Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation (Macmillan/FSG; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), the first title in his Southern Reach trilogy, has won the 2014 Nebula Award (presented in 2015) for best novel.

Along with Authority and Acceptance (books two and three), Annihilation tells the story of Area X, an isolated landscape cut off from human occupation which nature has taken back. Previous expeditions to the area have resulted in nightmare outcomes. Now a new expedition is under way.

When we wrote earlier about the series we quoted Sara Sklaroff’s review in The Washington Post which still stands as a good summary, “Annihilation is successfully creepy, an old-style gothic horror novel set in a not-too-distant future. The best bits turn your mind inside out.”

VanderMeer’s acceptance speech makes note of the Hugo controversy and the need for diverse reading.

This is the first time the very literary-leaning FSG has published a Nebula winning title.

Three other Nebulas are awarded for best novella, novelette, and short story (each based upon word count).

Nancy Kress won the novella category for Yesterday’s Kin (Tachyon Publications; OverDrive Sample) while Ursula Vernon won best short story for “Jackalope Wives.”

Alaya Dawn Johnson won the Novelette category for A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i. She also won The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy for Love Is the Drug (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books; Scholastic on Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample). The Andre Norton Award is one of several given alongside the Nebulas.

Another such award, The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, went to Guardians of the Galaxy, written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman.

Larry Niven, author of the 1970 Nebula winning Ringworld, won the Damon Knight Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement.

The Nebula Awards are presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and honor outstanding achievement in Science Fiction or Fantasy. Unlike the Hugo Awards, which are based upon membership votes including the votes of fans, only the author-members of the association vote upon the Nebulas. See a  full list of nominated titles here.

The buzzy memoir Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin (Simon & Schuster; ebook, 9781476762722) is falling victim to the truth squad with questions arising about the events in the book and its timeline.

According to The New York Times, publisher S&S plans to add a note to future editions as well as the eBook, saying “It is a common narrative technique in memoirs for some names, identifying characteristics and chronologies to be adjusted or disguised, and that is the case with Primates of Park Avenue. A clarifying note will be added to the e-book and to subsequent print editions.”

After early juicy reporting pre-publication, questions have been raised by the New York Post about how accurate the stories are. Reviewing it, Janet Maslin in the daily New York Times includes whoppers such as “Ms. Martin’s description of her book as a ‘stranger-than-fiction story’ is fair — but only because fiction usually makes sense” and “someone has a book to fill and a theme to stick to, regardless of whether it has any point.” On the other hand, Vanessa Grigoriadis in the NYT Sunday Book Review, someone who knows the territory, wasn’t bothered if a few things are suspect, “the sociology rings true, even if the codification can be off (a common practice among stay-at-home moms and their working husbands in a flush year called ‘presents under the Christmas tree’ is here designated a ‘wife bonus’). ”

On track to hit best seller lists this week, the attention is likely to only add to the interest, following the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The Today Show no longer features the Newbery Caldecott Medalists, but that doesn’t mean they don’t cover children’s books (especially if they are by celebrity authors). Matt Lauer interviewed Jimmy Fallon this morning about his new picture book, Your Baby’s First Word Will Be DADA, illus. by Miguel Ordóñez (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends; also available as a board book). Lauer observes that the book smacks of mind control, “a blatant attempt to make sure that the six-month-old’s first word is Dada and not Mama.”

Warning: Video contains cute overload and references to children’s terms for bodily functions. Viewer discretion is advised.

Few book awards actually increase sales but this year the two big Tony Awards – Best Musical and Best Play – are having an effect similar to the announcement of Pulitzer Prize in Literature or the Booker winner.

  
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2006) by Alison Bechdel and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (RH/Doubleday; 2003; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample) by Mark Haddon are both racing up Amazons sales rankings on news that their play adaptions have won the Tonys.

Fun Home won Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, and Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won Best Play, Best Leading Actor in a Play, Best Direction of a Play, as well as awards for set design and lighting.

According to a story by NPR, both authors had doubts their books could be changed to other formats. Bechdel thought the idea of a musical “was crazy” and Haddon once called his book “unadaptable.” Sellout theaters have proved them both happily wrong.

The #1 Indie Next List pick for July is the nonfiction title The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio), which recounts the adventures of two modern day brothers as they set off in a wagon to follow what is left of the Oregon Trail.

Several works of literary fiction are highlighted, including The Star Side of Bird Hill (Penguin Press) by Naomi Jackson. Jackson’s story of two sisters moving from Brooklyn to live with their grandmother in Barbados is also the most recent title in our  Penguin Debut Author program . Read our chat with the author here.

Three suspense novels make the list.

As Night Falls (RH/BallantineBooks; Dreamscape Media) by Jenny Milchman is called a “great psychological thriller” and comes on the heels of the author’s well-reviewed title from last year, Ruin Falls.

The Hand That Feeds You (Scribner) by A.J. Rich is the debut collaboration between two authors known more for their literary chops than for suspense, Jill Ciment (Act of God and Heroic Measures, recently adapted as the film 5 Flights Up starring Morgan Freeman and Diane Keeton) and short story writer Amy Hempel (The Dog of the Marriage). It is also one of the Wall Street Journal‘s list of “10 Books to Read This Summer described as “a thriller in tribute to [the authors’]  late friend, Katherine Russell Rich. The story, about a woman who discovers that her fiancé is not who he said he was, is inspired by a real-life experience of Ms. Rich.” By the way, the fiancé is mauled to death by the main character’s dogs — an unusual twist for two authors who are dog lovers.

The Truth and Other Lies (S&S/Atria Books; S&S Audio) by Sascha Arango is a darkly funny debut about a vain author whose world is about to spin out of control.

A second NF title also made the list, Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship (Random House; RH and BOT Audio) by Robert Kurson.

Kurson’s account is one of four titles on the list that overlap with the June Library Reads selections. The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler, The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman are the others.

New books from familiar best selling names arrive next week ) — Barbara Delinsky, Dorothea Benton Frank, Laurell K. Hamilton and Sophie Kinsella, writing a YA novel this time (click on the covers, above, for more information on each) — but none of them have generated long holds lists.

There are gems among the librarian and bookseller picks, including Erika Johansen’s second in the Tearling series. Sure to get media attention is Jimmy Fallon for writing (huh?) a picture book.

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 June 8, 2915

Peer Picks

The Mort are coming! Johansen introduces new characters and enticing bits of history, with the second volume of her intriguing tale of fantasy, mystery and royal politics. Kelsea, the new Tearling Queen, has broken the Red Queen’s treaty and prepares to suffer the consequences as her nation is about to be invaded. Readers will be eager for the final volume in the Tearling saga. — Lucy Lockley, St. Charles City-County Library, St. Peters, MO

Barrows is scheduled to appear on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show next week. Her book is a pick for both Indie Next and LibraryReads:

It is 1938 in a rural West Virginia town and a young woman arrives to write the town’s history. Layla doesn’t really know what to expect from the town, and the town doesn’t know what to make of her. This is the heart of the South, the soul of small towns, where everyone looks out for you and knows your history. Sweet story tailor-made for fans of Billie Letts, Fannie Flagg, Pat Conroy and Harper Lee. — Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX

The art of communication is the major theme of this story, and Kallos employs all of its variations — whether spoken nuances and innuendos, written assumptions and dissonance, or the fractured and difficult ways of being known that those with autism experience. This is the story of a marriage, of a father and his son, and of how a man’s childhood shapes his life. Readers will be absorbed, challenged, puzzled, and ultimately satisfied by this wise and soulful book. —Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA

In the Media

Second Life, S. J. Watson, (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe)

We could create a reading club based just on the books that Reese Witherspoon has optioned. Following in the footsteps of her producing partner, Niclole Kidman, who starred in the a movie of Watson’s 2011 best selling debut, Before I Go To Sleep, Witherspoon is a fan of the author, having recently optioned this, his second book.

Happily Ali After: And Other Fairly True Tales, Ali Wentworth, (Harper; HarperAudio)

#3 on Entertainment Weekly‘s Must List for the week:

In the hilarious follow-up to Ali In Wonderland, the actress and ccomedian takes inspirational tweets as self-improvement mantras in an ill-fated quest for happiness as she approaches the age of 50. Her glass isn’t half full — it’s ’empty and cracked.’

The Jezebel Remedy, Martin Clark, (RH/Knopf; Recorded Books)

One of Entertainment Weekly‘s “10 Great Summer Thrillers” in the new issue:

Clark is, hands down, our finest legal-thriller writer, and this latest, about husband-and-wife attorneys whose client has made a huge pharmaceutical discovery does not disappoint.

Your Baby’s First Word Will Be DADA, Jimmy Fallon, Miguel Ordóñez (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends; also a board book)

Fallon is scheduled for the Today Show, on Tuesday and more is likely to follow. As far as the picture book itself, it sounds like Kirkus and Publishers Weekly read two different books:

“Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it”  — Kirkus

“A punchy and deceptively simple story that will make for some fun readalouds” — PW

At the Movies

Opening today, is Testament of Youth based on the 1933 memoir by Vera Brittain, recently released as a tie-in (Penguin). The movie stars Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Hayley Atwell and Dominic West.

The  NYT review is more respectful than passionate. “Testament of Youth Recalls the Great War With Little Nostalgia.” The AV Club doesn’t mince words, headlining their review, “Famous wartime memoir Testament Of Youth gets a boring BBC adaptation.”

The chat has now ended, you can read it below.

Join us for the next chat, July 15, with J. Ryan Stradal author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest. Sign up for the program here.

Ali Smith’s How to Be Both (RH/Pantheon; OverDrive Sample) has won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The novel has garnered much attention. It won the Costa Novel Award and The Goldsmiths Prize and was a shortlist title for the Man Booker.

Comparing it to “what it felt like reading Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, all of the greats,” the award committee chair tells The Guardian, “this is not a good book, this is a great book, and people are going to be reading it long after I’m dead.”

The book was printed in two versions. One begins with the story of George, a young modern woman coping with the death of her mother who becomes enthralled by the paintings of the 15^th century Renaissance artist Francesco del Costa. The other begins with the story of Francesco. Each edition contains both sections and were distributed in a random mix.

Reviews at the time of publication (Dec. 2014) were largely admiring if a bit nervous about its unusual structure.

Ron Charles wrote in The Washington Post: “Ali Smith’s playfully brilliant new novel makes me both excited and wary of recommending it. This gender-blending, genre-blurring story, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, bounces across centuries, tossing off profound reflections on art and grief, without getting tangled in its own postmodern wires. It’s the sort of death-defying storytelling acrobatics that don’t seem entirely possible — How did she get here from there? — but you’ve got to be willing to hang on.”

Janet Maslin told her readers in The New York Times: “Never judge a book by its structure. How to Be Both has a lot more allure than its overall rigor suggests, thanks to the obvious pleasure Ms. Smith takes in creating her peculiar parallels and exploring the questions they raise.”

Formerly known as the Orange Prize, the Baileys Award celebrates excellence in women’s writing from around the world. The shortlist included Rachel Cusk’s Outline, Laline Paull’s The Bees, Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone, Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread, and Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests.

Holds are growing on Janice P. Nimura’s Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey From East to West and Back (Norton. 5/4/15) with ratios well over 3:1 in many libraries we checked.

The nonfiction account has gotten steady coverage in papers such as The Seattle Times and The Wall Street Journal‘s “Speakeasy” blog.

About a group of young Japanese girls, each the daughter of a samurai, sent to America to live, study and  try to figure out what makes America so strong and forward thinking, The New York Times Sunday Book Review calls the book “beautifully written” and says it “begins like a fairy tale, with three clueless children charged with an impossible task by an empress: They must go to the United States and return with the knowledge needed to educate the women of Japan in the ways of the modern world.”

Nimura describes the story in the book trailer.

[vimeo 113928731 w=400&h=225]

NPR reviewer Maureen Corrigan, author of So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be And Why It Endures, offers a collection of early summer reading suggestions during a segment on NPR’s Fresh Air.

She begins with Vendela Vida’s new novel, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty (HarperCollins/Ecco; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample). A traveler loses her wallet and passport and “What ensues is a kind of existential suspense tale in which our heroine is at first paralyzed by the theft and then emboldened to borrow other women’s documents and identities.”

Corrigan calls Patricia Park’s debut novel Re Jane (Penguin/Pamela Dorman Books; OverDrive Sample) “a wickedly inventive updating of Jane Eyre.”

Two nonfiction works round out her picks.

Deborah Lutz’s The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects (W.W. Norton) examines objects important to the Brontë sisters, including a dog collar, a writing desk, and an amethyst bracelet.

In No Better Friend: One Man, One Dog, and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage and Survival In WWII (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample), Robert Weintraub tells the story of the only official American canine POW, a dog named Judy who survived the horrors of a Japanese interment camp.

Corrigan says each of her picks “begin in familiar territory and then surprise us readers by going off into places we could never anticipate.” Read on indeed!

An unlikely title has moved into the top 100 Amazon sales rankings, James Rebanks’s The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches From an Ancient Landscape (Macmillan/Flatiron Books; OverDrive Sample).

About his life as a shepherd in the wild landscape of the Lake District area of England, it celebrates the deep-rooted legacy of family farming that Rebanks can trace back through multiple generations.

That might sound overly specialized, but like H is for Hawk before it, Rebanks’s memoir seems poised to capture a large audience that appreciates fine writing and a sharp eye for detail and place.

For a sense of the landscape and work Rebanks describes, take a look at his book video (he is a man who understands the modern as well as the past, starting his book as a Twitter feed (@herdyshepherd1 which has garnered 63.8 thousand followers to date).

Certainly reviewers are taking note.

The New York Times offers:

“Expertise — and explanations of the craft and clockwork behind the ticktock of a profession — is hugely compelling when described with ardor and élan, and Mr. Rebanks brings both to his account … at once, a memoir, a portrait of his family’s world and an evocative depiction of his vocation as a shepherd.”

The Guardian glows:

“told with perfect pitch, in prose that flows as easily as speech, cleaves hungrily to the particular, and shifts without strain between the workaday and the imaginative.”

The Seattle Times says simply:

“It is as moving, truthful and at times poetic as anything you’re likely to read.”

Readers have gotten on board. Holds are growing with many lists exceeding a 3:1 ratio.

Joining the short list of Caldecott Medalists that have become full-length movies, The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat (Hachette/Little, Brown Young Readers) is set to be adapted as an animated feature film.

DreamWorks has just announced Jason Reitman as the director. Although Reitman has never directed an animated feature, he has had experience with adaptations. His Up In The Air, based on the Walter Kirn novel, was nominated for an Oscar. He also adapted Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day and Christopher Buckley’s Thank You For Not Smoking.

At just 40 pages, however, Beekle is much shorter than the books Reitman has previously adapted and will present a challenge, requiring more story lines to fill ninety minutes.

If Beekle makes it to the screen, it’s likely to be a different Beekle.

In support of kid’s summer reading, librarian Nancy Pearl has been discussing books for young readers on her weekly radio show for Seattle’s NPR affiliate KUOW.

This week, however, she highlights a YA crossover she thinks adults will enjoy as well, Michelle Cooper’s A Brief History of Montmaray (RH/Knopf Books for Young Readers; 2011; OverDrive Sample).

Set in 1936 on a fictional island nation between France and Spain, it features the journals of Sophie FitzOsborne, a sixteen year-old member of an impoverished royal family. Europe is about to fall to war, a fact made clear when German officers arrive at the shores of Montmaray.

Nancy compares it in tone to I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

Unlike Smith’s standalone, A Brief History of Montmaray begins a trilogy. The other two books are The FitzOsbornes in Exile (RH/Knopf Books for Young Readers; 2012; OverDrive Sample) and The FitzOsbornes at War (RH/Knopf Books for Young Readers; 2012; OverDrive Sample).

Joining the chorus of voices championing YA books as crossovers, Nancy advises adults to browse the teen section when they are hunting for titles they would otherwise miss due to marketing and library classifications.

In that spirit, last week she talked about Edward Carey’s Heap House (Overlook Press; OverDrive Sample). Intended for 11-12 year-olds, it also appeals to adult fans who like weird, luxuriantly imagined fantasy. It too is the first in a trilogy. Foulsham (Overlook Press; OverDrive Sample), book two in the series, comes out in early July.

Tuesday is the traditional release day for major titles and several are hitting this week with fanfare.

Judy Blume seems to be having a great time promoting her title for adults, In the Unlikely Event (RH.Knopf; RH Audio; RH Large Print)

Stephen King’s Finders Keepers (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; Thorndike) is enjoying an appreciative reception, from the daily NYT (“One of the pleasures of Finders Keepers is watching Mr. King’s ways of making pages turn”) to USA Today (4 of 4 stars).

Other titles receiving attention:

Eight Hundred Grapes, Laura Dave, (S&S; S&S Audio)

A GalleyChat favorite in February. this is the LibraryReads #1 pick for June:

“Take your time and savor the family dynamics. Enjoy the romantic twists in this tale of a career-minded young woman circling back to her roots at a California winery. The appeal is broader than that of a romance since it delves into the complexities of various relationships — parent to parent, parents and children, even winery and owner. This is an excellent summer read!” — Joan Hipp, Florham Park Public Library, Florham Park, NJ

Saint Mazie, Jami Attenberg, (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive sample)

A favorite of Jen Dayton’s, Darien Public Library, she brought this one up during the Shout ‘n’ Share program at BEA. If you’ve read Attenberg’s first book, The Middlesteins, says Dayton, this one is quite different. Set in the Depression, it is inspired by a true story from Joseph Mitchell’s classic Up in the Old Hotel, of a woman who opened her NYC movie theater to those who needed a place to “feel human.”

It is an Amazon June spotlight pick, one of ten books on the Wall Street Journal‘s Summer Reading preview as well as one of  Entertainment Weekly‘s 10 big fat beach reads to look out for this summer (it’s not THAT fat, it’s more of a middle weight at 356 pages).

Palace of Treason, Jason Matthews, (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio)

Profiled in the New York Times last week, Matthews a retired spy turned novelist. His first book Red Sparrow came out in 2013 and hit the USA Today best seller list at #101 for one week. Film rights were bought by Fox and a screenwriter was announced a year ago. This is the sequel.

The NYT describes both novels as “old school” and Matthews tells the interviewer, “A lot of new thrillers are written by people who have not lived the life, and a lot of them seem to be about a bipolar Agency guy, helped by his bipolar girlfriend, trying to chase a bipolar terrorist who has a briefcase nuke, and there’s 12 hours left to go. My book is all fiction, but it’s an amalgam of people I’ve known, of things I’ve done, of stuff I’ve lived.”

It’s featured in Entertainment Weekly‘s summer reading preview, USA Today’s 25 hot books for summer and an Indie Next pick.

The Sunlit Night, Rebecca Dinerstein, (Macmillan/Bloomsbury; OverDrive sample)

After reading so many stories in U.S. newspapers about the next hot book coming from the U.K., it’s refreshing to read this headline in The Telegraph, “The Latest Us Literary Sensation” applied to Dinerstein’s debut. It is also an Indie Next pick:

The endless daylight of a Norwegian summer is the perfect backdrop for this warm and quirky debut filled with unusual characters and situations, a setting that is real yet somehow out of time, visual and precise writing, emotional warmth, and faith in the healing power of love. This tale of Frances and Yasha, their families, and their companions during a transformative summer in perpetual Arctic light is a perfect read for fans of Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love or Bill Forsyth’s classic movie, Local Hero.” —Anmiryan Budner, Main Point Books, Bryn Mawr, PA

A Field Guide to Awkward Silences, Alexandra Petri, (Penguin/NAL; OverDrive sample)

Washington Post columnist Petri,  says Dave Barry in the cover blurb, “is the funniest person in Washington. This is all the more impressive when you consider that Congress is also located there.”  As proof, her column this week is titled, “Christian Grey’s perspective is the only thing that could make Fifty Shades of Grey worse.” This book is a memoir.

Eeny Meeny, M. J. Arlidge, (Penguin/NAL, trade pbk original; Penguin Audio; OverDrive sample)

One of the titles in our Penguin Debut Authors program, this thriller was mentioned at BEA’s Shout ‘n’ Share as “making you want to lock all your doors and windows.” It was recently optioned for a TV series.

Our spreadsheet of other notable titles arriving this week, with ordering information and alternate formats, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of June 1, 2015

The first trailer has been released for Robert Redford’s movie based on Bill Bryson’s hilarious account of an attempt to hike the Appalachian trail despite “years of waddlesome sloth,” A Walk in the Woods, (RH/Broadway; RH Audio, 1998). The movie debuts Sept. 9.

Bryson is played by Redford. Joining him in the adventure is his old pal Katz, a man even more ill-prepared for the effort than Bryson, played by Nick Nolte (in a role originally intended for Redford’s late friend Paul Newman).

A Walk in the Woods (Movie Tie-In): Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson
RH/Broadway, July 28, 2015
Trade Paperback; 9781101905494, 1101905492;  $15.99 USD
Mass Market Pbk; 9781101970881, 110197088X; $7.99 USD

Our Books to Movies & TV listing has updated information on over 400 adaptations in the works (for tie-ins, check our Edelweiss collection).