As Fool’s Republic opens, Simon Wyley floats in a tiny all-white cell. A short-order cook with a genius-level IQ, Wyley has had a steady job for twenty years, paid his taxes, kept to himself. A dedicated husband and father, he’s a model citizen. So why is he being held?

Wyley is accused of committing crimes against the state—the charges are always implied, never specified—and is being held without formal charge, benefit of counsel, or due process of law. He confuses and confounds his interrogators using the only weapons at his disposal, irony and whimsy, to challenge their arrogance and false assumptions. As Wyley’s journey proceeds, we develop a deeper understanding of the complicated man behind the wisecracks and the dark underbelly of the society that has imprisoned him.

Fans of crime fiction and stories set in the City of Brotherly Love are sure to enjoy the long-awaited follow-up to Allen Ballard's WHERE I'M BOUND, a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year. Allen's new novel is a gritty, urban, remarkably bighearted crime thriller called CARRIED BY SIX, which tells the story of a black community determined to rid itself of the plague of drug-driven crime and violence, and its leader's struggle to protect his family from the vengeance of a notoriously brutal gang leader who has escaped from prison.

What is it like to be the mistress of a god of Mount Olympus??? That is, the mistress of a very wealthy and well-respected married man? Victoria Messing moves to New York City at the age of nineteen to fulfill her quest to become a career mistress and self-proclaimed gold-digger. Blinded by her own ambition - or lack thereof - Victoria decides to conquer the world of men.

The Book

Steering the Craft began as a workshop Ursula K. Le Guin gave at the 1996 Flight of the Mind conference and was adapted to book form in 1998. It's a slim volume with a long subtitle: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Mariner and the Mutinous Crew. It contains ten chapters, each featuring a brief lesson, literary examples, and a writing exercise. Le Guin is passionate about the interplay of words and her love of writing (and writing craft) is very clear. She uses excerpts from classic works like Jane Eyre and The Return of the Native to illustrate her points, and keeps things moving with mix of both poetry and prose. There is also a glossary of terms, an appendix delineating the forms of the verb, and a section on how to conduct a peer group workshop. The chapters cover essential writing skills such as punctuation, adjectives and adverbs, and point of view, and are a mix of author essay and literature excerpts.

Behind the Bestsellers is TED's own monthly bestseller analysis, where we take a close look at what books are making splashes on three of the industry’s most valuable bestseller lists, the agents and publishers that brought them to market, and what their success or longevity on a given list tells us about the topsy-turvy world of publishing at the moment.

October, 2009: Fiction List • Nonfiction List

Please note this data for fiction is culled from the New York Times (NYT) and Los Angeles Times (LAT) hardcover fiction lists along with the Booksense (BKS) (a.k.a Indiebound) list, which tracks sales at independent bookstores only. Nonfiction data comes from USA Today (USA), the New York Times (NYT), and Publishers Weekly(PW).

Behind the Bestsellers is TED's own monthly bestseller analysis, where we take a close look at what books are making splashes on three of the industry’s most valuable bestseller lists, the agents and publishers that brought them to market, and what their success or longevity on a given list tells us about the topsy-turvy world of publishing at the moment.

Fiction List • Nonfiction List

Please note this data for fiction is culled from the New York Times (NYT) and Los Angeles Times (LAT) hardcover fiction lists along with the Booksense (BKS) (a.k.a Indiebound) list, which tracks sales at independent bookstores only. Nonfiction data comes from USA Today (USA), the New York Times (NYT), and Publishers Weekly(PW).