Tuesday is the traditional release day for major titles and several are hitting this week with fanfare.

Judy Blume seems to be having a great time promoting her title for adults, In the Unlikely Event (RH.Knopf; RH Audio; RH Large Print)

Stephen King’s Finders Keepers (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; Thorndike) is enjoying an appreciative reception, from the daily NYT (“One of the pleasures of Finders Keepers is watching Mr. King’s ways of making pages turn”) to USA Today (4 of 4 stars).

Other titles receiving attention:

Eight Hundred Grapes, Laura Dave, (S&S; S&S Audio)

A GalleyChat favorite in February. this is the LibraryReads #1 pick for June:

“Take your time and savor the family dynamics. Enjoy the romantic twists in this tale of a career-minded young woman circling back to her roots at a California winery. The appeal is broader than that of a romance since it delves into the complexities of various relationships — parent to parent, parents and children, even winery and owner. This is an excellent summer read!” — Joan Hipp, Florham Park Public Library, Florham Park, NJ

Saint Mazie, Jami Attenberg, (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive sample)

A favorite of Jen Dayton’s, Darien Public Library, she brought this one up during the Shout ‘n’ Share program at BEA. If you’ve read Attenberg’s first book, The Middlesteins, says Dayton, this one is quite different. Set in the Depression, it is inspired by a true story from Joseph Mitchell’s classic Up in the Old Hotel, of a woman who opened her NYC movie theater to those who needed a place to “feel human.”

It is an Amazon June spotlight pick, one of ten books on the Wall Street Journal‘s Summer Reading preview as well as one of  Entertainment Weekly‘s 10 big fat beach reads to look out for this summer (it’s not THAT fat, it’s more of a middle weight at 356 pages).

Palace of Treason, Jason Matthews, (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio)

Profiled in the New York Times last week, Matthews a retired spy turned novelist. His first book Red Sparrow came out in 2013 and hit the USA Today best seller list at #101 for one week. Film rights were bought by Fox and a screenwriter was announced a year ago. This is the sequel.

The NYT describes both novels as “old school” and Matthews tells the interviewer, “A lot of new thrillers are written by people who have not lived the life, and a lot of them seem to be about a bipolar Agency guy, helped by his bipolar girlfriend, trying to chase a bipolar terrorist who has a briefcase nuke, and there’s 12 hours left to go. My book is all fiction, but it’s an amalgam of people I’ve known, of things I’ve done, of stuff I’ve lived.”

It’s featured in Entertainment Weekly‘s summer reading preview, USA Today’s 25 hot books for summer and an Indie Next pick.

The Sunlit Night, Rebecca Dinerstein, (Macmillan/Bloomsbury; OverDrive sample)

After reading so many stories in U.S. newspapers about the next hot book coming from the U.K., it’s refreshing to read this headline in The Telegraph, “The Latest Us Literary Sensation” applied to Dinerstein’s debut. It is also an Indie Next pick:

The endless daylight of a Norwegian summer is the perfect backdrop for this warm and quirky debut filled with unusual characters and situations, a setting that is real yet somehow out of time, visual and precise writing, emotional warmth, and faith in the healing power of love. This tale of Frances and Yasha, their families, and their companions during a transformative summer in perpetual Arctic light is a perfect read for fans of Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love or Bill Forsyth’s classic movie, Local Hero.” —Anmiryan Budner, Main Point Books, Bryn Mawr, PA

A Field Guide to Awkward Silences, Alexandra Petri, (Penguin/NAL; OverDrive sample)

Washington Post columnist Petri,  says Dave Barry in the cover blurb, “is the funniest person in Washington. This is all the more impressive when you consider that Congress is also located there.”  As proof, her column this week is titled, “Christian Grey’s perspective is the only thing that could make Fifty Shades of Grey worse.” This book is a memoir.

Eeny Meeny, M. J. Arlidge, (Penguin/NAL, trade pbk original; Penguin Audio; OverDrive sample)

One of the titles in our Penguin Debut Authors program, this thriller was mentioned at BEA’s Shout ‘n’ Share as “making you want to lock all your doors and windows.” It was recently optioned for a TV series.

Our spreadsheet of other notable titles arriving this week, with ordering information and alternate formats, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of June 1, 2015

The first trailer has been released for Robert Redford’s movie based on Bill Bryson’s hilarious account of an attempt to hike the Appalachian trail despite “years of waddlesome sloth,” A Walk in the Woods, (RH/Broadway; RH Audio, 1998). The movie debuts Sept. 9.

Bryson is played by Redford. Joining him in the adventure is his old pal Katz, a man even more ill-prepared for the effort than Bryson, played by Nick Nolte (in a role originally intended for Redford’s late friend Paul Newman).

A Walk in the Woods (Movie Tie-In): Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson
RH/Broadway, July 28, 2015
Trade Paperback; 9781101905494, 1101905492;  $15.99 USD
Mass Market Pbk; 9781101970881, 110197088X; $7.99 USD

Our Books to Movies & TV listing has updated information on over 400 adaptations in the works (for tie-ins, check our Edelweiss collection).

Another Grey is on its way, Titled simply Grey, it’s Fifty Shades told from Christian’s point of view.

Author E. L. James announced on Instagram today that the book will be published on June 18th and the story has been picked up widely, from USA Today to the Wall Street Journal.

According to Amazon, it will be published by RH/Vintage in trade paperback with the ISBN is 978-1101946343, but it is not yet listed on Edelweiss or wholesaler catalogs (UPDATE: it is now listed on some wholesaler catalogs).

In a press release, Tony Chirico, President of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group indicates this was a surprise release (in other words, you were not living under a rock if you haven’t heard of it), “Given the secrecy and immediacy of the publication, we’ve worked hard to ensure that the book will be well represented in the retail marketplace on June 18^th.”

Thanks to Janet Lockhart, Collection Development Librarian at Wake County Public Libraries for the alert!

If you are going to ALA in San Francisco at the end of the month, the AAP has some great book and author events scheduled.

Fellow procrastinators, don’t delay, these events are free but most require registration and they fill up quickly, (links to registration below):

AAP SAN FRANCISCO BOOK BUZZ 2015
Thursday, June 25^th, 2015 from 8:00am-5:00pm
San Francisco Public Library, Koret Auditorium, Lower Level
100 Larkin Street , San Francisco, CA 94102

Join the AAP Children’s and Adult Library Marketing Committees for an all-day AAP San Francisco Book Buzz. Children’s and Teen titles will be buzzed from 8:30am-12:30pm, and Adult titles will be buzzed from 1:30-5:00pm with a lunch in between, provided by the publishers.

ON THE CHILDREN’S SIDE, HEAR FROM: HarperCollins Children’s Books, Albert Whitman, Macmillan Children’s, Sterling Children’s Books, Starscape & Tor Teen, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Little Bee Books, Algonquin Young Readers, Perseus Books Group, Penguin Young Readers Group, National Geographic Kids, New York Review Children’s, Harlequin TEEN, Random House Children’s Books, Sourcebooks, Quirk Books, Scholastic, Soho Teen, W.W. Norton & Co., and Simon & Schuster!

ON THE ADULT SIDE, HEAR FROM: Simon & Schuster, Perseus Books Group, New York Review Books, Hachette Book Group, Sterling, W.W. Norton & Co., Quirk Books, Random House, Workman, Sourcebooks, Macmillan, Soho Press, National Geographic, Melville House, HarperCollins, Harlequin, and Penguin!

SIGN UP HERE TO ATTEND.

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AAP/LIBRARYREADS BOOK-A-LICIOUS BREAKFAST
Saturday, June 27^th, 2015 from 8:30am-10:00am
Marriott Marquis San Francisco (Golden Gate B)
780 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

Hear from authors:

• Charles Belfoure, author of House of Thieves (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Anthony Marra, author of The Tsar of Love and Techno (Hogarth)
• Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You (Penguin Books)
• Nnedi Okorafor, author of Lagoon (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press)
• Stacy Schiff, author of The Witches (Little, Brown & Co.)
• Brigid Schulte, author of Overwhelmed (Picador/Macmillan)

 AUTHOR SIGNING TO FOLLOW EVENT.

 Space is limited. Please SIGN UP HERE TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST IN ATTENDING by Friday, June 19^th. We will send you a confirmation if we can accommodate your request.

Formal invitation (with book covers) here: ALA 2015 Book-a-Licious Breakfast invite

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AAP CHILDREN’S & TEEN AUTHOR SPEED DATING EVENT

Saturday, June 27^th from 3:00-4:00pm
Marriott Marquis San Francisco (Golden Gate B)
780 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

• Elana Arnold, The Question of Miracles (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers)
• Kathleen Baldwin, A School for Unusual Girls (Tor/Forge Books/Tor Teen)
• Lizi Boyd, Big Bear little chair (Chronicle Books)
• Martha Brockenbrough, The Game of Love and Death (Arthur A. Levine Books)
• Monica Brown, Lola Levine is Not Mean! (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
•  Soman Chainani, The School for Good and Evil #3: The Last Ever After   (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
• Bruce Covill, Diary of a Mad Brownie (Random House Children’s Books)
• Joshua Davis, Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream (Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Macmillan)
• Tania del Rio, Warren the 13^th (Quirk Books)
• Matt Faulkner, Gaijin: American Prisoner of War (Disney-Hyperion)
• Kim Griswell, Rufus Goes to Sea (Sterling Children’s Books)
• Tamara Ireland Stone, Every Last Word (Disney-Hyperion)
• Stephen T. Johnson, Alphabet School (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books)
• Estelle Laure, This Raging Light (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Amy Lukavics, Daughter Unto Devils (Harlequin TEEN)
• Paige McKenzie, The Haunting of Sunshine Girl: Book One (Weinstein Books/The Perseus Books Group)
• Sebastian Meschenmoser, Mr. Squirrel and the Moon (NorthSouth Books)
• Yvonne Prinz, If You’re Lucky (Algonquin Young Readers)
• Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Where Are My Books? (Simon & Schuster/ Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
• Lev Rosen, Woundabout (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Barney Saltzberg, Redbird: Friends Come in Different Sizes (Workman)
• Allan Stratton, The Dogs (Sourcebooks Fire)
• Craig Thompson, Space Dumplins (Scholastic)
• Steve “The Dirtmeister” Tomecek, Dirtmeister’s Nitty Gritty Planet Earth: All About Rocks, Minerals, Fossils, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, & Even Dirt! (National Geographic Kids Books)

SPACE IS LIMITED. YOU MUST RSVP HERE TO PARTICIPATE.

You will receive an email with your table number closer to the event.

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BOOKLIST’S READ ‘N RAVE
Monday, June 29^th, 2015 from 9:00-10:00am
Moscone Convention Center, Room 122 (N)

Everyone gets excited by the new ARCs available at conference. Come hear six collection development specialists rave about their favorite titles gathered from the exhibit floor. This lively panel, co-organized by Booklist and the AAP, will feature librarians Stephanie Chase (Hillsboro Public); Naphtali Faris (KCPL); Alene Moroni (King County); Kaite Mediatore Stover (KCPL); Stephen Sposato (Chicago Public); and David Wright (Seattle Public). Moderated by Rebecca Vnuk, Booklist’s editor for Reference and Collection Management.

NO ADVANCE REGISTRATION REQUIRED

INFO HERE.

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AAP/LIBRARYREADS MYSTERY AUTHORS PANEL
Monday, June 29^th, 2015 from 10:30-11:30am
Moscone Convention Center, Room 122 (N)

Hear from authors:

• Cara Black, author of Murder on the Champ de Mars (Soho Crime)
• Allison Brennan, author of Compulsion (Minotaur Books/Macmillan)
• John Katzenbach, author of The Dead Student (Mysterious Press)
• Keith McCafferty, author of Crazy Mountain Kiss (Viking)
• Kate White, author of The Wrong Man (Harper Paperbacks)

AUTHOR SIGNING TO FOLLOW EVENT.

Space is limited. Please SIGN UP HERE TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST IN ATTENDING by Friday, June 19^th. We will send you a confirmation if we can accommodate your request.

Formal invitation, with book jackets, here,:ALA 2015 Mystery Authors Panel invite

Social media has created a new crop of “celebrity” authors.

First there were the blogger books, hits like Deb Perelman’s The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, a title born out of Perelman’s blog that went on to win the IACP Julia Child First Book Award and to be named as one of Cooking Light magazine’s Top 100 Cookbooks of the Last 25 Years. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell started life as the successful Julie/Julia Project blog, and was then adapted as a movie starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton, garnered extended and glowing attention and hit best seller lists.

YouTube is the new celebrity petrie dish. Once strictly a platform, after seeing many of its top stars poached, YouTube recently announced it will become a producer. Publishers have also come calling with book contracts. Always alert to trends, the Atria division of Simon and Schuster, launched a new imprint last year, Keywords Press, to focus on digital stars, a story that was covered by The New York Times.

Hot names include Shane Dawson, Connon Franta, Joey Graceffa, Hannah Hart, Paige McKenzie, Zoe Sugg (Zoella), Miranda Sings, and Mamrie Hart, each of whom has a staggering number of followers and can make a book race up the Amazon sales rankings just by posting videos urging their fans to order in advance.

Franta’s A Work in Progress (S&S/Atria/Keywords Press; OverDrive Sample), Hannah Hart’s My Drunk Kitchen (HarperCollins/Dey Street; OverDrive Sample), and Mamrie Hart’s You Deserve a Drink (Penguin/Plume; OverDrive Sample) have all been the top selling books in their categories on Amazon.

Joey Graceffa has won two Teen Choice awards for his online-video programming. With YouTube’s backing he is set to create a “murder-mystery reality series.” He recently released In Real Life (S&S/Atria/Keywords Press; OverDrive Sample).

Shane Dawson’s YouTube show, also a Teen Choice winner, led to his competing in the Starz original series The Chair, which pits two directors against each other to create a movie from the same script. Viewers voted Dawson the winner. He recently published  I Hate Myselfie (S&S/Atria/Keywords Press; OverDrive Sample), which hit the top thirty in Amazon’s sales rankings.

With a built-in PR force of millions of followers, publishers are eager to help these YouTube stars extend their brands into old media as well as new, as Publishers Weekly reports.

However, library ordering and holds do not yet reflect this enthusiasm. It may be a while before these new stars follow the paths of Perelman and Stanton.