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
The trailer for the adaptation of One Day, has just appeared on the Web. The film, which opens July 8, is already the clear winner in the “Best Attempt at Making Anne Hathaway Look Nerdy” category.
The tie-in arrives 8/19
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Before the Wimpy Kid endured his travails, a kid named Alexander had a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which may also make its way to the screen.
According to Variety, director Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right) is negotiating for rights to Judith Viorst’s 1972 picture book. The story notes that, since there are two other titles in the series, “the pic could blossom into a successful franchise along the lines of Fox’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.”
Based on yesterday’s GalleyChat, below are the titles I’ll be moving to the top of my To-Be-Read pile:
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs, Quirk Books, 6/7
I was intrigued to hear about this one, particularly when I learned it’s from Quirk Books, home of the literary mashup. A YA mystery didn’t seem like their kind of thing. Looking further, I discovered that it is actually the kind of quirky title you might expect from a house with that name. The author collects vintage photos and has combined them with text. John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson, Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska) blurbs it; “A tense, moving, and wondrously strange first novel. The photographs and text work brilliantly together to create an unforgettable story.”
Yes, yes, I know, you need to be suspicious of blurbs, but I don’t think John Green wouldn’t lie to us, especially since he once wrote a heartfelt blog post about the perils of blurbing. Of course, that was five years ago and he may have become less principled since. He does have backup from PW which calls it “an enjoyable, eccentric read, distinguished by well-developed characters, a believable Welsh setting, and some very creepy monsters.”
The Lantern, Deborah Lawrenson, Harper, 8/9
This ARE comes in a beautiful package (Robin B. said she thought she was getting chocolates, but found what’s inside is even better). I’m hooked by the Prologue, which begins, “Some scents sparkle and then quickly disappear like the effervescence of citrus zest…” and ends with a hint of darkness to come, “How can I be frightened by a scent?” It’s described as a modern-day gothic, set in Provence, along the lines of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern, Doubleday, 9/13
Curiosity about this one has been growing on GalleyChat. Yesterday, one library said their entire staff is now behind it. Also an inhouse favorite with the Random House library marketing team, they warn that you “won’t be able to miss it” at both BEA and ALA. It’s available on NetGalley, so your whole staff can read it, too.
The Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan, Knopf, 7/12
We highlighted this title earlier this week because it moved up on the Edelweiss list of titles most-ordered by indie booksellers. It’s described as “pretty racy; not for your average Twilight reader” and we got the news that, fittingly, the pages of the finished book will have blood-red edges.
The American Heiress, Daisy Goodwin, St. Martin’s, 6/21
This one caught my eye and is a hit with many on GalleyCat, who describe it as “like a delicious piece of cake” and “ritzy, scandalous fun”
Someone also pointed out that there’s a new source for forthcoming books chat; the Events Coordinator for the McNally Jackson bookstore has begun a Twitter hashtag for fall books, #fall11books, “to share most anticipated titles.”
Edelweiss recently released a list of the top 30 most-ordered summer fiction titles (earlier, we posted the top 30 nonfiction titles). Below are a few highlights (remember, however, that some publishers are not on the system, most notably, Simon and Schuster).
#1. State of Wonder by Patchett, Ann (HarperCollins/Harper) PubDate: Jun 7; this was also #1 on the previous list (which covered orders placed 60 days prior to 2/2/11).
#6. The Last Werewolf by Duncan, Glen (Random House/Knopf) PubDate: Jul 12; this one is catching on with more booksellers (it was at #16 on the last list), RH is planning a 100,000 printing. LJ starred it; Booklist is also a fan, calling it a “violent, sexy thriller.”
#22. The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Benjamin, Melanie (Random House/Delacorte Press) PubDate: Jul 26; the author’s second fictionalized look at a legendary historical figure (following last year’s Alice I have Been), this one focuses on the wife of “the world’s shortest man,” one of P.T. Barnum’s most well-known attractions.
#23. Iron House by Hart, John (Macmillan/Thomas Dunne Books) PubDate: Jul 12; Hart’s career has taken off quickly; he was nominated for an Edgar for his first book, The King of Lies (2006), going on to win Best Novel for his next two books, Down River (2008) and The Last Child (2010).
Digital publishing has given new meaning to the term “instant books.” As the Wall Street Journal reports, some publishers are planning to release e-books about Osama Bin Laden.
Random House is publishing an e-book collection of essays by various authors next week, Beyond Bin Laden: America and the Future of Terror.
The Free Press is releasing an e-book based on Peter Bergen’s The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda, which came out in January. (The Free Press is an imprint of Simon & Schuster, which doesn’t make e-book editions available for library lending).
In print, St. Martin’s Press is in the fortunate position of already having a book in the pipeline, SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper by Howard E. Wasdin, a former member of the group credited with killing bin Laden. Originally scheduled for May 24, it is being rushed in to print and is now expected to arrive the middle of next week. Hollywood has also come knocking; according to the Hollywood Reporter, the book’s agent has been fielding calls from studios interested in film rights.
In the NYT “Arts Beat” blog, Michiko Kakutani provides a useful roundup of eight earlier titles, many of which overlap with a separate list on the Huffington Post.
Join us for GalleyChat tomorrow at 4 p.m. Eastern (details here).
As prep, check out GalleyChat regular Lesa Holstine’s previews of upcoming titles on her Web site:
Lesa has us intrigued by Daisy Goodwin’s debut, The American Heiress and the author’s presentation, below, seals the deal. Happily, both PW and LJ say the book delivers. PW calls it “a propulsive story of love, manners, culture clash, and store-bought class from a time long past that proves altogether fresh.” In a starred review, LJ recommends it for book clubs.
Note: the book is called My Last Duchess in the UK; both that title and the British cover are featured in the video.
Talk about sweet justice; Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, having already won a Pulitzer and a National Book Ciritcs Circle prize, picked up yet another award this weekend. Significantly, it’s the L.A. Times Prize for Fiction.
In March, the L.A. Times itself raised hackles when it characterized Egan’s NBCC win as a loss for Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. That brought such a storm of protest that the paper offered an explanation of sorts. Back in the fall, when Franzen coverage seemed unrelenting (cover of Time, Oprah pick, NYT BR cover), Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult saw it as a reflection of the literary establishment’s sexism (Slate came up with an actual number; from 6/29/08 to 8/27/10, only 38% of books reviewed by the NYT were written by women). David Ulin, L.A. Times book critic acknowledged the validity of the issue, but was more concerned with defending Franzen.
Encouraging as it is to see a woman writer gather so many awards, and particularly this one from the L.A. Times, it doesn’t meant the discussion should be over. As the saying goes, it’s just the exception that proves the rule.
The Agatha Awards, given to books that best exemplify the Agatha Christie tradition, (i.e., no explicit sex, excessive gore or gratuitous violence) were announced this weekend. Canadian author Louise Penny picked up her fourth for Bury Your Dead, giving her Armand Gamache the most Agatha’s ever for books in a single series.
Winners in the book categories are:
Best Novel
Bury Your Dead, Louise Penny (Minotaur, 9780312377045; Large Type, Thorndike); the sixth in Penny’s series about Quebec Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. The audio already won an AudioFile award (Macmillan Audio and AudioGo). The seventh in the series, A Trick of the Light, (Minotaur, 9780312655457) arrives in August.
Best Children’s/Young Adult
The Other Side of Dark, Sarah Smith (Atheneum, 9781442402805) is the adult author’s debut novel for teens. Horn Book said of this story about a girl who communes with the dead, thus unearthing some painful truths about Boston and the slave trade, “well-researched historical detail weaves seamlessly into a contemporary mystery that’s also a head-on confrontation of the ongoing repercussions of racism and slavery.”
Best First Novel
The Long Quiche Goodbye, Avery Aames (Berkley, pbk original, 9780425235522); the first in a series set in a cheese shop. The second, Lost and Fondue (Berkley, pbk original, 9780425241585), releases tomorrow.
Best Non-fiction
Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: 50 Years of Mysteries in the Making, John Curran (Harper, 9780061988363). Christie’s 73 notebooks are painstakingly pieced together here. PW warned that even fans might be overwhelmed at the amount of detail, but also said it offers a “rare glimpse … into the mind of a writer, especially one as imaginative as Christie, who, though not a prose stylist, was expert at devising intricate plots.”