HOT TYPE

Susan Sontag roars to life in Sigrid Nunez'sSempre Susan (Atlas & Co.), an intimate portrait of America’s most famous public intellectual—and the author’s exacting mentor, as well as the unconventional mother of Nunez’s then boyfriend, David Rieff. Sontag is a study in contradictions, intellectually bulletproof and insecure, bullying and easily felled by beauty. As magnetic and complicated as Sontag herself, Nunez’s homage is both critical and compassionate, a gossipy tell-all and elegantly crafted chronicle of a young writer’s artistic education. Margaret Robison mother of mommywas-crazy memoirists Augusten Burroughs and John Elder Robison—tells her side of the story in The Long Journey Home (Spiegel & Grau). For better or worse, all women are “daddy’s girls,” Dr. Peggy Drexler maintains in Our Fathers, Ourselves (Rodale). Knowing Your Value (Weinstein), Mika Brzezinski advises, is the first step in getting what you’re worth. Robert Gottlieb highlights the colorful Lives and Letters (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) of a multitude of iconic figures and performers. Howard Blum pans gold’s history in The Floor of Heaven (Crown). The lives of the gold-rush-era men in John Sayles's novel claim A Moment in the Sun (McSweeney’s). Mitchell Zuckoff spins the true-life adventure of three W.W. II fliers, two men and a woman, who are Lost in Shangri-La (Harper), the unmapped, cannibalinfested jungles of New Guinea. The ghost of Hank Williams haunts Steve Earle's novel, I’ll Never Get out of This World Alive (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Danzy Senna's perceptive stories in You Are Free (Riverhead) show how nothing is black-andwhite. The Quotable Hitchens: From Alcohol to Zionism (Da Capo) presents a cavalcade of Vanity Fair’s notorious provocateur-in-chief Christopher Hitchens's finest flaming arrows, mud balls, and political grenades. Duck and cover! -ELISSA SCHAPPELL

ELISSA SCHAPPELL

Former Paramount exec Peter Bart rats on the Infamous Players (Weinstein) of 60s and 70s Hollywood. Brian Jones claims Failing Intelligence (Dialogue) led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Surreal miniaturist Helen Phillips's debut collection, And Yet They Were Happy (LeapLit), is full of gems. Bill Roedy solos in What Makes Business Rock (Wiley). Molly Jong-Fast releases The Social Climber's Handbook (Villard). Ann Hodgman instructs children on How to Die of Embarrassment Every Day (Henry Holt). Douglas Kennedy captures The Moment (Atria) of love at first sight. Edna O'Brien's stories breathe life into Saints and Sinners (Back Bay). Kate Payne knits together The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking (Harper Design). Rachel Simon rides on The Story of Beautiful Girl (Grand Central). Pete Hamill prowls Tabloid City (Little, Brown). Priscilla Gilman illuminates The Anti-Romantic Child (Harper). Charles Leerhsen roars through the Indy 500's history in Blood and Smoke (Simon & Schuster). Lorenzo Mattotti and Lou Reed ink The Raven (Fantagraphics).