Literary Biographies, Essays & Criticism
Tevis (May 12, paper, $16, ISBN 978-1-
57131-347-8). Grappling with a fear
sparked by the end-times sermons of
her Southern youth, Tevis seeks out all-American symbols of apocalypse, from
Buddy Holly’s last days to atomic testing,
in this heart-wrenching essay collection.
NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS
The Prince of Minor Writers: The
Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm,
edited by Phillip Lopate (June 9, paper,
$18.95, ISBN 978-1-59017-828-7). A
collection of pieces by Beerbohm, called by
Virginia Woolf “the prince” of essayists,
brings to the fore this largely forgotten
writer’s unequaled mastery of parody,
whim, and irony.
Where I’m Reading From: The
Changing World of Books by Tim Parks
(May 12, hardcover, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-
59017-884-3). Geared toward students
and lovers of literature alike, this collection
of 37 concise and exacting essays from the
internationally acclaimed novelist, translator, and critic provides a timely examination of what reading and books once meant
and, more importantly, mean today.
NORTON
Between You & Me: Confessions of a
Comma Queen by Mary Norris (Apr.,
hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-393-
24018-4). Having spent more than three
decades in the New Yorker’s famously exacting copy department, Norris brings her
vast experience and good cheer to a boisterous book about language, which, according
to PW’s review, will help readers “think
more about how and what they write.”
Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult
Friendship That Shaped the Sixties by
Kevin M. Schultz (June 1, hardcover,
$28.95, ISBN 978-0-393-08871-7).
Schultz, a university of Illinois history
professor, unfolds a lively chronicle of the
1960s through the contentious yet surprisingly close friendship of Norman Mailer
and William F. Buckley Jr., who argued
publicly about every major issue of the
decade.
Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born;
Ian Fleming’s Jamaica by Matthew
Parker (Mar. 11, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN
978-1-60598-686-9). Ian Fleming wrote
all of the James Bond novels and stories in
Goldeneye, the house he built in Jamaica.
Parker examines the island’s influence on
the creation of the nonpareil hero and its
significant part in the life of Bond’s creator.
Why Not Say What Happened? A
Sentimental Education by Morris Dickstein (Feb. 9, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN
978-0-87140-431-2). A renowned cultural
critic tells his own story. Dickstein traces a
path that took him from a traditional,
close-knit Jewish family to a wider world
of literature and ideas, not to mention a
ringside seat to the tumult of the ’60s.
PICADOR
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed:
Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to
Have Kids, edited by Meghan Daum
(Mar. 31, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-
250-05293-3). Essayist Daum (The
Unspeakable) assembles a collection, which
PW called “absorbing,” featuring 16 literary luminaries, including Lionel Shriver,
Elliott Holt, and Geoff Dyer, on the contentious subject of people who are childless
by choice.
PRINCETON UNIV.
The Complete Works of W. H. Auden:
Prose, Vol. V, 1963–1968, edited by
Edward Mendelson (May 31, hardcover,
$65, ISBN 978-0-691-15171-7). The fifth
volume of W.H. Auden’s complete prose,
containing his most personally revealing
essays, addresses his family life, his sexuality, and the development of his moral and
religious beliefs.
The Complete Works of W. H. Auden:
Prose, Vol. VI, 1969–1973, edited by
Edward Mendelson (May 31, hardcover,
$65, ISBN 978-0-691-16458-8). This
sixth and final volume of W.H. Auden’s
prose shows his mind in full maturity and
contains the full text of what Auden
regarded as his only book of autobiography,
A Certain World.
Note Book by Jeff Nunokawa (Apr. 26,
hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-691-
16649-0). Every day since 2007, Princeton
English professor Nunokawa has posted a
brief essay in the Notes section of his Face-
book page. Here, he offers 250 of his most
memorable essays. The result is a new kind
of literary work for the social media era.
On Elizabeth Bishop by Colm Tóibín
(Mar. 22, hardcover, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-
691-15411-4) offers a deeply personal
introduction to the work and life of one of
Tóibín’s most important influences—the
American poet Elizabeth Bishop. Tóibín
creates a vivid picture of Bishop while
revealing how her work has shaped his
sensibility as a novelist.
RANDOM
Man in Profile: Joseph Mitchell of
The New Yorker by Thomas Kunkel
(Apr. 28, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-0-
375-50890-5). A biography from Kunkel
(Genius in Disguise) of the New Yorker writer
(1908–1996) whose long-form profiles of
everyday people and places in the city he
loved—high-rise construction workers,
Staten Island oystermen, Bowery bums—
pioneered a new kind of reportage.
My Generation: Collected Nonfiction
by William Styron, edited by James L. W.
West III (June 2, hardcover, $35, ISBN
978-0-8129-9705-7). A vital, illuminating collection of Pulitzer Prize and
National Book Award-winner Styron’s
elegant, passionately engaged nonfiction
includes significant previously uncollected
material. This is the definitive gathering of
the fruits of this writer’s five decades of
public life.
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and
Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte
Gordon (Apr. 28, hardcover, $30, ISBN
978-1-4000-6842-5). Gordon (Mistress
Bradstreet) offers the first book devoted
to comparing the fascinating, eerily similar lives of Mary Wollstonecraft, author
of A Vindication of the Rights of Women,
and her daughter, Mary Shelley, author
of Frankenstein.
RANDOM/SPIEGEL & GRAU
The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime by
Harold Bloom (May 12, hardcover, $35,
ISBN 978-0-8129-9782-8). The renowned
