Tomorrow’s Book Club Picks
Which titles will be book club favorites when they come out in trade paperback next year? Kaite Stover asked this question in her Booklist Book Group Buzz column recently, placing her bets on two current hardcovers, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simondson (Random House, March, 2010) Bloodroot by Amy Greene (Knopf, Jan, 2010) and one that isn’t coming out until January, Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt (Algonquin).
We love the idea of making these predictions, and wanted to join in. Our pick is Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Back in January, USA Today made this attention-getting comparison,
Readers entranced by Kathryn Stockett’s The Help…will be equally riveted by Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s Wench, a brutally told fictional account of slave women forced to be the “mistresses” of their white masters in the years leading up to the Civil War.
Like The Help, Wench immerses readers in its characters’ complex emotional lives.
For some reason, it didn’t follow The Help to bestsellerdom, but we’re predicting it will when it comes out in trade paperback this January. There’s several good indicators, including heavy holds in libraries. Book clubs are already reading it and Dolen-Perkins is available for phone-ins with groups via Skype (for more, check here). There’s even a reading group guide on O, the Oprah magazine site.
 |
|
Unabridged Audio: Books on Tape
Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive
—————–
Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s tour schedule is peppered with library events, including several opportunites to see her at the upcoming ALA:
Sunday, June 27th, WCC, 142
1:30-3:30
ALTAFF Program: Authors Come in All Colors
8:00 – 10:00
BCALA Membership Meeting
Monday, June 28
11:00-12:00
Booth signing — HarperCollins booth, #2513
12:00-12:30
Dolen Perkins-Valdez at the LIVE Stage
June 10th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
One of my library’s book clubs has already done Wench. They loved it.