This week, Prepub Alert wraps up coverage of May 2011 titles, which included 133 books in fiction and nonfiction alone. Here are three titles that didn’t get the full coverage they deserved (I’m working way in advance here, and sometimes information is just not at hand), plus an updated title you’ll want to track.
Hegi, Ursula. Children and Fire. Scribner. May 2011. 288p. ISBN 9781451608298. $25.Hegi’s Stones from the River got a PEN/Faulkner nomination, then won the brass ring when it was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club in February 1997 and sold bundles. Her latest novel is set in the same time and place as that novel—Burgdorf, Germany, just after Hitler came to power. The novel takes place in a single day that changes the lives of the townspeople forever. Given the setting, one can imagine just how significant that change could be. Great for smart book clubbers.
Lifton, Robert Jay. Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir. Free Pr. May 2011. 368p. ISBN 9781416590767. $28.
Lifton is significant for having joined with mentor Erik Erikson and MIT historian Bruce Mazlish to found the field of psychohistory—that is, the application of psychology and psychoanalysis to the study of historical events. Perhaps
best known for The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, he has also written extensively on the victims of Hiroshima, the concept of brainwashing, and the status of Vietnam veterans. Here he recounts a lifetime of looking at humanity’s darkest moments—imagine the guts that took—and his understanding of our capacity for both evil and for overcoming evil. An important book and one, as I’ve said already, I really want to read.
Phillips, Arthur. The Tragedy of Arthur. Random. May 2011. 384p. ISBN 9781400066476. $26.
In my latest fiction list, posted Monday morning, I complained that however much I was anticipating this novel, I had no information on it. Monday afternoon it hit my desk. Actually, I wasn’t quite accurate in my description; this is not a novel but (ahem) the publication of Shakespeare’s first, heretofore unavailable play, The Tragedy of Arthur, together with a lengthy (read: 250-page) introduction by Phillips about his family’s involvement in bringing the play to light. There we meet a somewhat anxious young Phillips, whose twin sister and father—a trickster/forger of sorts—are
drenched in a love of Shakespeare’s work that he himself can’t feel. (Note the Shakespeare-loving trickster: already you can see theme of authenticity at work, along with the wonderment of art.) The play itself, set in sixth-century Britain, concerns the rise to power of Arthur (bastard son of King Uter Pendragon), who turns out to be something of a wimp. Fabulous reading so far; Phillips is always different and always so cheekily engaging.
Sounes, Howard. Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan. Grove. May 2011. 978-0802145529. pap. $16.95. rev. ed.
Originally published in 2001—in time for Dylan’s 60th birthday—this book has been updated to cover the last the years of Dylan’s life while also offering new information and insights on his earlier years. Since the last decade has been busy for the singer/songwriter—he’s released several albums, appeared in the film Masked and Anonymous, published his own book (Chronicles, Vol. 1), and collaborated with Martin Scorsese on a Dylan documentary—getting the update would seem well advised.
