Titles to Know and Recommend, Week of May 23, 2016
Title output slows down next week, in anticipation of the Memorial Day weekend, traditionally a busy time in stores.
Two best-selling series wrap on Tuesday. The final book in Rick Yancey’s 5th Wave series, The Last Star (Penguin/Putnam Books for Young Readers) and on the adult side, Justin Cronin’s The City of Mirrors (PRH/Ballantine).
Several consumer media and peer picks offer fodder for readers advisors (see below).
The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of May 24, 2016
Consumer Media Pick
This Too Shall Pass , Milena Busquets, (PRH/Hogarth)
People magazine’s “Book of the Week,” described as, “Adrift after dementia and then death have stolen her mother, 40-year-old Blanca heads to … a Spanish coastal village … As she tries to ease her grief with sex and drugs, she turns the lives of those around her upside down … both poignant and funny.”
It is also picked as one of the more literary-minded Lit Hub‘s “Five Summer Reads,” — “Somehow she mixes a heady aperitif of a book that combines quirky, sexy, and gloomy in perfect measures as protagonist Blanca faces losing her mother and her mojo on a Spanish beach.”
Media Magnet
Tribe : On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger, (Hachette/Twelve; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Type)
The author of The Perfect Storm, is sure to get major media attention for his book about our returning troops. In an early review in the daily NYT, Jennifer Senior say Junger “writes, simply … After months of combat, during which ‘soldiers all but ignore differences of race, religion and politics within their platoon,’ they return to the United States to find ‘a society that is basically at war with itself. People speak with incredible contempt about — depending on their views — the rich, the poor, the educated, the foreign-born'” and therefor has ” accidentally written one of [the Presidential campaign’s] most intriguing political books. All without mentioning a single candidate, or even the president, by name.”
Peer Picks
Food and lies are the topics of this week’s peer picks.
Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler (PRH/Knopf; Random House Audio; BOT)
One of the season’s highly anticipated fiction debuts (the author was profiled in the NYT back when the book was signed) arrives to much media attention, with an admiring early review by Dwight Garner in the NYT, a profile in the Wall Street Journal [may require subscription] and coverage in Vogue, and a near-rave from Entertainment Weekly.Holds in bellwether libraries indicate this is capturing riders attention. The author is also scheduled for an appearance on the Charlie Rose show. A hit with GalleyChatters, it is also a LibraryReads selection:y
“At her new job at one of NYC’s posh restaurants, Tess falls for a mysterious bartender and negotiates the politics of the service industry while building a social life. Danler drew from her own experience and the writing is vivid and stimulating. I’m always interested in a story about a girl trying to find her place in the world and her adventures, but anyone who appreciates writing that pulses with life will drink this down.” — Sonia Reppe, Stickney-Forest View Public Library, Stickney, IL
The second LibraryReads pick coming next week is Smoke, Dan Vyleta (PRH/Doubleday; Random House Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample).
“In an alternate historical London, people who lie reveal themselves by giving off smoke but the rules of how this works are complicated. There are some people who can lie and not trigger any smoke and this lends an interesting element to the story. The rules we are given are changeable. The setting lends itself well to the story. The writing is descriptive, and the tone is atmospheric. Similar authors that come to my mind were Neil Gaiman and China Mieville. This is a dark, delicious tale.” — Jennifer Ohzourk, St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, MO
Smoke is also getting media attention. It’s featured in the Wall Street Journal [may require subscriptio]. The author will be interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered on Tuesday. Reviews are scheduled for upcoming issues of the Washington Post, the daily New York Times and the
New York Times Book Review.
It is also a June Indie Next pick.
Wrapping up the week is another Indie Next pick, Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship, Isabel Vincent (Workman/Algonquin).
“Dinner With Edward is the charming story of the author’s friendship with her friend’s widower father. Vincent does a wonderful job evoking the sensuous details of the meals they shared, but this is more than just a foodie memoir: it is an exploration of the nature of friendship, aging, loss, and how we define our identities as the world changes around us. Despite the sadness of some of its topics, Dinner With Edward is ultimately a warm, feel-good story.” — Carol Schneck Varner, Schuler Books & Music, Okemos, MI
Tie-ins
The big tie-in news this week is, well, giant, as in BFG. There is both a book version and an audio version in anticipation of Steven Spielberg’s film, opening on July 1, The BFG Movie Tie-In, Roald Dahl (Penguin/Puffin Books; Paperback; $7.99; Audio tie-in, Listening Library; OverDrive Sample).
As we wrote earlier, a new trailer was recently released, as well as the news that the film got a 4-1/2 minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival when it premiered last Saturday.
For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.