EarlyWord is the home of GalleyChat, monthly online discussions where library staff share excitement about upcoming books. More information here.
Summaries of chats and announcements are posted to the right. Use them to add to your own TBR piles and for collection development.
Links on the far right of the site offer information useful to readers advisors.
Hope to see you during our next chat,
GalleyChatters
This week, Comedy Central shows interview the following authors,
The Colbert Report
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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Ebook available from OverDrive
The Colbert Report
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Ebook and audio available from OverDrive
Unabridged Audio from Tantor:
Trade 9781400111565 11 Audio CD $39.99
Library 9781400141562 11 Audio CD $79.99
MP3 9781400161560 2 MP3-CD $29.99
CBS Sunday Morning‘s feature, Spokes Women, about female motorcycle riders, propelled the book, American Motorcycle Girls to #332 (from #141,249) on the Amazon best seller list.
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The first book to examine the newly-passed health care legislation is coming at the end of April.
Written by the staff of the Washington Post, Landmark: The Inside Story of America’s New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All, will be published in paperback by PublicAffairs. The publisher describes it this way,
…despite the incessant and often rancorous debate that preceded the bill’s passage , most Americans still don’t understand what is in the final legislative package or what reform will—or won’t—mean for them. In Landmark, reporters and editors from the national staff of the Washington Post provide a comprehensible summary of the legislation the president will sign into law, and examine the impacts it will have on Americans in various categories, on health care providers and insurers, and on the health care system as a whole. They also provide a fascinating behind-the-scenes narrative of how the legislation came together, and of the political obstacles, events, negotiations, and compromises that helped determine its shape.
[via GalleyCat]
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Nancy Pearl’s PLA Book Buzz session attracted a huge audience, as predicted, only slightly dwarfed by an enormous room (PLA president Sari Feldman noted in her intro. that PLA gets a bigger room for this session each time).
Nancy began this program at PLA 2006 in Boston. She invites library marketers to talk about the titles they are particularly excited about (I’m pleased to say I was part of the inaugural group; I was head of library marketing at Hachette at the time). This is an opportunity to tap in to that legendary source of word of mouth, “in-house buzz.” It also gives librarians a great way to create their own “galleys to grab” lists prior to the opening of the show floor (indeed, that appeared to work, as publishers’ booths were inundated shortly after the doors opened).
Our heroine, Barbara Hoffert, LJ‘s Book Review Editor, managed to post an amazing roundup of titles mentioned at 2:30 the next morning. We will post links to each publisher’s roundup as they become available (Macmillan’s is up now).
Karl Malantes’ much-anticipated Vietnam novel, Matterhorn is being released today; you’ll be seeing it covered in many consumer reviews.
USA Today both interviewed the author about the book’s long journey to publication (Marlantes wrote the first draft in 1977) and reviewed the book yesterday. Calling it “brutally vivid”, reviewer Carol Memmott notes that it also shows war as a reflection of society,
…as much a tribute to the Marine culture of bravery as it is a dissection of a contentious war and a meditation on the American civil rights movement and how it spilled over into the fighting holes of Southeast Asia.
More reviews are in the pipeline; it’s scheduled for the New York Times Book Review on April 4th. Also coming are reviews in:
Washington Post
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Oregonian
Los Angeles Times
Seattle Times
Marlantes is going on a 25 city-tour beginning April 8th. In an innovative move, the publisher hosted a pre-publication dinner for the author with librarians from his home state, Washington, including Nancy Pearl.
The book is rising on both Amazon, where it’s at #50, and B&N.com, where it’s featured on the home page and cracked the top ten, rising to #8.
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Blackstone Audio; UNABR
17 CDs; 1-4417-4228-5; $123.00
2 MP3CDs; 1-4417-4231-5;$44.95
Playaway;1-4417-4234-6; $79.99
15 Tapes; 1-4417-4227-8; $105.95
Audio available from OverDrive
The Romance Writers of America have announced the finalists for awards in 12 categories. Just a few of their covers are pictured above; over 90 books were nominated (a good opportunity for a display):
In addition, Jennifer Lohmann of Durham County (NC) Library has been named the RWA Librarian of the Year.
The awards will be presented on July 30, 2010 at the association’s annual conference in Nashville.
Steven Spielberg and his DreamWorks Studio may begin production of the movie version of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help this summer, to be directed by Tate Taylor. Included in his qualifications for the job is the fact that he and Stockett have been friends since they were five years old. In an article yesterday, the AP describes their relationship and notes that Stockett is at work on her second novel, set in Mississippi during the Depression and is involved in casting the movie.
People magazine recently offered casting suggestions:
Claire Danes as Skeeter — In the book, recent college grad Skeeter moves back to her home town, Jackson, Mississippi, in the ’60’s. She talks a group of black maids into telling her their stories in hopes of getting a book deal (and out of Jackson). People thinks Danes’ performance as Temple Grandin in the HBO movie proves she could handle this role.
Oprah Winfrey as Aibileen — she’s been in a Spielberg movie before; The Color Purple. She should be ready for a comeback!
Anne Hathaway as Hilly — People thinks it’s time for her to play the mean girl and Hilly’s plenty mean, browbeating not only her maid Aibileen, but her small circle of friends.
Mo’Nique as Minny — Aibileen’s feisty best friend deserves an equally feisty actress.
Scarlett Johansson as Celia — as an outsider, Celia is the only woman in town who will hire Minny. People notes the character does a lot of “lying around,” which “sounds perfect” Johansson.
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Penguin Audio; ISBN: 9780143144182 $39.95
Downloadable from OverDrive in both eBook and audio
A current reviewers favorite is Norwegian crime novelist Jo Nesbo and his new book, The Devil’s Star. If you’re attending PLA this week, don’t miss the Mystery Panel, where he will be speaking along with:
Karin Slaughter, Broken (Delacorte Press/Random House Inc., June 2010)
Ted Dekker, The Bride Collector (Center Street/Hachette Book Group, April 2010)
Cara Black, Murder in the Palais Royal: An Aimée Leduc Investigation (Soho Press, March 2010)
Meg Gardiner, The Liar’s Lullaby (Dutton/Penguin, June 2010)
Dana Haynes, Crashers (Minotaur Books/Macmillan, July 2010)
Friday, March 26
10:30 – 11:45 a.m.
Oregon Convention Center
Portland Ballroom #253-254
Reviews have been stellar, including:
The book’s publication prompted the Economist to try to answer the ongoing question, “Why are Nordic detective novels so successful?” a question Slate also tried their hand at last year.
Maybe it’s the weather. As the Economist puts it,
The cold, dark climate, where doors are bolted and curtains drawn, provides a perfect setting for crime writing. The nights are long, the liquor hard, the people, according to Mr Nesbo, “brought up to hide their feelings” and hold on to their secrets.
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Ebook available from OverDrive
Arriving on the 3/28 NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list are two contrasting debuts; one’s been a slow-building sleeper success and the other come out of the box with high expectations.
As we predicted two weeks ago, Viking’s big gamble of the season has become a best seller, hitting the list at #7. Critics have either loved it or hated it.
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Penguin Audiobooks: 03/09/2010; $39.95; ISBN 9780143145264
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A British village novel with a modern twist has charmed critics and readers; it arrives at #14 (tied with #13).
The libraries we checked show a different pattern; Major Pettigrew is ahead of Angelology in the number of holds, on about the same number of copies.
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Random House Audio; UNABR; 9780307712844; $40
Audio downloadable from OverDrive
The next big animated 3-D kids movie on the horizon is How to Train Your Dragon, based on the book by Cressida Cowell, coming on Friday. The NYT writes that the look of the film is different from the norm,
From washed-out landscapes to minimally lighted rooms, the Nordic locations in Dragon feel more lived in and rough edged — more realistic — than one typically finds in animation.
Check it out on the movie web site.
Newmarket has released a book that explores the creation of the movie.
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And, HarperFestival has several tie-ins.
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But, its the original series, newly released in paperback, that debuts on the 3/28 NYT Childrens Series Books Best Seller list at #10.
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If you think Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is just another novelty, tossed off to take advantage of the mashup craze, listen to the author Seth Grahame-Smith on NPR‘s Weekend Edition. He tells Liane Hansen how much work it was to create and talks about the book’s serious central theme that ties slaveholders and vampires together,
I see them as sort of one and the same. Both creatures, basically slaveholders and vampires, steal lives — take the blood of others — to enrich themselves.
Grahame-Smith bases the book in reality; Lincoln was a “great admirer of all things gothic… as we all know Lincoln could be particularly morbid in his darker days… He’s very tall with sunken eyes, he was… the original Goth.”
The book continues at #5 (tied with #4) on the 3/28 NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list after two weeks.
Will Grahame-Smith continue writing mashups? No, he says his writing “will always contain elements of the supernatural, a bit of history, and maybe some pop culture,” but he “wants to do more original storytelling.”
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Hachette Audio; UNABR; 9781607881735; $26.98
BBC Audio: UNABR; 9781607883548; $69.99
ebook and audio available from OverDrive
The trailer’s just been released. The movie, starring Julia Roberts, arrives in theaters on August 16th.
Amazingly, some libraries still have holds of over 2:1 on the book.
Do you remember the bad old days when publishers didn’t bring adult galleys to the library shows?
Those days are long over. Today, the challenge is to figure out which galleys to grab and which ones to lug (or ship) back home.
Of course, you’ll be seeking out new books from long-time favorite authors, like Isabel Allende’s Island Beneath the Seas (HarperCollins, 4/27; booth #1232) and Alexander McCall Smith’s Corduroy Mansions (Pantheon/Random House, 7/13; booth #2570).
Not only are galleys available at the booths, there will also be author signings, including some big names — check out the ads in the PLA program (a preview of Penguin’s is here — hint — SUE GRAFTON!)
You’ll also be looking for galleys that have already been getting advance buzz, like Norton’s wonderfully-titled The Lonely Polygamist, by Brady Udall, which many considered the “Book of the Show” at the American Booksellers Assoc’s Winter Institute last month (it just received the ultimate New Yorker accolade; I was so absorbed in it the other day that I missed my subway stop. And, yes, I caught people staring at the title).
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The buzz on Ballantine’s apocolyptic vampire novel, The Passage, coming in June, has been building for months (see our January story). The publisher seems determined to blanket the earth with copies of the 700-page behemoth and Portland will be no exception (get it at the Random House booth, #2570).
But, the real “gets” of the show floor are the titles you didn’t know you were looking for. We talked to publisher’s library marketing folks to find out what you shouldn’t overlook. Their responses are below.
We want to hear about your finds at the show. On Friday, April 16th, after you’ve had some time to sort through your treasures, we will host a “Galley Chat” Tweetup. More details coming soon shortly.
Macmillan’s library marketing guru, Talia Sherer (recently named a “Mover & Shaker” by Library Journal; be sure to congratulate her!) says that Still Missing by Chevy Stevens is the BIG thriller debut from St. Martins Press.
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Virginia Stanley wants you to look out for A Fierce Radiance by Lauren Belfer (you can listen here to her excitement when she presented it at the HarperCollins Book Buzz session during MidWinter). She says it’s a perfect book club book.
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Mike Rockliff is enthusiastic about Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger, by Lee Smith, which just got 4 of a possible 4 stars in People (3/29) and also:
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In the welter of galleys at the RH booth (they DO represent a lot of imprints), including The Passage, and Lisa Unger’s forthcoming Fragile (Shaye Areheart; August), Jen Childs says not to overlook a debut historical novel set in fifteenth-century Spain.
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We already mentioned The Lonely Polygamist, by Brady Udall. Golda Rademacher tells us that The Red Thread by Ann Hood, the author of The Knitting Circle, has been getting great response. Hood will go on an extensive national tour this spring/summer and is scheduled for the Diane Rehm Show (NPR) on 5/3. PW ‘s and LJ‘s reviews are in and are enthusiastic (LJ; “Hood offers a thoughtful novel about the yearning for a child that’s primed to be a book club pick”).
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Penguin will be hosting some big names at their booth. In addition, Alan Walker points to galleys of the next big book by editor Amy Einhorn at Putnam (the first title under her recently-created imprint was The Help. She also published this season’s hit, The Postmistress). Called The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, it “imagines a love affair that would threaten Louisa’s writing career.”
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Howell has a book that to combines two subjects that appeal to librarians; earth friendliness and pets. The author will be signing in the booth on Thurs. at 3 p.m.
And, if you can tear yourself away from the goodies in the conference center to check out the city, be sure to check out Frommer’s online guide to Portland (published by Wiley).
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The HBO series The Pacific launched last week, Hurt Locker won big at the Oscars, the Green Zone, a movie based on a book about soldiers in Baghdad releases today — it feels like we’re surrounded by American wars, both past and present.
And now, coming next week, one of the most anticipated novels of the season is about a group of Marines in Vietnam, Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.
It has an interesting publishing history. The author, a Vietnam Marine veteran himself, spent years looking for a publisher. Berkeley nonoprofit El Leon Press finally acquired it and published it. The author then submitted it to B&N’s “Discover Great New Writers Program,.” B&N loved it, but felt it needed the help of a larger publisher for marketing and distribution. Independent publisher Grove Atlantic stepped up and became co-publisher.
If you’re wondering how women will respond to this gritty, realistic portrayal of war (leeches are only part of it), in an interview in Shelf Awareness, Marlantes says,
I have to say, it was women who rescued this book from obscurity. So many women were early readers, and so many women love the book. One of the best blurbs for Matterhorn is from a woman, the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Christina Robb. I think the intense relationships appeal to women readers, and they are curious about not only Vietnam but about combat in general. I’ve had several women call me or e-mail me with statements like, “Until I read your novel, I never understood why my brother is all by himself up in Alaska” or “why my husband behaves as he does.” This is very gratifying to me.
Rival retailers, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as independent booksellers, are all backing it. It was the talk of the American Booksellers Association’s MidWinter Institute last month and they made it an Indie Next pick for April. Amazon is featuring it on the Books home page as the lead titles of seven Best Books of the Month, resulting in a steady rise on Amazon’s sales rankings. B&N is promoting it with e-mail campaigns and special instore displays (in a further sign that B&N expects it to be a big book, they’ve alreay issued a press release, lauding their own involvement with the book’s publication).
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Blackstone Audio; UNABR
17 CDs; 1-4417-4228-5; $123.002 MP3CDs; 1-4417-4231-5;$44.95Playaway;1-4417-4234-6; $79.9915 Tapes; 1-4417-4227-8; $105.95
A book that takes a contrarian approach to business, Rework, arrives on the new USA Today best seller list at #49.
It has been rising on Amazon as well, reaching as high as #4 last week. The authors, miffed that Karl Rove’s book shot above theirs, retaliated with this video (via Gawker):
They might also have noted that while Rove’s book is reviewed in places like The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, theirs is reviewed by PC Pro and Inc.com.
Rove’s book is currently at #11 on Amazon. Rework is at #12.
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RH Audio; UNABR; 9780307704511; $24
ebook and audio available from OverDrive
