For young adults next week, there’s Andrew Fukuda’s would-be successor to the Hunger Games (with the added element of vampires). In children’s books, Patterson continues his middle school series and Stephen Colbert tries to rival Maurice Sendak.

YOUNG ADULT

The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda (Macmillan/St. Martins/Griffin; Macmillan Audio) is the first in a new vampire series that is on many lists of what to read after The Hunger Games. PW says, “With an exciting premise fueled by an underlying paranoia, fear of discovery, and social claustrophobia, this thriller lives up to its potential while laying the groundwork for future books.”  To capitalize on the Hunger Games hook, The Hunt‘s website (where you can read an excerpt), cross-promotes a free download of an eBook called How to Survive The Hunger Games and uses the tagline “Now that the games are over…it’s time to start the hunt.”

City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare (S&S/Margaret K. McElderry; Simon & Schuster Audio) is the fifth installment in the bestselling Mortal Instruments series. The film of first book is moving forward, with release currently slated for August 23, 2013, starring Lily Collins and directed by Harald Zwart (The Karate Kid).

CHILDREN’S

Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! by James Patterson (Hachette/LBYR; Hachette Audio) the second in Patterson’s bid to appeal to the Wimpy Kid crowd.

I am A Pole (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio) is a book that the author threatened to write when he interviewed Maurice Sendak on his TV show. Sendak called the concept “terribly ordinary,” adding: “The sad thing is I like it.” We’re listing it as a children’s title, because that’s what Colbert calls it; it’s being published as an adult title, however.

Media attention is focusing on next week’s titles from long-time literary stars Toni Morrison, and John Irving as well as Hilary Mantel’s sequel to Wolf Hall. There’s also a hot debut romance with a touch of time travel from newcomer Beatriz Williams, another doggy bestseller from Bruce Cameron, and a prequel to The Godfather. Returning favorites include James Patterson and Maxine Paetro and Richard Paul Evans.

WATCH LIST

Overseas by Beatriz Williams (Penguin/Putnam) is a debut novel about a contemporary Wall Street analyst, who falls in love with a mystifying billionaire, and then discovers they met in another life, in WWI. PW says, “at heart this is a delicious story about the ultimate romantic fantasy: love that not only triumphs over time and common sense, but, once Kate overcomes Julian’s WWI-era ideas about honor, includes mind-blowing sex.” The author begins her book tour with her home town library in Greenwich, CT.

A Dog’s Journey: Another Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron (Macmillan/Forge; Macmillan Audio; Wheeler Large Print) is the sequel to the bestseller A Dog’s Purpose that asks: Do we really take care of our pets, or do they take care of us? Booklist says, “Cameron explores the concept of canine karma with acute sensitivity and exhibits cunning insight into life from a dog’s perspective.”

The Family Corleone by Ed Falco (Grand Central; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print) is a prequel to The Godfather. We wrote about the book trailer‘s clever twist last week.

LITERARY FAVORITES

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (Macmillan/Holt) continues the story of intrigue in the Tudor court that began in the Booker Prize winning Wolf Hall. There have already been several advance reviews, including Janet Maslin’s in the New York Times (which says that Wolf Hall is “a hard act to follow. But the follow-up is equally sublime”), and in Entertainment Weekly (it gets an “A”), as well as an article in the Wall St. Journal about whether you need to read Wolf Hall first (you don’t according to her publisher, but a Washington D.C. bookseller says you do).

In the British book trailer, Mantel talks about the enduring fascination with her subject, Anne Boleyn, who had “huge sexual magnetism.”

Home by Toni Morrison (RH/Knopf; Random House Large Print; Random House Audio) is the Nobel winner’s exploration of the inner life of Korean War veteran, who endured front line trauma and returns to racist America with more than just physical scars. People magazine says, “At half the length of most of her previous works, Home is as much prose poem as long-form fiction — a triumph for a beloved literary icon who, at 81, proves that her talents remain in full flower.”

In One Person by John Irving (Simon & Schuster; Simon & Schuster Audio) is a portrait of a bisexual man described by the publisher as “a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences.” It’s well known that Irving repeats themes; Wikipedia even has a chart of which recurring subjects appear in which books. Some find that tiresome;  Entertainment Weekly asks, “What is it with John Irving and transsexuals?” but still gives it a B+. Earlier, in an interview in the same publication, Irving explained that he continues to explore issues he began writing about in Garp back in 1978 because, “There’s still a problem. People hate each other for their sexual differences, even today.”  People, also comments on Irving revisiting old themes, but says in this book, he manages to expresses a “fresh, heartfelt urgency.”

Expect major media coverage, including a profile in Time magazine (which asserts that  In One Person marks the author’s return to being “a literary heavyweight”), an appearance on NPR’s Weekend Edition tomorrow and CBS This Morning on Tuesday. NOTE: Irving will be featured speaker at ALA on Saturday, June 23.

A person who got to know the book intimately, the audio narrator, gives a passionate promo for the book and talks about the difference between narrating a book and acting:

USUAL SUSPECTS

11th Hour by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio) finds Lindsay Boxer pregnant and on the case of the murder of a millionaire with a weapon that’s linked to the deaths of four of San Francisco’s most untouchable criminals, and was taken from her own department’s evidence locker.

The Road to Grace by Richard Paul Evans (Simon & Schuster; Center Point Large Print; Simon & Schuster Audio) continues The Walk series, with Alan setting out to cover nearly 1,000 miles between South Dakota and St. Louis on foot, where he encounters a mysterious woman, a ghost hunter and an elderly Polish man.

Author Kiera Cash gushes on her blog today (time-stamped 12:02 a.m. — did she have to sit on the news until it was official?),

You guys! I’m totally a New York Times bestselling author! The Selection made it to #9 on the children’s list [the 5/13 NYT Chapter Books list]. My whole world is upside down! Thank you all so much for going out and buying my book. I hope you’re having as much fun reading it as I had writing it. THANK YOU!

It also just makes it on to the USA Today list at #150.

The first in a trilogy, The Selection is a dystopian novel with a difference. As made clear by the cover, this one is heavy on romance with no bloodsport. Of the pre-pub reviews, only Publishers Weekly gave it a thumbs-up. Kirkus called it a “probably harmless, entirely forgettable series opener,” and VOYA said, “readers who enjoy commonplace romances will gravitate to this novel while dystopian lovers who revel in series such as Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games and Uglies will be disappointed.”

That doesn’t seem to matter to readers; most libraries are showing holds, heavy in some areas.

The Selection (Selection – Trilogy) Kiera Cass Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: HarperTeen – (2012-04-24) ISBN / EAN: 0062059939/9780062059932

It comes comes with a trailer:

There are no surprises on the new Indie Fiction Best Seller list. Stephen King’s The Wind Through the Keyhole arrives at #1, moving Grisham’s baseball novel, Calico Joe to #2. The Paris Wife is enjoying the most longevity, at #8 after 62 weeks, (it was on our Crystal Ball back in March, 2011, but we had no idea it would last this long).

Popping back on to the list, at #15, after having moved to the extended list for a couple of weeks is The Night Circus. Meanwhile, another of the Big First Novels of last fall, Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding, is out in trade paperback and hits that list at #4.

On the Nonfiction list, Rachel Maddow’s book on how the US has outsourced war, Drift, continues at #1 after five weeks. Anna Quindlen’s memoir, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, debuts at #2 and Madeleine Albright’s, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 arrives at #5.

Debuting at #14, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel, questions our current obsession with marketplace solutions (such as schools paying kids to read books or companies making money from life insurance on their employees). It has gotten attention in the business press, with an admiring review from an unexpected source, The Wall Street Journal (noting, for readers who may be put off, that the author is “not a socialist, and his critique of markets is measured”). Several libraries are showing heavy holds on moderate ordering. It is also available in audio (Macmillan Audio).

What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets Michael J. Sandel Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: MacmillanFSG – (2012-04-24) ISBN / EAN: 0374203032 / 9780374203030

It’s always fun to see a book by a new author begin to take off, but even more so when you’ve had a chance to meet that author. Many of you joined us for a chat last week with Wiley Cash about his debut, A Land More Kind Than Home, (Harper). Several great things have happened for the book since then. It landed on the NYT Hardcover Fiction extended list at #33 in it’s first week on sale and Barnes and Noble just announced that it is one of their Discover Great New Writers Summer picks.

In conjunction, the Barnes & Noble Review ran an interview with the author. He was, of course, thoughtful and charming, but we’re partial to how well he used just 140 characters during our TwitterChat.

The author describes his book:

The novel tells the story of the bond between two young brothers and the evil they face in a small town in the mountains of N.C.

 …which brought this response from a librarian:

That description just put it on my TBR list!

On the two brothers:

Kids do know and intuit a lot of things we don’t realize; Only diff is kids don’t know how to respond to that knowledge.

On the title (which comes from the last line in Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again):

The title hints at something beyond the present that awaits us, some kind of place that is more suited to who we are or want to be.

On the importance of North Carolina as the setting:

I’m a writer of place & a reader of place. It’s the most important thing in my life. I wrote LAND to recreate the place I love.

I love works w/setting as character: Winesburg OH, Their Eyes, Look Homeward Angel. Characters coming from a PLACE are fascinating.

I really wanted to take the reader there & have all the senses touched. W. NC is such a visceral place.

The thrill of seeing your book in a library:

My mom just sent me a text pic of my book in the library in Oak Island NC. God bless writers’ moms.

Seeing it all wrapped up in the library with a call number: that’s real.

Thanks to the library marketing team at HarperCollins for sponsoring the chat and for making Advance Readers copies available to many EarlyWord readers.

It’s been buzzed about for months, has an amazing cast already in place, but HBO announced yesterday that plans for the series based on Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections have been called to a halt.

Deadline reports, “Word is HBO brass liked the performances but the decision came down to adapting the book’s challenging narrative, which moves through time and cuts forwards and back…hampering the potential show’s accessibility.”

Unless someone releases the pilot, we will not get the chance to see Chris Cooper and Dianne Wiest as parents to the dysfunctional Lambert family, including their adult children, played by Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Kansas City librarians used the lack of a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as an opportunity to create the “Publitzer Prize for Fiction” (the play on the name indicates that the public chooses this prize).

Library Director Crosby Kemper III explains:

The three nominees were announced yesterday. The winner will be announced tomorrow.

Take that, Pulitzer Board!

What has your library done to combat the mistaken impression that this was a lousy year for fiction? Let us know in the comments section.