New Title Radar; Week of Sept. 23
This is the week, or perhaps, the entire season of Stephen King. Arriving on Tuesday is Doctor Sleep, (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; Thorndike), the sequel to his nearly 40-year old horror classic, The Shining, Featured on the cover of this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, it gets literary cred from Margaret Atwood, who asserts, “Some may look skeptically at ‘horror’ as a genre, but it’s one of the most literary of all forms.” With all this attention to The Shining, it’s no surprise that holds are building on it (Penguin/Anchor released a new trade paperback edition last month).
An adaptation of another King classic from the 1970’s, Carrie, arrives in theaters on Oct. 18. Tie-ins to that film are being released this week (see below, under Movie Tie-ins).
Also arriving is the title that rivals Doctor Sleep for appearing on the most “fall picks” lists, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland (RH/Knopf; RH Audio; RH Large Print). It has TWO major awards nominations; the UK’s Booker and the US National Book Awards and is reviewed in today’s NYT by the redoubtable Michiko Kakutani.
The books highlighted here, and more arriving next week, are on our downloadable spreadsheet, New Title Radar, Week of Sept 23.
Watch List
Cartwheel, Jennifer duBois, (Random House; RH Audio)
Also on several fall previews, this novel which echoes a high-profile murder case, is a departure for the author, whose debut, A Partial History of Lost Causes was a literary phenomenon, drawing award nominations and gaining the author a spot on the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” list. This, her second novel, is a LibraryReads pick for October:
“College student Lily Hayes is an accident waiting to happen. While studying abroad in Buenos Aires, she becomes the prime suspect in her roommate Katy’s murder. DuBois’s haunting story captures a family shattered by their young daughter’s imprisonment. A well-written novel highly recommended for book clubs.” — Karen Kilbride, Hennepin County Library, Minneapolis, MN
Hawthorn & Child, Keith Ridgway, (New Directions)
This trade paperback original is also a LibraryReads pick for October:
“Ridgway has taken the ‘partner cops’ and ‘troubled cops’ sub-genres to new levels. Hawthorn is a haunted man with a callous worldview. Child is his apt foil: humane, funny and insightful. Set in contemporary London, the story draws readers quickly and completely into a complex, seedy world of crime, madness and despair.” — Margaret Donovan, Cary Memorial Library, Lexington, MA
The Dead Run, Adam Mansbach, (HarperVoyager)
Mansbach, best known for his inspired faux children’s book, Go the F**k to Sleep, is also the author of several adult novels. A scary, if a bit opaque book trailer for this one is featured as one of Entertainment Weekly‘s “Shelf Life” blog’s “exclusives” today. Prepub reviews are strong, with Kirkus judging it, “certifiably some Weird Stuff … A head-spinning mashup of genres, with a cast that includes bikers, hookers, demons and corrupt cops. It works.”
Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris, Ann Mah, (Penguin/Pamela Dorman Books)
We’ve been told that the French raise their children better, that French women don’t get fat and the French just generally do everything better. Now it’s time to stop flagellating ourselves and just enjoy all things French. In this memoir of her time in France, American Ann Mah explores the signature dish of each region, resulting in a “honest, funny, and eloquent memoir is sure to delight lovers of France, food, or travel,” (Library Journal), Learn more about it, and the other books that Pamela Dorman is publishing this season, on Penguin’s Editor’s Buzz.
Cookbooks
That’s right, Martha Stweart’s Cakes (RH/Clarkson Potter) and Skinny Bitch Bakery (HarperCollins/HarperOne) are coming out on the very same day.
Media Magnets
An Appetite for Wonder, Richard Dawkins, (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio)
NPR’s Web site calls this memoir by lightning rod Dawkins, “funny and modest, absorbing and playful … a marvelous love letter to science.”
Movie Tie-ins
Parkland (Movie Tie-In Edition), Vincent Bugliosi, Trade paperback: $16.95, (Norton)
The 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination is bringing a raft of books and a movie based on a book, Parkland, about the chaos that ensued at Parkland Hospital in Dallas when the staff discovered that their incoming patient was the president. Just a few days later, they had to treat Oswald. Based on Vincent Bugliosi’s exhaustive 1,612 page book on the assasination, Reclaiming History, (Norton, 2007; it was released the following year in a shorter, 688 page trade paperback, Four Days in November; the tie-in is the shorter version).
Produced by Tom Hanks’ Playtone Partners and starring Zac Efron, Marcia Gay Harden, Billy Bob Thornton, Jacki Weaver and Paul Giamatti (as Abraham Zapruder, the man in the crowd who captured the assassination on his home movie camera), it is considered an Oscar contender.Vanity Fair recently interviewed the filmmaker, Peter Landesman. It arrives in theaters on Oct. 4.
Below is the trailer:
Carrie, Stephen King, Movie Tie-in Edition:
Trade pbk, (RH/Anchor)
Mass Mkt. pbk. (RH/Anchor)
Books on Tape and RH Audio (read by Sissy Spacek)
Spanish Movie Tie-in Edition,(RH/ Vintage)
This, the second adaptation of the Stephen King classic, is directed by Kimberly Peirce, (Boys Don’t Cry), who has said her Carrie is not a remake of De Palma’s version, but a return to King’s original (see MovieWeb‘s on-set interview with the director for more insight on Peirce’s approach to the novel,). Link here for the trailer: Carrie-Movie.com. It opens on Oct. 18.
Aftershock (Inequality for All—Movie Tie-in Edition), Robert B Reich, (Vintage paper original)
Reich appeared on the Daily Show on Monday to promote this movie, which was an unexpected hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It is being rolled out in a limited number of theaters beginning next week.