There were so many books at BEA that have good buzz; books everyone is talking about that will be out soon. These are the ones I was able to get, and you'll hear more from me as I read them.
A perfect book for Father's Day is Michael Lewis' Home Game. Lewis wrote the baseball book, Moneyball, about how the Oakland A's revolutionized the way the front office of a major league baseball team built their team. Home Game is a funny, touching look at modern day fatherhood from his personal perspective. I saw him on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and he was hysterical. Give it to your favorite new dad.
Crazy for the Storm, by Norman Ollestad, is a memoir about an eleven-year-old boy who was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed his father. There is a lot in here about his relationship with his dad, so it's also a good choice for Father's Day. Everyone is talking about this one, and you'll be sure to hear more about it soon.
There's a new biography coming out in October, How to Be a Movie Star- Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, by William Mann. His previous books include a well reviewed biography of Katherine Hepburn. The cover of this book has a gorgeous photo of a stunning young Elizabeth Taylor.
Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder's newest book is Strength in What Remains, the true story of young boy who escapes from war-torn Africa and ends up living in Central Park in New York City. It publishes in August. Kidder spoke at a breakfast at BEA, and this one sounds as great as his book on Paul Farmer.
Jeannette Walls, who wrote the terrific memoir, The Glass Castle, is back with a true-life novel, Half Broke Horses, about her grandmother's life. It's drawn comparisons to Out of Africa and West with the Night. Walls also spoke at the breakfast, and said that she wrote this book because people had asked her so many questions about her mother's life. As she dug deeper into her mother's life, her grandmother's story just became so strong, she knew she had to write it.
Fiction books that are causing a buzz include Pete Dexter's new novel Spooner, about a man and his stepson, out in September.
Simon and Schuster is high on Nicholas Baker's newest literary fiction, The Anthologist, and people were scooping that one up quickly.
Joshua Ferris' debut novel And Then We Came to the End won heaps of praise, and everyone is looking forward to his next effort, The Unnamed, due in January 2010.
Lorrie Moore has a story set just after 9/11, The Gate at the Stairs, and she spoke at a luncheon and was deadpan funny. This novel is a serious one, and many people are very excited about this new one from the multi-award winning author, out in September.
Two books I have loved forever are Gone With the Wind and The Thorn Birds, and Leila Meacham's Roses, is billed as a successor to those. It's a multi-generational saga set in east Texas, and it's due in January 2010.
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