New Title Radar, Week of March 4
The talk shows will be humming next week with with appearances by Jeb Bush, for his new book on immigration reform, and Sandra Day O’Connor, for hers about the Supreme Court. On our Watch list is Mohsin Hamid’s new book, arriving just before the movie of his previous title, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and a Dan Brown-want-to-be that fills the gap until The Inferno arrives this summer.
The following plus more highlights from next week are available on our downloadable spreadsheet, New Title Radar, Week of March 5.
Media Magnets
Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, Jeb Bush, Clint Bolick (S&S/Threshold; S&S Audio; also published in Spanish under the title, Las guerras inmigratorias: Forjar una solución estadounidense) — Embargoed
Plenty of media attention is lined up for this book on a hot-button topic by the son of one president and brother of another. Expect him to be asked if he is planning to run for president. Given the embargo, there’s not much information on what the book contains. He has a strong personal connection with the subject, not only as the former governor of Florida, but through his wife, who was born in Mexico. To be featured heavily on TV on Monday, beginning with NBC’s Today Show followed by CBS this Morning the next day as well as NPR’s Morning Edition. Bush will also appear on Telemundo-TV.
Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor, (Random House; RH Audio; BOT)
O’Connor’s appearances will include CBS This Morning and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show as well as NPR’s Fresh Air, MSNBC’s Morning Joe and Comedy Central’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart. There’s no pre-pub reviews, so this one may also have been embargoed. As evidence of the level of the level of interest among politicos, her scheduled appearance at D.C. indie bookstore Politics and Prose sold out in record time.
The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power, Kim Ghattas, (Macmillan/Times Books)
In advance of Hillary Clinton’s own much-talked about memoir, which hasn’t even been sold yet, comes this biography by the BBC’s State Department correspondent who has travelled with the Secretary. The L.A. Times calls it a “vivid peek at the complex maneuverings and personalities behind Clinton’s foreign policy decisions.”
Watch List
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, Mohsin Hamid, (Penguin/Riverhead; Dreamscape Audio)
Advance attention began with an unusually glowing review from the NYT‘s Michiko Kakutani. It continues with Ron Charles in the Washington Post and Alan Cheuse on NPR’s web site.
Ghana Must Go, Taiye Selasi, (Penguin Press)
Part of the Penguin Debut Author Program, this title is an IndieNext Pick for March: “Readers know when they are in the presence of something special and brilliant. It is a voice familiar and kind, a plot careful and unraveling, a set of characters whose hearts pound between the covers. Selasi delivers a powerful debut about family, race, and the nature of story in this contemporary novel, set in neighborhoods from Brookline, Massachusetts, to Lagos, Nigeria. A literary descendant of Zadie Smith and Arundhati Roy, Selasi is a new force in the global community of readers.” —Nicole Magistro, The Bookworm of Edwards, Edwards, CO
The Demonologist, Andrew Pyper, (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio)
An IndieNext Pick for March: “Renowned Milton scholar David Ullman is offered a huge sum to travel abroad to document a phenomenon. With his personal life in tatters, he and his daughter, Tess, fly to Venice for a brief vacation and this one small project. David returns alone, caught up in the battle of a lifetime to rescue Tess from an enemy he can’t touch or see. Following clues from Paradise Lost, the book on which he built his reputation, David undertakes a desperate search to solve the puzzle and fight the unknown powers. Pyper combines non-stop action, metaphysical questions, a touch of conspiracy, and poetic references in a story that leaves readers breathless.” —Becky Milner, Vintage Books, Vancouver, WA. Entertainment Weekly gives it just a C+, calling it “simultaneously more and less than a Dan Brown rip-off … it’s tough to have faith in Pyper’s plotting when he depends so much on inexplicable coincidences and silly clues,” an issue that doesn’t seem to put readers off Mr. Brown. Also note the cover blurb from Gillian Flynn, “Smart, thrilling and utterly unnerving.”
Movie Tie-in
The Company You Keep (movie tie-in), Neil Gordon, (Penguin Books; Dreamscape Audio)
The movie, directed by Robert Redford, in which he also stars along with Shia LaBeouf, Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte and Julie Christie, arrives in theaters on April 5.
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