Costco’s book buyer recommends Margot Livesey’s latest, The Flight of Gemma Hardy in the July issue of Costco Direct, saying that, like Livesey’s other novels, it is one of “those books that leave you 100 percent satisfied and richer for having read them.” Although it is a modern retelling of Jane Eyre, it is also “a fulfilling novel that stands on its own.”

The trade paperback was just released; many libraries still show holds on the hardcover, published Jan. 24th.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy: A Novel Margot Livesey Retail Price: $15.99 Paperback: 480 pages Publisher: Harper Perennial – (2012-06-26) ISBN / EAN: 0062064231 / 9780062064233

Teach.com has created a clever “Summer Reading Flow Chart” to encourage high school students to read this summer. The choices may be a bit didactic (that word “Should” in the headline is telling), but the presentation is fun (via USA Today).

A clip from season three of Downton Abbey, featuring Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith, is making the rounds on the Web and whetting fans’ appetites for the series debut on PBS’ Masterpiece in January (UK fans get first crack at the series, beginning in September).

Elizabeth McGovern introduces the clip, as part of the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award ceremony honoring MacLaine. The event was held nearly three weeks ago and was aired on TV Land this Sunday. This obviously hand-held recording looks like it was shot directly from the tv screen.

Time to update your read-alike lists (we’ve listed a few new titles to consider, after the jump).

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Called the master of the historical spy thriller, Alan Furst has written 12 novels in the Night Soldiers series (or, as he puts it on his Web site, the series is “really one very long book with, to date, twelve chapters”). The books have gradually gathered acclaim (in 2008, a profile by Chip McGrath in the NYT signaled that Furst had arrived. In 2010, Spies of the Balkans appeared on several best books list and debuted on the NYT Best Seller list at #10).

He’s about to become a household name. His new book, Mission to Paris, (Random House; Thorndike Large Print; S&S Audio) arrives on the new USA Today list at the highest spot ever for the series and at #2 on the Indie list, making it poised to arrive in the top three on the upcoming NYT list (UPDATE: the book debuted at #2 on the list). Libraries are showing heavy holds.

In the Huffington Post, fan Jesse Kornbluth tries to nail down why Furst’s books are addictive; “although these novels are about Europe in the years before World War II, they’re also exquisite little morality plays about right now, right here.”

Furst himself explains why he writes what he writes:

The Receptionist, Janet Groth’s memoir of working at the New Yorker in the William Shawn era (also the era of Mad Men, leading USA Today to recommend it to fans of the show) has appeared on several summer reading lists. Entertainment Weekly provides an irresistible annotation on their  “Summer Must List”; Groth has “collected the sort of gossipy anecdotes that would have you hanging on her every word at a literary cocktail party.”

It’s also an audio from Highbridge (15 minute clip on the site).

The Receptionist: An Education at The New Yorker Janet Groth Retail Price: $19.95 Hardcover: 241 pages Publisher: Workman/Algonquin – (2012-06-26) ISBN / EAN: 9781616201319

It’s a long wait until January and season three of Downton Abbey (check here for tidbits on what to expect, including sparks between Maggie Smith and new cast member Shirley MacLaine).

As a result, the magic phrase applied to any new novel set during WWI is “for fans of Downton Abbey.”

The Minneapolis Star Tribune applies it to the paperback original, Park Lane by Frances Osborne (RH/Vintage, 6/12), in their intriguing selection of eight titles for summer reading. The description (and the cover) makes it appear to fill the bill:

Osborne deftly parallels emerging suffragette and erstwhile socialite Bea’s privileged lifestyle with the lowered expectations of reluctant housemaid Grace. While their stations in life may be quite different, by the end of the novel their lives have intersected in ways they could have never foreseen.

The San Francisco Chronicle finds The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones (Harper, 5/1) a good choice for D.A. withdrawal, “It seemed heaven sent; Jones’ third novel is set in 1912, the very year Downton began, on the day and evening of a smallish house party celebrating the 20th birthday of the likable but spoiled eldest daughter of the manor, Emerald Torrington.” The reviewer finds it “sublimely clever.”

Memorial Day is fast approaching, and with it, lists of poolside reading recommendations.

Nancy Pearl presented hers on NPR’s Morning Edition earlier in the week. One of the titles is, of course, the first in her curated list of reprints, the Book Lust Rediscoveries series, the 1961 title, A Gay and Melancholy Sound, which she first discovered in the Annapolis Public Library when she was 18. She says it may be her “favorite novel ever” (amazing for someone who has read so many books).

Asked about the negative reaction from some independent booksellers over her decision to publish the series with Amazon, she replied, “I was not surprised, but sorry that happened. My loyalty has always been to…putting readers together with good books. When this idea was offered to many, many publishers, Amazon was the company that loved it and felt that it fit their mission.”

In addition to coming back in print, the title is available as an audiobook for the first time (Brilliance Audio).

Among her other picks is Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. Nancy says her copy is so filled with markers for quotes she wants to remember that it is now twice its original size. A debut novel, it has been receiving a chorus of kudos,

The cover blurb from Karl Marlantes (Matterhorn, What It’s Like to Go to War) calls it “The Catch 22 of the Iraq War.”

The Washington Post — “a masterful gut-punch of a debut novel.”

The NYT Book Review — “everything is brilliantly done”

The Huffington Post points out Fountain “was Malcolm Gladwell’s prime example in an essay about how it takes 10,000 hours to become great at anything” and claims that the book “has already established itself as the finest novel about the Iraq War.”

No less a critic than the Washington Post‘s Jonathan Yardley calls Turn Right at Machu Picchu, (Dutton, June 30) an “entirely delightful book.” Author Mark Adams decided to celebrate the centenary of the “discovery” of Machu Picchu by following the trek himself, a challenge he was not fully prepared for.

He was interviewed on NPR Weekend Edition Sunday. The book is also on NPR’s list of the “Summer’s Biggest, Juiciest Nonfiction Adventures,” which calls it, “as close to an armchair vacation as you’ll get all summer long.”

Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time Mark Adams Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Dutton Adult – (2011-06-30) ISBN / EAN: 0525952241 / 9780525952244

Parade Magazine weighed in with their 12 picks for summer reading last week (distinguishing themselves by being the only ones to select Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Once Upon a River, getting strong critical acclaim and showing heavy holds in libraries). With the country in the midst of a seemingly endless heat wave, it seems appropriate to now call the summer reading lists of 2011 a wrap.

On the right side of the site, we’ve linked to the major lists, under “Previews — Summer ’11.” Browsing through the various list serves as a quick R.A. refresher.

For an exhaustive (and exhausting) list of nearly every guide, check out the blog Largehearted Boy. It’s interesting if your curious what books more specialized sources, like what Ad Age recommends.

Since it’s instructive to see how others hand-sell books, below are Harlan Coben and Jennifer Weiner (who is on several reading lists herself, for Then Came You, Atria, out this week), presenting their top picks on the Today Show earlier this month.

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Wendy Bartlett, Collection Development Manager, Cuyahoga P.L. emailed us that libraries may want to check their holds on The Long Drive Home (S&S, 5/17) by Will Allison, a novel about a man who gives in to rare fit of road rage, killing a teenager in the process. His subsequent lies and deceptions eventually tear apart his once perfect family.

It is a People magazine Pick in the 5/30 issue, which describes it as “a gripping morality tale …Allison’s eye for the quiet details of domestic life highlights what’s at stake, and he makes brilliant use of the precocious [six-year-old daughter] Sara…” The 7/4 NYT Book Review attests to the novel’s emotional power, although the reviewer questions the book’s key plot element and is “queasy” about being made to like the main character.

Based on holds, Wendy says she is now placing a 3^rd order and put book on Cuyahoga’s popular  “Coming Soon/Bestsellers” handout.

Tell us what books are taking off in your library ;email us, or leave a comment below.

On NPR’s Morning Edition today, Nancy Pearl presents “10 Terrific Summer Reads” (audio will be available around 9 a.m., Eastern). The list is eclectic, ranging from a graphic novel series (Castle Waiting & Castle Waiting II, Linda Medley, Fantagraphic Books) to Y.A. (Matched, Ally Condie, Dutton) and  to a mass market paperback original (Midnight Riot, Ben Aaronovitch, Del Rey).

If you are going to ALA, you can catch Nancy as she hosts the 2nd annual AAP Editor Buzz program at ALA this Sunday, 10:30 to noon, Room 392, the New Orleans Convention Center.

Our friends and former colleagues at Shelf Awareness have launched a new publication aimed at consumers, Shelf Awareness for Readers. The twice-weekly email newsletter focuses on books, with a dozen reviews of both adult and childrens books as well as features, and some stories from the six-year-old trade publication, now called Shelf Awareness Pro. UPDATE: The reviews will be licensed; Ingram has already signed up.

One feature that readers advisors are sure to love is “Further Reading.” In this issue, it recommends books to extend the experience after reading Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder.

This new version of The Shelf is launching with an extensive marketing campaign, so you are likely to hear about it from your customers.

None of the much-anticipated “next Stieg Larsson’s” have come close to that author’s uber-best-selling popularity. The latest contender, The Snowman by Jo Nesbo, Knopf, landed on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list, where it is now at #13 after 4 weeks, slipping from a high of #9, making it unlikely to touch the Larsson record. Still, it’s quite an achievement for a book in translation.

For fans who want more, USA Today offers a list of “Scandie Lit” coming out this summer (all are international best sellers). Below are their picks, with our annotations:

The Inspector and Silence: An Inspector VanVeeteren Mystery by Swedish writer Hakan Nesser, Pantheon, 6/14 — the fifth title in the series to be translated into English; excellent prepub reviews.

The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler, FSG, July 5 — Expected to be a major success (it’s one of People‘s Picks for the summer, calling it “spellbinding”), this first novel by a Swedish husband-and-wife team, it’s been signed for a movie, to be directed by Lasse Hallstrom.

Bad Intentions: An Inspector Sejer Mystery by Karin Fossum, HMH, 8/9; Fossum has been called the “Norwegian queen of crime.”

Call Me Princess by Denmark’s Sara Blaedel, Pegasus,  8/17; the publisher compares this “Danish crime queen” to both Stieg Larsson and Camilla Lackberg. This is her American debut.

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen. Dutton, 8/23; winner of several Danish crime fiction prizes, Adler-Olsen has dominated Danish best seller lists, but most of his books have not been translated into English. PW gives this one a starred review, “Stieg Larsson fans will be delighted.”

Not on the USA Today list

Until Thy Wrath Be Past, by Swedish crime writer Asa Larsson, SilverOak/Sterling 8/9; SilverOak is a new imprint that focuses on Scandinavian crime; they brought Three Seconds by Roslund & Hellstrom to the US. It was on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list for four weeks in January, rising to #8.

In her May interview on Seattle’s NPR station, WKUO, Nancy Pearl says she’s been reading two “wonderful novels” [listen here] that she will be talking about on an upcoming interview on the NPR’s national Morning Edition show.

The first, The Coffins of Little Hope, by Timothy Schaffert, (Unbridled, 4/19), also receives a strong endorsement from Ron Charles this week in the Washington Post, Janet Maslin last month in the NYT and is awarded four of a possible four stars in the 5/16 issue of  People magazine, in a review describing it as,

Memorably narrated by octogenarian obit writer Essie Myles, this is a witty, sometimes profound story about media, mortality and rash acts undertaken in the name of love.

Author Timothy Schaffert appeared in early May at the Omaha Public Library. In a promo on the local morning tv show, he offers an intriguing description of the plot (don’t worry; the intro from the show’s rather excitable hosts, who clearly have not read the book, is mercifully brief).

It is published by indie press Unbridled Books. Founded in 2003, the press has built a strong reputation in just a few years for discovering literary fiction (one of their major breakouts is The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel, a finalist for the Indie Booksellers Choice award).

The other favorite Nancy mentions is Emily Alone by Stuart O’Nan (Viking/Penguin, March 17). She says both in it and The Coffins of Little Hope the authors allow you to get to know a character in depth, both the good and the bad, similar to what Evan Connell achieved with Mrs. Bridge and Elizabeth Strout with Olive Kitteridge.

Already hailed with 3 starred prepub reviews, GalleyChat buzz and four of a possible four stars in People magazine, Jennifer Haigh’s Faith receives a powerful review from Ron Charles in the Washington Post. The story follows a woman as she investigates accusations of sexual abuse against her stepbrother, a Catholic priest. Charles says Haigh,

…brings a refreshing degree of humanity to a story you think you know well, and in chapters both riveting and profound, she catches the avalanche of guilt this tragedy unleashes in one devout family.

Faith: A Novel Jennifer Haigh Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Harper – (2011-05-10) ISBN / EAN: 0060755806 / 9780060755805

Large Print, HarperLuxe; Audio, Dreamscape and Playaway