Next week brings the fourth James Patterson hardcover of the year, putting him on track to match his record output last year. Joe Hill, once known as the offspring of two best selling authors, Stephen and Tabitha King, and now an established best selling author in his own right, publishes a new novel with a title based on a clever vanity plate, NOS4A2. Our watch list begins with a memoir that librarians have been looking forward to for months.

All these and more titles arriving next week, are on our downloadable spreadsheet, New Title Radar, 4.29.13. Be sure to take a close look at the Media Magnets list — among the many authors battling for attention next week are Glenn Beck, Amanda Knox and Mark Bittman.

Watch List

The World’s Strongest Librarian, Josh Hanagarne, (Penguin/Gotham)

You don’t have to be a librarian to love this memoir. Booksellers appreciate it, too, and picked is as an IndieNext title for May: “Resplendent with the intelligence that comes from accumulated experience, seasoned with sudden and delightful humor, and written with great sensitivity, Hanagarne’s memoir is one of this spring’s best surprises. It is not simply a love letter to anyone who has built a life around books, but also a moving autobiographical work of a gentle giant who refuses to let his sense of wonder about the world be displaced by his challenges and an insightful and informative exposition of what it is like to wake every morning and navigate life with Tourette Syndrome. Highly recommended!” —Aaron Cance, The King’s English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, UT

If you are a librarian, you’ll naturally be drawn to it. Robin Beerbower of Salem P.L, OR, calls it her favorite book of the year and is confident it will remain so.

Hanagarne’s web site, WorldsStrongestLibrarian.com, manages to combine the seemingly disparate worlds of strength-training and books. The author will be interviewed on BookTalkNation on Monday (sign up here).

In the book trailer he characterizes being a librarian as a “state of mind.”

In the Body of the World: A Memoir, Eve Ensler, (Macmillan/Metropolitan; Macmillan Audio)

Remember when certain publications wouldn’t print the title of Eve Ensler’s groundbreaking play, The Vagina Monologues? Seventeen years after its debut, it’s often performed by local theater groups, and the local newspapers have no trouble calling it by its real name. Even the Catholic Education Daily writes out the full titles (as part of an effort to get it banned). In Ensler’s memoir, she writes about more issues that some would prefer not to hear about; her work with Congolese women who suffered torture and rape and her own torture undergoing treatment for uterine cancer.

The Woman Upstairs, Claire Messud, (RH/Knopf; RH Audio; BOT)

Attention has already begun for Claire Messud’s first book since her celebrated and best selling The Emperor’s Children, (RH/Knopf, 2006). The Washington Post’s Ron Charles gives it this memorable assessment:

“Messud’s previous novel, the wonderful Emperor’s Children, sprawled out over more than 400 witty pages to skewer Manhattan’s young cultural elite. Her new book is an entirely different creature: a tightly wound monologue with the intensity of a novella that reads more like a curse.”

It’s a theme carried through in other reviews; NPR, “Friendly On The Outside, Furious On The Inside,”  and The Wall street Journal, “Claire Messud’s Furious Follow-Up.”

The book even manages to coax the Totally Hip Reviewer off his cozy Amazon perch.

Expect many more reviews.

The Civil War in 50 Objects, Harold Holzer, (Penguin/Viking)

Combine the interest in the Civil War, with the approach to history in the best-selling A History of the World in 100 Objects and you have the makings of a hit with Lincoln scholar Holzer’s new book.

Media Tie-in

What Maisie Knew (Movie Tie-In), Henry James, (Penguin Books)

Henry James’s 1897 classic is called “the inspiration” for a new film starring Julianne Moore and Alexander Skarsgard as Maisie’s battling parents, beginning a limited run next week. The Wall Street Journal writes today about this and other attempts to bring James’s novels to the screen.

Good news for author Kimberly McCreight, appearing at the Texas Library Assoc. Annual Conference this weekend (on the YA Crossover Panel on Saturday), holds are rising on her debut novel, Reconstructing Amelia (Harper, released 4/2/13) and are heavy in several libraries.

Librarians have been enthusiastic about it on EarlyWord‘s GalleyChat, saying they couldn’t stop reading it and that it is a great choice  for book clubs as well as a readalike for Jodi Picoult fans.  Booksellers made it an IndieNext Pick for April — “Throw out all the cliched superlatives! McCreight’s remarkable debut novel is about Kate Baron, a high-powered lawyer who believes that her daughter Amelia has committed suicide — until she receives the anonymous text — ‘She didn’t jump.’”

It hasn’t been widely  reviewed in the consumer press, but Entertainment Weekly gave it an “A,” saying, “Like Gone Girl, Reconstructing Amelia seamlessly marries a crime story with a relationship drama. And like Gone Girl, it should be hailed as one of the best books of the year.”

The NYT giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other.

One of the most powerful influencers on book sales, the New York Times Magazine, devoted Sunday’s cover to an excerpt from a book about the TV morning show wars, Top of the Morning (Hachette/Grand Central) by one of the newspaper’s own media reporters, Brian Stelter.

But on Monday, the daily NYT reviewer dismissed the book as merely “fairly engaging,” and groaned over the writing style (“sometimes Mr. Stelter seems to throw out verbiage mainly for his own amusement.” A 109-word sentence is called a “veritable life imprisonment”) and detailed spotty reporting.

Stetler responds in an interview with The Wrap, saying he expects NYT reviews to be tough but that he’s “more interested in readers’ reviews,” noting he has been “overwhelmed by positive messages from people on Twitter.”

The media is fascinated with the story of the morning shows’ struggle for ratings (New York magazine also devoted a long feature to it), but readers may be less so. Despite all the attention, the book barely cracked the Amazon Top 100 on release yesterday and holds in libraries are light.

Dirty Wars is both a documentary, with a newly-released hot trailer and a book (Perseus/Nation Books). Excerpted in The Nation, where the author, Jeremy Scahill is a correspondent, it accuses the Obama administration of continuing “the policies that liberals were outraged about under Bush … just with a kind of rebranding.”

He appeared yesterday on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes. The book is currently at #61 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

The documentary, which won an award at the Sundance Film Festival, will be released first in NY, LA, and Washington DC on June 7 and then nationwide.

We’re pleased to see that, even though she faces a major challenge now that she’s been named  the editor of the NYT Book Review, Pamela Paul is still able to write her weekly children’s book column in the daily NYT.

This week, she devotes the column to a single picture book, Mary Wrightly, So Politely, by Shirin Yim Bridges, illus. by Maria Monescillo (HMH, 4/16/14), the story of a quiet little girl who finally musters the courage to speak up for herself (and her baby brother). Paul calls it a “smart, affecting and original story.”

As part of their coverage of the Boston marathon bombings, last night’s 60 Minutes took a look at the training of bomb-sniffing dogs. Featured was Mike Ritland, who trains military dogs and has set up the K9 Warrior Foundation to care for retired warrior dogs. In Trident K9 Warriors: My Tale From the Training Ground to the Battlefield with Elite Navy SEAL Canines (Macmillan/St. Martin’s), published last week, he takes readers inside that secretive world.

As a result of the story, the book rose to #1 on Amazon’s sale rankings.

Several sure-fire best sellers are coming next week, including new titles from David Baldacci, Amanda Quick and Kristin Hannah… but don’t overlook two debuts on our Watch List which arrive with breathless excitement … the media is already busy with Michael Pollan‘s new book and with a debut that claims Texas is Big, Hot, Cheap and Right.

All of the titles highlighted here and more, on our downloadable spreadsheet, New Title Radar, Week of April 22.

Watch List

The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope, Rhonda Riley, (HarperCollins/Ecco)

Kaite Stover picked this in her Booklist “Book Group Buzz” blog post; “A young woman rescues someone she thinks is a badly burned soldier from World War II and soon learns differently. Decades later, Adam and Evelyn have raised a family of beautiful accomplished daughters with otherworldly talents. The writing is captivating and the story is a page turner.” It’s a May IndieNext pick, with a particularly glowing recommendation, “… one of the most exquisitely beautiful novels that I have ever read. Unconditional love in the face of an extremely unusual beginning to a relationship is one of the hallmarks of Riley’s debut. The ability to just be, to enjoy each day to the maximum, and to let love grow and expand for years to come is something we all desire. I could not put this book down!” —Nona Camuel, CoffeeTree Books, Morehead, KY

The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker, (Harper; HarperLuxe; Thorndike Large Print)

The word most often used to try to describe this debut is “magical.” HarperCollins Library Marketer, Annie Mazes effectivelt communicates the in-house excitement, which is catching — it’s an IndieNext pick for May, a Wall Street Journal promising first novel as well as an Amazon Featured Debut. On GalleyChat, it’s been described as a “lovely meld of folklore, history and love story.”

Media Magnets

Big, Hot, Cheap and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas, Erica Grieder, (Perseus/PublicAffairs)

Already featured this week in the NYT’s Business Day, Bryan Burroughs (Barbarians at the Gate) writes, “Ms. Grieder’s is the rare book that takes stock of the Texas model without ridiculing many of its traditions and politicians … Ms. Grieder’s clear, vivid writing makes it downable in a single afternoon.” The author was interviewed yesterday on American Public Media’s Marketplace. Attention will continue next week with an appearance on Fox Business’s Stossel, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Martin Bashir and All In with Chris Hayes.

I’ll See You Again, Jackie Hance, with Janice Kaplan (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio; Thorndike Large Print)

The mother of three girls who were killed while returning from a camping weekend recounts how she managed to cope with the tragedy. The author will appear on Rock Center with Brian Williams tonight (promo from the Today Show below).

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Next week, a new picture book arrives from Mo Willems and there’s not a pigeon in it (or a piggie, or an elephant) … the prolific Neil Gaiman is releasing two books … Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini publish THE middle-grade book of the season … and Kiera Cass continues her mashup of The Hunger Games and The Bachelor. 

All of the titles highlighted here and more, on our downloadable spreadsheet, Kids New Title Radar, Week of 4.22.13

Picture Books

Tiptoe Joe, Ginger Foglesong Gibson, Laura Rankin, (HarperCollins/Greenwillow)

Read-aloud perfection for the preschooler with a new sibling in the house. (“Shhh, the baby is sleeping!”) It’s a Kids IndieNext Spring: “One by one, Tiptoe Joe the Bear gathers his menagerie of friends to experience something special. As dear friends thud, stomp, and tiptoe towards the surprise, each wearing a colorful and different accessory, the happiness grows until wonderful treasures are revealed. Both inviting and suspenseful, this is a joyful book to share. Beautifully illustrated, Tiptoe Joe has the makings of a classic!” —Joanne Doggart, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Chatham, MA

That Is Not a Good Idea!, Mo Willems, (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray)

Employing the framework of a silent movie, the dastardly villain (a fox) entices an innocent damsel (a goose), all while the readers and their surrogates (the chicks) will be shouting the title refrain. Rock star Mo hits another read-aloud homerun.

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Fancy Nancy: Fanciest Doll in the Universe, Jane O’Connor, Robin Preiss Glasser (HaperCollins)

Is Fancy Nancy a guilty pleasure? Why do I have judgmental opinions about sparkly pink books? O’Connor is a brilliant writer who delves into the psyche of little girls and lets us wade in the everyday issues of childhood. There should be an award for that. Robin Preiss Glasser brings light and line and delight to every page, we KNOW Nancy and her family through her detailed portraits. Don’t miss it.

Bink and Gollie: Best Friends Forever, Kate DiCamillo, Alison McGhee, Tony Fucile, (Candlewick)

They are back!! Kudos to Alison McGhee, Kate DiCamillo and Tony Fucile for another delightfully dry easy-to-read tale about this pair of friends.

Dinosaur Zoom!, Penny Dale (Candlewick/Nosy Crow)

Dale who created the high-interest mashup of paleontological creatures and construction vehicles, Dinosaur Dig! is back with dinos driving cars as they hurtle to a birthday party.
 

Middle Grade

House of Secrets, Chris Columbus, Greg Call, Ned Vizzini, (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray)

This is THE MIDDLE GRADE BIG BOOK OF THE SEASON! Yes, I know I am shouting. Chris Columbus (the director of the first  two Harry Potter movies) and Ned Vizzini (It’s Kind of A Funny Story, The Other Normals) have teamed up to tell a tale that all the Riordan/Colfer/Rowling fans will be fighting over. Magic, adventures, good vs. evil AND its almost 500 pages!

Lunch Lady and the Video Game Villain: Lunch Lady #9, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, (RH/Knopf)

One of my favorite graphic novel series for the Captain Underpants set.

Young Adult

Unnatural Creatures: Stories Selected by Neil Gaiman, (HarperCollins)

Gaiman has curated a selection of short stories that reads as if he were sitting across the table saying, “Read this…now read this…okay…read this.” Who wouldn’t follow this expert’s advice? He explains here why he put this volume together. Also out this week is the second InterWorld novel, The Silver Dream (HarperTeen) written with another sci fi master storyteller, Michael Reeves.

The Elite, Kiera Cass, (HarperTeen)

PW called the first in this series “A cross between The Hunger Games (minus the bloodsport) and The Bachelor (minus the bloodsport)” Teen readers will be anxious to get their hands on number 2. The CW is at work on a second pilot for a possible series (they scrapped the one shot last year). We’ll learn in a few weeks if it will go to series, but early buzz is good. Cass has a new YA romance series in the works, described as “Matched meets Never Let Me Go — children trained in academies to be perfect friends can be purchased by the wealthy as companions and a forbidden romance ensues.”

Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood, Abby McDonald, (Candlewick)

I like chicklit. There I said it. Books about women and girls navigating the world of friendships and romantic relationships. I missed McDonald’s Sophomore Switch, loved Boys, Bears & a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots (couldn’t resist the title). The title of this new one says it all. If you are looking for what the “trenders” are calling the “new young adult” or YA crossover, don’t overlook Abby McDonald.

Arclight, Josin L. McQuein, (HarperCollins/Greenwillow)

This debut is a Kids IndieNext Spring pick: “This is a page-turner of dystopian fiction unlike anything I’ve ever read. A stunning debut novel, there’s a reality throughout this work that one doesn’t usually find in science fiction aimed at adolescents. So much more than just an ‘entertainment for young people,’ this story of identity and the courage found when one faces one’s worst nightmares deserves a very wide audience.” —Keri Rojas, Cornerstone Cottage Kids, Hampton, IA

The eighth novel by British author Kate Atkinson, Life After Life, (Hachette/Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print), debuts on this week’s NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list at #3, the highest spot yet for the author. Her previous novel, Started Early, Took My Dog (2011) hit the extended list when it was published.

It has been reviewed widely in the U.S., including an early review by Janet Maslin in the daily New York Times, which states, “Life After Life is a big book that defies logic, chronology and even history in ways that underscore its author’s fully untethered imagination.” It is an IndieNext #1 pick for April and was much buzzed about by librarians on GalleyChat.

For one shining moment this weekend, Dante’s The Divine Comedy broke into the Amazon Top 100, getting a boost from NPR Weekend Edition Saturday‘s feature on a new translation by Clive James (Norton, published today).

Scott Simon introduces the story by saying that the The Divine Comedy, “is a 14th century poem that has never lost its edge. Dante Alighieri’s great work tells the tale of the author’s trail through hell — each and every circle of it — purgatory and heaven. It has become perhaps the world’s most cited allegorical epic about life, death, goodness, evil, damnation and reward.”

It’s a good time for a new translation. Dan Brown’s Inferno, (RH/Doubleday) which refers to the first section of The Divine Comedy, arrives next month. Libraries may want to have copies on hand for events featuring a livestream of the author’s single appearance for the book, at Lincoln Center on May 14.

Still at #1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list after 4 weeks, Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In (Random House) urges women to seek egalitarian marriages. Promoting a different approach, 90’s pro volleyball star Gabrielle Reece appeared on NBC’s Today Show and Rock Center on Friday to say that she rescued her marriage to pro surfer Laird Hamilton by becoming “submissive.”

Her book, My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper, (S&S/Scribner), which also outlines Reese’s views on fitness and parenting, arrives tomorrow. It’s now at #53 on Amazon sales rankings. Holds are heavy on light ordering in several libraries.

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Michael Hainey’s memoir, After Visiting Friends, (S&S/Scribner) came out in February, was an IndieNext pick for March, racked up many admiring reviews, and is now gaining new fans. It was on the Today Show yesterday, and  will be reviewed in this Sunday’s NYT Book Review.

The book is about Hainey’s quest to find out what really happened to his father, a Chicago newspaperman, who died unexpectedly when the author was six years old. Reports simply stated that he had died “after visiting friends.”

Libraries are showing heavy holds on modest orders.

Next week brings a new opportunity to get boys excited about reading with a new title from the team of Griffiths and Denton. In picture books, get ready for another sure-fire bedtime book from the author and illustrator who created the enduring best seller, Good Night, Good Night, Construction Site. And, tie-ins are arriving for Lego’s latest theme.

All the titles highlighted here, and more, on our downloadable spreadsheet, Kids New Title Radar, Week of April 15.

Middle Grade

The 13-Story Treehouse, Andy Griffiths, Terry Denton, (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends)

Below is a quick look at titles to know before you work the information desk today.

Media Attention

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, Mark Mazzetti, (Penguin Press) — NYT front page story, Washington Post book review, plus an appearance on Face the Nation, with much more coming this week (see our New Title Radar, Media Magnets).

Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story, Carol Burnett, (S&S; S&S Audio) — Carol Burnett was featured on CBS Sunday Morning, yesterday (see video).

Holds Alert

Life After Life, Kate Atkinson, (Hachette/Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print) is on the rise. It has been reviewed widely, most recently in the L.A. Times and the Seattle Times.

Expect to see it on next week’s best seller lists; it is currently at #4 on Amazon sales rankings and has been in the top 100 for 2 weeks.

NYT Notable Hardcover Best Seller Debuts

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, Therese Anne Fowler, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio; Thorndike Large Print)

The latest in the “Real Housewives of Historical Fiction” genre (recent titles include The Paris Wife, which continues as a best seller at #8 on the Trade Paperback list and The Aviator’s Wife, which is now on the extended hardcover list) follows in the footsteps the other titles’ footsteps, arriving on the NYT Fiction best seller list at #10. See our earlier coverage (also note that promotion for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby may bring additional interest).

World War II continues to be a strong interest in Nonfiction, with

Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941, (Random House) — #10 in nonfiction. It was featured on NPR at the end of March.

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, Denise Kiernan, (Touchstone, $27.) About the women who worked on a project was enriching uranium for the first atomic bomb. — at #14. The author appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

The popularity of “bonnet fiction” continues with a new title by the “queen of the genre,”  Beverly Lewis’s The Guardian, (Baker/Bethany House). It debuts at #5 on Trade Paperback fiction list.

Childrens Books 

New to the NYT Children’s Picture Books best seller list:

Poems to Learn by Heart, collected by Caroline Kennedy, illus. by Jon J. Muth, (Disney/Hyperion, 3/26/13). arrives at #1. See our earlier story.

Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, (Macmillan/Roaring Brook), the perfect title for spring,  debuts at #9  even though it has been out for a year. EarlyWord Kids contributor Lisa Von Drasek included it in her annual list of “Best Books To Give Younger Kids You Don’t Know Very Well.”  The book’s trailer shows off its clever cut-outs:

Next week brings a debut that may be a Newbery contender, Zebra Forest … Another debut, is a twisted modern version of Rumpelstiltskin … Tracy Kidder’s book about a remarkable doctor who works with the poorest in Haiti is rewritten for kids … Tie-ins are being released for the summer animated movie, Epic, based on William Joyce’s The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs.

All the titles highlighted here and many more coming next week, are listed on our downloadable spreadsheet Kids New Title Radar, Week of April 8.

Picture Books

Tea Rex, Molly Idle, (Penguin/Viking)

This is Idle’s second book of 2013 after February’s charming word-less pink pas de deux Flora and the Flamingo, (Chronicle). Here, she brings the same sweet, stylish vision to a tea party where the guest of honor is bigger than life.

Middle Grade

Zebra Forest, Adina Rishe Gewirtz, (Candlewick; Brilliance Audio)

A compelling debut novel of family secrets and how to deal with them once they are revealed. Put it in the mix for your Mock Newbery discussions.

Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin, Liesl Shurtliff, (RH/Knopf BYR)

The perfect next read for fans of Adam Gidwitz’s Grimm stories, a twisted fairytale with accessible characters and modern humor, as the following trailer demonstrates.

Nonfiction

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World, Tracy Kidder and Michael French,  (RH/Delacorte BYR)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Tracy Kidder (Soul of the New Machine, Among the School Children, House) has reworked his profile of Dr. Paul Farmer to be accessible to readers in the 10 and up range. The doctor is an infectious disease specialist and humanitarian who works with the poorest of the poor in Haiti.

Movie Tie-ins

The 3D animated Fox movie Epic, coming to theaters May 24, is based on William Joyce’s The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs (HarperCollins, 2000).

See the trailer on the Official Web Site: EpicTheMovie.com

Epic: Welcome to Moonhaven, Annie Auerbach (HarperFestival, 4/9/13) — Ages 4 to 8

Epic: The Junior Novel, Annie Auerbach (HarperFestival, 4/9/13)  – Ages 8 to 12

Epic: Meet the Leafmen,  (I Can Read Book 2), Lucy Rosen, (HarperCollins, 4/9/13)

Epic: M.K. Saves the Day,  (I Can Read Book 2), Lucy Rosen, (HarperCollins, 4/9/13)