Volumes of anticipation for 'Potter,' Turkish tale

Here are your orders for the new year: Cut back on YouTube, MySpace, and television, and read more books. It'll be good for you, and you'll be smarter and happier.

To make it easier, here's a survey of new books coming out in the first half of 2007, based on publishers' announcement s and catalogs.

Known blockbusters first: The seventh and last of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books (titled "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows") may come out this year, but publisher Bloomsbury isn't saying. The rumor mill says it's coming on July 7 -- 7/7/07. There's no doubt, however, that J.R.R. Tolkien's long-unpublished fantasy, "The Children of Húrin," will appear in April. It's bound to be huge.

With war and peace on everyone's minds, many books grapple with America's place in the world. From William Langewiesche, author of "American Ground," the controversial deconstruction of ground zero after the Sept. 11 attacks, comes "The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor" (March), an account of the unraveling protections against nuclear proliferation. He writes that nuclear bomb-making know-how is drifting steadily into the hands of poor nations.

In "Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World" (June), diplomat Dennis Ross , a veteran Mideast envoy, deplores the Bush administration's impatience with negotiation and makes a passionate argument for diplomacy in the cause of peacemaking. On a related theme, Geoffrey Perret writes in "Commander in Chief" (February) that presidents have repeatedly deluded themselves into believing they can win wars if only they can arrogate more power to themselves.

A provocative theme for a book is "Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America" (May), by Cullen Murphy, former editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Murphy sees many similarities between Pax Romana and Pax Americana. Former CIA director George Tenet chronicles the war on terror, so far, in "At the Center of the Storm" (February). Zachary Karabell offers precedents for hope in "Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence" (March).

OK, enough high-mindedness. There's tons of cool-looking fiction in the offing. The fiction lineup is thick with celebrated authors, such as Paul Auster, Louis Begley, A.M. Homes, Martin Amis, Roddy Doyle, Chris Bohjalian, Sherman Alexie, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, and Annie Dillard.

Apart from "Harry Potter," the most-awaited novel of the season might be Elif Shafak's "The Bastard of Istanbul" (March), the novel whose author was recently charged in Istanbul with "insulting Turkishness" because one of her characters mentions the Armenian genocide. (The charges were dismissed.) Another overseas talent, much esteemed in the United Kingdom, is Nigerian-born Helon Habila, who writes of twin brothers in a small Nigerian village in "Measuring Time" (January).

Alice Munro, 75, announced last month she will write no more stories, but at 83, Norman Mailer's well still isn't dry. "The Castle in the Forest" (January), his first novel in 11 years, is a fictionalized profile of the boy Adolf Hitler, complete with a demon assigned by Satan to help bring the lad up right. The great Doris Lessing, 87, hasn't pawned her typewriter, either. Her new novel is called "The Cleft" (August), about an imagined ancient race of all females. At least they never had to complain about toilet seats left up.

Other Bay State writers with upcoming books are Alice Hoffman of Cambridge, with "Skylight Confessions" (January), Sabina Murray, who teaches at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, with "Forgery" (June), and Anita Shreve of Longmeadow, with "Body Surfing" (April).

Walter Mosley again steps away from the mystery genre this month with "Killing Johnny Fry: A Sexistential Novel" -- yes, it has a subtitle -- about a man betrayed by his girlfriend who responds by pulling out the stops on sexual exploration. Irishman John Banville's first suspense thriller, under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, is called "Christine Falls" (March). With much derring-do and action, it's said to be a great departure from his dense, cerebral previous novels.

In Christopher Buckley's madcap novel, "Boomsday" (April), baby boomers are offered incentives to kill themselves, thereby saving the Social Security trust fund. An early perusal (I checked out the good parts) of Jane Smiley's highly erotic "Ten Days in the Hills" (February), set in Hollywood, made me wonder: Has anyone ever really yakked so much before, during, and after sex?

Biographies are plentiful. There are two of the icon of braininess: "Einstein: A Biography" (May) by Jürgen Neffe, and "Einstein: His Life and His Universe" (April) by Walter Isaacson. Also two about Hitler's favorite filmmaker: "Leni Riefenstahl: A Life" (January), by Jürgen Trimborn, and "Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl" (March), by Steven Bach.

Princeton historian Arnold Rampersad offers "Ralph Ellison" (April), said to be the first full biography of the American critic and novelist. For art lovers, Newton-based novelist Jonathan Wilson has written "Marc Chagall," out in March. Fans of Tocqueville, whose 1820s analysis of America is often still apt, can pick up Hugh Brogan's "Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life" (March), also described by its publisher as "the first full-scale biography."

Finally, a miscellany:

Rectifying a neglected local history, Stephen Puleo writes about "The Boston Italians: A Story of Pride, Perseverance, and Paesani, From the Years of the Great Immigration to the Present Day" (May).

In religion, there's Elaine Pagels and Harvard's Karen L. King, with "Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity," in March. Christopher Hitchens is doubtless as modest and restrained as ever in "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" (May).

On the environment, there's "The Last Forest: The Amazon in the Age of Globalization" (February), by Mark London and Brian Kelly.

Don't forget memoir -- legendary California politician Willie Brown, with "Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times" (September), and Ishmael Beah, born in Sierra Leone, in "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" (March).

Spring means baseball, and books to go with it. There's the Globe's Dan Shaughnessy with "Senior Year: A Father, a Son, and High School Baseball" (June), and Jonathan Eig, with "Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season" (April). And a bit of fun: "Baseball Haiku," by American and Japanese writers, edited with translations by Cor van den Heuvel and Nanae Tamura. A sample:

spilled ice

has wet the edge

of the scorecard

David Mehegan can be reached at mehegan@globe.com.