The news of the death of Lois Duncan has brought an outpouring of warm appreciation for the pioneer YA suspense novelist. Even the site Jezebel took a break from snark to praise Duncan for taking “timeless literary themes—mystery, sin, longing, revenge and, of course, love—and [applying] them to teens without condescension.”

On NPR this morning, Petra Mayer says that “The Queen Of Teen Suspense” seemed to lose her taste for the genre after her  youngest daughter, Kait, was killed in 1989 in a crime that police called a random drive-by shooting. Duncan would not accept that explanation and devoted herself to trying to find the truth. According to Mayer, Warner Bros. had expressed interest in a documentary on the case just before Duncan’s sudden death.

Several movies and TV shows have been based on her books. In 2012, Stephenie Meyer bought the film rights to Down A Dark Hall. In 2014, a new adaptation of I Know What You Did Last Summer was announced 

A boon for advisors looking for SFF (Science Fiction and Fantasy) titles that will be getting attention from fans is io9‘s newly released summer reading list.

Titles that have already been featured on general list include The Fireman by Joe Hill (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample), already a best seller, and Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (PRH/Crown; RH Audio; BOT). io9 says that they “really loved” Hill’s newest, calling it “a terrifying, exhilarating ride from beginning to end, … quite possibly Hill’s best novel to date.” Of Crouch’s buzzy new stand-alone, they say it is “a fast-paced thriller that deals with alternate worlds and paths not taken.”

Other favorites are Life Debt: Aftermath (Star Wars), Chuck Wendig (PRH/Del Rey; RH Audio) and The Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin (Hachette/Orbit). Fans know Wendig for his bridge books filling in the story between the recent Star Wars film and the previous story line of the series. io9 says this newest “looks to be just as exciting as the originals.” Of The Obelisk Gate, the site offers, “The Fifth Season was a masterpiece of fantasy literature, rejecting long-held conventions and tropes, and we’re excited to see what Jemisin does next to upend genre.”

Authors and titles that might be new to SFF fans include:

False Hearts, Laura Lam (Macmillan/Tor; OverDrive Sample). io9 says it is “a debut novel that we’ve been getting excited about, an interesting cyberpunk mystery that meshes together the future of biotechnology and murder.”

Underground Airlines, Ben Winters (Hachette/Mulholland Books). A book about slavery set in the present day, the site says it shows every indication of being “a riveting alternate history thriller.”

Behind the Throne, K. B. Wagers (Hachette/Orbit). Saying it is “poised to be the next exciting space opera, one with plenty of action, intrigue, and adventure,” io9 points out that publishing imprint Orbit has a great track record with space adventures, publishing both James S.A. Corey and Ann Leckie.

There are more selections, including nonfiction. The full list is online.

Oprah Winfrey’s memoir, The Life You Want, has been postponed indefinitely according to the LA Times. We wrote about the deal, worth eight figures, last December.

The memoir was intended to launch Oprah’s new imprint with Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan, a line of nonfiction titles hand picked by Oprah herself. Instead, it will launch with Oprah’s new cookbook, Food, Health and Happiness: ‘On Point’ Recipes for Great Meals and a Better Life. It is planned for Jan. 3, 2017 (as yet no cover or ISBN is available).

As the AP reports, Oprah, who is not only the latest Weight Watchers spokesperson, but also an investor, owning an estimated 10% of Weight Watchers stock, said of her new effort:

“In the past several months on Weight Watchers, I have worked with wonderful chefs to make healthier versions of my favorite meals. When people come to my house for lunch or dinner, the number one thing they ask is, ‘How is this so delicious and still healthy?’ So I decided to answer that question with recipes everyone can enjoy.”

If this sounds familiar, back in the late ’90’s, Oprah co-authored a book with her trainer, Bob Greene, Make the Connection: Ten Steps To A Better Body — And A Better Life.

An instant No. 1 New York Times bestseller, it launched Greene’s weight-loss empire. But in January 2009, a much heavier Oprah was featured on the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine with the headline, “How did I let this happen again?”

Attention is growing for Susan Faludi’s In the Darkroom (Macmillan/Metropolitan Books; OverDrive Sample) and while holds have yet to take off, Pulitzer Prize-winning Faludi is known for making a splash. It is a good bet that her memoir will gain steam.

It is a timely story, about  Fluid’s relationship with her father, who had sex reassignment surgery late in life, as well as Faludi’s own relationship with her parent, after an almost complete estrangement.

During NPR’s Fresh Air  yesterday, Maureen Corrigan reviewed the memoir, saying it is “sprawling … a wide-ranging exploration of the concept of identity [that offers] a literary, even Gothic feel.”

As parent and adult child spend time together in a crumbling house, which, say  Corrigan points even has a locked attic, Faludi explores her childhood memories as contrasted to her new reality, seeking to find answers about identity, past and present, Corrigan says the search is “compelling, exhausting, messy and provocative.”

In a review posted online today and set to run on the front page of this coming  Sunday Book Review, The New York Times calls the memoir “rich, arresting and ultimately generous.”

Entertainment Weekly gave it an A- late last week, saying “It’s a gripping and honest personal journey—bolstered by reams of research—that ultimately transcends family and addresses much bigger questions of identity and reinvention.”

The Wall Street Journal [subscription may be required] and Elle each offer takes as well while the Guardian ran an illustrated illustrated extract from the book.

As far as ambitious seasonal reading goes, O Magazine takes the cake thus far, offering 60 titles. A list that long is bound to include many the others have not, as well as expected titles, such as The Girls, Modern Lovers, Homegoing, and Before the Fall.

Among the dozen unique fiction selections is Dating Tips for the Unemployed, Iris Smyles (HMH/Mariner; OverDrive Sample) gets the nod with the comment that the mix of novel and autobiography is “A flat-out joy to read.”

Hot Little Hands, Abigail Ulman (PRH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample). The magazine calls this debut collection of short stories “sardonic, smart, and thoroughly modern.”

Native Believer, Ali Eteraz (Consortium/Akashic Books; OverDrive Sample) tells the story of a modern secular Muslim living in the age of terrorism. O calls it a “wickedly funny Philadelphia picaresque.”

The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes (PRH/Knopf; OverDrive Sample). This fictional account of the real life Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich imagines a creative life living under the eyes of Stalin. O says it is “exquisite.”

The Sport of Kings, C.E. Morgan (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). Horse racing and the aftershocks of slavery intertwine in this “sprawling, magisterial Southern Gothic for the 21st century.”

In nonfiction new choices include two titles addressing past decades and several books spanning history and modern times:

Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul by Clara Bingham (PRH/RH; OverDrive Sample) provides “A gripping oral history of the centrifugal social forces tearing America apart at the end of the ’60s,” while Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded, David Hepworth (Macmillan/Henry Holt; OverDrive Sample) offers “A revelatory account of the bombshell 365 days that gave birth to … the music that made us.”

The Cook Up,by D. Watkins (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), a tale of family and drugs, O calls this “An East Baltimore bildungsroman memoir about hope, hustle, and getting out while you can.”

How the Post Office Created America: A History, Winifred Gallagher (PRH/Penguin) details the early history of mail service. O promises that, as unlikely as it sounds, the book is “invigorating.”

The full list of titles is available online.

See our catalog for a running list of all summer picks. Links to each of the summer previews can be found in the column to the right.

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample) looks like it is preparing to leave the station once again. According to Deadline Hollywood, Angelina Jolie is in talks to join the Kenneth Branagh film production.

Branagh is reportedly gathering an all-star cast and plans to play detective Hercule Poirot himself. He will also serve as producer, along side Ridley Scott and others. Michael Green (Blade Runner 2) is on board as screenwriter.

The Guardian reports that Jolie will fill the role of Mrs. Hubbard, one of the novel’s many suspects, most famously played by Lauren Bacall in Sidney Lumet’s 1974 version of the mystery.

No further news on the rest of the cast. Currently plans are to release the film on Nov. 22, 2017, well timed for the award season as Deadline points out.

The classic mystery’s most recent adaptation is the PBS Masterpiece episode starring David Suchet, Hugh Bonneville, and Jessica Chastain.

The most acclaimed film adaptation is Lumet’s production for Paramount. Albert Finney starred as Poirot, alongside Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York, Lauren Bacall, and Sean Connery.

This chat has now ended. You can read the archived version below.

For more on the Penguin Young Readers Program, click here.

Ron Howard is set to direct an adaptation of Neal Stephenson’s SF bestseller Seveneves (HC/William Morrow)  says The Hollywood Reporter. Howard will team up once again with Bill Broyles (Apollo 13), who is writing the script.

The LibraryReads and Indie Next pick was just released in paperback. In hardback it drew attention from Bill Gates, who recommended it to readers, calling it “thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable” and crediting it with getting him back to reading SF.

In their laudatory but mixed review, NPR said “The experience of reading a modern Stephenson novel is like going out drinking with 20 or 30 of the smartest people on earth, and them all deciding to play that game where someone starts a story, tells one sentence of it, ends with a conjunction, and passes it along to the next person. Once upon a time, the moon blew up, and then …”

Others offered the same blend of praise and hesitation. Several critics called it uneven (Stephenson has a problem with endings says the LA Times) and the novel’s sheer density (NYT), concerns that could easily be cured in a film, especially in the hands of Howard, who proved in Apollo 13 that he can plot a tense moonshot ending.

No word yet on when the project will begin shooting.

Patrick Ness’s award-winning and best-selling YA post-apocalyptic trilogy is closer to screens with the news from The Hollywood Reporter that Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Edge of Tomorrow) is in talks to direct the thriller for Lionsgate/Summit. Variety adds filming is expected to begin as early 2017.

The adaptation has been in the works for years without much to show for it, but seems to be on more solid footing now, with filming planned to begin in the fall and a high-powered director ready to take the reins.

Ness’s background suits the trilogy, an action filled and fast paced story following two central characters as they seek to survive in a world in which everyone can hear each other’s thoughts in a constant stream known as the “Noise.” Begun in 2008, the trilogy has since be reissued with associated short stories, all from Candlewick

 Chaos Walking: Book One, The Knife of Never Letting Go

Chaos Walking: Book Two,The Ask and the Answer

Chaos Walking: Book Three, Monsters of Men 

As The Wrap points out, Summit is trying, as they have for a while, to keep profits rolling in from YA films, building on the success of the Twilight and Hunger Games series. The studio is also behind the Divergent films, but that series has not been nearly as successful.

Another adaptation of a Patrick Ness title, A Monster Calls, (Candlewick, 2011) is scheduled for release on Oct. 21 (recently moved forward a week from Oct. 14). See the trailer here.

Fed by a growing buzz from literary as well as foodie outlets, Stephanie Danler’s debut novel, Sweetbitter (PRH/Knopf; Random House Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample), is developing an impressive holds list at many libraries we checked, topping a 6:1 ratio in some areas.

The New York Times has spotlighted the author, who lived in the city and worked in its restaurants and wine stores, in four separate pieces, most recently this week’s profile in the Style section, following Danler as she goes on tour, promoting her book at a local indie bookshop, in an  interview with Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef/author of Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef.

Daily NYT‘s reviewer Dwight Garner offered his take in mid-May, calling it “an unpretentious, truth-dealing, summer-weight novel … [that] grows darker than you might expect.” In her NYT Sunday Book Review piece, Gabrielle Hamilton gave it a to-die-for anointment, calling it “brilliantly written” and the “Kitchen Confidential of our time.”

Entertainment Weekly gives the novel an A- and The Wall Street Journal offers an illustrated profile [may require subscription].

Bon Appétit magazine headlines it as “the Summer’s Hottest Beach Read” in their podcast interview and offers an excerpt in the print and online issue.

More interviews abound. The foodie site Grub Street offers one full of insider details. Vanity Fair has one too, talking poetry and sex. NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, Vogue, Refinery29, and even The Paris Review, that bastion of literary taste, offer interviews, with The Paris Review calling the book “riveting.”

Sweetbitter landed on the USA Today best-seller list the first week of June, taking the #32 spot, which the paper calls “a strong showing for a new writer” and given that the list integrates all types and audiences of books (mixing paperback and hardback, fiction and nonfiction, adult, teen, and children’s) it is indeed a good opening number.

It also made the NYT Fiction Hardcover list on June 12, at #12 and is holding on to the #16 spot this week.

It is a summer reading pick by the Amazon Editors, Harper’s Bazaar, The Wall Street Journal, and Glamour. It is also a hit with GalleyChatters and a May LibraryReads selection.

If you’ve heard readers object that they don’t want to read yet another book about the problems of well-off New Yorkers, the Guardian verifies that it’s indeed a trend.

In a new twist, many of these NYC-centric novels are set in the recently trendy borough of Brooklyn. Tellingly, Emma Straub, the author of the Modern Lovers, (PRH/Riverhead), which just debuted at #14 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list, recently told that paper that she set her book in the Ditmas Park section of Brooklyn, because she “wanted to stay as far away from the quote-unquote Brooklyn book as I could,” a fine distinction to those who are’t familiar with the differences of Brooklyn real estate.

The titles cited buy the Guardian as examples represent a range of genres, from Plum Sykes frothy Bergdorf Blondes (2004) to the multiple literary award nominee Hanya Yanagihara’s  A Little Life (2015).

The film adaptation of the best selling middle-grade novel Wonder by R.J. Palacio, (RH/ Knopf Young Readers, 2012), still on the NYT Hardcover Middle Grade list after 43 weeks. is now set for release on April 7, 2017. In the lead role is Jacob Tremblay, who starred in the Oscar-winning adaptation, Room. Julia Roberts will play his mother.

The movie is directed Stephen Chbosky, who wrote and  directed The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

A debut novel by an Irish writer wins the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, given for the best novel by a woman writing in English. The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney (PRH/Tim Duggan Books, Aug. 9; Random House Audio) topped several better known authors including the multiple awar- winning Anne Enright for The Green Road and the bestselling Hanya Yanagihara for A Little Life.

The Guardian reports that The Glorious Heresies “tells how an accidental murder … plays out in the lives of a cast that includes a 15-year-old drug dealer, his alcoholic father, a prostitute and a gangland boss.”

The chair of the judging panel said it is “a superbly original, compassionate novel that delivers insights into the very darkest of lives through humour and skilful storytelling.”

Calling it “big, gritty and compelling,” a spokeswoman for one of the UK’s most notable bookstores said the selection was a “brave choice … by the least conventional and edgiest writer on the list.”

The Glorious Heresies is scheduled for release in the US on Aug. 9.

McInerney’s debut was among 11 other first novels to make the long or short list for the award, which The Guardian notes is becoming “a showcase for new and emerging talent.”

One of those debut authors is Hannah Rothschild whose The Improbability of Love (RH/Knopf; OverDrive Sample) made it through to the final round. Rothschild, the first woman chair of London’s most prestigious art museum, The National Galley, can console herself with champagne. Her book recently won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction (shared with Paul Murray for The Mark and the Void), which comes with a large bottle of Bollinger champagne, the complete Everyman Wodehouse Collection, and the honor of the having a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig named after the winning title, a nod to the Empress of Blandings, a fictional pig featured in P. G. Wodehouse’s Blandings Castle novels.

Previous winners of the pig, bubbly, and books include Terry Pratchett and Alexander McCall Smith. Photos of several past winners with their pigs are online.

It’s a week with no new movie or TV adaptations, but Disney’s Finding Dory opening on Friday has several tie-ins.

Finding Dory: The Junior Novelization (RH Disney (PRH/Disney) is aimed at kids aged 7 to 10. Also available in paperback, the hardcover edition is called the “Deluxe” version.

There’s a picture book, Finding Dory (Picture Book): Three Little Words, Amy Novesky (Hachette/Disney Press) and the image-rich Disney Pixar Finding Dory: The Essential Guide, DK (PRH/Penguin/DK Children).

The two leveled readers are Ocean of Color (Disney/Pixar Finding Dory), Bill Scollon (RH/Disney) and Dory’s Story (Disney/Pixar Finding Dory), RH Disney (RH/Disney).

The film, which recounts the continued adventures of the fish Dory following Finding Nemo, features the voices of Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, and Idris Elba.

Hamilton emerged from last night’s Tony Awards show with 11 wins, including Best Musical, from a total of 16 nominations. While the number of nominations set a record, Hamilton came in just short of the record for wins, behind The Producers which won 12 Tonys in 2001.

It earned multiple nominations in two categories. As a result, it  twice “lost” to itself. The only nominated categories it did not win were Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical which went to Cynthia Erivo for The Color Purple and Best Scenic Design of a Musical which went to She Loves Me.

Below, a clip of  the cast performing during the show, with a special introduction by two major fans:

The show opened with a statement about the mass shootings in Orlando and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the Hamilton cast decided not to use prop muskets in their performances.

Below, a clip of Miranda’s emotional acceptance speech:

A transcript of Miranda’s sonnet (from New York magazine’s site, Vulture):

My wife’s the reason anything gets done.
She nudges me towards promise by degrees.
She is a perfect symphony of one.
Our son is her most beautiful reprise.
We chase the melodies that seem to find us
Until they’re finished songs and start to play.
When senseless acts of tragedy remind us
That nothing here is promised, not one day
This show is proof that history remembers.
We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall, and light from dying embers
Remembrances that hope and love last longer.
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love;
Cannot be killed or swept aside.
I sing Vanessa’s symphony; Eliza tells her story.
Now fill the world with music, love, and pride.

Thank you so much for this.

Miranda speaks to the press after the award show:

Another book related production, The Color Purple,  received 4 nominations and won two awards, for Best Revival of a Musical and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, Cynthia Erivo (Celie).

The play has been well received, with the NYT writing about its opening, “Give thanks this morning, children of Broadway, and throw in a hearty hallelujah. The Color Purple has been born again, and its conversion is a glory to behold.” The rousing performance was introduced by Oprah (begins at 2:06):

Four other book-related plays were nominated, but none of them won,  American Psycho (which has already closed), Misery, Tuck Everlasting, and Thérèse Paquin (based on the novel by Émile Zola).

A full list of nominees and winners is available from Entertainment Weekly.