It’s Jacqueline Woodson Week. Review attention has already begun for her anticipated adult novel, Another Brooklyn (HarperCollins/Amisted; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample), arriving on Tuesday (CORRECTION: It actually arrived LAST Tuesday, as Elaine points out in the comments, but we are still declaring this her week, as the reviews continue to pour in). It’s People magazine’s “Book of the Week,” described as “a lovely, mournful portrait of a sensitive girl growing up, forging life-sustaining friendships and eventually finding her way.” The L.A. Times calls it “a powerful adult tale of girlhood friendships.” The author was interviewed on NPR’s All Thing Considered this week.

It is also the #1 Indie Next Pick for August:

“National Book Award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson has crafted a beautiful, heart-wrenching novel of a young girl’s coming-of-age in Brooklyn. Effortlessly weaving poetic prose, Woodson tells the story of the relationships young women form, their yearning to belong, and the bonds that are created — and broken. Brooklyn itself is a vivid character in this tale — a place at first harsh, but one that becomes home and plays a role in each character’s future. Woodson is one of the most skilled storytellers of our day, and I continue to love and devour each masterpiece she creates!”  —Nicole Yasinsky, The Booksellers at Laurelwood, Memphis, TN

In addition to the books highlighted here, new titles are coming from holds leaders  Janet Ivanovich, Lisa Scottoline, mystery favorite Michael  Koryta and  an important new name in science fiction, N K, Jemisin,  For those, and several other notable titles arriving next week, with ordering information and alternate formats, check on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Aug. 15, 2016

Media Focus

The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer,  (S&S Gallery Books; S&S Audio)

Schumer’s memoir has received advance attention. The media focus will continue news week:
8/16 ABC Good Morning America
8/17 NPR Morning Edition
8/17 CBS This Morning
8/22 CBS Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Consumer Media Picks

  

The Last Days of Night, Graham Moore, (Random House; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). 

At #4 on Entertainment Weekly‘s “Must List — The Top 10 Things We Love this Week,” this novel is a thriller about an unlikely subject, Thomas Edison’s lawsuit against George Westinghouse about his light bulb patent. Moore is well-known to the entertainment media as the winner of the Academy Award for the screenplay of The Imitation Game, starring Eddie Redmayne [CORRECTION: the star was Benedict Cumberbatch, as our alert readers point out in the comments]. The director of that movie will begin shooting an adaptation of The Last Days of Night in January, with Redmayne starring reports Deadline.

The Wall Street Journal features the book today, with background on Moore’s research. The author is set to appear on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show next week.

All at Sea, Decca Aitkenhead (PRH/Nan A. Talese).

A People magazine pick, this is a  memoir by a journalist whose partner, Tony, died while saving their 4-year-old son from drowning. People calls it a “heart-wrenching tale of race, unlikely love (Tony was a former criminal) and how grief changes everything. It’s unforgettable.”

Cooking for Picasso, Camille Aubray (PRH/Ballantine; RH Large Print; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Published last week, this book is also a People pick, a novel about a woman who learns that her grandmother did what the book’s title says. She then heads to the South of France to look for the painting the artist supposedly gave her gran. Naturally, she falls in love along the way. People calls it “delicious, atmospheric.”

The Golden Age, Joan London, (Europa Editions, Trade Paperback)

A GalleyChat favorite, this is the lead title for the season from Europa Editions, a publisher that has opened American eyes to some of the best writing from other countries and created a best selling phenomenon here with Elena Ferrante’s novels.

Both pre-pub sources that reviewed The Golden Age gave it a star.  Set in an Australian children’s polio clinic after WW II, “Every character, however minor, comes to life in these pages … London is a virtuoso.” writes Kirkus.

Peer Picks

In addition to the #1 Indie Next pick, Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn, covered above, 3 more picks are being published this week, two from the September list and one from the August list.

A House Without Windows, Nadia Hashimi (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

“Hashimi sets her layered and suspenseful novel at the crossroads of tradition and modernity in present-day Afghanistan. Her nuanced and well-paced tale tells the story of Zeba, who is accused of murdering her husband. In the Chil Mahtab prison, where Zeba awaits her trial and sentencing, she comes to know a colorful cast of female inmates, many of whom are ordinary women who have been snared in various traps of family honor and have been cast away by their families and by society. This is a compassionately written and moving page-turner.” —Marya Johnston, Out West Books, Grand Junction, CO

The Gentleman, Forrest Leo (PRH/Penguin).

“Fast-paced, funny, and extremely enjoyable, The Gentleman has fantastic elements and intriguing characters tied together with smart dialogue and timing reminiscent of a Baz Luhrman film. Badly behaved Victorian ladies, indolent poets, an exasperated editor, intrepid British adventurers, steampunk inventors, omniscient butlers, a genteel Devil, and a number of cunning plans combine to make this debut novel exciting and amusing.” —Jennifer Richter, Inkwood Books, Haddonfield, NJ

Riverine: A Memoir from Anywhere but Here, Angela Palm (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample).

“Haunting and surprising yet immediately relatable, Palm’s striking memoir sinks its roots deep into readers and holds fast. Everything ordinary, Palm reveals, is extraordinary — tragic, profound, amusing, brutal — when examined up close. In reflecting on her own formative years, growing up ‘between points on the map’ in small-town Indiana, Palm paints a measured, unforgettable portrait of the forces that break us free of our origins and those that inevitably call us back.” —Sam Kaas, Village Books, Bellingham, WA

It is also a summer reading pick by the Chicago Tribune: “A memoir of memory, place and burgeoning personhood [recalling] her childhood on the banks of a river in rural Indiana and the next-door boy, once the secret object of her affection, now serving life in prison for a brutal murder.”

Tie-ins

There are no tie-ins this week. For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 12th, 2016 at 12:35 pm and is filed under 2016 - Fall, New Title Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.