Highlighting Congressman John Lewis’s leadership in the Civil Rights movement, CBS Sunday Morning profiled the Representative and his award-winning graphic memoirs March: Book One and March: Book Two (both from Top Shelf).

Fittingly, the profile includes clips of Rep. Lewis at ComicCon, wearing, as tradition dictates, his own superhero outfit: a coat and backpack similar to those he wore as he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge during the Selma March in 1965.

A third March volume is expected early next year.

At the same time that #blacklivesmatter reveals tp those who weren’t aware that racism still plagues this country, two books also appeared as reminders. Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, (Harper), reveals the comlex reality behind the saintly character of Atticus Finch.

Written 55 years later Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample) describes how frightening it is to be a black parent today.

Both books now land at the top of the NYT best sellers lists, Go Set a Watchman on the fiction list and Between the World and Me on nonfiction.

Released on Friday, the first full trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is getting heavy scrutiny. In case you miss any significant bits, Entertainment Weekly does a “deep dive” into  all 2 minutes and 24 seconds.

The movie arrives in theaters on Nov. 20

The holds leader among the titles arrive next week is Julie Garwood’s Wired (Penguin/Dutton), one of the author’s contemporary romance/thrillers. UPDATE: It appears that this title has been postponed.B&T’s Title Source now shows the publishing date as July 4, 2017.

Close behind is Badlands by C.J. Box (Macmillan/Minotaur), indicating, along with a print run double the size of his previous title, that Box is gaining a wider audience. Booklist, in a starred review says, ‘If Box isn’t a household name yet, he will be.”

The third holds leader is Paula McLain’s Circling The Sun (RH/Ballantine), a fictionalized bio of aviation pioneer Beryl Markham. It’s also a peer pick, receiving stars from all four trade reivews and selected as a LibraryReads title.

“I couldn’t stop reading this fascinating portrayal of Beryl Markham, a complex and strong-willed woman who fought to make her way in the world on her terms. McLain paints a captivating portrait of Africa in the 1920s and the life of expats making their home there. Highly, highly recommended.” — Halle Eisenman, Beaufort County Library, Hilton Head, SC

The new issue of People chooses it as the “Book of the Week,” describing the subject as a “novelists;s dream.” The Wall Street Journal features it with an excerpt and the author is schedule to appear on NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered on August 1.

The author spoke to librarians at the Penguin Random House breakfast during BEA.

Audio Sample:

The titles covered here, and several more notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of 7/27/15

Consumer Media Picks

Gonzo Girl: A Novel, Cheryl Della Pietra, (S&S/Touchstone)

Della Pietra worked for the original “gonzo journalist” Hunter S. Thompson and this barely fictionalized account of that experience naturally fascinates journalists, so it is getting wide attention. Trade reviews are mostly positive but object, as PW puts it that “it’s an occasional slog to read through pages of druggy non conversation.” LJ offers a very specific recommendation, “For readers curious about Thompson’s lifestyle and fans of eccentric characters and meandering journeys featuring copious amounts of illegal substances,” (try to spot that demographic in your community studies). It is #2 on Entertainment Weekly “Must List: Top 10 Things We love This Week,” high placement for a book, and the author is interviewed in the issue.

Pretty Baby, Mary Kubica, (Harlequin/MIRA)

A People pick, ” …about a 16-year-old homeless girl, a baby and a Chicago mother who is trying to help them . The sense of danger intensifies as mysteries surrounding both the girl and her benefactor slowly emerge. It all builds to a stunning climax involving revelations you won’t see coming.”

Peer Picks

Kitchens of the Great Midwest, J. Ryan Stradal, (Penguin/Pamela Dorman)

We chatted with the author last week as part of our Penguin Debut Authors program.

It is the #1 LibraryReads pick for the month:

“This novel is quirky and colorful. The story revolves around chef Eva Thorvald and the people who influence her life and her cooking. With well-drawn characters and mouthwatering descriptions of meals, Kitchens of the Great Midwest will appeal to readers who like vivid storytelling. Foodies will also enjoy this delicious tale.” — Anbolyn Potter, Chandler Public Library, Chandler, AZ

One of our favorite comments on the book comes from Jen Dayton, Darien Public Library, who said at the BEA Librarians Shout ‘n’ Share program, this book “Will do for cooking what The Art Of Fielding did for baseball.”

The author spoke at the Penguin Random House breakfast during BEA.

Crooked Heart, Lissa Evans, (Harper)

LibraryReads:

“Crooked Heart is a rewarding, addictive read. Orphaned ten-year-old bookworm Noel, sent away to rural St. Albans, finds himself under the reluctant guardianship of Vee, aka Mrs. Vera Sledge. Amidst a chaotic background of bombings and uncertain futures, Vee and Noel gradually form a powerful bond. I recommend this darkly humorous, honest, and complex story. It is book club heaven.” — Janet Schneider, Oceanside Library, Oceanside, NY

It  was on the longlist for the Baileys Women’s Prize.

A movie of Evans’s 2009 novel Their Finest Hour and a Half, is in the works, directed by Lone Scherfig (One Day, An Education).

Book Trailer of the Week

The Fifth House of the Heart. Ben Tripp, (S&S.Gallery)

You shouldn’t judge a book by its trailer, so we’ll add that, besides a great trailer, this book gets a starred review from  PW, “Tripp (The Accidental Highwayman)  melds the modern vampire myth with comic mystery and detective fiction in this intriguing and intelligent horror novel …Though sometimes a touch slow in between action scenes, this deep and terrifying vampire story is as nuanced as it is thrilling.”

Tie-ins

(for our full list of upcoming adaptations, see our Books to Movies and TV  and our listing of tie-ins).

Ten Thousand Saints MTI, Eleanor Henderson

Adapted by the team behind American Splendor, the film stars Ethan Hawke, Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Emile Hirsch, and Emily Mortimer and is set in the hardcore punk scene of Manhattan during the late 80s, on the eve of the Tompkins Square Park riots.

Movie debuts 8/14/2015

A Walk in the Woods (Movie Tie-In) : Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Bill Bryson

Bryson is played by Robert Redford. Joining him in his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail is his old pal Katz, a man even less prepared for the effort than Bryson, played by Nick Nolte (in a role originally intended for Redford’s late friend Paul Newman).

Movie opens 9/2/2015

A few years ago, Amazon decided to get a jump on best books lists with a mid-year “Best Books of the Year (So Far).” It had a noticeable effect on book sales, so the tradition has continued.

Others joined in and this year we have six lists (so far):

Amazon Editors

Book Riot

Flavorwire

New York magazine

Paste

The Washington Post

As we’ve come to expect from the annual lists, there is little consensus and no title appears on all six. In fact, among the hundred plus titles chosen, only 18 get multiple mentions. 3 titles appear on three lists and the remaining 15 appear on two lists apiece.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson and The Wright Brothers by David McCullough are among the selections made by Amazon, Paste magazine, and The Washington Post while The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is picked by Amazon, Flavorwire, and The Washington Post.

Surprisingly, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which got enough buzz early on to make it a hot contender, is only chosen by two sources, Book Riot and The Washington Post. In a separate review titled “This is one of the best books of 2015. I’m not sure you should read it,” Alyssa Rosenberg explains that because of it’s “exceptionally graphic depictions of physical abuse, sexual abuse and self-harm … it’s one of the few pieces of art that I could be convinced deserves a content warning even for adult readers.”

Based on its award history and lengthy holds lists, the lack of more multiple picks for H is for Hawk is also a surprise. It only makes the cut by Amazon and The Washington Post. [Note: this book was recently discussed by Slate’s Audio Book Club).

All 18 titles that received more than one nod are listed here.

On  The Daily Show last night Jon Stewart interviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample), echoing what many others have already said, the book “really is essential reading.” It is currently at #4 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

On the comics fast track, Scott Snyder has won an Eisner award for both The Wake (DC/Vertigo, 2014) and for American Vampire (DC/Vertigo, Vol 8 coming in January) and has worked on various superhero comics.

He may become a household name with his new comic Wytches (Image Comics, July 9, collects the original issues 1-6). In an interview with the author, New York magazine calls it “a tale of remarkably visceral terror” and notes that Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment is adapting it as a feature film.

When Wytches came out in serial form in 2014 it was covered by Entertainment Weekly (with a follow-up last month), USA Today, Nerdist (and a recent follow-up), and BuzzFeed.

The story, which takes place in a tiny remote area of New Hampshire, follows the Rooks family as they encounter a terrifying evil lurking in the woods. Each episode ends with a personal essay by Snyder addressing anxiety and depression. Illustrated with creepy genius by Jock (himself a cult figure in comics), the experience is pretty intense. Libraries that own it are showing heavy holds on light orders.

For more on Snyder, see the 2011 profile in the LA Times “Hero Complex”  (Parts One, Two and Three).

What challenge will super-hacker Lisbeth Salander, the main character in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series, take on next?

The NSA, of course.

That’s one of the “key details” about the plot released today by British publisher MacLehose Press and reported in the Guardian.

Swedish writer David Lagercrantz was authorized by Larsson’s estate, managed by his father and brother, to write The Girl in the Spider’s Web as a sequel to the third title in the series, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, (2009).

Not everyone is happy about the publication. Larsson’s long-time domestic partner, Eva Gabrielsson who lost a bitter dispute over who would manage the writer’s estate, says this book titled That Which Does Not Kill Us in Swedish, would have made Larsson “furious. Who knows, maybe he’ll send a lightning bolt at the book launch.” She claims to have 200 pages of a fourth novel by Larsson and will never allow them to be published.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series
David Lagercrantz
RH/Knopf; RH Audio; RH Large Print
September 1, 2015

E.L. Doctorow, best known for the novels Ragtime, The March, World’s Fair, and Billy Bathgate, has died at age 84 from complications of lung cancer.

In an exhaustive obituary The New York Times says, “he consistently upended expectations with a cocktail of fiction and fact, remixed in book after book; with clever and substantive manipulations of popular genres like the Western and the detective story; and with his myriad storytelling strategies… Mr. Doctorow was one of contemporary fiction’s most restless experimenters.”

The NYT also includes a link to a video of Doctorow discussing his work process.

Other notable obituaries include those by the LA Times, NPR, and New York magazine.

The LA Times reports President Obama posted his reaction on Twitter:

E.L. Doctorow was one of America's greatest novelists. His books taught me much, and he will be missed.

— President Obama (@POTUS44) July 22, 2015

NPR’s obituary points out that Doctorow was once a book editor working with a diverse range of writers, including Ayn Rand, Ian Fleming, Norman Mailer, and James Baldwin. The site also includes a video of Doctorow accepting the 2013 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters given by the National Book Foundation for lifetime achievement.

New York magazine includes a charming film clip of Doctorow discussing how difficult writing can be.

Readers Advisory: for those who haven’t read Doctorow’s books, a good place to begin is Ragtime, an exploration of America at the start of the 20^th century, including historical characters such as Sigmund Freud, Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, and Booker Washington.

Just after hearing librarians rave about the forthcoming Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy (HarperCollins/ Balzer + Bray, Sept. 15) during yesterday’s YA GalleyChat, comes the news that Disney is developing it as a movie.

DRCs are available on Edelweiss, where it’s already gotten “much love” from  47 peers, including 16 librarians.

Check out the full chat below:

A BBC TV series based on Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Tales, titled The Last Kingdom, after the first book in the series, is to premiere on BBC America on Oct. 10.

No full trailer yet, the following is just a teaser:

The Last Kingdom tie-in
Bernard Cornwell
Harper Papberbacks: September 22, 2015
9780062438621, 006243862X
Paperback; $15.99 USD

The ninth book in the series Warriors of the Storm, is coming in January (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe).

As we previewed in March, the Star Wars books are coming, spinning off from the new movie, Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, premiering on Dec. 18^th.

One of the titles we highlighted, Star Wars: Aftermath (RH/Del Rey/Lucas Books; Random House Audio, 9/15/15) by Chuck Wendig, is now excerpted on the Entertainment Weekly web site.

As Robin Nesbit, Columbus Metro Library, said when presenting the book at BEA’s Librarian Shout ’n’ Share program, libraries that don’t buy the  Star Wars books are missing some powerful “silent circulators,” adding that this one is by one of the series’ best authors.

Wendig has his own fans as well. His next book Blackbirds  (S&S/Saga Press; OverDrive Sample) comes out on the heels of Aftermath. A supernatural thriller about a woman who knows how people will die the moment she touches them, it is in development as a TNT TV series, with production expected to begin in October.

Carly Simon, perhaps most famous for the song You’re So Vain, is the daughter of one of the founders of Simon & Schuster.

She finally makes a foray into the family business (although not with the family company), with her first book, a memoir entitled Boys in the Trees (Macmillan/Flatiron; 9781250095893; Nov. 24). UPDATE: as one of our astute commenters notes, this is not Simon’s first time publishing. She has written children’s book.

While speculation is circling whether Simon will reveal the subject of her iconic song, neither the publisher nor the singer is saying right now.

Simon does share the scope of her book, however, in a widely quoted statement picked up by Entertainment Weekly, People, and the LA Times: “This book is my way of going back through my childhood, my music, my romances, my marriage … and trying to make sense of it all…I’ve been working on it for so long that it feels like my third child … but now it’s time to send that child out in the world.  It’s one of the most frightening — and exciting — things I’ve ever done.”

Boys in the Trees is due November 24^th and joins other popular musician memoirs like Patti Smith’s Just Kids and Keith Richard’s Life. Smith’s new memoir, M Train (RH/Knopf; RH Audio) hits shelves on Oct 6^th.

The release of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman has raised many issues, but it’s laid one controversy to rest.

There has been a persistent rumor that Lee’s longtime friend, Truman Capote actually wrote To Kill a Mockingbird.

According to a new computer text analysis system created by two literature scholars, “Harper Lee is the author of both To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set A Watchman.” (via the Wall Street Journal).

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart returns from hiatus this week, with two authors deeply concerned with the issues of race in America.

Tomorrow night’s guest is an author who has appeared on the show seven times, but hasn’t published a book since 2007 (Dreams from My Father), Barack Obama, His last appearance on the show was just before his 2012 re-election when he had to endure a ribbing by Stewart about a poor showing in one of the debates.

On Thursday, Stewart will interview Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau).

On Friday, the Washington Post explained why so many columnists are calling his book a “must-read.”

Holds are building quickly in many libraries.