by A. Manette Ansay (Morrow). The novelist ("Vinegar Hill," "Midnight Champagne") tells how she came to be a writer after her dreams of being a concert pianist were derailed by a still-undiagnosed muscle disorder.
"Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages that Shaped Our Recent History" by Kati Marton (Pantheon). Marton, author of "Raoul Wallenberg," surveys presidential marriages in search of how personal relationships of the presidential couples affected public policy and shaped history. "Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House" by Phyllis Lee Levin (Scribner) documents the effect of Woodrow Wilson's second wife on his presidency, contending that she "all but singlehandedly ran the country" after Wilson had a stroke in office.
"When Character Was King" by Peggy Noonan (Viking). Ronald Reagan's speechwriter looks at his life and concludes that he was a good guy.
"Misconceptions: Truth, Lies and the Unexpected in the Journey to Motherhood" by Naomi Wolf (Doubleday). The commentator on feminism and other matters has a baby and discovers that it's a hard old go.
NOVEMBER
"Mysterious Stranger" by David Blaine (Villard). The man who buried himself alive in Manhattan for six days and stayed in a block of ice for three days on both "The Today Show" and "Good Morning America" provides clues to his magician's craft. .
"Christmas in Plains" by Jimmy Carter (Simon & Schuster). The former president reflects on Christmas in his hometown from his youth to today.
"Swimming Across: A Memoir" by Andrew S. Grove (Warner). The chairman of Intel tells the harrowing story of his childhood, which begins with the Nazi invasion of his native Hungary and ends with his escape from communism to America, 16 years later.
"Churchill: A Biography" by Roy Jenkins (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Jenkins, author of the Whitbread Award-winning "Gladstone," has been Home Secretary and President of the European Commission. He uses his insider's point of view to illuminate Churchill's career.nov.
"Madonna" by Andrew Morton (St. Martin's). Princess Di's biographer takes on you-know-who.
"Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers" by Meryle Secrest (Knopf). A biography of the brilliant composer who coauthored "Oklahoma!" "South Pacific" and "The King and I."
"Edward Teller: Memoirs" by Edward Teller with Judith Shoolery (Perseus). One of the inventors of the atom bomb tells his story.
DECEMBER
"John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946" by Robert Skidelsky (Viking). The third volume of Keynes' life, covering the brilliant economist's contribution to Britain's victory in World War II. Keynes said, "In the long run, we are all dead," and he was right.
"Forgotten Eagle: Wiley Post, America's Heroic Aviation Pioneer" by Brian Sterling and Frances Sterling (Carroll & Graf). The story of an aviation pioneer whose accomplishments rivaled the more famous Lindbergh and Earhart. The Sterlings have authored several books on Will Rogers, who died in a crash with Post near Barrow, Alaska.
LOCAL
SEPTEMBER
"Tell Me Why" by Stella Cameron (Kensington). A new romance by the Seattle-area author, about a jazz pianist lying low in Seattle after her life is "ruined," and the man who tries to draw her out of herself.
"The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara: Antrax" by Terry Brooks (Del Rey). The latest installment in the Seattle writer's fantasy series concerns Walker Boh, "the last of the Druid," as he battles "an enigmatic presence" in unfamiliar territory. In October, Brooks and collaborator Teresa Patterson will release "The World of Shannara" (Del Rey), billed as "a remarkable guide to the people, places and events of one of the greatest fantasy epics of our time."
"Galen Hansen" by Vicki Halper (University of Washington Press). An illustrated volume of Seattle painter Hansen's works, and a consideration of his life. Halper is a Seattle curator and writer.
"Higher Than Everest: An Adventurer's Guide to the Solar System" by Paul Hodge (Cambridge University Press). Hodge, an astronomy professor at the University of Washington and editor-in-chief of Astronomer's Journal, wrote this guidebook as a virtual tour to the most spectacular sights in the solar system. More than 100 full-color illustrations.
"Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, A Global Industry and a Toxic Secret" by Duff Wilson (HarperCollins). Wilson, an investigative reporter for The Seattle Times, tells how some American fertilizer manufacturers have used toxic waste in their products, with pernicious health effects, causing some of the victims to fight back.
OCTOBER
"The Haunting of Hood Canal" by Jack Cady (St. Martin's). The Port Townsend writer's latest is about a "mysterious entity" that drags cars, with passengers still inside, into the chilly waters of Hood Canal.
"Cattle: An Informal Social History" by Laurie Winn Carlson (Ivan R. Dee). Carlson, an independent scholar based in Cheney, offers up this study of the relationship between people and cattle throughout history, noting that humans are "absolutely dependent" on cattle and that we're more like them than we care to admit. Of related interest, in September: "Changing World: Visions of a Lost Agriculture" by Douglas Harper (University of Chicago Press). The vanishing world of the small-scale cooperative dairy farmer.
"Seattle and King County Timeline: A Chronological Guide to Seattle and King County's First 150 Years" by Walt Crowley and the staff of HistoryLink (University of Washington Press). This overview of King County and Seattle history traces the region's development since the arrival of the first settlers and includes essays by Crowley, a well-known writer of local history. With photographs collected by Pacific Northwest magazine columnist Paul Dorpat.
"Flinch" by Robert Ferrigno (Pantheon). Two brothers, one a "media whore" columnist, the other a "high-profile" plastic surgeon, track down a serial killer in the latest caper by the Kirkland author ("The Horse Latitudes").
"Dune: House Corrino" by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (Bantam). Frank Herbert's son Brian, a Seattle-area writer, and Anderson provide the third installment of their popular trilogy, the prequel to Frank Herbert's classic "Dune."
"Every Breath You Take: A True Story of Erotic Obsession, Revenge, and Murder" by Ann Rule (Free Press). The Seattle true-crime writer investigates the murder of a woman who apparently knew she was in danger: She asked her sister to "please have Ann Rule write the book" if anything happened to her.
"One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism" by Rodney Stark (Princeton University Press). Stark, a University of Washington professor, looks at how the three great monotheisms — Judaism, Christianity and Islam - affected the course of world history.
NOVEMBER
"The Seconds" by Linda Bierds (Putnam). The latest volume of verse by the Bainbridge Island poet and University of Washington English professor concerns "human frailty and the striving for immortality through memory and creative acts."
"Blue Dusk: New and Selected Poems, 1951-2001" by Madeline DeFrees (Copper Canyon). Half a century of verse, addressing questions of language, faith and history, by the Seattle poet.
"The Royal Physician's Visit" by Per Olov Enquist, translated by Tiina Nunnally (Overlook). An acclaimed Swedish writer's novel about a German doctor who served as court physician to a mad Danish king in the 1760s, became the power behind the throne and was undone by his own ambitions. (For more on Seattle translator Nunnally, see page 8).
"The Wrong Man: The Final Verdict on the Sam Sheppard Murder Case" by James Neff (Random). Neff, head of investigative projects for The Seattle Times, writes about the infamous 1950s murder case, ostensibly proving that Sheppard did not murder his wife, and points to the man who did.
"Future Evolution" by Peter Ward, illustrated by Alexis Rockman (W.H. Freeman). Ward, an authority on evolution and professor at the University of Washington, looks to the past for clues to what the future might be like — with images by artist Rockman of what animals, plants and other organisms might look like thousands or millions of years from now.
DECEMBER
"Patent to Kill" by April Christofersson (Forge). A Seattle attorney writes a thriller about the theft of healing secrets from isolated, indigenous peoples. Dr. Jake Scully doesn't think the company he works for is capable of such a thing. Guess how this one turns out.
"The Love of Nature and the End of the World" by Shierry Weber Nicholsen (MIT Press). Nicholsen, who teaches environmental philosophy and psychology at Antioch University Seattle, explores why people can value natural beauty and at the same time be indifferent to its destruction.
"The Diamond Sutra: The Perfection of Wisdom" by Red Pine (Counterpoint). A new translation of one of the seminal texts of Zen Buddhism by the Port Townsend translator.
Mary Ann Gwinn is The Seattle Times' book editor; Michael Upchurch is The Times' book critic.