Featured TitlesNew titles - selected on the basis of good reviews. Nonfiction, fiction and mystery titles are included on the lists.

October 2001

Nonfiction

• Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden
  by Ackerman, Diane
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25 ISBN: 0060199865
  Kirkus PW
  In the mode of her bestselling A Natural History of the Senses, Ackerman's new book celebrates the sensory pleasures and wonders of natures she discovers in her garden.
  
• Postmodern Pooh
  by Crews, Frederick
  Publisher: FSG $ 22 ISBN: 0865476268
  PW Kirkus Library Journal
  Purporting to be the proceedings of a forum on Pooh convened at the Modern Language Association's annual convention, Postmodern Pooh brilliantly parodies the academic fads and figures that hold sway at the millennium.
• Patience & Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture
  by Basbanes, Nicholas A.
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 35 ISBN: 0060196955
  Booklist Library Journal
  The author of A Gentle Madness now considers the evolving form of the book over the centuries, preservation efforts, and the great national, public, and institutional libraries around the world.
  
• Uncle Tungsten: Memoirs of a Chemical Childhood
  by Sacks, Oliver
  Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0375404481
  Kirkus PWLibrary Jourrnal
  In an unforgettable portrait of an extraordinary mind, the distinguished neurologist offers an account of his youth, as unexpected and fascinating as his celebrated case histories.

Fiction

• Clouds Above
  Author: Greig, Andrew
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743206401
  KirkusLibrary Journal
  In a novel reminiscent of The English Patient, a prize-winning British poet and writer pens a moving and exciting elegy to love, the summer of 1940, and the Battle of Britain.
  
• Half a Life
  Author: Naipaul, V.S.
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375407375
  KirkusBooklistPW Library Journal
  Willie Chandran's flight from the travails of his mixed birth takes him from India to London, where in the shabby haunts of immigrants and literary bohemians he affects a new identity. When he returns with his lover to her home in Africa during the last doomed days of colonialism, he lives yet another life not his own.
  
• In the Shape of a Boar
  Author: Norfolk, Lawrence
  Publisher: Grove $ 25 ISBN: 0802117015
  LJPWKirkus
  From prehistoric Greek hunters to an S.S. officer on the run, this mesmerizing epic by the author of Lempriere's Dictionary and The Pope's Rhinoceros explores ancient myths and modern horrors.
  
  
• Austerlitz
  Author: Sebald, W.G.
  Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375504834
  PWKirkus
  In this story of an orphan's quest for his heritage after World War II, Sebald embodies in Austerlitz the universal human search for identity, the struggle to impose coherence on memory, and a struggle complicated by the mind's defenses against trauma.
  
• The Savage Girl
  Author: Shakar, Alex
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26 ISBN: 0066209870
  Booklist
  A magical, mysterious first novel explores the effects of consumerism on individuals and society as a whole. Ursula Van Urden arrives in the volcano-shadowed metropolis of Middle City in the wake of her fashion model sister and attempts to "find the future".
  
• Sharkman Six
  Author: West, Owen
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743205421
  Publishers Weekly
  A gripping debut novel of modern war written by a former marine captain who has experienced it all firsthand.
  
  

Mystery & Suspense

• Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos
  Author: Andrews, Donna
  Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312277296
  From the winner of the Anthony, the Agatha, and countless other awards comes an eagerly awaited novel featuring the lovely, put-upon Meg Langslow.


• Murphy's Law
  Author: Bowen, Rhys
  Publisher: Minotaur $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312282060
  From the creator of Constable Evan Evans comes the first novel in a delightful series set in 19th century New York, and featuring Irish sleuth Molly Murphy.
• Blood Sinister
  Author: Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia
  Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312282060
  While investigating the brutal murder of Phoebe Agnew, a journalist who criticized police, Detective Inspector Bill Slider must put aside his personal feelings as he struggles to untangle a web of lies and hidden relationships. Slider discovers that Agnew was concealing a secret--one that her killer is willing to protect by killing again.
• Shadows of Sin
  Author: Krich, Rochelle Majer
  Publisher: Morrow $ 25 ISBN: 0380977702
  When a plastic surgeon and two of his staff are murdered, LAPD Detective Jessie Drake must dig deep into the past to discover why.
• The Nautical Chart: A Novel of Adventure
  Author: Perez-Reverte, Arturo
  Publisher: Harcourt $ 26 ISBN: 0151005346
  KirkusBooklist
  Love and betrayal on the high seas highlight this new work by the bestselling author of The Seville Communion. Coy is a suspended sailor with time on his hands, a mariner without a ship. While attending a maritime auction in Barcelona, he meets a beautiful woman on a search for lost treasure. As they follow the course of past sailors, their own journey becomes perilous as secrets await in the depths of the sea.
  
• Aftermath
  Author: Robinson, Peter
  Publisher: Morrow $ 25 ISBN: 0380978326
  PW
  Set in Yorkshire, this Inspector Banks novel of suspense is a haunting tale of secrets, deception and murder from the Anthony Award-winning author of Cold Is the Grave and In a Dry Season.
  
• Critical Space
  Author: Rucka, Greg
  Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553801325
  KirkusBooklist
  High-voltage, high-tech covert action is offered in an intense psychosexual drama as Atticus Kodiak is hired to be the bodyguard for the most dangerous woman in the world.
  

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