NEXT <http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20355856_20358746_6,00.html> 5 of 19
*THE LAST STAND, Nathaniel Philbrick (May 4)* If anyone can breathe life into the oft-told tale of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer, it's Philbrick, who evoked the Pilgrims in 2006's *Mayflower* and 19th-century whale traders in 2001's *In the Heart of the Sea*. Philbrick here takes on an oft-told tale, replete with its dashing, flawed main character, its historically doomed, noble Native chief, and a battlefield strewn with American corpses. While off his usual stride with a surfeit of unnecessary detail, bestselling author and National Book Award–winner Philbrick (*In the Heart of the Sea*; *The Mayflower*) writes a lively narrative that brushes away the cobwebs of mythology to reveal the context and realities of Custer's unexpected 1876 defeat at the hands of his Indian enemies under Sitting Bull, and the character of each leader. Judicious in his assessments of events and intentions, Philbrick offers a rounded history of one of the worst defeats in American military history, a story enhanced by his minute examination of the battle's terrain and interviews with descendants in both camps. Distinctively, too, he takes no sides. In his compelling history, Philbrick underscores the pyrrhic nature of Sitting Bull's victory—it was followed by federal action to move his tribe to a reservation. 32 pages of b&w photos, 18 pages of color photos, 18 maps. NEXT <http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20355856_20358746_8,00.html> 7 of 19 *WAR, Sebastian Junger (May 11)* A riveting account of the 14 months Junger (*The Perfect Storm*) spent embedded with a platoon in one of the bloodiest, most remote pockets of Afghanistan. War is insanely exciting.... Don't underestimate the power of that revelation, warns bestselling author and *Vanity Fair* contributing editor Junger (*The Perfect Storm*). The war in Afghanistan contains brutal trauma but also transcendent purpose in this riveting combat narrative. Junger spent 14 months in 2007–2008 intermittently embedded with a platoon of the 173rd Airborne brigade in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, one of the bloodiest corners of the conflict. The soldiers are a scruffy, warped lot, with unkempt uniforms—they sometimes do battle in shorts and flip-flops—and a ritual of administering friendly beatings to new arrivals, but Junger finds them to be superlative soldiers. Junger experiences everything they do—nerve-racking patrols, terrifying roadside bombings and ambushes, stultifying weeks in camp when they long for a firefight to relieve the tedium. Despite the stress and the grief when buddies die, the author finds war to be something of an exalted state: soldiers experience an almost sexual thrill in the excitement of a firefight—a response Junger struggles to understand—and a profound sense of commitment to subordinating their self-interests to the good of the unit. Junger mixes visceral combat scenes—raptly aware of his own fear and exhaustion—with quieter reportage and insightful discussions of the physiology, social psychology, and even genetics of soldiering. The result is an unforgettable portrait of men under fire. NEXT <http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20355856_20358746_12,00.html> 11 of 19 *THE PASSAGE, Justin Cronin (June 8)* Probably the most buzzed-about novel of the summer, this post-apocalyptic epic will inevitably draw comparisons to Stephen King's *The Stand*. Fans of vampire fiction who are bored by the endless hordes of sensitive, misunderstood Byronesque bloodsuckers will revel in Cronin's engrossingly horrific account of a post-apocalyptic America overrun by the gruesome reality behind the wish-fulfillment fantasies. When a secret project to create a super-soldier backfires, a virus leads to a plague of vampiric revenants that wipes out most of the population. One of the few bands of survivors is the Colony, a FEMA-established island of safety bunkered behind massive banks of lights that repel the virals, or dracs—but a small group realizes that the aging technological defenses will soon fail. When members of the Colony find a young girl, Amy, living outside their enclave, they realize that Amy shares the virals' agelessness, but not the virals' mindless hunger, and they embark on a search to find answers to her condition. PEN/Hemingway Award–winner Cronin (*The Summer Guest*) uses a number of tropes that may be overly familiar to genre fans, but he manages to engage the reader with a sweeping epic style. The first of a proposed trilogy, it's already under development by director Ridley Scott and the subject of much publicity buzz NEXT <http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20355856_20358746_13,00.html> 12 of 19 *SO COLD THE RIVER, Michael Koryta (June 9)* An edgy, seat-of-your-pants thriller with a supernatural edge that's set in an immaculately restored grand old hotel in the Midwest. In this explosive thriller from Koryta (*Envy the Night*), failed filmmaker Eric Shaw is eking out a living making family home videos when a client offers him big bucks to travel to the resort town of West Baden, Ind., the childhood home of her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, to shoot a video history of his life. Almost immediately, things go weird. Eric uncovers evidence of another Campbell Bradford, a petty tyrant who lived a generation before the other and terrorized the locals. The older Campbell begins appearing in horrific visions to Eric after he sips the peculiar mineral water that made West Baden famous. Koryta spins a spellbinding tale of an unholy lust for power that reaches from beyond the grave and suspends disbelief through the believable interactions of fully developed characters. A cataclysmic finale will put readers in mind of some of the best recent works of supernatural horror, among which this book ranks. NEXT <http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20355856_20358746_15,00.html> 14 of 19 *LUCY, Laurence Gonzales (July 13)* A fast-paced Crichtonesque thriller about a half-human, half-ape girl. Laurence Gonzales’s electrifying adventure opens in the jungles of the Congo. Jenny Lowe, a primatologist studying chimpanzees—the bonobos—is running for her life. A civil war has exploded and Jenny is trapped in its crosshairs . . . She runs to the camp of a fellow primatologist. The rebels have already been there. Everyone is dead except a young girl, the daughter of Jenny’s brutally murdered fellow scientist—and competitor. Jenny and the child flee, Jenny grabbing the notebooks of the primatologist who’s been killed. She brings the girl to Chicago to await the discovery of her relatives. The girl is fifteen and lovely—her name is Lucy. Realizing that the child has no living relatives, Jenny begins to care for her as her own. When she reads the notebooks written by Lucy’s father, she discovers that the adorable, lovely, magical Lucy is the result of an experiment. She is part human, part ape—a hybrid human being . . . NEXT <http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20355856_20358746_19,00.html> 18 of 19 *MOCKINGJAY, Suzanne Colllins (Aug. 24)* The final volume of Collins' dystopian trilogy, following *The Hunger Games* and*Catching Fire*. Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins’s groundbreaking *The Hunger Games* trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gimik" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/gimik?hl=en.
