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“British writer Julia Stuart (The Matchmaker of Périgord) crafts a subculture that is so sweet and enchanting that the whole affair would be terribly twee were it not for the sense of heartbreak and longing that holds it all together.”
You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin (Riverhead) gets an A- from Entertainment Weekly, which calls it “beautiful, brainy, offbeat,” while praising the author’s “steadying compassion and literary flair in the dissection of miseries, identifying with equal compassion the dissatisfactions of a dead wife and the grief of a bewildered widower.”
But Kirkus, PW and Booklist were all underwhelmed by this debut, calling it “thinly plotted” and criticizing the main character’s “fundamental blandness” - so probably best to wait for more reviews.
Tough Customerby Sandra Brown (Simon & Schuster) tells the story of a private investigator whose estranged daughter is threatened by a stalker. Kirkus says “the narrative, slowed by too many talky scenes and descriptive filler, eventually rewards readers’ patience with a bang-up surprise ending.”
Cure by Robin Cook (Putnam) follows a couple, both medical examiners, who investigate a mob hit. PW says “Even devoted Cook fans may find that the crimes and subterfuges are resolved too swiftly and perfunctorily.”
Veil of Nightby Linda Howard is a romantic suspense novel about a wedding planner and the murder of her bridezilla client.
Death on the D-Listby Nancy Grace is the second Hailey Dean thriller by bestselling author, attorney, and TV personality Grace.
City of Veils by Zoe Ferraris (Little, Brown), is the author’s second literary mystery, set in Saudi Arabia and featuring the desert guide Nayir Sharqi and forensic scientist Katya Hijazi. The starred Booklist review calls it “a suspenseful mystery and a sobering portrait of the lives of Muslim women. Recommend this potent thriller as book-club reading.” It was also a pick on the LA Times summer reading roundup and the August Indie Next list. Libraries are showing modest reserves on modest orders.
Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story is now offcially a reviewers’ darling, with six reviews in local papers over the weekend, following last week’s blitz. All are positive, some over the top. Even those that express reservations insist that you must read the book. The common descriptors are “dark,” ”dystopian” and “Orwellian.”
The word “äppäräti” may soon become part of our vocabulary. In Super Sad, everyone has these devices for shopping and texting (which is the predominant form of communication; when people actually talk, it’s called “verballing”). These devices also broadcast personal information like credit and sexual desirability ratings, but not what the owner recently checked out of the library, since reading is considered repulsive (books “smell bad”).
The author gets more attention tonight, appearing on NPR’s Fresh Air.
Super Sad is now at #20 on Amazon sales rankings; expect to see it on next week’s print best seller lists.
Boston Globe, 8/1 –”In the novel’s greatest moments, [Shteyngart’s] habit for impersonation and knowing reduction culminate in transcendent writing.” but, “There’s a point at which [his] shtick is merely that, a hyperbolic demonstration of his own abilities as a critical impersonator of ethnicities, races, personalities, and their banalities.”
Dallas Morning News, 8/1 — “Although the future described in Super Sad True Love Storyis a bleak and superficial one, the book is grounded by its sensitive and funny portrayals of [the main characters] Lenny and Eunice’s immigrant parents. This insight into immigrants is the element that Shteyngart, who came to the United States with his parents from Leningrad when he was a boy, has brought to all three of his novels.”
Miami Hearld, 8/1 — “no one should doubt that Shteyngart is one of the most powerful voices of his generation.”
Phildelphia Inquirer, 8/31 — reviewed by Jane Smiley — “the great dark pleasure of Shteyngart’s novel is the world that his characters live in, inferred from the most dynamic and threatening parts of ours…As with all satirists, the mix of humorous and horrifying is idiosyncratic, and the reader may not respond as readily with laughter as with tears, or vice versa. My own reservation has to do not with the super sad part, but with the love story part.”
Seattle Times, 8/31 — “his wild, exuberant wit and deadly accurate satire have made the Russian émigré one of the most acclaimed, enjoyable — and unsettling — novelists working today.”
Mary Roach was the big hit of this year’s BEA Librarian “Shout & Share,” getting votes from all the librarians on the panel for her book Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. She was also funny, enthralling and informative during a BEA author breakfast moderated by Jon Stewart (who was cracking up during most of her talk – watch it here). She was equally funny when she spoke to librarians at the AAP breakfast at PLA in March..
Word-of-mouth on the new book is good, but libraries we checked are well behind demand on this title.
Expect major media attention (no surprise, she will be on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Monday) for Roach’s look at some of the bizarre and uncomfortable realities facing future astronauts, as outlined in starred reviews from Library Journal (“While there are occasional somber passages, most of the descriptions of the many and varied annoyances of space travel are perversely entertaining.”) and Kirkus (“There is much good fun with – and a respectful amount of awe at – the often crazy ingenuity brought to the mundane matters of surviving in a place not meant for humans“).
The book trailer, already featured on BoingBoing, illustrates Booklist’s assessment that ”Roach brings intrepid curiosity, sauciness, and chutzpah to the often staid practice of popular science writing,” giving it YA crossover appeal
Though scheduled for release next week, Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography by Andrew Morton (St. Martin’s) was rushed to market this week because some the supposed revelations about the life and career of actress Angelina Jolie were leaking out.
USA Todaydissects Jolie’s epic love life, and adds that the Jolie-Pitt household’s legion staff includes “nannies from Vietnam, the Congo, and the U.S.; four nurses, a doctor on permanent call; two personal assistants; a cook; a maid; two cleaners; a busboy; four bodyguards, and six French former army guards.”
New York Times critic Janet Maslin chastizes Morton for not citing sources and for his many frivolous details (e.g. the type face of a particular Jolie tattoo never seen in public), while praising him (sort of) for connecting the biographical dots of Jolie’s life.
I Am Number Fourby Pitticus Lore (HarperCollins) is a YA novel about nine alien refugee teenages who land on Earth. Three are already dead, and number four is next. As we mentioned earlier, Entertainment Weekly has been running exclusives about this title, including an interview with the author, who claims to be “an extraterrestrial Elder from Lorien named Pittacus Lore.”
Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer (Hyperion); this will be the next-to-last entry in the best-selling middle-grade fantasy series, as Colfer revealed this week to the UK’s Guardian.
Notable Fiction on Sale Next Week
My Hollywood by Mona Simpson (Knopf) is her first novel since Off Keck Road (2000), narrated in alternate chapters by Claire, a composer whose marriage is strained by her husband’s late hours as a TV writer, and Lola, the Filipina nanny she hires. Entertainment Weekly gives it an “A-”: “Claire, privileged and damaged, floats along in a daze of unfulfillment, while the ever-practical Lola observes her L.A. milieu with a realist’s eye in imperfect yet oddly poetic English… A character as rich as Lola won’t easily fade from anyone’s mind.” There’s also an interview with Simpson in the New York Times.
I Curse the River of Timeby Per Petterson, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Graywolf Press), from the author of the surprise hit Out Stealing Horses, is the story of a Danish communist who faces divorce and a dying mother. Entertainment Weekly gives it a “B,” saying: “A times it’ll feel alien to readers who’ve never been young Communists… (The translation can also be quite a rickety bridge.) But there’s no denying the novel’s Raymond Carver-like power as Arvid and his mother come to terms with how life hands you hope just before it hands you disappointment and tragedy.”
Hangman by Faye Kellerman (Morrow) is the newest mystery novel with spouses Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. Booklist says Kellerman fans will be reasonably satisfied, but “if you’re new to Kellerman…this is not the place to start. Kellerman works primarily in dialogue, with very sketchy narrative support, which requires readers unfamiliar with the backstory to act as their own detectives, figuring out what the heck is going on in each scene.”
Burn by Nevada Barr (Minotaur Books) is the 16th book with National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon, though this time she is transplanted out of her element, to New Orleans. Booklist says, “Barr develops the narrative carefully, never letting the eerie black-magic elements overshadow her solid and suspenseful plotting. A definite winner.”
The Red Queenby Philippa Gregory (Touchstone) chronicles the War of the Roses through the perspective of Henry VII’s mother.
Scarlet Nights: An Edilean Novel by Jude Deveraux (Atria) follows a woman whose fiancé turns out to be a scheming criminal. Booklist says it’s ”another guilty-pleasure romance of suspense that will hook readers and leave them with a smile.”
In Harm’s Wayby Ridley Pearson (Putnam) is the fourth thriller with Idaho sheriff Walt Fleming. Booklist is not so impressed: “although this novel is sufficiently entertaining, it lacks both the taut plotting and intricate excitement of his best work.”
Today’s the publication day for Gary Shteyngart’s “wonderful new novel” (Michiko Kakutani, NYT), Super Sad True Love Story, a book that has enjoyed an unusual amount of prepub coverage.
Critics’ anticipation, however, is not matched by library users’; holds in most libraries are fewer than 5:1 on modest ordering. That may change; the book is moving up Amazon’s sales rankings (now at #56), making it likely to appear on newspaper best seller lists.
Shteyngart’s tale, set in 2018, is a satire of contemporary society (or, as Jess Walter further defines it in the San Francisco Chronicle, “literature’s first dystopian epistolary romantic satire”), filled with details that will appeal to anyone who has a beef with contemporary life; for journalists, it’s the fact that, eight years from now, the only surviving newspaper is New York Lifestyle Times; for book lovers, it’s that the main character embarrasses his girlfriend by reading “non-streaming Media artifacts” for a full half-hour at a time. The book’s send-up of the current economic crises has even brought attention from the financial press.
It’s being reviewed widely, getting the ultimate send-off, a rave from Michiko Kakutani in the NYT on the day of publication. Kakutani’s fellow reviewers’ strong enthusiasm for the book is tempered with some issues, generally about the book’s structure (it relies too heavily on diary entries and text messages), but Kakutani has no quibbles, saying that Shteyngart “…demonstrates a new emotional bandwidth and ratifies his emergence as one of his generation’s most original and exhilarating writers.”
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.”
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.
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 Placeby 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 Homeby 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 Mansionsby 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 Tellby 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.
Two novels going on sale next week are showing heavy holds, with libraries ordering more copies to keep up with demand.
The Cookbook Collectorby Allegra Goodman is a tale of two sisters, set during the dot-com bubble, that was mentioned in many summer previews, including in the Los Angeles Times. It was also a Librarians Shout and Share pick at Book Expo, and a July Indie Pick.
In her sixth novel The Cookbook Collector, [Goodman] ups the stakes with a deft literary hat trick, expertly braiding disparate threads involving dotcom start-ups, environmental radicalism, and rare-book collecting into one consistently engrossing narrative.
The Island by Elin Hilderbrand (Little Brown/Reagan Arthur) is about a pre-wedding mother/daughter vacation that takes a dark turn.
Kirkus says “Hilderbrand’s portrait of the upper-crust Tate clan through the years is so deliciously addictive that it will be the ‘It’ beach book of the summer.”
The Search by Nora Roberts (Putnam) centers on a canine search-and-rescue trainer who survived a serial killer’s attack and now faces another. PW says, ” The serial killer plot is very familiar and without much to distinguish it, but the romance is finely done, with Roberts’s trademark banter lighting up the page.”
As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs (Scribner) follows a woman who seeks her husband’s killer after he is found dead in a prostitute’s apartment. Kirkus says: “The mystery is barely there, but Isaac’s fans will enjoy another sharp-tongued romp through the New York privileged classes and their foibles.” Library demand is 3:1 and higher at libraries we checked. Isaacs was featured at the AAP Librarian Lunch at Book Expo.
Still Missing by Chevy Stevens (St. Martin’s), a thriller about a woman who tries to put her life back together after a year in a mountain cabin with a psychopath, has been much-discussed on Earlyword’s Galley Chat on Twitter. It also gets a starred review from Booklist: “Relentless and disturbing, Stevens dark, mesmerizing character study follows a twisted path from victimhood toward self-empowerment. Sure to leave readers looking over their shoulders for a smiling stranger.”
Father of the Rain by Lily King (Atlantic Monthly), about a daughter torn between her dreams and helping her alcoholic father, gets an enthusiastic review from Elle: “King is brilliant when writing from the eyes of a tween, all self-conscious curiosity but bright and hopeful as a starry sky. And as Daley grows up and learns how to trust and to love in spite of herself, King cuts a fine, fluid line to the melancholy truth: Even when we’re grown and on our own— wives, mothers, CEOs—we still long to be someone’s daughter.” At libraries we checked, holds are rising for this Oprah Magazine summer pick and July Indie Pick.
What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is the tale of a father who reaches out to his estranged daughter by confessing a long-kept secret. Entertainment Weekly gives it a full-blown A and Booklist gives it a starred review: “Norman’s piquant insights into life’s wildness, human eccentricity, and love’s maddening persistence are matched by rhapsodic and profound descriptions of everything from perfectly baked scones to pelting rain and the devouring sea, while anguish is tempered with humor, thanks to rapid-fire banter and marvelously spiky characters.”
This Must Be the Place by Kate Racculia (Holt) is a debut novel that gets 4 out of 4 stars in the new issue of People magazine, which calls it, “part romance, part mystery…Racculia’s whimisical details and flawed yet immensely likable characters make Place a magical journey.” It received strong reviews from all the trade magazines and was included in the Los Angeles Times‘ summer picks.
It All Began in Monte Carlo, by Elizabeth Adler (St. Martin’s), the author’s 24th novel, gets 3 of 4 stars in the new issue of People, saying the murder mystery’s plot is “…secondary to the lush surroundings, heady shopping sprees and over-the-top romance that make Monte Carlo a summer treat.”
Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross has been hyped as a summer reading breakout since last March, when Stephen King recommended it in Entertainment Weekly as “the most riveting look at the dark side of marriage since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”
But in a dissenting review, Tina Jordan at Entertainment Weekly gave a lowly grade “C” to this story of a marriage that ends with the investigation into how the wife’s body ended up on the kitchen floor:
The book fails completely as a police procedural. . . It’s as if there are two books here when there should be just one.
The Devil Amongst the Lawyers by Sharyn McCrumb (Macmillan) flashes back to Nora Bonesteeler’s first case, at age 12. Booklist says, “Loyal fans have been eagerly awaiting a new installment, so expect high demand. Discerning readers, however, will be sorely disappointed.” Holds are at 2:1 and higher, with more copies on order at several libraries we checked. McCrumb, a librarian favorite, will be speaking at the Altaff Tea at ALA.
Broken by Karin Slaughter (Delacorte) gets a rave from Library Journal: ”Move over, Catherine Coulter, Slaughter may be today’s top female suspense writer. Avid mystery and law-enforcement thriller fans as well as those who loved her series characters will devour Slaughter’s latest.” Slaughter also won some new librarian fans with her impassioned pitch for supporting libraries at the Random House Librarian Author Breakfast at BEA.
The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay by Beverly Jensen (Viking) was also touted by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly, who suggested that the author’s death of cancer at age 49, after writing her first and only book, was a greater loss than J.D. Salinger’s passing. PW was more equivocal about the book: “While the sisters troubled relationship rings true, the story-like chapters feel quite independent of one another, and the dialogue has a tendency to veer into forced colloquialisms and melodrama.”
Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum Series #16) by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s Press) is uneven, says PW: “Evanovich is at her best spinning the bizarre subplots involving Stephanie’s bail jumpers, but the larger story simply recycles elements from previous installments.”
Dark Flame (Immortals Series #4) by Alyson Noel (Griffin) is the latest installment in the YA vampire series.
Family Ties by Danielle Steel (Delacorte) follows a woman who raises her sister’s children after a tragic plane crash. In My Father’s House by E. Lynn Harris (St. Martin’s) is about the bisexual owner of a modeling agency who is disowned by his rich father. PW says: “Harris’s wry tale about second chances highlights what readers have long loved about his work: his ability to depict the pursuit of love and self-respect, regardless of societal and family pressures.”
How are readers reacting to Yann Martel’s followup to his best selling, Booker-winning Life of Pi?
In theNYT last week, Michiko Katutani gave Beatrice and Virgil as bad a review as a book can get.
Two booksellers are not buying it. In the Huffington Post, Praveen Madan and Christin Evans from The Booksmith in San Francisco, write a defense of the book in the form of a conversation with a customer. They point out that ”more than two-thirds of the reviews on Amazon were 4 & 5 star reviews,” indicating that “newspaper critics are out of touch with readers.”
In libraries, the negative reviews may have had an effect; holds are running an average of 3:1 in those we checked, on modest ordering (two or fewer per branch).
As we noted earlier, among prepub reviews, only Booklist was positive, awarding it a star. And, not all the consumer reviews have been negative. USA Today’s Dierdre Donahue said, “…this lean little allegory about a talking donkey and monkey… might be a masterpiece about the Holocaust.”
Lots of major fiction arrives next week, as publishers prepare for the lead-up to Mother’s Day in bookstores. Here are the highlights of next week’s crop, all of which have strong holds in libraries we checked.
Deliver Us from Evil by David Baldacci (Grand Central): Holds are huge for this one, but unfortunately, PW says it “lacks the creative plotting and masterful handling of suspense that marked his earlier thrillers.”
This Body of Death (An Inspector Lynley Novel) by Elizabeth George is ”richly rewarding,” according to PW, with ”an intricate plot that will satisfy even jaded fans of psychological suspense.”
Burning Lamp by Amanda Quick (Penguin). Library Journal says: “With quirky humor and typical flair, Quick has penned another riveting, fast-paced adventure that… will leave readers anxious for the final installment, Jayne Castle’s Midnight Crystal, coming in September.”
Lucid Intervals(A Stone Barrington Novel) by Stuart Woods (Penguin). “Woods mixes danger and humor into a racy concoction that will leave readers thirsty for more,” PW declares.
The Double Comfort Safari Club (The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series #11) by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon) gets a positive review from PW, which notes that the tale’s resolution many seem “unduly fortuitous, but it makes sense within the framework of these books, which are more about humanity than logic.”
Eight Days to Live by Iris Johansen (Macmillan). “Think The Da Vinci Code crossed with an Anne Stuart romantic suspense novel, and you’ll have a sense of the plot and tone,” says Library Journal.
Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (Knopf). Reviews in PW and Booklist are enthusiastic, along with Library Journal, which sums up: ”Written by a two-time Booker Prize winner, this engaging book will be particularly appreciated by readers interested in early 19th-century American history, the French aristocracy, and emerging democracy.” It’s also reviewed in the current NYT BR.
It’s not good. In fact, it’s probably as bad a review as any author might fear from the critical Kakutani,
[Beatrice and Virgil] is every bit as misconceived and offensive as his earlier book was fetching.
The only positive consumer review so far is from USA Today’s book critic, Dierdre Donahue, although she makes it sound tough going,
Up until about page 117, Yann Martel’s new novel, Beatrice and Virgil, appears teeth-grindingly precious. Then, click, you realize: Martel knows exactly what he’s doing in this lean little allegory about a talking donkey and monkey.
This novel just might be a masterpiece about the Holocaust.
Alan Cheuse, in the San Francisco Chronicle calls it “one of the most confounding books I’ve read in a long while.” At the end of a review in which he manfully tries to figure the book out, he gives up and exclaims,
As for this mixture of mock self-effacement, literary posturing and pretentiousness, I would say: Stuff it!
Among the prepub reviews, only Booklist’s was positive, giving it a star.
For a look at the tortured process of publishing this book, see “Yann Martel’s Life After Pi“, in the National Post of Canada,
Changes, the latest installment in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files (Ed. Note: we originally called this the Dexter Files — thanks to the commenter for catching our mashup) urban fantasy series, is in high demand at libraries. But several we checked are behind the curve – either without copies, or catching up on their orders. In libraries that do have it, holds run from 3:1 to as high as 11:1.
Booklist’s starred review says:
At more than 500 pages, this is one the longest books in the series, but it doesn’t move slowly; in fact, the entire novel takes place over only a few days as Harry races to rescue his daughter before she is sacrificed in a powerful black-magic rite. . . . A can’t-miss entry in one of the best urban-fantasy series currently being published.
Available from Penguin Audiobooks on April 15, 2010
CD: $49.95; ISBN 9780143145349
——————–
Also set for release next week, Holly LeCraw’s debut novel, The Swimming Pool, could be a sleeper. Libraries we checked have modest holds on modest copies.
PW says: ”Strong writing keeps the reader sucked in to LeCraw’s painful family drama debut. . . . It is a story of deep and searing love, between siblings and lovers, but most powerfully, between parents and their children
Library Journal adds: ”LeCraw’s thoughtful debut novel tells of two families whose lives are entwined by tragedy, secrecy, and scandal.…An insightful piece, not just for beach or airplane reading. An author to watch.”
One book blogger was less sanguine, however, observing that the plot is heavy and lacks momentum.
Elizabeth Berg’s The Last Time I Saw You (Random House), a tale of women and men reconnecting at their 40th high school reunion, is well stocked in libraries we checked; the highest holds are 4:1 in one case.
Sue Miller’sThe Lake Shore Limited (Random House), about post-9/11 America, is “fascinating and perfectly balanced with [Miller's] writerly meditations on the destructiveness of trauma and loss, and the creation and experience of art,” according to PW.
Elizabeth Peters’sA River in the Sky (HarperCollins) elicits faint praise from Library Journal: “The plot is less riveting than many Peters mysteries, but series fans will enjoy [it]. Fans should note that this is out of chronological order from the rest of the saga.”
Anne Lamott’s Imperfect Birds(Riverhead) is the lead review in the new issue of People magazine (4/12), receiving 3 out of 4 stars.
Jennifer Chiaverini’s The Aloha Quilt(Simon & Schuster) is one that ”series fans will enjoy,” according to PW, “and those new to the quilting bee should have no problem finding their groove.”
Richard Paul Evans‘ The Walk (Simon & Schuster), about a man who goes on a soul-searching cross-country trek,” is “intriguing” according to Booklist, which adds that “the pages turn quickly.”
Raymond E. Feist’s At the Gates of Darkness (Demonwar Saga #2) (HarperCollins) doesn’t get highest marks from PW: “There’s an air of been there, done that to the familiar YAish fantasy plot, relegating it to the status of comfort reading for Feist’s longtime fans.”
E. O. Wilson’s Anthill (Knopf) gets a mixed review from Library Journal: “Though his characters come off as one-dimensional, Wilson excels at describing the pungent smells and tranquil silence of the disappearing wetlands of Alabama.”
Christopher Rice’s The Moonlit Earth (Scribner) also gets a mixed response from Booklist: “A bit contrived, but . . . the author pushes through those moments . . . sure to appeal to Rice’s fan base.”
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.”
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Although February is typically a quiet month for general fiction, some booksellers are talking about Heidi Durrow’s The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, a debut novel about a biracial girl whose mother jumped to her death after apparently pushing her children off a rooftop. Libraries are showing holds of 1:1 on modest orders.
Durrow’s novel, which goes on sale next week, won the 2008 Bellwether Prize for best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice. It’s also an Indie Next Pick for Feb, and was touted at the American Bookseller Association’s Midwinter Institute (as reported by Daniel Goldin of Boswell & Books in Milwaukee).
You will be hearing more about the book; on tap is a profile in USA Today, an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered, a review in the NYT BR, the Washington Post and several other consumer magazines.
PW praisesThe Girl Who Fell From the Sky for its “taut prose, a controversial conclusion and the thoughtful reflection on racism and racial identity.”
Among next week’s releases are two much-buzzed-about debuts. Library demand is highest for The Postmistressby 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.”
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 PWearlier, 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.
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’sThe 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’sA 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.
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