Fall books preview
New efforts from A-list authors hit stores
1A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré (Viking, fiction, on sale Sept. 5)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Peter Guillam, now retired from the British Secret Service, is summoned to London to answer questions from a new generation with little patience for Cold War tactics.
COOL FACTOR: This is the first le Carré thriller in more than 25 years to feature spymaster George Smiley.
2 Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook
by Alice Waters (Clarkson Potter, non-fiction, on sale Sept. 5)
A memoir by WHAT IT’S ABOUT: the chef (and cookbook author) who opened Chez Panisse, the influential Berkeley, Calif., restaurant, when she was 27 in 1971.
Waters, at the COOL FACTOR: forefront of the local/organic food movement, has seen her influence extend all the way to Michelle Obama’s White House garden.
3 The
Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz (Knopf, fiction, on sale Sept. 12)
The Girl With WHAT IT’S ABOUT: the Dragon Tattoo mega-series continues as imprisoned punk hacker Lisbeth Salander teams with Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist to uncover the truth
about her childhood and to exact revenge.
This is the second COOL FACTOR: Millennium sequel written by Lagercrantz and sanctioned by Stieg Larsson’s estate; the first, 2015’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web, was a No. 1 USA TODAY best seller.
4 Sleeping
Beauties
by Stephen King and Owen King (Scribner, fiction, on sale Sept. 26)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: A mysterious sleep disorder that can cause women to become violent and feral disrupts an Appalachian town where the main employer is a women’s prison.
COOL FACTOR: This is the first time Stephen King has co-written a book with his son (also an author), a project he calls a “blessing ” and a “thrill.”
5Origin
by Dan Brown (Doubleday, fiction, on sale Oct. 3)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: The action moves to Spain as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is caught up in intrigue surrounding a former student’s high-tech discovery. COOL FACTOR:
Brown’s series featuring Langdon unraveling cryptic clues and running for his life includes the blockbusters The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol.
6Grant
by Ron Chernow (Penguin Press, non-fiction, on sale Oct. 10) WHAT IT’S ABOUT: The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of biographies including Alexander Hamilton (the inspiration for the Broadway smash musical
Hamilton) and Washington now focuses on Ulysses S. Grant at a time when our nation is relitigating the Civil War.
COOL FACTOR: Is Lin-Manuel Miranda busy sharpening his Grant vs. Lee rhymes? We can only hope.
7 Uncommon
Type: Some Stories
by Tom Hanks (Knopf, fiction, on sale Oct. 17) WHAT IT’S
SevABOUT: enteen short stories by the Oscar-winning actor, each involving a different typewriter in some way. Hanks collects vintage typewriters and has more than 100.)
This marks Hanks’ COOL FACTOR: debut as an author. We think he’s our type, judging by the retro subject.
8 Where the Past Begins
by Amy Tan (Ecco, non-fiction, on sale Oct. 17) WHAT IT’S
In this ABOUT: “writer’s memoir,” the popular author of novels about Chinese immigrants reveals memories of her traumatic childhood and shares “heartbreaking ” letters to and from her mother.
COOL FACTOR: Tan sheds a personal light on the creative impulse behind best sellers such as The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement.
9 Heather,
the Totality
by Matthew Weiner (Little, Brown, fiction, on sale Nov. 7)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: The teenage daughter of a well-off Manhattan couple is in the sights of a sociopathic stalker.
COOL FACTOR: The creator of the great AMC series Mad Men says his debut novel was born the day he saw a construction worker give a “terrifying ” look to a beautiful schoolgirl on the Upper East Side; Sally Draper, run!
10Artemis
by Andy Weir
(Crown, fiction, on sale Nov. 14) WHAT IT’S ABOUT: In this sci-fi adventure set on the moon, twentysomething Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a small-time smuggler pulled into a conspiracy for control of the city of
Artemis. COOL FACTOR:
Weir’s best seller The
Martian was the basis for the hit Ridley Scott film starring Matt Damon, and Artemis has been snapped up for the movies by 20th Century Fox and New Regency.