Archive for January, 2014

TODAY SHOW Picks UNDER THE WIDE

Thursday, January 23rd, 2014

Under the Wide and StarryThe Today Show Book Club, which has been quiet for a while, re-emerges with a new pick, Nancy Horan’s novel based on the story of Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van de Grift, Under The Wide and Starry Sky. (RH/Ballantine; released on Tuesday).

Describing the book, Savannah Guthrie says,”Think Downton Abbey with a twist.”

Stevenson’s name is in the air currently; it is also attached to the new STARZ series, Black Sails, billed a a “prequel” to the author’s classic, Treasure Island.

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This is the third pick since the club as announced in September. The others were:

1) The Bone Season, Samantha Shannon, (Macmillan/Bloomsbury)

2) Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Helen Fielding, (RH/Knopf)

Midwinter Galley Buzz

Thursday, January 23rd, 2014

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.

Bank Street Mock Newbery Awards

Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014

 lisabadge

On Tuesday, we reported on the voting for the Mock Printz awards by the kids at the Bank Street College of Education’s School for Children. We feared that the East Coast blizzard might affect the Mock Newbery program, but even snow and sleet couldn’t stop them.

Allie Bruce, Bank Street’s children’s librarian and Jennifer Brown, Director of the Center for Children’s Literature are excited that a fiction book — The Real Boy — and an information book — Wild Boy — tied as the winner. The honor book was Doll Bones.

Below, Allie and Jenny report the highlights of the discussions:

Winners – It’s a Tie!

The Real Boy   Wild Boy
The Real Boy
, Anne Ursu, Erin McGuire, (HarperCollins/Walden Pond)

“There was one point where I forgot to breathe for awhile.”

“I liked that it showed how uncomfortable he was with people, and how that tied in to the plot of the book.”

“It started slow but by the end I was not stopping.”

Wild Boy: The Real Life of the Savage of Aveyron, Mary Losure, Timothy Basil Ering, (Candlewick)

“It was really real. Lots of detail and it moved along quickly.”

“It tugged at my emotions.”

“I liked the illustrations.”

“You’re getting transported to all these places over 38 years.”

“It was really interesting all the things they were willing to do to get him to talk.”

“It grabbed your attention almost as if you were in his position.”

Honor Book:

9781416963981Doll Bones, Holly Black, Eliza Wheeler, (S&S/Margaret K. McElderry)

“I’ve never read anything like it. It was so creepy, like when the Queen’s eyelids were fluttering like she was waking up.”

“The characters were interesting. It was cool how they all played together. The author made it like when they played with the dolls and the action figures, it was like they were real.”

“A nice subtle build-up and then it gets more exciting.”

“It was really hard to put down. I was up for 3 hours after my bedtime.”

Hot Galley: BLOOD WILL OUT

Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014

Blood Will OutWhen a book is hotly anticipated by a  wide range of sources, our ears prick up. Walter Kirn’s Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade, (Norton/Liveright; March 3) is highlighted by  Library Journal‘s Barbara Hoffert in her extensive Midwinter 2014 Galley and Signing Guide. It is also one of USA Today‘s “10 Books Should You Read This Winter” and The Hollywood Reporter‘s “2014 Book Preview” as well as the more literary-inclined The Millions’ “Great 2014 Book Preview.”

The story of the con man who passed himself off as a member of the Rockefeller family has fascinated many. Mark Seal’s book, The Man in a Rockefeller Suit is in development for a movie by Walter Selles (The Motorcycle Diaries), and was the inspiration for the well-received novel, Schroder by Amity Gaige. Countless articles have also been written about him, including one last year in the New Yorker by Kirn himself, who was friends with the man he knew as “Clark Rockefeller” for fifteen years.

If you’re going to Midwinter, check for it at the Norton booth (#748). If not, you can request eARC’s through Edelweiss or print copies from the library marketing folks at Norton.

Midwinter ’14: LibraryReads Program

Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014

Midwinter 2014  library_reads_logo_website

LibraryReads:
Collaborative Discovery for Librarians & Patrons
Saturday, January 25; 11:30–12:30
PCC 114 Lecture Hall

Presenters: Melissa DeWild, Kent District Library (MI), Miriam Tuliao, New York Public Library, Stephanie Anderson, Darien Library (CT), and Kaite Stover, Kansas City Public Library.

FREE Advance Readers Copies, courtesy of the LibraryReads publishing partners

Bank Street’s Mock Printz

Tuesday, January 21st, 2014

lisabadge

Excitement is building over who will win the ALA Youth Media Awards, to be announced in a few days at Midwinter. Librarians aren’t the only ones who will be watching their Twitter feeds. So will the thousands of kids around the country who have voted in various Mocks.

The kids at my old stomping ground, the Center for Children’s Literature Bank Street College of Education recently voted in their Mock Printz program, ably led by  Jennifer Brown, Director (look for their Mock Newbery winners in the next few days, unless the East Coast snow storm delays it).

While the Honor Book the kids chose has been on many best books lists and was a National Book Award finalist, their winner did not get recognized on the major lists we tracked (see our downloadable spreadsheet 2013 Best BooksChildrens and YA), proving once again that kids and critics often differ.

Below, Jenny reports the winners and highlights of the discussions:

The Winner

TwerpTwerp by Mark Goldblatt (Random House BYR; Listening Library).

Highlights of the students’ book discussion:

“I had never read a book set in the 1960s. It was cool to see how someone who was my age back then was going through life.”

“I liked that it included phrases you’d expect a 12-year-old would say.”

“When he admits what he did, I liked how he wrote it. The whole book he was putting it off. He was having trouble admitting it because he felt really bad.”

“I liked how he would be talking about something and then get off-topic.”

“I liked that the characters were all really different from each other.”

“I liked that there was a real sense of hard reality.”

Honor Book

9780375849725_8d093-3Far Far Away by Tom McNeal, (RH/Knopf; Listening Library)

This title came in closest with the next highest number of votes. Students commented,

“It was a mixture of a lot of genres. The mystery made me want to keep reading.”

“I like that it was told from the point of view of a ghost. I’ve never read a book like that.”

“All the characters had different personalities.”

“You can’t staple it with a genre, it has aspects of different ones.”

“It was really creative and smart.”

“I couldn’t put it down.”
“The point of view of the ghost made it special and different.”

“It was a fantasy, but the characters seemed real.”

Amazon Puts Cart Before Horse

Monday, January 20th, 2014

When we saw the following headline, we immediately double-checked the story’s date. But, no, it’s dated Jan. 17, not April 1.

Headline of the week

According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon now has a patent for “anticipatory shipping.”

We’re working on a patent for anticipatory returns.

The fight to protect privacy continues to lose ground.

Different Hikes, Different Movies

Saturday, January 18th, 2014

Two upcoming films are each based on best selling memoirs about hiking, but their settings and tone are miles apart.

9780767902526   Issue_03_Redford_Su#BB6E507

Robert Redford notes, in this week’s The Hollywood Reporter cover storythat shooting will begin in March on the long-gestating adaptation of Bill Bryson’s memoir, A Walk in the Woods, (RH/Broadway; RH Audio, 1998). About the author’s quixotic attempts to hike the Appalachian Trail with his old pal Katz, a man even more ill-prepared for the adventure than he is, it stars Redford as Bryson and Nick Nolte as Katz (in a role originally planned for Redford’s late friend Paul Newman). Larry Charles. who wrote for Seinfeld and directed Borat as well as episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, is set to direct.

Different Coast, Different Tone

MV5BMTYwNzg2MjczMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzQ3NDc0MDE@._V1_SY317_CR118,0,214,317_   978-0-307-59273-6

Shooting has just wrapped on Wild, based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir (RH/Knopf; RH Audio; Thorndike; 2012) about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in an effort to resolve some deep personal issues, including drug use. Set to arrive in theaters later this year, Reese Witherspoon is both star and producer.The film is directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, whose Dallas Buyers Club received multiple Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

FLOWERS For the Weekend

Friday, January 17th, 2014

Flowers in the Attic OriginalIn prep for tomorrow night’s debut of the Lifetime adaptation of the 1979 novel, Flowers in the Attic, on track to become a camp classic, you must read the New Yorker‘s TV critic Emily Nussbaum’s analysis that the original, “isn’t really a book about incest after all, or even bad moms. It’s the written analogue of an after-school special about the dangers of reading.”

RED RISING Tops LibraryReads for February

Friday, January 17th, 2014

Red RisingCalled “the next great read for those who loved The Hunger Games,”  Pierce Brown’s debut Red Rising, (RH/Del Rey; Jan. 28) tops the February LibraryReads list. Cindy Stevens of the Pioneer [OK] Library System adds, “This story has so much action, intrigue, social commentary and character development that the reader who never reads science fiction will happily overlook the fact that the story takes place on Mars far in the future. The characters are perfectly flawed, causing the reader to feel compassion and revulsion for both sides. Can’t wait for the next installment!” Happily, you can tell readers that it is the first in a planned trilogy. Published as an adult title, it also has strong crossover YA appeal.

9780804139021Mars is played for laughs in another debut on the list, The Martian by Andy Weir (RH/Crown, Feb. 11). Originally published as an ebook, it caught the eye of Fox Studios which hired  Drew Goddard, to direct it. Goddard, a sought-after screenwriter (Cloverfield and Robopocalypse) made a big splash in his first outing as a director with the low budget hit, Cabin in the Woods. Since the book has already been released as in audio by Audilble, you can listen to a sample here.

9780062088253_0_Cover-4We’re pleased to see Wiley Cash’s second book, This Dark Road to Mercy (HarperCollins/Morrow; Jan. 28) is also picked. We were early fans of his 2012 debut, A Land More Kind Than Home. Robin Nesbitt, Columbus [OH] Metropolitan Library says Cash’s new book is “as good as his first,” which says a lot. If you’re going to Midwinter, look for him at the HarperCollins booth #731. You’ll get a warm reception; he’s a major fan of librarians (ask him about his cat).

The list includes a nonfiction pick, E.E. Cummings: A Life by Susan Cheever (RH/Pantheon, Feb. 11). It is excerpted in the current issue of Vanity Fair (unfortunately, it’s one of the articles only available by subscription). Says Linda Jeffries-Summers, Howard County [MD] Library,

Cummings is a pivotal figure in the creation of modern verse, and Cheever conveys his journey with color, warmth, and understanding, especially his imprisonment in France during the First World War, his father’s death and his final reunion with his daughter. She leaves the reader with only one wish: to be a fly on the wall while the poet held forth to his friends.

You can read many of these books now as eGalleys from Edelweiss and NetGalley. If you are going to midwinter, look for print galleys at publishers booths (check the interactive floor plan for booth locations).

To see if you’ve ordered these titles, check our downloadable spreadsheet, LibraryReads, which also lists alternate formats.

Remember to nominate your favorite forthcoming titles for LibraryReads!

To learn more, come to the LibraryReads program at Midwinter:

LibraryReads:
Collaborative Discovery for Librarians & Patrons
Saturday, Jan. 25, 11:30 – 12:30
PCC 114 Lecture Hall
[PLEASE NOTE: time & location were changed; check your schedule to make sure you have the correct one]

Promote LibraryReads!

Friday, January 17th, 2014

Help your readers discover librarians favorite titles for the month. Incorporate LibraryReads marketing materials in your newsletters, on your Web sites and in print, downloadable here.

Marketing Materials

Books Score with Oscar

Thursday, January 16th, 2014

The Oscar nominees have been announced. You can make your picks on ballots from several sources, including the NYT ballot.

Book adaptations made a strong showing in the major categories (we’re including August: Osage County, which is adapted from a play).

Oscar Nominees Based on Books — Major Categories

Best Picture — 5 of 9
Director — 3 of 5
Actor in a Leading Role — 3 of 5
Actress in a Leading Role — 2 of 5
Actor in a Supporting Role — 4 of 5
Actress in a Supporting Role — 3 of 5

Total — 20 of 34

The Leaders

9780143125273_3986f-2  9780143125419

A Captain's Duty, 2010  Wolf of Wall Street  9780143124726_0830b

The leading adaptations  are American Hustle (10 nominations, based on The Sting Man), 12 Years a Slave (9), Captain Phillips (6), The Wolf of Wall Street (5) and Philomena (4). For more on the books, see our list of Books to Movies and TV — Released in 2013.

Trailing Behind

Meanwhile, several other adaptations came up short, only getting nominations in the more technical categories, despite early predictions:

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug — Sound Editing, Visual Effects, Sounding Mixing

Lone Survivor —  Sound Editing, Sound Mixing

The Great Gatsby — Production Design, Costume Design

Inside Llewyn Davis — Cinematography, Sound Mixing

The Book Thief — Original Score

Saving Mr. Banks  — Original Score

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom — Original Song

Invisible Woman  — Costume Design

Winter/Spring Consumer Previews

Wednesday, January 15th, 2014

To help you stay on top of the lists of highly anticipated titles coming from various consumer media, (see links at right, under “Season Previews”), we’ve compiled a downloadable spreadsheet of all the titles to date, with alternative formats, for your use in checking orders and looking for galleys; Winter/Spring, 2014 — Previews

9781455578450  9781451685718   Hilary Clinton

By their nature, previews tend to be cautious, focusing on authors who are already well known, whether for previous surprise hits (Matthew Quick, Emma Donoghue, Maggie Shipstead, Peter Heller, Amy Chua), long track records (Stephen King, Laura Lippman, Ruth Reichl, Colson Whitehead) or for celebrity status (Rob Lowe’s Love Life and Robin Roberts’s Everybody’s Got Something rival Hillary Rodham Clinton’s untitled June release for attention).

You Should Have KnownAmong these lists of the predictable, it’s notable that Entertainment Weekly singles out one title as their lead, You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, (Hachette/Grand Central), calling it, “The thriller we’re already obsessed with.” The author’s 2009 novel Admission, about a Princeton admissions officer dealing overwrought parents trying to get their kids her school, was a critical success that was rendered unrecognizable as a rom-com movie starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd.

This new title is described as a “potential blockbuster about a Manhattan therapist who discovers her husband of 20 years is a sociopath.” Remind you of anything (the accompanying interview makes the connection, asking the author, “Do you think your novel, like Gone Girl, is part of a fiction trend of not sensing the truth about those we’re closest to?”)

Prepub reviews don’t exactly paint it that way. Kirkus calls it a “smart, leisurely study of midlife angst,” while PW praises it as an “excellent literary mystery.”

IF I STAY To Big Screen In August

Wednesday, January 15th, 2014

ifistay-paperbackThe film adaptation of Gayle Forman’s 2009 best selling YA title, If I Stay, (Penguin), is now set for release on August 22.

Actress Chole Moretz stars as Mia, a 17 year-old who, while in a coma after a car accident, must choose whether to live or die; Jamie Blackley (Snow White And The Huntsman, The Fifth Estate) as her boyfriend Adam; Mirella Enos and Denny Hall,  as her parents and Stacy Keach as Gramps. Director R. J Cutler is known for his documentaries, including the Emmy-award-winning American High.

Name That Display!

Wednesday, January 15th, 2014

Below is a virtual book display. What ties these books together and what title would you give the display? Email us with your answer (please also tell us how you came up with it) — put NAME THAT DISPLAY in the subject line (deadline, midnight, Eastern, Monday, Jan. 20).

The first to answer correctly wins a coveted print galley of Rainbow Rowell’s forthcoming book, Landline (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press).

Note: if you don’t win, you can comfort yourself by downloading the egalley.

Life Itself, Roger Ebert   One for Sorrow   Low Down

 A Most Wanted Man   White Bird in A Blizzard

Titles (links are to WorldCat)

Life Itself, Roger Ebert, Hachette/Grand Central, 2011

One for Sorrow, Christopher Barzak, Bantam Books, 2007

Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales From Childhood, A.J. Albany, Bloomsbury/Tin House, 2003

A Most Wanted Man, John le Carré, S&S/Scribner, 2008

White Bird in a Blizzard, Laura Kasischke, Hyperion, 1999