How’s this for a summary? “The story of a Jazz Age party girl who winds up in a cage as a ticket-taker in a Depression-era Lower East Side movie theater, Jami Attenberg’s Saint Mazie is full of love and drink and dirty sex and nobility and beef stew.”

That is how Marjorie Ingall, writing for the upcoming  NYT Sunday Book Review, describes Jami Attenberg’s newest novel.

Saint Mazie (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) is inspired by the real life Mazie P. Gordon, a woman who lived in NYC, sold tickets at the Venice Theater in the Bowery, and spent her evenings helping the downtrodden. She was the focus of a Joseph Mitchell profile published in the New Yorker in 1940, and later published in the collection, Up In The Old Hotel (RH/Vintage).

The structure of Saint Mazie is a bit hard to describe, but Hannah Gersen writing for The Millions seems to nail it: “Saint Mazie is a collage of voices taken from Mazie’s diary entries, postcards, scraps of Mazie’s unpublished memoir, and interviews with people who knew Mazie … about half the novel consists of her plainspoken, melancholy diary entries, but there are also present-day voices, interviewed by an unseen documentarian, who provide historical information and personal anecdotes about Mazie.”

Library orders are light, due to the less than enthusiastic trade reviews and the less-than-anticipated popularity of Attenberg’s heavily-promoted previous novel, The Middlesteins.

But the consumer press has been much more enthusiastic about Mazie.

In addition to the positive reception in the NYT and The Millions, Alan Cheuse, reviewing for NPR says that “Mazie’s story unfolds with simplicity and grace… all of these voices taken together make for an augmented story that’s easy to follow and delightful to contemplate; a straightforward, direct, stark sometimes (especially during the Depression years), but often ebullient tale about the simple pleasures of a working life.”

Bustle, listing it as one of “The 17 Best Books of Summer” says:  “The Middlesteins author Jami Attenberg has traded writing about the Midwest for Jazz Age New York – and, oh, what a glorious swap it is. If you love historical stories with bold language that vividly paint a picture of another era, you’ll be so happy to spend your summer days alongside Mazie Phillips, the real-life proprietress of a downtown NYC movie theater called The Venice. Take a peek inside Mazie’s diary, and get swept away.”

As we mentioned at the start of the month, it is one of Amazon’s Best Books of June, one of the ten books the Wall Street Journal picked for its summer reading list, and is on Entertainment Weekly’s summer list. It was also a favorite with our GalleyChatters as far back as March.

Reaction was strong at BEA as well. Jen Dayton of Darien Public Library said pointedly at the Shout ’n’ Share, “this is NOT The Middlesteins” and went on to enthuse that Mazie captured her heart.

Keep a weather eye out. Holds are light now, but may grow with word of mouth and even if they don’t, with its catchy cover, real-life background and strong story line, this is a book with browsing appeal. You won’t lose by buying more copies.

Is Hollywood taking note of the LibraryReads picks?

Warner Bros. has just won a bidding war for the rights to the LibraryReads #1 Pick for May, Naomi Novik’s Uprooted (RH/Del Rey; OverDrive Sample). Aaccording to The Hollywood Reporter. Ellen DeGeneres will produce. She currently has six TV shows in production, “making this her rare foray into features.”

Lucy Lockley of St. Charles City-County Library (MO) offers this description of the story:

“A young girl is unexpectedly uprooted from her family and becomes involved in a centuries-old battle with The Wood, a malevolent entity which destroys anyone it touches. Fast-paced, with magic, mystery and romance, Novik’s stand-alone novel is a fairy tale for adults.”

The buzzy memoir Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin (Simon & Schuster; ebook, 9781476762722) is falling victim to the truth squad with questions arising about the events in the book and its timeline.

According to The New York Times, publisher S&S plans to add a note to future editions as well as the eBook, saying “It is a common narrative technique in memoirs for some names, identifying characteristics and chronologies to be adjusted or disguised, and that is the case with Primates of Park Avenue. A clarifying note will be added to the e-book and to subsequent print editions.”

After early juicy reporting pre-publication, questions have been raised by the New York Post about how accurate the stories are. Reviewing it, Janet Maslin in the daily New York Times includes whoppers such as “Ms. Martin’s description of her book as a ‘stranger-than-fiction story’ is fair — but only because fiction usually makes sense” and “someone has a book to fill and a theme to stick to, regardless of whether it has any point.” On the other hand, Vanessa Grigoriadis in the NYT Sunday Book Review, someone who knows the territory, wasn’t bothered if a few things are suspect, “the sociology rings true, even if the codification can be off (a common practice among stay-at-home moms and their working husbands in a flush year called ‘presents under the Christmas tree’ is here designated a ‘wife bonus’). ”

On track to hit best seller lists this week, the attention is likely to only add to the interest, following the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The #1 Indie Next List pick for July is the nonfiction title The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio), which recounts the adventures of two modern day brothers as they set off in a wagon to follow what is left of the Oregon Trail.

Several works of literary fiction are highlighted, including The Star Side of Bird Hill (Penguin Press) by Naomi Jackson. Jackson’s story of two sisters moving from Brooklyn to live with their grandmother in Barbados is also the most recent title in our  Penguin Debut Author program . Read our chat with the author here.

Three suspense novels make the list.

As Night Falls (RH/BallantineBooks; Dreamscape Media) by Jenny Milchman is called a “great psychological thriller” and comes on the heels of the author’s well-reviewed title from last year, Ruin Falls.

The Hand That Feeds You (Scribner) by A.J. Rich is the debut collaboration between two authors known more for their literary chops than for suspense, Jill Ciment (Act of God and Heroic Measures, recently adapted as the film 5 Flights Up starring Morgan Freeman and Diane Keeton) and short story writer Amy Hempel (The Dog of the Marriage). It is also one of the Wall Street Journal‘s list of “10 Books to Read This Summer described as “a thriller in tribute to [the authors’]  late friend, Katherine Russell Rich. The story, about a woman who discovers that her fiancé is not who he said he was, is inspired by a real-life experience of Ms. Rich.” By the way, the fiancé is mauled to death by the main character’s dogs — an unusual twist for two authors who are dog lovers.

The Truth and Other Lies (S&S/Atria Books; S&S Audio) by Sascha Arango is a darkly funny debut about a vain author whose world is about to spin out of control.

A second NF title also made the list, Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship (Random House; RH and BOT Audio) by Robert Kurson.

Kurson’s account is one of four titles on the list that overlap with the June Library Reads selections. The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler, The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman are the others.

New books from familiar best selling names arrive next week ) — Barbara Delinsky, Dorothea Benton Frank, Laurell K. Hamilton and Sophie Kinsella, writing a YA novel this time (click on the covers, above, for more information on each) — but none of them have generated long holds lists.

There are gems among the librarian and bookseller picks, including Erika Johansen’s second in the Tearling series. Sure to get media attention is Jimmy Fallon for writing (huh?) a picture book.

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 June 8, 2915

Peer Picks

The Mort are coming! Johansen introduces new characters and enticing bits of history, with the second volume of her intriguing tale of fantasy, mystery and royal politics. Kelsea, the new Tearling Queen, has broken the Red Queen’s treaty and prepares to suffer the consequences as her nation is about to be invaded. Readers will be eager for the final volume in the Tearling saga. — Lucy Lockley, St. Charles City-County Library, St. Peters, MO

Barrows is scheduled to appear on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show next week. Her book is a pick for both Indie Next and LibraryReads:

It is 1938 in a rural West Virginia town and a young woman arrives to write the town’s history. Layla doesn’t really know what to expect from the town, and the town doesn’t know what to make of her. This is the heart of the South, the soul of small towns, where everyone looks out for you and knows your history. Sweet story tailor-made for fans of Billie Letts, Fannie Flagg, Pat Conroy and Harper Lee. — Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX

The art of communication is the major theme of this story, and Kallos employs all of its variations — whether spoken nuances and innuendos, written assumptions and dissonance, or the fractured and difficult ways of being known that those with autism experience. This is the story of a marriage, of a father and his son, and of how a man’s childhood shapes his life. Readers will be absorbed, challenged, puzzled, and ultimately satisfied by this wise and soulful book. —Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop, Athens, GA

In the Media

Second Life, S. J. Watson, (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe)

We could create a reading club based just on the books that Reese Witherspoon has optioned. Following in the footsteps of her producing partner, Niclole Kidman, who starred in the a movie of Watson’s 2011 best selling debut, Before I Go To Sleep, Witherspoon is a fan of the author, having recently optioned this, his second book.

Happily Ali After: And Other Fairly True Tales, Ali Wentworth, (Harper; HarperAudio)

#3 on Entertainment Weekly‘s Must List for the week:

In the hilarious follow-up to Ali In Wonderland, the actress and ccomedian takes inspirational tweets as self-improvement mantras in an ill-fated quest for happiness as she approaches the age of 50. Her glass isn’t half full — it’s ’empty and cracked.’

The Jezebel Remedy, Martin Clark, (RH/Knopf; Recorded Books)

One of Entertainment Weekly‘s “10 Great Summer Thrillers” in the new issue:

Clark is, hands down, our finest legal-thriller writer, and this latest, about husband-and-wife attorneys whose client has made a huge pharmaceutical discovery does not disappoint.

Your Baby’s First Word Will Be DADA, Jimmy Fallon, Miguel Ordóñez (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends; also a board book)

Fallon is scheduled for the Today Show, on Tuesday and more is likely to follow. As far as the picture book itself, it sounds like Kirkus and Publishers Weekly read two different books:

“Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it”  — Kirkus

“A punchy and deceptively simple story that will make for some fun readalouds” — PW

At the Movies

Opening today, is Testament of Youth based on the 1933 memoir by Vera Brittain, recently released as a tie-in (Penguin). The movie stars Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Hayley Atwell and Dominic West.

The  NYT review is more respectful than passionate. “Testament of Youth Recalls the Great War With Little Nostalgia.” The AV Club doesn’t mince words, headlining their review, “Famous wartime memoir Testament Of Youth gets a boring BBC adaptation.”

Holds are growing on Janice P. Nimura’s Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey From East to West and Back (Norton. 5/4/15) with ratios well over 3:1 in many libraries we checked.

The nonfiction account has gotten steady coverage in papers such as The Seattle Times and The Wall Street Journal‘s “Speakeasy” blog.

About a group of young Japanese girls, each the daughter of a samurai, sent to America to live, study and  try to figure out what makes America so strong and forward thinking, The New York Times Sunday Book Review calls the book “beautifully written” and says it “begins like a fairy tale, with three clueless children charged with an impossible task by an empress: They must go to the United States and return with the knowledge needed to educate the women of Japan in the ways of the modern world.”

Nimura describes the story in the book trailer.

[vimeo 113928731 w=400&h=225]

NPR reviewer Maureen Corrigan, author of So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be And Why It Endures, offers a collection of early summer reading suggestions during a segment on NPR’s Fresh Air.

She begins with Vendela Vida’s new novel, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty (HarperCollins/Ecco; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample). A traveler loses her wallet and passport and “What ensues is a kind of existential suspense tale in which our heroine is at first paralyzed by the theft and then emboldened to borrow other women’s documents and identities.”

Corrigan calls Patricia Park’s debut novel Re Jane (Penguin/Pamela Dorman Books; OverDrive Sample) “a wickedly inventive updating of Jane Eyre.”

Two nonfiction works round out her picks.

Deborah Lutz’s The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects (W.W. Norton) examines objects important to the Brontë sisters, including a dog collar, a writing desk, and an amethyst bracelet.

In No Better Friend: One Man, One Dog, and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage and Survival In WWII (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample), Robert Weintraub tells the story of the only official American canine POW, a dog named Judy who survived the horrors of a Japanese interment camp.

Corrigan says each of her picks “begin in familiar territory and then surprise us readers by going off into places we could never anticipate.” Read on indeed!

An unlikely title has moved into the top 100 Amazon sales rankings, James Rebanks’s The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches From an Ancient Landscape (Macmillan/Flatiron Books; OverDrive Sample).

About his life as a shepherd in the wild landscape of the Lake District area of England, it celebrates the deep-rooted legacy of family farming that Rebanks can trace back through multiple generations.

That might sound overly specialized, but like H is for Hawk before it, Rebanks’s memoir seems poised to capture a large audience that appreciates fine writing and a sharp eye for detail and place.

For a sense of the landscape and work Rebanks describes, take a look at his book video (he is a man who understands the modern as well as the past, starting his book as a Twitter feed (@herdyshepherd1 which has garnered 63.8 thousand followers to date).

Certainly reviewers are taking note.

The New York Times offers:

“Expertise — and explanations of the craft and clockwork behind the ticktock of a profession — is hugely compelling when described with ardor and élan, and Mr. Rebanks brings both to his account … at once, a memoir, a portrait of his family’s world and an evocative depiction of his vocation as a shepherd.”

The Guardian glows:

“told with perfect pitch, in prose that flows as easily as speech, cleaves hungrily to the particular, and shifts without strain between the workaday and the imaginative.”

The Seattle Times says simply:

“It is as moving, truthful and at times poetic as anything you’re likely to read.”

Readers have gotten on board. Holds are growing with many lists exceeding a 3:1 ratio.

Tuesday is the traditional release day for major titles and several are hitting this week with fanfare.

Judy Blume seems to be having a great time promoting her title for adults, In the Unlikely Event (RH.Knopf; RH Audio; RH Large Print)

Stephen King’s Finders Keepers (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; Thorndike) is enjoying an appreciative reception, from the daily NYT (“One of the pleasures of Finders Keepers is watching Mr. King’s ways of making pages turn”) to USA Today (4 of 4 stars).

Other titles receiving attention:

Eight Hundred Grapes, Laura Dave, (S&S; S&S Audio)

A GalleyChat favorite in February. this is the LibraryReads #1 pick for June:

“Take your time and savor the family dynamics. Enjoy the romantic twists in this tale of a career-minded young woman circling back to her roots at a California winery. The appeal is broader than that of a romance since it delves into the complexities of various relationships — parent to parent, parents and children, even winery and owner. This is an excellent summer read!” — Joan Hipp, Florham Park Public Library, Florham Park, NJ

Saint Mazie, Jami Attenberg, (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive sample)

A favorite of Jen Dayton’s, Darien Public Library, she brought this one up during the Shout ‘n’ Share program at BEA. If you’ve read Attenberg’s first book, The Middlesteins, says Dayton, this one is quite different. Set in the Depression, it is inspired by a true story from Joseph Mitchell’s classic Up in the Old Hotel, of a woman who opened her NYC movie theater to those who needed a place to “feel human.”

It is an Amazon June spotlight pick, one of ten books on the Wall Street Journal‘s Summer Reading preview as well as one of  Entertainment Weekly‘s 10 big fat beach reads to look out for this summer (it’s not THAT fat, it’s more of a middle weight at 356 pages).

Palace of Treason, Jason Matthews, (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio)

Profiled in the New York Times last week, Matthews a retired spy turned novelist. His first book Red Sparrow came out in 2013 and hit the USA Today best seller list at #101 for one week. Film rights were bought by Fox and a screenwriter was announced a year ago. This is the sequel.

The NYT describes both novels as “old school” and Matthews tells the interviewer, “A lot of new thrillers are written by people who have not lived the life, and a lot of them seem to be about a bipolar Agency guy, helped by his bipolar girlfriend, trying to chase a bipolar terrorist who has a briefcase nuke, and there’s 12 hours left to go. My book is all fiction, but it’s an amalgam of people I’ve known, of things I’ve done, of stuff I’ve lived.”

It’s featured in Entertainment Weekly‘s summer reading preview, USA Today’s 25 hot books for summer and an Indie Next pick.

The Sunlit Night, Rebecca Dinerstein, (Macmillan/Bloomsbury; OverDrive sample)

After reading so many stories in U.S. newspapers about the next hot book coming from the U.K., it’s refreshing to read this headline in The Telegraph, “The Latest Us Literary Sensation” applied to Dinerstein’s debut. It is also an Indie Next pick:

The endless daylight of a Norwegian summer is the perfect backdrop for this warm and quirky debut filled with unusual characters and situations, a setting that is real yet somehow out of time, visual and precise writing, emotional warmth, and faith in the healing power of love. This tale of Frances and Yasha, their families, and their companions during a transformative summer in perpetual Arctic light is a perfect read for fans of Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love or Bill Forsyth’s classic movie, Local Hero.” —Anmiryan Budner, Main Point Books, Bryn Mawr, PA

A Field Guide to Awkward Silences, Alexandra Petri, (Penguin/NAL; OverDrive sample)

Washington Post columnist Petri,  says Dave Barry in the cover blurb, “is the funniest person in Washington. This is all the more impressive when you consider that Congress is also located there.”  As proof, her column this week is titled, “Christian Grey’s perspective is the only thing that could make Fifty Shades of Grey worse.” This book is a memoir.

Eeny Meeny, M. J. Arlidge, (Penguin/NAL, trade pbk original; Penguin Audio; OverDrive sample)

One of the titles in our Penguin Debut Authors program, this thriller was mentioned at BEA’s Shout ‘n’ Share as “making you want to lock all your doors and windows.” It was recently optioned for a TV series.

Our spreadsheet of other notable titles arriving this week, with ordering information and alternate formats, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of June 1, 2015

Another Grey is on its way, Titled simply Grey, it’s Fifty Shades told from Christian’s point of view.

Author E. L. James announced on Instagram today that the book will be published on June 18th and the story has been picked up widely, from USA Today to the Wall Street Journal.

According to Amazon, it will be published by RH/Vintage in trade paperback with the ISBN is 978-1101946343, but it is not yet listed on Edelweiss or wholesaler catalogs (UPDATE: it is now listed on some wholesaler catalogs).

In a press release, Tony Chirico, President of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group indicates this was a surprise release (in other words, you were not living under a rock if you haven’t heard of it), “Given the secrecy and immediacy of the publication, we’ve worked hard to ensure that the book will be well represented in the retail marketplace on June 18^th.”

Thanks to Janet Lockhart, Collection Development Librarian at Wake County Public Libraries for the alert!

If you are going to ALA in San Francisco at the end of the month, the AAP has some great book and author events scheduled.

Fellow procrastinators, don’t delay, these events are free but most require registration and they fill up quickly, (links to registration below):

AAP SAN FRANCISCO BOOK BUZZ 2015
Thursday, June 25^th, 2015 from 8:00am-5:00pm
San Francisco Public Library, Koret Auditorium, Lower Level
100 Larkin Street , San Francisco, CA 94102

Join the AAP Children’s and Adult Library Marketing Committees for an all-day AAP San Francisco Book Buzz. Children’s and Teen titles will be buzzed from 8:30am-12:30pm, and Adult titles will be buzzed from 1:30-5:00pm with a lunch in between, provided by the publishers.

ON THE CHILDREN’S SIDE, HEAR FROM: HarperCollins Children’s Books, Albert Whitman, Macmillan Children’s, Sterling Children’s Books, Starscape & Tor Teen, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Little Bee Books, Algonquin Young Readers, Perseus Books Group, Penguin Young Readers Group, National Geographic Kids, New York Review Children’s, Harlequin TEEN, Random House Children’s Books, Sourcebooks, Quirk Books, Scholastic, Soho Teen, W.W. Norton & Co., and Simon & Schuster!

ON THE ADULT SIDE, HEAR FROM: Simon & Schuster, Perseus Books Group, New York Review Books, Hachette Book Group, Sterling, W.W. Norton & Co., Quirk Books, Random House, Workman, Sourcebooks, Macmillan, Soho Press, National Geographic, Melville House, HarperCollins, Harlequin, and Penguin!

SIGN UP HERE TO ATTEND.

***

AAP/LIBRARYREADS BOOK-A-LICIOUS BREAKFAST
Saturday, June 27^th, 2015 from 8:30am-10:00am
Marriott Marquis San Francisco (Golden Gate B)
780 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

Hear from authors:

• Charles Belfoure, author of House of Thieves (Sourcebooks Landmark)
• Anthony Marra, author of The Tsar of Love and Techno (Hogarth)
• Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You (Penguin Books)
• Nnedi Okorafor, author of Lagoon (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press)
• Stacy Schiff, author of The Witches (Little, Brown & Co.)
• Brigid Schulte, author of Overwhelmed (Picador/Macmillan)

 AUTHOR SIGNING TO FOLLOW EVENT.

 Space is limited. Please SIGN UP HERE TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST IN ATTENDING by Friday, June 19^th. We will send you a confirmation if we can accommodate your request.

Formal invitation (with book covers) here: ALA 2015 Book-a-Licious Breakfast invite

***

AAP CHILDREN’S & TEEN AUTHOR SPEED DATING EVENT

Saturday, June 27^th from 3:00-4:00pm
Marriott Marquis San Francisco (Golden Gate B)
780 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

• Elana Arnold, The Question of Miracles (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers)
• Kathleen Baldwin, A School for Unusual Girls (Tor/Forge Books/Tor Teen)
• Lizi Boyd, Big Bear little chair (Chronicle Books)
• Martha Brockenbrough, The Game of Love and Death (Arthur A. Levine Books)
• Monica Brown, Lola Levine is Not Mean! (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
•  Soman Chainani, The School for Good and Evil #3: The Last Ever After   (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
• Bruce Covill, Diary of a Mad Brownie (Random House Children’s Books)
• Joshua Davis, Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream (Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Macmillan)
• Tania del Rio, Warren the 13^th (Quirk Books)
• Matt Faulkner, Gaijin: American Prisoner of War (Disney-Hyperion)
• Kim Griswell, Rufus Goes to Sea (Sterling Children’s Books)
• Tamara Ireland Stone, Every Last Word (Disney-Hyperion)
• Stephen T. Johnson, Alphabet School (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books)
• Estelle Laure, This Raging Light (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Amy Lukavics, Daughter Unto Devils (Harlequin TEEN)
• Paige McKenzie, The Haunting of Sunshine Girl: Book One (Weinstein Books/The Perseus Books Group)
• Sebastian Meschenmoser, Mr. Squirrel and the Moon (NorthSouth Books)
• Yvonne Prinz, If You’re Lucky (Algonquin Young Readers)
• Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Where Are My Books? (Simon & Schuster/ Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
• Lev Rosen, Woundabout (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Barney Saltzberg, Redbird: Friends Come in Different Sizes (Workman)
• Allan Stratton, The Dogs (Sourcebooks Fire)
• Craig Thompson, Space Dumplins (Scholastic)
• Steve “The Dirtmeister” Tomecek, Dirtmeister’s Nitty Gritty Planet Earth: All About Rocks, Minerals, Fossils, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, & Even Dirt! (National Geographic Kids Books)

SPACE IS LIMITED. YOU MUST RSVP HERE TO PARTICIPATE.

You will receive an email with your table number closer to the event.

***

BOOKLIST’S READ ‘N RAVE
Monday, June 29^th, 2015 from 9:00-10:00am
Moscone Convention Center, Room 122 (N)

Everyone gets excited by the new ARCs available at conference. Come hear six collection development specialists rave about their favorite titles gathered from the exhibit floor. This lively panel, co-organized by Booklist and the AAP, will feature librarians Stephanie Chase (Hillsboro Public); Naphtali Faris (KCPL); Alene Moroni (King County); Kaite Mediatore Stover (KCPL); Stephen Sposato (Chicago Public); and David Wright (Seattle Public). Moderated by Rebecca Vnuk, Booklist’s editor for Reference and Collection Management.

NO ADVANCE REGISTRATION REQUIRED

INFO HERE.

***

AAP/LIBRARYREADS MYSTERY AUTHORS PANEL
Monday, June 29^th, 2015 from 10:30-11:30am
Moscone Convention Center, Room 122 (N)

Hear from authors:

• Cara Black, author of Murder on the Champ de Mars (Soho Crime)
• Allison Brennan, author of Compulsion (Minotaur Books/Macmillan)
• John Katzenbach, author of The Dead Student (Mysterious Press)
• Keith McCafferty, author of Crazy Mountain Kiss (Viking)
• Kate White, author of The Wrong Man (Harper Paperbacks)

AUTHOR SIGNING TO FOLLOW EVENT.

Space is limited. Please SIGN UP HERE TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST IN ATTENDING by Friday, June 19^th. We will send you a confirmation if we can accommodate your request.

Formal invitation, with book jackets, here,:ALA 2015 Mystery Authors Panel invite

Next week two hotly anticipated titles arrive, Judy Blume’s In the Unlikely Event (which. she recently told People magazine, may be her last book. It is their “Book of the Week” in the new issue) and Stephen King’s Finders Keepers.

We’re a bit distracted by Book Expo America today, so we will publish a fuller rundown of titles on Monday.

Meanwhile, you can download our spreadsheet of notable titles arriving next week, with ordering information and alternate formats, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of June 1, 2015

Neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, who was the subject of an award winning film, has written a memoir about the high-risk work of operating on the brain, Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Marsh appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross yesterday and described how he relies upon a quarter ton microscope to see inside the jelly-like substance of the brain and uses a microscopic vacuum cleaner called a sucker to remove tumors.

The memoir made multiple shortlists for a range of awards in Britain including the Guardian First Book Prize and the Costa Book Award.

The Guardian review was glowing:

Why has no one ever written a book like this before? It simply tells the stories, with great tenderness, insight and self-doubt, of a phenomenal neurosurgeon who has been at the height of his specialism for decades and now has chosen, with retirement looming, to write an honest book. Why haven’t more surgeons written books, especially of this prosaic beauty? Of blood and doubts, mistakes, decisions: were they all so unable to descend into the mire of Grub Street, unless it was with black or, worse, “wry” humour? Well, thank God for Henry Marsh.

On this side of the ocean, the memoir has received strong coverage in The New York Times Sunday Book Review and by Michiko Kakutani in the daily NYT Books section. Sam Kean reviews it for The Wall Street Journal and it is one of The Washington Post’s picks of the best memoirs for the month. It is also rising on Amazon.

Holds are strong on light ordering.

Making the wives of the 1% nervous, a tell-all memoir set in the lavish world of the NYC elite, Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin (Simon & Schuster), is racing up the Amazon rankings ahead of next week’s publication date.

Martin, a social researcher who moved with her financier husband and toddler son to the Upper East Side, turns her trained eye (she has a PhD from Yale) on the women who lunch – at charity benefits that can cost $10,000 a table.

She found herself bemused at the culture until she framed the quest for the newest “it” bag and the preschool hierarchy through the lens of anthropology, both befriending and observing the women of her new circle and collecting their stories.

The women who told their tales, as the NY Post’s “Page Six” reports, are now feeling exposed, “a guessing game has emerged about which glossy, manicured moms are included as stories in the book.”

Martin wrote an essay for the NYT which has drawn plenty of attention and commentary. Some of the attention-getting tidbits include upper-crust husbands granting wives year end bonuses, parents paying obscene amounts of money for their babies to have food coaches and sending toddlers to tutoring sessions to learn to interact well in play dates.

The guessing game of who does what, along with the gossipy and avid reading, is a scene straight out of the The Help.

The predictable controversy and mommy-shaming is more like the 2011 backlash against Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

It all adds up to a juicy summer read and a fair bit of schadenfreude.

Check your orders. Many libraries have yet to order it and those that have show growing holds.

Librarian Nancy Pearl announces her list of summer reading titles on NPR, picking six midlist under-the-radar novels.

Talking with Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep, Nancy begins with The Revolutions by Felix Gilman (Macmillan/Tor; OverDrive Sample), which she calls a “21st-century example of Victorian science fiction … with a little bit of steam punk.”

A thriller The Swimmer by Joakim Zander (Harper; HarperCollins and Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) gets high marks for its fast pace and involving story while Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper (Simon & Schuster; OverDrive Sample) makes the list for its description of character.

The Strangler Vine by M.J. Carter (G.P. Putnam’s Sons; HighBridge; OverDrive Sample) clearly captures Inskeep’s love of history (he just published a book on American history, Jacksonland), prompting him to break into Nancy’s summary to share a bit about the history of the East India Company. Set in India in 1837, it involves a new member of that company and a mysterious agent on the hunt for a notorious writer.

Two titles that did not make it into the on-air discussion are included in the online article:

The Half Brother by Holly LeCraw (RH/Doubleday; OverDrive Sample) explores how “much coincidence is possible in our lives.”

Unbecoming by Rebecca Scherm (Penguin/Viking; Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample) is evocatively described as opening “with a lie.” It was a feature in our Penguin Debut Authors program, First Flights.