#FridayReads, June 7–Eric Lundgren’s “The Facades” & Suzanne Corkin’s “Permanent Present Tense”

#FridayReads, June 7–The Facades by Eric Lundgren–a witty and heart-filled novel about a man in a post-apocalyptic world who’s searching for his family. I’m also reading Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H.M. by Suzanne Corkin–a scientific biography of a historic medical subject, a man who after undergoing brain surgery suffered a permanent loss of his capacity to make and retain long-term memory. In 2008, when I was Editorial Director of Union Square Press, I heard an NPR segment about Prof. Corkin’s work with H.M. and contacted her to ask if she was writing a book. Indeed, she said she was working on a manuscript, though she added it was a long way from completion and she suggested I should stay in touch with her agent. When I left the job in 2009, I wondered what would become of the project. At BEA last week I was pleased to see it had ended up on the list of Basic Books.

And among a whole passel of BEA galleys pictured below with my BEA press badge, I expect to be enjoying and reading these books over the next several weeks and months:

Identical, Scott Turow; Blowback, Valerie Plame & Sarah Lovett; The Residue Years, Mitchell S. Jackson; This Is Between Us, Kevin Sampsell; The Kill Room, Jeffrey Deaver; Palmerino, Melissa Pritichard; The Other Woman, Hank Phillippi Ryan; The Affairs of Others, Amy Grace Loyd; The Bone Season, Samantha Shannon; The Tilted World, Tom Franklin & Beth Ann Fennelly; King of Thieves, a play by George F. Walker; Good Riddance: An Illustrated Memoir of Divorce, Cynthia Copeland; Shadow Warrior: William Egan Colby and the CIA, Randall B. Woods; All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, Jennifer Senior; Chaser: Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows a Thousand Words, John W. Pilley; Mr and Mrs. Dog: Our Travels, Trials, Adventures, and Epiphanies, Donald McCaig; The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos, Neil Turok; Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass, Murphy Hicks Henry; A Mark Twain Christmas: A Journey Across Three Christmas Seasons, Carlo Devito; Best American Magazine Writing 2012; and Buzz Books 2013