Screen stars and literary stars will share the shelf space at bookstores in the coming weeks.
With new books from Ann Patchett, Jamel Brinkley and others, August began with a bang but this week is light on new titles. Think of it as the calm before the biblio-storm.
Some of the biggest names in publishing — and biggest names, period — will hit bookstores in the coming weeks. Fall is always a jam-packed season, especially for titles from our leading literary lights, but the next couple of months present so many superstars that this list of 12 didn’t have room for bestselling writers such as Alexander McCall Smith or Richard Osman, who have new entries in their beloved mystery series next month.
Here are the even dozen who made the cut, in order of starry brightness. It all starts with a door-stopper that is destined to cause some pulled muscles.
1. Barbra Streisand
The “Funny Girl’s” memoir, “My Name Is Barbra,” is big in every way you can think of. Its press run is 1 million copies, a huge number at a time when only a few books each year sell that many copies. It’s, gulp, 1,040 pages. And it’s priced at $47, gargantuan even considering inflation. The octogenarian EGOT, who said she’s been jotting down notes since 2009, officially announced her autobiography in 2015. It was supposed to be published two years later, but people who need people to tell us the stories of their lives will finally get Streisand’s when “My Name” hits stores Nov. 7.
2. John Grisham
How many times would you guess “The Firm” author has been asked to write a sequel to that blockbuster debut? A zillion? Well, it’s finally here. Lawyer Mitch McDeere, who fled the country after exposing crooks he worked with in “The Firm,” is back to lawyering 15 years later in “The Exchange.” And back to sticking his nose in business that may again force him to escape to somewhere remote. Oct. 17.
3. Kerry Washington
If Streisand weren’t finally unleashing her life story, Washington’s “Thicker Than Water” would be the biggest Hollywood name on bookstore shelves. Instead, the “Scandal” star will settle for second as she spills the beans on that show, sexism/racism in Hollywood, activism and her marriage to NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha in this tell-all (or at least -some). Sept. 26.
4. Stephen King
With “Holly,” the horrormeister revisits the empath who starred in his “The Outsider” (as well as the HBO Max series of the same name, where Holly Gibney was played by Cynthia Erivo). Now the proprietor of a detective agency, she’s called in on a missing persons case that, like “The Outsider,” has an uncanny dimension. This time that dimension lives in the home of a seemingly kind elderly couple. Sept. 5
5. Kate DiCamillo
Jonesing for some new DiCamillo? The Minneapolis writer published a picture book last Christmas, but it’s been two years since her last novel, “The Beatryce Prophecy.” She’s been busy. “Puppets,” the first in a planned trilogy of illustrated fairy tales, hits stores Oct. 10 and next spring brings two more from the two-time Newbery Award winner, a middle-grade novel called “Ferris” and the first in a new chapter book series.
6. Jhumpa Lahiri
With “Roman Stories,” the Pulitzer Prize winner returns to the format that earned her that award for “Interpreter of Maladies”: short stories. Inspired by her move to Rome and efforts to learn Italian, “Roman Stories” comes with an unusual flex: The U.K. native wrote the stories in Italian and then translated them, with the help of Todd Portnowitz, into English. Oct. 10.
7. Michael Connelly
“Lincoln lawyer” Mickey Haller and his half-brother, regular Connelly detective Harry Bosch, team up to spring a woman who’s in prison for the murder of her husband, a sheriff’s deputy. She says she didn’t do it and, as Haller and Bosch bump into roadblock after roadblock during their investigation in “Resurrection Walk,” they search for the real killer. Nov. 7.
8. Zadie Smith
The English writer has produced one international bestseller after another since her 1997 debut, “White Teeth.” Her latest is her first historical novel, set in the 1870s. Its narrator is Eliza, a housekeeper who becomes fascinated with a (true) court case in which, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, a man claimed to be the missing heir to a fortune and title. His unlikely assertion was supported by the claimant’s companion, an enslaved man whom Eliza befriends and who exerts a powerful pull on “The Fraud.” Sept. 5.
9. Lauren Groff
As freelancers reached out to the Star Tribune about the possibility of reviewing fall books, two titles were requested by virtually all of them: “The Fraud” and “The Vaster Wilds” from Groff, whose “Fates and Furies” — a marital portrait as thriller — was a ginormous hit. Here, she crafts an adventure tale, set in America’s colonial years, about a servant woman on the run. It’s like “Robinson Crusoe” but with more worm-eating. Sept. 12.
10. Maria Bamford
The comedian and Duluth, Minnesota native’s “Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult” is subtitled “A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere.” Bamford has been vocal about her bipolar disorder and in “Cult,” she details the many, many groups she has joined (Overeaters Anonymous, Suzuki violin) in an attempt to figure out where she fits in. Sept. 5.
11. Patty Wetterling
Writing with Joy Baker, the blogger Wetterling credits with helping solve the murder of her son Jacob, who was killed in 1989, one of Minnesota’s most beloved figures offers behind-the-scenes details of the case. But “Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope” is also about Wetterling’s efforts to help grieving parents and improve techniques used to investigate sex offenders.
12. Sly Stone
The other octogenarian with a career-spanning autobiography coming out in the next few months is the veteran rocker, whose book is named for one of his most popular songs with the Family Stone: “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” Back in the spotlight because of his electrifying appearance in the Oscar-winning “Summer of Soul” (whose director, Questlove, is publishing the book), Stone writes about success but also the many decades in which he has faded from public view. Oct. 17.
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