March 1996

Haven't heard from your favorite author in a while? Curious to know if another book is on the way? Send us a note (email and snail mail address below) and we'll see what we can find out for you. Each month the BookPage Burning Questions staff goes to the ends of the Earth and back again to find the answers to our readers' most burning questions. The answers are printed each month, both online as well as in our print edition. Go ahead, try to stump us!

Miss Smilla and her feelings

A correction:
We had no idea that there were so many Hoegians among us. Thanks to all of you who wrote, phoned, faxed, and e-mailed to tell us that Smilla's Sense of Snow is not the one and only title of Danish author Peter Hoeg's book. It's the kindness of strangers that keeps BQ honest. Smilla's Sense of Snow (Delta, $9.95) is the title of the American edition, and Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow is the title of the British version. The British edition is found in many English-speaking countries and is published by Harvill, a divsion of HarperCollins. The title transmogrified somewhere across the Atlantic. Those with a penchant for translation seem to agree that the British title remains truer to the Danish.

Overdue answers about overdue prequels, sequels, and more

Dear Burning Questions:
I understand Noah Gordon's The Physician and Shaman are books one and two of a trilogy. Do you have any idea when book number three will be published? Thanks for the information.
Gerda Klein
Oak Ridge, TN

The wait is over. Matters of Choice (Dutton, $24.95), book number three in The Cole Family Trilogy, will be published next month.

Dear Burning Questions:
Do you have any information on when the next book in Katherine Kurtz and Scott MacMillan's series Knights of Blood will be published? It seems to be about six months overdue. Thank you.
Lisa DaFoe
via the Internet

In case you haven't already heard, Two Crowns for America (Bantam, $22.95) appeared in stores last month. You don't have to spend any more restless knights waiting.

Dear Burning Questions:
Does anybody out there know where to find the third book of the Initiate Series by Louise Cooper? I've been looking forever and have never seen it. It was supposed to be called The Master. Did it ever get published?

The Master (Tor, $4.99) is part of The Time Master Trilogy and should already be available in your local bookstore along with the other two parts of the trilogy, The Initiate and The Outcast.

Dear Burning Questions:
Is Jean Auel writing another book in her Earth's Children series? I have been waiting for quite a while. Has she decided not to continue the series?
Shira Ramer
Aurora, IL

Dear Burning Questions:
Does Jean Auel plan to continue in her Earth's Children series? It seems like a long time since the fourth book, Plains of Passage, came out. I thought I remembered reading that the plan was for six books. Thanks for your help.
Brian Aden
via the Internet

There is indeed a fifth book on the way, according to Auel's agent. But it won't be for at least another year, so patience is key.

A posthumous work from a beloved vet and author

Dear Burning Questions:
I've enjoyed each of James Herriot's heart-warming books on his work as an English vet. Like millions of others, I was saddened by his death last year. Did he leave behind any unfinished manuscript for notes that could become another volume in his wonderful autobiographical work?
Ronnie Poore
Greenville, SC
via the Internet

James Herriot's Favorite Dog Stories will be published by St. Martin's Press this fall, but, as of now, there are no other books scheduled for publication.

The tide is high and she's moving on

Dear Burning Questions:
I've read all of Barbara Kingsolver's books and was wondering if she is working on another and when it may be published? I really enjoyed all of them, especially Animal Dreams.
via the Internet

Her publicist at HarperCollins tells us that Kingsolver is always working away on something, but nothing is scheduled for publication since she recently finished a tour promoting her latest book, High Tide in Tuscon, which was published in November of last year ($22).

Dear Burning Questions:
Anyone know what my favorite author, Saul Bellow, is up to? The last I've seen of him was the Salmugundi special issue this year celebrating his 80th birthday. I know there's been a collection of his nonfiction works out relatively recently. Just wondering if anyone's heard any rumors about another work of fiction. Thanks in advance..
David Hudson
via the Internet

Saul Bellow is working on a novel which will be published by Viking some time in the '90s (the 1990s that is, not Bellow's nineties). It All Adds Up is his most recent work of nonfiction, published last year by Viking ($12.95).

Shipping news of Proulx directly to you

Dear Burning Questions:
I loved E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News and am hoping that she is currently working on something else. Do you have any idea when we might see something from her again?
via the Internet

E. Annie Proulx's latest novel, Accordian Crimes , will be published by Scrinber in June. She has also contributed an essay to a book of photography entitled Treadwell ($40), due to be published by Chronicle Books next month. For seekers of obscure books, a lesser known title of this Pulitzer PrizeÐwinner and best-selling author is Sweet & Hard Cider: Making It, Using It and Enjoying It, published in 1980 by Garden Way Publishing/Storey Communications. This book has not yet received the acclaim of Postcards (Touchstone, $12), Heart Songs and Other Stories (Scribner, $10), or The Shipping News (Touchstone, $12), but the critics may still just be mulling it over.

Near-deadline experiences

Dear Burning Questions:
I am writing a book on near-death experiences and have tried every source that I know of to find out the title and release date of Betty Eadie's new book.

The reason that you are having trouble finding out this information is that no one knows the answer. We can tell you, however, that Betty Eadie, best-selling author of Embraced by the Light (Bantam, $5.99), is still in the process of writing and revising. Her publicist at Pocket says that the book will not be released in the spring as planned but that we might expect something from Eadie this summer. Eadie is also writing the introduction for a new book due out this spring from M. Evans & Co. called An Inquiry into the Existence of Guardian Angels: A Journalist's Investigative Report.

Joseph Brodsky

We note with great sadness the death on January 28 of Nobel PrizeÐwinning poet and celebrated author Joseph Brodsky. Born in 1940 in Leningrad, Brodsky came to the United States in the early '70s where he became poet laureate in 1991. A collection of his poetry entitled So Forth, compiled before his death, will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux this year.

Go ahead, stump us. With our new enhanced sleuthing ability, there's nothing we can't find out. But we still prefer those really easy questions.

Write us with your BQs: Burning Questions, 2501 21st Ave. South, Suite 5, Nashville, TN 37212. Or email us at Burning_Questions@bookpage.com.

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