Two hefty forthcoming tomes are highlighted in today's New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
The Times is in awe of the sheer size of Hunger's Brides: A Novel of the Baroque, the first novel by Paul Anderson (Carroll & Graf, $35, 0786715413) that walks down the aisle Sept. 14. At four pounds, nine ounces, this baby is "equivalent to two and a half copies of The Da Vinci Code, and it is thicker than Verizon's Manhattan telephone directory"--and near in weight to a six pack of beer, a chihuahua and a quarter of a watermelon. Eventually we learn, too, that after being published in Canada last year, Hunger's Brides won the Alberta Book Award for novel, has gone back to press, has been reviewed well here and is a September Book Sense pick.
The Journal gives no weight or page count for Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution by Stephen Breyer (Knopf, $21, 0307263134), but it does note that this is an unusual book: a sitting Supreme Court justice writes about his interpretation of the constitution. Knopf has moved publication up to Sept. 13 because of the nomination of John Roberts to the court but will not grant interviews "so as to avoid the possibility of influencing that process."
The Times is in awe of the sheer size of Hunger's Brides: A Novel of the Baroque, the first novel by Paul Anderson (Carroll & Graf, $35, 0786715413) that walks down the aisle Sept. 14. At four pounds, nine ounces, this baby is "equivalent to two and a half copies of The Da Vinci Code, and it is thicker than Verizon's Manhattan telephone directory"--and near in weight to a six pack of beer, a chihuahua and a quarter of a watermelon. Eventually we learn, too, that after being published in Canada last year, Hunger's Brides won the Alberta Book Award for novel, has gone back to press, has been reviewed well here and is a September Book Sense pick.
The Journal gives no weight or page count for Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution by Stephen Breyer (Knopf, $21, 0307263134), but it does note that this is an unusual book: a sitting Supreme Court justice writes about his interpretation of the constitution. Knopf has moved publication up to Sept. 13 because of the nomination of John Roberts to the court but will not grant interviews "so as to avoid the possibility of influencing that process."