After months of buzz leading up to Book Expo, where The Passage was dubbed “the book of the show,” Justin Cronin’s tale of a young girl who holds the power to save humanity from a plague of vampires arrives in stores next week. The media is giving it the full blockbuster treatment, while in most libraries we checked, holds are at about 10:1.

Was it worth the wait? Entertainment Weekly says yes, giving the novel an A-:

The Passage owes a substantial debt to both King’s [The Stand] and Cormac McCarthy’s [The Road], and he is not immune to some of the hoarier tropes of Armageddon fiction… but his bogeymen, the vampiric, blood-
hungry beasts known as ”virals,” are
 magnificently unnerving, and his power to compel readers to the next page seldom flags.

Time magazine’s Lev Grossman is all admiration, calling it a “magnificent beast of a new novel.” He gives Cronin props for combining his skills as a “literary” novelist (his first book, Mary and O’Neil, won the PEN/Hemingway award), his “extraordinary level of verbal craft and psychological insight” with strong pacing. “He lays out the ground rules, sets the initial conditions and then lets the machine run while you, the reader, claw helplessly for an off switch.”

People gives it the lead review, seconds the comparison to The Stand and adds The Andromeda Strain, but gives it only three out of four stars (review not online until next week):

“Unfortunately The Passage doesn’t quite live up to its forerunners. The first 200 pages are spectacular…Then the story jumps forward a century — and loses momentum… [the] books is bogged down by generic set pieces and color-by-numbers action sequences.”

The New York Times tells the backstory on how Cronin conceived the trilogy that begins wtih The Passage, which fetched a reported $3.75 million, and $1.75 for film rights. while USA Today offers snappy soundbites on the author and book, which was also selected by independent booksellers as the #1 Indie Next Pick for June.

The Passage Justin Cronin Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 784 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2010-06-08) ISBN / EAN: 0345504968 / 9780345504968

Other Major Fiction Titles on Sale Next Week

Vampire alert! In addition to The Passage, there are two other novels about the blood-loving breed landing next week. And let’s not forget the androids!

• Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer (Little Brown Teens) features a character first introduced in Eclipse, and the darker side of the newborn vampire world she inhabits.
• Insatiable by Meg Cabot (Morrow) is a contemporary sequel to Dracula from the bestselling author of the Princess Diaries.
• Android Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books) is the latest in the Quirk Classics series.

These three Indie Next picks for June are also getting mentions in various summer reading roundups or were featured at BEA:

• Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson (Grand Central) is the #2 Indie Next pick after The Passage:  “Jackson writes like a woman on fire, hooking you in the very first sentence (‘It was an airport gypsy that told me I had to kill my husband’) and demanding total absorption straight through to the novel’s stunning conclusion,” says the blurb. Jackson was also one of the AAP Librarians Lunch speakers at BEA.
• A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Knopf) is a collection of layered stories about an aging record exec and his passionate, troubled employee.
• So Cold the River by Michael Koryta (Little, Brown) is about a floundering filmmaker who, in the course of making a documentary about a self-made millionaire, discovers abilities in himself that draw him to a powerful source of evil. “Koryta’s prose is fluid and masterful, making this a delightfully eerie and mesmerizing read,” according to Indie Next.

And here are some of the usual suspects for  summer reading:

• The Lion by Nelson DeMille (Grand Central) is a followup to The Lion’s Game and stars John Corey, former NYPD homicide detective and special agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force.
• Death Echo by Elizabeth Lowell (HarperCollins) is the fifth St. Kilda Consulting thriller (after Blue Smoke and Murder). According to PW, “Lowell’s primary focus on espionage rather than on romance is a major change from earlier novels, albeit a pleasing one.”

If you read the press coverage of last week’s Book Expo, you might come away with the impression that there were no actual books at the show. It all seems to be talk of eBooks, Google, dying business models and Sarah Ferguson (with only glancing mention of her book).

Last year, we were able to put together TWO “Big Books of BEA” lists, one fiction and one nonfiction, based on reports in the national press. Now, all we have is PW’s roundup, which calls The Passage the book of the show. Yes, it has huge marketing behind it, which is refreshing in the book business today, but it’s coming out  NEXT WEEK; isn’t BEA about the big FALL season? The rest of the list is rundown of what was hyped at the Book Buzz panel, several big names authors’ next titles and a drive-by of some favorite indie presses.

This year, to get excited about the fall season, depend on the librarians’ Shout & Share picks and browsing the Edelweiss catalog of books at the show.

If you missed BEA’s Book & Author breakfast moderated by Jon Stewart, it will be broadcast this weekend on BookTV on Saturday at 11 a.m., with a repeat on Sunday at 1 a.m.

The breakfast featured Condoleezza Rice, John Grisham and Mary Roach.

Stewart & Roach cracked up the audience, and Rice was surprisingly touching (causing Stewart to beg, “Don’t make me like you.”)

At last week’s BEA, the Assoc. of American Publishers presented the second annual “Shout ‘n’ Share” program. This is an opportunity for librarians to come together at the end of the show and talk about the galleys, ARE’s, ARC’s and books that grabbed their attention on the show floor.

We have posted all the lists from the presenters on the panel; they are on the right, under “BEA Presentations” (note: if you have trouble downloading the document, email me and I will send you a copy).

The following are titles that were picked by two or more presenters. The titles link to the publishers descriptions.

JUNE

A Fierce Radiance Lauren Belfer Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 544 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061252514 / 9780061252518

Listen to the presentation of this title from the HarperBuzz Panel at ALA MidWinter

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So Cold the River Michael Koryta Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 528 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-06-09) ISBN / EAN: 0316053635 / 9780316053631

Large Type; Pbk; Little, Brown; 031608512X; $24.99
-

JULY

The Surf Guru Doug Dorst Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2010-07-15) ISBN / EAN: 1594487618 / 9781594487613

AUGUST

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void Mary Roach Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2010-08-02) ISBN / EAN: 0393068471 / 9780393068474

Brilliance Audio; UNABR

8 CD’s; 9781441876638; $99.97
MP3-CD; 9781441876652; $39.97

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The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam Eliza Griswold Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux – (2010-08-17) ISBN / EAN: 0374273189 / 9780374273187

Blackstone Audio; UNABR

11 CDs; 1-4417-5360-1; $109
1 MP3CD; 1441753632; $29.95
10 Tapes; 1441753595; $79.95

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Juliet Anne Fortier Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2010-08-24) ISBN / EAN: 0345516109 / 9780345516107

RH Audio; UNABR; 9780739384954; $40
.

SEPTEMBER

Russian Winter: A Novel Daphne Kalotay Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-09-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061962163 / 9780061962165

HarperAudio; UNABR 9780062012371; $27.99
HarperLuxe; 9780062002426; $25.99
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HarperAudio; UNABR; ISBN: 9780061988486; $39.99
HarperLuxe ; ISBN: 9780061979224; 540; $25.99

This was also presented at the Harper Buzz Panel, listen here.

OCTOBER

Great House: A Novel Nicole Krauss Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2010-10-04) ISBN / EAN: 0393079988 / 9780393079982

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Exley Brock Clarke Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2010-10-05) ISBN / EAN: 1565126084 / 9781565126084

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The Sleepwalkers Paul Grossman Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Press – (2010-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 0312601905 / 9780312601904

HighBridge Audio; UNABR; 9781615731053; Oct; $31.46
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The Wake of Forgiveness Bruce Machart Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade – (2010-10-21) ISBN / EAN: 0151014434 / 9780151014439

NOVEMBER

Cleopatra: A Biography Stacy Schiff Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316001929 / 9780316001922

Hachette LARGE PRINT; Hdbk; 9780316120449; $31.99
Hachette Audio; UNABR; 9781607887010; 34.98
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Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories Simon Winchester Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061702587 / 9780061702587

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Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love Larry Levin Retail Price: $19.99 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2010-11-04) ISBN / EAN: 0446546313 / 9780446546317

Hachette Audio; UNABR; 9781607886617; $24.98
.

DECEMBER

HarperAudio; 9780062034533; $18.99
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The Sherlockian Graham Moore Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Twelve – (2010-12-01) ISBN / EAN: 0446572594 / 9780446572590

FEBRUARY

If you didn’t get to BEA, or even if you did and feel that you missed a few publishers, Edelweiss has created an online catalog of titles that were at the show. It’s worth checking out, if only to get a glimpse of the future of publishers catalogs.

The Edelweiss catalog offers several advantages over print. You can browse all the catalogs by genre, allowing you to look at all 332 cookbooks that were exhibited, and further letting you to narrow the search down to the 17 Vegetarian and Vegan books (hey, look at that, there’s a vegan book for “Latin Food Lovers”).

The GeoSearch tool (accessible from the tabs across the top) is a new function from Edelweiss, allowing you to find books related to your local area. I used it to discover that a new book on the Auburn Cord Duessenberg Racers is coming in October; it’s within driving distance of my former high school. This works with publishers full catalogs, too; get to them via the “Switch Market View” tab at the very top.

Under specific title pages, you will find publishing background you won’t find elsewhere. For instance, the first novel, Juliet, which was one of the picks for the librarian’s “Shout ‘n’ Share” program, will be getting quite a bit of promotion when it is released in August; clearly, the publisher has already invested heavily in it, as evidenced by this note:

HOT TITLE!: The talk of 2008’s Frankfurt Bookfair, this debut novel was preempted by Ballantine on the morning of what promised to be a highly competitive auction. Write-ups about the novel appeared in all the publishing press. Foreign rights were subsequently sold in twenty-nine territories.

Edelweiss also lets you see how the book is being discussed on Twitter and, if you register with Edelweiss, you can tag titles, to create lists accessible from the navigation bar at the top.

Hurry, though, the BEA listings will only be up through June 11th.

Below are some items from the BEA panel “Libraries in a World of Digits,”

• OverDrive White Paper, “How eBook Catalogs at Public Libraries Drive Publishers’ Book Sales and Profits.”

• Michael Santangelo Brooklyn PL’s Downloadable Collections & an IFLA-Sponsored eBook Survey (PowerPoint download)

If you are waking up today with the sense that BEA flashed by way too quickly, you will be happy to hear the news that it’s returning to the three-day format next year, as announced by show manager Steven Rosato announced on his blog yesterday.

It will continue to be midweek, however, which Rosato says was “absolutely the right decision,” running Tuesday through Thursday, with conference programming on Monday.

Making an interesting distinction, he explains the decision, “… while many people liked BEA as a 2 day show – more people need BEA to be a 3 day show.”

Just in time, Library Journal’s Barbara Hoffert picks the “authors to stalk and galleys to grab” from the thousands that will be at BEA this week.

Just don’t take that grabbing and stalking too literally, like some librarians did at TLA this year, bringing a rebuke from The Goddess of YA Literature herself, Teri Lesesne.

Even if you’re not going to BEA, Barbara’s guide is a handy look at the upcoming season.

There will be hundreds of authors in the BEA booths next week, but one has a special appeal for librarians. Tantor Audio will be hosting the Marilyn Johnson, author of This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All at booth #3976  next Thursday from 11 am to noon.

In the process of promoting her book, Marilyn has become even more passionate about the need for library support, as she exhibits in this video from MidWinter:

—-
MARILYN JOHNSON
This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
Read by Hillary Huber
Running Time: 7 hrs 30 min – Unabridged
Trade 9781400116348 6 Audio CD $34.99
Library 9781400146345 6 Audio CD $69.99
MP3 9781400166343 1 MP3-CD $24.99

You may notice that “procrastinator” in the headline is singular — the procrastinator is actually me. I know none of my fellow librarians would have waited until now put together their schedules.

Identifying all the BEA programs you might want to attend can be frustrating, since, unlike ALA, programming is created by many different groups, from the AAP to FOLUSA and are announced in various places.

Happily, for this procrastinator, Publishers Marketplace has put together a handy app. Under schedules, it gives you quick information on Main Events, Author Signings and even has a special section for Librarian Events (note that the LJ and SLJ events on Tuesday are part of each magazine’s Day of Dialog, which are sold out now).

I’m also checking LJ’s guide, which selects all programs that are of interest to librarians, not just those that have “library” in the title.

NOT included on the Publishers Marketplace app, is the AAP’s great author dinner for librarians; we hear there are still a few spots open, but you need to RSVP (dinner is FREE) by tomorrow:

The Association of American Publishers Cordially Invites you to:

Dinner on Tuesday, May 25^th

Holiday Inn West 57^th Street. Embassy Ballroom 7 pm

With authors:
Cory Doctorow, author of For The Win (Tor/Forge)

Rachel Vincent, author of My Soul To Keep (Harlequin Teen)

Anne Fortier, author of Juliet (Ballantine)

Jane Green, author of Promises To Keep (Viking)

Ann Brashares, author of My Name Is Memory (Riverhead)

Co-Hosted with Library Journal

Please email Marlene Scheuermann, AAP by Friday, May 21st. Be sure to  indicate you want to attend the Librarians Dinner.

Book Expo America has hosted many big names as keynote speakers, each of them a rock star of their particular time, including Thomas Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Bill Clinton.

So, who uniquely represents the zeitgeist this time around?

Barbra Streisand.

And, the answer to your question is, “Yes, she is publishing a book,” her first one, called My Personal Passion for Style, coming in November.

Book Expo America will be held May 25 through 27 at the Javits Center in New York City. For the first time, it is being held midweek.

Below is the cover, from Viking’s fall catalog:

Viking; 9780670022137; $60.00; 288 pgs.; 350 4-color photographs and drawings.

The catalog copy describes it as,

A lavishly illustrated personal tour of the great star’s homes and collections

For nearly five decades Barbra Streisand has been one of the singular figures in American entertainment. From the cabaret to the Broadway stage, from television and film stardom to her acclaimed work as a director, from the recording studio to the concert hall, she has demonstrated that the extraordinary voice that launched her career was only one of her remarkable gifts.

Now, in her first book, Barbra Streisand reveals another aspect of her talent: the taste and style that have inspired her beautiful homes and collections. My Passion for Design focuses on the architecture and construction of her newest homes, the dream refuge that she has longed for since the days when she shared a small Brooklyn apartment with her mother, brother, and grandparents. A culmination and reflection of Streisand’s love of American architecture and design between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the book contains many of her own photographs of the rooms she has decorated, the furniture and art she has collected, and the ravishing gardens she has planted on her land on the California coast. In addition to glimpses of her homes, Barbra shares memories of her childhood, the development of her sense of style, and what collecting has come to mean to her.

My Passion for Design is a rare and intimate private tour into the world of one of our most beloved stars. It will be welcomed by her many fans and all lovers of the great achievements of American design.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Speaking of reading groups (see Reading Group Survey Results), BEA featured a “Book Club Brainstorming” panel, moderated by Carol Fitzgerald of ReadingGroupGuides.com.

Today’s Shelf Awareness pulls together tips from the booksellers on the panel, which can, of course, translate to libraries.

A podcast of the panel is also available on the Book Expo site, (or by clicking above), along with podcasts and videos of many of the other BEA-sponsored programs. In addition, Publishers Lunch has posted their own videos from BEA.

Do you remember the days when we bought dozens of cassettes of programs and lugged them home in our suitcases?

Just a reminder that Norton is offering copies of the galley of Stitches (THE Book of BEA) to EarlyWord readers. The deadline for entry is 11 pm, EST, today.

 Click here for full details.

Not content with all the BEA picks already published, BEA ran their own survey of media who regularly cover the book industry. Show Manager Lance Fensterman admits, “This is one of the most unscientific surveys that we could possibly initiate,” but says it’s important to identify a title or two that may have been overlooked by the others.

Indeed, among the nine titles is Elizabeth Kostova’s Swan Thieves, (Little, Brown, Jan) which, as we noted, was inexplicably missing from  other lists. On the other hand, the list includes a raft of titles that are by now the usual suspects: South of Broad, (Pat Conroy, Doubleday), Spooner (Pete Dexter, Grand Central) and David Small’s Stitches from Norton (how quickly one becomes a usual suspect!)

There IS one very unusual choice; a mass market paperback first novel about Victorian vampires, Soulless by Gail Carriger, described on the author’s Web site as “Jane Austen does paranormal, or PG Wodehouse does steampunk.” We suspect Ron Hogan, who has been touting it at Galley Cat, got it on the list.

So, OK, we’ll bite (sorry). It’s got a great cover, an inventive series title (the first in the “Parasol Protectorate Series”) and the author nearly convinced us that vampires affected Victorian fashion (cravats are great for covering neck marks!) on her web site.

Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate) Gail Carriger Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Orbit – (2009-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316056634 / 9780316056632

I’m in danger of getting whiplash. After days of rounding up the Fall books from BEA, the Wall Street Journal dragged me back to summer with their “Best Reads of the Season;” fourteen fiction and 5 nonfiction titles (the accompanying article claims there are only 10 fiction titles; someone snuck a few more in!).

If you want to look at the various picks of the BEA, check our links to the right, including the full lists from the librarians at the “Shout and Share” panel, under “BEA ‘09 — Roundups.”