EarlyWord is the home of GalleyChat, monthly online discussions where library staff share excitement about upcoming books. More information here.
Summaries of chats and announcements are posted to the right. Use them to add to your own TBR piles and for collection development.
Links on the far right of the site offer information useful to readers advisors.
Hope to see you during our next chat,
GalleyChatters
A fascinating look at the fascinating topic of breasts was aired on Fresh Air yesterday, propelling Breasts by Florence Williams to #85 (from # 1,144). Science reporter Williams, after reading that toxins has been discovered in breast milk, had her own tested and discovered that it contained flame retardants (from the foam in her couch) and an ingredient in jet fuel.
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Two movies about Steve Jobs are in the works. Ashton Kutcher is currently filming Jobs: Get Inspired, in which he plays Apple’s co-founder. It is expected to hit theaters later this year.
Rumors that Aaron Sorkin will create a film script from Walter Isaacson’s bio, Steve Jobs (S&S) have been confirmed by Sony Pictures. Sorkin explored the career of another complicated tech mogul, Facebook co-creator Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network (2010) adapted from Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires (RH/Doubleday, 2009).
The man who led the CIA’s anti-terrorism efforts, Henry Crumpton, said in an interview on CBS Sixty Minutes last night that there are “more foreign spies in the US than ever before.”
Crumpton writes about his experiences in The Art of Intelligence. The embargoed book is being released today.
An excerpt is on The Daily Beast.
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Our list of eleven titles you need to know next week, includes Jai Pausch’s memoir about coming to terms with the loss of her husband, Randy, whose book, The Last Lecture, has been an enduring favorite. The author of Friday Night Lights writes a new book about traveling with his brain-damaged son. On our Watch List is a book libraries may have under bought and a Nancy Pearl pick for the summer.
The Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri (HarperCollins) is the followup to the 2009 word-of-mouth hit, The Lacemakers of Glenmara. Library orders range widely, with Cuyahoga (OH) buying the most; over 150 copies for their 28 branches, even though there are few holds on it so far. Head of collection development, Wendy Bartlett took a stand on the book because the previous book was a long-running local hit, with people continuing to place holds over a year after it was published. Wake County (NC) has bought more conservatively, and has much higher holds than other libraries we checked. Recreation Reading Librarian, Janet Lockhart believes holds are based on the cover and description, featured on their catalog, which appeals to anyone looking forward to summer on the beach. The Lacemakers of Glenmara is still circulating in both libraries, creating a built-in audience. Note: The author lives in Seattle and the book is set in Maine. CRYSTAL BALL: Most libraries can use more copies of this; with that cover and author name recognition, it will turn over quickly.
The Lola Quartet by Emily St John Mandel (Unbridled Books) explores the lives of the members of a suburban Florida high school jazz quartet as their paths cross ten years later, and they face the disappointments of adulthood, from lost jobs to unplanned progeny to addiction. This is a Nancy Pearl pick for the summer, as were the author’s previous two novels, both of which were critical successes.
The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey (RH/Knopf) is a tale of love and loneliness by the two-time Booker winner focusing on a museum conservator in London who plunges into a project to restore an automaton as she silently grieves the death of her lover of 13 years, who was married to someone else. Booklist says, “Carey’s gripping, if at times overwrought, fable raises provocative questions about life, death, and memory and our power to create and destroy.” The Wall St. Journal has an interview with the author.
The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry (RH/Ballantine; Random House Large Print; Random House Audio) is a standalone thriller in which a journalist works to decipher the artifacts left in his father’s coffin, leading to discoveries about Christopher Columbus. The author is usually compared to Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler, but here, he is working in the Dan Brown mode.
Stolen Prey by John Stanford (Penguin/Putnam; Penguin Audiobooks) is the 22nd novel featuring Lucas Davenport of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, as he investigates the murder of a family in their lakeside trophy house.
The Accused (Theodore Boone Series #3; Penguin/Dutton Children’s) by John Grisham finds 13 year-old Theo facing his biggest challenge yet, after having discovered key evidence in a murder trial and in his best friend’s abduction.
Gilt by Katherine Longshore (Penguin/Viking Children’s) follows the life of Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, through the eyes of her close friend. Kirkus says, “the mounting terror as lusty, luxury-loving Cat’s fortunes fall is palpable, as is the sense that the queen is no innocent. The author’s adherence to historical detail is admirable, clashing with both title and cover, which imply far more froth than readers will find between the covers. A substantive, sobering historical read, with just a few heaving bodices.” This one is highly anticipated by librarians on our YA GalleyChat.
A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix (HarperCollins) is a space opera featuring a 19-year-old prince who is forced out of his protected bubble and must grapple with the weaknesses and strengths of his true self in order to take his rightful place as intergalactic Emperor. Kirkus says, “the rocket-powered pace and epic world building provide an ideal vehicle for what is, at heart, a sweet paean to what it means to be human. 75K copies.” This one has been heavily ordered by libraries and has holds.
Father’s Day: A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son by Buzz Bissinger (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Simon & Schuster Audio) finds the author of Friday Night Lights on a cross-country trip with his 24 year-old son, who has some significant disabilities related to brain damage at birth, and many admirable qualities. 100K copy first printing.
DNA USA by Bryan Sykes (Norton/Liveright) is part travelogue, part genealogical history of the U.S. as the author, an Oxford geneticist, writes about the DNA samples he has gathered. Kirkus says, “Sykes gives lucid, entertaining explanations of new genetic techniques and their startling success at tracing familial ties across continents and millennia.” An interview with the author is scheduled for NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered, in addition to coverage on local NPR stations. Libraries are showing some holds.
Dream New Dreams: Reimagining My Life After Loss by Jai Pausch (RH/Crown Archetype) is a meditation on marriage, grief and caregiving through illness by the wife of Randy Pausch, who wrote the bestseller The Last Lecture on the eve of his death from pancreatic cancer. Kirkus says, “Far from being a mere add-on to her late husband’s book, this work stands on its own as an eloquent testimony of a caregiver.”
One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season by Chris Ballard (Hyperion) is a Sports Illustrated writer’s fond look back at the 1971 Macon (Ill.) High School’s baseball team’s journey to the state finals. PW says, “Ballard holds the story of the team together with his conversational prose and boosts the story’s poignancy with a touching conclusion that demonstrates the importance of high school sports and hometown heroes while asking, if not answering, the question of how much one game, a win or lose, can change a life.” 100,000 copy first printing.
The cover of the June issue of Vanity Fair features a photo from a new book about Marilyn Monroe (Lawrence Schiller’s Marilyn & Me: A Photographer’s Memories, RH/Doubleday/Nan A. Talese), but buzz is building about the magazine’s excerpt of another bio, David Maraniss’s Barack Obama: The Story.
It features “the untold story” of Obama’s post-grad romance with former girlfriend Genevieve Cook, including quotes from her diary. Does that sound like a bit of extraneous gossip aimed at selling books? US News responds with “Why Barack Obama’s Old Girlfriend Matters.”
Meanwhile, The Huffington Post is more interested in “Obama’s Thoughts On T.S. Eliot” and the NYT “City Room” blog sniffs, “Obama? Just the Forgettable 1980s Boyfriend of a Landlord’s Tenant.”
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The big winner in this year’s James Beard Cookbook Awards is a big book; Modernist Cuisine was named the Cookbook of the Year, as well as winner in the Cooking from a Professional Point of View category. Just before the announcement, several publications, including the Wall Street Journal‘s SpeakEasy blog, covered the news that, despite its size (five volumes, 47 lbs) and cost ($450), it’s sold over 45,000 copies (a check of WorldCat reveals that few of those sales were to public libraries).
Below is the list, with book trailers where available.
Cookbook of the Year
Modernist Cuisine, by Nathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet, (The Cooking Lab)
Cookbook Hall of Fame
Laurie Colwin, Home Cooking (RH/Vintage) and More Home Cooking (Harper Perennial)
American Cooking
A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen, by Hugh Acheson
(RH/Clarkson Potter)
Baking and Dessert
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, by Jeni Britton Bauer, (Workman/Artisan)
Beverage
Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, with Cocktails, Recipes, & Formulas, by Brad Thomas Parsons, (RH/Ten Speed Press)
Cooking from a Professional Point of View
Modernist Cuisine., by Nathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet, (The Cooking Lab)
General Cooking
Ruhlman’s Twenty, by Michael Ruhlman. (Chronicle Books)
Focus on Health
Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen, by Heidi Swanson, (RH/Ten Speed Press)
International
The Food of Morocco, by Paula Wolfert, (HarperCollins/Ecco)
Photography
Notes from a Kitchen: A Journey Inside Culinary Obsession, Artist/Photographer: Jeff Scott, (Tatroux)
Reference and Scholarship
Turning the Tables: Restaurants and the Rise of the American Middle Class, 1880-1920, by Andrew P. Haley
(The University of North Carolina Press)
Single Subject
All About Roasting, by Molly Stevens, (W.W. Norton & Company)
Writing and Literature
Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton, (Random House)
Arriving next week are a father-son memoir from Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, biographies of Clarence Birdseye by the author of Cod and Salt and foodie Craig Claiborne by Thomas McNamee, plus a wacky self-help book from Augusten Burroughs.
Along the Way: The Journey of Father and Son by Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez (S&S/Free Press) is a joint memoir by father and son, both well-known actors. It’s partly set in Hollywood, but its through-line is the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage path across northern Spain, from which Sheen’s father emigrated to the U.S. and to which Estevez’s own son has returned to live. A Today Show interview is scheduled for May 8.
Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man by Mark Kurlansky (RH/Doubleday) is a biography of Clarence Birdseye, the inventor of fast-freezing for food, written by the author of Cod and Salt. Kirkus says, “Kurlansky tells the exciting tale of Birdseye’s adventures, failures and successes (he became a multi-millionaire) and his family, and he also offers engaging snippets about Velveeta, dehydration and Grape-Nuts. The author notes that Birdseye knew that curiosity is ‘one essential ingredient’ in a fulfilling life; it is a quality that grateful readers also discover in each of Kurlansky’s books.”
The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance by Thomas McNamee (S&S/Free Press; Tantor Media) is an authorized biography of culinary tastemaker Craig Claiborne’s Parisian days, world travels, and influence on American chefs and food culture. Kirkus calls it “a highly readable, well-researched narrative.”
This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More by Augusten Burroughs (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Thorndike Press; Macmillan Audio) is an unconventional self-help book by the bestselling author who chronicled how he overcame an abusive childhood. “Despite pages of platitudes, Burroughs provides plenty of worthy material on the absurdity of the human condition and the unpredictability of contemporary life,” says Kirkus.
There are no surprises on the new Indie Fiction Best Seller list. Stephen King’s The Wind Through the Keyhole arrives at #1, moving Grisham’s baseball novel, Calico Joe to #2. The Paris Wife is enjoying the most longevity, at #8 after 62 weeks, (it was on our Crystal Ball back in March, 2011, but we had no idea it would last this long).
Popping back on to the list, at #15, after having moved to the extended list for a couple of weeks is The Night Circus. Meanwhile, another of the Big First Novels of last fall, Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding, is out in trade paperback and hits that list at #4.
On the Nonfiction list, Rachel Maddow’s book on how the US has outsourced war, Drift, continues at #1 after five weeks. Anna Quindlen’s memoir, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, debuts at #2 and Madeleine Albright’s, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 arrives at #5.
Debuting at #14, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel, questions our current obsession with marketplace solutions (such as schools paying kids to read books or companies making money from life insurance on their employees). It has gotten attention in the business press, with an admiring review from an unexpected source, The Wall Street Journal (noting, for readers who may be put off, that the author is “not a socialist, and his critique of markets is measured”). Several libraries are showing heavy holds on moderate ordering. It is also available in audio (Macmillan Audio).
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It can be trying for an author, after laboring months over a book in relative solitude, to suddenly face the glare of the book promotion spotlight. For the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, (RH/Crown; RHAudio; OverDrive ebook and audio; Center Point Large Print), the book tour took on an extra element of irony.
As Susan Cain writes in an essay in this week’s NYTBR, her conversion to “that impossibly oxymoronic creature: the Public Introvert” required her to do “the very thing my book questions: putting down my pen and picking up a microphone.”
She writes about preparing for her most terrifying assignment; a speech for the TED conference.
She clearly succeeded; libraries continue to show heavy holds on her book, which after 11 weeks on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list, just moved to the extended list at #16 (it’s at #7 on the current Indie list, after 13 weeks).
Next week is a big one for memoir and biography, with the much-anticipated fourth installment in Robert Caro‘s biography of Lyndon Johnson, plus memoirs by Dan Rather and Ryan O’Neal, and an oral history of NBC-TV’s triumphant turnaround in the 1990s by former executive Warren Littlefield. It also brings a debut novel by Brandon Jones about human trafficking in North Korea and Nell Freudenberger‘s sophomore novel of cross-cultural marriage. And, new titles are soming from usual suspects Charlayne Harris and Ace Atkins filling in for Robert Spenser, and the latest installments in popular YA series by Kristin Cashore and Rick Riordan.
All Woman and Springtime by Brandon Jones (Workman/Algonquin; Highbridge Audio) is a debut novel about two North Korean girls who form an immutable bond when they meet in an orphanage, but are betrayed and sold into prostitution at age 17, taking them on a damaging journey to South Korea and ultimately a brothel in Seattle. LJ calls it “impossible to put down,” adding “this work is important reading for anyone who cares about the power of literature to engage the world and speak its often frightening truths.”
The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio) is the author’s second novel of cultural confrontation, this time featuring Amina, a 24 year old Bangladeshi woman who becomes the e-mail bride of George, an electrical engineer in Rochester, NY. It’s heavily anticipated by the critics, as indicated by the number of early reviews in the consumer press. It gets the cover of the NYT Book Review this coming Sunday, Ron Charles reviewed it earlier this week in the Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly gives it a solid A.
Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel (Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood #12) by Charlaine Harris (Penguin/Ace Books; Recorded Books; Wheeler Large Print) is the penultimate title in this popular supernatural series, as Sookie Stackhouse and her friends struggle with the consequences of the death of the powerful vampire Victora. PW says, “as loyalties realign and betrayals are unmasked, Harris ably sets the stage for the ensembleas last hurrah.”
Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby: A Spenser Novel by Ace Atkins (Penguin/Putnam; Random House Audio) finds Parker’s PI invesigating a women’s death at the request of her 14 year old daughter. PW says that “Atkins hits all the familiar marks – bantering scenes with Spenseras girlfriend, fisticuffs, heavy-duty backup from the dangerous Hawk – as he offers familiar pleasures. At the same time, he breaks no new ground, avoiding the risk of offending purists and the potential rewards of doing something a bit different with the characters.”
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore (Penguin/Dial Books; Penguin Audiobooks) arrives to the sound of YA librarians and their readers screams of “at last!” Kirkus says of this followup to Graceling (2008) and Fire (2009), “devastating and heartbreaking, this will be a disappointment for readers looking for a conventional happy ending. But those willing to take the risk will — like Bitterblue — achieve something even more precious: a hopeful beginning.”
The Serpent’s Shadow (Kane Chronicles Series #3) by Rick Riordan (Disney/Hyperion; Thorndike Large Print; Brilliance Audio) is the conclusion to this bestselling YA fantasy series, in which Carter and Sade Kane risk death and the fate of the world to tame the chaos snake with an ancient spell.
Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News by Dan Rather (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio) reveals that the TV news anchor felt “his lawsuit against his former network was worth it, even though the $70 million breach-of-conduct case was rejected by New York courts,” according to the Associated Press, which broke the embargo on this book, on sale May 1. Kirkus calls it “an engaging grab-bag: part folksy homage to roots, part expose of institutional wrongdoing and part manifesto for a truly free press.”
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro (RH/Knopf; Brilliance Audio) is the fourth volume in Caro’s series on Lyndon Johnson, focusing on the years between his senatorship and presidency, when he battled Robert Kennedy for the 1960 Democratic nomination for president, and undertook his unhappy vice presidency. Caro is the subject of a New York Times Magazine profile, and will doubtless get an avalanche of coverage, starting with Entertainment Weekly‘s review (it gets an A-). Kirkus notes, “the fifth volume is in the works, and it is expected to cover Johnson’s election to the White House and his full term, with the conduct of the Vietnam War ceaselessly dogging him.”
Both of Us: My Life with Farrah by Ryan O’Neal (RH/Crown Archtype; Center Point Large Print; Random House Audio) is the story of film actor O’Neal’s enduring love for TV actress Fawcell – from the love that flared when she was married to Lee Major, to their marriage that ended in 1997, and their eventual reunion for three years before Fawcell died from cancer in 2009. The book is excerpted in the new issue of People magazine (5/7).
Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV by Warren Littlefield and T.R. Pearson (RH/Doubleday; RH Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is an oral history by NBC’s former president of entertainment, with a chorus of voices including Jerry Seinfeld, Kelsey Grammar and Sean Hayes, as they discuss the ups and downs of turning NBC into a multi-billion dollar broadcasting company in the 1990’s. PW says, “these revelatory glimpses of those glory days make this one of the more entertaining books published about the television industry.”
The nominees for the Edgars in the Best Fact Crime category demonstrate how much the category of narrative nonfiction has grown in the last few years. Fact Crime, once dominated by lurid tales of bloody murders, now features books that look at history through the lens of crime. A prime example is the winner, announced last night, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (RH/Doubleday; Thorndike large print). It is also a 2011 ALA Notable Book and was included on many of the year’s best books lists. Most libraries are still showing holds, despite heavy buying.
The winner in the Best Novel category is Mo Hayder, for the fifth book in her Jack Caffery series, Gone, now available in trade paperback.
Grove/Atlantic is in the process of publishing this British author’s books in trade paperback in the U.S. The first in the series, Birdman (9780802146120), will be published in May (also in audio by Dreamscape). The second, The Treatment (9780802146137; Dreamscape audio) is coming in July. Downloadable audio available on OverDrive.
Author Web site: MoHayder.net
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The full list of nominees and winners is here.
Jennifer Lawrence, star of The Hunger Games, is in talks to play the lead in the movie version of Jeannette Wells’ The Glass Castle,(S&S/Scribner), a best seller ever since it was published in 2005.
Lawrence begins shooting Catching Fire in September.
Popular internet personality “The Bloggess,” is now an old-media hit.
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson (Penguin/Einhorn; Penguin Audio), arrives on the Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller list at #4 (and #17 on the USA Today list).
You can expect to see it in a high spot on the upcoming NYT list (the author spills the beans on her own site, so why shouldn’t we? It arrives at #1 on the Combined Print & E-Book list and at #2 on the Print Nonfiction list).
Over to you, taxidermied mouse:
When Stephen Colbert interviewed Maurice Sendak in late February, he threatened to write his own kids book, I Am a Pole (And So Can You!). After he outlined the idea, Sendak proclaimed, “The sad thing is, I like it!” Colbert immediately pounced on that quote for his blurb.
And, so it came to pass:
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Amazingly, the book is also going to be available in audio (Hachette Audio).
Colbert’s description of the book begins at the 3:13 time mark in the video below (but how can you not watch the entire thing?).
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
True to Colbert’s prediction (and Sendak’s irritation) it will also be an eBook, but Hachette no longer sells their eBooks to libraries.
The book’s “popular illustrator with a horrible sense of design” is not named.
Critics said it comes across more like an infomercial for the book than a movie, but Think Like a Man managed to knock The Hunger Games off the top spot on box office charts this weekend.
The subject of the infomercial part is, of course, Steve Harvey’s best seller, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a 
Man (HarperCollins/Amistad). The source material hasn’t toppled the Hunger Games book trilogy, but it does appear immediately below that series, at #7 on Amazon’s best seller list (a certain other trilogy, as yet not made into a movie, holds the top three positions). The tie-in edition is further down the list, at #635.