The regional trade shows give booksellers a chance to hedge fall bets and read ahead on winter titles. To find out which galleys are most likely to snag their attention, PW checked in with Elaine Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., and Stan Hynds, buyer at Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vt. We also invited Amazon.com editor Brad Parsons to weigh in, though he won't be attending the indie-oriented events, which begin next week and continue through October. (Titles below will be available at all shows unless otherwise noted.)
A new Jane Smiley novel will always be one of the most alluring galleys at any show, and what could be more fun than her version of a Hollywood novel? Modeled on Boccaccio's Decameron (the ultimate escapist tale, written during the plague in 1350), Ten Days in the Hills (Knopf, Feb.) is a romp among a group of friends and family members in L.A. that's filled with sex and storytelling.
All three booksellers we talked to also have high hopes for the latest from Jonathan Lethem—another author who doesn't write the same book twice. So forget Brooklyn and pot-infused graffiti fantasies—he's headed to L.A., for You Don't Love Me Yet (Mar.), a romantic farce complete with "mistaken identities and misdirected attractions, with a very 21st-century feel," according to Doubleday. And yes, that's Lethem's mug on the front jacket—the 21st-century author photo? "Lethem has a lot of fans and a lot of skeptics, but the last book did really well for us," says Amazon's Parsons. (All shows except SEBA, GLBA and SCBA.)
Lalita Tademy also delivers a highly anticipated followup novel. She wrote the 2002 Oprah Book Club pick Cane River after leaving her job as a Fortune 500 exec and researching her mother's Louisiana family. Now, she's rooted her second novel, Red River (Warner, Jan.; simultaneous audiobook), in her father's Colfax, La., family tree. "She's a great storyteller and her characters stick with you forever," observes Book Passage's Petrocelli. "We still sell Cane River in stacks."
Booksellers first heard about Vikram Chandra's fourth novel, Sacred Games (Jan.) when HarperCollins acquired it for a cool $1 million. Then editorial director Jonathan Burnham pitched the Dickensian story of an organized crime family in Mumbai, India at PW's BEA Buzz Panel. Now, knee-deep in the 912-page galley, Northshire's Hynds reports: "I never read a book that big before, but I keep find myself wanting to get back to it." (Chandra will speak at PNBA.)
Another indie bookseller favorite, Jim Harrison, is back with Returning to Earth (Grove, Jan.), a novel about a dying man's decision to share family stories from his Chippewa-Finnish heritage he's never told anyone before. "He has a poet's ear, and it really strengthens the beauty of the fiction," says Petrocelli, who sees a "wide but not necessarily growing audience" for the Michigan writer.
Immigrant Songs
Dinaw Mengestu's debut novel, about an Ethiopian grocery store owner in Washington, D.C., The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead, Mar.), is capturing the attention of both Petrocelli and Parsons. "It's my kind of book—exploring cultural differences with great writing. And there's lots of interest among my customers about Ethiopia," Petrocelli says.
Always on the lookout for immigrant stories by young writers, Parsons is also drawn to The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Harcourt, Apr.), a novel set in New York about a Pakistani man who falls in love with a society woman, but must face seismic shifts in their relationship after 9/11. It's the second novel by Mohsin Hamid, a Londoner who grew up in Pakistan and attended Princeton and Harvard Law School.
Northshire's Hynds is looking forward to Daniel Alarcón's first novel, Lost City Radio (HarperCollins, Feb.), about the wide-reaching effects of a South American war, which follows his well-reviewed 2005 story collection, War by Candlelight. Not just another Iowa Writer's Workshop grad who made his debut in the New Yorker, Alarcón was born in Peru, raised in Alabama and schooled as an undergrad at Columbia University before he returned to Peru on a Fulbright scholarship.
Season of Suspense
Now on his 14th novel, Nelson DeMille is a fixture on the bestseller lists, and he still gets booksellers excited. Both Hynds and Petrocelli single out his new Jack Corey novel, Wild Fire (Warner, Nov.; simultaneous audio and large-print editions). A Vietnam veteran and ex-NYPD detective, Corey is "a fascinating character, imperfect and wonderful," says Petrocelli, explaining that anticipation is high because DeMille hasn't written about him since 2004's Night Fall. Vermont-based Hynds is particularly excited about the Adirondack setting for this tale of a conspiracy to detonate nuclear bombs in two American cities.
Petrocelli also admires Robert Wilson, winner of Britain's Gold Dagger Award for 2002's A Small Death in Lisbon, who is developing a loyal audience after eight novels. His latest, The Hidden Assassins (Harcourt, Nov.), is set in Seville after an explosion rocks an apartment building that hides a mosque. "He has a fabulous sense of place, and never lets the suspense stop," says Petrocelli. "His books appeal to mystery readers and people who love to travel, which definitely works for my store."
As Amazon's Parson notes, there's no ignoring Walter Mosely, who's stepping out with Killing Johnny Fry (Jan.) an erotic noir novel about a man's "sexistential crisis" and his search for redemption. Judging by the pink latex wrapper in which Bloomsbury enclosed some early copies, this isn't for fuddy-duddies. (All shows except SCBA.)
Parsons will also look out for Deep Storm (Doubleday, Jan.), a standalone novel and potential breakout for Lincoln Child,known for his bestselling collaborations with Doug Preston. Set 12,000 feet below the North Atlantic ocean, this one's about an archeological discovery that could be the greatest in history—or the most terrifying. (All shows except SCBA)
Not every grail-chasing yarn draws the Da Vinci Code faithful, but some knock-offs are still pulling in enough readers to make it worth perusing Julia Navarro's The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud, trans. by Andrew Hurley (Bantam, Jan.). Similar to Javier Serra's recent bestseller, The Secret Supper, this one topped the list in Spain and sold a million copies across Europe. It begins with a fire in the Cathedral of Turin, where the Holy Shroud is kept, which prompts an investigation by the Italian Art Crimes Department. Generic or inspired? You be the judge. (All shows except NEBA, MBA and SCBA.)
Nod to Nonfiction
Historian Alex Kershaw's reputation has been growing since 2001's The Bedford Boys became a bestseller. Hynds and Parsons see potential for another national breakout with The Few: The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain (DaCapo, Nov.). "It's very hard to find untold stories from WWII, but this is about the Americans who flew for the RAF before the U.S. joined the war," says Parsons. "It could be the Band of Brothers for this year."
Louis Theroux's The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures (DaCapo, Feb.) is also turning heads. "He's a stiff, awkward British guy, but with this dry humor and wit. I'm a huge fan of the show he had on Bravo," Parsons says. For Petrocelli, "the combination of travel and weird is so great. And," she observes, "the son of Paul Theroux must know that the stranger the trip is, the better."
Also at the Shows
•The Far Country by Daniel Mason(Knopf, Mar.) is the story of a young girl with prophetic powers who leaves her village in a distant land and goes searching for her brother; it's the second novel by the author of 2002's The Piano Tuner.
•In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar (Dial, Feb.) is a first novel about a family facing its powerlessness in the world, told by a nine-year-old boy in Tripoli. (Not at NEBA and SCBA.)
•The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery (Riverhead, Dec.) is a debut novel set in late 19th-century Japan, about the intertwined fates of an American woman and a Japanese woman. (Not at NCIBA, SCBA and PNBA)
•Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom (Harper Paperbacks, Jan.) launches a series about a mobile library in Ireland and the pudgy, vegetarian Jewish sleuth who drives it.
•Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (Morrow, Feb.) is a debut thriller with a supernatural twist by an author who won two Bram Stoker Awards for "long fiction."
•The Religion by Tim Willocks (FSG/Sarah Crichton, May) is the first installment in an epic fictional trilogy set during the great medieval conflict between Islam and Christianity.
•Halsey's Typhoon by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin (Atlantic Monthly, Jan.) tells the true story of a popular U.S. naval hero who unwittingly sailed his fleet into "the most powerful storm on earth" while attempting to invade the Philippines.n
