God Help the Child (RH/Knopf; RH and BOT Audio; OverDrive Sample), Toni Morrison’s new book, arrives at the end of the month. She is featured on the cover of the upcoming New York Times Magazine.

In a story that is part ode, part biography,
part call to arms, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah discusses Morrison’s aura, her writing and editing, and her reception by the publishing world, one dominated by people who
do not look like her.

“The perplexing but wonderful thing about Morrison’s career is just how much her prominence was created not by the mainstream publishing world, but by Morrison herself, on her own terms, in spite of it.”

The article starts with Morrison’s recording session for the Random House/BOT audio of God Help the Child. The NYT provides a video interview with a sample of the reading, which proves her skills as a narrator.

Books on Tape has also created a special landing page for the audiobook, announcing that Morrison will also record unabridged editions of her earlier books, Paradise and Song of Solomon, both audios to be published in 2016.

Below a longer clip from the audio.

A series of self-published erotic novels has been acquired by Hachette’s Forever imprint, reports the AP, to the tune of $7 million.

The first four titles in Meredith Wild’s Hacker series, Hardwired, Hardpressed, Hardline and Hard Limit have just been released by Forever in e-book editions. Paperback editions will follow on May 12,  The fifth and final book, Hard Love, will be published in both e-book and paperback on Sept. 15.

“Fans of Fifty Shades of Grey may recognize the Hacker narrative: Recent Harvard graduate and Internet entrepreneur Erica Hathaway falls for controlling billionaire Blake Landon,” notes the AP.

Another self-published romance author, Jasinda Wilder, has signed with Berkley Books, as reported by USA Today, in a seven-figure deal for a new trilogy, beginning with Madame X in November (Penguin/Berkley, 9781101986882).

The hit of this year’s Sundance Film Festival was a teen rom com about a girl with cancer, adapted from a book, Jesse Andrews’ Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, (Abrams, 2012). The screening won a standing ovation, the Audience Award for best drama, as well as the Grand Jury Prize, over-the-top reviews and Oscar predictions (see our list of other book adaptations in the early Oscars pool).

Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, the movie opens in limited release on June 12.

The trailer, released yesterday, gives a sense of what the excitement is about.

Official Site: meandearlmovie.com

Tie-in (note: we recently added dozens of new titles to our tie-ins listing; our full list of upcoming movie and TV adaptations is here).

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Movie Tie-in Edition)
Jesse Andrews
ABRAMS/Amulet Paperbacks: June 9, 2015
9781419719462, 1419719467
Trade Paperback, $9.95 USD, $11.95 CAD

Just announced, Terry Pratchett’s final novel in the Discworld series will be:

The Shepherd’s Crown
Pratchett, Terry
HarperCollins, 9/15/2015
Hardcover, 9780062429971
Audio, 9780062430557

The 41^st title in the series, it continues the Tiffany Aching sequence that began with The Wee Free Men in 2003 and includes A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I Shall Wear Midnight.

According to the announcement on Pratchett’s book site, he completed the novel in 2014, before his death earlier this year. It will be published in hardcover, ebook, and audio formats. NOTE: Some news sources say the publisher is Random House. They are the publisher of the U.K. edition. In the U.S., it will be released by HarperCollins.

The Shepherd’s Crown is not the only book coming from Pratchett. His fourth novel in the Long Earth series with Stephen Baxter, The Long Utopia (Harper; OverDrive Sample), is also due this year, on June 23^rd.

UPDATE: The release date is now set for 8/7/15

The enormous success of the movie based on Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl leaves fans wondering what has happened to the adaptation of another Flynn novel, Dark Places with an A-list cast headed by Charlize Theron.

Originally scheduled for release on Sept. 1, that date has come and gone with no further news. The movie just premiered in Paris, complete with Theron dazzling in Dior, to a mixed, but mostly positive review from The Hollywood Reporter, and a more negative one from Variety, and the note it will be released in the U.S.  “later this year,”

Perhaps the tie-in, now scheduled for release in June, offers a clue that it will arrive in the fall.

Meanwhile, as we noted earlier, Flynn’s first novel, Sharp Objects, is being adapted as a TV series.

Flynn, who has a developing career in Hollywood, is now at work on an original script with 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen.

How critical are plot inconsistencies to the enjoyment of a book?

Holly LeCraw’s new book, The Half Brother (RH/Doubleday; OverDrive Sample), has caught librarian Nancy Pearl in its plot lines.

On her weekly radio feature Nancy discusses how much she loves the novel in general, set in an Episcopal boarding school, and that she particularly admires its gorgeous language.

However, Nancy was less certain about the plot, which turns on several forced coincidences. that make her wonder if the book is ultimately successful. Her discussion is a model of how to talk about a book you may not fully admire. Finely balancing LeCraw’s strengths with her own reactions, Nancy leaves readers intrigued but forewarned.

Others are a more certain in their reactions. Booklist gave LeCraw’s second novel (after The Swimming Pool) a starred review, comparing LeCraw to Pat Conroy, Anne Tyler, and Donna Tartt. The Millions also made it one of their “Most Anticipated” titles for the year.

Nancy talks about a new book each week on Seattle’s NPR affiliate KUOW.

A new tell-all that reveals secrets from former members of the White House staff, The Residence by Kate Andersen Brower (Harper, 4/7/15), has zoomed up to #7 on Amazon’s sales rankings as a result of a confluence of media attention. Featured on the Today Show and Inside Edition yesterday, it is excerpted in Politico and is making headlines like “White House Staff Dishes on Clintons: Hillary Hit Bill With a Book, Crooks Had Open Door,” (The Daily Beast).

While the headlines focus on the Clintons, the book covers presidential families from the Kennedys to the Obamas. In its review, Kirkus indicates that interest in the book will reach beyond political junkies, as it features,  “Anecdotes both touching and hilarious about living and working in the White House … [with] an irresistible, charmingly pell-mell quality to the arrangement of these dishy stories.”

Holds in libraries are growing.

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Readers who geek out on Mad Men already know Billy Parrott, the Managing Librarian of the Art and Picture Collections at the New York Public Library, from his contributions to #MadMenReading, his blog, The Man Men Reading List, and Pinterest board, all dedicated to the books featured in the series.

Now Parrott is partnering with AMC to create an official reading list and is capturing the attention of the media as the final season of Mad Men airs. The Guardian features Parrott in a lengthy piece on the key books of the series – including works by Frank O’Hara and Dante – while New York magazine asks Parrott to provide a run down of the best literary scenes from the show.

Taking the opportunity to plug the library profession, he tells The Guardian,

“This is what librarians do on a daily basis. Every morning, on the subway on the way to work, I look to see what others are reading, and I think about what else I might suggest for them if they came up to me in the library and asked for a recommendation.”

Patti Smith has narrated just one audiobook, her own, Just Kids. Now she adds a second, Jo Nesbo’s Blood on Snow, (RH & BOT Audio; RH/Knopf print; Random House Large Print) a standalone released this week Entertainment Weekly features an audio clip and a book excerpt. According to the story, “Nesbø is a musician and songwriter himself, and the two artists are mutual admirers of each other’s work.”

Smith is set to publish a second memoir this fall, M Train (RH/Knopf; BOT Audio, Oct 6).

The 2015 Carnegie Medal Shortlist titles are in … and there are no surprises. All of the picks have either already won awards or been included on multiple Best Books lists, although none of them won either National Book Critics or National Book Awards.

Fiction Shortlist

All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (S&S/Scribner) — also a finalist for the National Book Award
Nora Webster, Colm Tóibín, (S&S/Scribner)
On Such A Full Sea, Chang-rae Lee (Penguin/Riverhead) — also an NBCC finalist

Nonfiction Shortlist

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson (RH/Spiegel & Grau)
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural Histor , Elizabeth Kolbert (Macmillan/Holt) — also an NBCC finalist
Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David, Lawrence Wright (RH/Knopf)  — also a finalist for the National Book Award

The winners will be announced on June 27^th during the ALA Annual Conference.

Next year librarian Nancy Pearl, who chaired the selection committee for its first three years, will return as chair for the 2016 awards, according to an ALA press release,. A time change is also in the works with plans to announce the winners at Midwinter along with the other prestigious RUSA Best Book Awards including The Notable Book List, The Reading List, The Dartmouth Medal, The Listen List, and The Sophie Brody Medal.

This month’s GallyChat has now ended. Join us for the next one to find out which galleys fellow librarians are loving – Tuesday, May 4th,
4 to 5 p.m. EDT (3:30 for virtual cocktails)

You may think of Jon Stewart as a city person, but on last night’s Daily Show, he reveals that he owns a couple of pigs, during an interview with Gene Baur, author of Living the Farm Sanctuary Life: The Ultimate Guide to Eating Mindfully, Living Longer, and Feeling Better Every Day, (Rodale, 4/7/15).

Stewart uttered the magic words, “It’s a terrific book … Get it!” causing it to jump to #68 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

The taint has been lifted from the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman,(Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe; HarperCollins Español; HarperCollins Español Audio; eBook) set for July 14.

On Friday, the Alabama officials looking into the case announced that accusations of elder abuse against Lee are unfounded. They declined to comment further. Due to confidentiality agreements, their findings will not be released. This followed the closing last month of the state’s investigation into fraud against Lee.

The novel will be released as an eBook as well as downloadable audio. It was only last year that Lee finally agreed to releasing To Kill a Mockingbird digitally.

It will also be available in Spanish-language print and audio editions, titled, Ve y pon un centinela.

Holds on all formats are reaching The Girl on the Train levels.

David Mitchell’s next novel is Slade House (Random House; ISBN 9780812998689; $26), to be published on Oct. 27^th.

The 272-page book, which is much shorter than a typically Mitchell tome, started out as a series of tweets and then, according to The LA Times “Jacket Copy,” “morphed, Mitchell-istically, into a five-part novel.”

Not much is known about the book as yet. The publisher information describes it as,

“a taut, intricately woven, spine-chilling, reality-warping novel. Set across five decades, beginning in 1979 and coming to its astonishing conclusion on October 31, 2015.”

The Guardian reports it is set in the same universe as The Bone Clocks.

Fans of Mitchell typically have to wait at least two years between titles, but Slade House will be in readers’ hands 13 months after most began reading The Bone Clocks.

In keeping with a move to create physically compelling print books, Slade House is in a smaller trim size than normal hardcovers and will be issued without a jacket so readers can appreciate the die cut cover and the peak-a-boo illustration beneath.

Libraries have plenty of hardcover copies of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch but it is still welcome news that the trade paperback edition (Hachette/Back Bay Books; ISBN 9780316055444; $20.00) hits the shelves this week, just in time for book club picks and kits.

It has also just been announced as the COSTCO book buyer’s pick for April.