Archive for June, 2015

#1 May LibraryReads Title
to Big Screen

Tuesday, June 9th, 2015

Is Hollywood taking note of the LibraryReads picks?

Warner Bros. has just won a bidding war for the rights to the LibraryReads #1 Pick for May, Naomi Novik’s Uprooted (RH/Del Rey; OverDrive Sample). Aaccording to The Hollywood Reporter. Ellen DeGeneres will produce. She currently has six TV shows in production, “making this her rare foray into features.”

Screen Shot 2015-04-14 at 12.12.50 PMLucy Lockley of St. Charles City-County Library (MO) offers this description of the story:

“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.”

Mockingjay Part 2, First Teaser

Tuesday, June 9th, 2015

The first teaser debuted today for the final movie in the series based on the YA titles by Suzanne Collins. The movie arrives November 20.

Also just released, a trailer for another post-apocalyptic science-fiction movie based on a YA novel often suggested as a readalike for Hunger Games, Z for Zachariah, the 1974 book by Robert C. O’Brien. The movie, a hit at the Sundance film Festival, arrives August 21.

Our Books to Movies & TV listing has updated information on over 400 adaptations in the works (for tie-ins, check our Edelweiss collection).

VanderMeer Wins Nebula

Tuesday, June 9th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-06-09 at 8.33.29 AMJeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation (Macmillan/FSG; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), the first title in his Southern Reach trilogy, has won the 2014 Nebula Award (presented in 2015) for best novel.

Along with Authority and Acceptance (books two and three), Annihilation tells the story of Area X, an isolated landscape cut off from human occupation which nature has taken back. Previous expeditions to the area have resulted in nightmare outcomes. Now a new expedition is under way.

When we wrote earlier about the series we quoted Sara Sklaroff’s review in The Washington Post which still stands as a good summary, “Annihilation is successfully creepy, an old-style gothic horror novel set in a not-too-distant future. The best bits turn your mind inside out.”

VanderMeer’s acceptance speech makes note of the Hugo controversy and the need for diverse reading.

This is the first time the very literary-leaning FSG has published a Nebula winning title.

Three other Nebulas are awarded for best novella, novelette, and short story (each based upon word count).

Screen Shot 2015-06-09 at 9.25.13 AMNancy Kress won the novella category for Yesterday’s Kin (Tachyon Publications; OverDrive Sample) while Ursula Vernon won best short story for “Jackalope Wives.”

Screen Shot 2015-06-09 at 9.26.10 AMAlaya Dawn Johnson won the Novelette category for A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i. She also won The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy for Love Is the Drug (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books; Scholastic on Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample). The Andre Norton Award is one of several given alongside the Nebulas.

Another such award, The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, went to Guardians of the Galaxy, written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman.

Larry Niven, author of the 1970 Nebula winning Ringworld, won the Damon Knight Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement.

The Nebula Awards are presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and honor outstanding achievement in Science Fiction or Fantasy. Unlike the Hugo Awards, which are based upon membership votes including the votes of fans, only the author-members of the association vote upon the Nebulas. See a  full list of nominated titles here.

PRIMATES OF PARK AVENUE Raises Doubts

Tuesday, June 9th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-05-26 at 4.33.59 PMThe buzzy memoir Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin (Simon & Schuster; ebook, 9781476762722) is falling victim to the truth squad with questions arising about the events in the book and its timeline.

According to The New York Times, publisher S&S plans to add a note to future editions as well as the eBook, saying “It is a common narrative technique in memoirs for some names, identifying characteristics and chronologies to be adjusted or disguised, and that is the case with Primates of Park Avenue. A clarifying note will be added to the e-book and to subsequent print editions.”

After early juicy reporting pre-publication, questions have been raised by the New York Post about how accurate the stories are. Reviewing it, Janet Maslin in the daily New York Times includes whoppers such as “Ms. Martin’s description of her book as a ‘stranger-than-fiction story’ is fair — but only because fiction usually makes sense” and “someone has a book to fill and a theme to stick to, regardless of whether it has any point.” On the other hand, Vanessa Grigoriadis in the NYT Sunday Book Review, someone who knows the territory, wasn’t bothered if a few things are suspect, “the sociology rings true, even if the codification can be off (a common practice among stay-at-home moms and their working husbands in a flush year called ‘presents under the Christmas tree’ is here designated a ‘wife bonus’). ”

On track to hit best seller lists this week, the attention is likely to only add to the interest, following the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Jimmy Fallon Exerts Mind Control

Tuesday, June 9th, 2015

The Today Show no longer features the Newbery Caldecott Medalists, but that doesn’t mean they don’t cover children’s books (especially if they are by celebrity authors). Matt Lauer interviewed Jimmy Fallon this morning about his new picture book, Your Baby’s First Word Will Be DADA, illus. by Miguel Ordóñez (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends; also available as a board book). Lauer observes that the book smacks of mind control, “a blatant attempt to make sure that the six-month-old’s first word is Dada and not Mama.”

Warning: Video contains cute overload and references to children’s terms for bodily functions. Viewer discretion is advised.

Tony Awards Move Books

Monday, June 8th, 2015

Few book awards actually increase sales but this year the two big Tony Awards – Best Musical and Best Play – are having an effect similar to the announcement of Pulitzer Prize in Literature or the Booker winner.

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Fun Home
: A Family Tragicomic (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2006) by Alison Bechdel and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (RH/Doubleday; 2003; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample) by Mark Haddon are both racing up Amazons sales rankings on news that their play adaptions have won the Tonys.

Fun Home won Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, and Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won Best Play, Best Leading Actor in a Play, Best Direction of a Play, as well as awards for set design and lighting.

According to a story by NPR, both authors had doubts their books could be changed to other formats. Bechdel thought the idea of a musical “was crazy” and Haddon once called his book “unadaptable.” Sellout theaters have proved them both happily wrong.

An Eclectic Indie Next List for July

Monday, June 8th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-06-07 at 12.46.32 PMThe #1 Indie Next List pick for July is the nonfiction title The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio), which recounts the adventures of two modern day brothers as they set off in a wagon to follow what is left of the Oregon Trail.

Screen Shot 2015-06-07 at 12.48.50 PMSeveral works of literary fiction are highlighted, including The Star Side of Bird Hill (Penguin Press) by Naomi Jackson. Jackson’s story of two sisters moving from Brooklyn to live with their grandmother in Barbados is also the most recent title in our  Penguin Debut Author program . Read our chat with the author here.

Three suspense novels make the list.

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As Night Falls (RH/BallantineBooks; Dreamscape Media) by Jenny Milchman is called a “great psychological thriller” and comes on the heels of the author’s well-reviewed title from last year, Ruin Falls.

The Hand That Feeds You (Scribner) by A.J. Rich is the debut collaboration between two authors known more for their literary chops than for suspense, Jill Ciment (Act of God and Heroic Measures, recently adapted as the film 5 Flights Up starring Morgan Freeman and Diane Keeton) and short story writer Amy Hempel (The Dog of the Marriage). It is also one of the Wall Street Journal‘s list of “10 Books to Read This Summer described as “a thriller in tribute to [the authors’]  late friend, Katherine Russell Rich. The story, about a woman who discovers that her fiancé is not who he said he was, is inspired by a real-life experience of Ms. Rich.” By the way, the fiancé is mauled to death by the main character’s dogs — an unusual twist for two authors who are dog lovers.

The Truth and Other Lies (S&S/Atria Books; S&S Audio) by Sascha Arango is a darkly funny debut about a vain author whose world is about to spin out of control.

Screen Shot 2015-06-07 at 12.55.47 PMA second NF title also made the list, Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship (Random House; RH and BOT Audio) by Robert Kurson.


Kurson’s account is one of four titles on the list that overlap with the June Library Reads selections. The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler, The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman are the others.

Titles for RA Gurus,
The Week of June 8

Friday, June 5th, 2015

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New books from familiar best selling names arrive next week ) — Barbara Delinsky, Dorothea Benton Frank, Laurell K. Hamilton and Sophie Kinsella, writing a YA novel this time (click on the covers, above, for more information on each) — but none of them have generated long holds lists.

There are gems among the librarian and bookseller picks, including Erika Johansen’s second in the Tearling series. Sure to get media attention is Jimmy Fallon for writing (huh?) a picture book.

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 June 8, 2915

Peer Picks

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The Invasion of the Tearling, Erika Johansen, (Harper; HarperLuxe)
This sequel to The Queen of the Tearling, gets an unequivocal A from Entertainment Weekly, this is also an Indie Next and a LibraryReads pick:
The Mort are coming! Johansen introduces new characters and enticing bits of history, with the second volume of her intriguing tale of fantasy, mystery and royal politics. Kelsea, the new Tearling Queen, has broken the Red Queen’s treaty and prepares to suffer the consequences as her nation is about to be invaded. Readers will be eager for the final volume in the Tearling saga. — Lucy Lockley, St. Charles City-County Library, St. Peters, MO
The Truth According to Us, Annie Barrows, (RH/Dial; BOT & RH Audio; RH Large Print)


Barrows is scheduled to appear on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show next week. Her book is a pick for both Indie Next and LibraryReads:

It is 1938 in a rural West Virginia town and a young woman arrives to write the town’s history. Layla doesn’t really know what to expect from the town, and the town doesn’t know what to make of her. This is the heart of the South, the soul of small towns, where everyone looks out for you and knows your history. Sweet story tailor-made for fans of Billie Letts, Fannie Flagg, Pat Conroy and Harper Lee. — Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX
Language Arts, Stephanie Kallos, (HMH; Recorded Books)
The art of communication is the major theme of this story, and Kallos employs all of its variations — whether spoken nuances and innuendos, written assumptions and dissonance, or the fractured and difficult ways of being known that those with autism experience. This is the story of a marriage, of a father and his son, and of how a man’s childhood shapes his life. Readers will be absorbed, challenged, puzzled, and ultimately satisfied by this wise and soulful book. —Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA

In the Media

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Second Life, S. J. Watson, (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe)

We could create a reading club based just on the books that Reese Witherspoon has optioned. Following in the footsteps of her producing partner, Niclole Kidman, who starred in the a movie of Watson’s 2011 best selling debut, Before I Go To Sleep, Witherspoon is a fan of the author, having recently optioned this, his second book.

Happily Ali After: And Other Fairly True Tales, Ali Wentworth, (Harper; HarperAudio)

#3 on Entertainment Weekly‘s Must List for the week:

In the hilarious follow-up to Ali In Wonderland, the actress and ccomedian takes inspirational tweets as self-improvement mantras in an ill-fated quest for happiness as she approaches the age of 50. Her glass isn’t half full — it’s ’empty and cracked.’

The Jezebel Remedy, Martin Clark, (RH/Knopf; Recorded Books)

One of Entertainment Weekly‘s “10 Great Summer Thrillers” in the new issue:

Clark is, hands down, our finest legal-thriller writer, and this latest, about husband-and-wife attorneys whose client has made a huge pharmaceutical discovery does not disappoint.

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Your Baby’s First Word Will Be DADA, Jimmy Fallon, Miguel Ordóñez (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends; also a board book)

Fallon is scheduled for the Today Show, on Tuesday and more is likely to follow. As far as the picture book itself, it sounds like Kirkus and Publishers Weekly read two different books:

“Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it”  — Kirkus

“A punchy and deceptively simple story that will make for some fun readalouds” — PW

At the Movies

9780143108382_47e4dOpening today, is Testament of Youth based on the 1933 memoir by Vera Brittain, recently released as a tie-in (Penguin). The movie stars Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Hayley Atwell and Dominic West.

The  NYT review is more respectful than passionate. “Testament of Youth Recalls the Great War With Little Nostalgia.” The AV Club doesn’t mince words, headlining their review, “Famous wartime memoir Testament Of Youth gets a boring BBC adaptation.”

Live Chat with Naomi Jackson

Thursday, June 4th, 2015

The chat has now ended, you can read it below.

Join us for the next chat, July 15, with J. Ryan Stradal author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest. Sign up for the program here.

Live Blog Live Chat with Naomi Jackson – THE STAR SIDE OF BIRD HILL
 

Women’s Prize for Fiction Winner

Thursday, June 4th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-06-04 at 10.25.02 AMAli Smith’s How to Be Both (RH/Pantheon; OverDrive Sample) has won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The novel has garnered much attention. It won the Costa Novel Award and The Goldsmiths Prize and was a shortlist title for the Man Booker.

Comparing it to “what it felt like reading Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, all of the greats,” the award committee chair tells The Guardian, “this is not a good book, this is a great book, and people are going to be reading it long after I’m dead.”

The book was printed in two versions. One begins with the story of George, a young modern woman coping with the death of her mother who becomes enthralled by the paintings of the 15th century Renaissance artist Francesco del Costa. The other begins with the story of Francesco. Each edition contains both sections and were distributed in a random mix.

Reviews at the time of publication (Dec. 2014) were largely admiring if a bit nervous about its unusual structure.

Ron Charles wrote in The Washington Post: “Ali Smith’s playfully brilliant new novel makes me both excited and wary of recommending it. This gender-blending, genre-blurring story, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, bounces across centuries, tossing off profound reflections on art and grief, without getting tangled in its own postmodern wires. It’s the sort of death-defying storytelling acrobatics that don’t seem entirely possible — How did she get here from there? — but you’ve got to be willing to hang on.”

Janet Maslin told her readers in The New York Times: “Never judge a book by its structure. How to Be Both has a lot more allure than its overall rigor suggests, thanks to the obvious pleasure Ms. Smith takes in creating her peculiar parallels and exploring the questions they raise.”

Formerly known as the Orange Prize, the Baileys Award celebrates excellence in women’s writing from around the world. The shortlist included Rachel Cusk’s Outline, Laline Paull’s The Bees, Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone, Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread, and Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests.

Holds Alert: DAUGHTERS OF THE SAMURAI

Thursday, June 4th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-06-04 at 11.23.25 AMHolds are growing on Janice P. Nimura’s Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey From East to West and Back (Norton. 5/4/15) with ratios well over 3:1 in many libraries we checked.

The nonfiction account has gotten steady coverage in papers such as The Seattle Times and The Wall Street Journal‘s “Speakeasy” blog.

About a group of young Japanese girls, each the daughter of a samurai, sent to America to live, study and  try to figure out what makes America so strong and forward thinking, The New York Times Sunday Book Review calls the book “beautifully written” and says it “begins like a fairy tale, with three clueless children charged with an impossible task by an empress: They must go to the United States and return with the knowledge needed to educate the women of Japan in the ways of the modern world.”

Nimura describes the story in the book trailer.

[vimeo 113928731 w=400&h=225]

RA Alert: FRESH AIR’s Summer Reading Suggestions

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015

NPR reviewer Maureen Corrigan, author of So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be And Why It Endures, offers a collection of early summer reading suggestions during a segment on NPR’s Fresh Air.

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She begins with Vendela Vida’s new novel, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty (HarperCollins/Ecco; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample). A traveler loses her wallet and passport and “What ensues is a kind of existential suspense tale in which our heroine is at first paralyzed by the theft and then emboldened to borrow other women’s documents and identities.”

Corrigan calls Patricia Park’s debut novel Re Jane (Penguin/Pamela Dorman Books; OverDrive Sample) “a wickedly inventive updating of Jane Eyre.”

Two nonfiction works round out her picks.

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Deborah Lutz’s The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects (W.W. Norton) examines objects important to the Brontë sisters, including a dog collar, a writing desk, and an amethyst bracelet.

In No Better Friend: One Man, One Dog, and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage and Survival In WWII (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample), Robert Weintraub tells the story of the only official American canine POW, a dog named Judy who survived the horrors of a Japanese interment camp.

Corrigan says each of her picks “begin in familiar territory and then surprise us readers by going off into places we could never anticipate.” Read on indeed!

Hold Alert: THE SHEPHERD’S LIFE

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 11.07.10 AMAn unlikely title has moved into the top 100 Amazon sales rankings, James Rebanks’s The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches From an Ancient Landscape (Macmillan/Flatiron Books; OverDrive Sample).

About his life as a shepherd in the wild landscape of the Lake District area of England, it celebrates the deep-rooted legacy of family farming that Rebanks can trace back through multiple generations.

That might sound overly specialized, but like H is for Hawk before it, Rebanks’s memoir seems poised to capture a large audience that appreciates fine writing and a sharp eye for detail and place.

For a sense of the landscape and work Rebanks describes, take a look at his book video (he is a man who understands the modern as well as the past, starting his book as a Twitter feed (@herdyshepherd1 which has garnered 63.8 thousand followers to date).

Certainly reviewers are taking note.

The New York Times offers:

“Expertise — and explanations of the craft and clockwork behind the ticktock of a profession — is hugely compelling when described with ardor and élan, and Mr. Rebanks brings both to his account … at once, a memoir, a portrait of his family’s world and an evocative depiction of his vocation as a shepherd.”

The Guardian glows:

“told with perfect pitch, in prose that flows as easily as speech, cleaves hungrily to the particular, and shifts without strain between the workaday and the imaginative.”

The Seattle Times says simply:

“It is as moving, truthful and at times poetic as anything you’re likely to read.”

Readers have gotten on board. Holds are growing with many lists exceeding a 3:1 ratio.

BEEKLE Gets Director

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015

9780316199988_c228fJoining the short list of Caldecott Medalists that have become full-length movies, The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat (Hachette/Little, Brown Young Readers) is set to be adapted as an animated feature film.

DreamWorks has just announced Jason Reitman as the director. Although Reitman has never directed an animated feature, he has had experience with adaptations. His Up In The Air, based on the Walter Kirn novel, was nominated for an Oscar. He also adapted Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day and Christopher Buckley’s Thank You For Not Smoking.

At just 40 pages, however, Beekle is much shorter than the books Reitman has previously adapted and will present a challenge, requiring more story lines to fill ninety minutes.

If Beekle makes it to the screen, it’s likely to be a different Beekle.

Nancy Pearl Suggests Crossover YA

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015

In support of kid’s summer reading, librarian Nancy Pearl has been discussing books for young readers on her weekly radio show for Seattle’s NPR affiliate KUOW.

Screen Shot 2015-06-02 at 11.19.41 AMThis week, however, she highlights a YA crossover she thinks adults will enjoy as well, Michelle Cooper’s A Brief History of Montmaray (RH/Knopf Books for Young Readers; 2011; OverDrive Sample).

Set in 1936 on a fictional island nation between France and Spain, it features the journals of Sophie FitzOsborne, a sixteen year-old member of an impoverished royal family. Europe is about to fall to war, a fact made clear when German officers arrive at the shores of Montmaray.

Nancy compares it in tone to I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

Screen Shot 2015-06-02 at 11.24.11 AMScreen Shot 2015-06-02 at 11.37.24 AMUnlike Smith’s standalone, A Brief History of Montmaray begins a trilogy. The other two books are The FitzOsbornes in Exile (RH/Knopf Books for Young Readers; 2012; OverDrive Sample) and The FitzOsbornes at War (RH/Knopf Books for Young Readers; 2012; OverDrive Sample).

Joining the chorus of voices championing YA books as crossovers, Nancy advises adults to browse the teen section when they are hunting for titles they would otherwise miss due to marketing and library classifications.

Screen Shot 2015-06-02 at 11.31.55 AMScreen Shot 2015-06-02 at 11.31.40 AMIn that spirit, last week she talked about Edward Carey’s Heap House (Overlook Press; OverDrive Sample). Intended for 11-12 year-olds, it also appeals to adult fans who like weird, luxuriantly imagined fantasy. It too is the first in a trilogy. Foulsham (Overlook Press; OverDrive Sample), book two in the series, comes out in early July.