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Lonely Planet
Envy-magnet Nell Freudenberger is back with a smart and rueful tale of a Chinese fish out of water.
The Dissident, By Nell Freudenberger, Ecco; August 15 ($25.95).

Tragicomic
The Illustrated 9/11 Report, a comic-book condensation of the best-selling document.
The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, Hill and Wang; September 4 ($30).

Richard Ford’s Manly Meditations
Reading Ford, you can feel uplifted and empowered in a way that might make you wonder if his books are not some sublime species of self-help.
The Lay of the Land, By Richard Ford, Knopf; October 24 ($26.95).

Waiting for Lefty
Frank Rich connects the dots from the Green Zone to Hollywood.
The Greatest Story Ever Sold, By Frank Rich, Penguin Press; September 19 ($25.95).

Both Sides Now
The big questions, seen from the left and the right.

Shrink Rap
Heidi Julavits’s twisty tale of Freudian mind games.
The Uses of Enchantment, By Heidi Julavits, Doubleday; October 17 ($24.95).

A Hard Look in the Mirror
Recent years have witnessed a sneaky shift in the portrayal of plastic surgery.
Beauty Junkies, By Alex Kuczynski, Doubleday; October 17 ($24.95).

Song of Himself
No one knows how much readers anticipate Thomas Pynchon’s sixth novel—his first in nine years—more than Pynchon.
Against the Day, By Thomas Pynchon, Penguin Press; November 21 ($35).

The Best of the Rest
Freud, foodies, Franzen, the Apocalypse, and more.

The Best of the Rest
Freud, foodies, Franzen, the Apocalypse, and more.

The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History
by Jonathan Franzen
The angsty Midwestern novelist’s first memoir, cobbled together from his essays.
FSG; September 5.

The Interpretation of Murder
by Jed Rubenfeld
While visiting New York, Freud solves murders! A mystery with a debt to Caleb Carr.
Henry Holt; September 5.

Forgetfulness
by Ward Just
Former journalist’s timely thriller about a spy out to avenge his wife’s killing by terrorists.
Houghton Mifflin; September 6.

A Spot of Botherby Mark Haddon A satire about a smug, troubled English family, the follow-up to Haddon’s beloved The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. • Doubleday; September 6.

Nicole Kidman
by David Thomson
Stalwart critic’s obsessive analysis of the star, with minimal help from the subject.
Knopf; September 8.

Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance
by Ian Buruma
Dutch-born journalist delves into the aftermath of the filmmaker’s notorious assassination by an Islamist.
Penguin Press; September 12.

The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation
by David KampA cultural history of the Greenmarket revolution. Think Bobos in Paradise, but with more jícama.
Broadway; September 12.

The Meaning of Night: A Confession
by Michael Cox
A Raskolnikov-ish narrator bares his guilty, effusive Victorian soul.
W. W. Norton; September 18.

Moral Disorder and Other Stories
by Margaret Atwood
The dystopianist goes domestic, with linked stories following a Toronto family over 60 years.
Nan A. Talese; September 19.

Cancer Vixen: a true story
by Marisa Acocella Marchetto A graphic memoir of New York soirées and long hospital stays.
Knopf; September 26.

The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
The cowboy mythologizer switches up with a postapocalyptic parable.
Knopf; September 26.

Easter Rising
by Michael Patrick MacDonald
The author’s salvation via the New York punk scene. Hey! Ho! Let’s go!
Houghton Mifflin; September 27.

What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentio Achak Deng
by Dave Eggers
Do-gooder ironist’s picaresque about an orphan’s journey after fleeing civil war in Sudan.
McSweeney’s; October 1.

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
by Michael Lewis Liar’s Poker author follows a bootstrapping college-football recruit.
Norton; October 2.

Blood and Thunder
by Hampton Sides
Ghost Soldiers writer offers a revisionist history of Manifest Destiny.
Doubleday; October 3.

Thirteen Moons
by Charles Frazier
The life of a frontiersman—a follow-up to Cold Mountain. Heath Ledger, call your agent.
Random House; October 3.

The Echo Maker
by Richard Powers
DeLillo-y novelist chronicles a man’s dissociative disorder and his relationship with an Oliver Sacks–ish author.
FSG; October 3.

Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York
by Adam Gopnik
Recovered Francophile in Manhattan.
Knopf; October 10.

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town
by John Grisham
Millionaire thriller writer’s nonfiction debut.
Doubleday; October 10.

One Good Turn
by Kate Atkinson
Brainy Brit’s sequel to her suspense novel Case Histories.
Little, Brown; October 11.

Will Eisner’s New York
intro by Neil Gaiman
Posthumous collection of four of the great cartoonist’s novellas, with notes by another famous fantasist.
Norton; October 16.

Frost
by Thomas Bernhard
First novel by the infamously dour, transgressive Austrian writer—who died in 1989—published in German in 1963 but translated into English for the first time.
Knopf; October 17.

The Ladies of Grace
Adieu and other Stories

by Susanna Clarke
Short stories set in a magical England similar to the setting of her debut best-seller, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
• Bloomsbury; October 17.

The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
Brilliant but cantankerous scientist exhorts us to shed our straitjacket superstitions.
• Houghton Mifflin; October 18.

The Ghost Mapby Steven Johnson
Pop systems theorist tells how an 1854 London cholera epidemic spawned new ideas.
Riverhead; October 19.

Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir
by Gore Vidal
The controversialist’s latest life history meanders through triumph, grief, and famous friends and enemies.
Doubleday; November 7.

The View from Castle Rock
by Alice Munro
The Canadian master of the short story expands her purview with linked tales of the immigrant experience.
Knopf; November 7.

The Godfather’s Revenge
by Mark Winegardner
Puzo’s authorized sequelizer enmeshes the Corleones in politics.
Putnam; November 7.

The Book of Dave
by Will Self
Scathing novelist’s blend of dystopia and postmodern satire, whereby a cabbie’s screed becomes the sacred dogma of a future London.
Bloomsbury; November 14. Back to Books Preview

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