In anticipation of the release next Tuesday of Stephenie Meyer’s adult title, The Host, Time magazine profiles the author. Echoing a piece in the Wall Street Journal last year, the article is called, “Stephenie Meyer: A New J.K. Rowling?”

Time offers insight into her appeal.

…she rewrites stock horror plots as love stories, and in doing so, she makes them new again. She writes vampire novels without the biting and science fiction without the lasers. Instead, she slows down the action, tapping it for the pent-up emotional drama that’s always been present in it but had been all but invisible until she came along.

Most libraries have The Host on order in quantity, but reserves are heavy (in some cases, over 10 to 1). None of the libraries I checked have ordered it for their Young Adult collections. As we’ve said before, the book has strong crossover appeal and should be purchased for both YA and adult collections (Booklist agrees in their 3/1 review). Addressing the issue of sexual content in the books, Time says, “some of their appeal lies in their fine moral hygiene: they’re an alternative to the hookup scene, Gossip Girls for good girls…What makes Meyer’s books so distinctive is that they’re about the erotics of abstinence. Their tension comes from prolonged, superhuman acts of self-restraint.”

The Host Stephenie Meyer

• Hardcover: $25.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 6, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316068047
• ISBN-13: 978-031606804

• Audio CD: Unabridged edition, $49.98
• Publisher: Hachette Audio, (May 6, 2008)
• Reader: Kate Reading
• ISBN-10: 1600241662
• ISBN-13: 978-1600241666

• Paperback: $25.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 6, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316034118
• ISBN-13: 978-03160341

The release of The Host is likely to feed the anticipation for the release of the fourth title in Meyer’s Y.A. series, Breaking Dawn, which pubs on Aug. 2. The book is embargoed, so there will be no reviews. For more on the publisher’s plans for it, check our Feb. 14 story

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Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4) Stephenie Meyer

• Hardcover: $22.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers (August 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 031606792X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316067928

• Audio CD: Unabridged $60
• Publisher: Listening Library (August 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0739367676
• ISBN-13: 978-0739367674

Jeffrey Gegner, Popular Materials Specialist at Hennepin County Library, offers this idea for adding long-lead titles to the catalog:

At Hennepin County LIbrary (suburban), we put a record into our catalog for Breaking Dawn at the end of December and our order went out February 19. This morning there are 271 requests on 47 copies.

When we have information from a reliable source about an upcoming title that is expected to have high demand, we put a ‘Work in Progess’ record in our catalog so customers may place requests. We’re selective about how many we add, but it saves customers and staff a lot of hassle.

In addition, Baker & Taylor doesn’t always have full ordering information on some high demand titles as quickly as we’d like. If I’m able to verify title, ISBN, price, etc., at other sources such as the publisher’s website, author’s website or Amazon, I will prepare an order, use it to create a record in the catalog, and then hold the actual order until the title shows in Title Source. Again, this is done selectively.

Here’s two entities you might not have expected to see together — Gossip Girl and The New Yorker. In this week’s issue of the magazine, Janet Malcolm says of the uber-popular Y.A. series:

Von Ziegesar pulls off the tour de force of wickedly satirizing the young while amusing them. Her designated reader is an adolescent girl, but the reader she seems to have firmly in mind as she writes is a literate, even literary, adult.

Note to Naomi Wolf, “Get a sense of humor.”

Pam Spencer Holley, you are so vindicated.

• Hardcover: $22.99 (704 pages)
• Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers (August 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 031606792X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316067928

There’s no cover art yet and the publication date is nearly six months away, but Breaking Dawn is already at #10 on Amazon’s bestseller list. This is just further proof, if you needed it, of the popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s series of Y.A. vampire love stories, Twilight.

The series is known for its striking cover art and fans are already speculating on what the cover will be. Some are even creating their own versions (this one gets my vote). Capitalizing on this fervor, the publisher is keeping the cover under wraps until May 31 (the Saturday of Book Expo) when they will release a special hardcover edition of the third book in the series, Eclipse, which will include the cover art and first chapter of Breaking Dawn.

Last week’s announcement of the publication date also brought attention to Meyer’s adult title, The Host, to be released on May 6th. Its Amazon ranking is now #77. Although it is being published as an adult title, it is definitely a crossover title that belongs in Y.A. as well as adult.

• Hardcover: $25.99 (624 pages)
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 6, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316068047
• ISBN-13: 978-0316068048

Twilight hits the big screen on Dec. 12, directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown) and starring Kristen Stewart (Into The Wild) and Robert Pattinson (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).

On her web site, Stephenie Meyer says she’s contemplating another book in the series, Midnight Sun, which will tell the Twilight story from the point of view of Edward Cullen (the vampire). The first chapter is posted on the site, but no publication date has been announced.

The LA Times today suggests, “The next time your teenager raves about a novel, pay attention: It could become your next movie.” That’s exactly what happened to Kyra Sedgwick when her fourteen-year-old daughter told her about the Y.A. title, Story of a Girl, by Sara Zarr. The teenager has good taste — the book later was chosen as a National Book Award finalist. Sedgwick has optioned it, with Laurie Collyer (SherryBaby) as director.

The official pub date of Zarr’s second book, Sweethearts, is tomorrow, although it’s already been received by some libraries. It has received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly.

• Hardcover:$16.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers (February 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316014559
• ISBN-13: 978-0316014557

If you’re not already aware of the enormous popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, just ask a teenage girl. If you don’t have one handy, take a look at the books’ rankings on the current USA Today bestseller list:

#22 Twilight (book one), Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Oct, 2005

#25 New Moon (book two) Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Aug, 2006

#29 Eclipse (book three), Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Aug, 2007

Teenage girls aren’t the only fans. This is one of those books that crosses age groups (but not genders; the fan base is overwhelmingly female).

The final volume in the series, Breaking Dawn will release in late summer of ‘08 (some fan sites give an August 10 release date, but the publisher says there is no definite laydown date yet). Breaking Dawn will be embargoed, so there will be no pre-publication reviews.

In May, Meyer releases her first adult title (with VERY strong crossover appeal, so you may want to buy it for both the adult and YA collections). It’s set in the future, when souls from other planets are taking over human bodies. In most cases, the original human soul disappears. But for one called “The Wanderer,” her host’s soul, Melanie, does not go quietly. The rivalry gets particularly dicey when they both fall for the same guy. The publisher’s blurb includes this quotable line, “featuring what may be the first love triangle involving only two bodies.” This one is not embargoed, so you can expect pre-publication reviews (it is mentioned in the 1/15 LJ “Prepub Alert” column).

• Hardcover: $25.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (May 6, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316068047
• ISBN-13: 978-0316068048

Twilight, the movie is now in pre-production and, according to the Internet Movie Database, will be released in December, ‘08.