James Carlos Blake is a master at using history to tell a fictional tale, and he’s at it again with “The Killings of Stanley Ketchell.” In nonfiction, John Crawford’s “The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War in Iraq,” is being compared favorably with Michael Herr’s famous take on the Vietnam War, “Dispatches.” Lily Prior’s humorous novel “Ardor” is on the paperback shelves. In November, look for a new memoir by Frank McCourt, called “Teacher Man.”
FICTION
“The Killings of Stanley Ketchel,” by James Carlos Blake, William Morrow, 311 pages, $25.95|The fictionalized account of the ragtime-era middleweight boxing champion whose life was centered on tragedy.
“The Testing of Luther Albright,” by MacKenzie Bezos, HarperCollins, 239 pages, $23.95|A debut novel of a family that drifts apart and the feelings of loss that accompany the dissolution.
“Panic,” by Jeff Abbott, Dutton, 353 pages, $23.95|Evan Casher walks into his mother’s murder and finds himself at the mercy of the CIA and another group of spies.
NONFICTION
“The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War in Iraq,” by John Crawford, Riverhead, 219 pages, $23.95|The National Guard soldier recounts the horror, anger, boredom and fear of a year at war.
“The Last Expedition: Stanley’s Mad Journey Through the Congo,” by Daniel Liebowitz and Charles Pearson, Norton, 355 pages, $25.95|In 1887, Henry Morton Stanley set out to rescue an official of the Egyptian Sudan who had been cut off from the outside world by an Islamic jihad in the north. The expedition had unexpected results.
“Stalin: A Biography,” by Robert Service, Belknap, Harvard, 715 pages, $29.95|Service, an Oxford historian, provides what Publishers Weekly calls “the most complete portrait yet of the Soviet leader.”
PAPERBACKS
“Ardor,” by Lily Prior, Ecco, 205 pages, $12.95|The author of “La Cucina” is back with a romantic comedy filled with lust, unrequited love and with the results of misplaced passions.
“Namath: A Biography,” by Mark Kriegel, Penguin, 512 pages, $16|The story of the quarterback known as Broadway Joe who transformed professional football into showbiz.
“Google Power: Unleash the Full Potential of Google,” by Chris Sherman, McGraw Hill, 434 pages, $24.99|Want to get the exact information you need from a search engine. This book is designed to help you optimize your use of the powerful Internet search engine.
COMING UP
“Teacher Man: A Memoir,” by Frank McCourt, Scribner, 352 pages, $26, November|The author of “Angela’s Ashes” and “’tis” turns his attention – and his charm and wit – to his life as a teacher.
“Slow Man,” by J.M. Coetzee, Viking, 208 pages, $24.95, September|When Paul Rayment, 60, loses his leg in an accident, he becomes hopeless until his spirits are lifted by his Croatian nurse, Marijana.
“Wickett’s Remedy,” by Myla Goldberg, Doubleday, 336 pages, $24.95, September|In the follow-up to her immensely popular “Bee Season,” Goldberg takes the reader back to Boston in the early 20th century and to two different worlds.
