Author Archive

Carnegie Medal Longlist Announced

Tuesday, September 29th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.18.19 AMScreen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.19.46 AMHere’s your chance to test your book knowledge against the librarians on the committee for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. The 2016 Longlist has been released including some expected titles, big hitters, committee favorites, and a few esoteric choices.

Among the 20 fiction selections is former winner Anne Enright’s The Green Road (Norton), also on this year’s Booker longlist but not on the shortlist.

Screen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.33.16 AMOn the fiction list, titles that have already received widespread attention are Jonathan Franzen’s Purity (Macmillan/FSG), Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life (RH/Doubleday), and Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread (RH/Knopf).

Screen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.33.40 AMBuzzy titles such as Garth Risk Hallberg’s City on Fire (Knopf, coming Oct 13), a LibraryReads pick for October, and Bill Clegg’s Did You Ever Have a Family (S&S/Gallery/Scout), both a LibraryReads and Indie Next pick, also made the fiction cut.

Smaller publishers are recognized as well with Chantel Acevedo’s The Distant Marvels (Europa) and Joe Meno’s Marvel and a Wonder (Akashic).

Screen Shot 2015-09-29 at 9.20.12 AMIn nonfiction the 20 choices largely highlight big names such as Patti Smith’s M Train (RH/Knopf coming next week), the memoir by the recently departed Oliver Sacks, On the Move (RH/Knopf), Ta-Nehisi Coates’s best selling  Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau), Simon Winchester’s Pacific (Harper, coming Oct. 27), and Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk (Grove), which received wide acclaim earlier this year.

The forty titles will be winnowed down to a shortlist on October 19.

The Carnegie committee, a joint project between RUSA and Booklist, is chaired this year by Nancy Pearl Nancy Pearl (who also chaired the first awards committee in 2012). The medals are part of the line up of book awards presented by RUSA which also includes The Notable Book List and The Reading List. All three awards, as well as the many others that RUSA bestows, will be announced during ALA’s Midwinter meeting at RUSA’s Book and Media Awards reception on January 10.

Beryl Markham May Get
Her Close-Up

Friday, September 25th, 2015

9780345534187_5a2b2-2It seemed inevitable that Paul McLain’s bestseller Circling the Sun, (RH/Ballantine), with its echoes of Out of Africa, would be a candidate for film treatment. Now, The Hollywood Reporter announces that the book has been optioned.

Says producer Lauren Sanchez, “”She was a pioneer for women,” says Sanchez. “Everyone says Hollywood is looking for female-driven roles and stories — this is one of them.”

The only question: what took them so long?

TRUTH, The Trailer

Thursday, September 24th, 2015

Based on the memoir by 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes, Truth And Duty: The Press, The President, And The Privilege Of Power,  the movie Truth tells the story of the news team reporting on allegations that then President George Bush had avoided military service. It was later proved that the story was based on faulty documents. Those involved were fired and CBS News anchor Dan Rather stepped down.

The movie stars Robert Redford as Rather and Cate Blanchett as Mapes. The trailer was just released for the movie that opens in a limited number of theaters on Oct. 16, followed by a wider release.

Rather himself endorsed the movie earlier this month at the Toronto Film Festival.

Tie-in:

9781250098450_a25ea
Truth : The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power
Mary Mapes

Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin
Trade pbk; October 13, 2015

Ebooks: Just Another Format

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2015

The New York Times declares today that the storm and drang over ebooks is now over. Sales have dropped, bookstores are thriving on print sales and ebooks, once expected to dominate the market in 2015, have settled down to being just another format, representing about 20% of the market.

Among the many reasons that ebooks have not taken over is one that may be key, they are not significantly cheaper, as a result of bloody battles between publishers and Amazon. Says the NYT, “As publishers renegotiated new terms with Amazon in the past year and demanded the ability to set their own e-book prices, many have started charging more. With little difference in price between a $13 e-book and a paperback, some consumers may be opting for the print version.”

The NYT admits that we may not be seeing the full picture, “The declining e-book sales reported by publishers do not account for the millions of readers who have migrated to cheap and plentiful self-published e-books, which often cost less than a dollar.”

It may be too early to say what the ultimate impact of ebooks will be. The story ends by quoting Carolyn Reidy, CEO of S&S, who says this could just be a pause in ebook sales and we don’t yet know the reading preferences of next generation.

In case you’re wondering, the article doesn’t say anything about libraries.

BIG SHORT, Major Aspirations

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015

9780393338829Get ready for another film version of a book about financial shenanigans. Following in the footsteps of  The Wolf of Wall Street  is a  film adaptation of  Michael Lewis’s best seller The Big Short, (Norton, 2011). It was just announced that it will be released on Christmas Day, after opening in a limited number of theaters
on Dec. 11.

Because of the sudden announcement and the timing, Deadline is calling it a “Surprise Oscar Entry” saying  it “adds another film to what is shaping up to be the most competitive year-end movie market in recent memory.”

The trailer for the film that stars Brad Pitt, Steve Carrell, Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling was released today.

More financial skullduggery is on its way, with two TV adaptations of books about Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.

Recently released was a first look at Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer in HBO’s The Wizard of Lies. Based on the  book of the same title by Diana Henriques (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin; Tantor Audio) with additional material from Truth and ConsequencesLife Inside the Madoff Family by Laurie Sandell (Hachette/Little Brown), it is directed by Barry Levinson. It is expected to air in 2016.

ABC recently wrapped production on Madoff a limited series starring Richard Dreyfuss in the title role with Blythe Danner as his wife, Ruth Madoff. It is also expected to debut next year.

OLIVE KITTERIDGE, Emmy Winner

Monday, September 21st, 2015

Olive KitteridgeHBO had a good night at the Emmys, particularly for its book-based series, Olive Kitteridge and Game Of Thrones.

Olive Kitteridge, based on Elizabeth Strout’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, took home a total of 8 Emmys, including one for best miniseries. A passion project for Frances McDormand, who bought the rights to the novel in 2010, she was rewarded by winning her first Emmys, as star and producer.

In accepting the award, McDormand gave full credit to the source, declaring twice, “It started as a book!” effectively refuting host Andy Samberg’s opening monologue, in which he inexplicably dissed books, saying, “The Emmy’s are all about celebrating the best of the year in television. So, sorry, books, not tonight,” as the words, “SUCK IT BOOKS” appeared on the screen.

McDormand signaled her interest in continuing the series, according to Deadline, telling reporters in the press room after the Awards, “It’s 13 short stories … it was infinitely exciting to read and I thought that it could be a great town to spend some time in,” adding, “We would love to do more and we would love for you all to start a social media campaign to do more.”

PBS’s Wolf Hall, based on the first two books in Hillary Mantel’s Tudors series, was nominated in several categories, but ended up with no wins

More Dystopia On the Way

Friday, September 18th, 2015

The second Maze Runner movie, Scorch Trials, opens this weekend, and is expected to land at #1 at the box office, recouping he losses from the first in the series.

Perhaps capitalizing on the attention, trailers of two other movies based on dystopian novels were released this week, even though the movies themselves won’t appear until next year.

9780147519085_6714dThe first official trailer for The 5th Wave, starring Chloë Grace Moretz and Maika Monroe was released for the movie that opens on January 15th. The first in a planned series, it is based on the book by Rick Yancey. Movie tie-ins will be published in both trade paperback and hardcover (Penguin/Putnam Juvenile).

The second book in the series, The Infinite Sea, was published last year.

The third movie in The Divergent Series, Allegiant, starring Shailene Woodley and Theo James arrives on March 16 next year. Of course, this final book is being made in to two movies. Part 2, titled Ascendant is scheduled for release in 2017, around the same time as the third Maze Runner movie, The Death Cure,

Based on the book by Veronica Roth, the movie tie-in will be released in both trade paperback. and hardcover (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen).

FATES AND FURIES, A LITTLE LIFE on NBA Fiction Longlist

Thursday, September 17th, 2015

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Days after being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Hanya Yanagihara’s  A Little Life (RH/Doubleday) is one of ten titles on the National Book Awards Longlist for Fction released today. The other US author on the Booker shortlist, Anne Tyler, for A Spool of Blue Thread, however, is not on the NBA Longlist.

Also on the list is a LibraryReads pick that has received much fanfare in advance of its publication this week (see our “Titles to Know and Recommend, the Week of Sept. 14“), and was just announced as the next title in NPR’s Morning Edition Book Club, Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies (Penguin/Riverhead).

The shortlist will be announced October 15. The winners will be announced on Nov. 18.

Below is the list, with links to publisher information. All of the titles have been published (titles published between Dec. 1, 2104 through Nov. 30, 2015 are eligible).

The 2015 National Book Award for Fiction Longlist

Jesse Ball, A Cure for Suicide (RH/Pantheon Books)

Karen E. Bender, Refund: Stories (Counterpoint Press, dist. by Perseus/PGW)

Bill Clegg, Did You Ever Have a Family (S&S/Scout Press)

Angela Flournoy, The Turner House (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies (Penguin/Riverhead)

Adam Johnson, Fortune Smiles: Stories (Random House)

T. Geronimo Johnson, Welcome to Braggsville (HarperCollins/Morrow; pbk released this month)

Edith Pearlman, Honeydew (Hachette/Little, Brown; pbk arrives next week)

Hanya Yanagihara,  A Little Life (RH/Doubleday)

Nell Zink, Mislaid (HarperCollins/Ecco)

The NBA Nonfiction Longlist

Wednesday, September 16th, 2015

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Including best sellers by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Sally Mann as well as titles that have received less attention, The National Book Awards longlist for Nonfiction was released today. The judging panel includes Paul Holdengräber host of the popular interview series, Live from the New York Public Library.

The shortlist will be announced October 15. The winners will be announced on Nov. 18.

The fourth and final 2015 NBA longlist, for fiction, will be released tomorrow morning.

The 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction Longlist

Cynthia Barnett, Rain: A Natural and Cultural History (RH/Crown; 4/21/15)

Starred by LJ and Booklist, this look at a common natural phenomenon was reviewed in many publications, including the NYT Sunday Book Review

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau; 7/14/15)

The most widely covered by the media of the books on the list, the author appeared on many shows, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

It is currently #2 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers list after eight weeks (it was #1 for three weeks)

Martha Hodes, Mourning Lincoln (Yale University Press; 2/24/15)

A look at how everyday Americans mourned Lincoln and how his assassination continues to affect the culture. It was reviewed, not particularly enthusiastically, in the NYT Sunday Book Review and the Wall Street Journal

Sally Mann, Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs (Hachette/Little, Brown; 5/12/15)

An Indie Next pick, this memoir by the renowned photographer was starred by PW and Booklist and reviewed widely. In the daily NYT, Dwight Garner called it “weird, intense and uncommonly beautiful.” It appeared on several best seller lists, hitting a high of #9 on the NYT list.

Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness (S&S/Atria; S&S Audio; 5/15/15)

After reading this, you are unlikely to ever order grilled octopus again. It was reviewed appreciatively in the Seattle Times. The Wall Street Journal took a dimmer view of it.

Susanna Moore, Paradise of the Pacific: Approaching Hawaii (Macmillan/ FSG; 9/1/15)

More well known for her novels, Moore has written two previous books on Hawaii. In the NYT Sunday Book Review Jan Morris called it “an astonishingly learned summation of the Hawaiian meaning, elegantly written, often delightfully entertaining and ultimately sad.”

Michael Paterniti, Love and Other Ways of Dying: Essays (RH/Dial Press; Tantor Audio; 3/3/15)

By the author of The Telling Room, which received a great deal of attention in 2013, this follow-up has drawn less attention, only reviewed prepub by PW and Kirkus, which said, “carefully curated selection of features demonstrates the breadth of the author’s peculiar, personal style of storytelling.”

Carla Power, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran (Macmillan/Holt; 4/2/15)

Reviewed by the Washington Post, which calls it, “an unusual book, simultaneously an exploration of faith and of Islam as it is lived by those who know it most intimately.”

Tracy K. Smith, Ordinary Light: A Memoir (RH/ Knopf, 4/25/15; Recorded Books)

The author won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Life on Mars.

The NYT Sunday Book Review clearly appreciated this coming-of-age memoir by the African-American poet, but that review offers no quotable lines. Carol Memmott in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, provides one, “Ordinary Light is as poetic as Life on Mars. Smith’s spare yet beautiful prose transforms her story into a shining example of how one person’s shared memories can brighten everyone’s world.”

Michael White, Travels in Vermeer: A Memoir (Persea Books, dist. by Norton; 3/5/15)

The one paperback on the list, the only consumer review it received was from Shelf Awareness for Readers, which called it an “unusual and riveting memoir” in which White, reeling from a divorce, goes to Amsterdam and becomes entranced with Vermeer.

Kid’s Graphic Novel on LATE NIGHT

Wednesday, September 16th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-09-16 at 10.06.09 AMStephen Colbert isn’t the only one trying to shake up late night TV. Seth Meyers has broken ground by featuring novelists on Late Night. Last night, he highlighted graphic novelist Judd Winick, author of the new kid’s series Hilo (RH Books for Young Readers).

As The New York Times reports, the hero of the planned six-book multicultural series “is an enigmatic boy who crashes to Earth and befriends two children, D.J. and Gina … D.J. is the only one of five Asian-American siblings who is not “awesome at something,” and his best friend, Gina, who is black, has two aggressively positive sisters who are cheerleaders. Each book will reveal more about the characters and the mystery of Hilo’s destiny.”

Winick and Meyers know each other from Winick’s time writing for The Awesomes, an animated series created by Meyers and Mike Shoemaker. He has also worked on Batman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Justice League, and Star Wars comics. He has also had experience on TV, having been one of the housemates on season 3 of MTV’s Real World.

Winick decided to write the series so his own children could read his work, after he got a bit jealous of his son’s avid fanboy reaction to Jeff Smith’s Bone.

The NBA Poetry Longlist

Tuesday, September 15th, 2015

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The ten titles on the The National Book Awards longlist for poetry released today prove poetry is still being published by the Big Five publishers. Over half the titles are published by three of them, RH/Knopf (3 titles), Penguin (2) and Macmillan/FSG (1). W.W. Norton, a large independent publisher that is  bastion for poetry, published one of the nominees as did a university press and two independents.

The list includes two prior National Book Award winners, Marilyn Hacker and Terrance Hayes; previous National Book Award finalist Lawrence Raab; and two Cave Canem Fellows, Ross Gay and Robin Coste Lewis.

All but one of the titles were reviewed in the pre-pub journals with half the list receiving starred reviews.

The shortlist will be announced October 15. The winners will be announced on Nov. 18.

The 2015 National Book Award for Poetry Longlist

Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (Pitt Poetry Series/University of Pittsburgh Press)

Reviewed by Booklist and Publishers Weekly, which said “these simple, joyful poems read like a litany of what’s good in the world.” The Rumpus featured Gay in one of its Late Nite Poetry Shows.

Amy Gerstler, Scattered at Sea (Penguin)

Reviewed by Library Journal and starred by Publishers Weekly. The Washington Post, picked the title as one of the “Best new poetry collections for July” saying it “throws convention and familiarity overboard and asks us to consider what remains. The work mixes salty humor, invigorating rhythms and sharp-edged wisdom.”

Marilyn Hacker, A Stranger’s Mirror: New and Selected Poems, 1994-2014 (W. W. Norton)

Reviewed by Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and starred by Library Journal. Lambda Literary says the collection “demonstrates Hacker’s continued formal mastery; she effortlessly spins one sonnet into two, then three, then seven, leaving readers always breathless for more.”

Terrance Hayes, How to Be Drawn (Penguin)

Reviewed by Booklist, Library Journal, and starred by Publishers Weekly. NPR says Hayes is “A vital voice that explores race and art and the roving power of language … [his] fifth book is slippery with riddles … full of puns and fake outs, leads and dodges, all encased in muscular music.”

Jane Hirshfield, The Beauty (RH/Knopf)

The only book on the list to receive two starred reviews, from Booklist and Publishers Weekly (LJ also reviewed)., Hirshfield was interviewed in March on NPR. As an introduction they called her “one of our country’s most celebrated poets. She’s been a Guggenheim fellow [and] The Academy of American Poets bestowed her a fellowship for her “distinguished poetic achievement,” an honor shared with Robert Frost and Ezra Pound.”

Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus (RH/Knopf)

The trade reviews did not cover Lewis but that does not mean libraries do not know her. The Los Angeles Public Library featured her in a program with last year’s NBA poetry finalist Claudia Rankine, saying Lewis “lyrically catalogs representations of the black figure in the fine arts.”

Ada Limón, Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions)

Starred by Library Journal and reviewed by Publishers Weekly, LJ says “Generous of heart, intricate and accessible, the poems in this book are wondrous and deeply moving.” The editors of the Tahoma Literary Journal agree, saying “Limón’s playful language is coupled with a tendency to flow, almost dreamily, into dark content—she moves seamlessly from spiders in the magnolia tree and zucchini in the kitchen to a woman floating dead in a water tank.”

Patrick Phillips, Elegy for a Broken Machine (RH/Knopf)

Reviewed by Publishers Weekly. An interview in storySouth opens with this description of Phillips writing: “You write in what one might call a plain style. Your language is straightforward, uncomplicated. Your tone is always level, even quiet. Your lines are taut, stanzas sparse. And your subject matter is realistic, accessible. Yet the accumulative effect of your poems is astonishing. Their art, it would seem, is concealed in plain view.”

Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Heaven (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Booklist and Publishers Weekly reviewed Phillips with PW making his collection one of their “PW Picks: Books of the Week, June 15, 2015.”  It was also one of The Washington Post‘s picks of “Best new poetry collections for July” along with Scattered at Sea.

Lawrence Raab, Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts (Tupelo Press)

Booklist reviewed Rabb, calling his most recent volume “A wonderful, mature, sweeping collection.” His book What We Don’t Know About Each Other was also a finalist for the NBA in 1993.

Colbert’s First LATE SHOW
Book Bump

Tuesday, September 15th, 2015

Reporting on the guests Colbert interviewed in his first week replacing David Letterman as host of The Late Show, The Hollywood Reporter headline reads, “Joe Biden and Wonky Guests Are Great But Celebrity Chats Could Be Improved.”

The guests got even wonkier this week, with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer appearing last night. There to promote his book, The Court And The World, (RH/Knopf), out today, he got little chance to talk about it, but it rose on Amazon’s sales rankings nonetheless.

Breyer also appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, was interviewed yesterday on NPR’s Morning Edition and the book was reviewed in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. All that attention sent the book to #203 on Amazon’s sales rankings, but Colbert had even greater impact, sending it to #110 this morning.

THR notes, “One look at Colbert’s guests in the next two weeks emphatically proves that he — and CBS — are going all-in on this [wonky] strategy: Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders Friday, Global Poverty Project founder Hugh Evans and Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Sept. 23; Archbishop Thomas Wenski on Sept. 24 and Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai on Sept. 25.”

Bernie Sanders is publishing two updated books in December, The Speech: On Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class  (Nation Books) and Outsider in the White House (Verso; Exp Upd edition).

Elizabeth Waren’s book, A Fighting Chance (Macmillan/Metropolitan) was published last year.

Malala Yousafzai’s book, I Am Malala (Hachette/Little, Brown) is credited as the inspiration for the documentary, He Named Me Malala, to be released Oct. 2.

A Diverse Man Booker Shortlist

Tuesday, September 15th, 2015

The Man Booker Prize, Britain’s most prestigious literary award and, oddly, one of the few awards that affects sales in the U.S., surpassing our own National Book Awards, has released the 2015 shortlist of six titles.

9780385539258_d6a46  9781101874271_0413e

In the second year that American authors were eligible for the award, five made the longlist of 13, causing says the Guardian to worry that fears the US would dominate had become “more well-founded.” For the shortlist, however, only two US author made the cut, Hanya Yanagihara, for A Little Life (currently the bookies’ favorite in the UK. where people actually bet on such things) and Anne Tyler for a A Spool Of Blue Thread. Two authors from the UK, and one each from Jamaica and Nigeria round out the list.

The BBC noted that this list is exceptionally diverse, “four of the six authors are non-white, beating 2013’s record of three” but what “unites the books is the grimness of their themes.” When the judges were asked about this, they agreed, with one adding that, while the themes may be grim, “there isn’t a single book that isn’t touched with humour.”

The Guardian commented that the “biggest surprise” was that American author Marilyn Robinson (Lila) was eliminated from the list.

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The full shortlist, with links to reviews, below. The winner will be announced on Oct 13.

Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Penguin/Riverhead; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample; Oct. 7, 2014), Jamaican, living in the US

Published last year in the US, this title appeared on many of the year’s best books lists.
Reviews — Michiko Kakutani, New York Times; Washington Post; Wall Street JournalNYT Sunday Book Review

Tom McCarthy, Satin Island (RH/Knopf; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample; Feb. 17, 2015), McCarthy was on a previous Booker Prize shortlist (for C), UK

US Reviews — NYT Sunday Book ReviewWashington PostL.A. Times

Chigozie Obioma, The Fishermen (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample; April 14, 2015), Nigeria

Reviews — NYT Sunday Book ReviewNPR review

Sunjeev Sahota, The Year of the Runaways (RH/Knopf; 9781101946107; Mar. 2016), UK

Forthcoming; no US consumer reviews yet. UK reviews, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent

Anne Tyler, A Spool of Blue Thread (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio; OverDrive Sample: Feb. 10, 2015), US

Reviews —NYT Sunday Book Review; Ron Charles, Washington PostLos Angeles Times; Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life (RH/Doubleday; OverDrive Sample; March 10, 2015), US

Reviews — Washington PostNYT Sunday Book ReviewLos Angeles TimesWall Street Journal; NPR review on Fresh Air.

Yanagihara was one of the few literary novelists to appear on a late night show this year (we’re hedging our bets here — she’s probably the ONLY one) .

FATES AND FURIES Next NPR Book Club Pick

Tuesday, September 15th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-09-06 at 1.00.33 PMFollowing closely on the heels of a chorus of praise for Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies (Penguin/Riverhead; BOT Audio; Overdrive Sample), publishing today, NPR announces that it is the third pick in the Morning Edition Book Club.

The previous picks for the program, Deep Down Dark and A God in Ruins enjoyed dramatic sales and holds increases as a result.

Each title in the club is picked by another author. Doing the honors this time is Richard Russo.

NBA Young People’s Lit Longlist

Monday, September 14th, 2015

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The first of the National Book Awards longlists was released today. The nominees for young people’s literature include a range of authors from debuts to multiple award winners. Most are novels, but also included are one nonfiction title and a graphic novel.

All the titles have been reviewed by the pre-pub media with most receiving multiple stars.

Each year the judging panel includes a librarian. Teri Lesesne fills that position this year. She teaches Library Science at Sam Houston State University, is the author of Reading Ladders:Leading Students from Where They Are to Where We’d Like Them to Be and blogs as “The Goddess of YA Literature.

Also on the panel are authors John Joseph Adams (two-time winner of the Hugo Award and series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy), Laura McNeal (her novel Dark Water was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award), G. Neri (he won the 2011 Coretta Scott King Honor Award for his graphic novel Yummy), and Eliot Schrefer (two-time finalist for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature for Endangered and Threatened).

The five finalists will be announced on Oct. 14. The winner will be announced on Nov. 18.

Tomorrow, the longlist for Poetry will be announced, followed by Nonfiction on Wednesday, and the final list, for Fiction on Thursday

The 2015 National Book Award Young People’s Literature Longlist

Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray)

Starred by Booklist, Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks, KirkusPublishers Weekly, it also got an A from Entertainment Weekly., saying, “Adults who read this coming-out/coming-of-age novel will probably wish it had been around when they were kids … Worthy of Fault in Our Stars-level obsession.”

Deliciously funny, recommend this to all those adults who have been filling the hold shelves with YA titles by Johh Green, Sarah Dessen, and David Levithan.

M.T. Anderson, Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad (Candlewick Press)

Starred by Booklist, KirkusSchool Library Journal 

This M.T. Anderson title has been on YA must-read piles ever since galleys were released. Already a NBA winner for Octavian Nothing, Anderson here turns his storytelling gifts to narrative non-fiction. Well researched with fascinating details that manage to not bog down the story. YA

Ali Benjamin, The Thing About Jellyfish (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

Starred by BooklistKirkusPublishers Weekly, School Library Journal 

Seventh-grader Suzy is trying to cope with the sudden death of an old friend. Her shock and grief are palpable as she wades through overwhelming feelings and still navigate the uncertain, unkind world of Middle School. Ages 12 and up.

Rae Carson, Walk on Earth a Stranger (HarperCollins /Greenwillow),

Starred by Booklist and Publishers Weekly

The first in a new trilogy from the author of The Girl of Fire and Thorns, sets the stage for an eminently readable historical/fantasy with sweeping narrative, unexpected plot twists and empathetic characters.

Gary Paulsen, This Side of WildMutts, Mares, and Laughing Dinosaurs (S&S)

Those who thought that Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers: Reflections on Being Raised by a Pack of Sled Dogs was Paulsen’s best book will be delighted that he brings his raconteur style back to the campfire.

Laura Ruby, Bone Gap (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray)

Starred by BooklistKirkus , Publishers Weekly with the audio starred by Audio File

Laura Ruby is already well-known to YA and children’s librarians, but this is her break out book, a narrative tour-de-force that draws readers into a very different but familiar fantasy world.

Ilyasah Shabazz, with Kekla Magoon, X: A Novel (Candlewick Press)

Starred by Booklist, KirkusPublishers Weekly, School Library Journal and Horn Book. Reviewed in the New York Times.

With A Rock in the River an award-winning debut novel, Kekla Magoon provided an inside glimpse into the Civil Rights movement. Her historical fiction Fire in the Street reveals the lives of those who were Black Panthers. Teaming with Shabazz  Malcolm X’s daughter (Growing up Xthe authors look at how the young Malcolm Little became Malcolm X.

Steve Sheinkin, Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War (Macmillan/Roaring Brook Press)

Starred by BooklistHorn Book, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal

Sheinkin has won multiple awards for his compelling informational books including The Bomb and Port Chicago (both were finalists for this award). Here, he takes on the transformation of one man during one of the most turbulent times in United States History,  the war in Vietnam.

Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep (HarperCollins)

Starred by Booklist, Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks, Horn Book, Kirkus ReviewsPublishers WeeklySchool Library Journal

Shusterman has a gift for tackling big issues through story (Unwind). Here he creates a compelling novel that explores a 14-year-old schizophrenic’s decent into terrifying illness.

Noelle Stevenson, Nimona (HarperTeen/HarperCollins Children’s Books)

Starred by KirkusPublishers Weekly and School Library Journal

This mash-up sets fairytale archetypes on their ears, featuring a bloodthirsty shape-shifter Nimona and her anti-hero boss. Founded as a web comic, the first three chapters are available on-line.