Editor’s Choice
The Four Fingers of Death, by Rick Moody, $25.99. A rollicking romp through deep space and Arizona alike, improbable and thoroughly entertaining, courtesy of master story teller Moody. It’s a big old goof, but punctuated by telling commentary about the direction society, the planet and literature all are taking. Kirkus
FICTION
I’d Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman, $25.99. Lippman begins with a real crime and then uses the magic of her imagination to produce novels that are not only hypnotic reading but serious meditations on the sorrows and dangers of this world. Some people would segregate Lippman as a crime or thriller writer. That’s a shame. She’s one of the best novelists around, period. The Washington Post Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome, by Steven Saylor, $25.99. Saylor resumes the family saga he began in Roma, spanning from the reign of Augustus to the death of Hadrian. With the same solid historical research, this new hefty and entertaining installment should please fans of the first volume and draw new readers attracted by the famous names. Library Journal.
NONFICTION
Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession, by Craig Childs, $24.95. Childs intermingles personal experiences as a desert ecologist and adventurer with a journalistic look at scientists, collectors, museum officials and pot hunters to explore what should happen to ancient artifacts. An engaging and thought-provoking look at one of the art-and-artifacts world’s most heated debates. Publishers Weekly
Let’s Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell, $23. Caldwell has managed to do the inexpressible in this quiet, fierce work: create a memorable offering of love to her best friend, Caroline Knapp, the writer who died of lung cancer at age 42 in 2002. Caldwell is unflinching in depicting her friend’s last days, although her own grief nearly undid her; she writes of this desolating time with tremendously moving grace. Publishers Weekly
Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II, by Madhusree Mukerjee, $28.95. Misremembered as a placid imperial bastion during WWII, India was in fact racked by famine and insurrection, according to this searching history. The author’s centerpiece is a chronicle of the 1943 Bengali famine, in which at least 1.5 million died while British authorities continued exporting Indian grain. Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
Let Me In, by John Lundqvist, $15.99. Part revenge fantasy, part horror story and part police investigation gone wrong, this debut vampire novel translated from the Swedish sinks its fangs into fresh territory. Unlike Anne Rice’s hedonistic bloodsuckers, Lundqvist’s vampires are sad, lonely creatures who simply want to survive, taking little pleasure in what is required to do so. Kirkus
Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby, $15. Hornby’s characters may be marinated in melancholy, but there’s always a ray or two of hope. He brings together a compelling, original cast in this sweet and sorrowful tale of rock ‘n’ roll and love on the rocks. Booklist
The Elephant Keeper, by Christopher Nicholson, $14.99. “The Elephant Keeper” is a strange tour of late 18th-century England, a natural history of elephants and the story of a most unusual friendship, all told with a touch of the otherworldly elegance and wit of Babar. The Washington Post
COMING UP
Full Dark, No Stars, by Stephen King, $27.95. Here is a collection of four new long stories from King, all loosely based on the theme of marriage (November).
