Now 96, Brooks is still busy making comedy, and last year he finally got around to publishing his long-promised memoir. “Perhaps named for ‘All About Eve’ but less of a bumpy night than a joy ride, ‘All About Me!’ takes humor as an absolute value, something that ‘brings religious persecutors, dictators and tyrants to their knees faster than any other weapon,’” wrote New York Times reviewer Alexandra Jacobs. “Its 460 pages rattle along like an extended one-liner.”
by David Guterson (Vintage, $17).
I loved disappearing into this book earlier this year, the latest from the Seattle author of “Snow Falling on Cedars.” Fiction and reality blend deftly here, in a story narrated by a Seattle novelist whose father, an older lawyer, is representing a woman accused of abusing her adopted daughter (the trial is based on a real-life case). “Though a story of hate is at its center,” I wrote in my review, “it’s enveloped by a larger story of fiction and wonder and love — most brightly that of a son for his father, a man of set-in habits and determined goodness.”
by Janice Hallett (Atria Books, $18.99).
This debut mystery from British author Hallett is a kick: a whodunit epistolary novel, in which a pair of young lawyers sort through a mountain of emails, messages and letters to try to sort out a mysterious death in an amateur theatrical troupe. I quite agree with New York Times reviewer Sarah Lyall, who concluded that “The whole thing is a delight; teasing out the mystery is almost as fun as searching for its solution.”
by Ann Patchett (Harper Perennial, $18).
The author of “The Dutch House” and “Commonwealth” offers here a collection of personal essays, written with her trademark grace. Washington Post reviewer Michele Filgate wrote of Patchett, “Whether she turns her gaze to her three fathers, her beautiful mother, her husband’s delight in piloting a plane, or her friendships, there’s a generosity in the way she not only looks at the world but invites the reader in to stay for a while.”