Nine August 2012 Titles You Must Have

Here, after some research, is my list of titles just appearing that you cannot miss. M.L. Stedman’s affecting historical, The Light Between Oceans, debuting this coming week at No. 7 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction list and No. 13 on the Combined Ebook and Print Fiction list, while also appearing on Amazon’s Top 10 Picks for August and the American Booksellers Association’s August ’12 Indie Next list; former actress/playwright Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a wise road trip for the older set that’s No. 17 on the forthcoming NYT Hardcover Fiction List, No. 7 on the NPR Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list, an Indie Next best seller, and a Discover Great New Writers pick to boot; and Ben Macintyre’s Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, debuting this coming week at No. 4 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction list and No. 3 on the Combined Ebook and Print Nonfiction list, while also making Amazon’s Top 100.

Then there’s debut author Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars, exceptional in the crowded postapocalyptic field and doing nicely with an NPR review and nods from Discover and Amazon’s Top 10 Picks (and, hey, it’s currently No. 147 on Amazon’s best sellers list); David R. Gillham’s World War II–era City of Women, also an Amazon Top 10 Pick and featured by Indie Next as well; and Megan Abbott’s Dare Me, called “the Great American Cheerleader Novel…and spectacular” in the Sunday, 8/12, NYT Book Review and an Amazon Top 10 Pick.

Also, Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan, a Discover and an Indie Next pick, subject of a great NPR review, and featured in the Sunday, 8/12, NYT Book Review as well (“What is remarkable, and honorable, here is the absence of anger”); David K. Randall’s Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep, a Discover and an Amazon Top 10 pick that also got an NPR rave; and Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette, coming this week but known to you all after having appeared on a dozen summer reading lists and received some strong reviews (“free-range hilarity,” NYT); look for the BBC Radio 4 serial.