EarlyWord is the home of GalleyChat, monthly online discussions where library staff share excitement about upcoming books. More information here.
Summaries of chats and announcements are posted to the right. Use them to add to your own TBR piles and for collection development.
Links on the far right of the site offer information useful to readers advisors.
Hope to see you during our next chat,
GalleyChatters
Seth Meyers has brought something unusual to late night TV, authors.
Tonight, he goes another step further, featuring graphic novelist Alison Bechdel as well as a scene ftrom the Tony Award winning play based on her book Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2006). According to TheatreMania, this will be the first time a Broadway show has been performed on Late Night.
Known for her true crime titles beginning with The Stranger Beside Me, Ann Rule died on Sunday at age 83.
She got to know serial killer Ted Bundy on a counseling hot line. That relationship inspired her fist true crime book The Stranger Beside Me, which became a best seller in 1980.
She went on to write over 30 more books including And Never Let Her Go, Everything She Ever Wanted, Bitter Harvest, and Green River, Running Red.
CNN’s obituary includes an excerpt from their 1999 interview with the author. Discussing the dangers of becoming jaded while immersed in stories of crime and criminals, she concluded, “I am not a cynic because I find at least three dozen heroes for every bad guy or gal I have to write about … The good in humanity always comes out wayyyyy ahead!”
The remembrance in USA Today includes a statement by Carolyn Reidy, president and chief executive officer of Simon & Schuster, Rule’s longtime publisher: “By deciding to focus her books on the victim, Ann Rule reinvented the true-crime genre, and earned the trust of millions of readers who wanted a new and empathetic perspective on the tragic stories at the heart of her works … She will be remembered not only for her many books, but also for her ongoing and tireless work on behalf of victims’ rights.”
Readers’ Advisory: The Stranger Beside Me remains Rule’s best known book and is the place for new readers to begin. Her most recent book, about a 2003 mureder, is Practice to Deceive. (S&S/Gallery Books, 2013).
True to form, two of the four guests featured by Jon Stewart during his next-to-last week as host of The Daily Show are authors.
Last night, it was historian David McCullough, filling in at the last moment for presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who inexplicably backed out of his scheduled appearance. Cruz missed his chance if his goal was to promote his book, A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America (HarperCollins/Broadside Books; 6/30/15). McCullough’s The Wright Brothers,(S&S, 5/5/15), already a best seller, jumped up Amazons’ sales ranking as a result of the appearance.
On Wednesday Stewart will bring back one of his favorite guests, Doris Kearns Goodwin. Her latest book is The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, which they discussed when it was published in 2011.
Goodwin’s first appearance on the Daily Show, at the end of 2005, was to discuss her previous title Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.
Since then, Goodwin has been on the show several times, bringing her perspective on the history of the presidency to discussions of George W. Bush’s final State Of The Union speech (lacking substance, he appears as if “he’s ready to go back to the ranch”), whether Obama would win the 2008 election (“Yes”), then his first hundred days (Goodwin, “he’s doing pretty well”; Stewart was more skeptical) and his first State of the Union address (“he’s failing to articulate a clear legislative vision”)
Editors Note: GalleyChatter Robin Beerbower is off this month and we’re grateful to one of our go-to readers advisors, Jennifer Dayton of Darien (CT) Public Library for stepping in to write about the titles librarians were buzzing about during July’s post-ALA GalleyChat:
There was still a lot of buzz this month among GalleyChatters for the titles by authors that thrilled them at BEA such as Kitchens of the Great Midwest, Fates and Furies, The Art of Crash Landing and Best Boy, (recently selected as the LibraryReads #1 pick for August), but excitement is also beginning to surface for some other titles.
The majority of the new titles are from familiar and beloved authors, titles we’d expect to see on everyone’s TBR piles, such as Louise Penney’s continuation of the Inspector Gamache series, The Nature of the Beast (Minotaur/Macmillan August), Geraldine Brooks’ The Secret Chord (Viking/Penguin, October) as well as JoJo Moyes’ sequel to the surprise hit Me Before You entitled, of course, After You (Pamela Dorman/Penguin, September). But not all the authors are well-known and two debut memoirs are also getting word of mouth.
Familiar but not predictable:
Chris Bohjalian is a favorite among GalleyChatters, but he is always a surprise because you don’t know what subject he will tackle next. The Guest Room (RH/Doubleday, Jan) is the story of a bachelor party that’s worse than anything imagined in the Hangover movies. The fallout opens the fault-line cracks in the life of main character, Richard Chapman. As always with Bohjalian, he is interested in larger topics, in this case the failure to ensure women’s rights globally. Susan Balla (Fairfield Public Library, Fairfield, CT) says, “Chris Bohjalian is a master of writing a woman’s point of view”.
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Kristi Chadwick (Advisor, Massachusetts Library System) was so engrossed in Karin Slaughter’s standalone Pretty Girls (RH/Delacorte, Sept.) that she got sunburned while reading it on the San Francisco docks during ALA. Kristi calls it “a fabulous standalone There is a lot more to discover than the whereabouts of a missing girl, and the revelations keep coming long after you think the answers are found. It’s a stomach-dropping roller-coaster of a thriller.”
Katie Dunneback (@younglibrarian, Washington DC) was not alone in her excitement about Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams (Penguin/Viking, Nov). “Williams ties off her Schuyler Sisters trilogy with the story of beautiful young woman trying to hide, a restored antique car whose origin in Nazi Germany is unknown, and the rich older woman who may have the answers for both.”
The hot-button topic of teen bullying is examined in The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Martin Dicks (Macmillan.St, Martins, September). Jennifer Winberry (Hunterdon County Library, NJ) says that readers will “be glad when Caroline Jacobs returns to confront her former BFF who turned on her and finds that things have not gone so well for her.” That IS the perfect comeback.
Non-Ficti
on:
Andrienne Cruz, (Adult Services Librarian, Azusa City Library, CA) managed to score a rare ARC of The Witches by Stacy Schiff (Hachette/Little, Brown, Oct) at BEA. She says that, “It is not something you can regard lightly, the writing is very detailed in such a way that allows readers to discover for themselves how the Salem trials could have resulted the way they did. The reader will search for clues within and will feel bewitched in how Schiff’s research unfolds itself like magic.”
Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflection on Race and Medicine by Damon Tweedy (Macmillan/Picador, Sept) was a BEA Editor’s Buzz choice and Tracy Babiasz (Chapel Hill Public Library, NC) backs that up. She calls this memoir of a black doctor trying to find his way “Equal parts objective and empathetic.” and applauds it for its “fascinating study of relationship between race and medicine.”
Two other memoirs, Home is Burning by Dan Marshall (Macmillan/Flatiron Books, Oct) and Furiously Happy; A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson (Macmillan/Flatiron, Sept), got a lot of love from GalleyChatters for the humor used in exploring the serious subjects of cancer and ALS (Home is Burning) and depression (Furiously Happy).
And finally, The Natural World of Winnie the Pooh; A Walk Through the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood by Kathryn Aalto (Workman/ Timber, Oct) seemed to be on multiple To Be Read piles. While Vickie Nesting and I confessed that we do indeed pick it up and “fondle it” frequently, we haven’t cracked it yet.
Perhaps it will come up at the next GalleyChat, Tuesday, August 4th, 4:00-5:00 (ET) with virtual cocktails at 3:30. Please join us.
On the eve of the release of Dr. Seuss’s new book, What Pet Should I Get? (RH Books for Young Readers; Listening Library), the Today Show features a story focused on the production of the lost manuscript.
Seuss’s longtime assistant offers a reason Seuss may not have published the book himself, suggesting that One Fish, Two Fish appealed to him more, a preference that The New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani agreed with in her rhyming review.
In her cover review for the NYT Sunday Book Review, Maria Russo offers the theory that What Pet Should I Get? was a warm-up for One Fish, Two Fish.
The Romance Writers of America Association announced the 2015 RITA winners.
As described by the association’s website, the awards are given “to promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding published romance novels and novellas” and are selected by a panel of judges.
The RITAs have multiple categories, a full list is available online. Below are the big four along with the Librarian of the Year pick.
Contemporary (Long): Baby, It’s You by Jane Graves (Hachette/Forever; OverDrive Sample).
Historical (Long): Fool Me Twice by Meredith Duran (S&S/Pocket; Tantor Audio; OverDrive Sample).
Romantic Suspense: Concealed in Death by J.D. Robb (Penguin/ G.P. Putnam’s Sons; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).
Paranormal: Evernight by Kristen Callihan (Hachette/Forever; OverDrive Sample).
Lisa Schimmer, a senior cataloger at NoveList, won the Cathie Linz Librarian of the Year Award.
Author Chelsea Cain reviews A.J. Rich’s The Hand That Feeds You in this week’s New York Times Sunday Book Review.
The story follows a student at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who comes home to find her fiancé mauled to death by her three dogs . As she tries to piece together what happened, she discovers her fiancé was not the person he claimed to be.
As we reported, booksellers are behind it and so is Cain, who says it is “a tense, intriguing psychological mystery … [with] a clearheaded, character-driven style… [filled with] the sort of celebration of simple moments more often seen in short stories.”
As Cain points out, the creation of the novel is as interesting as its plot. A.J. Rich, is the pen name for two authors, Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment, who collaborated on the project begun by their dying friend, Katherine Russell Rich.
Holds are outpacing copies across the country.
Highlighting Congressman John Lewis’s leadership in the Civil Rights movement, CBS Sunday Morning profiled the Representative and his award-winning graphic memoirs March: Book One and March: Book Two (both from Top Shelf).
Fittingly, the profile includes clips of Rep. Lewis at ComicCon, wearing, as tradition dictates, his own superhero outfit: a coat and backpack similar to those he wore as he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge during the Selma March in 1965.
A third March volume is expected early next year.
At the same time that #blacklivesmatter reveals tp those who weren’t aware that racism still plagues this country, two books also appeared as reminders. Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, (Harper), reveals the comlex reality behind the saintly character of Atticus Finch.
Written 55 years later Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample) describes how frightening it is to be a black parent today.
Both books now land at the top of the NYT best sellers lists, Go Set a Watchman on the fiction list and Between the World and Me on nonfiction.
Released on Friday, the first full trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is getting heavy scrutiny. In case you miss any significant bits, Entertainment Weekly does a “deep dive” into all 2 minutes and 24 seconds.
The movie arrives in theaters on Nov. 20
The holds leader among the titles arrive next week is Julie Garwood’s Wired (Penguin/Dutton), one of the author’s contemporary romance/thrillers. UPDATE: It appears that this title has been postponed.B&T’s Title Source now shows the publishing date as July 4, 2017.
Close behind is Badlands by C.J. Box (Macmillan/Minotaur), indicating, along with a print run double the size of his previous title, that Box is gaining a wider audience. Booklist, in a starred review says, ‘If Box isn’t a household name yet, he will be.”
The third holds leader is Paula McLain’s Circling The Sun (RH/Ballantine), a fictionalized bio of aviation pioneer Beryl Markham. It’s also a peer pick, receiving stars from all four trade reivews and selected as a LibraryReads title.
“I couldn’t stop reading this fascinating portrayal of Beryl Markham, a complex and strong-willed woman who fought to make her way in the world on her terms. McLain paints a captivating portrait of Africa in the 1920s and the life of expats making their home there. Highly, highly recommended.” — Halle Eisenman, Beaufort County Library, Hilton Head, SC
The new issue of People chooses it as the “Book of the Week,” describing the subject as a “novelists;s dream.” The Wall Street Journal features it with an excerpt and the author is schedule to appear on NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered on August 1.
The author spoke to librarians at the Penguin Random House breakfast during BEA.
Audio Sample:
The titles covered here, and several more notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of 7/27/15
Gonzo Girl: A Novel, Cheryl Della Pietra, (S&S/Touchstone)
Della Pietra worked for the original “gonzo journalist” Hunter S. Thompson and this barely fictionalized account of that experience naturally fascinates journalists, so it is getting wide attention. Trade reviews are mostly positive but object, as PW puts it that “it’s an occasional slog to read through pages of druggy non conversation.” LJ offers a very specific recommendation, “For readers curious about Thompson’s lifestyle and fans of eccentric characters and meandering journeys featuring copious amounts of illegal substances,” (try to spot that demographic in your community studies). It is #2 on Entertainment Weekly “Must List: Top 10 Things We love This Week,” high placement for a book, and the author is interviewed in the issue.
Pretty Baby, Mary Kubica, (Harlequin/MIRA)
A People pick, ” …about a 16-year-old homeless girl, a baby and a Chicago mother who is trying to help them . The sense of danger intensifies as mysteries surrounding both the girl and her benefactor slowly emerge. It all builds to a stunning climax involving revelations you won’t see coming.”
Kitchens of the Great Midwest, J. Ryan Stradal, (Penguin/Pamela Dorman)
We chatted with the author last week as part of our Penguin Debut Authors program.
It is the #1 LibraryReads pick for the month:
“This novel is quirky and colorful. The story revolves around chef Eva Thorvald and the people who influence her life and her cooking. With well-drawn characters and mouthwatering descriptions of meals, Kitchens of the Great Midwest will appeal to readers who like vivid storytelling. Foodies will also enjoy this delicious tale.” — Anbolyn Potter, Chandler Public Library, Chandler, AZ
One of our favorite comments on the book comes from Jen Dayton, Darien Public Library, who said at the BEA Librarians Shout ‘n’ Share program, this book “Will do for cooking what The Art Of Fielding did for baseball.”
The author spoke at the Penguin Random House breakfast during BEA.
Crooked Heart, Lissa Evans, (Harper)
“Crooked Heart is a rewarding, addictive read. Orphaned ten-year-old bookworm Noel, sent away to rural St. Albans, finds himself under the reluctant guardianship of Vee, aka Mrs. Vera Sledge. Amidst a chaotic background of bombings and uncertain futures, Vee and Noel gradually form a powerful bond. I recommend this darkly humorous, honest, and complex story. It is book club heaven.” — Janet Schneider, Oceanside Library, Oceanside, NY
It was on the longlist for the Baileys Women’s Prize.
A movie of Evans’s 2009 novel Their Finest Hour and a Half, is in the works, directed by Lone Scherfig (One Day, An Education).
The Fifth House of the Heart. Ben Tripp, (S&S.Gallery)
You shouldn’t judge a book by its trailer, so we’ll add that, besides a great trailer, this book gets a starred review from PW, “Tripp (The Accidental Highwayman) melds the modern vampire myth with comic mystery and detective fiction in this intriguing and intelligent horror novel …Though sometimes a touch slow in between action scenes, this deep and terrifying vampire story is as nuanced as it is thrilling.”
(for our full list of upcoming adaptations, see our Books to Movies and TV and our listing of tie-ins).
Ten Thousand Saints MTI, Eleanor Henderson
Adapted by the team behind American Splendor, the film stars Ethan Hawke, Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Emile Hirsch, and Emily Mortimer and is set in the hardcore punk scene of Manhattan during the late 80s, on the eve of the Tompkins Square Park riots.
Movie debuts 8/14/2015
A Walk in the Woods (Movie Tie-In) : Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Bill Bryson
Bryson is played by Robert Redford. Joining him in his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail is his old pal Katz, a man even less prepared for the effort than Bryson, played by Nick Nolte (in a role originally intended for Redford’s late friend Paul Newman).
Movie opens 9/2/2015
A few years ago, Amazon decided to get a jump on best books lists with a mid-year “Best Books of the Year (So Far).” It had a noticeable effect on book sales, so the tradition has continued.
Others joined in and this year we have six lists (so far):
As we’ve come to expect from the annual lists, there is little consensus and no title appears on all six. In fact, among the hundred plus titles chosen, only 18 get multiple mentions. 3 titles appear on three lists and the remaining 15 appear on two lists apiece.
Dead Wake by Erik Larson and The Wright Brothers by David McCullough are among the selections made by Amazon, Paste magazine, and The Washington Post while The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is picked by Amazon, Flavorwire, and The Washington Post.
Surprisingly, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which got enough buzz early on to make it a hot contender, is only chosen by two sources, Book Riot and The Washington Post. In a separate review titled “This is one of the best books of 2015. I’m not sure you should read it,” Alyssa Rosenberg explains that because of it’s “exceptionally graphic depictions of physical abuse, sexual abuse and self-harm … it’s one of the few pieces of art that I could be convinced deserves a content warning even for adult readers.”
Based on its award history and lengthy holds lists, the lack of more multiple picks for H is for Hawk is also a surprise. It only makes the cut by Amazon and The Washington Post. [Note: this book was recently discussed by Slate’s Audio Book Club).
All 18 titles that received more than one nod are listed here.
On The Daily Show last night Jon Stewart interviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample), echoing what many others have already said, the book “really is essential reading.” It is currently at #4 on Amazon’s sales rankings.
On the comics fast track, Scott Snyder has won an Eisner award for both The Wake (DC/Vertigo, 2014) and for American Vampire (DC/Vertigo, Vol 8 coming in January) and has worked on various superhero comics.
He may become a household name with his new comic Wytches (Image Comics, July 9, collects the original issues 1-6). In an interview with the author, New York magazine calls it “a tale of remarkably visceral terror” and notes that Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment is adapting it as a feature film.
When Wytches came out in serial form in 2014 it was covered by Entertainment Weekly (with a follow-up last month), USA Today, Nerdist (and a recent follow-up), and BuzzFeed.
The story, which takes place in a tiny remote area of New Hampshire, follows the Rooks family as they encounter a terrifying evil lurking in the woods. Each episode ends with a personal essay by Snyder addressing anxiety and depression. Illustrated with creepy genius by Jock (himself a cult figure in comics), the experience is pretty intense. Libraries that own it are showing heavy holds on light orders.
For more on Snyder, see the 2011 profile in the LA Times “Hero Complex” (Parts One, Two and Three).
What challenge will super-hacker Lisbeth Salander, the main character in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series, take on next?
The NSA, of course.
That’s one of the “key details” about the plot released today by British publisher MacLehose Press and reported in the Guardian.
Swedish writer David Lagercrantz was authorized by Larsson’s estate, managed by his father and brother, to write The Girl in the Spider’s Web as a sequel to the third title in the series, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, (2009).
Not everyone is happy about the publication. Larsson’s long-time domestic partner, Eva Gabrielsson who lost a bitter dispute over who would manage the writer’s estate, says this book titled That Which Does Not Kill Us in Swedish, would have made Larsson “furious. Who knows, maybe he’ll send a lightning bolt at the book launch.” She claims to have 200 pages of a fourth novel by Larsson and will never allow them to be published.
The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series
David Lagercrantz
RH/Knopf; RH Audio; RH Large Print
September 1, 2015