FICTION
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
American Wife
By Curtis Sittenfeld
Random House, $26
Delicious rendering of a First Wife’s choices and mistakes in life. While fiction, this intelligent novel’s heroine not-so-secretly resembles Laura Bush.
Cost
By Roxana Robinson
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25
An extended family’s dynamics during a summer visit to Maine makes for a less than tranquil vacation.
More Than It Hurts You
By Darin Strauss
Dutton Adult, $24.95
A young father begins to suspect his wife when their baby boy ends up in the emergency room twice with mysterious symptoms. From the author of Chang and Eng.
Serena
By Ron Rash
Ecco, $24.99
Serena is the jealous, money-grubbing wife of a prosperous Depression-era Appalachian business man in this searing novel about betrayal and greed.
MIDWEST LIVING
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
By David Wroblewski
Ecco, $25.95
A lush and suspenseful retelling of Hamlet set in the northern woods of Wisconsin on a dog breeder’s ranch.
The Plague of Doves
By Louise Erdrich
HarperCollins, $25.95
Sweeping epic that begins in 1911 when a family of farmers in North Dakota is massacred and three Native Americans are blamed for the crime.
Windy City: A Novel of Politics
By Scott Simon
Random House, $25
National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition host Simon takes a satirical loop through Chicago’s City Hall.
Abbeville
By Jack Fuller
Unbridled Books, $24.95
A central Illinois farm town is the fictional setting for this multigenerational epic from the former president of the Tribune Publishing Company.
NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
Netherland: A Novel
By Joseph O’Neill
Pantheon Books, $23.95
When his wife and child leave him after September 11, a Dutch man staves off loneliness in New York City by immersing himself in the world of cricket played by legions of the city’s immigrants.
America, America
By Ethan Canin
Random House, $27
How a working-class teen becomes wrapped up in a world of politics, love and deceit after taking on job as yard boy for a wealthy family in western New York State.
A STEP BACK IN TIME
A Mercy
By Toni Morrison
Knopf, $23.95
This slender yet powerful masterpiece leads readers back to the anarchic world of 17th Century America where slavery ruled and devastated.
The Given Day
By Dennis Lehane
William Morrow, $27.95
Mystic River author Lehane tackles Boston crime again, but this time his tale is set in 1919.
The Shadow Catcher
By Marianne Wiggins
Simon & Schuster, $15
Dazzling fictional portrayal of early 20th Century American Indian photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis and the unique woman who researched his life.
When the White House Was Ours
By Porter Shreve
Mariner Books, $12.95
Daniel, a 13-year-old boy, moves to Washington, D.C., from the Midwest at the same time as Jimmy Carter. Hope and disappointment abound.
BEYOND OUR SHORES
The Hakawati
By Rabih Alameddine
Knopf, $25.95
Rich, multilayered tale that weaves together ancient Arabic stories with those from modern war-torn Lebanon.
2666
By Roberto Bolano
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30
Chilean-born Bolano was famous among Spanish readers before he died in 2003. Thankfully, his astonishing epics (including “2666” and last year’s “The Savage Detectives”) are finally being published in English.
The House on Fortune Street
By Margot Livesey
Harper, $24.95
Four narratives shape portraits of two unmarried female housemates in London.
Sea of Poppies
By Amitav Ghosh
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26
Glorious adventure tale set in the high seas of the Bay of Bengal during the Opium Wars of 1838.
SHORT STORIES FOR A LONG WINTER
Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
By Tobias Wolff
Knopf, $26.95
Wolff adds ten triumphant new stories to this collection of his past favorites. An excellent holiday gift for discerning readers.
Unaccustomed Earth
By Jhumpa Lahiri
Knopf, $25
In eight short stories, Lahiri (“The Namesake,” “Interpreter of Maladies”) masterfully captures the cultural experiences of Bengali immigrants.
Dictation: A Quartet
By Cynthia Ozick
Houghton Mifflin, $24
Great literary imagination abounds in these four stories, one of which focuses on the beleaguered secretaries of Henry James and Joseph Conrad.
Olive Kitteridge
By Elizabeth Strout
Random House, $14
Thirteen interwoven narratives piece together the life and longings of a teacher in small-town Maine.
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation
By Elizabeth Berg
Random House, $23
In this bright collection, women break free from their tethers, whether they are the constraints of Weight Watchers or the emotional hold of an ex-husband.
If You Eat, You Never Die: Chicago Tales
By Tony Romano
Harper Perennial, $13.99
Linked stories examine the tangled lives of an Italian immigrant family in Chicago.
I Was Told There’d Be Cake
By Sloane Crosley
Riverhead Trade, $14
Very funny collection of tales from a self-deprecating and charming debut author.
NON-FICTION
STORY OF A LIFETIME
Painter in a Savage Land: The Strange Saga of the First European Artist in North America
By Miles Harvey
Random House, $27
This well-researched, fascinating book explores the adventurous life of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, a French Protestant colonist who spent years in the mid-1500s illustrating Native American life.
The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball
By Nicholas Dawidoff
Pantheon, $24.95
Dawidoff recalls a childhood spent reveling in his love for the Red Sox, a pastime that offered the sensitive young boy a respite from the painful knowledge that his father was wasting away from mental illness.
The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century
By Steve Coll
Penguin Press HC, $35
Turns out, it’s a bit of a burden these days to have the last name “Bin Laden.” This magnificent book explores the accused terrorist’s rich extended family and how it molded its notorious prodigal son.
What the Gospels Meant
By Garry Wills
Viking, $24.95
Wills, Pulitzer Prize winner and professor of history at Northwestern University, turns his intellectual prowess to the evangelical teachings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
By Pope Brock
Three Rivers Press, $14.95
Ever hear of the “Goat Gland Doctor”? The wacky true tale of one man’s medical quackery in the early 1900s.
The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood
By Helene Cooper
Simon & Schuster, $25
Cooper returns to Liberia, the war-torn country she fled as a wealthy, pampered teenager. Now a New York Times reporter, Cooper looks for the adopted sister her family left behind.
Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life
By Paul Mariani
Viking, $34.95
Nineteenth century poet and Jesuit priest Hopkins is the focus of this sensitive and thorough biography.
Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching
By Paula J. Giddings
Amistad, $35
Wells was the nation’s first true crusader against lynching. In this extraordinary biography, this brave woman who was born to slaves gets the respect she deserves.
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order
By Joan Wickersham
Harcourt, $25
A woman haunted by her father’s suicide retraces his steps in this poignant memoir.
BOOKS FOR THE FLIGHT TO THE INAUGURATION
Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
By Fred Kaplan
Harper, $27.95
The literature — from the Bible to Shakespeare — that inspired Abraham Lincoln. A new perspective on a well-studied man.
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
By Jon Meacham
Random House, $30
Our populist seventh president was a feisty one.
Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine
By Scott E. Casper
Hill and Wang, $16
Another riveting look at the plantation that was home to George Washington — and his many slaves.
CASUALTIES OF WAR
The Forever War
By Dexter Filkins
Knopf, $25
New York Times reporter Filkins provides a haunting tour through the bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals
By Jane Mayer
Doubleday, $27.50
A sickening look at the War on Terror’s post-9/11 detainee interrogation policies.
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
By Drew Gilpin Faust
Knopf, $27.95
Historian (and Harvard president) Faust exposes the raw emotional wounds left by the devastatingly high body counts of our Civil War.
A MOMENT IN AMERICA
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
By Mark Harris
Penguin, $17
The year 1967 was a culturally pivotal one for American films, argues Entertainment Weekly writer Harris.
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America
By Thomas L. Friedman
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.95
Friedman (“The World is Flat”) takes on the global environmental crisis and provides hopeful solutions for American businesses.
A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade
By Christopher Benfey
Penguin, $25.95
Benfey looks at the flitting change of mood that swept through the intellectual clusters of the East Coast in the months following the Civil War. Benfey, a professor of literature at Mount Holyoke, succinctly and lyrically captures this moment in history when suddenly everyone admired the hummingbird.
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See related story, “8 favorites from ’08,” Books & Media section, Page 1
