Forthcoming Fall books: some hot titles worth the wait

Last year I went to Book Expo America and carried home fifty pounds of advance copies that I read and reviewed from July to December. It was a really fun experience to consume the Fall Big Books before most people had a chance to see them. Unfortunately I am NOT going to be able to do that this year, so I am looking at the "Galleys to grab at BEA" article in the April 30 issue of "Publishers Weekly" and daydreaming about what I will be reading in October. Here are a few possibles:

"The Almost Moon" by Alice Sebold. (publish date: October 2007) I am not sure what to think of this one. It is described as a tale of a woman who murders her mother.  Will Sebold come up with another big hit by breaking all the rules? Actually I had mixed feelings about The lovely Bones, to be honest. It was indeed inventive and fresh, but I was troubled by what I saw as a thread of acceptance and fatalism about the cruelty and craziness of human existence.

"Life on the Refrigerator Door: notes between a Mother and Daughter" by Alice Kuipers. (September 2007) The gimmick for this novel is that it consists of 'fridge notes in a household facing breast cancer. Imaginative, but will it live up to the initial freshness?  A couple of chapters in, we will know if it has been left on the back shelf too long.

"Run" by Ann Patchett (Publish date: October 2007) Pathett's novel "Bel Canto"- the strange tale of a group of people held hostage by South American revolutionaries and their loves, rivalries, and solace in art, was a special book.  Can she do it again with this tale of an Irish-American former Mayor of Boston and his two adopted African-American sons? My money is on this one being worth reading, even if it does not make the same splash as "Bel Canto".

"The Abstinence Teacher" by Tom Perrotta (October 2007) sounds interesting. Involving sex education, evangelicals, and the suburbs, this is probably the one that will get me to try Perrotta.

"Bridge of Sighs" by Richard Russo (October 2007) is a must read for me, because I really enjoyed his "Empire Falls". It features the usual richly drawn characters and their flawed but fully lived lives that we have come to expect from Russo.

"Loving Frank" by Nancy Horgan (August 2007) is a historical novel that involves a tragic love story from the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. The name Horgan is unfamiliar to me, but my awe of Wright's genius that I gained from visiting Falling Water in Pennsylvania may tempt me to read this one.

 "If I only knew then... learning from our mistakes" by Charles Grodin (November 2007) is a collection of essays by celebrities on their miggest mistakes. Hmm. It could go either way. If honest, this could be a great thing. But the checkout line racks and television news seems to be full of celebs who DON'T learn from their mistakes. This book has a decided boomer-bias, as most of the participants are of that age.  Lindsay Loan and Paris Hilton, please order a copy. I am less sure of my own interest.

Well it looks like a good fall season. I really am going to make time for some debut novels though, and not just limit myself to the Big Names. We need as readers to try to be as daring as the authors themselves, and refuse to always go with known names. In fact, I feel that many authors do their best work in their first couple of outings, and then get a bit used to a regular paycheck from the publisher. Others are up to the challenge of staying fresh over a lifetime of writing.  if we are selective in our reading habits, we can offer encouragement to the best, and discouragement to the worst. Let's get busy.