We’ve heard raves on GalleyChat about a debut with one of the season’s most memorable titles, Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, (RH/Dial, 6/19).

The new issue of People magazine (7/2, not available online) backs that up with a four-star lead review, saying the book “takes us under the skin and inside the tumultuous head of  June,” the book’s 14-year-old narrator, who is not only dealing with the usual torments of becoming a teenager, but also with her love for her uncle, who is dying of AIDS.

Concludes People, “Distracted parents, tussling adolescents, the awful ghost-world of the AiDS-afflicted before AZT — all of it springs to life in Brunt’s touching and ultimately hopeful book.”

Next week brings some books we’ve hearing about it for months, including former S&S editor Karen Thompson Walker‘s dystopian debut, along with Glen Duncan’s second literary werewolf adventure. Usual suspects include Elin Hilderbrand, Karen Kingsbury, James Rollins and Douglas Adams and Gareth Roberts. Jodi Picoult also delivers her first YA romance, with daughter Samantha van Leer. And it’s a big week for nonfiction, with Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s look at the 2009 Afghanistan surge, Christian Broadcasting Network newsman David Brody’s account of the Tea Party, and memoirs by the highly rated New York City chef Marcus Samuelsson and former New Yorker staffer Janet Groth. Making headlines in advance of its Tuesday publication is a memoir by Rielle Hunter, who had a baby with presidential contender John Edwards.

Watch List

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (Random House; RH Audio; Thorndike Large Print, Aug) is a dystopian fantasy by a former Simon & Schuster editor, set in the future after the Earth’s rotation has started to slow down, making the days and nights twice as long as normal. It has already received a positive early review by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times (she praises it as “a genuinely moving tale that mixes the real and surreal, the ordinary and the extraordinary with impressive fluency and flair,” as we noted earlier this week).

Talulla Rising by Glen Duncan (Knopf; BOT) is the sequel to Duncan’s breakout debut, The Last Werewolf, which brought a literate yet raunchy sensibility to the the tale of the conflicted werewolf Jake. This time, the star is Talulla, a female werewolf carrying Jake’s child, who tries to elude Jake’s enemies. LJ calls it “a bone-crunchingly, page-plungingly good book (necessary reading just for the language) that limns the primal darkness within us but is ultimately about love.” 100,000-copy printing.

Usual Suspects

Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand (Hachette/Little Brown/Reagan Arthur; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio) is the story of four teens who grapple with the aftermath of a fatal accident on the night of their high school graduation in Nantucket. LJ says, “Hilderbrand has a gift for building tension, and the reader will be willing to do just about anything to discover the real reason why Penny would drive herself, her brother, and her boyfriend over an embankment into oblivion.” 250,000-copy first printing.

Coming Home: A Story of Undying Hope by Karen Kingsbury (Zondervan; Thorndike Large Print; Zondervan Audio) is a stand-alone novel that can either introduce readers to the saga of the Baxter Family, or work as its conclusion, by “The Queen of Christian Romance.”

Bloodline: A SIGMA Force Novel by James Rollins (Harper/Morrow; Thorndike Large Print, Aug) finds the Sigma Force team trying to rescue the president’s pregnant daughter, after she is kidnapped from a yacht by Somali pirates and hidden in the jungles of coastal Africa.

Doctor Who: Shada: The Lost Adventure by Douglas Adams & Roberts Gareth (Penguin/Ace Books, Audiogo) is a novelization of the lost final episodes of the long-running Dr. Who TV series. Originally written by Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but never produced, they were reworked in book form by veteran Doctor Who writer Roberts. Here, the Fourth Doctor faces off with a megalomaniac named Skagra.

Young Adult

Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer (S&S/Atria/Emily Bestler; Recorded Books) is bestseller Picoult’s first foray into young adult lit, undertaken with her daughter, who pitched the premise to her. It’s about a loner girl who discovers a fairy tale prince in a book in her school library, and  that he can see her and talk to her, and sets about liberating him from his two-dimensional world into her three-dimensional one. Booklist says, “younger readers and their parents will appreciate the gentle, wholesome romance, with nary a shred of paranormal action. The tender, positive tone and effective pacing that builds to a satisfying finish will inspire readers to pass the book to a friend or reread it themselves.”

Nonfiction

Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Knopf) is an indictment of President Barack Obama’s 2009 Afghanistan surge, by the Washington Post correspondent who wrote the Imperial Life in the Emerald City, an award-winning analysis of post-invasion Iraq. 100,000-copy printing.

Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson (Random House; BOT) is a memoir by the youngest chef to receive three stars from the New York Times. Orphaned in Ethiopia, he was raised by an adoptive family in Sweden, and later sought out his roots in multiple visits to his birth country, while making his way in New York’s elite food world and establishing his own restaurant in Harlem. LJ says, “This distinctive and compelling memoir has all the elements of a good story: humor, travel, and a young individual overcoming obstacles via a passionate calling.” This one is also on several summer reading lists (including CNN’s) and has sparked interest among librarians on EarlyWord‘s GalleyChat.

The Receptionist: An Education at the New Yorker by Janet Groth (Workman/Algonquin; Highbridge Audio) is a memoir by a woman who worked at the storied literary magazine from 1957 to 1978, which has already received some strong early reviews, as we noted earlier this week.

The Teavangelicals: The Inside Story of How the Evangelicals and the Tea Party Are Taking Back America by David Brody (Zondervan) is an account of the relationship between the Tea Party movement and evangelical Christianity by the chief political correspondent for Pat Robertson on CBN News. Reviewing a partially embargoed galley from which one third of the book was missing, PW says, “This volume repeats the trite slogan that fiscal responsibility is a moral issue; hence Tea Party enthusiasts and evangelicals are a natural match… There is little original reporting here.”

What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter, and Me by Rielle Hunter (Benbella Books) is the book Hunter shopped around to several publishers last year, ending up with small “boutique” Dallas publisher Benbella Books. The NYT reports that New York publishers passed on it, with one of them saying that ” he doubted that many women would buy the book, considering that Ms. Hunter was having an affair with Mr. Edwards while he was married to Elizabeth Edwards, a popular figure among women.” The book is generating some headlines based on online excerpts. ABC News is scheduled to air an interview with Hunter on 20/20 tonight. Bonnie Fuller cues the backlash in the Huffington Post.

Called the master of the historical spy thriller, Alan Furst has written 12 novels in the Night Soldiers series (or, as he puts it on his Web site, the series is “really one very long book with, to date, twelve chapters”). The books have gradually gathered acclaim (in 2008, a profile by Chip McGrath in the NYT signaled that Furst had arrived. In 2010, Spies of the Balkans appeared on several best books list and debuted on the NYT Best Seller list at #10).

He’s about to become a household name. His new book, Mission to Paris, (Random House; Thorndike Large Print; S&S Audio) arrives on the new USA Today list at the highest spot ever for the series and at #2 on the Indie list, making it poised to arrive in the top three on the upcoming NYT list (UPDATE: the book debuted at #2 on the list). Libraries are showing heavy holds.

In the Huffington Post, fan Jesse Kornbluth tries to nail down why Furst’s books are addictive; “although these novels are about Europe in the years before World War II, they’re also exquisite little morality plays about right now, right here.”

Furst himself explains why he writes what he writes:

Cautiously returning

Penguin announced yesterday that they are working with 3M on a pilot program to again make their e-books available to the New York and  Brooklyn Public Library systems.

The catch? Titles will not be released until six months after they go on sale through retailers and they will expire after a year, with an option to renew. The prices will be “in the same range as prices that retail consumers pay.” (the Wall Street Journal).

Chris Platt of NYPL tells the Wall Street Journal that he hopes Penguin will eventually “agree to make some titles available immediately, while retaining the six-month delay for hot-selling titles. Exposure of first-time authors in libraries, for example, could boost sales.”

The deal was announced just three months after Tony Marx, NYPL President and CEO told publishers that he would be willing to  consider introducing more “friction” into the lending of ebooks to address their fears that library lending would affect the nascent consumer market for ebooks.

It’s a sign of the times that the story of this cautious change was broken by the Wall Sreet Journal (Libraries Cut E-Book Deal With Penguin). The NYT also ran a story in their Media Decoder blog.

The first trailer has just been released for Joe Wright’s film of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightly and Jude Law, with screenplay by Tom Stoppard. It arrives in theaters on November 9.

Official Site: FocusFeatures.com/Anna_Karenina

The book was released in a special edition when it was an Oprah pick in 2004.

Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy Retail Price: $17.00 Paperback: 862 pages Publisher: Penguin Classics – (2004-05) ISBN / EAN: 0143035002 / 9780143035008

Warner Bros. officially announced that the film of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas will be released on October 26th. According to the studio, test audiences “have been elated by its powerful and inspiring story, as well as its breathtaking visuals.” The film has three directors, two separate production crews and the actors play multiple roles.

The star-studded cast which includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Jim Sturgess and Hugo Weaving. Sarandon gushed in a recent interview, “I saw a 10-or 15-minute reel at a party I was at in Berlin and it looked like the trailer for an entire season … it had so many different locales and periods, and it was just gorgeous.”

The movie was originally scheduled for early December, which is the reason the tie-in is listed for Nov. 13; expect that date to change as well.

Someone remarked to me the other day, “This vampire thing is going crazy. Now there’s a movie about Abraham Lincoln as a vampire hunter.”

If you happen to know someone who is new to this, point them to Next Movie‘s “Everything We Know About Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.”

The latest trailer gives more information than the first one did (movie opens on Friday).

Official Movie Site: AbrahamLincolnVampireHunterMovie.com

Tie-ins:

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Seth Grahame-Smith Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Hachette/ Grand Central – (2012-04-03) ISBN / EAN: 1455510173 / 9781455510177

Mass Market Paperback:
Hachette/Grand Central1; $7.99
9781455510184, 145551018

Audio:
Narrated by Scott Holst
Hachette Audio; $17.98
9781611132151, 1611132150

Random House’s major debut of the season, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, arrives this coming Tuesday and is already getting the love from the Mikey of book reviewers. In today’s New York Times, Michiko Kaktutani says that the voice of the main character, an 11-year-old girl,

turns what might have been just a clever mash-up of disaster epic with sensitive young-adult, coming-of-age story into a genuinely moving tale that mixes the real and surreal, the ordinary and the extraordinary with impressive fluency and flair.

While Kakutani notes that it has a few flaws, “they certainly will not stop this novel from becoming one of this summer’s hot literary reads.” Others have predicted this, too. It is on many summer reading lists and is the #3 Indie Next Pick for July.

This is likely to be only the beginning. Holds are heavy in some areas.

The Age of Miracles Karen Thompson Walker Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Random House – (2012-06-26) ISBN / EAN: 0812992970 / 9780812992977

BOT Audio; ebook and audio, OverDrive

As we noted earlier this year, film rights have been sold.

How can you get your self-published book noticed on Amazon? First, publish with Amazon Kindle Direct. Next write an essay entitled, “How Amazon Saved My Life.”

That’s what Jessica Park did. As a result, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos featured her book in a letter to customers on Amazon’s home page (he also pointed out that 22 of the top 100 Kindle eBooks were written by self-published authors).

No surprise, the book is now rising on the Kindle best seller list. Despite the heavy promotion, however, it hasn’t yet cracked the top 100 list (currently, it’s at #372).

The book is available to libraries for digital download via OverDrive and B&T’s Axis 360 (ISBN 9781458164407). It is also available in paperback from Amazon’s CreateSpace (ISBN 9781461085973). It is listed as a children’s book for ages 8 to 9.

The Receptionist, Janet Groth’s memoir of working at the New Yorker in the William Shawn era (also the era of Mad Men, leading USA Today to recommend it to fans of the show) has appeared on several summer reading lists. Entertainment Weekly provides an irresistible annotation on their  “Summer Must List”; Groth has “collected the sort of gossipy anecdotes that would have you hanging on her every word at a literary cocktail party.”

It’s also an audio from Highbridge (15 minute clip on the site).

The Receptionist: An Education at The New Yorker Janet Groth Retail Price: $19.95 Hardcover: 241 pages Publisher: Workman/Algonquin – (2012-06-26) ISBN / EAN: 9781616201319

Just in time for the July 6th release of Oliver Stone’s film version of Savages, author Don Winslow’s prequel, The Kings of Cool arrives today.

Reviewing it in today’s NYT, under the headline, “Sexy Drug Dealers Have Parents, Too,” Janet Maslin says Winslow “tantalizingly divides his story between two generations: the original main characters, and the 1960s hippies who spawned them.”

The Kings of Cool Don Winslow Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2012-06-19) ISBN 9781451665321

Maslin was a major fan of Savages, including it in her list of the “Top 10 Books of 2010“; its only Best Books nod that year. About the movie, she is concerned whether it “can sustain Mr. Winslow’s heavenly understatement without drowning in the violence of drug warfare.”

Perhaps she hasn’t seen the trailer.

Movie tie-in:

Savages: A Novel Don Winslow Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2012-05-29) ISBN / EAN: 1451667159 / 9781451667158

Also mass market pbk (9781451672534)

Next week brings two buzzed-about debuts: a thriller by Jean Zimmerman set in 1663 New Amsterdam and Carol Rifka Brunt‘s tale of two sisters in the age of AIDS. Plus two authors with growing followings are back: Leila Meacham with a sprawling Texas soap opera, and Linda Castillo with the fourth installment in her Amish series. Usual suspects include Janet Evanovich, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, and Ridley Pearson. In nonfiction, Rachel Swarns delves into First Lady Michelle Obama’s ancestry and David Maraniss explores President Obama’s background and character development.

Watch List

The Orphanmaster by Jean Zimmerman (Penguin/Viking Books; Penguin Audiobooks; Thorndike Large Print) is a debut historical thriller set in New Amsterdam in 1663, in which a young Dutch woman and an English spy investigate the disappearances of a handful of orphans. Booklist calls it a “compulsively readable, heartbreaking, and grisly mystery set in a wild, colonial America will appeal to fans of Robert McCammon’s fast-paced and tautly suspenseful Mister Slaughter and Eliot Pattison’s Bone Rattler.” USA Today listed it as the top summer reading pick for the mystery/suspense category. Zimmerman was the first author in our Penguin Debut Authors program (read the chat & hear a podcast Q&A with the author here). She will also be featured on the ALTAFF Historical Fiction panel at ALA (Sat., 10:30 to noon)

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt (RH/Dial Press) is a debut novel about two sisters who lose their uncle in the mid-’80s as AIDS is on the rise, and must come to terms with “love that’s too big to stay in a tiny bucket. Splashing out in the most embarrassing way possible.” On our GalleyChat, one librarian called it the “best book I’ve ever read.” Like the previous titles, it is one of BookPage‘s Most-Buzzed About Debuts. The Minneapolis Star Tribune lists it among their eight books for summer: “Carol Rifka Brunt establishes herself as an emerging author to watch.  Tell the Wolves I’m Home will undoubtedly be this summer’s literary sleeper hit.”

Tumbleweeds by Leila Meacham (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is the sprawling story of a love triangle between two high school football heroes and the orphan girl they befriend, who are separated by a teenage prank gone awry and an accidental pregnancy, with far-reaching consequences. LJ says, “Readers who love epic sagas that span a couple of generations will enjoy this soap opera tale of young love, betrayal, and living a life that might not have a happy ending.” 125,000-copy first-printing. One-day laydown.

Gone Missing: A Thriller by Linda Castillo (Macmillan/Minotaur) is the fourth Amish mystery featuring Chief of Police Kate Burkholder, and is set during Rumspringa — when Amish teens are allowed to experience life outside the community, a practice that always fascinates outsiders. PW says, “Castillo ratchets up the tension nicely before the disconcerting ending.” Castillo’s previous titles have hit the NYT hardcover list, but only the extended (highest, #21). Holds are heavy in some libraries. The publisher is putting extra marketing push behind this one.

Usual Suspects

Wicked Business: A Lizzy and Diesel Novel by Janet Evanovich (RH/Bantam; RH Audio; Thorndike Large Print) finds Salem, Massachusetts pastry chef Lizzy Tucker once again drawn into solving a mystery with her sexy but off-limits partner Diesel – this time involving an ancient Stone believed by some to be infused with the power of lust.

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (Harper) is the Discworld creator’s first novel in 30 years to be set in a new universe – this time comprised of an infinite number of parallel Earths, all devoid of humans, which will be explored by the gifted Joshua Valiente, employee of the Black Corporation. PW says, “the slow-burning plot plays second fiddle to the fascinating premise, and the authors seem to have more fun developing backstory and concepts than any real tension. An abrupt conclusion comes as an unwelcome end to this tale of exploration.”

The Risk Agent by Ridley Pearson (Putnam Adult; Brilliance Audio) is a thriller about a Chinese National who runs into intrigue while working for an American-owned in Shanghai (where the author lived with his family in 2008-2009). LJ says, “Famous for his plotting and attention to details, Pearson is off to a great start with his compelling and multilayered new protagonists. His many fans as well as readers who love international thrillers won’t be disappointed.”

Nonfiction

American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama by Rachel L. Swarns (HarperCollins/Amistad) is the story of the First Lady’s lineage, starting with slave girl Melvinia in the mid 1800s in Jonesboro, Georgia, the mother of Dolphus Shields, Michelle Obama’s maternal great-great-grandfather.  Kirkus says, “Swarns provides numerous tales of heartbreak and achievement, many of which essentially make up the American story. Elegantly woven strands in a not-so-easy-to-follow whole, but tremendously moving.” 100,000-copy first printing.

Barack Obama: The Story by David Maraniss (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio) is a multi-generational biography of Barack Obama and his family, based on hundreds of interviews, including with President Obama – written by the author and associate editor of the Washington Post.  PW says, “Obama’s story here is interior and un-charismatic, but it makes for a revealing study in character-formation as destiny. The book ends as Obama prepares to enter Harvard Law.” One-day laydown.

Following in the footsteps of others who have offered readings lists for summer ’12, the new issue of People magazine selects a dozen titles, most of them by established authors. They also add their voice to two titles that have emerged as a potential breakouts, Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple and the debut Gilded Age by Claire McMillan.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette has appeared on several other lists, despite certain difficulties in selling it (click on image below for a trailer on Entertainment Weekly’s “Shelf Life,” of author Semple trying to get various people, including Elliott Bay’s Rick Simonson, to buy it).

Semple misses the book’s main selling point; herself. She was a writer for the cult favorite TV show, Arrested Development. People describes the book this way, “When her agoraphobic mom disappears, 15-year-old Bee takes matters into her own hands. An uproarious comdy of manners from a former writer for Arrested Development.”

The full list after the jump:

(more…)

We’ve been predicting that  Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl would be the first breakout best seller of the season. The new Indie Best Seller list verifies that prediction; it is at number one on the fiction list. It is also at #7 on the USA Today list, which doesn’t break out titles by format (it would be at number one, if two pesky trilogies weren’t blocking it). They note that this is the first of the author’s three titles to appear on the USA Today list.

Reviews have been stellar.

Gone Girl Gillian Flynn Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 412 pages Publisher: RH/Crown – (2012-06-05) ISBN: 9780307588364

Audio, BOT; audio and ebook on OverDrive

Self Published Edition

Another author has crossed over from self-publishing to a Big Six publisher. Tracey Garvis Graves, whose book On the Island, was bought by Warner for a movie adaptation in mid-May after having been on the NYT eBook best seller list for several weeks, has now landed a two-book deal with Penguin.

Penguin/Plume Edition

The novel, about a 30-year-old teacher shipwrecked with teenage boy she was tutoring, was originally published in paperback through Amazon’s self-publising division (Amazon/CreateSpace, 9781466363212, 3/14/12) and as an ebook (available on B&T’s Axis 360). Penguin will re-release it in paperback on July 17 (97801421967240) with a more glamorized cover. The egalley is available on Edelweiss and on NetGalley.

The author’s second book, Covet, will be released in hardcover by Penguin/Dutton in the spring.

USA Today reports the news today; the author expressed her excitement about the deal on her web site last week.

Since publishers are obviously eager to uncover popular self-published titles, GalleyCat, a publishing industry blog, just announced that it will begin tracking best selling self-published titles on Amazon, B&N and Smashwords.