Big-name authors to be out in force

Book lovers will be able to read by literary star light this fall, as new works from some of the biggest names in publishing appear on bookstore shelves.

In the fiction section, the novel Homer & Langley is just out from E.L. Doctorow. Following later this month will be offerings from Margaret Atwood, Pete Dexter, and Nick Hornby.

October will bring new works by Michael Connelly, Jonathan Lethem, John Irving, and Augusten Burroughs.

Philip Roth and Barbara Kingsolver return in November, and Sue Grafton will near the end of the alphabet in December when she reaches the letter "U."

Memoirs will loom large on the nonfiction shelves as the late Edward M. Kennedy, Serena Williams, Michael Chabon, and Andre Agassi weigh in.

Also coming: Works about Barack and Michelle Obama, NFL star/Army ranger Pat Tillman, Elizabeth Taylor, and the late Queen Mother.

The commercial heavy hitters, in both fiction and nonfiction, will be out in force, too, including Dan Brown, Mitch Albom, Michael Crichton, John Grisham, James Patterson, Clive Cussler, J.D. Robb, and John Sandford.

Who needs television?

- Michael D. Shaffer,
Inquirer books editor