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
Time magazine’s “The Page” blog reports on what others report is in the book.
The big news? NO INDEX! The theory is that inside-the-Beltway types will have to actually read the book to find their names.
 |
|
HarperAudio; Abridged; 9780061990731; $29.99; 11/24
HarperLuxe; pbk; $28.99; 11/24
One of the people interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning‘s cover story about the safety of flu vaccine, was Michael Specter, author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. As is probably clear from the book’s subtitle, Specter, who writes about science and technology for The New Yorker, believes that the risks of not getting the vaccine outweigh any other concerns. He also was interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday and the book was reviewed in the New York Times.
Holds are heavy on modest ordering in the large libraries we checked.
 |
|
eBook downloadable from OverDrive.
CBS sunday Morning
Mary Karr’s new memoir Lit is a hit with critics, ranging from the New York Times’ notoriously hard-to-please Michiko Kakutani to Entertainment Weekly, which gave it an undiluted A. It’s currently at #76 on Amazon, after a week in the top 100, and rising. Library holds are growing.
Not only iss Karr getting high critical praise, but reviewers also express the sheer pleasure they found in reading the book.
The often churlish Michiko Kakutani, perhaps inspired by Karr’s Texas roots, says that the book “lassos you, hogties your emotions and won’t let you go.”
Melanie Gideon in the S.F. Chronicle says,
Mary Karr owes me. Because of Lit, her new memoir, my week was a disaster. Laundry piled up, the dishes went unwashed, my son went without his flu shot, and our puppy peed on the couch – all because I spent every spare moment with my nose buried in Lit, a harrowing account of Karr’s descent into alcoholism and her eventual conversion to Catholicism.
Valerie Sayers in the Washington Post begins by describing herself as a “memoirphobe,” who dreads
…the depiction of yet another horrific (if colorful) childhood, drug-addled adolescence, young adult breakdown and especially — most especially — blissful spiritual recovery. It’s not that the lives revealed in so many memoirs are unworthy of examination; it’s not even that they’re necessarily Too Much Information, that bane of our hyper-therapized culture. It is, rather, that the pronoun “I” can function as a semiautomatic weapon in the hands of a memoirist: Whoever has possession controls the conversation.
Nonetheless, she says, “Karr’s sharp and funny sensibility won me over to her previous two volumes, but what wins me over to Lit is…her acute self-awareness.”
Samantha Dunn in the Los Angeles Times says,
Karr could tell you what’s on her grocery list, and its humor would make you bust a gut, its unexpected insights would make you think and her pitch-perfect command of our American vernacular might even take your breath away.
In the introduction to his interview with Karr in the Huffington Post, former publisher Steve Ross noted that PW, which caught flak for not including a single woman in its Top Ten Best Books of 2009, made an even more egregious oversight by not including Lit.
Unfortunately, it goes beyond that; not only is Lit not in the PW Top Ten, it’s not in their Top 100, nor is it on Amazon’s Top 100. It’s also not a National Book Award finalist.
You can read an excerpt here:
—
 |
|
HarperAudio, UNAB, 9780061939006
HarperLuxe,9780061885471, pbk, $25.99
Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive.
A new Sedaris audio-only title will be released Nov. 24, called Live for Your Listening Pleasure. It consists of highlights from his latest tour; events in Denver, NYC, Durham, L.A. and Atlanta. Similar to his 2002 Live At Carnegie Hall audio, this is a standalone and will not be published as a book.
A clip is available at Entertainment Weekly ‘s “Shelf Life” blog and another is on the publisher’s web site.
We can do them one better; Hachette Audio is making a limited number of copies available for readers of EarlyWord. To enter, just send an email to EarlyWord, with “Sedaris Live” in the subject line, by 11:59 p.m, this Friday, Nov. 13. Don’t forget to include your shipping address (no P.O. box numbers). EarlyWord will select winners at random. This is only open to librarians residing in the 50 states.
Libraries we checked do not have the audio on order and WorldCat shows it listed on just one library catalog.
By the way, at least one wholesaler annotation incorrectly describes this as the 2002 Carnegie Hall recording. It is all new material.
 |
|
Also downloadable from OverDrive
—–
And, how retro and how David Sedaris, it will also be available in vinyl (this from the company that held a funeral for the cassette format over a year ago).
Love how different the vinyl and the CD covers are.
 |
|
Amazingly, an American named Jake Adelstein managed to become a beat reporter for Japan’s most popular Japanese-language daily newspaper. Even more astounding, he wrote investigative stories about organized crime in Japan.
Adelstein has just published a book about his experiences, Tokyo Vice and was interviewed last night on NPR’s Fresh Air. The book is now at #65 on Amazon and rising. Libraries that ordered it are showing holds as high as 7:1.
The book received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which called it “..equal parts cultural exposé, true crime, and hard-boiled noir.”
Adelstein also appeared on Sixty Minutes the week before last, as part of a story on the godfather of Japanese crime, Tadamasa Goto, who made a deal with the FBI to exchange information for a liver transplant (Goto got more out of the exchange than the FBI did).
———
 |
|
Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive.
Currently at #30 on Amazon and rising is a book that recommends investing in gold and oil rather than stocks and bonds. Published by Portfolio, Penguin’s business book imprint, it is endorsed by Ron Paul and the author has appeared on the Glenn Beck Show. More information is available here.
Few libraries have ordered it; one library system is showing 7 holds on 5 copies.
 |
|
At #16 on Amazon and rising, is a new book by the President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Frances Beinecke. This is her first book, but she has been posting her opinions on the NRDC site for several years. Her posts also appear on the Huffington Post and on AlterNet.
According to WorldCat, no libraries own the book.
Despite the cover’s striking similarity to a title by a certain conservative commentator, Beinecke’s book does not share the belief that author’s belief that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the left.
 |
|
Handmade gifts show love. For those of us with more time than money (an expanding category these days), hand made may be the only way to go.
For the crafty among us, now is the time to think about holiday gift giving; a darling scarf for the mother-in-law, mittens for the cousins, or bath salts for the sister. Here are four new titles that work with kids and can form the basis of a gift-making program.
 |
|
Cool craft projects with a modern slant. Bright colors and clean lines are featured in print-making. Make wooden spoon puppets, Noguchi-like sculptures, Calder-like mobiles and wearable art.
—————————–
 |
|
The craft projects in this new version of the book originally pubbed by Disney in 2002 are right up my alley. Want to plan an ornament making program? Lot’s of terrific low-cost suggestions from 3-D dough pieces to elegant paper drops. Want to know how to make dancing gingerbread people? Love the edible wildlife ornaments; Pine Cones stuffed with peanut butter and birdseed (use almond butter if allergies are a problem) carrots wrapped in twine, and popcorn strung garlands. My favorite is the homemade gift of a gingerbread family decorating kit. Make gingerbread people and fill a tissue-lined box with a tube of white icing, sprinkles, redhots, tiny M&M’s and string licorice. Label the box Gingerbread Family Decorating Kit. Did you know you can make peanut brittle in the microwave? Have you thought about washing an old woolen sweater until it is felted to create material to reuse as mittens? Pretty easy and green too. Not just Christmas but other winter holidays are represented. Make a kinara for your Kwanzaa celebration. Create a mobile of stars for your Hanukah party.
—————————–
 |
|
I am digging into my yarn stash after being inspired by the comfy yet stylish wrist warmers; a great beginner project for anyone who has just learned to knit and purl. I’ve been wanting to make a hot-water bottle cover; here it is as well as neck warmer. Also included are some pretty cool felted projects.
—————————–
 |
|
From Ann Budd who wrote my favorite knitting book, The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns, comes a book of 30 gift ideas. A variety of projects for the beginning and experienced knitters; scarves, hats, socks, and toys that can be knitted up over a short period of time with lovely professional results.
—————————–
 |
|
Reduce, reuse , recyle: create clutches, totes, computer bags from old neckties, wool sweaters, shower curtains and even an umbrella. These are just the kind of things that I see for sale at the very hipster Brooklyn Flea. So that’s how they made that!
Next week is relatively light in terms of number of titles from big names.
 |
|
Random House Audio; 9780739358566; $32
An excerpt from Open was the cover story in last week’s People and the press has been covering his admission that he took crystal meth. Agassi will be interviewed by Katie Couric on 60 Minutes on Sunday. The book gets a strong review in the new issue of Time. Despite all the publicity, holds in libraries are light.
———————-
 |
|
S&S Audio; 9781442303188; $29.99
Holds are running heavier at most libraries for Linda Howard’s new book than they are for Stephen King’s.
 |
|
Random House Audio; 9780307577610; $30
Large Print; Thorndike; 9781410420343; hdbk; $33.95
———————-
 |
|
S&S Audio; 9780743597302; $75
Gets 3.5 out of a possible 4 stars in the new issue of People, saying “although it lacks the power and strangeness of works like It and The Shining, it is till a wildly entertaining trip.”
———————-
 |
|
HarperAudio; 9780061953262; $19.99
HarperLuxe; 9780061950261; pbk; $19.99
The Lacuna is Barbara Kingsolver’s first novel since her 1998 highly acclaimed, best-selling, Oprah-annoited book, The Poisonwood Bible. Fans looking forward to the new title may have been disappointed by Maureen Corrigan’s review on NPR’s Fresh Air. Damning the book with faint praise, she calls it just “so-so”;
…[the main character], Harrison is so pallid, so retiring that it’s very hard to stay for extended periods in his company, and seeing history unfold from his wan point of view isn’t all that illuminating.
I admit it: I’m mystified… [it] that feels altogether vacant.
Equally so-so is the review in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, which says that the book “never quite comes together…the plot grows muddy — and worse, a bit predictable.” Curiously, it still gets a B (is EW suffering from grade-creep?)
Other opinions have been decidedly different. People gave it 4 of a 4 possible stars, saying Kingsolver delivers “her signature blend of exotic locale, political backdrop and immediately engaging story line.”
In the UK, the Independent‘s reviewer loved the book so much that she swapped her bike for public transportation, so she could read it during her commute.
The Lacuna is one of the 10 titles in the Wal-Mart/Amazon/Target price wars; pre-ordered copies were priced at $8.98. The Lacuna is one three of the titles released on Tuesday and, as the AP reports, prices on those titles have since “moved up and down like stock market shares.”
Currently, The Lacuna is at #6 on Amazon’s sales rankings, where it’s now selling for $13.49 and #15 at WalMart.com, where it’s selling for $13.52. Large libraries are showing holds ratios ranging from 3:1 to 7:1.
 |
|
HarperAudio; 9780060853563; $44.99
HarperLuxe; 780061927560; pbk; $26.99
Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive
The Associated Press reports that Mark Obama Ndesandjo, President Obama’s half brother has acknowledged that his new novel about an abusive parent is based on his father, the man who was also the absent father President Obama wrote about in Dreams from My Father (by the way, there’s a great inside story about the publishing of that book in the Huffington Post today).
The book, Nairobi to Shenzhen, is being released by Aventine Press, a self-publishing company.
Libraries do not show the book on order; it is available through wholesalers.
 |
|
A book by another of the president’s half brothers, George Obama, will be published by Simon and Schuster in January 2010. It has not yet been reviewed pre-pub; it is described in the S&S Spring catalog, p 99.
 |
|
The AP also reports that Obama’s half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, daughter of Obama’s mother and her second husband, is working on a book as is Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama’s brother.
We’ve been tracking the amazing trajectory of the debut novel, The Help for over a year (including a giveaway of the audio back in February).
In the New York Times today, Motoko Rich writes about the book’s continuing word of mouth, which has kept it in the top five on the NYT Fiction list since August; quite a feat in normal times, but even more so in the midst of this particularly big-named-filled fall book season.
The novel, set in Mississippi in the early sixties, is about a young white writer who gains the trust of several black maids, most of whom work for her friends and family. She interviews them about their lives and how they feel about their white employers as material for a book. The young writer has to hide what she is doing, since this crossing of color lines would not be acceptable to her social circle, but the maids have even stronger reasons to keep what they are doing a secret, facing job loss an worse.
Several reviewers have been uncomfortable with the fact that the book’s author, Kathryn Stockett, who is white, portrays black women, using ’60’s southern dialect for their voices. In the NYT, Rich focuses whether this is ethical, quoting one blogger who calls Stockett a racist, while others feel she manages to walk the “racial tightrope” (coincidentally, another recent word-of-mouth success, Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan, is also by a white woman, writing in the voices of Mississippi blacks).
Rich does not successfully address the question of what makes The Help resonate so strongly with readers. Last week, on the Huffington Post, Jesse Kornbluth offered some compelling reasons:
The Help is about Something
“That is, something real. Something that matters. Most of all, something that matters to women, who are, as it happens, America’s most dedicated readers.”It Rings True
“The maids are long-suffering, delightful, spicy; they’re a dream team of strength, wisdom and compassion. The white women — and this is the novel’s big achievement — are small-minded and pitiable, but they’re never cartoon villains.”No Sugarcoating, But No Horror
“Smartest of all, Stockett has downplayed the horror that was Mississippi in 1962…[she] doesn’t sugarcoat racism but keeps the guns and violence always a few miles away. Smart thinking. In popular fiction like this, riling readers with false accusations of stolen silverware works just as well.”
I have another element to add to that — Stockett’s portrayal of the developing relationship among the women as they work on their project. You feel them becoming fans of each other, supporting and encouraging each other as they grow in mutual respect.
Libraries have been adding copies as the book continues to grow in popularity, but most are still showing heavy holds. Unfortunately, as the NYT points out (and we reported in mid-Sept), the paperback is being held off until June 1.
 |
|
Penguin Audio; ISBN: 9780143144182 $39.95
Downloadable from OverDrive in both eBook and audio
Actually, the Marine steals the show:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
—-
 |
Audio from Hachette Audio; 1600248713; $17.98 |
While praising his new book, Janet Maslin gives Grisham a backhanded compliment in today’s NYT, saying the short story form frees him from “subplots and padding” and that this “vacation from whatever grueling work goes into the construction of fully rigged best sellers…invigorates him in ways that show up on the page.”
Although the is showing heavy holds, there are not nearly as many as one would expect for a full-length Grisham.
 |
|
Random House Audio; UNAB; 9780307702104; $35
Random House Large Print; 9780739377383; pbk; $24
Audio downloadable from OverDrive
The first three titles being discounted in the book price wars release next week:
11/3 Grisham, John, Ford County
11/3 Kingsolver, Barbara, Lacuna
11/3 Robb, J.D., Kindred in Death
Ironically, some independent booksellers have cancelled their original orders and will be buying their stock from the enemy [11/2 UPDATE: the online retailers have now imposed a limit on the number of copies customers can order, so this is no longer an option].
On Fiction_L, we asked if any libraries were planning to do the same. All the responders said no, because they get their books cataloged and processed by their wholesaler. Estimating that the savings would amount to $10 a book as opposed to the discounted price through the wholesaler, all said that it would not be worth the cost and effort to switch the orders, catalog, jacket and process the books.
Below is a list of major titles with pub dates next week (some may already be available).
11/1 Dennis, Brian, Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle
|
Audio from Hachette Audio; 1600248713; $17.98 |
Many librarians fell in love with this book at BEA, including Lisa Von Drasek
Lots of media is on tap for this, including the Today Show on Monday (8:30 a.m.); Conan O’Brien on 11/9; People magazine, 11/16 (on newsstands 11/6).
————
11/1 O’Connor, Jane Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas
11/3 Lupica, Mike, Million-Dollar Throw
11/3 Grisham, John, Ford County — A departure for Grisham, this is a collection of short stories.
11/3 Bell, Madison Smartt, Devil’s Dream
11/3 Brown, Sandra, Rainwater
11/3 Jacobs, Kate, Knit the Season
11/3 Keillor, Garrison, Christmas Blizzard
11/3 Kingsolver, Barbara, Lacuna
11/3 Robb, J.D., Kindred in Death
11/3 Shaara, Jeff, No Less Victory
11/2 Foer, Jonathan Safran Eating Animals
 |
Downloadable eBook from OverDrive |
The current issue of Entertainment Weekly gives Eating Animals a solid B, saying,
You can agree wholeheartedly with huge chunks of novelist Jonathan Safran Foer’s sprawling and stirring new pro-vegetarian polemic, Eating Animals, and at the same time find it pompous and annoying.
The Huffington Post is running a series about the book and plans to do so for several weeks, describing the pieces as “a diverse range of responses” and not “your usual book reviews. They are the start of a conversation that some powerful people in agribusiness would rather we not have.” The responses are from a diverse group of people, from Natalie Portman to Andrew Weil and Rabbi David Wolpe, but have all been positive so far.
11/3 Johnson, Paul Churchill — Biography
11/3 Karr, Mary Lit: A Memoir
11/3 Dwight Garner Read Me: A Century of Classic American Book Advertisements
11/3 Gore, Al, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis
Gore will appear on Letterman on the day the book is published and on Jon Stewart the next evening.
11/3 Plouffe, David, The Audacity to Win
Time mgazine is running an exclusive four-page excerpt in the 11/9 issue (on newstands tomorrow). Will appear on Jon Stewart that evening.
 |
Audio from Penguin Audiobooks; ISBN: 0143142720; $39.95 |
11/3 Osteen, Joel, It’s Your Time