FICTION
Released: Dec. 24, 2012
"Astonishing stuff that leaves readers with plenty of work to do."
Second installment of Wright's ferociously dense and convoluted far-future space opera involving hyperintelligence, aliens and artificial evolution (
Count to a Trillion, 2011). Warning up front: read the first book first.
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FICTION
Released: Nov. 20, 2012
"Maron (Three-Day Town, 2011, etc.) adroitly melds ugly American (open) government secrets with classic whodunit intrigue and stirs the pot by itemizing domestic travails that will touch readers' hearts."
FICTION
Released: Nov. 13, 2012
"A Cold-War spy novel for the top shelf."
FICTION
Released: Nov. 13, 2012
"The author knows what matters, and the stories pay attention to it."
A revelation, from the most accomplished and acclaimed of contemporary short story writers.
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FICTION
Released: Nov. 6, 2012
"A top-notch, edge-of-the-seat thriller in which there are no villains, only mysteries."
This first collaboration from McDevitt (
Firebird, 2011, etc.) and Resnick (
The Doctor and the Kid, 2011, etc.), developed from a 2010 story by McDevitt (spoiler alert: don't read the story first), takes the form of a conspiracy involving the moon landings. And no, Stanley Kubrick didn't fake them.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 23, 2012
"The setup is wonderfully engrossing; the denouement doesn't deliver quite enough. But this is stylish work by an author of real promise."
Elegant and multifaceted, Engelmann's debut explores love and connection in late-18th-century Sweden and delivers an unusual, richly imagined read.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 16, 2012
"Guy's not a lucky guy, to be sure, but if there's justice, Jacobson will enjoy best-sellerdom in his place with this latest romp."
Bad-boy funnyman Jacobson waxes pensive and topical--but no less mirthful--in his latest assault on the foibles of modern life.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 11, 2012
"Short stories don't get much better than this, and for once, the overarching framework strengthens rather than dissipates their effectiveness."
Elegantly structured, emotionally compelling fiction from novelist/memoirist Wickersham (
The Suicide Index, 2008, etc.).
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 9, 2012
"The ideal companion to the elevation of Hildegard by the pontiff who rebuked American nuns for their outspokenness, an irony the saint herself might have relished."
A fictionalized biography of medieval mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Its publication will coincide with her appointment as a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 9, 2012
"Sheer delight."
Addition to Banks' wonderful space-opera series (without the middle initial, he also writes impressive mainstream novels) about the far-future galactic Culture (
Surface Detail, 2010, etc.), a liberal-anarchic, multispecies civilization guided and sustained, more or less invisibly, by Minds, artificial intelligences that take such physical forms as spaceships and habitats.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"Subtle, smart, compelling and blessed with both an intelligent storyline and top-notch writing, this book will grab readers from page one and not let go until the final sentence."
Australia-based writer Robotham's insightful psychologist Joe O'Loughlin once again tackles a tough case involving crimes that, at first blush, do not seem related.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"Where earlier novels provide a better introduction to Hole, this one best takes the full measure of the man."
The internationally popular detective series by the Norwegian author builds to a blockbuster climax.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"A satirical masterpiece, very funny for all its footnotes. You can bet the authorities in Beijing are scratching their heads about it."
Sprawling, sometimes goofy, always seditious novel of modern life in the remotest corner of China.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"All the more impressive for being a significant departure from previous entries."
Beginning a sort of spinoff series taking place, chronologically, between Campbell's last two outings (
Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught, 2011, and
Beyond The Frontier: Invincible, 2012) wherein the influence of "Black Jack" Geary is palpable, though he makes no actual appearance.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"A dazzling document, beautifully if most idiosyncratically drawn; in this iteration, sure to become a collector's item, though one that begs for an easier-to-handle trade edition."
A treasure trove of graphic artworks--they're too complex to be called comics--from Ware, master of angst, alienation, sci-fi and the crowded street.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"Whether recent or from his earliest period, these pieces show Alexie at his best: as an interpreter and observer, always funny if sometimes angry, and someone, as a cop says of one of his characters, who doesn't "fit the profile of the neighborhood.""
Sterling collection of short stories by Alexie (
Ten Little Indians, 2003, etc.), a master of the form.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 1, 2012
"Guttridge's third Brighton thriller is so well-written that it would be well worth your time even if it were not such a darkly brilliant mystery."
FICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012
"Beard's take on Lazarus is nothing less than astonishing--and he respects the reader by taking religion and religious questions seriously. "
In this alternative theological novel Jesus does more than weep...and Lazarus does more than die.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"A hauntingly affecting historical novel with a touch of magic."
Award-winning poet Nicholas (
Iron Rose, 2010, etc.) treks into the wilds of medieval England in his first novel, a saga vibrant with artful description.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 15, 2012
"An absorbing update of the classic film, D.O.A., that finds its author so completely in the zone that not a word is wasted, and the story seems to unfold itself without human assistance."
Nothing in Knopf's reflective, quietly loopy Hamptons mysteries starring Sam Acquillo and Jackie Swaitkowski (
Ice Cap, 2012, etc.) will have prepared his fans for this taut, streamlined tale of a man investigating his own murder.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"Powers writes with a rawness that brings the sights and smells as well as the trauma and decay of war home to the reader. "
FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"The evocation of "Useless, by James Joyce" attests to the humor and ambition of the novel, as if this were a Joyce-an remix with a hipper rhythm track."
An end-of-an-era epic celebrating the bygone glories of vinyl records, comic-book heroes and blaxploitation flicks in a world gone digital.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"Not as ambitious as Díaz's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), but sharply observed and morally challenging."
From the author of
Drown (1996), more tales of Dominican life in the cold, unwelcoming United States.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"A great cure for the blues, especially for anyone who might feel bad about growing older."
FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Grace and empathy infuse this melancholy landscape of complex loyalties enfolded by brutal history, creating a novel of peculiar, mysterious, tragic beauty."
The unexpected relationship between a war-scarred woman and an exiled gardener leads to a journey through remorse to a kind of peace.
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FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Stern weaves an intricate and clever web of stories steeped in both sacred and mundane Jewish culture."
"Mischief" is indeed the operative term here, for Stern's characters are subtle, slyly humorous and at times poignant.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 24, 2012
"Nobel Peace Prize winner Wiesel continues to remind us of the brilliant possibilities of the philosophical and political novel. "
Wiesel takes us on a journey through dream, memory and especially storytelling in his latest novel, which concerns Shaltiel Feigenberg, who in 1975, is captured and imprisoned for 80 hours in a basement by two captors.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 21, 2012
"George's all-too-familiar story is so richly observed, subtly characterized, precisely written--her syncopated paragraphs are a special delight--and successful in its avoidance of genre clichés that you'd swear you were reading the first police procedural ever written."
George's Pittsburgh cops (
Hideout, 2011, etc.) investigate a robbery-murder that's a lot less routine and more sordid than it looks.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 21, 2012
"Superb work from an abundantly gifted young writer."
Set in early-20th-century Washington state, Coplin's majestic debut follows a makeshift family through two tragic decades.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 21, 2012
"A fine thriller that succeeds on every level. How often do you read about a hero who just wants to die in peace?"
FICTION
Released: Aug. 14, 2012
"Although their fates are known, Gregory creates suspense by raising intriguing questions about whether her characters will transcend their historical reputations."
The latest of Gregory's Cousins' War series debunks--mostly--the disparaging myths surrounding Richard III and his marriage to Anne Neville.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 14, 2012
"For those who have an affinity for metaphysical fiction written with a surgeon's precision, this collection will spur readers to seek out everything else by its author."
Beneath the surface placidity of Swiss life, undercurrents of spiritual turmoil and existential despair charge this powerful collection of provocative stories.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 14, 2012
"Like Mary Cassatt, Lippman studies families with a different eye than her male contemporaries, showing the heartbreaking complexity of life with those you love."
Lippman (
The Most Dangerous Thing, 2011, etc.), who specializes in tales of feckless parents and their luckless kids, puts a madam at the center of her latest dysfunctional family.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 7, 2012
"A compulsively readable novel about brothers on opposite sides of life."
Friday Night Lights meets
In Cold Blood in this powerful tale of distant brothers whose torment over the murder of their sister when they were teens is compounded by the murder of another targeted teenage girl--a killing one of the brothers is determined to avenge even if that means committing murder himself.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 7, 2012
"World War II Germany may be familiar ground, but Gillham's novel—vividly cinematic yet subtle and full of moral ambiguity, not to mention riveting characters—is as impossible to put down as it is to forget."
In his debut about 1943 Berlin, Gillham uses elements common to the many previous movies and books about World War II—from vicious Nazis to black marketeers to Jewish children hiding in attics to beautiful blond German women hiding their sexuality inside drab coats—yet manages to make the story fresh.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 7, 2012
"A flawlessly assembled thriller."
In the strange, devastating aftermath of Gray Wednesday, when the Earth's poles suddenly switched, the world is in even greater chaos, climatic distress and financial ruin than it is now.
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FICTION
Released: Aug. 7, 2012
"Unrelenting in its anger, pain and sorrow, but hard to put down."
The three women personifying the complicated relationship between France and Senegal in French-born NDiaye's tripartite novel, winner of France's Prix Concourt in 2009, need all the strength they can muster as they struggle to survive.
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FICTION
Released: July 31, 2012
"Often lyrical, sometimes a bit ponderous: a painful, personal record of Cambodia's holocaust."
Ratner's avowedly autobiographical first novel describes her family's travails during the genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the late 1970s.
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FICTION
Released: July 17, 2012
"A sweetheart of a novel, complete with a hazy ending. "
Sometimes things just don't work out, no matter how hard we wish they would. But there's irony, so we have that going for us. Right?
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FICTION
Released: July 17, 2012
"A gruesome, unforgettable exposition of the still too-little-known facts of the Armenian genocide and its multigenerational consequences."
The granddaughter of an Armenian and a Bostonian investigates the Armenian genocide, discovering that her grandmother took a guilty secret to her grave.
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FICTION
Released: July 17, 2012
"Castro's first mystery is fierce and intense, with both harrowing depictions of New Orleans after Katrina and psychological mayhem for its troubled heroine, who crawls under your skin and lingers there long after you've finished reading. A sequel is in the works."
FICTION
Released: July 17, 2012
"It's a grand entertainment to watch Silva putting Gabriel Allon's skills to work, whether shedding blood or daubing varnish. A top-notch thriller."
Fast-paced action thriller from old hand Silva (
Portrait of a Spy, 2001, etc.), whose hero Gabriel Allon returns in fine form.
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FICTION
Released: July 17, 2012
"Grim indeed, yet eloquent and utterly compelling."
Independently intelligible sequel to the dark fantasy
Bitter Seeds (2010), something like a cross between the devious, character-driven spy fiction of early John le Carré and the mad science fantasy of the X-Men.
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FICTION
Released: July 10, 2012
"An excellent debut."
A mother and daughter discover empathy, courage and autonomy in this powerful first novel by Czepiel.
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FICTION
Released: July 10, 2012
"Offers humor, heart and characters you'll cheer for. Romantic women's fiction at its best."
This highly anticipated book delivers Phillips' fans a charming, satisfying answer to the question "So what does Lucy do?"
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FICTION
Released: July 10, 2012
"A technocratic Kafka nightmare--heavy on surreal diagnosis of the world's ills, light on the traditional rewards of storytelling--crossed with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and a hint of Buster Keaton."
A spare, dystopian fable that examines how closely contemporary life has caught up to Kafka since the publication of
The Castle.
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FICTION
Released: July 3, 2012
"Readers familiar with Stross' dazzling science fiction should relish this change of pace and direction. "
Fourth in the series (
The Fuller Memorandum, 2010, etc.) about the Laundry: a weirdly alluring blend of superspy thriller, deadpan comic fantasy and Lovecraftian horror.
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FICTION
Released: June 26, 2012
"Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving."
In Walker's stunning debut, a young California girl coming-of-age in a dystopian near future confronts the inevitability of change on the most personal level as life on earth withers.
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FICTION
Released: June 19, 2012
"A wonderfully executed debut novel, so rich as to inspire rereading, right down to its inevitable resolution, both ironic and existentialist."
In Kiefer's debut literary novel, astronaut Keith Corcoran returns from the International Space Station to a house populated by a bare mattress, random canned goods and a gray leather sofa.
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FICTION
Released: June 19, 2012
"Even so, Eggers' fiction has evolved in the past decade. This book is firm proof that social concerns can make for resonant storytelling."
