Sterling’s Gold: Wit and Wisdom of an Ad Man, the fictional memoir of Roger Sterling, a character from the TV series Mad Men, is the unlikely media darling of next week’s fiction lineup. It compiles Sterling’s best one-liners from the show, such as: “When God closes a door, he opens a dress.”

It has already attracted a swarm of media attention along the lines of this mention on New York Magazine‘s pop culture site, Vulture and on the Los Angeles Times Show Tracker blog – with more reviews undoubtedly to follow next week.

Libraries we checked have placed minimal order, but this gold, although a great holiday gifts for series lovers, may just be a flash in the pan.

Sterling’s Gold: Wit and Wisdom of an Ad Man Roger Sterling Retail Price: $16.95 Hardcover: 176 pages Publisher: Grove Press – (2010-11-16) ISBN / EAN: 0802119891 / 9780802119896

Usual Suspects on Sale Next Week

Crescent Dawn (Dirk Pitt Series #21) by Clive Cussler (Putnam) didn’t entirely win over PW: “Fans of the indefatigable Pitt will enjoy watching their hero as he joins the battle on land, in the air, and at sea, but others might wish the Cusslers had picked less familiar terrorist targets.”

Night Star by Alyson Noel (St. Martin’s) is the newest entry in the bestselling paranormal romance Immortals series for teens.

Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie (Random House) is a surreal adventure in which a boy must journey through the “World of Magic,” a land with strangle creatures and video game logic, which Rushdie wrote for his 13-year-old son Luka. PW says, “the author’s entertaining wordplay and lighter-than-air fantasies don’t amount to more than a clever pastiche…. This is essentially a fun tale for younger readers, not the novel Rushdie’s adult fans have been waiting for.” The Washington Post delves in to the inspiration for the story.

Kathleen Kent returns to the territory of her standout 2008 debut, The Heretic’s Daughter, with a prequel set in 17th century Massachusetts, in The Wolves of Andover.  Based on the life of a woman from whom Kent is descended, the novel takes place before she became a victim of the Salem Witch trials, during her relationship with an Englishman involved in the beheading of Charles I, who is pursued by assassins.

Early reviews are good:

PW: “Kent doesn’t disappoint….[she] brings colonial America to life by poking into its dark corners and finding its emotional and personal underpinnings.”

Booklist: “Part historical fiction, part romance, and part suspense…. Skillfully meshing these various elements, the authors latest effort is bound to please fans of each.”

Kirkus: “Kent has more fun with the Londoners—Johnny Depp could play almost any of the baddies—than her somewhat morose ancestors, but she lovingly captures their daily grind and brings looming dangers, whether man or beast, to harrowing life.

Modest holds on modest orders in libraries we checked.

The Wolves of Andover: A Novel Kathleen Kent Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books – (2010-11-08) ISBN / EAN: 0316068624 / 9780316068628

Usual Suspects On Sale Next Week

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth by Jeff Kinney (Amulet Books) continues the popular children’s book series.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King (Scribner) is a collection of four new horror tales. In a starred review, Booklist says, “King begins his afterword by stating, ‘The stories in this book are harsh.’ The man ain’t whistlin Dixie…. King provides four raw looks at the limits of greed, revenge, and self-deception.” It’s also an Amazon Editor’s pick this month.

Hell’s Corner by David Baldacci (Grand Central) is the fifth Camel Club political thriller. PW is not impressed: “Those who prefer intelligence in their political thrillers will have to look elsewhere.”

Cross Fire (Alex Cross Series #17) by James Patterson (Grand Central) finds detective Alex Cross’s wedding plans on hold while he investigates the assasination of Washington D.C.’s most corrupt congressman and lobbyist.

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley (Riverhead) follows an old man who undergoes a procedure to cure his dementia at the cost of longevity. PW says, “Though the details of the experimental procedure are less than convincing, Mosley’s depiction of the indignities of old age is heartbreaking, and Ptolemy’s grace and decency make for a wonderful character and a moving novel.”

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg (Random House) is about a former beauty queen and realtor in Birmingham, Alabama planning a graceful exit from her burdensome life as the housing bubble implodes. Kirkus was disappointed: “What could have been an edgy excursion into the individual toll of the Recession on real women devolves into fluff.”

Sunset Park by Paul Auster (Holt) is the veteran author’s 16th novel, set in a house full of 20-something squatters in a rough Brooklyn neighborhood. It gets a starred review from Booklist: “In a time of daunting crises and change, Auster reminds us of lasting things, of love, art, and the miraculous strangeness of being alive.”

Life Times by Nadine Gordimer (FSG) is a collection of stories set in the Nobelist’s native South Africa. Kirkus calls it “a welcome collection by a master of English prose—lucid and precisely written, if often bringing news only of disappointment, fear and loss.”

The Box: Tales from the Darkroom by Gunter Grass and Krishna Winston (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is a fictionalized exploration of the childhood memories of his eight children, from whose lives he was mostly absent.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, the Australian author of The House of Riverton and The Forgotten Garden, hinges on a 1941 letter that finally reaches its destination in 1992 with powerful repercussions for a London book editor. PW calls it “an enthralling romantic thriller.”

Charles Elton’s debut novel, Mr. Toppit should be worth keeping an eye on when it arrives next week.  The premise is quite intriguing: it’s the tale of an English family whose private moments become immortalized in an internationally famous series of children’s books – in a plight reminiscent of Christopher Robin Milne, who wrote three memoirs about living in the shadow of Winnie the Pooh. At ALA, Library Journal‘s Barbara Hoffert picked it for Shout & Share.

PW calls it “an excellent debut…. while beautifully written and graced with a unique story line, it is Elton’s characters who drive the novel and give it a depth uncommon in debuts.”

Published earlier this year in England, it got rather wildly divergent reviews, with the Independent and the Times (London) praising it for its confident storytelling, and the Guardian and the Telegraph calling it overhyped and thin.

We’ll let you know what U.S. critics have to say…

Mr. Toppit Charles Elton Retail Price: $15.95 Paperback: 400 pages Publisher: Other Press – (2010-11-09) ISBN / EAN: 1590513908 / 9781590513903

Antonia Fraser’s memoir of her 30-year marriage to Nobel Laureate and playwright Harold Pinter, Must You Go?, coming next week, is beginning to draw attention on this side of the pond.

Best known as the biographer of Marie Antoinette and The Wives of Henry VIII, Fraser began her relationship with Pinter when he asked her book’s eponymous question while they were both married to other people.

The New York Times says

Must You Go? is not a proper biography of Pinter, nor a remotely full account of Ms. Fraser’s own life. Instead it’s a book of glowing fragments, moments culled from Ms. Fraser’s diaries. The prose is not overly winsome. “My Diary: it’s not about great writing,” she admits. “It’s my friend, my record, and sometimes my consolation.” But there’s hardly a dull page.

But Entertainment Weekly is more impressed, giving it an “A”:

Fraser’s bold, intimate, madly entertaining memoir of the years with her late husband Harold Pinter. . . . [is] a tender portrait of an exciting marriage, and a deliciously detailed account of living in the thick of creativity and fame.

Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter Antonia Fraser Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 0385532504 / 9780385532501

More Notable Nonfiction

Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People by Amy Sedaris (Grand Central) is a farcical guide to crafting hobbies. Booklist says: “The true joy of this book lies in its hilarious and amazingly well-styled photo spreads, many featuring Sedaris in one of her uncanny disguises, including a teenager, an elderly shut-in, and Jesus. She devotes equal time to instruction on making homemade sausage, gift-giving, crafting safety, and lovemaking (aka “fornicrafting”).”

Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester (Harper) chronicles the geological and sociopolitical history of the Atlantic Ocean. PW is less than impressed: “Although he does not neglect the chief tragedies of the Atlantic, like the slave trade and the maritime battles, Winchester occasionally flits beelike from scene to scene, and the facts become lost in a blur.”  But the Economist finds it more satisfying balanced.

Me by Ricky Martin (Celebra) is the memoir of a pop music superstar.

Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan (Doubleday) was previewed in USA Today this week, after very positive prepub reviews, including stars from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

They Call Me Baba Booey by Gary Dell’Abate and Chad Millman (Spiegel & Grau) recounts the early life and career of the Howard Stern Show producer.

Cake Boss: The Stories and Recipes from Mia Famiglia by Buddy Valastro (Free Press) is a memoir by the star of the TLC show. PW says “despite great technical descriptions, including his bakery’s cannoli recipe and photos of his spectacular cakes, Buddy’s tale of immigrant success proves too familiar.” Thousands of show fans may beg to differ.

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy (Nan A. Talese) is an examination of the books and book people that have had an effect on the novelist’s life.  The new issue of Entertainment Weekly gives it a just a B-; “Like a coal worker dutifully marching back down the mine shaft, Pat Conroy returns to the seemingly non-depletable source of most of his output: his own life…It’s hardly new terrain, but some of the chapters are still sweetly moving.”

Superman is back, with a hoodie and a cellphone, flashing a fresh smile for the Twilight generation, and the media is eating it up. The graphic novel relaunch by DC Comics, Superman : Earth One by J. Straczynski and Shane Davis (Illustrator) first gained traction at the New York Post, leading to news coverage and an excerpt in USA Today, an AP wire story, and blog mentions from CBS News anchor Katie Couric and NPR’s Monkey See pop culture blog, among others.

At libraries we checked, reserves are in line with modest orders – but more media is likely to be on the way when the book goes on sale next week.

Superman: Earth One J. Michael Straczynski Retail Price: $19.99 Hardcover: 136 pages Publisher: DC Comics – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 1401224687 / 9781401224684

Usual Suspects on Sale Next Week

Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane (Morrow) forces Boston PI Patrick Kenzie to face the mistakes he made in a 1998’s Gone, Baby, Gone. New York Times critic Janet Maslin gives the book an early review, saying it gives “Mr. Lehane many occasions to write acid-etched dialogue and show off his fine powers of description.”

Happy Ever After, (Bride Quartet #4) by Nora Roberts (Berkley) is the final title in the paperback series. Says PW, “Roberts’s delicious ode to weddings and happy endings, the charming conclusion of the Bride Quartet.”

Indulgence in Death by J.D. Robb (Putnam) is the 32nd future cop thriller with NYPD Lt. Eve Dallas.

Edge by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster) pits an interrogator against a government agent trying to protect his target. PW says, “Deaver unveils some nifty new tricks in this edge-of-your-seat thriller . . . Deaver’s first first-person narrator, Corte, is an exciting new weapon in the author’s arsenal of memorable characters.”

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor) is the second novel based on work left unfinished by Jordan before his death in 2007.

Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel by Armistead Maupin (HarperCollins) stars Mary Ann Singleton, who returns to San Francisco at the ripe age of 57, twenty years after leaving the city. Kirkus calls it “agreeable entertainment until the ridiculous denouement.”

Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (Houghton Mifflin) re-imagines Henry James’s The Ambassadors. Kirkus raves, “This is superb, dazzling fiction. Ozick richly observes and lovingly crafts each character, and every sentence is a tribute to her masterful command of language.”

John Grisham‘s new legal thriller, The Confession, is his first to be released in the fall instead of his usual February slot. Another tale of innocence on death row, The Confession involves a guilty man paroled because of an inoperable brain tumor, who decides to confess to a crime he committed for which another man is about to be executed. Libraries we checked have plenty of books on order to meet the voracious demand.

Few publishers are brave enough to put their major titles in direct competition with his – so otherwise it’s a sparse week for major fiction.

The Confession John Grisham Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 432 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (2010-10-26) ISBN / EAN: 0385528043 / 9780385528047

• CD: Random House Audio: $45; ISBN 9780739376195
• Large Print: Random House; $29; ISBN 9780739377895
• Playaway: $59.99; ISBN 9781616572488

Other Notable Fiction On Sale Next Week

Side Jobs: Stories From the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Roc) is a collection of short stories related to bestseling urban fantasy series featuring wizard/private investigator Harry Dresden. PW says fans will “probably want to skip ahead to the last of this collection’s 11 stories, “Aftermath,” set just hours after the end of [the 2010 book Changes]. . . .  The rest of the book is a mixed bag.”

Then, there is the HOT category of Amish fiction, combined with Christmas:

An Amish Christmas by Cynthia Keller (Ballantine)

And, simply, Christmas themed fiction:

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas (St. Martin’s) explores the sudden fatherhood of a bachelor after he becomes the guardian of his deceased sister’s daughter

A Christmas Odyssey by Anne Perry (Ballantine) is another Victorian mystery featuring the distinguished mathematician Henry Rathbone.

The Mischief of the Mistletoe: A Pink Carnation Christmas by Lauren Willig (Dutton) is the seventh installment in the Regency romantic suspense series, which moves away from espionage and toward Jane Austen, in a “refreshing” update on the series formula, according to Kirkus.

Young Adult
Three Quarters Dead by Richard Peck (Dial Books)  is a young adult ghost story by the Newbery Medalist and Edgar Award-winning author. Horn Book says, “Peck’s message about the power of the peer group could easily have been more didactic, but wrapping the story in the shrouds of a ghost story was a stroke of genius, making it a creepy tale middle school girls will die for…if they put down their cell phones long enough to read it.”

Childrens

The 39 Clues: The Black Book of Buried Secrets Intro by Rick Riordan (Scholastic) is the latest entry in the series for young readers.

Legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is setting the tabloid press abuzz over excerpts from his new memoir, Life, in the Times of London, where (big surprise) he says that Mick Jagger has been “unbearable” since the 1980s.

In the New York Times, Janet Maslin calls Richards’ memoir “a big, fierce, game-changing account of the Stones’ nearly half-century-long adventure. . . . some of its most surprisingly revelatory material appears in what Mr. Richards jokingly calls ‘Keef’s Guitar Workshop.’ Here are the secrets of some of the world’s most famous rock riffs and the almost toy-level equipment on which they were recorded.”

Life Keith Richards Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-10-26) ISBN / EAN: 031603438X / 9780316034388

• CD: Hachette Audio; $34.98; ISBN 9781600242403
• Large Print: Little Brown and Co., $31.99; ISBN 9780316120364

Other Notable Nonfiction On Sale Next Week

The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks (Knopf) explores how people with impaired senses handle, and even excel at, everyday life, drawing on six case studies including his own loss of depth perception due to a tumor.

Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe (Threshold) outlines the economic ideas of the Fox News pundit.

Memoirs and Biographies

Cleopatra by Stacy Shiff (Little, Brown). Sure, it’s a bio of a fascinating historical figure by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, but the buzz around this book has focused on its adaptation as a movie, with Scott Rudin producing, James Cameron in talks to direct (in 3-D!), and Angelina Jolie possibly starring.

The Elephant to Hollywood by Michael Caine (Holt) “revisits familiar territory” from his first memoir, according to Kirkus, “including childhood poverty, the deprivations of World War II, faltering first steps in show business before signature roles in The Ipcress File (1965) and Alfie (1966) made him an international film star—but his warm, wry delivery keeps the material interesting, even though many of the anecdotes have a distinctly practiced feel.”

You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness by Julie Klam (Riverhead) is about a “slightly wacky person who, instead of looking inward for answers [to how to be happy], decided to help others — specifically, Boston terriers,” according to the 11/1 issue of People, where the book is a People Pick and garnered 3.5 of 4 stars.

My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space: Adventures of an Ordinary Woman by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Scottolini Serritella (St. Martin’s Press) is a collection of true life stories originally written for the Philadelphia Inquirer by the popular suspense writer and her daughter.

Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage by Hazel Rowley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) examines the relationship between FDR and his wife.  PW says “Despite Rowley’s cheerleading that the cousins’ conflicts brought out their courage and radicalism, and that they loved with a generosity of spirit that withstood betrayal, FDR emerges as a narcissist while Eleanor carved a spectacular life.”

First Family: Abigail and John Adams by Joseph J. Ellis (Knopf) gets praise from PW: “Ellis’s supple prose and keen psychological insight give a vivid sense of the human drama behind history’s upheavals.”

Cookbook Season
The major gift-giving season will soon be upon us, bringing a raft of new cookbooks.

Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That?: Fabulous Recipes & Easy Tips by Ina Garten (Clarkson Potter) focuses on simplifying meals without sacrificing quality. The Food Network guru will appear on the Today Show October 26  and 27.

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century, Amanda Hesser (W.W. Norton) ; long before the Contessa became barefoot, the NYT was publishing recipes. In what is sure to be THE gift cookbook of the year, Amanda Hesser examined the NYT recipes since the newspaper began running them in the 1850’s, chronicling the effort in the NYT Magazine series Recipe Redux (the latest is about readers’ “most stained” recipes).

Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes, Harold McGee (Penguin Press) was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air last night, shooting the book to #15 on Amazon sales rankings.

It’s not easy for a debut novel to pick up buzz amid the cacophony of the fall season, but Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has done a good job of marshalling its enthusiasm for The Wake of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart.

This tale about the antipathy between a father and his fourth son, whose birth in 1895 Texas precipitated his mother’s death, is an Indie Next pick for October.  The author was also a featured speaker at the Mountains and Plains trade show. And the Wall St. Journal recently ran an excerpt.

Library Journal says this “intense, fast-paced debut novel is hard to put down. Machart’s hard-hitting style is sure to capture fans of Cormac McCarthy and Jim Harrison.”

Kirkus is slightly less enthusiastic, however, declaring that “the novel splinters into a variety of episodes, all of them rendered with flair. Though he navigates erratically within it, Machart has created a dense, vibrant world.”

On Goodreads, 56 reviewers gave it an average of 3.57 out of 5 stars.

Libraries we checked have modest holds on modest orders, but this looks like one to watch.

It arrives with an atmospheric book trailer.

The Wake of Forgiveness Bruce Machart Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade – (2010-10-21) ISBN / EAN: 0151014434 / 9780151014439

Large Type; Thorndike; 2/16/2011; 9781410435248; $30.99
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Actor James Franco also makes his debut next week with a story collection, Palo Alto, about an interconnected group of teenagers in the same zip code. The media has been making a big deal of it — though not all reviews are positive.

The hoopla began last March, when a story was excerpted in Esquire. An interview and excerpt ran on NPR last week. And this week, Franco is interviewed in the book section of People magazine (not online).

But the Los Angeles Times calls it “the work of an ambitious young man who clearly loves to read, who has a good eye for detail but who has spent way too much time on style and virtually none on substance.”

Half the libraries we checked did not have the book on order, while the other half had modest orders in line with modest reserves.

Palo Alto: Stories James Franco Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2010-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 1439163146 / 9781439163146

Usual Suspects On Sale Next Week

Worth Dying For by Lee Child (Delacorte) is the 15th novel starring ex-military cop Jack Reacher, which his publisher working to bring to a new level of sales. Child will appear on CBS Sunday Morning on Oct. 24 or Oct. 31.

Chasing the Night by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s) follows a forensic sculptor’s attempts to help a CIA agent find her missing daughter.

The Templar Salvation by Raymond Khoury (Dutton) chronicles the quest over the centuries for a controversial document from early Christianity. Booklist calls it a “well constructed blend of historical mystery and present-day thriller. [Khoury] doesn’t break any new ground, but theres no denying he’s got the storytelling chops and the imagination to spin an exciting yarn.”

In the Company of Others by Jan Karon is the second installment in her Father Tim series, in which a long-awaited Irish vacation turns into a busman’s holiday. Kirkus says, “long journal entries do little to advance the present story but are sometimes a welcome diversion from it. Readers who are not devoted followers of Karon may be impatient with the glacial pace of this installment.”

Young Adult

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick is the sequel to the author’s young adult breakout, Hush Hush.

A recent Earlyword Galley Chat favorite goes on sale next week: Running the Books, Avi Steinberg‘s memoir of his adventures as a prison librarian and writing instructor in Boston, after graduating from Harvard.  As we’ve mentioned, he published an amusing essay in the New York Times magazine last week, which should help the book get more attention in other media.

PW called the memoir “captivating…. Steinberg writes a stylish prose that blends deadpan wit with an acute moral seriousness. The result is a fine portrait of prison life and the thwarted humanity that courses through it.”

Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian Avi Steinberg Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0385529090 / 9780385529099

Other Notable Nonfiction On Sale Next Week

Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook: Crazy Delicious Recipes that Are Good to the Earth and Great for Your Bod by Kim Barnouin (Running Press), more vegan dishes.

Final Verdict: What Really Happened in the Rosenberg Case by Walter Schneir (Melville House) contends that Ethel Rosenberg was not a Soviet spy and challenges enduring myths surrounding the case. The New York Times Book Review compares it favorably to another recent book on the Rosenberg case by Allen M. Hornblum.

My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth That Led to an American Tragedy by Nora Titone (S&S) hinges on its portrait of the Booth family. Kirkus declares that “though some historical detail seems more tangential than pertinent, the multiple portraits display hidden facets of all the Booths.”

The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer by Jane Smiley is a biography of the brilliant but mostly forgotten physicist who created a protype for the computer. Kirkus raves, “As in her novels, the author displays a talent for keeping a dozen fully realized characters on stage…. Smiley takes science history and injects it with a touch of noir and an exciting clash of vanities.”

Children’s

Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson, about a runaway slave who joins the Continental Army at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78, is the second installment in the author’s American Revolutionary trilogy, following the National Book Award finalist Chains. Kirkus praises its “vivid setting, believable characters both good and despicable and a clear portrayal of the moral ambiguity of the Revolutionary age. Not only can this sequel stand alone, for many readers it will be one of the best novels they have ever read.”

What more can be said about baseball great Mickey Mantle?

Apparently, quite a bit. Jane Leavy bases her biography The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood on more than 500 interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents.

Entertainment Weekly gives it a measly C+:

Leavy does little more than recount Mantle’s feats on the diamond and recycle the crude off-the-field behavior exposed in Jim Bouton’s Ball Four. There’s little new info; the Mick seen here is familiar, a brittle demigod who never saw himself as the golden boy his public demanded.

But lots more media is coming: the New York Times will feature the book in the sports section on October 12, the Wall St. Journal has a review scheduled for October 15, and Leavy will be interviewed on CBS-TV’s The Early Show on October 19 – with more to follow.

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood Jane Leavy Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0060883529 / 9780060883522

Other Notable Nonfiction On Sale Next Week

Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) makes many of the South African leader’s personal letters and diaries available for the first time, including journals kept on the run during the anti-apartheid struggle of the early 1960s and diaries written in Robben Island and other South African prisons during his 27 years of incarceration.

Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Family and Me by Condoleezza Rice (Delacorte) is a book for young readers about the childhood of the Secretary of State under George W. Bush. Lots of media coming on this one: On October 12, Rice will appear on NPR’s Morning Edition, the Today show and Larry King Live, while USA Today runs an interview. On October 13, she’ll be on the Early Show and Tavis Smiley’s radio show on PRI.

Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) chronicles a series of adventures in Russia’s most desolate areas. It’s an Amazon Book of the Month, and was serialized in New Yorker this summer.

Dewey’s Nine Lives: The Legacy of the Small-Town Library Cat Who Inspired Millions by Vicki Myron (Dutton) includes nine stories about loving cats who improved their owner’s lives.

Great Migrations: Epic Animal Journeys by Karen Kostyal (National Georgraphic) arrives next week in anticipation of National Geographic’s seven-part TV series airing in November, narrated by Alec Baldwin. Half the librararies we checked had reserves in line with their modest orders, and the rest have not yet ordered it.

The Deeds of My Fathers: How My Grandfather and Father Built New York and Created the Tabloid World of Today by Paul David Pope (Philip Turner/Rowman & Littlefield) is about the family that made the National Enquirer into a tabloid giant.

Jennifer Donnelly, whose sophisticated young adult novel A Northern Light won a Printz honor back in 2002/2003, returns with Revolution, which has been getting good trade reviews. It’s a teen drama about a high school senior grieving over her younger brother’s murder and her mother’s subsequent breakdown, who becomes obsessed with a diary written by a young woman during the French Revolution while on Christmas break in Paris with her father and his pregnant 25 year-old wife.

Orders are in line with reserves at libraries we checked, but this one may get more media attention, and word among early readers is that it has crossover appeal to adults.

Booklist is enthusiastic:

The ambitious story, narrated in Andi’s grief-soaked, sardonic voice, will wholly capture patient readers with its sharply articulated, raw emotions and insights into science and art; ambition and love; history’s ever-present influence; and music’s immediate, astonishing power: It gets inside of you . . . and changes the beat of your heart.

And more than 75 reviewers on GoodReads give it 4.08 out of 5 stars.

Revolution Jennifer Donnelly Retail Price: $18.99 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers – (2010-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 0385737637 / 9780385737630

Other Notable Young Adult and Children’s Fiction

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan (Hyperion) begins a new series set in the same universe as his bestselling Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.

Beautiful Darkness by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia is the followup to the bestselling young adult vampire novel Beautiful Creatures, which was one of Amazon’s Top 10 picks for 2009.

Fancy Nancy and the Fabulous Fashion Boutique by Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser (HarperCollins) is a picture book for young readers.

Usual Adult Suspects:

Our Kind of Traitor by John Le Carre (Viking) gets the thumbs up from Kirkus: “Le Carre uses still another aspect of international relations in the new world order—the powerful, equivocal position of money launderers to the Russian mob—to put a new spin on a favorite theme: the betrayal that inevitably follows from sharply divided loyalties.”

American Assassin (Mitch Rapp Series #11) by Vince Flynn (S&S) introduces the young Mitch Rapp, as he takes on his first assignment.

Forbidden Places by Penny Vincenzi (Overlook) is a sprawling saga set in the WWII-era English countryside and revolves around the ordeals of three young women. Booklist says “Vincenzi does an admirable job of evoking the bustle and fears of wartime England, and providing plenty of juicy plot twists and turns to keep readers hooked.”

Buzz is building for Where Good Ideas Come From by science writer Steven Johnson. The New York Times ran an early review in the Business section, praising Johnson’s storytelling ability in this exploration of innovative environments like the city and the Internet, and how a “series of shared properties and patterns… recur again and again in unusually fertile environments.”

At libraries we checked, current orders are in line with reserves, but this looks like one to watch, since Johnson was also a featured speaker at TED, the elite technology, entertainment and design conference, this summer. And his cool video trailer for the book appears to be going viral.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation Steven Johnson Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2010-10-05) ISBN / EAN: 1594487715 / 9781594487712

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Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow gets a respectful review from critic Janet Maslin in the New York Times, who finds that this biography is justified by new material unearthed from Washington’s papers at the University of Virginia.

At 900-odd densely packed pages, Washington can be arid at times. But it’s also deeply rewarding as a whole…. [and] offers a fresh sense of what a groundbreaking role Washington played, not only in physically embodying his new nation’s leadership but also in interpreting how its newly articulated constitutional principles would be applied.

Entertainment Weekly gives the book an “A-,” adding that Chernow

…makes excellent use of Washington’s own voice — the man’s angry letters are like thunderbolts — and turns constitutional debates and bureaucratic infighting into riveting reading.

Washington: A Life Ron Chernow Retail Price: $40.00 Hardcover: 928 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2010-10-05) ISBN / EAN: 1594202664 / 9781594202667

Notable Nonfiction on Sale Next Week

A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson (Random House) is “a wonderfully meandering journey through history, sociology, science, and more. The thread that connects it all is Bryson’s. . . home, a charming former church rectory in a small English village,” according to bookseller Christopher Rose in the October Indie Next Pick citation. NPR’s Morning Edition will feature the book on October 5, followed by  the New York Times Book Review on October 10. It is also the Amazon Spotlight Selection for the month of Oct.

Is It Just Me or Is It Nuts Out There? by Whoopi Goldberg (Hyperion) finds the actress and co-host of ABC’s The View sharing stories from her own life, when she’s been forced to deal with tough situations in family, marriage, friendship, and business.

Cesar’s Rules by Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier (Crown) is the bestselling dog trainer’s primer on establishing the rules of the house.

The Dog Who Couldn’t Stop Loving by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (Harper) considers the far-reaching consequences of the co-evolution of dogs and humans, drawing from recent scientific research.

You: Raising Your Child by Michael F. Roizen & Mehmet C. Oz (Free Press) explores the biology and psychology of raising a child from birth to school age.

Trickle Up Poverty by Michael Savage (Morrow) is the author and conservative talk show host’s attack on President Obama’s agenda and his political tactics.

I’m Not High: (But I’ve Got a Lot of Crazy Stories about Life as a Goat Boy, a Dad, and a Spiritual Warrior) by Jim Breuer (Gotham/Penguin) is a memoir by the comedian and Sirius radio show host best known as “Goat Boy” on Saturday Night Live. He was also featured on the ALTAFF Humor Panel at ALA Annual.

We’re excited to see good press coming for a book we’ve fallen in love with, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. Washington Post critic Ron Charles greets it with a rave review:

A smart, thoughtful novel that sinks deep into a Southern hamlet of the American psyche… I was reminded of another fine novel about the poisoned friendship between a white boy and a black boy called Prince Edward, by Dennis McFarland, but Franklin’s tale has those Southern Gothic shadows that make it darker and more unnerving.

It is also the #1 Indie Next Pick for October, and goes on sale next week. Libraries we checked have modest holds on modest orders, but other media is likely to take notice, so this is worth keeping an eye on – and reading!

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter Tom Franklin Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: William Morrow – (2010-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0060594667 / 9780060594664

Notable Titles On Sale Next Week

Other Indie Next Picks

A Lily of the Field by John Lawton (Atlantic Monthly), the fifth Inspector Troy novel, is an Indie Next Pick for October. Utah bookseller Betsy Burton calls it “Lawton’s latest (and perhaps best) thriller…The mystery that lies at the heart of this convoluted tale centers on the two musicians, Meret and Victor, both uprooted, and adrift in a world changed utterly by war and by science.”

The False Friend by Myla Goldberg (Doubleday) is the tale of a woman who tries the right her childhood misdemeanors. It gets a lukewarm review from PW: “Goldberg’s unremarkable latest [is] a neatly constructed if hollow story of memory and deception.” But it is also an Indie Next Pick for October, which Oregon bookseller Helen Sinoradzki praises for the way each character “pushes Celia to acknowledge truths she’d rather not know. The ending, in all its perfect brevity, will keep you awake, hoping that Celia can go back to her life.”

Great House by Nicole Krauss (Norton) comes with much anticipation. The author’s previous novel was the 2005 hit, The History of Love, which spent nearly a year on the IndieBound Top Ten list in paperback. Krauss was recently chosen as one of the New Yorker‘s 20 under 40 best young writers. Writing about it for Indie Next, Ridgefield, CT bookseller Ellen Burns says, “The best books haunt and sometimes confuse you. They will make you think, feel, wonder, go back to earlier chapters, and finally, fully experience the story being told. Nicole Krauss’s new book does just that.” Entertainment Weekly agrees that the book is confusing, but doesn’t find that such a good thing, giving it just a B-. Amazon also selects it as one of their Best Books for Oct.

Usual Suspects

Reversal by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown) features characters from two series: LAPD Detective Harry Bosch and maverick lawyer Mickey Haller. In a starred review, Booklist declared, “Reading this book is like watching a master craftsman, slowly and carefully, brick by brick, build something that holds together exquisitely, form and function in perfect alignment.”

Painted Ladies by Robert B. Parker (Putnam) is the 37th Spenser novel, posthumously published. Booklist says, “Spenser can still nail a person’s foibles on first meeting, still whip up a gourmet meal in a few minutes, still dispatch the thugs who haunt his office and his home, and do it all while maintaining a fierce love of Susan Silverman and English poetry (which he quotes frequently and always to good effect).”

Promise Me by Richard Paul Evans (S&S)  is a Christmas story that combines Evans’s usual holiday themes “with a bizarre twist lifted straight from science fiction,” says Booklist. “Readers will undoubtedly feel attached to Beth, even as they struggle to understand the bizarre relationship she finds herself entering into.”

Valcourt Heiress by Catherine Coulter (Putnam) is a historical romance set in medieval England.

We hardly need to tell you that Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward is the big nonfiction title arriving next week. The embargo has already been broken by the NYT, Politico has already explored how that happened (How Times stole Post‘s Thunder), and the book is #2 on Amazon.

Several memoirs are coming next week that may create their own buzz.

Jenny McCarthy turns from being an autism activist to the crassly funny persona of the best-selling Belly Laughs (Da Capo, 2004), Baby Laughs (Dutton, 2008) and Life Laughs (Dutton, 2006) in her new book, Love, Lust and Faking It. She is scheduled to appear on Oprah on Tuesday.

Love, Lust & Faking It: The Naked Truth About Sex, Lies, and True Romance Jenny Mccarthy Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0062012983 / 9780062012982

Marlo Thomas has some laughter of her own to recount in Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny, excerpted in the current issue of People. Booklist calls it “an engaging, highly informative memoir…definitely not the routine show-biz autobiography.”

Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny Marlo Thomas Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Hyperion – (2010-09-28) ISBN / EAN: 140132391X / 9781401323912

Dogs are an ever-popular publishing theme. This week Steven Kotler’s A Small Furry Prayer: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life (Bloomsbury) arrives. Kotler treats dogs with special needs at his Rancho de Chihuahua in New Mexico.

We couldn’t help but notice a striking similarity between the cover for A Small Furry Prayer and a certain other successful book about an entirely different breed of dog.

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A Small Furry Prayer is also on audio from Tantor.

It’s worth watching the book trailer just to see all those chihuahuas hanging out together (click on the image below).

Historical fiction has been very good to Ken Follett. After the success of Pillars of the Earth and its sequel, World Without End, both set in 12th C England, he now turns his eyes toward the 20th century, with a planned trilogy that will cover the entire 100 years (and is thus called The Century Trilogy).

The first book, Fall of Giants arrives next week and is widely expected to be the blockbuster of the season. Using the formula he developed in the earlier series, the author follows several families through WWI to the early 1920’s. Prepub reviews all note the book’s length (Kirkus called it “cat squashing”), but applaud its readability. The publisher has announced a million copy first printing and it is already at #10 on Amazon sales rankings.

Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy) Ken Follett Retail Price: $36.00 Hardcover: 985 pages Publisher: Dutton Adult – (2010-09-28) ISBN / EAN: 0525951652 / 9780525951650

Penguin Audio; UNABR; 9780142428276
Books on Tape Audio; UNABR; Narrator: John Lee; 9780307737380
Audio on OverDrive
Spanish-language edition; La caida de los gigantes; Random House; 9780307741189

Other Notable Fiction On Sale Next Week

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris (Little, Brown) The illustrations are by Ian Falconer, but don’t expect these animals to be at all like Olivia. The new issue of Entertainment Weekly calls the book a “lurid beastiary…for the strong- stomached, these tales are toxic little treats, fun-size Snickers bars with a nougaty strychnine center.” If you’re having trouble grasping what that means, go here to Read an Excerpt. The book is already at #36 on Amazon sales rankings.

Don’t Blink by James Patterson and Howard Roughan (Little, Brown). About a mafia hit in a NYC steak house. Coauthor Roughan has worked with Patterson on several other titles, including Honeymoon, You’ve Been Warned and Sail.

The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War by Bernard Cornwell (Harper). The author’s first standalone set in America, about the Penobscot Expedition, a Revolutionary war battle considered the worst US naval disaster until Pearl Harbor.

Bury Your Dead: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (Three Pines Mysteries) by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books). “Gamache’s excruciating grief over a wrong decision, Beauvoir’s softening toward the unconventional, a plot twist so unexpected it’s chilling, and a description of Quebec intriguing enough to make you book your next vacation there, all add up to a superior read. Bring on the awards.” (Kirkus)

To Fetch a Thief: A Chet and Bernie Mystery, Spencer Quinn (Atria). “Tender-hearted Chet and literal-minded Bernie are the coolest human/pooch duo this side of Wallace and Gromit.” (Kirkus)

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham (FSG)

Entertainment Weekly loves the writing (“There are sentences here so powerfully precise and beautiful that they almost hover above the page”), but found the plot thin with a main character not worth caring about, resulting in a B. It’s an Indie Next Pick for Oct.

The cover proves how striking sepia can be.

Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund (Morrow). Also an Indie Next Pick for Oct, Booklist says this “… outlandish stew of biblical analogy, political thriller, futuristic speculation, and old-fashioned adventure story by the best-selling author of Ahabs Wife (1999) teases and frustrates the reader.”

Bound by Antonya Nelson, (Bloomsbury) Featured in O Magazine’s “Six Books to Watch for in October,” Booklist calls Nelson ” A short story writer of exhilarating wit and empathy, [who] returns to the novel after a decade with heightened authority” and describes the book as “Tightly coiled, edgy, and funny, this complex tale of transcendent friendship begins with a spectacular death.” Audio from Tantor.

Safe from the Sea, Peter Geye, (Unbridled). We’re part of the fan club for Unbridled Books, an independent press that manages to publish astonishingly high level fiction. This first novel is an Indie Next Pick for Oct,

Classic themes of redemption,reconciliation, and family ties are set against the awesome power and beauty of the north shore of Lake Superior. In the final weeks of his life, Olaf relives the story of his survival in an ore boat wreck decades earlier, and acknowledges his feelings of guilt and regret, while his estranged son Noah discovers that things are not always as they seem.

Booklist suggests, “Give this book to readers of David Guterson and Robert Olmstead, who will be captured by the themes of approaching death and the pain and solace provided by nature.”

How to Read the Air, Dinaw Mengestu, (Penguin). Both an Indie Next Pick for October and the lead in O Magazine‘s “Six Books to Watch for in October,” which describes this story of a first generation Ethiopian American as a “quiet and beautiful new novel [that]…transcends heartbreak and offers up the hope that despite all obstacles, love can survive.”

Childrens

Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion by Mo Willems (Balzer & Bray). Say it isn’t so! This is the final book in the series.