Released just over a month ago, Sarah Waters’ fifth novel, the stylish ghost story The Little Stranger, has steadily gained  critical attention. Reserve activity is pretty strong at libraries we checked, but orders are low.

The New York Times Book Review declared that Waters “magnificently” renders the grand old house where the novel is set, and that its inhabitants “sparkle like chandeliers in the damp, peeling rooms” as their way of life fades amid the Second World War. The review also notes that the members of the artistocratic Ayres family “are such lovingly depicted and realistic characters that it becomes hard to accept their gothic fates.” 

NPR’s “Books We Like” columnist Maud Newton observes, “Although her past works have focused on lesbian characters, repressed desire has always been Waters’ terrain. In her hands these hidden longings incite turmoil and even blur into the occult. . . . Hundreds Hall serves as a perfect symbol of the postwar erosion of Britain’s class hierarchies, but it also, increasingly, transforms into a scheming, deadly character.”

The Washington Post wonders, “What are we dealing with here? Hysteria? Evil spirits? A jealous doctor? Waters teases us with clues that send us running off in every direction: psychological, paranormal and socioeconomic. But the story’s sustained ambiguity is what keeps our attention, and her perfectly calibrated tone casts an unnerving spell over these pages.”

The Little Stranger Sarah Waters Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2009-04-30) ISBN-10: 1594488800 ISBN-13: 9781594488801

Avaiilable from Penguin Audiobooks

• CD; $39.95; 0143144804

Also available as a downloadable audio on Overdrive

R. Crumb, the famously subversive comics artist, allows a glimpse into his forthcoming Book of Genesis in a 12-page excerpt in this week’s New Yorker.  The book, due for release on October 19, offers an unconventional take on the Bible that is likely to provoke the religious right, according to The Guardian (UK), which also quoted Crumb saying that the book is ”very visual. It’s lurid. Full of all kinds of crazy, weird things that will really surprise people.” Most libraries we checked did not show copies on order.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb R. Crumb Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. – (2009-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0393061027 / 9780393061024

May 17 was a banner day for books on CBS Sunday Morning, which launched three featured titles into Amazon’s top 350 bestsellers. T.C. Boyle’s novel The Women, about the loves of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, moved to #100, while The Ashley Book of Knots by Clifford Ashley jumped to #295, and organization guru Julie Morgenstern’s SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life: A Four-Step Guide to Getting Unstuck leapt to #336. 

Libraries we checked favored Morgenstein’s self-help guide, with an average of 10 copies and signficant reserves. Quantities were more mixed and reserves more modest on Boyle’s novel, which came out in February, and The Ashley Book of Knots.

The Women: A Novel T.C. Boyle Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2009-02-10) ISBN-10: 0670020419 ISBN-13: 9780670020416

An audiobook version is available in three formats from Blackstone Audio:

• 15 CDs; $100; ISBN 978-1-4332-6061-2 
• 2 MP3CD; $29.95; ISBN 978-1-4332-6064-3    
• Playaway; $69.99; ISBN 978-1-4332-6068-1

Ashley Book of Knots Clifford Ashley Price: $80.00 Hardcover: 640 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (1944-06-21) ISBN-10: 0385040253 ISBN-13: 9780385040259

-

SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life Julie Morgenstern Price: $15.00 Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: Fireside – (2009-03-03) ISBN-10: 0743250907 ISBN-13: 9780743250900

An audiobook is available in three formats from Tantor Media

• 9 CDs; $24.99 (Retail Pkg); EAN: 9781400107872       
• 9 Audio CDs (Library Binder Pkg); $69.99; EAN: 9781400137879
• Mp3-CD; $24.99; EAN: 9781400157877

Beaufort Books, the U.S. publisher of The Jewel of Medina has announced that they are moving the book’s pub. date from Oct. 15 to this coming Monday, Oct. 6, according to the AP. 

Publication of the book in the U.K. was delayed because of a fire-bomb attack on the publisher’s house.  A new date has not been announced. It is still scheduled to be published in over a dozen other countries.

Eric Kampmann, president of Beaufort Books told the AP that they’ve made this move because, once people read the book, “…we thought the violence part of this story would disappear and people would be focusing on the story, and the book and [author] Sherry Jones.”

Jones has appearances scheduled in Spokane, WA and at the Montana Festival of the Book.

Barnes and Noble will display the book in their new fiction sections. Spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating told the AP, “We’ve been in touch with the publisher who assures us that neither he nor the author feels there are any immediate safety or security concerns around this title.”

The book is listed on Amazon as “currently unavailable.” Most libraries are showing it as on order.

The Jewel of Medina

Sherry Jones

ISBN: 978-0-8253-0518-4
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 432
Publisher: Beaufort Books

Publisher synopsis:

Born A’isha bint Abi Bakr in seventh century Arabia, she would become the favorite wife of the Prophet Muhammad, and one of the most revered women in the Muslim faith. Married at the age of nine, The Jewel of Medina illuminates the difficult path A’isha confronted, from her youthful dreams of becoming a Bedouin warrior, to her life as the beloved wife and confident of the founder of Islam.

In an era when women had few rights of their own and were often treated as chattel, A’isha used her wits, her courage, and even her sword in a struggle to control her own destiny and carve out a place for herself in the umma, fighting religious persecution, jealous sister-wives, political rivals, and her own temptations. Her ingenuity and devotion would make her an indispensable advisor to Muhammad, earn her the coveted position of his favorite wife, and ultimately make her a fierce protector of his words and legacy.

Extensively researched and elegantly crafted, The Jewel of Medina presents the beauty and harsh realities of life in an age long past, during a time of war, enlightenment, and upheaval. At once a love story, a history lesson, and a coming-of-age tale,The Jewel of Medina provides humanizing glimpses into the origins of the Islamic faith, and the nature of love, through the eyes of a truly unforgettable heroine.

 

Dennis Lehane recently switched genres from mystery to historical fiction. According to an interview with the author in the new Entertainment Weekly, he’s not switching back.

It’s not April Fool’s Day and there’s no reason to think it’s a joke, but I couldn’t help but feel Lehane is pulling our leg;

I’d be writing these friggin’ whodunits and I could care less. I wanna tell everybody on page 2, he killed so-and-so, he done it! If you look at my books in that regard — and I’ll be 100 percent honest about my flaws — you can see how I was whipping out the kitchen sink just to obscure s—, like the identity of the serial killer or whatever, and that’s why the books got so labyrinthian in the last 100 pages.

Lehane says his next book will probably be a sequel to The Given Day. It may even turn into a trilogy.

Entertainment Weekly’s not giving him much encouragement on that front; in the same issue, they reviews The Given Day,  calling it “regrettably overstuffed.” They end with this blow; “Lehane has tried to write a gripping novel and honorably fallen short.”

Lehane shouldn’t be too upset; he has elsewhere to turn for comfort:

USA Today; Dennis Lehane in top form on ‘The Given Day’

Janet Maslin, New York Times; A Vision of Old Boston in All Its Angry Power

The Given Day

Dennis Lehane

• Hardcover: $27.95; 720 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (September 23, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0688163181
• ISBN-13: 978-0688163181

The Wall Street Journal predicts a book with what they call a “cutesy” title, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, will be one of the summer’s surprise hits. According to the WSJ, pre-pub buzz is so strong among booksellers, that publisher Dial Press is shipping over 100,000 copies. It’s also the #1 Indie Next pick for August. Both B&N and Costco have placed large orders.

Libraries show light ordering, with reserves building. Few have ordered the audio or large type editions.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

• Hardcover: $22.00
• Publisher: The Dial Press (July 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0385340990
• ISBN-13: 978-0385340991

• Audio CD: Unabridged, $80.00
• Publisher: Books on Tape; (Aug 5, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1-4159-5440-2
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4159-5440-9

• Audio CD: Abridged, $22.00
• Publisher: Random House Audio; (July 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0739368435
• ISBN-13: 978-0739368435

• Hardcover, Large Type: $34.95
• Publisher: Center Point Large Print; (September 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1602852693
• ISBN-13: 978-1602852693

This week’s People (July 21, with pink cover appropriate to the lead story “A Girl for Nicole and Keith”) gives 4 1/2 out of a possible 5 stars and a “People Pick” to debut novel, Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner.

Telex was also the cover review of the New York Times Book Review on Sunday and was reviewed in Monday’s San Francisco Chronicle. The story revolves around American executives and their families who lived luxurious lives on ex-pat enclaves in Cuba before Castro’s revolution.

The Times and Chronicle reviewers agree that, as the Times puts it, “the novel’s real draws are its complex relationships and well-researched cultural context.” The Chronicle reviewer says, “Kushner fills the novel with enough vivid details to make readers feel as if they are on the island at the zenith of American prosperity.” More fancifully, the Times review ends with, “Kushner has fashioned a story that will linger like a whiff of decadent Colony perfume.”

But both reviewers feel that a thriller subplot distracts from the rest of the book. As the Chronicle puts it, “ Kushner too often lets the novel stray into diluted John Le Carré territory.”

People’s review is largely an interesting description of the plot, winding up with, “a compelling look at a paradise corrupted.”

Telex is on order in small quantities in the libraries I checked, with comfortable holds to copy ratios. None have the audio on order.

It’s at #151 on Amazon, which is a high sales ranking for a debut novel.

Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner

• Hardcover: $25.00
• Publisher: Scribner (July 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 141656103X
• ISBN-13: 978-1416561033

• Abridged CD (10): Tantor Media, Inc.
• Pub. Date: August 11, 2008
• ISBN-13: 9781400108343

Media Coverage:

People, 7/21, not available online, “People Pick” 4 1/2 out of a possible 5 stars

New York Times Book Review, “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” 7/6/08, Cover review

San Francisco Chronicle, Review 7/7/08

Los Angeles Times, “Breathing Literary Life into 1950s Cuba” 7/5/08 — Interviews the author, who lives in L.A., focusing on her research.

In one of the first print reviews of Salman Rushdie’s Enchantress of Florence, the Washington Post Book World’s Michael Dirda makes it sound like a beach book:

…it may come as a surprise that he has produced a book that is the equivalent of a summer fling. Set during the 16th century, The Enchantress of Florence is altogether ramshackle as a novel — oddly structured, blithely mixing history and legend and distinctly minor compared to such masterworks as The Moor’s Last Sigh and Midnight’s Children– and it is really not a novel at all. It is a romance, and only a dry-hearted critic would dwell on the flaws in so delightful an homage to Renaissance magic and wonder.

Alan Cheuse, of the Chicago Tribune, waxes poetic over it:

…it’s fact that allowed Rushdie to construct this great dream-palace of a novel. To build his twin story of life in the grand city of Florence, his hero’s home, and Sikri, the Mongol capital to which he has traveled, the novelist had to digest a library wall of volumes (an extensive bibliography follows the story). In a world in which many readers seem to crave fact after fact after fact—the tiresome legacy of our Puritan ancestors—the novelist, the last alchemist, miraculously turns fact into something greater, and as if transforming clay bricks into gold, gives facts life.

In a separate story, the NYT reports:

In Britain, where it has already been released, most reviewers have been smitten. John Sutherland, who has twice been a judge for the Man Booker literary prize, wrote in The Financial Times that if it “doesn’t win this year’s Man Booker I’ll curry my proof copy and eat it.”

The article notes that while Rushdie was working on the book, he and his third wife Padma Lakshmi, host of the cooking reality show, “Top Chef” split and finds an echo in the themes of the book; “Beauty and betrayal are both elements of Enchantress.”

• Hardcover: $26.00
• Publisher: Random House (May 27, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0375504338
• ISBN-13: 978-0375504334

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Recorded Books
• Reader: Firdous Bamji
• ISBN-10: 1436148707
• ISBN-13: 978-1436148702

• Large Print:
  
• Publisher: Random House Large Print Publishing (May 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0739328158
• ISBN-13: 978-0739328156

The book is currently at #69 on the Amazon Top 100. All libraries I checked have it on order, with comfortable holds to copy ratios.

Note: Title Confusion Alert. The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston releases in a couple of weeks. The Wall Street Journal highlighted it in their preview of the forthcoming books that publishers, authors and booksellers are most looking forward to.

The Monster of Florence
by Douglas Preston

• Hardcover: $25.99
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (June 10, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0446581194
• ISBN-13: 978-0446581196

• Audio CD: Unabridged edition, $39.98
• Publisher: Hachette Audio; (June 10, 2008)
• Reader: Dennis Boutsikaris
• ISBN-10: 160024209X
• ISBN-13: 978-1600242090

• Large Print, Hardcover: $27.99
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (June 10, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 044650534X
• ISBN-13: 978-0446505345

• Hardcover: $25.95
• Publisher: Harper (January 22, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0060888644
• ISBN-13: 978-0060888640

• Abridged Audio CD
• ISBN-10: 0061370940
• ISBN-13: 978-0061370946

This week’s USA Today “Inside Buzz” column notes (second story) that Bernard Cornwell breaks into the top 50 on their bestseller list for the first time (his books have appeared on the list before, but below the 50 mark. They have also appeared on many other lists, including the NY Times) with Sword Song: The Battle for London, the fourth in his Saxon Tales series. The book was also reviewed by USA Today book editor, Deirdre Donahue, earlier in the week. She calls Cornwell the “alpha male of testosterone-enriched historical fiction.” A slightly less breathles review in Jan. 6 Washington Post said, “Cornwell tells [the] story with wit, intelligence and absolute narrative authority.”