Fall Preview: Books to keep you cozy this season
Here's a too-short list of some titles to look for in the autumnal months.
Books and literacy are supposed to be in decline - but don't tell that to readers, whose hungry eyes and minds are looking for great things to read all the time. Here's a too-short list of some titles to look for in the autumnal months.
Nonfiction
"The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath"
by Ben Bernanke
October
That would be the Great Recession of 2007 to . . . when? Head of the Federal Reserve, Bernanke brokered deals, jiggered interest rates, and rode the white water.
"Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs"
by Lisa Randall
October
Cosmos as seamless garment, written by one of our best writers on science. Full of quizzical wonder.
"M Train"
by Patti Smith
October
The onetime Germantown resident and Glassboro State College student tells of her artistic life, in a book lit by the coffeehouse glow of inspiration.
"Lafayette in the Somewhat United States"
by Sarah Vowell
October
Here's one historian who is a born storyteller. Central to this tale is the history-making friendship between George Washington and the French general who fought beside him in the Revolutionary War.
"My Life on the Road"
by Gloria Steinem
October
On top of all else, she's a road warrior. A child who lived uprooted, she travels tirelessly to spread her various messages, and to see the world. Here's what she makes of it.
"Sinatra: The Chairman"
by James Kaplan
October
He was born 100 years ago in Hoboken, N.J., and did things his way for the next 82 years. This book follows Kaplan's previous Sinatra: The Voice, starting in 1954, with Sinatra's career reinvigorated by an Oscar. This often surprising, often rough, often sweet story is full of song.
"Becoming Beyoncé: The Untold Story"
by J. Randy Taraborrelli
October
It's hard to imagine there's that much untold about one of the most-covered people on the planet. But this is the first full-length try at telling her tale.
"Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American"
by John Stauffer, Zoe Trodd, and Celeste-Marie Bernier
October
At least as much as Lincoln's, the face of this epoch-making black American became an icon in the political struggles that tested the Union.
Fiction
"Secret Chord"
by Geraldine Brooks
October
The Pulitzer-winning Australian American writer takes a fresh new look at David, great king and poet of the Israelites, from the viewpoints of those around him.
"A Strangeness in My Mind"
by Orhan Pamuk
October
The Nobel Prize winner from Turkey returns with a sweeping tale of Mevlut Karatas, who goes from his boyhood mountain village to the bustling metropolis of Istanbul.
Poetry
"Erratic Facts"
by Kay Ryan
October
Everyone should read this funny, wise, all-American poet. So read her.
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