School Library Journal has posted their editors’ selections of the best Picture Books, Chapter Books, Middle Grade and YA books of the year in an online slide show.
The list includes 66 titles.
Coincidentally (the editors SWEAR it’s a coincidence), SLJ published its first best books list 66 years ago.
A 1935 satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis is selling out online and racking up holds in libraries, It Can’t Happen Here (PRH/Signet; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).
Money reports “voters—shell-shocked by the results of the 2016 presidential election—are rushing to buy the book that Donald Trump’s critics say may have predicted his rise 80 years ago.” The novel is sold out, they continue, on Amazon and Books-a-Million.
Salon began writing about the book back in September, saying “Amid the 80th anniversary of Sinclair Lewis’s anti-fascist tome, Trump’s campaign makes Lewis look prophetic.”
The publisher describes the novel as “A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy.”
Holds lists are active at every library we checked some within a 3:1 ratio and others well over, even triggering re-ordering.
This is not the first time a somewhat forgotten work by a highly regarded author has found new readers. After 9/11, E.B. White’s Here is New York, written in 1948, became so popular the publisher issued a reprint.
As expected, the Harry Potter prequel/spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, ruled at the box office over the weekend, but some wonder if the $75 million it took in is enough to justify the other four movies planned in the series. Variety notes that, unlike the HP series, audiences for Fantastic Beasts are comprised mostly of adults, indicating that the fan base is aging. That may change, however, when kids get out of school for the Thanksgiving holiday.
To keep kids at home on Thanksgiving, PBS is premiering a new version of Anne of Green Gables at 8 p.m. EST. The film, entitled Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, adapts the beloved childhood novel, also the subject of a forthcoming 2017 Netflix series.
Martin Sheen stars as Matthew Cuthbert, part of the family who cares for the central character Anne Shirley, played by Ella Ballentine.
Shot in Canada, the Canadian Global News says this rendition is “a more modern take on the story, with darker, edgier moments that take it out of the past and into the present … [even as] Montgomery’s own granddaughter, Kate MacDonald Butler, serves as an executive producer on the project, and has given the remake her blessing.”
Variety is not charmed, writing “Though the characters are somewhat recognizable and the adventures faintly ring a bell, the 90-minute made-for-TV movie truncates the plot, flattens the characters, and fumbles through the small-town sentiment that the book’s author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, excelled at … a dull film and a mediocre adaptation.”
Opening on Nov. 25th is Lion starring Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, and David Wenham. They join a cast of actors well-known in India, including Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Priyanka Bose, and Tannishtha Chatterjee. The inspirational story is directed by Garth Davis (Top of the Lake).
As we have previously written, it is based on a memoir of an amazing journey of loss and recovery originally titled A Long Way Home, Saroo Brierley (PRH/Viking, 2014, trade paperback, 2015). In the book, Brierley recounts how he was separated from his family in rural India at age 4, when he climbed aboard a train and was carried over a thousand miles away to a city he did not know. He wound up in an orphanage and was adopted and relocated to Tasmania. As an adult, using Google maps, he searches for his lost family.
The film debuts in the Friday after Thanksgiving time slot, not just prime time to attract families looking for entertainment but also good timing for awards. Vanity Fair reports the film is “Already on Awards-Season Short Lists.”
The Guardian offers praise, writing “a strong cast, international themes and an emotional true story. From the outset, it’s a film that’s impossible not to find hugely involving.”
The Hollywood Reporter says it “should find a very warm embrace from discerning audiences. It’s that relatively rare breed — a classy crowdpleaser.”
Variety is not sold, writing “Lion seems awfully brazen advertising its deux ex machina right there in its logline, and though the human story is what makes it so compelling, “advertising” remains the operative word. Next up: How Siri helped you find your car keys.”
A new tie-in version is out as well, Lion (Movie Tie-In) (PRH/NAL; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).
UPDATE: The release date has been shifted to May 19,2017
The film adaptation of Nicola Yoon’s debut novel now has a premiere date, August 18, 2017, reports Deadline Hollywood.
Everything, Everything (PRH/Delacorte; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample) received high praise and found many readers when it hit shelves last year and debuted at No. 1 on the NYT YA best-seller list. It earned a glowing NYT review (“gorgeous and lyrical”) and an A- review from Entertainment Weekly (a “complex,” “fresh, moving debut”).
The Hollywood Reporter writes that “rising actors” Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games) and Nick Robinson (Jurassic World) will star in the adaptation.
Stella Meghie (Jean of the Joneses) directs while J. Mills Goodloe (Age of Adaline) writes the script.
Sternberg was one of Time magazine’s Most Influential Teens 2016, described as:
“one of her generation’s leading social activists, especially regarding race, representation and gender identity. As a result, she’s earned some high-profile admirers. Among them: Gloria Steinem, who sat for a one-on-one interview with Stenberg for Teen Vogue, and Beyoncé …
She is also set to star in another YA novel adaptation, Alexandra Bracken’s Darkest Minds trilogy.
Yoon’s second novel, The Sun Is Also a Star, was a finalist this year for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
The adaptation of Lauren Oliver’s debut YA novel, Before I Fall, (HarperCollins, 2010) is scheduled for released on March 3, 2017. The first trailer has just been released.
Directed by Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks), the film stars Zoey Deutch (Vampire Academy), Halston Sage (Goosebumps), Logan Miller (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse) and Jennifer Beals (Flashdance, The L Word).
About a girl who dies in a car crash, but then gets to relive the last day of her life seven times, the book was a best seller.
A tie-in will be published in February.
Just two weeks after Netflix released a trailer for the series adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events, they’ve unleashed a new, more extensive trailer.
The full 8-episode series debuts on Netflix on Friday, January 13, 2017.
The Washington Post has released their list of the 100 best books of 2016, as well as the top 10 that they find “exceptionally rewarding,” accompanied by a tasty illustration (above).
The National Book Award winner for fiction, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, is among the top ten, as well as one of the finalists for the award, Paulette Jiles’s News of the World.
However, it’s the titles that have not yet appeared on other lists that are the most interesting, such as Hisham Matar’s The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between. (PRH/Random House; OverDrive Sample). About the author’s father, a Libyan dissident who was kidnapped and imprisioned when Matar was 19, it is described as “an elegy by a son who, through his eloquence, defies the men who wanted to erase his father and gifts him with a kind of immortality.”
Leading up to the traditional Black Friday, James Patterson publishes the next in his biggest-selling series, Cross the Line (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print; OverDrive Sample). Under his kids imprint, he’s publishing a book in collaboration with Bill O’Reilly, Give Please a Chance (Hachette/jimmy patterson), a title that seems out of synch with the Fox News host’s general demeanor.
In nonfiction, holds are growing for Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by the popular NYT columnist Thomas L Friedman (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio). The book offers solutions to those who feel the pace of technology is just too damned fast. His columns since the election indicate that his optimism is being put to the test.
The Daily Show (the Book): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests, Chris Smith, Jon Stewart, (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Large Type; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).
Stewart has already begun the media rounds, with an appearance yesterday on CBS This Morning, where he was easily lead away from talking about the book to talking about the election.
Janet Maslin reviews it today in the New York Times. The less-than-glowing review suggests the book only works for Stewart fans. There’s obviously plenty of them, the book is already at #33 on Amazon’s sales rankings.
The Princess Diarist, Carrie Fisher, (PRH/Blue Rider Press; Penguin/BOT Audio).
The long-suspected story of the affair Carrie Fisher had with the then-married Harrison Ford during the filming of Star Wars is now out. Promoting an excerpt from the book, the new issue of People magazine blares on the cover, “Carrie Fisher Exclusive My Secret Fling with Harrison Ford.” The Washington Post advises, “Move quickly over the bad jokes and the awkward writing, and you have a readable and eye-opening account of a sad but strong princess who has always been her own woman.” The title refers to the fact that Fisher wrote the book based on a diary she kept at the time.
Kathy Griffin’s Celebrity Run-Ins: My A-Z Index, Kathy Griffin, (Macmillan/Flatiron Books; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).
Not allergic to media attention, Griffin began promoting this book two weeks ago on Jimmy Kimmel Live. This week, the NY Post’s “Page Six” ran a story about a run-in with Britney Spears. Let’s hope the other stories in the book have more bite.
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 Nov. 21, 2016.
Three Library Reads publish this week:
Moonglow, Michael Chabon (HC/Harper; Harper Audio).
“A grandson sits by his dying grandfather’s bedside as his grandfather slowly reveals the light and shadows of a marriage and of a family that kept secrets as a way of life. He learns of his grandmother’s life growing up during World War II; her coming to America and living with a man who kept to himself, even lying to her about his short time in prison. Chabon’s signature style includes carefully observed characters that are both new and familiar and shimmering prose that reflects and refracts light much as moonlight does.” — Jennifer Winberry, Hunterdon County Library, Flemington, NJ
Additional Buzz: It is also the #1 Indie Next pick for December. Michiko Kakutani reviews it for the NYT, saying Chabon “writes with both lovely lyricism and highly caffeinated fervor.” BuzzFeed offers an in-depth profile. As we noted earlier, it is also on the Carnegie Medal shortlist and is a Fall reading pick by a number of list makers. Holds are heavy in several libraries.
I’ll Take You There, Wally Lamb (HC/Harper; Harper Audio).
“I’ll Take You There is delightfully entertaining, funny and a bit mystical with wonderful connections to old movies and movie stars. Felix Funicello runs a Monday night film club which meets in an old theater. One evening, he is visited by the ghost of a female director from the silent film era. She takes him on a journey to his past where Felix sees scenes on the screen which help him gain an understanding of women who have been important to him throughout his life. This novel is insightful and inspirational in connecting scenes from the past with our present day society.” — Marilyn Sieb, L.D. Fargo Library, Lake Mills, WI
Additional Buzz: It is an Indie Next pick for December. PopSugar picks it as one of “The 25 Books You’re Going to Want to Curl Up With This Fall.” Variety reports Elizabeth Banks will star and executive produce a short film for the digital app version of the book, which is getting attention as well.
Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire, Julia Baird (PRH/Random House
“When Victoria inherited the throne at the age of eighteen, she was still sleeping in the same bedroom as her mother. Her first act as queen was to move her bed into a different room. This headstrong deed foreshadowed the determination with which she ruled an empire. Her fierce devotion to her country and family shines in the pages of Baird’s compulsively readable biography. She becomes a warm and relatable figure through Baird’s research. Her reign saw unimaginable changes in society, science, and technology, but through it all, Victoria remained.” — Ann Cox, Beaufort County Library, Hilton Head, SC
Additional Buzz: It is an Indie Next selection for December and is one of the WSJ’s Fall Reading picks.
Victoria: A Novel of a Young Queen, Daisy Goodwin, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Thorndike Large Print; Macmillan Audio).
In addition to the peer pick title above, Queen Victoria is getting attention in the form of a PBS series, to air next year. The series is created by Daisy Goodwin (The American Heiress), who wrote this novel simultaneously with the screenplay. Although it is not billed as a tie-in, the cover notes that the author is “the Creator/Writer of the Masterpiece Presentation on PBS.”
Marvel’s Doctor Strange: The Art of the Movie, Jacob Johnson (Hachette/Marvel) offers a look at the visual landscape of the superhero movie, with concept artwork and commentary. A fitting book for a film New York Magazine calls “freaking gorgeous.”
For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.
Winning the National Book Award has sent the March trilogy, by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf) zooming on Amazon, jumping from #1,321 to #17.
The individual volumes are all soaring up the sales ranks as well, each leapfrogging over a thousand other titles.
It has also resulted in a glowing NYT book review: “The three volumes of March … aren’t just a record of Lewis’s activism but one of its brilliant examples, designed to help new generations of readers visualize the possibilities of political engagement.”
The review continues, saying the comics are a:
“galvanizing account of [Lewis’s] coming-of-age in the movement, it’s a capsule lesson in courage of conscience, a story that inspires without moralizing or simplifying in hindsight … Emphasizing disruption, decentralization and cooperation over the mythic ascent of heroic leaders, this graphic novel’s presentation of civil rights is startlingly contemporary. Lewis may be one of the “great men” of the movement, but his memoir is humble and generous.”
Collectively the trilogy has received a number of groundbreaking honors:
March: Book One is a Coretta Scott King honor book, a Margaret A. Edwards honor book, an ALA Notable Children’s Book, and is the first graphic novel to win a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. It was also nominated for three Eisner awards.
March: Book Two won the Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work.
March: Book Three won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. This is the first time a graphic novel has been so honored (there have been graphic novel finalists. Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts, Scholastic/GRAPHIX, was also a finalist this year).
For just a taste of the power of the comics, see our post on the Congressman’s recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The film adaptation of The Zookeeper’s Wife the true story of the valiant couple who rescued 300 Jews from the Nazis by hiding them in the bombed Warsaw Zoo (see the NYT review of the book here), is set for release on March 31, 2017.
The first trailer was released today.
It stars Jessica Chastain who wrote in an essay in The Hollywood Reporter‘s special “Women in Entertainment” issue, that although women make up only 20% of the crew of The Zookeeper’s Wife, that’s “way more” than any film she’s ever worked on. As a result, she said, “You don’t feel a hierarchy; you don’t have anyone feeling like they are being left out or bullied or humiliated.”
A trade paperback tie-in will be released in February
The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story
Diane Ackerman
(Norton; February 7, 2017)
Stephenie Meyer’s first thriller for adults, The Chemist (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) debuts on USA Today‘s Best-Selling Books list at #13.
With only six hardcover fiction titles ahead of it, the high placement suggests it will be within the top ten on the upcoming NYT‘s Fiction list (UPDATE: It hit that list at #5).
It is getting media attention that is helping fuel sales.
The NYT‘s offers a profile, while USA Today gives it 3.5 stars out of 4, saying the novel is “engrossing” and while “it’s full of the same daffy blitheness toward blood and pain that always made the Twilight books unsettling … Meyer is also just a really good storyteller. The Chemist is consistently fast-paced fun.”
The Guardian writes “Meyer, clearly a major fan of the genre, has dreamed up a fast-paced thriller, and a tough, mysterious heroine with a penchant for decking herself out in dangerous jewellery, concealing syringes of poison in her belt and switchblades in her shoes.”
The LA Times says, “Spy fans can be assured that in most respects, The Chemist functions in much the same way as a Bourne or Bond story, complete with mounting body count, cool explosions, stakeouts and betrayals. But changing the proportion of gender in the genre gives the concoction a renewed, and welcome, rush.”
The coverage is not universally warm. Entertainment Weekly gives it a B-, writing, “The Chemist’s 518-pages fly by quickly and easily. But perhaps it would have taken a sprinkle of something supernatural — or a smattering of heartbreak — to feel like Meyer’s characters were really in danger.”
The Washington Post reviewer is even more doubtful, writing, “Meyer’s legion of addicted fans will lap up this chemical romance. As for me, I’m off to the library to detox.”
Libraries are showing divergent holds ratios, with some libraries topping 5:1 and others steady at 2:1.
Below is the live stream of Wednesday night’s National Book Awards Ceremony, hosted by Larry Wilmore, begins at 7:40 p.m., Eastern.
The winners as they were announced:
Literarian Award — Poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, creators of Cave Canem
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters — Robert A. Caro
Young People’s Literature, presented by Katherine Paterson — John Lewis, Andrew Aydin & Nate Powell (Artist), March: Book Three, Top Shelf Productions / IDW Publishing — an emotional Lewis said he remembered trying to get a library card as a child and being told that the library was for whites only. Going from that to winning this award is just “too much.”
Poetry, presented by Joy Harjo — Daniel Borzutzky, The Performance of Becoming Human, Brooklyn Arts Press — Borzutzky said he had been supported throughout his career by “people who publish books in their apartments.” Jewish and Chilean-American, he asked that everyone do their part to make sure this country continues to be safe and welcoming to immigrants.
Nonfiction, presented by Masha Gessen — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Nation Books / Perseus Books Group — Kendi noted that, in writing this book, he has spent years looking at the worst of America, but he never lost faith that the terror of racism would one day be dead, and even as the first black president is about to leave the White House, while a man enthusiastically supported by the Ku Klux Klan is about to enter, he still has that faith.
Fiction, presented by James English — Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad Doubleday / Penguin Random House — In an understatement, Whitehead said the last four months have been surreal (his book was an Oprah pick). In a year he went from wondering if anyone would read his book, to seeing it become a best seller, a reminder that we don’t know where we may be a year from now. “Right now, we’re happy in here; outside is the blasted hellhole wasteland of Trumpland.” He offered advice that makes him feel better, “Be kind to everybody, make art and fight the power.”
At the end, Larry Wilmore summed up the evening by saying, “Wow. The National Book Awards is WOKE.” Referring to the fact that the majority of the people who were on the stage were black, from the new Executive Director if the National Book Foundation Lisa Lucas, to the most of the winners, Wilmore joked this was “the National Book Awards, presented by BET, with a special appearance by Robert Caro.” He hastened to add that he really likes Bob Caro, something that was obvious in his reaction to Caro’s acceptance speech.
Our chat has now ended. You can read the transcript below.
To sign up for the EarlyReads program, go to EarlyReads@EarlyWord.com
If you enjoyed Setting Free the Kites, nominate it for LibraryReads (deadline: Dec. 20)
Bob Dylan raised eyebrows when he took his time in responding to the announcement that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He finally broke his silence on the subject to say he was honored and would attend the ceremony on Dec. 10 “if at all possible.”
But it seems his schedule makes that impossible. The Swedish Academy announced that they received “a personal letter” from the musician informing them of his decision, citing “pre-existing commitments.”
According to the BBC, Dylan also said he felt “very honoured” and “so much” appreciated the award.
Regardless of the big evening, the BBC reports that Dylan is “required to give a Nobel lecture between now and next June.” UPDATE: Entertainment Weekly reports that he may give the lecture during a 2017 concert in Stockholm.
The final trailer for Ben Affleck’s adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s Live by Night (Harper/ Morrow; Harperluxe; HarperAudio) has been released. The movie opens in an Oscar-qualifying limited run on December 25th, followed by a nationwide release on January 13, 2017.
In addition to directing and writing the screenplay, Affleck stars with Zoe Saldana, Sienna Miller, Chris Cooper, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina and Elle Fanning. It’s Affleck’s first time in the director’s chair since his award-winning Argo.
The novel follows the rise of an Irish-American Boston gangster, Joe Coughlan, during the Prohibition era. Prophetically, Entertainment Weekly, called Live by Night a “ripping, movie-ready yarn that jumps from a Boston prison to Tampa speakeasies to a Cuban tobacco farm.” The book won Lehane an Edgar for Best Novel. In his acceptance speech, he thanked librarians for offering “a light in the darkness for the kids from the wrong side of the tracks.”
Live by Night follows The Given Day, which was the author’s first departure into historical crime. A third book in the series, World Gone By, was published last year.
The tie-in is set for Dec. 7, in mass market and trade paperback (HarperCollins/Morrow). It will contain a preview chapter of Lehane’s forthcoming novel Since We Fell (HarperCollins/Ecco; May 16, 2017).