Of the titles going on sale this week, Joshua Ferris’s much-anticipated second novel, The Unnamed, has the most buzz. The tale of how a wealthy New York lawyer and his family cope with his mysterious illness is the #1 Indie Pick for January. Libraries are showing modest holds on modest ordering in the libraries we checked.

Reviews are mixed:

• Newsweek and the Wall St. Journal have already praised the book, though both reviewers struggle with the metaphorical meaning of the protagonist’s illness.
• The Los Angeles Times is most positive, calling The Unnamed “accomplished and daring” and describing it as  “lay[ing] bare the fabric of families, the lengths people will go for the ones they love and the lack of value we place on the simple ability to pause, to stop and to reconsider all the steps we’ve made.
• Entertainment Weekly is less sanguine, and gives it a B- for wandering aimlessely.

What’s your take?  Are the reviews fair? Will your patrons enjoy this one?

The Unnamed Joshua Ferris Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books – (2010-01-18) ISBN / EAN: 0316034010 / 9780316034012

Audio from Hachette Audio:

• CD: $34.98; ISBN 9781600248771

Large Print from Regan Arthur Books:

• $24.99; ISBN 9780316074001

Also coming this week:

• Wolf at the Door (Sean Dillon Series #17) by Jack Higgins, Putnam: hold ratios as high as 5:1
• The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes, Viking: holds of about 2:1 or more.
• Kisser by Stuart Woods, Putnam: holds as high as 9:1 in one of the libraries we checked
• The Burning Land (Saxon Tales) by Bernard Cornwell, Harper: Holds up to 5:1

The heaviest holds for fiction going on sale next week are on Robert Crais‘s thriller, The First Rule: A Joe Pike Novel, an IndieBound pick for January and a popular Amazon preorder.

The First Rule (Joe Pike Novels) Robert Crais Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Putnam Adult – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0399156135 / 9780399156137

Audio available from Brilliance Corporation:

• CD: $87.97; ISBN 9781423375494
• CD, MP-3: $24.99; ISBN 9781423375500

Large Print from Wheeler Publishing:

• $35.99; ISBN 9781410421418

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Elizabeth Kostova‘s The Swan Thieves – her second novel after her blockbuster 2005 debut, The Historian – has hold ratios of about four to one in libraries we checked.

Entertainment Weekly grades it a “C,” with the criticism that this literary thriller about a mentally ill painter obsessed with a dead woman doesn’t maintain a sense of urgency – “a desperate flaw for a story of passion and obsession.”

The Swan Thieves Elizabeth Kostova Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0316065781 / 9780316065788

Read an Excerpt

Audio from Hachette:

• CD: $39.98; ISBN 9781600247453

Large Print:

• Little Brown: $28.99; ISBN 9780316043663

Playaway:

• $104.99; ISBN 9781607884828

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Beth Hoffman’s debut novel Saving Ceecee Honeycutt, which was acquired by the same editor as Sue Monk Kidd’s Secret Life of Bees, is getting a push from the publisher and many enthusiastic quotes from booksellers. It’s also the first pick in the new Sam’s Club Book Club, according to GalleyCat, and will be featured in all 600 of the chain’s big box stores.

Prepub reviews included a starred Library Journal review:

“Southern storytelling at its best, this coming-of-age novel is sure to be a hit with the book clubs that adopted Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees.”

Libraries we checked are showing modest holds.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt Beth Hoffman Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0670021393 / 9780670021390

Penguin Audio

• CD: $39.95; ISBN 9780143145547

Large Print from Thorndike

• $34.95; ISBN 9781410422750

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Melanie Benjamin‘s portrait of Alice Liddel, Lewis Carroll’s muse in Alice I Have Been, is a big favorite of Random House’s library marketing team, who compare it to Nancy Horan’s reading-club favorite Loving Frank. In fact, the author invites reading groups to contact her and possibly arrange a phone-in.

Prepub reviews bear out the inhouse enthusiasm; Booklist says, “First-novelist Benjamin tells … a story that is a mixture of historically accurate fact and liberally imagined fiction, including her solution to the mystery of what actually happened to estrange Carroll … from his muse’s family.”

Most large libraries have ordered modestly, with 2:1 holds. However, one library clearly expects strong demand, ordering 80 copies.

Alice I Have Been Melanie Benjamin Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0385344139 / 9780385344135

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Elena Gorokhova‘s memoir of  growing up in 1960s Leningrad, A Mountain of Crumbs, has already received positive reviews in Elle and More magazines. Libraries are showing holds of three to one on modest orders.

A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir Elena Gorokhova Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 1439125678 / 9781439125670

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Also on sale next week:

• John Lescroart’s new mystery, Treasure Hunt
• Amy Bloom’s new story collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. Her novel, Away, was a bestseller. People gives the new collection 3.5 stars and makes it a People Pick. Bloom’s subject is love. Several of the stories are interlinked and People says they “hit harder than the stand-alones: mapping passion’s fallout takes time.”

The first big memoirs of the year arrive – with bestseller Elizabeth Gilbert at the forefront.

Gilbert‘s much anticipated Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage arrives after some delay. PW found her voice “clear and winning,” but declared that her hybrid of her own travelogue and the history of marriage “doesn’t work.” It’s a big year for Gilbert: in August, the film version of her international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love arrives, directed by Glee creator and producer Ryan Murphy, and starring Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, James Franco and Billy Crudup.

NOTE: Gilbert is the MidWinter Sunrise Speaker on Sat., Jan. 17, 8–9 a.m.

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage Elizabeth Gilbert Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 0670021652 / 9780670021659

Audio from Penguin Audiobooks

• CD: $29.95; ISBN 9780143145752

Audio also available from OverDrive

• OverDrive WMA Audiobook

Large Print from Thorndike Press

• $34.95; ISBN: 9781410422767

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Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him by Alanna Nash was reviewed recently by Janet Maslin in the New York Times – who called it “long, repetitive and dirt-digging” and also “embarrassingly tempting.”

Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him Alanna Nash Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 704 pages Publisher: It Books – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061699845 / 9780061699849

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Two memoirs by media-genic authors are also starting to pick up some online buzz. Mika Brzezinski‘s All Things at Once is an account by the co-host on CNBC’s “Morning Joe” about the difficulty of balancing her career and being the mother of two young daughters.

All Things at Once Mika Brzezinski Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Weinstein Books – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 1602861110 / 9781602861114

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Andrea Lyon‘s Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer is a lawyer’s story of how she helped 19 clients found guilty of capital murder avoid the death penalty, and also an Indie Next pick for January.

Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer Andrea Lyon Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Kaplan Publishing – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 1607144344 / 9781607144342

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Also to be released next week:

• Suze Orman’s Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny (Spiegel & Grau)

In the new year, new fiction awaits.

Tracy Chevalier returns with Remarkable Creatures, based on the lives of two Victorian women who become fossil hunters. Booklist called it a “perfect choice for book clubs and for Austen fans.”  This new title by the author of The Girl with the Pearl Earring is also an Indie Next pick for January, and received a rousing review in the Guardian (UK), though the PW review was much less sanguine.

NOTE: Chevalier will be speaking at MidWinter, as part of the ALA/ERT Author Forum, “From Book to Big Screen” (Fri., Jan. 15, 4–5:15 p.m.)

Remarkable Creatures Tracy Chevalier Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Dutton Adult – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 0525951458 / 9780525951452

Audio from Penguin Audiobooks  (01/01/2010)

• Compact Disc: $ 39.95; ISBN 9780143145301

Large Print from Thorndike Press (01/01/2010)

• $33.95; ISBN 9781410422880

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Jonathan Dee‘s The Privileges, about the gradual dissolution of a hedge fund manager’s family, wins admiration from Salon‘s Laura Miller, who observes that Dee succeeds in maintaining sympathy for the Morey family, whose invulnerability “in time, becomes a flaw.”

The Privileges Jonathan Dee Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 1400068673 / 9781400068678

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Leila Meacham‘s debut novel, Roses, is a multi-generational saga about two Texan families with fortunes tied to cotton and timber.  PW calls it an “enthralling stunner, a good old-fashioned read” and compares it to the work of Barbara Taylor Bradford and Colleen McCullough. After a big push at Book Expo last year, it’s getting some buzz on the reader community at Goodreads.

Roses Leila Meacham Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 624 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2010-01-06) ISBN / EAN: 0446550000 / 9780446550000

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Other fiction coming next week:

• Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler (Knopf): People gave it 3 out of 4 stars, saying that it “isn’t first-rate Tyler…the first chapters sag…[but once the book] comes alive, it’s worth the wait.”
• Impact by Douglas Preston (Forge)
• Iron River by T. Jefferson Parker (Dutton)
• Thereby Hangs a Tail by Spencer Quinn (Atria): The second in a new mystery series, featuring a charming canine detective and written under a pseudonym by Peter Abrahams. The debut was a bestseller last year. Fans can look forward to even more; the author is under contract for two more titles in the series.

Hoping that stores will be overwhelmed with shoppers this week before Christmas, publishers are giving them and their back room staffs a break, by releasing fewer big-name titles.

12/14

Patterson, James Witch & Wizard

Patterson begins a new YA series with co-author Gabrielle Charbonnet. Unsurprisingly, it is drawing the most holds of books being pubbed this week, averaging 5 to 1 at several large libraries.

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12/15

Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus Nanny Returns

Nanny is welcomed back with a B+ from Entertainment Weekly and  3.5 of 4 stars from People, which say it’s “as bitingly funny as its predecessor.” Holds are rather light (readers may have put off by that dreadful movie of the first title).

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12/15

Dominick Dunne, Too Much Money

Entertainment Weekly gives Dunne’s posthumous book a middling C, saying, “like a high-society dinner party — it promises glitz and excitement, but devolves into something of a bore.”

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12/15

Timothy Ferris, The Four-Hour Work Week

The work week may still have only four hours, but the new edition of the book has expanded from 320 pages to 416. An updated audio is also available.

Sue Grafton’s U is for Undertow is the clear leader in the number of hold per copy for titles arriving next week, with nearly 4 times the number than the next-highest title, J. A. Jance’s Trial by Fire. People gives it 4 of 4 stars, saying, “expect to be spellbound.”

We’re surprised that Greg Mortenson’s Stones into Schools, the follow-up to his continuing bestseller, Three Cups of Tea (at #3 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction list after 147 weeks) is showing less than 2 holds per copy on modest ordering. The Amazon rankings show more interest, where Stones into Schools is at #50.

Nonfiction, 12/1

Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession Julie Powell Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2009-12-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316003360 / 9780316003360

Hachette Audio; 9781600245695; $29.98
Large Print; 9780316053822; pbk; $24.99
Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive

You’d think the success of the movie based partly on Julie Powell’s previous title, Julie & Julia would be the perfect setup for her second memoir, Cleaving, but library holds are fewer than two per copy on cautious ordering.

Originally timed to coincide with the release of the movie, the publisher suddenly decided to hold off until December, a move The New York Observer regarded with deep suspicion. Their take was that the filmmakers feared the story of Julie’s “insane, irresistible love affair with one of her close friends,” would turn off potential audiences (right! We only wish that books had such power over movies). The more likely story is that the publisher didn’t want it to compete with their two Julie & Julia tie-in editions.

Will fans of the Julie in Julie & Julia, the book or the movie, be willing to accept a darker Julie who is hurtful to her “sainted” husband Eric? How interested will they be with her turning from an obsession with Mastering the Art of French Cooking to an obsession with mastering the art of blood-and-guts butchery?

In an interview in USA Today, Powell herself predicts that people are “going to totally react very negatively. They’ll find me reprehensible. But to counterbalance the negativism, I hope there will be people who empathize with my experience, who maybe feel the book addresses things they wish they could talk about more.”

Entertainment Weekly gives Cleaving a B -, with kudos for the “gutsy, profane, energetic writer we first met mastering a stew from a recipe,” but put off by the fact that “…here, she’s in a stew of her own making, with ingredients that leave a strange taste.”

Elle magazine is less grudging,

Julie Powell’s follow-up to Julie & Julia paints a visceral, compulsively readable picture of what it looks like when you fully indulge with a fantasy object who isn’t your spouse…. She’s one of those narcissists who can’t be truly alone with herself, and while this fear drives her manic activities and her highly engaging accounts of them, it’s also what keeps a very good memoir from being great…Still, Powell has honed her writing chops along with her culinary skills, and her extended metaphor is dead on: how we can systematically hack each other apart without ever getting to the heart of our desires.”

We’ve included a link to a sizable portion of excerpts provided by the publisher; they prove that Powell has indeed honed her writing skills. Vegetarians be forewarned; there are many scenes of butchery.

Nonfiction, 12/1; continued

Mortenson, Greg,  Stones Into Schools, Viking

Michael F. Roizen, YOU: Having a Baby: The Owner’s Manual to a Happy and Healthy Pregnancy, Free Press/S&S

Armstrong, Lance, Comeback 2.0, S&S — Armstrong will appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on 12/2.

Fiction, 12/1

Dunne, Dominick Too Much Money, Crown/Random House

Berry, Steve The Paris Vendetta, Ballantine/Random House

Jance, J.A. Trial by Fire, S&S

Zane, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Atria

Grafton, Sue U is for Undertow, Putnam

When Michael Chrichton died last year, he left two books, Pirate Latitudes, which releases next week and an unfinished thriller.

Of the titles coming out next week, those by Chrichton, Koontz, & Butcher lead in holds. Butcher has the highest holds to copies ratios.

Fiction

11/24

Butcher, Jim, First Lord’s Fury
Chrichton, Michael, Pirate Latitudes

Pirate Latitudes Michael Crichton Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Harper – (2009-12-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061929379 / 9780061929373 HarperAudio: 9780061930256; $34.99 HarperLuxe: 9780061929403; pbk; $27.99

Audio downloadable from OverDrive

Entertainment Weekly gives Pirate Latitudes a C, saying Crichton should not be remembered for this “hackneyed historical novel filled with bosomy maidens and blustery old navy dialogue.” but, “Crichton’s great talent was writing books that were virtually impossible to put down, even when they were bad. Pirate Latitudes is no exception.” Spielberg bought the film rights back in August (Jurassic Park with pirates?).

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Jin, Ha, A Good Fall

A Good Fall: Stories Ha Jin Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Pantheon – (2009-11-24) ISBN / EAN: 0307378683 / 9780307378682 Blackstone Audio: CD 9781441711458: $29.95

Book and audio downloadable from OverDrive

This collection of stories by 1999 National Book Award winner, Ha Jin gets the lead review and 3.5 of a possible 4 stars in People‘s “Books” section this week. The stories feature people who leave China to try for a new life in the U.S. People says Jin “writes with humor about it means to be a bewildered stranger in a strange land.”

Koontz, Dean, Breathless
Roker, Al, The Morning Show Murders
Wambaugh, Joseph, Hollywood Moon

Nonfiction

11/24

Sklenicka, Carol Raymond Carver
Bradley, James The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War
Scottoline, Lisa, Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman

Childrens

11/24

Hunter, Erin, Warriors: Omen of the Stars #1: The Fourth Apprentice

Warriors: Omen of the Stars #1: The Fourth Apprentice Erin Hunter Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: HarperCollins – (2009-12-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061555096 / 9780061555091

Book downloadable from OverDrive

Getting the most attention of the books coming next week, of course, is Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue. Palin taped an interview with Oprah on Thursday for Monday’s show. An interview with Barbara Walters will air in five parts, beginning on Good Morning America on Tuesday, the day the book is released. Copies have been strategically leaked, causing a press feeding frenzy, but most sources say there are no surprises; as the AP puts it, the book confirms that “the McCain-Palin campaign was not a happy family.”

Based on holds, next week’s biggest book is the new James Patterson I, Alex Cross. At four large library systems, holds are nearly three times higher on the Patterson title than on Palin’s (2,546 for Patterson; 885 for Palin).

Fiction

11/16

Patterson, James,  I, Alex Cross

11/17

Cussler, Clive, The Wrecker
Munro, Alice, Too Much Happiness
Nabokov, Vladimir, The Original of Laura
Weber, David, Torch of Freedom

Nonfiction

11/17

Palin, Sarah, Going Rogue

Young Adult

11/17

Horowitz, Anthony, Crocodile Tears: An Alex Rider Adventure
Noel, Alyson, Shadowland: The Immortals

Next week is relatively light in terms of number of titles from big names.

Memoirs

Open: An Autobiography Andre Agassi Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2009-11-09) ISBN / EAN: 0307268195 / 9780307268198

Random House Audio; 9780739358566; $32

An excerpt from Open was the cover story in last week’s People and the press has been covering his admission that he took crystal meth. Agassi will be interviewed by Katie Couric on 60 Minutes on Sunday. The book gets a strong review in the new issue of Time. Despite all the publicity, holds in libraries are light.

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Last Words: A Memoir George Carlin Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Free Press – (2009-11-10) ISBN / EAN: 1439172951 / 9781439172957

S&S Audio; 9781442303188; $29.99

Fiction

Holds are running heavier at most libraries for Linda Howard’s new book than they are for Stephen King’s.

Ice: A Novel Linda Howard Retail Price: $22.00 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2009-11-10) ISBN / EAN: 0345517199 / 9780345517197

Random House Audio; 9780307577610; $30
Large Print; Thorndike; 9781410420343; hdbk; $33.95

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Under the Dome: A Novel Stephen King Retail Price: $35.00 Hardcover: 1088 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2009-11-10) ISBN / EAN: 1439148503 / 9781439148501

S&S Audio; 9780743597302; $75

Gets 3.5 out of a possible 4 stars in the new issue of People, saying “although it lacks the power and strangeness of works like It and The Shining, it is till a wildly entertaining trip.”

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Wishin’ and Hopin’: A Christmas Story Wally Lamb Retail Price: $19.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Harper – (2009-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 006194100X / 9780061941009

HarperAudio; 9780061953262; $19.99
HarperLuxe; 9780061950261; pbk; $19.99

The first three titles being discounted in the book price wars release next week:

11/3 Grisham, John, Ford County
11/3 Kingsolver, Barbara, Lacuna
11/3 Robb, J.D., Kindred in Death

Ironically, some independent booksellers have cancelled their original orders and will be buying their stock from the enemy [11/2 UPDATE: the online retailers have now imposed a limit on the number of copies customers can order, so this is no longer an option].

On Fiction_L, we asked if any libraries were planning to do the same. All the responders said no, because they get their books cataloged and processed by their wholesaler. Estimating that the savings would amount to $10 a book as opposed to the discounted price through the wholesaler, all said that it would not be worth the cost and effort to switch the orders, catalog, jacket and process the books.

Below is a list of major titles with pub dates next week (some may already be available).

Childrens

11/1 Dennis, Brian, Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle

Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle Brian Dennis, Mary Nethery, Kirby Larson Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 48 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2009-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 031605318X / 9780316053181 Audio from Hachette Audio; 1600248713; $17.98 Also on PlayAway; 1607884313; $39.99 Book and audio downloadable from OverDrive

Many librarians fell in love with this book at BEA, including Lisa Von Drasek

Lots of media is on tap for this, including the Today Show on Monday (8:30 a.m.); Conan O’Brien on 11/9; People magazine, 11/16 (on newsstands 11/6).

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11/1 O’Connor, Jane Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas

11/3 Lupica, Mike, Million-Dollar Throw

Fiction

11/3  Grisham, John, Ford County — A departure for Grisham, this is a collection of short stories.
11/3  Bell, Madison Smartt,  Devil’s Dream
11/3  Brown, Sandra, Rainwater
11/3  Jacobs, Kate, Knit the Season
11/3  Keillor, Garrison,  Christmas Blizzard
11/3  Kingsolver, Barbara, Lacuna
11/3  Robb, J.D., Kindred in Death
11/3  Shaara, Jeff, No Less Victory

Nonfiction

11/2  Foer, Jonathan Safran Eating Animals

Eating Animals Jonathan Safran Foer Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2009-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 0316069906 / 9780316069908 Downloadable eBook from OverDrive

The current issue of Entertainment Weekly gives Eating Animals a solid B, saying,

You can agree wholeheartedly with huge chunks of novelist Jonathan Safran Foer’s sprawling and stirring new pro-vegetarian polemic, Eating Animals, and at the same time find it pompous and annoying.

The Huffington Post is running a series about the book and plans to do so for several weeks, describing the pieces as “a diverse range of responses” and not “your usual book reviews. They are the start of a conversation that some powerful people in agribusiness would rather we not have.” The responses are from a diverse group of people, from Natalie Portman to Andrew Weil and Rabbi David Wolpe, but have all been positive so far.

11/3  Johnson, Paul Churchill — Biography
11/3  Karr, Mary Lit: A Memoir
11/3 Dwight Garner Read Me: A Century of Classic American Book Advertisements
11/3 Gore, Al, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis
Gore will appear on Letterman on the day the book is published and on Jon Stewart the next evening.
11/3 Plouffe, David, The Audacity to Win
Time mgazine is running an exclusive four-page excerpt in the 11/9 issue (on newstands tomorrow). Will appear on Jon Stewart that evening.

The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory David Plouffe Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2009-11-03) ISBN / EAN: 0670021334 / 9780670021338 Audio from Penguin Audiobooks; ISBN: 0143142720; $39.95 Both eBook and audiobook downloadable from OverDrive.

11/3 Osteen, Joel, It’s Your Time

Below are the major releases for next week; several have already been received by the libraries we checked.

Young Adult

10/27  Cast, P.C. and Kristin Cast, Tempted (House of Night Series #6); most libraries have received their copies.

On the heels of Untamed being voted #8 on the YALSA Teen Top Ten list, the latest in the series which has been on the NYT Childrens Series list for 59 weeks. With that track record, the books are impervious to reviews, but nonetheless, the current issue of Entertainment Weekly tackles it and gives it a B, noting that the  “philosophizing goes on a bit too long.”

The next book in the series, according to PC Casts’ blog, will be Burned. No release date is given.

Tempted (House of Night Novels) P. C. Cast, Kristin Cast Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin – (2009-10-27) ISBN / EAN: 0312567480 / 9780312567484

BBC Audio; 9780792764564; $89.95
Audio downloadable from OverDrive

Fiction

10/27 Auster, Paul,  Invisible — Some libraries have received their copies.

10/27 Irving, John,  Last Night in Twisted River — Reviewed in the current Entertainment Weekly, A-

10/27 Harris, Charlaine, Grave Secret — This is a Harper Connelly mystery. The next original Sookie Stackhouse novel is coming May 2010.

10/27 Maguire, Gregory,  Matchless: A Christmas Story

10/27 Rice, Anne,  Angel Time — People, 11/2, gives it  3.5 of 4 stars — “first in a planned series of metaphysical thrillers…[a] thrilling, richly researched tale..[Rice’s] Christian message is sometimes heavy-handed, but the story zips along…”

Angel Time: The Songs of the Seraphim Anne Rice Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2009-10-27) ISBN / EAN: 1400043530 / 9781400043538

Random House Audio, 9780739316085, $35
Random House Large Print, 9780739377352, Pbk, $26
Audio Downloadable from OverDrive

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10/27 Roberts, Nora, Bed of Roses; most libraries have received their copies.

Mystery

10/27 Baldacci, David, True Blue; most libraries have received their copies.

True Blue David Baldacci Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2009-10-27) ISBN / EAN: 0446195510 / 9780446195515

BBC Audio, 9781600249730, $44.98
Grand Central Large Print, 9780446546973, $94.99
Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive

Science Fiction

10/27 Jordan, Robert, Gathering Storm; most libraries have received their copies.

Memoirs

10/27 Burroughs, Augusten, You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas

10/27 Epstein, Jason, Eating: A Memoir

Below are titles that have been featured in the fall previews.

Childrens

10/19 Paterson, Katherine;  Day of the Pelican

Lisa Von Drasek said here, ” you should be uncharacteristically selfish and grab this one first. It is a story of the Kosovo civil war, a refugee story, and a post-9/11 story. Because it is Paterson, the parts add up to more than the whole. Read it.”

The official pub date is 10/19, but most libraries have received their copies.

The Day of the Pelican Katherine Paterson Retail Price: $16.00 Hardcover: 160 pages Publisher: Clarion Books – (2009-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0547181884 / 9780547181882

Audio: Brilliance; 9781441802064; Read by Tavia Gilbert; $24.99
Audio downloadable from OverDrive.

Graphic Books

10/19 Crumb, R. Book of Genesis Illustrated

L.A Times — “An honest, powerful, violent rendering of the Bible’s first book.”

Featured on NPR’s All things Considered — an “Awesome, Affecting Take On Genesis”

Many libraries don’t have it on their catalogs — Hennepin shows it on order, with 33 holds.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb R. Crumb Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. – (2009-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0393061027 / 9780393061024

Fiction

10/20 Cornwell, Patricia; The Scarpetta Factor

Unsurprisingly, of the titles coming out this week, this one has the highest number of holds. Libraries have also ordered the most copies, so holds are running 2 to 1.

10/20 Klosterman, Chuck; Eating the Dinosaur

While Kirkus found this to be “Klosterman at his best” since his bestselling Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs, Entertainment Weekly gives it just a B+, saying Klosterman is “stuck a bit too much in his own head” this time out, although he is still “witty and clever.”

10/20 Pamuk, Orhan;  Museum of Innocence

10/20 Kingsbury, Karen; Shades of Blue

10/20 Pearlman, Ann; The Christmas Cookie Club

One of the few big commercial debuts this fall. Variety reported in May that film rights were sold to the two-year-old CBS Films, which has been set up to release “mid-range films” (costing $50 million or less). Wendy Finerman (The Devil Wears Prada; Forrest Gump) is producing.

Entertainment Weekly gives it the first consumer review, rating it a  C+

The Christmas Cookie Club: A Novel Ann Pearlman Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Atria – (2009-10-20) ISBN / EAN: 1439158843 / 9781439158845

Audio: S&S Audio; 9780743598286; $29.99
Large Print: Wheeler Publishing; 9781410420329; $34.95

10/20 Steel, Danielle; Southern Lights

10/20 Mayle, Peter; The Vintage Caper

10/20 Vonnegut, Kurt; Look at the Birdie

A collection of Vonnegut’s early stories, never before published. The Huffington Post reviewer says, “Usually, I’m wary of posthumous collections of an author’s early work, it seems like they’d just be scraping the bottom of the barrel, but this collection is really a work of art.”

Nonfiction

10/20 Gladwell, Malcolm; What the Dog Saw

10/20 Keegan, John; American Civil War; Just reviewed in the NYT

10/20 Keller, Timothy; Counterfeit Gods

10/20 Levitt, Steven; SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

The authors of the bestselling Freakonomics are raising hackles because of their take on global warming; Paul Krugman, in today’s “Conscience of a Liberal”  column, takes them to task, calling their ideas dangerous and “just plain wrong.”

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: William Morrow – (2009-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0060889578 / 9780060889579

HarperAudio: 9780060889357; $34.99
HarperLuxe: 9780061927577; $29.99
Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive

Biography

10/19 Egan, Timothy; The Big Burn:Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America

Most libraries have received this title. Author was winner of the National Book Award for The Worst Hard Time.

Christian Science Monitor — “what makes The Big Burn particularly impressive is Egan’s skill as an equal-opportunity storyteller… he recounts the stories of men and women completely unknown to most of us with the same fervor he uses to report the stories of historic figures.”

Seattle Post Intelligencer also writes about it.

10/19 Gordon, Linda;  Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits

SF Chronicle

10/20 Shawcross, William; The Queen Mother

The British Press desperately tried to find news in this 1,000 page authorized biography, running headlines like “TV Sit-Coms Tickled Queen Mum.” British reviewers found it too full of detail and too short on interest.

Telegraph — “…in [Shawcross’] zeal for comprehensiveness, he has created a text awash with details of menus consumed, clothes embroidered, presents received, places visited, and foundation stones laid that only a reader with a Queen Mother-sized sense of duty is likely to wade through to the finish line.

Guardian — “indulgent and overlong.”

10/21 Mann, William J, How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood

The British press found this Elizabeth much more interesting than the Queen Mum:

The Times of London:…wisely eschews the blow-by-blow approach and many of the time-honoured anecdotes about Taylor and Burton, instead “zooming in on key periods,” drawing on new interviews with the star’s colleagues and friends, and meticulous research in the MGM archives. While hardly earth-shattering, what emerges is a richly enjoyable biography.

How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood William J. Mann Retail Price: $28.00 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade – (2009-10-21) ISBN / EAN: 0547134649 / 9780547134642