All Stars 2009

• The Year of the Flood
  Author: Atwood, Margaret
  $ 26 ISBN: 9780385528771 Date: 2009
  PW Booklist LJ
  The long-awaited new novel from the author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin, The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to Atwood's visionary power.
  Updated 8.18.09
  
• Sunnyside
  Author: Gold, Glen David
  $ 27.50 ISBN: 9780307270689 Date: 2009
  Booklist PW LJ
  From the author of the acclaimed bestseller Carter Beats the Devil comes a novel that dramatizes the moment when American capitalism, a world at war, and the emerging mecca of Hollywood intersect to spawn an enduring culture of celebrity.
  Updated 4.22.09
• Love and Obstacles
  Author: Hemon, Aleksandar
  $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781594488641 Date: 2009
  PW Booklist Kirkus
  Aleksandar Hemon earned his reputationa and his MacArthur agenius grantaafor his short stories, and he returns to the form with a powerful collection of linked stories that stands with The Lazarus Project as the best work of his celebrated career. A few of the stories have never been published before; the others have appeared in "The New Yorker," and several of those have also been included in "The Best American Short Stories." - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 3.31.09
  
• Brothers
  Author: Hua, Yu
  $ 29.95 ISBN: 9780375424991 Date: 2009
  Kirkus PW Booklist
  From the acclaimed--and controversial--Chinese novelist comes a spirited comedy of society running amok. By turns comic and tragic, filled with sly humor and a vibrant sense of life in China today, Brothers is the most important work to date from this award-winning writer.
  Updated 1.27.09
  
• It's Beginning to Hurt
  Author: Lasdun, James
  $ I23 SBN: 9780374299026 Date: 2009
  Kirkus PW
  The stories in this remarkable collection--including "An Anxious Man," winner of the National Short Story Prize (UK)--are vibrant and gripping. James Lasdun's great gift is his unfailing psychological instinct for the vertiginous moments when the essence of a life discloses itself. With forensic skill he exposes his characters' hidden desires and fears, drawing back the folds of their familiar self-delusions, their images of themselves, their habits and routines, to reveal their interior lives with brilliant clarity. In sharply evoked settings that range from the wilds of Northern Greece to the beaches ofCape Cod, these intensely dramatic tales chart the metamorphoses of their characters as they fall prey to the full range of human passions. They rise to unexpected heights of decency or stumble into comic or tragic folly. They throw themselves open to lust, longing, and paranoia--always recognizably mirrors of our own conflicted selves. As James Wood has written, "James Lasdun seems to be one of the secret gardens of English writing . . . When we read him we know what language is for again." This collection of haunting, richly humane pieces is further proof of the powers of an enormously inventive writer. - Publisher Marketing
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 8.13.09
  
• Mathilda Savitch
  Author: Lodato, Victor
  $ 24 ISBN: 9780374204006 Date: 2009
  Kirkus Booklist LJ PW
  "I want to be awful. I want to do awful things and why not? Dull is dull is dull is my life." So begins Mathilda Savitch, a compelling page-turner and the debut of an extraordinary novelistic talent.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Debuts
  Updated 10.27.09
  
• New World Monkeys
  Author: Mauro, Nancy
  $ 23 ISBN: 9780307461414 Date: 2009
  PW Booklist Kirkus
  A savagely smart, darkly comic literary debut, New World Monkeys exposes the false idols of marital tranquility, small-town idyll, and corporate loyalty.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Debuts
  Updated 8.13.09
  
• Too Much Happiness
  Author: Munro, Alice
  $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780307269768 Date: 2009
  Booklist PW Kirkus
  With clarity and ease, Munro once again renders complex, difficult events and emotions into stories that shed light on the unpredictable ways in which men and women accommodate and often transcend what happens in their lives.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 10.27.09
• Generosity: An Enhancement
  Author: Powers, Richard
  $ 25 ISBN: 9780374161149 Date: 2009
  Booklist PW LJ
  From the National Book Award-winning author of The Echo Maker comes a playful and provocative novel about the discovery of the happiness gene. Funny, fast, and magical, Generosity celebrates both science and the freed imagination.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 9.1.09
• The Humbling
  Author: Roth, Philip
  $ 22 ISBN: 9780547239699 Date: 2009
  PW Kirkus Booklist
  Everything is over for Simon Axler, the protagonist of Roth's startling new book. One of the leading American stage actors of his generation, now in his 60s, Axler has lost his magic, his talent, and his assurance.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 11.20.09
  
• Cry of the Sloth
  Author: Savage, Sam
  $ 14 ISBN: 9781566892315 Date: 2009
  PW LJ Kirkus
  From letters and diary entries to grocery lists, this novel comprises a collection of everything Andrew Whittaker commits to paper over the course of four critical months. This tragicomic portrait of a literary life chronicles an aspiring novelist who is--quite literally--authoring his own downfall.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 9.24.09
• Once on a Moonless Night
  Author: Sijie, Dai
  $ I25 SBN: 9780307271587 Date: 2009
  LJ Booklist PW
  From the author of the beloved best seller Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress comes a haunting tale of love--and the beguiling power of a lost language--in this story that carries readers across the breadth of China's past.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 6.30.09
  
• Love and Summer
  Author: Trevor, William
  $ 25.95 ISBN: 9780670021239 Date: 2009
  Kirkus PW LJ
  In spare, soulful prose, acclaimed Irish writer Trevor tells a haunting love story about the choices of the heart and the hardships--and comforts--of a bygone world.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 8.18.09
  
• My Father's Tears and Other Stories
  Author: Updike, John
  $ 25 ISBN: 9780307271563 Date: 2009
  Booklist Kirkus LJ PW
  Updike's first collection of new short fiction since the year 2000, My Father's Tears finds the author in a valedictory mood as he mingles narratives of his native Pennsylvania with stories of New England suburbia and of foreign travel.
  Updated 4.22.09