It's been awhile since I've highlighted a catalog, but this one has quite a few entries of note. Here's what jumped out at me:

Lady Lazarus by Andrew Foster Altschul - The story of Calliope Bird Morath, daughter of a punk rock legend and her biographer who follows her from silent childhood to mysterious disappearance to reemergence as "mute leader of a cultlike brigade known as The Muse". It's referred to as a "disturbing and razor-sharp meditation on 21st century celebrity culture."

All Souls by Christine Schutt - About four girls at Siddons, a "posh private school in NYC" and a fifth who is Astra "the girl with cancer". It follows the girls through "boys, teachers, exams, dance recitals, college applications, graduation, and of course, poor Astra Dell."

I have no idea why this book is for adults and not YA - I mean what could these girls be doing that makes this a novel only adults would enjoy? I'm not so excited about reading it, only because the thought of yet another book with a dying (or semi dying) girl is just too much for me. (Must they always have cancer?) But I'm really puzzled why it is in this catalog in the first place. Odd, don't you think?

Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin - The story of Vergil's The Aeneid, from the perspective of the King's daughter who is mentioned in the poem but never given a voice. This is her story, how she responds to the prophecies made about her, and about the love of her life.

It's Le Guin for heaven's sake - enough said. (She talks a wee bit about the book here.)

Hubert's Freaks by Gregory Gibson - Bob is an obsessive dealer who gets a trunk with the archive of a midcentury Times Square freak show - which was frequented by Diane Arbus. There are photos in the box and he can't help but think they belonged to the famous photographer. The adventure that ensues "filled with bizarre coincidences, turns into a roller-coaster ride that takes him from memorabilia shows to the curator's office of the Met." Are the photos really Arbus'? And what does it mean if they are? And how will this change (one way or the other) everything for Bob?

I'm fascinated by Arbus so this really interests me for that inclusion alone. But Larry McMurty has a great blurb: "Hubert's Freaks will fascinate those among us who are stimulated by the richness and variety of American subculture. I devoured it."

For a Sack of Bones by Lluis-Anton Baulenas - Set in the period after the Spanish Civil War, Sgt Genus Aleu has come home to Barcelona. He is trying to fulfill his father's dying wish, amidst all the paranoia of Franco's Spain and "hurtles toward his own reckoning with the truth of war and the dangerous effects of living a lie."

The Spanish Civil War is one of the least understood (and respected) conflicts in the 20th century. If more westerners realized just how much it had to do with WWII (and the Cold War) then we would better see the ripple effect of so many other "little wars" that dominate modern times. I'm so all over this one.

The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham - The author's father committed suicide 16 years ago and it made no sense to her. She uses an index format to investigate his life and try to understand how it could have happened. This sounds like a really original idea in terms of how to write such a book and I find it oddly compelling. What would an index of any life look like? What a brilliant idea.

A Manuscript of Ashes by Antonio Munoz Molina - Also set in Spain although in the 1960s (when Franco was finally on the way out), this is about a Minyana, a student hiding from the police after a protest. He goes to his uncle's estate to write his thesis on a rather obscure poet, who was also a friend of the uncle's. Minyana discovers the two men were in love with the same woman, who was engaged to his uncle but shot to death on her wedding night. She wrote a novel before she died and Minyana begins a search for the book, which "unravels a crime".

Another long lost book that reveals all sorts of secrets - how could anyone possibly resist?

Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks - Why on earth is this an adult book? It's the sequel to Evil Genius which was sold as a YA novel. It follows right behind the first book with the ramifications of Axis Institute being destroyed and Cadel getting ready to testify against the bad guys. Fans of the first will likely be thrilled - I'll admit I skipped it but it does sound like a lot of fun.

The Museum of Dr. Moses by Joyce Carol Oates - The woman is unstoppable. This collection focuses on ways in which evil enters out lives (uplifting, eh?). The title story is about a woman who tries to rescue her mother from a bad museum. There is also a young girl whose "romantic view of her childhood is devastated by her father's confessions" and a man who prepares "a gruesome surprise for the wife who betrayed him". I don't know that I"ll read this - with so much bad news that is true, it's hard for me to get excited about horror stories that will scare the crap out of me - but it does sound impressive. Oates really is one talented woman. (You can read the Washington Post review of the HC edition which just came out last month - the TPB is due next August.)