BENBELLA BOOKS (dist. by IPG)

Perfectly Plum: On the Life, Loves and Other Disasters of Stephanie Plum, Trenton Bounty Hunter (Feb., $17.95), edited by Leah Wilson, explores the many facets of Janet Evanovich’s popular mystery heroine. Ad/promo.

CHICAGO REVIEW PRESS (dist. by IPG)

Masters of the Comic Book Universe Revealed! (Sept., $18.95) by Arie Kaplan discusses the creators of several notable comics and graphic novels.

WM. B. EERDMANS

There Before Us: Religion, Literature, and Culture from Emerson to Wendell Berry (Nov., $18), edited by Roger Lundin, looks at the interplay of religion and literature in modern American culture.

GRAYWOLF PRESS

Native American Fiction: A User’s Manual (Sept., $15) by David Treuer examines this literature on its own terms. Author tour.

Neck Deep (Feb., $15) by Ander Monson. The second winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize employs innovative forms of expression.

HARVARD UNIV./BELKNAP PRESS

The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire (Nov., $15.95) by Walter Benjamin. Michael W. Jennings edited these seminal pieces by Benjamin (1892—1940).

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

The Best American Essays 2006 (Oct.; $14, cloth $28), edited by Lauren Slater, includes such contributors as Adam Gopnik, Scott Turow and Marjorie Williams.

NEW YORK UNIV. PRESS

Up Is Up, but So Is Down: New York’s Downtown Literary Scene, 1974—1992 (Oct., $29.95), edited by Brandon Stosuy, gathers nearly 20 years of the city’s smartest writing.

OXFORD UNIV. PRESS

The Curse of Caste, Or, The Slave Bride (Oct., $13.95) by Julia C. Collins, edited by William L. Andrews and Mitch Kachun, presents two endings to this novel by an African-American woman who left it unfinished at her death in 1865.

PICADOR

The Paris Review Interviews, I (Nov., $15), assembles interviews with such celebrated writers as Bellow, Hemingway, Vonnegut and Capote.

PUSHCART PRESS

Pushcart Prize XXXI: Best of the Small Presses 2007 (Dec., $16.95), edited by Bill Henderson with the Pushcart Prize editors, collects more than 60 stories, essays, memoirs and poems.

SARABANDE BOOKS

The Memory Palace of Isabella Stewart Gardner (Feb., $15.95) by Patricia Vigderman pays tribute to the patron of the arts and her Boston museum.

THREE RIVERS

Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit and Devotion (Jan., $14.95), edited by Daniel Jones. Essays range from one by a former Moonie to another by a female National Guard sergeant.

UNIV. OF MICHIGAN PRESS

The Passionate Spectator: Essays on Art and Poetry (Nov.; $18.95, cloth $49.50) by John Yau brings together works by the New York poet and art critic.

UNIV. OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

Rhetorical Occasions: Essays on Humans and the Humanities (Oct.; $21.50, cloth $55) by Michael Bérubé gathers 24 major essays and reviews, including entries from his blog.