It is the rare review that begins with such exuberant praise as “the most dazzling, most unsettling, most oh-my-God-listen-up novel you’ll read,” but that is the beginning of Ron Charles’s rave in yesterday’s Washington Post for T. Geronimo Johnson’s Welcome to Braggsville (HaperCollins/Morrow, Feb. 17; OverDrive Sample), a novel Charles goes on to claim will “shock and disturb” even as Johnson’s “narration has such athleticism that you feel energized just running alongside him — or even several strides behind.”

David L. Ulin of the LA Times shares Charles’s enthusiasm, opening his review with “when was the last time you were shocked by a turn in a novel? Not merely surprised or astonished but actually stunned?” and goes on to call Johnson’s novel “audacious, unpredictable, exuberant and even tragic, in the most classic meaning of the word.”

Welcome to Braggsville is an IndieNext pick for February, with the following recommendation,

“In Welcome to Braggsville, Johnson explores cultural, social, and regional diversity in a world increasingly driven by social media. His satirical and ironic style portrays a UC Berkeley — ‘Berzerkeley’ — student from Georgia who, along with his friends, goes back to his hometown to challenge an annual Southern tradition and inadvertently sets off a chain of events resulting in tragic consequences. Johnson’s creative language play envelops the reader in the Deep South with the impact of a razor-sharp Lynyrd Skynyrd riff.”

Johnson has jumped from a literary nonprofit publisher (Coffee House Press) to HarperCollins with his second novel (after his debut Hold It ‘Til It Hurts, which was a finalist for the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award). For your readers willing to be challenged, lift some quotes from Charles’s review, which also makes it sound like a strong book club candidate.

GalleyChat regulars fell like proud parents when one of the books they spotted months ago begin to gain attention and head for best seller lists. That seems to be happening for one of the titles highlighted in December, debut author M.O. Walsh’s My Sunshine Away (Penguin/Putnam; Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample; BOT Audio Clip). It went on to become both a LibraryReads pick and an IndieNext pick and has gotten the love from Entertainment Weekly (#3 on the “Must List” for the week, with a compelling review) and sister publication People picks it this week (“wrenching and wondrous … a mystery, a Louisiana mash note and a deeply compassionate, clear-eyed take on the addled teen-boy mind.”)

You could become a proud parent, too. Many of the titles highlighted below from the Feb. 3 GalleyChat are available as eGalleys on Edelweiss and/or NetGalley. Download the ones that appeal to you and let us know what you think during the next chat or in the comments section below (and don’t forget to nominate for your favorites for LibraryReads).

If you missed the Feb. 3 chat or simply couldn’t keep up (most of us can’t), click here for the complete list of titles mentioned.  If you would like to see what books I’m anticipating, “friend me” on Edelweiss.

The accolades for A God in Ruins (Hachette/Little Brown, May), Kate Atkinson’s sequel to the masterful Life After Life, arrived fast and furious with Stephanie Chase (Hillsboro Public Library, Oregon) calling it “An almost perfect book.”  Atkinson’s sequel picks up on the life of Teddy, the little brother of the main character in Life. In her Edelweiss review, Jennifer Dayton, Darien Library, commented, “At times funny and at others heartbreaking, Atkinson revels in the beauty and horror of life in all its messiness.” In addition to stocking up on this, librarians may want to buy extra copies of Life After Life.

When GalleyChat’s discerning readers start raving about book by an unknown author, calling it one of the best books of the year, and even the best book ever (Jessica Woodbury, blogger and Book Riot contributor), we take notice. A Little Life Hanya Yanagihara (Doubleday/Random House, March), covers the decades long friendship of four men in Manhattan, although it’s much more than that. Jessica also said that even though it’s not an easy read, and long (over 700 pages), “This is a book about love and what it means and what it can do and it is the humanity of its characters and their love for each other that will stick with me.” Could it be the next The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt)?

In Judith Clare Mitchell’s A Reunion of Ghosts (HarperCollins/Harper, March), three sisters agree to commit suicide by the year 2000 even though they have overcome a dark family past. Three GalleyChatters agreed it was wonderful with Janet Lockhart’s short but succinct review, “Gorgeous writing. Highlighted whole pages.”  Another book that received raves was James Hannaham’s Delicious Foods (Hachette/Little Brown, March), the tale of a son searching for his drug-addicted mother who was lured to a remote farm by a food company. This quirky story had Kelly Griffin, Collection Development Librarian from Chicago Public Library, saying, “Audacious, dark, funny and sometimes narrated by crack-cocaine. I have never read a book quite like this.”

Fans of Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner may want to watch for Eight Hundred Grapes, Laura Dave (Simon & Schuster, June), a contemporary story of a woman returning to her family’s Sonoma vineyard after her fiancé’s explosive secret is revealed. Andrienne Cruz of Azusa City (CA) Library said, ”Eight Hundred Grapes is your typical domestic fiction, part love story, part family drama and Georgia’s witty retorts make for a juicy read.”

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen was such a juggernaut that her next book At the Water’s Edge (RH/Spiegel & Grau/March), is highly anticipated by readers. Taking place during WWII, Maddie, her husband, and a friend search for the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland, and according to Susan Balla (Fairfield County Library, CT), “This novel is part drama, part romance, and part mystery. Maddie’s reawakening to what is really important in life is the focus of this story…” Readers might be also be intrigued by the publisher’s description, “Think Scottish Downton Abbey.”

Can’t Resist A Few Good Crime Novels:

With the fabulous setting of New Hebrides and the intriguing plot of a twin daughter dying only to have the surviving twin tell the parents the wrong girl was buried, S. K. Tremayne’s Ice Twins (Hachette/Grand Central, May) is sure to be a hit.  Jessica Moyer, Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin said, “Gripping! In a disturbing way, could not put it down once I started. Reminds me of SJ [Sharon] Bolton’s early works.”

A new Maisie Dobbs mystery is always cause for celebration and the eleventh entry in the series A Dangerous Place (Harper, March), is billed as her best yet. Stephanie Chase said it’s terrific and “features an unusual setting in Gibraltar at the time of the Spanish Civil War as well as a tender and nuanced look into the inner life of our heroine. Heartbreaking and intriguing.” DRC’s are available as of today.

For those of you whose patrons are clamoring for a Winspear readalike, suggest the new Ian Rutledge title by Charles Todd, A Fine Summer’s Day (HarperCollins/Morrow, Jan) the next in a series also set in the World War I era, along with Todd’s other series featuring Bess Crawford.

If you would like to join the fun, the next GalleyChat is Tuesday, March 3, 4:00-5:00 p.m. (EST).

Laura van den Berg, whose literary post-apocalyptic debut novel Find Me (Macmillan/FSG; OverDrive Sample) comes out tomorrow, is being compared to Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro and getting strong reviews and sustained attention by a wide range of critics. Salon, while comparing van den Berg to Atwood and Ishiguro called her “the best young writer in America.” The LA Times “Book Jacket” says that she captures “the disturbingly elegiac qualities of 21st century life to heartbreaking effect.” The Rumpus, likening van den Berg’s novel to the best moody and lonely music (such as many songs by Bon Iver, which should be the sound track if there is a movie adaptation) says that “rarely does a bleak novel achieve the same alluring strength of sadness … Find Me is that rare novel. It has the same potency as the most melancholy music.”

For a debut, it is getting a remarkable amount of attention, with the way paved by the author’s two collections of short stories, The Isle of Youth (an O Magazine pick for one of the best books of 2013) and What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us. It is a People pick for the week, with the following annotation,

A plague has killed millions, but young Joy has made it through. Defiant and immune, she escapes the scientists monitoring her and treks across the ravaged land, searching for the mother who abandoned her, facing down terrible memories. It sounds grim, but this is a thoughtful, touching story about survival — about finding ways to heal and reasons to live.

And it has been on multiple “highly anticipated lists,”  —  Bustle, FlavorWire, The Millions and BuzzFeed (for more upcoming titles, Feb. through Aug., check our Catalog of Titles on “Most Anticipated” lists).

Holds are heavy at many libraries we checked.

Lawrence Hill’s novel Someone Knows My Name, (Norton, 2008) has been adapted as a 6-part TV series, using the book’s original Canadian title, The Book of Negroes. Debuting last night, it will continue over the next two nights.

Critics are mostly favorable, with some predicting that this puts BET in line for its first Emmy nomination.

The following is from our December story about the series:

The novel, a fictional slave narrative, is based on the stories of American slaves who escaped to Canada after the Revolutionary War and were then recruited by British abolitionists to settle in Sierra Leone. The Washington Post praised its “heart-stopping prose” and noted that “Hill balances his graphic depictions of the horrors of enslavement with meticulously researched portrayals of plantation life.”

Directed by Clement Virgo, the movie stars Aunjanue Ellis, Louis Gossett Jr., Cuba Gooding Jr., and Lyriq Bent.

Gossett was interviewed about the series during its premiere at the  Toronto International Film Festival in November. He compares it to another TV mini-series he starred in, Roots.

Learn more at the Official Web Site.

Trailer:

Tie-in:

Former Poet Laureate Philip Levine died at 87 on Saturday. In today’s NYT, critic Dwight Garner describes him as the author of “spare, ironic poems of the industrial heartland” and calls his loss, “a serious blow for American poetry.”

Levine won a Pulitzer Prize for his collection The Simple Truth (RH/Knopf, 1994) and two National Book Awards, for Ashes: Poems New & Old (Atheneum, 1979) and for What Work Is (RH/Knopf, 1991). His most recent collection was News of the World, (RH/Knopf, 2009).

The New Yorker, which published many of his poems, beginning in 1958, notes that Levine credits a high school teacher for opening his eyes to poetry,

When I was in the eleventh grade and the war was still going, a teacher read us some poems by Wilfred Owen. And after class, for some reason, she called me up to her desk and said, “Would you like to borrow this book?” How she knew that I was responding so powerfully to these poems, I’m not sure, but I was. She said, “Now, I want you to take it home, and read it with white gloves on.” In other words, don’t spill soup on it. It was probably the most significant poetic experience I had in my whole life, and I was only seventeen. Just to discover that there was a young man some years before whose feelings about war were so similar to my own, yet he had experienced it all, whereas I was only living in dread of having to go to war.

Several new titles debut on the 2/22 NYT Fiction Best Sellers list, including Tim Johnston’s Descent (Workman/Algonquin; OverDrive Sample; Jan 6), a book we have been watching (see our Jan 8th Readers Advisory).

The cover features a blurb from Lisa Unger, whose new book Crash and Burn also debuts this week. She describes Descent as a “pulse-pounding thriller of the first order … a truly captivating read.” The Washington Post‘s Patrick Anderson went further, saying, “The story unfolds brilliantly, always surprisingly, but the glory of Descent lies not in its plot but in the quality of the writing.”

Johnston’s first adult novel (he published the YA title Never So Green and a book of short stories, Irish Girl), it is his first best seller.

The other debuts are more expected. Most were covered in our Titles to Know column:

#3  The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audiol OverDrive Sample)

# 4 Trigger Warning, by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins/Morrow; HarperLuxe; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample) — reviewed on the NPR Web site. with this great analogy, “They are confections, these stories. Like eating a delicious piece of chocolate and, halfway through, finding a finger in it. “

#7  Crash & Burn, Lisa Gardner (Penguin/Dutton; OverDrive Sample)

#9 Funny Girl, Nick Hornby, (Penguin/Riverhead; BOT; OverDrive Sample), also covered in the NYT‘s “Inside the List” column

And, The Girl on the Train continues to ride at #1 after 4 weeks.

On the Nonfiction list, Alexandra Fuller’s third memoir Leaving Before the Rains Come, (Penguin Press, Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample) rises after 3 weeks to #5. Strong reviews continue to rain down on it, the latest from yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, appreciates the author’s growth. “Fuller’s first memoir, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, presented readers with the unstinting rollick of her African childhood” and “Leaving Before the Rains Come, circles back and through to the man she marries in the final pages of Dogs [and] remembers the shock and awe of early love. It traces the dissolution of bonds.”

Several other titles are debuts

#10 The Teenage Brain, by Frances E. Jensen with Amy Ellis Nutt (Harper; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample) — as we wrote earlier, this one was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air.

#11  Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice (S&S; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample) — the author was featured on several shows, but the clincher was his appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Coverage continues with Entertainment Weekly, which makes in #3 on their “Must List of the :Top 10 Things We Love This Week.”

#14 The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity Norman Doidge (Penguin/ Viking; Penguin Audio) — This may sound like voodoo science, but The Guardian, writes, “Doidge is, if not the inventor, then at least the populariser of a brand new science. That science is called neuroplasticity” which says the brain can not only self-repair, but, “for conditions that range from Parkinson’s disease, to autism, to stroke, to traumatic head injury – can be stimulated by conscious habits of thought and action, by teaching the brain to “rewire itself”.”

In children’s books, the ALA awards announced at Midwinter are having an effect.

In childrens, the Caldecott winner, The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Sentat (Hachette/Little, Brown), arrives at #10 on the Picture Books list, and the winner of the Newbery, The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), makes its first appearance at #4 on the Middle Grade list.

On the Graphic Books list, Scott McCloud’s heavily anticipated master work, The Sculptor (Macmillan/First Second) lands at #1 during its first week on sale.

The top title on the March LibraryReads list of ten titles published this month that library staff love, seconds that emotion. The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce, (Random House; RH Audio. March 3) is a “companion novel” to  Joyce’s surprise best seller, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

Miss Queenie Hennessy, who we met in Joyce’s first book, is in a hospice ruminating over her abundant life experiences. I loved the poignant passages and wise words peppered throughout. Readers of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry will enjoy this book. There’s no fast-paced plot or exciting twists–it’s just a simple, sweet story of a life well-lived.
Andrienne Cruz, Azusa City Library, Azusa, CA

Also on the list is a title by Lynne Truss, whose book on grammar, Eats Shoots & Leaves, was another surprise best seller. Cat Out of Hell, (Melville House, March 3) is a novel that the author says is so “very quirky (and very British),” that getting an American publisher for it was “quite a surprise.” She should be even more surprised by this reception.

Cats don’t live nine lives. They survive eight deaths. There’s something special about Roger, the cat, and it’s not that he can talk. Truss spins readers through a hauntingly, portentous tale. When my cat’s tail thrums, I’ll forever wonder what devilment will follow.
Ann Williams, Tippecanoe County Public Library, Lafayette, IN

Heading in to Valentine’s Day weekend, which morphs this year into Fifty Shades of Grey weekend as the R-rated movie opens to major box office expectations, the book it is based on is #3 on Amazon’s best seller list, followed closely by the boxed set of the entire trilogy. At #13, is a title that sounds similar, Fifty Shades of They (Creative Pastors) by the founding pastor of the Fellowship Church, a Dallas megachurch, Ed Young.

Although the title may seem to pay homage to E.L. James’s famous novel, Young calls that book a “perverted attempt to trap readers and leads them to a misunderstanding of what intimacy and connection are all about.” As a protest, he plans to “baptize” copies of it this weekend. His book, published by Creative Pastors, an imprint of the Fellowship Church, is about forming relationships with the “right ‘they'” and claims to offer “fifty simple, yet profound insights that will help any relationship thrive.”

None of the titles arriving next week have long holds list waiting for them. The new Richard Price novel, currently showing few holds against fairly modest ordering, may take off amidst a burst of media attention. Also arriving, several LibraryReads and GalleyChat titles to recommend.

All 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, Week Radar of Feb. 16, 2015

Keep Your Eye On 

The Whites, Richard Price as Harry Brandt, (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio by Bobby Cannavale; OverDrive Sample)

You can understand why Richard Price wanted to write a “slicker, more commercial book,” the reason, as this week’s NYT feature reports, he decided to try writing under a pseudonym. Among fellow crime writers, he is considered a master. Yet, despite awards and acclaim, his books don’t sell as well as Dennis Lehane’s or Michael Connelly’s.

Although the author himself thinks he didn’t achieve his goal, some reviewers disagree. In the New Yorker, Joyce Carol Oates calls The Whites, “more of a policier than Price’s previous fiction—more plot-driven and less deeply engaged by the anthropology of its urban communities.” In his other books, she says,  setting is “lavishly detailed” but in The Whites, “the grim urban landscape is scarcely more than a backdrop. The author focusses on the interwoven lives of a number of characters in language as forthright and free of metaphor as a police report, and on the construction of an elaborate narrative that shifts between present and past action.”

Michael Connelly, on the cover of this Sunday’s NYT Book Review, says Price “manages to give the story a fierce momentum, one that makes putting this book aside to sleep or eat or do anything else very difficult … This book literally interrupted my professional and personal life. Once in, I had to stay in and stick with it to the end.” This one could give Price the commercial success he seems to be seeking.

Librarian Picks 

A Touch of Stardust, Kate Alcott, (RH/Doubleday; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample)

LibraryReads:

“With the background of the making of Gone with the Wind, this is a delightful read that combines historical events with the fictional career of an aspiring screenwriter. Julie is a wide-eyed Indiana girl who, through a series of lucky breaks, advances from studio go-fer and assistant to Carole Lombard to contract writer at MGM. A fun, engaging page-turner!”  — Lois Gross, Hoboken Public Library, Hoboken, NJ

Dreaming Spies: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, Laurie R. King. (RH/Bantam; Recorded Books;  OverDrive Sample)

LibraryReads:

“Considering that King is one of the finest mystery authors writing today, it’s no surprise that the latest in the Russell/Holmes series is an engaging read. Intrigue follows the duo as they board a liner bound for Japan and meet up with a known blackmailer and a young Japanese woman who is not all that she seems. Great historical research and rich atmosphere!” — Paulette Brooks, Elm Grove Public Library, Elm Grove, WI

Half the World, Joe Abercrombie, (RH/Del Rey; OverDrive Sample)

LibraryReads:

“Fifteen-year-old Thorn, determined to become a king’s soldier, is fighting not just physical opponents, but her world’s social mores. Girls are supposed to desire nothing more than a wealthy husband. Period. Thorn’s struggles to achieve her dream make for a riveting read. Second in a series, this book reads very well as a standalone.” — Cynthia Hunt, Amarillo Public Library, Amarillo, TX

Fiercombe Manor, Kate Riordan, (Harper; OverDrive Sample)

A favorite on our September GalleyChat, “With its English manor setting, threads of madness, and hints of hauntings, it’s an obvious homage to Kate Morton, Victoria Holt, Sarah Waters, and Daphne du Maurier. Before reading, Google ‘Owlpen Manor’ to see the house that inspired the setting.” Edelweiss is also showing “much love” (their version of “likes,” but stronger) from a dozen librarians.

Media Attention

ISIS : Inside the Army of Terror, Michael Weiss, Hassan Hassan, (S&S/Regan Arts; OverDrive Sample)

This title appears to be embargoed, since there are no prepub reviews and, as a result, libraries have not ordered it. Co-author Hassan published a story last week in The Guardian in which he writes that he and Weiss conducted in-depth interviews with ISIS members for the story. Hassan is a journalist for The National, an English-language newspaper from Abu Dhabi, which reviews the book. No news just now on media attention, but given the subject, and that it is the first title from publicity magnet Judith Regan’s new S&S imprint (her colorful presence is welcomed back in a story in last Friday’s NYT), expect to be hearing about it.

The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty, Amanda Filipacchi, (Norton; Highbridge Audio)

Reviewed by Maureen Corrigan this week on NPR’s Fresh Air; “a farcical fictional meditation on female beauty structured as a mashup of an old episode of Friends, a fairy tale and a murder mystery.” The author recently appeared on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show.

Movie tie-in

Insurgent Movie Tie-in Edition, Veronica Roth, (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen), also in paperback

The movie of the second installment in the series starring Shailene Woodley and Theo James opens March 20. A new trailer appeared online this week.

Combat photojournalist Lynsey Addario, who has been kidnapped twice, won a McArthur “Genius” award, and was a member of a team that won a Pulitzer, has published a memoir,  It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War (Penguin, Feb. 10; OverDrive Sample). Heavily covered in the media, it is racing up the Amazon sales rankings. It has received attention from a wide range of publications, including NPR’s Fresh Air, Elle, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and the New York Times Magazine. (with the arresting headline, “What Can a Pregnant Photojournalist Cover? Everything.”)

While described as both affecting and riveting, Addario’s take on photography, war, and being a woman in a high-octane profession has had mixed reviews. Kirkus gives it a star, saying the memoir is “a remarkable achievement … a brutally real and unrelentingly raw memoir that is as inspiring as it is horrific.” Entertainment Weekly, however, gives it a “B”, marking it down for failing to fully flesh out the people in Addario’s life.

As more attention mounts, Addario’s amazing and timely story, illustrated with 90 of her photographs, is likely to have staying power – making it a title to watch.

If you’re going to use a pseudonym, why reveal it on the book’s cover? In an interview in today’s NYT, Richard Price explains why the cover of his new book The Whites (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio), coming on Tuesday, carries the awkward attribution, “Richard Price Writing as Harry Brandt.”

He set out to write in a different style, a “stripped-down, heavily plotted best seller.” The only problem was that he couldn’t pull it off and ended up writing a Richard Price novel. Bowing to his publisher and editor who convinced him that if he didn’t make the pseudonym transparent, he would commit “commercial suicide,” he wound up with the two names on the cover. He says it “seemed like a good idea in the beginning, and now I wish I hadn’t done it,”

In an advance review, also in today’s NYT,  Michiko Kakutani says it has all the hallmarks of a Richard Price novel, “an ear for street language … kinetic energy … hard-boiled verve … [characters] who become as vivid to us as real-life relatives or friends.”

The title refers to the white whale that haunts Ahab in Moby Dick. Similarly, the cops and former cops in Price’s novel are all haunted by previous cases. Kakutani praises it  as ” a gripping police procedural and an affecting study in character and fate.

Prepub trade reviews are also strong. In a starred review, Booklist calls it ” a strong contender for best crime novel of 2015.”

It’s become commonplace for us to write that Jon Stewart has featured on The Daily Show the author of some heavy-duty book on an important topic, which then flies up best seller lists. Sadly, Stewart announced last night that he is leaving the show possibly in September when his contract is up, but it “might be July, or December,” because “this show doesn’t deserve an even slightly restless host.”

Before Stewart, who would have imagined serious conversations with authors presented in the context of a comedy show? Not only did he introduce that concept and make it work, he continued it in another show he produced, The Colbert Report. Thanks, Jon Stewart, for giving books the attention they deserve. You never seem restless when you are engaging authors, whether you agree with their points of view or not.

True to form, Stewart featured a 2-part interview with President Obama’s campaign manager and “political philosopher,” David Axelrod on the same show. As a result, the book, which had already received a boost from a feature on CBS Sunday Morning, rose from #139 to #28 on Amazon sales rankings.

Believer: My Forty Years in Politics (Penguin; OverDrive Sample) details Axelrod’s relationship with Obama as well as his Senate and Presidential campaigns, but he also shares stories of other politicians and his belief in the kind of politics that serves the nation best. In an interview with the New York Magazine he says “I didn’t want to write a book that would be measured by the number of revelations in Politico … I wanted to write a narrative, a story about my life, through my eyes, through the evolution of politics in our country.”

It’s somewhat of an irony then that Politico leaked a story from the embargoed book that “Mitt Romney ‘12 concession call ‘irritated’ Barack Obama” which brought a swift response from the Romney camp that the call never happened. And now news sources are jumping on evidence in the book that Obama was lying when he initially said he opposed gay marriage.

For the most part, however, as David Gergen puts it in his New York Time’s review, “David Axelrod has written a highly readable, uplifting account of the candidate he loves — and, reassuringly, has shown politics can still be a calling, not a business.”

TV and movie rights to librarian and bookseller favorite, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, (RH/Knopf, Sept., 2014; RH Audio; Thorndike) have been acquired by Scott Steindorff (producer of Jon Favreau’s Chef).

A number of directors are circling the project according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The novel was a LibraryReads Top Ten Favorite for the year, a National Book Awards finalist and on multiple best books lists.

The author of a string of best sellers Into the Wild, (1996), Into Thin Air (1997), Under the Banner of Heaven (2003), and Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (2007) is publishing a new book in April that examines campus rape. Titled Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, (RH/Doubleday; RH Audio; RH Large Print), it is about a series of attacks at the University of Montana, which, according to the publishers press release, Krakauer decided to write “after learning that a young woman with whom he and his wife have a close relationship suffered intensely in secret for many years after she was raped by a man she trusted.” The story is  being picked up by news sources, including USA Today.

News about the book first emerged last fall, when the AP reported that a judge ordered the university to turn over records on a 2012 rape case to Karkauer.

Cynthia Bond’s debut novel Ruby (Hogarth, 2014; RH Audio OverDrive Sample; to be released in trade paperback today, 978-0804188241) is the newest title in Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club 2.0 (read Oprah’s announcement here).

Winfrey says she loved the opening pages so much she saved the book until she had time to focus on it alone, according to The Associated Press, holding the book until “I was in bed with the flu to start reading it.” She also bought the film and television rights to the novel and will feature an interview with Bond in the March issue of O magazine, due out next week. The Book Club 2.0 site includes  a preview of that interview and a reading group.

Bond was widely compared to Toni Morrison at the time of the novel’s publication, it racked up a number of starred reviews, and received fairly wide attention for a literary debut.

According to the AP story, 250,000 paperback copies will be published by Hogarth. At this point distributor listings are blind, under ISBN 978-0804188241.