Add People to the long list of fans of the debut A Discovery of Witches. Naming it a People Pick in the 2/21 issue, the review gives the ultimate accolade, “[author Deborah] Harkness has created a wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter or Twilight…An irresistible tale of wizardry, science and forbidden love.”

As we noted earlier, now is the time to consider ordering more copies, as well as buying the large type and audio formats.

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel Deborah Harkness Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 592 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 0670022411 / 9780670022410

Large type; Thorndike; March (9781410436337)

Audio:

Penguin, UNABR CD; 9780142429112, Feb. 8; $49.95

Recorded Books; UNABR; CD, Cassette & MP3

The New York Times critic Dwight Garner is so smitten with Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo that he ends up quoting several of the “sensual, smart, wired-up” sentences from the book and says he “could fill the rest of this space with the [book’s] resonant lines.”

Libraries have ordered modest quantities of this memoir about living in the Middle East and particularly about the region’s food.

Garner says to not be put off by the book’s “feeble cover…[that] looks like the cover of some mediocre nonprofit group’s annual report, or of Guideposts magazine.”

Not everyone would agree.

Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War Annia Ciezadlo Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Free Press – (2011-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 1416583939 / 9781416583936

NPR’s Morning Edition today continues the media attention on a book that is sharply critical of the quality of undergraduate education in the US (listen here).

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses Richard Arum, Josipa Roksa Retail Price: $25.00 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: University Of Chicago Press – (2011-01-15) ISBN / EAN: 0226028569 / 9780226028569

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness, releasing today is a debut that has the earmarks of a big hit. Consider increasing your orders.

Cuyahoga P.L. has taken a much larger stand on the book than other libraries we checked. Collection Development Coordinator Wendy Bartlett explains,

Ever since The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, I’ve kept my eye out for another “witch” book that had a manuscript involved in some way, because readers loved that combo. Add to that, the setting is the Bodleian library at Oxford, book lovers’ Nirvana. Throw in vampires and excellent cover art, and it’s the hottest non-big-name title of the season!

She’s in good company. The book was one of the big titles at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009. It’s also received enviable coverage in the past week:

Parade Magazine pick of the week on Sunday

In last week’s Entertainment Weekly, twice, on the “Must List” and in a review that, although it awarded the book just a B+, attests to its appeal,

“…a thoroughly grown-up novel packed with gorgeous historical detail, has a gutsy, brainy heroine to match…Harkness writes with thrilling gusto about the magical world…Alas, there’s a bit of bloat to the book…[but] As the mysteries started to unravel, the pages turned faster, almost as if on their own. By the most satisfying end, Harkness had made me a believer”

O Magazine — “…romantic, erudite and suspenseful…Harkness attends to every scholarly and emotional detail with whimsy, sensuality and humor.”

A February pick by Amazon

One of Sessalee’s picks at B&N

Independent booksellers made it an IndieNext Pick for February

The author also has a great back story (like her character, she discovered a missing manuscript in the Bodleian), which she talked about during her presentation at the AAP Trade Libraries Breakfast at ALA MidWinter.

More will be coming; this is the first in a planned trilogy.

The author, who teaches at the U. of Southern California, also wrote The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (Yale University Press, 2007).

And, she writes the “Good Wine Under $20” blog (a book club idea — “Read the Book; Taste the Author’s Wine Selection”).

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel Deborah Harkness Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 592 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 0670022411 / 9780670022410

Large type; Thorndike; March (9781410436337).

Audio: Recorded Books

How can you not love the Weird Sisters, portrayed in Eleanor Brown’s first novel? Their motto is “There is no problem a library card can’t solve.” Also, their Shakespeare-besotted, but emotionally distant father insists that they communicate via quotes from the Bard.

On NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, Brown talked to Liane Hansen about how she found the right Shakespearean phrases. But, even with this elaborate conceit, says Brown, she wanted to write “…the kind of novel that I like to read — a novel about relationships and about family and about people getting lost but then finding themselves again.”

………………..

The Weird Sisters Eleanor Brown Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2011-02-17) ISBN / EAN: 0399157220 / 9780399157226

Penguin Audio; 9780142428948

Coming in Large Type from Thorndike in May, ISBN 13: 9781410437051, $30.99

Michael Oher, the offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens, finally tells his side of his adoption story, which is central to Michael Lewis’s bestseller The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game and the subsequent film starring Sandra Bullock. He explains on the Huffington Post that he wrote his memoir, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond (with Don Yeager) because “I wanted to talk about some of the questions people have about how I was portrayed in the movie and about my life before I came to live with the Tuohys.”

Kirkus says: “The book is strongest when Oher conveys his hard-won wisdom through specific examples and anecdotes from his life. When he dispenses more generalized advice, the narrative reads like a generic public-service announcement.”

At libraries we checked, orders were in line with modest reserves.

I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond Michael Oher Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Gotham – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 1592406122 / 9781592406128

Other Notable Titles on Sale Next Week

Known and Unknown: A Memoir by Donald Rumsfeld (Sentinel) chronicles the career of the Secretary of Defense during 9/11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani calls it: “tedious, self-serving. . .  [and] filled with efforts to blame others — most notably the C.I.A., the State Department and the Coalition Provisional Authority (in particular George Tenet, Colin L. Powell, Condoleezza Rice and L. Paul Bremer III) — for misjudgments made in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the failure to contain an insurgency there that metastasized for years.” On Monday, February 7, Rumsfeld will appear on “World News” with Diane Sawyer at 6:30 p.m. ET and on “Nightline” at 11:35 p.m. ET. On Tuesday, February 8, he will appear on “Good Morning America” at 7 am ET.

Spousonomics: Using Economics To Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson (Random) is a quirky and practical look at relationships by, respectively, a front-page editor for the Wall Street Journal and an award-winning New York Times reporter who’s covered Wall Street. Based on the authors’ survey of 1,000 couples, Szuchman explains that the key to a good sex life is to keep it “affordable.” If couples are tired, “they make it quick. Maybe they don’t even bother to take their shirts off. When one of them is in the mood, they say so,” she says in an essay on the Daily Beast.

The Foremost Good Fortune by Susan Conley (Knopf)  is a memoir of family’s move from Maine to Beijing, only to find that the cultural differences between their two homes pale when the author gets a cancer diagnosis. Booklist calls it, “Beautifully written and insightful on many levels.”

Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in the Happiest Kingdom on Earth by Lisa Napoli is a memoir of an ex-journalist’s search for wholeness and spiritual renewal in Bhutan, while helping to launch Kuzoo FM, the nation’s fledgling radio station. Kirkus says, “the author’s authentic voice and light, pleasant cultural insights make for a refreshingly uplifting book.”

Fondly remembered by critics and booksellers for her 2003 debut hit I Don’t Know How She Does It, Allison Pearson returns next week with I Think I Love You, a wistful novel about a grown woman who looks back on her dream of becoming Mrs. David Cassidy in 1970s Wales, and winds up heading to Las Vegas to meet him in mid-life.

People gives it four stars and designates it a People Pick. Even the New York Times‘ Michiko Kakutani is wooed:

[Pearson] shows how Petra’s crush on David Cassidy is really a kind of rehearsal for the love and passion she wants to one day lavish on a real boy in real life, and how those youthful emotions both endure — and are transformed — as the years and decades tick by. . . . [A] groovy little novel whose charms easily erase any objections the reader might have to the prepackaged and heavily borrowed plot.

I Think I Love You Allison Pearson Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 1400042356 / 9781400042357

CD: Random House Audio, $40, ISBN 9780307747525

Check Your Holds

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah E. Harkness (Viking), a debut is the first in a planned trilogy, about witches and vampires that is rising fast on Amazon (now at #3), with growing holds in libraries. Part of the story is based on real events; like her main character, Harkness discovered a manuscript, missing since the 1600’s, that was once owned by Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer.  Entertainment Weekly gives it a B+, complaining of some bloat, but summing up, “as the mysteries started to unravel, the pages turned faster, almost as if on their own.”  Parade Magazine was unequivocal on Sunday, making it a Pick of the Week and calling it “580 pages of sheer pleasure.” Harkness spoke at the AAP Trade Libraries Breakfast at ALA MidWinter. It will be available in large type from Thorndike in March (9781410436337).

Usual Suspects

The Secret Soldier by Alex Berenson (Putnam) is the fifth thriller featuring ex-CIA man John Wells, by the winner of the 2007 first novel Edgar for The Faithful Spy. Kirkus says, “the plot unfolds along predictable lines in a story arc that Tom Clancy readers or viewers of TV’s 24 will find old hat.” 

A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Mystery by Bradley Alan (Delacorte) is Ms. Flavia de Luce’s third outing, after her bestselling debut in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and return in The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag. Here, she demonstrates a firm knowledge of poisons while saving a gypsy from accusations of child abduction. PW calls it, “a splendid romp through 1950s England led by the world’s smartest and most incorrigible preteen.” 

The Matchmaker of Kenmare by Frank Delaney (Random) is the sequel to Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show, in which matchmaker Kate Begley plies her profession in neutral WWII Ireland. Booklist says, it “combines the charm of an Irish yarn with the excitement of a political thriller and the romance of a 1940s war movie.”

Heartwood: A Novel by Belva Plain (Delacorte) explores the inevitable endings of romantic relationships through the experiences of a mother and daughter. 

Also worth watching:

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French (Doubleday) is the tale of a once unwitting subject of an experiment in radioactivity, who sets out to avenge the dire consequences of that same study. It follows the author’s much praised 2002 debut novel, Mermaid on the Moon. LJ says, “mixing the suburban angst of Tom Perrotta with the snarky humor of Carl Hiaasen, Stuckey-French has written a page-turner that is thoughtful, amusing, and nearly impossible to put down.”

Kids:

No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko (Dial) is a children’s fantasy about three siblings whose plane lands in a mysterious world, by an author best known for her Newbery Award-winning historical fiction. Kirkus calls it, “convoluted” with “a confusing host of secondary characters. Fascinating, if not entirely successful.”

You have to wonder if, when Jed Rubenfeld, author of the 2006 best seller Interpretation of Murder, contemplated the release of his next book, he imagined that he would be doing interviews for another role, as husband of “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua.

Reviews are also coming in for Rubenfeld’s second novel, The Death Instinct, a mystery based on a real story. Today’s New York Times calls it a “tremendous follow-up” to his previous book. Earlier, Carol Memmott in USA Today, called it “brilliantly concocted and more than just a little eerie. The fictional and actual events surrounding the 1920 bombing are as relevant today as they were nearly a century ago.”

The Death Instinct Jed Rubenfeld Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2011-01-20) ISBN / EAN: 1594487820 / 9781594487828

Thorndike Large Print; ISBN 13: 9781410435620; $31.99

Audio: Books on Tape; 14 CDs; 9780307913883; $40

The Washington Post reviews former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir, Known and Unknown, which releases on Tuesday. As a result, the book rose to #8 on Amazon sales rankings (library holds, however, are modest for now).

The book is published by Sentinel, Penguin’s conservative imprint.

Known and Unknown: A Memoir Donald Rumsfeld Retail Price: $36.00 Hardcover: 832 pages Publisher: Sentinel HC – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 159523067X / 9781595230676

Penguin Audio; UNABR; 24 CDs; ISBN 9780142428382

Monday’s New Yorker features a moving story  by Francisco Goldmans about his young wife Aura, who died after a surfing accident, “The Wave; A tragedy in Mexico” (by subscription only).

The events are the basis of Goldman’s forthcoming book, Say Her Name, to be published by Grove Press in April 2011.

The publisher is making copies available to EarlyWord readers.  UPDATE: Sorry, we’ve run out of copies; you can still get the title from NetGalley.

The New Yorker story is nonfiction, but the book is a novel. Goldman explains why he chose that form,

I’ve surrounded Aura and myself with a fictionalized family and friends for numerous reasons, including the duty to protect, to keep secrets, including our own secrets, while providing the space to write a true account of our lives – Aura’s and my own, with and without her.

Say Her Name: A Novel Francisco Goldman Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Grove Press – (2011-04-05) ISBN / EAN: 0802119816 / 9780802119810

Yesterday’s GalleyChat was like readers advisory for readers advisers and raised several titles to the top of participants’ TBR piles.

Debuts

Among the debut novels, The Tiger’s Wife, by Téa Obreht, won a prediction that it will be one of the biggest books of the year. At 25, Obreht’s the youngest of the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 fiction writers, as well as the National Book Foundation’s 5 under 35 (selected by no less than Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin). The Village Voice said what many of us were thinking when they called her the “Best New York Writer Young Enough to Make You Slit Your Wrists.”

All of that acclaim arrived months before her first book, coming in March (a chapter was published in The New Yorker in 2009 and another story, “Blue Water Djinn” in Aug — subscription required for both).

The Tiger’s Wife: A Novel Tea Obreht Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Random House – (2011-03-08) ISBN / EAN: 0385343833 / 9780385343831

Another debut getting several nods is So Much Pretty, which also comes with a rave from Booklist, and an unlikely comparison, “A mixture of The Lovely Bones and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

So Much Pretty: A Novel Cara Hoffman Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2011-03-15) ISBN / EAN: 1451616759 / 9781451616750

The debut psychological thriller, Before I Go To Sleep, is about a woman who has lost her memory. The husband she wakes up with each morning is thus a perplexing stranger, as is the face in the mirror. One GalleyChatter warns, “you’ll never see the end coming!” Be sure to check out HarperCollins Director of Library Marketing, Virginia Stanley, presenting it at the HarperCollins Spring Summer Buzz session.

Before I Go To Sleep: A Novel S. J. Watson Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Harper – (2011-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0062060554 / 9780062060556

Memoirs

Several memoirs were mentioned (it’s probably the sheer number of memoirs that brought about Sunday’s rant about “oversharing” in the NYT BR).

My own favorite is Andre Dubus’s Townie. After his riveting speech at Midwinter (he managed to make you feel that he was not only talking directly to you, but he was actually flirting with you), I knew Townie would be my plane reading. Not only did it live up to my heightened expectations, but it made a cross-country flight in a middle seat almost bearable.

Given the current fascination with both memoirs and  chefs, it’s no surprise that there are several chef memoirs on the horizon.

Grant Achatz, writes about founding Alinea and overcoming tongue cancer in Life, on the Line. (Gotham/Penguin, March)

Season to Taste by Molly Birnbaum (also featured in HarperCollins Book Buzz) is by an aspiring chef who loses her sense of smell (Ecco, June).

Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton (RH, March);  one  GalleyChat participant called it  “amazing” and a book she is still talking about. It also arrives with stellar prepub reviews (Booklist, “lusty, rollicking, engaging-from-page-one memoir”).

Please join us for the next GalleyChat on Tuesday, March 1, 4 to 5 p.m., Eastern (details here).

One of the key opposition leaders in Egypt is Mohamed ElBaradei. In March of 2010, he signed a deal with Holt’s Metropolitan Books imprint to publish a book on nuclear diplomacy in Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Originally scheduled for release in June, the publisher just announced that the release date has been moved to April 26th; several blogs, including the Washington Post‘s Political Bookworm and  the NYT ArtsBeat, have reported the news.

The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times Mohamed ElBaradei Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Metropolitan Books – (2011-04-26) ISBN / EAN: 0805093508 / 9780805093506

We’re looking forward to hearing what everyone is reading on GalleyChat tomorrow (4 p.m., Eastern — more info here).

To prime the pump, one of our regulars, Robin Beerbower, Readers Advisor at Salem (OR) Public Library, offers the following:

1) Jennifer Haigh, Faith, Harper, May — Like many of you, I adore this author and have loved everything she’s written (she’s the author of Mrs. Kimble, one of my top book group recommendations). An estranged daughter returns to Boston to help her Catholic family through the fallout of a scandal.

2) Michael Parker, The Watery Part of the World, Algonquin, April —  Michael Rockliff, who heads up library marketing at Workman, sent me this (Mike first introduced many of us to A Reliable Wife, so when he talks, we listen). It looks fantastic with one of the best cover art I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s based on the disappearance of Aaron Burr’s daughter, Theodosia, who disappeared in 1813 while going from South Carolina to New York.

3) Tayari Jones, Silver Sparrow, Algonquin, May — Another one from Michael. He’s really jazzed about this one. Almost looks like a cross between The Help and The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (in style, not plot).

4) Chevy Stevens, Never Knowing, St. Martins, July — Just got a bound manuscript of this one. Loved Still Missing, a GalleyChat favorite, and this looks as good, if not better.

5) Patrick DeWitt, The Sisters Brothers, Ecco, May — I’m excited to read this one because the author is from Oregon and it’s getting some good pre-pub buzz, most recently from Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here.  A historical novel about assassin brothers who travel from Oregon to the CA gold country. (Note: we’ve also heard from Wendy Bartlett, Coll. Dev. Manager at Cuyahoga, who says she’s buying extra copies — “after the popularity of True Grit, the ironic Western may be big.”)

6) Michael Lukas, The Oracle of Stamboul, Harper, Feb — Beautifully told historical novel (almost a fable) set in Turkey and featuring a young prodigy who changes the course of history. We shared the ARE with one of our library patrons who also loved it, calling in “haunting.”

Robin also put together a list of all the titles that came up in the last GalleyChat.

Thanks, Robin!

Although its official release date is not until next week, some libraries have received their copies of the heavily-anticipated novel, West of Here. It’s been popular on GalleyChat, well-reviewed prepub (stars from Booklist, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly) and has been selected as the #1 Indie Next Pick for February.

West of Here Jonathan Evison Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2011-02-15) ISBN / EAN: 1565129520 / 9781565129528

Audio; Highbridge; 9781615731169; $39.95

Expect an increase in interest in books about veganism. Beginning Tuesday, Oprah and 378 of her staff go vegan for a week. Michael Pollan and Kathy Freston will be featured on the show.

Freston’s latest book comes out tomorrow.

Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World Kathy Freston Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Weinstein Books – (2011-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 1602861331 / 9781602861336