Archive for April, 2015

GRACE Of LIFETIME

Thursday, April 23rd, 2015

9781602862418_df7f5A year after it was controversially featured as the opening film at Cannes, American audiences will finally get to see the bio-pic featuring Niclole Kidman as Princess Grace, titled after the book it is based on, Grace of Monaco by Jeffrey Robinson (Perseus/Da Capo; Audio, Dreamscape).

It is not coming to the big screen, however. In quite a comedown from opening the Cannes Festival, it makes its U.S. debut on the cable network Lifetime on Memorial Day, May 25th.

The film was booed at Cannes and the kinder critics said is was “not Kidman’s finest hour.”

Cookbooks, “The Golden Age”

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

Remember when people thought the digital age would spell the end to cookbooks?

Ironically, the online recipe site, Epicurious, begs to differ. Calling this the “Cookbook Golden Age,” they say, “If cookbooks were just collections of recipes, you could sum them up in an index. But the best books weave the wit and spirit of their authors right into every page.”

They have whittled “The Epicurious Cookbook Canon Longlist,” based on nominees from readers, down to just ten.

Either list is a great opportunity for a display, real or virtual.

Also check out Epicurious‘s list of 30 Spring Cookbooks We’re Excited For (hurrah! our favorite Brooklyn ice cream truck/stand reveals their secrets in June; Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream, HarperCollins/Ecco).

MTV’s SHANNARA

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

Sword_of_shannara_hardcoverPromoted as the heir to Game of Thrones, MTV executives debuted a clip yesterday at a “glitzy event” (according to the L.A. Times) held in New York of the as yet unscheduled series The Shannara Chronicles.

Part of MTV’s efforts to win back ratings, it is based on Terry Brooks’s long-running series which began with The Sword of Shannara (RH/Del Rey 1977). I just  recently begun production, but MTV has already begun promoting the stars on their web site.

Tie-ins are currently scheduled for release in December.

The Elfstones of Shannara (The Shannara Chronicles Book One) (TV Tie-in Edition)
Terry Brooks
RH/Del Rey, December 1, 2015
Trade PaperbackMass Market

The Wishsong of Shannara (The Shannara Chronicles Book Two) (TV Tie-in Edition)
Terry Brooks
RH/Del Rey, December 1, 2015
Trade Paperback

Nancy Pearl Loves Historical Mysteries

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-04-22 at 10.38.21 AMLibrarian Nancy Pearl picks a title from one her favorite genres, historical mysteries, for her weekly radio show.

The Strangler Vine (Penguin/Putnam; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample, 3/31/15) by M.J. Carter is a debut set in 1837 India. Nancy calls it “an old-fashioned adventure novel.”

Carter is the author of two nonfiction works and uses her skills in research to create a vividly set historical thriller tracing the adventures of William Avery, a newly arrived British solider, and Jeremiah Blake, a seasoned spy gone native.

In praise any publisher would kill for, Nancy says it is “wonderful reading, I just couldn’t put it down.”

The New York Post agrees, making it one of their “This week’s must-read books” and calling it a “yarn reminiscent of adventures by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

Nancy appears every Tuesday on Seattle’s NPR affiliate KUOW and an archive of her appearances is also available.

A Cop With Storytelling Chops

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-04-22 at 10.12.05 AMSteve Osborne is a storytelling genius as is clear by his appearance on NPR’s Fresh Air.

At a time when cops are in the news for all the wrong reasons, Osborne brings a new voice to the conversation, an authentic and compelling one telling vivid and visceral stories about life on the line.

In his debut memoir, The Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop (RH/Doubleday; BOT Audio; OverDrive Sample), Osborne relates stories from 20 years in the New York Police Department.

Osborne is also a favorite on The Moth (a not-for profit storytelling collective) where he has honed his story telling chops, a fact quite evident as he turned his interview on Fresh Air into a performance of its own. His book jumped up the Amazon rankings as a result.

In a wise move, Books on Tape has Osborne narrate the audiobook.

Krakauer on the CBS EARLY SHOW

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

9780385538732_e12b5Jon Krakauer was interviewed on today’s CBS Early Show about his new book, which goes on sale today, MissoulaRape and the Justice System in a College Town (RH/Doubleday; RH & BOT Audio; RH Large Print).

He will appear tomorrow on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. He has also appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday

The book has been reviewed in USA Today, by Janet Maslin in the New York  Times and by Caitlin Flanagan in the Washington Post.

ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB,
Coming to ABC

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

Astronaut Wives Club  AWC_Key_Art_Embed

The 10-episode The Astronaut Wives Club will debut on ABC in June 18, based on Lily Koppel’s book of the same title (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio and Large Print). The cover of the book, featuring the actual wives is on the left. Next to it, the poster for the series, featuring the wives as portrayed by JoAnna Garcia Swisher, Yvonne Strahovski, Dominique McElligott, Odette Annable, Erin Cummings, Azure Parsons and Zoe Boyle.

The first episode is directed by Lone Scherfig, director of the An Education and One Day.

About the wives of of the first U.S. astronauts, the book became a best seller after it was featured on another network, CBS Sunday Morning in 2013.

New Pages From
A WRINKLE IN TIME

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-04-21 at 11.14.09 AMThree new pages have been discovered from an earlier draft of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time (Macmillan/Square Fish; OverDrive Sample).

The pages feature Meg, Calvin, and Mr. Murry at the point Meg has just escaped from Camazotz. Meg asks her father how the Black Thing captured Camazotz and Mr. Murry launches into a lecture on freedom, totalitarianism, and the dangers of security.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, L’Engle experts agree with her decision to cut the pages pre-publication and they will not be included in any new editions.

The found pages are just an example of the many edits L’Engle had to make to find a publisher. In 1960 she wrote in her journal about the demands of one publisher who rejected the book and suggested its length be reduced by 50%:

Today I am crawling around in the depths of gloom … I’m willing to rewrite, to rewrite extensively, to cut as much as necessary; but I am not willing to mutilate, to destroy the essence of the book.

As we reported earlier, a film version by Disney is in the works, with Jennifer Lee (Frozen) set to direct.

This Week on the DAILY SHOW

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

9780062333810_9ddcdLast night, Jon Stewart’s guest was Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield (Harper, 4/21/15), the story of a group of  women who volunteered for a mission to help Rangers in Afghanistan, by making contact with a group they could not, Afghan women. Called “cultural support” rather than front theater combat troops, they were in fact on the front lines and the woman at the center of the story died.

Visibly moved, Stewart called it “a terrific book.”

A hot property in Hollywood, the film rights to the Ashley’s War were recently won at auction by Reese Witherspoon.

 
The interview was somewhat overshadowed by Stewart’s announcement that his last show will be Aug. 6.

9781455584895_22802Tomorrow night, the show will feature Dana Perino, former White House Press Secretary for George W. Bush and a political commentator for Stewart’s favorite punching bag, Fox News. Her book And the Good News Is…: Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side. (Hachette/Twelve; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print) is being published today.

On Thursday, Stewart will interview one of his favorites, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium. His new TV series StarTalk begins on Monday night on NatGeo. He is the author of several books, including, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier (Norton, 2012), The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet (Norton, 2009) and Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries (Norton, 2007).

ALL THE LIGHT Wins Pulitzer

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

All The Light We Cannot SeeGuaranteeing its continued tenure on best seller lists, All the Light We Cannot See (S&S/Scribner) by Anthony Doerr won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, announced yesterday.

An unexpected breakout best seller, it was on most of the year’s best books lists, a finalist for the National Book Award (that prize went to Redeployment by Phil Klay, Penguin Press), and is on the shortlist for ALA’s 2015 Carnegie Medal.

UPDATE: The Guardian describes how Doerr got the news of his win and says the book “is not like your average great American novel, in part because it is a very lyrical piece of work.” The Daily Beast gives an in-depth look at all the winners.

General Nonfiction Winner

The SixThe Sixth Extinctionth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert (Macmillan/Holt; S&S Audio)

Also on multiple best books lists this year, including the New York Times Book Review‘s Top Ten, it was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and  a finalist for the upcoming ALA Carnegie Medal.

She managed to leaven the book’s scary findings with humor, wisecracking with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show last year:

The other books winning Pulitzers are:

9780809042395  9780812993462_e7c87  9781935536505_a3cc5

History
Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn (Hill and Wang)

UPDATE: A University of Colorado professor, Fenn is at work on a biography of Sacagawea.

Biography or Autobiography
The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe by David I. Kertzer (Random House)

UPDATE: The author says the win was a complete shock. He also notes that Steven Spielberg is still working on plans to adapt his 1977 book, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (RH/Knopf),

Poetry
Digest by Gregory Pardlo (University Press of New England/Four Way Books)

UPDATE: The poet discusses his unexpected fame in an interview in the New York Times.

Hugo Awards Under Siege

Monday, April 20th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 12.35.40 PMGeorge R.R. Martin says the Hugo Awards are “broken… and I am not sure they can ever be repaired.”

He made the comment after a successful campaign to swamp the nomination process triggered a nasty fight which has now degenerated into an all-out battle over the future of the award. The fallout has been reported widely, by The Atlantic, The Guardian, Slate, and Entertainment Weekly.

The short version is that two online groups posted lists of suggested titles and urged those who agreed with their own decidedly right of center political/cultural leanings to pay the $40 it costs to vote and swamp the nomination process – and they succeeded.

Two authors have responded by withdrawing their nominated works from the awards.

Annie Bellet withdrew her short story “Goodnight Stars,” posting “I am not a ball. I do not want to be a player. This is not what my writing is about.”

Marko Kloos withdrew his novel Lines of Departure (Amazon/47North), “keeping the nomination is not a moral option at this point.”

In response the World Science Fiction Society, which runs the Hugo Awards said,

“This year is the first time in the history of the Hugo Awards that a finalist has withdrawn a work after announcement of the finalist shortlist. Nominees with sufficient nominating votes to make the shortlist have in the past declined nomination as Finalists; however, this has always happened before the shortlist was announced.”

Black Gate, a fanzine, has withdrawn as well although they did so too late to change the ballot.

Connie Willis also withdrew as a presenter at the award ceremony saying,

“I’ve essentially been told to engage in some light-hearted banter with the nominees, give one of them the award, and by my presence–and my silence–lend cover and credibility to winners who got the award through bullying and extortion. Well, I won’t do it. I can’t do it. If I did, I’d be collaborating with them in their scheme.”

Bottom line for librarians: Many Science Fiction and Fantasy fans may see this year’s round of winners as tainted no matter who wins. Unfortunately, an award librarians have relied on for years to highlight the best in two very popular genres is now suspect and, unless a solution can be found, other awards may be vulnerable to similar hijacking.

Timing: MISSOULA

Monday, April 20th, 2015

9780385538732_e12b5It may seem bad timing that Jon Krakauer’s book, MissoulaRape and the Justice System in a College Town (RH/Doubleday; RH & BOT Audio; RH Large Print) arrives just months after the Rolling Stone‘s story on an incident at the University of Virginia,  “A Campus Rape,” was discredited. However, as Krakauer tells NPR Weekend Edition yesterday, the book was originally planned for release in the fall, but was rushed into print as a form of rebuttal. He says the “Rolling Stone fiasco” ended up as ammunition for those who believe the myth that women lie about being raped and notes that, “in 90% of rapes, the rapist walks away.”

The author will also appear on the CBS Early Show on Wednesday and NPR’s Diane Rehm Show the next day.

The local community is disturbed by the attention the book may bring, as evidenced by the number of stories in the local newspaper. At his request, Krakauer is scheduled to take questions from Missoulians on May 6 at a public forum held by the local bookstore, Fact and Fiction.

The book is reviewed today in USA Today and by Janet Maslin in the New York  Times.

Paula Hawkins: New Book Coming

Monday, April 20th, 2015

The Girl on the TrainThe author of the uber-bestselling The Girl on the Train (Penguin/Riverhead), Paula Hawkins tells The Daily Beast that she is at work on another psychological thriller that she hopes “to finish over the summer so that it hopefully will be out summer or autumn of next year.”

She adds, “It also deals quite a lot with memory issues, but in a different way. It’s about the memories we have from childhood and how the stories that we tell about ourselves and our families shape who we are.”

She drops no hints about the title and admits she is feeling the pressure to try to live up to the success of GOTT, but says she is persevering because she doesn’t want to “leave too big a gap between the first book and the second, because the longer that gap, the more terrifying the publication of the second book becomes.”

CLINTON CASH: Embargo Broken

Monday, April 20th, 2015

9780062369284_4d7a3Calling it “the most anticipated and feared book” of Hillary Clinton’s nascent presidential campaign, the New York Times breaks the embargo in a story published today on the forthcoming Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich by Peter Schweizer (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe, 5/9/15). Fox News immediately lept on the story, but New York Magazine is less excitable, “New Book Will Ostensibly Make People Care About Shady Clinton Donations.”

Expect to hear more about the book. Schweizer is a conservative writer with strong media ties. His previous book Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets (HMH, 2013), was the basis of a 2013 CBS 60 Minutes feature. One of the subjects of that story, N.J. Rep. Rob Andrews (D) resigned this February amidst an investigation by the the House Ethics Committee, begun before the 60 Minutes story, into his use of campaign funds.

Due to the book’s embargo, it has not been reviewed in the pre-pub media. As a result, some libraries have not ordered it.

Best Sellers: THE LIGHT Makes a Comeback

Friday, April 17th, 2015

All The Light We Cannot SeeWe’d gotten used to seeing Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See at #2 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list, tucked right behind the juggernaut of The Girl on the Train. But then Harlan Coben’s The Stranger came along and knocked it into third place. Last week, J.R. Ward’s The Shadows cast it into fourth place and it looked like the beginning of a slide.

But this week, The Light has returned to its old spot, banishing The Shadows altogether and moving The Stranger down to 4th position (The Girl on the Train keeps chugging along at #1).

The novel took Doerr ten years to write, a journey he described last month in Scribner Magazine.

A year ago, before the book became a best seller, Doerr talked about the places and ideas that inspired him.