EarlyWord

The nominees for the 2017 Golden Globes include a number of TV shows and films with book connections. As the LA Times puts it in their rundown, so many that “if you’re more at home in a library or a bookstore than a movie theater, you’re likely to find some reading material to curl up with while the rest of your family is gathered around the television set.”

Most of the nominees are already well known, as we have noted:

• Arrival
• Elle
• Fences
• Game of Thrones
• Hidden Figures
• Lion
• Mozart in the Jungle
• The Night Manager
• Nocturnal Animals
• Outlander
• The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

One is much less familiar, My Life as a Zucchini, an animated film from Switzerland based on Autobiographie D’une Courgette (J’Ai Lu Editions, 2003; no English translation), a YA novel by the French journalist Gilles Paris.

Selected as the Swiss entry for Best Foreign Language Film for this year’s Oscars, it just won the European Film Awards category for best European animated feature (here is its official entry page).

The story is about a young boy who becomes an orphan following the death of his alcoholic mother. Taken to an orphanage by a police officer who befriends him, the boy must learn to cope with his new life and surroundings as he interacts with other traumatized children.

Variety says “Leave it to a French-language stop-motion film to cut closer to the reality of the orphan experience than Annie, Matilda or any number of like-minded live-action melodramas … the cartoon is never afraid to be cute, but more importantly, it’s committed to being real.”

The Hollywood Reporter calls it “lovingly told and gorgeously rendered” and says “Though not as dark as the book that inspired it, nor as directly critical of the French welfare state [it is] not exactly a tale for all ages. That said, savvy distributors who know how to market high-end animated films to older audiences should get some decent mileage out of this Courgette.”

Variety reports that North American distribution rights have been sold, but so far, no release date has been announced.

In their new year-end issues, both People magazine and sister publication Entertainment Weekly name their picks of the top ten books of the year, in ranked order. 

For People, the top title is You’ll Grow Out of It (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) by Jessi Klein, head writer for Amy Schumer. People describes the book as a “hilarious, spot-on essay collection :From her horror of thongs to her most humiliating breakup, Klein’s topics — and disarming honesty — strike a chord.” This one does not appear on EW’s Top Ten. It is a #7 on Time magazine’s list.

For Entertainment Weekly, it’s a debut that received attention when it was released in August, Nathan Hill’s  The Nix (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). 

EW says that it’s hard to describe the novel, but that “Hill’s magnificently overstuff debut contains multitude and ten some … It’s not just that Hill is a  brilliantly surreal social satirist … it’s that he does it all with so much wit and style and heart.”

Neither list is online yet. Download our spreadsheet with the rankings, People and Ent. Weekly Top Ten, 2016

Of the other publications that picked number one titles, most picked this year’s National Book Award winner in fiction.

Amazon Editors

Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample

New York magazine

The Underground Railroad

Time magazine, Fiction

The Underground Railroad

Time magazine, Nonfiction

John Lewis, March: Book Three, (Top Shelf Productions)

LIBRARIANS! Today is the day. Check your lists & count down your 10 fave books published in 2016, 1 per day. TITLE in caps, tag #libfaves16

— Robin B (@robinsbooks) December 12, 2016

It’s going to be a big weekend in theaters with the opening of the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One this Friday (see titles to know for tie-ins). Nevertheless, a new film adaptation of a novel by Patricia Highsmith, A Kind of Murder, starring Patrick Wilson and Jessica Biel, also dares to debut, although it is set for release in just a limited number of theaters as well as on demand.

Reviewing it when it was featured at the Tribeca Film Festical in April, Variety was not enthusiastic, calling  it a “stylish adaptation,” but although the “thrills are mitigated by convoluted plotting and suspect character behavior, the film’s uniquely bleak twist on classic noir conventions is enlivening.”

Based Highsmith’s The Blunderer, 1954 available in a 2001 trade paperback from Norton.There are no tie-ins.

Also on Friday, Amazon debuts the second season of their well-received adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s classic 1954 SF title, The Man in the High Castle.

A tie-in was released last year, timed to the first season.

The Man in the High Castle (Tie-In)
HMH/ Mariner Books 
Trade Paperback 

Reflecting their major investment in the upcoming adaptation of
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, (HarperCollins, 1999 – 2006), Netflix is ramping up their promotional efforts. The third and probably not the final trailer was released last week.

The series begins streaming on January 13.

Expect to see more series from Netflix, which has is cutting back on movies in favor of original programming. As the company’s chief content officer noted at a recent conference, only one third of their customers watch movies.

No tie-ins have been announced.

Publishers are hurrying to get books out in the aftermath of the election, reports PW. At least three new titles are already in the works, each focused on how progressives can respond to the Trump presidency.

In a very fast turn-around, two will be released before Inauguration Day:

What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump’s America, ed. by Dennis Johnson and Valerie Merians (Melville House) continues a tradition for the indie publisher. Melville also issued as similar work following the election of George W. Bush. The essay collection includes pieces from Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Gloria Steinem, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, and others. Edited by the publisher Dennis Johnson, it offers advice on what upset voters can do during the next four years.

The Trump Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Living Through What You Hoped Would Never Happen, Gene Stone (HC/Dey Street Books). Quoting the book’s editor, PW reports it is “aimed at people looking for answers and ways to mobilize following Trump’s victory. In the book, Stone gives a background on the different issues that are at stake over the next four years and provides lists of organizations and resources for promoting progressive action.”

Also in the works  is another collection of essays,  Radical Hope (PRH/Vintage), which the editor says are “socially conscious love letters in the tradition of ‘My Dungeon Shook,’ the first essay in James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.” It does not yet have a release date but is expected in early 2017.

Already signed up are several political books set to make noise in 2017, as PW reports in their Spring Adult Announcements issue (Children’s Announcements are coming Jan 30).Their picks include:

Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom, Condoleezza Rice (Hachette/Twelve, May 2.)

How the Hell Did This Happen?: The Election of 2016, P. J. O’Rourke (Atlantic Monthly Press, Mar. 7)

How Liberty Can Change the World, Gary E. Johnson (HC/Broadside, June 13)

#Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media, Cass R. Sunstein (Princeton Univ., Mar. 28)

After weeks of seeming to snub his Nobel Prize, Bob Dylan won many over at Saturday night’s Nobel Banquet, without even attending. His letter of thanks, read by Azita Raji, the American ambassador to Sweden, was applauded by the NYT as “a warm, humble statement.” In it, he explains that his songs are,

“the vital center of almost everything I do … Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, ‘Are my songs literature?’ … So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer.”

That answer was driven home by one of the Nobel Committee members who said at the event that Dylan is,

“a singer worthy of a place beside the Greek bards, beside Ovid, beside the Romantic visionaries, beside the kings and queens of the blues, beside the forgotten masters of brilliant standards. If people in the literary world groan one must remind them that the gods don’t write, they dance and they sing.”

Patti Smith, who, as The Rolling Stone reports, was invited to perform before the announcement of Dylan’s Nobel, chose to sing his 1962 protest song, “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” She got tangled in the long and complicated lyrics, halting at one point to say “I’m sorry, I’m so nervous,” and received a round of applause. She recovered so well that she brought many in the audience to tears. 

It’s such a slow week in terms of publishing output that even James Patterson is releasing only one new title (technically, two, but one is a re-release of an earlier BookShots compilation). It’s a childrens book, written with frequent collaborator, and best selling childrens author in his own right (the Mr. Lemoncello series), Chris Grabenstein. Word of Mouse (Hachette/Jimmy Patterson; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) arrives with strong pre-pub reviews, including a star from Booklist, which goes so far as to say blue mouse Isaiah, is destined to join the pantheon of mice in children’s lit, including Robert C. O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Avi’s Poppy, and Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux.

The titles covered here, and a few other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar Week of Dec 12, 2016.

Peer Picks

No LibraryReads or Indie Next picks arrive this week, reflecting the slowdown of the publishing schedule as the year draws to a close.

Tie-ins

Two very different movies with book tie-ins open next week.

The Spanish language film Julieta is based on three linked short stories from Alice Munro’s collection Runaway (“Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence”).

Opening on Dec. 21st, the film is written and directed by Academy Award-winner Pedro Almodóvar and stars Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte along with Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Darío Grandinetti, Michelle Jenner, and Rossy de Palma.

The Guardian gave it five stars, calling it “Almodóvar’s best film in a decade” and describing it as “a sumptuous and heartbreaking study of the viral nature of guilt, the mystery of memory and the often unendurable power of love.”

American critics were less impressed. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “A tie-me-downer of a pastiche” while Variety says it is “far from this reformed renegade’s strongest or most entertaining work.”

There is a tie-in: Julieta (Movie Tie-in Edition): Three Stories That Inspired the Movie, Alice Munro (PRH/Vintage; OverDrive Sample).

More Star Wars tie-ins arrive this week for Rogue One, debuting in theaters on Dec. 16.

Star Wars: Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide is by Pablo Hidalgo (PRH/DK Children),  LucasFilm’s Creative Executive, which means, as described this week in an interview on NPR, his job is to “know absolutely everything there is to know about Star Wars. As the universe expands [and] to make sure everything stays accurate and in sync — a Star Wars story consultant, if you will.” 

Another overview of the film’s visual is The Art of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Josh Kushins (Abrams), which provides conception art from the film as well as essays on how the look of the film was developed. Storyboards, paintings, and designs for costumes, vehicles, and the new characters area also included.

Other Star War tie-ins arriving this week are for younger readers, a reference guide and a leveled reader:

Star Wars Rogue One Rebel Dossier, Jason Fry (Hachette/Disney Lucasfilm), for ages 8 to 12.

DK Readers L4: Star Wars: Rogue One: Secret Mission, Jason Fry (PRH/DK Children; also in trade pbk).

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

Greeting the news that Sherman Alexie is adapting his beloved, best-selling, and National Book Award winning novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, for the big screen (Hachette/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; OverDrive Sample), The Seattle Review of Books notes, “This is a big damn deal for a book that has demonstrated remarkable longevity with young readers.”

The Hollywood Reporter writes that Hugh Jackman, “will play a supporting role in the film as well as serve in some producing capacity.”

Temple Hill, who helped bring another YA favorite, The Fault in Our Stars, to theaters will produce along with the Donners’ Company (Deadpool), says THR.

Alexie made the announcement via Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Sherman_Alexie/status/804750296203169792

There is no word on when the film will debut, but 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the novel. Hachette is marking the occasion with an anniversary edition to be published with a new cover and bonus material on Oct. 3, 2017, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (10th Anniversary Edition), (Hachette/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers).

The Grammy Awards announced their finalists in the Best Spoken Word category this Tuesday. Spanning poetry, audiobooks, and storytelling, the category has a rich history of winners, including Jimmy Carter, Stephen Colbert, President Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Maya Angelou.

This year’s nominees are:

Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer, S&S Audio

M Train, Patti Smith

Such Good Company, Carol Burnett

Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk, John Doe

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, Elvis Costello

Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer, S&S Audio

M Train, Patti Smith

Such Good Company, Carol Burnett

Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk, John Doe

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, Elvis Costello

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer (Simon & Schuster Audio). Also nominated for Best Comedy Album.

In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox, Carol Burnett (RH Audio/BOT)

M Train, Patti Smith (RH Audio/BOT)

Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk, John Doe with Tom Desavia and various artists (RH Audio/BOT). Review from the L.A. Times.

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, Elvis Costello (RH Audio/BOT)

This is Nobel Week, featuring press conferences with the winners, the official Nobel Lectures, and the awarding of the prizes at a banquet on Saturday night.

Many of the events will be streamed live on the Nobel page, but not the Lecture in Literature. The Nobel site states, “As Literature Laureate Bob Dylan will not be present during Nobel Week, the Nobel Lecture in Literature will not be held.”

He has, however, sent a thank you speech to be read at the Nobel banquet on Saturday, which begins at 4:30 pm Stockholm time (10:30 am, Eastern). It will be streamed live on the site.

In addition, Patti Smith will perform Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” during the banquet. RollingStone reports that Smith is “also taking part in the Nobel Week Dialogue event the day before on December 9th, where she’ll discuss the ‘importance of role models.'” They further report that not even the Nobel organizers know who will read Dylan’s “speech of thanks” at the gala.

Smith tells the magazine that Nobel organizers asked her to sing in September, before Dylan was named the Literature Laureate, “I had planned to perform one of my own songs with the orchestra … But after Bob Dylan was announced as the winner and he accepted it, It seemed appropriate to set my own song aside and choose one of his. I chose ‘A Hard Rain’ because it is one of his most beautiful songs. It combines his Rimbaudian mastery of language with a deep understanding of the causes of suffering and ultimately human resilience.”

The film adaptation of Dave Eggers’s dark satire about Silicon Valley, The Circle, is heading to the big screen on April 28, 2017. It features big time stars Karen Gillan, Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and John Boyega.

The first trailer has been released, causing enough stir to send the book rising on Amazon, moving from #338 to #213.

In print form, the novel did well, debuting at #7 on the NYT bestselling fiction list and attracting media attention, including a feature in The New Yorker.

A tie-in edition hits shelves in late March: The Circle (MTI), Dave Eggers (PRH/Vintage; RH/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

The #1 choice by librarians for the January 2017 LibraryReads list is The Girl Before by JP Delaney (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio), a domestic psychological suspense novel.

“A page turner that is sure to be a hit. Each chapter alternates between two time periods. Back “then,” there is Emma, looking for the perfect flat. Her agent suggests One Folgate Street, built by architect Edward Monkford. In present day, Jane, a single thirty-something also ends up on Folgate Street. Both women learn the sinister history of the property and readers won’t know who to trust as Delaney’s debut clutches you by the throat and won’t let you go.” — Kara Kohn, Plainfield Public Library District, Plainfield, IL

Additional Buzz: Also a hit with our GalleyChatters, Jennifer Winberry, Hunterdon County Library (NJ) described it as “a high speed ride through a tale of obsessions with twists and turns that don’t stop until after the final page is turned.” The debut, which is being marketed as the first book under a “pseudonym of an author who has written award-winning fiction under other names,” was sold to Universal in a hotly contested 2015 bidding war, reports Deadline Hollywood. Ron Howard is set to direct the project. Deadline also reports that bestselling author Tony Strong is the suspected author.

It leads a list filled wit debuts including:

The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden (PRH/Del Rey; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“We journey to 14th century Russia where the old ways still hold sway in the outlying villages and spirits and magical creatures are real. When Vasya’s stepmother and the new village priest try to end the pagan offerings, it us up to Vasya to stop the Bear from awakening. Can she find the strength to accept who she really is and protect her family and village? This magical story captivated me and pulled me fully into that world. The last third and the pulse-pounding finish had me on the edge of my seat.” — Joseph Jones, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Cuyahoga, OH

Additional Buzz: The hot debut Fantasy was one of our PRH EarlyReads Authors, which we featured in a chat in September. Also a GalleyChat pick. Andrienne Cruz (Azusa City Library, CA) said it will “cast a spell over adult readers.”

The Dry, Jane Harper (Macmillan/Flatiron Books).

“’Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral.’ These eight words will change everything for Agent Aaron Falk, summoned by the father or his former best friend. It appears Luke went on a rampage, murdering his wife, son, and then himself. At Luke’s father’s request, Aaron agrees to look into the murders/suicide and learns that the small town has long held grudges and secrets that may be best kept hidden in this atmospheric, chilling complex tale of anger and revenge.” — Jennifer Winberry, Hunterdon County Library, Flemington, NJ

Additional Buzz: Another big debut of the month, it is also a GalleyChat title. Vicki Nesting of St. Charles Parish Library (LA) said it was a “brilliantly plotted and atmospheric mystery.” Reese Witherspoon optioned film rights in advance of publication reports Deadline Hollywood. In draft form, the novel won the 2015 Victorian Premier Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, netting the author $15,000 in prize money. A past winner of the same prize was The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion (Simon & Schuster, 2013).

The Second Mrs. Hockaday, Susan Rivers (Algonquin Books).

“Placidia is seventeen when she marries Major Hockaday, an older man and recent widower with a child. After he is recalled to service in the Civil War, she must manage his farm and take care of his son and all with little help. When he returns, it is to find that she has given birth, and said to have murdered the child. Told in journal entries, letters, and court documents, we learn about her life and the answers to this puzzling and horrifically charged event. A dark book that highlights the amazing strength so many of these women had to develop.” — Diane Scholl, Batavia Public Library, Batavia, IL

Additional Buzz: This debut is also a GalleyChat title. Vicki Nesting weighs in with “For fans of epistolary novels, this is a compelling and moving story.” Rivers is an award-winning playwright.

Heartstone, Elle Katharine White (HC/Harper Voyager).

“A fun take on Pride and Prejudice in a fantasy setting. Merrybourne Manor has a gryphon infestation and has contracted with a band of Riders to kill them. As you can imagine, the main Rider is a little haughty and our heroine has a long memory. Familiar trials and tribulations occur with some detailed world-building, laying the groundwork for a sequel. Good for readers who don’t mind literary re-imaginings, love P&P, and Anne McCaffery’s Pern novels.” — Jenna Persick, Chester County Library, Exton, PA

Additional Buzz: Another of the early debuts of the year, it is a RT Top Pick (subscription may be required).

Maria Semple appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, to discuss her new book Today Will Be Different (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample). As a result, the book made an impressive jump on Amazon, moving from #1,038 to #381.

Host Terry Gross introduced the conversation by saying “It’s both hilarious and moving to read [main character] Eleanor’s most ungraceful attempts at self-improvement” before turning the actual interview over to Fresh Air producer Sam Briger.

He began by asking Semple about the book’s opening, a funny, kind of heartbreaking, mantra listing the kind of person Eleanor wishes to be. Simple says that when she sat down to begin the book, “I almost wrote that first page word for word. As soon as I finished it, it had this spooky, kind of scary, nauseating energy about it. And I thought wow, I think I’m about to embark on writing a novel that takes place in a single day.”

The interview concludes with a discussion of Semple’s earlier work as a TV writer for shows such as Arrested Development and Mad About You. 

Holds are strong in libraries, with several reaching 4:1 ratios on high numbers of copies.

Library Journal‘s Best Books of 2016 list includes these eight Macmillan titles:

Get the full story and more at MacmillanLibrary.com!