Oh, the wonderful perfume of autumn! Burning leaves, just-opened bags of candy corn, the mildewy musk of that sweater you forgot to wash before you put it in the drawer last March. And that oh-so-heady nose-tang from fresh-cut pages of new books. Big books! Winter doorstoppers! Settling in by the fireplace for a long-winter's eve with Stephen King! This is the season of bookseller buzz, and this Fall and Winter promise to be especially good ones for readers.
Here are just a few of the titles I'm really looking forward to in the coming months...
West of Here
by Jonathan Evison. The life of a Washington-state community is told in narrative segments that alternate between the town's founders in the 1890s and their decendants in 2006. The back-cover copy says this novel "develops as a kind of conversation between two epochs--one rushing blindly toward the future and the other strugglig to undo the damage of the past." It looks like Evison takes some risks. I like that in a writer.
Witches on the Road Tonight
by Sheri Holman. Try to ignore that horrible cover design. Holman's The Mammoth Cheese 
had a lousy cover, too. But I loved, loved, LOVED The Mammoth Cheese and Holman's earlier novel, The Dress Lodger
. Based on those two novels alone, I'd follow Holman anywhere, down any road.
The Instructions
by Adam Levin. This is the doorstopper to end all doorstoppers. Not only hefty in size (1,030 pages), it's big in intent. The Chicago Sun-Times said, "The Chicago author, whose 1,000-plus-page story is about a juvenile delinquent with messianic tendencies who starts a revolution, is being compared to the late David Foster Wallace." I have a bound galley. I've read a few pages. If I didn't have all these other books demanding my attention right now, I would have been sucked into the quicksand.
Long, Last, Happy
by Barry Hannah. I've been told I need to read Barry Hannah, the renowned short-story writer who died earlier this year. I have never read Barry Hannah. That is about to change this winter.
Driving on the Rim
by Thomas McGuane. The Big Sky Bard returns with another novel about New Westerners living in thinly-disguised Livingston, Montana. I am so there.
Full Dark, No Stars
by Stephen King. Four new novellas from The Master. I am still so there. (And what a great cover!)
So those are my Slobbering Anticipations. What about you? What are you planning to read (new or old) this cozy season?
Here are just a few of the titles I'm really looking forward to in the coming months...
West of Here
by Jonathan Evison. The life of a Washington-state community is told in narrative segments that alternate between the town's founders in the 1890s and their decendants in 2006. The back-cover copy says this novel "develops as a kind of conversation between two epochs--one rushing blindly toward the future and the other strugglig to undo the damage of the past." It looks like Evison takes some risks. I like that in a writer.
Witches on the Road Tonight
by Sheri Holman. Try to ignore that horrible cover design. Holman's The Mammoth Cheese had a lousy cover, too. But I loved, loved, LOVED The Mammoth Cheese and Holman's earlier novel, The Dress Lodger. Based on those two novels alone, I'd follow Holman anywhere, down any road.
The Instructions
by Adam Levin. This is the doorstopper to end all doorstoppers. Not only hefty in size (1,030 pages), it's big in intent. The Chicago Sun-Times said, "The Chicago author, whose 1,000-plus-page story is about a juvenile delinquent with messianic tendencies who starts a revolution, is being compared to the late David Foster Wallace." I have a bound galley. I've read a few pages. If I didn't have all these other books demanding my attention right now, I would have been sucked into the quicksand.
Long, Last, Happy
by Barry Hannah. I've been told I need to read Barry Hannah, the renowned short-story writer who died earlier this year. I have never read Barry Hannah. That is about to change this winter.
Driving on the Rim
by Thomas McGuane. The Big Sky Bard returns with another novel about New Westerners living in thinly-disguised Livingston, Montana. I am so there.
Full Dark, No Stars
by Stephen King. Four new novellas from The Master. I am still so there. (And what a great cover!)So those are my Slobbering Anticipations. What about you? What are you planning to read (new or old) this cozy season?
Apparently, you weren't the only one unhappy with the Sheri Holman Witches on the Road Tonight book jacket...there's a fresh one showing up for publication. (Although I'm with you on turning a blind eye to covers and just diving into Holman's books.)
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