“You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.” Winter Journal (Henry Holt, August 2012) by Paul Auster. Twenty-seventh book, second memoir. Agent: Carol Mann. Editor: Barbara Jones. Publicist: James Meader.
“The pulse shudders the body at such infinitesimal levels that many of us ignore its existence.” Detailing Trauma: A Poetic Anatomy (University of Iowa Press, September 2012) by Arianne Zwartjes. Second book, first essay collection. Agent: None. Editors: Joseph Parson and Catherine Cocks. Publicist: Allison Means.
“America made us heroines / not wives” The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 (BOA Editions, September 2012) by the late Lucille Clifton. Thirty-fifth book, fourteenth poetry collection. Agent: Elizabeth Harding. Editor: Peter Conners. Publicist: Molly Mikolowski.
“A white boy rode flatfoot on a skateboard, towed along, hand to shoulder, by a black boy pedaling a brakeless fixed-gear bike.” Telegraph Avenue (Harper, September 2012) by Michael Chabon. Thirteenth book, eighth novel. Agent: Mary Evans. Editor: Jennifer Barth. Publicist: Michael McKenzie.
“The war tried to kill us in the spring.” The Yellow Birds (Little, Brown, September 2012) by Kevin Powers. First book, novel. Agent: Peter Straus. Editor: Michael Pietsch. Publicist: Nicole Dewey.
“I’m not a bad guy.” This Is How You Lose Her (Riverhead Books, September 2012) by Junot Díaz. Third book, second story collection. Agent: Nicole Aragi. Editor: Rebecca Saletan. Publicist: Jynne Martin.
“That year the mayor decided to name the streets after presidents who had been assassinated.” Rescuers of Skydivers Search Among the Clouds (University of Alabama Press, September 2012) by Patrick Lawler. Fourth book, first novel. Agent: None. Editor: Dan Waterman. Publicist: Rebecca Todd Minder.
“This isn’t that classic conceit where you tell a story about someone and it’s really just a story about yourself.” Four New Messages (Graywolf Press, August 2012) by Joshua Cohen. Seventh book, third story collection. Agent: Edward Orloff. Editor: Ethan Nosowsky. Publicist: Erin Kottke.
“Girl in clear, coal-hot squares of disco, the sudden / pangs and minnowed light moving across, sloped // as candle wax” If One of Us Should Fall (University of Pittsburgh Press, August 2012) by Nicole Terez Dutton. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Alex Wolfe. Publicist: Maria Sticco.
“When Sidney came out of the taqueria and headed down the alley, he saw Glorette Picard on her knees, her back to a shopping cart parked near the fence, her face held up toward the shadows made by two wild tobacco trees that grew along the chainlink.” Between Heaven and Here (McSweeney’s Books, September 2012) by Susan Straight. Tenth book, eighth novel. Agent: Richard Parks. Editor: Andi Mudd. Publicists: Alyson Sinclair and Sam Riley.
“The city sleeps with the lights on.” Nice Weather (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 2012) by Frederick Seidel. Sixteenth book, poetry collection. Agent: Andrew Wylie. Editor: Jonathan Galassi. Publicist: Gregory Wazowicz.
“I made a poem going / to sleep last night, woke / in sunlight, it was clean forgotten.” Finding My Elegy: New and Selected Poems (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2012) by Ursula K. Le Guin. Fifty-fifth book, seventh poetry collection. Agent: Vaughne Hanson. Editor: Andrea Schulz. Publicist: Kaelin Merrihew.
