Despite many stores cutting back on hardcover fiction as e-books continue to erode print sales, booksellers have high expectations for the fall. “This season I’m very optimistic that there are a lot of books people will want to own,” says Jason Kennedy, a bookseller/buyer at Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee. He’s not alone. “It’s been a record summer at City Lights,” says head buyer Paul Yamazaki. “The fall list is very good.” So good, in fact, that in addition to our top 20, we’ve added a baker’s dozen of titles online (on page 4 of this article). The books run the gamut from works by music stars Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, and Ry Cooder to debut fiction. All are recently released or will be by the end of the holidays.

AKASHIC BOOKS

(dist. by Consortium)

Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith by Michael Stipe. $23.95 ISBN 978-1-61775-023-6; Sept.

Following the success of Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids, Akashic is reissuing R.E.M. frontman Stipe’s black-and-white photo diary of Smith’s two-week 1995 tour. Both Smith and Stipe wrote new introductions to the book, which includes an introduction by William S. Burroughs.

ALGONQUIN BOOKS

Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron. $24.95 ISBN 978-1-61620-042-8; Jan. 2012

An Editor’s Buzz Panel book at BEA, this novel follows Jean Patrick Nkuba, a Tutsi Olympic contender in the 800-meter event, from the day he knows that running will be his life to the moment he must run to save his life during the Rwandan genocide. Winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction; 15-city tour; advertising.

CAMBRIDGE UNIV. PRESS

The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, vol. 1, 1907–1922, edited by Sandra Spanier and Robert W. Trogdon. $40 ISBN 978-0-521-89733-4; Sept.

“I’m hoping the excitement the Twain garnished [last year] will trickle down to this,” says Cathy Langer, head buyer at Tattered Cover in Denver. This could be Hemingway’s year. The novel Paris Wife is a bestseller, and this fall marks the 50th anniversary of Hemingway’s suicide. Cambridge worked with Chip Kidd on the cover, sold out a 500-copy limited edition in two hours, and is readying a second printing of the trade edition. 75,000 first printing; West Coast tour.

CITY LIGHTS

Los Angeles Stories by Ry Cooder. $15.95 paperback original ISBN 978-0-87286-519-8; Oct.; coin­cides with Cooder’s CD Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

These loosely linked, noirish tales of post-WWII Los Angeles by the singer, musician, and composer make up his first story collection. Paul Yamazaki, at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, calls it one of the most eagerly anticipated fiction titles City Lights has published in quite some time. 10,000 first printing; advertising; events in L.A. and San Francisco.

GRAYWOLF PRESS

(dist. by FSG)

In Caddis Wood by Mary Rockcastle. $14 paperback original ISBN 978-1-55597-592-0; Oct.

Told from the alternating perspectives of an architect husband and his poet wife, this novel explores the rhythms of love, family life, and professional ambition, refracted through the seasons of a long marriage. PW wrote: “As she did in her debut, Rainy Lake, Rockcastle once again melds family drama with a palpable sense of place.” Midwest events; October Midwest Connections pick.

HOUSE OF ANANSI

(dist. by PGW)

Winter: Five Windows on the Season by Adam Gopnik. $19.95 ISBN 978-0-88784-975-6; Sept.

Canadian-born Gopnik takes readers on an intimate tour of the artists, poets, composers, writers, explorers, scientists, and thinkers who helped shape the modern idea of winter. His meditation ends in the present day, as he traverses the underground city in Montreal and ponders the future of Northern culture. This is one of House of Anansi’s biggest first printings, and the book should get an extra push when Gopnik’s The Table Comes First (Knopf) is released in October. 10,000 first printing; author tour.

LAWRENCE HILL BOOKS

(dist. by IPG)

I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman by Joumana Haddad. $14.95 paperback original ISBN 978-1-56976-840-2; Sept.

The “Carrie Bradshaw of Beirut” (Sunday Telegraph) challenges notions of identity and womanhood in the Middle East and calls for Arab women to tell their own story. Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa says Haddad has written “a very courageous and illuminating book about women in the Arab world. It opens our eyes, destroys our prejudices, and is very entertaining.” 5-city tour.

MILKWEED

(dist. by PGW)

American Boy by Larry Watson. $24 ISBN 978-1-57131-078-1; Oct.

Watson returns to Milkweed 20 years after the press published his bestselling Montana 1948. “This new novel is vintage Watson. The setting—a small Midwestern town in the early ’60s—is masterfully evoked,” says publisher Daniel Slager, “an utterly riveting tale of innocence lost and wisdom gained.” Indie Next and Midwest Connections pick for October.

OXFORD UNIV. PRESS

The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean by David Abulafia, $34.95 ISBN 978-0-19-532334-4; Oct.

Published to great acclaim in the U.K., this massive work now makes its way across the Atlantic. Says Ingram’s RonWatson, “Given all the world turmoil, and especially recent events in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, I am hopeful this book will help me and other American readers have a deeper understanding of current events. It will not be a quick read, due to its 800 pages, but it should prove rewarding.”

PRINCETON UNIV. PRESS

Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful by Daniel Hamer­mesh. $24.95 ISBN 978-0-691-14046-9; Aug.

This examination of the financial payoff to looking good by the Freakonomics blogger and economist sold out its first printing in less than a month. “Hamermesh writes so lucidly and charmingly about such a compelling subject that you will never again look at a beautiful face (or an ugly one) without thinking of the many economic consequences,” writes Freakonomics coauthor Stephen Dubner. 10,000 first printing.

SCARLETTA PRESS

(dist. by PGW)

Lost in Lexicon: An Adventure in Words and Numbers by Pendred Noyce, illus. by Joan Charles. $12.95 paperback original ISBN 978-0-9830219-2-6; Aug.

Scarletta is launching a children’s line with a new edition of Noyce’s fantasy about two children on a quest to find the village of Lexicon’s missing children in a world of words and numbers running wild. Winner of an Independent Publisher Book Award silver medal, it is the first book in a four-part series. Ages 9–12. 8-city tour.

SKYHORSE PUBLISHING

Lombardi and Landry: How Two of Pro Football’s Greatest Coaches Launched Their Legends and Changed the Game by Ernie Palladino. $24.95 ISBN 978-1-61608-441-7; Sept.

A veteran sportswriter looks at the formative years that the two NFL Hall of Famers spent as assistant coaches for the New York Giants. Both went on to separate stardom, Lombardi coaching the Green Bay Packers, and Landry the Dallas Cowboys. 25,000 first printing; extra co-op.

SMALL BEER PRESS

(dist. by Consortium)

The Liminal People by Ayize Jama-Everett. $16 paperback ISBN 978-1-931520-33-1; Dec.

After self-publishing this novel, Jamal-Everett sent it to Small Beer cofounder Gavin Grant, who couldn’t put it down. Nor could Andrew Vachss: “Jama-Everett has brewed a voodoo cauldron of sci-fi, romance, crime, and superhero comic, to provide us with a true gestalt of understanding.... The Liminal People—as obviously intended—will draw different reactions from different readers. But none of them will stop reading until its cataclysmic ending.” 5-city tour.

TANGLEWOOD

(dist. by PGW)

Ashfall by Mike Mullin. $16.95 ISBN 978-1-933718-55-2; Oct.

“Mullin catapults readers into a surreal, cataclysmic world that will hold them until the last page,” says bookseller Dave Richardson of the Blue Marble Children’s Bookstore in Fort Thomas, Ky. “If you aren’t exhausted by the end of the first 30 pages, you may want to check your pulse. Ashfall is the perfect book for reluctant teen readers who can never find anything good to read.” Ages 14–up. ABC Best of 2011 catalogue.

TIN HOUSE BOOKS

(dist. by PGW)

Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page by Matt Kish. $39.95 paperback ISBN 978-1-935639-13-8; $69.95 slipcased cloth ISBN 978-1-935639-12-1; Oct.

Ohio artist Kish set out on an epic voyage of his own, to illustrate Melville’s classic by creating images based on every page of the 552-page Signet Classics edition. He deliberately chose a low-tech approach: found pages, ballpoint pen, crayon, paint, and watercolor. “I am over the moon about this book,” says Tattered Cover’s Langer. “Perfect for our new section featuring very cool books that embody the book as art and literature (i.e., not e-books).”Events in New York City.

TITLETOWN PUBLISHING

(dist. by Midpoint)

When I Fell from the Sky by Juliane Diller Koepcke, trans. by Ross Benjamin. $22.95 ISBN 978-0-9837547-0-1; Nov.

Forty years ago, then 17-year-old Koepcke was the only survivor of a flight from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru. Still strapped to her plane seat, she fell two miles and survived 11 days in the rain forest. Since its April release in Germany, this book about her ordeal has been an international bestseller appearing on the Top 10 Spiegel Bestseller List. New York city media; Good Morning America already booked.

TWO DOLLAR RADIO

(dist. by Consortium)

Damascus by Joshua Mohr. $16 paperback original ISBN 978-0-9826848-9-4; Oct.

“As Mohr’s third novel is set in a bar, the comparisons to Charles Bukowski are inevitable,” wrote Gerry Donaghy, new book purchasing supervisor at Powell’s Books in Portland, in his Indie Next nomination. “However, Mohr’s worldview is far less caustic than Buke’s, giving readers a novel that pulls off the near impossible feats of breaking your heart while lifting your soul at the same time, and finding a lust for life in characters that have nothing to lose. Mohr proves he’s a writer who can take you to the edge without throwing you into the abyss.” Excerpted in the Brooklyn Rail; October Indie Next Pick.

TOP SHELF

Infinite Kung Fu by Kagan McLeod. $24.95 flexi-cover ISBN 978-1-891830-83-9; Sept.

This spoof about an ex-soldier who must infiltrate the evil emperor’s five kung fu armies and stop him from destroying all life on the planet started online, where it attained a kind of cult status, and was only recently finished. PW’s comics guru Calvin Reid calls it “a mammoth and hilarious sendup of kung fu with a great story and fabulously goofy drawings.”

WELCOME BOOKS

Gay in America by Scott Pasfield. $45 ISBN 978-1-59962-104-3; Sept.

Photographer Pasfield traveled 52,000 miles across all 50 states over a three-year period documenting the lives of 150 gay men from all walks of life. They come in every size and shape, religion, color, and background. Their commonality draws from a single shared trait: their homosexuality. 17+ city tour; Quality Paperback and Insight Out Book Clubs.

YALE UNIV. PRESS

Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock by David Margolick. $26 ISBN 978-0-300-14193-1; Sept.

The photograph of Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery in front of Little Rock Central High School in September 1957 is an iconic American image. Margolick tells the story of how these two women, one black, the other white, had their lives unexpectedly braided together. “We all know that desegregation of schools occurred and that racial tensions still persist in America, but the author’s writing skills turn the narrative into one so suspenseful that the reader keeps turning the pages eager to learn what happens next,” says Ingram’s Watson. 5-city tour.

An Indie Baker's Dozen for Fall 2011

The list of books to look for from independent and university presses goes on: 13 more good fall season reads to supplement our Top 20 in print.

BEACON PRESS

Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words: Travels with Mom in the Land of Dementia by Kate Whouley. $24.95 ISBN 978-0-8070-0319-0; Sept.
Whouley recounts her mother's journey into Alzheimer's with honesty and compassion as she explores the complex relationship of mother and child, the nature of friendship, and the world of aging and dementia. "But ultimately, it's about what it means to be a caring human being," says Chuck Robinson, co-owner of Village Books in Bellingham, Wash. Author tour; a Sept. Indie Next Pick.

CARTOON BOOKS

RASL: Romance at the Speed of Light by Jeff Smith. $15 paperback original ISBN 978-1-888963-33-5; Dec.
In the midst of a 20th-anniversary celebration for Bone, his bestselling graphic novel series for kids, Smith is working on a very different line of books for adults that he is publishing himself in a high-quality, large, European format. This is the third in his hard-boiled sci-fi series about a dimension-jumping art thief—a man unplugged from the world, racing through space and time searching for his next big score. PW's comics editor Calvin Reid calls it "a really great book and a big change for Jeff."

CONARI

Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life's Hard Questions by Lori Deschene. $16.95 ISBN 978-1-57324-506-7; Jan. 2012
Deschene's daily wisdom tweets have a following of 148,000 people, 29,000 Facebook fans, and a Web site (tinybuddha.com) that generates millions of hits a year. In this crowd-sourced collection of wisdom on life's difficult questions, she looks at meaning, pain, happiness, and fate. Online promotion; Twitter and blog tour.

D.A.P.

(dist. by Perseus)

Apple Design, edited by Sabine Schulze and Ina Gatz $60 ISBN 978-3-7757-3011-2; Nov.
Designers will want to own this book, which features more than 200 examples of Apple designs by Jonathan Ive and his team of designers. It also examines Apple design's overt references to the simplified forms of the products manufactured by the great German brand Braun.

GIBBS SMITH

Patina Style by Brooke Giannetti and Steve Giannetti. $35 ISBN 978-1-4236-2253-6; Aug.
Oversized, with lots of photographs, this book embraces the design style of the antique, imperfect, and slightly worn and shows how to create the look by repurposing salvaged objects. With a promotion assist from an outside PR firm, the authors' popular blog, Velvet & Linen, two printings with a third not far behind, marketing director Dan Moench says, "We expected this book to do well, but we didn't quite expect it to do this well so quickly."

HARVARD UNIV. PRESS

Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age by Robert N. Bellah. $39.95 ISBN 978-0-674-06143-9; Sept.
From the author of Habits of the Heart comes a wide-ranging work on the origins of religion. "In this magisterial effort," writes PW, "eminent sociologist of religion Bellah attempts nothing less than to show the ways that the evolution of certain capacities among humans provided the foundation for religion."

HAWTHORNE

(dist. by PGW)

The Luminist by David Rocklin, intro. by Jacquelyn Mitchard. $16.95 paperback original ISBN 978-0-9790188-7-9; Oct.
Based loosely on the life and work of photographic pioneer Julia Margaret Cameron, this novel filters 19th-century Ceylon through the lens of an English woman and a 15-year-old Tamil boy. "In this extraordinary debut, Rocklin takes us to the heart of photography's unlikely origins through language that shimmers like the art of light itself," says novelist Aimee Liu (Flash House and Cloud Mountain). 8-city tour.

MELVILLE HOUSE

(dist. by Random House)

The Fallback Plan by Leigh Stein. $14.95 paperback original ISBN 978-1-61219-042-6; Jan.
In her fiction debut, poet and former New Yorker staffer Stein writes about a recent college graduate whose plans include returning to her parents' suburban home, taking old prescription pain pills, hanging out with her unrequited high school crush, and re-reading her favorite children's books. Her mother has other ideas and volunteers her to work as a nanny for four-year-old May. 25,000 first printing; 9-city tour; advertising; videos series featuring a puppet panda.

OPEN LETTER

Karaoke Culture by Dubravka Ugresic, trans. by David Williams. $15.95 paperback original ISBN 978-1-934824-57-3; Oct.
Over the past three decades, Ugresic has pierced pop culture, dissecting the absurdity of daily life with wit and style. Open Letter founder Chad Post considers this Ugresic's best book to date and one of the best books the press has published.

SEVEN STORIES

(dist. by Random House)

Maonomics: Why Chinese Communists Make Better Capitalists Than We Do by Loretta Napoleoni. $26.95 ISBN 978-1-60980-341-4; Oct.
Economist Napoleoni, an expert on terrorist financing and money laundering, and a regular correspondent for La Stampa, Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, El Pais, and Le Monde, is not well-known in the States. Seven Stories expects to change that with this evaluation of the Western economic and political system and its collapse, as compared with China's growth through "communism with a profit motive." 6-city tour.

UNBRIDLED BOOKS

Touch and Go by Thad Nodine. $16.95 paperback original ISBN 978-1-60953-061-7; Sept.
A blind recovering addict gets into an old station wagon with his sponsors and their foster family to drive from California to Florida to deliver a handmade casket . Along the way, all manner of things show up in the empty casket, as this ragtag family falls prey to love, lies, greed, violence, and Katrina. Blog tour.

UNIV. OF MINNESOTA PRESS

Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy by Kathy Rudy. $24.95 ISBN 978-0-8166-7468-8; Sept.
Rudy argues that in order to achieve such goals as ending animal testing and factory farming, activists need to be better attuned to the emotional, even spiritual attachment many people have with the animals in their lives. "Should be read by everyone who is concerned about the ethics of our relationship with animals," says animal scientist Temple Grandin (Animals Make Us Human). Advertising.

UNIV. OF NEBRASKA PRESS

Bohemian Girl by Terese Svoboda. $14.95 paperback original ISBN 978-0-8032-2682-1; Sept.
Harriet's father sells her as a slave to settle his gambling debt with an eccentric Indian. After she gets away, she befriends a Jewish prairie peddler, runs away with a chanteuse, is imprisoned in a stockade, escapes and becomes an accidental shopkeeper and surrogate mother to an abandoned child. "Harriet's observations of the world and her small place in it are insightful and often touching. And Svoboda often displays a poet's touch with language and imagery," writes PW. Advertising; appearances at the Brooklyn and Omaha Lit Fests.