BUZZ MONTHLY - Publishers are releasing their fall book selections, especially those for holiday giving, earlier this year. Supply chain issues are expected to worsen, not get better. That also means book buyers looking for holiday gifts or books for themselves should shop earlier this year for the best selection. This column covers some headline books releasing in September.
Swedish author Fredrik Backman, famous for A Man Called Ove, returns with the conclusion of his Beartown series in the 688-page The Winners. Maya Andersson and Benji Ovich, two young people who left in search of a life far from a forest town, return to a changed Beartown but find people have not moved on from the events two years earlier. The rivalry between Beartown and Hed reignites in a hockey game.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
Andrew Sean Greer follows his Pulitzer Prize-winning Less: A Novel with Less is Lost as awkward and lovable Arthur Less returns in an unforgettable road trip across America. The death of an old lover and a sudden financial crisis have Less running away from his problems once again. He roams across America accepting a series of literary gigs illustrating the enigma of life in America, the riddle of love, and the stories we tell along the way.
From Ian McEwan, the best-selling author of Atonement and Saturday, comes Lessons, an epic and intimate story of one man’s life across generations and historical upheavals: Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic. Roland Baines sometimes rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it. He finds solace in music, literature, friends, sex, politics, and love—an epic, mesmerizing, and deeply humane chronicle for our times.
Paul Theroux, one of America’s most distinguished and beloved novelists, delves into the saga of two brothers, one who finds wealth in prospecting for gold and precious minerals and the other who is manipulative and domineering and filled with greed. Theroux’s story, The Bad Angel Brothers, is a riveting tale of adventure, betrayal, and the true cost of family bonds.
Stephen King’s new supernatural thriller, Fairy Tale, features a 17-year-old boy with keys to a parallel world. Another Pulitzer Prize author, Buzz Bissinger, who won for Friday Night Lights, takes us back to World War II in The Mosquito Bowl, and to a football game between two Marine units on the eve of the invasion of Okinawa. College football stars gravitated to the Marines for their service. The Marines participating in this football game in the middle of the Pacific Ocean included 20 men who were either drafted or would ultimately play in the NFL. In a few months, 15 of the players would be killed in battle at Okinawa. Bissinger tells the story of these brave young men, the final time they were allowed to still be boys playing football.
The fall mystery selection starts with some old favorites. Twelve accomplished authors each wrote a short story featuring Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple in Marple: Twelve New Mysteries. This group includes Leigh Bardugo, Elly Griffiths, Ruth Ware, Val McDermid, Karen McManus, and others.
Richard Osman, author of the Thursday Murder Club series, returns with the third book in the series, The Bullet That Missed. A decades-old cold case—their favorite kind—leads club members to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. Osman takes us from an upmarket spa to a prison cell complete with an espresso machine to a luxury penthouse high in the sky with cleverness, intrigue, and irresistible charm.
Ann Cleeves in The Rising Tide puts Vera Stanhope in dangerous waters as she and her team try to unravel a present-day hanging and possible past murder among a group of friends who have been meeting regularly for 50 years on Holy Island. “Come along, pet, there’s a murder to solve.” Joe Gunther and his team at the Vermont Bureau of Investigation cross jurisdictions into New Hampshire in Fall Guy when a car filled with items stolen in a burglary spree is found in the trunk of a stolen car along with the body of the burglar. Evidence in the car also points to a notorious unsolved child abduction case from years earlier. C.J. Box has a new Cassie Dewell crime novel, Treasure State, coming out and Jeffrey Archer has a new DCI William Warwick episode, Next in Line. Mike Lupica pens Robert B. Parker’s Fallout, a new Jesse Stone novel. And Craig Johnson brings us the 18th installment in the Longmire series, Hell and Back. Alexander McCall Smith’s newest No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency installment is A Song of Comfortable Chairs.
Notable children’s books include Mo Willems new pigeon book, The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster. His books are great ones to read aloud. A new Little Blue Truck picture book from Alice Schertle and Jill McElmurry is Little Blue Truck Makes a Friend. Two-time Caldecott medalist Sophie Blackall brings her talents to Farmhouse, in a lavish and moving tribute, rendering daily life in impeccable detail—a spectacular work.
Kwame Alexander uses verse in The Door of No Return recounting the saga of a 14-year-old living along a river in Africa, where his brother chooses to participate in a wrestling match. But tragedy strikes before the match has barely started, ending the 14-year-old on a harrowing journey.
A lot of good and interesting cookbooks for kids have surfaced in recent years. Now, American’s Test Kitchen weighs in with its own, Kids Can Cook Anything!, a complete how-to cookbook for young chefs with 75 kid-tested and kid-approved recipes. David Shannon retells the Midas myth in Gold, a riotous romp. And James and Kimberly Dean tell us that Pete the Cat Plays Hide-and-Seek, a new picture book in this popular series.
This story was originally printed in the September issue of The Prairie Land Buzz Magazine. Read more at http://www.thebuzzmonthly.com
More like this:
