Looking Ahead: Books
By Motoko Rich Published New York Times: December 31, 2009

In publishing, January was once considered a quiet time after the hubbub of the holiday rush, but this year many publishing houses delayed some of their hottest books to the first of the New Year to remove them from a scrum of titles by big-name authors that were released last fall.
Here are some of the big books expected in January:

COMMITTED.
By Elizabeth Gilbert. 285 pages. Viking. $26.95.
She’s the author of “Eat, Pray, Love.” Need we say more? Seriously, this book, a memoir that Ms. Gilbert wrote entirely from scratch after she scrapped the first 500-page draft, chronicles a turbulent period 18 months after her previous book left off. She writes of how, despite her antipathy to marriage, she came to wed the Brazilian-born Australian lover she met in Indonesia in “Eat, Pray, Love,” but she also meditates on the institution of wedlock. Incorporating reflections on historical and sociological studies as well as interviews with family, friends and people she met while traveling across Southeast Asia, Ms. Gilbert’s book explores her attempt to make peace with an institution she once vowed never to re-enter. Viking, her publisher, has planned a first-print run of 1 million copies. (Publication date: Tuesday.)

Photo: Shea Hembrey; book: Len Lagrua

NOAH’S COMPASS.
By Anne Tyler. 277 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $25.95.
This novel, like many of Anne Tyler’s books, tells the story of one of life’s under-the-radar characters. Liam Pennywell, 60, has just been fired from a teaching job and has two failed marriages and desultory relationships with three daughters to his name. The appeal: “She’s a very evocative writer, and the male protagonist in her new book is going to resonate really strongly with her readers because the character is so vulnerable,” said Larry Norton, senior vice president of merchandising for adult trade and children’s books at Borders Group. “It’s a very complex characterization, and it’s classic Anne Tyler in terms of what she’s able to tell us about ourselves.” (Publication date: Tuesday.)

THE SWAN THIEVES.
By Elizabeth Kostova. 564 pages. Little, Brown & Company. $26.99.
Elizabeth Kostova’s first novel, “The Historian,” was the subject of a heated publishing industry auction and went on to spend nearly 20 weeks on The New York Times’s best-seller list. Now she is back with her second novel, which buyers at both Barnes & Noble and Borders put near the top of their lists of hotly anticipated books for 2010. The plot follows the obsessive search by Andrew Marlow, a psychiatrist, to unravel the mystery of a patient who defaces a painting at the National Gallery. The point of view shifts among narrators, and the book goes back in time to the 19th century to explore the lives of the painters Béatrice de Clerval and her uncle, Olivier Vignot, who form a large part of the story. Writing in Publishers Weekly, Katharine Weber said: “Legions of fans of the first book have been waiting impatiently, or perhaps even obsessively, for this novel. ‘The Swan Thieves’ succeeds both in its echoes of ‘The Historian’ and as it maps new territory for this canny and successful writer.” (Publication date: Jan. 12.)

STAR: HOW WARREN BEATTY SEDUCED ARICAME.
By Peter Biskind. 627 pages. Simon & Schuster. $30.
Peter Biskind, the author of “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,” a history of 1970s American cinema, and “Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film,” about the evolution of independent film into a semicorporate niche product, has now written a biography of Warren Beatty, looking into his playboy escapades, his engagement with politics and his rich work as actor and director. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly noted that “Biskind does not gloss over the fact that Beatty has not had a box-office hit since 1990’s ‘Dick Tracy,’ nor does he ignore the string of flops that have deflated the actor’s career (‘Ishtar,’ ‘Bugsy’ ‘Love Affair,’ etc.). Yet his respect for Beatty never dwindles, and readers are left with a complicated portrait of a complicated man, arguably a great actor of his generation.” (Publication date: Jan. 12.)
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