Titles to Know and Recommend, Week of Sept 28
If the rest of the reading public is anything like librarians, they will be delighted to see Jojo Moyes follow-up to her hit Me Before You, titled, of course, After You (Penguin/Pamela Dorman), arrive on shelves next week. It is a Library Reads pick (see below) as is Karin Slaughters’ Pretty Girls (also below).
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 Sept. 28, 2015
Media Magnets
Unfinished Business : Women Men Work Family, Anne-Marie Slaughter (Random House)
Slaughter’s 2012 Atlantic magazine article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” was viewed as a corrective to Sheryl Sandberg’s exhortation to women to Lean In and climb the corporate ladder. It is now expanded to book length and is featured on the cover of this week’s NYT Sunday Review.
Adding more fuel to likely media interest, Slaughter’s husband just published an article about ‘lead parenting’ in the Atlantic. ‘Why I Put My Wife’s Career First.
My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life by Ruth Reichl (Random House)
The former editor of Gourmet writes about her painful year that followed the closing of her beloved magazine.
Better: How I Let Go of Control, Held On to Hope, and Found Joy in My Darkest Hour, Amy Robach, (RH/Ballantine)
The News Anchor for Good Morning America reluctantly agreed to have a mammogram on air in 2013. The results revealed she had breast cancer. In this book, she chronicles her year after that diagnosis.
I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, Grace Jones, Paul Morley, (S&S/Gallery)
The title is, of course, ironic. The singer, model, and actress will be featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, September 29, followed by CBS This Morning,October 9 and ABC’s Entertainment Tonight,’October 9.
Peer Picks
Pretty Girls, Karin Slaughter (HarperCollins/Morrow)
Slaughter was a hit at the AAP/LibraryReads Dinner at BEA. as she talked hilariously and forthrightly about her rivalry with her sister, which clearly influences this novel. It is an Indie Next pick:
“I was grabbed from the first page of Slaughter’s latest and roped in on the second. Boldly written and at times very raw, this psychological thriller is as suspenseful as it is scary. Dangerous secrets reunite two sisters who have been estranged since their older sister went missing 20 years earlier. As they search to discover what happened, they uncover evidence of her brutal murder and true evil. It is a gifted writer who can make you adore a character at the beginning of a book and loathe the same character at the end. Slaughter, author of both the Grant County and Will Trent series, has done just that in her newest stand-alone thriller.” —Nancy McFarlane, Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood (RH/Nan A. Talese)
Starred by PW and Booklist this is reviwed in this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review
LibraryReads, Oct: “The premise of Atwood’s latest is interesting, grounded strongly in current social and economic issues. The writing is as elegant and beautiful, as always with Atwood. I recommend this book because it is a wonderful and thought-provoking novel. People who have enjoyed other Atwood works should definitely take a look at this one.” Lauren Mitchell, Pima County Public Library, Tucson, AZ
After You by Jojo Moyes (PRH/Pamela Dorman Books; Penguin Audio).
LibraryReads, Oct: “I loved Me Before You and thought it ended in the perfect place, but any doubts I had about continuing the story were quickly erased when I started this sequel. Jojo Moyes is a master at tugging on your heartstrings. I laughed, I cried, and I nearly threw my Kindle against the wall at one point. Give this to anyone in your life who has experienced a tragic loss. With a box of tissues.” Joseph Jones, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Cleveland, OH
In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward (Macmillan/Minotaur; OverDrive Sample).
LibraryReads, Oct: “Great new mystery set in the atmospheric Peak District of England. When a woman’s suicide is found to be related to an unsolved case of a missing girl, the police must reinvestigate a long cold case. I hope this book will be the first in a new series!” Pamela Wiggins, Wake County Public Libraries, Cary, NC
Also a BEA Librarians’ Shout ‘n’ Share pick — ‘Your next hand sell for fans of Sharon Bolton. About a cold case, the puzzle of the story keeps you hooked until the end. Perfect for fans of Louise Penny, Sharon Bolton, and Elizabeth George.”– Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Library
A Slanting of the Sun: Stories by Donal Ryan (Steerforth; OverDrive Sample)
Indie Next: “Exquisite and elegant, Ryan’s collection of short stories highlights his talents as a writer of note. Each piece evokes the Irish people — the spirit, the voice, the culture — as the characters confront the pain of life. The beauty of the stories comes from the almost musical quality of Ryan’s writing. His sentences flow with an ebullient tone that appreciates the good and bad in equal measure, and readers are caught by the lyrical rhythms and inner harmonies, which bring them to a deeper understanding of other people. These stories will make you cry, shake your head in shock, and ponder the great gulfs between men, which are rooted in our own humanity in all its beauty and roughness.” —Raul Chapa, BookPeople, Austin, TX
Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins (PRH/Riverhead)
Starred by PW, Kirkus, LJ, and Booklist
Indie Next: “Watkins’ depiction of a sun-scorched, drought-plagued West is a hypnotic and terrifying vision of an otherworldly and, perhaps most frightening of all, not-too-distant future. Part J.G. Ballard, part Joan Didion, Gold Fame Citrus explores the complexities of human relationships in the face of environmental catastrophe. Loneliness, jealousy, heartbreak, love, loyalty — even in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, people are still people, though just what sort of people is another thing altogether. Haunting and hallucinatory, the world crafted by Watkins is a dream of the future that will not soon be forgotten.” —Emily Ballaine, Green Apple Books on the Park, San Francisco, CA
Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt by Kristin Hersh (University of Texas Press; OverDrive Sample)
Indie Next: “You don’t need to be familiar with Chesnutt’s or Hersh’s work to appreciate this phenomenal book, but you will undoubtedly want to be once you’ve finished it. Hersh is a writer of intense and subtle beauty, and she will make you cry and feel a hundred other things with the power of her style alone. Through the tragic story of her close friend and tourmate, Chesnutt, Hersh evokes the torture of all that artistic genius encapsulates and makes that pain sing in a voice both opaque and elegant, grimy and pristine. Ultimately, this is a deeply affecting meditation on one’s thrust toward ‘important art’ and on how music is a necessary expression of sadness and loneliness but also one of intense and inimitable beauty.” —Donovan Swift, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL
A Line of Blood by Ben McPherson (Harper/William Morrow)
Indie Next: “Surely an unspoken fear of parents is that they will discover that their child has some dark secret, that their normal, well-adjusted, happy child is hiding something. McPherson introduces us to just such a family in a whodunit with many layers of psychological intrigue, secrets, and unspoken emotion. Alex and Millicent and their son, Max, find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation and what was once taken for granted begins to unravel around them. This is a must-read for anyone who loves being in the clutches of a brilliant thriller with anything but a straight line to the conclusion.” —Linda Schaefer, The Learned Owl Book Shop, Hudson, OH
Me, My Hair, and I: Twenty-seven Women Untangle an Obsession by Elizabeth Benedict (Workman/Algonquin Books)
A BEA Librarians “Shout ‘n’ Share pick by Charlene Rue. NYPL Book Ops.
Indie Next: “Twenty-seven authors share stories about hair and all its meanings in this revelatory collection. Hair can represent class, race, a period in history, health, neuroses, and more. What a wonderful way to ponder our life histories and traumas and still keep a sense of humor as we are invited to remember what hairstyles we were wearing at key times in our lives. Through the focus on hair, this book leads us to consider our stories in both a fun and oddly serious way.” —Rona Brinlee, The BookMark, Neptune Beach, FL
Tie-ins
This is one of the few weeks when there are no book adaptations debuting on either the large or the small screens. However, tie-ins announce two upcoming TV adaptations:
The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin (Random House)
Set to premiere some time in February, 2016 the FX series, American Crime Story, starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as Simpson). The just-released trailer is less than revealing:
Plum Pudding Murder (Movie Tie-in) by Joanne Fluke (Kensington; mass market)
The next in Hallmark’s Murder, She Baked series starring Alison Sweeney based on the novels by Joanne Fluke. To be released some time in 2016,
the date has not yet been announced.
For a full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV spreadsheet and link to our listing of tie-ins.