Texas Pages

Keep your eyes peeled for these literary gems, coming out this week:
* Audition: A Memoir, by Barbara Walters (Knopf, $29.95). Explores the life and career of the legendary TV journalist. Juicy tidbits apparently abound.
* Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History, by Ted Sorenson (Harper, $27.95) Memoir by the confidant of and speechwriter for President Kennedy.
* Secrets, by Jude Deveraux (Atria, $25.95). Romance follows a young woman who tracks down her childhood love interest.
* Phantom Prey, by John Sandford (Putnam, $26.95). The newest thriller with investigator Lucas Davenport.
* The Host, by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown, $25.99). Queen of the young-adult vampire genre turns her attention to adult readers. The Host takes place in a future where Earth has been invaded by parasitic aliens who control most of humanity. Superdelegates? Oh, different genre. Sorry.
* From Dead to Worse, by Charlaine Harris (Ace, $24.95). The eighth in Ms. Harris' hilarious Southern Vampire mystery series.
* Skeletons at the Feast, by Chris Bohjalian (Shaye Areheart Books/Crown, $25) follows German refugees as they flee the advancing Red Army in 1945. Grim, but so well-written you just have to keep going.
* The Prince of Frogtown, by Rick Bragg (Knopf, $24). Concludes Mr. Bragg's trilogy of family stories that began with the utterly splendid All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man.

The NBCC's quarterly list of recommended titles is out. Heres' what America's book critics say they are reading and enjoying:

For the first time in 10 years, there are no Harry Potter books on The New York Times best-seller list.

The post on The Times' blog notes how the paper had to keep inventing new lists to keep J.K. Rowling from overwhelming them.

(Thanks to Shelf Awareness for the tip.)

Spotted on NewWest.net:

The University of Nebraska has posted an extensive archive of Willa Cather's work.
From the site's self-description:

"It now includes, in a fully-searchable format, digital transcriptions of five Cather books (copyright law forbids digitally republishing her post-1922 works), all of her short fiction pre-1912, her interviews, speeches, and public letters, her uncollected nonfiction from the 1910s, the complete run of Cather Studies, the back issues of Teaching Cather, a large gallery of photographs, multiple biographies, announcements and news from the Cather scholarly community, virtual tours of Cather-related locales, and much more."

Lisa See makes an appearance 4 p.m. Tuesday (May 13) at Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, 2821 Turtle Creek Blvd. Your $25 ticket includes cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Call 214-443-4747.

I saw Lisa speak in New York last year at Book Expo America. It was an interesting presentation. We have an excerpt from her book here. You can also read our review of her book below.