New paperback releases offer good choices for reading groups

Auster's 10th novel is the story of David Zimmer, a Vermont English professor whose wife and sons are killed in a plane crash. Zimmer turns to alcohol and sleeping pills to numb the pain. Hope eventually presents itself in the form of silent-film star Hector Mann, who dropped out of sight at the height of his career in the 1920s, and whose remarkable movies become the subject of a new book by Zimmer. When the volume is published, Zimmer receives a strange invitation to meet Mann himself—an offer he accepts with some skepticism. His quest brings him into contact with the mysterious Alma Grund, Mann's biographer, and an unexpected romance soon flickers between the two. Along the way, they learn some important lessons about redemption, love and the slipperiness of the past. A reading group guide is available at www.picadorusa.com.


Set just before the start of the Civil War, this unforgettable historical drama tells the story of two men—William, a Maryland slave on the run from a particularly cruel master, and Morrison, the Scottish immigrant hired to catch him. William is searching for Dover, his pregnant wife, a dangerous quest that gets him captured twice. His tale is contrasted with that of Morrison, whose dark past is revealed over the course of the narrative. William's unflagging desire to find his wife and start a family gives him the strength to persist in his perilous journey despite the seemingly insurmountable odds. It also makes the novel, at bottom, a love story. This second book from from Durham is a moving portrait of a country on the brink of war.


With this wonderfully resonant collection, Gilchrist once again proves herself mistress of the short story genre. Rhoda Manning, a recurring character for the author, returns in half of the stories in this volume. Now 65, she reminisces about her Southern upbringing, her macho father, Big Dudley, and her three stubborn sons. In the title story, she appears as a 5-year-old who—equipped with a B B gun—accompanies Dudley on a hunting excursion. The high schoolers Gilchrist writes about in "The Abortion" must make some difficult decisions, while the gay hair stylist in "Remorse" mourns the loss of his best friend. Set in a variety of locales, from Arkansas to Wyoming, these stories offer a wide range of memorable characters, including a group of Islamic terrorists, and Gilchrist writes masterfully about them all. This is an expert collection of short stories from a beloved Southern author.


This salty, swashbuckling, high-seas adventure story from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Horwitz retraces the journeys of English maritime genius James Cook. That intrepid explorer, who mapped nearly a third of the planet during the 18th century, docked at every continent in the world, minus Antarctica. For the globe-trotting author, getting the surveyor's story includes doing nautical duty on the Endeavor, a replica of the listing coal ship Cook himself sailed on. Accompanied by his good-humored, hard-drinking Australian companion Roger Williamson, Horwitz puts in at exotic ports like Tahiti and Bora Bora, following in the captain's footsteps while navigating smoothly between memoir, humor and fact. This rousing yarn from the author of the best-selling book Confederates in the Attic is sure to become a travel-writing classic.


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