In addition to Silver Sparrow, (above) several new titles releasing next week are getting buzz; David McCullough turns his eyes to Paris and the effect it’s had on Americans who went there; former Sarah Palin aide, Frank Bailey publishes his tell-all, and we’ll get up close and personal with the guys of ESPN.

Fiction

Children and Fire by Ursula Hegi (Scribner) is set in Burgdorf, Germany, the fictitious town where her bestselling novels Stones from the River and The Vision of Emma Blau took place, and tells the story of a day in 1934 that changed the townspeople’s lives. Booklist says “Hegi excells at detailing the minutiae of the routine as ordinary citizens are either lulled into complacency or forced to confront their own dark night of the soul.” Audio; Tantor (an interview with the author is also on the Tantor site)

Nonfiction

Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales (Little Brown) is a 770-page oral history of ESPN that’s promises lots of dirt on the sports channel’s executives and talent. A well-kept embargo has had the desired effect, driving the media crazy and bringing advance speculation in many places, including the  New York Times. In another effective marketing ploy, publisher Little, Brown,  lifted the embargo earlier this week, bringing even more attention. As a result the book’s been on the Amazon Top 100 since May 12, and today is at #4 and rising. The authors’ previous title, the 2002 Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests, is also rising.

Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years by Frank Bailey (Howard Books) is an account by the former Alaska governor’s 2006 campaign manager and transition team leader. Bailey says it’s based on 60,000 emails he sent or received while working for Palin, and is being investigated by the Alaska state attorney’s office for using unreleased state records.

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster) tells the story of American artists and scientists who studied in Paris, and how what they learned there changed America. PW calls it “an entertaining chronicle.”

Growing Up in Heaven by James Van Pragh (HarperOne) is the bestselling medium’s view of children in the afterlife and their connection to the living.

Children’s/Young Adult

The Warlock: Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott (Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers) is the fifth installment in the bestselling series. No news yet on what is happening with the film adaptation of the series; rights were signed up over a year ago.

Movie Tie-ins:

One Day (Movie Tie-In Edition) by David Nicholls (Vintage) revisits Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley over the course of 20 years on the anniversary of the day they met. Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgis star in the movie releasing August 19, 2011. Trailer is here.

Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer by Megan McDonald (Candlewick) is headed to movie theaters the week after next. Trailer is here. Several tie-ins are being published, for various ages; see our full list here.

Two books we issued Heavy Holds Alerts for recently are now official USA Today best sellers and headed for the NYT lists.

Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts, enters the list at #12, indicating it will land in the top five on the upcoming NYT nonfiction list (dated 5/29). As USA Today notes in the Book Buzz column, this is the highest position yet for the author on their list.

Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman, considered a leading contender for the Stieg Larsson mantle, enters the USA Today list at #51; expect to see it in the NYT fiction top ten (just below the last in the Larsson trilogy).

Back in September of 2008, we issued a Heavy Holds Alert for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The next week, it hit the USA Today list, but a bit higher, at #34, proving yet again that library hold patterns are predictors of success.

Annie Jacobsen’s Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base rose to #2 on Amazon, as a result of the author’s appearances on two influential shows, NPR’s Fresh Air and Comedy Central’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

The book was embargoed and was not reviewed prepub.

One of the author’s claims received skeptical attention from Bloomberg and the SF Chronicle yesterday, Roswell Martians Might Have Been Nazi Kids From Mengele’s Lab.

Jon Stewart said, “Read it from page one; it will blow your mind.”

Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base Annie Jacobsen Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 544 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2011-05-17) ISBN / EAN: 0316132942 / 9780316132947

Audio, Hachette Audio, 9781609410896; Large Type, Little, Brown, 9780316178075

It’s been a while since Jon Stewart featured an author on his show. On Monday, he demonstrated how effective his book recommendations can be. Introducing Jon Ronson, author of The Psychopath Test, he announced “We’re big fans of your work” (Ronson also wrote The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was adapted as a movie starring George Clooney).

As a result of the appearance, the Psychopath Test rose to #3 on Amazon sales rankings. It received a mixed review from Janet Maslin in the NYT on Monday.

In libraries, holds are heavy on light ordering.

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry Jon Ronson Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2011-05-12) ISBN / EAN: 1594488010 / 9781594488016

Audio; Tantor

If you’ve been reading EarlyWord, you’ve heard plenty about S.J. Watson’s debut psychological thriller, Before I Go To Sleep.

The Wall Street Journal has now caught on to it, calling it “one of the summer’s hottest prospects.” As the article notes, Ridley Scott recently purchased the film rights.

Watson, who lives in the UK, will make one of his few US appearances at the ALTAF Mystery and Horror program on Sunday, June 26, 10:30 to noon during ALA.

Where should you look for the next Stieg Larsson? You could begin with Larsson’s U.S. publisher, Sonny Mehta, head of Knopf. He’s betting on Norwegian author Jo Nesbø. Mehta lured the author away from HarperCollins, signing him up for the next three titles in his Harry Hole mystery series, beginning with The Snowman (May 10).

Knopf’s efforts to make The Snowman Nesbø’s breakout may be working; several libraries show growing holds on the book and film rights were purchased in October by Working Title.

For those who haven’t yet caught up with the Scandinavian noir phenomenon, New York magazine recently added their own roundup to the dozens already out there, including  an interview with one of genre’s true forerunners, Maj Sjöwall, co-author with Per Wahlöö of ten Martin Beck mysteries, including The Laughing Policeman.

What does she think of Larsson? She found his first book badly written, so she didn’t bother with any of the others. She likes Nesbø, however.

Erik Larson’s new book, In The Garden of Beasts, is receiving stellar consumer reviews and is currently in the #1 spot on Amazon’s sale rankings.

In the book, Larson tells the story of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany through the eyes of the daughter of the American ambassador to Germany, Martha Dodd, a device Deirdre Donahue describes as “Carrie Bradshow in Berlin.” But rather than trivialize the story, she says, it helps to bring history alive.

Holds are rising rapidly in many libraries.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin Erik Larson Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Crown – (2011-05-10) ISBN / EAN: 0307408841 / 9780307408846

Available on OverDrive; Audio, Books on Tape; Large Print, Random House

Watch List

Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner (Dial Press) is a tale set in Russian-immigrant Brooklyn about a proto-romance between two children who are inexplicably separated, then meet again seven years later. Entertainment Weekly gives, it a B+, saying it “starts off cute but slight” then heads for “something darker and deeper…. Vaclav and especially Lena never quite cohere into three-dimensional characters, but Tanner is a gifted enough storyteller to bring some real emotional heft” to their story.

A Moment in the Sun by John Sayles is the fourth novel by the well-known independent filmmaker. PW says it “will stand among the finest work on his impressive résumé. Weighing in at nearly 1,000 pages, the behemoth recalls E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, Pynchon’s Against the Day, and Dos Passos’s USA trilogy, tracking mostly unconnected characters whose collective stories create a vast, kaleidoscopic panorama of the turn of the last century.”

Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee (HMH) gets a starred review from Booklist: “Who better to capture the seismic shifts under way in India as the digital revolution takes hold than laser-precise and sharply witty Mukherjee? In each of her dramatic, slyly satirical novels, she dissects the legacy of colonialism, the paradoxes of technology, and the traditions that shackle Indian women. Mukherjee subtly continues the stories of the sisters from Desirable Daughters (2002) and The Tree Bride (2004) as she introduces Anjali Bose, a smart, rebellious 19-year-old who flees her provincial town after her fathers attempt to arrange her marriage goes catastrophically wrong.”

Usual Suspects

The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry (Ballantine) is the seventh novel to feature former U.S. Justice Department agent Cotton Malone. It was originally planned for the fall, then moved to lead in to Father’s Day. PW calls it “ingeniously plotted” with “plenty of twists and vivid action scenes in a feast of historical imagination.”

The Final Storm: A Novel of the War in the Pacific by Jeff Shaara (Ballantine) relates the story of the struggle for Okinawa through the eyes of combatants on both sides. Booklist says, “the previous three volumes in this series were best-sellers; expect no less for this extraordinarily evocative conclusion.”

Embassytown by China Miéville (Del Rey) is the respected author’s first foray into straight science fiction. It was covered in the Wall St. Journal this week, which describes it as “an intergalactic space romp [that] turns into a meditation on language.”

Nonfiction

William & Catherine: Their Story by Andrew Morton (St. Martin’s Press) is among the first hardcover keepsakes of the British royal wedding, by an author who has long covered the royals.

On China by Henry Kissinger (Penguin Press) gets a respectful yet mixed review by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times, who calls it “fascinating, shrewd and sometimes perverse,” adding that it “not only addresses the central role he played in Nixon’s opening to China but also tries to show how the history of China, both ancient and more recent, has shaped its foreign policy and attitudes toward the West.”

The Long Journey Home: A Memoir by Margaret Robison (Spiegel & Grau) is a much-anticipated memoir by the mother of the bestselling memoirists Augusten Burroughs and John Elder Robison, telling her side of the story from her Southern Gothic childhood to her tormented marriage, motherhood, mental breakdown, and journey back to sanity. PW calls it an “unremarkable tell-all.”

Not Dead & Not for Sale: A Memoir by Scott Weiland and David Ritz Scribner) is an account by the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots of rock stardom, addiction and incarceration, and making his comeback. PW says “the writing is often bland and it displays little of the tremendous energy found in his music.”

The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter by Ian O’Connor (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is a bio of the Yankee’s star that was 15 years in the making. PW says “O’Connor peppers the bio with enough hidden gems about the notoriously private ballplayer to make this the most thorough and intriguing work on Jeter so far. And O’Connor’s ability to reconcile Jeter the man with Jeter the ballplayer means that even Red Sox fans may enjoy this bio.”

Where’s the Birth Certificate?: The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President by Jerome Corsi (WND Books). Now that the President has released his birth certificate, we wonder if they’ll pull this one?

Movie tie-in

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom (Disney Editions); the publisher describes this as “the first original novel based on the series for adult fans,” by the author of several  Star Trek and Star Wars novels. The fourth in the film series, On Stranger Tides, just premiered in London and goes in to wide release next week.

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

S&S announced this week that Jaycee Dugard’s memoir, A Stolen Life, about her 18 years in captivity after being kidnapped as a child, will be published on July 12. The AP reports the story which is syndicated widely. Separately, the AP reports that TV networks are scrambling to get an interview with Dugard.

ISBN: 9781451629187; $24.99

It will also be available simultaneously in audio (S&S Audio; 9781442344983).

In case you’re wondering, USA Today reports that Elizabeth Gilbert’s next book, after Eat, Pray, Love and Committed, won’t be out for quite a while. She’s planning an historical novel about 19th C botanists, but hasn’t started work on it.

Gilbert says this is the last time she will talk about EPL. She is only doing it now to help her friend, featured in the Italian section of EPL, Luca Spaghetti (YES, that’s his real name), to promote his own book about that period. It’s not working out that well, however.  The USA Today story focuses on Gilbert, barely mentioning Spaghetti’s book, Un Amico Italiano: Eat, Pray, Love in Rome.

PW calls the book a “nice companion” to EPL; LJ says it’s “all good fun,” if an “opportunistic spin-off.”

Un Amico Italiano: Eat, Pray, Love in Rome Luca Spaghetti Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) – (2011-04-26) ISBN / EAN: 9780143119579 / 9780143119579

Erik Larson was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air last night (listen here), sending his book, released today, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, to #8 (from #36) on Amazon’s sales rankings.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin Erik Larson Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Crown – (2011-05-10) ISBN / EAN: 0307408841 / 9780307408846

Available on OverDrive; Audio, Books on Tape; Large Print, Random House

Topping the June Indie Next List of independent “bookseller-recommended handsells,” is a novel that has also been getting buzz on GalleyChat, Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (Algonquin, 5/24; Audio, Audiogo; Large Print, Thorndike).

The story is about two African-American half-sisters in Atlanta in the 1980’s, only one of whom is aware of the other. Their father is a bigamist, and one of his families is secret.

The Indie Next endorsement reads:

The unconventional, morally troubling relationships at the core of Jones’ Silver Sparrow illustrate the universality of the human quest for acknowledgment, legitimacy, love, and loyalty. As Chaurisse and her secret half-sister, Dana, move toward adulthood, they must shed idealistic notions of romantic and familial love to face difficult truths. A complex family drama, a richly crafted coming-of-age story, and a meditation on the nature of love and forgiveness, this is a gripping story with characters you will not soon forget.

Silver Sparrow Tayari Jones Retail Price: $19.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2011-05-24) ISBN / EAN: 1565129903 / 9781565129900

Jones was interviewed in BookSlut last month.

The lead-up to summer continues with more thrillers and series in fiction, Erik Larson’s latest, and the early release of a memoir by a former member of Navy Seals team that hunted Bin Laden.

Watch List

The Snowman by Jo Nesbø (Knopf) is a thriller about a Swedish expert (UPDATE; as is pointed out in the comments, that should be “Norwegian expert”) on serial killers in a country that prides itself on not having any – and a strong contender for the Stieg Larsson mantle. Library Joural raves “this work is being compared to Peter Høeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow among others. Apt comparisons, but they don’t go far enough. This is simply the best detective novel this reviewer has read in years.” It’s also Nesbo’s first book since Stieg Larsson’s publisher picked him up. The Washington Post ran a major feature about him on Thursday, sending The Snowman up Amazon’s sales rankings (to #145 from #361). It’s also the #3 Indie Next pick for May.

Faith by Jennifer Haigh (HarperCollins) explores the impact of sexual misconduct allegations on a Catholic priest’s family. It’s the latest from the author of Mrs. Kimble, a debut that’s beloved by many librarians. The new novel has been eliciting strong enthusiasm on on our GalleyChat. People magazine gave it 3.5 of 4 stars in the 5/18 issue, calling it “haunting” and “heart-wrenching.” It gets a 150,000-copy first printing.

Usual Suspects

Blood Trust by Eric Van Lustbader (Forge) finds National security adviser Jack McClure and Alli Carson, the psychologically damaged daughter of the recently deceased U.S. President, in their third adventure, this time involving international terrorism and sex slavery. Library Journal says, “Buy a copy for the name recognition from the author’s work on Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series, but don’t expect rave responses from readers.”

Buried Prey by John Sandford (Putnam) is the 21st novel to feature Lucas Davenport of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and finds him reopening the case that made his name when new evidence emerges. PW says, “Expert plotting and a riveting finish make this one of Sandford’s best.”

Nonfiction

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson (Crown) is a work of literary nonfiction about the experiences of U.S. ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd and his family in Berlin in the early years of Hitler’s rule. Early reviews have been strong, but some librarians say it’s slower going than Larson’s beloved The Devil in the White City.

Seal Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy Seal by Howard E Wasdin (St. Martin’s) is by a former member of the counterterrorism unit that killed Osama bin Laden (see our earlier story). Unsurprisingly, publication was pushed up to make the most of the current news cycle. The author has been on several TV shows, including a Dateline special on NBC.

Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man by Chaz Bono (Dutton) is a memoir of the author’s 40 year struggle to reconcile his gender identity and the body he was born into, as the child of Cher and Sonny Bono. LJ notes that “interest will be sparked as much by Bono’s high profile as by his story.”

Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me by Chelsea Handler is the latest from the stand up comedian and late-night talk show host on the E! network.

Movie Tie-in

Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater, the classic chidren’s story of  a house painter who receives a large crate of Antarctic penguins, is being made into a movie. In this incarnation, however, Mr. Popper (Jim Carey) is a modern day businessman with a swanky NYC apartment. The  movie opens 6/16 (trailer here).

Based on yesterday’s GalleyChat, below are  the titles I’ll be moving to the top of my To-Be-Read pile:

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs, Quirk Books, 6/7

I was intrigued to hear about this one, particularly when I learned it’s from Quirk Books, home of the literary mashup. A YA mystery didn’t seem like their kind of thing. Looking further, I discovered that it is actually the kind of quirky title you might expect from a house with that name. The author collects vintage photos and has combined them with text. John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson, Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska) blurbs it; “A tense, moving, and wondrously strange first novel. The photographs and text work brilliantly together to create an unforgettable story.”

Yes, yes, I know, you need to be suspicious of blurbs, but I don’t think John Green wouldn’t lie to us, especially since he once wrote a heartfelt blog post about the perils of blurbing. Of course, that was five years ago and he may have become less principled since. He does have backup from PW which calls it “an enjoyable, eccentric read, distinguished by well-developed characters, a believable Welsh setting, and some very creepy monsters.”

The Lantern, Deborah Lawrenson, Harper, 8/9

This ARE comes in a beautiful package (Robin B. said she thought she was getting chocolates, but found what’s inside is even better). I’m hooked by the Prologue, which begins, “Some scents sparkle and then quickly disappear like the effervescence of citrus zest…” and ends with a hint of darkness to come, “How can I be frightened by a scent?” It’s described as a modern-day gothic, set in Provence, along the lines of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern, Doubleday, 9/13

Curiosity about this one has been growing on GalleyChat. Yesterday, one library said their entire staff is now behind it. Also an inhouse favorite with the Random House library marketing team, they warn that you “won’t be able to miss it” at both BEA and ALA. It’s available on NetGalley, so your whole staff can read it, too.

The Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan, Knopf, 7/12

We highlighted this title earlier this week because it moved up on the Edelweiss list of titles most-ordered by indie booksellers. It’s described as “pretty racy; not for your average Twilight reader” and we got the news that, fittingly, the pages of the finished book will have blood-red edges.

The American Heiress, Daisy Goodwin, St. Martin’s, 6/21

This one caught my eye and is a hit with many on GalleyCat, who describe it as “like a delicious piece of cake” and  “ritzy, scandalous fun”

Someone also pointed out that there’s a new source for forthcoming books chat; the Events Coordinator for the McNally Jackson bookstore has begun a Twitter hashtag for fall books, #fall11books, “to share most anticipated titles.”