SIBA Recap: Books I'm Excited About Part 1

Like other trade shows, SIBA is a great place to learn about all the new, upcoming titles that are creating a buzz.  You have dinner with authors or you hear them talk on panels, and their stories strike a chord with you.  Another SIBA feature is a rapid-fire presentation from all the publishers reps about their personal favorites.  Then you also stop by the publisher booths, and something catches your eye.  It comes at you from all directions, and it is sometimes more stimulation than a book geek can handle.  I have really REALLY attempted to narrow my own "hot list" down to two posts.    
  

Indiscretion - Charles Dubow (February 2013):  This one was a rep pick from Harper Collins, set in the present day and follows a wealthy and glamorous husband and wife whose idyllic life is upended when they meet an impressionable and ambitious young woman.  It has been described as compelling, engrossing, fun, sexy and sophisticated.  When Dawn from Harper Collins was talking about it, she was flushed!

The Longest Race - Ed Ayres (October 2012):  I'm always looking for inspiration to run just one more mile, and when I stopped by Workman Publishing, this caught my eye.  It is written by a gentleman who has been running competitively for 55 consecutive years, and is his gripping account of an iconic ultra marathon, with insights about running and its connection to human endurance.  

Out of the Easy - Ruta Sepetys (February 2013):  I didn't even need to know what this book was about.  Just having read Sepetys' "Between Shades of Grey" (NOT to be confused with the smarmy trashy crap with a similar name) was enough.  Still, just so you know, this one takes place in 1950, and is about a 17 year-old daughter of a New Orleans hooker who wants to leave the life behind but gets drawn into a murder investigation.

Walking the Amazon - Ed Stafford:  This one was a rep pick by Penguin.  It is an account of the first man to ever walk the entire length of the Amazon river.  It took him 860 days, and required him to outwit dangerous animals and machete-wielding indigenous people, as well as negotiate injuries, weather and his own fears and doubts.

People Who Eat Darkness - Richard Lloyd Parry:  This was a rep pick as well, and is true crime, my favorite!  It was compared to "In Cold Blood" and was described as dark and unputdownable.  It is a story about a 21 year-old woman who stepped out into the vastness of Tokyo and disappeared forever.    

Spillover:  Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic - David Quammen (October 2012):  It helped that this was a rep pick from W.W. Norton, but I will never forget reading "The Hot Zone".  This book explores the horrifying truths about diseases that spread from animals to humans.  Sleepless nights ahoy!










Reconstructing Amelia - Kimberly McCreight (April 2013):  Sorry, I couldn't find cover art for this one.  It was a rep pick by Harper Collins that had everyone from this publisher a-flutter.  A working, harried single mother gets a call from her daughter's private school that she has been caught cheating.  But when she arrives at the school, she learns that in fact her daughter is dead because of a spontaneous suicide.  Devastated, the mother attempts to cope, until she receives an anonymous text saying "She didn't jump".  This one is described as a psychological page-turner, and compared to Tana French (CAREFUL!  Few compare!) and Jodi Picoult.



I realize that is a lot to lay on you in one post.  Stay tuned next Friday for more!