The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein (Metropolitan Books, September). This towering study of the symbiotic relationship between late capitalism and American military intervention will become required reading for anyone who wants to understand American neo-colonialism.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (Riverhead, September). Eleven years in the making, this hilarious, language-mad novel about a nerd-boy genius who emigrates from the Dominican Republic to America is Saul Bellow in Latin form.
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearshimer and Stephen M. Walt (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, September). Bound to be the most talked-about book of the month. Get a copy before the shouting begins.
A Secular Age, Charles Taylor (Harvard/Belknap Press, September). It’s not just a fad, says professor Taylor, it’s a movement, and this fascinating, sobering and wonderfully unhysterical study shows exactly how it developed.
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, Steven Pinker (Viking, September). You may never use another emoticon again after reading this fascinating, extremely accessible study of how language affects and reflects the make-up of our brains.
One Drop, Bliss Broyard (Little, Brown, September). Thanks to Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, a great many people know how literary critic Anatole Broyard passed as white. Here is the anguished, deeply personal story from his daughter’s perspective.
Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems: 2004-2006, Adrienne Rich (Norton, October). Every two or three years, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet reinvents herself, her line. As she approaches her 80s, her work is as powerful as ever.
I Am America (And So Can You), Stephen Colbert (Grand Central, October). In the last two years, he has beaten the right at their own game, all while lambasting the game itself. Look for more ironic origami in his first solo book.
Exit Ghost, Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin, October). Roth has put him through hero worship, writer’s block, divorce and the meltdown of America. Now he is putting his alter ego Zuckerman to rest in this bleak, cackling volume.
The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century, Alex Ross (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, October). In this dazzling tour of the past century of classical music, The New Yorker critic Alex Ross might do the impossible—make you want to go to the symphony again.
The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982, edited by Greg Johnson (Ecco, October). She is a million-candle beam of talent, shining 40 miles into the sky. These journals give a miraculous window into her creative mind.
The Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932, John Richardson (Knopf, November). Outside of Robert Caro’s life of LBJ, Richardson’s ongoing study of Picasso is probably the most ambitious and magnificent biographical project in the world.
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Stories From the Pulps During Their Golden Age—the ’20s, the ’30s and the ’40s, edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Original, November). Over a thousand pages of the most wonderfully atmospheric, tawdry storytelling around.
The Book of Other People, edited by Zadie Smith (Penguin, November). The Booker finalist author asked a number of her favorite writers, from Nick Hornby to George Saunders, to make up a fictional character. Needless to say they hardly come up with the usual suspects.
A FEW MORE TO LOOK FOR
SEPTEMBER: The late David Halberstam looked at the Korean War for his final book, The Coldest Winter ... John Grisham goes long—to Italy—for his football novel Playing for Pizza ... It’s about time someone gave the Supreme Court the scrutiny Jeffrey Toobin trains on it in The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court ...
OCTOBER: Charlie Brown fans will want to check out Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography, by David Michaelis ... Plucky Kay Scarpetta returns for the 15th time in Patricia Cornwell’s new mystery, Book of the Dead ... Hungry? Alice Waters serves up The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution ...
NOVEMBER: He’s back—Borat Sagdiyev brings his shtick to print with Borat: Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A and Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan ... The funny business continues with Steve Martin’s memoir, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life ... and we’re particularly looking forward to the truth about travel, as revealed by Chuck Thompson in Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer.