EarlyWord

Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Strout’s newest novel, Anything Is Possible (PRH/RH; RH Audio/BOT), is the number one pick for the April LibraryReads list.

It marks her second time at the top of the list, first winning in January 2016 for My Name is Lucy Barton, a novel that also was on the Favorite of Favorites annual list the same year.

“Strout does not disappoint with her newest work. Her brilliant collection takes up where her novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, leaves off. The chapters read like short stories with Lucy Barton as the thread that runs between them. The characters populate Amgash, Illinois and their stories are woven together carefully and wonderfully. No one captures the inner workings of small town characters better than Strout. Written to be read and enjoyed many times, I highly recommend for readers of fine literary fiction.” — Mary Vernau, Tyler Public Library, Tyler, TX

Additional Buzz: It is on a number of 2017 forecast lists including the NYT‘s “What You’ll Be Reading in 2017,” Nylon‘s count of “50 Books We Can’t Wait To Read In 2017,” and the AV Club‘s list of”Lose yourself in 2017 with these 17 books and comics.”

Another multiple favorite also returns to the list, Fredrik Backman with Beartown (S&S/Atria). He first landed on the list in 2015 with My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry and then again in 2016 for Britt-Marie Was Here, which was the #1 pick in May.

“Backman’s most complex novel to date takes place in the small, hockey-crazed village of Beartown. He deftly weaves together the stories of the players, the coaches, the parents, and the fans as Beartown’s hockey team chases its dream of winning a championship. Weighty themes are explored. How high a price is too high for success? How deadly is silence? Who can you trust with your secrets? How far will you compromise your beliefs in the name of friendship? There are no easy answers. A great book club choice.” — Janet Lockhart, Wake County Public Library, Cary, NC

Additional Buzz: It was picked by Canadian librarians as part of their Loan Stars selections. Backman is also the COSTCO buyers pick this month, featured for his long running best seller,  A Man Called Ove.

A new voice for LibraryReads comes via Kate Eberlen with her debut, Miss You (HC/Harper).

“Tess and Gus meet at when they are both eighteen and on holiday in Italy. Their meeting is one of those instant connections, but they go in different directions. Tess returns home, expecting to go to university, but instead her mother dies leaving her to care for her much younger sister. Gus goes to medical school and must deal with the death of his brother. Tess and Gus’ lives momentarily intersect at various points over the years. I enjoyed both of their stories and the anticipation of hoping they would meet again and make a final connection.” — Mary Bennett, Carmel Clay Public Library, Carmel, IN

Additional Buzz: It was a smash in the UK with The Telegraph comparing it to David Nicholls’s One Day, and saying “Following on from a lucrative deal in the UK, there has already been a ‘pre-emptive’ bid in the United States, and a subsequent scramble to buy it in 24 other countries – so don’t be surprised to see it being devoured by sunbathers on holiday this summer.” The Guardian says it is a “funny, poignant and really rather lovely ships-in-the-night debut, although it’s not until the end that ‘will they/won’t they?’ becomes a burning question. Grief, family dynamics and how to live with, but not be defined by, the cards one is dealt are the central concerns here.”

The book trailer gives a sense of the story and feel:

The full list of ten picks is available now.

Announced Wednesday, International Women’s Day, as it has been since its founding in 1996, is the longlist of 16 titles for the Womens Prize for Fiction sponsored by Bailey’s.

As The Guardian points out, it is a list of established authors rather than new voices, “including three previous winners, four second novels and only three debuts, compared with 11 last year.” The full list is online.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Award, Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Norton; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample) swept Canada’s literary awards, taking the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize, an award worth $100,000 dollars, as well as the highly prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

The NYT calls it “a beautiful, sorrowful work. The book impresses in many senses: It stamps the memory with an afterimage; it successfully explores larger ideas about politics and art (the mind is never still while reading it); it has the satisfying, epic sweep of a 19th-century Russian novel, spanning three generations and lapping up against the shores of two continents.”

C.E. Morgan won the Kirkus Prize for The Sport of Kings (Macmillan/FSG;Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), a title that was also a Carnegie Medal longlist selection.

Mary Gaitskill’s The Mare (PRH/Pantheon; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) racked up holds in libraries and was widely reviewed.

On Fresh Air, Maureen Corrigan said, “Mary Gaitskill writes tough … You have to write tough — and brilliantly — to pull off a novel like The Mare … a raw, beautiful story about love and mutual delusion, in which the fierce erotics of mother love and romantic love and even horse fever are swirled together.”

The New York Times Magazine featured Gaitskill in a lengthy profile, as did The New Yorker.

Other well-known authors on the list are Annie Proulx for Barkskins (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample), Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed, (PRH/Hogarth; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), as well as past winners, Eimear McBride, for The Lesser Bohemians, (PRH/Hogarth; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), and Rose Remain, The Gustav Sonata, (Norton; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample)

Two titles have yet to be published in the US, one of the three debuts on the list, Midwinter by Fiona Melrose and The Dark Circle by Linda Grant, who has won the prize before.  Several others will arrive later this year:

First Love, Gwendoline Riley (Melville House) comes out on March 28

Stay with Me, Ayobami Adebayo (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT) arrives on August 22; a debut

The Power, Naomi Alderman (Hachette/Little, Brown) publishes on October 10.

The prize was created in 1996 by a group of U.K. reviewers, librarians and others in the book world, to address the fact that a disproportionate number of men won literary prizes.

The short list of six titles is expected in April. The winner will be announced on June 7th.

Attached is our spreadsheet of the titles, for use in ordering and creating displays, Bailey’s Longlist, 2017.

John le Carré’s most famous literary creation, George Smiley, has not had a literary outing in 25 years. That is about to change.

The Cold War spymaster is coming back in A Legacy of Spies (PHR/Viking; Sept. 5; ISBN 9780735225114; cover art not final). On his website le Carré writes, “George Smiley is back… The past has come to claim its due.”

Le Carré’s agent, Jonny Geller, told The Guardian that the new book will “close George Smiley’s story.” That story began with Call for the Dead in 1961, played out in multiple novels including the iconic The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, and was thought to have ended in 1990 with The Secret Pilgrim.

The new book will also feature another familiar character, Peter Guillam, who, reports The Guardian, has “retired from the world of spooks to a farm in southern Brittany … Summoned back to London, Guillam and his colleagues are subject to scrutiny for past misdemeanours, committed at a time when there were fewer scruples about the methods used to win the ideological war raging between the west and the Soviets.”

The Guardian adds, “It is believed that the author was inspired to revisit his old characters because of the current political situation.” Geller tells the paper that idea was “far too simplistic” although he admits, “As a readers you can see parallels between what we thought was over and what is happening now.”

As we have posted and the LA Times points out, le Carré’s “books are currently hot material for film and television adaptations.”

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was adapted in 2011 and starred Gary Oldman as Smiley and Benedict Cumberbatch as Guillam. Last year, AMC and BBC aired the miniseries The Night Manager based on the 1993 novel. The networks are partnering again on an adaptation of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, which was earlier made into a famous film, starring Richard Burton as Smiley. 2016 also saw the release of Our Kind of Traitor starring Ewan McGregor, Damian Lewis, and Stellan Skarsgård.

The renewed attention a brand-new audience to both the books and the author and to his memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (PRH/Viking; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample), which was covered widely last year.

A book that gives a unique look at Hitler is rising on Amazon after author Norman Ohler discussed the Nazi leader’s drug use on NPR’s Fresh Air.

In his book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (HMH; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), Ohler says Hitler became increasingly dependent on drugs from high power vitamin and hormone injections to opioids, cocaine, and more, “to substitute [for] his natural charisma, which … he had lost in the course of the war.”

Further, the drugs enabled much of the long war effort. “For him it was important to be able to function at all times, to never have a day off, because he distrusted anyone in his surroundings, especially the generals. He had to make all the military decisions,” Ohler says. His drug-induced and manufactured optimism tricked the generals and made them wonder “if he had a secret weapon up his sleeve.”

Ohler also reports that German soldiers were given meth. It was considered a perfect drug for the fighters because it reduced fear levels and the need to sleep. “Thirty-five million tablets of methamphetamine” were given out just as the invasion of France took place. “It actually worked. The Germans reached Sedan after an amazingly short period of time … while the French and British [armies] were still in northern Belgium, where they had actually expected the German attack.”

The book rose to #31 on Amazon, from #2,736. Holds are high in libraries, where few systems have yet to receive copies. In some locations ratios are topping 5:1.

Critical attention continues to build for Mohsin Hamid’s newest novel, Exit West (PRH/Riverhead; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). The book review aggregator LitHub excerpts fifteen consumer reviews and several libraries are showing high holds ratios on light ordering. UPDATE: The New Yorker adds to the reviews, calling the novel “Instantly Canonical” and Entertainment Weekly gives it a straight A.

As we noted in Titles to Know for this week, Michiko Kakutani gave it a laudatory early review in the daily NYT, saying that, like Hamid’s earlier works, the novel explores, “the convulsive changes overtaking the world, as tradition and modernity clash headlong, and as refugees — fleeing war or poverty or hopelessness — try to make their way to safer ground.”

Considered important enough for double coverage, it is also be featured on the cover of the upcoming NYT Sunday Book Review, in  another strong review by Viet Thanh Nguyen [not available online yet], whose own novel about refugees, The Sympathizer (Grove Press, April 2015) won him a Pulitzer Prize and even landed him among the celebrities on late night TV. He praises Hamid’s ability to “exploit fiction’s capacity to elicit empathy and identification to imagine a better world.”

NPR does a double take as well. Steve Inskeep interviews Hamid on Morning Edition and frequent NPR reviewer Michael Schlub calls Exit West “breathtaking” and “haunting” and says it is “at once a love story, a fable, and a chilling reflection on what it means to be displaced, unable to return home and unwelcome anywhere else.”

Inskeep and Hamid talk about immigration and draw parallels between Pakistan and America, with Hamid saying:

“I think America needs to be very careful. America has built something with great difficulty over a large period of time. And for America to start to become the kind of democracy that Pakistan is would be an incredible loss for America and for the world.”

This chat has ended. Join us for the next one on Tuesday, April 4, from 4 to 5 pm, ET. Details here.

#ewgc Tweets

In February of last year, Michael V. Hayden, the former Head of the National Security Agency and the CIA during the most tense and controversial years of the Bush administration, went on the book circuit to promote his account of that time, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample). It rose as high as #10 on Amazon after several media appearances.

The paperback edition, released last month, is getting renewed attention as General Hayden is on news shows to comment on Trump’s weekend tweet accusing Obama of wiretapping him in Trump Towers before the election. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday, Hayden said that’s not possible because “the plumbing does not work that way.” He further said that Trump’s tweet was an attempt “to distract attention from what was a very very bad news cycle and he put his reputation, that of his predecessor and that of his nation at risk to get at least a draw out of the nesxt 24 hours news.”

The book rose again on Amazon, moving from #55,946 to #226. It’s likely to move higher, after Hayden appears on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert tonight.

Most libraries are showing hardcover copies available.

A graphic nonfiction work is zooming up Amazon’s sales rankings, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything (PRH/Penguin, October 17, 2017; ISBN 9780399563829), well in advance of its October release date..

Created by Zach Weinersmith, who writes the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and has over 100,000 followers on Twitter, it is co-written with his wife, Dr. Kelly Weinersmith, an Adjunct Faculty in the BioSciences Department at Rice University and the cohost of the podcast Science… Sort Of.

Comics Beat says to think about it as “sort of in the vein of Randall Munro’s immensely popular science books, if by that you mean a book about science by a webcomics superstar.”

Weinersmith ran a pre-order book promotion on his site, promising to do certain feats if the book hit #1 on Amazon, such as eat an entire peanut butter pie.

The book reached #3 yesterday, saving him from having to consume the pie. It marks, however, a very impressive rise on Amazon, going from “no ranking” to #3  within just a few hours.

Soonish gets announced this morning, hits #3 on Amazon a few hours later. HECK YES. https://t.co/EvybDloyPE

— Seth Fishman (@sethasfishman) March 6, 2017

The big hit at the box office over the weekend was Logan, pulling in an astounding $85 million and further solidifying Hollywood’s love with comic adaptations. The tie-in went to #224 on Amazon’s rankings. The real winner, in terms of book sales, is the #3 movie, The Shack. Its release caused all the titles by author William Paul Young to rise, especially his newest, to be published tomorrow,  Lies We Believe About God, (S&S/Atria; S&S Audio) which rose to #40.

The week sees the debut of just one new adaptation, The Sense of an Ending starring Jim Broadbent, Matthew Goode, Michelle Dockery, Emily Mortimer, and Charlotte Rampling.

Based on the Booker winning novel of the same name by Julian Barnes, about a man trying to come to terms with his past and present, it opens in a limited number of theaters on Friday.

The tie-in came out last week. The Sense of an Ending (Movie Tie-In), Julian Barnes (PRH/Vintage; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

As we wrote then, the reviews are reserved:

The Wrap says “Many of the best features of Julian Barnes’ acclaimed novel don’t make the leap to the screen … had this well-meaning movie been more willing to directly embrace its origins in Barnes’s luminous prose, it’s quite possible [it] might be something special rather than something worthy. It’s not quite the same thing.”

The Hollywood Reporter says it is “A mildly engaging adaptation of a bold book.” IndieWire gives it a B.

The film Arrival was nominated for eight Oscar awards but nabbed just one, for Sound Editing. However, clips from the film, shown during the Academy Awards show, served to prime audiences for the film’s On Demand debut on Saturday.

In turn, the the collection that included the short story it is based on, Stories Of Your Life And Others by Ted Chiang (originally published in 2002 by Macmillan/Tor; re-released by PRH/Vintage in 2016; Tantor Audio; OverDrive Sample) is moving up Amazon’s sales ranking again. Demand is also strong in libraries we checked, with most systems topping 4:1 ratios.

This marks a second wave of interest in the collection, after the film’s release in November, when the paperback appeared on the NYT Best Seller List for several weeks.

The formerly under-the-radar Science Fiction writer has since received a even more attention. Wired picked the collection last month for their book club, saying the lead story is so moving that it made participating staff members cry in public.

The New Yorker featured Chiang in January and Syfy Wire published an interview in the lead up to the Oscars.

Newbery Medal-winning author Paula Fox has died at 93.

She wrote over 20 novels for young people, including her 1974 Newbery winner, The Slave Dancer (S&S/Atheneum; Penguin Audio/Listening Library;  OverDrive Sample), about the African slave trade. She won the National Book Critics Circle award for her 2001 memoir Borrowed Finery (Macmillan/Picador; OverDrive Sample). She also won the Hans Christian Andersen Award and a PEN Literary award. One of her best-known novels for adults, Desperate Characters (Norton; OverDrive Sample), was adapted into a film starring Shirley MacLaine.

In spite of early accolades, her work was largely forgotten, writes the LA Times, until Jonathan Franzen called Desperate Characters an overlooked masterpiece in a 1996 Harper’s magazine piece about American fiction headlined “Perchance to dream.” That in turn caught the eye of a young Norton editorial assistant, Tom Bissell and the publisher reissued all of Fox’s adult novels, with introductory essays by Franzen, Jonathan Lethem, Frederick Busch, Andrea Barrett, and others. David Foster Wallace was also an admirer, calling Desperate Characters “A towering landmark of postwar Realism. . . . A sustained work of prose so lucid and fine it seems less written than carved.”

The NYT says “Her characters are complex, self-contained and often withdrawn, but their ruminative interior states lend the narratives a quiet luminosity … As a stylist, she was known for her impeccable, almost anatomical, depictions of the material world. In the Paula Fox universe, objects take on heightened importance, as if rearing up to fill the gaps left by characters’ failure to make real connections.”

Coming next week, in time for Passover, is a book that may seem like an oxymoron, a humorous Haggadah. The media will be focused on ground-breaking women and there’s a dozen librarian and bookseller picks to recommend plus tie-ins to four heavily-anticipated movies.

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 6, 2017.

We need to explain why one sure-to-be popular book is NOT included on our list, the latest by the Blogess, Jenny Lawson, author of the long-running best sellers Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and Furiously Happy. Unfortunately, her new book You Are Here: An Owner’s Manual for Dangerous Minds (Macmillan/Flatiron), is printed on perforated pages, which, as the publisher helpfully notes, “can be easily torn out, hung up, and shared,” a clear definition of a non-library-friendly format. Some libraries, however, have ordered copies.

Passover Prep

For This We Left Egypt?: A Passover Haggadah for Jews and Those Who Love Them, Dave Barry, Alan Zweibel, Adam Mansbach, (Macmillan/Flatiron; OverDrive Sample).

A funny Haggadah? Who knew? As God himself writes in the cover blurb, this is by “Three of the funniest people I’ve ever created,” the humorist Dave Barry, the SNL writer Alan Zweibel, and Adam Mansbach, who knows a bit about creating off beat humor, having written Go the F*** to Sleep. This one was not reviewed pre-pub so many libraries have not ordered it. We predict a sleeper hit.

Holds Leaders

Amazingly, after so many years as a best seller, Danielle Steel has decided to step up her publication schedule. Dangerous Games (PRH/Delacorte; Recorded Books; PRH Large Print) is the second of six new hardcovers scheduled for this year. Following close behind in terms of holds for the week is the tenth in Patricia Briggs’ urban fantasy series, Silence Fallen (PRH/Ace; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). Publishers Weekly says, “Briggs delivers her usual action and danger … and adds a surprising playfulness.”

Media Magnets

Shoot Like a Girl: One Woman’s Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and on the Home Front, Mary Jennings Hegar (PRH/Berkley; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample).

Jumping into the top 100 on Amazon’s sales rankings today as a result of a feature on NPR’s Fresh Air, movie rights for this memoir by a female Air Force major and helicopter pilot were signed by Sony well in advance of publication. Angelina Jolie may star, according to a recent story by The Hollywood Reporter.

We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere, Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel (S&S/Atria).

The title may sound like a feminist declaration, but X-Files star Gillian Anderson and her co-author British journalist Jennifer Nadel have another goal, to help women overcome depression and lead more productive lives. Promotion began with an interview in The Washington Post and will continue with several print and online publications, as well as appearances the following week on ABC’s The View and CBS This Morning.

Madame President, Helene Cooper (S&S).

Liberia, the country founded by freed American slaves, was the first to elect an woman president, one who managed the incredible feat of bringing peace to a country divided by a bloody civil war. This first biography of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is written by the NYT‘s Pentagon correspondent, Helene Cooper, who came to the US from Liberia when she was 13. Her harrowing memoir, The House at Sugar Beach, recounts that time. She wrote a story for the NYT after Trump imposed his immigration ban, about what it meant to have the US welcome her. The book is set to be reviewed widely and Cooper will appear next week on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and NPR’s The Takeaway.

Peer Picks

Four LibraryReads titles arrive this week.

The Hearts of Men, Nickolas Butler (HC/Ecco; HarperAudio).

“In the summer of 1962, we are introduced to popular Jonathan and social outcast, Nelson, aka ‘The Bugler.’ The only thing the two seem to have in common is that they both spend a few weeks of one summer at Camp Chippewa in the woods of Wisconsin. Yet, over the course of decades, their lives and the lives of those they love the fiercest are intertwined. This wonderful novel peels back the layers of male friendship and shows what loyalty, compassion, and selflessness looks like.” — Jennifer Dayton, Darien Library, Darien CT

Additional Buzz: It’s People magazine’s “Book of the Week.” described as “Perfectly paced and leavened with humor, it is a wonderful read.” It is also an Indie Next pick for March and a GalleyChat selection.

Say Nothing, Brad Parks (PRH/Dutton; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Fans of crime fiction and fans of domestic drama will find much to love in Parks’ genre-blending thriller. Judge Scott Sampson is a devoted family man and a respected jurist thrown into every parent’s worst nightmare: his 6-year-old twins are kidnapped, and the kidnappers blackmail Scott into increasingly immoral legal decisions. Cue marital meltdown, ethical dilemmas, paranoia, and a thrill ride that suspense lovers will race through to learn what happens next. It’s a departure from the author’s lightly snarky Carter Ross series, but a welcome one for readers of Harlan Coben and Gregg Hurwitz.” — Donna Matturri, Pickertington Public Library, Pickerington, OH

Additional Buzz: Bustle calls it “Fast-paced and terrifying … a roller coaster of fear, deception, jealousy, and terror” and names it one of “11 Page-Turning Thrillers That Will Allow You To Escape Into Another World Right Now.” The Daily Mail in the UK includes it on their list of “Psycho Thrillers” and says “The old cliche of page-turner is dead right here. This twisted tale is written with such power and intelligence that you have no option other than to read it under your desk at work.”

The Bone Witch, Rin Chupeco (Sourcebooks/Soucebooks Fire; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Fifteen-year-old Tea discovers that she has a power that sets her apart from the other witches in her village and will incur their hatred. She is a “bone witch” who can raise the dead. Aware that a darkness is coming, Tea agrees to leave her home and family so she can learn to save the very people who hate her. Her training, outlined in rich and fascinating detail, includes the courtly arts of singing and dancing, as well as classes in fighting. Told in short chapters, Tea reflects on her life, revealing how she becomes a courageous warrior. Although written for young adults, this will equally appeal to adults. The cliff-hanger ending will make readers eager for the promised sequel.” — Trisha Perry, Oldham County Public Library, Lagrange, KY

Additional Buzz: Smart Bitches Trashy Books includes it in their “Hide Your Wallet” round up of March Releases they are excited about. It is a PW “Most Anticipated Children’s and YA Books of Spring 2017” selection and BuzzFeed, with a rare failure of click-bait hyperbole, includes it in their list of “Just Some Really Excellent YA Books You Need To Know About.”

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit, Michael Finkel (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT).

“There are three types of hermits in the world, according to Finkel: protesters, pilgrims, and pursuers. But Christopher Knight doesn’t seem to fit any of these categories. So why, at the age of 20, did he drive into a forest in Maine and disappear for 27 years, his only human interaction a single ‘hi’ with a passing hiker? This book uses the incredible but true story of Knight, ‘the last true hermit,’ to explore themes of solitude, introversion and the meaning of life.” — Megan Tristao, San Jose Public Library, San Jose, CA

Additional Buzz: The New Republic features it an article, “The Case for Becoming a Hermit.” It is an Indie Next selection and Esquire UK picks it as one of “12 Books We’re Excited About Reading In 2017 And you should be too.” BookPage makes it their “Nonfiction Top Pick, March 2017.” It is one of our GalleyChat picks.

Other Indie Next titles coming out this week include the #1 pick for March, Exit West, Mohsin Hamid (PRH/Riverhead; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Exit West will take your breath away as it magically weaves together a story of falling in love while the world falls apart. Spirited Nadia captures the heart of the thoughtful Saeed, but as their different paths in life converge, ordinary life gives way to the insults of war. Mohsin Hamid conveys the story of these young refugees with tenderness, humanizing the horrors that we too often see as merely headlines. As chaos touches so many lives around the globe, Hamid writes eloquently of the beauty found in our struggle to survive. This is more than a timely story; this is a remarkable work of art.” —Luisa Smith, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Additional Buzz: Michiko Kakutani reviews it early for the daily NYT, calling it “compelling” and saying “Writing in spare, crystalline prose, Hamid conveys the experience of living in a city under siege with sharp, stabbing immediacy.” The Washington Post says, “No novel is really about the cliche called ‘the human condition,’ but good novels expose and interpret the particular condition of the humans in their charge, and this is what Hamid has achieved here.” It is also a GalleyChat title. Hamid writes a feature for The Guardian on the dangers of nostalgia. It is also on the Esquire UK list of “12 Books We’re Excited About Reading In 2017 And you should be too.”

Ill Will, Dan Chaon (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Ill Will is a house of mirrors reflecting intergenerational psychodramas in which the abuses of a parent insidiously infect subsequent generations. Violent parricide, false memories, drugs, and sex fuel a double plot line and vivid character development and taut dialog propel the reader as scene shifts blur the roles of the offender and the injured. Chaon adroitly leads us through a literary haunted house, then leaves us to find our own way out.” —Bill Fore, Hickory Stick Bookshop, Washington Depot, CT

Additional Buzz: It makes Real Simple‘s list of “The Best New Books to Read This Month.” They call it “a menacing, gripping story about a psychologist, his murdered family, serial killers, and satanic rituals.”

Celine, Peter Heller (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“There should be an excused absence from life when a new Peter Heller novel is released to the world. There is a pace and a quality to his writing that will make you want to drink it down in one gulp. Heller’s strong narrative voice and complex plotting have always stood out to me and Celine is another example of this. Loosely based on Heller’s mother, Celine is a hard-nosed — if a bit worn down — private investigator living in post-9/11 Brooklyn. She has a stellar reputation, but when she is sent on a case to locate a young woman’s missing father, it’s clear that her age (and lifestyle) has caught up with her. You will fall in love with Celine and connect with everyone who populates this book. I would give just about anything to follow her on more adventures.” —Katelyn Phillips, WORD, Jersey City, NJ

Additional Buzz: Entertainment Weekly picks it as one of their “23 Most Anticipated Books of 2017,” writing, “Celine, a PI, investigates a case in Yellowstone National Park that quickly become far more complex than the random animal attack it was made out to be.” Library Journal highlighted Heller as one of Four Rising-Star Novelists (along with Nickolas Butler for The Hearts of Men (above) and Victor Lodato for Edgar and Lucy (below).

All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg (HMH; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample).

“Though Andrea Berg hasn’t hit society’s milestones for adulthood — no husband, no baby, an anemic career — she is clearly ‘all grown up,’ and in Jami Attenberg’s wonderful new novel, she struggles to define her place to the wider world, her family, and herself. In funny, often poignant vignettes of one woman’s life, All Grown Up perceptively explores what it means to be an adult.” —Sarah Baline, East City Bookshop, Washington, DC

Additional Buzz: Martha Stewart.com lists it among “Page-Turners For 2017,” in a list created by Lisa Lucas, the executive director of the National Book Foundation. She writes “Attenberg knows how to make a reader laugh and feel. This novel takes a hard look at what it means to be a woman living on her own terms.” It also makes a number of others lists, including those compiled by Bustle (twice), Elle, Flavorwire, Glamour, The Millions, and Nylon. There is an excerpt on Guernica and Entertainment Weekly has a story on the striking cover art.

Edgar and Lucy, Victor Lodato (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Edgar and Lucy is about a terribly broken family that faces crisis after crisis yet never gives up trying to be a family. The main narrator is eight-year-old Edgar, a child brilliant beyond his years but who has a problem relating to almost everyone except his grandmother, Florence. Edgar’s mother, Lucy, loves him in her own way but thanks to Florence, Lucy really doesn’t need to make much of an effort. When Florence dies, everything changes. A stunning novel, dark at times, raw and bold, written with an uncanny feel for life and death, Edgar and Lucy kept me spellbound waiting for its conclusion but unwilling for the story to end.” —Nancy McFarlane, Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC

Additional Buzz: In addition to the mentions above, Library Journal and Booklist both give it starred reviews. Lodato wrote a recent NYT “Modern Love” column on his special friendship with wonderful but ailing older woman.

Close Enough to Touch, Colleen Oakley (S&S/Gallery Books; S&S Audio).

“It was just a kiss, but it nearly killed her. Jubilee is allergic to people. She can’t be touched by strangers, well-meaning or not. She retreats into her shell, away from the world, but her high school years pass, then her parents are gone, and, finally, she must move out into the world or die. She finds a home for her quiet life in a library, until Eric finds her and insists that she discover the truth of a life lived without fear. Close Enough is filled with real life, real people, and the search for happiness that we all recognize. It is a truly moving story from a rare gem of an author.” —Linda Bond, Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA

WHEREAS: Poems, Layli Long Soldier (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample).

“When pain is obvious but goes unrecognized, it feels like trying to strain salt from sugar. With the poems in Whereas, Layli Long Soldier engages with where she’s ‘from’ through history and memory, analysis and reflection. Her mission? To stay angry — to declare, ‘I’m here I’m not / numb to a single dot.’ From rants and dreams and one lexical box to a pantomime of legalese, Long Soldier is agile, aware, and not asking for pity. She aims, instead, for action — ‘whereas speaking, itself, is defiance.’” —Annalia Luna, Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX

Additional Buzz: Ploughshares reviews it, writing it is “an ambitious, ground breaking book. The world needs more of those.”

Rabbit Cake, Annie Hartnett (Norton/Tin House Books; Blackstone Audio).

“When Eva Rose Babbitt, mother of daughters Lizzie, 15, and Elvis, 10, drowns while sleep-swimming, her daughters are left to fend for themselves emotionally while their father tends to his grief by wearing his wife’s bathrobe and lipstick. Elvis stays up at night, trying to keep Lizzie, a sleepwalker and sleep-eater, from burning the house down with her nocturnal ‘cooking.’ But Elvis doesn’t trust the circumstances of her mother’s death and is determined to finish her mother’s book, The Sleep Habits in Animals and What They Tell Us About Our Own Slumber, so she does a little research of her own. Annie Hartnett has created endearing and memorable characters in a delightfully original story that is sure to become a beloved favorite of readers everywhere.” —Kris Kleindienst, Left Bank Books, St. Louis, MO

Additional Buzz: This GalleyChat pick also got starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. Ploughshares names it one of their “Must-Reads for 2017” (along with The Hearts of Men, above).

Tie-ins

The Son, Philipp Meyer (HC/Ecco; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample).

AMC gave a ten-episode straight-to-series order last year, for Meyer’s adaption, believing in ithe project  so much that they skipped the usual pilot stage,  The multi-generational historical saga stars Pierce Brosnan, Paola Nuñez and Elizabeth Frances. It premieres on April 8.

Philipp Meyer is writing the script along with fellow authors Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy. He told the Texas Observer, “99.9 percent of stuff that Hollywood picks up they actually have no intention of making it, and for the one percent of stuff that they do want to make, they have literally no interest in having the creator of the original material involved.” So he decided to write it himself. He says “The arc of the series would have the same creative arc as the book, so it wouldn’t be open-ended. Whether that means four seasons or six seasons we’ll have to figure out.”

13 Reasons Why, Jay Asher (PRH/Razorbill; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample).

Netflix’s new series 13 Reasons Why will premiere on March 31. Early buzz is building. When the trailer aired yesterday the book jumped on the Amazon sales rankings, going from #221 to #40.

About a high school student who commits suicide and leaves behind several tapes, telling classmates how each contributed to her decision, it is a YALSA Best Books of 2008, and was a NYT best seller in hardcover for over two years.

It stars a relatively unknown cast. Oscar Winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight) directs. Tony and Pulitzer Prize Winner Brian Yorkey (Next to Normal) wrote the script.

The Lost City of Z (Movie Tie-In): A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, David Grann (PRH/Vintage; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

This adaptation of the action adventure nonfiction account of Percy Fawcett’s search for a fabled lost city opens April 21. It stars Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, and Tom Holland.

Reviewing it after its NY Film Festival debut, Variety calls it “Apocalypse Now meets Masterpiece Theater … a finely crafted, elegantly shot, sharply sincere movie that is more absorbing than powerful.”

The Hollywood Reporter calls it “a rare piece of contemporary classical cinema; its virtues of methodical storytelling, traditional style and obsessive theme are ones that would have been recognized and embraced anytime from the 1930s through the 1970s. Whether they will be properly valued by more speed-minded modern audiences will only become known when this immaculate production is released.”

The Sense of an Ending (Movie Tie-In), Julian Barnes (PRH/Vintage; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Matthew Goode, Michelle Dockery, Emily Mortimer, Charlotte Rampling, and Jim Broadbent star in this adaptation of the Booker shortlisted title about a man trying to come to terms with his past and present.

The reviews are not strong. The Wrap says “Many of the best features of Julian Barnes’ acclaimed novel don’t make the leap to the screen.” The Hollywood Reporter says it is “A mildly engaging adaptation of a bold book.”

It debuts on March 10.

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

In a rare feat, historian Yuval Noah Harari’s name appears twice on the latest NYT Nonfiction Hardcover Best Seller list.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (HC/Harper; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample) debuts at #3.

The book explores how the development of artificial life and intelligence affects real human beings. It has received widespread attention from the media. The author is interviewed by The Atlantic, Time, and Wired. NPR calls the book “enlightening and slightly terrifying.” The Guardian says it is “spellbinding” and says, “it is hard to imagine anyone could read this book without getting an occasional, vertiginous thrill.”

The NYT reviewer, however, is lukewarm, writing “an argument can look seamless and still contain lots of dropped stitches.”

It is joined on the best seller list by Harari’s previous title, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Harper; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample, 2015), returning at #10 on the strength of the attention to the new title.

A hit when it first came out, it received a second wind from Bill Gates who picked it as one of his Summer Reads.

Below are NPR’s interviews with the author for each book:

Debuting on the latest NYT Paperback Nonfiction list at #9 is Why I March: Images from the Woman’s March Around the World (Abrams Books), a collection of photos from the global Women’s March held the day after this year’s  inauguration ceremonies. The American marches may have been the largest single-day demonstrations in U.S. history. Websites and newspapers were full of images of the record-setting crowds.

A related book Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope–Voices from the Women’s March (Workman/Artisan) has also been published, featuring images of the creative and notable signs carried that day.

Royalties from both books will be donated to organizations that deal with some of the issues supported by the marchers.

Are Americans still movers and shakers? In his new book The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; OverDrive Sample), George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen says the answer is no. His analysis is receiving wide spread media attention.

On NPR’s Morning Edition today, Cowen argues that Americans “have grown more risk averse and are reluctant to switch jobs or move to another state.” As a result, they are not exposed to new ideas and have become less innovative. This has also brought about a new form of segregation, “wealthier people tend to live together more than before and so do poorer people.” Living in their own bubbles, they are unaware of much that is going on around them, “we see a version of this in the last election where so many people are shocked by the candidate who actually won.”

Thus far holds are heavy in just a few places on light orders, but the topic is much in the news and attention is growing. David Brooks writes about it in his NYT Op-Ed column, Cowen was interviewed in the Washington Post and featured on the Charlie Rose Show.

The following is the first in a set of videos Cohen has released.

Below, the NPR story.