12 tempting new titles for 2010

“A new acquaintance is like a new book,” Benjamin Disraeli once wrote.

“I prefer it, even if bad, to a classic.”

With this back-handed swat at classic literature in mind, here are some fresh titles arriving in the first half of 2010.

Marriage, math, mystery, prison, war, Batman, poetry — it's all here.

1. “Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage” by Elizabeth Gilbert. She ate. She prayed. She loved. And then she got married for the second time.

The author of “Eat, Pray, Love” is back with a new memoir that takes the “love” from her massive best-seller a few steps further. Publication date: Jan. 5, Knopf.

2. “Noah's Compass” by Anne Tyler. Somehow Pulitzer Prize-winning Anne Tyler can make the mundane vibrate with humanity. In this new novel, a fifth-grade teacher forced to retire at age 61 comes to terms with his future. Publication date: Jan. 5, Random House.

3. “A Dark Matter” by Peter Straub. “The Big Chill” meets “Poltergeist” — that's how Straub's publishers describe his new book. It's about a college campus guru in the 1960s who holds a secret ritual one night that leaves a dismembered body behind. Publication date: Feb. 9, Random House.

4. “The Infinities” by John Banville. A respected theoretical mathematician is dying. His family hovers around his death bed, along with some fun-loving immortals, including Zeus and Pan. Publication date: Feb. 23, Random House.

5. “The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart” by Mathias Malzieu, translated from the French by Sarah Ardizzone. The lead singer of a French rock band wrote this story about an orphan whose cuckoo-clock heart cannot handle strong emotions. The book is the basis for an album and an animated feature film optioned by Luc Besson. Publication date: March 2, Knopf.

6. “The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag” by Alan Bradley. From the author of “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie,” another Flavia de Luce mystery. Publication date: March 9, Random House.

7. “Rough Justice” by Alex Ross. See the sketches and artwork of Alex Ross, the award-winning artist behind Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and many other popular DC Comics characters. (Alert: Many books share this title!) Publication date: March 30, Pantheon.

8. “The Lake Shore Limited” by Sue Miller. From the author of last year's “The Senator's Wife” and other novels including “The Good Mother,” this book focuses on a play about the terrorist bombing of a train that runs between New York City and Chicago. Publication date: April 9, Knopf.

9. “Innocent” by Scott Turow. The long-awaited sequel to Turow's 1987 smash hit, “Presumed Innocent.” Rusty Sabich is back, this time puzzling over the final breaths of his wife, Barbara, who died under mysterious circumstances. Publication date: May 4, Grand Central.

10. “Private Life” by Jane Smiley. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Moo,” a novel about a woman who marries the town genius, a man who's a naval officer and an astronomer. As World War II approaches and her husband's obsession with science takes a frightening turn, Margaret Mayfield re-examines her marriage. Publication date: May 4, Knopf.

11. “War” by Sebastian Junger. The author of “The Perfect Storm” accompanied a U.S. Army platoon through a valley in eastern Afghanistan. “War” narrates combat, dying and killing in the tight-knit platoon. Publication date: May 11, Hachette Book Group.

12. “So Cold the River” by Michael Kortya. This thriller, written by a former private investigator and newspaper reporter, features a 95-year-old billionaire whose past is shrouded in mystery. Publication date: June 9, Hachette Book Group.

« Living

Share