With media attention and the largest wave of publisher PR over, it is word of mouth that is propelling the novel upward.
It debuted at #82 on the Sept. 22nd USA Today list. This week, five month later, it rose to #40 . The Indie Bestsellers Lists currently has it at #3 and the novel has never fallen out of their top 11. On the LA Times list it has ranged from a low of #18 to a current high of #2. The NYT list is not as strong but does show a steady rise from outside the top 15 to its current position at #10.
Ron Charles, book reviewer for The Washington Post, and clearly an admirer, wrote upon its publication:
Library patrons are also interested. Holds remain above a 3:1 ratio in most systems we checked.
As we noted earlier, this marks a significant leap for Towles. His debut, Rules of Civility, did not break into the NYT top ten, rising only as high as #16 and holding that position for just one week. Beyond its continued success on bestseller lists, Gentleman was both an Indie Next pick and a Fall Reading favorite from Entertainment Weekly.
Many readers’ advisors who consider Harris a favorite will not be surprised. Harris writes bestselling historical fiction such as Pompeiiand Fatherland as well as contemporary works, such as The Ghost (which was adapted into the feature film The Ghost Writer starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan). Conclave is a contemporary thriller set in the Vatican.
The Guardian opens its review with this gripping lure:
“I am about to use a word I have never knowingly used in any review of any book ever. During my 25-odd years of writing about books I have done my best to avoid cliches, slipshod summaries, oracular pronouncements and indeed anything else that might appear emblazoned on a book jacket. Nonetheless, there is only one possible word to describe Robert Harris’s new novel, and it is this: unputdownable.”
The NYT says that its culminating denouement is “so provocatively scandalous” it “could become a Catholic version of The Satanic Verses.”
The SF Chronicle writes “you eavesdrop on clandestine intrigues and late-night missions that play out in the shadows of the Vatican labyrinth … the author’s strong writing freshens the familiar with color, and his keen sense of character humanizes the baroque proceedings.”
WSJ says “Robert Harris is a master storyteller and accomplished craftsman who, like Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham, marries a searching moral imagination to his rare ability to tell a compelling tale. He understands that people read novels for pleasure, not under compulsion.” (subscription may be required)
Despite the strong reviews and Harris’s auto-buy reputation, holds are light at libraries we checked. That might be due to the timing of the book (it came out just a few weeks after the election) and its subject matter (a contentious, heated battle for power). It has not appeared on best seller lists.
As a result, readers’ advisory librarians may be able to put this book into patron’s hands. Based on the reviews, it’s a good bet to hand-sell.
What better topic for a New Years Day segment than a book about the strangest places on earth? Featured on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday were the enviable adventures of the pair behind the best seller Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders, Joshua Foer and Dylan Thuras (Workman, Sept.; OverDrive Sample).
Check your holds. Some libraries are showing heavy ratios.
From The Lose You Belly Diet to Zero Sugar, the war on fat begins next week. Explaining why we continue to make bestsellers of these book, The Secret Life of Fat, explores why the body is so intent on hanging on to what everyone seems to want to lose.
The titles covered in this column, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar Week of Dec. 26, 2016.
“Every book changes your life. So I like to ask: How is this book changing mine?’ Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club, focuses on a personal collection of books that changed his life. Each book he selects provides a lesson, a reminder as to how to live his life. Readers will remember favorite books, find new books to try, and lessons to think about. Schwalbe’s book is warm, charming, and very personal. It’s a book for all avid readers.” — Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library, Evansville, IN
The LEGO film opens February 10, 2017 and stars Will Arnett as Batman as well as Michael Cera (Robin), Zach Galifianakis (The Joker), Rosario Dawson (Batgirl), and Ralph Fiennes (Alfred). The film is a spin-off of the highly successful The LEGO Movie in which Batman almost stole the show.
Tie-ins have come out through the month of December. The trade paperback came out on Dec. 6. and the mass market comes out this week (both HarperCollins/Morrow).
Variety reports that Affleck told reporters at an early screening that his goal is to blend “a throwback vibe with modern energy. And that’s fitting: In Lehane’s novel, Affleck has found a gangster yarn akin to the ’30s and ’40s genre pictures that inspired him, but one with a fresh face.”
Live by Night follows The Given Day, which was the author’s first departure into historical crime. A third book in the series, World Gone By, was published last year.
Even though Sony has just delayed The Dark Tower, moving it from its expected Feb. 17 release date to July 28, 2017, the three mass market tie-ins arrive this week:
Calling the book a “sensation,” Deadline Hollywood reports that film rights were just acquired to Kill The Next One, a psychological thriller by Argentinian-born Federico Axat (Hachette/Mulholland Books; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample). Published in Spanish “to acclaim,” rights were also sold for translation into 30 other languages.
Released here earlier this month, it received a good, but not sensational, review in the most recent NYT BR crime column: “mind-bending … Truth, illusion and downright deceit keep crossing invisible lines in this hallucinatory plot.” However, the review continues, “it becomes easy to lose focus on who’s who and what’s what. The shape-shifting characters and fantastic events keep sending [the main character] to his therapist (and us to ours) for clarification … Axat is the kind of hypnotic writer you love to read but can never entirely trust.”
Other coverage to date, while decent, does not indicate a “sensation”:
USA Today includes it on a recent list of new and noteworthy books, quoting the Booklist review that also calls it “mind-bending” as well as “intriguing.”
PW gave it a star, writing “Axat fuses weird fiction with psychological suspense in his stunning U.S. debut.”
Bustle counts it as one of “The 8 Best Fiction Books Coming Out This December That Are Perfect For Holiday Snuggles,” writing “Like a chilling, murder-y version of Pay It Forward, this thriller unfolds as a man seeking to end his life is given the opportunity to kill two other people and then be killed.”
The upcoming holiday weekend is generally a big one for movie openings, but there is a complication this year. Christmas Day falls at the end of the weekend, so there will be less time for families to search out entertainment to round out their festivities. In addition, studios are not willing to schedule films to go up against the second week of Rogue One, which proved expectations with a “massive” debut this week.
But studios need to get movies in to theater to qualify for the Oscars, so several will open in limited runs in the upcoming week.
Bucking the trend, one adaptation debuts across the country on Christmas Day, Fences, Denzel Washington’s film version of August Wilson’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning play. Washington directs and co-stars with Viola Davis, reprising their roles from a Broadway revival of the play six years ago, for which both won Tony Awards.
The Guardian writes “This film is conceived as a showcase for its performers, and, as that, it is immaculate … Would Wilson be pleased? A black director, extraordinary performances, as faithful an adaptation as you can imagine. He’d be ecstatic.”
Six other film adaptations open in limited release this week:
Patriots Day, the drama recounting the Boston Marathon bombing. Directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, Lone Survivor) it stars Mark Wahlberg, J. K. Simmons, John Goodman, Kevin Bacon and Michelle Monaghan.
It is based on the nonfiction title, Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph over Tragedy by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge (UP New England/ForeEdge), which traces the events of the bombing and the citywide manhunt to find the terrorists.
Variety calls it “An intense, jittery re-creation … [a] genuinely exciting megaplex entertainment, informed by extensive research, featuring bona fide movie stars, and staged with equal degrees of professionalism and respect.”
The film opens in limited release on December 21 with a wide release on January 13, 2017. There is no tie-in.
A Monster Calls was originally scheduled for release on October 21, but the the film adaptation of the children’s fantasy by Patrick Ness moved to a holiday opening due to what Deadline called “a complete nightmare in regards to competition … the pic’s new date gives it ample time to breathe and spur word-of-mouth during the year-end holidays and into 2017.”
Thus far, reviews are mixed for this fantasy-reality drama about a boy coping with his mother’s illness and his own troubles. The Hollywood Reporter calls it a “sensitive and beautifully made lesson in the limits and power of storytelling … The fact that not every terrible thing can be remedied or appropriately punished is a tough lesson even for adults to learn, but A Monster Calls helps find the sense in it.”
Variety, however, was less impressed, calling it “an incredibly small and intimate gothic fable … [that is] all bark and no bite.”
A Monster Calls: A Novel (Movie Tie-in): Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, Patrick Ness, Jim Kay (Candlewick, August 2, 2016, Trade Paperback).
The film opens on December 23, followed by a wide release on January 6.
Silence opens on Dec. 23, with a wide release coming later in January (the specific date has yet to be announced).
Directed by Martin Scorsese, it is an adaptation of the novel by Shusaku Endo, first published in 1966. It is a book that Scorsese writes in the introduction to the tie-in, Silence, (Peter Owen Publishers, Dec. 1; trade paperback, Macmillan/Picador Modern Classics), he has “reread countless times,” one that has given him “a kind of sustenance” that he has “found in only a very few works of art.”
Starring Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson, and Adam Driver, it is set in about a Portuguese Jesuit priest who persecuted along with other Christians in Japan in the 17th C.
Variety says it is a “challenging, yet beautiful spiritual journey.” While they also call it a “a remarkable achievement,” they warn “Though undeniably gorgeous, it is punishingly long, frequently boring, and woefully unengaging at some of its most critical moments. It is too subdued for Scorsese-philes, too violent for the most devout, and too abstruse for the great many moviegoers who such an expensive undertaking hopes to attract.”
Hidden Figures opens on Christmas Day in some theaters, with a nationwide release on Jan. 6.
It is one of the hot films of the season, starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe as a group of African American women who worked at NASA on the mission that sent John Glenn into space in 1962. Director Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent) was so taken with the script that he dropped out of the running to direct a Spiderman movie in favor of this one.
Variety says it is a “thoroughly satisfying … Feel-good drama” that is “As brash, bright, and broad as Hollywood studio movies come.”
Tie-in: Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, Margot Lee Shetterly (HC/William Morrow Paperbacks; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).
Live by Night opens on December 25, followed by a national release on January 13, 2017 and is Ben Affleck’s first time in the director’s chair since his award-winning Argo. Not only does he direct and star, he wrote the screenplay, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s Live by Night (Harper/ Morrow; Harperluxe; HarperAudio).
Zoe Saldana, Sienna Miller, Chris Cooper, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina and Elle Fanning also feature in this period gangster film set during the Prohibition era.
Variety reports that Affleck told reporters at an early screening “that the idea for him was blending a throwback vibe with modern energy. And that’s fitting: In Lehane’s novel, Affleck has found a gangster yarn akin to the ’30s and ’40s genre pictures that inspired him, but one with a fresh face.”
Live by Night follows The Given Day, which was the author’s first departure into historical crime. A third book in the series, World Gone By, was published last year.
There are multiple tie-ins: The mass market will arrive on Dec. 27, while the trade paperback (both HarperCollins/Morrow) came out on Dec. 6.
The Spanish language film Julieta is based on three linked short stories from Alice Munro’s collection Runaway (“Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence”). It opens in limited release on Dec. 21st.
Written and directed by Academy Award-winner Pedro Almodóvar, it stars Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte along with Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Darío Grandinetti, Michelle Jenner, and Rossy de Palma.
The Guardian gave it five stars, calling it “Almodóvar’s best film in a decade” and describing it as “a sumptuous and heartbreaking study of the viral nature of guilt, the mystery of memory and the often unendurable power of love.”
Libraries are showing holds as high as 17:1, and generally well above a 3:1 standard.
The book explores the work of Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and the question, as the NYT frames it, of “Why do most people, from sports managers to bankers, so often overlook the data and make colossal errors based on gut instinct?”
The two found, “In study after study,” the review goes on, “that when it comes to making decisions, humans are predisposed to irrationality. Their surprising findings have had profound implications for everything from behavioral economics and politics, to advanced medicine and sports.”
But the reason that people are enthusiastic about Lewis’s book may be due to his ability to bring the emotional to what may seem like a dry subject. Jennifer Senior writes in her NYT review, “During its final pages, I was blinking back tears, hardly your typical reaction to a book about a pair of academic psychologists. The reason is simple. Mr. Lewis has written one hell of a love story, and a tragic one at that. The book is particularly good at capturing the agony of the one who loves the more ”
Readers may know one of the subjects of the book, Nobel prize-winner Kahneman for his own bestselling book Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Lewis has made many appearances for the book, including the following on CSB This Morning earlier in the month:
Very few new titles arrive in the upcoming week and none of them have significant holds.
We’re unable to check on one title, however, because most libraries have not yet ordered it. Batman Vol. 10, (DC Comics) collects the final issues in what Entertainment Weekly describes as “writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo’s … landmark run on DC’s Batman … [which] introduced daring new concepts to the Batman mythology, including a bold and colorful new take on his origin story.”
The titles covered here, and other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Dec. 19 2016
Consumer Media Picks
People magazine this week picks two titles from Bloomsbury USA, published earlier this month.
The “Book of the Week” is The Private Life of Mrs Sharma by Ratika Kapur, (Macmillan/Bloomsbury, 12/3; OverDrive Sample). About a “simple woman from a good family” in Delhi who uncharacteristically embarks on an affair, this novel is described as a “delightfully funny novel [that] delivers a serious message about what happens when our responsibilities push us to the breaking point.” It received a starred review from Kirkus. UPDATE: In the Wall Street Journal Sam Sacks gives it a particularly intriguing review, ending with “In Mrs. Sharma, Ms. Kapur has fashioned a memorably double-sided character for a novel that, like a gathering storm, changes before your eyes from soft light to enveloping darkness.”
On a weightier note, People also picks They Are Trying to Break Your Heartby David Savill (Macmillan/ Bloomsbury, 12/6; OverDrive Sample), writing, “The Bosnian war and Thailand’s ’04 tsunami come chillingly to life in this novel, which intertwines the stories of four people … In lean, piercing prose, Savill brings the narrative to a surprising climax.”
Only one tie-in hits shelves but it is a big one, the novelization of the newest Star Wars film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Alexander Freed (PRH/Del Rey; RH Audio/BOT).
The novel, which according to the publisher includes “new scenes and expanded material” beyond the film, follows the story of how the Rebellion steals the plans for the Death Star, thus setting up the action in the 1977 film, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.
It’s such a slow week in terms of publishing output that even James Patterson is releasing only one new title (technically, two, but one is a re-release of an earlier BookShots compilation). It’s a childrens book, written with frequent collaborator, and best selling childrens author in his own right (the Mr. Lemoncello series), Chris Grabenstein. Word of Mouse(Hachette/Jimmy Patterson; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) arrives with strong pre-pub reviews, including a star from Booklist, which goes so far as to say blue mouse Isaiah, is destined to join the pantheon of mice in children’s lit, including Robert C. O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Avi’s Poppy, and Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux.
The titles covered here, and a few other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar Week of Dec 12, 2016.
Peer Picks
No LibraryReads or Indie Next picks arrive this week, reflecting the slowdown of the publishing schedule as the year draws to a close.
Tie-ins
Two very different movies with book tie-ins open next week.
The Spanish language film Julieta is based on three linked short stories from Alice Munro’s collection Runaway (“Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence”).
Opening on Dec. 21st, the film is written and directed by Academy Award-winner Pedro Almodóvar and stars Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte along with Daniel Grao, Inma Cuesta, Darío Grandinetti, Michelle Jenner, and Rossy de Palma.
The Guardian gave it five stars, calling it “Almodóvar’s best film in a decade” and describing it as “a sumptuous and heartbreaking study of the viral nature of guilt, the mystery of memory and the often unendurable power of love.”
More Star Wars tie-ins arrive this week for Rogue One, debuting in theaters on Dec. 16.
Star Wars: Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guideis by Pablo Hidalgo (PRH/DK Children), LucasFilm’s Creative Executive, which means, as described this week in an interview on NPR, his job is to “know absolutely everything there is to know about Star Wars. As the universe expands [and] to make sure everything stays accurate and in sync — a Star Wars story consultant, if you will.”
Another overview of the film’s visual is The Art of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Josh Kushins (Abrams), which provides conception art from the film as well as essays on how the look of the film was developed. Storyboards, paintings, and designs for costumes, vehicles, and the new characters area also included.
Other Star War tie-ins arriving this week are for younger readers, a reference guide and a leveled reader:
Maria Semple appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, to discuss her new book Today Will Be Different (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample). As a result, the book made an impressive jump on Amazon, moving from #1,038 to #381.
Host Terry Gross introduced the conversation by saying “It’s both hilarious and moving to read [main character] Eleanor’s most ungraceful attempts at self-improvement” before turning the actual interview over to Fresh Air producer Sam Briger.
He began by asking Semple about the book’s opening, a funny, kind of heartbreaking, mantra listing the kind of person Eleanor wishes to be. Simple says that when she sat down to begin the book, “I almost wrote that first page word for word. As soon as I finished it, it had this spooky, kind of scary, nauseating energy about it. And I thought wow, I think I’m about to embark on writing a novel that takes place in a single day.”
The interview concludes with a discussion of Semple’s earlier work as a TV writer for shows such as Arrested Development and Mad About You.
Holds are strong in libraries, with several reaching 4:1 ratios on high numbers of copies.
Country music star Naomi Judd just released a memoir about her treatment-resistant depression, River of Time: My Descent into Depression and How I Emerged with Hope (Hachette/Center Street; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).
As a result of dual appearances on ABC, it is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings, jumping to #138.
Good Morning America featured the singer in a taped conversation with host Robin Roberts. Nightline offered a more extended conversation.
Roberts says Judd’s book is a “powerful” and “inspiring” story. According to Judd, she was in an “extreme situation,” in psychiatric wards and on heavy doses of medication. She also recounts the sexual abuse she suffered as a child, saying “nobody was there for me … I had to parent myself.”
Estranged from daughter Wynonna, Naomi says she made a lot of mistakes with her and they need a break from each other. She copes with her illness now by practicing “radical acceptance.”
At the domestic box office over the weekend, the adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts is doing well enough in its third week to expect that the franchise will continue through the planned four more films. The screenplay is now #2 on the USA Today after two weeks.
The much lower budget Arrival, based on the short story by Ted Chiang, is also doing well and has brought new attention to the author.
A single adaptation opens this weekend, All We Had, the indie film that marks the directorial debut of Katie Holmes. She stars as well as a hard-luck mother besieged by difficulties. The film also features Stefania Owen, Luke Wilson, Richard Kind, Mark Consuelos, Judy Greer, and Eve Lindley.
It is based on the debut novel of the same name by Annie Weatherwax (S&S/Scribner, 2015; OverDrive Sample) about the very difficult lives of those living on the uncertain edge of the American economy.
Reviews are not strong but some are more complimentary than others. The Guardian is the most receptive, giving it three stars and saying “A stellar, brazen performance by the Dawson’s Creek actor and her strong cast keep this film, about the bond between a wayward mother and daughter, afloat.”
Variety was not as kind, writing “Katie Holmes makes an undistinguished helming debut with All We Had, a middlebrow drama with no pretensions but also no depth.”
The film will open on Dec. 9 in both theaters and on demand. There is no tie-in.
As we get closer to the holidays, fewer hardcovers are being released. As a result, the holds leaders this week is Nora Roberts’ original paperback, Island of Glass(PRH/Berkley; OverDrive Sample).
Six of Patterson’s BookShots paperback originals also arrive, including a title aimed at the season, The Christmas Mystery: A Detective Luc Moncrief Mystery (Hachette/Bookshots; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).
The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar Week of Dec 5.
Ever since Moneyball, his examination of how the Oakland A’s used statistics to create a winning team, Lewis has attracted media attention. In this new book, he reaches back to examine the researchers whose work influenced the Oakland A’s manager, as well as many others, to think differently. The book is reviewed by the NYT along with a profile of the author, who is also featured on CBS Sunday Morning. He is scheduled to appear onThe Late Show with Stephen Colberttonight and for tomorrow on CBS This Morning.
Four Indie Next selections come out this week, starting with the return of a fan-favorite author, Val McDermid with Out of Bounds (Atlantic Monthly Press).
“McDermid is a thriller writer at the top of her game and Out of Bounds has everything readers want in a character-driven suspense novel: fully human characters, tight plotting, unexpected twists, and a story that grabs and won’t let go. Karen Pirie is still reeling from the death of her partner and is coping by throwing herself into her work as detective chief inspector of Scotland’s Historic Cases Unit. As the unit works to unravel a 20-year-old case through a DNA match from the driver in a recent car accident, Pirie skates on thin ice with her superiors by digging into the background of a mentally disturbed man who appears to have committed suicide. Highly recommended!” —Carol Schneck Varner, Schuler Books & Music, Okemos, MI
“Ema, the Captive is a gentle meditation on the natural world in its grotesqueness and its beauty, humanity’s place within it, and the effect that human progress has had on both. With his usual incredible attention to detail and in measured, lucid prose, Aira somehow turns this tale into a page-turner, the kind of feat only he could accomplish.” —Justin Souther, Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, Asheville, NC
Mincemeat: The Education of an Italian Chef, Leonardo Lucarelli, translated by Lorena Rossi Gori and Danielle Rossi (PRH/Other Press; OverDrive Sample).
“This is not a typical chef story where the aspiring individual goes to culinary school, learns all the traditional styles, and then apprentices under a great chef to become established in the profession. Lucarelli started as a dishwasher and then through dumb luck became the chef in a restaurant after its two chefs fought with each other and left. Subsequent kitchens all offered a variety of challenges and disruptive, combative elements that helped to move Lucarelli’s career along. If you want to experience some real ‘behind the scenes’ views of restaurant life, then do yourself a favor and read Mincemeat.” —Jason Kennedy, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI
Additional Buzz: It is one of the BBC’s “Ten books you should read in December.” They write, the “enthralling memoir … takes us through long, sensual after-hours escapades as well as the satisfactions of learning on the job and cooking up his own fantasies. Most revealing, perhaps, are his mistakes.” It is also one of the Amazon Editors’ “top picks for the best books of December.”
“Tursten does not disappoint in the ninth installment of her impeccable Inspector Irene Huss Investigation series, moving it forward on a perfect note with Irene and her husband, Krister, beginning a new stage in their lives. One of the things I’ve always admired about this series, in addition to Irene’s strength and intelligence, is the normalcy of her life. I loved this book, but I was so busy racing through it to unravel the various threads that now I need to read it again slowly and savor it. You will, too!” —Eileen McGervey, One More Page Books, Arlington, VA
Tie-ins
Four tie-ins, a mix of fiction, nonfiction, and a play, hit shelves this week to take advantage of the publicity for the film adaptations. Three of them are hot Oscar contenders.
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, Margot Lee Shetterly (HC/William Morrow Paperbacks; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).
As we have been posting, Hidden Figures is one of the hot films of the season (see here and here). It stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe as a group of African American women who worked at NASA on the mission that sent John Glenn into space in 1962. Also in the cast are Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge and Glen Powell. Director Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent) was so taken with the script that he dropped out of the running to direct a Spiderman movie in favor of this one.
Another film opening on Christmas Day in a small run to qualify for the Oscars is Ben Affleck’s adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s historical gangster novel. It will play nationwide on January 13, 2017.
The story revolves around a former baseball player in the 1950s struggling to reconcile his life and provide for his family. Washington directs and co-stars with Viola Davis, reprising their roles from a Broadway revival of the play six years ago, for which both won Tony Awards.
Moonglow byMichael Chabon (Harper; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample) is a critical and library darling and has the holds figures to prove it. In the majority of library systems we checked hold ratios are well over 3:1, with some reaching 5:1. Even where holds are within acceptable ratios, all copies are in circulation and have active hold lists. It is a LibraryReads November selection with the following annotation:
“A grandson sits by his dying grandfather’s bedside as his grandfather slowly reveals the light and shadows of a marriage and of a family that kept secrets as a way of life. He learns of his grandmother’s life growing up during World War II; her coming to America and living with a man who kept to himself, even lying to her about his short time in prison. Chabon’s signature style includes carefully observed characters that are both new and familiar and shimmering prose that reflects and refracts light much as moonlight does.” — Jennifer Winberry, Hunterdon County Library, Flemington, NJ
A sleeper hit from the fall is doing well on multiple bestseller lists, rising as spring titles start to replace many others from 2016.
A Monster Calls
Silence
