Archive for May, 2017

Gabriel Allon to TV

Wednesday, May 17th, 2017

Time to crank up the betting on which actor will play Israeli art restorer, spy and assassin Gabriel Allon from Daniel Silva’s New York Times bestselling novels. Deadline reports that MGM Television, has bought the rights to the books.

Silva has published 16 titles in the series beginning with The Kill Artist in 2000, but says he’s been waiting for the “right time and the right partner” to adapt the books. The partner he chose is currently hot, having produced Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale and FX’s Fargo. As MGM Motion Pictures president Jonathan Glickman notes, the books have been hot for some time, saying bidding was “highly competitive” and the rights “have been sought after for years.”

The 17th title in the series, House of Spies will be published on July 17th (HarperCollins/Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe)

Holds Alert: GROCERY

Wednesday, May 17th, 2017

NPR’s All Things Considered featured Michael Ruhlman’s Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America (Abrams; RH Audio/BOT), moving the book up Amazon’s rankings and driving holds. Libraries are seeing reserve ratios well over 3:1, in one case 10:1.

The interview takes place in an actual grocery store. Surveying the plenty spread out in the aisles, Ruhlman says a grocery store is “the best of America and the worst of America.”

Grocery stores are run with such narrow margins that they cannot stand to lose a customer, which is why they ask as at checkout if you found everything you were looking for. Not finding something is why shoppers change stores.

Because of the ease of online buying for commodity items like orange juice and cereal, Ruhlman thinks thinks grocery stores will shrink, selling only specialized items that customers want to pick by hand. The future will look more like the past, when stores were smaller and more specialized.

As a literary side note, a recent NYT Weddings column details Ruhlman’s long-held crush on Ann Hood (The Book That Matters) which last 20 years and led to a wedding last month (with Laura Lippman officiating).

Bill Gates, Bookseller

Wednesday, May 17th, 2017

Bill Gates took to Twitter on Monday and sent Steven Pinker’s 2010 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (PRH/Penguin; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample), soaring to the top of the Amazon sales charts, where it is currently the best selling book across the site.

In a series of tweets offering advice to graduates, Gates says “If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this — the most inspiring book I’ve ever read.” The story has caught the attention of the new media. Both the Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly covered it. It’s also a favorite of fellow tech billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg who gave it a bump in early 2015, when he picked it for his Facebook book club.

In the book Pinker insists that, despite what many think, the world is actually becoming a better place.

The impact on holds is mixed. Some libraries have copies on the shelf while others are seeing holds topping 10:1.

To Screen: THE BOOKSELLER

Tuesday, May 16th, 2017

Julia Roberts will star in and produce a big screen adaptation of Cynthia Swanson’s 2015 debut novel The Bookseller (HC/Harper; HarperLuxe; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), reports Variety.

The novel was not widely reviewed. It made the NYT eBook bestseller list for a week and rose to #85 on the USA Today list. It was also an Indie Next pick:

“In 1962, 38-year-old Kitty Miller lives unconventionally. She’s an unmarried working woman who is running a bookstore with her best friend. But at night, in her dreams, it’s a different story. There, Kitty (now Kathryn) explores the path not taken. She’s the married mother of three. It’s the life that might have been, and the novel explores both Kitty’s waking and dream lives in alternating chapters. Swanson’s enjoyable debut really gets interesting when the lines between waking and dreaming, fantasy and reality, begin to blur.” —Susan Tunis, Bookshop West Portal, San Francisco, CA

A starred review in LJ said, “This is a stunner of a debut novel … Kitty/Katharyn’s journey is intriguing, redolent with issues of family, independence, friendship, and free will. This will especially resonate with fans of the movie Sliding Doors and the authors Anna Quindlen and Anita Shreve.”

This marks the latest in a run of book-based films for Roberts, who, like Reese Witherspoon, has had success with adaptations. Early in her career she starred in the film version of John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief . She is now set to star in and produce Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once and, with Viola Davis, will feature in the film version of Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things.

MR. MERCEDES Gets Air Date

Tuesday, May 16th, 2017

The TV adaptation of Stephen King’s 2014 novel Mr. Mercedes has wrapped. It will air on August 9 on AT&T’s Audience Network, a satellite service most widely available via DirecTV.

David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies) created the series and Jack Bender (Game of Thrones; Under the Dome) directs multiple episodes. It stars Brendan Gleeson (28 Days Later) as the detective who comes out of retirement to stop the serial killer, Mr. Mercedes, played by Harry Treadaway (City of Ember).

A mass market paperback tie-in edition comes out on July 25, Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (S&S/Pocket; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) [art work not available, the above image is from the 2015 mass market edition].

A departure for King, the novel is less horror than hard-boiled. The NYT review lauded “King’s affectionate awareness of the hard-boiled tradition and his point of departure from it” adding “King is clearly having fun, and so are we.” It won the 2015 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

As we posted earlier, this is only one of many King adaptations in the works.

To Screen: THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS

Tuesday, May 16th, 2017

Well-known for hating screen adaptations of her work, Ursula K. Le Guin just sold the rights to one of her most famous novels, the 1969 Hugo and Nebula award winning The Left Hand of Darkness, an iconic work of feminist science fiction.

The studio Critical Content (responsible for the TV version of Limitless), reports Variety, will create a limited series based on the book with Le Guin serving as a consulting producer.

The novel is part of her Hainish Cycle and explores the ways sex and gender shape a culture. Variety speculates that the audience avidly following Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale will seek out Le Guin’s story as it is another “allegory about sexual politics and power.”

If your collection needs fresh copies, the novel has been republished a number of times, most recently in October 2016 in hardback as part of the Penguin Galaxy series with an introduction by Neil Gaiman: The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin (PRH/Penguin; BBC Audio; OverDrive Sample).

This is the second time this year that Le Guin has agreed to sell the rights to her work. In February she sold the 1966 SF novella Planet Of Exile, also part of the Hainish Cycle.

I Won’t Grow Up

Monday, May 15th, 2017

If the conversation around “adulting” hits a nerve, meet Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

Sasse is concerned with what he regards as the slow-to-nonexistent development of independent and thriving adults in the US and has written a book on the subject, The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis–and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). It is zooming up the Amazon rankings, thanks to his appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation yesterday and CBS This Morning today, moving from #43 to #7.

He tells Face the Nation‘s John Dickerson, “this book is 100 percent not about politics, and it’s 99 percent not about policy. It’s about this new category of perpetual adolescence.”  However, as one of the Republicans who expressed reservations about the firing of James Comey as Director of the FBI, that subject dominates the  interview. Sasse finally gets to promote the book towards the end, saying it’s about the recent phenomenon of  “perpetual adolescence …Peter Pan’s Neverland is a hell … we don’t want [to] have our kids caught at a place where they’re not learning how to be adults.”

He followed up with an appearance on CBS This Morning, which also focused on the firing of Comey.

Sasse is making the media rounds. He is scheduled to appear tonight on Late Night with Seth Meyers. He has been on NPR’s On Point, the NYT has an interview, Sasse himself writes an essay for the Wall Street Journal (subscription maybe required), MarketWatch offers a summary, and Time covers it in an article titled “Ben Sasse Explains Why His New Book Is Really, Truly Not About Running for President.”

Hitting Screens, Week of May 15, 2017

Monday, May 15th, 2017

The heavily promoted adaptation of Nicola Yoon’s debut YA novel  Everything, Everything opens on May 19. The book debuted at #1 on the NYT  Young Adult best seller list and stayed on it for over a year. The release of the trailer in February brought the book back to the list, again at #1

About a teen girl confined to her house because of severe allergies, the novel earned a glowing NYT review (“gorgeous and lyrical”) and an A- review from Entertainment Weekly (a “complex,” “fresh, moving debut”).

The film stars Amandla Stenberg (who played Rue in The Hunger Games) and Nick Robinson (Zach in Jurassic World). Stella Meghie (Jean of the Joneses) directs.

Tie-in:  Everything, Everything Movie Tie-in Edition, (in hardcover: PRH/Delacorte Press; April 18, 2017; ISBN 9781524769802; 18.99; Listening Library; also in paperback: PRH/Ember; April 4, 2017; ISBN 9781524769604; $10.99).

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul premieres on May 19. It is based on the 9th title in the popular kids series written by Jeff Kinney.

The three previous films in the series have been commercial, although not critical successes. The new film, featuring a fresh cast including Alicia Silverstone, Tom Everett Scott, Charlie Wright, and Jason Drucker, follows a family road trip.

Tie-in: Diary of a Wimpy Kid # 9: Long Haul: The Long Haul by Jeff Kinney (Abrams; OverDrive Sample).

Also opening May 19th is Wakefield, an adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s short story of the same name. Starring Bryan Cranston and Jennifer Garner, it tells the story of a man who “vanishes” but really only hides in his garage spying on the lives of his family and neighbors.

Both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter posted reviews in 2016 when the film was making the festival circuit. While praising Cranston’s performance, Variety says the ending is “a cop-out.The Hollywood Reporter agrees that Cranston “is the whole show” and calls the film “decreasingly convincing.”

It opens in limited release . There is no tie-in. The short story was published in The New Yorker in 2008.

Airing on May 21st is A Bundle of Trouble, a Hallmark adaptation of Charlaine Harris’s Aurora Teagarden series featuring a crime-solving librarian.

There are nine books in the series. This newest adaptation is based on the sixth, titled A Fool And His Honey (PRH/Berkley; OverDrive Sample). This is also the 6th Hallmark adaptation, following A Bone To Pick, Real Murders, Three Bedrooms One Corpse, The Julius House, and Dead Over Heels.

The show stars Candace Cameron Bure (Full House) as the librarian sleuth. There is no tie-in, although the book is still available. See the Hallmark site for a preview (unfortunately we cannot embed the clip).

As we posted in the May 15th Titles to Know, HBO is adapting The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin; Tantor Media; OverDrive Sample).

It premieres May 20 and stars Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer. Barry Levinson directs.

See our earlier post for more details.

Technically a Best Seller

Monday, May 15th, 2017

9780735211322_f4e1cPresidential aide Ivanka Trump’s Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success, (PRH/Portfolio; Penguin Audio/BOT) is technically a #1 best seller, having hit that number on the Wall Street Journal‘s Business Book list. Other numbers are not so sunny. It debuts on the USA Today general list at #53.

The Huffington Post reveals just how bad the sales are, reporting “In the book’s first five days on the market, Trump sold 10,445 print copies,” comparing that to Sheryl Sandberg’s book on female empowerment, Lean In(PRH/Knopf) which sold 74,176 print copies in its first week, going on to sell many more and become a recognized catch phrase as well as a movement.

Reviews have been universally scathing. In this case, negative press may not be better than no press at all.

WONDERSTRUCK

Monday, May 15th, 2017

Both the movie poster, left, and a clip have been released for Todd Haynes’s Wonderstruck, based on Brian Selznick’s 2011 illustrated novel. The movie will debut at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18 and in US theaters in limited release on October 20, with the promise of a wide release sometime in mid-November.

The book, set in 1927 and 1977, features two deaf children, Ben and Rose, each within their own time line, each secretly longing for different lives. As the story unfolds, the tales of both children weave back and forth before finally coming together.

The film co-stars Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams. Oakes Fegley (Pete’s Dragon) plays Ben and newcomer Millicent Simmonds, who is deaf, plays Rose.

Selznick wrote the adapted screenplay. Below he describes how he wrote the novel:


Expect some creative film making to match the creativity of the novel. Movie Pilot writes “Rose’s half of the movie will be shot as a silent film! This will allow the movie to stay faithful to the novel, capture the world through the eyes of Rose, and recreate the aesthetic of the silent film era.”

Wonderstruck is the sixth film that Roadside has distributed with Amazon Studios. The two companies biggest success so far is Manchester by the Sea, which won two Oscars and was the biggest box office success to date for both companies.

The fight to keep theaters viable in an age of streaming services and high definition TV has led the Cannes Festival, like many film events, including the Oscars, to limit eligibility to movies  that are released to theaters before hitting small screens.

Things are becoming more complex now that streaming services have also gotten in to producing their own movies. Overturning their rule against streaming services sast year, Cannes accepted five of Amazon Studios films as entries into the competition, because Amazon execs “promised that, unlike Netflix, all of their films will go out in theaters, holding to the traditional 90-day theatrical window,” writes the Hollywood Reporter, adding that it makes business sense for Amazon,

“Unlike Netflix, which operates its streaming service in virtually every country in the world … Amazon’s Prime Video service is not available in France, in Italy, in Canada, Spain, Australia, Russia or Brazil. A global day-and-date rollout, the cornerstone of Netflix’ release strategy, still is impossible for Amazon.”

Death to “Zombie Words”

Monday, May 15th, 2017

Journalist and former Random House publisher Harold Evans entertained NPR’s Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday, with his pet peeves about the misuse of the English language.

As a result of their lively exchange, Evans’s new book, Do I Make Myself Clear?: Why Writing Well Matters (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample) made a major leap up Amazon’s rankings, rising from #25,848 to #32.

The book addresses the “garbage” littering our prose. He particularly hates “zombie words,” nouns that are turned into verbs, because they drain “the sentences of vigor and immediacy,” he says, “It’s like a virus.”

The book is “a punchy follow-up to an earlier journalistic primer (Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers) that’s still a standard at many British universities,” notes The Hollywood Reporter in a lengthy interview with Evans, that focuses on the documentary Attacking the Devil, about Evans’s early journalistic fight against the drug thalidomide.

Evans stars in the doc, which the The Weinstein Co. will distribute in the US. A feature film is also in the works and Hugh Grant is “said to be among the contenders vying for the lead.” Although Evans jokes, “I think I may hold out for Brad Pitt to play me. He’s a better likeness, don’t you think?”

Learning To Learn

Monday, May 15th, 2017

Professor and author Barbara Oakley gets a double lift from The Wall Street Journal. An article titled “How a Polymath Mastered Math – and So Can You,” explores how Oakley, after flunking math through grade school, taught herself to master the subject, eventually earning a degree in electrical engineering. Now a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan, she teaches what the paper says is the “world’s most popular MOOC” the massive open online course “Learning How to Learn.”

The article mentions two of her books. Her newest, Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential (PRH/ TarcherPerigee; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) and 2014’s A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) (also PRH/ TarcherPerigee; OverDrive Sample).

The books are rising on Amazon’s rankings as a result. Mindshift jumped from #643 to #32 and Numbers rose from #751 to #52.

LibraryReads Pick To The Movies

Monday, May 15th, 2017

Big Little Lies producer and star Reese Witherspoon has issued a “Great Book Alert!” to her 9.7 million followers on Instagram, about the LibraryReads pick Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman (PRH/Pamela Dorman; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Just a few days later, Deadline Hollywood, reported that she will produce the film version and likely star.

The actress and Hollywood powerhouse when it comes to adapting books, says the novel is “Beautifully written and INCREDIBLY funny … I fell in LOVE with Eleanor, an eccentric and regimented loner whose life beautifully unfolds after a chance encounter with a stranger; I think you will fall in love too!”

Her rave review adds star power to what is already a buzzy debut, as does the fact that she also added it to her rwbookclub on Instagram.

Titles to Know and Recommend, Week of May 15, 2017

Friday, May 12th, 2017

  

Beach scenes on covers signal that Memorial Day is on its way. Dorothea Benton Frank takes us back to South Carolina’s low country in a novel that follows two couples through multiple shared vacations in Same Beach, Next Year (HarperCollins/Morrow; HarperLuxe; HaperAudio). Holds ratios indicate that ordering is not in line with the author’s growing popularity.

On a more northerly shore, Nancy Thayer returns to Nantucket for Secrets in Summer (PRH/Ballantine; OverDrive Sample).

    

For those who prefer horror mixed into their sand, Stephen King returns to a fictional location, Castle Rock, in his new novella, Gwendy’s Button Box, coauthored with Richard Chimer, head of  Cemetery Dance Publications, which is also the publisher of the book (S&S Audio). Entertainment Weekly notes the setting is “the site of some of King’s most well-known early tales” and the book is a “coming-of-age novella that has a sinister twist.”

Jack Reacher also makes a comeback, this time in a collection of short stories, No Middle Name by Lee Child (PRH/Delacorte; RH Large Print). Prepub reviews are strong, with Kirkus writing, “the short form is refreshing after the misfire of Child’s last novel, in which the violence became unpleasant and the tone curdled. No such problem here. And it’s encouraging that the novella Too Much Time, which leads into the next Reacher novel, feels like a return to form. These are tasty appetizers that will hopefully lead to a satisfying entree.”

Long before the name had another connotation, Scott Turow set his mysteries in the fictional Kindle County. His newest, Testimony (Hachette/Grand Central; Grand Central Large Print; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) moves to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The Washington Post writes, “30 years after Presumed InnocentScott Turow still thrills.” Check your inventory of the author’s backlist, the publisher is re-issuing several in trade paperback and mass market (see our downloadable spreadsheet, Turow Reissues).

The titles covered in this column, 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 15, 2017.

Peer Picks

9781555977726_c1566Three Indie Next picks come out this week, including the #1 pick for May, Broken River by J. Robert Lennon (Macmillan/Graywolf; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Imagine a sentence that has the slow-burn intensity you feel when reading your favorite mystery novels and the nuance and music of your icons of prose style. Now imagine a whole book of them. Set that book in a small town in Upstate New York, move a family of city folk into a Shirley Jacksonian home, and tell part of the story from the point of view of an ‘Observer’ who could represent the reader, the author, a house spirit, God, or something else entirely. Now cede your imagination to J. Robert Lennon, whose new novel will transport and move you. A perfect union of breezy and deep, Broken River has something for everyone.” —John Francisconi, Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT

Additional Buzz: The Chicago Review of Books has it as one of their “The 10 Best New Books to Read This May,” writing that it is “a cinematic, darkly comic, and sui generis psychological thriller.”

9780778319993_1a663Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone, Phaedra Patrick (HC/Park Row Books; OverDrive Sample) is on the June Indie Next List.

“The novels of Phaedra Patrick are good for what ails you! Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone is a charming novel about a dull British jeweler who finds new light in his life when his American niece springs a surprise visit on him. Gemma may only be 16 years old, but she is a catalyst for some much-needed change in Benedict’s life and for the entire village. Readers would need a heart of stone to miss the joys of this delightful, feel-good novel. Book clubs are going to be taking a ‘shine’ to Benedict Stone.” —Pamela Klinger-Horn, Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior, MN

9781250080547_b4d09Also on the June list is The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (Macmillan/Flatiron Books; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich didn’t set out to investigate the rape and murder of six-year-old Jeremy Guillory in Louisiana; it was the case she was assigned as a young law school intern in 1992. In a fascinating twist, this becomes not only the true story of a heinous crime for which the perpetrator is in prison, but also of the investigation that unlocks the author’s memories of her own youth, a childhood in which she and her sisters were repeatedly sexually abused by their maternal grandfather. As Marzano-Lesnevich moves backward and forward in time between the young man who killed Jeremy and her own life, the reader is swept along on a current of dismay and awe: dismay that human beings can do these things to each other, and awe that the author could face such demons and move on. I’ve never read another book like this.” —Anne Holman, The King’s English, Salt Lake City, UT

Additional Buzz: It’s on multiple previews, including  Entertainment Weekly‘s “19 book you have to read in May.” They write, “Marzano-Lesnevich interweaves the story of a disturbing 1992 murder case she stumbles upon as a law intern with her own past trauma in this haunting, excellent memoir.”

Literary Hub includes it on their list of “5 Crime Must-Reads Coming in May” and Bustle names it one of “10 True Crime Books That Will Keep You Up All Night Long.”

Marzano-Lesnevich gets stars from PW, LJ, and Booklist. PW writes, “Her writing is remarkably evocative and taut with suspense, with a level of nuance that sets this effort apart from other true crime accounts.”

Tie-ins

Tie-ins to three adaptations hit shelves this week.

9781250116581_da5caThe Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust, Diana B. Henriques (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin; Tantor Media; OverDrive Sample).

HBO version of the the Bernie Madoff story debut next Saturday,  May 20, The Wizard of LiesBarry Levinson directs and Robert De Niro stars as the crooked Ponzi scheme mastermind. Michelle Pfeiffer stars as his wife Ruth Madoff, who was pilloried in the press. The film is based on the nonfiction book with the same title by Diana B. Henriques, who also makes a cameo in the film, playing herself as she interviews Madoff for the New York Times.

The Hollywood Reporter writes, “Robert De Niro gives a quietly intense performance in HBO’s Bernie Madoff telefilm, which could be retitled ‘Sympathy for the Devil’s Family.'” Comparing it to an earlier series, “Unlike ABC’s so-so Madoff telefilm from last spring [with Richard Dreyfuss as Madoff and Blythe Danner as Ruth], it generates neither heist-style antics nor tension from the game of cat-and-mouth … Wizard of Lies is a much odder thing, a character study without a conclusive answer.”

The Washington Post dives mores deeply into Levinson’s approach to that character.

9780062673411_25fb1  9780062673381_855c3

Last week’s release of the second season of Netflix’s series The Last Kingdom is based on books three and four in Bernard Wizard of Lies is a much odder thing, a character study without a conclusive answer Saxon Stories series, detailing the 9th century battles between the Saxons and the Vikings.

Lords of the North Tie-in by Bernard Cornwell (HC/Harper Paperbacks; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample)

Sword Song Tie-in by Bernard Cornwell (HC/Harper Paperbacks; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample)

Raves for season one carry over to the new season. Decider.com says it is the perfect show to “tide you over until Game of Thrones and/or Vikings comes back on the air.” Den of Geek! is running episode by episode reviews while The Guardian publishes episode recaps, complete with quotes, notes, and a violence count. Bustle predicts that viewers will be chomping at the bit for season 3.

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

Beyond a Rave: SAINTS FOR ALL OCCASIONS

Friday, May 12th, 2017

There are good reviews and there are rave reviews, and then there are the rare few, that make you want to run out and get the book right away. Ron Charles, chief book critic for The Washington Post does that for Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan (PRH/Knopf; RH Large Print; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). The novel is climbed up Amazon’s rankings, jumping from #257 to just outside the Top 100, at #110.

He calls the novel a “quiet masterpiece,” “engrossing,” and “ingeniously plotted,” and is most impressed with the way Sullivan develops her characters, writing that the book, “in the rare miracle of fiction, makes us care about them as if they were our own family.”

He is also lauds her writing chops, saying she “never tells too much; she never draws attention to her cleverness; she never succumbs to the temptation of offering us wisdom. She trusts, instead, in the holy power of a humane story told in one lucid sentence after another.”

Librarians are impressed as well. It is a LibraryReads pick and a GalleyChat choice. As we wrote earlier this week, it is also a title frequently on monthly and seasonal best lists.

Trisha Rigsby, Deerfield Public Library, Deerfield, WI wrote the LibraryReads annotation:

“Sisters Nora and Theresa Flynn leave their home in Ireland for a new life in 1958 Boston. Each adjusts to life in America in her own way. Steady Nora watches younger Theresa, until choices made by each woman drive the sisters apart. We follow the story from 1958 to contemporary New England, Ireland, and New York, exploring how siblings and children relate to their parents and each other as they age. Novels about Irish immigrant families and their American descendants are a weakness of mine and the way this story unfolds from everyone’s perspectives is very satisfying!”

Holds have yet to take off, although they are topping 3:1 ratios in a few libraries we checked, soaring over an 8:1 ratio in one locations.