This is a quick look at recently released books, and soon-to-be-released books that I’m looking forward to reading.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Simon and Schuster; 10/24/11)
This is already the best-selling book in the country, based on pre-release orders at Amazon. Isaacson earlier wrote the mega-selling Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and the recent, tragic death of Steve Jobs will only heighten the interest in this almost 700 page biography. This is an authorized bio, as (according to Reuters) Jobs knew that his death was imminent and wanted his kids to know him through this expected-to-be definitive work. Jobs had made clear to his friends and co-workers that nothing in his personal or professional life was off-limits.
Steve Jobs will also be available as an audiobook; unfortunately, an abridged one.
Freedom: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen (Picador; 09/27/11)
If you’re like me, one of the two dozen or so individuals who did not read this book when it was originally released, you now have a chance to pick it up as a Picador trade paperback for just $16.00. USA Today called Franzen’s novel about a troubled marriage, “Smart, witty and ultimately moving.”
Blueprints for Building Better Girls: Fiction by Elissa Schappell (Simon and Schuster; 09/06/11)
This is a hybrid between a short story collection and a novel, as Schappell has penned eight interlinked tales (“Spanning the late 1970s to the current day…”) about the experiences that turn girls into women. Tom Perrota, author of The Leftovers and Little Children, says of Blueprints for Building Better Girls: “Elizabeth Schappell’s characters live in that zone where toughness and vulnerability overlap. In this remarkable, deeply engaging collection of stories, Schappell introduces us to a wide variety of female characters, from reckless teenagers to rueful middle-aged moms, and asks us to ponder how those girls became these women.”
The Marriage Plot: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 10/11/11)
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides returns with a story about a not-so-calm year in the lives of three college seniors (one female and two males) attending Brown University in the early 1980s. It’s about love lost and found, and the mental preparations that young people must make before entering the stolid world of adults.
The Drop: A Harry Bosch Novel by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown and Company; 11/28/11)
From the author of The Lincoln Lawyer and The Reversal, comes the latest thriller involving LAPD Detective Harry Bosch. A bored Bosch is getting ready for retirement when two huge criminal cases with political and other implications land on his desk. Both cases need to be solved immediately and, as usual, Bosch must break some major investigative rules in order to do so.
“Connelly may be our most versatile crime writer.” Booklist
Joseph Arellano
Joseph's Reviews 