We have to admit that we've been looking forward to this edition of the newsletter. Mainly because most of these books don't need any help from us. Ready? Here we go.
Here's a new Stephen King book.
And a new Margaret Atwood book.
Oh, look, a new Malcom Gladwell book.
And that book by Lucy Ellmann, which is giving reviewers and booksellers license to write one-page run-on paragraphs. We'd like to note that we haven't needed permission from anyone to do so prior, and so we don't see the need to lemming-it-up like everyone else. That said, Ducks, Newburyport is not like anything else that has been published since, say, Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. You'll either love it, hate it, or be not quite sure what to think of it for the rest of your life. Plan accordingly.
New Clive Cussler.
New Emma Donoghue.
New Caitlin Doughty, in which she answers the question that a certain child has been asking for many years. The short answer is "No, you don't get to keep your dad's skull when the dies." The long answer is fascinating, as is many of the answers that Ms. Doughty gives to questions about death as posed by the young 'uns.
And speaking of awkward moments around dead things, Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth is out this week. It's about a lesbian necromancer (in space!) who solves ancient puzzles, gets caught up in lots of swordplay, and delivers an emotional gut-punch or two when you're not expecting it. Damn near everyone we know in the industry has already read this and they've all been making the noise about it for months. Finally, those of us in the cheap seats get to form our own impressions.
There's a new Drizzt novel from R. A. Salvatore.
James Patterson ducks and weaves with a true-crime paperback, continuing to confound everyone with where he's going to be next.
Nolen Gertz, via MIT Press's Essential Knowledge series, offers up an examination of nihilism in, uh, a book called Nihilism. And no, it's not two-hundred plus pages that are all black. That's Sartre's first draft of Being and Nothingness, which made everyone in his reading group roll their eyes and gesture wildly through the thick cloud of cigarette smoke around the table. "We get it, J-P. We get it. It's all bleak and meaningless. Now go write some poetry or something. Take Simone out to dinner at a nice restaurant."
Anyway, there's the first tidal wave of fall releases. Remember to keep your chins up and breathe. Bring your wallets. We'll lighten them and send you on your way with books. You've got . . . six more days or so until the next wave hits.