Next week brings a range of titles for readers’ advisors, plus the return of many big names, including Nora Roberts (a LibraryReads pick, see below) and Lisa Scottoline (an Indie Next pick, also below).

Alert, Angry Birds fanatics, a movie is coming, along with tie-ins. For Broadway fans, the tie-in to Hamilton also arrives.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of April 11, 2016

People magazine Picks

CRUSH: Writers Reflect on Love, Longing and the Power of Their First Celebrity Crush, Cathy Alter, Dave Singleton (HarperCollins/Morrow).

Book of the Week: A collection of author’s recollections of their first crushes (Jodi Picot’s was Donny Osmond): “these first passions are hilarious, yes, but also an arrow to the heart.”

The other two picks were both covered in Titles to Know last week.

Tuesday Nights in 1980, Molly Prentiss, (S&S/Gallery/Scout Press): “The gritty New York art scene of the late ’70’s and early ’80’s pulsed with creative energy and so does this engaging novel.”

Miller’s Valley, Anna Quindlen, (PRH/RandomHouse): “a Vietnam-era look at how the true meaning of home can long outlast the structures we grow up in.”

Peer Picks

Two LibraryRead April picks hit shelves this week, a debut and the newest by Nora Roberts.

Julie McElwain’s debut, A Murder in Time (Norton/Pegasus; OverDrive Sample), sends a 26-year old FBI agent back in time to 1815 – where her training stands her in good stead, as there is a serial killer on the loose. Randee J Bybee, of Upland Public Library, Upland, CA, introduces readers to the central character:

“Kendra is a smart, confident protagonist who is familiar with the hustle it takes to stay afloat in a male-dominated profession. Thrown into a situation completely alien to her, she manages to assimilate to her surroundings, albeit roughly, while using her wits to catch a ruthless killer. She can be abrasive, and I found myself cringing, curling my toes, and muttering out loud. It will be fun to watch her mature in future books. McElwain has created a highly entertaining story.”

Nora Roberts’ newest also has a serial killer thread. Marilyn Sieb, of L. D. Fargo Public Library, Lake Mills, WI, says this of The Obsession (PRH/Berkley; Brilliance Audio):

“Readers who love romantic thrillers will be mesmerized by the latest Roberts offering. The suspense kept me up all night! Naomi Carson, a successful young photographer, has moved across the country and fallen in love. She thinks she has escaped her past, but instead finds that the sins of her father have become an obsession. The serial killer premise makes it a tough read for the faint-hearted, but sticking with it leads to a thrilling conclusion.”

The Indie Next selections for the week mirror LibraryReads in that one is a debut and the other is a return of a reader favorite.

Daredevils, Shawn Vestal (Penguin Press; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample) is the debut. NOTE: Read our chat with the author here.

“Gooding, Idaho, 1975: Loretta, Jason, and Boyd, three teenagers each trapped in their own way, find each other and plot their escape. Vestal lays out the history and complexity of their lives and their Mormon community, from Loretta’s becoming an unwilling ‘sister wife’ in a zealous household to Jason’s struggle to identify himself while at odds with his family and hometown. Surreal interludes of ‘Evel Knievel Addresses an Adoring Nation’ showcasing the fevered stunt driver waxing poetic, demonstrate Vestal’s strength with language as a reeling Knievel appears like a vision of cowboy extremism, becoming the off-kilter savior the teenagers have been seeking.” —Julia Sinn, Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

Lisa Scottoline returns with Most Wanted (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“An infertile couple decides to use a sperm donor to create the perfect family they have always wanted. When the wife sees a picture of a man who looks very similar to their donor on the evening news, the story is set in motion. Could their donor be a serial killer? Christine will stop at nothing to find out who the biological father is, even if it means the end of her marriage. This latest novel of suspense from the bestselling Scottoline is fast-paced and will keep readers guessing until the end!” —Sarah Harmuth Letke, Redbery Books, Cable, WI

Tie-ins

Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jeremy McCarter, (Hachette/Grand Central).

Likely to be the first Broadway script to become a best seller, this goes beyond the script to being a tie-in, with photos of the production, cast interviews, and annotations of the lyrics by Miranda.

The show will be featured on PBS Great Performances this fall.

Tim Burton takes on Alice again, this time in Alice Through the Looking Glass and there are three tie-ins connected to the new movie.

First is Alice Through the Looking Glass, Kari Sutherland (Hachette/Disney Press), a novelization of the film. Also on the way is Alice Through the Looking Glass: A Matter of Time, Carla Jablonski with illustrations by Olga Mosqueda, Vivien Wu, Richard Tuzon, and Jeff Thomas (Hachette/Disney Press). It is a “choose-your-own-path” story following different characters through both the familiar Alice story and the film. Finally, the novelization Alice in Wonderland (Based on the motion picture directed by Tim Burton) (Hachette/Disney Press) will be re-issued.

The movie releases May 27th.

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War film also has a tie-in. Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War: The Deluxe Junior Novel, Marvel (Hachette/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; in paperback as well).

The strong opening of Batman v. Superman stumped critics, but box office receipts fell off after the first week, as word of mouth began to counteract heavy marketing. Marvel/Disney have their fingers crossed that their Iron Man and Captain America dust up will not follow in the footsteps of DC Comics/Warner Bros.

There is plenty of news surrounding the film already with the Black Panther set to make his big-screen debut (Chadwick Boseman plays the superhero monarch) and Spiderman also putting in an appearance. The movie opens May 6.

Although Batman v. Superman has shaken DC Comics, they will be trying their luck again with an adaptation of John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad.

A new release, Suicide Squad Vol. 3: Sea of Troubles, (PRH/DC Comics), arrives leading up to the film starring Will Smith, Joel Kinnaman, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Jai Courtney, and Cara Delevingne.

Previous collections are:

Suicide Squad Vol. 1: Trial by Fire 

Suicide Squad Vol. 2: The Nightshade Odyssey.

Forthcoming is Suicide Squad Vol. 4: The Janus Directive

The film opens Aug. 5th.

The animated movie adaptation of the video game Angry Birds has seven more tie-ins forthcoming, on top of the one from last week.

The Angry Birds Movie: The Junior Novel, Chris Cerasi (HC/HarperFestival; OverDrive Sample) is the biggest title connected to the movie this week, but there is also:

The Angry Birds Movie: Meet the Angry Birds [Series: I Can Read Level 2], Chris Cerasi (HarperCollins).

The Angry Birds Movie: Too Many Pigs [Series: I Can Read Level 2], Chris Cerasi (HarperCollins).

The Angry Birds Movie Official Guidebook, Chris Cerasi (HC/HarperFestival).

The Angry Birds Movie: Seeing Red, Sarah Stephens (HC/HarperFestival).

The Angry Birds Movie: Big Trouble on Bird Island, Sarah Stephens (HC/HarperFestival).

The Angry Birds Movie: Laughtastic Joke Book, Courtney Carbone (HC/HarperFestival; OverDrive Sample).

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

The title arriving with the heaviest holds next week as well as greatest number of copies ordered is Stuart Woods’s Family Jewels, Penguin/Putnam; BOT and Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample), which is, gasp, the 37th Stone Barrington novel. PW comments, “Tony trappings, colorful characters, and a magnificent McGuffin provide ample distraction from the occasional dangling plot thread and the implausible ease and frequency with which Stone lands lucrative cases and beds beautiful women. Dry-witted dialogue keeps the tone light and drives this glossy, modern take on the classic detective story,” but Kirkus sniffs, “A low-stakes, low-octane thriller that seems to have been cobbled together entirely from dead ends.”

Prolific Mary Higgins Clark adds another title to the genre that has served her so well, suspense. Her fist major success was the  Where are the Children?, published 42 years ago in 1974 (her first book was a fictionalized bio of George and Martha Washington She quickly changed to suspense).

The new novel, As Time Goes By (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) is described by the publisher as being about “a news reporter tries to find her birth mother just as she is assigned to cover the high-profile trial of a woman accused of murdering her wealthy husband.”

Further down holds lists is relative newcomer Anna Quindlen’s eighth novel, Miller’s Valley (PRH/Random House, Brilliance Audio; RH Large Print; OverDrive Sample) about a young woman growing up in rural Pennsylvania in the 1960’s, Booklist calls it “vintage Quindlen …a compelling family tale rich in recognizable characters, resplendent storytelling, and reflective observations.”

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of April 4. 2016

Media Magnets

The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son On Life, Love, and Loss, Anderson Cooper, Gloria Vanderbilt, (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe)

The famous mother and her equally famous son reflect on their relationship in this book and also in the HBO documentary Nothing Left Unsaid, which debuts on April 9,

The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time. Arianna Huffington (PRH/Harmony; BOT and RH Audio)

The founder of the Huffington Post has had many passions in her life, most of them political, but a personal experience with sleep deprivation made her realize that she needed to try to balance work and life, leading to her book Thrive in 2014. Here she continues one of the themes from that book, the importance of sleep

Kill ‘Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul, by James McBride (PRH/Spiegel & Grau; BOT & RH Audio; OverDrive Sample)

Having written a best selling memoir, The Color of Water  (1996) and the 2013 National Book Award winning novel, The Good Lord Bird, McBride turns to biography in a book about the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. A NYT profile of the author describes the book as being, “about entertainment, of course, but also about much more, including poverty, race, ambition and how to behave.”

Author Rick Moody, writing about it in this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review, lauds McBride for “tackling one of the most complex and most fascinating figures in American music over the last 50 years” and managing to elucidate his life, breaking through many barriers erected because  Brown “did not, in fact, much want to be known.”

People Picks

People magazine’s  “Book of the Week” is Peggy Orenstein’s Girls and Sex, (Harper) which has been getting wide coverage, including an interview with the author on NPR’s Fresh Air this week.

The other two picks are Martha Hall Kelly’s Lilac Girls (listed in Peer Picks, below) and John Elder Robison’s memoir, Switched On, which we covered earlier.

Peer Picks

Four April LibraryReads titles make their way into the hands of readers this week starting with Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway (Macmillan/Tor.com; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Jennifer Kelley, of Kershaw County Library, Camden, SC opens her annotation of the Fantasy with an intriguing question:

“What happens to children who find a doorway into a fantasy land, and then come back into the mundane world? It’s certainly not a happily ever after scenario for these children, but those that find their way to Eleanor West’s school are learning to cope. Shortly after Nancy comes to the school, a series of horrific events occur. It’s up to her and others at the school to figure out who is committing these atrocities. This book is so wonderfully written.”

The Murder of Mary Russell: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, Laurie R. King (PRH/Bantam; OverDrive Sample) also hits the shelves, causing Deborah Walsh, of the Geneva Public Library District, Geneva, IL to warn:

“Worried about Mary Russell? Well, you should be. She’s opened her door to the wrong man and deeply troubling secrets are set to tumble out, rewriting her history and putting herself and the people she loves in a dangerous spot. Once again, King spins a tantalizing tale of deception and misdirection for her readers’ delight and scores a direct hit in her latest Russell-Holmes mystery.”

The Historical Fiction debut Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly (PRH/Ballantine; BOT; OverDrive Sample), appears as well. It is also a People magazine pick this week as well as an Indie Next pick for April.

Andrea Larson, of Cook Memorial Public Library, Libertyville, IL offers the following annotation:

“This is story of the Ravensbruck Rabbits: seventy-four women prisoners in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Using alternating first-person narratives, the characters relate their experiences from 1939 through 1959. Drawing upon a decade of research, Hall reconstructs what life was like in Ravensbruck. More than a war story, this is a tale of how the strength of women’s bonds can carry them through even the most difficult situations. Lilac Girls is a solid, compelling historical read.”

Also picked by both LibraryReads and Indie Next is Tuesday Nights in 1980, Molly Prentiss (Simon & Schuster/Gallery/Scout Press; Simon & Schuster Audio).

Diane Scholl, of Batavia Public Library, Batavia, IL shares her take:

“Following the lives of three individuals in New York on the cusp of 1980, this book was structured in such a unique and original way. Lucy is in her early twenties, experiencing life in a big city; James who after college finds himself the reigning critic of the art world and Raul, escaping the post Peron Dirty War in Argentina will find himself the art world’s new favorite; these three will find their lives entwined in many ways. A tragic accident will change all these characters and others close to them. This is a wonderful book that I wasn’t ready to finish.”

Booksellers have plenty of other titles to hand-sell this week with no less than eight titles from the April Indie Next List appearing.

Fellside, M. R. Carey (Hachette/Orbit; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Let’s say you’ve been convicted of murder and sent to a maximum security prison for the remainder of your life, which should be a while since you are not that old. Then let’s say that not only can you not remember killing anyone, but you can’t remember who you are. Could things get any worse? How about if the ghost of the little boy you supposedly killed visits you in prison to ask for your help. What do you do? From the author of The Girl With All the Gifts comes another gripping and unforgettable story.” —Linda Bond, Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA

The author’s previous novel has been adapted as a movie that will be released in the UK in September (no US release date yet).

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, Dominic Smith (Macmillan/Sarah Crichton Books; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Smith’s new novel unfolds slowly, and each moment of illumination offers a glimpse into the true heart of this quiet, captivating tale. Spanning more than three centuries, it is the story of three lives —a female master painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a moneyed New York patent attorney, and an art history student turned one-time art forger — each changed by one haunting painting. Filled with hurt, grief, and deceit, but also layered with love, grace, and regret, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a wonderful read, beautifully written.” —Heather Duncan, Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, CO

The artistic historical also made Entertainment Weekly’s list of “25 books we can’t wait to read in 2016”

The One-in-a-Million Boy, Monica Wood (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Dreamscape Media; OverDrive Sample).

“Despite its themes of loss, love, and aging, The One-in-a-Million Boy is a hopeful novel. Musician and mostly absent dad Quinn Porter honors his dead son’s Boy Scout agreement to help 104-year-old Ona Vitkus. As Quinn and Ona get to know each other, Quinn begins to understand his son — and in some ways, himself — for the first time. Heartfelt and charming!” —Carol Schneck Varner, Schuler Books & Music, Okemos, MI

Lab Girl, Hope Jahren (PRH/Knopf; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“This book has it all: nature, love, science, drama, heartbreak, joy, and plenty of dirt. Not since Cheryl Strayed’s Wild have I read such a rich and compelling nonfiction narrative. Lab Girl is the story of Jahren’s life in science, and her writing on the wonders of nature will renew your sense of awe. But more than that, it is an exploration of friendship, mental illness, parenthood, and the messiness of life. The only flaw — these pages fly by too quickly, leaving you wondering what you could possibly read next that will be just as good.” —Pete Mulvihill, Green Apple Books, San Francisco, CA

Jahren’s debut is getting plenty of other coverage as well. Michiko Kakutani of the NYT‘s weighs in as does Entertainment Weekly with an A- review. It also made the WSJ‘s “The Hottest Spring Nonfiction Books” (subscription may be required).

Dodgers, Bill Beverly (PRH/Crown; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Four young black men, following orders, leave their tightly bound South Central Los Angeles community, and drive across the country to perform a hit to prevent a witness from testifying against their boss. They are ghetto born, raised, and trained, so they have outlaw skills and the resulting respect in their community. In wide-open America, they are profoundly out of their comfort zone. What each young man does with his skills, wits, sense of duty, and — for one in particular — a dawning sense of what the future holds for such a lifestyle, forms the core of this powerful novel. Provocative, gripping, and timely, Dodgers is a riveting read that leaves a lasting impression.” —Sheryl Cotleur, Copperfield’s Books, Sebastopol, CA

The debut is a B&N Discover pick as well.

The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life, Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh (Simon & Schuster; Simon & Schuster Audio).

“What is entailed in living ‘a good life’? Using the writings of a succession of Chinese scholars from 2,000 years ago, the authors explain their ancient teachings through contemporary examples and demonstrate how changing our perspective can change our lives. And ‘the path’ that we are to follow? There is none! Rather, we create the journey moment by moment as we change how we observe and interact with our world and those in it. Challenging and potentially transformative!” —Susan Posch, The Book Shoppe, Boone, IA

The Railwayman’s Wife, Ashley Hay (Simon & Schuster/Atria Books; Simon & Schuster Audio).

“The Railwayman’s Wife is a remarkable story drenched by the wells of sadness, yet it leaves readers marveling at the beauty of it all. Annika Lachlan is grieving her beloved husband and attempting to find solace in books. But the town of Thirroul, Australia, is home to more than one person damaged by grief. Brought together as members of a club no one would choose to join, each begins to move towards healing. The Railwayman’s Wife immerses the reader in Ani’s life, and as one savors the novel’s heartbreaking prose, a world is revealed in which hope and grief are forever intertwined and love may be the strongest current of all.” —Luisa Smith, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial, Maggie Nelson (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“If I could read the work of only one writer for the rest of my life, I think I would be happy to spend the rest of my days in the staggering beauty of Nelson’s prose. In The Red Parts, what could have merely been a relatively interesting true crime narrative becomes, instead, a wholly original memoir of pain, history, family, and those bright moments of clarity in a world that, for Nelson, had become so dark. This book asks us to wonder, to be angry, and ultimately to become more human. This is an inescapable, utterly compelling read.” —Claire Tobin, Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, MI

Tie-ins

A number of tie-ins come out this week, connected to three different films.

National Geographic The Angry Birds Movie: Red’s Big Adventure, Christy Ullrich Barcus (PRH/National Geographic Children’s Books; also in a Hardcover Reinforced Library Binding).

The children’s book supports the animated movie version of the popular video game Angry Birds.

The film releases May 20th and stars Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, and Danny McBride.

Star Wars The Force Awakens Storybook, Elizabeth Schaefer (Hachette/Disney Lucasfilm Press), a tie-in to the already released blockbuster Star Wars film, this time an illustrated picture book by the same author who created an earlier tie-in, Star Wars The Force Awakens: Rey’s Story.

The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Rainy Day, Disney Book Group (Hachette/Disney Press) comes out in support of the live-action movie hitting screens on April 15.

This is the second time Disney has taken on Rudyard Kipling’s beloved story collection. The first was the animated classic that came out in 1967, the last film Walt worked on.

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

Eliciting the most holds of book arriving next week is Karen Robards’ romantic suspense novel, Darkness (S&S/Gallery; Brilliance Audio), its neon-colored jacket belying the title. Library ordering is in line with strong holds.

Two titles that libraries may have underbought, based on holds ratios, are Karen Kingsbury’s Brush of Wings (S&S/Howard; S&S Audio) and Jacqueline Winspear’s latest Maisie Hobbs novel, Journey to Munich (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe).

Kingsbury has gained new readers as a result of the Hallmark series based on her earlier book, The Bridge. More adaptations of her novels are coming. Hallmark is at work on another of her novels, A Time to Dance and Roma Downey recently acquired the rights to produce Kingsbury’s Baxter Family series for TV.

Winspear’s series has been growing in popularity. The last few titles in the have all landed on the NYT best sellers list in the top five

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of March 28, 2016

Advance Attention

Melancholy Accidents: Three Centuries of Stray Bullets and Bad Luck,  Peter Manseau, (Melville House)

Author Manseau has come up with a brilliant and haunting way to examine the history of American gun violence, by reproducing stories from old newspapers, which often used the term a “melancholy accident” for such events.

That clever idea gets equally clever marketing by the book’s indie publisher, Melville House, which has bombarded the NRA and pro-gun politicians like Ted Cruz with images from the book:

All the macabre history of gun accidents that’s fit to print, every day until we publish this tiny beauty. pic.twitter.com/UXvxg27TYJ

— Melville House (@melvillehouse) March 3, 2016

Appropriately, given the political implications, the book received an early review from Ron Charles in the Washington Post, who writes,

“While acknowledging that his compendium of mayhem may read like a political argument against guns, that wasn’t his intention. The people he’d really like to reach are gun owners. Their adaptation of smart guns, which electronically limit who can fire them, is our best chance for progress, he says.”

The author writes in an  opinion piece in the New York Times, Trigger Warnings, “Though often seen as an embodiment of the nation’s freedom-loving swagger, every gun comes loaded with an alternate history: not heroic self-reliance but hapless tragedy.”

Consumer Media Picks

People magazine’s “Book of the Week” is Lee Smith’s memoir Dimestore: A Writer’s Life, Lee Smith (Workman/Algonquin; OverDrive Sample), which came out last week; “With restrained prose and charming humor, she illuminates a way of life that has all but disappeared and explores the impulse to bear witness that underpins the storyteller in all of us.”

It is also an April LibraryReads pick.

Peer Picks

One LibraryReads title hits the shelves this week, the highly anticipated return of the Romance series known as the Bridgertons.

Mary Aileen Buss, of Long Beach Public Library, NY, offers this annotation of Because of Miss Bridgerton, Julia Quinn (HC/Avon; HarperAudio):

“This is the first in a prequel series to Quinn’s popular Bridgerton series, set a generation earlier. Billie Bridgerton spent her childhood running wild with the neighboring Rokesbys, Andrew, Edward, and Mary. Now she runs the family estate for her father and still runs as wild as she can. The eldest Rokesby, George, never really approved of Billie, but when he rescues her from a roof they begin to come to a new understanding.”

Another long awaited return of a fan favorite is an Indie Next pick, Lust & Wonder: A Memoir, by Augusten Burroughs (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; OverDrive Sample).

“We have read about his crazy childhood, his struggles with alcohol, and his troubled relationships with his father and Christmas. Now, we have Burroughs’ take on love and romance, and what a tale it is! This is a love story as only Burroughs can tell it — the wrong lovers, the long-term relationship that turned out to be toxic, and the love that was staring him in the face all along. Roses and moonlight it is not, but the course of true love never does run smooth. I laughed, I cried — just read it!” —Susan Taylor, Market Block Books, Troy, NY.

It will be issued as a one-day laydown on March 29.

There is also an All Star title with Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, Adam Hochschild (HMH; OverDrive Sample) hitting shelves on the 29th.

It earned starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. It is also reviewed in today’s New York Times.

Tie-ins

This week sees the release of the tie-in to John le Carré’s The Night Manager (TV Tie-in Edition) (PRH/Ballantine Books; OverDrive Sample).

It hits shelves in advance of the AMC limited series (by way of BBC One) that begins airing April 20 and stars Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers) and Hugh Laurie (House). It is directed by Academy Award winner Susanne Bier (In a Better World).

As we reported earlier, the tie-in is particularly notable as the 1993 best seller is no longer in print.

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

“Highly anticipated” is a term that is loosely thrown around. In the case of the debut novel The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio), that claim can be documented, beginning with a major publishing auction that led to an estimated seven figure advance.

The plot is succinctly described by Kirkus in a starred review, “Dysfunctional siblings in New York wig out when the eldest blows their shared inheritance.” LJ comments that the story “typifies the Internet meme ‘white people problems’ even more than most current New York City-based literary fiction,” but concludes that the themes are nonetheless universal, “Anyone with siblings will appreciate the character dynamics at play here, although they may not care much for each character individually. A fun, quick read recommended for fans of Emma Straub and Meg Wolitzer.”

The author, who lives in L.A., clearly has Hollywood connections (her husband, as noted in a this week’s New York magazine profile, is Conan O’Brien’s head writer). The cover blurb is from Amy Poehler. “Intoxicating … I couldn’t stop reading or caring about the juicy and dysfunctional Plumb family” (no news yet on a film adaptation. Oddly, however, the latest Amy Poehler/Tina Fey film Sisters, was originally titled The Nest). A clever trailer released in January, stars several faces familiar from big and small screens (as well as author Susan Orleans), talking about their own sibling relationships.

Also a hit with booksellers and librarians, it is the #1 Indie Next title for April and on the March LibraryReads list. It is this week’s “Book of the Week” in People magazine and gets a strong review from Entertainment Weekly.

Many libraries are showing holds that outstrip cautious ordering.

Usual Suspects

Leading in holds for the week is Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once, also a LibraryReads pick (see below).

Another week brings another new book by James Patterson. This time, he is targeting Dork Diaries fans, with a middle-grade novel featuring a girl called Jacky Ha-Ha (Hachette/ Jimmy Patterson; Hachette Audio) because she just can’t stop cracking jokes.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of March 21, 2016

Media Magnets

Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening, John Elder Robison, (PRH/Spiegel & Grau; RH and  BOT Audio)

Known for his  2007 memoir Look Me in the Eye, about living with Asberger’s, Robison is also the brother of another famous memoirist, Augusten Burroughs, who also has a new memoir, arriving just a week later, Lust & Wonder. In this book, Robison writes about undergoing a treatment to reverse his condition. The title of his essay in today’s New York Times “An Experimental Autism Treatment Cost Me My Marriage” indicates that  the outcome was not completely what he wished for. On Tuesday, Robison is scheduled to appear on NPR’s All Things Considered and on PBS’s NewsHour.

Back from the Dead, Bill Walton & John Papanek, (S&S; S&S Audio)

Basketball legend Walton suffered multiple sports injuries, including one that left him paralyzed. Now recovered, he recounts his experiences in this memoir. He is scheduled for appearances next week on Good Morning America as well as several ESPN shows and NPR’s Weekend Edition.

Peer Picks

The Nest, covered above, is a favorite of both booksellers and librarians, who are also in agreement about a several other titles arriving next week.

The Summer Before the War, Helen Simonson, (PRH/Random; Random House Audio; OverDrive Sample), is the #1 LibraryReads pick for March and on the Indie Next list for April.

Paulette Brooks, of Elm Grove Public Library, Elm Grove, WI offers this warm invitation to start reading:

“Fans of Simonson’s Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand have reason to rejoice. She has created another engaging novel full of winsome characters, this time set during the summer before the outbreak of World War I. Follow the story of headstrong, independent Beatrice Nash and kind but stuffy surgeon-in-training Hugh Grange along with his formidable Aunt Agatha. Make a cup of tea and prepare to savor every page!”

Jane Steele, Lyndsay Faye (PRH/G.P. Putnam’s Sons; OverDrive Sample).
Abbey Stroop, of Herrick District Library, Holland, MI says:

“Jane Steele is a great read for lovers of Victorian literature who especially love their characters to have a lot of pluck! Jane Steele is the adventurous, irreverent, foul-mouthed broad that I so often loved about Jane Eyre, but in more wily circumstances. Remember that fabulous scene in Jane Eyre when she stands up to her aunt for the first time, and how you wanted to stand up from your comfy reading chair and cheer for her? Imagine an entire book just of those sorts of scenes. Absolutely fabulous fun!”

Faye’s clever take on Brontë is getting attention from other quarters. An April Indie Next pick, it is also  People pick this week and a favorite among GalleyChatters. USA Today featured the novel in a story on literary mashups. UPDATE: 3/21/16, Film rights were acquired by Chris Columbus’ 1492 Pictures.

Fool Me Once, Harlan Coben (PRH/Dutton; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Lisa Sprague, of Public Services Librarian, Enfield Public Library, Enfield, CT writes:

“Coben has made me lose more sleep over the years than all my other favorite authors combined. Joe Burkett has been murdered in front of his wife Maya. They have a two year old daughter who has a nanny. After the funeral, a friend gives her a picture frame that hides a camera so she can check on the care the nanny is providing her daughter. She watches the recording. Can she believe what she saw? Is she going crazy? Both? Buy a ticket for the coaster and find out for yourself. Keep your hands inside the car; it’s going to be a wild ride.”

Dimestore: A Writer’s Life, Lee Smith (Workman/Algonquin; OverDrive Sample).

Lois Gross, of Hoboken Public Library, Hoboken, NJ says of Smith’s memoir:

“Evenly divided between a book about Smith’s process and her life, first as a Southern mountain child and, later, as the parent of a schizophrenic child, this book is interesting and compelling. Despite being surrounded by loving family and being blessed with an active imagination, Lee copes with a mentally ill mother. Later, her son’s mental illness and early death brings her to the breaking point but she is saved by her writing. This is a read-alike for Karr’s The Liars Club. It desperately needs a cinematic translation for it’s elegant and evocative writing.”

One final bookseller pick, from the Indie Next April list, comes out this week. The Charm Bracelet, Viola Shipman (Macmillan/Thomas Dunne Books; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“This is the story of three women slowly losing themselves until they are reunited in Scoops, Michigan, at the beginning of summer: Arden, working at a job that gives her nothing but a paycheck; Lauren, becoming sadder as she moves farther from doing what she loves most; and Lolly, gradually forgetting all the things in her life that brought her joy and happiness. Linked together like the charms on their wrists, Arden, Lauren, and Lolly will remind each other of times gone by, how to appreciate the present, and how to embrace whatever the future brings. Reading this sweet story reminded me how lucky we are if we are close to those who share our history.” —Sylvia Smith, Bookmiser, Roswell, GA.

Tie-ins

There are no tie-ins publishing this week. For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins).

The holds leaders of the titles arriving next week are by two authors who, despite long histories, keep up an amazing pace.

Private Paris, James Patterson (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print, OverDrive Sample)

In a spinoff of the Private series that Patterson began with co-author Maxine Paetro, the head of the investigative agency, Jack Morgan drops in on offices around the world. Sometimes, as he did in Private India, Patterson takes the opportunity to work with a local author. Not so this time. Mark Sullivan is an American who has co-authored several previous Private titles (Games, Berlin, L.A) and has written several solo novels. His first, The Fall Line (1994), was a New York Times’ best book of the year.

Property of a Noble Woman, Danielle Steel (PRH/Delacorte; RH Large Print; Brilliance)

If it seems that you’re seeing more from Danielle Steel than usual, that’s correct. The publisher has declared 2016 the “Year of Danielle Steel,” with six new titles being released (an increase from the slothful pace of just four). Blue arrived in January. Upcoming are The Apartment in May, Magic in July, Rushing Waters in August and The Award in November. In this one, two people bond while investigating the contents of a mysterious safe deposit box.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of March 14, 2916. NOTE; Beginning this week, the list also include all the week’s picks from People magazine.

Consumer Media Picks

If at Birth You Don’t Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny, Zach Anner, (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio)

People magzaine’s “Book of the Week” (the other five pics for the week are listed on our downloadable spreadsheet).

Comedian Zach Anner has cerebral palsy, but that hasn’t slowed him down. In this memoir, he writes about winning his own travel show on the Oprah Winfrey Network, Rollin’ With Zach and hosting the Have A Little Faith show produced by Rainn Wilson’s media company SoulPancake. People calls the result, “Hilarious and inspiring, Anner has made life filled with fans, love and Internet fame.”

Peer Picks

Five Indie Next picks hit the shelves next week, from the March and April lists:

At the Edge of the Orchard, Tracy Chevalier (PRH/Viking; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Robert Goodenough was born in Ohio’s Black Swamp. The youngest of 10 children, he was the only one with any interest in his father’s obsession of buying seedlings from John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, and trying to cultivate and perfect his apple orchard in the inhospitable black muck. Family tragedy sends Robert running west to California and the Gold Rush, where he finds solace in the redwoods and sequoias and meets a naturalist who recognizes his love of botany. But Robert is reluctantly forced to face his past and must decide to either claim it or set out on his own path. Chevalier’s tale is a thoughtfully crafted and vivid slice of pioneer life.” —Jody Misner Chwatun, Saturn Booksellers, Gaylord, MI

Shelter, Jung Yun (Macmillan/Picador; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Shelter is the perfect example of that extraordinary kind of story that careens down a path toward a conclusion that feels somehow both completely surprising and totally inevitable. Kyung Cho is a young father whose anxiety over present financial concerns couples with damage from past traumas to inhabit every breath he takes. His precarious equilibrium is shattered when his parents are the victims of a cruel act of violence and he is called upon to react with a compassion and forgiveness that he may not possess. This novel is a dark and moving portrait of a family and what it ultimately means to love.” —Mary Cotton, Newtonville Books, Newton Centre, MA

It was also a GalleyChat favorite.

Two If by Sea, Jacquelyn Mitchard (Simon & Schuster).

“Mitchard has woven a gripping narrative of a family borne out of tragedy. Frank loses his wife and unborn son to a tsunami, and in the midst of rescuing others saves a small boy. This child, Ian, possesses a special gift that impacts those around him in powerful ways. As Frank tries to form a new family, there are repercussions from Ian’s past that put them both at risk. This is the marvelous story of Frank and Ian’s journey as both try to handle the pain of the past and accept the joy of new beginnings. I loved it!” —Stephanie Crowe, Page & Palette, Fairhope, AL

A Man Lies Dreaming, Lavie Tidhar (Melville House; OverDrive Sample).

If this book’s reception in the U.K. is any indication, we will be hearing a lot about this book. The Guardian writes, “Somehow this shocking book turns genocide into pulp fiction – and gets away with it.” The Telegraph adds, that it is “weird, upsetting, unmissable.” NPR.org is the first to cover it here, “Unnerving WWII Noir In A Man Lies Dreaming.”

“Tidhar’s brilliant novel channels pulp fiction conventions to grapple with the horrors of the Holocaust. In its opening pages, readers are dropped into late 1930s England where Oswald Mosley is about to become prime minister and Hitler, whose Nazi party was defeated by the Communists, is a down-at-the-heels private investigator, a sad and tortured little man. As it turns out, this alternate history is a fever dream of a prisoner at Auschwitz. Who is to say that turning the powerful into the defeated — even as a fantasy — isn’t an important tool in coping with brutality and dehumanization?” —Anmiryam Budner, Main Point Books, Bryn Mawr, PA

Margaret the First, Danielle Dutton (Perseus/Catapult; OverDrive Sample).

“Dutton’s novel takes the already extraordinary life of Margaret Cavendish — 17th century natural philosopher, author of The Blazing World, and Duchess of Newcastle — and transforms it into a stunning work of historical fiction. With women in the sciences a hot issue today, Margaret the First satisfies a craving for women’s writing, women’s voices, and women’s stories, painting a portrait of a sensitive, thoughtful woman hungry not just for praise and recognition, but acknowledgment, affirmation, and validation. Margaret the First is a triumph!” —Liz Wright, Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX

All Star

Exit, Pursued by a Bear, E.K. Johnston (PRH/Dutton Books for Young Readers; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

A YA novel about a star cheerleader who is drugged and raped during a party garners star reviews from every pre-pub source. Booklist says “Fierce and gorgeously drawn, this is a rape story that doesn’t focus on victimhood,” while Kirkus says “Middle and high school readers will pass this powerful, engaging story around and around. Adults should be ready to join in the discussion that follows.”

Tie-ins

There are no tie-ins publishing this week. For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

The holds leaders this week all feature the return of favorite characters.

Clawback: An Ali Reynolds Novel, J.A. Jance, (S&S/Touchstone; S&S Audio; Thorndike)

Off the Grid: Joe Pickett Novel #16, C.J. Box (Penguin/Putnam; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample)
Starred PW, “With this exceptional entry, Box solidifies his place at the upper level of the crime fiction pantheon.”

The Steel Kiss: Lincoln Rhyme Novels. Jeffery Deaver (Hachette/ Grand Central; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print; OverDrive Sample)
If you have a fear of escalators, look away. The cover and title refer to a key plot element, a man is gruesomely mangled when one of them malfunctions in a Brooklyn department store..

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of March 7, 2016.

Media Magnet

Love, Loss, and What We Ate, Padma Lakshmi, (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio)

As the former wife of Salman Rusheie and the co-host of Top Chef, Lakshmi’s story has appeal for a wide range of media, including NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday and People magazine.

And, yes, she spills the beans about her marriage.

Peer Picks

The March LibraryReads selections arriving this week include a literary psychological suspense novel which has been highly praised in the trade reviews and the next in a popular urban fantasy series.

All Things Cease to Appear, Elizabeth Brundage (PRH/Knopf; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Also a People magazine “Book of the Week,” called  an “insightful, evocative thriller”

Jennifer Dayton, of Darien Library, Darien, CT offers this annotation:

“When the Clare family purchases a ramshackle farmhouse at a foreclosure auction, it appears that all is well in their world, until George comes home one evening from his job as an Art History Professor at the local private college and finds his wife murdered and their three-year-old untended yet unharmed. Told through the eyes of the townspeople and the families involved, this is a gorgeously unsettling look at a marriage and what happens to a community in the process of change.”

A GalleyChatter favorite, Brundage earned All Stars status for the novel as well, racking up starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

Marked In Flesh: A Novel of the Others, Anne Bishop (PRH/Roc; BOT).
Emily Peros, of Denver Public Library, Denver, CO gives her take on the fourth of the Courtyards of the Others series:

“In this thrilling installment, Bishop continues to explore the relationships of The Others and the humans who live at the Lakeside compound. Meanwhile, Humans First and Last organization has been making themselves known, after the attacks in the previous book that killed numerous Others along with their “Wolf Lover” friends, they are not backing down. Little do they know it’s not the Others humans need to be wary of but the Elders for which the Others act as a buffer. This is an excellent installment in the novels of the Others, exciting, heart-wrenching and suspenseful.”

Four Indie Next March picks also arrive.

Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens, Steve Olson (W. W. Norton; OverDrive Sample).

“Eruption is everything a nonfiction book should be: Marvelous storytelling mixed with a great cast of characters, fascinating science, and little-known history. Anyone with even a passing interest in the Pacific Northwest or volcanoes will love this book. I read it in three long, satisfying gulps, and, like all great books, its stories linger in the mind long after you’ve read the last page.” —Tom Campbell, The Regulator Bookshop, Durham, NC

The Travelers, Chris Pavone (PRH/Crown; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Full of twists and turns, secrets and lies, and enough misdirection to keep you guessing, Pavone’s third novel delivers everything readers have come to expect from his thrillers. As in his previous work, the world of publishing takes a central role: This time it’s a fading travel magazine and its companion travel agencies in the midst of an acquisition. Will and Chloe are a young married couple dealing with a home in need of extensive repairs so Chloe decides to take a less active role at Travelers magazine after Will is brought on board as the European correspondent. When Will meets an alluring woman while on assignment, she will change his life in ways he never could have foreseen.” —Billie Bloebaum, A Children’s Place, Portland, OR

This third thriller by Pavone struck GalleyChatters as a “sure fire hit.”

Spill Simmer Falter Wither, Sara Baume (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; OverDrive Sample)

“Baume’s debut novel is a heartbreaking story of loneliness and friendship, depression and pure joy, as revealed through the relationship between a man and the dog he rescues. Baume’s transcendent use of language and utterly original voice had me stopping to read whole sentences — even entire paragraphs — aloud. Spill Simmer Falter Wither is an amazing achievement by a writer who makes her work seem effortless.” —Mary Wolf, Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse, Santa Fe, NM

What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, Helen Oyeyemi (PRH/Riverhead Books; OverDrive Sample).

“There is magic in Helen Oyeyemi’s writing. There is magic in the settings, which shift between the conventional and the fantastic as readers devotedly follow her characters down any path they please. There is magic in the tales themselves, as readers recognize a situation only to have it bloom into a flower they have never imagined before, full of beauty or of dread. And, most certainly, there is magic in such breathtaking prose and unimaginable characters. This is a captivating story collection, filled with both fairy tale whimsy and dark, complicated mystery. Highly recommended!” —Luisa Smith, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Tie-ins

Only one tie-in this week, but it is a biggie. As we reported earlier, the PR surrounding the second season start of Outlander is growing in advance of the April 9th premiere date.

Now comes the tie-in release of the novel that will power the next set of Jamie and Claire’s adventures, Dragonfly in Amber (Starz Tie-in Edition), Diana Gabaldon (PRH/Bantam; OverDrive Sample; also in Mass Market).

The cover art was tweeted by Gabaldon. It keeps with the lush yet dangerous tone of the trailer and supports the series new tag line, “The Etiquette of War.”

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

Next week is blessedly free of titles arriving with long holds queues, but fans are anticipating several titles from repeat authors, including Clive Cussler’s 9th in the Isaac Bell historical detective series, The Gangster, a posthumous collection of Maeve Binchy short stories, A Few Of The Girls, and a new thriller by James Grippando, Gone Again.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Feb. 28

Media Magnets

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond (PRH/Crown; BOT).

Focusing on one of the most heartbreaking aspects of poverty, the loss of a home, Evicted has already struck a chord with the media. Following four starred prepub reviews, the New York Times gave it an unusually early review on Monday, and also profiled the author. Earlier, The New Yorker published an excerpt. Coverage is also coming in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. [UPFATE: Featured on the cover of the NYT Book Review, Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed credits Desmond with having “set a new standard for reporting on poverty.”]

The first paragraph of the daily NYT review is a grabber:

“One of the most heartbreaking moments in Matthew Desmond’s Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City — and there’s a shameful assortment to choose from — is when 13-year-old Ruby Hinkston takes refuge in the public library. She’s come to use the computer. It turns out that she’s been slowly building her dream house with a free online game, and she wants to visit it again.”

The review goes on to describe the horrible conditions Ruby faces at home.

All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, Rebecca Traister (S&S; S&S Audio).

In their list of “Don’t-miss nonfiction,” Entertainment Weekly wrote, “The literary world is already buzzing about journalist Traister’s history of the unmarried American woman.” Highlights of the media attention below:

• New York Times Sunday Review, 2/28
• CBS This Morning, 2/29
• NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross, 3/1
• Daily New York Times review, 3/6

Above the Line: My Wild Oats Adventure, Shirley MacLaine, (S&S; S&S Audio).

Of course MacLaine will be getting attention, including appearances on the Today show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, both scheduled for March 15. The next day, she will step across the aisle to Fox & Friends. Reviewed in the Washington Post.

Peer Picks

The return of a favorite author and the debut of a new one are the highlights this week from the March LibraryReads picks.

Proving her ability to write across genres and make readers and librarians take note, Lisa Lutz turns to thrillers in The Passenger (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio).

Beth DeGeer, of Bartlesville Public Library, Bartlesville, OK offers this annotation:

“This is a compulsively readable story of a young woman who has to keep switching identities and stay on the run. Is she a reliable narrator or not? What was the original event that sent her on the run? There is a lot of action and suspense as she tries to survive and evade the law while trying to keep her moral center intact. Unlike Lutz’s Spellman books, this reads more like a Charles Portis road novel, though considerably more serious and dangerous. Highly recommended.”

It is also a March Indie Next selection and was hit with our GalleyChatters.

Debut novelist Catherine Lowell offers a new take on the ongoing interest in all things Jane Eyre in The Madwoman Upstairs (S&S/Touchstone).

Kristen McCallum, of the Algonquin Area Public Library, Algonquin, IL invites readers to:

“Meet Samantha Whipple, a descendant of the Bronte family, who arrives at Oxford to study literature, as her father did before her. She receives a copy of Jane Eyre – a volume that she thought was destroyed in the fire that took her father’s life. When a second Bronte novel belonging to her father turns up, she is convinced he has staged an elaborate treasure hunt for her promised inheritance. Enlisting the help of her sexy, young professor, Samantha sets out on a quest to find buried treasure and learns the value of friendship and courage along the way.”

It too is an Indie Next selection for March and a GalleyChat hit.

Three additional Indie Next picks pub this week as well, among them a book on physics that is getting compared to poetry.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli (PRH/Riverhead Books; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“With a deft sensibility associated more often with poetry than theoretical physics, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics not only makes understandable the transcendent physical discoveries of the past century, but also reveals their powerful relevance to the human spirit. A revelatory and concise account of quantum mechanics, relativity, and the delight in both finding answers and seeking new questions, this jewel of a book lyrically demystifies the extraordinary realities of the cosmos.” —Robin J. Dunn, St. John’s College Bookstore, Annapolis, MD

Bottomland, Michelle Hoover (Grove Press/Black Cat; Blackstone Audio).

“In the years following World War I, the Hess family settles on Iowa farmland hoping to escape anti-German sentiment. Two of their girls disappear as the U.S. marches towards World War II, and relationships both within and outside of the family suffer. Based loosely on an unearthed family secret, Hoover has written an atmospheric novel evocative of both a time and place.” —Kris Kleindienst, Left Bank Books, St. Louis, MO

Blackass, A. Igoni Barrett (Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample).

“We have seen transformation handled masterfully in literature, and Blackass, with its black, Nigerian protagonist waking up in the body of a white man, immediately calls to mind Kafka’s Metamorphosis. But this is something more, something different. There is a willingness here to confront how we create our identities — racially, politically, and even on social media. Barrett does this with intelligence and a playful humor that is by turns bright and biting. There is an edge to Blackass, a fire, the beginning of trouble. This is Kafka for the Kanye generation.” —Kenny Coble, King’s Books, Tacoma, WA

All Star

At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others, Sarah Bakewell (PRH/Other Press; OverDrive Sample).

Bakewell introduced many readers to the 16th century philosopher Michel de Montaigne in How To Live: Or A Life Of Montaigne In One Question And Twenty Attempts At An Answer (2010). In her follow up, she moves ahead to the 20th century in a book starred by all four pre-pub sources. Booklist points out that it’s not all arcane philosophy, “With coverage of friendship, travel, argument, tragedy, drugs, Paris, and, of course, lots of sex, Bakewell’s biographical approach pays off.”

Tie-ins

There are three official tie-ins this week.

Rudyard Kipling’s beloved story collection gets a second Disney adaption on April 15th, this time as a live action film (the animated Disney version came out in 1967 and was the last film Walt himself worked on).

As we reported earlier, Disney is pushing the film hard, running the trailer during the Super Bowl.

The Jungle Book: The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack, Scott Peterson, Joshua Pruett (Hachette/Disney Press) is an illustrated novel based on the movie.

In support of the new Syfy 13-episode series Hunters, starting April 11, Alien Hunter comes out in a tie-in edition entitled Hunters, Whitley Strieber (Macmillan/Tor Books).

It is the first novel in an ongoing series. The second is Alien Hunter: Underworld. A third, Alien Hunter: The White House, is due in April.

The show combines thriller and SF in an alien conspiracy story, where the aliens are terrorists.

Another tie-in for Sundance’s Hap and Leonard series comes out this week as well. This time it is the complete collection of the previous Lansdale short stories augmented with one new story and an introduction written by Michael Koryta.

Hap and Leonard, Joe R. Lansdale (Perseus/PGW/Tachyon Publications).

As we reported when the first tie-in came out, the series debuts on March 2.

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

The authors of the holds leaders for the week have something in common. Each have had earlier books adapted for TV by the Hallmark Channel.

A Girl’s Guide to Moving On, Debbie Macomber (PRH/Ballantine Books; BOT; OverDrive Sample)

The #1 holds leader for the week is the the second in Macomber’s New Beginnings series. Interest in Macomber was boosted by Hallmark’s adaptation of her Cedar Cove series.

Also a LibraryReads pick for the month, Linda Tilden, of Cherry Hill Public Library, Cherry Hill, NJ offers this recommendation:

“Leanne and her daughter-in-law Nichole both leave cheating husbands to start over. They learn that it is never easy and that hardships abound, but they meet many wonderful people on their way to happily-ever-after. Believable characters and an enjoyable story made this perfect for relaxing reading—definitely one of Macomber’s best. An excellent choice both for long-time fans of the author and for those who have never read her novels.”

Wedding Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen Mysteries #19), Joanne Fluke, (Kensington)
The second holds leader for the week continues the series that has been the basis of Hallmark’s Murder She Baked movies.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Feb. 22, 2016

Media Magnets

American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, (PRH/Knopf; BOT and RH Audio)
As we noted earlier, this is a drop-in title and therefore was released too late for review coverage from the prepub media. It was reviewed this week in the NYT. The author is scheduled for an interview with Katie Couric Monday on ABC’s Nightline. The following day, Sales will be interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition and on Fresh Air, 2/29.

Cravings, Chrissy Teigen with Adeena Sussman, (PRH/Potter)
Sorry, guys, this is a book about food cravings by the supermodel and co-host of the show Lip Synch Battle. The budding activist, who donated food to Ferguson protesters and has engaged in twitter battle with Donald Trump, will be getting plenty of media attention for her cookbook:

Tuesday, March 1
Good Morning America
Live with Kelly and Michael
Late Show w/ Stephen Colbert

Wednesday, March 2
The Chew
Comedy Central – Daily Show 

Peer Picks

In addition to Debbie Macomber’s latest (above), three other February LibraryRead picks come out next week.

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, Mona Awad (Penguin Books; OverDrive Sample).

Kimberly McGee, of Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX offers this annotation:

“Everyone loves Lizzie–she is the confidant, the late night go-to, and she is always there and hungry for attention. Lizzie becomes even more obsessed and needy when she no longer feels insecure about being overweight and it becomes painfully obvious that she will always feel bad about herself. It is a candid and sad look at how we mistreat people with different body types.”

NOTE: Librarians chatted with the author  as part of  the Penguin First Flights program on EarlyWord

It is also a March IndieNext choice.

Fighting Dirty, Lori Foster (Harlequin/HQN Books; OverDrive Sample).

Jessica McCroskey, of Holston River Regional Library, Johnson City, TN says the following about the fourth book in Foster’s Ultimate series:

“What. A. Ride! I absolutely loved this book. I loved finally getting Armie and Merissa’s story. I also enjoyed being able to go back and revisit past characters and getting to know future ones! The story was fast-paced and dreamy. Armie’s fight with himself over his emotions wasn’t drawn out, nor did it get tedious to read. All around, this book was an absolute pleasure, and I can’t wait to read more from Foster!”

Flight of Dreams, Ariel Lawhon (PRH/Doubleday; BOT; OverDrive Sample)

Kristin Fields, of Farnhamville Public Library, Farnhamville, IA offers:

“Flight of Dreams chronicles an author’s imagined scenario on the ill-fated last flight of the Hindenburg, which was shrouded in mystery. Lawhon does a masterful job by giving meticulous detail of the ship and delving into the lives of many of the characters on board. I read with mounting dread and intensity as the storyline of the disaster unfolded. Historical detail and wonderful storytelling make this a must read for historical fiction lovers.”

The following are Indie Next picks:

Under the Influence, Joyce Maynard (HC/William Morrow; OverDrive Sample).

“Remembrances from The Great Gatsby ran through my head both as a warning and a promise the entire time I read Under the Influence. I was fascinated by the Havillands, the whirlwind couple at the center of the book, with their wealth, their ease, and their charm. It is easy to see why they appeal to Helen, weary and downtrodden as she is, and why she slips so easily into their embrace. I felt a growing sense of unease as the pages passed, picking up the warning signals Helen ignores, but I was as helpless to escape as she is. I couldn’t stop reading until I reached the bitter end!” —Lauren Peugh, Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, AZ

Green Island, Shawna Yang Ryan (PRH/Knopf; OverDrive Sample).

“Like Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan, Ryan’s heartbreaking novel takes readers to an island with a history unknown to many: Taiwan. Rarely portrayed in a work of fiction, Taiwan is an island of complex political relations, families torn apart by political unrest, and a lush and beautiful physical landscape. Told in luscious prose, Green Island teaches readers about the humanity of mankind, the brutality of political power and unrest, and why some secrets are never told. I cannot wait to handsell this!” —Annie Philbrick, Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT

Tie-ins

The major tie-in release this week is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (The Taliban Shuffle MTI): Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kim Barker (PRH/Anchor; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

The film version of the memoir titled The Taliban Shuffle, starring Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, and Billy Bob Thornton, opens March 4, 2016.

It has brought new attention to author Kim Barker. Recently interviewed in the Columbia Journalist Review, she is also scheduled for CBS Sunday Morning this week.

Is it too soon to apply humor to the Middle East? Judge for yourself from the trailer.

Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl and Her Amazing Story of Healing, Christy Wilson Beam (Hachette Books; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample; also in Mass Market) comes out next week as well. It is the tie-in for the March 18th film starring Jennifer Garner and Queen Latifah.

As we noted earlier, People magazine highlighted the the story about a young girl who “survived a 30-ft. fall from a tree and told her parents she had visited heaven – then was inexplicably cured from her terminal digestive disorder.”

Ratchet & Clank is a SF video game series featuring a Lombax (a cat-like species that walks on two feet) and a robot who have adventures across multiple galaxies. On April 29 the games become an animated film.

Scholastic is releasing two tie-in titles. Ratchet and Clank: The Movie Novel, Kate Howard (Scholastic; OverDrive Sample) and Ratchet and Clank: Hero Time (The Movie Reader), Meredith Rusu (Scholastic; OverDrive Sample).

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

The most heavily anticipated titles this week, as demonstrated by hold queues, are Jeffrey Archer’s Cometh the Hour, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio) and Jo Nesbo’s Midnight Sun (PRH/Knopf; RH Large Print: RH Audio).

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Feb. 15, 2016

GIRL Successors

After a string of books with “Girl” in the title, it’s a relief to hear of a successor that uses a more grownup name. The Widow, Fiona Barton (PRH/NAL; OverDrive Sample) is a People pick for the week, “a twisted psychological thriller you’ll have trouble putting down.” Entertainment Weekly’s review invokes comparisons to those Girl books, adding, “Barton’s debut, already a best-seller in her native U.K., might have more of a right to the comparison than most.”

Booksellers made it an Indie Next pick:

“Readers on the hunt for the newest, hottest thriller can take heart: Barton’s debut novel is impeccably paced and quietly terrifying, sure to fill any void left after reading The Girl on the Train. Jean Taylor is reeling over the loss of her husband, but the man she knows and the man the police know are two very different people. Told in alternating voices, The Widow is perfect for fans of Paula Hawkins and Tana French and will have readers on the edge of their seats.” —Annie B. Jones, The Bookshelf, Thomasville, GA.

Prepub reviews were generally strong, with PW giving it a star. Kirkus was more mixed, “The idea of a woman who stands beside an alleged monster is an intriguing one, and very nearly well-executed here, if it weren’t bogged down with other too-familiar plotlines.”

Most libraries ordered it cautiously. A few are showing holds. Watch this one; you may need to order more.

But we’re not escaping girls completely. Kate Hamer’s debut, The Girl in the Red Coat
(Melville House; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample) has already been hailed by the NYT‘s Michiko Kakutani, who also invoked the girl comparisons (as Entertainment Weekly says, “Apparently, the first rule of Gone Girl Club is: Never stop talking about Gone Girl.”).

It is also a LibraryRead pick. Kim Dorman of the Princeton Public Library, Princeton, NJ says:

“There is not much more terrifying than losing your child. There’s the terror, the guilt, and then the relentless and unending chasm left behind by your child. I am grateful to not know that pain, and yet what Beth, the main character of this book, went through, resonated with me. I have had so many things on my to-do list, and yet I found myself delaying laundry and dusting and research so that I could find out how this story would unfold.”

It comes with an impressive three stars from the prepub review media.

Check your holds; they are high on modest orders in many areas.

Media Magnets

A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy. Sue Klebold, Andrew Solomon, (PRH/Crown)

To be featured tonight on an ABC Prime Time Special with Diane Sawyer, it is  promoted on Good Morning America today.

Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man, William Shatner, (Macmillan/Thomas Dunne; Macmillan Audio)

No news yet on media coverage, but given the subject and the author, we’re sure to be hearing about it.

Master of Ceremonies: A Memoir,
Joel Grey, (Macmillan/Flatiron; Macmillan Audio)

Grey was interviewed by Terry Gross on Monday’s Fresh Air about his memoir, which is also a People pick this week, “as much about his struggle coming out of the closet as it is about the theate …this is a refreshingly honest look back at an actor’s life, regrets and all.”

Peer Picks

In addition to the “Girl Successors” above, more LibraryReads and Indie Next picks hit the shelves.

Joshilyn Jackson’s The Opposite of Everyone (Harper/William Morrow; OverDrive Sample)  is the #1 IndieNext pick for March as well as a LibraryReads selection.

Beth Mills of New Rochelle Public Library, New Rochelle, NY offers this take:

“Fans of Jackson’s Someone Else’s Love Story will be pleased to see William’s acerbic friend Paula take center stage. A successful divorce lawyer, Paula’s carefully constructed life starts to fracture when family secrets come to light, forcing her to try to come to terms with the power of her story to hurt and heal, and a growing need for family connections. A wonderful cast of offbeat, memorable characters make this book a winner.”

More IndieNext picks coming this week:

A Doubter’s Almanac, Ethan Canin (Random House; OverDrive Sample).

“I love settling into a novel where I meet smart yet conflicted protagonists and get right into their skin. In A Doubter’s Almanac, Milo Andret’s mathematical genius is as much a burden as it is a gift. He makes a series of choices — damaging to both himself and his family — that would seem to unravel any empathy readers might have for him, but Canin’s eloquent prose brings out the humanity in even the most flawed individuals. This is a novel filled with characters whose struggles with intellect, family, and vulnerability I won’t soon forget.” —Sarah Bagby, Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, KS.

It is also People magazine’s “Book of the Week”

“Reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind — at times almost unbearably painful. But Canin also shows how families can work through their divisions, making a kind of peace with even the most abhorrent behavior. Surprising and beautifully written, this hefty book is a gem.”

Hide, Matthew Griffin (Bloomsbury USA; OverDrive Sample).

“On the outer edge of a struggling small town in North Carolina lives a long-married — in name, if not in fact — couple, Frank and Wendell. For all the decades they have been together they have hidden from the world to protect themselves, but now Frank’s health is failing. The poignancy of Wendell’s struggle to keep Frank safe is heartbreaking. These are not characters we see often in fiction — poor and rural and gay and old — but Griffin draws them so honestly and well that we quickly know them and come to care deeply for them.” —Michael Barnard, Rakestraw Books, Danville, CA.

All the Winters After, Seré Prince Halverson (Sourcebooks Landmark; Brilliance Audio).

“This is the compelling story of a damaged young woman, Nadia, who has taken refuge in a cabin in the Alaskan woods for the last 10 years after escaping an abusive marriage. Kachemak Winkel, the cabin’s owner, returns to Alaska after a long absence, still mourning for his parents and older brother who lost their lives in a plane crash 20 years earlier. Two young, damaged souls are at the heart of this beautifully written novel, and the wild and dangerous beauty of Alaska is present throughout. Perfect for book groups!” —Patricia Worth, River Reader Books, Lexington, MO.

Tie-ins

The tie-ins arriving this week are connected to three very popular series.

Veronica Roth sees the third adaptation of her Divergent series hit the screens on March 18.  Allegiant Movie Tie-in Edition (Harper/Katherine Tegen Books; HarperCollins Audio) comes out Tuesday in this hardback edition as well as a paperback version.

The film series stars Shailene Woodley and Theo James (the same actor who played Kemal Pamuk on Downton Abbey – Lady Mary’s first season indiscretion).

Holy Catnip, Batman! Super Heroes collide in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Starring Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman, and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, it opens March 25th.

A junior novel tie-in comes out this week.
Billed as a companion novel, it tells a new story but riffs off the movie, Cross Fire: An Original Companion Novel (Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice), Michael Kogge (Scholastic Inc.; OverDive Sample).

Finally, two more Star Wars books arrive, seemingly late to the party since the movie debuted in December. The first is the junior novelization of The Force Awakens film. The novelization for adults was delayed in print for weeks after the movie opened and it is only now that kids are able to get their hands on a version of their own.

Star Wars The Force Awakens Junior Novel, Michael Kogge (Hachette/Disney Lucasfilm Press; Blackstone Audio).

Also out this week is a Chapter Book focused on the female star, Rey: Star Wars The Force Awakens: Rey’s Story, Elizabeth Schaefer (Hachette/Disney Lucasfilm Press).

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

The holds leader for the upcoming week is Find Her by Lisa Gardner (PRH/Dutton; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample). It’s also a LibraryReads pick. Allie Williams, of Parnell Memorial Library, Montevallo, AL, offers this on the 8th of the Det. D.D. Warren novels:

“WOW. Find Her is intense. Those initial pages are a testament to the strength of Lisa Gardner’s writing. I had to know what was going to happen! At times it was so bleak and dark, and yet I still had to know what Flora and Stacy were going to be doing. A very suspenseful, twisty, unpredictable page-turner.”

A distant second is Alex Berenson’s tenth novel featuring John Wells, The Wolves (PRH/Putnam).

Slightly behind The Wolves is the final book in Pierce Brown’s trilogy Morning Star: Book III of The Red Rising Trilogy, (PRH/ Del Rey). Entertainment Weekly calls it the series’ “devastating and inspiring final chapter” but says it “hasn’t gotten the acclaim it deserves since it’s 2014 debut.” That may change. Movie rights were bought by Universal last year.

The titles covered here, and several more notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of 2:8:16

Eye on: Translations

Americans are famous for turning cold shoulders to books in translation, except for when they embrace them, and then they do so in a big way. Witness the continuing excitement over Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series (#ferrantefever) and the phenomenon of Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a book that continues to be a reading group favorite seven years after publication. Both are published by Europa Editions, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last year. At the time, the NYT‘s T Magazine wrote that the publisher’s books have become “Objects of Desire,” and that bookstore customers come in “asking ‘What’s new from Europa?'”

This week, Europa is publishing Barbery’s third novel, The Life of Elves. Released last year in France, it has not enjoyed the amazing success of Hedgehog, but that would be difficult for anyone to replicate (the Independent reports that of Hedgehog‘s  first printing of 3,000, only 12 copies sold in France the first week but word of mouth took hold and it went on to sell millions). The first of a two-book saga, it’s received praise from Library Journal, Booklist and  Kirkus, which notes it is  “completely different [from Hedgehog]: a fairy story of parallel but connected human and elf worlds and of dark forces and extraordinary goodness clashing in an age-old battle.”

A profile of the author is expected in the NYT next week, with reviews scheduled in the NYT Book Review,  Entertainment Weekly and Time magazine, among others.

It happens that another French translation arrives with buzz next week. The Heart, by Maylis de Kerangal (Macmillan/FSG; OverDrive Sample) is the first work by the award-winning  author to be published in translation by an American publisher. Spanning 24 hours, it traces  the many ripples caused when young surfer is killed in a car crash, the effect on his parents, doctors, organ donation experts, and the woman who desperately needs his heart. It was a hit in France and is impressing critics here as well. Both Booklist and PW have given it a star and it appears on several “Most Anticipated” lists, with Bustle giving it this glowing praise:

“This slim, heady book made my own heart both stop and swell at the same time … In stunning prose that cuts like a scalpel … It’s mesmerizing … I’ve simply never read anything like it.”

Media Attention

And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East, Richard Engel, (S&S)

NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, who has been reporting on the Middle East for 20 years, will be receiving media attention from fellow journalists. Booklist, in a starred review, calls his book, “Clear, candid, and concise, Engel’s overview of the ongoing battleground should be required reading for anyone desiring a thorough and informed portrait of what the past has created and what the future holds for the Middle East and the world at large.”

The author is scheduled for a string of appearances, including the Today Show, NBC’s Nightly News, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show on February 11, followed by HBO’s RealTime with Bill Maher the next day.

Peer Picks

Two LibraryReads selections arrive this week, a debut and the next in a long-running series.

Black Rabbit Hall, Eve Chase (PRH/ Putnam; Penguin Audio/Books on Tape; OverDrive Sample). Deborah Margeson, of Douglas County Libraries, Parker, CO, says the following about Chase’s debut:

“Young Amber Alton and her family adore Black Rabbit Hall, and the joy and peace it brings to them all. That is, until a tragic accident changes everything. Three decades later, Lorna decides her wedding must be celebrated at the crumbling hall. As the book moves between these two time periods, secrets slowly unfold. Perfectly twisty with interesting characters and a compelling story that kept me up too late.”Seven IndieNext List books also hit the shelves this week.

See also the author’s recent First Flight’s chat with librarians.

The Ramblers, Aidan Donnelley Rowley (Harper/William Morrow; OverDrive Sample).

“This charming book is an homage to families — both the ones we are born with and the ones we create. It follows three characters in their early 30s who are trying to take the next steps toward growing up, deciding who they really are, and what they really want to do with the rest of their lives. They are closely linked and surrounded by family members who are in turns supportive, destructive, and ultimately loving. As members of New York’s privileged, they are free to explore their options while enjoying the best the city has to offer. You will laugh, cry, and cheer these characters on as they come to terms with both their past and their future.” —Ann Carlson, Waterfront Books, Georgetown, SC

Breaking Wild, Diane Les Becquets (PRH/Berkley; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample).

“Outdoor and adventure enthusiasts will rejoice in Les Becquets’ debut novel. In the spectacular and unforgiving wilderness of northwestern Colorado, elk-hunter Amy Raye Latour goes missing in a snowstorm at the beginning of winter. A search-and-rescue operation is organized and ranger Pru Hathaway and her rescue dog go to look for the missing woman. With alternating chapters focusing on each woman, Les Becquets spins a thrilling story about two strong and mysterious female characters whose resourcefulness and determination help them tackle incredible adversity. Breaking Wild is an extraordinary adventure story whose ending is as tense and suspenseful as anything I have ever read.” —Pierre Camy, Schuler Books & Music, Grand Rapids, MI

Breaking Wild also got starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and PW.

The Arrangement, Ashley Warlick (PRH/Viking; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Ostensibly the story of M.F.K. Fisher and the years when she honed her skills as America’s first food essayist, The Arrangement is actually a story about the fragility of relationships. As Fisher grows in renown, her marriage crumbles and she boldly takes a lover who represents everything antithetical to her husband — his best friend. This is a sensual novel in every sense of the word, and the reader experiences all the excitement of both food and sexuality as Fisher becomes a more independent woman and discovers her writing abilities. What a woman! What a novel!” —William Carl, Wellesley Books, Wellesley, MA

In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by Ann Goldstein (PRH/Knopf; BOT).

“Lahiri traces the origins, tribulations, and tiny victories that have fueled her decades-long courtship with the Italian language in a bilingual memoir that reads more like an intimate diary. The chapters and short stories offer a vivid timeline of Lahiri’s turbulent relationship with language, bouncing around from English to Bengali during her childhood, immersing herself in the Italian culture by moving her family overseas, and finally attempting to write a book in a new voice. In Other Words is much more than an attempt at self-reflection and reinvention, it’s a mastery.” —Carly Lenz, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI

If you are curious to learn more about  Lahiri love of Italian , read her interview in the Wall Street Journal [may require subscription].

Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keeffe, Dawn Tripp (Random House; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Georgia is as stunningly beautiful as the artwork that inspired it. With amazing insight, Tripp captures the personal and artistic relationships between two difficult, brilliant, and complex people: the artist Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. This is an incredible read from beginning to end, a book that begs to be discussed!” —Vicky Titcomb, Titcomb’s Bookshop, East Sandwich, MA

It is also the Costco Book Pick for February.

My Father, the Pornographer: A Memoir, Chris Offutt (S&S/Atria Books).

“This fascinating memoir of Offutt’s difficult relationship with his father is complicated by the realization that his father was a prolific writer of pornography. Author Andrew Offutt was known as a science fiction writer, but, with his death, his son discovers that his family’s income was due to the astounding abundance of writing in this other genre. As he catalogs his father’s library of writings, drawings, and more, Offutt tries to understand the man that kept his family walking on eggshells. Difficult to read at times, but complex, intriguing, and hard to put down.” —Nona Camuel, CoffeeTree Books, Morehead, KY

Chris Offutt is scheduled to appear on NPR’s Fresh Air today.

Sudden Death, by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer (PRH/Riverhead Books).

“Sudden Death is one of the most audacious, smart, and original books you will read this year. It is a literary triptych — part history lesson, part tennis match, and part hypermodern adventure. Daring and visceral with a cast that includes Thomas Cromwell, Mary Magdalene, Aztec emperors, and more, the limits of the novel in Enrigue’s hands seem boundless. No other author is taking chances like this with such gratifying results.” —Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX

Tie-ins

There are no tie-in this week but the coming weeks bring many, including an Allegiant movie tie-in edition.

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

Among the titles arriving next week, the leader in both holds and number of copies ordered is Brotherhood in Death by J.D. Robb (PRH/Berkley; Brilliance Audio) followed by Breakdown: An Alex Delaware Novel, by Jonathan Kellerman (PRH/Ballantine; PRH/BOT Audio; PRH Large Print).

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet,EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Feb. 1, 2016

Media Attention

United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists, Peter Bergen, (PRH/Crown)

This book was not reviewed in the pre-pub media, probably due to an embergo in anticipation of an interview with the author Tuesday on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. As a result, ibraries have ordered it lightly. The NYT‘s Michiko Kakutani reviewed it earlier this week, saying “Mr. Bergen’s detailed accounts of terror plots (both executed, foiled or failed) make for chilling reading,”

On My Own, Diane Rehm, (PRH/ Random House; BOT/RH Audio; RH Large Print)

The host of the popular and book-friendly Diane Rehm Show on NPR (who recently announced her retirement as of the end of the 2016 Presidential election) writes about her husband’s death from Parkinson’s and her resulting commitment to the right to die movement. She will appear in a live interview with Scott Simon tomorrow on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday .

Peer Picks

The #1 LibraryRead pick for February hits shelves this week: Salt to the Sea, Ruta Sepetys (PRH/Philomel Books; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample).

Jennifer Asimakopoulos of Indian Prairie Public Library, Darien, IL says:

“Titanic. Lusitania. Wilhelm Gustloff. All major maritime disasters, yet the last is virtually unknown. Ruta Sepetys changes that in her gripping historical novel. Told in short snippets, Salt to the Sea rotates between four narrators attempting to escape various tragedies in 1945 Europe. Powerful and haunting, heartbreaking and hopeful–a must read.”

Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal each gave it a starred review.

Another LibraryReads pick comes out as well, Be Frank With Me, Julia Claiborne Johnson (Harper/William Morrow; HarperCollins Publishers and Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Marika Zemke of Commerce Township Public Library, Commerce Township, MI invites readers to:

“Meet Frank. Frank is an odd 9-year-old boy who has a higher IQ than Einstein’s and dresses as if he were on a movie set in the early 1920s–and he is someone with whom you are sure to fall in love. Frank’s reclusive mother is an author whose publisher has just sent Alice Whitley to serve as an assistant and ensure the next book is completed. The relationship between Frank and Alice is magical. Readers will devour this book and want more. Just magical.”

Be Frank With Me is also an IndieNext pick for February and joins five more titles from that list coming out this week.

Sweetgirl, Travis Mulhauser (Harper/Ecco; HarperCollins Publishers and Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“When her addict mother goes missing, Percy James is determined to find her before a winter storm descends upon their rural Michigan town. When Percy arrives at the drug dealer’s house, the smells and clutter don’t surprise her, but the discovery of a screaming infant does. Percy grabs the child and sets out to find help for her, no matter what the cost. Determined to save this little girl, Percy takes risks she never thought she could assume, and through the journey she finds she can save herself as well. Fans of Ron Rash will fall in love with Percy in Mulhauser’s debut!” —Teresa Steele, Old Firehouse Books, Fort Collins, CO

The Queen of the Night, Alexander Chee (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Blackstone Audio).

“This historical novel about an opera singer is as grand and theatrical as opera itself. It is the story of a legendary soprano who looks back at her past to solve a mystery, but it is also a story of an artist and the road she takes to become one. Chee attempts the seemingly impossible — to describe a soprano voice with words — and he succeeds brilliantly, creating a tale that is vivid, intricate, and rich. Throw in cameos by figures like Verdi and George Sand, fascinating details about royal fashions, 19th century Paris, theater, and a circus, and the result is a perfect novel.” —Anton Bogomazov, Politics & Prose, Washington, DC

Missing Pieces, Heather Gudenkauf (Harlequin/MIRA; Brilliance Audio).

“Gudenkauf once again weaves her magic, drawing readers into her latest work. Missing Pieces is a story of dark family secrets that have multiplied over the years, eroding the trust and love between husbands and wives, siblings, parents, and children. Gudenkauf uses deliberate pacing, skillful character development, and even the old nursery rhyme ‘Three Blind Mice’ to bring this thriller to a perfect, stunning ending.” —Nancy Simpson-Brice, The Book Vault, Oskaloosa, IA

The Forgetting Time, Sharon Guskin (Macmillan/Flatiron Books; Macmillan Audio).

Also People‘ magazine’s  “Book of the Week” in the new issue.

“Psychologist Dr. Jerry Anderson is literally losing his mind — aphasia is taking away his memory and his ability to communicate — when he is introduced to the severe behavior problems of four-year-old Noah. From the few clues, it seems Noah has lived a previous life. Anderson fights to keep his lucidity long enough to complete this final investigation of his career, trying to make sense of this young boy while also attempting to make sense of his own life. A compelling, dynamic, and intriguing debut novel.” —Allen Murphey, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati, OH

The Yid, Paul Goldberg (Macmillan/Picador).

“When Solomon Levinson escapes arrest in the final days of Joseph Stalin’s regime, he embarks on a quixotic attempt to kill the leader of the Soviet Union. Along with Friederich Lewis, an African American who has left Omaha for the Soviet Union, and a ragtag crew of Soviet dissenters, Levinson races to thwart a monstrous plan to unleash a second Holocaust against the Jews of Russia. The Yid is a very serious farce, a philosophical novel larded with pitch black comedy. Fans of City of Thieves and Absurdistan will love Goldberg’s ambitious new novel.” —David Enyeart, Common Good Books, St. Paul, MN

The Flood Girls, Richard Fifield (S&S/Gallery Books; Blackstone Audio).

“Rachel Flood moves back home to a rural anywhere town: Quinn, Montana. In Quinn, dirty bars breed dirty people, and Rachel struggles to find kindness in a place that kindness seems to have abandoned. These are the ’90s, and these are the women — crude and unapologetic — who carry Fifield’s debut to its shocking, though perhaps necessary, end with the harsh winds that slam across Montana’s eastern prairie. Booze, softball, western wildlife, bar fights — and the clothes! The music!” —Lauren Korn, Fact & Fiction, Missoula, MT

Tie-ins

Based on the novels by Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale, SundanceTV debuts a new original series, Hap and Leonard, on March 2nd. The show stars James Purefoy (The Following), Michael Kenneth Williams (Boardwalk Empire) and Christina Hendricks (Mad Men).

The Texas-set crime series currently contains nine novels and several shorter works. The most recent book in the series, Honky Tonk Samurai (Hachette/Mulholland Books; Hachette Audio and Blackstone Audio), comes out this week, with a cover tie-in to the TV show. It was widely praised in reviews, racking up stars in Booklist, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly.

Netflix begins a new season of Ever After High episodes starting on Jan. 29. The show supports a Mattel doll franchise in which Manga/Barbiesque dolls, based on fairy tale stories, have adventures.

Tie-ins include Ever After High: Dragon Games: The Deluxe Junior Novel, Mattel (Hachette/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) and the leveled reader, Ever After High: Let the Dragon Games Begin!, Margaret Green (Hachette/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers).

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

There’s a single holds leader for the week, James Patterson’s NYPD Red 4 (Hachette/Little, Brown) co-written with Marshall Karp, but fans are also looking forward to new titles by Alafair Burke, Elisa James, Marcia Muller and Brandon Sanderson.

The titles covered here, and several more notable books arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Jan. 25, 2016

In the Media 

The Innocent Killer : A True Story of a Wrongful Conviction and its Astonishing Aftermath
Michael Griesbach, narrated by Johnny Heller, (Tantor Audio)

The Netflix series Making a Murderer is now a bona fide cultural phenomenon, having made the cover of People magazine. Next week Tantor releases an audio of a book by one of the an assistant district attorneys in the department that prosecuted the case (big surprise, he thinks the prosecution got it right). Published by the American Bar Association in 2014, long before the series debuted, the print version is currently out of stock, but it is available as an eBook (OverDrive sample). In the U.K., PRH is releasing it under the Windmill imprint, as reported by the Guardian.

Interest in the series may continue; the producers hinted recently that a second season may be coming

Peer Picks

The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin (PRH/Delacorte Press; OverDrive Sample) is the big Peer Pick book of the week, selected as both a January LibraryReads title and as the #1 IndieNext pick for February, as well as  Entertainment Weekly‘s #4 pick on the “Must List” for the week.

Emily Weiss, of the Bedford Public Library, Bedford, NH says:

“Benjamin transports readers to 1960s Manhattan. This story gives us the chance to spy on Truman Capote’s close friendship with Babe Paley and his society “swans,” and the betrayal and scandal that drove them apart. I loved the description of the Black and White Ball.”

All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders (Macmillan/Tor Books; OverDrive Sample) also made the Feb. IndieNext list, with Sara Hinckley, of Hudson Booksellers, Marietta, GA saying:

“All the Birds in the Sky reads like an instant classic. In tackling big questions about what is really important in life and how we are all connected, the novel soars through magic and science, good and evil, and all the shades in between; through the struggles of children against clueless parents, teachers, and spiteful kids; and through the struggles of adults against a heedless society, all with a love story at its heart. Deep, dark, funny, and wonderful!”

Another Feb. IndieNext pick out this week is The Unfinished World: And Other Stories, Amber Sparks (WW Norton/Liveright; OverDrive Sample).

“The beautiful stories in Sparks’ debut collection have an ephemeral quality that is difficult to categorize. Comparisons can be made to Haruki Murakami or George Saunders, but the writing is honestly unlike anything I have ever read. The otherworldliness of these stories will transport you beyond the minutiae of your everyday life and alter the way you look at the world.” —Shawn Donley, Powell’s Books, Portland, OR.

Tie-ins

How to Be Single, Liz Tuccillo (S&S/Washington Square Press; OverDrive Sample – also in mass market) releases this week in order to promote the Feb. 12 opening of the film starring Rebel Wilson, Dakota Johnson, Leslie Mann, Dan Stevens, Alison Brie, and Damon Wayans Jr.

The romantic comedy, a big Valentine’s Day bet, follows singles on the dating scene in NYC.

Timed for Easter is the new Biblical movie, The Young Messiah, starring Sean Bean, David Bradley, and Jonathan Bailey. It comes out on March 11th.

Based on a novel by Anne Rice, the tie-in editions have both the movie title and Rice’s original book title: The Young Messiah (Movie tie-in) (originally published as Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt), Anne Rice (PRH/Ballantine Books; OverDrive Sample – also in mass market).

In a rare event for a university press, a tie-in edition is also out for Free State of Jones, starring Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Keri Russell.

The movie centers on the true life account of a Southern farmer who led a rebellion against the Confederacy.

The Free State of Jones, Movie Edition: Mississippi’s Longest Civil War (The University of North Carolina Press) was written by Victoria E. Bynum, a Texas State University professor, now retired.

The movie opens 5/13.

There’s just one title arriving with a a significant number of holds next week Blue, Danielle Steel, (PRH/Delacorte; RH Large Print; Brilliance audio). Fans are also anticipating new titles by Gregg Hurwitz (one of the peer picks, below) and Bernard Cornwall’s ninth installment in the Saxon Tales, Warriors of the Storm (HarperCollins/Harper).

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Jan. 18, 2016

Media Magnets

Before I Forget,  B. Smith and Dan Gasby with Michael Shnayerson, (PRH/Harmony)

Say it isn’t so. The vibrant B. Smith has early-onset Alzheimer’s at 64. She writes this poignantly titled memoir with her husband Dan Gasby and Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Shnayerson. An excerpt is featured in the new issue of People Magazine and B. and Dan are scheduled for an interview on NBC’s Today Show

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,  Jane Mayer. (PRH/Doubleday; RH Large Print; RH Audio) — Embargoed

The New York Times broke the news about this embargoed title in the story, ‘Father of Koch Brothers Helped Build Nazi Oil Refinery, Book Says‘ and in a review. A New Yorker writer, the author will also publish a story on the Koch brothers in the magazine next week. In addition, she is scheduled for NPR’s Fresh Air as well as several TV shows.

Peer Picks

The #1 Indie Next January pick comes out this week, The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, Katarina Bivald (Sourcebooks Landmark).

It is also a January LibraryReads choice. Barbara Clark-Greene of Groton Public Library, Groton, CT says.

“Sara arrives in the small town of Broken Wheel to visit her pen pal Amy, only to discover Amy has just died. The tale of how she brings the love of books and reading that she shared with Amy to the residents of Broken Wheel is just a lovely read. Any book lover will enjoy Sara’s story and that of the friends she makes in Broken Wheel. If ever a town needed a bookstore, it is Broken Wheel; the healing power of books and reading is made evident by this heartwarming book.”

The Things We Keep, Sally Hepworth (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample) is another double pick out this week.

An IndieNext and a LibraryReads pick, Elizabeth Eastin of the Rogers Memorial Library, Southampton, NY says:

“A sweet story of love and loss set in a residential care facility. Two of its youngest residents, a man and a woman both diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, fall in love. Their story is intertwined with the stories of other residents and employees at the facility, including a recently widowed cook and her seven-year-old daughter. A moving and improbably uplifting tale.”

Two additional January LibraryReads picks also hit the shelves this week.

Even Dogs in the Wild, Ian Rankin (Hachette/Little, Brown and Company; OverDrive Sample)

“Readers rejoice!” says Janet Lockhart of Wake County Public Libraries, Raleigh, NC, “John Rebus has come out of retirement. Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox are working an important case and ask for his help. Then an attempt is made on the life of his longtime nemesis, Big Ger Cafferty. Are the cases connected? A top notch entry in a beloved series.”

The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain, Bill Bryson (PRH/Doubleday; BOT)

“A slightly more curmudgeonly Bill Bryson recreates his beloved formula of travel writing and social commentary. This book is a lovely reminder of all the amazing natural beauty and historically significant sites found in the United Kingdom. Even though Bryson extols the virtues of his adopted homeland, he never lets up on the eccentricities and stupidity he encounters. Bryson’s still laugh-out loud funny and this book won’t disappoint.” – Susannah Connor, Pima County Public Library, Tucson, AZ

Two additional February IndieNext picks release as well.

Orphan X, Gregg Hurwitz (Macmillan/Minotaur Books; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample)

“The U.S. government secretly trained a group of orphaned children to be lethal assassins when they grew up. Evan, one of these children and now a grown man, has left the program and disappeared, resurfacing only to help those in desperate need. It is through this work that one of his enemies has found him, but which enemy — the government, one of his fellow orphans, or a relative of one of the many bad guys he has gotten rid of? Filled with lots of twists and turns and neat techno gadgets, Orphan X takes you on a roller coaster ride that will leave you breathless and waiting for the next installment of the Nowhere Man.” —Nancy McFarlane, Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC

The Portable Veblen, Elizabeth Mckenzie (Penguin Press).

“This story of an engaged couple trying to navigate crazy family dynamics, betrayal, and professional dilemmas on their way to getting married is one of the funniest, most unique novels I’ve ever read. If you simply list the story’s elements — a hippy commune, a combat field-medicine controversy, screaming snails, a devious pharmaceutical exec, a long-dead social theorist, the world’s greatest hypochondriac, and a main character who believes a squirrel is following her around California trying to tell her something — you would think that there is just no way it could all come together, but it absolutely does, and ingeniously so. A terrific book!” —Rico Lange, Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

Tie-ins

Jessica Jones: Alias Vol. 4, Marvel Comics (Marvel), which airs on Netflix, comes out this week.

As we reported earlier, Nexflix began streaming the series based on the Marvel superhero in late November. Four books collect the original comics, making this week’s entry the last of the tie-ins.

Starring Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad) as Jones, a character with superhuman strength, the show has racked up some very impressive reviews. Just one example is Eric Deggans take for NPR. He calls it “powerful” and “brilliant” and says it is one “of the best TV shows of the year.”

Also coming this week are several library-friendly titles among the the many Zootopia tie-ins to the new Disney movie due out March 4. Featuring the voices of Idris Elba, Ginnifer Goodwin, and an all star cast, the animated film is about a rookie bunny cop on her first big case.

Zootopia: Judy Hopps and the Missing Jumbo-Pop, Disney Book Group (Disney Press).

Zootopia: Junior Novelization, RH Disney, (PRH/Disney).

Zootopia: The Official Handbook, Suzanne Francis, (PRH/Disney).

Disney Zootopia: The Essential Guide, DK (DK Children).

The Stinky Cheese Caper (And Other Cases from the ZPD Files)
Greg Trine, Cory Loftis (PRH/Disney).

(for our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our

The book arriving with the most anticipation this week is Elizabeth Strout’s latest, My Name Is Lucy Barton. There’s just one strong holds leader for the week is appropriately named, The Bitter Season by Tami Hoag and

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Jan. 11

Peer Picks

Two LibraryReads picks for January go on sale this week. The first is the LibraryReads #1 pick for the month:

My Name Is Lucy Barton, Elizabeth Strout (Random House; Random House Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample)

It is also the cover of the NYT BR with a review by  Claire Messud.

Catherine Coyne, Mansfield Public Library, Mansfield, MA says:

“Set in the mid-1980s, Lucy Barton, hospitalized for nine weeks, is surprised when her estranged mother shows up at her bedside. Her mother talks of local gossip, but underneath the banalities, Lucy senses the love that cannot be expressed. This is the story that Lucy must write about, the one story that has shaped her entire life. A beautiful lyrical story of a mother and daughter and the love they share.”

It is also an Indie Next pick for January:

“Strout has the incredible ability to take ordinary, even mundane situations and use them to make acute observations on the human condition. A mother’s visit to her daughter in the hospital becomes the vehicle for an astute examination of daily needs, desires, yearnings, wishes, and dreams that become so much of the remembered experience. Using spare, precise, but beautiful language, she has produced another masterpiece in a growing list of impressive work.” —Bill Cusumano, Square Books, Oxford, MS

The second LibraryReads pick out this week is American Housewife: Stories, Helen Ellis (PRH/Doubleday; BOT)

“In a series of short stories, Helen Ellis picks up the rock of American domesticity and shows us what’s underneath. While it’s not always pretty, it is pretty hilarious, in the darkest, most twisted of ways. The ladies in these stories seem to be living lives that are enviable in the extreme, but then slowly, the layers are pulled away, and the truth is revealed.” Jennifer Dayton, Darien Library, Darien, CT

It too is an Indie Next pick for January. Bookseller Lauren Peugh, of Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, AZ says:

“American Housewife is a little arsenic cupcake of a book: adorable and lethal! Each of the stories features a housewife who does all the usual hausfrau things, but with a homicidal twist. Each of these ladies stand by their man — and sometimes they kill for him. I was spellbound and loved every vicious one of them, from their perfectly coiffed hair and gel-manicured fingers to their coal-black hearts! This is the guiltiest of guilty pleasures!”

Helen Ellis was also featured in the 12/27 New York Times Sunday Style section in a piece by J. Courtney Sullivan.

Several other Indie Next picks for January also hit the shelves this week.

Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, Sunil Yapa (Hachette/Lee Boudreaux Books; OverDrive Sample)

“Yapa’s debut novel is a raw orchestra of voices needing to be heard. Bringing to life the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, all those present are both dedicated and at a loss: the organizers and protesters, the police and their chief, the delegates and politicians, and the young unintended participant who is searching for meaning, purpose, and hope amid the brutality. From the personal to the political, within a single fraught day the whole world is blown wide open. Yapa has captured the chaos — and the beauty — with both fierceness and heart.” —Melinda Powers, Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

The Expatriates, Janice Y. K. Lee (PRH/Viking; BOT)

“The Expatriates focuses on three very different American women whose lives in wealthy and privileged modern-day Hong Kong merge in an astounding way. Margaret, Hilary, and Mercy come from different backgrounds, and as their inner struggles first collide in this glamorous new world and then with each others’, tough decisions are made that have a rippling effect. An unthinkable tragedy occurs that makes two women wish they could turn back the clock. Lee writes beautifully, with each woman’s story unfolding in sequenced chapters. A fantastic read!” —Joanne Doggart, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Chatham, MA

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi with a forward by Abraham Verghese (Random House; BOT; OverDrive Sample)

“With a message both mournful and life-affirming, When Breath Becomes Air chronicles a young doctor’s journey from literature student to promising neurosurgeon and finally to a patient in his own hospital after being diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. Always profound, never sentimental, this important book refuses to take refuge in platitudes, instead facing mortality with honesty and humility. Written in engaging prose and filled with penetrating insights, this story is relevant to everyone and will captivate fans of memoir, literature, philosophy, and popular science alike. Lyrical passages of great beauty and vulnerability are deftly balanced by bright, candid moments of joy and even humor. Come prepared with plenty of tissues; over and over again this exquisite book will break your heart.” —Carmen Tracey, Loganberry Books, Shaker Heights, OH

Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir, Tom Hart (St. Martin’s Press)

“Rosalie Lightning is a haunting and beautiful memoir that lays bare the love parents can have for their children. Hart’s simple renditions of his life before and after the death of his young daughter are successful symbols, lucidly conveying the widest range of emotions and thoughts. It would be a disservice to say Rosalie Lightning just made me cry — it also burrowed into my heart. Hart describes the most unthinkable, painful event that can happen to a parent, and even more extraordinarily, he describes the love and the life that is still available afterwards. Rosalie was a joy to read about, and even on the darkest pages, I am glad he gave this gift of a memoir.” —Lyla Wortham, Whistle-Stop Mercantile, Douglas, WY

Fallen Land, Taylor Brown (St. Martin’s Press; OverDrive Sample)

“Fallen Land by debut novelist Brown is like a blend of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. In the setting of the southern Appalachians and crossing Georgia during Sherman’s March to the Sea, Brown shares the beautifully written story of Callum, a young Irish immigrant, and Ava, the orphan daughter of a Carolina doctor who perished in the war. Together they stay one step ahead of a loosely formed band of vicious bounty hunters at the trailing end of Sherman’s scorching destruction of the South. Determination, survival, and love all combine to form a thrilling and romantic story set during the final days of the Civil War.” —Doug Robinson, Eagle Eye Book Shop, Decatur, GA

It also received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and LJ.

And Again, Jessica Chiarella (S&S/Touchstone)

“This intriguing novel explores the age-old body/soul relationship from a fresh angle by introducing us to four participants in a pilot program that gives terminally ill patients new, genetically perfect bodies. Will these four — a beautiful actress, a womanizing congressman, a talented artist, and a beloved mother — simply resume their lives as they were before disease or accident struck? Or will they make new starts, make different choices? Can their new bodies incorporate what they have learned in the past? A fascinating literary debut.” —Ellen Sandmeyer, Sandmeyer’s Bookstore, Chicago, IL

Whether it’s chicken or egg, the year kicks off with a raft of diet and health books as well as People magazine’s annual issue on humans (and, frighteningly this year, pets) who have lost half their body weight. Even the NYT Book Review explores self-help books in its first cover feature of the year, also offering a rare review of several diet books.

Some other voices are breaking through, however. As noted in the NYT BR podcast, there is a counter-trend of people admitting to their failures. Even People attests to this; one  of their “Picks of the Week” is Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life, Kelsey Miller (Hachette/Grand Central). The NYT BR also covers the very flawed and human Michael Ian Black’s satiric Navel Gazing: True Tales of Bodies, Mostly Mine (but also my mom’s, which I know sounds weird).

Entertainment Weekly also attests to the trend. The first issue of the new year offers “First Looks” at the major upcoming events in entertainment for 2016. Just one book gets the treatment, one by a woman who has never conquered the issue of weight, feminist Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, set to be published in June (Harper).

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving in the upcoming week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Jan. 4 2016.

Holds Leaders

Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up, Marie Kondo (Ten Speed, RH Large Print; OverDrive Sample).

Holds are growing on this followup to the continually popular book on the life-changing magic of tidying up. Take note that a rival book arrives next week, one that comes with a strong recommendation from our GalleyChatter columnist, Robin Beerbower, New Order: A Decluttering Handbook for Creative Folks (and Everyone Else), Fay Wolf (PRH/Ballantine).

Forty Thieves, Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press).

Perry’s standalone thriller is getting acclaim, from a starred Booklist review to LJ‘s verdict that it “presents two intriguing couples whose relationships are as compelling as the action that drives them. The novel speeds to a surprising conclusion that will satisfy Perry’s many followers and generate new fans.”

Media Attention

Been There, Done That: Family Wisdom For Modern Times, Al Roker and Deborah Roberts (PRH/NAL; Penguin Audio).

By the Today Show‘s Roker and his wife Deborah Roberts, a 20/20 correspondent, this is poised to get media attention.

NFL Confidential: True Confessions from the Gutter of Football, Johnny Anonymous  (HarperCollins/Dey Street).

Billed as a book that will deliver “fun stuff, scary stuff, controversial stuff” on the NFL by a lineman writing anonymously, the NYT‘s daily reviewer Dwight Garner says it doesn’t deliver the goods and that “The N.F.L. has nothing to fear from this mild book.” The New York Daily News sees it differently quite differently, however.

Peer Picks

The first full week of January ushers in a bevy of IndieNext Picks. All nine are listed below with annotations by booksellers.

The Past, Tessa Hadley (Harper; Dreamscape Media; OverDrive Sample).

“A novel about a family vacation is often used as a device to bring out the worst flaws of the characters; here, it is used to bring out the best of Hadley’s writing talent. She brings the family together, introducing them one by one: Harriet, the outdoorsy one; Alice, the dramatic one; Fran, the motherly one; Roland, the scholarly brother. The siblings, along with assorted children, spouses, and a young friend, spend three weeks in the crumbling house that belonged to their grandparents, trying to decide what must be done with it. Readers who enjoy character-driven novels, such as ones by Kate Atkinson, Margaret Drabble, or Jane Gardam, will welcome this novel.” – Yvette Olson, Magnolia’s Bookstore, Seattle, WA.

This is also People magazine’s “Book of the Week.” The reviewer agrees with the above assessment, that the set up is familiar, but that “Hadley is so insightful, such a lovely writer that she … makes you feel for these imperfect people, want to scold them and ultimately accept them as they are.”

The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir, Ruth Wariner (Macmillan/Flatiron Books; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“This is a memoir made extraordinary simply by the fact that the author lived to tell the tale. Wariner grew up in a polygamist cult across the Mexican border, the 39th of her father’s 41 children. Surrounded by crushing poverty and repeated tragedy, little Ruth was taught that girls are born to be used by callous men and an angry God. However, she had just enough contact with her maternal grandparents and the outside world to realize the bizarre practices at home didn’t match up with the rest of civilization. With quiet persistence, she grew into an adolescent and began to consider the possibility of escape. Riveting and reminiscent of Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle.” – Mary Laura Philpott, Parnassus Books, Nashville, TN.

Also gets a resounding A from Entertainment Weekly.

After the Crash, Michel Bussi (Hachette Books; Hachette Audio and Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“This old-fashioned crime novel by a French geography professor considers the miraculous survival of a three-month-old infant girl in an airplane crash in the Jura Mountains in which all perished — including a second three-month-old baby. An 18-year struggle is unleashed between two rival sets of grandparents on opposite ends of the economic scale, one of which is accorded custody of the child. Does she really belong to that family? Is her brother really her brother? As the age of majority of the survivor approaches, the questions become more urgent and the private detective who has been on the case for 18 years tries to bring some closure.” – Darwin Ellis, Books on the Common, Ridgefield, CT.

The Guest Room, Chris Bohjalian (PRH/Doubleday; Random House Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“From the explosive beginning all the way to the adrenaline rush of its conclusion, The Guest Room packs an emotional punch that will leave the reader gasping. When a bachelor party goes terribly wrong and two Russian mobsters wind up dead in his home, financier Richard Chapman finds himself struggling to save his job and marriage. Intertwined with Richard’s story is the tale of Alexandra, a young sex slave with a narrative voice that will break your heart. Nobody does domestic drama quite like Bohjalian. Once again he proves himself a master of page-turning literary fiction.” – Pamela Klinger-Horn, Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior, MN.

Mr. Splitfoot, Samantha Hunt (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

“When Cora’s Aunt Ruth, whom she hasn’t seen since childhood, shows up on her doorstep, mute yet demanding Cora follow her, Cora makes a split-second decision to do that to escape her dead-end job and the father of the baby she is carrying. The tale of the road trip that follows and the details of Ruth’s past are told in alternating chapters until they merge. The cast of characters and settings are mysterious and creepy, like something out of a David Lynch movie. Readers will be compelled to keep the pages turning until the secrets are revealed.” – Kelley Drahushuk, The Spotty Dog Books & Ale in Hudson, NY.

The book also earned starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

The Children’s Home, Charles Lambert (Simon & Schuster/Scribner; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Tragically disfigured and reclusive, Morgan lives in a secluded country estate with only his housekeeper, Engel, to keep him company — until the children start to arrive. The first, an infant named Moira, is left in a basket on the doorstep; others soon follow — including the oddly precocious David — the eldest at five years old. But what does the children’s enigmatic presence portend for Morgan and the world in which he lives? Through lyrical prose, Lambert creates an absorbing and dream-like narrative that recalls both the pastoral gothic of Shirley Jackson and the dystopic vision of John Wyndham.” – Dan Doody, University Book Store, Seattle, WA.

The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley, Eric Weiner (Simon & Schuster; Simon & Schuster Audio).

“In his latest quest, acclaimed travel writer Weiner takes readers on a journey to discover creative places that inspire and cultivate geniuses. Time-traveling from ancient Athens to modern Silicon Valley with Hangzhou, Florence, Edinburgh, Calcutta, and Vienna as stops along the way, Weiner conducts a grand tour of those places thought to be conducive to ingenuity. He asks, What was in the air, and can we bottle it? A fascinating and entertaining literary treat connecting culture and creativity.” – Kathleen Dixon, Fair Isle Books, Washington Island, WI.

Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Ed Tarkington (Workman/Algonquin Books; HighBridge Audio).

“Tarkington’s debut novel feels positively Shakespearean in its sense of family dynamics and the sometimes destructive power of love, but it speaks with the deceptively plain, poignant language of a Neil Young song. Set in the 1980s in a small Virginia town, the book tells the coming-of-age story of Rocky Askew as he copes with fraternal abandonment, dangerous liaisons, caregiving, and one town scandal after another with little help other than his brother Paul’s old vinyl collection. Only Love Can Break Your Heart speaks to anybody working to function, however imperfectly, in any type of family.” – Andrew Hedglin, Lemuria Bookshop, Jackson, MS.

The Gun, Fuminori Nakamura, translated by Allison Markin Powell (Soho Crime; OverDrive Sample).

“Alienation and obsession are dissected in this unsettling, spare novel. Nishikawa, a listless college student, happens upon a dead man during a nighttime walk. He inexplicably picks up the pistol lying by the body and brings it to his apartment. From this precipitous moment, the weapon becomes an obsession. Nishikawa finds his tedious reality taking on new meaning through the possibilities of an object that was designed to kill, and yet he must conceal his fetish from his classmates, lovers, and — most importantly — the police, who suspect that he has the gun. This award-winning noir novel, translated from Japanese, is an unflinching, dark story of one man’s expanding consciousness — and threat.”  – Cindy Pauldine, the river’s end bookstore, Oswego, NY.

Tie-ins

The big tie-in news of the week is that finally, after delaying its release date for weeks to prevent leaks about the story line, the publishers of the Star Wars novelization are allowing print readers access to the physical book (the ebook has been out since the movie opened).

As we reported, the book is by the same author who wrote the first Star Wars novelization decades ago, although the credit went to George Lucas.

The Force Awakens (Star Wars), Alan Dean Foster (PRH/Del Rey/LucasBooks; Random House Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

On Feb. 3, ABC will begin airing a miniseries detailing the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme with Richard Dreyfuss playing Madoff and Blythe Danner playing his wife, Ruth.

The show is based on the 2009 book by ABC News’s chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross, The Madoff Chronicles (Inside the Secret World of Bernie and Ruth) (Kingswell; OverDrive Sample).

A tie-in edition will be published this week.

Also in the works is an HBO movie about Madoff, Wizard of Lies, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer. It is expected to air some time this year.