Spring Books

Tales of war and alienation, crime and religion, artists, cops and even the weather

LITERARY FICTION | POPULAR FICTION | NON FICTION

There are lots of literary treats in store this spring and summer, headed for a bookshelf near you. Books on food are forthcoming from Julia Child, Michael Pollan and Marion Nestlé, and a memoir of true crime from Michael Connelly, reprising his days as a police reporter. Thriller writer Alan Furst is back in between-the-wars Paris. Philip Roth, John Updike, Anne Tyler and Ivan Doig are publishing new novels. And for the get-away-from-it-all crowd, there are not one, not two, but three new books on seminaries.

They're all here in our list of 101 choice prospects in literary fiction, popular fiction and nonfiction, to be published this month through August.

LITERARY FICTION, POETRY, GRAPHIC NOVELS

MARCH

"Sinners Welcome" by Mary Karr (HarperCollins). A volume of verse by the poet-memoirist ("The Liar's Club"), documenting her transformation into "a resolutely irreverent Catholic."

"Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story" by Harvey Pekar, illustrated by Gary Dumm (Ballantine). Pekar, of "American Splendor" fame, writes a tale about the startling transformation of "a slight, unintimidating man who has never really stood out in the crowd."

"Night Watch" by Sarah Waters (Riverhead). The Man Booker Prize-nominated British lesbian writer whose specialty up until now has been Victorian-era fiction ("Tipping the Velvet," "Fingersmith") shifts gears with a novel set in the 1940s, about four wartime Londoners "whose lives ... connect in ways that are surprising and not always known to them."

APRIL

"Saving the World" by Julia Alvarez (Algonquin). The author of "In the Time of the Butterflies" offers a novel within a novel — the first about a Latin American novelist transplanted to the United States, the second a historical tale about an early-19th-century attempt to vaccinate Spain's American colonies against smallpox.

"The Dead Fish Museum" by Charles D'Ambrosio (Knopf). The Seattle-raised writer, now based in Portland, delivers a long-awaited follow-up to his 1995 debut story collection, "The Point," with this gathering of eight tales.

"No Man's Land" by Graham Greene, foreword by David Lodge (Hesperus). This recently discovered novella by the author of "The Quiet American" is set in Cold War Germany and involves "espionage, superstition and betrayal."

"Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell (Random House). The Man Booker Prize-nominated British writer ("Cloud Atlas") sets his latest novel in "the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982," where his 13-year-old hero is trying to figure out what's what.

"Rapids" by Tim Parks (Arcade) and "Talking About It" by Tim Parks (Hesperus). A new novel and a short-story collection by the Man Booker Prize-nominated British writer ("Europa"). "Rapids" is about 15 vacationers who get more than they bargained for on a kayaking expedition down a river in the Italian Alps. The tales in "Talking About It" span Parks' entire career.

"Seeing" by José Saramago, translated by Margaret Jull Costa (Harcourt). A sequel to the Portuguese Nobel laureate's novel "Blindness," in which the one woman who kept her sight in the earlier novel is blamed for the fact that 70 percent of the ballots in a national election apparently are blank.

MAY

"Theft" by Peter Carey (Knopf). A novel by the Booker Prize-winning Australian author ("Oscar and Lucinda") about a formerly famous painter, his troubled younger brother and a "mysterious young woman" who enters their lives.

"JPod" by Douglas Coupland (Bloomsbury). A novel by the Vancouver, B.C., author ("Generation X," "Microserfs") about six high-tech employees "bureaucratically marooned in JPod, a no-escape architectural limbo on the fringes of a massive Vancouver video-game-design company."

"Dear Ghosts" by Tess Gallagher (Graywolf). A collection of poems by the Port Angeles author, in which "ghosts of the past are conjured and communed with."

"District and Circle" by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). A new volume of verse by the Nobel Prize-winning poet.

"The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories" by Valerie Martin (Vintage). A paperback-original collection of stories about "artists — driven and blocked, desired and detested, infamous and sublime." By the author of "Mary Reilly" and the Orange Prize-winning "Property."

"Everyman" by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin). The prize-winning novelist's new work is about a man "whose youthful sense of independence and confidence begins to be challenged when illness commences its attack in middle age."

"Digging to America" by Anne Tyler (Knopf). The latest by the Pulitzer Prize-winner ("Breathing Lessons") focuses on an Iranian-born American woman "who, after 35 years in this country, must finally come to terms with her 'outsiderness.' "

JUNE

"The Whistling Season" by Ivan Doig (Harcourt). Set in 1909, the new novel by the Seattle writer portrays a community of rural homesteaders drawn to "a gargantuan irrigation project intended to make the Montana prairie bloom."

"Touchy Subjects" by Emma Donoghue (Harcourt). The always surprising lesbian writer ("Slammerkin") delivers a book of 19 stories encompassing "characters old, young, straight, gay, and simply confused."

"The Whole World Over" by Julia Glass (Pantheon). In her sophomore effort, Glass, whose debut novel "Three Junes" won the National Book Award, portrays a "fiery" Greenwich Village pastry-business owner whose impulsive actions affect those around her in serendipitous ways in the year leading up to 9/11.

"Telegraph Days" by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster). The latest novel by the prolific author is set during "the gun-slinging days of the Old West" and is narrated by a young woman who becomes her frontier town's telegraph operator.

"Terrorist" by John Updike (Knopf). In a nervy move, Updike enters the mind of an 18-year-old would-be Islamic terrorist, born of an Irish-American mother and a long-vanished Egyptian father.

"She May Not Leave" by Fay Weldon (Atlantic Monthly). The feisty satirist addresses a new side of the domestic-help issue: A partnered-but-not-married London couple, with a new child on their hands, are so desperate not to lose their Polish nanny that they engineer a marriage between nanny and father ... a solution that isn't exactly trouble-free.

JULY

"Talk Talk" by T.C. Boyle (Viking). Boyle follows up "The Inner Circle," his novel about Alfred Kinsey, with a story about a deaf man who falls in love with a deaf woman he met on a disco dance-floor ... only to learn later that she's up on (surely erroneous?) charges of assault with a deadly weapon, auto theft and passing bad checks.

"Taking Off" by Eric Kraft (St. Martin's). In the ingenious comic writer's latest novel, Babbington, Long Island, is turning into a theme park, and perennial Kraft hero Peter Leroy finds himself being honored for a 4,000-mile solo flight to New Mexico he made at age 15 ... until a diligent reporter uncovers the "earthbound truth" behind that flight.

"The Inhabited World" by David Long (Houghton Mifflin). The Tacoma writer ("Blue Spruce") sets his new novel in the afterlife — sort of. The plot: a suicide awakens in "a state of purgatory" in the same house where he died ... a house now inhabited by a woman in her 30s trying to start over again after an affair with a married man.

AUGUST

"Blind Willow, Sleeping Women: 25 Stories" by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin (Knopf). A hefty retrospective of short fiction by the popular Japanese author ("Kafka on the Shore"), with a new introduction by Murakami.

"Pound for Pound" by F.X. Toole (Ecco). A posthumously published novel by the author of "Rope Burns" (the basis for the Oscar-winning movie "Million Dollar Baby"). The boxing ring again serves as backdrop to a tale of "family, honor, perseverance and forgiveness."

POPULAR FICTION

MARCH

"The Two-Minute Rule" by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster). An ex-con dad loses his chance to reconcile with his police-officer son when that son is killed in a shootout. Then Dad discovers his son's supposed killer couldn't possibly have done it.

"Gone: An Alex Delaware Novel" by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine). The clinical psychologist/thriller writer tells a tale of two acting students who vanish then reappear, battered and recounting a horrific tale. Then their story is exposed as a hoax. Then one is murdered; the other disappears. Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis investigate.

"The Fallen" by T. Jefferson Parker (Morrow). A San Diego cop's gift for synesthesia (in his case, he can see "little colored shapes when people speak") makes him a better-than-average lie detector when it comes to investigating a suicide that isn't what it seems.

"Visionary in Residence" by Bruce Sterling (Thunder's Mouth). Thirteen short stories by one of the cutting-edge voices in science fiction.

"The Minotaur" by Barbara Vine (Shaye Areheart). The latest novel by Vine (a.k.a. Ruth Rendell) concerns a young Swedish nurse who, hired to care for a 39-year-old schizophrenic, begins to suspect his diagnosis is incorrect and that sinister doings are afoot.

APRIL

"Firetrap" by Earl Emerson (Ballantine). In the North Bend author's latest pyro-thriller, an African-American social club burns to the ground and the subsequent investigation into the fire's causes uncovers some unpleasant secrets.

"Night of the Jaguar" by Michael Gruber (Morrow). The Seattle thriller writer concludes his trilogy about Miami detective Jimmy Paz, with a tale about an American priest shot dead in the jungles of Colombia and a series of Cuban-American businessmen who start dying in "gruesome fashion."

"Cripple Creek" by James Sallis (Walker). Turner — Sallis' ex-cop/ex-con/former-therapist hero — is now a deputy sheriff in a small town near Memphis whose "ghosts" come back to haunt him when he tracks down a jail escapee.

"Blue Shoes and Happiness" by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon). A new No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novel in which sleuth Precious Ramotswe finds a cobra in her office and gets drawn into other minor crises around town.

MAY

"The Hard Way" by Lee Child (Delacorte). A new novel featuring hero Jack Reacher, in which Reacher handles "a ransom case gone wrong" — and tries to save an innocent life while he's at it.

"At Risk" by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam). A politically ambitious district attorney who wants to use DNA technology to solve a 20-year-old crime runs into trouble in the forensic thriller writer's latest novel.

"The Bookwoman's Last Fling" by John Dunning (Scribner). A new Cliff Janeway novel in which the rare-book dealer — and detective — investigates the death of a wealthy horse trainer with a "stunning" collection of first-edition children's classics.

"Malinche" by Laura Esquivel, translated by Ernesto Mestre-Reed (Atria). Historical fiction about the love affair between the Spanish conquistador Cortez and his Aztec interpreter Malinalli. By the author of "Like Water for Chocolate."

"The Foreign Correspondent" by Alan Furst (Random House). The espionage writer's latest thriller opens in 1939 with an apparent murder-suicide of two lovers in a Parisian hotel. The deaths turn out to be a political assassination by Mussolini's secret police.

"The Art of Detection" by Laurie R. King (Bantam). San Francisco detective Kate Martinelli investigates a killing connected to a century-old manuscript that may have been written by Sherlock Holmes.

"Cage of Stars" by Jacquelyn Mitchard (Warner). The latest offering from the popular novelist ("The Deep End of the Ocean") portrays a Mormon woman who hunts down the man who killed her two sisters when she was 12 years old.

"Second Sight" by Amanda Quick (Putnam). A new Victorian-era mystery by Quick (aka Seattle author Jayne Ann Krentz) in which a spinster-photographer gets more than she bargained for when she schemes to "engineer her own ravishment."

"The Man of My Dreams" by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House). Sittenfeld, whose debut novel "Prep" was a surprise best-seller, follows up with a novel about a young woman whose "fantasies of family and romance (start) colliding with the challenges and realities of adult life."

JUNE

"Owl Island" by Randy Sue Coburn (Ballantine). A locally-set second novel by the Seattle author and screenplay writer ("Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle"), about a widow confronting her feelings for her first love who has reappeared in her life and is now "a high-profile indie film director."

"Unnatural Selection" by Aaron Elkins (Berkley Prime Crime). Forensics professor Gideon Oliver is pottering around some Neolithic sites on England's Scilly Isles when he happens across a tibia that's only a few years old, arousing suspicions of murder. Elkins lives on the Olympic Peninsula.

"Twelve Sharp" by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's). A novel featuring bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, by the busy thriller writer.

"Piece of My Heart" by Peter Robinson (Morrow). The murder of a freelance music journalist leads Robinson's Detective Alan Banks back 30 years to another murder case.

JULY

"Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel" by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster). Burke's Cajun detective hero investigates a mystery concerning two young women, one a passer of stolen counterfeit bills, the other a suicide, "set in the world of new money and old crimes of New Orleans."

"The Devil and Miss Prym" by Paulo Coelho, translated by Amanda Hopkinson and Nick Caistor (HarperCollins). The Brazilian author's new novel portrays "an extraordinary struggle between good and evil" in a remote village.

"The Prisoner of Guantánamo" by Dan Fesperman (Knopf). The up-to-the-minute political-thriller author ("The Warlord's Son") sets his new novel in "the secretive, overheated world of Guantánamo," where an Arab-speaking FBI interrogator is asked to investigate how the body of an American soldier washed up on Cuban territory.

"Deuce's Wild" by Clyde W. Ford (Midnight Ink). A second "Shango Mystery" from the Bellingham author, in which detective John Shannon investigates the shooting of a hip-hop artist who recently converted to Sufism and "also happens to be on a terrorist watch list."

"Blown Away" by G.M. Ford (Morrow). Ford hero Frank Corso hits the road to investigate an unsolved bombing case — and suddenly finds himself "at ground zero of a national story." Ford lives in Seattle.

"Bones of the Barbary Coast" by Daniel Hecht (Bloomsbury). A talented writer of creepy paranormal mysteries reprises his character Cree Black ("Land of Echoes," "City of Masks"), a Seattle-based paranormal investigator who looks into the origin of a human skeleton unearthed in the foundation of a San Francisco Victorian home.

"No Good Deeds" by Laura Lippman (Morrow). A new Tess Monaghan case in which a young street kid doesn't know he holds the vital clue to a federal prosecutor's murder.

"Learning to Kill" by Ed McBain (Harcourt). A selection of 25 short stories, personally chosen by the thriller writer shortly before his death in 2005.

"End in Tears" by Ruth Rendell (Crown). A new Inspector Wexford mystery by the British writer, in which Wexford looks into a string of seemingly unrelated killings.

AUGUST

"Dead Wrong" by J.A. Jance (Morrow). A staff shortage and the challenges of juggling family and career complicate Sheriff Joanna Brady's efforts to solve two serious crimes, in the Seattle writer's latest thriller.

"Rise and Shine" by Anna Quindlen (Random House). A television journalist's career goes south when she commits an on-air indiscretion.

"Winter's Bone" by Daniel Woodrell (Little, Brown). An Ozarks-set tale about a 16-year-old girl trying to track down her father — not for sentimental reasons but because her family may lose their house if he fails to turn up in court to face crystal meth charges.

NONFICTION

MARCH

"The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions" by Karen Armstrong (Knopf). An authority on Islam/religious affairs goes back to the 9th century B.C., when people from four world regions began to create Confucianism and Daoism (China), Hinduism and Buddhism (India), monotheism in Israel and philosophical rationalism in Greece. She examines the common themes in these religious strains of thought and what they mean for the world today.

"The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change" by Tim Flannery (Atlantic Monthly Press). Flannery, an Australian scientist, conservationist and author ("The Future Eaters," "Throwim Way Leg"), issues an urgent warning about climate change and offers solutions for staving off an overwhelming and cataclysmic alteration in climate.

"Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent: The Importance of Everything and Other Lessons from Darwin's Lost Notebooks" by Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Little, Brown). The Seattle author ("Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds") conjectures what it was like for Darwin to confront the unfamiliar species during his voyage aboard the Beagle, and suggests how "attention to small things can make a big difference."

"I Am A Strange Loop" by Douglas R. Hofstadter (Basic Books). The fellow who brought you "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" explores the question: "Can thought arise out of matter? Can a self, a soul, a consciousness, an 'I' arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here?" No fair reading the ending first!

"A Year in the World" by Frances Mayes (Broadway Books). The Tuscan transplant ventures to Spain and Portugal, France, the British Isles, the Mediterranean and North Africa and tells us what she finds there.

"An Infinity of Little Hours" by Nancy Klein Maguire (PublicAffairs). An account of five years in the lives of five young men who entered the main monastery of the Carthusians, one of the Western world's most austere and ascetic monastic orders. In April comes "The Collar: A Year of Striving and Faith Inside a Catholic Seminary" by Jonathan Englert(Houghton Mifflin), which follows five men who enter a seminary specializing in "second-career" priests — in this case including a divorced father, an ex-salesman, a Marine with ADHD, a widowed father of four and a blind musician. In June: "Seminary Boy" by John Cornwell (Doubleday). The author of "Hitler's Pope" and "The Pontiff in Winter" writes a memoir of his boyhood years in a Catholic seminary ruled by an austere monastic regime.

"Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with his Mother" by Sonia Nazario (Random House). A Honduran boy decides to find his mother in America, who has been living and working in the U.S. for 12 years and sending money home. Thousands of children from Latin America endure this harrowing journey every year, crossing the borders illegally and being preyed on by gangsters and corrupt public officials. The series this book is based on won two Pulitzer Prizes when published in the Los Angeles Times.

"American Theocracy: the Perils and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century" by Kevin Phillips (Viking). Phillips, most recently author of "American Dynasty," a penetrating look at the Bush family and its political influence, lays out the case that the nation is in peril because of "a lethal combination of global over-reach, militant religion, resource problems and ballooning debt."

"The Holy Vote: Politics of Faith in America" by Ray Suarez (Rayo). The former NPR and current PBS commentator analyzes the clash between American religious ideologies and looks at its implications for our everyday lives.

APRIL

"The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast" by Douglas Brinkley (Morrow). The author of "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc" and a Tulane professor weighs in on the Katrina story, offering analysis, the crisis' historical roots and its implications for America.

"My Life in France" by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme (Knopf). An installment in the late master chef's memoirs, covering her years in France and her debut as TV's French Chef.

"A Death in Belmont" by Sebastian Junger (Norton). The author of "The Perfect Storm" tries to get to the bottom of a 1963 murder in Belmont, Mass., that resulted in the conviction of a black housecleaner, but which may actually have been perpetrated by the Boston Strangler.

"Field Notes from a Catastrophe" by Elizabeth Kolbert (Bloomsbury). The New Yorker staff writer approaches global warming from every angle, including the stories of people near the poles who are already watching their worlds disappear. Based on a three-part New Yorker series.

"Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero" by David Maraniss (Simon & Schuster). Maraniss, whose writing credits include "When Pride Still Mattered," the Vince Lombardi biography, traces baseball great Roberto Clemente's arc from the poverty of rural Puerto Rico to his achievement as the first Latin player to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame.

"The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press). The "Botany of Desire" author explores the ecology of eating.

"Fever: The Life and Music of Miss Peggy Lee" by Peter Richmond (Henry Holt). New biography of the North Dakota girl who became, in Duke Ellington's words, "The Queen," a singer whose vocals helped define American jazz.

"Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution" by Simon Schama (Ecco). British intellectual and American transplant Schama ("Rembrandt's Eyes," "A History of Britain") examines this question: If you were black in America at the start of the Revoultionary War, who would you be rooting for?

"You Must Set Forth At Dawn" by Wole Soyinka (Random House). This memoir by the Nobel Prize-winning poet, playwright and political activist takes up where his childhood autobiography "Ake" left off, including "the adventures and misadventures of his adulthood," his exiles from Nigeria and his clashes with the Nigerian regime, including being sentenced to death in absentia.

"A Writer's Life" by Gay Talese (Knopf). A master nonfiction writer ("The Kingdom and the Power," "Thy Neighbor's Wife") reflects on his career and craft.

"Revolutionary Wealth" by Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler (Knopf). The authors of "Future Shock" and "The Third Wave" predict a coming economic revolution and the impact it will have on families, finance, schools, science, property, politics, marketing and the media.

MAY

"Possible Side Effects: True Stories" by Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin's). The author of "Running with Scissors" holds forth on eBay addiction, dog incontinence, dry skin, lesbian personal ads and other matters.

"House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power" by James Carroll (Houghton Mifflin). Carroll, author of "Constantine's Sword," sets his sights on the Pentagon, which he contends operates "beyond the control of any force in government or society. It is the biggest, loosest cannon in American history, and no institution has changed this country more."

"Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers" by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown). The thriller writer takes a true-crime turn, as he recalls his career as reporter covering the stories that became grist for his novels.

"What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating" by Marion Nestlé (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The author and food activist walks readers through the supermarket and "untangles the issues, decodes the labels, clarifies the health claims, and debunks the sales hype."

"Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War" by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking). The author of the National Book Award-winning "In the Heart of the Sea" reveals the epic story behind the Mayflower-Pilgrim-Thanksgiving legend.

"The One That Got Away: A Memoir" by Howell Raines (Scribner). The former editor of The New York Times, who resigned in the wake of the Jason Blair scandal, covers his life since 1993 (date of his last memoir), using "catch and release" fishing as a metaphor for how life's unexpected developments can "be an opportunity to make life more interesting." Indeed.

"Nervous Water" by Steve Raymond (Lyons Press). In an essay collection, a flyfishing essayist and former Seattle Times editor contrasts the tranquil surface of the sport with the trends, debates and issues that roil the waters.

"Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War" by Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss (Little, Brown). "Tiger Force" relates the grim story of a group of select soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division whose mission was to find the enemy in Vietnam's jungles, but whose search turned into a horrific killing spree of Vietnamese civilians. The authors' reporting for the Toledo Blade won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

JUNE

"Let Me Finish" by Roger Angell (Harcourt). The longtime New Yorker writer pens an autobiography, including what it was like to have E.B. White as a stepfather, baseball in the time of Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio and his career at the New Yorker.

"Game On!: How Women's Basketball Took Seattle by Storm" by Jayda Evans (Sasquatch). The Seattle Times' beat reporter for the Seattle Storm tells the inside story of the rise of the WNBA in general and the Seattle Storm in particular.

"Uncommon Carriers" by John McPhee (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The master of explanatory nonfiction rides along with a chemical tank-truck driver, attends ship-handling school and boards a towboat in his ongoing preoccupation with the world of transportation.

"The Cloudspotter's Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds" by Gavin Pretor-Pinney (Perigee). The founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society holds forth on a woolly subject. Pretor-Pinney lives in London, where clouds are common.

JULY

"Baseball in the Cascades: The Summer Game in the Pacific Northwest," ed. by Mark Armour (Society for American Baseball Research/University of Nebraska Press). Anthology of writings about the 120-year history of baseball in our region, focusing on Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver, B.C.

"What It Used To Be Like: A Portrait of My Marriage to Raymond Carver" by Maryann Burk Carver (St. Martin's). The first wife of short-story writer Raymond Carver, who met him as a teenager in 1955, recalls her life with him.

"Friendship: An Exposé" by Joseph Epstein (Houghton Mifflin). One of our wittiest contemporary essayists ("Snobbery") examines the contemporary forces "that have squeezed and shaped friendship."

"Comics As Art: We Told You So" by Tom Spurgeon and Jacob Covey (Fantagraphics). An oral history of Seattle-based Fantagraphics' first 30 years, including interviews with and appearances by "virtually every major cartooning figure of the last quarter-century." Covey lives in Seattle.

AUGUST

"John Mortimer: The Secret Life of Rumpole's Creator" by Graham Lord (St. Martin's). A biography of the writer, barrister and "champagne socialist," revealing that beneath his genial surface lurks "an unusually complex man who has been plagued by depression, doubt, insecurity and an irresistible urge to commit adultery."

"James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon" by Julie Phillips (St. Martin's). Biography of the pseudonymous science-fiction writer who also was an artist, a chicken farmer, CIA agent and experimental psychologist.

"Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child" by Alissa Quart (Penguin Press). Quart, author of "Branded," examines the current craze for identifying and enhancing giftedness in children, and comes up with a disturbing conclusion: The intensively competitive nature of the world of IQ and achievement testing, special classes and "the professionalization of play" is putting kids at psychological risk.

Mary Ann Gwinn is The Seattle Times' book editor. Michael Upchurch is The Times' book critic.