Blue jeans to Gore

• Journalist and critic James Sullivan's AMERICAN BLUE, the story of blue jeans, from their development in the days of the California Gold Rush, to their adoption by cowboys, farmers, bikers, and hippies, to their transformation into designer clothing in a new global era, arguing that they are not only a seminal American icon, but the very embodiment of the American ethos. Gotham.

• Details Editor-at-Large Jeff Gordinier's untitled book about the California music scene of the 1970's, exploring the complex relationships among artists such as The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, and others who together created a revolution in American rock music. William Morrow.

• Ben Gazzara's memoir, IN THE MOMENT, chronicling the acclaimed actor's 50 years as a screen and stage star (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Anatomy of a Murder, Husbands), including his pioneering role in the Actor's Studio, his friendships with Elia Kazan, James Dean, and John Cassavetes, and hs affair with Audrey Hepburn. Carroll & Graf.

• Philip Roth's THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, in which Charles Lindbergh beats FDR in the 1940 presidential election, which is unquestionably "bad for the Jews" as he reaches appeasement with Hitler, and American Jews suffer during his presidency. Houghton Mifflin, for publication in October 2004.

• Gore Vidal's IMPERIAL AMERICA, an Olympian survey of American Empire, where America is an "Enron-Pentagon prison," a land of ballooning budget deficits thanks to the growth of the garrison state, tax cuts for the privileged, and the creeping totalitarianism of the Ashcroft justice department, the conclusion of a political trilogy, following the bestselling Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and Dreaming War. Avalon for Nation Books, for publication in July.