One of the summer’s much-anticipated thrillers, Lucy by Laurence Gonzales, arrives to discordant fanfare. But whatever the final critical consensus may be, the tale of a girl who’s half human and half bonobo chimpanzee is bound to get more media coverage.

Entertainment Weekly gives it an “A,” comparing Gonzales to a cross between Michael Crichton and Cormac McCarthy:

He’s got Crichton’s gift for page-
turning storytelling, but also a vivid, literary-grade prose style, and a knack for getting inside his characters’ heads.”

But New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani hates it:

Gonzales doesn’t manage to lend Lucy’s back story even the veneer of plausibility. . .  The reader often has the sense that Mr. Gonzales is impatiently ticking off plot points on an outline, as if he were writing a movie treatment, not a novel.

On NPR, critic Alan Cheuse takes the the middle ground in making it a summer pick:

The science in Gonzales’ novel is fascinating, the politics perhaps just a bit exaggerated, but hey, that’s entertainment.

Lucy Laurence Gonzales Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-07-13) ISBN-10: 0307272605 ISBN-13: 9780307272607

Other Notable Fiction Titles On Sale Next Week

Savages by Don Winslow (Simon & Schuster), a tale of the marijuana trade on the Mexican border, gets a rave review from Janet Maslin in the New York Times, who declares that “it will jolt Mr. Winslow into a different league….Its wisecracks are so sharp, its characters so mega-cool and its storytelling so ferocious that the risks pay off, thanks especially to Mr. Winslow’s no-prisoners sense of humor.” The novel is also a July Indie Next Pick and an ALA Shout and Share pick.

Faithful Place by Tana French (Viking) is the story of an Irish cop on the trail his childhood sweetheart’s murderer. It’s also the #1 Indie Bookseller Pick for July. In Salon, critic Laura Miller says the novel is “wrenching to a degree that detective fiction rarely achieves: Frank — a cocky devil who prides himself on his skillful lying and ability to play other people — gets pulled apart psychologically as he pursues Rosie’s killer.”

Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman (Doubleday)  is an Entertainment Weekly pick for summer. PW calls it  ”a dense story of irreparable loss that tracks two families across four summers…. Though Waldman is often guilty of overwriting here, the narrative is well crafted, and each of the characters comes fully to life.”

Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner (Atria) follows the wife and two daughters of a senator caught having an affair. It was a USA Today Summer Books pick, but PW pans it: “The lack of conflict and strong characters, and the heavy dose of brand names and ripped-from-the-headlines references, make this disappointingly disposable.”

Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon), a new series by the prolific author, gets a starred review from Booklist: “Readers of McCall Smiths 44 Scotland Street novels will savor this new series set among a collection of flats in Londons lively Pimlico neighborhood.”

The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster), the 18th Dave Robicheaux novel, also gets a starred Booklist review: “superb suspense leading to a gripping, set-piece finale that is a masterpiece of texture and mood… Not to be missed by any follower of the landmark series.”

Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner (Bantam) investigates the murder of a family with Boston detective D.D. Warren. Booklist again hands out a starred revew: “Gardner never sensationalizes her story, and the book ends with a resolution that is creatively and emotionally appropriate. An excellent novel.”

Damaged: A Maggie O’Dell Mystery by Alex Kava (Doubleday) is “exciting if grisly . . . Maggie must venture into the eye of Hurricane Isaac as this intense thriller builds to an eye-popping revelation that will leave fans eager for the sequel,” says PW. Libraries we checked are well ahead of demand for this title, which was featured at Random House’s Librarian Author Breakfast at BEA.

Among next week’s releases are two much-buzzed-about debuts. Library demand is highest for The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, with holds of  6 to one or higher on modest orders.

The tale of an American radio reporter in WWII London, the novel is winning comparisons to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society from booksellers, one of whom touted The Postmistress in PW’s Galley Talk column, and also in a USA Today story on breakthrough winter titles. The book also carries a blurb from Kathryn Stockett, author of the runaway bestseller, The Help.

Entertainment Weekly gives it an A- in the new issue, saying “There’s both exquisite pain and pleasure to be found in these pages, which jump from the mass devastation in Europe to the intimate heartaches of an American small town.”

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

Available 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

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Union Atlantic, the first novel by Adam Hazlett, author of the bestselling story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here, is also attracting 2:1 hold ratios in libraries we checked. The novel explores the gilded age of the last decade, centering on a land dispute between a young banker and a retired schoolteacher, and was chosen as a #1 Indie Next Pick for February.

New York magazine profiles Hazlett this week, as did PW earlier, both noting that the book, which Hazlett began writing ten years ago, foretells the recent financial crisis and even the bailout. He tells New York that when he began writing it, he feared readers might not know, or even care, what the Fed is.

Libraries have ordered it in similar quantities to The Postmistress, with one-fifth the number of holds.

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

Other Major Titles On Sale Next Week

Adriana Trigiani’s Brava Valentine (HarperCollins), the second in her Valentine trilogy about a loving but fiery Italian American family, is showing reserves of 6:1 at one library we checked, making it the most-anticipated fiction title of the week.

Alex Berenson’s The Midnight House (Penguin), the fourth in a series featuring superspy John Wells,  is also much in demand, though not available at all libraries we checked.

Peter Straub’s A Dark Matter (Knopf Doubleday) “ranks as one of the finest tales of modern horror,” according to PW.

Chuck Hogan’s Devils in Exile (Simon & Schuster) is “a compelling portrait of a good man who makes bad choices and in the end must battle his way out of a destructive and deadly life,” PW said.

Just when I’ve declared Summer Reading Lists over, the New York Times comes up with yet another one; “On the Beach, Under a Tiffany-Blue Sky,” by Janet Maslin.

But, this is not a true summer reading list. Maslin has fun satarizing most of the chick lit books she mentions. She uses them to set off her favorite, “this summer’s most adorable chick-lit book.” As she says, it breaks the mold because it is nonfiction and written by a man. It was also pubbed well before summer began, in April. She describes her summer darling,

Michael Tonello’s Bringing Home the Birkin [is] the story of one man’s relentless assault on the world’s horsiest luxury-goods label…The genre’s four basic food groups are ambition, romance, travel and partying, and Mr. Tonello dishily delivers…

Maslin lists several titles that are well-known to readers advisory librarians. Many have already appeared on bestseller lists (Beach House by Jane Green; Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger; Love the One You’re With, by Emily Griffin; Sundays at Tiffany’s by James Patterson).

• Hardcover: $25.95
• Publisher: William Morrow (April 22, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061473332
• ISBN-13: 978-0061473333

Maureen Dowd’s column today is a review/defense of American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, a novel that draws heavily on the true story of the current First Lady. The book is not due to be released until September, but Radar magazine posted “steamy” excerpts from the book on Monday. Based on this scanty evidence, outrage has ensued.

Perhaps the most amusing comment is from an L.A. Times Opinion piece; “If you thought you could live out the final days of Bush’s term without being forced to imagine the man in the sack, think again.”

Dowd, who seems to have actually read the book, admits she’s never been able to get past the First Lady’s facade. In her view, the book does;

…there’s only one vessel that can ferry you past Laura’s moat, and that’s fiction. Ms. Sittenfeld has creatively applied her crayons to all the ambiguous blanks in the coloring book…The portraits of Laura and W. — known as Alice and Charlie Blackwell here — are trenchant and make you like them more.

The Publishers Weekly review of 7/7 is much less supportive, calling it “uneven.”

Libraries have the book on order, with comfortable holds to copy ratios.

American Wife

Curtis Sittenfeld

• Hardcover: $26.00
• Publisher: Random House (September 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400064759
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064755

Salon’s summer reading recommendations are coming in parts. On Monday, June 2nd, the Salon staff picked four chick lit titles. Most summer roundups focus on titles published during the season, but the Salon staff doesn’t confine itself to pub date or format.

Louis Bayard selects a UK title, This Is How It Happened, pubbed here in trade paperback, calling it “a black-humored romp.” Reading a man write about chick lit is a bit like watching a guy hold his girlfriend’s purse. He’s agreed to do it, but he has to make sure you know he’s not comfortable with it. The main character describes how hard she works to appeal to her man. Says Bayard;

she’s shaving and plucking like a maniac and wearing makeup on Saturday mornings and getting a bikini wax every other week. On and on it goes, a litany of biological self-denial, to which a stupefied male reader can only respond: We are so not worth it.

This is How it Happened (Not a Love Story)

by Jo Barrett

• Paperback: $13.95
• Publisher: Avon A (January 22, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061241105
• ISBN-13: 978-0061241109

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Rebecca Traister loses her heart to Anne Rivers Siddons:

Off Season

Anne Rivers Siddons

• Hardcover: $24.99
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (August 13, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0446527874
• ISBN-13: 978-0446527873

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Sara Hepola chooses a debut novel by Liz Tuccillo, the co-author of a little piece of nonfiction, He’s Just Not That Into You. The movie version hits theaters Oct. 24, starring nearly everybody (for a little guilty pleasure, check the trailer under our “Books to Movies” listing).

Tuccillo was also head writer for Sex and the City. Hepola sees a similarity “her dialogue bears some of the show’s hallmarks — tart and briskly paced and occasionally sappy.”

How to Be Single: A Novel

by Liz Tuccillo

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: Atria (June 10, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1416534121
• ISBN-13: 978-1416590149

• Audio CD: Abridged, $29.95
  
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; (June 10, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0743569679
• ISBN-13: 978-0743569675

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Joy Press chooses April pub Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner (covered here earlier), saying “Weiner has chosen smartass amusement over depth every time — but that’s what makes Certain Girls an imperfectly perfect summer read.”

Certain Girls

by Jennifer Weiner

• Hardcover: $26.95
• Publisher: Atria; (April 8, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0743294254
• ISBN-13: 978-0743294256

• Audio CD: Abridged; 29.95
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; (April 8, 2008)
• Readers: Michele Pawk, Zoe Kazan
  
• ISBN-10: 0743569865
• ISBN-13: 978-0743569866

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Last week, Salon chose thrillers. Four of the five, all pubbed in April, are already well-known:

• Hold Tight by Harlan Coben (Dutton)
• Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Grand Central)
• Losing You by Nicci French (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber (Morrow)

The less predictable choice is a debut title from February, selected by Laura Miller. It’s difficult to condense Miller’s review but a quote from PW gets at the strangeness Miller describes — “a thriller that will strike some as a mix of John Fowles’s The Magus and Stephen King’s The Shining.”

Obedience

Will Lavender

• Hardcover: $24.00
• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books (February 19, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 030739610X
• ISBN-13: 978-0307396105

• Audio CD: Unabridged, 7 CD’s $90
  
• Publisher: Books On Tape
• ISBN: 9781415946442

Next week, Salon will do memoirs. The finl list will be historical fiction.

If you like Jennifer Weiner, you’ll love watching chick-lit pioneer, Laura Zigman, stand up for her in The Wasington Post. You don’t often read a review that begins by taking another reviewer to task (if we did, review pages might be more lively). Zigman says “Jane Smiley’s dismissive review of ‘the pinkest book you can imagine’ — in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the paper Weiner herself used to write for — was funny enough in a bitterly ironic way to be something right out of one of Weiner’s novels.” And goes on to say,

Smiley thinks it’s a shame that Weiner doesn’t “address larger questions than the psychological ups and downs of her nice Jewish characters,” but to me there are few things larger, not to mention more interesting and entertaining, than the psychological ups and downs of nice Jewish characters, especially the ones Weiner writes about.

Let the Chick Lit Wars begin!

Weiner is not going to be taking the literary high road any time soon, however. She recently signed a two-year deal with ABC Studios. Hollywood Reporter sees this as following in the footsteps of Cecila Ahern, who signed with ABC in 2006 and created the comedy series “Samantha Who?”

Though fans of chick lit will rightfully hate the condescension, consumer reviews of Jennifer Weiner’s (In Her Shoes, Good in Bed) new title, Certain Girls (Atria, April 8 ) may bring new readers to the genre:

USA Today, 4/07

Much of what is labeled chick lit requires little more from a reader than a mere fling with marshmallow-y fluff…Then there is Jennifer Weiner… Her novels are full-bodied, meat-and-potatoes relationships. It’s this quality that has elevated the former journalist into the upper echelons of femme fiction.

Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/06

The title of Jane Smiley’s review on Sunday pretty much sums up her take — “Weiner is Talented Enough to Aim Higher”:

Weiner is a talented and accomplished novelist, with real stylistic flair, excellent and sometimes laugh-out-loud wit, and good insight into her characters. In her latest novel, she seems boxed in by her chosen genre, and it’s a shame, because she’s got the intelligence and the ambition to address larger questions than the psychological ups and downs of her nice Jewish characters. For whatever reason, though, she doesn’t dare.

Girls in Trucks tops the April Book Sense Picks Preview, which has just been posted. The #1 selection is a debut novel from Little, Brown, which the company is enthusiastically backing (tw0-page spread in the catalog, advertising in the NY Times, LA Times, New Yorker and People, among others, 7-city author tour, ARC’s, simultaneous audio).

Girls in Trucks, Katie Crouch

• Hardcover: $21.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown (April 7, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316002119
• ISBN-13: 978-0316002110

• Audio CD: $29.98
• Publisher: Hachette Audio (April 7, 2008)
• Reader: Author
  
• ISBN-10: 1600242723
• ISBN-13: 978-1600242724

• Large Type Paperback: $21.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown (April 7, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316027618
• ISBN-13: 978-0316027618

San Francisco bookseller, Kevin Hunsanger, describes the book this way:

This first novel by Katie Crouch turns the high-fallutin’ notions of Southern debutante culture on its ear with a dark and frankly sexual tale of awakening. A page-turner by every account, Girls in Trucks blends steamy scenes and heartbreak with an infectious, dreamlike prose, to deliver a graceful work of literature — not to be read while wearing white lace gloves!

An author video is also available:

Crouch is from Charleston and now lives in San Francisco.

Most libraries have ordered modest quantities. This is one to watch.

For those unfamiliar with Book Sense, it’s a program created by the American Booksellers Association to promote independent bookstores. One aspect of the program is the monthly Picks, twenty favorite titles pubbed in that month, selected by ABA members. Each pick is accompanied by a recommendation by a bookseller. The recommendations are not reviews, but models of quick handsells. Stores use the picks in various ways — some display all the titles, some use shelf talkers with the bookseller recommendations, and many promote them on their Web sites. The #1 Picks often become bestsellers.

The full list of the Picks is a great resource for Readers Advisory information. This month’s list includes a “worthy addition to the Scandinavian sleuths created by Henning Mankell and Arnaldur Indridason” (The Fourth Man, by K.O. Dahl), “one of the best short story collections…in years, and possibly, forever (Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock) and “the story of the three most important women in the history of pop music…[that] captures the ’60’s better than any novel” (Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller).

• Hardcover: $23.95
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (February 5, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0312362293
• ISBN-13: 978-0312362294

Lipstick Jungle doesn’t start until next week and it’s months until Sex and the City, The Movie opens. Meanwhile, how about a book video?

Several bloggers this week have been going nuts for three videos created to promote Celebutante by Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Khaligi Hopper. The book’s authors are connected in Hollywood (Ruthana is Dennis Hopper’s daughter; Amanda’s father is a producer), so they were able to get an actual Hollywood director, McG (Charlie’s Angels) and some recognizable actors (the biggest name is Autumn Reeser from the O.C.).

Even more amusing than the videos is the way Hollywood types look at the book world. Entertainment Weekly’s “PopWatch” blogger is gob-smacked by McG’s “unlikely new directing task: crafting four [sic -- there seem to be only three] short trailers to promote a new book. That’s right. A book” and compares them to “all those awful TV commercials with James Patterson woodenly touting his new title.” (Hopper and Goldberg can only hope to sell as many books as Patterson regularly does).

So, take a much-needed Friday break and check the videos out for yourselves. One of the blogs warns that they are NSFW; “Not Suitable For Work.” I assume that means corporate environments, not libraries. On the other hand, they may be NSFPOLWS (“Not Suitable for Posting On Library Web Sites”).

The book was reviewed in the 11/15 LJ. The reviewer called it a “fun first novel,” although, “Tolerance for Hollywood excess… is necessary to enjoy this book.” It’s on all library catalogs that I checked.

Today’s “Inside Buzz” column in USA Today hails the newly released trade paperback edition of The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs, now #20 on their list (up from #110 last week) as “one of the first hits of the new year.” They attribute the popularity to book clubs and a movie version, starring Julia Roberts, scheduled to release in June.

USA Today likens Knitting Club to other books that have had much greater success in trade paper than in hardcover — like Eat, Pray, Love and Memory Keeper’s Daughter. You may want to consider adding more before the deluge.

The book is not yet on the NYT list.

That would be Bridie Clark, probably the luckiest chick-lit author in history. Her mildly amusing debut, “Because She Can,” featuring a foul-mouthed publishing mogul remarkably similar to her former boss, Judith Regan, was published just before Regan was again in the headlines. Clark has just been signed by another former boss, at Weinstein Books for her second book. It’s billed as a modern retelling of Pygmalion. No word on whether any publishing figures will be involved.