2011 New Books

David Vann's Caribou Island is a dark novel about Gary and Irene, a married couple attempt to rekindle their marriage by building a cabin on a desolate, storm-wracked island. We also see a memoir from Annie Proulx, short stories from Joyce Carol Oates, and art from Jonathan Safran Foer.

In The Illumination, Kevin Brockmeier imagines a world in which human pain is revealed through a strange luminescence. Karen Russell's debut, Swamplandia! is another highlight this month.

In Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer (Jonathan Safran Foer's younger brother) shares his journey into the ranks of the memory elite. Also, new novels from Jodi Picoult, Jean Auel, and Tea Obreht this month as well as new nonfiction from Sarah Vowell and James Gleick.

David Foster Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King, had been a work in progress from 1997. The Pale King's story surrounds the lives and work of IRS agents in a Midwestern office and one in particular by the  name of David Foster Wallace.

In his celebration of travel writing, Paul Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar) intersperses his own travel writing with that of some of the best writers of the genre including that of Thoreau, Twain, Chatwin, Matthiessen, and Tolkien.

In Afrikaans writer Ingrid Winterbach's award-winning novel The Book of Happenstance, a lexicagrapher moves to Durban to help protect the Afrikaans language and has a cherished collection of shells stolen from her, an intrusion that leads her into a deeper understanding of life and happenstance. Also in June, new work from Adam Ross, Kate Christensen, and Ann Patchett.

In July, we're looking forward to new novels from Clyde Edgerton and Bonnie Jo Campbell, new nonfiction from Ben Mezrich, the fifth book in George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire saga, and more.

In August we see new novels from Tom Perrotta, Julie Otsuka, Nicholson Baker, Robert Olen Butler and DBC Pierre  plus a sequel to Alexandra Fuller's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.

Booker Prize-winning author Aravind Adiga and Whitbread Novel of the Year author Ali Smith are both back with new novels this month as is National Book Award author Lily Tuck. Plus new work from Neal Stephenson and a collection of Calvin Trillin's funniest stuff.

High on my list of to-reads for October 2011 is the long-awaited translation of Haruki Murakami's homage to George Orwell, 1Q84. This month we also see promising biographies of Van Gogh, Charles Dickens, and the city of Jerusalem. Check it out.