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Spring 2012 Announcements: Spring Is Here!
Welcome to the season of hope and green shoots and new books. In this, our third season gathering our announcements with the help of Above the Treeline’s Edelweiss system, we had almost exactly 3,000 more titles to chose from than our Fall 2011 listings.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: History & Military History: War!
WWII and the American Civil War have been staples in military history publishing for years. But with the U.S. fighting two wars since 2003, modern conflicts take over the general history category this spring.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Social Science: It’s All Local
As the 2012 presidential campaign shifts into high gear and talk of American values hits a fever pitch, this spring’s social science books offer a deeper dive for those not satisfied with the one-liners and sound bites offered on the campaign trail.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Science: Genes Are in Season—Brains, Too
Out of the 60 notable science titles for spring 2012, six have the word “brain” in the title; four more have the words “gene” or “genetics.” And many other books are built on the foundations of neuroscience and genetics. You won’t learn much about the periodic table this season, but if you want to know how your brain (or your breasts) evolved, dopamine will flood your brain with pleasurable sensations.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Comics & Graphic Novels: Persistence of Memoirs
This spring’s best graphic novels showcase the power of comics to capture personal memories as no other medium can, from a friendship with one of histories most shocking mass murderers to the life of James Joyce’s troubled daughter. Nonfiction comics also take a trip around the world, from the streets of Jerusalem to the avenues of Cleveland.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Travel: Meander Is a River…
...in Turkey, that starts in the central highlands of the country and follows so many twists and turns to the Aegean Sea that it was never used for transport although it famously connected East and West. Jeremy Seal travels its route by kayak in Meander: East to West, Indirectly, Along a Turkish River, recalling the river’s famous history (Alexander the Great passed through on his way to conquer Asia) and meeting the mix of people settled along its banks.
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Spring 2012 Announcements: Sports: Olympians, Yogi & the Knuckler
This June, the Summer Olympics from London will be hard to escape, and there are no fewer than five books in the pages that follow that deal with the history of Olympic competition in one way or the other.
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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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