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The NEA announces today a new focus for the Big Read program,  the national version of the Nancy Pearl invention “If All Seattle Read the Same Book.” The new focus, “Reflects Diversity of Contemporary Lives and Authors.”

As a result, several titles have been dropped, reports a syndicated story by the AP, including a staple of One Book programs, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, as well as poetry by Emily Dickinson, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

13 titles have been added. Among the new entries are more works by women, works in translation, poetry, short stories, memoirs, as well as  genre titles. Updated selections for three authors already on the list, Louise Erdrich, Marilynne Robinson, and Tobias Wolff, are also included..

The new titles are:

Five Skies, Ron Carlson (PRH/Penguin)

The Round House, Louise Erdrich (Harper/Harper Perennial)

How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2002, Joy Harjo (Norton)

To Live, Hua Yu, translated by Michael Berry (PRH/Anchor)

Pretty Monsters, Kelly Link (PRH/Speak)

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (PRH/Knopf)

Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng (PRH/Penguin)

Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine (Macmillan/Graywolf Press)

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (Macmillan/Picador)

This Boy’s Life: A Memoir, Tobias Wolff (Perseus/PGW/Legato/Grove Press)

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, Kao Kalia Yang (Consortium/Coffee House)

Book of Hours, Kevin Young (PRH/Knopf)

Ways of Going Home, Alejandro Zambra, translated by Megan McDowell (Macmillan/FSG)

The full list of Big Read titles is available online.

The books were selected by a range of readers, including a librarian, following a criteria that stressed the “capacity to: inspire lively and deep discussion; expand the voices, stories, and genres represented; generate interest from lapsed and/or reluctant readers while also challenging avid readers; and encourage innovative programming for communities.”

In the NEA’s statement, Amy Stolls, director of literature, says: “We hope that this new direction will inspire folks to discover new books and enjoy talking about them with family and friends, neighbors and peers, and especially people they have yet to meet.”

In her NYT review of Belgravia, the novel by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, Daisy Goodwin speculates on whether it will satisfy the legions who are still mourning the end of the TV series.

Curiously, Goodwin herself is in the running to fill that hole, as the writer and co-executive producer of an 8-part TV series Victoria, about the early years of the queen’s reign. It will run in January on PBS Masterpiece in the very time slot Downton once occupied (in the UK, it begins this fall on ITV, also in the time slot that Downton once ruled).

In addition, in late November, Goodwin will publish Victoria: A Novel (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press). It’s not clear that the book is the source for the series. The publisher description simply says, “Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the inner life of the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.”

Goodwin’s The Fortune Hunter (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, 2014) drew comparison from People magazine to Fellowes, “Downton Abbey fans will gallop like Thoroughbreds through this entertaining historical novel.”

Doctor Who alum Jenna Coleman will star in the TV series as Victoria, reports Entertainment Weekly, “beginning from her ascension to the throne in 1837, through to her courtship and marriage to Prince Albert,” played by Tom Hughes (About Time).

ITV has posted several clips, a longer first look and a teaser that reveals some of the lush costuming.

Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton enthuses to Entertainment Weekly, “Victoria has it all: a riveting script, brilliant cast, and spectacular locations. And it’s a true story! This is exactly the kind of programming Masterpiece fans will love.”

After first debuting as 11 serial downloads, Julian Fellowes’s newest take on old money, Belgravia (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), is being published in a single print volume.

Reviews are range from raves to disappointment.

USA Today is entirely positive, praising the “juicy” 400 pager for its “zipping” pace and giving it four out of four stars. The paper goes on to say Fellowes “channels Dickens, Austen and romance queen Georgette Heyer” in his novel of “class snobbery, social climbing, lucky orphans and family secrets.”

In the upcoming NYT Sunday Book Review, author Daisy Goodwin, whose romantic historicals have tilled similar ground to Fellowes, is not as impressed, “Reading Belgravia is rather like visiting a modern re-creation of a Victorian house — every cornice molding is perfect — but it’s a Victorian house with 21st-century plumbing and Wi-Fi. It’s for anyone who has tried to read a 19th-century novel and become bored.”

Addressing the big question of how it will play with Downton Abbey fans, Goodwin says there is “plenty to enjoy here, and there’s no one like Fellowes for giving good dowager. But without the talents of great actors to turn stereotypes into human beings, much of the characterization … Belgravia has everything one would expect of a Victorian novel, apart from its sentimental heart.”

As we noted in the July 4th Titles To Know, The Seattle Times found that, in comparison to Downton, “Belgravia, unfortunately, feels like a respectable but socially inferior cousin; it might get invited to dinner, but only out of obligation.”

Regardless of these reviews, and while readers did not embrace the serial format, holds are very strong at several libraries we checked, easily topping a 3:1 ratio.

Saying that his novel gave her “hours of great pleasure,” librarian Nancy Pearl talks with author Adam Haslett about his new book, Imagine Me Gone (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample) on the most recent episode of Book Lust TV,

Hassett says the book is described by one of his friends, “a love story about a family.” It follows five members of a family as they each narrate part of the story as it moves forward in time across 40 years. Nancy praises the strong characterizations and Haslett says that he always wants to “get as far into the texture and nuance of his characters’ life as possible.” For him, he continues, the process of entering “imaginatively and sympathetically” into a character is key. Like method acting, he says, he lives with the characters.

The two also discuss reading. Haslett says that he is dyslexic and that reading was always an effort. Unlike other kids who could disappear into an imagined world, he read (and still reads) very attentively, falling into an enjoyment of great sentences.

The NYT‘s “Sunday Book Review,” as we noted earlier, also says that Haslett learned the craft of sentences well, writing that the book is “ambitious and stirring” and that “it sneaks up on you with dark and winning humor, poignant tenderness and sentences so astute that they lift the spirit even when they’re awfully, awfully sad.”

As is her practice, Nancy asks Haslett to share some of his favorite titles and he lists the work of Amity Gaige and Paul Harding with whom he went to MFA school.

Imagine Me Gone was selected as a May Indie Next pick and is on Time magazine’s  “Best Books of 2016 So Far.” 

Lobster rolls with no lobster, tuna that is not tuna, olive oil that has only a passing relationship to olives are the subject of a book arriving today that has been rising quickly on Amazon’s sales rankings, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It by Larry Olmsted (Workman/Algonquin; OverDrive Sample).

The rise coincides with strong media attention across a variety of outlets including the New York Post, Town and Country, Forbes, Outside, and several NPR programs including The Leonard Lopate Show, The Diane Rehm Show, and All Things Considered.

Outside says Olmsted shows “readers how to navigate an increasingly complex food system” unveiling the ugly, and harmful, truth about the unregulated food scene, which he calls in his book “a massive industry of bait and switch.”

Kobe beef, for instance, which sells for astronomical prices in the US comes from a breed of cow that lives and is slaughtered in a specific area of Japan and that is fed a diet produced in that same region. A Kobe beef steak sells for triple digits in the US. The rub? Kobe beef is not allowed to be imported into the US by the USDA.

Even worse, as Olmsted reveals in Town and Country, fakes may contain ingredients few would knowingly choose to consume. Such as truffle oil, “The most common source of ‘natural truffle’ flavor in the oil” he says, “is a chemically altered form of formaldehyde.”

Season two of the popular STARZ Outlander adaptation wrapped on Saturday. The final episode revealed new characters and story lines and also how much the screen version has increased book sales for the entire series, with all eight titles showing impressive leaps on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Some people must feel the need to catch up, sending the first two books in Diana Gabaldon’s series,  Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber soaring. However, readers will find differences between the books and the series, particularly for season 2.

But the real interest lies in what comes next. Book 3 in the series, Voyager (PRH/Delta; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample) rose the highest on Amazon’s rankings, to #25. All the rest of the titles in the series also received significant bumps (the full list is here).

Two new seasons have been ordered, according to Variety. There is no air-date yet for season 3, but if the gap is anything like the time between seasons 1 and 2, fans will have to wait nearly a year, a period of time they mournfully call #Droughtlander.

It could take even longer than that, as casting for the new faces of season three has not even begun, co-executive producer Maril Davis told New York Magazine, “We haven’t actually started looking at anyone, but we’ll be starting fairly soon.” On top of this, new locations have to be spotted and new sets built as the action moves from Scotland to Jamaica.

When season 3 does air, fans can expect even more differences between page and screen reports Bustle, quoting executive producer, Ronald D. Moore, “Our goal is still to try and be as faithful as we can to the books [but] the longer that you go, the more the TV series inevitably veers from the book and certain plot lines then take on a life of their own … Those changes add up and the further in you go, the bigger those separations become.”

On the same topic Davis also told New York Magazine “In some ways, it should be like the books, but telling the TV version should be fresh. Even for book fans, you want to give them what they want, but in a different way sometimes. We want try to do that for season three as well.”

Gabaldon recently announced that the ninth book in her very slowly unfolding series (the first book was published over two decades ago) will be titled Tell The Bees That I Am Gone. A pub date is not yet known but Entertainment Weekly posted a brief excerpt.

Gabaldon has also said that a tenth book will be forthcoming, which she believes will finally wrap the series, and that she has plans for a prequel, focusing on her main character Jamie’s parents.

Just nine days before it was scheduled to debut in theaters, the adaptation of Tulip Fever has been moved to Feb. 2017.

Variety reports that  no explanation was offered as to why the film was pushed back, even though it was “thought to be a potential awards contender.” Playlist writes that the move signals a lack of faith in the final product.

It is based on the novel by Deborah Moggach, who also wrote The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) wrote the screenplay and the film stars Alicia Vikander, Zach Galifianakis, Judi Dench, and Christoph Waltz. A tie-in has not yet been issued, although the paperback edition is headlined with “Now a Major Motion Picture.”

Here is the preview:

Definitely opening this week is The Infiltrator, recounting the true crime story of the take down of one of the world’s most notorious drug kingpins.

Playing an undercover agent, Bryan Cranston moves from cooking drugs on the small screen in his hit show Breaking Bad, to trying to shut down their production on the big screen. He is joined by John Leguizamo and Diane Kruger.

Reviews are strong thus far. Variety says, “Bryan Cranston gets a film role worthy of his ability to break bad in a tensely exciting true-life drama.”

The Wrap calls it “addictive,” and while The Hollywood Reporter has some issues with the “boilerplate crime drama,” it praises “Cranston’s ace performance.”

The film opens July 13. The tie-in came out on June 21, The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, Robert Mazur (Hachette/Back Bay).

The adaptation of the hit 1984 movie Ghostbusters opens July 15, featuring the all-female cast of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. The remake has been dogged by haters on the internet, who don’t want to see the classic tampered with. An early review from Variety duns the movie for being an overly reverent remake.

There’s a range of tie-in titles, listed in the June 13th Titles to Know column. Already on shelves are two novelizations, a version written for ages 8-12, Ghostbusters Movie Novelization, Stacia Deutsch (S&S/Simon Spotlight), and the full novelization, issued by a different publisher, Ghostbusters, Nancy Holder (Macmillan/Tor; OverDrive Sample).

Additional tie-ins include the Ghostbuster’s Handbook, Daphne Pendergrass (S&S/Simon Spotlight) and two leveled readers Proud to Be a Ghostbuster (S&S/Simon Spotlight; OverDrive Sample; also in pbk.) and Who You Gonna Call? (S&S/Simon Spotlight; OverDrive Sample; also in pbk.) both by David Lewman.

See our Tie-ins catalog for full details.

The Marshall Project (named in honor of Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) has released a core list of titles on criminal justice.

Not only is the list useful for collection building, the leading title, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander (Perseus/PGW/Legato/The New Press; OverDrive Sample), soared on Amazon, rising to #6 in an impressive leap from #90.

Other titles on the list rose as well.

Between the World and Me: Notes on the First 150 Years in America, Ta-Nehisi Coates (PRH/Spiegel & Grau; BOT; OverDrive Sample), moved up to #8, jumping from #47.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson (PRH/Spiegel & Grau; BOT; OverDrive Sample) gained as well, bumping up to #95, from #137).

The full list of ten titles is available online, along with a longer list of titles the topic.

Rising on Amazon, moving from #734 to #12, is Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction, Maia Szalavitz (Macmillan /St. Martin’s Press; OverDrive Sample).

The leap to just outside the top 10 coincides with a long interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. Host Terry Gross talks for over 30 minutes with the author, a former addict who became a journalist.

Szalavitz’s book offers a new way to think about addition and treat its sufferers. Part of the conversation centered on the limitations and problems with 12-step programs. Szalavitz says:

“The only treatment in medicine that involves prayer, restitution and confession is for addiction [which] makes people think that addiction is a sin, rather than a medical problem … we need to get the 12 steps out of professional treatment and put them where they belong — as self-help.”

Caught with 2.5 kilos of cocaine at age 20, Szalavitz also talks about not going to prison, and why:

“being white and being female and being a person who was at an Ivy League school and being privileged in many other ways had an enormous amount to do with … why I was not incarcerated and why I’m not in prison now. I think our laws are completely and utterly racist. They were founded in racism, and they are enforced in a thoroughly biased manner.”

Holds are spiking at several libraries we checked.

It’s a week with a cornucopia of titles recommended by peers (see below).

Fans need no recommendations for Daniel Silva’s latest, The Black Widow, (HarperCollins/ Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe) the 16th novel featuring Gabriel Allon the Israeli art restorer/assassin/spy. In a starred review, Kirkus notes that this one  “is marked by a subtle shift in emphasis. Allon remains as compelling as ever, but Silva is clearly preparing readers for a world in which his hero takes a supporting role.”

If holds are any indication, and we think they are, Linda Castillo is headed for a higher spot on best seller lists with the eighth outing of her Amish-county mystery series, Among the Wicked, (Macmillan/Minotaur; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive sample), also a LibraryReads pick (see below). In 2013,  Lifetime adapted the first novel in the series, Sworn to Silence as the TV movie An Amish Murder. Her book tour includes several libraries.

The titles covered in this post, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of July 11, 2016

Advance Attention

Freedom: My Book of Firsts, Jaycee Dugard, (S&S; S&S Audio)

This follows Dugard’s 2011 memoir about being kidnapped at 11 and held for 18 years,  A Stolen Life. Propelled by media attention, including an overview by Diane Sawyer on 20/20, the first book was #1 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction list for four weeks. She will again be interviewed by Sawyer on 20/20 tonight.

The Voyeur’s Motel, Gay Talese, (Grove Press; OverDrive Sample)

Talese’s new book was embroiled in
controversy last week after the Washington Post questioned its accuracy. In a review in the daily NYT, Dwight Garner says the author, who at first said he could no longer support the book, then changed his mind, ‘is right to stand by his book.”

Consumer Media Picks

People Book of the Week:

 You’ll Grow Out of It, Jessi Klein, (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample)

The head writer for Inside Amy Schemer, says People, “will make you laugh out loud, but she exhibits a vulnerability and self-deprecating sweetness too.”

Also picked:

  
The House at the Edge of Night, Catherine Banner, (Random House; OverDrive Sample)

People — this “four-generation saga is set on an island near Sicily … The island is fictional, but consider this dreamy summer read your passport.”

Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North, Blair Braverman, (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample)

An Indie Next pick, we covered this title  last week. In addition to being a People pick in the new issue, this memoir gets an A- from Entertainment Weekly’s top book critic, Tina Jordan, saying it “a remarkable … coming-of-age tale set largely on the Norwegian tundra — where she trained sled dogs — and in Alaska. … It’s amazing to watch as she develops backbone and grit, determined not to let anyone or anything stand between her and the icy landscape she loves so much.”

Peer Picks

A number of librarian picks arrive this week, all featured on the July LibraryReads list.

Among the Wicked: A Kate Burkholder Novel, Linda Castillo (Macmillan/Minotaur; OverDrive Sample).

“In the small Amish locale of Painters Mill, police chief Kate Burkholder decides to take an undercover assignment in a community where the death of a young girl was reported. Her long time love, Agent John Tomasetti, is reluctant with her decision because of the lack of communication he will have with her. Burkholder begins to unfold the true horrors on the local farm and unearths the dangers the town officials suspected. She finds herself trapped in a life threatening cat and mouse game. This ongoing series is a true gem and a personal favorite.” — KC Davis, Fairfield Woods Branch Library, Fairfield, CT

The Last One, Alexandra Oliva (PRH/Ballantine Books; RH Audio/BOT).

“The Last One tells the story of twelve contestants who are sent to the wilderness in a Survivor-like reality show. But while they’re away, the world changes completely and what is real and what is not begins to blur. It’s post-apocalyptic literary fiction at it’s best. With a fast pace and a wry sense of humor, this is the kind of book that will appeal to readers of literary fiction and genre fiction alike. It points out the absurdity of reality television without feeling condescending. As the readers wake up to the realities of a new world, it becomes difficult to put down.” — Leah White, Ela Area Public Library, Lake Zurich, IL

Nine Women, One Dress, Jane L. Rosen (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Nine Women, One Dress sends the reader on a journey with many characters and the little black dress of the season. From the soon-retiring dress designer and the first-time runway model, to the retail salespeople and an actor, this book relates how the dress touches and, often profoundly, changes the lives of all. Even though there were many characters in this book, the author immersed the reader into their lives. Romance, humor, and irony spark the plot as the dress travels from one life to another. A charming read!” — Kristin Fields, Farnhamville Public Library, Farnhamville, IA

Siracusa, Delia Ephron (PRH/Blue Rider Press; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Michael and Lizzie are vacationing with another couple and their daughter, named Snow. As the story unfolds, the reader is introduced to infidelities. Ephron does a tremendous job in exposing the frailties of relationships and it feels like being intimate with other people’s problems but without the guilt. Engaging and tough to put down. Great summer read!” — Andrienne Cruz, Azusa City Library, Azusa, CA

Deadline Hollywood reports a film adaptation is in the works.

All Is Not Forgotten, Wendy Walker (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Macmillan Audio).

“A dark, twisty, intricately-plotted psychological thriller about a teen girl, assaulted after a party, as she tries to regain her memories of the event after taking a controversial drug that erases traumatic memories. Walker’s many plot and character threads are carefully placed, and she weaves them all together into a satisfying, shattering conclusion. I’m betting we’ll be seeing this title in a LOT of beach bags over the summer.” — Gregg Winsor, Johnson County Library, Roeland Park, KS

It is also an Indie Next pick for July.

The other bookseller picks coming out this are:

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, Joanna Cannon (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample)

“Best friends Grace and Tilly spend England’s sweltering summer of 1976 sleuthing for clues to uncover the reason for their neighbor’s disappearance. They go from house to house, neighbor to neighbor, investigating as only guileless little girls can do. While they’re at it, they also look for god in the most unusual places. As the mystery of the neighborhood is slowly revealed, so are the many secrets behind every door on the avenue. If you loved A Man Called Ove, you will love The Trouble With Goats and Sheep. Funny, quirky and profound!” —Cathy Langer, Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, CO

Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett (PRH/Riverhead Books; OverDrive Sample)

“A brilliant and captivating debut, Bennett’s Pond is a strange, beautifully layered work of fiction, from its quirky and contemplative narrator’s interior life to the vivid and charming descriptions of rural Irish life. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this book is its warm invitation to celebrate solitude. Bennett writes as if in a lush, landscaped dream, each story chapter going forward, circling back, and ending in the middle of the protagonist’s musings upon her everyday experiences. Pond is utterly original, by turns hilarious and poignant, a refreshing and simply delightful read.” —Angela Spring, Politics & Prose, Washington, DC

Miss Jane, Brad Watson (Norton).

“At first, I was uncomfortable reading about the life Jane Chisolm has to lead due to a genital birth defect and assumed that I would be sad for her throughout the book, but this is so beautifully written and unsentimental in its depiction of Jane’s quiet strength and courageous acceptance of her life that I fell in love with her quite quickly. While all the supporting characters have their own peculiarities, they are tender and endearing to Jane and that helped me to understand how she endured and was loved so fully. Everyone should read this extraordinary book and feel, as I did, the joy of this remarkable woman.” —Nancy Banks, City Stacks Books and Coffee, Denver, CO

The Heavenly Table, Donald Ray Pollock (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio/BOT).

“After murdering the tyrannical owner of the land they farmed on the Georgia/Alabama border, three brothers make a desperate run for Canada and manage, along the way, to acquire national reputations as the kind of ruthless outlaws who are immortalized in dime store novels. This is a rollicking and ribald adventure story, populated with shady characters and told in vivid, sparkling prose reminiscent of Patrick DeWitt’s The Sisters Brothers — and there is hardly a higher compliment.” —Alden Graves, Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, VT

Selecting it for their summer reading list, the Chicago Tribune said, it “has been likened to the work of Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers.”

Tie-ins

The big tie-in news comes a bit late in the day as a key tie-in for The Secret Life of Pets is hitting shelves after the movie opens on July 9 (others came out in May).

The Secret Life of Pets: The Deluxe Junior Novelization (Secret Life of Pets), David Lewman (PRH/Random House – also in a paperback, non-deluxe version) pubs this week.

The animated film is getting flat reviews, as we wrote, with the Den of Geek offering a typical reaction, “I’m sure it’ll make lots and lots of money … I’m less sure that lots and lots of people will love it.”

Nerve Movie Tie-In, Jeanne Ryan (PRH/Speak; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The debut YA SF thriller, about an online, voyeuristic, version of truth or dare was called a page-turner by  Kirkus, if beholden to books like The Hunger Games.

The film adaptation stars Emma Roberts, Dave Franco and Juliette Lewis and opens July 27.

Florence Foster Jenkins: The Inspiring True Story of the World’s Worst Singer, Nicholas Martin and Jasper Rees (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin).

Starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, this bio-pic about a real life socialite who could not sing a note opens in the US on Aug. 12.

It has already aired in the UK where it got strong reviews. The Guardian gave it 4 out of 5 stars, saying it is a “very likable, frequently hilarious, yet still poignant tragi-comedy.” The Telegraph (pre-Brexit) agrees, giving it the same star rating and saying, it feels like “a classic postwar studio comedy – a pillowy paean to silliness, and the perfect antidote for sobering times.”

Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism, Ron Suskind (Hachette/Kingswell) is also out behind its movie release date.

As we reported in an earlier Hitting Screens round-up, the Sundance award-winning documentary following the life of Owen Suskind (son of author Ron Suskind) opened over the July 4th holiday.

It got great early reviews with Variety calling it “captivating” and The Hollywood Reporter saying it is “radiant.” Later reviews were still strongly positive but less glowing.

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

Whether it’s word of mouth, or the multiple picks from various mid-year best books roundups, The Girls by Emma Cline (PRH/Random House; RH Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample), is moving up best seller lists.

It jumped four spots on the USA Today list (which combines all books in all formats and for all ages), rising to #8, its highest ranking to date and has moved up the NYT Combined Fiction list to #5, also its highest spot on that list. Several libraries have increased their orders to meet holds, which remain well above a 3:1 ratio at many libraries across the country.

The novel is still getting attention, yesterday BuzzFeed selected it as one of “4 Great Books to Read in July,” saying that it “will terrify you, shock you, haunt you — in all the right ways.”

Best of the year lists must be good for book sales. After doing a single annual list for many years, the Amazon Editors added a second, mid-year review of “Best Books so Far” a few years ago. As the Seattle Times writes in a a story about the Amazon Book Review and its editors, “The ultimate aim [of the best books lists], after all, is to sell books.” While the article also claims that the impact of the picks is hard to measure, there is at least one yardstick, whether the books rise on Amazon’s sales rankings (not to mention the multitude of metrics that Amazon’s tech gurus do not make public. You can’t help but feel the editors are very aware of how well their choices do).

The top title on this year’s midyear list, Top 20 Picks of the Best Books of the Year So Far, did indeed move up Amazon’s sales rankings. Lab Girl by Hope Jahren was in the 600’s, after hitting a high of #13 when it was released in April. The Amazon pick brought it back up in to the 200’s.

This year, several other publications, those with a less vested interest, have followed the trend of mid-year reviews, including Entertainment Weekly (best fiction and nonfiction, ranked lists of ten titles each), New York Magazine (ten titles) and Time (eighteen titles).

Many of these titles became best sellers, but the lists are helpful for discovering overlooked gems that could use a circulation boost.

Across the four lists, 51 separate titles got nods. No title made all four.

Three books are the clear consensus winners, selected by three of the four list makers:

• Lab Girl, Hope Jahren (PRH/Knopf; BOT; OverDrive Sample) (Amazon’s #1 pick, Entertainment Weekly, Time)

• The Gene: An Intimate History, Siddhartha Mukherjee (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) (Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Time)

• The Girls by Emma Cline (PRH/Random House; RH Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample). (Amazon, Entertainment Weekly’s #1 fiction pick, NY Magazine)

Eleven other titles made two of the four lists.

Amazon and Entertainment Weekly selected:

• Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond (PRH/Crown; BOT; OverDrive Sample)
• Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Mary Roach (Norton; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample)
• LaRose, Louise Erdrich (HC/Harper; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample)
• When Breath Becomes Air, (PRH/Random House; BOT; OverDrive Sample) (Entertainment Weekly’s #1 nonfiction pick)

Amazon and Time selected:

• The Fireman by Joe Hill (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample)
• Kill ‘Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul, James McBride (PRH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample)

Entertainment Weekly and Time selected:

• Sweetbitter (PRH/Knopf; Random House Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample)
• The Vegetarian (PRH/Hogarth; BOT; OverDrive Sample)

NY Magazine and Time selected:

• The Association of Small Bombs, Karan Mahajan (PRH/Viking; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample)
• What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours (PRH/Riverhead; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample)

Many of these titles received media attention when they hit shelves and in the months following. For example, Lab Girl got a rave review from NYT‘s Michiko Kakutani and was the focus of a Slate “Audio Book Club” feature; The Girls was a #1 Indie Next selection and a top summer reading pick and is currently a best seller; and The Vegetarian won the Man Booker International award.

See our catalog for a running list of all mid-year picks. Links to each of the round-ups are in the column to the right (replacing the Summer Preview links).

A trailer for the comic book based on Neil Gaiman’s short story, “How to talk to Girls at Parties,” (available online in both text and audio) was just released and is getting picked up by many entertainment news sites.

The graphic novel, released on Tuesday, is also set to be adapted as a movie, starring Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman and Alex Sharp. Gaiman is the executive producer for the project, set to begin filming in November.

Neil Gaiman’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Neil Gaiman, Gabriel Bá, Fábio Moon
Dark Horse Books,:July 5, 2016
9781616559557, 1616559551
Hardcover
$17.99 USD, $23.99 CAD

Back when she was eight years old, Hilde Lysiak, founder and publisher of The Orange Street News got major media attention, featured on the Today Show.

Lysiak went on to scoop older reporters on a murder case, bringing controversy over whether a child should be involved in such activities, even more national media coverage, and a 2016 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award from the Tribeca Film Festival.

Now, the news that she has a deal to write four books for Scholastic and has brought interest in film and TV rights to her story.

The first in the book series, titled Hilde Cracks the Case, will be published in 2017, under Scholastic’s early chapter books imprint, Branches.