C
LOVE, DISHONOR,
MARRY, DIE,
CHERISH, PERISH:
DAVID RAKOFF
PUBLISHER:
DOUBLEDAY (JULY 16,
2013)
PREVIEW
CULTURE
BOOKS
The death of one girl
leads the other to
post-Soviet Russia
years later to sift
through baseless
propaganda and her
own feelings of loss
and jealousy in her
search for answers.
TAIPEI: TAO LIN
PUBLISHER: VINTAGE
(JUNE 4, 2013)
Drugs and young
love, from New
York to Taiwan. The
29-year-old author
balances both fiction
and autobiography
in his third novel,
using as source
material “everything
I know or have felt or
experienced, or could
imagine knowing
or feeling,” he told
Entertainment
Weekly. Bonus:
the cover is an
animated GIF.
BIG BROTHER:
LIONEL SHRIVER
PUBLISHER: HARPER
(JUNE 4, 2013)
This novel, released after
Rakoff’s death last summer,
jumps through different
eras and decades, from the
Great Depression to the
AIDS pandemic and the
Reagan years, connecting
the characters through either
“acts of generosity or cruelty.”
The We Need to Talk
About Kevin author’s
latest deals with
family and obesity.
How far will one sister
go when she faces
an ultimatum to help
her intrusive,
obese brother with
his health?
CANNONBALL:
JOSEPH MCELROY
PUBLISHER: DZANC
BOOKS (JUNE 11, 2013)
Read experimental
author Joseph
McElroy’s Cannonball
as much for the style
as you do for the
story, which focuses
on a California family
amidst the Iraq War.
OCEAN AT THE
END OF THE LANE:
NEIL GAIMAN
PUBLISHER:
WILLIAM MORROW
(JUNE 18, 2013)
Gaiman weaves
another fairy tale
with his latest novel,
one of otherworldly
creatures on the hunt
after an ancient force
is disturbed. The only
answer to the menace
are the inhabitants
of a farm at the end
of the lane.
NIGHT FILM:
MARISHA PESSL
PUBLISHER:
RANDOM HOUSE
(AUGUST 20, 2013)
After a woman is
found dead in a
lower Manhattan
warehouse, an
investigative
journalist trails the
case and discovers
that her father is a
notorious cult horror
film director who
disappeared from the
THE FALL OF
ARTHUR: TOLKIEN
PUBLISHER:
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
HARCOURT
(MAY 23, 2013)
The “new” Tolkien book being
released is actually a 200-page
poem about ancient Britain and
the final days of the famous
King Arthur’s reign.
public eye more than
30 years earlier.
CLAIRE OF THE SEA
LIGHT: EDWIDGE
DANTICAT
PUBLISHER: KNOPF
(AUGUST 27, 2013)
Set in Haiti, a
broken-hearted
father’s decision to
give away his child,
Claire, in hopes of
a better life, is met
with his daughter’s
disappearance on
the night of her
seventh birthday.
PACIFIC: TOM DRURY
PUBLISHER: GROVE
PRESS (MAY 7, 2013)
Two stories
run parallel to
one another as
Drury revisits his
characters from his
beloved novel The
End of Vandalism.
With one story set
amid the drugs and
social politics of L.A.
and the other in the
midwestern town
of Stone City, Drury
constructs a portrait
of the mundane
and the extraordinary
of everyday
American life.
INFERNO:
DAN BROWN
PUBLISHER: DOUBLEDAY
(MAY 14, 2013)
The bestselling
author of The Da
Vinci Code follows
Harvard professor
Robert Langdon
once again — this
time into the mystery
and symbolism
that surrounds the
Inferno, the first
installment of 14thcentury poet Dante
Aligheri’s epic poem,
The Divine Comedy.
TRANSATLANTIC:
COLUM MCCANN
PUBLISHER: RANDOM
HOUSE (JUNE 4, 2013)
Three transatlantic
crossings made by
important men with
important business
during very different
times — 1845, 1919
and 1998 — are
linked together
by the stories of
several women
whose unassuming
lives have managed
to echo through
time and history.