LITERARY FICTION AND POETRY

"The Bay of Angels" by Anita Brookner (Random House). The author of "Undue Influence" pens a tale of a mother who finds love, and of her daughter, who learns that her mother's late-life happy ending is not necessarily assured.

"Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague" by Geraldine Brooks (Viking). In 17th-century England, a village is infected by the plague and the vicar's maid becomes an unlikely hero in her community's struggle for survival. Looking for more plague literature? There's the nonfiction "In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made" by Norman F. Cantor (The Free Press), a survey of an earlier plague episode, one that wiped out 40 percent of Europe's population in the 14th century.

"Pages for You" by Sylvia Brownrigg (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The author of "The Metaphysical Touch" tells a story about a young woman who gets a big crush on a brilliant older (female) graduate student, gets closer to her and finds out more than she ever wanted to know.

The Devil's Oasis" by Bartle Bull (Carroll & Graf). The author of "A Cafe on the Nile" returns with a tale of Cairo during the British-German battle for North Africa during World War II.

"Carry Me Across the Water" by Ethan Canin (Random House). The author of "Emperor of the Air" writes about a young escapee from Nazi Germany and the way his life unfolds in America.

"The Peppered Moth" by Margaret Drabble (Harcourt). The granddaughter of a girl from a mining town in early 1900s England returns to study her family's past in the person of her grandmother. Drabble has said she modeled the grandmother on her mother; her sister, famous author A.S. Byatt, is famously not pleased about the portrayal. Read the book!

"The Cold Six Thousand" by James Ellroy (Knopf). The mad dog of American crime fiction ("The Black Dahlia," "L.A. Confidential") returns to the landscape of his previous novel about the Sixties, "American Tabloid," spinning a conspiratorial tale around the Kennedy assassination, with real-life characters (Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover) and lots of drugs.

"The House of Sight and Shadow" by Nicholas Griffin (Villard). Griffin's second novel is about a notorious 18th-century London anatomist's connections with the criminal underworld.

"The Practical Heart" by Allen Gurganus (Knopf). Four new novellas by the author of "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All."

"Yonder Stands Your Orphan" by Barry Hannah (Atlantic Monthly Press). "The Deep South's answer to Charles Bukowski" writes about a lake community near Vicksburg, Miss., beset by madness, murder and casino gambling.

"Five Quarters of an Orange" by Joanne Harris (Morrow). The author of "Chocolat" pens the tale of a woman who returns to her small French village in hopes that no one recalls her family's tragic personal history there.

"Chalktown" by Melinda Haynes (Hyperion). Southern writer Haynes, whose novel "Mother of Pearl" was Oprah-anointed, returns with a story of 1960s backwoods Mississippi, where everyone has a problem (poverty, mental disability, child abuse, etc.).

"The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith" (Norton). Selected noir masterpieces by the author of "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

"Angelica's Grotto" by Russell Hoban (Carroll & Graf). The cult science-fiction writer ("Riddley Walker") and children's-book illustrator pens a story about a man in his 70s who has lost his inner voice; cybersex; and the intersection of art and pornography. Among other things.

"Snow Mountain Passage" by James D. Houston (Knopf). A retelling of the story of the Donner party, the group of pioneers who came to grief on California's Donner Pass, through the eyes of one party member and his 8-year-old daughter.

"The Fourth Hand" by John Irving (Random House). A New York television journalist on assignment in India has his left hand eaten by a lion while millions watch. A hand transplant is proposed. Things get immeasurably more complicated. By the author of "Cider House Rules" and "The World According to Garp."

"Clerical Errors" by Alan Isler (Scribner). The story of a confused person: a Jew who has converted to Catholicism and, despite a pronounced lack of piety, chooses the priesthood.

"The Rackets" by Thomas Kelly (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). A novel of union heroism and corruption. Kelly is a Fordham and Harvard graduate, former advance man for the mayor of New York and former Teamster.

"Everything You Need" by A.L. Kennedy (Knopf). The acclaimed Scottish writer ("So Am I Glad") writes about a commercially successful but artistically depressed author who contrives a reunion on an island off the Welsh coast with his estranged daughter/writer. Kennedy also has a meditation, "On Bullfighting," (Anchor Books), coming out this spring.

"The Dearly Departed" by Elinor Lipman (Random House). After her mother's death, a woman returns to the small town she grew up in and finds that the people she remembers have grown up, too, some in unexpected ways. By the author of "The Ladies' Man."

"Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail" by Bobbie Ann Mason (Random House). A new story collection by the author of "In Country" and "Shiloh and Other Stories."

"Paradise" by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster). Everybody's favorite Texas scribe pens a reminiscence of his parents' harsh life on the Texas plains.

"Fairness" by Ferdinand Mount (Carroll & Graf). The author of the highly praised "Jem (and Sam)" writes about an English civil servant with breathing problems and chronic sexual difficulties, and a blond girl who wants to lead a morally satisfying life.

"The Procedure" by Harry Mulisch (Viking). A tale from the author of "The Discovery of Heaven" about a 16th-century Prague rabbi and a modern-day biologist who both create their own golem, the clay man of Jewish legend.

"Sputnik Sweetheart" by Haruki Murakami (Knopf). New novel by the Japanese writer ("The Wind-up Bird Chronicle") about a male student who falls for a woman devoted exclusively to the study of Jack Kerouac.

"The Voice of the Butterfly" by John Nichols (Chronicle Books). The author of "The Milagro Beanfield War" pens the tale of an aging '60s radical who takes up the cause of the "exquisitely obscure" Rocky Mountain Phistic Copper Butterfly when it is threatened by a new highway bypass.

"The Good People of New York" by Thisbe Nissen (Knopf). A first novel by the author of the story collection "Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night," about a spitfire New York woman who marries a quiet, earnest Nebraskan and has a fiercely loved child. Complications ensue.

"The Barrens" by Joyce Carol Oates, writing as Rosamond Smith (Carroll & Graf). Oates, who writes a good book every four months or so, pens this thriller about a New Jersey man who begins to wonder if he's implicated in a series of murders in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

"Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk (Doubleday). The author of "Fight Club" creates a medical-school dropout who concocts a scam based on pretending to choke on food in restaurants. Things, including sexual-addiction therapy groups and intimations of divinity, progress from there.

"Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker" (Scribner). Previously uncollected poems by the master of acerbic wit.

"Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins). The author of "The Magician's Assistant" tells the story of a group of Americans taken hostage at an embassy party in South America who discover things they never knew about themselves and others.

"The Dying Animal" by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin). A 60ish TV cultural critic finds his orderly life undone by the 24-year-old daughter of wealthy Cuban exiles.

"Empire Falls" by Richard Russo (Knopf). The author of "Nobody's Fool" writes about a small Maine town, abandoned by the logging and textile industries, as seen through the eyes of the proprietor of the Empire Grill.

"The Last Time They Met" by Anita Shreve (Little, Brown). The author of "The Pilot's Wife" and "Fortune's Rocks" is back with the story of a woman who, years later, encounters the love of her young life.

"The Southern Woman: New and Selected Fiction" by Elizabeth Spencer (Modern Library). The first collection, including 10 new stories, by the acclaimed Southern writer.

"America's Children" by James Thackara (Overlook). The debut novel by the expatriate American writer ("The Book of Kings"), about Robert Oppenheimer and the birth of the nuclear age, gets its first U.S. release.

"Hotel Honolulu" by Paul Theroux (Houghton Mifflin). A novel by the acclaimed travel writer, set in a seedy Waikiki hotel, where the lives of the guests become fodder for a writer down on his luck.

"Next of Kin" by Joanna Trollope (Viking, $23.95). Trollope, a novelistic expert in the psychology of relationships, tells a story of an English farmer whose wife dies, and his struggle to come to terms with the woman she really was.

"Back When We Were Grownups" by Anne Tyler (Knopf). The author of "Breathing Lessons," "The Accidental Tourist," etc., writes a novel about a woman who gives parties in a Baltimore row house for a living, and suddenly asks herself whether she has turned into the wrong person.

"John Henry Days" by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday). Whitehead's book "The Intuitionist," about an elevator operator with preternaturally good instincts, was a literary hit last year. He returns with a story of a black journalist who finds unexpected resonance in the story of John Henry, that hard drivin' railroad man.

"Americana" by John Updike (Knopf, $23). Sixty-one poems in a new collection by the American literary master.

"The Complete Henry Bech" by John Updike (Everyman). Updike's Jewish-American writer gets the treatment Rabbit Angstrom enjoyed a couple of years ago: all stories about him in one volume.

"The Collected Stories of Richard Yates" (Henry Holt). The life's work of fiction master Yates ("Revolutionary Road") and nine new (and seven unpublished) stories. With an introduction by Richard Russo.

"Bitterroot" by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster). The ragin' Cajun mystery writer, who divides his time between Louisiana and Missoula, Mont., has sheriff Billy Bob Holland go to the Bitteroot Valley of Montana to help an old friend battle mining interests.

"On the Street Where You Live" by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster). The durable suspense writer writes of a newly divorced woman who relocates to a family home, only to find that it has, as they say, a history.

"Wish I Had a Red Dress" by Pearl Cleage (Morrow). The author of "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day" brings back characters from that novel, focusing on Joyce, the dutiful sister of Ava, who takes another look at her life after years of selfless service to others.

"Hollywood Wives: The New Generation" by Jackie Collins (Simon & Schuster). A new installment of Collins' Hollywood chronicles. Power! Sex! Fame!

"Isle of Dogs" by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam). Cornwell departs from her preoccupation with serial killers in this novel about a small Virginia island that decides to revolt against its own state, and the state police men and women who have to deal with the insurrection.

"Hostage" by Robert Crais (Doubleday). Crais, a contemporary thriller master ("Demolition Angel"), writes about an L.A. hostage negotiator who tries to get away from his high-pressure job to become chief of police in a sleepy L.A. suburb. Things don't quite work out that way.

"Seven Up" by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's Press). The latest installment in the Stephanie Plum series.

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman (Morrow). Gaiman, a fiction fantasist, tells the story of an ex-convict who meets a stranger on a plane who seems to know everything about him.

"Casual Rex" by Eric Garcia (Villard). The author of "Anonymous Rex" returns with another tale of Vincent Rubio, a private eye who's really a dinosaur, who's investigating a dinosaur back-to-basics cult that's determined to find its inner child. I did not make this up.

"A Traitor to Memory" by Elizabeth George (Bantam). The California resident who writes thrillers about British crime returns with a story about a celebrated violinist who finds himself unable to play, and set to find out what dark events in his past caused his musician's block.

"P is for Peril" by Sue Grafton (Putnam/Marian Wood). Kinsey Milhone is back, investigating the disappearance of a physician.

"Tales from Earthsea" by Ursula K. le Guin (Harcourt). New stories based on le Guin's "Earthsea" cycle of books.

"Anyway the Wind Blows" by E. Lynn Harris (Doubleday). Harris' bisexual character, Basil Henderson, keeps busy entrancing both sexes until his life starts to mysteriously go downhill.

"The Forgotten" by Faye Kellerman (Morrow). A Los Angeles police detective and his wife investigate the destruction of a synogogue and the death of its perpetrator, and then the deaths of a lot of other folks besides. Kellerman is thriller writer Jonathan Kellerman's wife. One can only imagine the pillow talk.

"Dreamcatcher" by Stephen King (Scribner). Haunted memories, heroism and other spooky and spiritual subjects.

"Death in Holy Orders" by P.D. James (Knopf). After a long (four years!) absence, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is back, investigating the death of a student at a theological college.

"The Child of the Holy Grail" by Rosalind Miles (Crown). The third installment in Miles' Guinevere trilogy, beginning with the quest for the Holy Grail and ending with the fall of Camelot.

"Fearless Jones" by Walter Mosley (Little, Brown). Mosley tells the story of a bookstore owner in 1950s Los Angeles who gets in big trouble, and enlists Fearless Jones to help him.

"Gunman's Rhapsody" by Robert B. Parker (Putnam). The author of the Spenser novels tries his hand at a novel of the West peopled by the likes of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson. Parker also has a new Spenser novel, "Potshot" (Putnam).

"Silent Joe" by T. Jefferson Parker (Hyperion). Parker, author of "The Blue Hour," writes a mystery about a man who sets out to avenge the murder of his adoptive father, a powerful Orange County politician, and discovers his father had more than a few secrets - and enemies.

"1st to Die" by James Patterson (Little, Brown). A police detective, an assistant D.A., a reporter and a medical examiner form something called the Women's Murder Club to chase down the baddest of bad guys. You will not be surprised to learn that a miniseries is being made out of this.

"Parallel Lies" by Ridley Pearson (Hyperion). Pearson, a former Seattleite and author of numerous best-selling thrillers, writes about an ex-cop who sets out to bring down the railroad company he blames for his family's death.

"The Broken Places" by Susan Perabo (Simon & Schuster). The author of the short-story collection "Who Was I Supposed to Be" pens her first novel, about a 12-year-old profoundly burdened by his family's tradition of conspicuous valor and heroism.

"The Wind Done Gone" by Alice Randall (Houghton Mifflin). Randall, a song and screenplay writer, reprises "Gone With the Wind" from the point of view of its African-American characters.

"Fatal Voyage" by Kathy Reich (Scribner). The author of "Deja Dead," "Deadly Decisions" and a forensic anthropologist in her spare time, Reich's new book traces forensic investigator Temperance Brennan's search for the cause of a fatal plane crash in North Carolina.

"Brazen Virtue" by Nora Roberts (Bantam). The reliable women's fiction writer tells the story of a phone-sex-fantasy service worker who is murdered by a client, and her sister's search for her killer.

"Chosen Prey" by John Sandford (Putnam). Lucas Davenport, Sandford's chief sleuth, tracks an art-history professor and sexual pervert whose hobby of secretly photographing women gets decidedly out of hand.

"The Singing of the Dead" by Dana Stabenow (St. Martin's Minotaur). The popular writer of Alaska-based mysteries sends private investigator Kate Shugach to work as security for a Native Alaskan running for governor. A candidate's staffer is murdered, and Kate investigates.

"Leap of Faith" by Danielle Steel (Delacorte). A French orphan is sent to America to live with her great aunt on an Iowa farm and forms a fast friendship with an Iowa boy. Returns to France, marries a rich guy, has kids and discovers her husband's dark secret. Can the Iowa boy solve her problems? Steel's 52nd book.

"Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls" by Rae Lawrence (Crown). Like Jim Morrison, Jacqueline Susann is hot and sexy, even if she's dead. This obstensibly is a first draft of a Susann screenplay that continued the "Valley of the Dolls" saga, reworked by Lawrence into a book.

"A Theory of Relativity" by Jacquelyn Mitchard (HarperCollins). The author of "The Deep End of the Ocean" returns with a story about two families at odds over who will gain custody of an orphaned little girl.

"A Soldier's Duty" by Thomas Ricks (Random House). Ricks, a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist who covers the Pentagon for The Washington Post, writes a novel about a rogue group of Pentagon officers whose symbolic attempts to undermine the president may be turning into treason.

"Rise to Rebellion" by Jeff Shaara (Ballantine). The latest war epic by Shaara, author of "Gone for Soldiers," "Gods and Generals," etc. This time his focus is on the American revolution.

"Never Count Out the Dead" by Boston Teran (St. Martin's Minotaur). The author of "God is a Bullet" writes about a Los Angeles County sheriff who is framed for a crime, disappears and returns 10 years later to avenge the wrongs done him.

"The Shape of Snakes" by Minette Walters (Putnam). The author of "The Breaker" delivers another creepy British mystery, this one about a woman who dies anonymously on the streets of West London, and of the woman who finds her and becomes convinced she was murdered.

"Brave New Brain: Conquering Mental Illness in the Era of the Genome" by Nancy C. Andreasen (Oxford University Press). A survey of what we know about the human brain and the genome, and how those two bodies of knowledge are converging in the effort to combat mental illness.

"The Golden Couple: Tina and Harry and the Worlds They Conquered" by Judy Bachrach (The Free Press). A Vanity Fair reporter profiles Tina Brown and Harry Evans, the ultimate literary power couple.

"Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper" by Nicholson Baker (Random House). How libraries are destroying large quantities of the printed past.

"Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft" by David Bank (The Free Press). A Wall Street Journal reporter posits that Microsoft failed to seize on the potential of the Internet, and describes how its founders are dealing with their own and their company's mid-life crises.

"Bad Bet on the Bayou" by Tyler Bridges (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The story of Louisiana's Gov. Edwin Edwards, one of the country's premier scoundrel-politicians, and the gambling scandal that finally caught up with him. Bridges is a Miami Herald reporter.

"Close to Shore: A True Story of Terror in an Age of Innocence" by Michael Capuzzo (Broadway Books). The true story of a great white shark that terrorized the New Jersey shore in 1916. "A nonfiction historical thriller with the texture of `Ragtime' and the tension of `Jaws,' " the publisher alleges. Another book on this delightful subject: "Twelve Days of Terror" by Dr. Richard Fernicola (Lyons Press).

"Listening to the Page: Adventures in Reading and Writing" by Alan Cheuse (Columbia University Press). The National Public Radio literary critic declaims on reading, writing and why one is the natural outcome of the other.

"The Weather Factor: How Nature Has Changed History" by Erik Durschmied (Little, Brown). Historical recreations that show how human history has been controlled by extreme weather events. Durschmied is the author of "The Hinge Factor."

"Somehow Form a Family: Stories That Are Mostly True" by Tony Earley (Algonquin). Personal essays by the author of the critically acclaimed novel "Jim the Boy."

"Living with Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings" by Ralph Ellison, edited by Robert O'Meally (Modern Library). The late author of "Invisible Man" wrote prolifically on jazz. This collection includes essays, fiction excerpts and profiles of jazz greats.

"Nickled and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich (Henry Holt). Social phiosopher Ehrenreich decided to find out what it's like to work in $6-an-hour jobs in boom-time America, including waitress, hotel maid and Wal-Mart sales clerk. She learned "that one job is not enough: you need at least two if you intend to live indoors."

"Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel" by James Fallows (Public Affairs). An analysis of the airline industry by the Atlantic Monthly magazine's national correspondent.

"Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood" by Suzanne Finstad (Crown). The bio of one of the most glamorous movie stars of the 1950s and 1960s, including "shocking revelations about her unsolved drowning." Beach book!

"The New Dealers' War" by Thomas Fleming (Basic Books). A revisionist history that takes a critical look at Franklin Delano Roosevelt's leadership during World War II. The same publisher will also release "Pearl Harbor" by Dan Van der Vat, an illustrated history, in concert with the blockbuster movie that opens on Memorial Day.

"Who Killed the Great Auk?" by Jeremy Gaskell (Oxford University Press). The story of the extinction of the clumsy, flightless bird, and how that sad story helped launch the first conservation movement.

"Beyond Innocence: An Autobiography in Letters - The Later Years" by Jane Goodall (Houghton Mifflin). The second volume of Goodall's life (the first was "Africa In My Blood"), told through letters.

"A Cold Case" by Philip Gourevitch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). A dogged inspector for the Manhattan district attorney's office reopens the investigation into a decades-old murder of two of his childhood friends. Gourevitch's "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda" won the National Book Critics' Circle Award.

"Washington: A Memoir" by Meg Greenfield (Public Affairs). The posthumous memoir of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning editorial-page editor of The Washington Post, who made her home on Bainbridge Island later in life. Proceeds from this book will go to the University of Washington classics department, a beneficiary of Greenfield's will.

"The Well: The Epic History of the First Online Community" by Katie Hafner (Carroll & Graf). The story of the online community, whose founders included the Whole Earth Catalog's Stewart Brand, that presaged the evolution of the Internet as we know it today.

"Positively 4th Street" by David Hajdu (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The story of of Bob Dylan, his sometime lover Joan Baez, her sister Mimi Farina and her husband Richard Farina, the charismatic folk singer and novelist who died in his prime.

"The Legend of Seabiscuit" by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House). The story of a crooked-legged, "pathologically indolent" thoroughbred who became one of horse racing's icons.

"Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier" by Mark Kram (HarperCollins). Kram, a respected boxing writer, reexamines "the Thrilla in Manila" and what it cost its two principal adversaries.

"The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America" by Barron H. Lerner (Oxford University Press). A medical and cultural history of a century-long battle with breast cancer, told from the perspective of patients, doctors and advocates.

"Next: The Invisible Revolution" by Michael Lewis (Norton). "The New New Thing" author traces the societal changes the Internet hath wrought.

"It's a Bunny-Eat-Bunny World" by Olga Litowinsky (Walker & Co.). A fetchingly-titled guide to how to get published in the children's-book business.

"Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. Francis" by Valerie Martin (Knopf). The noted novelist ("Mary Reilly") takes a detour into nonfiction.

"Clint: The Life and the Legend" by Patrick McGillian (Carroll & Graf). Unauthorized, "unvarnished" life of Clint Eastwood.

"Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty" by Dennis McDougal (Perseus). McDougal, who was for 10 years an investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times, tells the story of the paper's upward trajectory under the Chandler family's ownership, and its fall from grace when family turned against one another.

"From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States" by Priscilla Murolo and A.B. Chitty, illustrated by Joe Sacco (The New Press). Billed as a comprehensive history of labor in this country, from indentured servants to high-tech workers in Silicon Valley.

"Human Trials: Risking Reputation and Riches in the Quest for a Cure" by Susan Quinn (Perseus). The quest for a cure for many autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, arthritis and lupus, seen through the eyes of those suffering from the diseases, their doctors and the companies who invest huge sums and hope for huge returns in their search for a cure.

"A People's History of the American Revolution" by Ray Raphael (The New Press). Following on the popularity of "A People's History of the United States," which told the country's history through the lives of ordinary people, this volume tells the story of the Revolution through the voices of the common people, slaves and free.

"Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation" by Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut (University of California Press). A comprehensive study of a big chunk of America: the one in five Americans who are first- or second-generation immigrants.

"An Intimate Look at the Night Sky" by Chet Raymo (Walker & Co.). Raymo, an accomplished science writer and astronomer, offers a new star guide, including 24 star maps that span the seasons.

"Richard Wright: The Life and Times" by Hazel Rowley (Henry Holt). Billed as the first full-scale biography of the author of "Native Son."

"The Look of Architecture" by Witold Rybczynski (Oxford University Press). An analysis of style in architecture by the author of "A Clearing in the Distance," a biography of the Olmsted brothers.

"Journey to Portugal: In Pursuit of Portugal's History and Culture" by Jose Saramago (Harcourt). The Nobel-prize-winning author travels the length and breadth of his country and examines it in its period of transition and growth.

"The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers" by Daniel Schacter (Houghton Mifflin). The chairman of Harvard's psychology department takes on every aging baby-boomer's preoccupation - how our memories work, and why they so often don't.

"Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty" by Karl Shaw (Broadway Books). A survey of 300 years of dysfunctional European royalty, including drunken tyrants, rampant adulterers and inbred lunatics, for starters. Beach book!

"J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century" by Tom Shippey (Houghton Mifflin). Shippey taught with Tolkien at Oxford and has penned this study of his works. This and umpty-jillion other Tolkien tomes are being issued in advance of the "Lord of the Rings" movie, due out at Christmas.

"The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression" by Andrew Solomon (Scribner). A comprehensive examination of depression in "personal, cultural and scientific terms."

"Mosquito" by Andrew Spielman (Hyperion). Spielman, a world expert on mosquito-borne diseases, tells us how these irritating insects are carrying ever more debilitating diseases and becoming ever more resistant to pesticides. Not a beach book.

"In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors" by Doug Stanton (Henry Holt). The story of America's worst naval disaster, the 1945 torpedoing of the USS Indianapolis and the fate of its 900 men (only 317 survived).

"Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine" by Julie Summers (Mountaineers Books). The biography of George Mallory's partner on his ill-fated climb. By Irvine's great niece, who drew on previously undiscovered letters and photographs of Irvine's from the Everest trip.

"Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America" by Andrea Tone (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). From the 1873 passage of the Comstock Act, which criminalized the birth-control business, to the inventions of Depo-Provera and Norplant, with a lot of amazing stuff in between.

"Big Red: Three Months on Board a Trident Nuclear Submarine" by Douglas C. Waller (HarperCollins). Not for the claustrophobic - this is a Time magazine correspondent's account of life aboard the Trident class submarine, many of which are stationed at Bangor on the Kitsap peninsula.

"Where the Pavement Ends: One Woman's Bicycle Trip Through Mongolia, China and Vietnam" by Erika Warmbrunn (Mountaineers Books). Here's a summer vacation for you: Warmbrunn took a career hiatus from acting by cycling across the tundra of Mongolia, hanging out in a Vietnamese village and getting stoned by gangs of children.

"Shiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties" by Wendy Wasserstein (Knopf). "The Heidi Chronicles" author produced these essays about moving into middle life, including becoming a first-time mother at age 48.

"Surviving Galeras" by Stanley Williams and Fen Montaigne (Houghton Mifflin). A volcanologist who survived the 1993 eruption of the Columbian volcano Galeras tells of how several colleagues were incinerated, how he was rescued, and how volcanologists brave death to refine their science. "For Seattle, Jakarta, Mexico City, Naples - and for volcanologists - the clock is ticking," says the publisher. Oh, dear . . .

"The Map That Changed the World" by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins). The author of "The Professor and the Madman" tells how a late-18th-century canal digger set out to map the geological underpinnings of England.

"Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi" by Stanley Wolpert (Oxford University Press). Major new biography of Gandhi, focusing on his "passion," his conscious courting of suffering as the means of reaching divine truth. And "Indira: The life of Indira Nehru Gandhi" by Katherine Frank (Houghton Mifflin). The life of India's third prime minister.

"Hans Christian Andersen" by Jackie Wullschlager (Knopf). Billed as the first major biographer of the children's storyteller, whose life was a complicated mix of genius and frustration.

"Body Toxic" by Susanne Antonetta (Counterpoint). A Seattle-area poet writes of her family's summer retreat next to a New Jersey toxic-waste dump, which may have contributed to family members' infertility.

"The Food Lover's Guide to Seattle" by Katy Calcott (Sasquatch). A "dedicated food lover and former cheese shop owner" reveals the best places to find fresh greens, fish and baked goods, among other things.

"Love Among the Ruins" by Robert Clark (Norton). In 1968, two teenage lovers run away, forever altering the balance of their and their family's lives. Seattle novelist Clark is author of "In the Deep Midwinter."

"Mother Daughter Love: A Poetry Celebration" edited by June Cotner (Harmony). Anthology of inspirational poems, assembled by a Poulsbo resident.

"Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain" by Charles R. Cross (Hyperion). Cross, long-time editor of The Rocket and author of several books on rock icons, got exclusive access to Cobain's unpublished diaries in his research for an in-depth biography of the troubled rock star.

"Cat Attacks: True Stories and Hard Lessons from Cougar Country" by Jo Deurbrouck and Dean Miller (Sasquatch). A study of mountain-lion attacks, what's causing them and what to expect from "America's most effective large predator."

"Thanksgiving" by Michael Dibdin (Pantheon). Dibdin, the Seattle-based mystery author of the Aurelio Zen series, takes a more serious turn in a novel about a British widower who goes to America to uncover his dead wife's past.

"Dark Winter" by William Dietrich (Warner). The speculative-fiction writer from Anacortes pens the story of a group of scientists who unknowingly isolate themselves with a psychopath in the Antarctic wilderness. The body count rises as the temperature drops.

"The Living Blood" by Tananarive Due (Pocket Books). A supernatural thriller by Due, the Longview science fiction writer and author of "The Black Rose."

"James Martin: A Rustler at the Rivoli" and "Fay Jones" (University of Washington Press), both by Sheila Farr. Two books on Northwest artists by the visual arts critic for The Seattle Times. Martin picked up his surrealistic style at the Rivoli Theater, Seattle's old theater of the burlesque, and paints the 21st-century version of vaudeville (Jerry Springer) today. Jones, one of the region's most well-known painters, creates images that are "rife with signs and pregnant with ambiguity."

"Fury" by G.M. Ford (Morrow). The creator of the Seattle-based Leo Waterman mysteries creates a new character, a down-at-the-heels Seattle journalist who investigates the possible innocence of a convict on death row.

"Murder in Spokane: Catching a Serial Killer" by Mark Fuhrman (HarperCollins). The former Los Angeles police detective-turned-author chronicles the search for the murders of several Spokane women and why it took the police so long to catch Robert L. Yates Jr.

"The Stranger Guide to Seattle" by Paula Gilovich, Traci Vogel and the Stranger staff (Sasquatch). The smart-aleck's guide to Seattle high life, low life and selected stops in between.

"Swimming Toward the Ocean" by Carole L. Glickfield (Knopf). Seattle writer's first novel (following her story collection, "Useful Gifts"), chronicling life among Russian emigres in, Brooklyn.

"The Relationship Cure" by John Gottman and Joan DeClaire (Crown). Seattle's Gottman, "America's foremost relationship expert", offers more advice on how to enrich relationships with your spouses, lovers, children, siblings, friends, bosses, colleagues, etc.

"Bending the Landscape: Original Gay and Lesbian Writing, Volume II: Horror," by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel (Overlook). Griffith lives in Seattle.

"Summer Island" by Kristin Hannah (Crown). New novel by the Bainbridge Island author, about a bitterly estranged mother and daughter who get a second chance.

"Evening's Empire" by David Herter (Tor). A Seattle science-fiction writer's second novel ("Ceres Storm"), about a young man who moves to an Oregon coastal town known for its cheese and its cheese sculptures. Less well known is the underground world in a cavern underneath the town.

"The Color of Daylight" by Fredrick Huebner (Simon & Schuster). The Bainbridge Island author writes about a forensic psychiatrist who teams up with a lawyer to investigate a murder to which a childhood friend has already confessed.

"Before All Hell Breaks Loose: Preparing for the Coming Perilous Times" by Ken Hutcherson (Multnomah). The pastor of Seattle's Antioch Bible Church interprets Revelation and how it relates to today's headlines.

"Birds of Prey" by J.A. Jance (Morrow). J.P. Beaumont, Jance's fictional Seattle sleuth, finds unwanted attention when he accompanies his grandmother and her new husband on an Alaskan cruise.

"Soulcatcher and Other Stories" by Charles Johnson (Harvest). Novelist and National Book Award winner Johnson presents a dozen stories based on historical fact of the effects and experiences of slavery.

"Always Dakota" by Debbie Macomber (Mira). Another installment in the Buffalo Valley trilogy. Macomber lives in Port Orchard. "The Jury" by Steve Martini (Putnam). The Bellingham author reprises his hero, lawyer-sleuth Paul Madriani, who defends a research scientist who may or may not be a killer.

"K Falls: A Pacific Northwest Mystery" by Skye Kathleen Moody (St. Martin's Minotaur). The Seattle-based mystery writer sends Fish and Wildlife agent Venus Diamond on the trail of some eco-terrorists who may have bombed dams along the Columbia River.

"The Five Faces of Genius" by Annette Moser-Wellman (Viking). A Bainbridge Islander's primer on creative thinking techniques.

"Kenneth Callahan" by Thomas Orton and Patricia Grieve Watkinson (University of Washington Press). The first comprehensive volume to commemorate the life of Callahan, one of the Northwest School's best-known painters.

"Sightings: The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey" by Brenda Peterson and Linda Hogan (National Geographic Books). Seattle's Peterson and Hogan, a member of the Chickasaw tribe, pen essays for a photo book about the whales' 10,000-mile yearly migration and the controversy over the Makah tribe's decision to hunt them. Not local, but also of note: "Eye of the Whale" by Dick Russell (Simon & Schuster). A naturalist focuses on the gray whale's resurgence in this century, and the life of a 19th-century whaling captain who almost brought the gray to extinction.

"Slightly Shady" by Amanda Quick (Bantam). Seattle author Jayne Ann Krentz uses her nom de plume for historical romances to write a tale of a widow with an interest in antiquities who becomes entangled in a murder case and with its chief investigator.

"Deadly Secrets: From High School to High Crime, the True Story of Two Teen Killers" by Putsata Reang (Avon). A former Seattle Times reporter tells the story of the murder of the Wilson family of Bellevue by two young men.

"The Manhattan Hunt Club" by John Saul (Ballantine). A New York University student, wrongly convicted of murder and rape, is released into the tunnels below Manhattan and learns that he's the quarry of . . .

"Wings of Power: Boeing and the Politics of Growth in the Northwest" by T.M. Sell (University of Washington Press). Sell, a journalism and political-science professor and former Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter, tells of how Boeing tried to influence growth-management legislation, and of its negotiations with communities affected by its expansion plans.

"Rivers in Time: The Search for Clues to Earth's Mass Extinctions" by Peter D. Ward (Columbia University Press). Ward, a professor of geological science at the University of Washington, explores the history of extinctions on earth and what they portend about the future.

"The War Years: A Chronicle of Washington State in World War II" by James R. Warren (University of Washington Press). How the state supplied crucial resources for the Allied victory, from food to bombers to plutonium, and lost more than 6,000 of its citizens to the war.

"Firebrand" by Susan Wiggs (Mira). A woman saves a baby girl during the great Chicago fire and discovers that the child she saved is the daughter of Chicago's most prominent banker. By a Bainbridge Island writer

Mary Ann Gwinn is book editor of The Seattle Times. Paul Schmid is a Times news artist.