Midwinter Galley Buzz

What galleys will librarians be looking for when the Midwinter show floor opens tomorrow night?

They may be on the lookout for titles have already received advance attention from the media, such as Walter Kirn’s Blood Will Out, (Norton/Liveright) which we wrote about yesterday, Emma Donoghue’s Frog Music, (Hachette/Grand Central — see our earlier story) and Jean Hanff Korelitz’s You Should Have Known, (Hachette/Grand Central) which, as we wrote earlier,  Entertainment Weekly calls “the thriller we’re obsessed with: a woman’s water-in-the face wakeup call from the author.”

To help you spot more of the galleys with buzz, we’ve culled Barbara Hoffert’s extensive LJ Midwinter 2014 Galley and Signing Guide for other titles and authors already being buzzed in the media and created the downloadable Midwinter Buzz Galleys (for those of you sitting out Midwinter, you may want to use it to hunt down egalleys).

LandlineWhat are fellow librarians looking forward to? We checked on the titles librarians are talking about on the Edelweiss community board and GalleyChat as well as those on the LibraryReads lists and added them in the spreadsheet.

One of the top titles on librarians’ lists is Rainbow Rowell’s Landline, coming in July from Macmillan. Librarians have adopted this author, making her YA title Fangirl the #1 pick for the inaugural LibraryReads list and are eager to get their hands on her latest, this one written for adults, but with crossover appeal. Copies will be available at the AAP Booktalk Breakfast on Monday and at her signing at the Macmillan booth, #622 on Sunday, 1/26, at 3:00 p.m.

Other titles with librarian buzz:

The Deepest Secret  The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry  This Dark Road to Mercy

The Deepest Secret, Carla Buckley, (RH/Bantam, Booth #831)  — “much love” from librarians on Edelweiss. On GalleyChat it was described as, “A bit like Defending Jacob. How far a parent goes to protect a child.”

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin, (Workman/Algonquin, Booth #740) — on GalleyChat, librarian Robin Beerbower enthused,  “Is it too soon to say my 2014 fave book is STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY (Zevin)? LOVED it.”

This Dark Road to Mercy(HarperCollins/Morrow, Booth #731) — a favorite author on GalleyChat since his 2012 debut, A Land More Kind Than Home, we were pleased to see his second book on the latest LibraryReads list. Robin Nesbitt, Columbus [OH] Metropolitan Library says Cash’s new book is “as good as his first,” which says a lot. He is speaking at the AAP BookTalk Breakfast on Monday and will be signing in the booth (#713) after. Expect a warm reception; librarians love him and he loves them back (and he’s nuts about his cat).

9780143122548One special tip: Fans of Gone Girl, The Husband’s Secret and The Silent Wife must go to the Penguin booth #935 on  Sunday, 10 to 11 a.m., to meet Sarah Weinman. Her book, Troubled Daughters. Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense celebrates the grandmothers of the current hot genre, writers who, as Weinman says,  “take a scalpel to contemporary society and slice away until its dark essence reveals itself.” Weinman’s intro alone should be assigned reading for readers advisors

In addition, several of the authors who have been featured in First Flights, the Penguin Debut Authors program will be signing (see full schedule here), including Magnus Flyte, City of Lost Dreams; Emily Croy Barker, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic and M.D. Waters, Archetype.

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