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GalleyChatters
On Sunday, the Amazon Top 100 list suddenly was all graphic novels in expensive hardcover versions. Our GN contributor, Robin Brenner, discovered that a pricing glitch suddenly caused prices to drop. Word traveled via Twitter and blogs, and fans began snapping them up.
Sorry, the “sale” is over; the glitch has now been fixed.
A couple of new vampire series have joined the many others on the NYT children’s lists. Cynthia Leitich Smith’s second YA dark fantasy, Eternal, debuts on the 3/14 NYT Children’s Paperback best seller list at #5.
The NYT annotation reads, “Vampires plus fallen angels equal romance.” Horn Book puts it this way,
Teen readers have lapped up the steady outpouring of vampire books, most of which feature a forbidden mortal/immortal romance. Here Smith creatively revamps the star-crossed pair as a “newly risen” eternal (read vampire), adolescent Miranda, and her fallen guardian angel, Zachary.
She also brings a refreshing touch of humor to the mix.
Eternal is a companion book to the author’s earlier title Tantilize (Candlewick, 2007). Coming next year is Blessed, in which the casts from the previous two books will cross over.
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Audio from Listening Library; UNABR; 9780739385616
Audio and ebook available from OverDrive
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Audio from Listening Library; UNABR; 9780739363997
Audio and ebook available from OverDrive
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Heather Brewer’s Chronicles of Vladimir Tod entered the competitive Series Books list at #5 two weeks ago and is now at #7. The series began with Eighth Grade Bites (Dutton, 2007). The fourth book in the series, Eleventh Grade Burns came out in hardcover last month and the paperback of Tenth Grade Bleeds came out in January, with Twelfth Grade Kills scheduled for September.
Brilliance is releasing the series in audio this summer.
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ebook available from OverDrive.
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ebook available from OverDrive.
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Stretching a bit to zombies, Carrie Ryan debuts on the Series Books list with The Forest of Hands and Teeth. The second book in the series, The Dead-Tossed Waves was just released. PW said the new book, “…functions as something of a retelling of [the previous] story, albeit with a different protagonist.”
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The paperback of the first volume was released last month.
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Breaking onto the 3/7 NYT Nonfiction Hardcover bestseller list at #15, after two weeks on the extended list, is The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It by Wall Street Journal reporter Scott Patterson
The title refers to quantitative strategists, who employed new financial techniques that made them incredible amounts of money, but also brought about several major meltdowns, including the credit crisis of 2007.
Patterson was interviewed on Fresh Air last month (listen here), along with the “godfather” of quantitative finance, Edward Thorp, who first used the theory to win at blackjack.
The book is also reviewed the current issue of Business Week.
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Random House Audio; ABR; 9780739385067; $32eBook and Unabridged audio available from OverDrive
We love seeing good things happen to good books. Chris Cleave’s Little Bee, just out in trade paper, has landed at #3 on the 3/7 NYT Paperback Best Sellers Trade Fiction list. USA Today includes it in today’s “Book Buzz” column; it enters their new list at #22.
Exactly a year ago today, we posted a heavy holds alert on the book, shortly after its release in hardcover.
USA Today notes that the author, who is from London, is currently on a 20-city tour of the US. One of those stops was Santa Monica, which chose the book as their CityWide Reads program.
It’s a nice full-circle for EarlyWord; Robert Graves, Public Services Librarian at Santa Monica Public Library generously credits EarlyWord as being the first place he heard about the book. Graves says the library was thrilled when they discovered that the trade paperback edition of Little Bee notes that it is the “Santa Monica Citywide Reads 2010 selection.”
The program with Cleave, was held this past Saturday. Graves says it was a “smash hit,” with a capacity crowd of over 150. All week, people have been “coming by in droves to say how much they enjoyed it.” As part of the program, the library produced a staged reading, with two actresses portraying the “Voices of Little Bee.” The library also hosted several book discussions, including a live call-in show on the local CityTV, which aired in both Santa Monica and L.A. (for more details, see Graves’ post on the Citywide Reads site; also check out the library’s beautiful resource guide).
Cleave is clearly an enthusiastic speaker:
And, by the way, libraries are still showing holds on the book, although they’ve added copies since we first wrote about it.
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The audio, from Tantor, was on the “Best Audiobook of 2009” lists from both Library Journal and AudioFile.
Trade; 9781400111718; 9 Audio CD; $34.99
Library; 9781400141715; 9 Audio CD; $69.99
MP3; 9781400161713; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99
The debut novel that’s being compared to The Help (NYT, Janet Maslin) and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (USA Today, Carol Memmott), rose to #31 on Amazon sales rankings today, one day after its release.
That makes it the fifth-highest ranking, currently available, hardcover fiction title on the list. We’ve been watching this one for a while and are now calling it as a bestseller and predict that it will debut on the Feb. 28 NYT best seller list in the top five.
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Available from Blackstone Audiobooks
Audio and e-book available from OverDrive
Michael Pollan’s paperback original title, Food Rules, has been on the Amazon top five since Jan. 5, It got a boost to #1 from a recommendation by Jane Brody in the New York Times “Health” column on Monday,
In the more than four decades that I have been reading and writing about the findings of nutritional science, I have come across nothing more intelligent, sensible and simple to follow than the 64 principles outlined in a slender, easy-to-digest new book called Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, by Michael Pollan.
Libraries are showing holds as high as 420 on 45 copies.
Here’s a rare thing; an inexpensive bestseller. It’s a great opportunity to buy more and make your customers happy.
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ebook available from OverDrive
What books get the fewest consumer reviews?
No, not midlist titles — books by bestselling authors. Most reviewers feel they don’t need the attention (with the notable exceptions of People and Entertainment Weekly).
The Daily Beast is jumping into the breach. William Book has begun a new column that sorts through the bestsellers to identify “which, if any, are readable” (I guess that assumes people buy the books, but don’t read them?)
Here’s how he describes his brief:
I’ll render the kind of blunt verdict you get when reading about toasters in Consumer Reports. I’ll tell you which of the bestsellers, if any, are readable. If they’re semi-readable, I’ll tell you which pages to skip. With any luck, you’ll know which one to pack for the flight to Jakarta. If you want a different approach, try The New York Review of Books.
The first up is Sue Grafton’s U is for Undertow. True to his word, he recommends that if you want to “cut straight to the whodunnit … skip over pages 25-26, 226-233, and 253-260,” although, “that’s not recommended, because U is for Undertow isn’t much of a mystery.”
Does he recommend reading it, “Absolutely,” although he doesn’t present a convincing case for doing so.
It’s a good idea for a column, but, generally, the prepub reviewers, who are not allergic to covering potential bestsellers (all four reviewed this one), were more articulate in their recommendations.
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Random House Audio, UNABR CD; 9780739323212; $45
Large Print; Thorndike; 9781410420374
Book and audio downloadable from OverDrive
Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was an international hit before it caught on in the US (in fact, at one time, many thought that American would turn a cold shoulder to the book’s dark themes). A Swedish movie of the title has also been a success in Europe and is now the highest-grossing Swedish film of all times. It’s due to hit screens here in March.
But Sony Pictures has decided there needs to be an American version and is signing up the English-language rights to the entire Millennium series, with Scott Rudin, famous for producing many successful book-based films (The Hours, Revolutionary Road, The Other Boleyn Girl) as producer.
It can be a long road from option-signing to the silver screen. Meanwhile, here’s the trailer for the Swedish movie, with English subtitles.
In today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin says Greg Mortenson’s second book after Three Cups of Tea is “very different” from his first, still hugely popular title; its first-person narrative [is] much more vigorous than the third person of Three Cups of Tea”.
In the LA Times’ review, Bernadette Murphy offers more insight into the differences between the two books;
The new book is less focused on the plot drive found in Three Cups of Tea — will he succeed or fail to build the school? — and more concerned with educating readers about the region, the religions represented, the tribal customs and countless other details that animate the area…
Stones Into Schools has more characters, more regions to consider, more obstacles to overcome, more history to digest. At times, these “mores” can require a slow and careful read.
But be not discouraged: Like the trouble it takes to build these important and life-enriching schools, endeavoring to better understand this region through Stones Into Schools is worth the effort.
The book goes on to the NYT Nonfiction bestseller list for the first this week, at #2. It’s had a surprisingly slow start, given the popularity of the first title. Prior to publication, libraries were showing low holds on cautious ordering. In the last two weeks, however, holds have doubled and even tripled in several large libraries.
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Penguin Audio; UNABR; CD; 9780143144960; $26.95
Blackstone Audio; UNABR; CD; 9781433298271; $105
Blackstone Audio; UNABR; Cassette; 9781433298264; $72.95
Blackstone Audio; UNABR; MP3 CD; 9781433277184; $59.99
Thorndike Large Print; Hdbk; 9781410420350; $34.95
Of course you expect a new John Grisham title to top bestseller lists, but could Grisham work the same magic with a book of short stories?
No problem; Ford County debuts on the USA Today list at #2 (it takes a lot to beat the Wimpy Kid), making it a shoe-in for #1 on the upcoming NYT Hardcover Fiction list.
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Random House Audio; UNAB; 9780307702104; $35
Random House Large Print; 9780739377383; pbk; $24
Audio downloadable from OverDrive
At #5 on USA Today‘s list is Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, which held the #1 position for 4 weeks, before being knocked down by the not-so-Wimpy Kid and then slipping to #5 last week.
USA Today’s “Book Buzz” column says Grisham’s next legal thriller, as yet untitled, will be published next fall. His first bestseller, The Firm, was published in February, to take advantage of a period that traditionally did not feature big-name competition. In the 20 years since, you could count on a Grisham legal thriller to appear as the calendar turned to February; it seems that will not longer be the case.
Entering the list at #15 is Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna, making it the sixth bestselling adult hardcover fiction title on the list.
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HarperAudio; 9780060853563; $44.99
HarperLuxe; 780061927560; pbk; $26.99
Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive
We’ve been tracking the amazing trajectory of the debut novel, The Help for over a year (including a giveaway of the audio back in February).
In the New York Times today, Motoko Rich writes about the book’s continuing word of mouth, which has kept it in the top five on the NYT Fiction list since August; quite a feat in normal times, but even more so in the midst of this particularly big-named-filled fall book season.
The novel, set in Mississippi in the early sixties, is about a young white writer who gains the trust of several black maids, most of whom work for her friends and family. She interviews them about their lives and how they feel about their white employers as material for a book. The young writer has to hide what she is doing, since this crossing of color lines would not be acceptable to her social circle, but the maids have even stronger reasons to keep what they are doing a secret, facing job loss an worse.
Several reviewers have been uncomfortable with the fact that the book’s author, Kathryn Stockett, who is white, portrays black women, using ’60’s southern dialect for their voices. In the NYT, Rich focuses whether this is ethical, quoting one blogger who calls Stockett a racist, while others feel she manages to walk the “racial tightrope” (coincidentally, another recent word-of-mouth success, Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan, is also by a white woman, writing in the voices of Mississippi blacks).
Rich does not successfully address the question of what makes The Help resonate so strongly with readers. Last week, on the Huffington Post, Jesse Kornbluth offered some compelling reasons:
The Help is about Something
“That is, something real. Something that matters. Most of all, something that matters to women, who are, as it happens, America’s most dedicated readers.”It Rings True
“The maids are long-suffering, delightful, spicy; they’re a dream team of strength, wisdom and compassion. The white women — and this is the novel’s big achievement — are small-minded and pitiable, but they’re never cartoon villains.”No Sugarcoating, But No Horror
“Smartest of all, Stockett has downplayed the horror that was Mississippi in 1962…[she] doesn’t sugarcoat racism but keeps the guns and violence always a few miles away. Smart thinking. In popular fiction like this, riling readers with false accusations of stolen silverware works just as well.”
I have another element to add to that — Stockett’s portrayal of the developing relationship among the women as they work on their project. You feel them becoming fans of each other, supporting and encouraging each other as they grow in mutual respect.
Libraries have been adding copies as the book continues to grow in popularity, but most are still showing heavy holds. Unfortunately, as the NYT points out (and we reported in mid-Sept), the paperback is being held off until June 1.
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Penguin Audio; ISBN: 9780143144182 $39.95
Downloadable from OverDrive in both eBook and audio