Previews, Reviews, and Collection Development
The big news about the Penguin/Random merger hit last week, but then so did Hurricane Sandy, or I’d be writing about the merger. It’s been enough just to check the news (is everyone safe, are lights on at the office yet?). If I had the time, I’d express concern about the impact of this biggest [...]
To this day, when I ask librarians to name a surprise hit in their libraries, many of them still offer up Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, published almost a decade ago by Riverhead Books. That book spent 103 weeks on the New York Times best sellers list. Its successor, A Thousand Splendid Suns, debuted in [...]
Atkinson, Kate. Life After Life. Reagan Arthur Bks: Little, Brown. Apr. 2013. 544p. ISBN 9780316176484. $27.99. LITERARY THRILLER Every time she writes, Atkinson writes something exciting and important. Her debut, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award; best sellers like Started Early, Took My Dog give a whole [...]
Aciman, André. Harvard Square. Norton. Apr. 2013. 304p. ISBN 9780393088601. $25.95. LITERARY FICTION From vivid, scalding Alexandria (Out of Egypt: A Memoir) to the sensuous Italian Riviera (Call Me by Your Name) to snow-crusted Manhattan during Christmas (Eight White Nights), Aciman has transported us far and wide in his acutely observed works, whether fiction [...]
Kimberling, Brian. Snapper. Pantheon. Apr. 2013. 224p. ISBN 9780307908056. $24.95; eISBN 9780307908063. LITERARY FICTION When a publicist tells me that a book is punch-in-the-gut affecting and that she wants to scream it from the rooftops, I do sit up and listen. Now I’m a convert. The topic might seem improbable—Nathan Lochmueller is a bird researcher [...]
Aslam, Nadeem. The Blind Man’s Garden. Knopf. Apr. 2013. 336p. ISBN 9780307961716. $26.95; eISBN 9780307961723. LITERARY FICTION Winner of Betty Trask and Kiriyama honors and shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (for Maps for Lost Lovers), Aslam is among an outstanding group of Pakistani-born writers now working in English (e.g., Daniyal Mueenuddin, Mohammed Hanif, [...]
Alter, Jonathan. Untitled on Obama. S. & S. Mar. 213. 448p. ISBN 9781451646078. $30; eISBN 9781451646108. CURRENT EVENTS No one knows how Alter’s book will end, as it will be essentially the story of how President Obama won or lost his bid for a second term. Author of the best-selling The Promise: President Obama, Year [...]
Higgins, Peter. Wolfhound Century. Orbit: Hachette. Mar. 2013. 380p. ISBN 9780316219679. $25.99. Downloadable: Hachette Audio. FANTASY Inspector Vissarion Lom has been ordered to Mirgorod, his country’s corrupt capital, to ensnare a terrorist. He’s chosen not simply because he’s an outsider amid the city’s secret police, cabaret girls, and rabid party loyalists—not to mention golems and [...]
Coben, Harlan. Six Years. Dutton. Mar. 2013. 400p. ISBN 9780525953487. $27.95. THRILLER Heartbroken when wonderful Natalie marries another man, Jake Sanders tries to forget her, working hard at his career as a college professor. Six years later, when he learns that Natalie’s husband has died, he attends the funeral—only to discover that the widow, who [...]
Hamid, Mohsin. How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Mar. 2013. 240p. ISBN 9781594487293. $26.95. LITERARY FICTION The title could come from one of those get-rich-quick books that the young and ambitious eat up, and in fact Hamid imaginatively uses that genre’s format to shape his narrative. But this is [...]
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