Welcome to EarlyWord
We're happy to announce our latest addition -- EarlyWord YA GalleyChat. Please join us the second Tuesday of every month at 4 p.m. Eastern (mark your calendars for Feb. 14. Yes, we heart YA) for a lively discussion of the new galleys grabbing readers' attention. And, don't forget our adult GalleyChat, the first Tuesday of each month (info on how to join each, here).
Let us know what is happening in your library. Email me with information on books that are getting an unexpected number of holds and the titles you enjoy recommending.
Keep on reading,
NoraNora Rawlinson Co-Founder and Editor
If you need an antidote to all the Best Books lists, try the New York Daily News list of the Most Overrated titles of the year (including the book that Esquire magazine named THE Book of the Year, The Submission by Amy Waldman).
Has Hollywood been reading the Best Books lists?
Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor, swept most of the children’s Best Books lists to date (the Washington Post and the National Book Awards are the only hold-outs. The author’s Lips Touch: Three Times, however, was a nominee in 2009). Universal announced yesterday that they have acquired the rights to adapt it.
It has all the elements that Hollywood loves. It’s the first in a planned trilogy (making it franchise material à la Twilight, Harry Potter and The Hunger Games), it’s written for young adults (see previous parens), but has strong cross-over appeal (ditto) and is a supernatural romance (similarities anyone?).
The next book in the series scheduled for publication in Sept, 2012.
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Hachette Audio; 9781611132977
The HBO series Game of Thrones brought a whole new audience to George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books. Get ready for season 2, based on the second title in the book series, A Clash of Kings, (RH/Ballantine, 1999).
It’s not coming until April, but HBO’s promotion machine (the second teaser trailer has already hit the screen) will keep it in on people’s radar.
Tie-in editions in trade pbk (9780345535412), mass market (9780345535429) and audio (9780449011102) are scheduled for late February.
We have asoft spot for the quirky debut novel by short story writer, Kevin Wilson, The Family Fang. Back in March, we discussed it in a special edition of GalleyChat and have enjoyed tracking its success ever since (Nicole Kidman likes it, too. She recently signed it for a movie). The latest accolade; it’s #4 on People magazine’s picks of the years Top Ten Books (Dec. 26 issue).
Like most of the other titles on People‘s list, it’s already on several others. The major exception is #9, In Zanesville, which received its first Best Book mention yesterday, when Nancy Pearl called it her favorite novel of year on NPR’s Morning Edition.
On April 23rd, a group of 50,000 “passionate readers” will be giving away a million books.
The program is “World Book Night,” an expanded version of a program that began in Britian, where it lead to an increase in book sales. Anna Quindlen has been named the honorary chair of the U.S. program.
Librarians are invited to apply to be “book givers.” Online applications are available today, at us.worldbooknight.org.
In addition to the giveaways, books will be shipped to prison libraries and military bases.
The thirty books in the program were chosen by a panel of independent booksellers, Barnes & Noble buyers, and librarians.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Hachette/ LBYR)
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick)
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (HarperPerennial)
Blood Work by Michael Connelly (Hachette/Grand Central)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (RH/Knopf Books for Young Readers)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Penguin/Riverhead); a Spanish-language edition, La breve y maravillosa vida de Óscar Wao (RH/Vintage Espanol), will also be made available.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Macmillan/Tor)
Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger (Perseus/Da Capo)
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (S&S/Scribner)
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (Norton)
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (Macmillan/Picador)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (RH/Ballantine)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (RH/Broadway)
Just Kids by Patti Smith (HarperCollins/Ecco)
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (Beacon Press)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Penguin/Riverhead)
Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Hachette/Back Bay)
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (S&S/Atria)
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (HMH/Mariner)
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (Grove Atlantic)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperPerennial)
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (RH/Ballantine)
Q Is for Quarry by Sue Grafton (Penguin/Berkley)
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (Workman/Algonquin)
The Stand by Stephen King (RH/Anchor)
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (HMH/Mariner)
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (Penguin/Viking Children’s)
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (RH/Vintage)
Two of the books that librarian Nancy Pearl recommended on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday experienced impressive sales surges at Amazon. A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War by Amanda Foreman rose to #49, from #282.
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Audio; Books on Tape; audio and ebook on OverDrive
The book Nancy calls “the best fantasy novel for fifth- to eighth-graders that I’ve read in a couple of years,” Down the Mysterly River by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham, rose to #158 from a lowly #14,220.
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Audio; Brilliance
Slate‘s technology columnist, Farhad Manjoo, tries to pour cold water all over Richard Russo’s NYT opinion piece, “Amazon’s Jungle Logic,” which argues that shopping at Amazon endangers local businesses.
Manjoo’s column, “Don’t Support Your Local Bookseller“ asserts that killing off indie bookstores might not be such a bad thing because they are, “some of the least efficient, least user-friendly, and most mistakenly mythologized local establishments you can find,” calling them “cultish, moldering institutions.”
What does “efficiency” mean to Majoo? Lower prices. Indies are not “efficient” because “Rent, utilities, and a brigade of book-reading workers aren’t cheap, so the only way for bookstores to stay afloat is to sell items at a huge markup.”
Paging George Orwell.
Editor/author/pundit, Marc Aronson spoke to NYC school librarians in November and repeatedly expressed his dislike for the phrase “non-fiction.”
“It is as if books about real things are less than made-up stories,” he exclaimed incredulously. He passionately advocated the renaming of the category “reality” books as in reality TV.
I wouldn’t go that far. At my library the signage says “non-fiction,” but the phrase we use more often is “information books,” so the kids who only want books about “real things” can find them. If you’re asked to recommend gift books for kids who aren’t interested in fiction, here’s my list of the year’s best.
This year brought three exemplary, highly illustrated memoirs by award-winning picture book illustrators.
All the Way to America: The Story of A Big Italian Family and A Little Shovel by Dan Yaccarino, RH/Knopf, $16.99 Ages 5 and up
As a nation of immigrants, we have many family stories of “coming to America.” This is Yaccarino’s, beginning with his great-grandfather, who grew up on a farm in Sorrento, Italy. As a child, he was given a little shovel to help tend the zucchini, tomatoes and strawberries that the family sold in the village. That shovel, handed down through the generations, tells the the story of Michele coming to New York City and the family that grew in the new land.
The House Baba Built: an Artist’s Childhood in China by Ed Young, Little Brown, $17.99, Ages 9 and up
Using mixed media — watercolor, pen and ink, crayon — the artist has created a collage of memories, depicting the China of his youth just before and during WWII. His family portraits, interspersed with archival magazine photos and illustrations evoke a lost time as he describes the home his father made in Shanghai to keep the children safe in troubled times.
Drawing From Memory by Allen Say, Scholastic Press, $17.99 ages 10 and up
Born and raised in Japan at the tail end of WW II, this Caldecott-winning artist left home at age twelve to live alone and attend an elite school. This memoir describes those years with his best friend Tokido, apprenticed to Noro Shinpei, a renowned cartoonist who they called Sensei.
Animal Baths by Bob Barner, Chronicle, $15.99, Ages 2 and up
Did you know eels’ pointy teeth are cleaned by tiny shrimp? That bears scratch against tall trees to rub off mud and ticks? This cheerful collection about how animals keep clean is illustrated with cut paper collage with pastels.
[A dozen more titles, after the jump; click below]
An eBook-only title appears at No. 8 on the current the NYT eBook Nonfiction list. It is just the second e-only title to hit that list, (after Sarah Burleton’s self-pubbed abuse memoir, Why Me?), according to tracking by Publishers Lunch.
The book, The POLITICO Playbook 2012: The Right Fights Back, by Mike Allen and Evan Thomas, is an instant digital book, the first in a series of four titles about the 2012 election to be published in a joint venture between the political news site, Politco and Random House. It is billed as “the first in-depth look inside the 2012 Republican race to the nomination.”
As with other Random House titles, it is available for library lending via OverDrive, in Kindle, ePub and audio formats. However, relatively few libraries seem to have ordered it, raising the question of how libraries discover and buy e-only titles.
Co-author Mike Allen, the chief White House correspondent for Politico, has promoted the book on several national television shows, including PBS’s Charlie Rose Show and CBS Face the Nation (bringing a tongue-in-cheek protest from the site FishBowlDC.com that POLITICO’s constant promotion has reached the saturation point).
NPR’s Fresh Air featured Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller yesterday, sending the book to #110, from 248, on Amazon’s sales rankings.
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Audio: Dreamscape
Appearing on the CBS Early Show, Kathryn Stockett admits that her next book, which will be set in Oxford, Mississippi during the 1920′s, was due to her publisher last January, but she’s still working on it.
On NPR’s Morning Edition today, Nancy Pearl talks about her favorite books of the year; those that feature people who become part of your life, so much so that when you finish, it’s “like you’re losing a friend.” (listen here)
Among the four titles she features on air (three more are on the Web site) is a debut novel, that she calls “her favorite novel of the year”:
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She also recommends a 1,000-page history of the Civil War, written from the point of view of Great Britain. Nancy says that author Amanda Foreman brings to life each one of the over 200 people she describes, from well-known politicians to a lesser-known female spy. The book is on many of the year’s best books lists.
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Audio; Books on Tape; audio and ebook on OverDrive
Amazon’s price-check app promotion is the subject of an opinion piece by author Richard Russo in today’s New York Times. Outraged by the program, he checked in with several fellow writers on how they feel about it. Even though all of them make a considerable amount of money through Amazon sales, they were all against Amazon’s tactics. Dennis Lehane calls it “scorched-earth capitalism.”
Russo makes an eloquent argument for supporting local bookstores and not shopping at Amazon. Unfortunately, many of the comments support cheaper prices over buying locally.
EarlyWord kids’ correspondent, Lisa Von Drasek recommended The Chronicles of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg, (HMH, $24.99; Brilliance Audio) as one of her “Books to Give Kids You Don’t Know Very Well.”
Nancy Pearl explores this unusual book in her interview with Van Allsburg on Friday’s Book Lust show on Seattle’s cable channel.
Above: Button and coaster from Diesel Bookstore in Oakland, CA
The Huffington Post poses the question of whether consumers should boycott Amazon.
The company’s Price Check App, which offers a 5% discount to customers in exchange for scanning prices in bricks-and-mortar store, was introduced late last week. The American Booksellers Association immediately issued a strongly-worded statement against the promotion (even though the program does not apply to books).
As The Huffington Post notes, the new policy further angers retailers, publishers and politicians who are already upset about the company’s sales tax policies and over the Amazon Kindle lending library.
Of course, many libraries buy from Amazon, either when specific titles are not available elsewhere, or when prices are significantly cheaper.
We’d like to hear from you about whether you have stopped buying from Amazon and why. Please let us know in the comments section.
[More on "Occupy Amazon" swag here]
