Our Tragic Universe By Scarlett Thomas, out now

In
this novel, a struggling writer gets by, penning Ya thrillers, book
reviews and science fiction while never able to put together her “real”
work, a literary novel. add a dash of lazy boyfriend and screwy family
and you’ve got a meta-romp through the life of a writer. To Sound in the
Know: Thomas quit smoking while writing OTU, and missed it so much she couldn’t even write about one of her characters smoking.

Bob Dylan in America By Sean Wilentz, out Sept. 7

A leading american historian looks back

Dylan
from his explosion on the scene in 1961 to his current role in the
pantheon of american artists. To Sound in the Know: Wilentz grew up in
Greenwich Village, where he first discovered Dylan as a teenager. He was
there, man.

Richard Yates By Tao Lin, out Sept. 7

The
local poet and writer’s new novel is about a relationship between a
22-yearold named Haley Joel Osment and a 16-year-old named Dakota
Fanning. They GChat, they shoplift from Whole Foods and american
apparel, they hang out in new Jersey and new York, they have sex. It’s
weird. It’s Tao Lin. To Sound in the Know: The 26-year-old Lin’s
minimalist style has put him at the forefront of the hipster literary
crowd. You should have an opinion about him.

The Art of Drew Struzan By Drew Struzan, out Sept. 14

George Lucas, this collection brings together seminal work from such movie posters as E.T., Blade Runner and Jurassic Park. To
Sound in the Know: Struzan’s precinema career involved making posters
for the Bee Gees and Black Sabbath… which is the first time the Bee
Gees and Black Sabbath have ever had anything in common.

Earth: A Vistor’s Guide to the Human Race By Jon Stewart, out Sept. 21

An absurd, 256-page “comprehensive” look at the history of our planet from the writers of The Daily Show. To Sound in the Know: America, the first book from The Daily Show, sold
over 2.5 million copies. and since the Earth is like a 100 times bigger
than america, this will probably sell over 250 million copies.

Tattoos and Tequila By Vince Neil and Mike Sager, out Sept. 23

The story of the good (bad?) old days, singer of Mötley Crüe. For those who read the Crüe bio The Dirt, and
didn’t get enough sex, drugs, drugs and sex, here’s some more drugs and
sex. To Sound in the Know: neil owns a tattoo parlor in Vegas and has a
tequila line, so the title isn’t just a marketing gimmick. The man
knows his stuff.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk By David Sedaris, out Sept. 28

In a pivot from his usual essay style, Sedaris pens a series of tales
starring animals interacting in distinctly familiar human situations.

To Sound in the Know: a cynical cat sitting through an aa meeting. What else do you need to know?

Crime: A Novel By Irvine Welsh, out Sept. 2 An Edinburgh cop goes to Miami to plan his wedding and ends up battling a small ring of pe dophiles—don’t you hate it when that happens?—in what Welsh himself has called “an existential thriller.”

To Sound Like You’ve Read It: Mention that you’re glad that Crime’s protagonist and anti-hero Ray Lennox made the leap from supporting character in Welsh’s Filth.

The War Within: A Super Secret White House History 2006–2008 By Bob Woodward, out Sept. 8 In his fourth book chronicling the Bush years, wunderkind cum-windbagWoodward shines a light on the internal de bates during two controversial years of the Iraq War.

To Sound Like You’ve Read It: Ac knowledge that Woodward has progres sively sharpened his views toward Bush since Bush at War, his first book about the administration.

Hot, Flat and Crowded By Thomas L. Friedman, out Sept. 8 Anyone who has kept up with Fried man’s columns in the New York Times knows the man is obsessed with cli mate change and en ergy revolution. He synthesizes these two into an argument for a “Geo-Greenism” national strategy that will revolutionize America and the world.

To Sound Like You’ve Read It: Blather about how this book will do for the envi ronment what The World is Flat did for globalization. Segue into a conversation about those useless brown paper towels.

Indignation By Philip Roth, out Sept. 15 In his 29th (!) book, Roth tells the Cold War–era tale of the son of a Newark butcher who flees west to college in Winesburg, Ohio, where he hits the books ferociously to avoid the fate of a soldier.

To Sound Like You’ve Read It: Remark that the Winesburg of Roth’s story is not the same town as in Sherwood Anderson’s 1919 classic Winesburg, Ohio. Anderson’s hometown of Clyde, Ohio, was the basis for that book.

Downtown Owl: A Novel By Chuck Kloster man, out Sept. 15 The pop culture commentator and essayist makes his first foray into novels with this multi-char acter story about the community of Owl, a small town in North Dakota.

To Sound Like You’ve Read It: Casually drop that this technically isn’t Kloster man’s fiction debut. In his recent collec tion Chuck Klosterman: IV, he included a novella he’d written while working in Akron, Ohio, titled You Tell Me.

The Given Day By Denis Lehane, out Sept. 22 Lehane returns to Boston, where his bestselling Mystic River took place, but jumps back in time to 1918 for this sprawling epic that tumbles from labor clashes in the streets to baseball battles on the diamond.

To Sound Like You’ve Read It: Note that this wide-ranging story is a departure from the smaller, tightly focused scope of Lehane’s successful thrillers like Mystic River and Shutter Island.

The Other Queen By Philippa Gregory, out Sept. 16 The author of The Other Boleyn Girl brings out a new Other, this time with the story of the im prisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots. The action focuses on Mary’s captivity in the home of the Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife, Bess, where treachery and