Editor’s Choice
Walking to Gatlinburg, by Howard Frank Mosher, $25. A Civil War odyssey in the tradition of Charles Frazier’s “Cold Mountain” and Robert Olmstead’s “Coal Black Horse,” Mosher’s latest, about a Vermont teenager’s harrowing journey south to find his missing-in-action brother, is old-fashioned in the best sense of the word. Publishers Weekly
FICTION
The Informer, by Craig Nova, $26. Set in 1930 Berlin, this fine novel from Nova (“The Good Son”) smoothly combines crime and politics. While those expecting a conventional police procedural may be disappointed, the author’s evocative portrait of Weimar Germany and sophisticated portrayals of the lead characters will satisfy most readers. Publishers Weekly
Pearl of China, by Anchee Min, $24. As a girl in Maoist China, Min (“Red Azalea”) was ordered to denounce Pearl S. Buck; now she offers a thin sketch of the Nobel laureate’s life from the point of view of fictional Willow Yee, a fiercely loyal friend. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West, by Stephen Fried, $27. Have you heard of the Harvey Girls? Fried, a freelance journalist, retraces the 19th-century founding of America’s food-service industry through the ventures of Fred Harvey and his company, including the “girls” who worked in his restaurants. Library Journal
To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West, by Mark Lee Gardner, $26.99. Western historian Gardner delivers a “dual biography” documenting Sheriff Pat Garrett’s hunt for the iconic outlaw William Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. As Gardner sees it, the battle between the wily Kid and the determined Garrett is “perhaps the greatest of our Old West legends.” Publishers Weekly
Andy Warhol and the Can That Sold the World, by Gary Indiana, $22. The latest from cultural critic and author Indiana (“Utopia’s Debris”) explores the legacy of Andy Warhol through his most famous and, arguably, groundbreaking work, 1962’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, a group of paintings of the ubiquitous red-and-white canned staple. Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
Brooklyn, by Colm Toibín, $15. Toibín’s engaging new novel will not bring to mind the fashionable borough of recent years nor Bed-Stuy beleaguered with the troubles of a Saturday night. Toibín has revived the Brooklyn of an Irish-Catholic parish in the ’50s. Publishers Weekly
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde, by Jeff Guinn, $16.99. Journalist Guinn (“Our Land Before We Die”), in this intensely readable account, deromanticizes two of America’s most notorious outlaws (they were “never. . . particularly competent crooks”) without undermining the mystique of the Depression-era gunslingers. Publishers Weekly
COMING UP
The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons, by Richard Rhodes, $30. This culminating volume in Pulitzer and National Book awards-winner Rhodes’ monumental and prize-winning history of nuclear weapons offers the first comprehensive narrative of post-Cold War nuclear challenges. (August)
