Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times and author of the best selling The Power of Habit, follows up with a new book, this time with a focus on productivity, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business (Random House; BOT).

Using the approach that made his previous book accessible, Duhigg incorporates management science and personal stories designed to teach readers how to re-think their approach to being busy.

His book is soaring up the Amazon sales charts after a feature on the Today show, part of a planned series.

Even after the great success of The Power of Habit and the Today show push, holds are still modest on moderate orders for Duhigg’s newest. Like his previous book, we’re betting this one will be a slow build.

Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice, Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House; BOT; April 19) is the #1 pick on the April LibraryReads list.

Part of The Austen Project, Sittenfeld recasts Elizabeth as a magazine editor and Darcy as a neurosurgeon. The novel has made many “most anticipated lists” including those by Entertainment Weekly, The Millions, and The Washington Post. It was also a favorite of Galleychatters.

Leslie DeLooze, of Richmond Memorial Library, Batavia, NY offers this annotation:

“Love, sex, and relationships in contemporary Cincinnati provide an incisive social commentary set in the framework of Pride and Prejudice. Sittenfeld’s inclusion of a Bachelor-like reality show is a brilliant parallel to the scrutiny placed on characters in the neighborhood balls of Jane Austen’s novel, and readers will have no question about the crass nature of the younger Bennets, or the pride—and prejudice—of the heroine.”

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts, Joshua Hammer (Simon & Schuster; April 19) made the list with its account of a literary “Ocean’s Eleven” – the heist of centuries-old Arabic manuscripts under threat from Al Qaeda.

Marika Zemke, of Commerce Township Public Library, Commerce Township, MI shares this summary:

“For centuries, Arabic manuscripts were collected by private households in Mali, particularly Timbuktu: gilded manuscripts painted with real gold, showing vibrantly colored illustrations of nature. These highly valued manuscripts were handed down within families who acted as caretakers. As radicalized Muslim leaders came into power, the manuscripts were seen as corruptions of true Islam, requiring intervention. History and adventure at its best.”

Every Heart a Doorway, Seanan McGuire (Macmillan/Tor.com; Macmillan Audio; April 5) explores the other side of portal fantasy stories. Jennifer Kelley, of Kershaw County Library, Camden, SC invites readers to wonder:

“What happens to children who find a doorway into a fantasy land, and then come back into the mundane world? It’s certainly not a happily ever after scenario for these children, but those that find their way to Eleanor West’s school are learning to cope. Shortly after Nancy comes to the school, a series of horrific events occur. It’s up to her and others at the school to figure out who is committing these atrocities. This book is so wonderfully written.”

Three debuts make the list, including Tuesday Nights in 1980, Molly Prentiss (Gallery/Scout Press; April 5) which explores the NYC art world of the 80s.

Diane Scholl, of Batavia Public Library, Batavia, IL says:

“Following the lives of three individuals in New York on the cusp of 1980, this book was structured in such a unique and original way. Lucy is in her early twenties, experiencing life in a big city; James who after college finds himself the reigning critic of the art world and Raul, escaping the post Peron Dirty War in Argentina will find himself the art world’s new favorite; these three will find their lives entwined in many ways. A tragic accident will change all these characters and others close to them. This is a wonderful book that I wasn’t ready to finish.”

Librarians also selected the next books by several big names, including Nora Roberts, Amanda Quick, and Laurie R. King.

The full list is available now.

HBO has released a full-length trailer for the sixth season of Game of Thrones, premiering April 24.

As we reported earlier, this is the first season without a tie-in book. The first four seasons were fairly faithful to George R.R. Martin’s novels and all were released as tie-ins. Season five deviated from the book, but nonetheless A Dance with Dragons was released in mass market and trade paperback tie-in editions.

As Martin has famously not written beyond the current point of the HBO show, this season carries the story line beyond what readers know. That does not mean, however, that there are no book connections. The show runners are turning back to previous story lines in the books for at least some of this season’s events.

Both Vanity Fair and The Atlantic have snooped out the threads based on scenes unveiled in the trailer.

It seems parts of the known story surrounding the Greyjoy’s will play out. Vanity Fair spots trailer scenes depicting “the Kingsmoot, an epic-length event for the Ironborn, that sees them try to find a replacement king of the Iron Islands.”

The magazine also notes Ned Stark’s return via flashbacks that tell the story of Robert’s Rebellion and Ned’s battle to free his sister from the Tower of Joy.

The Atlantic picks up on the “power struggle among the Iron Islanders” as well as pointing out that a lot of book material supports “Arya’s continued life in the guild of assassins.” The magazine also reminds readers that Martin has supplied story outlines to showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. So while they are definitely working without a net, they are not totally without guidance.

The PEN America Center offers so many awards that they can begin to blur, especially since many of the finalists have already appeared on end-of-the year best books lists, or have won other major national awards.

The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction shortlist offers two correctives this year, bringing attention to a pair of titles that have slipped under most radars.

Despite glowing praise in the NYT comparing her work to George Eliot, Elizabeth Tallent’s short story collection, Mendocino Fire (Harper, Sept. 2015), received scant additional attention. The same holds for Julie Iromuanya’s debut novel, Mr. and Mrs. Doctor (Coffee House Press, May 2015), which received little notice beyond a mention in the NYT Sunday Book Review’s debut title round-up. As previously announced, it is also a finalist for the PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction.

The other PEN/Faulkner finalists fared better in the PR stakes.

Luis Alberto Urrea’s short story collection The Water Museum (Hachette/Little, Brown. April 2015) was on both the Washington Post ‘s and NPR’s best of the year lists. Urrea is well-known for his many other works, including Into the Beautiful North, one of 34 titles on NEA’s Big Read list. Showing particular relevance to today’s political discussions, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer says, The Water Museum “mines the tragedy, the dark comedy and the ultimate futility of erecting walls between cultures.”

The other two books on the short list are true literary darlings. James Hannaham’s Delicious Foods (Hachette/Little, Brown, March 2015) and The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Press, April 2015).

Both won major awards, or were on award short lists, and were on many end-of-year “best” lists. Showing remarkable range, The Sympathizer, called a “cerebral thriller about Vietnam and its aftermath” by the Washington Post, is also a nominee for a 2016 Edgar for Best First Novel as well as on the shortlist for the PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. Earlier this year, it won ALA’s Carnegie Medal for Fiction.

The winners of the PEN/Faulkner Awards will be announced on April 5th.

The headline of this post may seem odd, but it refers to the title of a book featured on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, an historical account of what author Adam Cohen considers “one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history,” Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck (PRH/Penguin; OverDrive Sample).

It recounts the 1927 case in which the Supreme Court voted 8-1 to uphold a state’s right to forcibly sterilize a citizen deemed “unfit” to procreate. The case grew out of the eugenics movement, which Cohen details as well.

Holds are light thus far but the title zoomed up the Amazon sales rankings to #72 after Fresh Air, making it a candidate to hit best seller lists next week.

If so, it won’t be Cohen’s first best seller. He is the author of Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America which hit the NYT‘s Nonfiction Hardcover list in 2009.

The holds leaders this week all feature the return of favorite characters.

Clawback: An Ali Reynolds Novel, J.A. Jance, (S&S/Touchstone; S&S Audio; Thorndike)

Off the Grid: Joe Pickett Novel #16, C.J. Box (Penguin/Putnam; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample)
Starred PW, “With this exceptional entry, Box solidifies his place at the upper level of the crime fiction pantheon.”

The Steel Kiss: Lincoln Rhyme Novels. Jeffery Deaver (Hachette/ Grand Central; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print; OverDrive Sample)
If you have a fear of escalators, look away. The cover and title refer to a key plot element, a man is gruesomely mangled when one of them malfunctions in a Brooklyn department store..

The titles covered here, 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 March 7, 2016.

Media Magnet

Love, Loss, and What We Ate, Padma Lakshmi, (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio)

As the former wife of Salman Rusheie and the co-host of Top Chef, Lakshmi’s story has appeal for a wide range of media, including NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday and People magazine.

And, yes, she spills the beans about her marriage.

Peer Picks

The March LibraryReads selections arriving this week include a literary psychological suspense novel which has been highly praised in the trade reviews and the next in a popular urban fantasy series.

All Things Cease to Appear, Elizabeth Brundage (PRH/Knopf; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Also a People magazine “Book of the Week,” called  an “insightful, evocative thriller”

Jennifer Dayton, of Darien Library, Darien, CT offers this annotation:

“When the Clare family purchases a ramshackle farmhouse at a foreclosure auction, it appears that all is well in their world, until George comes home one evening from his job as an Art History Professor at the local private college and finds his wife murdered and their three-year-old untended yet unharmed. Told through the eyes of the townspeople and the families involved, this is a gorgeously unsettling look at a marriage and what happens to a community in the process of change.”

A GalleyChatter favorite, Brundage earned All Stars status for the novel as well, racking up starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

Marked In Flesh: A Novel of the Others, Anne Bishop (PRH/Roc; BOT).
Emily Peros, of Denver Public Library, Denver, CO gives her take on the fourth of the Courtyards of the Others series:

“In this thrilling installment, Bishop continues to explore the relationships of The Others and the humans who live at the Lakeside compound. Meanwhile, Humans First and Last organization has been making themselves known, after the attacks in the previous book that killed numerous Others along with their “Wolf Lover” friends, they are not backing down. Little do they know it’s not the Others humans need to be wary of but the Elders for which the Others act as a buffer. This is an excellent installment in the novels of the Others, exciting, heart-wrenching and suspenseful.”

Four Indie Next March picks also arrive.

Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens, Steve Olson (W. W. Norton; OverDrive Sample).

“Eruption is everything a nonfiction book should be: Marvelous storytelling mixed with a great cast of characters, fascinating science, and little-known history. Anyone with even a passing interest in the Pacific Northwest or volcanoes will love this book. I read it in three long, satisfying gulps, and, like all great books, its stories linger in the mind long after you’ve read the last page.” —Tom Campbell, The Regulator Bookshop, Durham, NC

The Travelers, Chris Pavone (PRH/Crown; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Full of twists and turns, secrets and lies, and enough misdirection to keep you guessing, Pavone’s third novel delivers everything readers have come to expect from his thrillers. As in his previous work, the world of publishing takes a central role: This time it’s a fading travel magazine and its companion travel agencies in the midst of an acquisition. Will and Chloe are a young married couple dealing with a home in need of extensive repairs so Chloe decides to take a less active role at Travelers magazine after Will is brought on board as the European correspondent. When Will meets an alluring woman while on assignment, she will change his life in ways he never could have foreseen.” —Billie Bloebaum, A Children’s Place, Portland, OR

This third thriller by Pavone struck GalleyChatters as a “sure fire hit.”

Spill Simmer Falter Wither, Sara Baume (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; OverDrive Sample)

“Baume’s debut novel is a heartbreaking story of loneliness and friendship, depression and pure joy, as revealed through the relationship between a man and the dog he rescues. Baume’s transcendent use of language and utterly original voice had me stopping to read whole sentences — even entire paragraphs — aloud. Spill Simmer Falter Wither is an amazing achievement by a writer who makes her work seem effortless.” —Mary Wolf, Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse, Santa Fe, NM

What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, Helen Oyeyemi (PRH/Riverhead Books; OverDrive Sample).

“There is magic in Helen Oyeyemi’s writing. There is magic in the settings, which shift between the conventional and the fantastic as readers devotedly follow her characters down any path they please. There is magic in the tales themselves, as readers recognize a situation only to have it bloom into a flower they have never imagined before, full of beauty or of dread. And, most certainly, there is magic in such breathtaking prose and unimaginable characters. This is a captivating story collection, filled with both fairy tale whimsy and dark, complicated mystery. Highly recommended!” —Luisa Smith, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Tie-ins

Only one tie-in this week, but it is a biggie. As we reported earlier, the PR surrounding the second season start of Outlander is growing in advance of the April 9th premiere date.

Now comes the tie-in release of the novel that will power the next set of Jamie and Claire’s adventures, Dragonfly in Amber (Starz Tie-in Edition), Diana Gabaldon (PRH/Bantam; OverDrive Sample; also in Mass Market).

The cover art was tweeted by Gabaldon. It keeps with the lush yet dangerous tone of the trailer and supports the series new tag line, “The Etiquette of War.”

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

Book adaptations did not fare well this week as reviews are mixed for Tina Fey’s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (based on the memoir The Taliban Shuffle, Kim Barker, (PRH/Doubleday, 2011), tie-in: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (The Taliban Shuffle MTI): Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, (PRH/Anchor, 2/23/16).

Variety calls it “haphazard and often misguided” while Entertainment Weekly gives it a B-, starting the review with “;War zone rom-com’ is one of those movie concepts that, like ‘incest Western’ or ‘Holocaust farce,’ sounds like an idea maybe better left untapped.” Rolling Stone, however, praises Fey’s performance, as does Vanity Fair.

Audiences turned a cold shoulder to it. According to Entertainment Weekly, it performed “well under expectations of a double-digit opening”

Fulfilling and even exceeding expectations is the kids blockbuster Zootopia, now “the biggest Walt Disney Animation Studios opening of all time” surpassing even Frozen. It’s not based on a book, but there are tie-ins (see our listing).

Two adaptations hit screens small and large in the upcoming week; Season 2 of Amazon’s Bosch and The Young Messiah.

Bosch is one of Amazon Prime’s original series and is based on the detective novels by Michael Connelly. Titus Welliver stars as LA homicide detective Harry Bosch.

Season one was immediately successful with viewers (critics were warm) and became the only Amazon dramatic series renewed for a second season, according to the LA Times.

The first season drew from the novels City of Bones, Echo Park and The Concrete Blonde. The second season will rest on Trunk Music, The Last Coyote, and The Drop.

Timed for the run-up to Easter is the Biblical movie, The Young Messiah, starring Sean Bean, David Bradley, and Jonathan Bailey.

It is based on the Anne Rice novel originally published as Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (PRH, 2005). Rice’s second volume in the life of Christ came out in 2008, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana (PRH).

Tie-in editions of the first volume came out in late January and featured both the book and the movie title on the cover. The Young Messiah (Movie tie-in) (originally published as Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt), Anne Rice (PRH/Ballantine Books; OverDrive Sample – also in mass market).

Both adaptations hit screens on March 11.

Pat Conroy, who once told CBS News that “I always thought that if I told the story of the South, I would tell the history of the whole world,” has died of pancreatic cancer.

Conroy wrote The Prince of Tides, which dominated best seller lists for close to a year, The Great Santini, Beach Music, South of Broad, and several other novels and works of nonfiction, several of which were adapted into successful films.

Upon his death on March 4, the NYT wrote that Conroy’s books,

“captivated readers with their openly emotional tone, lurid family stories and lush prose that often reached its most affecting, lyrical pitch when evoking the wetlands around Beaufort, S.C.”

The paper further reports that Conroy was at work “on both a novel and a memoir about living in Atlanta in the 1970s” when he died. There is no news on whether or not those works will be completed. When he announced his condition on Facebook a few weeks ago, Conroy said “I owe you a novel and I intend to deliver it.”

The USA Today obituary features an illustrated tribute with clips from the films adapted from Conroy’s novels. The Washington Post provides segments of Conroy talking about his career, readers, and luck as a writer. The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR all offer tributes as well.

Holds queues are growing quickly for the debut novel The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (HC/Ecco; HarperAudio), just announced as the #1 Indie Next pick for April.

Entertainment Weekly calls it “one of 2016’s most talked-about debuts,” borne out by its appearance on several other most anticipated lists for the spring. Librarians are also fan, it delighted GalleyChatters and is a LibraryReads pick for March.

Jennifer Oleinik, University Book Store, Seattle, WA offers this summary:

“Welcome to the strikingly dysfunctional Plumb family: four siblings connected by little more than ‘The Nest,’ a joint trust fund that each has earmarked to support their unrealistic lifestyles. When Leo, the older brother and the center of the Plumb family universe, injures himself and a 19-year-old waitress in a scandalous car accident and endangers ‘The Nest’ just months before the funds are to be made available, the siblings come together for damage control. Sweeney artfully touches on each family member as they scramble to save the precarious lives they have built for themselves, bringing light and humor to her characters’ various plights. Funny, thoughtful, and filled with unique and complex characters — this book is a must-read.”

The memoir Lab Girl, Hope Jahren (PRH/Knopf; OverDrive Sample) also makes the list.
It too is picking up attention, with the WSJ selecting it as one of the six “The Hottest Spring Nonfiction Books.”

Pete Mulvihill, Green Apple Books, San Francisco, CA says that:

“This book has it all: nature, love, science, drama, heartbreak, joy, and plenty of dirt. Not since Cheryl Strayed’s Wild have I read such a rich and compelling nonfiction narrative. Lab Girl is the story of Jahren’s life in science, and her writing on the wonders of nature will renew your sense of awe. But more than that, it is an exploration of friendship, mental illness, parenthood, and the messiness of life. The only flaw — these pages fly by too quickly, leaving you wondering what you could possibly read next that will be just as good.”

The full list of bookseller picks, which is notably wide ranging this month, includes titles from big name authors (Augusten Burroughs, Tracy Chevalier, and Lisa Scottoline), another debut, and more nonfiction. Featured as well are two more titles that are also March LibraryReads picks, The Summer Before the War and Jane Steele.

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series moves closer to the big screen with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey set to star. Entertainment Weekly reports confirmation of long-standing rumors that Elba will play the gunslinger, joining.McConaughey as the man in black.

Efforts to adapt the series date back to at least 2007.  King told EW he is “delighted” and “surprised” that the series, which spans eight novels and flows into short stories and comics, is finally getting adapted:

“The thing is, it’s been a looong trip from the books to the film …When you think about it, I started these stories as a senior in college, sitting in a little sh-tty cabin beside the river in Maine, and finally this thing is actually in pre-production now.”

With all those titles to choose from, King says the film will not start at the beginning with 1982’s The Gunslinger (PRH/NAL, trade pbk. 2003)

“[The movie] starts in media res, in the middle of the story instead of at the beginning, which may upset some of the fans a little bit, but they’ll get behind it, because it is the story.”

EW speculates on which book might take center stage, guessing it could be “The Waste Lands  (PRH/NAL, trade pbk 2003.), the third book in the series, which is where much of King’s broader tower mythology began to coalesce.”

As recently as Oscar Sunday, Elba had been rumored to be a key contender for the next 007. While that could still happen, it is certain that Elba has his next hero character all lined up.

Sony plans to release the movie on Jan. 13, 2017 (UPDATE: Release moved to 2/17/17).

This month Costco’s book buyer, Pennie Clark Ianniciello, calls attention to a sleeper hit and its follow-up.

The influential Costco buyer is well known for bringing new attention to titles re-released in trade paperback, such as The Art Forger, The Orchardist and Beautiful Ruins, resulting in each book rising or making its debut on best seller lists.

This month she mixes it up, going back in time to a book first reviewed in the trades in 2009, Kathleen Grissom’s debut, The Kitchen House (S&S/Touchstone; OverDrive Sample), also setting up the author’s forthcoming second novel.

The Kitchen House is likely already in most collections. While the sleeper languished at first it became a huge book club hit based on the PR efforts of Grissom. So remarkable was its rise that in 2012 The Wall Street Journal ran a story on its rags to riches turn around (link may require a subscription).

Now Pennie is pushing it again, saying the antebellum story of a white indentured servant
has her “ready for Grissom’s follow-up novel,”
Glory Over Everything: Beyond the Kitchen House,(S&S; S&S Audio; April).

The Kitchen House is still in demand with
active holds at many libraries we checked and Glory Over Everything already showing
solid demand.

On Fresh Air yesterday, Nancy Jo Sales talked about her new book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, (PRH/Knopf; BOT and RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The book has received earlier media attention, including a Katie Couric special on ABC’s Nightline. As a result, was already fairly high on Amazon’s sales rankings, but Fresh Air kicked it up to #5.

Holds are strong on modest ordering. As we wrote earlier, this was a drop-in title and therefore was released too late for review coverage from the prepub media.

The political clout of a large and growing segment of women voters is analyzed by Rebecca Traister in All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation (Simon & Schuster).

A writer at large for New York Magazine and a noted figure in journalism and historical/political research related to women, Traiter’s newest book is getting a wide coverage. The author appears today on CBS This Morning:

This book has been heavily anticipated. In 2014, Traister appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition, when it was still  in progress, giving an overview of her findings.

Thus far, library orders are very light but media attention may fuel demand .

Next week is blessedly free of titles arriving with long holds queues, but fans are anticipating several titles from repeat authors, including Clive Cussler’s 9th in the Isaac Bell historical detective series, The Gangster, a posthumous collection of Maeve Binchy short stories, A Few Of The Girls, and a new thriller by James Grippando, Gone Again.

The titles covered here, 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 Feb. 28

Media Magnets

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond (PRH/Crown; BOT).

Focusing on one of the most heartbreaking aspects of poverty, the loss of a home, Evicted has already struck a chord with the media. Following four starred prepub reviews, the New York Times gave it an unusually early review on Monday, and also profiled the author. Earlier, The New Yorker published an excerpt. Coverage is also coming in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. [UPFATE: Featured on the cover of the NYT Book Review, Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed credits Desmond with having “set a new standard for reporting on poverty.”]

The first paragraph of the daily NYT review is a grabber:

“One of the most heartbreaking moments in Matthew Desmond’s Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City — and there’s a shameful assortment to choose from — is when 13-year-old Ruby Hinkston takes refuge in the public library. She’s come to use the computer. It turns out that she’s been slowly building her dream house with a free online game, and she wants to visit it again.”

The review goes on to describe the horrible conditions Ruby faces at home.

All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, Rebecca Traister (S&S; S&S Audio).

In their list of “Don’t-miss nonfiction,” Entertainment Weekly wrote, “The literary world is already buzzing about journalist Traister’s history of the unmarried American woman.” Highlights of the media attention below:

• New York Times Sunday Review, 2/28
• CBS This Morning, 2/29
• NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross, 3/1
• Daily New York Times review, 3/6

Above the Line: My Wild Oats Adventure, Shirley MacLaine, (S&S; S&S Audio).

Of course MacLaine will be getting attention, including appearances on the Today show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, both scheduled for March 15. The next day, she will step across the aisle to Fox & Friends. Reviewed in the Washington Post.

Peer Picks

The return of a favorite author and the debut of a new one are the highlights this week from the March LibraryReads picks.

Proving her ability to write across genres and make readers and librarians take note, Lisa Lutz turns to thrillers in The Passenger (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio).

Beth DeGeer, of Bartlesville Public Library, Bartlesville, OK offers this annotation:

“This is a compulsively readable story of a young woman who has to keep switching identities and stay on the run. Is she a reliable narrator or not? What was the original event that sent her on the run? There is a lot of action and suspense as she tries to survive and evade the law while trying to keep her moral center intact. Unlike Lutz’s Spellman books, this reads more like a Charles Portis road novel, though considerably more serious and dangerous. Highly recommended.”

It is also a March Indie Next selection and was hit with our GalleyChatters.

Debut novelist Catherine Lowell offers a new take on the ongoing interest in all things Jane Eyre in The Madwoman Upstairs (S&S/Touchstone).

Kristen McCallum, of the Algonquin Area Public Library, Algonquin, IL invites readers to:

“Meet Samantha Whipple, a descendant of the Bronte family, who arrives at Oxford to study literature, as her father did before her. She receives a copy of Jane Eyre – a volume that she thought was destroyed in the fire that took her father’s life. When a second Bronte novel belonging to her father turns up, she is convinced he has staged an elaborate treasure hunt for her promised inheritance. Enlisting the help of her sexy, young professor, Samantha sets out on a quest to find buried treasure and learns the value of friendship and courage along the way.”

It too is an Indie Next selection for March and a GalleyChat hit.

Three additional Indie Next picks pub this week as well, among them a book on physics that is getting compared to poetry.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli (PRH/Riverhead Books; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“With a deft sensibility associated more often with poetry than theoretical physics, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics not only makes understandable the transcendent physical discoveries of the past century, but also reveals their powerful relevance to the human spirit. A revelatory and concise account of quantum mechanics, relativity, and the delight in both finding answers and seeking new questions, this jewel of a book lyrically demystifies the extraordinary realities of the cosmos.” —Robin J. Dunn, St. John’s College Bookstore, Annapolis, MD

Bottomland, Michelle Hoover (Grove Press/Black Cat; Blackstone Audio).

“In the years following World War I, the Hess family settles on Iowa farmland hoping to escape anti-German sentiment. Two of their girls disappear as the U.S. marches towards World War II, and relationships both within and outside of the family suffer. Based loosely on an unearthed family secret, Hoover has written an atmospheric novel evocative of both a time and place.” —Kris Kleindienst, Left Bank Books, St. Louis, MO

Blackass, A. Igoni Barrett (Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample).

“We have seen transformation handled masterfully in literature, and Blackass, with its black, Nigerian protagonist waking up in the body of a white man, immediately calls to mind Kafka’s Metamorphosis. But this is something more, something different. There is a willingness here to confront how we create our identities — racially, politically, and even on social media. Barrett does this with intelligence and a playful humor that is by turns bright and biting. There is an edge to Blackass, a fire, the beginning of trouble. This is Kafka for the Kanye generation.” —Kenny Coble, King’s Books, Tacoma, WA

All Star

At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others, Sarah Bakewell (PRH/Other Press; OverDrive Sample).

Bakewell introduced many readers to the 16th century philosopher Michel de Montaigne in How To Live: Or A Life Of Montaigne In One Question And Twenty Attempts At An Answer (2010). In her follow up, she moves ahead to the 20th century in a book starred by all four pre-pub sources. Booklist points out that it’s not all arcane philosophy, “With coverage of friendship, travel, argument, tragedy, drugs, Paris, and, of course, lots of sex, Bakewell’s biographical approach pays off.”

Tie-ins

There are three official tie-ins this week.

Rudyard Kipling’s beloved story collection gets a second Disney adaption on April 15th, this time as a live action film (the animated Disney version came out in 1967 and was the last film Walt himself worked on).

As we reported earlier, Disney is pushing the film hard, running the trailer during the Super Bowl.

The Jungle Book: The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack, Scott Peterson, Joshua Pruett (Hachette/Disney Press) is an illustrated novel based on the movie.

In support of the new Syfy 13-episode series Hunters, starting April 11, Alien Hunter comes out in a tie-in edition entitled Hunters, Whitley Strieber (Macmillan/Tor Books).

It is the first novel in an ongoing series. The second is Alien Hunter: Underworld. A third, Alien Hunter: The White House, is due in April.

The show combines thriller and SF in an alien conspiracy story, where the aliens are terrorists.

Another tie-in for Sundance’s Hap and Leonard series comes out this week as well. This time it is the complete collection of the previous Lansdale short stories augmented with one new story and an introduction written by Michael Koryta.

Hap and Leonard, Joe R. Lansdale (Perseus/PGW/Tachyon Publications).

As we reported when the first tie-in came out, the series debuts on March 2.

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

Head of the National Security Agency and the CIA during some of the most tense and controversial years of American history, Michael V. Hayden surveys his tenure in the Bush administration, detailing what occurred and why from his point of view, in Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample – embargoed until yesterday’s pub date).

The book is currently #10 on Amazon’s Top Sellers. Library holds thus far are in keeping with fairly low level of ordering. Holds may still grow, as word about this embargoed title spreads.

Author Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down) reviewing the book for The New York Times is not impressed:

“Mr. Hayden seems oblivious … He has written an occasionally engaging book about matters — moral, legal and technological — that are very complex, but he shows little interest in examining them. Throughout he is breezy and unapologetic. And why not? At the same time his efforts were being met by public criticism, they led to steady praise and promotion. He ended his Air Force career a four-star general.”

While not passing judgment on the book itself, NPR’s Robert Siegel conducted a probing interview with Hayden for All Things Considered earlier this week. In one key moment Siegel asks: “What did you tell Leon Panetta, your successor as CIA director, to say about waterboarding?”

Hayden replies:

“Do not use the word ‘torture’ and ‘CIA’ in the same sentence ever again. You can object to some of the enhanced interrogation techniques. You can, in your heart of hearts, believe they meet some legal definition of torture. But Leon, you’re taking over a workforce that did these things in good faith. They did these things with the assurance of the attorney general that they indeed were not torture. Do not accuse them of felonies.”

He also says that it was the US intelligence agencies that got the facts about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction wrong, not the Bush administration. “We were wrong. It was a clean swing and a miss. It was our fault.”

MSNBC’s Morning Joe featured Hayden in a long segment yesterday.