Archive for May, 2015

Inskeep’s JACKSONLAND

Wednesday, May 20th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-05-20 at 8.18.35 AMSteve Inskeep’s Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross and a Great American Land Grab (Penguin; Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample) rises to #51 on Amazon’s sales rankings as a result of the author’s appearances on Morning Edition (where he is the co-host) and on PBS NewsHour.

Inskeep’s history explores Jackson’s role in the forced relocation of the Cherokee Nation as well as the brilliant efforts of Chief John Ross to stop him, using the tools of democracy and politics to protect Cherokee land. He sought white allies, brought suit in the United States Supreme Court (and won), and published stories in newspapers. Nothing, however, could stop the relentless expansion Jackson and white farmers sought.

In recognition of this history, Inskeep argues in an OpEd piece in the New York Times, that Chief Ross’s image should replace Jackson’s  on the $20 bill.

Inskeep discusses his book with NewsHour co-host Judy Woodruff at Busboys and Poets, a local restaurant/bookstore in Washington D.C.

WONDERSTRUCK To Movies

Wednesday, May 20th, 2015

9780545027892Director Todd Haynes is currently the toast of Cannes, where the director’s movie Carol, based on the book by Patricia Highsmith, is expected to win the Palme d”Or.

So attention is turning to his next projects. Screen Daily reports that, for one of them, he will again turn to books, a childrens book this time, Brian Selznick’s Wonderstruck (Scholastic, 2011).

9780545448680_e1f05If it comes to pass, this will be Selznick’s second book to be adapted by a celebrated director, after Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning Hugo, based on The Invention Of Hugo Cabret.

Don’t hold your breath though, Haynes has some other projects on his plate, including a biopic about Peggy Lee starring Reese Witherspoon as well as a new TV series (he directed the 2011 HBO series Mildred Pierce).

Closer on the horizon is Selznick’s next book, The Marvels (Scholastic), set for publication on 9/15/15. There are no reviews yet. The following is from the publishers’ description:

Two seemingly unrelated stories — one in words, the other in pictures — come together … The illustrated story begins in 1766 with Billy Marvel, the lone survivor of a shipwreck, and charts the adventures of his family of actors over five generations. The prose story opens in 1990 and follows Joseph, who has run away from school to an estranged uncle’s puzzling house in London, where he, along with the reader, must piece together many mysteries.

First Trailer, SCORCH TRIALS

Tuesday, May 19th, 2015

The first trailer for the second in the Maze Runner series, based James Dasher’s The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials, (RH/Delaccorte) has just been released.

MTV is excited. So is New York magazine. As is Entertainment Weekly.

The movie is set for release on Sept., 18, the tie-in for August in  hardcover and in trade pbk.

Buzz for Blume

Tuesday, May 19th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-05-19 at 9.19.23 AMJudy Blume’s first novel for adults in 17 years, In the Unlikely Event (RH/Knopf; BOT and Random House Audio; OverDrive Sample) is getting advance attention from the many grownup fans of Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.

CBS Sunday Morning devoted a segment to Blume over the weekend, with Rita Braver. Chloe Sevigny chats with Blume for Harper’s Bazaar.

The upcoming  NYT Magazine features Blume as the cover story, providing a wide-ranging interview touching everything from her anxiety over germs to John Green’s admiration. Blume offers this take on her career:

“I’m a storyteller — you know what I mean — an inventor of people … and their relationships. It’s not that I love the words — that’s not the kind of writer I am. So I’m not” — she made a furious scribbling motion with her right hand — “I’m not a great writer. But maybe I’m a really good storyteller.”

Indeed. Just ask the millions of readers who have read Blume devotedly since they were tweens. Her newest addresses that most familiar audience as well as her adult readers, offering a generation-spanning story set in Elizabeth, NJ when three planes crashed in little over 3 months in the early 1950s.

To promote the book, Blume will set off on a celebrity-studded tour starting with BookCon on the 31st, where Jennifer Weiner will host an interview. After that, she will be featured in conversations with Meg Wolitzer, Walter Mayes, Molly Ringwald, Ridley Pearson, and Curtis Sittenfeld. She will visit with Nancy Pearl on June 11th.

Holds are strong on strong ordering.

CAROL’s a Hit at Cannes

Tuesday, May 19th, 2015

9780393325997Even before a single frame of the movie was released, Carol, based on Patricia Highsmith’s The Price Of Salt, 1952 (available in trade paperback from Norton, 2004; movie tie-in coming in Sept.) was considered a strong Oscar contender.

In Cannes, where it premiered over the weekend, Deadline characterized the reception as “euphoric.”  It is considered the front rummer to win the Palme d’Or.

A December 18 release date was recently announced, prime time for Oscar contenders. The movie’s also received a news boost from Cate Blanchett. She plays the lead character who embarks on a lesbian affair with Roony Mara. When Variety asked if she has had personal experience in this realm, she replied, “Yes, many times” (she has since denied that statement, saying the quote was incomplete).

Reminder to readers advisors, Highsmith was writing “domestic noir” long before the current crop of best sellers. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, was adapted as a film by Alfred Hitchcock. David Fincher,  Gillian Flynn and Ben Affleck have teamed up to do their own version. Highsmith also wrote the Ripley series, which has been adapted into several films, most recently The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Unlike her other books, The Price of Salt, which she wrote under a psuedonymn in 1952. is not a psychological thriller. Vilified in the ’50’s for portraying a lesbian affair with a relatively happy ending, it went out of print and was brought back by feminist presses in the 1970’s and most recently by Norton.

Reviewing a 2009 biography of Highsmith, Jonathan Lethem recommended a “core curriculum” of the author’s novels. Publisher Norton has created a clever recommendation web site, Choose Your Highsmith, which also features a video of several authors, including Alison Bechdel, expressing their enthusiasm for The Price of Salt.

The film trailer has not been released yet. Below is a clip:

Tie-in, with movie cover art,  coming in Sept:

Carol
Patricia Highsmith

  • Trade Paperback; $14.95
  • ISBN 978-0-393-35268-9

 

Neurosurgery’s Boswell

Tuesday, May 19th, 2015

9781250065810_f4331-2British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh’s book, Do No Harm  Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery (Macmillan/ St. Martin’s; HighBridge Audio, 5/25/15), “gives us an extraordinarily intimate, compassionate and sometimes frightening understanding of his vocation. He writes with uncommon power and frankness,” according to critic Michiko Kakutani in today’s New York Times.  The New Yorker also gives the book high marks  saying Marsh “writes like a novelist—he thinks in terms of scenes, patterns, and contrasts,” comparing him to Ian McEwan, who provides the book’s cover blurb,

Neurosurgery has met its Boswell in Henry Marsh. Painfully honest about the mistakes that can “wreck” a brain, exquisitely attuned to the tense and transient bond between doctor and patient, and hilariously impatient of hospital management, Marsh draws us deep into medicine’s most difficult art and lifts our spirits. It’s a superb achievement.

Marsh is more interested in his failures than his successes, and therefore, as Kakutani says, the book can make unsettling reading. However, given the number of books by physicians that have found their way to best seller lists recently, that may not be a deter readers. Check your holds.

SYFY Offers First Look at
THE MAGICIANS

Monday, May 18th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 10.14.54 AMThe Syfy channel recently released the “First Look” trailer for its 12-episode series adapting Lev Grossman’s The Magicians (Plume; Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample) which will air sometime in 2016.

The series stars Jason Ralph (he has appeared on TV series Madam Secretary and Gossip Girl and in films such as A Most Violent Year) as Quentin Coldwater, a new recruit at the Brakebills College, a school of magic.

As we noted before, the Syfy channel has several book adaptations in the works.

AN EMBER IN THE ASHES
Gets a Sequel

Monday, May 18th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-05-18 at 11.04.36 AMAlmost instantly joining a group of writers that includes Veronica Roth and Suzanne Collins, YA author Sabaa Tahir is having a great few months.

Her debut An Ember in the Ashes (Penguin/Razorbill; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample) came out on April 28th and hit the NYT Best Seller list the week of May 17th at the no. 2 spot sandwiched between two John Green novels. Tough as it is to break through the John Green logjam, which has dominated the top three spots for month, it is even more so for a debut. This week established YA best sellers Sarah Maas and Sarah Dessen managed to hit #2 and #3, moving Tahir’s novel to #6.

Now comes news, reported bythe NYT that Penguin has acquired a sequel from Tahir, due out sometime in 2016.

Tahir’s fantasy got rave reviews, most often stressing its strong storytelling and worldbuilding.

Bradley Campbell of Public Radio International (PRI) compares the book to both Hunger Games and JK Rowling in a radio interview, saying:

Her new book kept me up at night. I couldn’t put the book down. I’m not the only one. It seems as though anyone who touches the book cannot stop reading until the story ends. It has the addictive quality of The Hunger Games combined with the fantasy of Harry Potter and the brutality of Game of Thrones.

Laura M. Bell of The Huffington Post offers:

One thing I can say for sure: this is a page-turner. There comes a moment when it’s impossible to put it down. Sabaa Tahir is a strong writer, but most of all, she’s a great storyteller…Even when the story is squarely anchored in traditional YA dystopian tropes, many of the twists and turns are difficult to predict. The story is complex, encompassing political scheming, betrayal, and supernatural forces, and the different threads entwine effectively.

Author Marie Rutkoski, writing for the NYT Book Review, says:

The novel thrusts its readers into a world marred by violence and oppression, yet does so with simple prose that can offer moments of loveliness in its clarity. This complexity makes “Ember” a worthy novel — and one as brave as its characters.

Holds are currently steady on moderate ordering but this one is worth keeping your eye on.

ME BEFORE YOU
Release Date Moved to 2016

Monday, May 18th, 2015

Me Before YouThe film adaptation of the 2012 best seller by Jo Jo Moyes, Me Before You (Penguin/Pamela Dorman) is has been rescheduled for release on June 3, 2016, moved nearly a year from its original  Aug. 21, 2015 date.

Starring Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) and Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games), it is directed by Thea Sharrock. This will be her first feature film, after directing the BBC miniseries The Hollow CroAfter Youwn and Call The Midwife. as well as several theatrical productions.

The book’s sequel After You, (Penguin/Pamela Dorman; Penguin Audio) has been announced for September (DRC’s are not available yet, but look for galleys at ALA).

The Daily Mail publishes scenes from the the movie set in Wales,

STEVE JOBS, Trailer

Monday, May 18th, 2015

The movie Steve Jobs has a multitude of high-profile names attached to it, including director Danny Boyle, screen writer Aaron Sorkin, lead actor, Michael Fassbender and the author of the bio it’s based on, Walter Isaacson. It was teased in appropriate fashion with a spot on last night’s high-profile final episode (the “final episode EVER” as we were continually reminded) of AMC’s Mad Men.

The trailer is less than a minute long, but that gave critics enough to work with, from the New York Times (“seems to be courting Oscars right out of the gate”) to the L.A. Times  (“As befits the legacy of Jobs — an inveterate showman who whipped the Apple faithful into a frenzy by keeping the company’s creations secret until just the right moment — the teaser is enigmatic and intriguing”).

The movie arrives Oct. 9. A tie-in has not been announced.

Controversy Sells;
CLINTON CASH

Monday, May 18th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 9.26.35 AMProving once again that there’s nothing like controversy to help sell a book, Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer (Harper; HarperCollins audio; OverDrive Sample) debuts on the NYT Best Seller List at #2 for the week of May 24.

The book accuses the Clintons of selling influence to foreign governments and individuals through the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton campaign has fought back by identifying several factual errors. As a result, Harper has changed the Kindle version to delete passages or revise sections. As reported in Politico, Amazon sent purchasers a notice that “significant revisions have been made” to their electronic copies, which Harper then said were just  “7-8 factual corrections.”

Undaunted, Schweizer continues roiling up controversy. In the new issue of USA Today, he objects to his testy interview with George Stephanopoulos in April, saying he should get a do-over because the broadcaster did not reveal that he personally donated $75,000 to the Clinton campaign in 2012.

Thirteen Tip-of-the-Tongue Titles, the Week of May 18

Friday, May 15th, 2015

Several best selling names return next week, but none of them with major holds lists, a surprising comment when James Patterson is one of the names. His latest, however, is not an adult title, but the ninth and final in his YA series, Maximum Ride. Also returning are Clive Barker and Stephen Hunter.

It’s a big week for recommendations by librarians and booksellers, with six new titles for consideration and three other titles are already getting advance attention.

The titles covered here, and several more notable titles arriving next week, are listed, with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of May 18, 2015

Advance Attention

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Ashlee Vance, (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio)

The subject of this book has taken to Twitter to refute its claims, with the unintended consequence of causing the book’s sales to rise on Amazon. It is reviewed in both the daily New York Times and the NYT Book Review, 5/13/15

Disclaimer: A Novel, Renée Knight, (Harper; HarperLuxe; HarperAudio)

“The Latest Buzzy Thriller From England,”  as the Wall Street Journal‘s headline describes it, is a domestic noir first novel told in alternating chapters and is, you guessed it, compared to both Gone Girl and Girl on the Train. Film rights have been sold to 20th Century Fox

War of the Encyclopaedists, Christopher Robinson, Gavin Kovite, (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio)

An early review by Michiko Kakutani in the daily New York Times signals a book with literary buzz. Co-written by two friends, this novel portrays two men with backgrounds similar to their own. Separated when one of them is called up by his National Guard unit, they stay in touch by editing a Wikipedia entry. Of that curious construction, Kakutani says, “The plotting of this novel can feel ad hoc and overly stage-managed at the same time, but in a breezy, intimate sort of way,” and concludes that the result is ” a captivating coming-of-age novel that is, by turns, funny and sad and elegiac.” An interview in the Wall Street Journal delves into the complex writing collaboration.

Peer Picks

9780804179034_f4113Uprooted, Naomi Novik, (RH/Del Rey)

LibraryReads #1 pick and Indie Next

A young girl is unexpectedly uprooted from her family and becomes involved in a centuries-old battle with The Wood, a malevolent entity which destroys anyone it touches. Fast-paced, with magic, mystery and romance, Novik’s stand-alone novel is a fairy tale for adults. — Lucy Lockley, St. Charles City-County Library, St. Peters, MO

9780062190376_9ac29Seveneves, Neal Stephenson, (HarperCollins/Morrow)

Indie Next and LibraryReads:

Stephenson’s back in fine form with this hard science fiction masterpiece, combining the detail of Cryptonomicon with the fast-paced action of Reamde. Fans of Anathem will appreciate Stephenson’s speculation about the possibilities of human evolution. This book is a great follow-up for readers who enjoyed the science of Weir’s The Martian. I heartily recommend Seveneves to SF readers. — Keith Hayes, Wake County Public Libraries, Cary, NC

9780062364777_3d492Mislaid: A Novel, Nell Zink, (HarperCollins/Ecco; HighBridge Audio)

After the critical success of her first book, The Walllcreeper, you can expect many reviews for this one. Already weighing in is Ron Charles in The Washington Post and the author is profiled in the New Yorker.

Mislaid is also a June Indie Next pick:

Where Zink’s debut novel, The Wallcreeper, defied easy plot summary, Mislaid is arguably even more hilariously audacious by shouting its plot so loudly. Peggy knows from an early age that she is a lesbian. Lust being a strange thing, however, she sometimes ends up pregnant by way of her gay poetry professor, Lee. Zink presses every button we’re often conditioned to avoid regarding gender, sex, and race and revels in the fluidity of our sense of self. It may very well be the case that the famously elusive novelist Thomas Pynchon has finally been revealed — and he is in fact an American female expat living outside Berlin named Nell Zink. —Brad Johnson, DIESEL: A Bookstore, Oakland, CA

9780385539586_65e98The Knockoff, Lucy Sykes, Jo Piazza (RH/Doubleday; RH Audio)

LibraryReads:

The Knockoff is a digital-age mash-up of old-school movies The Women and All About Eve, set in the Devil Wears Prada world of a high fashion magazine. I absolutely loved this fresh, charming, addictive and ultimately heroic story of 40-something cancer survivor Imogen’s quest to rescue and rebuild her career, despite the machinations of a younger tech-wiz rival. — Janet Schneider, Bryant Library, Roslyn, NY

 

9780544330146_88b09The Ghost Fields, Elly Griffiths, (HMH)

LibraryReads:

Griffiths has written another strong entry in her excellent Ruth Galloway series. Here, Ruth is called in when a World War II plane is excavated, complete with pilot–but the pilot is in the wrong plane. Strong characters combine with an absorbing puzzle to create a hard-to-put-down mystery. — Beth Mills, New Rochelle Public Library, New Rochelle, NY

 

9781250028594_1a15aLittle Black Lies : A Novel, Sharon Bolton, aka, S. J. Bolton (Macmillan/Minotaur)

LibraryReads:

Set in the Falkland Islands, this novel grabs you from the opening paragraph. A child is missing, and he’s not the first. The incident sets off a chain of events leading to multiple characters confessing to murder. Accustomed to living in an idyllic community, fear and anger escalate among the locals. Bolton has created a page-turner of a story with a surprise ending. — Elizabeth Kanouse, Denville Public Library, Denville, NJ

In the Media

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The host of NPR’s Morning Edition, Steve Inskeep, will have a natural platform to discuss his new book, Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab, (Penguin Press; Penguin Audio).

GalleyChatter, BEA 2015 Special Edition

Friday, May 15th, 2015

Book Expo America is around the corner (Wed., May 27 through Fri., May 29; see our First-Timers Guide here as well as our Edelweiss collection of titles to  be featured at BEA 2015). There are bound to be more galleys grabbed than can be stuffed in a suitcase, so choosing just the right titles is paramount. Below is a rundown of highly anticipated titles road tested by our devoted GalleyChatters. Even if you’re not going to the show, this will give you a good idea of what’s going to be hot this summer and fall. Most are available as Digital Review Copies. — Robin Beerbower, EarlyWord’s GalleyChatter

your-life

Jonathan Evison will be signing galleys of his latest book, This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! (Algonquin/Workman, September) in the Workman booth. When Harriet Chance receives a reminder that her late husband’s Alaskan cruise tickets from a raffle are expiring, the 79-year-old decides to sail by herself, unaware of the family secrets that will emerge. As usual, Evison has such a clear eye for developing his characters and we love them despite their foibles.  I agree with Rosemary Smith, top Edelweiss reviewer and blogger, who said “Evison writes like a dream.”

Screen Shot 2015-05-06 at 9.07.20 PMAnnie Barrows will be appearing at the Annual BEA Adult Librarians’ Author Lunch and has already received high praise from two Galleychatters for her new book The Truth According to Us (Dial Press/RH, June).  Janet Schneider (Bryant Library, NY) said this novel about a young woman writing for the Federal Writer’s Project in Depression-era West Virginia is “moving and complex, with fascinating main and secondary characters. Reminiscent in tone of Cold Mountain without the physical journey.”

9780345534187_5a2b2  9780865477636

Paula McLain is appearing at the Penguin Random House librarians’ breakfast to talk about her highly anticipated novel, Circling the Sun (Ballantine/RH, July), the story of aviation pioneer Beryl Markham whose own memoir, West With the Night was a sensation when it was first released (Hemingway said, in characteristically sexist terms, “this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers”) and again when it was rediscovered and republished in the 1980’s. Still in print, it was published in a new edition recently (North Point Press, 2013). New Rochelle (NY) Public Library’s Beth Mills says the novel can’t miss with its “compelling sense of place and the dramatic Karen Blixen/Denis Finch-Hatton/Beryl love triangle will pull in the Out of Africa fans.”

9780316261135_3027f  9780316334525_dcbbc

BEA regular Elin Hilderbrand will be signing copies of her forthcoming holiday novel Winter Stroll (Little Brown, October) in the Hachette booth as well as The Rumor (Little Brown, June) which arrives just in time for tossing in a vacation bag. As usual, Hilderbrand writes a juicy novel full of secrets, lies, and relationships. Stephanie Chase (Hillsboro Library, Oregon) said, “Full of everything that makes a Hilderbrand novel a wonderful read, from descriptions of food and Nantucket to a clash of privilege to friendships, rivalries, and affairs. So much fun!”

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Sourcebooks Landmark will be giving away a large number of Katarina Bivald’s The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend (January 2016). St. Charles Parish Library’s (LA) Vicki Nesting suggests picking up a copy of  this charming tale of about a Swedish bookseller arriving in a dying town to visit her pen pal, only to find she has passed away. Vicki says it is  “full of life, love, and the power of books, and is perfect for fans of Lorna Landvik and Fannie Flagg.”

9781501105432_667ec

Glamour magazine books editor Elisabeth Egan’s
A Window Opens (S&S, August) could have been simply a good contemporary women’s novel about marriage, career, and children, but in Egan’s deft hands it becomes a novel that anyone who loves books will appreciate (one of Egan’s characters suggests those of us who read e-galleys, print galleys, and “carbon-based books” are “platform agnostics”). Simon & Schuster will be giving away galleys and Egan will be appearing in the session Debut Fiction from Industry Insiders.

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BEA Editors’ Buzz Adult Books will feature Dan Marshall’s scorching memoir, Home is Burning (Macmillan/Flatiron, October). Painfully honest, shockingly irreverent, extremely crude, and at times side-splittingly funny, Marshall’s remembrances of the year of taking care of his father dying from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) while also dealing with his mother’s cancer battle had me laughing through my tears. The publisher says “Dave Eggers meets David Sedaris,” which is an apt description, and I would add Augusten Burroughs to the mix.

9780385353779_2660fGarth Risk Hallberg’s ambitious debut City on Fire, set in gritty 1970s New York City is a high-profile title, because of reports that it sold to Knopf for almost $2 million with movie rights going to Scott Rudin. Many of us were wanted to know if it is worth the 900 plus page count. The good news is that regular chatter Janet Lockhart gives it double thumbs up. She says, “A New Year’s Eve attack on a young girl connects the stories of a wide cast of characters that includes punk rockers, artists, school teachers, high school students, financial advisors, police officers, journalists, fireworks experts and more.  A literary page turner that will appeal to fans of Tom Wolfe, Dickens, David Foster Wallace, and Donna Tartt.” Hallberg will also be appearing at the BEA Editors’ Buzz Adult Books session.

9780804137256_05e3b

GalleyChatters have been clamoring for months for the galley of Ernest Cline’s Armada (Crown/RH, July), the followup to librarian favorite Ready Player One,  Not only is the Digital Review Copy available now, but he will speak at the AAP’s Librarians’ Dinner. Leslie Stokes (Heard Co. Public Library, Georgia) said “Cline retains his magical ability to pull the reader into his story and take us on a thrilling ride. Fans of his first novel will be glad to see the return of 1980s pop culture references, but they are not so plentiful or obscure as to need footnotes.“

See our downloadable spreadsheet for more GalleyChat road-tested BEA titles. And don’t forget to join us for the post-BEA GalleyChat, Tues., June 2nd, 4 to 5 pm, EDT #ewgc (more details here).

ALIENIST To Become TNT Series

Thursday, May 14th, 2015

9780812976144After several attempts to adapt it as a movie, Caleb Carr’s best selling 1994 psychological thriller set in gilded age era New York, The Alienist is now headed to the small screen, as an 8-part series for TNT with Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) attached to direct.

Deadline reports this is part of a shift in the focus for the network towards  “edgier original programming.”

The series still has to be cast and filmed, so it will be at least a year until it comes to fruition, depending on Fukunaga’s schedule. He just completed work on Beasts of No Nation, based on the novel by Uzodinma Iweala, for Netflix and is gearing up for an adaptation of Stephen King’s IT. Variety reports that Will Poulter is currently in negotiations to play the demonic clown Pennywise.

Holds Alert: LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE

Thursday, May 14th, 2015

Luckiest Girl AliveWord of mouth seems to growing for Jessica Knoll’s debut novel Luckiest Girl Alive (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). Based on its recent move up Amazon’s sales rankings, it is likely to hit best seller lists next week and may get an additional boost as  People‘s “Book of the Week” in the new issue, “the perfect page turner to start your summer.”

We named it a “Watch Title” for this week, based on reviews and GalleyChatters enthusiasm. Since then, holds have taken off with some libraries showing ratios as high as 9:1 on very light ordering.

Hollywood is also calling. Reese Witherspoon, who has developed an eye for domestic thrillers, having produced the film of Gone Girl, plans to adapt the novel for Lionsgate.