Fall authors favored for the biggest prizes and fresh voices vying for attention are what BEA's all about. Names like Alice Sebold, Haven Kimmel, Ann Patchett, Philip Roth, Junot Diaz, Amy Bloom and Denis Johnson may be most sought-after this year, but the best booksellers always scout for up-and-comers like Noah Charney, Alice Kuipers and Nancy Horan. To cull this shortlist from daunting heaps of submissions, we enlisted Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the three Tattered Cover stores in the Denver area; Doug Dutton, owner of Dutton's Brentwood Books in Los Angeles; Suzanne Farr, Borders Group fiction buyer; and Deb Covey, buyer for the seven Joseph-Beth/Davis-Kidd stores in the midwest and south. Their instincts often led to the same books, but since few galleys are available yet, opinions with real teeth will have to wait until after the plane ride home.
Rising Stars
Covey, Dutton and Langer all spotted The Art Thief (Atria, Sept.; booths 3938-3939), a debut novel that follows art theft investigations in three cities. For Covey, the appeal is James Bond—style high jinks with art history lessons thrown in. Author Noah Charney's background in art crime prevention and Ph.D from Cambridge shouldn't hurt, either.
But wait—there's a second Cambridge grad with a tantalizing hook. “Atonement meets The Secret History,” promises Simon Spotlight Entertainment's pitch for Ivo Stourton's Night Climbers (Sept.; 3938-3939). “That grabbed my attention, and now I want to grab a galley,” says Langer. But Dutton cautions, “Whether the premise works or not ought to be answered within the first 50 pages.”
Covey and Langer predict that Alice Kuipers's Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes Between a Mother and Daughter (HarperCollins, Sept.; 3338), an epistolary novel-in-sticky-notes about a household facing breast cancer,will hit home. “Family life is lived so fast now, with members popping in and out of the house,” explains Covey. “The refrigerator is really one of the few places common to everybody.”
A bestselling and award-winning poet and previously published fiction author in the U.K., Sophie Hannah has turned her pen to her first psychological crime novel, Little Face (Soho, Oct; 2443). To Borders's Farr, that suggests this story of a woman who's convinced her husband switched her infant with another probably “has loads of tension.”
“Not just erotica, but literary erotica!” exulted Dutton when he caught sight of Smut 2007 (Chronicle, Oct.; 2639, 2739), edited by Nerve.com. Just in case Tom Perrotta's new novel doesn't cut it and the inflight movie stinks, he'll tuck this into his carry-on for the return trip, he says.
Covey's looking forward to Nancy Horgan'sLoving Frank (Ballantine, Aug.; 4238). “The midwest loves Frank Lloyd Wright,” she observes. “Combine that with a tragic love affair and I think you could have a hit.”
Langer, meanwhile, is bullish aboutMissing Witness (Morrow, Oct; 3338), a legal thriller by Gordon Campbell, an attorney and friend of Betsy Burton, owner of Salt Lake City bookstore the King's English, who told Langer this novel was “really, really good.”
Much-Anticipated Returns
Booksellers Farr, Covey and Langer are resting much of their hopes for a strong fall on The Almost Moonby Alice Sebold (Little, Brown, Oct.; 3744, 3746), author of the 2002 phenom The Lovely Bones. But can this tale of a woman who murders her mother break the rules all over again? (Sebold is a breakfast speaker on Sunday, June 2, and will sign books afterward in the Little, Brown booth, 10—11 a.m.)
Having laid her hands on an early galley of Pulitzer Prize—winner Richard Russo'sThe Bridge of Sighs (Knopf, Oct. 2; 4238), Langer plans to sell this story by daring her customers not to love the richly drawn characters and their flawed but fully lived lives.
Langer also expects a ready audience for Ann Patchett's Run (HarperCollins, Oct.; 3338; signing on Saturday, June 2). The story of an Irish-Catholic former mayor of Boston and his two adopted African-American sons follows the author's runaway book club favorite, Bel Canto.
For readers seeking a different perspective, there's Ha Jin'sA Free Life (Pantheon, Oct.; 4238; signing on Saturday, June 2, 9 a.m.). This tale of Chinese immigrants is the author's first to be set in the U.S.; Langer's been looking forward to it since hearing him discuss it several years ago.
On the lighter side, Covey and Langer so love Haven Kimmel's voice in her two memoirs (A Girl Named Zippy and She Got Up off the Couch) that they're quite willing to take a chance on her second novel, The Used World (Free Press, Sept.; 3938-3939), even though her first novel didn't sell as well as expected. “She's like a stand-up comedian,” Covey says.
Meanwhile, Tom Perrotta has yet to disappoint, says Dutton. The comic—and potentially tragic—setup for his new novel, The Abstinence Teacher (St. Martin's, Oct; 3642; signing on Friday, June 1, 3-4 p.m.), involves sex education, evangelicals and the suburbs.
Other picks include:
Andrea Barrett'sThe Air We Breathe (Norton, Oct.; 3843; author appearance TBA): her first novel after the National Book Award—winning story collection Ship Fever.
Valerie Martin'sTrespass (Doubleday/Talese, Sept.; 4238): a novel by an author “whose work is always interesting in terms of plotting, complexity and style,” says Dutton.
Stephanie Kallos's Sing Them Home (Atlantic Monthly, Sept.; 4202, 4204, 4206): a second novel about three grown siblings whose mother disappearared when they were small, by the author of Today Show book club pick Broken for You.
Gail Tsukiyama'sThe Street of a Thousand Blossoms (St. Martin's, Sept.; 3642): a generational saga centering on two brothers in Japan around the time of WWII, by a favorite author of the Tattered Cover's staff and customers.
Nonfiction
The ideal boomer gift book, say Covey and Langer, could be Charles Grodin's collection of essays by celebrities on their biggest mistakes, If Only I Knew Then (Warner/Springboard, Nov.; 3738, 3739).
For dog lovers looking for the next Marley and Me, Covey and Langer also spotted Judith Summers's My Life with George (Hyperion, Nov.; 3956), the tale of how her Cavalier King Charles spaniel helped her and her young son mourn the deaths of her husband and her father barely two weeks apart.
Irreverent types may enjoy A.J. Jacobs's The Year of Living Biblically (S&S, Oct.; signing in booth 3938 on Friday, June 1), which prompted Dutton to exclaim, “Good luck, A.J., you'll have to forget everything you learned in the Encyclopedia Britannica!”
A favorite of serious history readers, Pulitzer Prize—winning historian Rick Atkinson follows the U.S. and British armies as they invade Sicily in 1943 and fight their way to Romein The Day of Battle (Holt, Oct.; 3649).
Last but not least, Covey can't wait to grab Ian Harrison's Take Me to Your Leader (DK, Oct.; 2657), a compendium of curious and compelling examples of the world we humans have created—from dressed-up dogs to extreme sports. “I feel big holiday numbers coming,” says Covey. “It looks like a lot of fun!”
