EarlyWord

Tony-winning Daveed Diggs, who earned the coveted statue for his origination of the roles of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette in Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Hamilton, is heading to the Stephen Chbosky film Wonder, based on the long-running middle-grade bestseller by R.J. Palacio, Wonder (RH/ Knopf Young Readers, 2012).

The critically acclaimed novel is about a 10 year-old boy with facial abnormalities who has been homeschooled and what happens when he enters a public school. Diggs will play Mr. Browne, says Deadline Hollywood, “an English teacher at the school whose approach to literature is to teach what it means to be human.”

He will star alongside Jacob Tremblay and Julia Roberts.

The novel is still on the NYT bestseller list, currently #3 on the Children’s Middle Grade Hardcover list.

Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner (PRH/Random House; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) got a big boost from NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, causing  the book to jump on Amazon’s sales rankings from 4,426 to 146.

The police procedural, a June LibraryReads pick, was inspired by Kate Atkinson’s approach to the Jackson Brodie mysteries, which Steiner says have “all the propulsion of mystery — so there’s that page-turning grit making you want to go back to it — but along with that is all the riffing and meandering and depth and relationship of a literary novel.”

The “riffing and meandering” in her case it is the character of detective inspector Manon Bradshaw, a very lonely woman who is suffering in her personal life, “in particular the tribulations of Internet dating, which she finds particularly miserable, as a lot of people do.”

The NPR interview also focused on Steiner’s process of writing. “I’m a huge rewriter,” she says, which helps her dose out the clues: “I do draft upon draft upon draft, and that provides an opportunity to backlay clues. So there was an awful lot of putting clues in, taking them out again, putting them back in, worrying it was then obvious … that’s a delicate balance because the reader wants to be co-sleuth — that’s part of the joy — but also not to work it out too early.”

NPR has been an early fan. In addition to the interview, Bethanne Patrick wrote an online only review in early July, saying “If you’ve binge-watched Happy Valley, The Fall or Prime Suspect, have I got a book for you … You might come to Missing, Presumed for the police procedural; you’ll stay for the layered, authentic characters that Steiner brings to life.”

Asked if there is a sequel in the works, Steiner told Weekend Edition, “There’s certainly another one.”

Holds are spiking at several libraries we checked, with ratios topping 5:1 in some locales.

We have a new name among holds leaders for books arriving this week, Ruth Ware for her second novel, The Woman in Cabin 10 (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). Refreshingly, this psychological thriller does not have a girl in the title. Ware’s first book, last year’s In A Dark, Dark Wood, was a LibraryReads pick, as is this one (see Peer Picks, below). Her debut also appeared on the NYT Hardcover Best Seller list for a week and has since developed a larger audience in trade paperback, currently on that NYT list at #6 after 7 weeks.

Ware follows authors with much longer track records, each of whom is releasing her seventeenth novel. The top title in holds for the week is Iris Johansen’s crime novel, Night and Day (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), followed by Jane Green’s romance, Falling (Penguin/Berkley; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

The titles covered here, 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 July 18, 2016

Consumer Media Picks

Not Pretty Enough, Gerri Hershey, (Macmillan/FSG).

People magazine’s “Book of the Week” — “This rollicking, Masterful biography celebrates a woman who had the audacity to tell us something we secretly knew already: Sex matters.” It is also reviewed in both the daily NYT and in the NYT Sunday Review, under the headline “Was She a Feminist? The Complicated Legacy of Helen Gurley Brown,” along with Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman by Brooke Hauser (HarperCollins/Harper; April). As the story points out much more will be coming on Brown, including a possible movie based on Enter Helen.

People also picks Delia Ephron’s Siracusa (PRH/Blue Rider Press; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), a LibraryReads pick that we covered last week as well as Nina Stibbe’s Paradise Lodge (Hachette/Little Brown). Of the latter, People comments, “You won’t find a funnier, more original confidante than Lizzie Vogel, a teen who’s taken a job in a nursing home.” Stibbe is the author of Love, Nina, an early LibraryReads pick and Man at the Helm, in which Lizzie first appears.

Peer Picks

Two July LibraryReads titles hit shelves this week.

The Hopefuls, Jennifer Close (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“When Beth and Matt, an aspiring politician, move from NYC to DC, Beth initially hates it. But things start to turn around for her when they befriend another “transplant” couple, Ashleigh and Jimmy. Beth’s loyalty is tested when she is forced to admit to herself that Matt is just not quite as attractive, magnetic or charismatic as his rival-friend, Jimmy…..who harbors similar political aspirations. The Hopefuls is on point in its descriptions of young marriage, career ambition, and complicated friendships. The characters are completely compelling. I was overdue for a great read and this was it!” — Amy Lapointe, Amherst Town Library, Amherst, NH

It is a summer reading favorite from Entertainment Weekly, Elle, Glamour, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Woman in Cabin 10, Ruth Ware (S&S/Gallery/Scout Press; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“An intruder in the middle of the night leaves Lo Blacklock feeling vulnerable. Trying to shake off her fears, she hopes her big break of covering the maiden voyage of the luxury cruise ship, the Aurora, will help. The first night of the voyage changes everything. What did she really see in the water and who was the woman in the cabin next door? The claustrophobic feeling of being on a ship and the twists and turns of who, and what, to believe keep you on the edge of your seat. Count on this being one of the hot reads this summer!” — Joseph Jones, Cuyahoga County Public Library, OH

It is also an August Indie Next pick as well as a summer reading selection by Entertainment Weekly and Amazon. EW said, “Call it THE GIRL ON THE BOAT.”

Another Indie Next pick out this week is The Secret Language of Stones, M. J. Rose (S&S/Atria Books), part of the Daughters of La Lune series.

“World War I Paris is a dangerous place for the young witch Opaline Duplessi. Still in denial about the true extent of her powers and hopelessly in love with a man she can never have, Opaline becomes caught up in a Russian émigré’s plan to save a Romanov from Bolshevik spies on the windswept English coast. Magic and intrigue collide in this captivating follow-up to The Witch of Painted Sorrows.” —Paula Longhurst, The King’s English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, UT

Tie-ins

Two tie-ins come out this week, both connecting to revamps of older projects.

Suicide Squad Vol. 4: The Janus Directive, John Ostrander (PRH/DC Comics) is the next collected edition featuring the super villain strike team who serve as covert agents on specialized black op missions.

The comic series was originally created by Ross Andru and Robert Kanigher in 1959. The movie adaptation is based on the newer 1987 series by John Ostrander.

There have been three previous collections:

Vol 1: Trial by Fire (Sept. 2015 — 9781401258313)

Vol. 2: The Nightshade Odyssey (Dec, 2015– 9781401258337)

Vol. 3: Rouges (April, 2016 — 9781401260910)

The movie was featured on the cover of the July 15 issue of Entertainment Weekly and boasts a large ensemble cast including Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, and Cara Delevingne. It opens on Aug. 5.

Also pubbing is Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Carol Wallace (Tyndale House; also in trade paperback and in Spanish).

It is an adaptation of the 1880 novel, which has already served as the basis of several movies, including the Charlton Heston film from the late 50s.

This new version of the text is not the 1880’s edition but, as the publisher says, an update by “Lew’s great-great-granddaughter [who] has taken the old-fashioned prose of this classic novel and breathed new life into it for today’s audience.”

The film stars Jack Huston and Morgan Freeman and opens Aug. 19.

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

This week was the 212th anniversary of the duel in which Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton.

Could that be the reason that Gore Vidal’s novel Burr (PRH/Vingate) hits the new USA Today best seller list 43 years after it was originally published?

Probably not. More likely, the sudden was sparked by a certain play, the same one that brought Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton (PRH/Penguin) back to best seller lists.

Hamilton’s ghost can take comfort in the fact that his bio is currently at #18 at USA Today‘s list, while the novel Burr is much further down, at #124.

Several publications have given attention to Vidal’s book recently, including,

The Smithsonian, “Before There Was Hamilton There Was Burr”, 6/6/16

The Washington Post, “Hamilton is a smash. Why so few other stories about the American Revolution?“, 7/6/16

In addition, there’s been stories about Brandon Victor Dixon who recently replaced Leslie Odom Jr. in the role of Burr.

Two literacy researchers have published a study that shows poor American communities are “book deserts.” Their work, covered in a story in The Atlantic, gives public and school librarians much to ponder.

Susan Neuman, a researcher at New York University who was in charge of implementing No Child Left Behind during the Presidency of George W. Bush, and co-author Naomi Moland, an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, found that, in poor communities there is little access to print resources for “kids of any age, including fiction and nonfiction books and newspapers.”

Scouring sample communities they found that roughly “2 percent of all the businesses in those neighborhoods” sold print resources, making it nearly impossible for parents to buy books for their children. A 2014 study of the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington DC found the community did not “have a single store selling a book for preschoolers, and there were only five books available for kids in grades K-12. In other words, 830 children would have to share a single book in the impoverished Washington neighborhood.”

“How do you become literate when there are no available resources?” asked Neuman.

The study does not include libraries, because, as The Atlantic reports “Statistically, poor families are far less likely to utilize public libraries, whether it’s because they’re not acclimated to using them or because they’re worried about being charged late fines, or because they’re skeptical of putting their name on a card associated with a government entity. Neuman has found that only 8 percent of such families report they have taken advantage of library resources.”

Equally as troubling are the long-term effects of book deserts. According to the study, “When there are no books, or when there are so few that choice is not an option, book reading becomes an occasion and not a routine.”

The new trailer for the adaptation of Patrick Ness’s YA novel A Monster Calls is drawing kudos from a wide range of publications from Gizmodo to the Rolling Stone.

Vanity Fair comments that the trailer gives hope that the movie will live up to the book’s heart-wrenching story and beautiful illustrations.

The movie debuts on October 21st.

Candlewick is releasing two tie-ins, including a hardcover “Special Collector’s Edition” that, in addition to the original illustrated YA novel, includes new essays by Ness, who worked on the screenplay, previously unpublished early sketches by illustrator Jim Kay and interviews with the director, cast, and crew.

A Monster Calls: Special Collectors’ Edition (Movie Tie-in): Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, Patrick Ness, Jim Kay, (Candlewick, October 4, 2016)

A Monster Calls: A Novel (Movie Tie-in): Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, Patrick Ness, Jim Kay (Candlewick, August 2, 2016, Trade Paperback)

The latest in the Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series, A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny (Macmillan/Minotaur) is the #1 LibraryReads pick for August.

“Armand Gamache is back, and it was worth the wait. As the new leader of the Surete academy, Gamche is working to stop corruption at its source and ensure the best start for the cadets. When a copy of an old map is found near the body of a dead professor, Gamache and Beauvoir race against the clock to find the killer before another person dies. A terrific novel that blends Penny’s amazing lyrical prose with characters that resonate long after the book ends. Highly recommended.” — David Singleton, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Charlotte, NC

Additional Buzz: It has earned a rare all-star sweep from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

The Dollhouse, Fiona Davis (PRH/Dutton; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“This is the story of the women who stayed in the Barbizon Hotel in the 1950’s. A reporter is tipped off about one of the women, who still lives in the building over 60 years later. As she tries to research a murder and a case of switched identities, she starts becoming part of the story. The narration switched between 2016 and 1952 and as I read the novel, I soon got caught up in the next piece of the puzzle. It had history, romance, and a way to view the changing roles of women. Enjoyed it very much!” — Donna Ballard, East Meadow Public Library, East Meadow, NY

Additional Buzz:  See our chat with the author here. It is also one of B&N‘s summer reading picks.

The Book That Matters Most, Ann Hood (Norton).

“A recently separated woman seeks solace and purpose in a local book group, while her daughter is dealing with her own life-changing problems that just might be resolved with a little literary assistance. The juxtaposition of the idyllic small town and the harsh reality of the seedier side of Paris, the weight of memory and regret, and the power of human connection, along with the engaging characters all work together to create an enthralling read. Readers will be carried away with the hope that these lovely and damaged characters can find their own happy ending.” — Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, South Huntington, NY

Additional Buzz: An Indie Next pick for August (one of several overlaps this month between booksellers and librarians’s selections), it is also a B&N summer reading pick.

The full list of ten selections is available now.

Confirmed by a Senate vote of 74 to 18, Carla Hayden, CEO of the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore Maryland, is the new Librarian of Congress. She will be the first woman,  the first African-American and only the third librarian to hold that position.

As the Baltimore Sun reports, she won approval despite an effort to block it by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which accused her of making porn available in libraries by opposing the “Children’s Internet Protection Act” of 2002 because the technology at the time would also block legitimate research..

Many feared that the vote would not take place before the Senate adjourns for its annual summer recess, but it came just days before.

This chat has now ended. You can read the archived version below.

For more on the Penguin Debut Authors Program, click here.

The NEA announces today a new focus for the Big Read program,  the national version of the Nancy Pearl invention “If All Seattle Read the Same Book.” The new focus, “Reflects Diversity of Contemporary Lives and Authors.”

As a result, several titles have been dropped, reports a syndicated story by the AP, including a staple of One Book programs, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, as well as poetry by Emily Dickinson, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

13 titles have been added. Among the new entries are more works by women, works in translation, poetry, short stories, memoirs, as well as  genre titles. Updated selections for three authors already on the list, Louise Erdrich, Marilynne Robinson, and Tobias Wolff, are also included..

The new titles are:

Five Skies, Ron Carlson (PRH/Penguin)

The Round House, Louise Erdrich (Harper/Harper Perennial)

How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2002, Joy Harjo (Norton)

To Live, Hua Yu, translated by Michael Berry (PRH/Anchor)

Pretty Monsters, Kelly Link (PRH/Speak)

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (PRH/Knopf)

Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng (PRH/Penguin)

Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine (Macmillan/Graywolf Press)

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (Macmillan/Picador)

This Boy’s Life: A Memoir, Tobias Wolff (Perseus/PGW/Legato/Grove Press)

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, Kao Kalia Yang (Consortium/Coffee House)

Book of Hours, Kevin Young (PRH/Knopf)

Ways of Going Home, Alejandro Zambra, translated by Megan McDowell (Macmillan/FSG)

The full list of Big Read titles is available online.

The books were selected by a range of readers, including a librarian, following a criteria that stressed the “capacity to: inspire lively and deep discussion; expand the voices, stories, and genres represented; generate interest from lapsed and/or reluctant readers while also challenging avid readers; and encourage innovative programming for communities.”

In the NEA’s statement, Amy Stolls, director of literature, says: “We hope that this new direction will inspire folks to discover new books and enjoy talking about them with family and friends, neighbors and peers, and especially people they have yet to meet.”

In her NYT review of Belgravia, the novel by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, Daisy Goodwin speculates on whether it will satisfy the legions who are still mourning the end of the TV series.

Curiously, Goodwin herself is in the running to fill that hole, as the writer and co-executive producer of an 8-part TV series Victoria, about the early years of the queen’s reign. It will run in January on PBS Masterpiece in the very time slot Downton once occupied (in the UK, it begins this fall on ITV, also in the time slot that Downton once ruled).

In addition, in late November, Goodwin will publish Victoria: A Novel (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press). It’s not clear that the book is the source for the series. The publisher description simply says, “Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the inner life of the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.”

Goodwin’s The Fortune Hunter (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, 2014) drew comparison from People magazine to Fellowes, “Downton Abbey fans will gallop like Thoroughbreds through this entertaining historical novel.”

Doctor Who alum Jenna Coleman will star in the TV series as Victoria, reports Entertainment Weekly, “beginning from her ascension to the throne in 1837, through to her courtship and marriage to Prince Albert,” played by Tom Hughes (About Time).

ITV has posted several clips, a longer first look and a teaser that reveals some of the lush costuming.

Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton enthuses to Entertainment Weekly, “Victoria has it all: a riveting script, brilliant cast, and spectacular locations. And it’s a true story! This is exactly the kind of programming Masterpiece fans will love.”

After first debuting as 11 serial downloads, Julian Fellowes’s newest take on old money, Belgravia (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), is being published in a single print volume.

Reviews are range from raves to disappointment.

USA Today is entirely positive, praising the “juicy” 400 pager for its “zipping” pace and giving it four out of four stars. The paper goes on to say Fellowes “channels Dickens, Austen and romance queen Georgette Heyer” in his novel of “class snobbery, social climbing, lucky orphans and family secrets.”

In the upcoming NYT Sunday Book Review, author Daisy Goodwin, whose romantic historicals have tilled similar ground to Fellowes, is not as impressed, “Reading Belgravia is rather like visiting a modern re-creation of a Victorian house — every cornice molding is perfect — but it’s a Victorian house with 21st-century plumbing and Wi-Fi. It’s for anyone who has tried to read a 19th-century novel and become bored.”

Addressing the big question of how it will play with Downton Abbey fans, Goodwin says there is “plenty to enjoy here, and there’s no one like Fellowes for giving good dowager. But without the talents of great actors to turn stereotypes into human beings, much of the characterization … Belgravia has everything one would expect of a Victorian novel, apart from its sentimental heart.”

As we noted in the July 4th Titles To Know, The Seattle Times found that, in comparison to Downton, “Belgravia, unfortunately, feels like a respectable but socially inferior cousin; it might get invited to dinner, but only out of obligation.”

Regardless of these reviews, and while readers did not embrace the serial format, holds are very strong at several libraries we checked, easily topping a 3:1 ratio.

Saying that his novel gave her “hours of great pleasure,” librarian Nancy Pearl talks with author Adam Haslett about his new book, Imagine Me Gone (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample) on the most recent episode of Book Lust TV,

Hassett says the book is described by one of his friends, “a love story about a family.” It follows five members of a family as they each narrate part of the story as it moves forward in time across 40 years. Nancy praises the strong characterizations and Haslett says that he always wants to “get as far into the texture and nuance of his characters’ life as possible.” For him, he continues, the process of entering “imaginatively and sympathetically” into a character is key. Like method acting, he says, he lives with the characters.

The two also discuss reading. Haslett says that he is dyslexic and that reading was always an effort. Unlike other kids who could disappear into an imagined world, he read (and still reads) very attentively, falling into an enjoyment of great sentences.

The NYT‘s “Sunday Book Review,” as we noted earlier, also says that Haslett learned the craft of sentences well, writing that the book is “ambitious and stirring” and that “it sneaks up on you with dark and winning humor, poignant tenderness and sentences so astute that they lift the spirit even when they’re awfully, awfully sad.”

As is her practice, Nancy asks Haslett to share some of his favorite titles and he lists the work of Amity Gaige and Paul Harding with whom he went to MFA school.

Imagine Me Gone was selected as a May Indie Next pick and is on Time magazine’s  “Best Books of 2016 So Far.” 

Lobster rolls with no lobster, tuna that is not tuna, olive oil that has only a passing relationship to olives are the subject of a book arriving today that has been rising quickly on Amazon’s sales rankings, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It by Larry Olmsted (Workman/Algonquin; OverDrive Sample).

The rise coincides with strong media attention across a variety of outlets including the New York Post, Town and Country, Forbes, Outside, and several NPR programs including The Leonard Lopate Show, The Diane Rehm Show, and All Things Considered.

Outside says Olmsted shows “readers how to navigate an increasingly complex food system” unveiling the ugly, and harmful, truth about the unregulated food scene, which he calls in his book “a massive industry of bait and switch.”

Kobe beef, for instance, which sells for astronomical prices in the US comes from a breed of cow that lives and is slaughtered in a specific area of Japan and that is fed a diet produced in that same region. A Kobe beef steak sells for triple digits in the US. The rub? Kobe beef is not allowed to be imported into the US by the USDA.

Even worse, as Olmsted reveals in Town and Country, fakes may contain ingredients few would knowingly choose to consume. Such as truffle oil, “The most common source of ‘natural truffle’ flavor in the oil” he says, “is a chemically altered form of formaldehyde.”

Season two of the popular STARZ Outlander adaptation wrapped on Saturday. The final episode revealed new characters and story lines and also how much the screen version has increased book sales for the entire series, with all eight titles showing impressive leaps on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Some people must feel the need to catch up, sending the first two books in Diana Gabaldon’s series,  Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber soaring. However, readers will find differences between the books and the series, particularly for season 2.

But the real interest lies in what comes next. Book 3 in the series, Voyager (PRH/Delta; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample) rose the highest on Amazon’s rankings, to #25. All the rest of the titles in the series also received significant bumps (the full list is here).

Two new seasons have been ordered, according to Variety. There is no air-date yet for season 3, but if the gap is anything like the time between seasons 1 and 2, fans will have to wait nearly a year, a period of time they mournfully call #Droughtlander.

It could take even longer than that, as casting for the new faces of season three has not even begun, co-executive producer Maril Davis told New York Magazine, “We haven’t actually started looking at anyone, but we’ll be starting fairly soon.” On top of this, new locations have to be spotted and new sets built as the action moves from Scotland to Jamaica.

When season 3 does air, fans can expect even more differences between page and screen reports Bustle, quoting executive producer, Ronald D. Moore, “Our goal is still to try and be as faithful as we can to the books [but] the longer that you go, the more the TV series inevitably veers from the book and certain plot lines then take on a life of their own … Those changes add up and the further in you go, the bigger those separations become.”

On the same topic Davis also told New York Magazine “In some ways, it should be like the books, but telling the TV version should be fresh. Even for book fans, you want to give them what they want, but in a different way sometimes. We want try to do that for season three as well.”

Gabaldon recently announced that the ninth book in her very slowly unfolding series (the first book was published over two decades ago) will be titled Tell The Bees That I Am Gone. A pub date is not yet known but Entertainment Weekly posted a brief excerpt.

Gabaldon has also said that a tenth book will be forthcoming, which she believes will finally wrap the series, and that she has plans for a prequel, focusing on her main character Jamie’s parents.