Viking’s big early spring debut, Angelology, is bringing hosannas from some and pitchforks from others.

Viking wasn’t the only publisher to see potential in the book; they were one of seven houses to bid on it last year, and won with a rumored six-figure deal, (Publishers Weekly, 1/28/09). Shortly after, movie rights were sold for $1 million to Columbia (see our earlier story).

USA Today gives it the love in the current issue,

What do you get when an Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate and critically acclaimed memoirist [Falling Through the Earth, 2006] trolls for the same readers who loved Dan Brown’s search for the grail of best-sellerdom in The Da Vinci Code? In the case of Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology, a spellbinding quest novel.

And, further,

[Trussoni] has worked out her fantasy scheme brilliantly. Her literary riddles resolve with the aesthetically pleasing precision of a well-oiled antique clock. She offers up intriguing characters, lyrical nature descriptions, hidden clues, secret codes, hidden manuscripts and treasure hunts, creating a sumptuous and surprising novel.

As we noted earlier, both People and the NYT BR featured Angelology as their lead reviews last week and both were won over. The Chicago Tribune is not so appreciative, saying that the plot is “so convoluted it makes The Da Vinci Code look like a model of clarity” and the reviewer notes regretfully that Trussoni is at work on a sequel. In the daily NYT, Janet Maslin says it’s “prettily written,” but goes on to detail the book’s “nonsenical” story line. Perhaps most damning, she notes that “Ms. Trussoni does not even tie up this book’s loose ends. She leaves her story in virtual midair…”

In the libraries we checked, holds are averaging just 3:1 on light ordering.

Angelology Danielle Trussoni Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-03-09) ISBN / EAN: 0670021474 / 9780670021475

Penguin Audiobooks: 03/09/2010; $39.95; ISBN 9780143145264

In a first novel by award-winning short story writer Eric Puchner, a California real estate developer is going broke and hiding that fact from his family. Alan Cheuse reviews the book, Model Home, on NPR’s All Things Considered (listen here), saying,

I came to feel so deeply for [the characters] that the book now and then became almost excruciating to read: the feckless parents, the desperate kids struggling to stay alive and in love with a home world crumbling around them.

People gave it their highest accolade, 4 of a possible 4 stars. It was also reviewed by,

• SF Chronicle ‘Model Home,’ by Eric Puchner
• NYT Nightmare on Easy Street

Model Home Eric Puchner Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0743270487 / 9780743270489

Audio from Tantor:

On Sale Date: 04/05/2010
Trade 9781400116522 12 Audio CDs $39.99
Library 9781400146529 12 Audio CDs $79.99
MP3 9781400166527 2 MP3-CD $29.99

Three books are the reviewers’ darlings of the moment. Oddly, they all have extremely short titles; Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee, Infinities by Jon Banville and The Ask by Sam Lipsyte.

Leading the pack in number of holds is The Ask. It was ordered in the lowest quantities, so it also has the highest ratio of holds, averaging 8:1 in libraries we checked. Booklist starred this “darkly humorous story.” It received equally strong reviews from Kirkus and PW, but LJ felt that, despite being a “A treasure trove of brilliant asides and one-liners,” it “never really comes together as a coherent novel.”

The consumer press is also divided,

• NYT BR, 3/7, Lydia Millett; “Lipsyte is not only a smooth sentence-maker, he’s also a gifted critic of power…What makes The Ask work so well is the way it dovetails its characters’ self-loathing with their self-consciousness…And that’s why this book is a success: not only the belly laughs but also the sadness attendant upon the cultural failure it describes.”

• LA Times, Misery loves company: Sam Lipsyte’s LipSite; “The Ask delivers its articulation of class rage in a sometimes mean-spirited package.”

The author is also being featured in interviews,

• WSJ, Slouching Toward Success; “Having made failure the signature theme of his fiction, Mr. Lipsyte seems especially unprepared for the critical success of his new novel, The Ask.”

• The Daily Beast, The Slacker Generation’s Swift

• New York magazine, “The Loser Chronicles: With his new novel, The Ask, Sam Lipsyte finds the funny in failure.”

The Ask: A Novel Sam Lipsyte Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux – (2010-03-02) ISBN / EAN: 0374298912 / 9780374298913

BBC Audio; UNABR; 9780792770794; 7 CD’s;  $89.95

Audio available from OverDrive

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The Surrendered is the second in number of holds, but, because of an average of twice as many copies on order, hold ratios are less than 3:1. Michiko Kakutani gives it a strong review in the NYT today, ending with a Michiko-style back-hand compliment,

If the reader stops and thinks about it, there are lots of infelicities of craft in this novel…But Mr. Lee writes with such intimate knowledge of his characters’ inner lives and such an understanding of the echoing fallout of war that most readers won’t pause to consider such lapses — they will be swept up in the power of The Surrendered and its characters’ aching and indelible stories.

The Surrendered Chang-rae Lee Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2010-03-09) ISBN / EAN: 1594489769 / 9781594489761

ebook available from OverDrive

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Infinities, by John Banville has been reviewed nearly everywhere but is described most memorably by Laura Miller in Sunday’s NYT BR,

If The Infinities has the bones of a novel of ideas, it’s fleshed out and robed as a novel of sensibility and style. Its drapery is velvet and brocade — sumptuous and at times over-heavy.

Other reviewers agree with her assessment that,

Fortunately, lavish demonstrations of literary virtuosity don’t bog down The Infinities, as they often did with The Sea, the novel that won Banville the Man Booker Prize in 2005.

Library holds, however, are modest.

The Infinities John Banville Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-02-23) ISBN / EAN: 0307272796 / 9780307272799

RH Audio; UNABR; 9780307706652; $35

Two novels going on sale next week — one by Lionel Shriver and the other by Danielle Trussoni — are getting early media attention from major critics, though there is only moderate library demand so far.  On the other hand, Alan Brantley’s second Flavia de Luce mystery doesn’t need media attention; customers are placing holds based on the success of the author’s debut last year, Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

Lionel Shriver’s exploration of the plight of middle-class Americans squeezed by the current health care system, So Much for That, will hit the ground running with a very positive early review from the notoriously hard-to-please Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times, who says,

The author’s understanding of her people is so intimate, so unsentimental that it lofts the novel over [some] bumpy passages, insinuating these characters permanently into the reader’s imagination.

In a gossipy aside, freelance critic Mark Athitakas digests the recent flap in the UK over the ethics of Shriver’s decision to set a portion of her novel in a resort on Pemba Island in the Indian Ocean, and to list the owners in her acknowledgements, after having gone on a travel-writing junket there.

So Much for That Lionel Shriver Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 448 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-03-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061458589 / 9780061458583

Available from Brilliance Corporation  03/09/2010

• Compact Disc: $36.99; ISBN 9781423360995

Large Print from HarperLuxe

• $25.99; ISBN 9780061946134

Overdrive WMA Audiobook: ISBN 9780061977510

Playaway: $74.99; SKU 11733

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Danielle Trussoni’s debut thriller, Angelology, about a nun descended from elite angelogist who solves a puzzle reminiscent of the Da Vinci Code, is a People Pick in the 3/15 issue. The review bestows 3.5 of a possible 4 stars, but reads like a 4-star review:

…breathtakingly imaginative…[the] story is over the top. But aren’t all sweeping thoroughly entertaining tales of the supernatural? In fact, once you’ve entered Angelology’s enthralling world…you’ll be thinking, “Vampires? Who cares about vampires?”

It gets less favorable coverage from Janet Maslin in the New York Times:

Angelology is so prettily written that it takes a while for the clumsiness to show… Ms. Trussoni does not even tie up this book’s loose ends. She leaves her story in virtual midair, set up for a sequel and mightily confused as to angelology’s future.

Library demand is relatively light, but given the heated auction for this book and the positive early reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, there’s bound to be more coverage. There’s also a movie in the works from Sony.

Angelology Danielle Trussoni Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-03-09) ISBN / EAN: 0670021474 / 9780670021475

Available from Penguin Audiobooks: 03/09/2010

• Compact Disc: $39.95; ISBN 9780143145264

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In libraries, next week’s most anticipated new fiction title is Alan Bradley’s The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag, featuring the dangerously brilliant eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce.  This young English girl’s passion for chemistry and solving murders helped septagenarian Bradley win many fans for his debut, Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (2009). Libraries we checked are largely on top of the demand, with up to 50 copies on hand.

Library Journal says that “while the plot at times stretches credulity, with some characters veering close to Agatha Christie stereotypes, Flavia is such an entertaining narrator that most readers will cheerfully go along for the ride.”

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag: A Flavia de Luce Mystery Alan Bradley Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2010-03-09) ISBN / EAN: 0385342314 / 9780385342315

Available from Random House Audio:  03/09/2010

• Compact Disc: $35; ISBN 978030757641535

Other Fiction with Buzz Coming Next Week:

Chang-Rae Lee’s The Surrendered (Riverhead), a story of war and survival that focuses on a Korean orphan and the American veteran and missionary who try to care for her, received a favorable review from Laura Miller in Salon and a glowing review in Elle,  and was also on O magazine’s list of Seven Books to Watch for in March.

Clive Cussler and Jack De Brul’s The Silent Sea (Putnam) is the ”winning seventh entry in the Oregon Files nautical adventure series… [in which] Juan Cabrillo, the heroic skipper of the ‘Oregon’, a state-of-the-art warship disguised as a tramp steamer, faces a multitude of difficulties and challenges,” according to Publishers Weekly.

In the Washington Post this week, Patrick Anderson gave a glowing review to A Night Too Dark, by Dana Stabenow, the author’s 17th mystery, set in the wilds of Alaska.

He says that Stabenow “… is one of those regional crime novelists who too often don’t achieve national attention, ” adding, “Once you’ve met the strange characters who inhabit [these] novels, Sarah Palin becomes easier to comprehend.”

It’s clear that Stabenow is not unrecognized in libraries in the lower 48. It might surprise Anderson to learn that holds in libraries we checked are as high as 155 on 40 copies, with and additional 40 on 7 copies of the audio.

A Night Too Dark: A Kate Shugak Novel Dana Stabenow Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Minotaur Books – (2010-02-16) ISBN / EAN: 0312559097 / 9780312559090

Macmillan Audio; UNABR CD; 9781427208880; $39.99
Audio available from OverDrive

Two stellar reviews brought attention to Mark Mills’ third book, The Information Officer, propelling it to #79 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

The mystery is set in Malta during WWII. The L.A. Times calls it a “…novel so triumphantly old-fashioned, so double-upholstered with the stuff of classics, it reads like the story of Casablanca revisited, like a vanished Graham Greene.”

In the NYT BR, Marilyn Stasio says, “…the sense of immediacy Mark Mills brings to The Information Officer is so intense that this breathtaking novel reads more like a memoir than a wartime thriller.”

And, in fact, the book has its origins in a memoir, as the author reveals,

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The Information Officer Mark Mills Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 1400068185 / 9781400068180

Blackstone Audio
Read by Robin Sachs; Unabridged

7 Tapes; 1441721259; $65.95
1 MP3CD; 1441721297; $29.95
8 CD; 1441721266; $100.00

Audio and ebook available from OverDrive

Of the books being published next week, the likely sleeper is the debut novel Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simondson. It’s the #1 Indie Next Pick for March. The NYT’s Janet Maslin was charmed; she already jumped the gun with a review on Monday, and compared it to Alexander McCall Smith.  Following in the tradition of British novels about village life, this book has a modern twist. The gentlemanly Major Pettigrew falls for a lovely Pakistani widow who runs the local tea shop. All four prepub reviews were equally smitten.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand Helen Simonson Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-03-02) ISBN / EAN: 1400068932 / 9781400068937

Random House Audio; UNABR; 9780307712844; $40
Audio downloadable from OverDrive

Other Fiction with Buzz Coming Next Week

Hardly a sleeper Jodi Picoult’s House Rules is showing it has the highest number of holds of titles coming next week. Libraries have anticipated the demand, so average ratios are less than 2:1. The new issue of People magazine gives it their highest rating, 4 out of a possible 4 stars. Entertainment Weekly is more luke warm, giving it a B. They describe the plot this way,

Emma, a single mother, copes just fine with her teenage sons — until the day Jacob is arrested for the murder of his tutor. Jacob has Asperger’s, and the cops confuse his symptoms — such as avoiding eye contact — with guilt.

They say the book “loses points for ruining what could have been a riveting mystery by establishing Jacob’s innocence at the outset.” However, People says, “Picoult weaves a provocative story in which she explores the painn of trying to comprehend the people we love.”

Entertainment Weekly reserves their highest rating this week, an A-, for Sam Lipsyte’s The Ask, a black comedy about a middle aged man who is fired from his job as a college fund raiser. What resonates is a “dazzling prose style that doesn’t so much run across the page as pick it up and throttle it.” Prepub reviews were mixed; LJ thinks its brilliant writing never comes together as a coherent novel, while Kirkus calls it the author’s most brillant work to date and Booklist starred it.

“Ripped from the headlines” is a book publicist’s cliche, but Adam Haslett’s debut novel Union Atlantic goes one step further; it actually predicted the headlines.

On NPR’s Morning Edition today, Lynn Neary says the book,

…sometimes reads as if Haslett was listening into the private conversations that led to the economic collapse and the bank bailouts that followed.

Yet the remarkable fact is that Haslett finished the novel well before the real-life events took place. In the late ’90s, Haslett was reading about the Federal Reserve and some of the economic problems that were just beginning to stir.

Listen to her interview with Haslett here.

Also, on NPR’s All Things Considered Monday night, reviewer Alan Cheuse paired Union Atlantic with Jonathan Dee’s The Privileges, as “Two Novels That Are On The Money,” calling them both “terrific reads.”

Union Atlantic Adam Haslett Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0385524471 / 9780385524476

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The Privileges Jonathan Dee Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 1400068673 / 9781400068678

e-book available on OverDrive.

In today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin gives this ringing endorsement to first novel Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,

…read just [the first] page, and you may find you’ve fallen head over heels for Ms. Simonson’s funny, barbed, delightfully winsome storytelling. Don’t say you weren’t warned … As with the polished work of Alexander McCall Smith, there is never a dull moment but never a discordant note either. Still, this book feels fresh despite its conventional blueprint. Its main characters are especially well drawn, and Ms. Simonson makes them as admirable as they are entertaining.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand Helen Simonson Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-03-02) ISBN / EAN: 1400068932 / 9781400068937

Random House Audio; UNABR; 9780307712844; $40
Audio downloadable from OverDrive

Amy Greene’s debut novel, Bloodroot, was published in January to strong reviews.

An interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday is bringing it sales; it rose to #146 on Amazon. Libraries are showing heavy holds where ordering is light (one library has 152 holds on 9 copies).

As interviewer Jacki Lyden describes the book, it “tells the story of a family in Appalachia that’s been living under a curse for generations … Through [Greene's] pages, the culture that comes to life is as haunted and as mesmerizing as a fairy tale or a dream; as evil and as vile as a curse and as beautiful as that ephemeral blood root flower.” The plant of the title has blood-red sap that can either cure or poison.

Listen to the interview here.

Bloodroot Amy Greene Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0307269868 / 9780307269867

UNABR Simultaneous Audio: Random Audio; 9780307713230; $40
eBook and audio available from OverDrive

Libraries are showing demand for Dan Simmons’ historical novel with a supernatural twist, Black Hills, which is also picking up positive early reviews. Holds are averaging 4:1 on this tale of about a Sioux man who communes with the spirit of George Armstrong Custer for 50 years after his death in the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Booklist praises Hugo award-winner Simmons as “equally adept at horror, science fiction, fantasy, and mystery.”

Publishers Weekly also lauds ”his ability to create complex characters and pair them with suspenseful situations, [which] stands almost unmatched among his contemporaries.”

Entertainment Weekly gives the book a B+, finding that “some passages of Black Hills sink into tourist-pamphlet minutiae, [but] Simmons (Drood) keeps the tale buoyant with his evocative prose and storytelling muscle.”

Black Hills Dan Simmons Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 512 pages Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books – (2010-02-24) ISBN / EAN: 031600698X / 9780316006989

Audio: Hachette Audio; UNABR; 9781600247866; $39.98
BBC Audio; UNABR; 9781607883463; $129.99
Large Print: Little, Brown; pbk; 9780316073998; $25.99
Audio and ebook available from OverDrive

Other Fiction Titles Going on Sale Next Week

Danielle Steel’s Big Girl (Delacorte), about an unconventional beauty, has holds of up to 7:1 in libraries we checked.

Kim Harrison’s Black Magic Sanction (Eos) is the eighth title in her urban fantasy series, Robin Morgan/ Hollows. Holds are in the 4:1 range at many libraries we checked.

J.D. Robb’s Fantasy in Death (Penguin), the 30th book in the bestelling Death series featuring NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas, has predictably high holds.

Robert Parker’s Split Image (Putnam) is the latest title in the Spenser series, following the author’s death last month.  Holds are high in the libraries we checked. [According to The Age (Australia), there are several more Spenser novels coming.]

World War II era debut novel The Postmistress has been racking up some strong reviews and comparisons to other blockbuster debuts, like The Help and Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.

The new issue of People (3/1/10) gives it 3 of 5 stars, saying “…it’s a slam-dunk for book groups and readers who savor shifting through what-ifs.” Why not four stars, then? The reviewer feels there are flaws; “Blake works hard to set up situations involving moral questions and the effort shows.”

What about our prediction that it will appear in the top five on the 2/28 NYT Hardcover Fiction list?

We were wrong, but not by much. Advance word says it lands at #8.

By comparison, The Help first landed on the 3/1/09 NYT list at #29. It was 20 weeks before it rose into the top ten, hitting #9 on the 7/19/10 list. It gradually climbed into the top five, hitting #1 last month.

The Postmistress Sarah Blake Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0399156194 / 9780399156199

Audio from Blackstone Audiobooks

• CD: $100; ISBN 9781441725714
• MP3 CD: $29.95; ISBN 9781441725745
• Cassette: $65.95; ISBN 9781441725707

Audio and e-book available from OverDrive

Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill, is hailed in the current issue of Time magazine as “as one of America’s finest horror writers,” based on “the strength of two masterly thrillers–2007’s Heart-Shaped Box and his newest, Horns.”

Despite his pedigree, it wasn’t an easy road, says Time, “Hill, 37, spent more than a decade trying his hand at a variety of genres (a thriller in the vein of Cormac McCarthy, a children’s tale, a 900-page fantasy novel) with no bites from publishers.”

Library customers may not have caught on; holds are less than 1:1 on modest ordering in large library sytems (two copies or fewer for the largest branches).

As is clear from the cover, the title refers to the Devil.

Horns Joe Hill Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: William Morrow – (2010-02-16) ISBN / EAN: 0061147958 / 9780061147951

HarperLuxe – (2010-03-01);  9780061945663; Paperback; $25.99

Audio CD; HarperAudio – (2010-03-01); 9780061768026; $39.99

Do reviews sell books? Not as often as publishers would like, but this week’s NYT BR cover review of The Three Weissmanns of Westport, by Cathleen Schine moved the the book to #9 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

The NYT BR calls it “sparkling, crisp, clever, deft, hilarious and deeply affectiing,” and says that, in the crowded field of Jane Austen wannabes, “Schine’s homage has it all: stinging social satire, mordant wit, delicate charm, lilting language and cosseting materialistic detail.”

Several libraries are showing heavy holds; 103 on 11 copies in one large system.

UPDATE:  It’s the little book that could – USA Today and People have reviews scheduled and NPR’s Fresh Air is considering an interview.

The Three Weissmanns of Westport Cathleen Schine Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 0374299048 / 9780374299040

Unabridged Audio from Blackstone:

8 CD; 1-4417-2515-8; $90.00
Tape; 1-4417-2514-1; $65.95
MP3CD; 1-4417-2518-9; $29.95

Audio downloadable from OverDrive

Dick Francis, a successful jockey who had an even more successful career as a writer, producing over 40 books, died at his home on Grand Cayman island on Sunday.

According to the The Guardian, Francis had an unusual arrangement with his British publisher; as long as he wrote a book a year, all of his books would remain in print. His final novel, Crossfire, written with his son Felix, will be released in August.

The New York Times obituary quotes critic John Leonard who said, “Not to read Dick Francis because you don’t like horses is like not reading Dostoyevsky because you don’t like God.”