Hipster Superman Arrives

Superman is back, with a hoodie and a cellphone, flashing a fresh smile for the Twilight generation, and the media is eating it up. The graphic novel relaunch by DC Comics, Superman : Earth One by J. Straczynski and Shane Davis (Illustrator) first gained traction at the New York Post, leading to news coverage and an excerpt in USA Today, an AP wire story, and blog mentions from CBS News anchor Katie Couric and NPR’s Monkey See pop culture blog, among others.

At libraries we checked, reserves are in line with modest orders – but more media is likely to be on the way when the book goes on sale next week.

Superman: Earth One
J. Michael Straczynski
Retail Price: $19.99
Hardcover: 136 pages
Publisher: DC Comics – (2010-11-02)
ISBN / EAN: 1401224687 / 9781401224684

Usual Suspects on Sale Next Week

Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane (Morrow) forces Boston PI Patrick Kenzie to face the mistakes he made in a 1998’s Gone, Baby, Gone. New York Times critic Janet Maslin gives the book an early review, saying it gives “Mr. Lehane many occasions to write acid-etched dialogue and show off his fine powers of description.”

Happy Ever After, (Bride Quartet #4) by Nora Roberts (Berkley) is the final title in the paperback series. Says PW, “Roberts’s delicious ode to weddings and happy endings, the charming conclusion of the Bride Quartet.”

Indulgence in Death by J.D. Robb (Putnam) is the 32nd future cop thriller with NYPD Lt. Eve Dallas.

Edge by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster) pits an interrogator against a government agent trying to protect his target. PW says, “Deaver unveils some nifty new tricks in this edge-of-your-seat thriller . . . Deaver’s first first-person narrator, Corte, is an exciting new weapon in the author’s arsenal of memorable characters.”

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor) is the second novel based on work left unfinished by Jordan before his death in 2007.

Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel by Armistead Maupin (HarperCollins) stars Mary Ann Singleton, who returns to San Francisco at the ripe age of 57, twenty years after leaving the city. Kirkus calls it “agreeable entertainment until the ridiculous denouement.”

Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (Houghton Mifflin) re-imagines Henry James’s The Ambassadors. Kirkus raves, “This is superb, dazzling fiction. Ozick richly observes and lovingly crafts each character, and every sentence is a tribute to her masterful command of language.”

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