EarlyWord is the home of GalleyChat, monthly online discussions where library staff share excitement about upcoming books. More information here.
Summaries of chats and announcements are posted to the right. Use them to add to your own TBR piles and for collection development.
Links on the far right of the site offer information useful to readers advisors.
Hope to see you during our next chat,
GalleyChatters
As photos from the New Orleans set of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter leak on to the Web, you might be
wondering what happened to the film of that undead mashup, Pride, Prejudice and Zombies.
Looks like the project is still live. Deadline reports that Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) will direct, replacing Mike White, who dropped out because of scheduling conflicts.
Abraham Lincoln… is scheduled for release June 22, 2012.
The fourth in Cassandra Clare’s YA Mortal Instruments series, City of Fallen Angels (McElderry/S&S) releases today.
Meanwhile, the film based on the series is still being cast. Lily Collins, who is set to play heroine Clary Fray, was interviewed this week by MTV about the casting process, but didn’t spill any beans.
Collins, the daughter of musician Phil Collins, is currently a hot commodity in Hollywood. She debuted as Sandra Bullock’s daughter in Blind Side, and will appear this summer in Priest, based on the comic series and Abduction in the fall. She has been offered a role in Odd Thomas, based on the novel by Dean Koontz and is set to play Snow White in The Brothers Grimm: Snow White opposite Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen.
Many of you are still struggling with long hold lists for Kathy Freston’s Veganist. Tomorrow will bring even more requests, as Oprah reruns the February show, “Oprah and 378 Staffers Go Vegan: The One-Week Challenge.”
The book is available in audio from Tantor. Both audio and eBook are on OverDrive.
Also featured on the show is Michael Pollard’s Food Rules (Penguin; eBook, OverDrive).
Last night, NPR’s All Things Considered looked at “The Future Of Libraries In The E-Book Age,” in light of HarperCollins’ newly-instituted limit of 26 circulations in libraries.
Two librarians offered differing solutions. Christopher Platt of the NYPL is in favor of a leasing model that allows libraries to buy a number of uses and apply them as they see fit. Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbor District (MI) Library (who has said elsewhere that libraries are “screwed” in the ebook world) thinks libraries should bypass publishers and deal directly with writers and artists to get content.
Two of what Deadline calls “the most coveted roles for young actors this season” have been filled. Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth will star opposite Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games, based on the book by Suzanne Collins and to be directed by Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville). Hutceherson (The Kids are All Right), will play the baker’s son Peeta Mellark and Hemsworth (The Last Song) will be Gale Hawthorne.
The movie, expected to be the first in a trilogy, is scheduled for release on March 23, 2012.
Please join us for anther lively GalleyChat tomorrow, April 5, from 4 to 5 p.m. Tell us what galleys you’re loving and find out which ones to move to the top of your TBR pile (info. on how to join here).
Of the over 40 titles that were discussed GalleyChat in March, the following forthcoming debuts got the most mentions:
Before I Go To Sleep, S. J. Watson, (Harper, May 25)
Described by one GalleyChatter as “…creepy and haunting, and yet not so scary you couldn’t read it before bed.” Another said it’s “almost as good as last year’s breakout thriller Still Missing.” (by the way, Chevy Stevens’ second book Never Knowing arrives in July)
Booksellers are also enthusiasts; it’s #17 on the most-ordered forthcoming fiction list from Edelweiss.
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern, (Doubleday, Sept, 13)
Several asked about this one, because of advance buzz. The description,
“It’s a magical competition, with a love story and fascinating cast of characters,” plus that “it’s about two musicians and a circus that only appears at night” brought even more interest.
The book has been blurbed by a diverse range of writers — Tea Obreht, Brunonia Barry and Danielle Trussoni — indicating it walks the literary/commercial line. Arguing for the commercial side, it made movie news back in January, when a film deal was announced, and is backed by a 175,000-copy first printing. And on the literary, it’s a Barbara Hoffert Pick in LJ‘s Prepub Alert
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away, Christie Watson, (Other Press, May 10)
Advance buzz also brought interest in this debut set in contemporary Nigeria, but few had read it yet. Booklist has just reviewed it, saying it tells a story of “culture clash without heavy messages, but the issues are sure to spark intense discussion.”
The galley is available on NetGalley. We hope to hear more about it in tomorrow’s discussion.
Congrats to librarian favorite, Jacqueline Winspear. Her latest book, A Lesson in Secrets, the eighth in her Maisie Dobbs mysteries (and the second to be published by Harper), lands at #6 on the 4/10 NYT hardcover fiction list, her highest spot to date (Among the Mad arrived at #9).
Also, to C.J. Box, whose Cold Wind (Putnam/Penguin), the 11th book to feature
Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, arrives at #10 on the list. Several in the series have been on the extended list, but this is the first to make the leap to the main list.
Universal has acquired the rights to Daniel Silva’s series of best selling thrillers featuring spy/art restorer Gabriel Allon. The producers anticipate that this will be a franchise, but they haven’t decided which book will be filmed first. (Deadline, 4/1/11)
Silva’s tenth book in the Allon series, Portrait of a Spy, (Harper) is coming in July.
Please Look After Mom by Kyung Sook-Shin (Knopf) marks the first U.S. publication by the author, who is popular in South Korea, where this book sold more than a million copies. It’s about the self-absorbed family of a woman who gets lost in a Seoul train station and never reappears, and dramatizes the contrast between rural and city values that have lead to the family’s neglect of this selfless mother. Janet Maslin’s New York Times review doesn’t make it sound like it will jump the cultural divide, though it may help spur further media attention.
Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman (Grove) is this accomplished novelist’s fiction tribute to the wife he lost in a swimming accident in Mexico in 2007, and was excerpted in the New Yorker. It’s been selected as the #1 pick by independent booksellers for the month of April.
I’ll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark (S&S) gets the full treatment by the Wall St. Journal, with a cover story on the veteran mystery writer’s thriving career at age 83, and her children’s resistance to bringing in ghost writers to continue her mega-bestselling legacy when someday she is gone.
44 Charles Street by Danielle Steel (Delacorte) is the story of a 30-something gallery owner who takes in boarders at her West Village brownstone in New York City after her boyfriend leaves. Kirkus calls it, “classic Steel, phoned in. Much repetitious ruminating and a stultifying, unmusical prose style too often obstruct the intended edgy escapism.”
Miles to Go: The Second Journal of the Walk Series by Richard Paul Evans (Simon & Schuster) is the second installment in a series about an executive who loses everything and decides to walk from Seattle to Key West. Library Journal says, “the first book in this five-parter left him in Spokane, so in his search for hope he has a long way to go. . . . for some readers this walk got off to a slow start, so you might want to gauge interest before deciding how many to order.”
Elizabeth I by Margaret George (Viking) depicts the Virgin Queen as an actual virgin married to England, whose interests she pursues with shrewdness, courage, and wisdom borne of surviving the deaths of her family. Library Journal says the writing is formal “neither cinematic nor intimately personal,” and that the plot is “plodding,” with a focus more on accurate history than fiction that may “try the patience of casual readers.”
The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice (Pamela Dorman Books) is a portrait of three far-flung sisters who come home to Martha’s Vineyard one last time.
Mobbed: A Regan Reilly Mystery by Carol Higgins Clark (Scribner) finds private investigator Regan Reilly and her husband, Jack, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, in a case that takes them through key sites in New Jersey.
The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown) brings back the Lincoln Lawyer for a “satisfying” case that pits him against a real-estate foreclosure mill, according to Kirkus.
Once Upon a Time, There Was You by Elizabeth Berg (Random House) follows the journey of a couple who meet again after their divorce. Library Journal calls it “classic Berg, who’s always beloved if not always tip-top best seller.”
The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer (Riverhead) is about a town where the women pull away from their men, as the high school puts on a production of Lysistrata (in which the women of Greece refuse to have sex until the men end the Peloponnesian War). Publishers Weekly calls it “a plodding story with a killer hook.”
City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Claire (Margaret K. Elderry) is the fourth book of the internationally bestselling series, and promises, love, temptation and betrayal.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Junior Novel (Disney Press) marks the return of Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), and other familiar faces in the film release on May 20.
Tina Fey‘s memoir Bossypants is set to dominate the media next week, after not just one but two excerpts in The New Yorker. The star of TV’s 30 Rock has also done an interview with In Style, in which she discusses how she juggles acting, screenwriting, producing and being a mother.
Reviewing the book in Slate, Katie Roiphe praises Fey for cutting her way through the male-dominated comedy world with “tough feminism” delivered with humor.
Holds are high at libraries we checked, any many libraries have more copies on order.
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Large Print; Little, Brown, 9780316177894
One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, A Marriage and the Language of Healing by Diane Ackerman (Norton) is the author and naturalist’s memoir of her husband’s battle to recover from a stroke. It’s eagerly awaited by librarians on GalleyChat and O Magazine made it one of “18 picks for April”. In a starred review, Booklist called it “A gorgeously engrossing, affecting, sweetly funny, and mind-opening love story of crisis, determination, creativity, and repair.”
Gangster Government: Barack Obama and the New Washington Thugocracy by David Freddoso (Regnery) is a critique of the President’s administration by the author of The Case Against Barack Obama.
I’m Over All That: And Other Confessions by Shirley MacLaine (Atria) shows the actress hasn’t changed her core beliefs. Booklist calls it “a witty little memoir” and sums up her stances: “Reincarnation, yes; against organized religion, yes; still interested in acting, mostly.” And sex? Not so much.
Libraries have long been frustrated by having to stick to on-sale dates. The issue is now entering public consiousness, with the controversy over David Foster Wallace’s highly-anticipated final novel, The Pale King, scheduled for publication on April 15 (Little, Brown’s countdown clock is shown at the left; stopped at the time we posted it).
[UPDATE: the on-sale date is not the issue in this case. While The Pale King‘s publication date is 4/15, when the promotion was scheduled to begin, the on-sale date was actually 3/22. That may be a moot point, however, since many stores and libraries have not yet received their copies].
Amazon and B&N.com released the book early, angering bricks and mortar stores, several of whom had midnight parties scheduled for 4/14, and making headlines in the NYT.
Adding insult to injury, reviews are also arriving early. Time magazine’s Lev Grossman calls it his “finest work.” The NYT‘s Michiko Kakutani says today that it’s “By turns breathtakingly brilliant and stupefying dull…”
The book has already risen to #10 on Amazon’s sales rankings.
