New Title Radar, Week of May 6
The watchword next week is “heavily anticipated,” as proved by the number of titles that have already received attention. Sarah Jessica Parker is the unexpected champion of the literary debut, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, reviewing it in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, and promoting it in the Wall Street Journal. Veteran author John le Carré publishes his 23rd book, which is either the best he’s ever written, or the worst, according to which critic you trust. And, Charlaine Harris closes the book on her long-running vampire series, the basis for the popular TV series True Blood, with Dead Ever After. Leading the pack in holds is John Sandford’s Silken Prey. Check our downloadable spreadsheet for these and many other titles arriving next week, New Title Radar, Week of 5.6.13.
With all these big names, some below-the-radar titles are looking for attention:
The Other Typist, Suzanne Rindell, (Penguin/Putnam/Einhorn; Penguin Audio)
The first novel by poet Rindell about a typist working in a New York precinct in the ’20’s, who falls in with a flapper, is singled out as a favorite by one of our GalleyChatters, Jen Dayton, from Darien P.L. Kirkus calls it a “a pitch-black comedy” with a “dollop of Alfred Hitchcock, a dollop of Patricia Highsmith.”
Murder as a Fine Art, David Morrell, (Hachette/Mulholland)
The real-life author Thomas De Quincey is suspected of being the “artist of death” in Victorian London, committing a number of ghastly murders. Entertainment Weekly gives it an unequivocal “A.”
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, audio read by Jake Gyllenhaal, Brilliance Audio
The imminent arrival of Baz Luhrmann’s movie, has made Gatsby the best seller Fitzgerald fervently hoped it would be in his own day. Also arriving is this new audio version, narrated by Jake Gyllenhaal, who is NOT in the movie. E! Online, giving rare attention to audio, claims it “Makes Us Swoon as Much as Leonardo DiCaprio.” Check your own pulse, below: