WSJ: Battle of the Big Books

[jbor at bigpond.com]

By ROBERT J. HUGHES, The Wall Street Journal

> It's a literary slugfest.

> Between now and Thanksgiving, booksellers will host the biggest fall  
> rollout of heavyweight authors in years. In what's being called a  
> remarkable coincidence -- or a colossal case of bad timing --  
> publishers will release titles from John Grisham, Stephen King, John  
> le Carré, Michael Crichton, Clive Cussler and Janet Evanovich. Fall  
> brings the first Thomas Pynchon novel in nine years, another book from  
> the best-selling author Mitch Albom and the long-awaited second novel  
> from Charles Frazier, the author of "Cold Mountain." New works are  
> also on the way from Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, Isabel Allende  
> and Gore Vidal.

[...]
> AGAINST THE DAY
> Thomas Pynchon
> Penguin Press, Nov. 21
> PLOT: The story is a secret and the publisher is mum. In Penguin  
> Press's catalog, Mr. Pynchon says that the novel takes place between  
> the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the immediate post-World War I  
> years, moving from the American West to Siberia.
> BACKSTORY: Mr. Pynchon, known for his modernist classics "Gravity's  
> Rainbow" and "The Crying of Lot 49," is famously reclusive. He  
> published his last novel, "Mason and Dixon," in 1997.
> OUTLOOK: Considering that the publication of every Pynchon novel is an  
> event, and his last book was a best seller, it's likely the new one  
> will be, too.

http://articles.news.aol.com/business/_a/battle-of-the-big-books/ 
20060908103009990010

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