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Spring 2012 Announcements: SF/Fantasy/Horror: To Boldly Go
The spring is a time for new growth, which may explain why the spring SF/fantasy/horror list is packed full of debuts, series launches, and wild experiments.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Romance: Mix and Matchmake
Romance authors are always looking for the perfect match, not just between their protagonists but also among romance’s many subgenres. This spring sees a continued emphasis on crossing and blending different types of romance.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Politics: America, Left and Right
What’s happening on the left? The right? What’s become of the center? Spring’s books turn inwards, taking stock of the American political landscape before the election and arguing for change.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Performing Arts: Let Us Entertain You
According to Mr. Webster, an icon is “an object of uncritical devotion”—a definition that has diversified notably of late. Today’s icons are apt to be people (Lady Gaga, Tom Cruise), places (Woodstock, Alcatraz), or, yes, things (soap operas?).
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Mysteries & Thrillers: People in Peril
Chris Pavone, a former New York book editor, draws on his experiences living with his family in Luxembourg for his first novel, The Expats. This meticulously plotted, psychologically complex spy thriller about the travails of an American couple in Luxembourg compares favorably with early John le Carré and Robert Ludlum.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Music: Hits from the ’70s
I remember hanging out with my best friend and a couple of girls in a 1973 Dodge Challenger muscle car his older brother drove, listening to a song that came out the same year the car was made and was already a classic in 1980—“Ramblin’ Man” by the Allman Brothers. It was a hot, moist Florida night, and we were parked outside a roller skating rink, not opening the car doors until the song had ended.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Memoir: Telling It Like It Is... or Was
Memoir can be cathartic, painful, shocking, funny, revelatory, informative, entertaining. Inquiring minds want to know: how our beloved icons made it to the top, how that drug addict made it back, why someone left the comfort of home, saved a horse, went on stage, changed gender, survived a revolution. We want to hear about overcoming loss, grief, displacement, disappointment, and always, who slept with whom.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Literary Essays & Criticism: Literary Magic from East to West
A biographer’s work is never done. Just when you think you’ve written the definitive life, new material crops up and another biographer tries to claim your crown. So while Richard Ellmann set the biographical standard for James Joyce, Gordon Bowker—biographer of George Orwell and others—is giving it a go, having mined recently uncovered sources for James Joyce: A New Biography, focusing on Joyce’s inner life and shedding light on the Irishman’s time in, and attitude toward, England, as well as toward Judaism.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Lifestyle: The Next Trick; Down Dog; Up with Cats
The heaviest hitter on the lifestyle shelf this spring is not a diet book but the newest offering from mega-successful author and filmmaker Rhonda Byrne. With an announced printing of 750,000, The Magic (Atria, Mar.) is positioned to prestidigitate onto bestseller lists, following the trajectory of Byrne’s previous book phenoms, The Secret (2006, with 20 million in print) and The Power (2010).
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Cookbooks: Back to the Land… Again
There is nothing simpler and tastier than a juicy, vine-picked tomato sprinkled with salt and drizzled with olive oil, or a freshly caught mackerel stuffed with bay leaves, and grilled on an open fire. Food that is simple and natural is part of a continuing trend of going locavore, growing, cultivating and eating from one’s own garden or farm. And this continues in this spring’s cookbooks.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Dark Days: Literary Fiction
The election is still nine months away, but already our airwaves are clogged with power-mad men in power ties lying through their straight white teeth. The unemployment rate is falling, they say; the economy is in recovery. There is hope, they tell us. Everyone’s favorite dream is still alive and well. Over the next six months, if we’re going to get anything remotely resembling truth, we have to turn to fiction.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Business: Global Reach
Globalization was supposed to bring economic benefits to people all over the world; while it brought improvements to some regions it has caused as nearly many challenges. The impact of a more interconnected world is the focus of many of the most important business books being published this spring.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Art: Masters, Design, Sustainability & Architecture
In art book publishing, there is an increasing confluence of disciplines—visual arts becomes urban design becomes social critique and eventually lands as cultural history. This season’s listing are replete with books on green architecture, sustainable design, and voices of dissent, and plenty of major artists. Hard to chose 10 titles among the diversity of offerings, so I will opt for reflecting that diversity.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Poetry: Mid-Career Triumphs
This spring, lots of very strong poets are bringing out new volumes of poetry—it’s not the usual stampede of “selecteds” and “collecteds” by poets at the end of their careers or past the end of their lives—though there are a few of those. But the books that stand out in the next few months are the slim volumes of new poems by poets in the middle of their careers: third, fourth, and fifth books by poets we’ve been watching for a few years now.
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Fewer Books on Religion and Politics, but Broader Views
In a move that reflects both shifting political dynamics and market forces, Thomas Nelson has slashed its politics program, from as many as 20 new titles per year in the early 2000s to just five in 2012. The books now target not only Christian conservatives but also moderates and liberals through such offerings as a new, evenhanded edition of The Faith of Barack Obama (Nov.), first released in 2008.
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Equal Opportunity Electioneering
With the primary season underway, the approaching presidential election is becoming inescapable. Already the news networks are switching into serious campaign-coverage mode, with plenty of color-coded maps, raucous commentary, and game-changing polls on the way. Publishers are also preparing for the big political season—with a host of timely titles for what’s sure to be a heated election cycle.
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Staying Afloat in Rough Waters: Personal Finance 2011
The statistics are grim: more than 50% of mortgages in the U.S. are underwater. Unemployment stands at 8.6%, the lowest figure since spring 2009, while outstanding student loan debt will exceed $1 trillion this year, outpacing credit card debt, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. Department of Education.
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Partnership Models and the African-American Book Market
Unconventional business partnerships that create imprints to publish books for the African-American market are generating a wave of opportunities for authors, publishers, and entrepreneurs alike. Not all of the ventures covered here are new—Strebor Books was founded in 1999—but they do offer examples of innovative and successful departures from conventional publishing models.
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African-American Interest Adult Titles, 2011-2012
The following is a list of African-American interest books for adult readers; compiled from publisher responses to our October PW Call for Information, these titles are publishing between September 2011 and March 2012.
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Weighing the Options: Deit and Fitness 2011
With Thanksgiving past and the holiday feasting season underway, there’s one category guaranteed to attract repentant readers come the inevitable parade of New Year’s resolutions: diet and fitness.
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