Ken Kalfus uses humor to drive home several points about how world events can have a sorry effect on our personal lives in “A Disorder Peculiar to the Country.” If you are angry about how the government is treating the middle class in American society, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is on your side in “War on the Middle Class.” In paperbacks, look for local author Linda LeBlanc’s “Beyond the Summit,” a story of love between a young Sherpa and an American journalist. Jim Harrison’s new novel, “Returning to Earth,” about a dying man relating his family’s history, is due in January.
FICTION
A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, by Ken Kalfus, HarperCollins, 256 pages, $24.95|Kalfus blends together a story of terrorism, war and marital discord in this novel filled with black humor about how our nation’s recent troubles can affect our lives.
Goodnight, Texas, by William J. Cobb, Unbridled, 288 pages, $24.95|Things are not good in Goodnight by the Sea, Texas. Between the effects of global warming and wandering alligators, people in this small town are not living the life of Riley.
The Devil’s Backbone, by Kim Wozencraft, St. Martin’s, 352 pages, $24.95|Kit and Jenny Metcalf are sisters, but the similarity ends there. Kit is a stripper who winds up murdered, while Jenny, an Austin police detective, tries to find the killer.
NONFICTION
War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back, by Lou Dobbs, Penguin, 288 pages, $24.95|The CNN anchor is angry about the way he says the Clinton and Bush administrations have treated the middle class.
Wolf Trapped: The Life and Death of a Young Artist in Hitler’s Europe, by Robert Follett, Alpine Guild, 188 pages, $29.95|The story of a young Berlin cartoonist named Wolf who fled the Nazis to Paris to continue his work. As the Nazis prepare to invade France, Wolf and his wife, Anne, make a tragic decision. With illustrations of Wolf’s art.
Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, by Caroline Weber, Henry Holt, 413 pages, $27.50|The young queen put the French monarchy to the test just by the way she chose to dress. Weber discusses how one led to the other.
PAPERBACKS
Beyond the Summit, by Linda Le- Blanc, Ama Dablam, 280 pages, $16.95|The fictional tale of a young Sherpa in Nepal and an American woman, a journalist. In addition to the affair with the young journalist, the story involves a trek up Mount Everest as told from the point of view of a porter.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon & Schuster, 916 pages, $19.95|The noted historian examines how Lincoln used his powers of persuasion to turn strong political enemies into cohorts during the nation’s most trying times.
The City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt, Penguin, 414 pages, $15|Berendt, whose “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” captured the essence of Savannah, Ga., turns his reporter’s eyes on Venice.
COMING UP
Returning to Earth, by Jim Harrison, Grove Press, 272 pages, $24, January|A dying man tells his family’s history to his two grown children in a series of stories he has never before told.
Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man, by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Harvard University Press, 701 pages, $35, November|Using interviews with the last survivors of the huge boatlift of soldiers from France to England in the early days of World War II, the author also recounts the exploits of men charged with holding strongpoints inland.
Find Me, by Carol O’Connell, Putnam, 380 pages, $24.95, December|O’Connell brings back New York detective Kathy Mallory in a psychological thriller featuring murder and missing children.
