Fall Preview 2003

Fall Books

Look ahead: September | October | November | Memoirs

Have I Got A Story To Tell You

Memoir, memoir, in the fall, who’s the fairest of them all?

The Other First Lady
Reflections
By Barbara Bush
(Lisa Drew/Scribner; October)
Part two, after the matriarch’s 1994 book, opens at 43’s inauguration, then flashes back to soft-focus stories about the Bushes’ eight cold years under the reign of Clinton. Not so far off from Hillary’s thin tales of family and philanthropy—but with more of the former and less of the latter, of course.

The Fighter
The Soul of a Butterfly
By Muhammad Ali, with Hana Ali
(Simon & Schuster; November)
Mostly in the realm of the “spiritual memoir,” with a close account of the champion’s long illness and religious epiphanies. “It is after I retired from boxing that my true passion began,” writes Ali. “I have embarked on a journey of peace and love.” Not much fisticuffs, then—though it’s hard to write off a passionate defense of Islam’s pacifism by someone Americans might actually listen to.

The Storyteller
Living to Tell the Tale
By Gabriel García Márquez
(Alfred A. Knopf; November)
The first part of a planned trilogy, covering the Colombian-born magical realist’s first 29 years, arrives in translation already a Spanish-language best-seller. Fans will find the seeds of many a setting and story, but the real fun might be in spotting Márquez’s acknowledged embellishments.

The Euro
Autobiography
By Helmut Newton
(Nan A. Talese; September)
The photographer and self-styled transgressor recalls his birth into a prosperous Jewish Berlin family and his narrow escape from the Nazis, after which he traveled to Singapore and beyond, worked as a gigolo, and did time in an Australian prison. But it was after he moved to Paris that Newton’s sleek, naughty photographs made him famous. If the pretension and narcissism rankle, skip to the dirty pictures.

The Thug
American Nightmare American Dream
By Suge Knight
(Riverhead, November)
The currently incarcerated Death Row Records mogul loved and feared for “bringing the ghetto into the boardroom” tells a rags-to-riches-to-jail story and sounds off on all those rappers—living and dead—who’ve crossed his path, getting the last word as ever. Should be big in the suburbs.