With open enrollment commercials prompting seniors to consider their Medicare choices for the upcoming year, Get What’s Yours for Medicare: Maximize Your Coverage, Minimize Your Costs, Philip Moeller (S&S; OverDrive Sample) is getting attention and rising on Amazon.

USA Today says Moeller, a research fellow at the Center on Aging and Work at Boston College and a contributor to PBS, “aims to demystify a confusing system and help consumers make smart choices” and offers a brief interview.

The Washington Post offers an interview as well, starting with a request to explain the options in Medicare.

Forbes also pushes the book, in a short piece written by Moeller’s co-author on the NYT bestseller Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security (a book that had such an impact it led to changes in Social Security rules).

The book has jumped over 700 other titles on Amazon, rising to #155 from #901. Libraries we checked are in a good position for holds but demand is likely to increase once the election ends and seniors turn their attention to the looming enrollment deadline for key parts of the plan.

Three new films open this weekend.

The one drawing the most attention is from ground-breaking director Ang Lee (Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain, both of which won him Best Director Oscars). It is adapted from the 2012 debut novel by Ben Fountain, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and a finalist for the National Book Awards, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Not only did Lee challenge himself by choosing as his source a novel many considered unfilmable, but, says Entertainment Weekly he “decided to push the boundaries of technical prowess,” by  dramatically increasing the number of frames shot and employing a higher 3D resolution.

Variety writes the advances have “the potential to be a revolutionary … It opens the door to a new way for movies to be shot, a new way for them to look and feel, a new way for them to be experienced.”

However, writes Entertainment Weekly, “reactions have been mixed, with some calling the technology a distraction.” Lee responds that he is not surprised by the criticism in an interview with USA Today, saying, it’s “a lot to absorb; it’s not a universally pleasing movie. If it doesn’t split [the critics], there’s something wrong with it.”

Starring newcomer Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin and Chris Tucker, the film opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend, and expands nationwide on Nov. 18.

A tie-in came out in September: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain, (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

Arrival is an SF film starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg and Tzi Ma. It is directed by Denis Villeneuve and based on the short story by Ted Chiang “Story of Your Life” about a linguist (Adams) trying to communicate with aliens.

Reviews are strong thus far. The Verge calls it “a soulful sci-fi instant classic” and “one of the best films of the year.” io9 headlines their review with a “Masterpiece You Won’t Stop Thinking About” and continues “Arrival is the kind of science fiction film we dream of. It’s got big stars, a bigger concept, and the longer it goes, the more it demands of its audience. The pacing is methodical, the story captivating, and filmmaking beautiful. You rarely have a clue where it’s going—but once it gets there, you won’t be able to get it out of your head.”

An updated release of the book the story appears in was published earlier this year, Stories Of Your Life And Others (originally published in 2002 by Macmillan/Tor; re-released by PRH/Vintage in 2016; Tantor Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Elle is a psychological thriller based on the novel Oh… by Philippe Djian (English translation not currently available).

Directed by Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers, Showgirls) and starring Isabelle Huppert, it is a story about a woman who stalks and finds her rapist.

Critics are hooked. Variety says “High-risk material yields unexpected rewards in this remarkable rape-revenge drama, a possible career high for Paul Verhoeven … You’ve never seen a rape-revenge fantasy quite like Elle, not least because the rape, revenge and fantasy components of that subgenre have never been quite so fascinatingly disarranged … [it is a] many-layered provocation.”

The Guardian calls it “a dangerous delight … turn off the lights and let the horror begin. Paul Verhoeven’s new film, Elle, is an outrageous black comedy, volatile and deadly … utterly gripping and endlessly disturbing.”

Expect controversy. The LA Times writes “Its politically incorrect portrayal of a rape victim is sure to prompt critical essays and set Activist Twitter ablaze.”

It is the French entry for the Best Foreign Language film for the Academy Awards.

It may seem we’ve seen every possible variation on the adult coloring book, including the weird offshoot, “relaxing” swear word coloring books.

But trust Chuck Palahniuk, the iconoclastic author of Fight Club, to bring a new twist to the genre, as reported by The Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required).

Bait: Off-Color Stories for You to Color by Chuck Palahniuk, illustrated by Duncan Fegredo, Lee Bermejo, and Joelle Jones (PRH/Dark Horse Books) is not a full coloring book but rather a series of eight short stories along with multiple illustrations that readers can color at will.

Palahniuk tells the paper that the idea grew out of his work on the Flight Club 2 comic book:

“I would go to the artists and suggest what I thought they could do with an image, and they would counter with an even more outrageous image … And I would go with an even more outrageous image, and we would have this back-and-forth race to the bottom until we agreed on a scandalous image that neither of us would have proposed in the first place.”

He hopes the coloring opportunity will appeal to his fan base, saying “So many of the readers I interact with are creative people themselves … I thought this would be a great way for them to participate in the project.”

Palahniuk enjoyed making Bait, telling the paper “I would love to do another coloring book every year for the rest of my life.”

He also says he has “most of Fight Club 3 written … [and] a graphic novel based on what would be the third book following the first two I’ve done about a dead little girl named Madison Spencer (Damned and Doomed). This would complete that story and it would kind of start a new franchise, but in graphic form.”

The stories in Bait he says are “about misplaced nurturance … They’re all about someone trying to save someone else, trying to rescue someone else, but in doing so, kind of destroying this person.”

As we noted in a recent Titles to Know and Recommend post, fans of the hit TV show Mr. Robot can experience the story in print via MR. ROBOT: Red Wheelbarrow by Sam Esmail and Courtney Looney (Abrams; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The Wall Street Journal reports on the new title and interviews one of the authors (subscription may be required), writing:

“For a show immersed in the digital world – it’s about a massive hack – the book is a unique analog piece of the puzzle and features Elliot narrating throughout, as well as asides from the character ‘Hot Carla.’ Also included are little artifacts like newspaper clippings, a church group pamphlet, and an empty cigarette pack with notes jotted on it. For Mr. Robot fans, who look for meaning in everything, these new, tangible nuggets will give clues to the story as well as dive into the feelings of loneliness and isolation that the season explored.”

Esmail tells the paper the book spans the gap between seasons 1 and 2, offering “the unfiltered world through Elliot’s eyes that you won’t get from the show … I wanted to create this next-level engagement where you can also learn things about the story if you dig a little deeper … The great thing about it is, that’s up to the audience to engage in.”

IndieWire warns fans who have not finished watching season 2 to stay away as “pretty much right from the beginning, one of Season 2’s biggest twists is spoiled, and there’s enough overlap with the rest of the season to warrant not reading it until after you’re all caught up with the series.”

Entertainment Weekly offers some illustrated sample pages.

Why the Wheel Is Round: Muscles, Technology, and How We Make Things Move, Steven Vogel (University of Chicago Press) is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings, reaching a high position for a university press science book. It is currently ranked #228, up from #1,227.

The big jump coincides with a glowing review in The Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required) that says Vogel’s posthumous last book (he died in 2015), is “wonderful … in the literal sense of the word, full of wonders of nature, human invention, history and the sheer joy of looking at the world through the eyes of a keen—and amiable—scientific observer.”

Reviewer Stephen Budiansky, author of Code Warriors: NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union, continues, calling the work “intriguing, insightful and revealing … [a] marvelous and frequently entertaining exploration of the science of everyday things, illuminating why many of the things (both living and man-made) that we take for granted are the way they are.”

While none of the libraries we checked have yet ordered Vogel’s newest (it appears that there were no pre-pub reviews), interest in his other works mentioned in the article, The Life of a Leaf (University of Chicago Press, 2013) and Cats’ Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People (Norton, 2000; OverDrive Sample), is clear. As an example, in one library we checked, every copy of The Life of a Leaf is either currently checked out or on hold.

It seems each week leading up to the big gift-giving season is dedicated to one big-name author. This week, it’s Lee Child for Night School, picked by both LibraryReads and Indie Next (see below under “Peer Picks”). As a testament to his status, Janet Maslin steps out of semi-retirement to assess it in the context of the 20 titles that have come before it for the daily New York Times. This new title shakes things up by reaching back in time to when Reacher was a mere lad of 30. Good thing, says Maslin, because his previous title, Make Me, “wandered so far down into the dark web that an about-face was clearly needed.” Maslin appreciates this return to an old-fashioned spy story.

This Was a Man, Jeffrey Archer (Macmillan/St. Martins; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). Archer finishes out his popular Clifton Chronicles with this, the 7th volume in the series, which brings the family into the Thatcher era.

Well-known YA author Stephenie Meyer publishes an adult spy novel, The Chemist (Hachette/Little, Brown and Company; Hachette Audio). Announcing it in a press release this summer, she said it “is the love child created from the union of my romantic sensibilities and my obsession with Jason Bourne/Aaron Cross. I very much enjoyed spending time with a different kind of action hero, one whose primary weapon isn’t a gun or a knife or bulging muscles, but rather her brain.”

Another Meyer, Marissa, writes her first stand-alone YA novel since her very popular Lunar Chronicles series, Heartless (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), a prequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, about the Queen of Hearts. She talks about the catalysts for the  book in a recent interview. It has a moody trailer:

The titles highlighted here, along with many other notable titles arriving this week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Nov. 7, 2016.

Award Contender

The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, David Sax (PublicAffairs; OverDrive Sample).

On the Carnegie Medal Longlist, this book explores the current vogue for older technologies (it’s not nostalgia, it’s passion). It’s not surprising that this speaks to librarians who have been forced to live with multiple technologies as they fade in and out of fashion. Booklist, which is one of the sources of titles for the Carnegie list, starred it, saying “Here is a compulsively readable book after a Luddite’s heart.”

Peer Picks

Two LibraryRead selections hit shelves this week.

Orphans of the Carnival, Carol Birch (PRH/Doubleday; OverDrive Sample).

“Julia is an accomplished young woman who can sing, dance, ride horseback and speak three languages. Unfortunately for her, most people can’t get past what they see because Julia’s face is covered with thick hair, giving her an apelike appearance. Orphaned as a small child but raised in a wealthy household, Julia decides to travel the world as a carnival performer. This beautifully written work of historical fiction allows readers to consider what it means to be “other,” to always be on the outside looking in.” — Vicki Nesting, St. Charles Parish Library, Destrehan, LA

Additional Buzz: It is also a November Indie Next selection. Nancy Pearl highlights it in a recent KUOW book talk, saying it is “magnificent but not an easy read” due to the topic. PopSugar list it as one of “21 Fiction Reads to Check Out This Fall” writing, it “will leave a mark on your heart.” The Guardian is not as receptive, saying “although Birch writes beautifully and creates some wonderful moments, the narrative never quite takes off.”

Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel, Lee Child (PRH/Delacorte Press; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Child goes back to the well and gives readers another glimpse into Jack Reacher’s past as a military cop — and what a worthwhile trip it is. It’s 1996 — after Reacher receives a Legion of Merit medal, he’s sent to “Night School” with two other men, one from the FBI and another from the CIA. Soon the trio learns that they’ve been selected for a covert mission. Child layers his page-turning story with careful and sometimes dryly humorous details. This suspense series keeps getting better — it’s a joy to read.” — Elizabeth Eastin, Rogers Memorial Library, Southampton, NY

Additional Buzz: It is an Indie Next pick for November and a Fall Reading choice by the Amazon Editor’s, Entertainment Weekly, and USA Today. Charles Finch includes it in his round up of “Six New Thrillers for Fall” in the NYT, calling the series “a little silly, and completely addictive” and praising Child for his “clean, hard and fast” writing. Unfortunately, Finch feels that this 21st outing “stumbles” about a third of the way in.

Tie-ins

There are no tie-ins this week. For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

The first US author ever to win the Man Booker Prize, Paul Beatty, is seeing a strong uptick in sales as a result. We have already reported that The Sellout (Macmillan/FSG; OverDrive Sample) jumped on Amazon‘s sales rankings, and now it hits the USA Today Best-Selling Books list at #12, its first time on the list.

This is the first time any of Beatty’s books have hit the USA Today list. Before the Man Booker, The Sellout appeared on the IndieBound best seller list, with a high of #19. It was also briefly on the L.A. Times list, where it started off strong but soon dropped.

Another new face to the USA Today list, at least in the top ten, is Brent Weeks who is holding the #10 spot with The Blood Mirror (Hachette/Orbit; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), the fourth in his Lightbringer series. Weeks has been on the list before, his previous high was #26, for The Broken Eye (book three in that same series).

EDITORS NOTE:

Our GalleyChatter columnist Robin Beerbower, rounds up the most-mentioned titles from our most recent chat, to add to your TBR pile.

If you fall in love with any of these titles, be sure to consider nominating them for LibraryReads. We’ve noted the deadlines in red.

Please join us for the next GalleyChat tomorrow Nov. 1, 4 to 5 p.m. ET, 3:30 for virtual cocktails. Details here.
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During the last GalleyChat, many of the top mentioned books were by authors whose names may not be familiar to most. Our crystal balls predict that, by the time  they are published, most will be on the tips of everyone’s tongues.

For a complete list of titles mentioned during the chat, check the Edelweiss compilation here.

Vicki Nesting of St. Charles Parish Library (LA) led the discussion for the hot title, The Dry by Jane Harper (Macmillan/Flatiron, January; LibraryReads deadline: Nov. 20) by saying it was a “brilliantly plotted and atmospheric mystery.” She continued, “When federal investigator Aaron Falk learns that his childhood best friend Luke has killed his family and himself, Aaron feels he has to attend the funeral. The drought itself becomes a character and its effects invade everything, from the devastated landscape to the fear in the people’s eyes as Aaron and the local sheriff begin to ask questions.” Many of us are hoping to see the return of Aaron Falk in a future story. (Reese Witherspoon has also snapped up the movie rights.)

George Saunders’ follow up to The Tenth of December (his NBA nominated book of short stories), the novel Lincoln in the Bardo (PRH/Random House, February; LibraryReads deadline: Dec. 20), is already starting to make a splash, reeling in 17 “much love” Edelweiss votes. Jen Dayton, collection development librarian from Darien, CT, said it’s “like a literary fever dream. Told by many voices of both the living and the dead it focuses on February 22, 1862. Willie Lincoln has been laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. Abraham Lincoln, bowed by his loss and the war that is raging comes to the crypt to see his son one last time under the cover of darkness. You will find it hard to leave the world that Saunders has created behind long after you close the book.”

Two galleychatters gave major kudos to the domestic psychological novel A Separation by Katie Kitamura (PRH/Riverhead, February; LibraryReads deadline: Dec. 20). Soon after a couple quietly decides to separate, the husband  disappears into a remote area of Greece, and while the wife goes on a search and rescue effort, she’s unsure if she really cares to find him. Elliott Bay Bookstore staff member Kenny Coble implored us to get a copy ASAP, and sounding like it could be compared to a popular TV show, Andrienne Cruz said, “This is a book that was almost about nothing. However, there are plenty of ideas to ponder about what makes a marriage, what makes a life.”

A book gaining attention for both teens and adults is The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson (PRH/Random House, January; LibraryReads deadline: Nov. 20), a novel that portrays high schools as a “scary, tragic place for kids and teachers” (Kaite Stover, Kansas City, MO, readers’ services librarian). Another one impressed by this novel was Jennifer Winberry from Hunterdon County Library:  “Mill Valley just north of San Francisco may seem like an idyllic place to grow up, but for a group of high school juniors, all connected by the suicide of one of their peers in middle school, it is anything but. As these teenagers traverse the final years of adolescence, they are keenly observed by a first year teacher who is both fascinated by and in awe of these students, their struggles and their decisions, both good and bad.” [NOTE: The author recently chatted with librarians as part of  our PRH EarlyReads program].

Chatters who were impressed with Peter Heller’s first novel, Dog Stars, were anxious to read Celine (PRH/Knopf, March; LibraryReads deadline: Jan. 20), a private eye mystery that introduces aristocratic sixty-nine year old Celine who travels to Yellowstone National Park in a camper to find a missing photographer.  Susan Balla quickly finished it and said, “Heller is a master of depicting man against nature and his writing transports you into the wilds, and yes, even into the RV, with Celine and Pete. Beautifully written with wonderful, memorable characters, Celine is a fun, smart, and thoroughly enjoyable novel.”

The Possessions by Sara Flannery Murphy (HarperCollins/Harper, February; LibraryReads deadline: Dec. 20), a futuristic novel about channeling the dead so the living can reconnect with loved ones, has the unsettling undertones of  Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Jessica Chiarella’s Two Again with many moral and ethical issues for book group discussion. Kimberly McGee from Lake Travis (TX) Community Library, “Edie is a body which means she takes a lovely pill, adds something personal from the person she is channeling and helps grieving people spend time with the deceased. This futuristic thriller raises some interesting questions and moral dilemmas.”

He may be more familiar than anyone mentioned above, but mainly by librarians who adore author Nail Gaiman for both his library-loving attitude and his excellent novels. His newest, Norse Mythology (WW Norton, February; LibraryReads deadline: Dec. 20), hasn’t disappointed any early readers with Janet Lockhart leading the shout outs by saying, “Neil Gaiman retells the Norse myths with wit and a keen eye for character.  Thor and Loki in particular leap off the page.  Sure to please his many fans and create new admirers.”

Please join us for the spirited discussion during our next GalleyChat on Tuesday, November 1,  and for updates on what I’m anticipating on Edelweiss, please friend me.

Eighteen genre novels get featured in a series of three new overviews in this week’s NYT book section.

The novelist Charles Finch takes on thrillers, casting a critical eye over some of the offerings but deeply enjoying The Fall Guy, James Lasdun (Norton; OverDrive Sample), about two men caught up in a competition over a woman, one of whom is destined to fulfill the title.

Finch calls it “exceptionally entertaining … a cross of literary fiction, thriller and mystery” that reads like “early Ian McEwan or late Patricia Highsmith.”

He says that Lasdun cleverly crafts the story, “His clues never seem like clues until they bind tightly around one of the three leads” and that the novel is “exactly what a literary thriller should be: intelligent, careful, swift, unsettling.”

It is also a November Indie Next pick.

Reviewing six Horror titles, film critic Terrence Rafferty (who wrote a piece on Thrillers featuring killer women in June) very much likes  the small press offering The Fisherman by John Langan (Word Horde), the story of two grief-burdened fisherman who cast their lines in possibly magical waters.

He calls it “superb” and says that Langan “manages to sustain the focused effect of a short story or a poem over the course of a long horror narrative.”

Rafferty continues that the novel is “unusually dense with ideas and images” and full of “elegant prose.” In the end, he says, readers feel a “sad urgency on every page” of this “strange and terrifying” tale.

In her largely non-committal survey of six True-Crime offerings, Marilyn Stasio picks The Thieves of Threadneedle Street: The Incredible True Story of the American Forgers Who Nearly Broke the Bank of England (Norton/ Pegasus; OverDrive Sample), Nicholas Booth as a good bet.

It is the tale of a masterful 19th century forgery case that Stasio calls a “jaunty caper” led by a man who was no stranger to international long cons.

The author of Mislaid (HC/Ecco, 2015), which made the National Book Award Longlist in 2015, as well as many best books lists, and most recently Nicotine (HC/Ecco; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample), an Indie Next pick, is a reviewer favorite.

Laura Miller, the books and culture columnist for Slate, tries to understand why Zink is so beloved, while reviewing her newest novel as well.

She is a fearless writer, not worried about a backlash in the form of a “moral, political, or artistic reproach” says Miller. Perhaps this is because she was already mature, 51 years old, when she broke big in writing circles, and the fact that she is far from a product of the “MFA approach/”

Miller says that while reading her work she seems “to be the only novelist who truly does not give a fuck what you think of her.”

Second, she writes as she wishes, without regards to accepted rules. “Her willingness to simply tell you a story without adopting all the elaborate pretenses of dramatic realism, with its carefully constructed, allusive snapshots” is a big draw Miller contends.

Third is her style.  She has a “fundamentally comic sensibility” and excels at “Romantic farce.” She is also “remarkably subtle—too sympathetic, perhaps, to qualify as satire, but uninclined to let anyone off the hook.”

Finally, and most of all says Miller, she is willing to simply let her stories be, “the most transgressive thing of all about Zink’s work [is] that it has nothing it wants to teach us.”

As for Nicotine, Miller concludes “It spills out like the endlessly unfolding events of life itself, in discernible patterns of the wholesome and the toxic but refusing to stay still long enough to resolve into some kind of life lesson.”

This week’s big book is a kids title, the next in the series that spawned so many others, Jeff Kinney’s Double Down: Diary of a Wimpy Kid #11 (Abrams/Amulet Books; Recorded Books).

On the adult side, there’s a new Harry Bosch title by Michael Connelly, The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) as well as one by Danielle Steel, The Award (PRH/Delacorte Press; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The unlikely success of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove brought a deal to publish more, 3 new novels plus a novella. Arriving this week is the first, the novella And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer And Longer (S&S/Atria; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). The publisher’s description indicates it treads familiar ground, about an “elderly man’s struggle to hold on to his most precious memories, and his family’s efforts to care for him even as they must find a way to let go.”

A new month, a new set of James Patterson’s BookShots, including Taking the Titanic (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), which replaces the belatedly announced and quickly dropped title, The Murder of Stephen King. Patterson is the lead author on Killer Chef (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), about the poisoning of diners in New Orleans.

The other two offerings are in the less-successful BookShots Flames series, Dazzling: The Diamond Trilogy, Part I, Elizabeth Hayley, James Patterson (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) and Bodyguard, Jessica Linden, James Patterson (Hachette/BookShots; OverDrive Sample).

Arriving just after an Italian journalist claimed to have uncovered her true identity is Elena Ferrante’s own Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey (PRH/Europa; Blackstone Audio). Alexander Chee writes in New Republic, that “Ferrante records her 24-year fight against the manipulation of her authorial identity.”

Also arriving is a second work by Ferrante, this one, amazingly, for kids, The Beach at Night (PRH/Europa). The Washington Post calls it “The latest Elena Ferrante controversy” because, as reviewer Nora Krug puts it, “Though compelling and vivid, the book is also deeply chilling, and its vaguely sexual undertones are troubling.”

The titles highlighted here, along with many other notable titles arriving this week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats on our downloadable spreadsheet, Early Word New Title Radar, Week of Oct. 31, 2016.

Awards

The Sun Is Also a Star, Nicola Yoon (PRH/Delacorte Press; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample) arrives this week. It is one of five finalists in the Young People’s Lit category for the National Book Awards (winner to be announced in two weeks, on Nov. 16).

The Lyrics: 1961-2012, Bob Dylan (S&S). Dylan finally acknowledged being awarded the Nobel in Literature recently and in an interview with the Telegraph says he will attend the actual ceremony on December 10 “if at all possible.”

 Media Attention

Between Two Worlds: Lessons from the Other Side, Tyler Henry (S&S/Gallery Books; OverDrive Sample). A memoir by the star of E!’s reality series Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry. Expect a small media wave with appearances on Nightline and E! News Daily.

Peer Picks

Two peer picks publish this week, including the #1 LibraryReads and #1 Indie Next selection for November, Faithful by Alice Hoffman (S&S; S&S Audio).

“With only a touch of her usual magical realism, Hoffman crafts a tale that still manages to enchant. In Faithful, a young girl who survives a car accident that almost kills her best friend spends the next decade doing penance to try and alleviate her guilt. Despite her best efforts to avoid it, love, hope, and forgiveness patiently shadow her as she slowly heals. Shelby is a complex character and through her internal growth Hoffman reveals that she is a person worthy of love, a bit of sorcery that readers will hold dear. Simply irresistible.” — Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, Huntington Station, NY

Additional Buzz: It also impressed Canadian librarians, featuring on their Loan Stars list.

Cabo de Gata, Eugen Ruge (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample) publishes this week as well and is among the November selections on the Indie Next list.

“Bored, anchorless, and alone, a man leaves Berlin for a tiny Andalusian fishing village where he plans to write a novel. Instead, he encounters a cranky hotelier, green tomatoes, an Englishman who acts like an American, an American who acts like an Englishman, a very quiet bartender, a mysterious cat, and, possibly, the meaning of everything — or lack thereof. This slim, playful novel will speak to anyone who has ever questioned the path they were on — or whether there is a path at all.” —Sam Kaas, Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, WA

Tie-ins

Lion (Movie Tie-In), Saroo Brierley (PRH/NAL; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) comes out this week as a tie in to the upcoming Nov 25th movie of the same name.

As we have previously written, it is a memoir of an amazing journey of loss and recovery originally titled A Long Way Home, (PRH/Viking, 2014, trade paperback, 2015).

In the book, Brierley recounts how he was separated from his family in rural India at age 4, when he climbed aboard a train and was carried over a thousand miles away to a city he did not know. He wound up in an orphanage, was adopted and relocated to Tasmania.

The film stars Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, and David Wenham. They join a cast of actors well-known in India, including Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Priyanka Bose, and Tannishtha Chatterjee. The inspirational tear-jerker is directed by Garth Davis (Top of the Lake).

It debuts in the Friday after Thanksgiving time slot which is not just prime time to attract families looking for entertainment, but also good timing for awards. Vanity Fair reports the film is “Already on Awards-Season Short Lists.”

Fans of the hit TV show Mr. Robot can read Elliot Alderson’s personal journal with MR. ROBOT: Red Wheelbarrow: (eps1.91_redwheelbarr0w.txt), Sam Esmail and Courtney Looney (Abrams).

According to ars TECHNICA “Red Wheelbarrow is essentially Elliot’s marble notebook from when he was in prison, and he’s transparent this time (no more lies). The notebook is what Elliot asked Hot Carla to burn, but… she didn’t.”

As reported by Tor.com, the creators say the book is “its own story, and you’re only ever going to hear this story with this book.”

The title, as many may suspect, is indeed a reference to the poem by William Carlos Williams.

The film Nocturnal Animals opens in limited release on Nov. 18 and in wide distribution on Dec. 9.

It is a psychological thriller written and directed by fashion designer and filmmaker Tom Ford (A Single Man), based on the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright.

The ensemble cast features Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Armie Hammer, Laura Linney, Andrea Riseborough, and Michael Sheen.

It is getting praise in early viewings. Variety says that Ford has created “another winner, an ambitious high-wire noir thriller.”

The Hollywood Reporter writes “David Lynch meets Alfred Hitchcock meets Douglas Sirk in Nocturnal Animals, a sumptuously entertaining noir melodrama laced with vicious crime and psychological suspense, which more than delivers on the promise of A Single Man.”

A tie-in edition, with the original title, comes out this week: Tony and Susan, Austin Wright (Hachette/Grand Central Publishing; OverDrive Sample).

The last tie-in of the week is for a work not yet in post-production, the start of a crime trilogy that will form the basis of an upcoming TV series.

Entertainment Weekly says it features “Ravi Chandra Singh, a London private investigator who handles “cases so high-profile that they never make the headlines” with his bevy of happily corrupt colleagues, like a hacker from Hong Konk, a Nigerian lawyer, and a brilliant stoner. When Ravi starts to see visions of Hindu gods as he becomes overwhelmed by his complex cases, he has to figure out if he’s completely delusional — or if he might actually be a modern day shaman.”

Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes) is signed to star in the still-in-development adaptation, EW reports.

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

Published in July, the middle-grade novel, The Girl who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (Workman/Algonquin Young Readers) received rapturous reviews, including stars from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal and Booklist plus the NYT Sunday Review, which wrote, “Kelly Barnhill’s wonderful fourth novel … educates about oppression, blind allegiance and challenging the status quo while immersing the reader in an exhilarating story full of magical creatures and derring-do.” It also has a large number of “Much Love” ratings from booksellers and librarians on Edelweiss.

Word has made it to Hollywood. Fox Animation has picked up the movie rights. Deadline reports, it  “is expected to be a hybrid live-action/animation.”

The script will be written by Marc Haimes, co-wrote the script for the well-received adaptation, Kubo and the Two Strings.

To mark the upcoming film premiere of The Dark Tower, Stephen King has written children’s book, Charlie the Choo-Choo: From the world of The Dark Tower, Beryl Evans, illustrated by Ned Dameron (S&S/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; 11/22/16).

Like J.K. Rowling’s publications of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them or The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Charlie the Choo-Choo is a fictional book mentioned in The Waste Lands, book three of the Dark Tower series. Entertainment Weekly says the book helps lead the character Jake in the direction of the Gunslinger.

It is written by “Beryl Evans” a character in the Dark Tower series and King uses that pseudonym on the cover of the real publication, under  a blurb in his own name: “If I were ever to write a children’s book, it would be just like this!”

It is illustrated by the real life artist Ned Dameron who created some of the art in King’s The Waste Lands, including, says EW, the cover of Charlie the Choo-Choo.

The picture book, about a sentient train who is best friends with his engineer Bob, first attracted attention during Comic-Con when it was offered as a real-life Easter egg for devoted fans, who stood in line, reports EW, in hopes of getting one of 150 copies signed by an actress playing the role of Evans.

The site Dread Central offers a full synopsis and six page spreads.

Only one book related film comes out this week, but it is a big one, the adaptation of Dan Brown’s Inferno.

Ron Howard and Tom Hanks both return to the film series with Howard directing and Hanks starring once more as Robert Langdon. Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything, Rogue One), Irrfan Khan (Jurassic World, Life of Pi), Omar Sy (The Intouchables), and Ben Foster (Lone Survivor) also star.

Thus far reviews are not great. The Guardian calls it “horrifically dull” and “fantastically boring” and adds the “story and character … are as flat as old, cold pancakes.”

Variety agrees, writing “the film more or less goes through the popcorn motions, but with less technical finesse (and even less mischievous irony) than one might expect from the Howard imprint.”

The Wrap says “Absurdity outweighs the thrills in Ron Howard‘s lifeless three-quel, a movie that’s not at all good — but never so bad as to be entertaining.”

In a pan of both book and film, The Telegraph writes “Ron Howard and Tom Hanks do perfect justice to Dan Brown’s book – tragically.”

There are multiple tie-ins:

Inferno (Movie Tie-in Edition), Dan Brown
Trade Paperback, (PRH/Anchor)
Mass Market, (PRH/Anchor)
Audio CD (PRH/Random House Audio)
Inferno (Movie Tie-in edition en Espanyol), (PRH/ Vintage Espanyol)

As we have previously posted, Brown’s next Robert Langdon book will be Origin (PRH/Doubleday; Sep 26, 2017; ISBN 9780385514231), the fifth in the series.

The movie premieres on October 28, 2016.

Beren and Lúthien, the star-crossed lovers of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, will have their own book reports Entertainment Weekly, Beren and Lúthien, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HMH, May 4, 2017). [Note: The cover, left, is from the UK edition, published there by HarperCollins.]

As Tor.com describes the story “Beren, a mortal man, falls in love with the elf Lúthien, thus inspiring legends and songs, as well as providing a model for the love of Aragorn and Arwen during the events of The Lord of the Rings.”

The Bookseller reports the story “has evolved since it was first written in 1917, and has been reworked in various forms, including poetry. To reflect this, the new book opens with Tolkien’s original text, before including passages from later texts that rework the tale.”

The book is edited by Tolkien’s son and will feature illustrations by Alan Lee, who won an Academy Award for his work on the third film of The Lord of the Rings cycle. He has also won the World Fantasy Award and the Kate Greenaway Medal.

The tale was personally important to Tolkien, reports Entertainment Weekly, so much so that the gravestone for the author and his wife refer to them as Beren and Lúthien.

Tor.com offers a introduction to Lúthien, calling her “Tolkien’s Badass Elf Princess.”

For those who recall the films, Aragorn sings the song of Lúthien in the first movie: