Previews, Reviews, and Collection Development
Chen Guangcheng. Untitled Memoir. Times: Holt. Oct. 2013. 304p. ISBN 9780805098051. $28. MEMOIR Chen has been named a 2012 Brave Thinker, 2012 Rebel of the Year, and 2012 Global Thinker by the Atlantic, GQ, and Foreign Policy, respectively. And no wonder. Blinded by illness in infancy and illiterate until his teens, Chen taught himself law [...]
Abrams, JJ & Doug Dorst. The Secret JJ Abrams Project. Mulholland: Little, Brown. Oct. 2013. 352p. ISBN 9780316201643. $35. CD/downloadable: Hachette Audio. THRILLER Abrams has created, produced, written, and directed multiple Emmy– and Golden Globe Award–winning television series and films (yes, he’s helming the next Star Wars film), so it’s no surprise that he can [...]
Bonert, Kenneth. The Lion Seeker. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2013. 576p. ISBN 9780547898049. $28; ebk. ISBN 9780547898414. LITERARY The grandson of Lithuanian immigrants, South African Bonert was inspired to write this work by the photo of an uncle with Nadine Gordimer. This portrait of South Africa’s small Jewish community doubles as the portrait of a mother-son [...]
Buffett, Howard. 40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World. S. & S. Oct. 2013. 352p. ISBN 9781451687866. $26. MEMOIR Farmers can anticipate 40 growing seasons—that is, 40 chances to improve their land’s yield. Son of mega-investor Warren Buffett, who once challenged him to consider what he really wanted to accomplish in life, Howard Buffett [...]
Bushkin, Henry. Untitled on Johnny Carson. Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2013. 304p. ISBN 9780544217621. $28; ebk. ISBN 9780544217737. MEMOIR/TELEVISION Johnny Carson’s attorney for nearly two decades, at a time when the Tonight Show was at its height and Carson went through two divorces, Bushkin ultimately served as his “counselor, partner, employee, business advisor, earpiece, mouthpiece, enforcer, [...]
Tomorrow marks the publication of Helene Wecker’s The Golem and the Jinni, an engrossing and atmospheric new novel from HarperCollins. I had the pleasure of interviewing Helene on camera a few months back, and clips of that interview are now available. Impressively, Wecker combines creatures from two different folk traditions—the golem, made of clay and [...]
Bryson, Bill. One Summer: America, 1927. Doubleday. Oct. 2013. 448p. ISBN 9780767919401. $27.95. CD: Random Audio. HISTORY The Iowa-born, England-based Bryson, whose works range broadly from language to science to genial travelog, here returns home to America and a truly focused treatment of a single important year (and season, if we are to believe the [...]
Forna, Aminatta. The Hired Man. Atlantic Monthly. Oct. 2013. 304p. ISBN 9780802121912. $24; ebk. 9780802193100. LITERARY Named one of Africa’s most promising new writers by Vanity Fair, Commonwealth Writer’s Prize winner Forna wrote affectingly about war-scarred Africa in her two previous novels and her memoir of her father, The Devil That Danced on the Water. [...]
Boyd, William. James Bond: The New Mission. Harper: HarperCollins. Oct. 2013. 336p. ISBN 9780062223128. $26.99. lrg. prnt. THRILLER Boyd has twice won the Costa/Whitbread Award and typically produces best sellers, and here’s another neat feather in his cap: he’s the third author invited by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. to write an official James Bond novel, [...]
Ackroyd, Peter. Tudors: The History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin’s. Oct. 2013. 512p. ISBN 9781250003621. $30; ebk. ISBN 9781250037596. HISTORY Ackroyd, who is responsible for books like London: The Biography, offers the second in his “History of England” series. His skills as a novelist will doubtless come [...]
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