A continuing series that highlights books recently acquired by publishing houses for future release. Each post features a book we’re looking forward to, and a book we’re . . . not. (This week’s Pit is almost too horrifying to read in one sitting. Its bold italics are mine.)

The Cherry:

David Thomson’s Let There Be Light: Filming the Twentieth Century, the story of the past hundred years through the movies and how motion pictures and their makers were shaped by the era’s cultural, political, and aesthetic movements, and how movies both reflected and influenced the very century that saw the birth of its defining — and most popular — art form.

The Pit:

Glenn Beck’s multi-title co-publishing deal, covering an unlimited number of titles over an undisclosed term, beginning with Arguing with Idiots, from Threshold Editions in September 2009, America’s March to Socialism, an audio original for publication in May 2009, and Glenn Beck’s Common Sense, “channeling the spirit of Thomas Paine,” for publication as an eBook original and then a trade paperback original, in June 2009, also to include picture books and fiction for children and YA books.

What, no Thai cookbook? No Spanish translation of The Lord of the Rings? One hopes that Glenn will helpfully explain in one of these tomes how any socialist system could include such a grossly padded book deal.