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GalleyChatters
An author’s appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, can turn a book into a bestseller.
Tonight (UPDATE: This appearance will be on Thursday night), however, Stewart features an author who already has several best sellers to his credit, but has not written in a book in several years.
The author last visited the show Oct. 27. 2010.
Swimming Home by Deborah Levy (Bloomsbury USA), the Booker finalist that was published here on the very day of the announcement that another book won the prize, got recognized by the Huffington Post as one of the “Best Books of 2012 So Far,” describing it as “Short, simple and haunting.”
Neither the Booker winner, Bring Up the Bodies, nor any of the other titles from the longlist, makes the HuffPo’s list of 23.
Last week, it was reported that Michelle Williams will star in a movie based on Suite Francaise, the novel by Irène Némirovsky, which became a surprise hit when it was published in 2004, more than 60 years after the author’s death in Auschwitz.
Following that story, Screen Daily reports that Kirstin Scott Thomas also plans to join the production. Whether the two actresses actually star all depends on who signs on to play Bruno, the German officer that Lucille (Michelle Williams’s character) falls for and if everyone’s schedules line up.
The film will be directed Saul Dibb, who has had experience with historical fiction. His most recent film was The Duchess (2008), based on Amanda Foreman’s novel, Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire. starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes.
If you’ve wondered what it’s like to be in the midst of the world’s largest book fair (featuring over 7,000 exhibitors in multiple buildings), the New Yorker gives a good impression of it:
The Frankfurt Book Fair, which took place in Germany last week, feels like an airport (gift shops, people movers, high ceilings, ample bathrooms, the anxiety of missing something), except you can’t go anywhere.
And, in a description that could be applied to an ALA show floor, “Little separates the book fair from a tech fair,” but with a different twist:
The juxtaposition of game giants with paper products seemed an accurate—if slightly disorienting—reflection of today’s publishing landscape. The book publishers are doing digital products and the video-game makers are doing books.
Tellingly, the story focuses on the technology and not the books.
The latest episode of “Book Lust with Nancy Pearl” features an interview with Paul Auster, whose new book, a memoir, Winter Journal (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio; Thorndike Large Print) was published in August.
Now that Hilary Mantel has won her second Booker in a row, the media takes a look at the stats. She is the…
First person to win for a direct sequel — the BBC
First woman to win the prize twice — The Daily Mail
First British author to win twice — The Independent
Third double winner — the BBC
In August, it was announced that the two books, Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, are being adapted as a BBC2 series, expected to air late in 2013 in the UK.
Of course, both Bring up the Bodies, and its predecessor, Wolf Hall, are rising on Amazon’s sales ranking. Mantel has written many others, a total of twelve, as outlined by the BBC. For more about Mantel’s earlier work, check the essay, “Devil’s Work,” in 28 Artists & 2 Saints by Joan Acocella (RH/Pantehon, 2007). Written before Mantel became well-known in the US, it calls her “one of England’s most interesting contemporary novelists” and notes that she “has experimented with her gift; her books jump from genre to genre,” which is clear from the following list of her titles (unless otherwise noted, the quotes are from the BBC. Links are to the US editions):
Every Day Is Mother’s Day, 1985 — her first published novel about “an agoraphobic clairvoyant, her daughter and their social worker…inspired by the author’s experiences as a social work assistant at a geriatric hospital.” The publisher describes it as “Stephen King meets Muriel Spark.”
Vacant Possession, 1986 — sequel to the above.
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, 1988 — draws on Mantel’s experiences while living in Saudi Arabia with her husband, a geologist, in the 1970s.
Fludd, 1989 — “this dark, often surreal fable” about a newcomer’s impact on a small mill town in Northern England won several prizes in the UK. It was reviewed in the NYT BR.
A Place of Greater Safety, 1992 — a historical novel set during the French Revolution. It won the Sunday Express Book of the Year award. It was reviewed in the New York Times.
A Change of Climate, 1994 — “about a missionary couple who lose a child.”
An Experiment in Love, 1995 — “about three schoolfriends from northern England,” it was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year and was reviewed in the NYT BR by Margaret Atwood, who called Mantel “an exceptionally good writer.”
The Giant, O’Brien, 1998 — “about an Irishman who comes to London to make his fortune as a sideshow attraction,” it is set in London in 1782 and was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year as well as a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year.
Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoir, 2003 — “about her early childhood, her Catholic upbringing and how she came to be a writer. The title referred to the ‘ghosts of other lives you might have led,’ as the author realised she was ‘staring 50 in the face’,”
Beyond Black, 2005 — “about a medium who is tormented by her acquaintances, both the living and the dead.” It was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. It was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Wolf Hall, 2009 — the book “that really made her name.”
Hilary Mantel wins her second Booker Award, for Bring up the Bodies, Macmillan/Holt. It’s the second in a planned trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, which began with Wolf Hall, for which Mantel was awarded her first Booker.
She is currently at work on the third in the series, The Mirror and the Light (no pub date has been announced yet).
J.K. Rowling’s appeared on Jon Stewart’s show last night to discuss her first book for adults, The Casual Vacancy. Part 1 is below. Click here for Part 2.
Get ready for the next gen Carrie. The teaser trailer for a new film based on Stephen King’s classic debuted at New York ComicCon over the weekend.
Starring Chloë Grace Moretz as Carrie and Julianne Moore as her deranged mother, the movie arrives in theaters on March 15. 2013.
Official Web site: Carrie-Movie.com
The already heavy holds on statistician Nate Silver’s book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t (Penguin Press) are likely to increase after his appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Wednesday.
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Leading in
to her live appearance at Lincoln Center tomorrow night, J.K. Rowling will be interviewed by Harry Potter fan, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show tonight.
The Casual Vacancy, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print), the author’s first book for adults, moved from #1 on the USA Today best seller list, to #4 in its second week on sale. At #1 is Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena, followed by Sylvia Day’s Reflected in You and Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Kennedy.
In an interview with USA Today, Rowling was less than definitive about her next book, “I think the next thing I publish will be for children, but I don’t really want to be held to that because I also know what my next book for adults will be and I really like that too, so it depends. I’ve always had more than one thing going.”
Feeding her Harry Potter fanbase, Rowling appeared on a Scholastic telecast last Thursday, in an interview at her home in Edinburgh, Scotland.
On NPR’s Morning Edition today (audio goes up around 9 a.m. EST), a book that warns, “Forget the 1 percent; it’s the wealthiest .1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at breakneck speed.”
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The former head of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature, Horace Engdahl, said in 2008, “The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining,”
As if to refute that accusation, Americans sent translations of the new Nobel Prize winner, Mo Yan’s books, zooming up Amazon’s sales rankings, one of them well ahead of all the recently announced National Book Award finalists.
Red Sorghum: a Novel of China (Penguin/Viking) rose to #16 this morning. The highest ranking NBA finalist, This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, rose to #44 on the news of its nomination. Red Sorghum was featured as the lead-in to an interview with Mo’s primary English translator, Howard Goldblatt, on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday.
Also on the rise are the following, published by Arcade Publishing. Norton, which distributes Arcade, has alerted us that reprints will be available on Monday through wholesalers:
#73 (was #114,315) — Life and Death are Wearing Me Out
#129 (previously unranked) — The Garlic Ballads
#165 (was #239,260) — Big Breasts and Wide Hips
Unranked (listed on Amazon as out of print; reprint coming on Monday) — The Republic of Wine, (excerpted in the Wall Street Journal this week).
In an appraisal of the author’s work in today’s New York Times, Howard Goldblatt, described as “Mr. Mo’s adroit translator,” offers this advice to people who want to read Mo’s books,
If you like Poe, you’ll love the forthcoming Sandalwood Death [University of Oklahoma Press; early January 2013]; if you’re more Rabelaisian, The Republic of Wine will appeal, and if you’re fond of a fabulist, I recommend Life and Death are Wearing Me Out.
The NYT also offers brief excerpts from the books.
As we noted earlier, the Guardian gives a handy rundown of “Mo Yan’s best books — in pictures.”
As media attention on the election heats up, publishers are playing it safe with no-brainers, like the Rolling Stones 50, a tribute to the decades-old British rock band, and a home design book by talk show host Nate Berkus, or review-driven titles like historian Henry Wiencek’s new look at Thomas Jefferson and his slaves. In fiction, Justin Cronin‘s followup to his blockbuster post-apocalyptic vampire novel is eagerly awaited, but is already disappointing a few reviewers. A title to watch is a cozy English novel about the Queen playing hooky. Usual suspects include Nelson DeMille, Iris Johansen, Patricia Cornwell and YA author P.C. Cast. Plus movie tie-ins to Twilight, Silver Linings and Spielberg’s Lincoln.
Mrs. Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn (HarperCollins; Dreamscape Audio) finds the bored Queen of England leaving the palace on a walkabout, in search of fun. It has been popular among librarians on our GalleyChat on Twitter, one of whom said, “It’s jam packed full with great Palace insider gossip and details. In the year of the Diamond Jubilee, royal watchers will eat this up! It’s fun and light.”
The Twelve by Justin Cronin (RH/Ballantine; BOT Audio; Wheeler Large Print) is the second installment in the trilogy that began with the hit The Passage, a post-apocalyptic vampire novel by an author previously known for his quiet literary novels. This one is getting early press attention, including a profile in last week’s NYT Magazine. The L.A. Times warns, however, “even the most devoted fans may notice a bit of a sophomore slump.” The Washington Post‘s Ron Charles, says the previous title was “the scariest, most entertaining novel I’d read in a long time…Now, finally, comes the long-awaited second volume, and as much as it pains me to say it, The Twelve bites.” Entertainment Weekly is more generous, giving it a B+, even though it “doesn’t always match The Passage‘s dexterous storytelling and almost-plausible world creation…it’s still an unnerving and mostly satisfying tale of existential-threat disaster and its harrowing aftermath.”
The Panther by Nelson DeMille (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print) finds Former NYPD detective John Corey and his FBI agent wife, Kate Mayfield, hunting a mastermind of the Al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Kirkus calls it, “quintessential DeMille: action-adventure flavored with double-dealing and covert conspiracy.”
Sleep No More by Iris Johansen (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Thorndike Large Print) is the 14th Eve Duncan novel. This time the forensic sculptor, who has spent many novels investigating the disappearance of her daughter, discovers that she has a half-sister. PW says, “Series fans will be pleased to discover that Beth, like Eve, is a strong woman who has endured many trials in her past.”
The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell (Penguin/Putnam; Penguin Audio; Thorndike Large Print) finds forensic expert Kay Scarpetta digging into a case involving a missing paleontologist. LJ says, “Cornwell has been struggling lately; see what happens, and buy for her fans.”
Angel’s Ink: The Asylum Tales (Harper Voyager trade pbk original) marks the launch of The Asylum Tales, a new series by the New York Times bestselling author of the Dark Days novels. This one features a magical tattoo artist. An ebook-only short story (available on OverDrive), The Asylum Interviews: Trixie came out in September to whet appetites.
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton (S&S/Atria) has been big on GalleyChat. Some think it’s her best; “Family secrets, suspense. Another winner.” This week’s People magazine concurs, giving it 4 of 4 stars and saying,”Morton weaves an intriguing mystery, shifting between past and present and among fully realized characters harboring deep secrets.”
Hidden by P.C. Cast, Kristin Cast (St. Martin’s Griffin; Macmillan Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is the 10th installment in the House of Night series by this mother-daughter writing team.
The Rolling Stones 50 by The Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood (Hyperion) commemorates the band’s long history and survival in photos. Kirkus says it’s a “soulless corporate birthday party that sheds no new light on its well-traveled subjects.”
Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves by Henry Wiencek (Macmillan/FSG ; HighBridge Audio) is the latest from the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award winner for The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White. Here, Wiencek “deftly explores the economic calculus behind Jefferson’s gradual cooling toward emancipation and eventual acceptance of human capital as a great ‘investment opportunity,” according to LJ.
The Things That Matter by Nate Berkus (Speigel & Grau) is an illustrated guide to creating a home full of meaningful things, by the designer who got a push from Oprah and now has his own talk show.
The Twilight Saga: The Complete Film Archive: Memories, Mementos, and Other Treasures from the Creative Team Behind the Beloved Motion Pictures ties into the November 16 release of (can you believe it?) the the last installment in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, Part 2.
The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick (Macmillan/FSG/Sarah Crichton Books) ties in to the movie to be released on November 21, starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert DeNiro. It won the top prize at the Toronto Interntional Film Festival.
Team of Rivals; Lincoln Film Tie-in Edition by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S&S trade paperback; S&S audio tie-in) ties in to Stephen Spielberg’s Lincoln, starring Daniel Day Lewis. It opens in a limited run on November 9, releasing nationwide on November 16, and is based on the later sections of Team of Rivals.
The “gateway book” to the Nobel winner’s work
Mo Yan became the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature today, confounding expectations of UK bettors, who had him running well behind the lead, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami.
According to the citation, “Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition.”
The Guardian gives a handy rundown of “Mo Yan’s best books — in pictures.”
According to a scholar quoted by the Guardian, the author is “probably the most translated living Chinese writer.” Several of his titles are published here by Arcade Publishing (distributed by Norton; UPDATE: the publisher sent out an alert that reprints are in the works):
Big Breasts and Wide Hips; the Guardian notes, “Mo Yan’s most recent novel, tells of the consequences of the single-child policy implemented in China through the story of a rural gynaecologist.”
Life and Death are Wearing Me Out; called “a brilliant extended fable” by translator Howard Goldblatt
The Garlic Ballads; an earlier edition from Penguin/Viking is owned by many libraries. According to the Guardian, “Nobel permanent secretary Peter Englund picked out The Garlic Ballads, first published in English in 1995, as Mo Yan’s gateway book.”
The Republic of Wine — the 2000 Arcade edition is owned many libraries; translator, Goldblatt says this “may be the most technically innovative and sophisticated novel from China I’ve read.”
Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh –– the 2001 Arcade edition is owned by many libraries; a collection of short stories that “ranges from comedy to tragedy via fantasy and fable.”
The following title is published by Penguin/Viking:
Red Sorghum: a Novel of China — the Guardian says this is “Mo Yan’s best-known work in the west, thanks to Zhang Yimou’s 1987 film, which was based on the first two chapters of the novel, Red Sorghum follows three generations of a family as they survive all the horrors that the 20th century unleashed on rural China.”