Novelist Tash Aw takes us to Indonesia on the eve of violent civil war; a history of Austen appreciation, Jane's Fame, traces the author's rise from obscurity to ubiquity; Sam Lipsyte brings the funny to academia in his latest satire; and Enlightened Sexism aims a Buffy-style stake at the media's warped portrayals of "girl power."
Map Of The Invisible World
A Novel
By Tash Aw
Tash Aw's highly anticipated sophomore release since his acclaimed debut, The Harmony Silk Factory, is set in Indonesia on the eve of its bloody civil war in the mid-1960s. The regime of authoritarian leader Sukarno is coming apart and the military begins its crackdown on suspected "enemies of the state," including Communists, foreigners and dissidents. The story follows Adam de Willigen, a 16-year-old Indonesian boy searching for his adoptive father, a Dutchman named Karl. Along the way, we meet a well-intentioned but naive American anthropologist, her violently radical graduate student, a CIA operative and others.
Hardcover, 336 pages; Spiegel & Grau; list price, $25; publication date, Jan. 5
Jane's Fame
How Jane Austen Conquered the World
By Claire Harman
Award-winning biographer Claire Harman's lively compendium of all things Austen is suited for neophytes as well as scholars. She tracks the author's phenomenal arc of fame with a sure hand and provocative insights. In the beginning, Harman notes, Austen was writing for her small circle of family and friends. In 1869, 52 years after Austen's death, her nephew's Memoir of Jane Austen created the first of endless Austen revivals, seeding the notion that Austen appreciation was a litmus test for taste and intellect. The Janeite cult of the late Victorians included Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, William Dean Howells and E.M. Forster. By the time Austen's novels — love stories with clear-cut heroes and heroines and lots of knowing satire — were adapted to film and television, Austen-mania spanned the globe. The rise of the Internet has only expanded the influence of the "Divine Jane."
Hardcover, 304 pages; Henry Holt; list price, $26; publication date, March 2
The Ask
A Novel
By Sam Lipsyte
It's been six years since Sam Lipsyte's novel Home Land first started causing isolated bursts of laughter on various forms of public transit. Lovers of quiet commutes should gird themselves for a renewed affront: in Lipsyte's new novel, The Ask, protagonist Milo Burke is a frustrated artist/sad sack recently fired from his position as a development officer raising funds for an unremarkable New York City university, where people pay "vast sums of money so that their progeny [can] take hard drugs in suitable company." When the school is contacted by one of Milo's oldest — and now insanely successful — friends, they give Milo a second chance: Get this guy to donate, and donate big, and you can have your old job back.
Hardcover, 304 pages; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; list price, $25; publication date, March 2
Enlightened Sexism
The Seductive Message That Feminism's Work Is Done
By Susan J. Douglas
Susan J. Douglas is a cultural critic whose earlier books include Where the Girls Are and The Mommy Myth. In her new book, she continues her spirited exploration of women's status in America, arguing that the media in the new millennium are promoting the contradictory ideas that feminism has succeeded and is no longer necessary, and that the sources of real "girl power" are beauty and consumerism, not economic and political clout. Taking on the gamut of American popular culture, Douglas reveals how it promotes false images of women in power, and how these images undermine real women's progress.
Hardcover, 368 pages; Times Books; list price, $26; publication date, March 2
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