EarlyWord

Heavy media attention is sending an account of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign soaring up the Amazon’s sales rankings to #3, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes (PRH/Crown; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

In today’s NYT, chief book critic Michiko Kakutani calls it “compelling” and says “Although the Clinton campaign was widely covered, and many autopsies have been conducted in the last several months, the blow-by-blow details in ‘Shattered’— and the observations made here by campaign and Democratic Party insiders — are nothing less than devastating … and while it’s clear that some of these people are spinning blame retroactively, many are surprisingly candid about the frustrations they experienced during the campaign.”

Most other media sources assigned they political reporter to the book.  Having been closer to the campaign on a day-by-day basis, they offer a different take. NPR’s Washington desk correspondent, Ron Elving, says “There is no Big Reveal, no shocking secret answer. Instead we get a slow-building case against the concept and execution of the Clinton campaign, with plenty of fault falling squarely on the candidate herself.”

A Washington Post piece by senior politics editor Steven Ginsberg is even less positive: “the quick-fire version proves too limiting” he says noting there will  “surely be many books about what really happened inside the 2016 campaigns. Going first has its advantages — perhaps in sales and attention.”

Will Shattered be the next Game Change, the best selling analysis of the 2008 campaign by Mark Halperin and John Heinemann? Elving does not think so, saying the personalities involved in that campaign, Obama, John Edwards, John McCain, and Sarah Palin were “more compelling and telegenic, calling out to turn themselves into the TV movie they became,” adding, “Ultimately, Allen and Parnes get inside the campaign but not inside the mind of Hillary Clinton. Much the same seems to have been true for most of her staff and, ultimately, the voters.”

Halperin and Heinemann are working on their own book on the campaign, following up on their successful Showtime series, “The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth,” now in its third season, covering Trump’s first 100 days in office. As yet untitled, the book is expected to be published early next year. HBO has already acquired the rights to it.

Clinton will publish her own memoir in September. Described as a collection of her personal reflections on quotes and stories that have helped her “celebrate the good times, laugh at the absurd times, persevere during the hard times,” it doesn’t sound like it will delve deeply into the campaign.

There were no prepub reviews for Shattered, indicating it was embargoed, and libraries have ordered it very lightly, with some systems facing 5:1 ratios.

Droughtlander is slowly coming to an end. Set to debut in September, STARZ aired a teaser for season 3 during this weekend’s premiere of The White Princess.

Fans of the fashions in season two will have more to look forward to reports Vanity Fair, quoting lead actress Caitriona Balfe who says, “Some of the 60s pieces are so cool and beautiful that I asked [the costume designer] to make me doubles.”

The actors playing Jamie and Claire were separated in the actual filming as they are in the novel. Sam Heughan, who plays Jamie, tells the magazine that the experience was like “having a death in the family. Well, I don’t know. I mean, it’s just like a different show. It’s hard to separate yourself from the character. It’s always hard when we’re apart … But I think it all adds to the reunion—if there’s a reunion, or when there’s a reunion—well, you know there’s one in the books. It should be very special.” Balfe responded, “Och! He’s already killed me in his mind. Gone. Too sad.”

The third season of Outlander is based on Voyager, the third book in Diana Gabaldon’s long running series.

A tie-in edition arrives in August, Voyager (Starz Tie-in Edition), Diana Gabaldon (PRH/Bantam).

The chilling trailer for the series adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, The Mist, has been released. The 10-episode series is set to debut on Spike TV on June 22. No tie-ins have been announced.

The pace of King adaptations is picking up. Last year brought the generally well-received J.J. Abrams’ mini-series adaptation of 11.22.63 on Hulu in February, followed by the much less successful film adaptation of Cell, released in July.

Several more will follow The Mist this year.

The Dark Tower — After many delays, the film, starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey is now firmly set for release on August 4th.  Fans are clamoring for the trailer, but so far, have had to content themselves with reports about the footage shown at CinemaCon in March.

It  — Starring Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise, this film debuts on September 28th. A teaser arrived late last month. CORRECTION: As pointed out in the comments below, we incorrectly identified the actor playing Pennywise as ALEXANDER Skarsgård from Big Little Lies.

Mr. Mercedes (TV Series) — Currently filming, the release is expected this year. After visiting the set, Stephen King tweeted that it looks “awesome,” adding the same accolade for The Mist and The Dark Tower, as well as two titles in post-production, but with no release dates yet, 1922, based on his short story, and Gerald’s Game, based on his novel.

The adaptation of David Grann’s The Lost City of Z debuted in just four theaters over the weekend, but it made plenty of noise with critics who are raving about it (the one hold out is the Wall Street Journal‘s critic). It expands to 400 theaters this coming weekend.

Two small screen adaptations make their debuts in the coming week.

HBO’s adaptation of Rebecca Skloot’s long-running bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, will begin airing on Sunday, April 22 at 8 p.m.

Oprah Winfrey stars as Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter. Rose Byrne (Damages) plays Skloot. Renée Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton) plays Henrietta and Courtney B. Vance (The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story) plays con artist Sir Lord Keenan Kester Cofield. The Broadway superstar and Tony winning George C. Wolfe (Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk) wrote the screenplay and directs.

Winfrey tells the NYT that she took the role because she wanted to work with the director, “Audra McDonald said, ‘It will change your life and change you as an actress to work with George.’ And she’s right. He was the person who was able to take a script that felt overridden by the science and re-adapt that into a story about a woman in search of her identity through her mother. That’s why it happened.”

The Baltimore Sun praises Winfrey’s performance, saying she “plays the role sky-high, wide open and without a safety net.”

Anticipation for the series has brought the book back on to best seller lists after a brief absence. It is currently #6 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction list. The tie-in was released two weeks ago, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Movie Tie-In Edition), Rebecca Skloot (PRH/Broadway Books; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Also coming to TV is Famous in Love, an adaptation of Rebecca Serle’s 2014 novel of the same name. It will air on Freeform, reports Deadline Hollywood, following Pretty Little Liars.

Bella Thorne (The DUFF) plays Paige, a college student who becomes a major Hollywood star and It Girl almost overnight. Kirkus said the book was a “frothy but not frivolous … wish fulfillment for any teen who wants to feel the thrill of celebrity and love.”

The A.V. Club reports that Marlene King (who created Pretty Little Liars) and Serle worked on the scripts together.

The show start on April 18th at 9 p.m.

Tie-in: Famous in Love, Rebecca Serle (Hachette/Poppy; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Several series authors arrive next week to long holds lists, including David Baldacci, with the third in a new series featuring an Ohio State football player who suffered a head injury in this first and only NFL game. The injury has an unusual result, useful in his new career as a police detective, he remembers everything. Appropriately, the first book in the series was titled Memory Man. The new title, The Fix (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), is heralded by a pricey two-page ad in the NYT Book Review.

The biggest nonfiction release of the week is David Grann’s new book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, (PRH/Doubleday; RH Large Print; RH Audio/BOT).

In a great piece of timing, it arrives on the heels of the release of the star-laden adaptation of his previous title, The Lost City of Z. The film is receiving glowing reviews, with the New Yorker claiming it “Resuscitates Cinema’s Classic Adventure Tale.” There’s many more Grann adaptations in the pipeline, as Entertainment Weekly details in their profile of the author as “the man Hollywood can’t stop reading.”

Reviewing the new book, the NYT‘s Dwight Garner holds it up to the impossibly high standards of the previous title, which, he says, is “deservedly regarded as one of the prize nonfiction specimens of this century.” He writes that regretfully, while he enjoyed the new book, it “didn’t set its hooks in me in the same way.” Grann is scheduled to appear on NPR’s Fresh Air on Monday.

It is both an Indie Next and a LibraryRead’s pick:

“In the 1920s, a string of unsolved murders rocked the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. Made rich by oil rights, the Osage were already victimized by unscrupulous businessmen and societal prejudice, but these murders were so egregious, the newly formed FBI was brought in to investigate. Immensely readable, this book brings a shameful part of U.S. history alive and will keep readers thinking long after they have finished the book.” — Jenna Persick, Chester County Library, Exton, PA

The titles highlighted in this column and several more notable titles arriving next week are listed, with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet: EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of April 17, 2017.

Media Magnets

Politics continue dominate the media. Elizabeth Warren, who has been vocal on her opposition to the new administration, via her Twitter exchanges with Trump, is making headline for her embargoed title, This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class (Macmillan/Metropolitan Books; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). Most focus on her admitting that she considered a run for president in 2016. The Washington Examiner focuses on other issues, including that she is no fan of Bill Clinton, accusing him of actions that lead to the 2007 financial crisis.

Taking a longer view, historian David McCullough, who has written best sellers about John Adams and the Wright Brothers among others, tells the Wall Street Journal that “the past can serve as an antidote to self-importance and self-pity,” as outlined in his new book, a collection of speeches, The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For (Simon & Schuster). He is scheduled to appear this Sunday on Face the Nation and the following day on CBS This Morning. On May 3rd, he will be the recipient of the “Ken Burns American Heritage Prize.”

Peer Picks

In addition to Killers of the Flower Moon, two other Library Reads arrive this week.

The Stars Are Fire, Anita Shreve (PRH/Knopf; RH Large Print; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Grace, a young woman with two small children, lives by the coast in Maine in 1947. Her marriage isn’t very happy, but she’s dutiful and devoted to her children. After escaping a devastating fire that wiped out her town and nearby forests, Grace has to become braver, stronger, and more resourceful than she’s ever had to be before. She manages it, and it’s lovely to watch happen, until something unexpected makes her life contract once more. This was deeply engaging and opened a real window on what it would have been like to be a woman in a small town in the 1940s.” — Diana Armstrong Multomah County Library, Portland, OR

Additional Buzz: Both an Indie Next and a GalleyChat pick, The Washington Post selects it as one of their suggested spring reads.

Gone Without a Trace, Mary Torjussen (PRH/Berkley; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Hannah is eager to return home to her boyfriend, Matt Stone, with news of her impending work promotion. Hannah’s joy quickly turns to terror when she finds Matt missing and the house empty of all evidence of his presence. She begins to feel she is being stalked and receives messages that she is certain are from Matt. Little by little, Hannah descends into darkness as all the truths start to unravel and a different tale emerges. This dark debut is one to devour yet savor at the same time.” — Jennifer Winberry,Hunterdon County Library, Flemington, NJ

Additional Buzz: Bustle features it with an excerpt of two chapters.

One additional Indie Next choice comes out, Spoils, Brian Van Reet (Hachette/Lee Boudreaux Books; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Borne of his experience fighting in Iraq, Brian Van Reet’s Spoils is a clear-eyed, gritty, and tension-filled story of young soldiers caught up in impossible circumstances. At the heart of the story is Cassandra, a 19-year-old machine gunner who is captured by the enemy. Her ordeal as a captive along with two fellow soldiers is harrowing, but also provides insight into the character of soldiers and their captors. Recent and current conflicts have inspired some excellent fiction and Spoils ranks with the best of it.” —Mark Laframboise, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC

Additional Buzz: Harper’s Bazaar includes it in their list of “14 New Books You Need To Read in April,” writing “Van Reet’s grim but skillfully-told story is an urgent reflection on one of the most consequential conflicts in modern history.”

Van Reet offers a video introduction:

Tie-ins

Seeming to reflect current fears, Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale (Houghton Mifflin) hit best seller lists again, further boosted by the of news of the forthcoming Hulu series adaptation. The tie-in edition comes out this week, with an eerie photo of star Elizabeth Moss on the cover: The Handmaid’s Tale (Movie Tie-in), Margaret Atwood (PRH/Anchor; OverDrive Sample).

Atwood is in the news this week for her sly hints that there might be a sequel to her iconic dystopian novel.

The series begins on April 26.

Another tie-in for the much-anticipated SF film comes out this week, adding to the many already published: Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Prelude, Marvel Comics (Hachette/Marvel).

The show starts May 5 and stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sylvester Stallone, and Kurt Russell – plus a buzzy soundtrack.

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

Proving what is old can be new again, Bill Nye is in the middle of a double debut, decades after he first caught the public eye.

His chapter book, Jack and the Geniuses: At the Bottom of the World by Bill Nye and Gregory Mone, illustrated by Nicholas Iluzada (Abrams; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), a mix of science, adventure, and mystery, debuts on the NYT Children’s Middle Grade Hardcover list at #6. It is doing very well considering every title ranking above Nye’s has been on the list for 10 weeks or more.

Next week brings the debut of his new Netflix’s show, Bill Nye Saves the World, on April 21. Wired says it will span “13 episodes that seek to debunk anti-scientific claims and myths in topics ranging from sex to alternative medicine to, yes, climate change.” The NYT says it is a “it’s a talk show, not a children’s program,” but Nye tells the paper to expect to be entertained. “The comedy bits,” he says “are brilliant!”

According to Netflix, “Each episode will tackle a topic from a scientific point of view, dispelling myths, and refuting antiscientific claims that may be espoused by politicians, religious leaders or titans of industry.”

On the horizon, Nye has a book for adults coming out this summer, Everything All at Once: How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem (Macmillan/Rodale; Recorded Books), a mix of memoir, history, science, and problem solving using rational, methodical, fact-based approaches.

A book aimed at graduates landed at #1 on the  newest NYT Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous Best Sellers list, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World by William H. McRaven (Hachette/Grand Central; Grand Central Audio; OverDrive Sample).

In it, McRaven, a four star admiral who is credited with overseeing the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, offers surprisingly simple advice, based on his training as a Navy SEAL, such as make your bed, never give up, stand up to bullies, and offer hope to others. The author also includes stories of his time in the SEALs and in Special Operations leadership.

Although it’s a best seller, few libraries are showing heavy holds ratios, indicating most copies are being bought as graduation gifts.

A media draw, the book was a topic on FOX & Friends, USA Today calls it a “powerful book,” The Washington Post says it “is ostensibly about leadership, but it’s full of captivating personal anecdotes from inside the national security vault,” and The Wall Street Journal has featured it several times, including in a video interview.

The entire speech is on YouTube:

Fresh off his role as Doctor Strange for Marvel, Benedict Cumberbatch may soon don a different suit, reports Deadline Hollywood.

He is in negotiations to star as the real-life con man Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, the subject of The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor by Mark Seal (PRH/Plume, 2012). Kirkus said of the true crime story, “Patricia Highsmith couldn’t have written a more compelling thriller.”

Gerhartsreiter, who went by the name of Clark Rockefeller, tricked people into believing he was a member of that famous family, helping him to land prestigious jobs on Wall Street and marry rich. He was sentenced to jail after kidnapping his own daughter and was subsequently sentenced to prison for the first-degree murder of his landlady’s son.

A long simmering project, the film first got under way in 2011, but the recent interest in true crime may have given it a fresh push.

NPR’s All Things Considered featured the book in 2011, explaining the case.

A debut novel is the number one library pick this April, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman (PRH/Pamela Dorman; Penguin Audio/BOT).

“I loved this book about the quirky Eleanor, who struggles to relate to other people and lives a very solitary life. When she and the new work IT guy happen to be walking down the street together, they witness an elderly man collapse on the sidewalk and suddenly Eleanor’s orderly routines are disrupted. This is a lovely novel about loneliness and how a little bit of kindness can change a person forever. Highly recommended for fans of A Man Called Ove and The Rosie Project – this would make a great book club read.” — Halle Eisenman, Beaufort County Library, Blufton, SC

Additional Buzz: Honeyman is an EarlyReads author and spotted early by GalleyChatters in February. The Guardian profiles her in their introduction to the “new faces of fiction for 2017.” The book was the subject of a fierce auction fight, landing Honeyman over seven figures (in the US alone). PW reports it was one of the biggest books of the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2015. Paving the way, Honeyman won the Scottish Book Trust’s Next Chapter Award in 2014, which supports “a talented yet unpublished writer over the age of 40.” Booklist stars, writing “Move over, Ove (in Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, 2014)—there’s a new curmudgeon to love.”It is an Indie Next pick for May.

Another debut making the list is The Jane Austen Project, Kathleen A. Flynn (HC/Harper Perennial; HarperLuxe).

“The Austen fan genre is expanded by an original new novel set both in the past and the near future. Two employees of a time travel company are assigned to go back to Austen’s day, ostensibly to retrieve the full copy of “The Watsons,” lost for all time…until now. The blending of historical fiction, fantasy, and romance with a beloved classic author thrown in the mix is a daring combination which succeeds.” — Leslie DeLooze, Richmond Memorial Library, Batavia, NY

Additional Buzz: Not to be confused with The Austen Project, a series of modern retellings of Austen, such as Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible, this time travel novel made Flavorwire‘s Staff Picks back in February.

A nonfiction choice is The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, Kate Moore (Sourcebooks; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“This is the story of hundreds of young, vibrant women who were sentenced to death by their employers. The so-called “Radium Girls” painted luminescent faces on clock and watch dials using a paint mixture that contained radium. Instructed to “lip-point”their brushes as they painted, they absorbed high doses of radium into their bodies. When the effects of the radium led to horrific disfigurement and pain, the company refused to take responsibility. This heartrending book was one I could not put down.” — Catherine Coyne, Mansfield Public Library, Mansfield, CT

Additional Buzz: It is an Indie Next pick for May. Coverage is wide ranging, from The Atlantic to the NY Post to The Spectator to Nature. The Spectator leads with the creepy headline, “The Radium Girls — still glowing in their coffins,” while Nature calls the book “harrowing.”

The shortlist for the International Dublin Literary Award has just been announced. Billed as “the world’s most valuable annual literary award for a single work of fiction published in English,” the winner receives €100,000, equivalent to $106,000 US.

Begun in 1995, Dublin City Libraries manage the process and libraries from all over the world submit nominations. Each year over 400 systems in 177 countries are invited to participate. In the US, the Chicago Public Library, Denver PL, Miami-Dade PL, NYPL, and The Seattle Public Library are among those submitting titles.

To accomodate the nominations process, the award has a longer time-frame than others. Eligible titles were first published in English, or English translation, in 2015.

As a result, many of the finalists have already received major awards, including the 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Press). Others have another shot after having lost out on other awards, such as National Book Award finalist A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (RH/Doubleday), and The Green Road by Anne Enright (W. W. Norton), which was long listed for both the Man Booker and the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Our spreadsheet lists currently available editions of the finalists, 2017 International DUBLIN Literary Award, Shortlist.

A five member international judging panel will select the winner, to be announced on June 21.

Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment production company has won the film rights to Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (Harper; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample), reports Deadline Hollywood. Howard will direct.

Vance’s memoir arrived as the presidential campaign was heating up. The media embraced his sympathetic portrait of life in the Rust Belt as an explanation for the deep divides that drove the election. As a result of growing media attention, the book landed on best seller lists several weeks after publication. It is currently #2 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction list after 36 weeks.

It came to define what Slate‘s Laura Miller calls a new genre of nonfiction, the on-the-ground Trump explainer … illuminating the desperation driving white small-town Americans, as told by a native son.” She calls Vance’s book the genre’s “vanguard title.”

In a statement, Imagine describes it as “a powerful, true coming-of-age memoir … Through the lens of a colorful, chaotic family and with remarkable compassion and self-awareness, J.D. has been able to look back on his own upbringing as a ‘hillbilly’ to illuminate the plight of America’s white working class, speaking directly to the turmoil of our current political climate.”

In the 1970s over 900 people died because they followed the religious figure turned cult leader, Jim Jones, to the jungles of Guyana where they, voluntarily or not, drank poison in a final act of devotion.

Jeff Guinn, known for his true crime bestsellers, investigates the history of Jones and his doomed followers in The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple (S&S; S&S Audio).

It has been covered by two high-profile outlets. Terry Gross interviews Guinn today on NPR’s Fresh Air and the Today show used the story last week to launch a “series examining some of the biggest crimes and cults of the 20th century.”

Guinn tells Gross that Jones was a “tremendous performer” who displayed “the classic tendencies of the demagogue … [he] would take current events and exaggerate them to create a sense of fear and urgency. He drew his followers to Guyana by convincing them that America was facing imminent threats of martial law, concentration camps and nuclear war … [he] epitomizes the worst that can happen when we let one person dictate what we hear [and] what we believe.”

The aftermath was so horrifying that the Guyanese army, coming to confront Jones, start screaming as they arrive on site, “because there are bodies everywhere, almost more than they can count, and they’re so horrified.”

Today details the event that triggered the final mass suicide, Jones’s order to open fire on a Congressman there to investigate, a trip filmed by NBC news in which three NBC staff were also murdered.

Newspapers such as The San Francisco Chronicle, the Star-Telegram (Texas), and The Dallas Morning News review it. USA Today names it one of their “New and noteworthy” titles. Salon headlines their coverage with “Jim Jones was who Charlie Manson wanted to be.” Men’s Journal names it one of “The 7 Best Books of April.” Vice offers an interview with Guinn.

Library holds are light at this point, but keep your eye on it.

Check your holds for Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste, Bianca Bosker (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), which is being compared to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential and Bill Buford’s Heat.

It debuted this week on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction list at #5 and is getting media attention, causing holds to spike at several libraries we checked, as high as 11:1.

The NYT reviews it, writing “Bosker’s journey … is thrilling, and she tells her story with gonzo élan.” The Washington Post says it is “a funny, thought-provoking and at times frightening look at the sublime tastes, enormous egos and curious rules of a profession that is both insanely rigorous and occasionally ridiculous.”

NPR’s The Salt features it as well, mixing descriptions of the book with descriptions of wine. Eater‘s editor-in-chief calls it “incredibly well written, intelligent, witty, and highly entertaining, and if I’m being frank, it’s the first book I’ve been excited to come home to in the last 12 months.”

WineEnthusiast offers an interview while both Slate and The Atlantic feature Bosker in their podcasts.

Pete Hamill reviews Hannah Tinti’s The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley (PRH/The Dial Press; RH Large Type; OverDrive Sample) for the forthcoming NYT Sunday Book Review, (not yet available online) calling it a “strikingly symphonic novel” and saying readers will keep turning pages “carried by Tinti’s seductive prose.”

Librarians saw it coming. It was the #1 LibraryReads pick in March:

The novel has received so much attention, that the review aggregator LitHub lists it as both one of the “Hottest Books of the Season” and the “Most Talked About Books.”

Booksellers also love it, picking it as an Indie Next selection for April 2017 and as we noted in Titles To Know, it was previewed on a number of monthly or seasonal best lists, including those by the BBC, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Elle, and InStyle. Much earlier in the year it was included in The Millions “The Great 2017 Book Preview.”

The Rolling Stone says “Tinti has established herself as one of our great storytellers. She draws you in with this book, and it’s really difficult to get away.” Ron Charles reviews it for The Washington Post, as a “thriller with heart” and give it the “The Totally Hip Video Book Reviewer” treatment:

Tinti was interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday in late March:

Holds are generally high. A few libraries we checked bought few copies and are facing ratios approaching 10:1. Others have ordered more copies to meet demand.

Fulfilling predictions, Colson Whitehead has won this year’s Pulitzer prize in fiction for The Underground Railroad (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio; BOT).

it’s been quite a year for Whitehead, who went from doubting that anyone would read the book to its becoming a surprise Oprah pick, landing on nearly every best books list, as well as on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list where it still remains after 33 weeks.

The other books winning Pulitzers this year, below.

History — Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, Heather Ann Thompson, (PRH/PantheonRandom).
EarlyWord coverage here.

Biography or Autobiography — The Return, Hisham Matar, (PRH/Random House, just released in trade paperback). Note: Whitehead lost out to Matar earlier this year for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

EarlyWord, NYT Critic’s Top Books of 2016

Poetry — Olio, Tyehimba Jess, (Wave Books, distributed by Consortium).
EarlyWord, NYT Critic’s Top Books of 2016

General Nonfiction –– Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond (PRH/Crown; recently released in trade paperback). Note: this title also won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award For Nonfiction

EarlyWord, Titles to Know and Recommend, Week of February 29, 2016

Click her for the full list of winners as well as finalists in all categories.