Commercial expectations are high for In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving by Leigh Anne Tuohy, Sean Tuohy and Sally Jenkins, a memoir by the family who adopted a homeless boy featured in the Oscar-winning movie The Blind Side.

The authors appeared on Good Morning America this morning;

The book is a USA Today Summer Books pick, and it is excerpted in the new issue of People. It’s likely to get more media pickup when it goes on sale next week, though there aren’t any trade reviews available. In libraries that have it, holds are growing – but not all libraries we checked have it.

In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving Leigh Anne Tuohy, Sean Tuohy, Sally Jenkins Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. – (2010-07-13) ISBN / EAN: 0805093389 / 9780805093384

• Compact disc available from MacMillan Audio: $29.99; ISBN 9781427210982
• Large Print from Thorndike Press: $32.99; ISBN 9781410429223

Other Notable Nonfiction on Sale Next Week

The Obama Diaries by Laura Ingraham (Threshold Editions) uses fictional diary entries to critique the president. This is another title with high commerical expectations and no available trade reviews, probably because it was rushed to market.

Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America by Eric Jay Dolin (Norton) is an LA Times summer reading pick. PW says: ” Dolin, author of the acclaimed Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America, offers another good history well told.”

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut by Rob Sheffield (Dutton) is the author’s followup to his breakout debut memoir, Life is Mixtape. Kirkus calls it a sophomore slump, but PW says “The book really shines as a collection of free-form riffs on the glorious foolishness of Reagan-era. . .  from a wonderful pop-culture evocateur.” It was also an LA Times summer reading pick.

One of the summer’s much-anticipated thrillers, Lucy by Laurence Gonzales, arrives to discordant fanfare. But whatever the final critical consensus may be, the tale of a girl who’s half human and half bonobo chimpanzee is bound to get more media coverage.

Entertainment Weekly gives it an “A,” comparing Gonzales to a cross between Michael Crichton and Cormac McCarthy:

He’s got Crichton’s gift for page-
turning storytelling, but also a vivid, literary-grade prose style, and a knack for getting inside his characters’ heads.”

But New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani hates it:

Gonzales doesn’t manage to lend Lucy’s back story even the veneer of plausibility. . .  The reader often has the sense that Mr. Gonzales is impatiently ticking off plot points on an outline, as if he were writing a movie treatment, not a novel.

On NPR, critic Alan Cheuse takes the the middle ground in making it a summer pick:

The science in Gonzales’ novel is fascinating, the politics perhaps just a bit exaggerated, but hey, that’s entertainment.

Lucy Laurence Gonzales Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-07-13) ISBN-10: 0307272605 ISBN-13: 9780307272607

Other Notable Fiction Titles On Sale Next Week

Savages by Don Winslow (Simon & Schuster), a tale of the marijuana trade on the Mexican border, gets a rave review from Janet Maslin in the New York Times, who declares that “it will jolt Mr. Winslow into a different league….Its wisecracks are so sharp, its characters so mega-cool and its storytelling so ferocious that the risks pay off, thanks especially to Mr. Winslow’s no-prisoners sense of humor.” The novel is also a July Indie Next Pick and an ALA Shout and Share pick.

Faithful Place by Tana French (Viking) is the story of an Irish cop on the trail his childhood sweetheart’s murderer. It’s also the #1 Indie Bookseller Pick for July. In Salon, critic Laura Miller says the novel is “wrenching to a degree that detective fiction rarely achieves: Frank — a cocky devil who prides himself on his skillful lying and ability to play other people — gets pulled apart psychologically as he pursues Rosie’s killer.”

Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman (Doubleday)  is an Entertainment Weekly pick for summer. PW calls it  “a dense story of irreparable loss that tracks two families across four summers…. Though Waldman is often guilty of overwriting here, the narrative is well crafted, and each of the characters comes fully to life.”

Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner (Atria) follows the wife and two daughters of a senator caught having an affair. It was a USA Today Summer Books pick, but PW pans it: “The lack of conflict and strong characters, and the heavy dose of brand names and ripped-from-the-headlines references, make this disappointingly disposable.”

Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon), a new series by the prolific author, gets a starred review from Booklist: “Readers of McCall Smiths 44 Scotland Street novels will savor this new series set among a collection of flats in Londons lively Pimlico neighborhood.”

The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster), the 18th Dave Robicheaux novel, also gets a starred Booklist review: “superb suspense leading to a gripping, set-piece finale that is a masterpiece of texture and mood… Not to be missed by any follower of the landmark series.”

Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner (Bantam) investigates the murder of a family with Boston detective D.D. Warren. Booklist again hands out a starred revew: “Gardner never sensationalizes her story, and the book ends with a resolution that is creatively and emotionally appropriate. An excellent novel.”

Damaged: A Maggie O’Dell Mystery by Alex Kava (Doubleday) is “exciting if grisly . . . Maggie must venture into the eye of Hurricane Isaac as this intense thriller builds to an eye-popping revelation that will leave fans eager for the sequel,” says PW. Libraries we checked are well ahead of demand for this title, which was featured at Random House’s Librarian Author Breakfast at BEA.

Next week, these two nonficiton titles may get some media play. Libraries we checked had modest holds on modest orders.

Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Adversity by Drew Brees, Mark Brunell and Chris Fabry chronicles the remarkable comeback of Saints quarterback Drew Brees from a shoulder injury, and of New Orleans itself from Katrina.

Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Adversity Drew Brees Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers – (2010-06-24) ISBN / EAN: 1414339437 / 9781414339436

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What Women Want: The Global Marketplace Turns Female Friendly by Paco Underhill explores ways that retailers are catering to women’s economic influence. Underhill has made presentations at various library conferences and has worked with libraries on library layout.

PW says: “Underhill’s conception of the female consumer is outmoded at times (larger bathrooms in houses are supposed to serve as the ‘penultimate inner sanctum [for] todays frazzled female’), but he makes a compelling argument that a failure to cater to women consumers with products, services, environments, and customer experiences that meet their expectations is just ‘bad business.’ ”

What Women Want: The Global Marketplace Turns Female Friendly Paco Underhill Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-07-06) ISBN / EAN: 1416569952 / 9781416569954

Two novels going on sale next week are showing heavy holds, with libraries ordering more copies to keep up with demand.

The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman is a tale of two sisters, set during the dot-com bubble, that was mentioned in many summer previews, including in the Los Angeles Times. It was also a Librarians Shout and Share pick at Book Expo, and a July Indie Pick.

Entertainment Weekly gives it an A-:

In her sixth novel The Cookbook Collector, [Goodman] ups the stakes with a deft literary hat trick, expertly braiding disparate threads involving dotcom start-ups, environmental radicalism, and rare-book collecting into one consistently engrossing narrative.

The Cookbook Collector: A Novel Allegra Goodman Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: The Dial Press – (2010-07-06) ISBN / EAN: 0385340850 / 9780385340854

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The Island by Elin Hilderbrand (Little Brown/Reagan Arthur) is about a pre-wedding mother/daughter vacation that takes a dark turn.

Kirkus says “Hilderbrand’s portrait of the upper-crust Tate clan through the years is so deliciously addictive that it will be the ‘It’ beach book of the summer.”

It was also singled out in USA Today’s feature on  Summer Books.

The Island: A Novel Elin Hilderbrand Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books – (2010-07-06) ISBN / EAN: 0316043877 / 9780316043878

Other Notable Fiction On Sale Next Week

The Search by Nora Roberts (Putnam) centers on a canine search-and-rescue trainer who survived a serial killer’s attack and now faces another. PW says, ” The serial killer plot is very familiar and without much to distinguish it, but the romance is finely done, with Roberts’s trademark banter lighting up the page.”

As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs (Scribner) follows a woman who seeks her husband’s killer after he is found dead in a prostitute’s apartment. Kirkus says: “The mystery is barely there, but Isaac’s fans will enjoy another sharp-tongued romp through the New York privileged classes and their foibles.” Library demand is 3:1 and higher at libraries we checked. Isaacs was featured at the AAP  Librarian Lunch at Book Expo.

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens (St. Martin’s), a thriller about a woman who tries to put her life back together after a year in a mountain cabin with a psychopath, has been much-discussed on Earlyword’s Galley Chat on Twitter. It also gets a starred review from Booklist: “Relentless and disturbing, Stevens dark, mesmerizing character study follows a twisted path from victimhood toward self-empowerment. Sure to leave readers looking over their shoulders for a smiling stranger.”

Father of the Rain by Lily King (Atlantic Monthly), about a daughter torn between her dreams and helping her alcoholic father, gets an enthusiastic review from Elle: “King is brilliant when writing from the eyes of a tween, all self-conscious curiosity but bright and hopeful as a starry sky. And as Daley grows up and learns how to trust and to love in spite of herself, King cuts a fine, fluid line to the melancholy truth: Even when we’re grown and on our own— wives, mothers, CEOs—we still long to be someone’s daughter.” At libraries we checked, holds are rising for this Oprah Magazine summer pick and July Indie Pick.

What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is the tale of a father who reaches out to his estranged daughter by confessing a long-kept secret. Entertainment Weekly gives it a full-blown A and Booklist gives it a starred review: “Norman’s piquant insights into life’s wildness, human eccentricity, and love’s maddening persistence are matched by rhapsodic and profound descriptions of everything from perfectly baked scones to pelting rain and the devouring sea, while anguish is tempered with humor, thanks to rapid-fire banter and marvelously spiky characters.”

This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia (Holt) is a debut novel that gets 4 out of 4 stars in the new issue of People magazine, which calls it, “part romance, part mystery…Racculia’s whimisical details and flawed yet immensely likable characters make Place a magical journey.”  It received strong reviews from all the trade magazines and  was included in the Los Angeles Times‘ summer picks.

It All Began in Monte Carlo, by Elizabeth Adler (St. Martin’s), the author’s 24th novel, gets 3 of 4 stars in the new issue of People, saying the murder mystery’s plot is “…secondary to the lush surroundings, heady shopping sprees and over-the-top romance that make Monte Carlo a summer treat.”

Best known for his 2004 breakout Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell returns with The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which is on several summer reading roundups (it’s one of five books on Time Magazine’s Summer Entertainment list, which calls the author, “The most consistently interesting novelist of his generation…”), was a BEA Librarian Shout & Share selection, as well as a July Indie Pick. As the media coverage begins, libraries we checked had enough copies to respond to the modest holds for this historical novel about a clerk for the Dutch East Indies Company’s outpost in Japan.

Following a profile in the New York Times Magazine, David Mitchell’s Genre-Bending Fiction, The Thousand Autumns rose to #32 on Amazon salea rankings and Cloud Atlas to #50.

Recently, Production Weekly reported that Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, James McAvoy, Ian McKellen and Natalie Portman have been offered roles in the movie of Cloud Atlas, being produced by the Wachowski brothers (the Matrix trilogy) and directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run).

Entertainment Weekly gave the new book a B-:

Despite some magnificent narrative set pieces. . . .  the book feels diffuse, with too little forward momentum. Japan may be the land of one thousand autumns, but Mitchell sometimes seems intent on raking the leaves of every last one.

But Salon‘s Laura Miller was more sympathetic, deeming it

…less successful than [Mitchell’s previous novel], Black Swan Green, but eminently worth reading all the same . . . . [although] the first part, some 170-plus pages, feels like a worthy but not especially exciting historical novel.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel David Mitchell Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-06-29) ISBN / EAN: 1400065453 / 9781400065455

Other Major Titles on Sale Next Week

Private by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown) follows an investigation run by a former CIA agent.

Ice Cold: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel by Tess Gerritsen (Ballantine) has “the taut suspense and vivid depictions that are hallmarks of Gerritsen’s writing,” according to Library Journal, “although this one feels a bit stretched, with one too many plot twists and one too many villains.” As we mentioned earlier, cable channel TNT’s new series based on Gerritsen’s female buddies, Rizzoli & Isles, premieres on July 12.

In the Name of Honor by Richard North Patterson (Holt) is a military courtroom drama involving a lieutenant accused of murdering his commanding officer.

Inside Out by Barry Eisler (Ballantine) “drives this locomotive of a story full speed into the façade on the war on terror. . . . One sex scene fits neither the story nor the characters, and the violence may make even the most jaded reader uncomfortable, but this is a relentless and revelatory look into the human cost of those who torture on behalf of their country,” says Library Journal.

Work Song by Ivan Doig (Riverhead) was a Buzz Title at PLA, where Doig also appeared, highlighting his move to Penguin. A July Indie Pick, the novel has holds ranging from 2:1 to 4:1 in libraries we checked. Library Journal says that “Doig’s eagerly awaited sequel to The Whistling Season (2006) begins ten years later in 1919, when Morrie Morgan gets off the train in Butte, MT, “the richest hill on earth,” run by Anaconda Copper. . . . Doig delivers solid storytelling with a keen respect for the past and gives voice to his characters in a humorous and affectionate light.”

Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross has been hyped as a summer reading breakout since last March, when Stephen King recommended it in Entertainment Weekly as “the most riveting look at the dark side of marriage since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”

But in a dissenting review, Tina Jordan at Entertainment Weekly gave a lowly grade “C” to this story of a marriage that ends with the investigation into how the wife’s body ended up on the kitchen floor:

The book fails completely as a police procedural. . . It’s as if there 
are two books here when there should be just one.

The author is also interviewed today on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Holds are edging up, but the libraries we checked have only a few copies.

Mr. Peanut Adam Ross Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-06-22) ISBN / EAN: 030727070X / 9780307270702

Other Major Fiction Titles on Sale Next Week

The Devil Amongst the Lawyers by Sharyn McCrumb (Macmillan) flashes back to Nora Bonesteeler’s first case, at age 12. Booklist says, “Loyal fans have been eagerly awaiting a new installment, so expect high demand. Discerning readers, however, will be sorely disappointed.” Holds are at 2:1 and higher, with more copies on order at several libraries we checked. McCrumb, a librarian favorite, will be speaking at the Altaff Tea at ALA.

Broken by Karin Slaughter (Delacorte) gets a rave from Library Journal:  “Move over, Catherine Coulter, Slaughter may be today’s top female suspense writer. Avid mystery and law-enforcement thriller fans as well as those who loved her series characters will devour Slaughter’s latest.” Slaughter also won some new librarian fans with her impassioned pitch for supporting libraries at the Random House Librarian Author Breakfast at BEA.

The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay by Beverly Jensen (Viking) was also touted by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly, who suggested that the author’s death of cancer at age 49, after writing her first and only book, was a greater loss than J.D. Salinger’s passing. PW was more equivocal about the book: “While the sisters troubled relationship rings true, the story-like chapters feel quite independent of one another, and the dialogue has a tendency to veer into forced colloquialisms and melodrama.”

Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum Series #16) by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s Press) is uneven, says PW: “Evanovich is at her best spinning the bizarre subplots involving Stephanie’s bail jumpers, but the larger story simply recycles elements from previous installments.”

Dark Flame (Immortals Series #4) by Alyson Noel (Griffin) is the latest installment in the YA vampire series.

Family Ties by Danielle Steel (Delacorte) follows a woman who raises her sister’s children after a tragic plane crash.

In My Father’s House by E. Lynn Harris (St. Martin’s) is about the bisexual owner of a modeling agency who is disowned by his rich father. PW says: “Harris’s wry tale about second chances highlights what readers have long loved about his work: his ability to depict the pursuit of love and self-respect, regardless of societal and family pressures.”

In the next two weeks, notable books about Wall Street go on sale, but will anyone be reading? That’s the question we’ve been hearing from librarians, who say that even seriously interested readers are hitting the saturation point on finance-related subjects.

Libraries we checked had few holds and few copies of these two titles, released next week. Still, here’s what you need to know:

The Zeros: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall St. Went Insane by Randall Lane, in which entrepreneur Lane chronicles the time he spent working on Wall Street during its greedy heyday, was compared to Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker in PW’s London Bookfair preview. There will also be an excerpt in the July issue of Vanity Fair.

The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane Randall Lane Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover – (2010-06-29) ISBN / EAN: 1591843294 / 9781591843290

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High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg by Niall Ferguson is the biography of one the members of the famous banking family. Ferguson had a hit in 2008 with The Ascent of Money.

PW was not very impressed:

Ferguson uses Warburg’s life as a window onto European unification and Britain’s postwar economic malaise, but his account, which is constantly distracted by deal making and office politics at Warburgs banking partnership, is too unsystematic to do these topics justice.

It is also available simultaneously from Tantor Audio,

14 Audio CDs; (Retail Pkg); 9781400114986; $29.99
14 Audio CDs (Library Binder Pkg); 9781400144983; $71.99
2 Mp3-CDs (Retail Pkg); 9781400164981; $22.49

After five nonfiction bestsellers, Fox News TV host Glenn Beck makes his fiction debut next week with The Overton Window, a political thriller about a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S., with holds of 3:1 at some libraries we checked.

The cryptic video trailer for the book, based on a Rudyard Kipling poem that begins with the memorable line “the dog returns to his vomit,” was released exclusively to Entertainment Weekly.

Never mind the Kipling, what does the book title mean? Politics Daily explains that the Overton Window is a concept concerning the social palatability of political ideas: “If those ideas on the very extremes of the scale become part of the public discourse, the scale shifts in their direction and ideas that were once considered ‘radical’ become ‘acceptable.’ ”

The Overton Window Glenn Beck Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Threshold Editions – (2010-06-15) ISBN / EAN: 1439184305 / 9781439184301

• Available from Simon & Schuster Audio: $29.99; ISBN 9781442305243
• Large print from Center Point Platinum Mystery (Sept. 1, 2010): $35.95; ISBN 9781602858190

Other Major Fiction On Sale Next Week

Frankenstein: Lost Souls by Dean Koontz (Bantam) picks up in hardcover where his successful paperback Frankenstein trilogy left off. Booklist says: “Koontz does his dance of grisly suspense, wry dialogue, sharp characterization, outlandish but charming (and well-integrated) comic relief, and cultural criticism more adroitly than almost ever before.”

That Perfect Someone by Johanna Lindsey (Gallery) is a Romantic Times top pick: “The Malorys are the family everyone wishes they had, so returning to their world is like entering a bit of heaven. The way Lindsey expertly writes a seductive battle-of-wills love story is magic; love, laughter, adventure and passion collide as childhood foes become lovers.”

Lowcountry Summer: A Plantation Novel by Dorothea Benton Frank (Morrow) follows the dysfunctional Southern family first introduced in Plantation.  PW raves: “Heres one for the Southern gals as well as Yankees who appreciate Franks signature mix of sass, sex, and gargantuan personalities… Below the always funny theatrics, however, is a compelling saga of loss and acceptance. When Frank nails it, she really nails it.” Click here to hear it presented at the ALA MidWinter Buzz session (and here to sign up for the Fall ’10 session at Annual).

Whiplash by Catherine Coulter (Putnam) is the author’s 14th paranormal FBI thriller. PW says that “Coulter fans will want to see more of the new crime-fighting duo” whose story dovetails with an FBI probe.

Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst (Random House) is a World War II thriller set in Greece, and was featured recently in a summer reading roundup on NPR.; he is also scheduled to appear on NPR’s Morning Edition this coming Tuesday. Kirkus says: “There’s a scattershot quality to this Balkan imbroglio that leaves it a few notches below Furst’s best work.” Holds run upwards of 2:1 at libraries we checked.

Stories: All-New Tales, ed. by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio (Morrow) is a collection of short fantasy stories by Roddy Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, and Stuart O’Nan and Chuck Palaniuk, among others. PW says: The range of voices and subjects practically guarantees something for any reader, but the overall quality is frustratingly variable: most stories are good, some arent, and few are exceptional.”

Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis (Knopf) is the sequel to Less Than Zero.  Kirkus says: “The novel is short, elliptical and sketchy—even jumpy—but it feels like it takes forever to end. Don’t hold your breath for act three.”

The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst (Little, Brown), about a novelist whose rock star son is arrested for murder, gets a tepid review from Janet Maslin in the New York Times, who says the novel “simply has too much going on. Ms. Parkhurst becomes so involved in creating parallels and coincidences that her once-suspenseful story begins to come unstrung.”

Major Nonfiction Titles on Sale Next Week

How Did You Get This Number? by Sloane Crosley gets thumbs up from Kirkus: “Where her first collection focused on a young professional’s life in Manhattan, this follow-up finds the author—whose day job as a book publicist is rarely mentioned—taking her show on the road… Her literary gifts go well beyond easy laughs. The humor flows naturally and subtly from characters and situations, as if these were real-life short stories.”

Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth by James M. Tabor (Random House) aims to find the deepest cave system in the world. Library Journal calls it “a gripping and well-written account of the treacherous world of deep cave exploration.” The author is scheduled to appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart next week.

Uncharted Territori by Tori Spelling (Gallery) chronicles the ongoing escapades of a former 90210 star.

Weeks ahead of its release next Tuesday, The Facebook Effect by Fortune magazine’s David Kirkpatrick has received hundreds of mentions across the web in virtually every news article about Facebook’s latest adjustments to its privacy policy as it nears the milestone of 500 million worldwide members. The book is already at #409 on Amazon, and libraries are showing growing holds on light orders.

This is the Facebook that Facebook wants you to see — both the glamorous and the ugly sides of one of the most successful, fastest-growing companies in recent memory… It’s fascinating. It’s well-written and masterfully reported. Still, one is left wondering if anything more sordid was missed.

The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World David Kirkpatrick Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-06-08) ISBN / EAN: 1439102112 / 9781439102114

Other Major Nonfiction Titles on Sale Next Week

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain (Ecco) offers an unvarnished look at young superstar chef David Chang, the revered Alice Waters,  “Top Chef” winners and losers, and more.

The Only Game in Town: Sportswriting from the New Yorker edited by David Remnick (Random House) collects pieces from Roger Angell, A.J. Liebling, John Updike, Don Delillo and others.

After months of buzz leading up to Book Expo, where The Passage was dubbed “the book of the show,” Justin Cronin‘s tale of a young girl who holds the power to save humanity from a plague of vampires arrives in stores next week. The media is giving it the full blockbuster treatment, while in most libraries we checked, holds are at about 10:1.

Was it worth the wait? Entertainment Weekly says yes, giving the novel an A-:

The Passage owes a substantial debt to both King’s [The Stand] and Cormac McCarthy’s [The Road], and he is not immune to some of the hoarier tropes of Armageddon fiction… but his bogeymen, the vampiric, blood-
hungry beasts known as ”virals,” are
 magnificently unnerving, and his power to compel readers to the next page seldom flags.

Time magazine’s Lev Grossman is all admiration, calling it a “magnificent beast of a new novel.” He gives Cronin props for combining his skills as a “literary” novelist (his first book, Mary and O’Neil, won the PEN/Hemingway award), his “extraordinary level of verbal craft and psychological insight” with strong pacing. “He lays out the ground rules, sets the initial conditions and then lets the machine run while you, the reader, claw helplessly for an off switch.”

People gives it the lead review, seconds the comparison to The Stand and adds The Andromeda Strain, but gives it only three out of four stars (review not online until next week):

“Unfortunately The Passage doesn’t quite live up to its forerunners. The first 200 pages are spectacular…Then the story jumps forward a century — and loses momentum… [the] books is bogged down by generic set pieces and color-by-numbers action sequences.”

The New York Times tells the backstory on how Cronin conceived the trilogy that begins wtih The Passage, which fetched a reported $3.75 million, and $1.75 for film rights. while USA Today offers snappy soundbites on the author and book, which was also selected by independent booksellers as the #1 Indie Next Pick for June.

The Passage Justin Cronin Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 784 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2010-06-08) ISBN / EAN: 0345504968 / 9780345504968

Other Major Fiction Titles on Sale Next Week

Vampire alert! In addition to The Passage, there are two other novels about the blood-loving breed landing next week. And let’s not forget the androids!

• Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer (Little Brown Teens) features a character first introduced in Eclipse, and the darker side of the newborn vampire world she inhabits.
• Insatiable by Meg Cabot (Morrow) is a contemporary sequel to Dracula from the bestselling author of the Princess Diaries.
• Android Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books) is the latest in the Quirk Classics series.

These three Indie Next picks for June are also getting mentions in various summer reading roundups or were featured at BEA:

• Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson (Grand Central) is the #2 Indie Next pick after The Passage:  “Jackson writes like a woman on fire, hooking you in the very first sentence (‘It was an airport gypsy that told me I had to kill my husband’) and demanding total absorption straight through to the novel’s stunning conclusion,” says the blurb. Jackson was also one of the AAP Librarians Lunch speakers at BEA.
• A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Knopf) is a collection of layered stories about an aging record exec and his passionate, troubled employee.
• So Cold the River by Michael Koryta (Little, Brown) is about a floundering filmmaker who, in the course of making a documentary about a self-made millionaire, discovers abilities in himself that draw him to a powerful source of evil. “Koryta’s prose is fluid and masterful, making this a delightfully eerie and mesmerizing read,” according to Indie Next.

And here are some of the usual suspects for  summer reading:

• The Lion by Nelson DeMille (Grand Central) is a followup to The Lion’s Game and stars John Corey, former NYPD homicide detective and special agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force.
• Death Echo by Elizabeth Lowell (HarperCollins) is the fifth St. Kilda Consulting thriller (after Blue Smoke and Murder). According to PW, “Lowell’s primary focus on espionage rather than on romance is a major change from earlier novels, albeit a pleasing one.”

Clearly, publishers have stayed away from releasing big adult titles next week, since all the air will be sucked up by the release of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the third and final entry in Stieg Larsson‘s Millennium trilogy. It’s true that a John Grisham title is coming this week, but it is for kids. There is also a Stephen King title, but it was already released earlier in a limited small press edition.

And, indeed, the review media is all over Girl.

In today’s New York Times, Michiko Kakutani, the least populist of the NYT reviewers, tries to explain why the series is so popular, and decides it’s not the gore, but the tatooed main character, Lisbeth Salander,

…a heroine who takes on a legal system and evil, cartoony villains with equal ferocity and resourcefulness; a damaged sprite of a girl who becomes a goth-attired avenging angel who can hack into any computer in the world and seemingly defeat any foe in hand-to-hand combat.

Sarah Weinman in The Barnes and Noble Review has a more interesting theory, the appeal is about information,

…Larsson’s enthusiasm for the information he spills out, be it on the annals of his country’s darkest political crimes or the specs of the computer Salander works with, is infectious. Did you know how cool this is? he asks. We did not, but now we do—and yeah, it is pretty cool.

Entertainment Weekly gives it at B+, saying:

Fans of the first two books might miss the Hollywood-blockbuster action sequences and wish Salander — the series’ most compelling character — were more of a presence, but Hornet’s Nest is still a satisfying finale to Larsson’s entertainingly suspenseful trilogy.

USA Today is less impressed:

Hornet’s Nest lacks the narrative drive, energy and originality of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. Those books, you inhaled. Reading this one feels like work. It’s more like a first draft than a polished novel.

Meanwhile, Time magazine delves into the intrigue surrounding Larsson’s estate, following his death in 2004.

The publisher is holding a Lisbeth Salander look-a-like contest.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest Stieg Larsson Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-05-25) ISBN / EAN: 030726999X / 9780307269997

• UNABR CD from Random House Audio available May 25: $40; ISBN 9780739384190
• Large Print from Random House: $28; ISBN 9780739377710
• WMA Audiobook available from OverDrive

Other Major Titles On Sale Next Week

Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham (Dutton) is the first in a series of books targeted at 8- to 12-year-olds, and focuses on a 13-year-old who becomes interwined in a murder trial. Dutton is offering a sneak peek of first chapter. Unsurprisingly, reserves are as high as 3:1 or more at libraries we checked.

Blockade Billy by Stephen King (Simon & Schuster) was released in the Spring in a limited edition from small press Cemetary Dance Publications, which most libraries own. The book is set in the spring of 1957, as an offbeat baseball player achieves stardom. The Los Angeles Times was less than impressed: “Like all King’s work, it has momentum, but reading it, ultimately, is like watching a big leaguer sit in with a farm team: interesting, perhaps, but without the giddy excitement, the sheer, explosive sense of possibility, that marks the highest levels of the game.”

Sidney Sheldon’s After the Darkness by Sidney Sheldon and Tilly Bagshawe (Morrow) is a tale of a New York socialite who marries an elderly hedge fund manager.

Infinity: Chronicles of Nick by Sherrilyn Kenyon (St. Martin’s) is the author’s first novel for teens to feature the immortal vampire slayers of her bestselling Dark Hunter series.

The Necromancer by Michael Scott (Delacorte Books for Young Readers) is the fourth installment in the popular series about The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.

Two notable women’s memoirs go on sale next week – both with modest holds in libraries we checked, though that’s likely to change as the media weighs in.

Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home by Lisa Ling Morrow is a reporter’s account of her 2009 capture and five month imprisonment in North Korea, after filming a documentary about women who defected from North Korea to China and were later forced into arranged marriages or sex slavery.

In a starred review, Booklist calls the memoir “a riveting story of captivity and the enduring faith, determination, and love of two sisters.”

The authors will be on Oprah on May 18th, and on the Today Show as well as CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 on May 19th. For more details, see EarlyWord’s Harper Buzz titlle page.

Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home Laura Ling, Lisa Ling Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: William Morrow – (2010-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0062000675 / 9780062000675

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Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations by Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the author’s third memoir of her escape from an arranged marriage in Somalia to Holland, and most recently of building a new life in America.

PW was not impressed:

…many personal stories are repeated from her earlier accounts… Her wholesale condemnation of an entire religion and the multiple cultures it has engendered is so sweeping and comprehensive, and her faith in Western values (particularly her romantic view of Christianity) is so wide-eyed, that the book ultimately reads like a callow exercise in expressing the author’s own sense of aggrievement.

Hirsi Ali recently contributed an op-ed to the Wall St. Journal about a fatwa against the creators of the comedy show South Park for their portrayal of the prophet Muhammad.

Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations Ayaan Hirsi Ali Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Free Press – (2010-05-18) ISBN / EAN: 1439157316 / 9781439157312

The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern (Algonquin). Yes, this is a novel about a frozen rabbi who thaws in the late 20th century after being found by Bernie Karp, of Memphis, Tenn., in his parents’ freezer.

A starred Booklist review says “an uproarious and trouncing romp through the anguish and ironies of the Jewish diaspora matches mysticism with mayhem, beatitude with organized crime, creativity with crassness.”

The Frozen Rabbi Steve Stern Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2010-05-11) ISBN / EAN: 156512619X / 9781565126190

Other Fiction Releasing This Week

Miracle on the 17th Green, by James Patterson & Peter De Jonge, Little, Brown. UPDATE: This is a rerelease of an earlier Patterson title. The publisher’s catalog, p. 22, says, “Just in time for the golf season and Father’s Day…James Patterson’s classic golf novel is beautifully repackaged here as the perfect gift for a new generation of golfers.” An audio version is being released for the first time (Hachette Audio; UNABR; 978-1-60788-202-2; $24.98).

Wanna Get Lucky?, by Deborah Coonts, (Forge Books).  Booklist says, “this is chick-lit gone wild and sexy, lightly wrapped in mystery and tied up with a brilliantly flashing neon bow. As the first in a series, Wanna Get Lucky? hits the proverbial jackpot.” The author, who is also the wife of Stephen Coonts, will be  featured at the AAP Librarian Lunch at the BEA.

The Good Son, by Michael Gruber, (Holt). LJ says the author’s “latest high-stakes thriller, good from start to finish, will enhance his reputation.”

My Name is Mary Sutter, by Robin Oliveira, (Viking). This historical novel about a young midwife who becomes a surgeon’s assistant during the Civil War is a “graceful, assured portrayal of a courageous woman shines through in [Oliveira’s] outstanding debut novel,” according to Booklist. It is also a featured pick for May by independent booksellers.

Fever Dream by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston (Grand Central). The 10th thriller starring FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast.

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin (St. Martin’s) explores the adulterous temptations facing a pediatric surgeon.

The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer (Minotaur) follows a recently imprisoned CIA agent forced to reassert his loyalty through difficult test missions.

Executive Intent by Dale Brown (HarperCollins). A”near-future” political thriller.

The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis, Knopf. Amis lives up to his reputation for shocking; the book even gets reviewed by The New York Post.

The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor (Ecco). The literary heavyweight of the month, by an NBCC-award winner.

Young Adult

The Cardturner by Louis Sachar (Delacorte) tells the story of a high school student whose parents force him to drive his elderly rich uncle to bridge games.

Among the nonfiction titles going on sale next week, War by Sebastian Junger is poised to get the lion’s share of media attention. Holds are mounting at libraries we checked, undoubtedly helped by the advance publicity for this account of a platoon fighting in Afghanistan, which includes a New York Times op-ed by Junger and an excerpt from the book in Newsweek.

Junger will kick off his media tour with an interview on Good Morning America next Tuesday, May 11.

PW says that “Junger mixes visceral combat scenes raptly aware of his own fear and exhaustion with quieter reportage and insightful discussions of the physiology, social psychology, and even genetics of soldiering. The result is an unforgettable portrait of men under fire.”

Kirkus finds the book “often harrowing, though mostly conventional.”

WAR Sebastian Junger Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Twelve – (2010-05-11) ISBN / EAN: 0446556246 / 9780446556248

Large Print; Hachette; hardcover; ISBN 9780446566971; $28.99
Hachette Audio; UNABR CD; ISBN 9781607881988; $29.98
BBC Audio; UNABR; 9781607885344; 10 CD’s; $74.99
Adobe EPUB eBook and WMA Audiobook from OverDrive

Other Major Titles on Sale Next Week

Storm Warning: Whether Global Recession, Terrorist Threats, or Devastating Natural Disasters, These Ominous Shadows Must Bring Us Back to the Gospel by Billy Graham is the Christian evangelist’s latest examination of America’s problems. Though it’s the top pick on B&N.com’s “Coming Soon” list for next week, three out of four libraries we checked do not have it.

Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World’s Religions Can Come Together by the Dalai Lama (Doubleday) advocates peaceful coexistence based on shared human experience. Not all libraries we checked had this one either.

The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies and a Company Called DreamWorks by Nicole LaPorte (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is a behind-the-scenes look at the Hollywood studio formed in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Entertainment Weekly gives it a B-, saying that “LaPorte offers sharp critiques of business blunders made by DreamWorks’ founders… but with her blow-by-blow tale running well over 400 pages, it’s clear that she could learn a thing or two from the man about storytelling.”

Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm (Penguin) gets a positive review from hard-to-please Michiko Kakutani at the New York Times: “Roubini, a professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business, uses his gifts as a teacher to give the lay reader a succinct, lucid and compelling account of the causes and consequences of the great meltdown of 2008.”

Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball by Bill Madden (Harper) gets thumbs up from Kirkus: “Having covered the Yankees for 30 years, and with access to previously unavailable material, Madden provides a definitive and captivating biography of ‘The Boss.’ “

Three much buzzed-about novels will be released next week.

As we’ve written before, Brady Udall’s The Lonely Polygamist was the book of the show at the ABA’s Winter Institute. Daniel Goldin, owner of Boswell & Books in Milwaukee observed, “not only did every person who read this novel become overwhelmed with emotion, but the line for getting this book signed at the author reception had to be three times the size of anything else.”

Udall first became a bookseller favorite with The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint nine years ago, and wrote the article that inspired the TV series “Big Love.” Libraries we checked had holds of about 2:1 on substantial orders.

The Lonely Polygamist: A Novel Brady Udall Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 602 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2010-05-03) ISBN-10: 0393062627 ISBN-13: 9780393062625

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Julie Orringer’s first novel, The Invisible Bridge, may also be poised for a breakout. The author of the much-praised story collection How to Breathe Underwater has already been singled out as the first writer to be interviewed for the Daily Beast Writers to Watch list.

PW’s starred review calls it a “stunning first novel” that “illuminates the life of Andras Lévi, a Hungarian Jew of meager means whose world is upended by a scholarship to the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris” during WWII.

Libraries we checked show modest holds on modest orders, but that may change as more media chimes in.

The Invisible Bridge Julie Orringer Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 624 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-05-04) ISBN / EAN: 1400041163 / 9781400041169

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Jean Kwok‘s tale of a Hong Kong girl’s coming of age in 1980s Brooklyn, Girl in Translation, was also an EarlyWord Galley Chat title (reminder; our next Galley Chat is Wednesday, May 12th, 4 p.m. EST). Libraries we checked have solid reserves, with some libraries just catching up to demand. The author will appear at the ALTAFF program at ALA in June.

Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+: “Kwok takes two well-trod literary conceits — coming of age and coming to America — and renders them surprisingly fresh in her fast-moving, clean-prosed immigrants’ tale.

Girl in Translation Jean Kwok Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2010-04-29) ISBN / EAN: 1594487561 / 9781594487569

Major titles on sale next week

Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Series #10) by Charlaine Harris (Ace) gets a mixed review from PW: “Though the action often builds too slowly, the exploration of family in its many human and undead variations is intriguing, and Harris delivers her usual mix of eccentric characters and engaging subplots.”

Savor the Moment (Nora Roberts’ Bride Quartet Series #3) by Nora Roberts (Penguin) is set in a wedding business run by four BFFs, and according to PW is “a tart fairy tale romance [that] offers few surprises, but it’s impossible to deny Roberts’s flair for sketching likable couples.”

Innocent by Scott Turow (Grand Central) is a sequel to his breakthrough courtroom thriller, Presumed Innocent, set 20 years later. Reviewers are already lining up. In the NYT, the tart-tongued Michiko Kakutani tackles it, rather than Janet Maslin, who usually handles popular titles. Kakutani, in a “on the one hand, but then on the other” review, seems to like the book despite herself.  In yesterday’s USA Today, Dierdre Donahue praises the book without reservation; “In the jaded world of best-selling authors, Turow has always seemed refreshingly uncynical. He’s not just cranking out formulaic moneymakers.” Donahue adds, “Turow is the rarest of writers: one who can write seriously and insightfully about sex. It’s not an easy task … [he] is at his best conveying what hasn’t changed since 1987 or, really, since the beginning of time: the darkness of the human heart.”

The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles Series #1) by Rick Riordan (Hyperion) is the beginning of a new YA series that Kirkus gives a mixed review: “The gods sure are busy in New York City. Manhattan was the site of the climactic battle of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Now, Brooklyn is the base for Riordan’s new series involving Egyptian gods. Similar story, different gods.”

Blue-Eyed Devil (Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch Series #4) by Robert B. Parker (Penguin) is an “excellent posthumous western from bestseller Parker that continues the saga of gun-slinging saddle pals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch (after “Brimstone”) as they trade wisecracks and hot lead with back-shooting owlhoots and murderous Apaches in the town of Appaloosa.” according to PW.