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Best Books of BEA

by Charlotte Abbott -- Publishers Weekly, 5/2/2005

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Those browsing for giveaways will find that many big names are back. What's more, the lineup leaves some room for newcomers in our annual guide to BEA's galley highlights.

This could be another E.L. Doctorow moment. Historical fiction keeps getting hotter, and the man who woke it up it with Ragtime (1975) has a new tale set during the Civil War that Random House says is his best in many years. Encompassing generals, enlisted men, plantation families and freed slaves, The March (Sept.) follows Sherman's campaign through Georgia and the Carolinas. Look for ARCs in the Random booth (4139).

Nobel Prize recipient and two-time Booker winner J.M. Coetzee also returns with Slow Man (Viking, Sept.; booths 3355, 3455), a meditation on humanity by a photographer who lost a leg in a bicycling accident. Will the book clubs that made Disgrace (1999) a surprise bestseller, but didn't turn out as readily for Elizabeth Costello(2003), pick this one up?

Ever since Myla Goldberg's Bee Season(2000) began its long bestseller run, readers have been clamoring for an encore. Now, retailers are hoping that Wickett's Remedy(Doubleday, Sept.; booth 4139)—about an Irish shop girl who marries a Boston Brahmin medical student just before the 1918 flu epidemic sweeps the world—will prove worth the wait. Some say it has a Greek chorus that can be a little distracting, but feature coverage is almost guaranteed as the movie version of Bee Season, starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche, bows on September 30. Goldberg will be a breakfast speaker on Saturday, June 4, 8 a.m., Special Events Hall.

Bona fide literary genius Mark Helprin's first novel in 10 years is a laugh-out-loud tale of the British royal family? Unlikely as it sounds, that's how one reader at Book People bookstore in Austin, Tex., described Freddy and Fredericka(Penguin Press, July; booth 3455).

Nick Hornby's back with a new novel from Riverhead, after dallying with nonfiction at McSweeney's. A Long Way Down(June; booth 3455) is the story of three Brits and an American who meet on a London rooftop that's a famous suicide launching pad. Amazon's preorders are strong, but some are finding it contrived. "I want him to go back to High Fidelity, and with every book he gets further away," said Amazon senior editor Brad Parsons. Hornby is a luncheon speaker on Saturday, June 4, at noon, Special Events Hall.

Rick Moody may have lost a little luster after his dustup with critic and novelist Dale Peck, but he hasn't lost his serious young readers. With The Diviners (Little, Brown, Sept.; booth 3947, 3949), he leaves behind the postmodern trickery of his memoir, The Black Veil (2002), for a tale of movie business strivers in pursuit of a TV saga that begins with Huns in Mongolia and closes with a Mormon diviner in Las Vegas.

On the nonfiction side, two major names deliver their second books after a wait of about a decade. John Berendt, author of the nonfiction phenom Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994) is back with City of Falling Angels, in which he plumbs the decadent mysteries of Venice (Penguin Press, Oct.; booth 3455). And after scoring big with the true-crime thriller A Civil Action (1995), Jonathan Harr offers The Lost Painting(Random, Nov.),a true story of the search for a lost masterpiece by Caravaggio, with plenty of side trips into the scandalous life of the artist. Signing in booth 4139 on Friday, June 3, at 11 a.m.

Berendt and Harr better watch out for Mary Roach—a wildcard who could top them both. While her sleeper hit Stiff (2003) explored the weird and fascinating fate of our bodies after death, her second book, Spook (Norton, Oct.; booth 3738, 3739), goes soul-searching. "The idea of trying to prove anything about the soul through postmortems sounds quirky enough to capture the imagination of just about everybody," said Betsy Burton, co-owner of the King's English bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Meanwhile, Barbara Ehrenreich goes back undercover to scrutinize the lives of America's ailing middle class in Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream (Holt, Sept.; booth 3638–3639), with the same tart candor that she brought to the working poor in her bestselling Nickel and Dimed.Ever-popular Karen Armstrong is also back with A Short History of Myth(Oct.; booth 2739-2743), launching Canongate's ambitious Myths series of small format hardcovers that will also feature short works by Margaret Atwood and others.

Debuts to Watch Returning Favorites Notable Nonfiction

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