This fall looks to be one of the best in a while for new book releases. 2008 was a disastrous year for the publishing industry (as it was for many others), and publishers are now hoping for redemption with a strong fall lineup. Big-hit writers like Pat Conroy, J.M. Coetzee, Alice Munro, Wally Lamb, Richard Powers, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon and Lorrie Moore all have new titles coming out. And there are also a lot of worthwhile books either on Western subjects or by Western authors, some well-known, some not-so-well-known. We’ve listed some recent and upcoming books alphabetically by the writer’s last name.
NONFICTION, MEMOIR, BIOGRAPHY
Fire and Ink: An Anthology of Social Action Writing, Edited by Frances Payne Adler, Debra Busman and Diana Garcia, University of Arizona Press, October * Trinity, Charles Bowden and Michael Berman, University of Texas Press, October * Bicycle Diaries, David Byrne, Viking, September * Robert Redford, Michael Feeney Callan, Knopf, November * A Tortilla Is Like Life: Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, Carole M. Counihan, University of Texas Press, November * The Other Side of the Fence: American Migrants in Mexico, Sheila Croucher, University of Texas Press, October* A Year on the Wing: Four Seasons in a Life with Birds, Tim Dee, Free Press, October * The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, Knopf, September * The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, Timothy Egan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October* Got Sun? Go Solar: Harness Nature’s Free Energy to Heat & Power Your Grid-Tied Home (second edition), by Rex A. Ewing and Doug Pratt, PixyJack Press, September * Been Doon So Long: A Randall Grahm Vinthology, Randall Grahm, University of California Press, November * No Place Like Home: Notes from a Western Life, by Linda M. Hasselstrom, University of Nevada Press, September * Historical Atlas of the American West, Derek Hayes, University of California Press, October * Tony Hillerman’s Landscape: On the Road with Chee and Leaphorn, Anne Hillerman, HarperCollins, October * Greening Cities, Growing Communities: Learning from Seattle’s Urban Community Gardens, Jeffrey Hou, Julie M. Johnson and Laura J. Lawson, University of Washington Press, October * Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, Jon Krakauer, Doubleday, September * Wisdom of the Last Farmer: Harvesting Legacies from the Land, David Mas Masumoto, Free Press, August * Silk Parachute, John McPhee, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 2010 * Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature, Kathleen Dean Moore, Random House, March 2010 * What We Love Will Save Us, David Oates, Kelson Books, September * Voices of the American West, Corinne Platt, Meredith Ogilby, William Kittredge; Fulcrum Publishing, September * Dirty Water: One Man’s Fight to Clean Up one of the World’s Most Polluted Bays, Bill Sharpsteen, University of California Press, January 2010 * Jackrabbit Homestead: Tracing the Small Tract Act in the Southern California Landscape, 1938–2008, Kim Stringfellow, Center for American Places, October * The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings and Missives from the Mountaintop, 1997-2005, Hunter S. Thompson, Simon & Schuster, September * A Lawyer in Indian Country: A Memoir, Alvin J. Ziontz, University of Washington Press, August
FICTION
War Dances, Sherman Alexie, Grove Press, October * Borderline, Nevada Barr, Putnam, April * Davis Country: H.L. Davis’s Northwest, edited by Brian Booth and Glen A. Love, Oregon State University Press, October * Crossers, Philip Caputo, Random House, October * Moonlight in Odessa, Janet Skeslien Charles, Bloomsbury, September * The Journal of Antonio Montoya (re-release), Rick Collignon, Unbridled Books, August * The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, Heidi W. Durrow, Algonquin, February 2010 * La Ranfla and Other New Mexico Stories, Martha Egan, Papalote Press, September * Other Resort Cities, Tod Goldberg, OV Books, October * Spoon: A Novel, Robert Greer, Fulcrum Publishing, October * This Is Not Your City, Caitlin Horrocks, Eastern Washington University Press, November * Ray of the Star, Laird Hunt, Coffee House Press, September * Gloryland, Shelton Johnson, Sierra Club Books, September * Other Men’s Horses, Elmer Kelton, Forge Books, October * The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver, HarperCollins, November * The Longshot: A Novel, Katie Kitamura, Free Press, August * Rhino Ranch, Larry McMurtry, Simon & Schuster, August * The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight, Gina Ochsner, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, February * Putrefaction Live, Warren Perkins, University of New Mexico Press, October * Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon, Penguin, August * Sometimes We’re Always Real Same-Same, Mattox Roesch, Unbridled Books, September * Best of the West 2009: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri, edited by James Thomas and D. Seth Horton, University of Texas Press, October * Half-Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel, Jeannette Walls, Simon & Schuster, October
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Book lust, Western-style.
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