We Sinners handles faith with graces

Hanna Pylväinen's debut novel We Sinners lacks so many traditional plot elements found in contemporary novels about religion. No pedophile priests. No hypocritical pastors. No overwrought preachers foaming about the Book of Revelation.

Rather, the moving story offers grace, insight and compassion. Pylväinen immerses the reader in the experience of growing up in a fundamentalist faith. Although the author is no longer a member of the Laestadian Lutheran Church, she was raised as a Laestadian, like the Rovaniemi family in We Sinners.

Founded in 19th-century Sweden by Lars Levi Laestadius, it is a strict branch which emphasizes forgiveness and forbids drinking, dancing and TV. Although We Sinners is about one faith, it explores how people, particularly children, feel when their religion sets them apart, whether they are Orthodox Jews, Mormons, evangelical Christians or Muslims.

Pylväinen tells the story of the Rovaniemis in 11 chapters, each from a different family member's perspective. The Finnish-American family live outside Detroit and, with nine children, money is tight. But the parents Warren and Pirjo provide them with books, musical instruments, and love. Their house is small, the van rusty and the siblings bicker. And yet the children share a tribal bond outsiders can't grasp.

There isn't a lot of drama. A daughter's classmates discover why she can't attend the school dance. The congregation choose the father to be minister. One brother marries a fellow believer and the other brother — who is gay — leaves the church.

Some children rebel and return. Others don't, but find themselves adrift in a world that sometimes feels shallow and lonely. A Chinese-American boyfriend — an only child — finds the kind of comfort with the Rovaniemis and their faith that his achievement-obsessed parents cannot give him. The final chapter illuminates the hope Laestadius offered to impoverished Finns in a cold, harsh world where alcohol provided the only warmth.

We Sinners is the rare mainstream novel that treats faith with respect and subtlety, conveying both its power and pull.

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Books: New and Noteworthy

'The Casual Vacancy' by J.K. Rowling comes out next week.

'The Casual Vacancy' by J.K. Rowling comes out next week.

We scope out the hottest books on sale the week of Sept. 23.

1. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (Little, Brown, $35, fiction, on sale Sept. 27)

What it's about: Behind the pretty facade of Pagford, England, lies a town torn apart by a council election, in Rowling's first novel aimed at adults.

The buzz: Perhaps the most anticipated book of the fall, as the world waits to see if Rowling, author of the blockbuster Harry Potter books for young readers, can deliver for a new audience.

2. Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young (Blue Rider Press, $30, non-fiction, on sale Sept. 25)

What it's about: The rocker looks back on his rich life and career, from Buffalo Springfield, to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, to Crazy Horse and solo efforts.

The buzz: Young is one of the most prominent musicians (along with Pete Townshend) to write his own story in a fall season crowded with memoirs by rockers.

3. Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy; foreword by Caroline Kennedy; selected and introduced by Ted Widmer (Hyperion, $40, non-fiction, on sale Sept. 25)

What it's about: Recordings of JFK grappling with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, the Space Race and other issues; included are two CDs with 2.5 hours of remastered audio.

The buzz: Follows Hyperion's publication a year ago of Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, which entered USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list at No. 3.

4. Love Anthony by Lisa Genova (Gallery, $26, fiction, on sale Sept. 25)

What it's about: In the latest novel by the author of Still Alice, a writer finds herself channeling the voice of her friend's son, an autistic boy named Anthony who died when he was 8.

The buzz: Love Anthony is an October Indie Next Pick , recommended by independent booksellers. "Anthony is unforgettable," says Kathleen Dixon of Islandtime Books & More, in Washington Island, Wis.

5. One Last Strike by Tony La Russa (William Morrow, $27.99, non-fiction, on sale Sept. 25)

What it's about: The now-retired manager tells the comeback story of how he led the St. Louis Cardinals to victory in the 2011 World Series.

The buzz: With the Cardinals again in contention for a wild card spot, La Russa's behind-the-scenes tale is perfectly timed for the baseball fan.

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'Oath' delves into the Roberts Supreme Court

In this election season, it's worth reminding ourselves that the appointment of Supreme Court justices may be the most profound legacy of any presidency. That's a key subtext of The Oath, Jeffrey Toobin's polished and thoughtful dissection of the current Court — led by Chief Justice John Roberts — and its high-stakes relationship to the Obama administration.

New Yorker staff writer, attorney and CNN analyst Toobin brings full authority to this project. Deeply versed in Supreme Court lore and legal subtlety, he draws upon first-hand interviews with the justices and their clerks in crafting an anxious tale of the Roberts court, casting its major rulings as looming symbols of judicial philosophy and will.

Among the players, President Obama and Roberts are portrayed as men whose surface similarities — both are gifted Chicagoans with Harvard Law degrees — hardly disguise their differences. Obama's mainstream liberalism is offset by Roberts' brainy conservatism, abetted by the four other conservative justices: Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. These five reflect, in Toobin's words, "the contemporary Republican Party," with its "judicial agenda for change" determined to "end racial preference for African-Americans, prohibit all forms of gun control, welcome religion into the public sphere, deregulate political campaigns, and, above all, reverse Roe v. Wade and allow states to ban abortion." Case in point: the Court's Citizens United decision shattering all financial barriers to political speech, a huge factor in the current presidential campaign.

At the extreme are Thomas and Scalia, whose devotion to the Republican judicial philosophy of "originalism" — interpreting the Constitution as they believe its framers understood it — would, arguably, return the United States to an 18th-century perspective on state vs. federal power. The court's liberal minority — Steven Breyer, Ruth Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — embrace a "living Constitution" whose words and values may be interpreted for a changing world. They look to the independent-minded Kennedy and to Roberts, who takes the long view, to moderate the originalists.

It was Roberts, after all, who would not legislate from the bench when he broke from the conservatives and joined the liberals this past summer in upholding the crux of Obamacare: the individual mandate requiring purchase of health insurance. Roberts ultimately decided that the mandate was constitutional under the government's power to tax, though not under the Constitution's Commerce Clause, which allows for broad federal regulation of interstate commerce. Roberts' "vote and opinion in the health care case were acts of strategic genius" that "laid down a marker on the scope of the commerce clause… potentially a significant long-term gain for the conservative movement," Toobin concludes.

The Oath is rich with such complexities, but Toobin maintains narrative momentum with his portraits of each justice, their personal and professional journeys, and the odd chemistry that binds them. Kagan, for example, finds she "liked the guns" when she joins Scalia on hunting excursions, while the arch-conservative Thomas, surprisingly, "paid a lengthy tribute to the way Roberts handled the health care case."

Meanwhile, Toobin faults the president for his "lassitude" in failing to nominate scores of lower-court judges, reducing today's liberal agenda to "a pallid embrace of the status quo: preserve Roe and affirmative action." Yet if, as Toobin muses, a majority of justices agreed with Thomas' absolutist rejection of the Commerce Clause, "Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act, to say nothing of Medicare and Medicaid, might all be unconstitutional."

For his part, Toobin doesn't engage in rhetorical flights, and though there is much here that echoes his 2007 best seller, The Nine, he raises fresh questions about the originalist dogma and Republican fundamentalism of which the Roberts court is a potent avatar. After reading this wise book, one can fairly wonder whether the court, at its conservative core, embodies a brave corrective for the overreach of federal policy, or amounts to a partisan plot against America.

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Tolkien's 'Hobbit' celebrates 75th anniversary

No need to wait for Peter Jackson and his movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to arrive on Dec. 14: Middle-earth mania has already hit bookstores. Friday marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's immortal tale about the great adventure of furry-footed Bilbo Baggins.

Written by Tolkien, a British professor, for his four children and published in 1937 with a 1,500-copy first printing, it's the story of how a stay-at-home hobbit very fond of hearth and home ends up venturing forth with 13 dwarves and a wizard named Gandalf to retrieve treasure stolen by a savage dragon. The prelude to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit has been translated in to more than 50 languages and has sold 100 million copies worldwide.

Publishers

New 'Hobbit' releases are coming out in honor of the 75th anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic tale.

Publishers

New 'Hobbit' releases are coming out in honor of the 75th anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic tale.

"These books have spawned thousands of fantasy novels and inspired hundreds of writers in the years since, but it's important to note that it all began 75 years ago with the opening line of a book, 'In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit,' " notes Gary Gentel, president of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trade division, in an e-mail.

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Houghton Mifflin, which first published Tolkien in the USA in 1938, is releasing a horde of new editions of The Hobbit, both to mark the 75th anniversary and in anticipation of Jackson's film. They include a leather-bound $19.95 "pocket Hobbit"; a $35 deluxe edition illustrated by Alan Lee, who won an Academy Award for art direction for The Return of the King; and the $13.95 movie-tie in paperback edition for An Unexpected Journey. It is the first of three films Jackson is making from The Hobbit. (Journey stars Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. Returning from Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy are Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Andy Serkis as Gollum.)

And there's more:

-- The Art of the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (HMH, $40) by Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull. A self-taught artist, Tolkien didn't just write The Hobbit, he illustrated it with maps and artwork. For the first time, the full range of Tolkien's sketches, drawings and paintings for The Hobbit are being published.

-- The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series/ Wiley, $17.95, in stores Oct. 2) by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson. Explores the philosophical underpinning of questions such as "was the ring Bilbo's to give?"

-- The Wisdom of the Shire: A Short Guide to a Long and Happy Life (Thomas Dunne Books; $22.99, in stores Oct. 30) by Noble Smith. Includes chapters such as "Bearing The Burden Of Your Ring," "Eat Like A Brandybuck, Drink Like A Took" and "Your Own Personal Gollum,"

-- Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (HMH, $25) by Corey Olsen. A chapter-by-chapter analysis.

Olsen has read and re-read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings every year since he was 8 years old. Now 38, he is an English professor at Washington College in Chestertown, Md. In 2009, Olsen founded a popular website and podcast, www.tolkienprofessor.com, part of The Mythgard Institute.

The Hobbit has enchanted readers for 75 years for several reasons, says Olsen. Besides the novel's great characters and plot, Tolkien created "this entire world you care about, that you want to explore." Olsen also points out that even fans who love the book don't take it seriously enough. "I invite people to reread it and see all the brilliant things," he says. While Tolkien wrote The Hobbit as a children's book, Olsen notes it can be read on an adult level as an exploration of evil and the conflict between fate and free will.

He also begs readers. "Don't skip the songs! They will tell you so much about the characters." As for Jackson turning one book into a trilogy, Olsen says, "I think there is enough material to support three movies. Oh goodness, there's so much."

Asked about the Jackson film, Shaun Gunner, a trustee of the U.K.'s The Tolkien Society, says in an e-mail, "I am quite curious about it! The Hobbit is a much shorter book than The Lord of the Rings, so some people are suspicious about the motives behind turning The Hobbit into a trilogy like The Lord of the Rings. But it looks like Jackson will draw on some of the unused material in The Lord of the Rings and, I hope, will take the opportunity to indulge the audience and flesh out this beautiful story."

And while Friday is the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit's publication, Sept. 22 is also a very important date in the Shire -- it's our hero Bilbo Baggins' birthday (and nephew Frodo's, as well).

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Andrew McCarthy settles down by traveling the globe

NEW YORK -- At a crowded French bakery on Manhattan's Upper East Side, no one seems to recognize actor Andrew McCarthy. At least no one asks, "Weren't you Kevin in St. Elmo's Fire?" or "Blane in Pretty in Pink"

Simon & Schuster

Andrew McCarthy, shown here in Costa Rica, is the author of 'The Longest Way Home.'

Simon & Schuster

Andrew McCarthy, shown here in Costa Rica, is the author of 'The Longest Way Home.'

But there are days when he does get those questions, more than a quarter century after his years as part of the teen "Brat Pack" that included Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe. "Some days I'm hotter than others," McCarthy says with a laugh. "It depends what's been on TV the night before. But my teenage fans are now women, so there's less screaming and squealing, which is better for all of us."

Twelve weeks shy of turning 50, McCarthy -- an actor, director and award-winning travel writer -- is still boyish. His first book, The Long Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down (Free Press, $26), is being released Tuesday.

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It's part memoir, dealing with his parallel careers in acting and writing, his alcoholism -- he's been sober since 1992, he says -- and overcoming his self-doubts and insecurities. And it's part travelogue about trips to Patagonia, the Amazon and Mt. Kilimanjaro. Over iced tea, he calls it "an internal journey played out externally."

In it, he writes, "Success in acting had given me a persona and a shell of confidence; my travels helped me find myself beneath that persona and fill out that shell with belief. Through travel, I began to grow up."

The book is framed around the months leading up to his second marriage in August 2011, when his bride-to-be, Dolores Rice, an Irish stage director and writer, tried to plan their wedding from their home in Manhattan while he found a need to sail down the Amazon or climb Kilimanjaro's 19,336 feet.

After an eight-year relationship and four-year engagement, McCarthy's need to leave home could be seen as a case of male non-commitment. He says, "The question wasn't so much if we'd get married, but when and how."

In his book, his wife is identified only as D. "It's not really about her," he says. "It's no tell-all bio." But a moment later, he calls her "the moral compass in the middle of the story. I'm the idiot failing about."

As editor-at-large of National Geographic Traveler, who's had three articles chosen for the Best American Travel Writing series of books, McCarthy prefers to travel alone. He cites one of his literary influences, Paul Theroux, who touts the "lucidity of loneliness."

But as part of his version of settling down, McCarthy had his 10-year-old son from his first marriage (to Carol Schneider) join him on an assignment in the Sahara. His 6-year-old daughter with Rice was his companion to Tahiti. The entire family went camping in Wyoming -- "for fun, not work."

He recognizes a paradox in his travels, preferably off most tourist maps: "I've traveled in order to feel at home in myself." He sees acting and travel writing as "branches of the same tree," but often when he's writing, "I wish I was acting, and when I'm acting, I wish I was writing."

He's also directed, including episodes of two TV series, Lipstick Jungle and Gossip Girl, in which he's appeared.

His next acting role is on a Hallmark TV movie in December, Christmas Dance, playing a "corporate guy who has to learn to waltz and falls in love with his dance teacher and learns the meaning of life. You get the idea." He calls it "an irony-free zone, but lovely."

His next writing assignment in November takes him to Darjeeling, India, in search of "the best tea in the world."

His book's publisher is touting comparisons between the The Longest Way Home and Elizabeth Gilbert's mega-best-seller Eat, Pray, Love.

"Of course they are," he says with a laugh. "Didn't that sell 6 million copies? I liked it. It was honest, well-told and very atmospheric."

What about a movie version of his book?

McCarthy laughs and says he'd welcome any interest. But he doubts he'd play himself: "I'm sure they'd find someone hotter," he says and laughs again.

--

Andrew McCarthy has appeared in more than 70 films and TV series, including:

St. Elmo's Fire (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986), Weekend at Bernie's (1989), The Joy Luck Club (1993), Mulholland Falls (1996), Heaven Must Wait (2001), Lipstick Jungle (2008-09), Gossip Girl (2009) and White Collar (2011).

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Book buzz: Bob Woodward, 'Cloud Atlas,' 'Winter's Tale' resold

Woodward's wars:

Simon & Schuster

'The Price of Politics' by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward is No. 11 this week.

Simon & Schuster

'The Price of Politics' by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward is No. 11 this week.

The current presidential campaign has focused more on the economy than foreign affairs. But war trumps economics when it comes to the popularity of non-fiction books, at least insider accounts by Bob Woodward. He lands on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list at No. 11 with The Price of Politics, about President Obama's struggles to fix the economy since his election in 2008. Woodward's previous books about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan landed higher, including Bush at War, No. 2 in 2002; State of Denial, No. 1 in 2006; and Obama's Wars, No. 3 in 2010.

â??Cloud' cover: The holiday movie season is drawing near, and that means movie tie-in paperback season is also upon us. Case in point: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas at No. 40. Sales may have been spurred by the standing ovation and rave reviews the film, starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry in multiple roles, received at the Toronto Film Festival last week. The movie arrives in theaters on Oct. 26. Other films based on books in the fall pipeline: Wuthering Heights (Oct. 5); Anna Karenina (Nov. 16); Les Misérables (Dec. 14); The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Dec. 14); and On the Road (Dec. 21).

â??Tale,' resold: When it was published in 1983, Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale received rave reviews. This week, the e-book edition (discounted for as little as $2.99) zooms to No. 20, putting Helprin back in the hands of readers. Excellent timing, since on Oct. 2, he will publish In Sunlight and In Shadow. His first novel in seven years, it's set in 1940s New York City. An elite paratrooper returns from the war and falls in love with an actress. (Winter's Tale will appear on the big screen in 2013 starring Will Smith and Russell Crowe.)

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Book buzz: Clifford and 'Hobbit' anniversaries

By Lindsay Deutsch, USA TODAY

Here's a look at what's buzzing in the book world today:

Middle-earth mania: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, and a flurry of books (plus a Peter Jackson movie!) document the occasion.

Moehringer on Sutton: After first thinking of writing a biography, author J.R. Moehringer re-imagined the story of bank robber Willie Sutton as a novel. Watch Moehringer talk about a murder pivotal to the Sutton story.

Clifford turns 50: Happy birthday to children's literature's favorite Big Red Dog. Read five facts and flip through a gallery of Norman Bridwell's furry character.

Listomania: Bob Woodward's The Price of Politics is No. 11 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list; older books are getting a boost from the new movies they've inspired; and Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin has an e-book sale right before his new book is published.

Nora Ephron: Two out-of-print Nora Ephron books, Crazy Salad and Scribble Scribble, will be re-published as a single volume paperback and e-book, out Oct. 16 from Vintage.

Nobel in lit: Ladbrokes handicaps the Nobel Prize in Literature, and guess which erotic trilogy-writing Brit has a 500/1 chance.

Coffee and a book: Could there be a more ideal combination? Hillcrest Media Group and Dunn Brothers Coffee are teaming up for a new venture, coffeeandbooks.com.

Stephen King: Check out the cover of Stephen King's Joyland, out next June.

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