Archive for September, 2015

Live Chat Today with the Author of
A DICTIONARY OF MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING

Wednesday, September 30th, 2015

This hat has now ended, you can read it below.

Join us for the next chat, November 11, 4:00 – 5:00 P.M. ET, with Eve Chase, author of Black Rabbit Hall (more information here).

Live Blog Live Chat with Jackie Copleton – A DICTIONARY OF MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
 

EVEREST vs. INTO THIN AIR

Wednesday, September 30th, 2015

everest-imax-640x1014 9780385494786It was inevitable that the movie Everest would renew the controversy surrounding the various accounts of the 1996 fatal climb.

As we wrote earlier, there are several books on the disaster. Jon Krakauer wrote the most successful and well-known version, his blockbuster Into Thin Air. He is a character in the Everest film, played by House of Card’s Michael Kelly and is far from happy about how he is represented, telling the L.A. Times, “It’s total bull, anyone who goes to that movie and wants a fact-based account should read Into Thin Air.”

Krakauer’s book is not the basis for this film (it was adapted as a TV movie in 1997, which he also disliked intensely) and no one connected to the script consulted him. He tells the paper that he considers the film a personal affront from director Kormákur and is particularly unhappy with a scene in which he refuses to help in a rescue attempt, “I never had that conversation … I’m not saying I could have, or would have. What I’m saying is, no one came to my tent and asked.”

Krakauer himself has taken criticism for his account of the events. Objecting to his portrayal in Into Thin Air, one of the Russian guides, Anatoli Boukreev wrote his own version, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest. He is also a character in the movieplayed by Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson.

Krakauer is not one of those authors who is unhappy with every film version of his work. He was so pleased with Sean Penn’s adaptation of another of his bestsellers, Into the Wild, that “When [Sean] showed me the rough cut, I wanted to kiss him, I was so happy.”

After a strong box office at IMAX theaters, Everest slipped when it opened last week in regular theaters. Reviews have not been stellar. The L.A. Times even encouraged viewers to turn to other films instead: “documentaries like Meru and The Summit will take you higher than Everest, world-class visuals and all.”

The NYT says the movie “never seems to get anywhere, taking up space and time without managing to be especially memorable or imposing,” while The Telegraph ventures it is a “pulverising tale of real-life tragedy on the mountain [that] never quite hits the heights.”

It’s Based on A Book?

Tuesday, September 29th, 2015

9780312428877Sometimes the connection between a book and a screen adaptation is not obvious.

The second episode of the heavily-promoted CBS action thriller, Limitless airs tonight. It’s based on the 2011 movie starring Bradley Cooper, which in turn is based on Alan Glynn’s 2001 debut techno-thriller with a different title, The Dark Fields (Macmillan/Picador).

The TV series picks up where the movie left off and is therefore several more steps removed from the source material, but still offers the opportunity to promote copies of the movie tie-in you may still have in the stacks, as well sa DVDs of the movie.

Below is the trailer. The series stars Jake McDorman. Bradley Cooper, who started in the movie, has a recurring role.

Glynn’s next book is Paradise (Macmillan/Picador, 2016). According to the Hollywood Reporter, it is currently being shopped to studios as “Enemy meets Vertigo“.

THE SHIFT on Fresh Air

Tuesday, September 29th, 2015

9781616203207_75ba0Palliative care nurse (and former English professor) Theresa Brown talked with Terry Gross yesterday on NPR, discussing her new book tracing the fates of four patients over 12 hours in a cancer ward.

The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives (Workman/Algonquin) is a moving and riveting medical account of struggle, hope, fear, and the daily demands of nursing.

Holds are heavy in some libraries and the book is on the verge of breaking into Amazon’s top 100.

Brown previously worked in a hospital’s oncology unit but now spends her time in home-based hospice care. Her first book, Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between (Harper) was highly regarded and has been adopted as a textbook in nursing schools.

Brown and Gross discuss the challenges of nursing, the stress of time and work pressures that cost patients the care they need, the desire for honesty in diagnosis, and the experience of home care.

Pennie’s October Pick

Tuesday, September 29th, 2015

9780062279972_08eefCostco’s book buyer, Pennie Clark Ianniciello has recently featured well-known titles as her influential monthly “Pennie’s Pcks” (Me Before You, Circling The Sun, and The Girl On The Train were the July, August, and September selections).

Her October pick breaks the mold.

Brian Payton’s 2014 novel The Wind Is Not a River (Harper/Ecco; OverDrive Sample), while not exactly under the radar, did not achieve bestseller status.

It was both an Indie Next and a LibraryReads choice when it came out in hardcover. Librarian Nancy Pearl interviewed Payton in an “Author One-on-One” for Amazon, when it was picked as an Amazon Best Book of the Month.

9780062279989_27b0cThe novel explores a little-known aspect of WWII, the fierce fighting between Japanese and U.S.soldiers on Alaska’s Aleutians islands. The trade paperback edition features a cover that focuses on the relationship in the novel, underscored by a blurb from the USA Today review, “a haunting love story,” over the WWII survival story.

This month’s Costco Connection interviews Payton. In a sidebar Ianniciello says the novel is “so much more than a history lesson, this is a beautiful story about the way loss can affect people.”

Keep your eye on this one; Pennie’s Picks often have a widespread effect.

Carnegie Medal Longlist Announced

Tuesday, September 29th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.18.19 AMScreen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.19.46 AMHere’s your chance to test your book knowledge against the librarians on the committee for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. The 2016 Longlist has been released including some expected titles, big hitters, committee favorites, and a few esoteric choices.

Among the 20 fiction selections is former winner Anne Enright’s The Green Road (Norton), also on this year’s Booker longlist but not on the shortlist.

Screen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.33.16 AMOn the fiction list, titles that have already received widespread attention are Jonathan Franzen’s Purity (Macmillan/FSG), Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life (RH/Doubleday), and Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread (RH/Knopf).

Screen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.33.40 AMBuzzy titles such as Garth Risk Hallberg’s City on Fire (Knopf, coming Oct 13), a LibraryReads pick for October, and Bill Clegg’s Did You Ever Have a Family (S&S/Gallery/Scout), both a LibraryReads and Indie Next pick, also made the fiction cut.

Smaller publishers are recognized as well with Chantel Acevedo’s The Distant Marvels (Europa) and Joe Meno’s Marvel and a Wonder (Akashic).

Screen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.20.12 AMIn nonfiction the 20 choices largely highlight big names such as Patti Smith’s M Train (RH/Knopf coming next week), the memoir by the recently departed Oliver Sacks, On the Move (RH/Knopf), Ta-Nehisi Coates’s best selling  Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau), Simon Winchester’s Pacific (Harper, coming Oct. 27), and Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk (Grove), which received wide acclaim earlier this year.

The forty titles will be winnowed down to a shortlist on October 19.

The Carnegie committee, a joint project between RUSA and Booklist, is chaired this year by Nancy Pearl Nancy Pearl (who also chaired the first awards committee in 2012). The medals are part of the line up of book awards presented by RUSA which also includes The Notable Book List and The Reading List. All three awards, as well as the many others that RUSA bestows, will be announced during ALA’s Midwinter meeting at RUSA’s Book and Media Awards reception on January 10.

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Begins Tonight (Sans Authors)

Monday, September 28th, 2015

The next iteration of The Daily Show starts this evening as Trevor Noah takes over the chair made famous by Jon Stewart.

While political junkies and comedy fans wait to see how Noah will do (Salon has grave doubts), those in the book business want to know how (or if) he will cover authors.

The opening line-up does not look good for the book world.

An actor, a musician, the CEO of a dating app, and Chris Christie, one of the few GOP candidates who has not written a book, fill the first week.

Based on an interview in Rolling Stone, Noah says week one will set the table for the show: “The first episode will be a reintroduction of the show, but you can’t just go off one … you’re building a relationship. So what we’re doing is dividing the first week into a four-part miniseries that will set the tone for what we hope the show will be.”

However, it generally takes hosts a while to establish their style. As we wrote earlier, it was several years before Jon Stewart began featuring serious authors on The Daily Show.

Meanwhile, there are authors on network late Nnght TV. Junot Díaz appears this week on Late Night With Seth Meyers while Elizabeth Gilbert comes on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

While neither host fully takes up the slack left in the wake of Stewart’s focus on authors (or Colbert’s on the Colbert Report), at least there is a bookish presence on TV to remind readers, and maybe even Noah, that books fuel fascinating conversations.

Last week Colbert interviewed Malala Yousafzai, author of  I Am Malala, (Hachette/Little, Brown) and subject of the documentary, He Named Me Malala, which opens on Oct. 2.

This may be the first time in history that a Nobel laureate has been challenged to do card tricks.

FATES AND FURIES Hits Bestseller List As Holds Continue to Grow

Monday, September 28th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-09-06 at 1.00.33 PMAs we predicted last week, Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies (Penguin/Riverhead; BOT and Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample) has made The New York Times hardcover fiction list at #7.

It is also exceeding a 3:1 holds ratio at most libraries we checked, with some placing second orders for additional copies.

The NYT’s features Fates and Furies in the Sunday Book Review “Inside the List” section as well, where Gregory Cowles, the paper’s preview editor and best-seller columnist, compares it to Gone Girl, “minus the murderous psychopathology.”

In a share-worthy summary, Cowles goes on to say “both tell the story of a marriage first from the husband’s somewhat complacent perspective, then change course midway to reveal a wife far more active and vengeful than expected.”

Busman’s Holiday: The History of Blurbs

Monday, September 28th, 2015

For those who like insider details on the publishing industry, NPR.org’s Arts & Life section has a story on the history of blurbs.

The first-ever blurb was given by Ralph Waldo Emerson to Walt Whitman – without Emerson’s direct consent.

Emerson had written a glowing letter to the as yet well-known poet and Whitman, ever the PR expert, encouraged The New York Tribune to publish it in full.

Emerson’s opening line was so wonderful Whitman even had it printed in gold leaf on the spine of Leaves of Grass.

The quote? “I greet you at the beginning of a great career.”

By NPR associate producer Colin Dwyer, the story goes on to share authors’ and booksellers’ take on blurbs (conflicted) and to explain where the term came from (a character in 1907 book).

Titles to Know and Recommend, Week of Sept 28

Friday, September 25th, 2015

If the rest of the reading public is anything like librarians, they will be delighted to see Jojo Moyes follow-up to her hit Me Before You, titled, of course, After You (Penguin/Pamela Dorman), arrive on shelves next week. It is a Library Reads pick (see below) as is Karin Slaughters’ Pretty Girls (also below).

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 Sept. 28, 2015

Media Magnets

9780812994568_0bfc8Unfinished Business : Women Men Work Family, Anne-Marie Slaughter (Random House)

Slaughter’s 2012 Atlantic magazine article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” was viewed as a corrective to Sheryl Sandberg’s exhortation to women to Lean In and climb the corporate ladder. It is now expanded to book length and is featured on the cover of this week’s NYT Sunday Review.

Adding more fuel to likely media interest, Slaughter’s husband just published an article about ‘lead parenting’ in the Atlantic. ‘Why I Put My Wife’s Career First.

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 9.44.35 PMMy Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life by Ruth Reichl (Random House)

The former editor of Gourmet writes about her painful year that followed the closing of her beloved magazine.

9780553392982_17065Better: How I Let Go of Control, Held On to Hope, and Found Joy in My Darkest Hour, Amy Robach, (RH/Ballantine)

The News Anchor for Good Morning America reluctantly agreed to have a mammogram on air in 2013. The results revealed she had breast cancer. In this book, she chronicles her year after that diagnosis.

9781476765075_d5c60I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, Grace Jones, Paul Morley, (S&S/Gallery)

The title is, of course, ironic. The singer, model, and actress will be featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, September 29, followed by CBS This Morning,October 9 and ABC’s Entertainment Tonight,’October 9.

Peer Picks

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 9.28.30 PMPretty Girls, Karin Slaughter (HarperCollins/Morrow)

Slaughter was a hit at the AAP/LibraryReads Dinner at BEA. as she talked hilariously and forthrightly about her rivalry with her sister, which clearly influences this novel. It is an Indie Next pick:

“I was grabbed from the first page of Slaughter’s latest and roped in on the second. Boldly written and at times very raw, this psychological thriller is as suspenseful as it is scary. Dangerous secrets reunite two sisters who have been estranged since their older sister went missing 20 years earlier. As they search to discover what happened, they uncover evidence of her brutal murder and true evil. It is a gifted writer who can make you adore a character at the beginning of a book and loathe the same character at the end. Slaughter, author of both the Grant County and Will Trent series, has done just that in her newest stand-alone thriller.” —Nancy McFarlane, Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 9.31.40 PMThe Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood (RH/Nan A. Talese) 

Starred by PW and Booklist this is reviwed in this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review

LibraryReads, Oct: “The premise of Atwood’s latest is interesting, grounded strongly in current social and economic issues. The writing is as elegant and beautiful, as always with Atwood. I recommend this book because it is a wonderful and thought-provoking novel. People who have enjoyed other Atwood works should definitely take a look at this one.” Lauren Mitchell, Pima County Public Library, Tucson, AZ

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 9.35.12 PMAfter You by Jojo Moyes (PRH/Pamela Dorman Books; Penguin Audio).

LibraryReads, Oct: “I loved Me Before You and thought it ended in the perfect place, but any doubts I had about continuing the story were quickly erased when I started this sequel. Jojo Moyes is a master at tugging on your heartstrings. I laughed, I cried, and I nearly threw my Kindle against the wall at one point. Give this to anyone in your life who has experienced a tragic loss. With a box of tissues.” Joseph Jones, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Cleveland, OH

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 9.43.13 PMIn Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward (Macmillan/Minotaur; OverDrive Sample).

LibraryReads, Oct: “Great new mystery set in the atmospheric Peak District of England. When a woman’s suicide is found to be related to an unsolved case of a missing girl, the police must reinvestigate a long cold case. I hope this book will be the first in a new series!” Pamela Wiggins, Wake County Public Libraries, Cary, NC

Also a BEA Librarians’ Shout ‘n’ Share pick — ‘Your next hand sell for fans of Sharon Bolton. About a cold case, the puzzle of the story keeps you hooked until the end. Perfect for fans of Louise Penny, Sharon Bolton, and Elizabeth George.”– Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Library

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 9.55.44 PMA Slanting of the Sun: Stories by Donal Ryan (Steerforth; OverDrive Sample)

Indie Next: “Exquisite and elegant, Ryan’s collection of short stories highlights his talents as a writer of note. Each piece evokes the Irish people — the spirit, the voice, the culture — as the characters confront the pain of life. The beauty of the stories comes from the almost musical quality of Ryan’s writing. His sentences flow with an ebullient tone that appreciates the good and bad in equal measure, and readers are caught by the lyrical rhythms and inner harmonies, which bring them to a deeper understanding of other people. These stories will make you cry, shake your head in shock, and ponder the great gulfs between men, which are rooted in our own humanity in all its beauty and roughness.” —Raul Chapa, BookPeople, Austin, TX

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 9.49.47 PMGold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins (PRH/Riverhead)

Starred by PW, Kirkus, LJ, and Booklist

Indie Next: “Watkins’ depiction of a sun-scorched, drought-plagued West is a hypnotic and terrifying vision of an otherworldly and, perhaps most frightening of all, not-too-distant future. Part J.G. Ballard, part Joan Didion, Gold Fame Citrus explores the complexities of human relationships in the face of environmental catastrophe. Loneliness, jealousy, heartbreak, love, loyalty — even in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, people are still people, though just what sort of people is another thing altogether. Haunting and hallucinatory, the world crafted by Watkins is a dream of the future that will not soon be forgotten.” —Emily Ballaine, Green Apple Books on the Park, San Francisco, CA

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 9.59.20 PMDon’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt by Kristin Hersh (University of Texas Press; OverDrive Sample)

Indie Next: “You don’t need to be familiar with Chesnutt’s or Hersh’s work to appreciate this phenomenal book, but you will undoubtedly want to be once you’ve finished it. Hersh is a writer of intense and subtle beauty, and she will make you cry and feel a hundred other things with the power of her style alone. Through the tragic story of her close friend and tourmate, Chesnutt, Hersh evokes the torture of all that artistic genius encapsulates and makes that pain sing in a voice both opaque and elegant, grimy and pristine. Ultimately, this is a deeply affecting meditation on one’s thrust toward ‘important art’ and on how music is a necessary expression of sadness and loneliness but also one of intense and inimitable beauty.” —Donovan Swift, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 10.10.21 PMA Line of Blood by Ben McPherson (Harper/William Morrow)

Indie Next: “Surely an unspoken fear of parents is that they will discover that their child has some dark secret, that their normal, well-adjusted, happy child is hiding something. McPherson introduces us to just such a family in a whodunit with many layers of psychological intrigue, secrets, and unspoken emotion. Alex and Millicent and their son, Max, find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation and what was once taken for granted begins to unravel around them. This is a must-read for anyone who loves being in the clutches of a brilliant thriller with anything but a straight line to the conclusion.” —Linda Schaefer, The Learned Owl Book Shop, Hudson, OH

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 10.12.32 PMMe, My Hair, and I: Twenty-seven Women Untangle an Obsession by Elizabeth Benedict (Workman/Algonquin Books)

A BEA Librarians “Shout ‘n’ Share pick by Charlene Rue. NYPL Book Ops.

Indie Next: “Twenty-seven authors share stories about hair and all its meanings in this revelatory collection. Hair can represent class, race, a period in history, health, neuroses, and more. What a wonderful way to ponder our life histories and traumas and still keep a sense of humor as we are invited to remember what hairstyles we were wearing at key times in our lives. Through the focus on hair, this book leads us to consider our stories in both a fun and oddly serious way.” —Rona Brinlee, The BookMark, Neptune Beach, FL

Tie-ins

This is one of the few weeks when there are no book adaptations debuting on either the large or the small screens. However, tie-ins announce two upcoming TV adaptations:

Screen Shot 2015-09-23 at 9.05.26 AMThe Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin (Random House)

Set to premiere some time in February, 2016 the FX series, American Crime Story, starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as  Simpson). The just-released trailer is less than revealing:

Screen Shot 2015-09-23 at 9.06.51 AMPlum Pudding Murder (Movie Tie-in) by Joanne Fluke (Kensington; mass market)

The next in Hallmark’s Murder, She Baked series starring Alison Sweeney based on the novels by Joanne Fluke. To be released some time in 2016,
the date has not yet been announced.

For a full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV spreadsheet and link to our listing of tie-ins.

GALLEYCHATTER Discoveries

Friday, September 25th, 2015

Exhibiting an uncanny ability to ferret out titles that readers will be talking about in the coming months, GalleyChatters discussed their recent favorites earlier this month.

A couple of titles received such enthusiastic recommendations that many rushed to  download DRCs immediately. Check here for the complete list of titles mentioned during the chat to discover more titles for your TBR pile.

— Robin Beerbower, EarlyWord GalleyChat columnist.

A Little Quirky

9780385541039_1b16f-2  9781101874141_9e7a9

Regular chatter Jennifer Dayton, collection development specialist for Darien, CT Library, has a good eye for popular novels that have an element of “quirkiness.” When she raves about books, we listen (after all, she was the first to spot Fates and Furies). One of her recent finds is American Housewife: Stories by Helen Ellis (RH/Doubleday, January). She says, “Ellis picks up the rock of American domesticity and shows us what’s underneath, and while it’s not always pretty it is pretty hilarious in the darkest, most twisted of ways. “ A fan of the novel The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild (RH/Knopf, November), told from the viewpoint of a piece of art, she thinks it will appeal to those who liked Me Before You (JoJo Moyes), saying, “Aspiring chef, Annie McDee takes home a painting she found in a secondhand shop having no idea that she has stumbled upon an ‘Important Work’ that will upend the London Art scene. This is a wonderful tale of art, food, love, war and the power of beauty.”

9780812998689_94f63David Mitchell’s Slade House (Random House, October), a companion to The Bone Clocks, a mind-bending collection of unsettling and spooky stories about vanishing guests, is being compared to Stephen King. Adrienne Cruz (Azusa, CA, City Library) found the stories terrifying and said “The book was short and on point, all you have are the chills with no slow bits. I would easily recommend this to folks who want an engaging story and the slim tome is an easy sell for those who are impatient or pressed for time.”

Thrilling Crimes

9780062413864_7b3e0  9781250058799_94cb2  9781590517239_edf7e

Thrillers generally get kudos each month on GalleyChat,  and September was no exception. My favorite was Gilly Macmillan’s What She Knew (HarperCollins/Morrow, December). The author has taken the somewhat worn plot of a missing child with the ensuing chaos and angst and made it into a realistic and believable page-turner. This is definitely a cut above the abundance of Gone Girl readalikes that have emerged over the past few years.

With comparisons to Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series American Blood by Ben Sanders (Macmillan/Minotaur, November) is poised to be a sure-fire pleaser. Elizabeth Kanouse (Denville, NJ, Public Library) says of this mystery featuring a retired detective endangering his witness protection status by searching for a missing girl, “Sanders has crafted a superb thriller set in the deserts and cities of New Mexico. You’ll be guessing the outcome right up until the final, surprising pages.”It has powerful fans in Hollywood. Last year,  Warner Bros. acquired it for a screen adaptation, with plans for Bradley Cooper to star. There’s been no news on in since, however.

New espionage titles are always welcome and Janet Lockhart from Wake Co Library (NC) said Simon Mawer’s Tightrope (Other Press, November), the sequel to Trapeze, is a worthy follow-up. She said, “Loved the writing and twists and turns of the plot. I would recommend this to readers who love Le Carre, Ludlum, et al.”

A Weeper

I9781250051905_81714f you read After You, the sequel to JoJo Moyes’ Me Before You, and have leftover tissues, put them to good use by reading Sally Hepworth’s The Things We Keep (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, January). Marika Zemke from Commerce Township Public Library stayed up all night to finish this moving story of a 38-year-old woman with early onset Alzheimer’s who falls in love with another care home resident. Marika said “What follows is a story about all types of love…romantic love, mother/daughter love, compassionate love and more.” I’ll add reading this gave me the same feeling as when I first read Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook.

A Life Story

9781250077691_f091eNarrated at a breakneck pace, Ruth Wariner’s mesmerizing and believable Sound of Gravel (Macmillan/Flatiron, January) is a very impressive memoir. Raised in a polygamous household in Mexico, Wariner escaped as a teen and went on to raise three younger sisters. Book groups will clamor for this memoir that is a cross between Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle and Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club with a smidge of Betty Mahmoody’s Not Without My Daughter. It’s also a good bet for older teens who want a readalike for Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called It.

Please join us Tuesday, October 6 at 4:00 ET (3:30 for virtual happy hour) for more surprises. If you wish to keep up with my favorites on Edelweiss, please friend me.

Beryl Markham May Get
Her Close-Up

Friday, September 25th, 2015

9780345534187_5a2b2-2It seemed inevitable that Paul McLain’s bestseller Circling the Sun, (RH/Ballantine), with its echoes of Out of Africa, would be a candidate for film treatment. Now, The Hollywood Reporter announces that the book has been optioned.

Says producer Lauren Sanchez, “”She was a pioneer for women,” says Sanchez. “Everyone says Hollywood is looking for female-driven roles and stories — this is one of them.”

The only question: what took them so long?

Order Alert: Information Overload on Breast Cancer

Thursday, September 24th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-09-24 at 12.02.26 PMDescribing the major developments in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment over recent years, Dr. Elisa Port, a surgeon who specializes in the disease, talked to Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air this week.

Her book, The New Generation Breast Cancer Book: How to Navigate Your Diagnosis and Treatment Options-and Remain Optimistic-in an Age of Information Overload (RH/Ballantine; OverDrive Sample) is getting widespread attention from sources as diverse as InStyle magazine and Woman’s Day and is likely to get more as Breast Cancer Awareness Month begins in October.

Port discusses new treatments, drugs, and care routines for those diagnosed with the disease as well as some of the current hot topic issues such as genetic testing and 3-D mammograms.

She tells Gross she wrote the book due to the amazing change in access to information for patients:

Thirty years ago no one even used the words “breast cancer” in public. Twenty years ago you couldn’t even find an advertisement with the word “breast” in it, and you flash forward to times like today, where there’s absolutely no shortage of information out there and the problem no longer is lack of information, it’s actually too much information.  [Patients] were coming [into my office] inundated, defeated, completely perplexed by all the information out there and how to navigate it, whether it was emails from friends, whether it was websites they needed to read. I thought there was a need for a new type of book, a new generation of book for a new generation — the age of information overload.

Holds Alert: WASTE-FREE KITCHEN

Thursday, September 24th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-09-24 at 11.13.36 AMA book on an unglamorous subject, how to make use of items that might ordinarily go right into the garbage, like sour milk, is rising on Amazon sales rankings. 

The ideas behind Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook: A Guide to Eating Well and Saving Money By Wasting Less Food by Dana Gunders (Chronicle Books; OverDrive Sample) got a big boast from the PBS News Hour‘s occasional series “Food Glorious Food” which featured a Michelin star chef who is making “garbage to plate” palatable. NPR.org posted the video on their food site, The Salt.referring to Gunders’s book for those who want apply the principles at home.

Claiming that “The typical American family tosses out about $1,500 of food yearly. All this wasted food is the largest component of solid waste in our landfills, and when it rots, it emits methane — a potent greenhouse gas linked to climate change, ” author Gunders is out to change that with a handbook that offers readers easy methods to keep food longer and to use it all.

Libraries that own the book show holds ratios of  3:1.

WAITING is Rising

Thursday, September 24th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-09-24 at 11.39.21 AMNPR’s All Things Considered interviewed children’s book author Kevin Henkes on Tuesday about his new book Waiting (Harper/Greenwillow Books), causing the book to rise to #22 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Henkes says reading is important for creating a sense of the world. “I think books … can open one’s eyes to what else is in the world, but it’s also nice if one can see oneself. I think as a boy I liked both kinds of books — I liked books that let me see that the world was wide and large but I also loved books where a character might have the same feeling that I had about something — that makes one feel like one is not alone in the world.”.