Forward to Fall

Working in retail involves living in a perpetual time warp. Lewis and I ordered most of the 2010 calendars months ago. Byron has been busy ordering winter holiday cards. Advent calendars need to be ordered soon. And we've been spending much of the past couple of weeks visiting with sales reps from various publishers who are presenting lineups of books due to be published this coming fall. Back in April I forwarded the announcement that Dan Brown's follow-up to The DaVinci Code is due to be published in September. And earlier this month I mentioned some of the authors who have books coming in the fall from Knopf.

Here is a -- by no means complete -- list of some other books due out in the fall which look like they could be of major interest (along with their publication dates):

South of Broad, by Pat Conroy (August).
The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood (September).
An Echo in the Bone, by Diana Gabaldon (September). The seventh book in her "Outlander" series.
Traveling with Pomegranates, by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor (September).
The Swan Thieves, by Elizabeth Kostova (October). The first novel by Kostova, an author with Asheville connections, was the wonderful Dracula tale, The Historian.
Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving (November).
The Humbling, by Philip Roth (November).
Stones Into Scrolls, by Greg Mortenson and Mike Bryan (December). The follow-up to Three Cups of Tea.
U Is for Undertow, by Sue Grafton (December).
Unfinished Desires, by Gail Godwin (December). The long awaited novel based on the author's experiences growing up in Asheville and attending St. Genevieve's School.

And there undoubtedly will be more major titles which are yet to be revealed.