Former NASA roboticist turned webcomic, Randall Munroe is scheduled to get the Colbert bump tomorrow night. His book, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (HMH; Blackstone; 9/2/14) is also on Entertainment Weekly‘s “Must List” in the current issue, saying Munroe “provides considered scientific explanations (and fantastically funny cartoons) in response to absurd hypotheticals about physics, space, the human body and whether Wikipedia is printable. (Technically, yes).”

UPDATE:

Tonight on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviews Ramita Navai, author of City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran (PublicAffairs, 9/2/14).

The first review of HBO’s four-hour mini-series based on Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, (Random House, 2008) has arrived and it’s a rave.

The series premiered at the Venice Film Festival yesterday. The Hollywood Reporter calls it, “emotionally satisfying, funny-sad …  directed with an impeccable balance of sensitivity and humor by Lisa Cholodenko [The Kids Are All Right].”

UPDATE: More reviews have appeared and it’s a hit with the critics — Variety calls it “finely crafted, wonderfully cast,” but fears it may lose audiences; IndieWire hails it as “the biggest positive surprise at Venice” and the U.K.’s Telegraph calls it simply, “brilliant.”

Three clips are now available via IndieWire. Below is Clip #3, featuring Bill Murray with Frances MacDermond as Olive, who optioned the book and produced the series with Tom Hanks, among others. Click here for Clip 1 and Clip 2.

The series will be shown on HBO beginning Sunday, Nov. 2.

Tie-in:

Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
Random House Trade Paperbacks, 10/28/14

Of the books arriving next week one title leads by far in terms of holds and library orders, Lee Child’s 19th Jack Reicher novel, Personal, (RH/Delacorte; RH Large Print; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample). Fans may have recovered from the shock of Tom Cruise as the imposing Reicher in last year’s movie. Although it didn’t do well domestically, it went on to do so well internationally, that a sequel based on last year’s Never Go Back is reportedly in the works. Child is scheduled for appearances on NPR’s Weekend Edition on Sunday and on CBS This Morning on Monday.

Reviewers are in a race to be the first to cover Tana French’s latest, The Secret Place,  (Penguin/Viking; Penguin Audio; Thorndike; OverDrive Sample). The NYT ‘s Janet Maslin reviewed it a full week before publication, and it is People‘s “Book of the Week” in  the 9/8 issue. Librarians got there first, however, making it a LibraryReads pick for September:

French has broken my heart yet again with her fifth novel, which examines the ways in which teenagers and adults can be wily, calculating, and backstabbing, even with their friends. The tension-filled flashback narratives, relating to a murder investigation in suburban Dublin, will keep you turning pages late into the night. — Alison McCarty, Nassau County Public Library System, Callahan, FL

Even more reviewers are piling on one of the big literary novels of the season, The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell, (Random House). It’s already reviewed by Meg Wolitzer on NPR’s All Things Considered (“one of the most entertaining and thrilling novels I can remember”), by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times (who is not as big a fan; “Mr. Mitchell’s writing has also become increasingly self-indulgent”), Ron Charles in the Washington Post (who clearly is a fan) and as the lead title in the New York Times Book Review. (‘Other writers may be more moving, and some may push deeper, but very few excite the reader about both the visceral world and the visionary one as Mitchell does.”) Despite all this attention, library holds are relatively low on modest orders. OverDrive Sample

The books mentioned here, plus several other notable titles arriving next week, with ordering information and alternative formats, are listed on our donwloadable spreadsheet, New Title Radar, Week of Sept. 1, 2014

Librarian Recommendation

Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good, Jan Karon, (Penguin/Putnam; Penguin Audio); OverDrive Sample

Wendy Bartlett of Cuyahoga Public Library, highlights this as a “hot title” to branch staff, and is also buying more copies of the series’ backlist:

Welcome back to Mitford! After a long hiatus, Jan Karon is back with Father Tim, Cynthia, Barnabas, and all the characters that have populated the various Mitford novels. And it’s just as Mitford-y as ever, which is a nice way of saying Karon has recycled about three different plots from the old novels, BUT HEY it’s Mitford, and the customers are already lining up for it, including me. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting Mitford and all the old favorite characters again, and our customers will too. And there’s a bookstore involved this time, so you can’t beat that!

We’ve ordered what backlist we can of the Mitford series, as some customers may want to backtrack and/or discover Mitford for the first time.

In the Media

Gabriel: A Poem, Edward Hirsch, (RH/Knopf); OverDrive Sample

Entertainment Weekly reviews poet Hirsch’s elegy for his son who died at 22, giving it a solid A and saying “Hirsch’s short, limber three-line stanzas are well suited to the staggered unfolding of the tragedy, as if Charon were tweeting updates from the banks of the river Styx.” The author will be featured on NPR’s Morning Edition next week.

Washington Post reviewer Ron Charles talked to Hirsch about the book in April:

Movie Tie-ins

The Boxtrolls: A Novel, Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, (Hachette/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

The Boxtrolls: Meet the Boxtrolls, Jennifer Fox, leveled reader, (LB Kids Paperback)

The stop-action animated movie, The Boxtrolls, is based on some of the creatures in Alan Snow’s nearly 550-page book, Here Be Monsters! (Atheneum, 2008, rereleased 8/5/14). Entertainment Weekly interviews the film’s co-directors Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi, who also directed Coraline and ParaNorman, about adopting the book.

Meet the Boxtrolls below. The movie opens, 9/26/2014

The Drop, Dennis Lehane, (HarperCollins/Morrow;  Trade Paperback; HarperAudio)

When is a novelization not a novelization? When it’s by Dennis Lehane. The movie The Drop, which stars James Gandolfini in his last film performance, is based on Lehane’s short story, “Animal Rescue.” The book, The Drop, is based on his script for the movie.

With the release of the first trailer for the movie Rosewater,  we now have a glimpse of what Jon Stewart was up to when he went on hiatus from the Daily Show last summer to direct his first movie.

The movie is based on a book Then They Came For Me by Maziar Bahari, (Random House, 2011; Tantor Audio), the author’s account of his imprisionment in Iran, in part because of a Daily Show piece.

Variety gives the film a rave:

“The punishing ordeal of Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari — imprisoned for 118 days on charges of espionage — is brought to the screen with impressive tact and intelligence by writer-director Jon Stewart in Rosewater, an alternately somber and darkly funny drama that may occupy the same geographic terrain as Argo (to which it will inevitably be compared), but in most other respects could hardly be more different.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s reviewer, however, is not so impressed, saying, “if this very same film had been made by an unknown director, it would pass in the night with only scant notice.”

The tables are now being turned on Stewart, as he begins to promote his own film. The Hollywood Reporter is his first stop, with a cover interview (too bad about that review). On his own show on Thursday night, he presented two new clips.

The movie opens in theaters on Nov. 7.

Tie-in:

Rosewater: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival
Maziar Bahari, Aimee Molloy, Jon Meacham (Foreword by)
Random House Trade Paperbacks October 21, 2014

HBO’s miniseries based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout (Random House, 2008) is scheduled to debut on Sunday, Nov. 2. The first two parts will be shown that night, followed by the final two parts the next night.

Directed by Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right), with Tom Hanks and Frances McDormand producing, the series stars:

Frances McDormand … Olive Kitteridge

Richard Jenkins … Henry Kitteridge (Olive’s husband)

John Gallagher Jr. … Christopher Kitteridge, (Olive and Henry’s son)

Cory Michael Smith … Kevin Coulson, (Olive’s former student)

Zoe Kazan … Denise Thibodeau, (works with Henry at the pharmacy)

Brady Corbet … Henry Thibodeau, (married to Denise)

Rosemarie DeWitt … Rachel Coulson

Unfortunately, no trailers have been released yet.

Official Web Site: HBO.com/Olive-Kitteridge

Tie-in:

Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
Random House Trade Paperbacks: October 28, 2014
Trade Paperback: $15.00 USD / $15.00 CAD

Jeff Bridges’s long-awaited adaptation of The Giver is considered a flop by Hollywood standards, but it’s a huge success by publishing standards, causing the book to soar to #2 on the USA Today‘s Best Selling Books list, its highest spot to date.

What does this portend for the next big dystopian adaptation, The Maze Runner, based on the the book by James Dashner? Variety is already predicting that it will be a hit when it opens on Sept. 19. The book is currently #4 on USA Today‘s list, also its highest spot to date.

Meanwhile, one of the much-touted “grounded” Y.A. movies (translation: no expensive special effects required),  If I Stay, had a solid beginning at the box office last weekend. It is also brought a major boost to book sales. It is #1 on the USA Today list, followed close behind by the sequel, Where She Went, at #6.

Amidst all this discussion of what works in adaptations and what doesn’t, the second trailer for another long-delayed YA adaptation, starring Bridges was just released. Seventh Son, opening in February, is based on The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney (HarperCollins/Greenwillow, 2005). Set in the 1700’s, it co-stars Julianne Moore as Mother Malkin, “the most evil witch in the world” with Bridges as the mentor to a young apprentice played by Ben Barnes.

Tie-in:

The Last Apprentice: Seventh Son: Book 1 and Book 2

Joseph Delaney

(HarperCollins/Greenwillow; December 23, 2014

Paperback; $9.99 USD / $11.99 CAD

Arriving at #32 on today’s USA Best-Selling Books list is a debut that has been a growing critical hit, We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas., (S&S; S&S Audio). 

The novel is also a hit in the U.K., where is on the long list for the Guardian First Book Award. The author was interviewed in that publication  yesterday.

As we noted in our earlier story, Big Books of the Fall, holds are growing in libraries.

A sure indicator that a new book season is upon us is a WSJ story on the marketing efforts behind a particular title.

This season, it’s The Miniaturist, by Jessie Burton, (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperLuxe).

About a lonely young woman in 17th C Amsterdam who creates a magical dollhouse that begins to predict the future, it is also a LibraryReads pick and gets an A- in Entertainment Weekly. Read a sample vis OverDrive.

Based on a review in the locally influential Cleveland Plain Dealer, Wendy Bartlett of Cuyahoga Public Library, has already put in a hefty additional order that is quadruple the initial quantity.

Published earlier in the U.K., it’s been in the top ten there since July. The Wall Street Journal details the elaborate U.K.  marketing campaign, with intricate shop displays that include “doll’s houses and Delft pottery, in one case flying a motorized parakeet around the books (a green bird figures in the novel).”

The U.K. cover features an actual dollhouse, complete with its own “making of” video.

The fall season gets into gear next week with the release of David Mitchell’s Bone Clocks, (Random House; Recorded Books) A profile of the author in today’s NYT notes, “Mr. Mitchell has evolved from being a cult author with a small but rabid fan base to a major literary figure whose work has been compared to that of Nabokov, Pynchon and Dostoyevsky.”

The #1 IndieNext title for September, it rose to #153 (from  #296) as a result.

Over 600 pages long, it’s a big book in more ways than one and competes for serious review attention, as well as readers’ time, with another 600-plus-page, very different novel, We Are Not Ourselves, by Matthew Thomas, (S&S; S&S Audio). Released two weeks ago, this debut has heavier holds than Mitchell’s book and is now at #74 on Amazon. It’s received a string of laudatory reviews, beginning with Entertainment Weekly and continuing with the NYT‘s Janet Maslin, the L.A. Times‘s David Ulin, and USA Today. The New Yorker uses it a springboard to “reassess the burgeoning genre” of books about Alzheimer’s, beginning with Still Alice by Lisa Genova. and giving the highest marks to “Thomas’s realist epic [because it] … exceeds the usual boundaries of fiction on the subject [and] offer the truest and most harrowing account of a descent into dementia …”

OverDrive sample — We Are Not Ourselves

NPR “Esclusive First Read” — The Bone Clocks

Among the authors that will be welcomed back with open arms next week is Louise Penny, whose next Chief Inspector Gamache title is The Long Way Home, (Macmillan/Minotaur; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive sample). Susan Vreeland continues her art history themed books with Lisette’s List, (Random House; BOT)

Samples:

OverDrive. Lisette’s List

There’s also a new James Patterson, but this time, it’s an original trade paperback. The Private series opens offices in Sydney, Australia, with the title Private Down Under, (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette/Audio; Hachette Large Print), being published for the first time in the U.S. after its U.K. release last year. It is written with Michael White, a British author living in Australia in his first collaboration with Patterson.

All the titles listed here, as well as more notable titles arriving next week, are on our downloadable EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of 8/25/14, with ordering information and alternative formats.

LibraryReads Picks

Heroes Are My Weakness, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, (HarperCollins/Morrow; HarperLuxe; HarperAudio)

“Any Susan Elizabeth Phillips novel is going to make it onto my must-read list, but this one is particularly wonderful, and here’s why: she creates, then cheerfully destroys, the romance cliche of the brooding hero with a dark secret who lives in a crumbling mansion and captivates a plucky heroine. The hero is a horror novelist, and the heroine a failed actress-turned-puppeteer. This warm, witty, comedy-drama is a perfect summer read.” — Donna Matturri, Pickerington Public Library, Pickerington, OH

Lock In, John Scalzi, (Macmillan/Tor);  excerpt from OverDrive

“There’s been a good run of fantasy and science fiction books this year. Joining the list of great fantastical reads is John Scalzi’s Lock In. Scalzi is best known for his military SF (especially the Old Man’s War series), so his latest is a change of pace. A blending of SF and police procedural that hits every note just right.” — Jane Jorgenson, Madison Public Library, Madison, WI

Tons of Tie-ins

It’s going to be another big fall for book adaptations. This week brings tie-ins to some of the most anticipated, including Gone Girl  (check our tie-ins listing for all of the over 40 adaptations coming through December).

This Is Where I Leave You, (Movie Tie-in), Jonathan Tropper (Penguin/Plume) — Movie releases 9/19

An all-star cast includes Jane Fonda (who, based on the trailer, is having a grand time in her role), Jason Bateman,  Tina Fey, Adam Driver and Rose Byrne.

A Walk Among the Tombstones (Movie Tie-in Edition), Lawrence Block, (Hard Case Crime) — Movie releases, 9/19

Liam Neeson brings Block’s alcoholic ex-cop, Matthew Scudder to life. And, yes, the part involves some phone time.

Tracks (Movie Tie-in Edition) : A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback, Robyn Davidson, (RH/Vintage) — Movie releases 9/19

Released early this year in many other countries, this is getting just a limited theatrical release in the U.S., so we weren’t expecting much publicity for it, but it is featured prominently in Entertainment Weekly‘s Fall movie preview. True to her character, Mia Wasikowska is mostly solo in this true story of a woman on a journey to exorcise her demons, with a brief appearance by Adam Driver as a National Geographic photographer

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn, (RH/Broadway; Trade pbk;  Mass Market; RH Audio) — Movie releases 10/3

The only thing we have to say about this one is, did they really think they needed to bother with a tie-in?

Before I Go to Sleep tie-in, S. J. Watson, (Harper Pbks) — Movie releases 10/31

Nicole Kidman stars with Colin Firth. Enough said.

Horns Movie Tie-in Edition, Joe Hill, (Harper Pbks) — Movie releases 10/31

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, in a very grown-up role, this was released last year in the U.K., it has been a long time coming to the U.S. The release of the trailer sent the book up Amazon’s sales rankings, so the publicity for the movie is likely to have the same effect.

One of many editions of the classic, this one with an intro. by
Neil Gaiman
(RH Young Readers)

There’s been a few film adaptations of  Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 collection of stories, The Jungle Book over the years.  Two new ones are in the works and are set to arrive in theaters within a year of each other.

The Disney version, scheduled for release Oct 15 next year, has most of the cast in place and is ready to begin production.

There’s been little news about the Warner Bros. version, titled Jungle Book: Origins, to be released on Oct 12, 2016, until now. The Hollywood Reporter announces the first cast member, Benedict Cumberbatch is in place, indicating that it is moving forward as well.

Cumberbatch will be the voice of the villain Shere Khan, a man-eating tiger. In the Disney version, directed by Jon Favreau, he is set to be voiced by Idris Elba. Entertainment Tonight has fun doing a face-off between the two, but you could go even further. How about a face-off with the gravelly malevolent voice of  George Sanders (who was Shere Khan In Disney’s 1967 version) or with Bombay, the actual Bengal tiger in Disney’s 1994 live-action version?

UPDATE: A few hours after we finished this story, more cast members were announced for the Warner Bros. version, so now you can enjoy and even larger face-off.

Mowgli
Warner: Rohan Chand (Bad Words star)
vs.
Disney:  newcomer, Neel Sethi

Shere Khan, the man-eating tiger
Warner: Benedict Cumberbatch
vs.
Disney:  Idris Elba

Baloo, the bear
Warner: Andy Serkis (the film’s director)
vs.
Disney:  Bill Murray

Kaa, the python
Warner: Cate Blanchett
vs.
Disney:  Scarlett Johansson

Bagheera, the panther
Warner: Christian Bale
vs.
Disney:  Ben Kingsley

It could be the Mark Twain autobiography of this fall.

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s autobiography, which was the basis for her Little House on the Prairie books, will be published by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press this fall. Titled Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, distributors are showing a Nov. 20 release date.

According to a story by the Associated Press, its “not-safe-for-children tales include stark scenes of domestic abuse, love triangles gone awry and a man who lit himself on fire while drunk off whiskey.”

See PioneerGirlProject.org for more on the project.

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography
Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill
ISBN 978-0-984504176, hardcover, $39.95

The author of a book with an attention-getting title, Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician, Sandeep Jauhar, (Macmillan/FSG) was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday.

Jauhar has some scary things to say about how the current health care system forces doctors  to work too fast, take on too many patients and run too many unneccasary tests.

The book was also reviewed in the NYT yesterday.

Jauhar has written several Op-Ed pieces for the NYT on these subjects.

Libraries are showing growing holds on We Are Not Ourselves, a debut novel by Matthew Thomas, (S&S; S&S Audio), which was heavily promoted at Book Expo this year. It just broke into Amazon’s top 100, and is currently at #53.

Featured in the book section of the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, it is also passionately recommended on EW‘s “Shelf Life” blog because, “it’s amazing. It’s beautiful and simple and elegant.”

We tend to agree, based on reading the OverDrive Sample.

Chelsea Cain’s latest, One Kick, (S&S; S&S Audio), releasing today, is the beginning of a new series, one that the NYT‘s Janet Maslin says “is capable of reaching a much broader audience because it is far less gruesome [than the author’s Gretchen Lowell series], at least by Ms. Cain’s standards.”

The reviewer for sister publication, the NYT Book Review, however, sees it as an “unsettling new thriller, which delves into the bleak and disturbing subject of child abduction and pedophilia,” and compares the protagonist to Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander.

See how disturbing you find it, by reading the OverDrive Sample.

One Kick is also the #1 LibraryReads pick for August.

Holds are currently modest in most libraries, but if Maslin’s prediction proves true, they are likely to grow.