Five Titles to Know, The Week of 9/1

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Of the books arriving next week one title leads by far in terms of holds and library orders, Lee Child’s 19th Jack Reicher novel, Personal, (RH/Delacorte; RH Large Print; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample). Fans may have recovered from the shock of Tom Cruise as the imposing Reicher in last year’s movie. Although it didn’t do well domestically, it went on to do so well internationally, that a sequel based on last year’s Never Go Back is reportedly in the works. Child is scheduled for appearances on NPR’s Weekend Edition on Sunday and on CBS This Morning on Monday.

Reviewers are in a race to be the first to cover Tana French’s latest, The Secret Place,  (Penguin/Viking; Penguin Audio; Thorndike; OverDrive Sample). The NYT ‘s Janet Maslin reviewed it a full week before publication, and it is People‘s “Book of the Week” in  the 9/8 issue. Librarians got there first, however, making it a LibraryReads pick for September:

French has broken my heart yet again with her fifth novel, which examines the ways in which teenagers and adults can be wily, calculating, and backstabbing, even with their friends. The tension-filled flashback narratives, relating to a murder investigation in suburban Dublin, will keep you turning pages late into the night. — Alison McCarty, Nassau County Public Library System, Callahan, FL

Even more reviewers are piling on one of the big literary novels of the season, The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell, (Random House). It’s already reviewed by Meg Wolitzer on NPR’s All Things Considered (“one of the most entertaining and thrilling novels I can remember”), by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times (who is not as big a fan; “Mr. Mitchell’s writing has also become increasingly self-indulgent”), Ron Charles in the Washington Post (who clearly is a fan) and as the lead title in the New York Times Book Review. (‘Other writers may be more moving, and some may push deeper, but very few excite the reader about both the visceral world and the visionary one as Mitchell does.”) Despite all this attention, library holds are relatively low on modest orders. OverDrive Sample

The books mentioned here, plus several other notable titles arriving next week, with ordering information and alternative formats, are listed on our donwloadable spreadsheet, New Title Radar, Week of Sept. 1, 2014

Librarian Recommendation

9780399167447_ea313Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good, Jan Karon, (Penguin/Putnam; Penguin Audio); OverDrive Sample

Wendy Bartlett of Cuyahoga Public Library, highlights this as a “hot title” to branch staff, and is also buying more copies of the series’ backlist:

Welcome back to Mitford! After a long hiatus, Jan Karon is back with Father Tim, Cynthia, Barnabas, and all the characters that have populated the various Mitford novels. And it’s just as Mitford-y as ever, which is a nice way of saying Karon has recycled about three different plots from the old novels, BUT HEY it’s Mitford, and the customers are already lining up for it, including me. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting Mitford and all the old favorite characters again, and our customers will too. And there’s a bookstore involved this time, so you can’t beat that!

We’ve ordered what backlist we can of the Mitford series, as some customers may want to backtrack and/or discover Mitford for the first time.

In the Media

Gabriel: A Poem, Edward Hirsch, (RH/Knopf); OverDrive Sample

Entertainment Weekly reviews poet Hirsch’s elegy for his son who died at 22, giving it a solid A and saying “Hirsch’s short, limber three-line stanzas are well suited to the staggered unfolding of the tragedy, as if Charon were tweeting updates from the banks of the river Styx.” The author will be featured on NPR’s Morning Edition next week.

Washington Post reviewer Ron Charles talked to Hirsch about the book in April:

Movie Tie-ins

The Boxtrolls: A Novel, Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, (Hachette/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

The Boxtrolls: Meet the Boxtrolls, Jennifer Fox, leveled reader, (LB Kids Paperback)

The stop-action animated movie, The Boxtrolls, is based on some of the creatures in Alan Snow’s nearly 550-page book, Here Be Monsters! (Atheneum, 2008, rereleased 8/5/14). Entertainment Weekly interviews the film’s co-directors Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi, who also directed Coraline and ParaNorman, about adopting the book.

Meet the Boxtrolls below. The movie opens, 9/26/2014

The Drop, Dennis Lehane, (HarperCollins/Morrow;  Trade Paperback; HarperAudio)

When is a novelization not a novelization? When it’s by Dennis Lehane. The movie The Drop, which stars James Gandolfini in his last film performance, is based on Lehane’s short story, “Animal Rescue.” The book, The Drop, is based on his script for the movie.

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