Known for the her award winning and best selling adult novel, Room, Emma Donoghue, has just published a new novel and it’s for kids, The Lotterys Plus One (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books; Scholastic Audio; OverDrive Sample; illustrated by Caroline Hadilaksono). Written for middle graders, it’s rising on Amazon’s sales rankings thanks to an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Donoghue reads the opening:

“Once upon a time, a man from Delhi and man from Yukon fell in love, and so did a woman from Jamaica and a Mohawk woman. The two couples became best friends and had a baby together. When they won the lottery, they gave up their jobs and found a big old house where their family could learn and grow … and grow some more.”

Joining the overflowing household is one of the grandfathers, suffering from dementia. NPR notes that even though Donoghue’s adult books explore difficult subjects, this new novel is “all light.”

Donoghue, whose mother suffers from the disease, tells NPR “everything I read about dementia for children had a dreary tone to it, a sort of ‘let’s stop the action and all give you sad facts,’ you know? So I don’t believe there’s any subject that can’t be handled with a little bit of spark, so I try and make it very accurate, but also accept the humor that can be in misunderstandings … and above all, I avoided being too sad.”

Kirkus and PW give it stars, with PW calling it “a drily funny story about adjusting to new situations.”

For-profit colleges are examined on NPR’s Fresh Air via an interview with Tressie McMillan Cottom author of Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy (Perseus/PGW/Legato/The New Press).

Designed to make money for shareholders and company owners, rather than to transform students’ lives, she says, for-profit end up compound students’ “poverty and risk factors.”

The NYT reviews the book, calling it “revelatory” and writing it is “the best book yet on the complex lives and choices of for-profit students.”

The book has also been featured on Marketplace, MotherJones, The Leonard Lopate Show, and the Chicago Tribune.

Most libraries we checked have bought few copies or none at all.

Holds are growing for Ariel Levy’s attention-getting memoir, The Rules Do Not Apply (PRH/Random; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Levy, a staff writer at the New Yorker, is getting attention from a wide range of media. The NYT highlights the author in a lengthy feature story detailing Levy’s take on what the paper calls her “karmic smackdown” of how she went from pregnant and married to a woman grieving the loss of her baby and watching her marriage dissolve:

“Ms. Levy wanted to interrogate her own responsibility for such a sequence of grim events … That is the intellectual backbone [of the memoir, one that examines the] hoary conceit, the one about women and ‘having it all’ … A thoroughly modern memoir, the elements … seem plucked not from the script of Girls, which has also been exploring reproductive issues of late, but Transparent — even Portlandia.”

Blurbed by some big names, including Lena Dunham, Cheryl Strayed, David Sedaris, Amy Bloom, and Alison Bechtel, it is reviewed by a range of outlets including Bustle, Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Mother Jones, O magazine, and Time. Levy was also interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday.

The Atlantic says it is a “one-of-a-kind memoir” and that “Levy has the rare gift of seeing herself with fierce, unforgiving clarity. And she deploys prose to match, raw and agile. She plumbs the commotion deep within and takes the measure of her have-it-all generation.”

It is also stirring controversy. The New Republic calls it “Infuriating … a monument to obliviousness” and says it “buys into the myth that feminism promises each woman that she can have whatever she wants … It’s unlikely many Black women or Arab women or undocumented women would presume a similar degree of permission and mobility, regardless of their exposure to Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan.”

It is climbing the Amazon rankings, currently at #136, and a few systems we checked are showing holds above 6:1.

Beauty and the Beast‘s box office juggernaut continued over the weekend. Even the release of the Power Rangers reboot could not break the spell, coming in a distant second.

Six screen adaptations come out this week:

Netflix’s new series 13 Reasons Why will premiere on March 31.

Based on Jay Asher’s 2007 YA novel TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY, it is about a high school student who commits suicide and leaves behind several tapes, telling classmates how each contributed to her decision. The novel is a YALSA Best Books of 2008, and was a NYT best seller in hardcover for over two years.

The trailer debut alone was enough to send the book soaring on Amazon. A new featurette is out:

Thus far critics seem very happy with the show. Entertainment Weekly gives it a B+ and writes “A frank, authentically affecting portrait of what it feels like to be young, lost, and too fragile for the world.”

Variety writes “13 Reasons Why [will] pull viewers into a suspenseful tale that will keep most of them engaged until the final scene fades out.”

A tie-in came out earlier this month: 13 Reasons Why, Jay Asher Razorbill (PRH/Razorbill; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample).

Alec Baldwin stars in DreamWorks Animation’s adaptation of Marla Frazee’s Boss Baby (S&S/Beach Lane, 2010), opening on March 31.

Directed by Tom McGrath (Madagascar), it also features the voices of Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow.

As we posted earlier, the movie is described as “inspired” by Frazee’s picture book and adds several story lines. The tie-in, which came out in February, is a novelization of the movie script, The Boss Baby Junior Novelization by Tracey West (S&S/Simon Spotlight; also in trade pbk; OverDrive Sample).

Early reviews were glowing. Variety reported from the Annecy film festival that it “had the audience in stitches” and brought “whoops of applause.”

However, more recent reviews are not as strong. IndieWire headlines “The Boss Baby Might Pacify Kids, But This Dirty Diaper of a Movie Is Further Proof Hollywood Animation Needs a Change.”

The Wrap says “The Boss Baby runs in the opposite direction of real feeling in favor of bombast. There’s so much to like in this movie, but its best qualities are ultimately subsumed in formula. And not the nutritious kind.”

Ghost in the Shell, the live-action adaptation of Shirow Masamune’s SF manga series, which Movie Pilot calls “a pioneer of cyberpunk,” opens March 31. It stars Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbæk, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche, and Michael Pitt.

There are few reviews thus far but the NYT offers a feature on the many incarnations of the story.

There are multiple tie-ins. See here and here.

The Zookeeper’s Wife opens on March 31. It is is already selling books, taking Diane Ackerman’s nonfiction account of the heroic story of a zookeeper and his wife who harbored 300 Jews from the Nazis back to the best seller lists and rising on Amazon’s rankings.

The film stars Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Michael McElhatton, and Daniel Brühl.

Reviews are not great. The Guardian says it “suffers from an uneven script” while Den of Geek says it is “hurt by erratic pacing.”

The Wrap writes, “Turning an incredible true story of a couple who sheltered Jews into bland historical fare is the most noteworthy of the film’s shortcomings.”

The best-selling tie-in came out in February: The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, Diane Ackerman (W. W. Norton; Blackstone; OverDrive Sample).

In more limited release are two films. While they will not air to a wide audience at first, they will eventually be released on DVD, making them accessible for libraries creating book-to-film collections (and displays).

Carrie Pilby opens in limited release on March 31 and will be followed by VOD on April 4. It is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby: A hilarious and charming story (HC/Harlequin Teen; Harlequin Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The film stars Bel Powley, Nathan Lane, Gabriel Byrne, Jason Ritter, William Moseley, Vanessa Bayer, and Colin O’Donoghue.

The Hollywood Reporter calls it “a well-intentioned but imperfect young-adult-skewing comedy-drama … this often tritely plotted tale is not half as clever or cute as it thinks it is.”

Variety says “this is awfully soft stuff, its naval-gazing protagonist not nearly as unusual or delightful as we’re meant to think despite the high IQ she can’t stop referencing … For a story about a supposed genius, it’s not all that clever or complicated.”

The Guardian was much more favorable, giving it 4 out of 5 stars and calling it an “ambitious, upbeat and surprising comedy.”

There is no tie-in.

The Devotion of Suspect X, a Chinese-language film, opens in very limited release on March 31, just 45 theaters. It stars Wang Kai, Zhang Luyi, and Ruby Lin. There are no reviews as of yet.

The novel on which it was based, The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Macmillan/Minotaur; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), received attention when it was published. It was selected by the ALA/RUSA Reading List in 2012 for best Mystery and was nominated for an Edgar. It earned three star reviews, from LJ, PW, and Kirkus.

The Wall St. Journal says, “Whether it amounts to math, philosophy, psychology or cosmology, The Devotion of Suspect X is an elegant literary experiment. It suggests, among much else, that a lot of bad behavior is forgiven in the name of genius—and then even a genius can push the envelope just so far before it breaks.”

There is no tie-in.

Set to be her breakout Jessica Shattuck’s third book, The Women in the Castle (HarperCollins/Morrow) arrives this week. The novel looks at how ordinary German citizens dealt with the compromises they made to survive in WWII Germany. The story has personal resonance, as Shattuck reveals in a NYT Op/Ed piece titled, “I Loved My Grandmother. But She Was a Nazi.” The book is also a LibraryReads title (see below, under Peer Picks).

More highlights from the titles coming out next week are below. All are listed, along with other titles of note, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of March 27.

Holds Leaders

The Black Book, James Patterson, (Hachette/Little Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Publishers Weekly not only calls this “brilliantly twisty” but goes on make the pronouncement that “Many readers will agree with Patterson that this is the ‘best book [he’s] written in 25 years.'”

Media Magnets

Old School: Life in the Sane Lane, Bill O’Reilly, (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The host of Fox News The O’Reilly Factor, will undoubtedly use the show to flog his new book, which, according to the publisher, describes a “looming confrontation” between “Old Schoolers” and “Snowflakes,” who “[whine] about social injustice and income inequality and [cheer] Bernie Sanders as he [suggests] the government pay for almost everything,” adding that it is explained “so even the ladies on The View can understand it.”

How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life , Lilly Singh, (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

At 28, Singh can claim to know what she’s talking about in the “conquering life department.” She’s listed at #8 Forbes list of “The World’s Top-Earning YouTube Stars 2015.” She is set to appear on the Today Show on Tuesday, 3/28 and later that day on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Peer Picks

Only two peer picks arrive this week, but both are #1 selections.

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, Hannah Tinti (PRH/Dial; OverDrive Sample) is the #1 LibraryReads pick for March:

“Meet Samuel Hawley, a man in a constant struggle with his violent past, doing the best he can to raise his daughter. Meet Loo, his daughter, a girl with an obscure past and an uncertain future, on the cusp of adulthood. And meet Lily, the dead woman who connects them both. In this finely woven novel, the past and the present gradually illuminate the story of a man’s life through the bullet wounds he carries with him and makes readers consider what it is to be both good and evil.” — Dawn Terrizzi, Denton Public Library, Denton, TX

Additional Buzz: It is also an Indie Next selection for April 2017. It makes a number of monthly or seasonal best lists, including those by the BBC, Bustle, BuzzFeed, and InStyle. The BBC writes, “This is a surprising and celebratory father-daughter story told with astonishing language and scope.” It gets reviewed by The Rumpus and The Washington Post, for which Ron Charles offers a video review:

Tinti was interviewed as part of PBS’s showcase from the AWP Bookfair:

The Women in the Castle, Jessica Shattuck (HC/William Morrow; HarperLuxe; HarperAudio) is the #1 Indie Next pick for April:

“Three war widows and their children help each other survive at the end of World War II in this engaging novel filled with rich period details. Their husbands died as members of the resistance, but aside from that common thread, Marianne, Benita, and Ania bring very different backgrounds to their makeshift home in the castle’s kitchen. They also face repercussions from past choices and current secrets. Jessica Shattuck brings us into their world and shows us that the rules for love and loyalty are different in wartime.” —Dawn Rennert, The Concord Bookshop, Concord, MA

Additional Buzz: As we note above, this is likely to be the author’s breakout. In addition to the Indie Next #1 pick, it is a Library Reads pick for March. In an unusual pre-pub push, the owners of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Ann Patchett and Karen Hayes, suggest it to their readers writing it is a “book is for readers who love World War II novels and especially for anyone who thinks they don’t need to read another World War II novel.” In another bookstore connection, the top book buyer for Tattered Cover chooses three titles she recommends as she retires. One of them is The Women in the Castle.

The author was featured on NPR’s  Weekend Edition Saturday. Check your holds for this one.

Tie-ins

Four tie-ins come out this week.

American Gods, Neil Gaiman (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample; also mass market).

The Starz’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods premieres on Sunday, April 30, 2017.

One of the early reviews is particularly promising. Slash film calls the pilot “a Weird and Wonderful Start to a Promising Series … American Gods appears to do justice to Gaiman’s work, expanding on his world while being faithful to what makes it work in the first place. Green and Fuller seem to have crafted something very special, perhaps even a series that can replace the dark fantasy hole in our hearts when Game of Thrones comes to an end.”

The White Princess (MTI), Philippa Gregory (S&S/Pocket; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample; also mass market).

Returning to Starz’s is another adaptation of a Philippa Gregory novel, after the successful The White Queen. This time it is Princess Elizabeth of York’s moment in the spotlight. The power-play-power-struggle begins on April 16.

There are no reviews yet. See our coverage here and here.

The Dinner (Movie Tie-In Edition), Herman Koch (PRH/Hogarth; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

A tense meal will be served on May 5, with the premiere of the adaptation of Herman Koch’s The Dinner. The novel was on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list for seven weeks, reaching a high of #7.

The film stars Richard Gere, Steve Coogan, Laura Linney, Rebecca Hall, Chloë Sevigny, and Charlie Plummer. Early reviews, from film festival viewings, are mixed. Variety is on board, writing that it is “riveting” with “a catchy atmosphere of disturbance.” The Hollywood Reporter disagrees, saying the film “will probably see some arthouse action both in Europe and stateside before ending up as broadcast fodder for people watching TV with plates of microwaved food on their knees.”

Star Wars Rogue One Junior Novel, Matt Forbeck (Hachette /Disney Lucasfilm Press; Blackstone Audio).

Pitched to 9-12 year-olds, this is a concise retelling of the hit Star Wars movie, the newest of the series, which came out Dec. 16, 2016.

It ties in to the release of the film on HD. Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand follow on April 4.

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

The first trailer for DreamWorks Animation’s Captain Underpants, based on the best selling Dav Pilkey series (Scholastic), was released yesterday, arriving in time to be featured before the kids movies set to dominate theaters for the next two weekends, Power Rangers and The Boss Baby.

Dropping a hint that this may be the first of series, Dreamworks adds the words The First Epic Movie to the title. It opens in theaters on June 2.

A tie-in is being released, Official Handbook (Captain Underpants Movie) by Kate Howard on April 25, 2017 (Scholastic), but libraries may prefer to spend their money on additional copies of the original twelve-volume series.

Rising on Amazon, currently at #72, and building holds is Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, Kory Stamper (PRH/ Pantheon; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

The NYT ran an illustrated feature in today’s paper and online yesterday, saying that Stamper is a word-nerd cult figure, with a joyful and invested following on social media. Of they book the paper writes it:

“mixes memoiristic meditations on the lexicographic life along with a detailed description of the brain-twisting work of writing dictionaries [it] describes [Stamper’s] own initiation into the art of lexicography, which involves wrestling with the continuous evolution of language. She walks the reader, chapter by chapter, through different aspects of a definition, including grammar, pronunciation, etymology and more.”

The Atlantic says it is an “eloquent love letter to letters themselves … a cheerful and thoughtful rebuke of the cult of the grammar scolds.”

Sites as diverse as the A.V. Club and The Economist weigh in as well.

The majority of libraries we checked have strong holds on very light orders or have not purchased at all.

Below is a sample of one of Stamper’s popular videos:

One of the many lists soon to come, New York magazine has published their “Spring Book Preview,” a list of ten choices ranging across nonfiction and fiction, big names and new authors.

Among the big names is Joshua Ferris for The Dinner Party and Other Stories (Hachette/Little Brown; Blackstone Audio). New York magazine comments, “Ferris’s three novels have earned him a reputation as a high-concept high-wire artist … His stories, by comparison, are compact gems of timing and everyday absurdity.”

One of the debuts comes from award-winning reporter Omar El Akkad who was born in Egypt and now lives in Portland, OR.  A dystopian novel set in 2074,  American War (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), portrays a much smaller U.S., cue to global warming that “enters its second Civil War … Told through the lens of a young Southern refugee who comes of age in a time of horror … terrifying in its prescient vision of the future.”

Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night by Jason Zinoman (Harper; HarperAudio) gets one of the nonfiction nods. The magazine says “Zinoman presents a well-rounded portrait of the late-night legend … a must-read for any comedy fan.”

The full list is online.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer and bestselling author of Lean In, is set to publish s new title next month, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT), co-written with Adam Grant, author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World.

The book is based on personal experience, as Sandberg writes on Facebook:

“A few weeks after my husband Dave died, I was talking to my friend Phil Deutch about a father-son activity that Dave was not here to do. We came up with a plan for someone to fill in so my son would not have to miss out. I cried, ‘But I want Dave.’ Phil put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ That became my mantra, and for the past two years I’ve tried hard to find meaning and happiness in the wake of our despair.”

On the strength of that post, picked up by Bustle and InStyle, which headlines their story, “You’ll Definitely Want to Read Sheryl Sandberg’s Empowering New Book,” it soared up Amazon’s sales rankings, and is currently at #9.

Thus far, library holds queues are light. Keep in mind, however, that Lean In got off to a slow start.

Misty Copeland, the first African American woman to be a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, has published a new book, Ballerina Body: Dancing and Eating Your Way to a Leaner, Stronger, and More Graceful You (Hachette/Grand Central Life & Style; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

It is rising on Amazon’s rankings thanks to an appearance on CBS This Morning, jumping from #920 to #36.

A clearly admiring panel of hosts talked with Copeland about the mental and emotional strength it takes to be a star athlete and dancer, calling the book “inspiring.”

It is Copeland’s third book, after her memoir Life In Motion and the children’s book Firebird. This time she stresses understanding health as a long journey, discovering what works for each person, and creating an individual version of a healthy image.

Rising on Amazon is a nonfiction account of a fabled sea-faring mystery, Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson (Norton; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), about the sad fate of Sir John Franklin and his crew aboard the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The book not only details the doomed Arctic expedition seeking the Northwest Passage, but also the historic search for the lost ships and the modern discovery of their find. It leaped to #79 on Amazon’s sales rankings after the author appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition.

In a brief, but wide ranging conversation, Watson details some of the search, telling NPR that Franklin’s wife, Lady Jane, was “extraordinarily assertive” and forced the Royal Navy to search for her husband and even lured the United States into looking for him.

The book is also getting newspaper coverage.

The Seattle Times calls it eloquent and “more valuable than most of what comes from the cottage industry of Franklin books.”

In an illustrated story, the Dallas News says that Watson “handles the complexity of the search admirably well.”

Watson has a much longer segment on Think, a program on the public radio station KERA in North Texas. Below is the Morning Edition segment:

No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America, by Ron Powers (Hachette; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) is rising on Amazon after the author talked with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air. It moved from #9,883 to #54.

Powers was  the co-author of Flags Of Our Fathers, about the men who were featured in an iconic WWII photo as they raised the America flag on Iwo Jima. A long-running best seller, it was also the basis of a film directed by Clint Eastwood.

Powers’ new book, says Gross, “is both a memoir about his sons and a history of how the mentally ill have been treated medically, legally and socially.” Both of Powers’s sons suffer with schizophrenia, one of them committed suicide and the other attempted it.

The intimate and warm interview mixes personal story with medical explanation and the social history of the illness.

The latest Disney adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, which opened this weekend, was the blockbuster the studio longed for. Weeks before it opened, it helped promote books, putting one of the tie-ins, Lost in a Book by Jennifer Donnelly (Hachette/Disney Press) on the NYT Middle Grade Best Sellers List.

Disney is at work on many more live-action adaptations of previous animated hits, including a new version of Dumbo, with Tim Burton directing and Danny DeVito voicing the star.

Taking advantage of the Disney hit, DreamWorks Animation released a trailer for their adaptation of Marla Frazee’s The Boss Baby using the phrase, “A Tale NOT As Old As Time” and a couple of images to emphasize the reference.

Also just released is a trailer for another sure-fire book-promoting hit, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul!, based on Jeff Kinney’s book series.

Darrin Alert: the movie, and the trailer, feature a new cast.

It premieres May 19.

For a full listing of movie tie-ins, check our list of tie-ins to upcoming films, recently updated with tie-ins to 2017’s most anticipated kid’s movies.

Box offices are reeling from the opening this weekend of Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast. Next week brings another live-action adaptation, based on quite different material.

The film version of Daniel Clowes’s 2010 graphic novel Wilson, starring Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, and Judy Greer opens in a limited run on March 24, after having premiered at Sundance.

It is getting mixed reviews. Variety writes, “There are laughs, but the hipster factor is wearing thin.” The Guardian says “The filmic take … wants to stand up for the weirdos – but instead makes you yearn for silence.”

However, The Independent says it is a film to “watch out for,” writing “director Craig Johnson display[s] a knack for finding humor and warmth in the darkest of places.” Comics Bulletin is more positive still, giving it 4 out of 5 stars and saying “While the film adaptation may suffer from problems in pacing and storytelling, it is this love that is conveyed in the key moments of Harrelson’s performance that skirts incredibly close to being, well, incredible.”

A new paperback edition timed for the film came out in early February, Wilson, Daniel Clowes (Drawn and Quarterly).

The first week of spring sees the return of several favorite series and the ending of one, Greg Iles’ Natchez Burning trilogy. Peer picks include the story of the first female Pinkerton detective.

The titles highlighted in this column, 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 March 20, 2017.

Holds Leaders

Of the books arriving next week, the holds leader is a LibraryReads pick, Debbie Macomber’s If Not for You (PRH/Ballantine; RH Large Type; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). Macomber is known for her many series, including Cedar Cove, the basis for several Hallmark adaptations. This new title, however, is not part of a series. It is described by the publisher as a “standalone that features linked characters to A Girl’s Guide to Moving On.” That title debuted at #1 on the NYT Hardcover list.

In terms of holds, it is followed closely by C.J. Box’s Vicious Circle (PRH/Putnam; RH Large Print; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), #17 in the Joe Pickett series. Both PW and Library Journal give it a star. Kirkus adds the accolade “Bracingly familiar pleasures expertly packaged. The two families’ fraught history, tangled enough to fuel a whole season of high-country soap opera, keeps this installment from being the best place to take the initial plunge into the franchise, but first-timers will be intrigued and fans amply rewarded.”

Greg Iles concludes his trilogy with Mississippi Blood (HarperCollins/Morrow; HarperLuxe; HarperAudio). All pre-pub reviews are particularly strong, with Booklist saying, “Iles wraps up his massively ‘s “ambitious Natchez Burning trilogy with a book that is (in keeping with its predecessors) compelling, dark, surprising, and morally ambiguous.” It is also an IndieNext pick.

Media Magnets

Grace Notes: My Recollections, Katey Sagal (S&S/Gallery).

Oh no! In her memoir, Katey Sagal reveals that she slept with Gene Simmons (undoubtedly charmed by the fact that he was once a proofreader for Library Journal). The Sons of Anarchy and Married with Children star is set for appearances on ABC’s Nightline, March 20, Good Morning America, March 30, and The View, March 31. The book will also be featured in People magazine.

A Colony in a Nation, Christopher Hayes (Norton; Recorded Books).

The host of MSNBC’s nightly All In with Chris Hayes has a ready platform to promote his new title about racism in America. The focus of this week’s NYT Book Review’s “By The Book” profile, he recommends “Alexander Stille’s fantastic book The Sack of Rome, [PRH/Penguin, trade pbk reprint, 2007] about Silvio Berlusconi, who, in many ways, is the closest analogue you can really find among world leaders to Trump.”

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House, Alyssa Mastromonaco, Lauren Oyler (Hachette/Twelve; OverDrive Sample).

At this point, a gently humorous view of the White House may seem quaintly old-fashioned, but that is what Obama’s former deputy chief of staff offers in this book. People magazine says it’s “brimming with … humorous, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, as well as up-close-and-personal moments with Obama that shed new light on who he is as a leader, man and friend.”

Revolution for Dummies: Laughing Through the Arab Spring, Bassem Youssef (HC/Dey Street Books; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

Called “Egypt’s Jon Stewart,” Youssef is a bracing example of what can happen to those who dare to speak truth to power. His show, similar to Stewart’s, was the most popular in Egypt, making him unpopular with the government he satirized. He ended up being arrested and tortured. He was released, but the pressure continued, so he cancelled his show and moved to the US. He appeared last week on the shows of two Stewart alums, Stephen Colbert’s  Late Show and Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal.

The only pre-pub review is from Kirkus, which carps, “Youssef is usually funny, though occasionally he slathers on the bile a little too thickly … Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

A documentary about Youssef, Tickling Giants, is also being released in a limited run next week.

Peer Picks

Two March LibraryReads picks come out this week:

If Not for You, Debbie Macomber (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“High school music teacher, Beth, and tattooed auto mechanic, Sam, are set up by mutual friends, but neither sees a relationship developing. Their mutual disinterest quickly turns into friendship and then develops into much more. Just as their romantic relationship truly begins, Beth’s controlling mother and Sam’s hidden past get in the way and threaten to break them apart. As fans have grown to expect from Macomber, this tale tugs the heartstrings in every direction but is ultimately uplifting. It’s impossible not to fall in love with her characters.” — Jenna Friebel, Oak Park Public Library, Oak Park, IL

Additional Buzz: RT Book Review names it a Top Pick and gives it 4.5 stars, writing “This is a trademark Macomber romance in all the best ways.” As noted above, it arrive to long holds lists.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Lisa See (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio).

“Li-Yan and her family, devote their lives to farming tea. Like her mother, Li-Yan is being groomed to become a midwife in her Chinese village. She yearns for more and is allowed to pursue her schooling. The arrival of outsiders seeking the Pu’er tea of Yunnan brings the modern world into this isolated village. When Li-Yan finds herself alone and pregnant, she leaves her child, wrapped with a tea cake, at an orphanage. Her daughter is adopted by a couple from California, but she is drawn to the study of tea. A sweeping historical novel that juxtaposes ancient China with its modern incarnation.” Catherine Coyne, Mansfield Public Library, Mansfield, MA

Additional Buzz: It is also an April Indie Next Pick. See provides background in her book video.

Four additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

Our Short History, Lauren Grodstein (Workman/Algonquin; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Our Short History is a letter from a dying woman to her six-year-old son, and it totally shredded me. Yes, it is a sad story. But it is so much more than that. Readers will love the spirit of Karen Neulander. She is smart and thoughtful and fierce, and Jake is squirmy and tough and tender — just like six-year-old boys can be. Lauren Grodstein takes you to the edge of what you can bear, then shows you that strength comes from fragility and that hope still lives in despair.” —Susan Thomas, CoffeeTree Books, Morehead, KY

Additional Buzz: Celeste Ng, Kevin Wilson, and Karen Russell provide blurbs. Both LJ and Booklist star it, with LJ calling it a “heartbreaking, character-driven story.”

Mississippi Blood, Greg Iles (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio).

“Mississippi Blood is the culmination of the Natchez Trilogy, which follows characters who are trying to get to the bottom of brutal Civil Rights-era crimes. Penn Cage watches as the world around him calls into question everything he thinks he knows, including the moral fortitude of his father. Rippling with parallels to our everyday America, Mississippi Blood will, hopefully, push us all to recognize the truths about ourselves and our country.” —Veronica Brooks-Sigler, Octavia Books, New Orleans, LA

Additional Buzz: Back in Sept. 2016 Entertainment Weekly was so excited about the conclusion to Iles’s Natchez Burning trilogy that they posted a first look at the cover and a short excerpt. Booklist, LJ, and PW each give it a starred review. PW says “The trial scenes are among the most exciting ever written in the genre.”

The River of Kings, Taylor Brown (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“In his second novel, Taylor Brown takes us on a fascinating trip down the Altamaha River. Also called Georgia’s ‘Little Amazon,’ the river is one of the most remote and wild places in the U.S. This is where the Loggins brothers, Hunter and Lawton, grew up with their abusive father. After he dies under mysterious conditions, they decide to kayak down the river to disperse his ashes and try to discover what really happened. Brown combines the story of the brothers’ journey and descriptions of their father’s rough life with a narrative of the 1564 French expedition and settlement at the river’s mouth. Three stories in which nature takes center stage intertwine to give this superb novel an almost mythical dimension.” —Pierre Camy, Schuler Books, Grand Rapids, MI

Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family’s Genetic Destiny, and the Science That Rescued Them, Gina Kolata (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; OverDrive Sample).

“This is the tale of a family that has shown remarkable strength in the face of adversity. Kolata does a wonderful job showing us the Baxleys’ joy and heartbreak by chronicling their decisions, their doubts, their fears; the decision to be genetically tested for a devastating illness seemed agonizing and the consequences of living with the outcome even more so. The strength shown by Amanda and the Baxley family made this one of the most amazing stories that I have ever had the privilege to read. I thank them for sharing their story with me; it was truly inspirational.” —Austin Wheeling-Goodson, Burry Bookstore, Hartsville, SC

Additional Buzz: Men’s Journal names it as one of “The 7 Best Books of March.”

Girl in Disguise, Greer Macallister (Sourcebooks Landmark; Recorded Books).

“‘I’m a resourceful and strong young woman, there is no other option.’ That’s the concept behind Greer Macallister’s telling of the real, honest-to-goodness life of Kate Warne, the first female Pinkerton detective. Kate is a widow with no money and no honest prospects, and she is desperate. Her unconventional upbringing taught her flexibility, and, spotting Pinkerton’s ad, she won’t take no for an answer. She is hired as an agent and, having proved her value, is soon hiring and training more female agents and serving as a spy as the U.S. prepares to split apart. Girl in Disguise is a delight: entertaining and a sure nonstop read.” —Becky Milner, Vintage Books, Vancouver, WA

Tie-ins

After a ten-year absence, the Power Rangers film franchise gets a reboot, with a new movie that opens March 24. Beginning as a FoxKids TV adaptation of a Japanese series in 1993. Power Rangers spun off two films, as well as toys, action figures, apps and video games.

Lionsgate hopes this movie will be the beginning of a new franchise for the studio, to replace Hunger Games, reports Deadline. Therefore, the new film is the Power Rangers origin story about five high schoolers who use newly found superpowers to save the world from an alien invasion. It stars Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Becky G, Ludi Lin, Bill Hader, Bryan Cranston, and Elizabeth Banks.

Power Rangers: The Official Movie Novel, Alexander Irvine (PRH/Penguin Young Readers).

A graphic novel tie-in arrives next week.

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