THE big title of the fall arrives next week, John Grisham’s Gray Mountain … George R.R. Martin fans will have something to tide them over until The Winds of  Winter arrives … and several titles are already getting media bumps.

All 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 10/20/14

Holds Leaders

Gray Mountain, John Grisham, (RH/Doubleday; RH Audio; RH Large Print), OverDrive Sample

Grisham’s latest is not only the holds leader for the week, but for the entire season. The protagonist is a young lawyer, Samantha Kofer, who, after her cushy corporate job is ended by the collapse of Lehman Bros., takes on pro bono work in a small Appalachian coal town. There she learns, up close and personal, how people’s lives are ruined by the machinations of big companies. PW suggests this “may be the debut of a series character.”

Shopaholic to the Stars, Sophie Kinsella, (RH/Dial; RH Audio, BOT; Thorndike, 11/1), OverDrive Sample

A distant second to the Grisham in holds for the week, but still strong, this is the first new title in the series in four years. A relocation to Hollywood offers shopaholic Becky the opportunity to fulfill what seems to be her ultimate destiny as a celebrity stylist. The author is scheduled to appear on CBS This Morning on Wednesday.

George R.R. Martin Teases 

Game of Thrones fans will soon be teased by two “new” books by George R.R. Martin (the eagerly anticipated next book in the series, The Winds Of Winter, is expected in 2015, but no pub date has been announced). Coming next week, is a Y.A. title, The Ice Dragon, (Macmillan/Tor Teen). Originally published as part of the 1980 anthology of stories, Dragons of Light, edited by Orson Scott Card, it was then republished as a stand-alone book in 2007, now out of print. The new edition features artwork by Spanish artist Luis Royo. Entertainment Weekly previewed it in August, saying “the book’s themes more resemble those of a children’s fable than HBO-ready sex-and-gore fare.”  OverDrive Sample

Arriving next week is The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones
by George R.R. Martin, Elio Garcia, Linda Antonsson (RH/Bantam), which gives further background on the series to insatiable fans.

In the Media

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson, (RH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio),  OverDrive Sample

Audio sample:

Nicholas Kristof in a column in the NYT Book Review last week notes that Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, as “America’s young Nelson Mandela.” In the long blurb on the cover, John Grisham says that Stevenson is  “… doing god’s work fighting for the poor, the oppressed, the voiceless, the vulnerable, the outcast and those with no hope. Just Mercy is his inspiring and powerful story.”

Stevenson appeared on the Daily Show last night and is scheduled for NPR’s Fresh Air on Monday.

The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books. Azar Nafisi, (Penguin/Viking)

Audio sample:

This week brought a rare occurrence, an author featured on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Not only that, Meyers called Asar Nafisi, “cool”  (Part One, Part Two). In this book, she attempts to answer the question of whether books can be as meaningful to Americans as they were to her Iranian students in her best seller, Reading Lolita in Tehran.

Food: A Love Story, Jim Gaffigan, (RH/Crown; BOT, read by author)

Audio sample:

In the follow-up to his bestseller Dad Is Fat, comedian Jim Gaffigan writes about his favorite topic, food. He will be featured in a cover story in Parade Magazine, and on the Today Show on Monday.

Rosewater: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival, Maziar Bahari, Aimee Molloy, (Random House Trade Paperbacks; Tantor Audio), OverDrive Sample

Tie-ins rarely get featured in the media, but this case is different:

The first trailer has just been released for Ron Howard’s upcoming movie In the Heart of the Sea. Scheduled to arrive in theaters on March 13, it is based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s book of the same title.

Related Books

Philbrick won the 2000 National Book Award in Nonfiction for In the Heart of the Sea, about the Essex, a Nantucket ship hunting whales in the South Pacific in 1819, when it was stalked and eventually sunk by a sperm whale, setting the crew adrift for 90 days.

Philbrick also published a version for young readers, Revenge of the Whale, (Penguin/Puffin, 2004).

The movie stars Chris Hemsworth as the whaling ship Essex’s first mate Owen Chase. His account of the story, published in 1821, inspired Herman Melville (played byBen Whishaw in the movie) to write Moby Dick. Chase’s book is still available in several editions, including The Loss of the Ship Essex, Sunk by a Whale, (Penguin Classics, 2000) with an introduction by Philbrick.

Tie ins (for tie-ins to all upcoming book adaptations, check our Edelweiss catalog):

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex (Movie Tie-in)
Nathaniel Philbrick
Penguin, Trade Paperback January 27, 2015
9780143126812, 0143126814

Audio: January 27, 2015
Nathaniel Philbrick, Scott Brick
9781611763577, 1611763576

Saturday Night Live has been sending up YA film adaptations.

Last week, dystopian movies got the treatment:

The week before, it was a “grounded” YA film:

Look what’s rising on Amazon’s sales rankings:

Ebola Survival Handbook: A Collection of Tips, Strategies, and Supply Lists From Some of the World’s Best Preparedness Professionals
Lost Arts Publishing (Author)
Pbk, 138 pages, $7.95
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 9/22/14
ISBN-10: 1502449870

Published via Amazon’s self-publishing platform, CreateSpace, the book appears to only be available via Amazon (some copies are being sold on EBay).

Bloomberg News published a story earlier this month, “Ebola Fears in U.S. Boost Sales of Emergency Supplies,” which includes the book. It is also featured on several survivalist Web sites, many of which are run by the authors of the articles collected in the book.

Also rising in sales is Richard Preston’s 1994 book The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus, (RH/Anchor trade paperback, also available as mass market pbk; S&S Audio), about an Ebola outbreak in Washington D.C. It’s currently at #27 on Amazon’s sales rankings and libraries are showing holds. OverDrive Sample.

UPDATE: Preston publishes new reporting on Ebola in the 10/28 issue of the New Yorker, and is interviewed in the NYT Book Review.

We’ve become so used to the goofy Steve Carrell, on full display in theaters now as the dad in Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, that it may be difficult to believe that same guy plays billionaire John du Pont in this trailer.

The movie, which opens on Nov. 14, is generating Oscar buzz, (read what the cast members, including Vanessa Redgrave, have to say about it here).

It is based on the forthcoming hardcover

Foxcatcher: The True Story of My Brother’s Murder, John du Pont’s Madness, and the Quest for Olympic Gold, by Mark Schultz, and David Thomas

(Penguin/Dutton, 11/18)

Jonathan Yardley, the nonfiction book critic for the Washington Post since 1981, is retiring. Known as an iconoclast (if you’re not a fan of Salinger’s, you’ll enjoy his reassessment of Catcher in the Rye as “a maladroit, mawkish novel” that is suffused with “cheap sentimentality”), he also won a Pulitzer for criticism.

On Monday, it was announced that Carlos Lozada  will replace Yardley, leaving his current job as editor of the paper’s Sunday opinion section, Outlook.

Interviewed by Poynter.org yesterday, Lozada talked about his plans, which are focused on “building a digital audience,” by using “author interviews; short posts that highlight key nuggets from new books; deep dives on trends in nonfiction,” such as his piece, “The End of Everything” and adds, “while I know that lots of people use reviews to help them decide which books to buy and read, lots of them also see reviews as a substitute for reading the book. I certainly do – there isn’t enough time to read everything, right? And I want to respect those readers and their needs, too, which is where I hope these other forms can help.”

Asked whether he will cover book selling (the interviewer notes, “I can think of a company that might be really interesting to cover!”), he says that he’ll leave the business used to the paper’s “great business/financial writers.”

Announced on NPR’s Morning Edition today, the finalist for the National Book Awards (winners to be announced on Nov. 19). Listen here, or see the list below:

Fiction

Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman, (Grove Press, Brilliance Audio), OverDrive Sample

Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See, (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; Thorndike), OverDrive Sample— Both a LibraryReads and an IndieNext pick

Phil Klay, Redeployment, (Penguin Press; Penguin Audio; Thorndike), OverDrive Sample

Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (RH/Knopf; RH Audio; Thorndike), OverDrive Sample — LibraryReads pick

Audio Sample:

Marilynne Robinson, Lila (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio; Thorndike), OverDrive Sample — IndieNext pick

Nonfiction

Roz Chast, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Macmillan/Bloomsbury), OverDrive Sample

Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes
(Macmillan/Holt; Highbridge), OverDrive Sample

John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, (Norton; Brilliance), OverDrive Sample

Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China (Macmillan/FSG, Brilliance Audio), OverDrive Sample

Edward O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence, (Norton/Liveright)

Young People’s Literature

Threatened, Eliot Schrefer, (Scholastic Press), OverDrive Sample — The author’s previous book, Endangered, was a 2012 finalist

The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights, Steve Sheinkin, (Macmillan/Roaring Brook; Listening Library), OverDrive Sample  — The author’s Bomb: The Race to Build and Steal The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon was a 2012 finalist

Audio Sample:

Noggin, John Corey Whaley, (S&S/Atheneum; S&S Audio), OverDrive Sample — The author’s Where Things Come Back, was a Printz Award Winner

Revolution: The Sixties Trilogy, Book Two, Deborah Wiles, (Scholastic Press; Listening Library) — The author’s Each Little Bird That Sings, was a National Book Award Finalist

Audio Sample:

 

Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson, (Nancy Paulsen Books/ Penguin Group; Listening Library), OverDrive Sample — The author was a finalist for both Locomotion and Hush

Audio Sample:

Poetry

Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night, (Macmillan/Farrar, Straus and Giroux),  OverDrive Sample 

Fanny Howe, Second Childhood, (Graywolf Press)

Maureen N. McLane, This Blue, (Macmillan/Farrar, Straus and Giroux),  OverDrive Sample 

Fred Moten, The Feel Trio, (Letter Machine Editions)

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

Originally scheduled for release on Christmas Day, the Weinstein Co.’s adaptation of Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear has been moved to a different holiday, the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Jan. 16.

Official Movie Site: Paddington.com (which includes a look at Paddington as envisioned by various illustrators)

For tie-ins, check our Edelweiss collection.

Richard Flanagan has won the Man Booker Award for his sixth novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, (RH/Knopf; Blackstone Audio), described  by the judges as a “magnificent novel of love and war.” He was featured in August on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday.

Seattle librarian David Wright praised it last month in the Seattle Times. In the Washington Post, critic Ron Charles reacted strongly to it, warning readers that it can, “cast a shadow over your summer and draw you away from friends and family into dark contemplation the way only the most extraordinary books can. Nothing since Cormac McCarthy’s The Road has shaken me like this — all the more so because it’s based on recorded history, rather than apocalyptic speculation.”

In the daily New York Times, however, Michiko Kakutani called it “adeeply flawed,” but appreciated Flanagan’s ability to “communicate both the abominations that men are capable of inflicting upon one another, and the resilience many display in the face of utter misery.”

Read a sample here, via OverDrive; audio sample here.

Flanagan is Australian. This was the first year that the Awards were opened to Americans. Four were on the longlist and two made the transition to the shortlist of six; Joshua Ferris, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour,  Hachette/Little,Brown) and Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, (Penguin/Putnam/Marian Wood).

Historically, Booker winners have gone on to become best sellers in the U.S. UPDATE: The Narrow Road to the Deep North, rose to #16 on Amazon’s sales rankings the day after the announcement.

The author of the Wolf Hall series, Hilary Mantel, puts the BBC on notice that she won’t appreciate it if their adaptation of her books, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, indulges in the kind of “nonsense” that the Americans brought to history in The Tudors TV series on Showtime. Speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival over the weekend,  she said, “At some point, someone had decided that it was too complex for Henry VIII to have two sisters, so they rolled them into one. Then they had to find a fictitious king for her to marry, so I think they invented a king from Portugal unknown to history. It’s so shaming, and it stems from not trusting the intelligence of the viewer,”

Reporting on the session, The Telegraph notes that the author dashed hopes that the third in the book trilogy, The Mirror and The Light, will appear next year, saying it is “unlikely to be ready until 2016.“

What do you do when the first movie in a planned YA series bombs at the box office?

You may want to consider another medium, television.

The producers of The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, based on the first in the Y.A. fantasy series by Cassandra Clare, are doing just that, with wrier-producer Ed Decter (Helix, Unforgettable, In Plain Sight and The Client List) as showrunner.

There’s no information on whether the cast of the movie will be returning. On her blog, author Clare addresses that question, declaring, “I have absolutely no idea! I am sure they are not casting at the moment and probably nobody knows. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever I could possibly ever do to influence whether they kept the same cast (assuming they were available) at all, so I will be waiting, like you, to see if they cast new people, and hoping that if they do, those people will be good.”

Cassandra Clare’s series consists of six books, as well as a 3-part prequel series, Infernal Devices, which concluded with Clockwork Princess, (S&S/ Margaret K. McElderry, 3/19/13). The author has also announced a new series of sequels, called The Dark Artifices, to begin in 2015.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s goal is to bring “beautiful, literary language to really solid information” about nature. Her most recent book is The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild,(Hachette/Little, Brown, 2013).

Nancy Pearl interviews her for her series on The Seattle Channel, Book Lust.

Before you roll your eyes and exclaim, “Not another person jumping on the Y.A. movie bandwagon,” consider the book that Lena Dunham wants to adapt. It’s not dystopian, or an angst-filled teen romance, but Karen Cushman’s Catherine, Called Birdy, (HMH/Clarion) the 1994 Newbery Honor book about a girl growing up in the 13th century.

Interviewed at the New Yorker Festival on Friday night, Dunham said, “I’m going to adapt it and hopefully direct it, I just need to find someone who wants to fund a PG-13 medieval movie.”

She also said she has been obsessed with the book since she was a kid. If her tattoos from children’s books didn’t already tip you off, she is a big reader. In a 2012 NYT Book Review interview, she mentioned dozens of books, and said Birdy one of the two best books she’s ever read about girls. The other one? Nabokov’s Lolita.

UPDATE:
EarlyWord Kids Correspondent Lisa Von Drasek is such a fan of this book that, when told her the news, she instantly recalled the opening lines, nearly verbatim (we know; checked the OverDrive Sample):

I am commanded to write an account of my days; I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.

The 20th anniversary edition, published as part of a re-release of 4 of Cushman’s books in trade paperback, includes an intro by Linda Sue Park (also on the OverDrive Sample), who says, “Cushman shows us a very different image of medieval England from the one we are used to seeing. Dirtier and smellier, yes, but also fuller, richer and more complete.”

We have to wonder how Dunham, who says in her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, that she was a germaphobe as a kid, was able to deal with those details.

The favorite children’s book, Madeline (Penguin/Viking Juvenile) turns 75 this year and is celebrated with an exhibition at the New York Historical Society and a feature yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning.

A 75th Anniversary Edition of the book, that includes a pop-up spread of Paris, was published in May.

John Bemelmans Marciano, the originator’s grandson, is interviewed on the show.

He has published several books that continue Madeline’s adventures, including  Madeline at the White House, (Penguin/Viking Juvenile, 2011) a story that his grandfather and fan Jackie Kennedy once talked about doing.

Next week, Elin Hilderbrand trades in sand for snow as she jumps on the Christmas-themed novel band wagon. The setting is still the familiar Nantucket … fitting with the holiday theme, a book of short stories by Y.A. authors will also intrigue adults … blasts from the past include Norman Lear’s memoir and Cary Ewes’s story of the making of The Princess Bride.

All the titles highlighted 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 10/13.

Holds Leaders

Leaving Time, (RH/Ballantine; RH Audio; Thorndike, 11/5), OverDrive Sample

Audio sample:

The number one holds leader for the week, and in a tie with next week’s Gray Mountain by John Grisham, is also a LibraryReads pick:

“Leaving Time is a love story – love between mother and child, love between soulmates, and love between elephants. The story is told from a variety of narrators, all of whom are broken and lost. Jenna is searching for answers to the disappearance of her mother, and seeks the help of a retired police detective and a psychic. Alice, Jenna’s mom, disappeared after a tragic accident at the elephant sanctuary, and her work with the elephants is fascinating and touching. The book is an ode to motherhood in all its forms–the good, bad and the ugly–and it is brilliant.” — Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX

Winter Street, Elin Hilderbrand, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print); OverDrive Sample

Kirkus notes, “increasingly, best-selling authors are producing Christmas novels, family dramas in which the Christmas Spirit prevails. They often seem like rushed marketing ploys, though occasionally they hold up to the author’s own standards. Hilderbrand’s falls somewhere in between; her skill at creating character is present, but the plot feels constrained and a little predictable.” Both Booklist and LJ were more forgiving.

LibraryReads Pick

The Life We Bury, Allen Eskens, (Prometheus Books/Seventh Street Books); OverDrive Sample 

An original trade paperback from indie publisher Prometheus Books’ new mystery imprint (the name refers to the address of the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia).

LibraryReads recommendation:

“In this well-crafted debut novel, Joe Talbert has finally left home, but not without guilt over leaving his autistic brother in the care of his unreliable mother. A college assignment gets the young man entangled in a cold case, racing to clear the name of a Vietnam veteran. Characters with layers of suppressed memories and emotions only add to the suspenseful plot. Looking forward to more from this Minnesotan author!” — Paulette Brooks, Elm Grove Public Library, Elm Grove, WI

Celebrity Authors

Even This I Get to Experience, Norman Lear, (Penguin; Penguin Audio); OverDrive Sample 

Audio sample:

The media has already jumped on this, beginning with yesterday’s interview on front page of the NYT arts section. Giving it just a B-,  Entertainment Weekly calls it, “sharply written, always entertaining, yet surprisingly shallow autobiography.”

Choose Your Own Autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris, (RH/Crown Archetype; RH Audio); OverDrive Sample 

Harris, who plays a creepy character in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, here writes his autobiography in the form of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. If you have trouble imagining that, check the OverDrive Sample. Harris, of course, also narrates the audio (the publisher assures us that it won’t force us to try to jump around). UPDATE: Harris is interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air.

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes, (S&S/Touchstone; S&S Audio)

Elwes, featured on the Today Show this morning (read an excerpt of the book on the site), is scheduled for NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered this Sunday (UPDATE: Listen to the interview here) as well as Fox News’s Fox & Friends on Tuesday. As in the book, the audio includes reminiscences from other stars of the show, including Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, and Rob Reiner.

Media Attention

The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig (Norton)

The author was already interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air this week and the book is covered in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. The review includes this tidbit, “Eig notes that when [birth control pioneer Margaret] Sanger gave an interview to Mike Wallace she was asked, ‘Could it be that women in the United States have become too independent — that they followed the lead of women like Margaret Sanger by neglecting family life for a career?’ The year was 1957.” You can view that interview on C-Span.

Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can’t Ignore by Jay Sekulow, Jordan Sekulow, (S&S/Howard)

Fox TV, of course, will be all over this one:

• Hannity, October 14
• Fox & Friends, October 15
• Lou Dobbs Tonight, October 15
• Fox News-TV/Fox & Friends, October 18
• The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, October 15
• Fox & Friends, October 18
• America’s News HQ, October 19

YA Holiday/Crossover

My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories, Stephanie Perkins, Rainbow Rowell, David Levithan, and more, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin’ Listening Library);  OverDrive Sample 

Leave it to Y.A. authors to bring a thoughtful twist to holiday-themed books. Says Kirkus of these twelve stories, “Rich language and careful, efficient character development make the collection an absorbing and sophisticated read, each story surprisingly fresh despite the constraints of a shared theme.”

The Listening Library sample is from Rainbow Rowell’s story (the embed code is not working, link to it here); read it in full via the OverDrive Sample.