While you wait for temperatures to rise and blossoms to bud, there will be good books to read. Here is a list long enough to take you from the fireside to the hammock.
Fiction
“Point Omega,” by Don DeLillo” (February, $24). A retired man of war meets a moviemaker who wants to make a documentary about him.
“Something Is Out There: Stories,” by Richard Bausch (February, $24.95). The novelist and short-story writer ranges across the tricky landscape of family and friendship in 11 stories.
“A Dark Matter,” by Peter Straub (February, $26.95). A master of horror tells of an encounter between a 1960s guru and four of his followers that left one person dead and the others emotionally scarred.
“Mornings in Jenin,” by Susan Abulhawa (February, $15). This debut novel by Philly-area Abulhawa tells the story of four generations of a Palestinian family removed from their village when Israel was created in 1948.
“The Surrendered,” by Chang-rae Lee (March, $26.95). The lives of an orphaned Korean girl, an American soldier and a missionary’s wife intersect during the Korean War in a story of love and war spanning three decades.
“Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War,” by Karl Marlantes (April, $24.95). The author gave up a Rhodes scholarship during the Vietnam War and signed up with the Marines. Through his fictional alter ego, a Marine lieutenant, he tells the story of Bravo Company as it fights through mountain jungles.
“Private Life,” by Jane Smiley. (May, $26.95). The Pulitzer Prize-winner tells the story of Margaret Mayfield Early, married for decades to a man of mystifying obsessions whose first love is science.
Nonfiction
“Staying True,” by Jenny Sanford (February, $25). South Carolina governor Mark Sanford’s wife, seeking a divorce, tells of her husband’s affair.
“The Bag Lady Papers,” by Alexandra Penney (February, $23). A woman makes money in publishing, then loses it all thanks to Bernie Madoff.
“The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today,” by Ted Conover (February, $26.95). Pulitzer Prize finalist Conover takes to the road, exploring the impact of six highways around the world on the people who use them and the lands they cross.
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” by Rebecca Skloot (February, $26). Lacks was a Virginia tobacco farmer, but when she donated tissue that helped create the polio vaccine, her cells effectively became “immortal.”
“The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea,” by Philip Hoare (February, $27.99). They’re big, they’re blue, and they’re a lot like you.
“Paul and Me,” by A.E. Hotchner (March, $26.95). The story of a 53-year friendship by the guy Paul Newman always thanked on the tomato-sauce bottles.
“Coco Chanel: A Life,” by Justine Picardie (April, $40). The woman who invented 20th-century fashion first had to invent herself.
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
