The Wall Street Journal adds to the fall previews with their picks of 32 books to fill the fall with reading. The list mixes fiction and nonfiction and highlights new books tracing the legacy of the Holocaust [subscription may be required].

One of the titles certain to interest librarians, that has not yet appeared on any other preview, is The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel, Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press). It asks if an algorithm can identify the elements of a blockbuster novel and provides answers based on a five-year study.

This approach is not new. FiveThirtyEight data mined blockbuster films to see what they could find as defining features and found 11 commonalities and for years researchers have been looking into what makes a hit song.

WSJ profiles the authors, who studied over 5,000 novels and claim their method can “pick out a future New York Times-list best seller with 80% accuracy.”

Their process focuses on “2,800 features including points of theme, style, vocabulary and punctuation … [and has found] subject, not genre, has a much greater impact on driving a best seller.”

Archer and Jockers have also found less is more, “Bestselling novels tend to have one or two topics which often feed off each other such as ‘children and guns’ or ‘love and vampires’ that together make up nearly a third of the novel whereas novels that fail to hit often try to cram too many topics in.” John Grisham and Danielle Steel have proven that fact, they say, staying on point within their individual niches.

The book has touched a nerve with some acquisitions editors, making them wonder if their jobs are on the line. We suspect plenty of readers and authors will also read the book with a wary, if interested, eye.

Proving a number of librarians and reporters correct, Oprah has announced her next book club title selection,  Love Warrior: A Memoir, Glennon Doyle Melton (Macmillan/Flatiron Books; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), publishing today.

Oprah made the announcement on CBS This Morning in a video message saying the memoir is daring and raw and all women will see themselves in its pages.

The book was already doing well in pre-pub orders, with the title rising over the last three weeks on Amazon. On today’s news the book rose to #16 on the Amazon Top 100, behind the previous pick, Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad, which is at #12. Fans already knew Melton from her first book, Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, a collection of essays from her website Momastery.com.

This new memoir recounts Melton’s discovery that her husband had been unfaithful and the spiritual journey she takes during the process of rebuilding her marriage. The description in the readers guide for the book club says that “Glennon reconsiders far more than her marriage and discovers what it means to be true to oneself, to claim her true identity as a Love Warrior.”

The coverage and reaction to the pick is thus far more muted than the splashy roll out and multiple reviews that greeted the announcement of Underground Railroad just a few weeks ago.

Oprah has not explained why she’s doing another book so quickly or if doing so indicates she is stepping up the program.

UDPDATE:

Way back in May, our own GalleyChatter, Robin Beerbower was prescient in her review on GoodReads and on Edelweiss:

What struck me most about the memoir was her courage, candor, and honesty in relating the most intimate details of her life and marriage. Definitely a winner for women’s book groups and for those who can’t wait for Oprah’s memoir to be published–in fact, if Oprah still regularly did a book selection for her show, I could see this as an easy choice.

Also, for some reason this reminded me a bit of Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, a collection of honest and compassionate essays. I would also compare Love Warrior to Joan Anderson’s books about her separation and rebuilding of her marriage (A Year by the Sea and An Unfinished Marriage), although Melton’s book is more beautifully written.

Betting is underway on who will win the Nobel Prize in Literature with Japan’s Haruki Murakami topping the list.

He may be the Susan Lucci of authors, having led the betting for the last three years, only to see Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarussian journalist and oral historian take the prize last year, French novelist Patrick Modiano win in 2014 and Canadian Alice Munro in 2013.

He is not alone. Americans Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates and Irish writer John Banville annually get bandied about as the bookies make odds and this year is no different. Roth is the third favorite to win with Oates right behind him. Banville’s odds have, oddly enough, fallen out of the top 10. Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, another frequent pick for several years, is still in the top five.

There is a new name in the top three, Adunis, the pen name for a Syrian poet and essayist, has risen through the ranks and is now holding the #2 spot on the oddsmakers list.

Predictably unpredictable, the Nobel Prize in Literature has baffled odds makers for years and is just as likely to go to a  dark horse this year.

The exact announcement date has yet to be set but is most often awarded in early to mid October.

Elizabeth Letts’s The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis (Random House/Ballantine; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) has landed at #17 on the NYT extended hardcover nonfiction list.

The NYT highlights Lett’s in the “Inside the List” feature, noting that while WWII is a perennially popular subject, recently it seems books on the “quirky corners of the war” are particularly gaining ground. Like The Monuments Men before it, Lett’s book recounts a little-known mission during the waning days of the war, to save prized Lipizzaner stallions. The Nazis had abducted the horses, stockpiling them as part of a plan to create a super breed. With the war ending, supplies short, and the Russian army closing in, the horses were in danger of being slaughtered for food. No less a figure than General Patton ordered the rescue.

Letts is the author of a previous best seller about a horse, The Eighty-Dollar Champion (2011).

Check your holds. Several libraries show spikes on modest ordering.

The start of fall is not only signaled by Labor Day, but by the increased number of titles by well-known authors coming your way next week, from Margaret Atwood’s first graphic novel, Angel Catbird (Dark Horse Books; OverDrive Sample), to John le Carré’s memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (PRH/Viking; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample), which NYT‘s Michiko Kakutani describes as more of “a collection of reminiscences” and continues that the section on his childhood, adapted from a longer New Yorker piece, is “the rawest, most emotional part of this book, and its psychological spine.”

In addition, the next Oprah pick arrives, breathtakingly quickly after her selection of Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. The title has not been announced yet, so speculation has been rife with heavy odds on Glennon Doyle Melton’s Love Warrior (Macmillan/Flatiron; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), even though it is a memoir and the Oprah pick is classified as fiction (red herring, perhaps?).

Another guess, quickly shot down by the author, is Jonathan Safran Foer’s next novel Here I Am (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). A literary darling, you can expect to see it reviewed in all the major consumer book reviews, beginning with the L.A. Times, under the less than compelling headline, “With joyless prose about joyless people, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am is kitsch at best.”

It’s also a big week for the James Patterson Bookshops series, with four new titles being released. This is the third group of titles released in the series, and it’s become clear that all BookShots are not equal. Readers prefer those that continue established Patterson series, which this month’s titles do not. Two are in the erotic romance sub-series, BookShots Flames. Patterson is not the co-author on these titles, but supplies an introduction to each. Still, it’s amusing to see the Patterson name emblazoned in script across a typical romance cover.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of 9/5/16

Consumer Media Picks

The media continues to give props to the big literary debut released earlier this week, that we previewed last week, The Nix by Nathan Hill (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Entertainment Weekly gives it an A- in the new issue:

“Nathan Hill’s sad, funny, endlessly inventive debut feels like exactly the kind of novel Septembers are made for: a big fat cinder block of a book brainy enough to wipe away the last SPF-smeared vestiges of a lazy summer but so immediately engaging, too, that it makes the transition feel like a reward, not homework.”

The New York Times kicked off the coverage with a profile of the author, comparing him to John Irving and then, cleverly asking Irving his opinion. He compares Hill to Dickens. Washington Post chief book critic, Ron Charles calls Hill a “major new comic novelist” and describes one of the book’s main characters as “a fire-breathing, anti-immigrant presidential candidate who may remind you of a certain reality-TV star with size anxiety.” NPR calls it, “A Vicious, Sprawling Satire With A Very Human Heart.”

Some libraries are showing heavy holds on modest ordering.

People magazine’s “Book of the Week” is a tribute to the late Nora Ephron by her friend Richard Cohen, She Made Me Laugh (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) calling it, “both complex and moving — and [Cohen’s] depiction of the literary and journalistic circles of the era isn’t stingy on the gossip, either. Nora would be pleased.”

People‘s other two picks this week are also peer picks, Gayle Forman’s first title for adults and the debut, Mischling (see below).

Peer Picks

Two LibraryReads titles appear next week, including the #1 librarian pick for September:

Leave Me, Gayle Forman (Workman/Algonquin Books; OverDrive Sample).

“Aren’t there days when you just want to leave it all behind? After a life threatening event, that’s exactly what Maribeth Klein does. Maribeth, wife, mom of 4-year old twins, and editor of a glossy magazine is told to rest. Sure! The choice she makes is not the one for most, but following Maribeth on this journey is compelling nonetheless. Fast paced narrative and terrific writing make this one hard to put down. Recommended!” — Carol Ann Tack, Merrick Library, Merrick, NY

Additional Buzz: It is also an Indie Next selection for September and is a People pick this week.

The Masked City: An Invisible Library Novel, Genevieve Cogman (PRH/Roc; OverDrive Sample).

“A mysterious new Fae couple is causing Irene and crew major grief in this second installment of the Invisible Library series. After getting a book, Irene and Kai get attacked by a group of werewolves. Irene plans to go to the Library, turn in the book, and find information on the newcomers while Kai will go to Vale’s house. Kai is attacked and taken away. To get to the chaos filled world where Kai is held, Irene has to get help from Silver and fight to not be overrun by chaos and the Fae. I like this series because Irene is a smart, tough, stubborn, and loyal librarian who has survived many crazy, dangerous, and interesting worlds and people.” — Julie Horton, Greenwood County Library, Greenwood, SC

Additional Buzz: The author’s first book was the subject of one of our PRH EarlyReads chats.

Eight Indie Next picks flood shelves this week:

The Risen, Ron Rash (HC/Ecco; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

“The most overused cliché in the book business is ‘page-turner,’ so I will ask indulgence when I declare that The Risen by Ron Rash is a page-turner in the truest sense of the phrase. The Risen explores a young boy’s coming of age, sibling rivalry, a decades-old mystery, and extreme life choices. It is an exciting read for all who appreciate literature at its finest.” —Jake Reiss, Alabama Booksmith, Birmingham, AL

Mischling, Affinity Konar (Hachette/Lee Boudreaux Books; HachetteAudio; OverDrive Sample).

“Sisters Stasha and Pearl are accustomed to the imaginative interior life they share as twins, but in Josef Mengele’s ‘Zoo’ at Auschwitz they must find refuge in that life in order to survive. Readers descend into the violence and despair of the Holocaust as experienced through the eyes of the twins but are protected by an innocence that is also urbane and by a sardonic playfulness that does not shy from horrors but transforms them into fortitude and resilience. Konar has achieved the unlikely — Mischling simultaneously haunts and inspires.” —Kelly Pickerill, Lemuria Bookstore, Jackson, MS

Additional Buzz: A People pick this week, it earned starred reviews from Booklist, LJ, and PW, which calls it “a brutally beautiful novel.”

Razor Girl, Carl Hiaasen (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Welcome back to Southern Florida! In the land of flimflam artists, illegal substances, and scantily clad women, disgraced detective Andrew Yancy is just trying to get his job back. Merry Mansfield, master of the car crash scam, insinuates herself into Yancy’s life with brazen confidence. As it turns out, he needs her more than he could ever anticipate. Reality TV stars, redneck kidnappers, mobsters, and corrupt developers cross paths throughout this novel in hilarious, nonstop action. Hiassen is at the top of his game with quirky characters, rapid-fire banter, and Wodehouse-like plotting.” —Cindy Pauldine, the river’s end bookstore, Oswego, NY

Additional Buzz: Reviewed in The Washington Post as a “raucous new novel.” More reviews are coming, from NPR and the NYT‘s Janet Maslin.

The Fortunes, Peter Ho Davies (HMH; OverDrive Sample).

“At a time of talk about building walls and isolationism, Davies offers a look at American history through the lives of a group of people who have helped to forge this nation — Chinese-Americans. Davies presents characters for whom the American dream is as elusive or as real as it would be to any others. Set in the California Gold Rush, 1930s Hollywood, and the present day, Davies’ tale is artfully told with passion and conviction, and readers will empathize fully with each generation of ‘outsiders.’” —Jessie Martin, Nicola’s Books, Ann Arbor, MI

Additional Buzz: On several Fall Reading lists, including New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, the Amazon Editor’s, and BuzzFeed.

Lady Cop Makes Trouble, Amy Stewart (HMH; OverDrive Sample).

“Stewart’s follow-up to Girl Waits With Gun is equally fascinating. Based on the life of Constance Kopp, the first female deputy sheriff in New Jersey, this tale takes readers from rural New Jersey to the mean streets of New York City in 1915. With grit, smarts, and utter determination, Constance tracks a convict who escaped her custody. Despite the astounding restrictions on a woman’s life in the early 20th century, Constance takes every risk to capture her suspect. Complemented by the historical notes that Stewart provides, Lady Cop is both informative and loads of fun.” —Kathy Kirby, Powell’s Books, Portland, OR

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles (PRH/Viking; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Through Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov’s ordinary encounters and activities within the bounds of the four walls of post-revolutionary Moscow’s Metropol Hotel, where he is under house arrest, Towles deftly guides readers across a century of Russian history, from the Bolshevik uprising to the dawn of the nuclear age under Krushchev. Grandiloquent language and drama reminiscent of Tolstoy gradually give way to action and tradecraft suggestive of le Carré in this lovely and entertaining tale of one man’s determination to maintain his dignity and passion for life, even after being stripped of his title, belongings, and freedom. Reading A Gentleman in Moscow is pure pleasure!” —Becky Dayton, The Vermont Book Shop, Middlebury, VT

Additional Buzz: On the Fall Reading lists of Entertainment Weekly and the Amazon Editor’s. LJ and Kirkus offer starred reviews with Kirkus writing “A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles’ stylish debut, Rules of Civility.”

Pancakes in Paris: Living the American Dream in France, Craig Carlson (Sourcebooks; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Pancakes and Paris make for a winning combination in this charming memoir. Readers will cheer for Carlson as he follows his dream of opening a restaurant in nother country. He faces many challenges, but perseveres until he reaches his goal. Thanks to Carlson it is now possible to get hearty pancakes and other treats at Breakfast in America, the first American-style diner in Paris. This is a perfect read for armchair travelers or for Francophiles planning their next trip to the City of Lights.” —Elizabeth Merritt, Titcomb’s Bookshop, East Sandwich, MA

The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood, Belle Boggs (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample).

“Boggs tackles a variety of challenging topics throughout this cohesive collection of essays. With a knowledgeable, considerate, and honest mind, Boggs is somehow able to transform the clinical and sedate language of infertility treatments into a beautiful song of hope and transformation. The metaphors Boggs finds for her travails sing, and the patient quality of her narration stuns. The candidness of her voice, combined with her ability to find the perfect words to sum up data, studies, statistics, and personal experience, make The Art of Waiting a gift for all readers.” —John Francisconi, Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT

Additional Buzz: It is a BuzzFeed Fall Reading pick.

Tie-ins

Five new tie-ins appear this week, setting up the fall film season.

Goat: Film opens on 9/23/16. Directed by Andrew Neel, starring Ben Schnetzer, Nick Jonas, and Gus Halper.

Tie-in: Goat (Movie Tie-in Edition): A Memoir, Brad Land (PRH/RH; OverDrive Sample).

The Queen of Katwe: Film opens on 9/23/16 in limited release, nationwide the following week. Directed by Mira Nair, starring Lupita Nyong’o, David Oyelowo, Madina Nalwanga, and Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine.

Tie-in: The Queen of Katwe: One Girl’s Triumphant Path to Becoming a Chess Champion, Tim Crothers (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

See our additional coverage here and here.

Poldark, Season 2: Beginning September 25th on PBS Masterpiece and starring Aidan Turner, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Heida Reed.

Tie-in: The World of Poldark, Emma Marriott (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; OverDrive Sample). (NOTE: The series is based on the Poldark novels by Winston Graham.)

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back: Film opens on 10/21/2016. Directed by Edward Zwick, starring Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, and Robert Knepper.

Tie-in: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (Movie Tie-in Edition), Lee Child (PRH/Bantam; RH Audio/BOT; also in Mass Market; OverDrive Sample).

See our additional coverage here, here, and here.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk: Film opens on 11/11/16. Directed by Ang Lee, starring Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin, and Chris Tucker.

Tie-in: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain (HC/Ecco; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

See our additional coverage here and here.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Opening today is the film adaptation, The Light Between Oceans. When we previewed it last week, there were few reviews. They are pouring in now, and it’s getting high marks for gorgeous cinematography, but less for plausibility, or even the ability to jerk tears (see Entertainment Weekly‘s review, as well as the New Yorker‘s). In terms of box office, The Hollywood Reporter doesn’t hold out great hopes, especially since Labor Day weekend tends to be quiet in theaters. The book, however, is already benefitting from the publicity, zooming up USA Today‘s best seller list to #3, its highest position on that list to date.

The big film opening next week is Sully, based on Highest Duty by Chesley Sullenberger (HarperCollins/Morrow, 2009), a memoir by the man who piloted an airplane to safety on New York’s Hudson River after its engines were disabled by a bird strike.

Directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Tom Hanks in the lead role, with Laura Linney as his wife, it opens on Friday, Sept. 9.

Tie-in: Sully : My Search for What Really Matters, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, Jeffrey Zaslow (HarperCollins/Morrow,  August 30, 2016). It is currently at #5 on the NYT paperback nonfiction best seller list, two weeks.

Queen Sugar begins airing on Oprah’s OWN channel Sept. 6 and 7th in a two-night premiere.

The series is the number one People pick for the week, called an “unusually fine, seductive new series.” Entertainment Weekly gives it a B, recommending it for people tired of the usual melodramas, because it offers “a refreshing point of difference: a family saga on which loved ones labor together for individual and shared redemption.”

The series is based on the novel Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile (Penguin/Pamela Dorman; Thorndike; 2014; see our chat with the author just prior to the book’s publication). As we wrote earlier, the story takes place in Southern Louisiana and features three sibling who inherit their father’s sugar cane plantation. It was selected as a book of the week by Oprah’s O magazine, saying, “In Queen Sugar, two bulwarks of American literature—Southern fiction and the transformational journey—are given a fresh take by talented first-time novelist Natalie Baszile.”

The two-part premiere is directed by Ava DuVernay (Selma). Upcoming episodes have all been assigned to female directors, many of them first-timers. The series has already been renewed for a second season.

Quarry begins playing on Cinemax on Sept. 9th. As we wrote earlier, it is a dark and moody adaptation of Max Allan Collins’s noir 1970s era series about a hit man. The eight-episode run will star Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus) as a Marine who comes home to Memphis after the Vietnam War and gets caught in a world of violence and corruption.

Tie-in, Quarry – TV Tie-In Edition, Max Allan Collins (RH/Hard Case Crime, Sept. 27; OverDrive Sample). Publisher Hard Case Crime has recently re-issued the original Quarry novels with their signature retro covers. The latest is Quarry in the Black (RH/Hard Case Crime; October 4, 2016).

Churchill’s Secret begins playing on PBS’s Masterpiece on Sept. 11th. It stars Michael Gambon (Harry Potter, The Casual Vacancy) as Winston Churchill as he suffers a debilitating stroke.

The series is based on a true story and is directed by Charles Sturridge (Brideshead Revisited), Romola Garai (The Hour), and Lindsay Duncan (Sherlock), along with many others PBS fans will recognize.

It is an adaptation of Jonathan Smith’s KBO: The Churchill Secret (Little/Brown, U.K., not published in the US.)

Ithaca opens in limited release on the 9th, after a poorly reviewed run at film festivals. Giving a flavor for the critics take, The Hollywood Reporter said it was “almost a casebook study of how not to transpose “literature” to film … heartfelt yet sodden … wordy and static.”

Given its big name star line up, it might have expected a better reception. It is directed by Meg Ryan, written by Erik Jendresen (Band of Brothers) and based on by William Saroyan’s 1943 novel The Human Comedy. It stars Alex Neustaedter, Jack Quaid, Meg Ryan, Sam Shepard, Hamish Linklater and Tom Hanks.

There was no tie-in.

Congressman John Lewis appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night and talked about his graphic memoir March, set for release next week as a three-volume boxed set, March (Trilogy Slipcase Set), John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf Productions).

He told Colbert that the ten-cent comic Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story served for him as a road map into the Civil Rights movement.

He hopes that March will become the road map for another generation, making history and civil action plain and real, so it “jumps off the pages and sings and dances” for readers.

The pair also talked about the sit-in recently held in Congress to draw attention to gun violence and how it is an example of finding a way to get into what Congressman Lewis calls “good and necessary trouble.”

Be sure to watch the segment to the end — it’s not to be missed.

SFF fans have much to look forward as the new publishing season gets underway. io9 surveys the field with “All the New Scifi and Fantasy Books You Absolutely Must Read This Fall.”

The list gets of to a fast start with the Sept. 6 release of MJ-12: Inception, Michael J Martinez (Skyhorse/Night Shade Books).

The author tells io9 that the first in an expected trilogy is “a paranormal Cold War spy-fi thriller. Think Bond meets X-Men during the height of the Cold War.”

Death’s End, Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Macmillan/Tor Books) also arriving in September, marks the final volume in the award-winning trilogy. The first book, The Three-Body Problem won the Hugo and was a finalist for the Nebula and Locus awards. The second novel is The Dark Forest.

Liu’s own next book, The Wall of Storms (S&S/Saga; S&S Audio) pubs in early October and is the sequel to the highly regarded Grace of Kings.

Crosstalk, Connie Willis (PRH/Del Rey) hits shelves in October. io9 writes “A pair of lovebirds who both work in tech decide to undergo a simple medical procedure to increase empathy between them.” Fans of Willis know what follows will be far more complicated than that.

A number of other works, including spin-offs of favorite story lines from the classics Dune and Star Wars, complete the list, which a;sp includes nonfiction and anthologies.

See our catalog for a running list of the Fall picks as they are announced.

Another of the titles on the Man Book Awards longlist will be released in the U.S. this fall. W.W.Norton is publishing  Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien, making it the second award contender picked up by a US publisher since the list was announced in July (after His Bloody Project).

Norton clearly has faith in the novel, pubbing it on Oct. 11, nearly a month after the Booker shortlist announcement and just two weeks before the winner is announced on Oct. 25.

Set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the novel is a family saga of music, loss, and politics that travels in time to the Tiananmen Square protest and on to the present day.

Macleans calls it “a serious accomplishment.” The Guardian says it is “a moving and extraordinary evocation of the 20th-century tragedy of China, and deserves to cement Thien’s reputation as an important and compelling writer.” The Globe and Mail writes that the book is a “gorgeous intergenerational saga, stretching as far back at the 1940s and traversing China from Beijing in the north to rural Guangxi in the south … [cementing] Madeleine Thien as one of Canada’s most talented novelists.”

Critics compare Thien to Amy Tan, Dai Sijie, and Rohinton Mistry.

Of the 13 title longlist, only one title is not currently scheduled for publication in the U.S., Wyl Menuir’s The Many.

BBC One is adapting a 2014 LibraryRead’s pick, Jessie Burton’s debut novel, The Miniaturist (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperLuxe; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample), reports Deadline Hollywood.

The planned three-part mini-series is in the works for 2017. No specific start date or stars have yet been confirmed.

Burton’s book did very well in the UK. Radio Times reports it was “one of the fastest selling debut novels in a decade, shifting more than a million copies in 37 countries.” It won Waterstone’s Book of the Year (one of the UK’s biggest bookstore chains), the UK National Book Awards New Writer of the Year, the UK National Book Awards Overall Book of the Year, and The Observer‘s Book of the Year, which said “The writing is fluid and addictive and the story grows out of the most irritatingly brilliant idea imaginable.”

Burton said in a press release “It’s an almost indescribable thrill to know the characters and story I invented in The Miniaturist are going to be given a new life in such an exciting way. John Brownlow’s script is perfect. Short of actually being published, it’s the best news I’ve ever had.” (Brownlow wrote the screenplay for the Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Ted and Sylvia, aka Sylvia).

Posting on Twitter Buton was less restrained.

Stateside, Entertainment Weekly gave the novel an A-, writing “The Miniaturist is one of the year’s most hyped novels, and it’s easy to see why.” The Wall Street Journal ran a feature on the book (subscription may be required). Kirkus gave it a starred review, writing “With its oblique storytelling, crescendo of female empowerment and wrenching ending, this novel establishes Burton as a fresh and impressive voice; book groups in particular will relish it.”

Need a refresher on the plot? Elizabeth Angelastro of Manlius Library, Manlius, NY provided the LibraryReads annotation:

“A dollhouse whose figures and furnishings foretell life events, mysterious notes, family secrets and the powerful guild and church of 1686 Amsterdam. All these elements combine for an engaging story of a young bride’s struggle to be the ‘architect of her own fortune.’”

The executive producer for the BBC show said to think of the novel as “Wolf Hall meets Tulip Fever.”

Colson Whitehead’s time in the Oprah spotlight looks like it will be brief. Shortly after picking The Underground Railroad for her book club, Oprah has already picked her next title, and it goes on sale next week.

B&T recently notified librarians of the strict Sept. 6 on sale date for “Oprah Book Club September 2016 (9781250128546-hardcover, 9781427287236-audio CD).” That ISBN links to a St. Martin’s book classified as “world contemporary fiction (general)” running 263 pages. Ingram has it listed as “Fiction/General,”  with a slightly longer page count of 272.

The Wall Street Journal was on top of the story earlier this month, correctly reporting that it would be a hardcover from a Macmillan imprint and speculating on contenders.

They guessed Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am (Macmillan/FSG; Sept. 6; 552 pages; fiction) but the author wrote back to them saying “Nope.”

Another shot was The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam (Macmillan/Flatiron; Sept. 6; 208 pages; fiction), but her agent said “Oh, god, I wish.”

Then came Glennon Doyle Melton’s Love Warrior (Macmillan/Flatiron; Sept. 6; 272 pages; memoir). Based on length (if you go by Ingram’s page count) and pub. date, this seems like the best bet, but if B&T and Ingram are correct, the pick is fiction and Love Warrior is a memoir. A spokesperson for Macmillan’s Flatiron Books was noncommittal, responding, “I can’t confirm or deny anything about it, I’m afraid.”

WSJ points out that Winfrey has connections to Flatiron Books. They will publish her first cookbook, Food, Health and Happiness (Jan 3, 2017), she has a deal with them  for a memoir (recently postponed indefinitely) as well as her own imprint.

Whatever the title turns out to be, booksellers are happy and hoping the quick succession of picks means Oprah is getting back to frequent selections. Rebecca Fitting, co-owner of Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn told the WSJ, “It would be amazing if she started this up again. It would be amazing for books and booksellers.”

Signs point in that direction. Two picks announced just over a month apart represents a major increase. Oprah only picked one book in 2015, the less than blockbuster, Ruby by Cynthia Bond. 2014 also saw just one selection, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings. No titles were selected in 2013 and only two in 2012, spread out over six months, Cheryl Strayed ‘s Wild in June of that year and in December Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie.

While her reign as queen of the hit makers has hit a few bumps, Oprah still has selling power. WSJ reports that Doubleday “increased the print run for The Underground Railroad to 200,000 from 75,000 after receiving the call from Winfrey in April [and it] shot to No. 4 on Amazon.com after the announcement.” It is currently #1 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list.

Prior to the Oprah attention the highest level a hardcover by Whitehead reached on the NYT list was #16, for his 2012 novel Zone One.

The cover of the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, features the film adaptation of The Girl on the Train, so it’s appropriate that the issue also includes the magazine’s Fall Book Preview (currently available in print only. We have added the titles to our catalog of Fall consumer media picks).

The eleven titles in the Novels category include:

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles (PRH/Viking, Sept. 6; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), which EW says is marked with a “gorgeous, layered richness.”

The Wangs vs. the World, Jade Chang (HMH; Oct. 4) is described as a “whacky road-trip novel.”

The debut, IQ (Hachette/Mulholland Books; Oct. 18) by Joe Ide gets special attention in the Mysteries & Thrillers category, as a “crackling page-turner.”

Of the seventh title in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series by Anne Holt, Beyond the Truth (S&S/ Scribner; Dec. 6). EW says it is safe to start the series with this one, but “then do yourself a favor an binge-read the first six.”

In nonfiction, the magazine announces that the celebrity memoir has morphed into books of essays, highlighting three to prove the point:

Scrappy Little Nobody, Anna Kendrick (S&S/Touchstone; S&S Audio; Nov. 15) — The Pitch Perfect star, who writes “hilarious tweets,” imbues her essays with “that same humor.”

Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between), Lauren Graham (PRH/Ballantine, RH Audio; Nov. 29) — “just in time for Gilmore Girls revival mania.”

Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame, Mara Wilson (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio/BOT; Sept. 13)– The actress who as a child starred in Matilda, proves she is now “a talented writer.”

Graphic novels, YA, more nonfiction, and memoirs complete the roundup of over fifty titles.

Kicking off the long holiday weekend, The Light Between Oceans opens on Sept. 2,  based on the best-selling phenomenon (nearly a year on the NYT hardcover list, it is still on the trade paperback list after 63 weeks), it stars Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender as a married couple who live in a remote lighthouse. When they discover a baby, they decide to keep her and raise her as their own. The tie-in edition, The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman (S&S/Scribner; HighBridge; OverDrive Sample; mass market), came out a few weeks ago.

There are few critical reviews yet, but Entertainment Weekly, reporting on an interview with the pair (who are a couple off screen) notes that they “fill their roles with incandescent grace notes.”

Also opening this Friday, but in a limited number of theaters is The 9th Life of Louis Drax,  A tie-in has just been released.

Rising on Amazon’s sales rankings is A Dog’s Purpose, by W. Bruce Cameron (Macmillan/Forge; Tantor Media; OverDrive Sample), jumping from just outside the top 300 to solidly in the top 20.

The rise coincides with the release of the tear-tearjerking first trailer for the film adaptation, starring Dennis Quaid, Britt Robertson, Josh Gad and Peggy Lipton (for those of you who remember the TV series Mod Squad, she was the star. For the rest of you, she is the mother of Rashida Jones).

About a dog named Bailey who comes back to life as many other dogs (remembering each of his past lives), the book was published in hardcover in 2010 and spent over a year on the New York Times hardcover and trade paperback best seller lists.

Cameron is the author of several other titles, including spin-offs of  A Dog’s Purpose. and 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, the basis for the ABC sitcom  (2002 -2005).

The film version opens on January 27, 2017.

Mass market and trade paperback tie-in editions will be released on Dec. 6.

One of Italy’s most popular TV shows has just started airing on the Sundance Channel. Gomorrah is a mob family crime drama adapted from a book, but  it is not of the romanticized Godfather variety. The LA Times calls the show “Aggressively dark, focused to the point of claustrophobia and often all but choking on its own authenticity, Gomorrah shocks the system like a real Italian espresso after years of skinny vanilla lattes.”

The Hollywood Reporter says it pays homage to The Wire, writing it has a “dark greatness” and continuing it is “exceptionally cinematic, from cramped interiors in the Naples slums to exhilarating car chases rapid-cut from rooftop to passenger-side to hood-mounted angles. There’s an intimacy to family dinners and a freshness to remote Italian village scenes that add a layer of visual allure … it requires concentration on the subtitles, but it’s also completely riveting and worth the effort.”

The series is based on Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System, Roberto Saviano, translated by Virginia Jewiss (Macmillan/Picador; Tantor Media; OverDrive Sample). The publisher recently updated the cover with advertising linking it to the TV series.

It came out item years ago, and was a sensation in Italy, with the Guardian characterizing its strong sales there (in a country that is not as book mad as others) as “a literary phenomenon of almost Potteresque proportions.”

Giving a sense of the flavor they write that the book begins with an grisly image, as a shipping container’s doors suddenly burst open spilling out,

“forms [that] seem at first like shop-window dummies, crumpling and shattering as they smack into concrete. But the truth soon sinks in: they are frozen cadavers, the corpses of Chinese workers.”

The LA Times points out the book has also served as the basis of a “critically lauded 2008 film” and says that the author “10 years after its publication [still] remains in hiding tells you all you need to know about the veracity of the tale, and the sort of people it involves.”

Saviano won the PEN/Pinter international writer of courage award in 2011, but could not collect it in person given the grave threats on his life. Journalist and filmmaker Annalisa Piras accepted on his behalf, reports the Guardian, saying “Saviano “has been living in a prison … in Naples they call it ‘cappotto di legno’ which means living with a coffin. It’s not something that can be revoked. There are records of these death penalties being enacted 40 years after the event.”