Anticipation is particularly high, as indicated by holds, for two titles arriving next week.

Releasing on Sunday, July 31st, the day after the play debuts in London, is the script, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine). No news yet on when it will hit Broadway, but the NY Post reports it may arrive as early as next season. Holds are heavy, and libraries have ordered enough copies to keep pace with demand.

After her major success with Big Little Lies (an HBO series adaptation is set to premiere next year), Liane Moriarty’s latest arrives Tuesday, Truly Madly Guilty (Macmillan/Flatiron; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). Holds are outstripping orders in many places by ratios as high as 8:1. A LibraryReads pick, it is reviewed in advance by the NYT‘s now retired maven of popular fiction, Janet Maslin, who occasionally steps in to write about major releases. However, she finds it not as compelling as Moriarty’s previous three novels.

Nonetheless, it is a People pick for the week, described as  “a vivid tale” and on the LibraryReads list for the month:

“A typical afternoon barbecue among friends becomes something much bigger when one pivotal moment of inattention leads to repercussions for all in attendance. In trademark Moriarty style, the story flashes back and forth between the day of the barbecue and two months later, slowly revealing the events of the day and its consequences, creating a delicious momentum for the reader as the tension builds and the pieces fall into place. Moriarty has another sure-fire winner with this look at the complexities of friendship, marriage, and familial relationships.” — Halle Eisenman, Beaufort County Library, Hilton Head, SC

The major literary event of the week is the publication of a new novel by Dave Eggers, Heroes of the Frontier (PRH/Knopf; BOT; OverDrive Sample), reviewed by Barbara Kingsolver on the cover of the upcoming NYT Sunday Review and by Michiko Kakutani in the daily NYT. The author is set to be interviewed by Scott Simon tomorrow on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

The titles covered in this post, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of July 25, 2016.

Media Attention

Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond, Marc Lamont Hill (S&S/Atria).

Hill, who recently began hosting the weekly late-night talk show, VH1 Live!, is profiled in this week’s NYT Magazine as “Your Friendly Neighborhood Marxist.” On August 1, he is scheduled to appear on CNN’s Anderson 360 and CNN Tonight.

Consumer Media Picks

The Inseparables, Stuart Nadler (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample).

Published last week, this is People magazine’s “Book of the Week” —  “In this beguiling novel, three generations of articulate, self-aware women fall to pieces … With a fine understanding of women and a delicate wit, Nadler shepherds all three through grief and humiliation and out the other side.”

In addition to Truly Madly Guilty, listed above, People also picks the following:

Losing It, Emma Rathbone (PRH/Riverhead; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

A novel about young woman’s quest to lose her virginity at 26. People calls it, “Sweet, funny and unexpectedly poignant, the book is a Bridget Jones’ s Diary for the millennial generation.”

Peer Picks

The #1 LibraryReads pick for July hits shelves this week, Dark Matter, Blake Crouch (PRH/Crown; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Once on the fast-track to academic stardom, Jason Dessen finds his quiet family life and career upended when a stranger kidnaps him. Suddenly Jason’s idle “what-ifs” become panicked “what-nows,” as the humble quantum physics professor from a small Chicago college gets to explore the roads not taken with a mind-bending invention that opens doors to other worlds. This fun science fiction thriller is also a thoughtful page-turner with heart that should appeal to fans of Harlan Coben.” — Elizabeth Eastin, Rogers Memorial Library, Southampton, NY

Crouch is the author of the Wayward Pines series, adapted as a Fox TV series.

In addition to the #1 pick  and  Truly Madly Guilty, noted above, a third LibraryReads pick arrives this week.

The Unseen World, Liz Moore (Norton; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“The Unseen World is a compelling read with vibrant, finely constructed characters. Moore intertwines a complex coming of age story with the science of cryptology and the history of artificial intelligence, while simultaneously exploring the meaning of love, loss and belonging. The core of the novel explores the relationship between Ada and her scientist father David. When a tragedy upends their routine lives, Ada embarks on a journey of self-discovery that will eventually lead her to new truths. Elements of mystery and suspense keep you turning the pages in this multi-layered gem of a book.” — Janie Hermann, Princeton Public Library, Princeton, NJ

Two additional Indie Next titles also arrive.

The Muse, Jessie Burton (HC/Ecco; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

“Burton’s follow-up to The Miniaturist also takes place in the art world, but this time the settings alternate between London in the 1960s and pre-Civil War Spain in the 1930s. In 1967, a long-lost work by a dead Spanish painter turns up in London. Is it really an original Isaac Robles? Or is there a more complicated story behind the intriguing painting? A fun read with interesting meditations on the purpose and making of art.” —Susan Taylor, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, NY

The Summer That Melted Everything, Tiffany McDaniel (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“There are hundreds of coming-of-age stories, but the one told in The Summer That Melted Everything is unique. In the summer of 1984, a series of disturbing events in Breathed, Ohio, are attributed to the arrival of a 13-year-old boy named Sal who claims to be the devil. Gossip and superstitions, exacerbated by the sweltering heat, turn the villagers against Sal. Only the family of the local prosecutor welcomes the boy, who is befriended by their son, Fielding. Through beautiful imagery and rich characters, McDaniel offers an original meditation on what is right and wrong, good and evil, in a magical, heart-wrenching, and unforgettable novel.” —Pierre Camy, Schuler Books & Music, Grand Rapids, MI

Tie-ins

Fans of Hallmark adaptations have a new series to look forward. The cable channel is developing  Sherryl Woods’s ten book series, Chesapeake Shores. The opener details events from The Inn at Eagle Point, Sherryl Woods (HC/MIRA; OverDrive Sample).

Deadline outlines the plot, “It centers on the O’Brien clan—a large Irish-American family living on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in a town designed and founded by three O’Brien brothers. The television series focuses on the drama that ensues when the O’Brien family reunites after years apart to face the memories from their past and learn the importance of reconciliation.”

It premieres on August 14 and stars Meghan Ory, Jesse Metcalfe, and Diane Ladd.  Several sneak peeks are available on Hallmark’s show site.

War Dogs: The True Story of How Three Stoners From Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History, Guy Lawson (S&S; OverDrive Sample; also in mass market) will open on August 19 and stars Miles Teller, Jonah Hill, Bradley Cooper, Ana de Armas and J. B. Blanc.

It is based on nonfiction account by Lawson, originally titled Arms and the Dudes, and tells the unlikely story about winning a $300 million US government contract to supply weapons for the war in Afghanistan.

USA Today offered a sneak peek in March. Below is the trailer.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Walker Books in the UK, along with Candlewick Press in the US, announce plans for a series of novelty and interactive children’s books based on J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world, reports The Bookseller.

Karen Lotz of the Walker Group says the books will offer “unique and beautifully presented content and innovative play value.”

There are no details yet on titles which are set to release this October.

As we noted earlier, there is also an agreement in place with Scholastic to “publish children’s movie tie-in books for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and its sequels, as well as tie-in books based on the original eight Harry Potter films.” Harper Collins has adult tie-in rights and plans to offer titles that “delve into, and behind the scenes of, the richly textured film and its sequels to enhance fans’ enjoyment of the new stories. Books will include details about how the films were made, the process of art and design, interviews with the cast and crew, and interactive formats such as colouring and postcard books.”

The original Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Scholastic; 9780545850568), a faux Hogwarts textbook, is currently out of print an only available from used book retailers. However, the screenplay of the movie will be published on Nov. 19, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay, by J K Rowling (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books).

Another script is also about to be released, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One & Two (Special Rehearsal Edition Script): The Official Script Book of the Original West End Production, by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine), timed to debut a day after the premiere of the London stage production on July 30th.

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is written by Rowling and stars Eddie Redmayne as magician Newt Scamander, it opens on November 18. It also stars Ezra Miller, Colin Farrell, and Katherine Waterston and is directed by David Yates, who was responsible for 4 of the 7 original Potter films.

We posted the trailer previously, below is a featurette with commentary by Rowling:

Girls’ soccer gets the spotlight from Amazon Studios, which just announced the launch of a new series based on the middle grade novls by U.S. Women’s National Team star player Alex Morgan. Like the books, the series is titled The Kicks. The pilot, which was released last year as part of Amazon’s kids pilot season, is still available on Amazon. All nine live-action episodes will be avail on Aug. 26 for Prime members.

Morgan introduces the series in the trailer:

Proclaims lead character, Devin Burke, played by  newcomer Sixx Orange, “I am NOT a princess, I am a soccer BEAST!”

No tie-ins are listed. but the trade paperback reprints now carry bursts reading “Now an Amazon Original Series!”

Read our chat with Lynn, below.

Join us for the next live chat on August 10, 5 to 6 p.m., ET with the bestselling author of the Shatter Me series Tahereh Mafi, to discuss her upcoming book, Furthermore.

To join the program, sign up here.

Delia Ephron’s latest, Siracusa (PRH/Blue Rider Press; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) may bring her to a new level of popularity. The novel is getting strong media attention and is rising on Amazon, currently just outside the top 100. Deadline Hollywood reports a film deal is in the works.

In a review titled “Delia Ephron writes her own version of Heartburn” referring to her sister Nora Ephron’s famous novel, The Washington Post summarizes the plot, “The story centers on two couples vacationing together in Italy. The four of them take turns telling the story, and their views of events rarely coincide.”

However, says the reviewer, “Siracusa takes a more expansive look at matrimony and its discontents,” adding,

“For much of the way, Siracusa is a sophisticated, elegantly written, delightfully cynical look at four middle-aged Americans, not unlike people most of us know, as they struggle to make sense of their lives. Then, abruptly, the story darkens. All readers may not share my admiration for its shocking conclusion, but it’s that sudden glimpse of tragedy, even of evil, that gives Ephron’s novel the feel of a classic.”

The LA Times says it is “skillfully wrought,” comparing it to “Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon … Ford Madox Ford’s 1915 modernist masterpiece The Good Soldier and Showtime’s ongoing dramatic series The Affair. There’s even an echo of Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel, Atonement about passion, guilt and how writers distort lives for literary ends.”

However, the review adds a note of caution, saying “In the end, Siracusa, like life, is a tad disappointing, its culminating disaster coming as something of an anticlimax.”

The book was featured on multiple summer reading lists. Ephron was recently interviewed on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show.

Holds are spiking at the majority of libraries we checked, some topping 7:1 ratios.

Check your holds for They May Not Mean To, But They Do by Cathleen Schine (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). It is rising on Amazon, up to #346 from #4,077, and demand is spiking in several libraries.

The rise coincides with a feature on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday. In a long conversation host Terry Gross asks Schine about her newest book and how it reflects the novelist’s own life.

Their conversation centers upon the difficulties of middle-age kids dealing with their aging and ill parents and the feelings of guilt that arise from living far away from them.

The publicity for the book paints it as far more comedic than the interview suggests, a take many reviews reinforce. NPR’s book critic Maureen Corrigan asked, “who needs a novel about colostomy bags and grief? … you do if you’re a reader who relishes acute psychological perceptions and lots of laughs to leaven the existential grimness.”

Author Penelope Lively, reviewing for the NYT BR, says the novel “combines black comedy with shrewd observation of family dynamics,” continuing that “Despite its subject matter [it] is a very funny novel.”

Entertainment Weekly gave it a strong B+, writing that the “deliciously quirky multigenerational novel … manages to be funny and heartbreaking at the same time; Schine has a gift for transforming the pathos and comedy of everyday life into luminous fiction.”

The major theatrical release this week is the family movie Ice Age: Collision Course, opening Friday July 22. The fifth in the series, it features all the usual characters, plus a few more, as they try to save the world from an asteroid collision (and do battle at the box office with The Secret Life of Pets and Finding Dory).

There’s a wide range of tie-ins which we wrote about in Titles to Know for the week of June 6.

Key titles include Ice Age: Collision Course: The Junior Novel, J.E. Bright (S&S/little bee books), the storybook Volcano to the Rescue!, Mike Teitelbaum (S&S/little bee books) and two leveled readers by Suzy Capozzi: Scrat’s Space Adventure (S&S/little bee books; also in paperback) and Welcome to Geotopia (S&S/little bee books; also in paperback).

Also coming is Into the Forrest, an adaptation of Jean Hegland’s 1996 novel about two sisters trying to survive after a massive power outage. When it premiered at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival Variety called it “heartfelt but under-realized,” and did not think much of its commercial prospects. It did not get picked up for a major release. Instead it premieres on DirectTV on June 23 (and in NY/LA theaters) before opening in wider release at the end of the month.

No tie-in for this one.

Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner (PRH/Random House; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) got a big boost from NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, causing  the book to jump on Amazon’s sales rankings from 4,426 to 146.

The police procedural, a June LibraryReads pick, was inspired by Kate Atkinson’s approach to the Jackson Brodie mysteries, which Steiner says have “all the propulsion of mystery — so there’s that page-turning grit making you want to go back to it — but along with that is all the riffing and meandering and depth and relationship of a literary novel.”

The “riffing and meandering” in her case it is the character of detective inspector Manon Bradshaw, a very lonely woman who is suffering in her personal life, “in particular the tribulations of Internet dating, which she finds particularly miserable, as a lot of people do.”

The NPR interview also focused on Steiner’s process of writing. “I’m a huge rewriter,” she says, which helps her dose out the clues: “I do draft upon draft upon draft, and that provides an opportunity to backlay clues. So there was an awful lot of putting clues in, taking them out again, putting them back in, worrying it was then obvious … that’s a delicate balance because the reader wants to be co-sleuth — that’s part of the joy — but also not to work it out too early.”

NPR has been an early fan. In addition to the interview, Bethanne Patrick wrote an online only review in early July, saying “If you’ve binge-watched Happy Valley, The Fall or Prime Suspect, have I got a book for you … You might come to Missing, Presumed for the police procedural; you’ll stay for the layered, authentic characters that Steiner brings to life.”

Asked if there is a sequel in the works, Steiner told Weekend Edition, “There’s certainly another one.”

Holds are spiking at several libraries we checked, with ratios topping 5:1 in some locales.

We have a new name among holds leaders for books arriving this week, Ruth Ware for her second novel, The Woman in Cabin 10 (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). Refreshingly, this psychological thriller does not have a girl in the title. Ware’s first book, last year’s In A Dark, Dark Wood, was a LibraryReads pick, as is this one (see Peer Picks, below). Her debut also appeared on the NYT Hardcover Best Seller list for a week and has since developed a larger audience in trade paperback, currently on that NYT list at #6 after 7 weeks.

Ware follows authors with much longer track records, each of whom is releasing her seventeenth novel. The top title in holds for the week is Iris Johansen’s crime novel, Night and Day (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), followed by Jane Green’s romance, Falling (Penguin/Berkley; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

The titles covered here, and several more notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet,EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of July 18, 2016

Consumer Media Picks

Not Pretty Enough, Gerri Hershey, (Macmillan/FSG).

People magazine’s “Book of the Week” — “This rollicking, Masterful biography celebrates a woman who had the audacity to tell us something we secretly knew already: Sex matters.” It is also reviewed in both the daily NYT and in the NYT Sunday Review, under the headline “Was She a Feminist? The Complicated Legacy of Helen Gurley Brown,” along with Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman by Brooke Hauser (HarperCollins/Harper; April). As the story points out much more will be coming on Brown, including a possible movie based on Enter Helen.

People also picks Delia Ephron’s Siracusa (PRH/Blue Rider Press; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), a LibraryReads pick that we covered last week as well as Nina Stibbe’s Paradise Lodge (Hachette/Little Brown). Of the latter, People comments, “You won’t find a funnier, more original confidante than Lizzie Vogel, a teen who’s taken a job in a nursing home.” Stibbe is the author of Love, Nina, an early LibraryReads pick and Man at the Helm, in which Lizzie first appears.

Peer Picks

Two July LibraryReads titles hit shelves this week.

The Hopefuls, Jennifer Close (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“When Beth and Matt, an aspiring politician, move from NYC to DC, Beth initially hates it. But things start to turn around for her when they befriend another “transplant” couple, Ashleigh and Jimmy. Beth’s loyalty is tested when she is forced to admit to herself that Matt is just not quite as attractive, magnetic or charismatic as his rival-friend, Jimmy…..who harbors similar political aspirations. The Hopefuls is on point in its descriptions of young marriage, career ambition, and complicated friendships. The characters are completely compelling. I was overdue for a great read and this was it!” — Amy Lapointe, Amherst Town Library, Amherst, NH

It is a summer reading favorite from Entertainment Weekly, Elle, Glamour, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Woman in Cabin 10, Ruth Ware (S&S/Gallery/Scout Press; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“An intruder in the middle of the night leaves Lo Blacklock feeling vulnerable. Trying to shake off her fears, she hopes her big break of covering the maiden voyage of the luxury cruise ship, the Aurora, will help. The first night of the voyage changes everything. What did she really see in the water and who was the woman in the cabin next door? The claustrophobic feeling of being on a ship and the twists and turns of who, and what, to believe keep you on the edge of your seat. Count on this being one of the hot reads this summer!” — Joseph Jones, Cuyahoga County Public Library, OH

It is also an August Indie Next pick as well as a summer reading selection by Entertainment Weekly and Amazon. EW said, “Call it THE GIRL ON THE BOAT.”

Another Indie Next pick out this week is The Secret Language of Stones, M. J. Rose (S&S/Atria Books), part of the Daughters of La Lune series.

“World War I Paris is a dangerous place for the young witch Opaline Duplessi. Still in denial about the true extent of her powers and hopelessly in love with a man she can never have, Opaline becomes caught up in a Russian émigré’s plan to save a Romanov from Bolshevik spies on the windswept English coast. Magic and intrigue collide in this captivating follow-up to The Witch of Painted Sorrows.” —Paula Longhurst, The King’s English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, UT

Tie-ins

Two tie-ins come out this week, both connecting to revamps of older projects.

Suicide Squad Vol. 4: The Janus Directive, John Ostrander (PRH/DC Comics) is the next collected edition featuring the super villain strike team who serve as covert agents on specialized black op missions.

The comic series was originally created by Ross Andru and Robert Kanigher in 1959. The movie adaptation is based on the newer 1987 series by John Ostrander.

There have been three previous collections:

Vol 1: Trial by Fire (Sept. 2015 — 9781401258313)

Vol. 2: The Nightshade Odyssey (Dec, 2015– 9781401258337)

Vol. 3: Rouges (April, 2016 — 9781401260910)

The movie was featured on the cover of the July 15 issue of Entertainment Weekly and boasts a large ensemble cast including Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, and Cara Delevingne. It opens on Aug. 5.

Also pubbing is Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Carol Wallace (Tyndale House; also in trade paperback and in Spanish).

It is an adaptation of the 1880 novel, which has already served as the basis of several movies, including the Charlton Heston film from the late 50s.

This new version of the text is not the 1880’s edition but, as the publisher says, an update by “Lew’s great-great-granddaughter [who] has taken the old-fashioned prose of this classic novel and breathed new life into it for today’s audience.”

The film stars Jack Huston and Morgan Freeman and opens Aug. 19.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

The latest in the Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series, A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny (Macmillan/Minotaur) is the #1 LibraryReads pick for August.

“Armand Gamache is back, and it was worth the wait. As the new leader of the Surete academy, Gamche is working to stop corruption at its source and ensure the best start for the cadets. When a copy of an old map is found near the body of a dead professor, Gamache and Beauvoir race against the clock to find the killer before another person dies. A terrific novel that blends Penny’s amazing lyrical prose with characters that resonate long after the book ends. Highly recommended.” — David Singleton, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Charlotte, NC

Additional Buzz: It has earned a rare all-star sweep from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

The Dollhouse, Fiona Davis (PRH/Dutton; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“This is the story of the women who stayed in the Barbizon Hotel in the 1950’s. A reporter is tipped off about one of the women, who still lives in the building over 60 years later. As she tries to research a murder and a case of switched identities, she starts becoming part of the story. The narration switched between 2016 and 1952 and as I read the novel, I soon got caught up in the next piece of the puzzle. It had history, romance, and a way to view the changing roles of women. Enjoyed it very much!” — Donna Ballard, East Meadow Public Library, East Meadow, NY

Additional Buzz:  See our chat with the author here. It is also one of B&N‘s summer reading picks.

The Book That Matters Most, Ann Hood (Norton).

“A recently separated woman seeks solace and purpose in a local book group, while her daughter is dealing with her own life-changing problems that just might be resolved with a little literary assistance. The juxtaposition of the idyllic small town and the harsh reality of the seedier side of Paris, the weight of memory and regret, and the power of human connection, along with the engaging characters all work together to create an enthralling read. Readers will be carried away with the hope that these lovely and damaged characters can find their own happy ending.” — Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, South Huntington, NY

Additional Buzz: An Indie Next pick for August (one of several overlaps this month between booksellers and librarians’s selections), it is also a B&N summer reading pick.

The full list of ten selections is available now.

This chat has now ended. You can read the archived version below.

For more on the Penguin Debut Authors Program, click here.

After first debuting as 11 serial downloads, Julian Fellowes’s newest take on old money, Belgravia (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), is being published in a single print volume.

Reviews are range from raves to disappointment.

USA Today is entirely positive, praising the “juicy” 400 pager for its “zipping” pace and giving it four out of four stars. The paper goes on to say Fellowes “channels Dickens, Austen and romance queen Georgette Heyer” in his novel of “class snobbery, social climbing, lucky orphans and family secrets.”

In the upcoming NYT Sunday Book Review, author Daisy Goodwin, whose romantic historicals have tilled similar ground to Fellowes, is not as impressed, “Reading Belgravia is rather like visiting a modern re-creation of a Victorian house — every cornice molding is perfect — but it’s a Victorian house with 21st-century plumbing and Wi-Fi. It’s for anyone who has tried to read a 19th-century novel and become bored.”

Addressing the big question of how it will play with Downton Abbey fans, Goodwin says there is “plenty to enjoy here, and there’s no one like Fellowes for giving good dowager. But without the talents of great actors to turn stereotypes into human beings, much of the characterization … Belgravia has everything one would expect of a Victorian novel, apart from its sentimental heart.”

As we noted in the July 4th Titles To Know, The Seattle Times found that, in comparison to Downton, “Belgravia, unfortunately, feels like a respectable but socially inferior cousin; it might get invited to dinner, but only out of obligation.”

Regardless of these reviews, and while readers did not embrace the serial format, holds are very strong at several libraries we checked, easily topping a 3:1 ratio.

Saying that his novel gave her “hours of great pleasure,” librarian Nancy Pearl talks with author Adam Haslett about his new book, Imagine Me Gone (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample) on the most recent episode of Book Lust TV,

Hassett says the book is described by one of his friends, “a love story about a family.” It follows five members of a family as they each narrate part of the story as it moves forward in time across 40 years. Nancy praises the strong characterizations and Haslett says that he always wants to “get as far into the texture and nuance of his characters’ life as possible.” For him, he continues, the process of entering “imaginatively and sympathetically” into a character is key. Like method acting, he says, he lives with the characters.

The two also discuss reading. Haslett says that he is dyslexic and that reading was always an effort. Unlike other kids who could disappear into an imagined world, he read (and still reads) very attentively, falling into an enjoyment of great sentences.

The NYT‘s “Sunday Book Review,” as we noted earlier, also says that Haslett learned the craft of sentences well, writing that the book is “ambitious and stirring” and that “it sneaks up on you with dark and winning humor, poignant tenderness and sentences so astute that they lift the spirit even when they’re awfully, awfully sad.”

As is her practice, Nancy asks Haslett to share some of his favorite titles and he lists the work of Amity Gaige and Paul Harding with whom he went to MFA school.

Imagine Me Gone was selected as a May Indie Next pick and is on Time magazine’s  “Best Books of 2016 So Far.” 

Lobster rolls with no lobster, tuna that is not tuna, olive oil that has only a passing relationship to olives are the subject of a book arriving today that has been rising quickly on Amazon’s sales rankings, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It by Larry Olmsted (Workman/Algonquin; OverDrive Sample).

The rise coincides with strong media attention across a variety of outlets including the New York Post, Town and Country, Forbes, Outside, and several NPR programs including The Leonard Lopate Show, The Diane Rehm Show, and All Things Considered.

Outside says Olmsted shows “readers how to navigate an increasingly complex food system” unveiling the ugly, and harmful, truth about the unregulated food scene, which he calls in his book “a massive industry of bait and switch.”

Kobe beef, for instance, which sells for astronomical prices in the US comes from a breed of cow that lives and is slaughtered in a specific area of Japan and that is fed a diet produced in that same region. A Kobe beef steak sells for triple digits in the US. The rub? Kobe beef is not allowed to be imported into the US by the USDA.

Even worse, as Olmsted reveals in Town and Country, fakes may contain ingredients few would knowingly choose to consume. Such as truffle oil, “The most common source of ‘natural truffle’ flavor in the oil” he says, “is a chemically altered form of formaldehyde.”

Season two of the popular STARZ Outlander adaptation wrapped on Saturday. The final episode revealed new characters and story lines and also how much the screen version has increased book sales for the entire series, with all eight titles showing impressive leaps on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Some people must feel the need to catch up, sending the first two books in Diana Gabaldon’s series,  Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber soaring. However, readers will find differences between the books and the series, particularly for season 2.

But the real interest lies in what comes next. Book 3 in the series, Voyager (PRH/Delta; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample) rose the highest on Amazon’s rankings, to #25. All the rest of the titles in the series also received significant bumps (the full list is here).

Two new seasons have been ordered, according to Variety. There is no air-date yet for season 3, but if the gap is anything like the time between seasons 1 and 2, fans will have to wait nearly a year, a period of time they mournfully call #Droughtlander.

It could take even longer than that, as casting for the new faces of season three has not even begun, co-executive producer Maril Davis told New York Magazine, “We haven’t actually started looking at anyone, but we’ll be starting fairly soon.” On top of this, new locations have to be spotted and new sets built as the action moves from Scotland to Jamaica.

When season 3 does air, fans can expect even more differences between page and screen reports Bustle, quoting executive producer, Ronald D. Moore, “Our goal is still to try and be as faithful as we can to the books [but] the longer that you go, the more the TV series inevitably veers from the book and certain plot lines then take on a life of their own … Those changes add up and the further in you go, the bigger those separations become.”

On the same topic Davis also told New York Magazine “In some ways, it should be like the books, but telling the TV version should be fresh. Even for book fans, you want to give them what they want, but in a different way sometimes. We want try to do that for season three as well.”

Gabaldon recently announced that the ninth book in her very slowly unfolding series (the first book was published over two decades ago) will be titled Tell The Bees That I Am Gone. A pub date is not yet known but Entertainment Weekly posted a brief excerpt.

Gabaldon has also said that a tenth book will be forthcoming, which she believes will finally wrap the series, and that she has plans for a prequel, focusing on her main character Jamie’s parents.