“Names, names, NAMES!”
If you were a fan of Absolutely Fabulous, you may remember Edina’s highest praise for an event — it was filled with names, names, NAMES! If Edina liked books (doubtful), she’d LOVE the Fall ’09 book season.
But, even more than being chock-a-block with names, this is a season when the words “highly anticipated” will dominate review coverage. Many authors are releasing their first book in several years and others are following up on an enormous, sometimes surprise, success.
Pat Conroy’s South of Broad, out now, belongs in the first category. We are also looking forward to books by Lorrie Moore (eleven years since her last), E. L. Doctorow, Margaret Drabble, Jill McCorkle, A.S. Byatt, John Irving and Barbara Kingsolver’s first novel since 2000 (her 2007 title, Animal, Vegetable Mineral, was nonfiction).
Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol is the major example of a book that follows on the heels of an enormous success, but there are many more:
Sue Monk Kidd (Secret Life of Bees) and her daughter team up on a memoir:
 |
| Retail Price: |
$25.95 |
| Hardcover: |
304 pages |
| Publisher: |
Viking Adult – (2009-09-08) |
| ISBN / EAN: |
0670021202 / 9780670021208 |
|
Diane Ackerman follows her surprise hit, The Zookeeper’s Daugher, with a book of personal meditations.
 |
| Retail Price: |
$24.95 |
| Hardcover: |
256 pages |
| Publisher: |
W.W. Norton & Co. – (2009-09-28) |
| ISBN / EAN: |
0393061736 / 9780393061734 |
|
Scribner has a lot riding on their $5 million bet on Audrey Niffenegger’s second novel after The Time Traveler’s Wife.
 |
| Retail Price: |
$26.99 |
| Hardcover: |
416 pages |
| Publisher: |
Scribner – (2009-09-29) |
| ISBN / EAN: |
1439165394 / 9781439165393 |
|
Jeannette Walls, follows the huge success of her memoir, The Glass Castle, with a “true-life novel” about her grandmother.
 |
| Retail Price: |
$26.00 |
| Hardcover: |
288 pages |
| Publisher: |
Scribner – (2009-10-06) |
| ISBN / EAN: |
1416586288 / 9781416586289 |
|
Mary Karr, one of the pioneers of the ongoing craze for memoirs, publishes her third memoir after Liar’s Club and Cherry.
 |
| Retail Price: |
$25.99 |
| Hardcover: |
400 pages |
| Publisher: |
Harper – (2009-11-01) |
| ISBN / EAN: |
0060596988 / 9780060596989 |
|
Greg Mortensen, publishes a sequel to Three Cups of Tea.
 |
| Retail Price: |
$25.95 |
| Hardcover: |
352 pages |
| Publisher: |
Viking Adult – (2009-12-01) |
| ISBN / EAN: |
0670021156 / 9780670021154 |
|
Elizabeth Gilbert’s follow-up to Eat, Pray Love arrives in January (while most of us don’t think of January as the Fall, publishers do).
 |
| Retail Price: |
$26.95 |
| Hardcover: |
304 pages |
| Publisher: |
Viking Adult – (2010-01-05) |
| ISBN / EAN: |
0670021652 / 9780670021659 |
|
Elizabeth Kostova made history in 2005 with The Historian. It’s the only debut novel to hit the NYT bestseller list at #1 during its first week on sale.
 |
| Retail Price: |
$26.99 |
| Hardcover: |
560 pages |
| Publisher: |
Little, Brown and Company – (2010-01-12) |
| ISBN / EAN: |
0316065781 / 9780316065788 |
|
To help you keep it all straight, we’ve put together a spreadsheet of the big names coming this fall, click here to download it.
We are also adding links to other previews of the season as they appear (see “Books of Fall ’09 — Previews” at right).
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September 1st, 2009 at 11:48 am
I got my hands on a galley of New World Monkeys from Shaye Areheart books. This is author Nancy Mauro’s debut novel; it’s surprising, twisted and full of bravado from cover to cover.