Archive for April, 2017

Titles to Know and Recommend, Week of April 17, 2017

Friday, April 14th, 2017

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Several series authors arrive next week to long holds lists, including David Baldacci, with the third in a new series featuring an Ohio State football player who suffered a head injury in this first and only NFL game. The injury has an unusual result, useful in his new career as a police detective, he remembers everything. Appropriately, the first book in the series was titled Memory Man. The new title, The Fix (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), is heralded by a pricey two-page ad in the NYT Book Review.

The biggest nonfiction release of the week is David Grann’s new book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, (PRH/Doubleday; RH Large Print; RH Audio/BOT).

In a great piece of timing, it arrives on the heels of the release of the star-laden adaptation of his previous title, The Lost City of Z. The film is receiving glowing reviews, with the New Yorker claiming it “Resuscitates Cinema’s Classic Adventure Tale.” There’s many more Grann adaptations in the pipeline, as Entertainment Weekly details in their profile of the author as “the man Hollywood can’t stop reading.”

Reviewing the new book, the NYT‘s Dwight Garner holds it up to the impossibly high standards of the previous title, which, he says, is “deservedly regarded as one of the prize nonfiction specimens of this century.” He writes that regretfully, while he enjoyed the new book, it “didn’t set its hooks in me in the same way.” Grann is scheduled to appear on NPR’s Fresh Air on Monday.

It is both an Indie Next and a LibraryRead’s pick:

“In the 1920s, a string of unsolved murders rocked the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. Made rich by oil rights, the Osage were already victimized by unscrupulous businessmen and societal prejudice, but these murders were so egregious, the newly formed FBI was brought in to investigate. Immensely readable, this book brings a shameful part of U.S. history alive and will keep readers thinking long after they have finished the book.” — Jenna Persick, Chester County Library, Exton, PA

The titles highlighted in this column 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 April 17, 2017.

Media Magnets

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Politics continue dominate the media. Elizabeth Warren, who has been vocal on her opposition to the new administration, via her Twitter exchanges with Trump, is making headline for her embargoed title, This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class (Macmillan/Metropolitan Books; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). Most focus on her admitting that she considered a run for president in 2016. The Washington Examiner focuses on other issues, including that she is no fan of Bill Clinton, accusing him of actions that lead to the 2007 financial crisis.

Taking a longer view, historian David McCullough, who has written best sellers about John Adams and the Wright Brothers among others, tells the Wall Street Journal that “the past can serve as an antidote to self-importance and self-pity,” as outlined in his new book, a collection of speeches, The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For (Simon & Schuster). He is scheduled to appear this Sunday on Face the Nation and the following day on CBS This Morning. On May 3rd, he will be the recipient of the “Ken Burns American Heritage Prize.”

Peer Picks

In addition to Killers of the Flower Moon, two other Library Reads arrive this week.

9780385350907_39c50The Stars Are Fire, Anita Shreve (PRH/Knopf; RH Large Print; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Grace, a young woman with two small children, lives by the coast in Maine in 1947. Her marriage isn’t very happy, but she’s dutiful and devoted to her children. After escaping a devastating fire that wiped out her town and nearby forests, Grace has to become braver, stronger, and more resourceful than she’s ever had to be before. She manages it, and it’s lovely to watch happen, until something unexpected makes her life contract once more. This was deeply engaging and opened a real window on what it would have been like to be a woman in a small town in the 1940s.” — Diana Armstrong Multomah County Library, Portland, OR

Additional Buzz: Both an Indie Next and a GalleyChat pick, The Washington Post selects it as one of their suggested spring reads.

9780399585012_dd84cGone Without a Trace, Mary Torjussen (PRH/Berkley; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Hannah is eager to return home to her boyfriend, Matt Stone, with news of her impending work promotion. Hannah’s joy quickly turns to terror when she finds Matt missing and the house empty of all evidence of his presence. She begins to feel she is being stalked and receives messages that she is certain are from Matt. Little by little, Hannah descends into darkness as all the truths start to unravel and a different tale emerges. This dark debut is one to devour yet savor at the same time.” — Jennifer Winberry,Hunterdon County Library, Flemington, NJ

Additional Buzz: Bustle features it with an excerpt of two chapters.

9780316316163_de541One additional Indie Next choice comes out, Spoils, Brian Van Reet (Hachette/Lee Boudreaux Books; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Borne of his experience fighting in Iraq, Brian Van Reet’s Spoils is a clear-eyed, gritty, and tension-filled story of young soldiers caught up in impossible circumstances. At the heart of the story is Cassandra, a 19-year-old machine gunner who is captured by the enemy. Her ordeal as a captive along with two fellow soldiers is harrowing, but also provides insight into the character of soldiers and their captors. Recent and current conflicts have inspired some excellent fiction and Spoils ranks with the best of it.” —Mark Laframboise, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC

Additional Buzz: Harper’s Bazaar includes it in their list of “14 New Books You Need To Read in April,” writing “Van Reet’s grim but skillfully-told story is an urgent reflection on one of the most consequential conflicts in modern history.”

Van Reet offers a video introduction:

Tie-ins

Seeming to reflect current fears, Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale (Houghton Mifflin) hit best seller lists again, further boosted by the of news of the forthcoming Hulu series adaptation. The tie-in edition comes out this week, with an eerie photo of star Elizabeth Moss on the cover: The Handmaid’s Tale (Movie Tie-in), Margaret Atwood (PRH/Anchor; OverDrive Sample).

Atwood is in the news this week for her sly hints that there might be a sequel to her iconic dystopian novel.

The series begins on April 26.

9781302904685_e7f72Another tie-in for the much-anticipated SF film comes out this week, adding to the many already published: Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Prelude, Marvel Comics (Hachette/Marvel).

The show starts May 5 and stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sylvester Stallone, and Kurt Russell – plus a buzzy soundtrack.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Bill Nye Is That Guy

Friday, April 14th, 2017

Proving what is old can be new again, Bill Nye is in the middle of a double debut, decades after he first caught the public eye.

9781419723032_6d001His chapter book, Jack and the Geniuses: At the Bottom of the World by Bill Nye and Gregory Mone, illustrated by Nicholas Iluzada (Abrams; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), a mix of science, adventure, and mystery, debuts on the NYT Children’s Middle Grade Hardcover list at #6. It is doing very well considering every title ranking above Nye’s has been on the list for 10 weeks or more.

Next week brings the debut of his new Netflix’s show, Bill Nye Saves the World, on April 21. Wired says it will span “13 episodes that seek to debunk anti-scientific claims and myths in topics ranging from sex to alternative medicine to, yes, climate change.” The NYT says it is a “it’s a talk show, not a children’s program,” but Nye tells the paper to expect to be entertained. “The comedy bits,” he says “are brilliant!”

According to Netflix, “Each episode will tackle a topic from a scientific point of view, dispelling myths, and refuting antiscientific claims that may be espoused by politicians, religious leaders or titans of industry.”9781623367916_1bc4f

On the horizon, Nye has a book for adults coming out this summer, Everything All at Once: How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem (Macmillan/Rodale; Recorded Books), a mix of memoir, history, science, and problem solving using rational, methodical, fact-based approaches.

Best Selling Advice:
MAKE YOUR BED

Friday, April 14th, 2017

9781455570249_48b56A book aimed at graduates landed at #1 on the  newest NYT Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous Best Sellers list, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World by William H. McRaven (Hachette/Grand Central; Grand Central Audio; OverDrive Sample).

In it, McRaven, a four star admiral who is credited with overseeing the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, offers surprisingly simple advice, based on his training as a Navy SEAL, such as make your bed, never give up, stand up to bullies, and offer hope to others. The author also includes stories of his time in the SEALs and in Special Operations leadership.

Although it’s a best seller, few libraries are showing heavy holds ratios, indicating most copies are being bought as graduation gifts.

A media draw, the book was a topic on FOX & Friends, USA Today calls it a “powerful book,” The Washington Post says it “is ostensibly about leadership, but it’s full of captivating personal anecdotes from inside the national security vault,” and The Wall Street Journal has featured it several times, including in a video interview.

The entire speech is on YouTube:

Cumberbatch Dons
THE ROCKEFELLER SUIT

Thursday, April 13th, 2017

9780452298033Fresh off his role as Doctor Strange for Marvel, Benedict Cumberbatch may soon don a different suit, reports Deadline Hollywood.

He is in negotiations to star as the real-life con man Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, the subject of The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor by Mark Seal (PRH/Plume, 2012). Kirkus said of the true crime story, “Patricia Highsmith couldn’t have written a more compelling thriller.”

Gerhartsreiter, who went by the name of Clark Rockefeller, tricked people into believing he was a member of that famous family, helping him to land prestigious jobs on Wall Street and marry rich. He was sentenced to jail after kidnapping his own daughter and was subsequently sentenced to prison for the first-degree murder of his landlady’s son.

A long simmering project, the film first got under way in 2011, but the recent interest in true crime may have given it a fresh push.

NPR’s All Things Considered featured the book in 2011, explaining the case.

ELEANOR OLIPHANT Tops LibraryReads

Thursday, April 13th, 2017

9780735220683_fcd46LibraryReads-FavoriteA debut novel is the number one library pick this April, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman (PRH/Pamela Dorman; Penguin Audio/BOT).

“I loved this book about the quirky Eleanor, who struggles to relate to other people and lives a very solitary life. When she and the new work IT guy happen to be walking down the street together, they witness an elderly man collapse on the sidewalk and suddenly Eleanor’s orderly routines are disrupted. This is a lovely novel about loneliness and how a little bit of kindness can change a person forever. Highly recommended for fans of A Man Called Ove and The Rosie Project – this would make a great book club read.” — Halle Eisenman, Beaufort County Library, Blufton, SC

Additional Buzz: Honeyman is an EarlyReads author and spotted early by GalleyChatters in February. The Guardian profiles her in their introduction to the “new faces of fiction for 2017.” The book was the subject of a fierce auction fight, landing Honeyman over seven figures (in the US alone). PW reports it was one of the biggest books of the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2015. Paving the way, Honeyman won the Scottish Book Trust’s Next Chapter Award in 2014, which supports “a talented yet unpublished writer over the age of 40.” Booklist stars, writing “Move over, Ove (in Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, 2014)—there’s a new curmudgeon to love.”It is an Indie Next pick for May.

9780062651259_9040aAnother debut making the list is The Jane Austen Project, Kathleen A. Flynn (HC/Harper Perennial; HarperLuxe).

“The Austen fan genre is expanded by an original new novel set both in the past and the near future. Two employees of a time travel company are assigned to go back to Austen’s day, ostensibly to retrieve the full copy of “The Watsons,” lost for all time…until now. The blending of historical fiction, fantasy, and romance with a beloved classic author thrown in the mix is a daring combination which succeeds.” — Leslie DeLooze, Richmond Memorial Library, Batavia, NY

Additional Buzz: Not to be confused with The Austen Project, a series of modern retellings of Austen, such as Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible, this time travel novel made Flavorwire‘s Staff Picks back in February.

9781492649359_ebafaA nonfiction choice is The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, Kate Moore (Sourcebooks; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“This is the story of hundreds of young, vibrant women who were sentenced to death by their employers. The so-called “Radium Girls” painted luminescent faces on clock and watch dials using a paint mixture that contained radium. Instructed to “lip-point”their brushes as they painted, they absorbed high doses of radium into their bodies. When the effects of the radium led to horrific disfigurement and pain, the company refused to take responsibility. This heartrending book was one I could not put down.” — Catherine Coyne, Mansfield Public Library, Mansfield, CT

Additional Buzz: It is an Indie Next pick for May. Coverage is wide ranging, from The Atlantic to the NY Post to The Spectator to Nature. The Spectator leads with the creepy headline, “The Radium Girls — still glowing in their coffins,” while Nature calls the book “harrowing.”

 

World’s Richest Literary Award,
the Shortlist

Wednesday, April 12th, 2017

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The shortlist for the International Dublin Literary Award has just been announced. Billed as “the world’s most valuable annual literary award for a single work of fiction published in English,” the winner receives €100,000, equivalent to $106,000 US.

Begun in 1995, Dublin City Libraries manage the process and libraries from all over the world submit nominations. Each year over 400 systems in 177 countries are invited to participate. In the US, the Chicago Public Library, Denver PL, Miami-Dade PL, NYPL, and The Seattle Public Library are among those submitting titles.

To accomodate the nominations process, the award has a longer time-frame than others. Eligible titles were first published in English, or English translation, in 2015.

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As a result, many of the finalists have already received major awards, including the 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Press). Others have another shot after having lost out on other awards, such as National Book Award finalist A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (RH/Doubleday), and The Green Road by Anne Enright (W. W. Norton), which was long listed for both the Man Booker and the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Our spreadsheet lists currently available editions of the finalists, 2017 International DUBLIN Literary Award, Shortlist.

A five member international judging panel will select the winner, to be announced on June 21.

To The Movies: HILLBILLY ELEGY

Wednesday, April 12th, 2017

9780062300546_9dafbRon Howard’s Imagine Entertainment production company has won the film rights to Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (Harper; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample), reports Deadline Hollywood. Howard will direct.

Vance’s memoir arrived as the presidential campaign was heating up. The media embraced his sympathetic portrait of life in the Rust Belt as an explanation for the deep divides that drove the election. As a result of growing media attention, the book landed on best seller lists several weeks after publication. It is currently #2 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction list after 36 weeks.

It came to define what Slate‘s Laura Miller calls a new genre of nonfiction, the on-the-ground Trump explainer … illuminating the desperation driving white small-town Americans, as told by a native son.” She calls Vance’s book the genre’s “vanguard title.”

In a statement, Imagine describes it as “a powerful, true coming-of-age memoir … Through the lens of a colorful, chaotic family and with remarkable compassion and self-awareness, J.D. has been able to look back on his own upbringing as a ‘hillbilly’ to illuminate the plight of America’s white working class, speaking directly to the turmoil of our current political climate.”

THE ROAD TO JONESTOWN

Wednesday, April 12th, 2017

9781476763828_13cfbIn the 1970s over 900 people died because they followed the religious figure turned cult leader, Jim Jones, to the jungles of Guyana where they, voluntarily or not, drank poison in a final act of devotion.

Jeff Guinn, known for his true crime bestsellers, investigates the history of Jones and his doomed followers in The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple (S&S; S&S Audio).

It has been covered by two high-profile outlets. Terry Gross interviews Guinn today on NPR’s Fresh Air and the Today show used the story last week to launch a “series examining some of the biggest crimes and cults of the 20th century.”

Guinn tells Gross that Jones was a “tremendous performer” who displayed “the classic tendencies of the demagogue … [he] would take current events and exaggerate them to create a sense of fear and urgency. He drew his followers to Guyana by convincing them that America was facing imminent threats of martial law, concentration camps and nuclear war … [he] epitomizes the worst that can happen when we let one person dictate what we hear [and] what we believe.”

The aftermath was so horrifying that the Guyanese army, coming to confront Jones, start screaming as they arrive on site, “because there are bodies everywhere, almost more than they can count, and they’re so horrified.”

Today details the event that triggered the final mass suicide, Jones’s order to open fire on a Congressman there to investigate, a trip filmed by NBC news in which three NBC staff were also murdered.

Newspapers such as The San Francisco Chronicle, the Star-Telegram (Texas), and The Dallas Morning News review it. USA Today names it one of their “New and noteworthy” titles. Salon headlines their coverage with “Jim Jones was who Charlie Manson wanted to be.” Men’s Journal names it one of “The 7 Best Books of April.” Vice offers an interview with Guinn.

Library holds are light at this point, but keep your eye on it.

Bottoms Up

Tuesday, April 11th, 2017

9780143128090_055ecCheck your holds for Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste, Bianca Bosker (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), which is being compared to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential and Bill Buford’s Heat.

It debuted this week on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction list at #5 and is getting media attention, causing holds to spike at several libraries we checked, as high as 11:1.

The NYT reviews it, writing “Bosker’s journey … is thrilling, and she tells her story with gonzo élan.” The Washington Post says it is “a funny, thought-provoking and at times frightening look at the sublime tastes, enormous egos and curious rules of a profession that is both insanely rigorous and occasionally ridiculous.”

NPR’s The Salt features it as well, mixing descriptions of the book with descriptions of wine. Eater‘s editor-in-chief calls it “incredibly well written, intelligent, witty, and highly entertaining, and if I’m being frank, it’s the first book I’ve been excited to come home to in the last 12 months.”

WineEnthusiast offers an interview while both Slate and The Atlantic feature Bosker in their podcasts.

LibraryReads To Crit Pick

Tuesday, April 11th, 2017

9780812989885_a1476Pete Hamill reviews Hannah Tinti’s The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley (PRH/The Dial Press; RH Large Type; OverDrive Sample) for the forthcoming NYT Sunday Book Review, (not yet available online) calling it a “strikingly symphonic novel” and saying readers will keep turning pages “carried by Tinti’s seductive prose.”

Librarians saw it coming. It was the #1 LibraryReads pick in March:

The novel has received so much attention, that the review aggregator LitHub lists it as both one of the “Hottest Books of the Season” and the “Most Talked About Books.”

Booksellers also love it, picking it as an Indie Next selection for April 2017 and as we noted in Titles To Know, it was previewed on a number of monthly or seasonal best lists, including those by the BBC, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Elle, and InStyle. Much earlier in the year it was included in The MillionsThe Great 2017 Book Preview.”

The Rolling Stone says “Tinti has established herself as one of our great storytellers. She draws you in with this book, and it’s really difficult to get away.” Ron Charles reviews it for The Washington Post, as a “thriller with heart” and give it the “The Totally Hip Video Book Reviewer” treatment:

Tinti was interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday in late March:

Holds are generally high. A few libraries we checked bought few copies and are facing ratios approaching 10:1. Others have ordered more copies to meet demand.

 

Whitehead Wins Pulitzer

Monday, April 10th, 2017

Underground RailroadFulfilling predictions, Colson Whitehead has won this year’s Pulitzer prize in fiction for The Underground Railroad (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio; BOT).

it’s been quite a year for Whitehead, who went from doubting that anyone would read the book to its becoming a surprise Oprah pick, landing on nearly every best books list, as well as on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list where it still remains after 33 weeks.

The other books winning Pulitzers this year, below.

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History — Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, Heather Ann Thompson, (PRH/PantheonRandom).
EarlyWord coverage here.

Biography or Autobiography — The Return, Hisham Matar, (PRH/Random House, just released in trade paperback). Note: Whitehead lost out to Matar earlier this year for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

EarlyWordNYT Critic’s Top Books of 2016

Poetry — Olio, Tyehimba Jess, (Wave Books, distributed by Consortium).
EarlyWordNYT Critic’s Top Books of 2016

General Nonfiction  Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond (PRH/Crown; recently released in trade paperback). Note: this title also won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award For Nonfiction

EarlyWordTitles to Know and Recommend, Week of February 29, 2016

Click her for the full list of winners as well as finalists in all categories.

The Happiness Equation

Monday, April 10th, 2017

9781501157554_42160A feature story on Good Morning America has given a sales boost to Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy by Mo Gawdat (S&S/North Star Way; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The mix of memoir and self-help by the Chief Business Officer for Google’s innovation department, Project X. jumped onto Amazon’s Top 100 list and is currently at #27.

Gawdat wrote the book after a major set back to his own happiness, the death of his son. He details his 12-year experience of decoding happiness, treating that quest as an engineer would, looking for an equation.

As Parade puts it in an interview, the happiness formula he found is “’You’re happy when life behaves the way you want it to.‘ Or more precisely, when your perception of events is equal to your expectations.”

Google features him in their talk series. The whole interview runs over an hour, but the first few minutes is enough to give a sense of his story and approach.

Hitting Screens, Week of April 10, 2017

Monday, April 10th, 2017

Boss Baby continued to rule the box office over the weekend, happily beating out another movie aimed at kids, the formulaic Smurfs: Lost Village. On TV, the adaptation of Jay Asher’s best-selling 2007 YA novel 13 Reasons Why is a hit for Netflix and is stirring up controversy about whether there should be a second season.

Two adaptations come to screens this week.

9780525434658_325e0Having received much advance attention for its star studded cast, The Lost City of Z finally hits theaters in a limited run at the end of this week, expanding to more theaters next week. Based on David Gann’s nonfiction account of Percy Fawcett’s search for a fabled lost city, it stars Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, and Tom Holland.

Already released in the UK, The Telegraph says it is “Transporting and profound … an instant classic.Business Insider says it is “the best movie of 2017 so far” and director James Gray’s “magnum opus.” The Wrap says it “blends knock-out visual beauty, tender feminism, overall personal inter-connectedness, and something else, too, something yearning and just out of reach … [it] feels like a clear artistic advance for Gray, who proves himself here as one of our finest and most distinctive living filmmakers.”

Reviewing it after its NY Film Festival debut, Variety called it “Apocalypse Now meets Masterpiece Theater … a finely crafted, elegantly shot, sharply sincere movie that is more absorbing than powerful.”

The book received raves. The NYT critic Michiko Kakutani wrote it is at “once a biography, a detective story and a wonderfully vivid piece of travel writing that combines Bruce Chatwinesque powers of observation with a Waugh-like sense of the absurd … it reads with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller and all the verisimilitude and detail of firsthand reportage.”

It topped most of the year’s best books lists the year it was published. Grann is now back in the news for a new book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (PRH/Doubleday; RH Large Type; RH Audio/BOT).

Tie-in: The Lost City of Z (Movie Tie-In): A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, David Grann (PRH/Vintage; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

9781501174926_7136bOn cable The White Princess begins on April 16, about the long-running War of the Roses.

It’s the sequel to The White Queen, which aired on Starz in 2013, based on the first four books in Philippa Gregory’s The Cousins’ War series and earned both Golden Globe and Emmy nominations.

The new series adapts Gregory’s fifth title in the historical saga and relates the story of Princess Elizabeth of York, forced to marry into the house of her enemy. Gregory outlines the chronology of the novels on her website.

It stars Jodie Comer as Princess Elizabeth, Essie Davis as Elizabeth Woodville, Joanne Whalley as the Duchesss of Burgundy, Michelle Fairley as Margaret Beaufort, Jacob Collins-Levy as Henry VII, and Suki Waterhouse as Cecily of York.

One of the few reviews out thus far says “if it’s melodrama you want, The White Princess delivers – serving up a steamy soup of bitchy, backstabbing, corseted women plotting each other’s doom.”

Vanity Fair offers an interview with the stars.

Tie-in: The White Princess, Philippa Gregory (S&S/Touchstone; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample; also in mass market).

DREAMERS Wins PEN/Faulkner

Monday, April 10th, 2017

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Imbolo Mbue is the 2017 winner of the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award for her debut novel, Behold the Dreamers (Random House; PRH Audio/BOT; trade pbk to be published in late May OverDrive Sample). The Faulkner honors a work of literary fiction by an American author and claims to be “the largest peer-juried award in the country,” awarding $15,000 to the winner and $5,000 to each finalist. While some of the awards from the separate PEN America Foundation come with more money, as high as $75,000, the juries include non-writers.

The novel, about an immigrant from Cameroon trying to become a U.S. citizen, set during the recession, got some strong press when it was published an appeared on several best of the year lists, but did not receive the level of recognition that Colson Whitehead did for The Underground Railroad, which won  the National Book Award.

It was a People magazine’s “Book of the Week,” described as a “page-turner about race, class and the Wall Street meltdown … Mbue’s writing is warm and captivating, but her message is pointed: American dreams can and do turn into nightmares.”

The Washington Post chief critic, Ron Charles, said that it comes at the right time, as it “illuminates the immigrant experience in America with the tenderhearted wisdom so lacking in our political discourse.”

The NYT covered it in the Sunday Book Review, calling it “a capacious, big-hearted novel.

The award was founded in 1980 by Mary Lee Settle who donated her National Book Award prize money to begin the award in support of a group of authors who felt the NBA had become too commercial. The name of the award honors William Faulkner, who similarly donated the money from his 1949 Nobel Award to create the  Faulkner Foundation to give awards to authors. It was dissolved in 1970.

When this year’s finalists were announced, Ron Charles praised the selections as being a “sign of new diversity in books,” moving away from a time when “all the stars of American literature seemed to be straight white guys named John.”

The other finalists are:

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After Disasters, Viet Dinh (Amazon/Little A)

LaRose, Louise Erdrich (HC/Harper; HarperLuxe; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample)

What Belongs to You, Garth Greenwell (Macmillan/FSG; OverDrive Sample)

Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, Sunil Yapa (Hachette/Lee Boudreaux; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample)

HANDMAID Redux?

Sunday, April 9th, 2017

51a50MavWSL._SL300_Excitement is building over a possible sequel to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 1986; tie-in ed., PRH/Anchor, 2017; OverDrive Sample).

A sly wink from Atwood as well as some additions she wrote for the newly released audiobook version (Audible only; cover at let) have brought speculation from many quarters, including Entertainment Weekly, Flavorwire, The Guardian, io9, New York magazine, and the Canadian entertainment site The Loop,

The original print book ends with a symposium set after the book’s event, reflecting on the dystopian period that came before. The final line comes from one of the presenters, a professor who asks, “Are there any questions?”

In the new Audible edition, Atwood has provided those questions, via an exchange between conference attendees and the professor.

One of the questions concerns how much more information the professor has. He responds:

“We have indeed made some fresh discoveries but I am not yet at liberty to share them … I hope to be able to present the results of our further Gileadian investigations to you at some future date … Give us a year or two and I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

The Loop asked Atwood if that meant a sequel was in the works and she replied:

“I am in consultation with the Professor, but he is being very cagey about this. He evidently doesn’t want to make any promises before he has finished authenticating his new discoveries.”

So … maybe more will be forthcoming. In the meantime, Atwood has been promoting the audio, saying in a release “I’m delighted to see the novel that I wrote over thirty years ago come alive on new platforms every year. The roots of my original book are in audio — Offred’s story was recorded, not written, and even the ‘Historical Notes’ are a voice — so I was excited to extend the story with additional material meant specifically to be heard. … The Handmaid’s Tale is alive, it seems — and like all living things, it grows and multiplies!

It is set to multiply in yet another format, on April 26 when the TV adaptation begins streaming on Hulu.