Entertainment Weekly has the “U.S. exclusive” excerpt of The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series by David Lagercrantz (RH/Knopf; RH Audio; RH Large Print)

The site prefaces the sneak peek with this mini review:

“[In] David Lagercrantz’s highly-anticipated (and thrillingly good) continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, … Lisbeth is taking more risks than we’ve ever seen, and Blomkvist is desperate to get a scoop for Millennium to salvage his journalistic reputation.”

The UK Daily Mail has the same excerpt for their side of the pond but has added their own illustrations.

Security has been tight about story details according to both the WSJ and the Daily Mail, but all of that ends soon. The book will be released on August 27^th in the UK and on Sept. 1 in the US.

Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood (S&S/Gallery/Scout Press; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) has hit the NYT’s Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list at #11.

It was our crystal ball pick last week and is gaining momentum. Some libraries are showing holds exceeding a 3:1 margin with others inching towards that threshold.

Next week the media will continue placing attention on the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and on journalist Gary Rivlin’s book, Katrina: After the Flood (S&S). Having already appeared on the cover of the 8/9/15 New York Times Book review, an excerpt is featured in this week’s New York Times Magazine. The author is set to appear today on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, this coming Thursday on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show and on CBS Sunday Morning next week.

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 Aug 23, 2015

Holds Leader

X, Sue Grafton, (Penguin/Putnam)

Sue Grafton not only gets marquee billing on the cover of her new book, she appears to not even need a title, just the image of a letter (what a contrast to the cover of her first book from 1982, where the title gets top billing and her name gets near;y equal billing with her main character’s). The twenty-fourth in her series, it gets stars from Booklist, Kirkus, and PW. Booklist says “Grafton has never been better.” Kirkus adds “Grafton’s endless resourcefulness in varying her pitches in this landmark series … graced by her trademark self-deprecating humor, is one of the seven wonders of the genre” and PW says this is a “superior outing.”

Advance Attention

A Window Opens, Elisabeth Egan, (S&S)

As a former magazine and book editor Elisabeth Egan has a leg up on other first-time novelists. Add to that the fact that she once worked for Amazon, an experience echoed by her character’s punishing job at a company called Scroll, and that Amazon’s working conditions have been in the news lately, and you have a formula for strong media coverage. Indeed, Eagan is profiled in the daily New York Times and her novel is reviewed in this Sunday’s NYT Book Review and is a People magazine pick.

It is also an Indie Next pick:

Alice Pearse has just accepted a job with Scroll, (a forward-thinking bookstore) but Susannah, her friend who owns the neighborhood bookstore, asks her, “Would you really work for an operation that will be the final nail in the coffin for Blue Owl Books?” On her first day, Alice must set up meetings with 30 agents and editors and assemble 425 top titles to sell in Scroll’s lounges. The job is in addition to having three children, a dog, a husband in the midst of a career change, parents, siblings, and friends. Alice soon realizes this career may not be exactly what she envisioned and must ask herself, what matters the most? — the very question that many of us ask ourselves every day. A delightful, inspiring, and moving tale that will be a top choice for any book group. —Karen Briggs, Great Northern Books & Hobbies, Oscoda, MI

The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion, Tracy Daugherty, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s)

Interest in Didion grew with the publication of her memoir about her husband’s death, The Year of Magical Thinking, a National Book Award winner, best seller and the basis for a successful Broadway play, so this first biography of the writer has been eagerly awaited. Reviewing it last week, Entertainment Weekly gave it an A-. It is reviewed, or  more accurately, simply “described” by Michiko Kakutani this week in the New York Times, but the L.A. Times is not a fan, saying the book doesn’t tell us any more than we could learn simply by reading Didion’s own words.

Peer Picks

Best Boy, Eli Gottlieb, (Norton/Liveright)

The Washington Post’s review calls it “An unforgettable novel.” It is an Indie Next pick and the #1 LibraryReads pick for August:

“What happens when someone on the autism spectrum grows up, and they aren’t a cute little boy anymore? Gottlieb’s novel follows the story of Todd Aaron, a man in his fifties who has spent most of his life a resident of the Payton Living Center. Todd begins to wonder what lies beyond the gates of his institution. A funny and deeply affecting work.” — Elizabeth Olesh, Baldwin Public Library, Baldwin, NY

The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, Louise Penny, (Macmillan/Minotaur)

Supported by a two-page centerfold ad in the NYT Sunday Book review this week, Penny’s latest is an Indie Next pick.:

“Penny scores again with this story of the struggle between the forces of good and evil in the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines. Retired homicide chief Armand Gamache must use all of his detective skills and worldly wisdom to solve the murder of a young boy, an investigation that uncovers a threat to global security. The eccentric citizens of this remote outpost add their own color and knowledge to the unraveling of this complex mystery. This book is a pure delight!” —Sarah Pease, Buttonwood Books & Toys, Cohasset, MA

The Fall of Princes, Robert Goolrick, (Workman/Algonquin)

LibraryReads:

“I loved this novel about the rise and fall of a man in NYC during the 80s, when money was easy to make and easy to spend. What happens when you can get anything you want, and what does it really end up costing you? The story of the people working in the financial industry during that time is interwoven with the reality of AIDS, cocaine and the changes going on in society. So many sentences were so well-written that I found myself stopping to take them in and relish them.” — Jennifer Cook, Cheshire Public Library, Cheshire, CT

Ron Charles, book critic for The Washington Post, is among the first to review Jonathan Franzen’s new novel Purity (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio), which he calls a “trenchant analysis of the sins of parenting, the destruction of privacy, and the irresistible but futile pursuit of purity”.

With his trademark wit he summaries the novel over the course of the review: “[It] traces the unlikely rise of a poor, fatherless child named Pip. When we meet Pip — short for Purity — she is buried beneath $130,000 of student debt and working at a marginally fraudulent business in Oakland that sells renewable energy… For those of you sitting in the back, purity is the theme of this novel, and — spoiler alert! — it turns out that nobody is as pure as he or she claims to be: Everybody harbors secrets: shameful, disgusting, sometimes deadly secrets. If that adolescent revelation gets a bit too much emphasis in these pages, at least it’s smartly considered and reconsidered in the seven distinct but connected sections that make up the book.”

The Cliff Notes version of his long and detailed consideration is this: he thinks it is better than Freedom and not as much fun as The Corrections.

This will be, of course, one of many reviews to come. The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Telegraph, and The Independent have already weighed in. At this point, holds are in line with orders for the September 1 pub. date.

2015 might be termed the year of the famous lost manuscript given that new old writings by Harper Lee, Truman Capote, and Dr. Seuss have come to light.

Now comes another twist, the reemergence of an author somewhat lost to time, Lucia Berlin.

Don’t know who she is? You are not alone. For decades only a handful of people were aware of her work, most notably championed by short story master Lydia Davis.

Berlin was born in Alaska in 1936 and lived in multiple locales, from Chile to NYC. She had a hard childhood, was an alcoholic, and lived a peripatetic, rowdy life, according to The New York Times in a Books section profile.

She wrote short stories that were thinly veiled slices of her own life. Her first was published when she was 24, in Saul Bellow’s magazine The Nobel Savage, according to the NYT. Small presses published collections of her stories at various times after that but she largely stayed below the radar, dying in 2004.

FSG is betting on her again with A Manual for Cleaning Women (Macmillan/FSG; OverDrive Sample), a collection of 43 stories that remind Elizabeth McCracken, she tells the NYT  “of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son, which is the most beloved book of stories I know from the past 20 years among writers.”

The collection is getting strong and glowing attention. Entertainment Weekly gives it an A saying, that the stories are written “in sentences so bright and fierce and full of wild color that you’ll want to turn each one over just to see how she does it. And then go back and read them all again.”

O the Oprah magazine made it the top pick in their “16 Books to Curl Up With This Fall,” saying the collection “reilluminates a neglected talent.”

The New Yorker has a piece on Berlin by Davis who says that the “stories make you forget what you were doing, where you are, even who you are.”

John Williams, who wrote The New York Times profile, weighs in with “Her stories speak in a voice at once direct and off-kilter, sincere and wry. They are singular, but also immediately accessible to anyone raised on the comic searching of Lorrie Moore or the offbeat irony of George Saunders.”

Holds are strong and the collection has risen to #52 on Amazon sales rankings.

UPDATE: The daily NYT‘s critic Dwight Garner reviews it Aug 19. While  full of praise for the author (“Reading Ms. Berlin, I often found myself penciling curses of appreciation in the margins”), he thinks many of the lesser stories should have been left out.

GalleyChat sessions usually look far into the future, but our August chat was focused on September titles. No wonder, since so many gems are stuffed in to the first month of the big fall season, titles that might otherwise get overlooked when the October blockbusters begin to arrive (hello, John Grisham). Play catchup along with us, by reading DRC’s. You may also want to check your orders to make sure you have enough copies for browsing.

Check here for a complete list on Edelweiss of titles mentioned during the chat.

Unless otherwise noted, these are due to be published in September.

JoJo Moyes’ After You (Penguin/Pamela Dorman), the sequel to Me Before You, was met with feverish excitement.  A few advance readers were apprehensive about continuing Louisa Traynor’s heart-wrenching story, but not to worry, everyone was very happy with the way Moyes handles Lou’s progression after Will’s death. Wake County’s (NC) collection development librarian Janet Lockhart said, “Lou is as engaging as ever as she builds a new life. Poignant, funny and surprising, this sequel will be snapped up by readers of the first book.”  Buy lots and also stock up on Me Before You as they should be read together. And don’t forget the tissues. [DRC available on Netgalley]

An odd new genre seems to have emerged. When Elizabeth Meyer’s Good Mourning (S&S/Gallery; August), the story of a young socialite’s career in the funeral biz, was introduced, it got strong response,  with one GalleyChatter disclosing a creepy addiction to books about funeral homes. Gossip Girl meets The Removers (Andrew Meredith; S&S/Scribner) in this chatty and lively memoir.

Saul Black (also known as Glen Duncan, author the The Last Werewolf series) has written a nail-biting thriller, The Killing Lessons (Macmillan/St. Martin’s). A new GalleyChat contributor, Gregg Winsor, a Readers’ Advisory librarian from County Library Overland Park, KS, said this new serial killer thriller “injects some serious voltage into the genre. This story of two bad men, a damaged police detective, a reluctant hero, and a missing girl is an electrifying, mesmerizing read. Simply addictive.”

Ron Rash’s poetic novels set in the rugged mountains of North Carolina have many GalleyChat fans. His newest book, Above the Waterfall (HarperCollins/Ecco) has also earned him “much love” from Edelweiss readers. In this atmospheric novel, Les, a sheriff, is determined to solve one last mystery before retirement. Jennifer Winberry of Hunterdon County (NJ) Library writes “Rash’s gorgeous prose echoes the beauty and redemptive power of the Appalachian Mountains his characters inhabit.”

Librarians are popular as characters in literature. In a twist, Elsa Hart’s debut novel Jade Dragon Mountain (Macmillan/Minotaur), Li Du is an imperial librarian in the year 1708 and must solve the mystery of a Jesuit priest’s death before the arrival of the emperor. A number of GalleyChatters hope this one will not slip under the radar, especially New Rochelle Public Library’s Beth Mills who says “A fascinating look at the social and political life of 18th century China, with intriguing characters and a well-constructed plot that features more than one surprise.” [An Indie Next pick for Sept]

Based on the back story of the first female U.S. deputy, Girl Waits With Gun, Amy Stewart (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) was a favorite for a couple of GalleyChat veterans, including Vicki Nesting of St. Charles (LA) Parish Library. She calls it,  “Charming and utterly entertaining historical fiction/mystery featuring the Kopp sisters of New Jersey. The well-researched novel, great characters, and really wonderful cover art, make this a surefire hit.” [An Indie Next pick for Sept]

Sara Donati’s Wilderness series is a favorite to recommend to fans of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander titles. Donati’s next, Gilded Hour (Penguin/Berkley) is also garnering enthusiasm. Supervisory librarian Jane Jorgenson of Madison (WI) Public Library, described the epic novel of two women doctors in 1883 New York City as “engrossing and well-written, the themes Donati explores in her clearly well-researched novel continue to resonate today.”

Librarians will want plenty of copies of Hester Young’s The Gates of Evangeline (Penguin/Putnam) on hand to recommend. This gothic toned novel was best described by Anbolyn Potter from Chandler (AZ) Public Library, “Journalist Charlie Cates goes to gloomy, swampy Louisiana to write a book about the 30-year-old disappearance of the young child of a wealthy family. Her research uncovers family secrets, lies and clandestine affairs. This first book in a new series is incredibly suspenseful with a charming protagonist, a vivid setting, a supernatural tinge and an intricate plot that keeps you guessing until the end.” [An Indie Next pick for Sept]

Join us for our next GalleyChat is on Tuesday, September 1, 4:00-5:00 (ET). You can also keep up with my anticipated titles by becoming my friend on Edelweiss.

Holds are growing for Julia Heaberlin’s third thriller and hardcover debut Black-Eyed Susans (RH/Ballantine; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Trade reviews were solid but not over the top, but reviewer, reader, and librarian response has been. It is an August LibraryReads pick, one of Amazon’s August selections of the Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Books, and a Goodreads Best Books of the Month choice.

The Washington Post review all but glows, calling it “brilliantly conceived, beautifully executed [and] outstanding.” The review concludes with this million dollar endorsement:

“Heaberlin’s work calls to mind that of Gillian Flynn. Both writers published impressive early novels that were largely overlooked, and then one that couldn’t be: Flynn’s Gone Girl and now Heaberlin’s Black-Eyed Susans. Don’t miss it.”

Need a quick summary? The Dallas Morning News offers a share-worthy take:

“16-year-old Tessie Cartwright was found buried alive in a field of black-eyed Susans with the remains of other girls who weren’t so fortunate. The story toggles between two timelines, one involving the traumatized teen’s therapy sessions, the other taking place nearly 20 years later, when mid-30s Tessa believes the wrong man was sentenced to death row — and that her “monster” is still stalking her. Never has a patch of pretty flowers blooming outside a bedroom window seemed so sinister.”

Thanks to Wendy Bartlett, collection development at Cuyahoga Public Library, for the tips!

John Scalzi is a name to know in the world of SF, but as he wryly observes in L.A. Times, that is “exactly like being the best-known bluegrass artist in the country.”

Readers’ advisory librarians will disagree. Scalzi is not only an award winner but also a reliable sure bet for recommendations. It is true, however, that he has yet to gain major name recognition outside of science fiction’s devoted circle of fans.

That is likely to change. He signed a multi-million dollar contract with Tor last spring for 13 books to be delivered over the next 10 years.

The New York Times reported the story at the time and quoted Patrick Nielsen Hayden, the executive editor for Tor, that while Scalzi has never had a “No. 1 best seller he backlists like crazy … one of the reactions of people reading a John Scalzi novel is that people go out and buy all the other Scalzi novels.”

As Scalzi told Den of Geek in a recent interview, some of the 13 new books will be YA titles (they won’t necessarily be SF or fantasy; one is a contemporary story), and will include an epic space opera outside his established Old Man’s War series.

His newest book, The End of All Things (Macmillan/Tor; Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample), the sixth title in that universe, was published last week.

He also has an audio-only project in the works for Audible (unavailable to libraries, but sister Amazon company, Brilliance often publishes Audible titles as CD’s).

In addition, several of his titles have been optioned for TV series. That bluegrass analogy is likely to change.

The titles arriving next week with the largest announced print runs, 1 million copies each, are both childrens books. The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers is, of course, the followup to the long-running best seller about the day they left.

Neck and neck with the crayons is  Percy Jackson’s Greek Heroes by Rick Riordan (Disney/Hyperion; Listening Library)

Among the well-known adult authors with books arriving next week, Michael Koryta gets props in this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review from “Crime’ columnist Marilyn Stasio for standing out from those authors who “write the same book over and over.” Koryta, “an inventive story teller and a superb stylist, he’s constantly experimenting,” and  his new book, Last Words is “a private eye novel doesn’t read like one.”

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 Aug. 17, 2015

Consumer Media Picks

Eileen: A Novel, Ottessa Moshfegh, (Penguin Press)

Featured at BEA’s Editors Buzz Panel this year, this debut (after an award-winning novella McGlue and several short stories)  gets the cover of this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review, calling it “seductive” and a “literary thriller.”

It is also an Indie Next pick:
“Psychological thrillers don’t get any better than this. Moshfegh masterfully captures the inner despair of a young mind filled with vitriol. Through atmospheric and unsettling writing, the cold dreariness of small-town New England seeps into readers’ bones even as Eileen’s twisted view of the world — desperate, angry, and vulnerable — seeps into the reading experience. Creepy, but morbidly funny too, Eileen, both the girl and the book, will be with readers long after the last page is turned.” — Christopher Phipps, DIESEL: A Bookstore, Oakland, CA

It also leads off this week’s Entertainment Weekly Books section, called a “Chilling debut.”

UPDATE: the L.A. Times adds another stellar review to the above and the author appears on NPR’S Weekend Edition Saturday.

Woman With a Secret, Sophie Hannah, (HarperCollins/Morrow)

Since Janet Maslin stepped down as a one of the three book reviewers for the daily NYT as of July, we’ve missed her Friday reviews championing
titles she expected to breakout. We’re still waiting for news on a replacement, but meanwhile, Sarah Lyall steps into the breach today, although for a book that hit shelves last week.

About Sophie Hannah’s new boo, she enthuses, “It has, in common with her other books, a Gordian knot of a plot that untangles bit by bit, like a flower that does not blossom all at once; a strikingly executed and seemingly insoluble crime; a mess of loopy motivations and extreme behavior from guilty and innocent alike; a flawed, difficult heroine; and a great deal of amusing conversation between Waterhouse and his equally odd colleagues.

Born on the Bayou : A Memoir, Blaine Lourd, (S&S/Gallery)

People pick — “a corker of a tale about growing up in Cajun country.”

Entertainment Weekly, “Must List”, #7 — ‘This witty, evocative memoir puts a vivid Southern spin on the classic rags-to-riches tale.”

The author is scheduled to appear on ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday, August 19.

We Never Asked for Wings, Vanessa Diffenbaugh, (RH/Ballantine)

People ‘Book of the Week’ — “Single mom Letty Espinosa has always let her mother, Maria Elena, do the work of raising Letty’s two kids. But when Maria Elena suddenly moves back to Mexico, hard-drinking Letty must grow up fast. Diffenbaugh (The Language Of Flowers) deftly blends family conflict with reassurance: Wings is like Parenthood with class and immigrations issues added for gravitas. Take it to the beach.”

Fortune Smiles : Stories, Adam Johnson

This collection of short stories by the  author of the Pulitzer Prize winner, The Oprhan Master’s Son gets double coverage in theWashington Post, with a review which calls the stories “masterful”  as well as a story by Book World editor Ron Charles. It is also reviewed in the NYT Sunday Book Review (“gleefully bleak“).

UPDATE: The author is interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

Thug Notes : A Street-Smart Guide to Classic Literature, Sparky Sweets, PhD, (RH/Vintage)

We’ve had Thug Kitchen, now comes Thug Notes, like Cliff’s Notes, but with an edge.

Entertainment Weekly says, “from the mad-successful YouTube channel that puts a streetwise spin on beloved books and plays — stars a fictional professor named Spark Sweets, PhD. … But the project which is the brainchild of a group of comedians and academics, has been so successful at interesting kinds in literature that some schools have taken notice.”

Try this one with your reading groups:

Last Bus to Wisdom, Ivan Doig, (Penguin/Riverhead)

In this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review, the reviewer acknowledges he was worried about having to assess this book by a beloved author who died in April fearing it might not live up to his favorite Doig novels. After all,  “spitting on a fresh-sodded grave is not my idea of a good time.” Happily, however, he reports, this one is “more than not bad. It’s one of Doig’s best novels, an enchanting 1950’s road-trip tale.”

Peer Picks

Everybody Rise, Stephanie Clifford. (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press)

Word has gotten out on this debut. Holds are five to one in some places. They may continue to grow with the full page ad in this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review, plus the review in the Washington Post, “a smart tragicomedy about a young woman attempting to infiltrate the Primates of Park Avenue crowd.”

It is both an Indie Next and a LibraryReads pick:

“Stephanie Clifford’s debut novel takes us into the world of NYC high society in 2006. Evelyn Beegan, who’s always been on the fringes of the smart set, meets It girl Camilla Rutherford, and her ambition and desire to belong get the best of her. Evelyn’s deceptive effort to keep pace with Camilla wreaks all kinds of havoc with her finances, her family, and her sense of self. With a sympathetic main character and a fascinating look into how the other half lives, this astute tale is irresistible.” —  Anbolyn Potter, Chandler Public Library, Chandler, AZ

The Girl from the Garden, Parnaz Foroutan, (HarperCollins/Ecco)

With starred reviews from PW, Kirkus and Booklist, this is also an Indie Next pick:

“In her accomplished, arresting debut, Foroutan tells a story almost biblical in its basics. People in a mixed, but very religious, clan-determined society in Iran have their lives and roles set out in firmly dictated ways. Conflict ensues when what is prescribed doesn’t happen as it should and when basic human longings for autonomy and a sense of self start to emerge. Foroutan writes of a family’s unraveling in a powerful story that will vividly live on in the reader’s memory and imagination. Brilliant!” —Rick Simonson, The Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

Movies/TV

Hitting screens today is the movie Ten Thousand Saints, reviewed in the NYT. On Sunday, HBO debuts the new David Simon series, Show Me a Hero, based on the book by Lisa Belkin, also reviewed in the NYT today.

Five new  tie-ins hit shelves next week, listed below, with links to our latest coverage.

Captive : The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero, Ashley Smith, Stacy Mattingly, (HarperCollins/Morrow Paperbacks) — CAPTIVE, Trailer — Movie opens 9/18

The Martian (Movie Tie-In) : A Novel, Andy Weir, mass market — THE MARTIAN, New Viral Teaser — Movie opens 10/2

Big Stone Gap (Movie Tie-in Edition) : A Novel, Adriana Trigiani (RH/ Ballantine)– BIG STONE GAP, Trailer — — Movie opens 10/9

A Walk in the Woods (Movie Tie-in Edition) : Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson, (RH/Anchor) — Redford Takes A WALK IN THE WOODS — Movie opens 9/2

Z for Zachariah, Robert C. O’Brien, (S&S/Simon Pulse) — In Production: Z FOR ZACHARIAH – — Movie opens 8/28

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

For his upcoming middle grade novel, The Marvels, Brian Selznick has created his first book trailer, just released.

The Wall Street Journal describes the month-long process the author and former professional puppeteer went through to build the sets and act out the story.

With The Invention of Hugo Cabret Selznick introduced a unique style of combining art and illustration which won him a Caldecott Medal and served as inspiration for Martin Scorsese in his film adaptation, Hugo. His next book Wonderstruck is also set for a big screen adaption, with Todd Haynes directing.

The Marvels
Brian Selznick
Scholastic, September 15, 2015
Hardcover and eBook

The debut novel The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo (Harper Paperbacks; HarperCollins Publishers and Blackstone Audio) tops the September LibraryReads List.

Patricia Kline-Millard (Bedford Public Library, Bedford, NH) offers this annotation of the paperback original:

“At once tragic and hilarious, this book is a roller coaster of a read. You’ll find yourself rooting for the snarky and impulsive but ultimately lovable Mattie. At the heart of this tale is a beautifully unraveled mystery that has led Mattie to her current circumstances, ultimately bringing her to her first real home.”

Three other debuts also make the list. Bill Clegg’s buzzy Did You Ever Have a Family (S&S/Gallery/Scout Press; S&S Audio), The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young (Penguin/Putnam), and Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart (HMH; Recorded Books).

This is Stewart’s fiction debut, after writing popular nonfiction such as The Drunken Botanist. Maggie Holmes (Richards Memorial Library, North Attleboro, MA ) has this to say of Stewart’s move to novels:

“When the Kopp sisters and their buggy are injured by Henry Kaufmann’s car, Constance Kopp at first just wants him to pay the damages. As she pursues justice, she meets another of Kaufmann’s victims, the young woman Lucy. Stewart creates fully developed characters, including the heroine, Constance, who is fiercely independent as she faces down her fears. The time period and setting are important parts of the story as well, providing a glimpse of 1914 New Jersey.”

More well-known names such as Lee Child, Lauren Groff, and Jonathan Evison also appear, with Arleen Talley (Anne Arundel County Public Library Foundation, Annapolis, MD) offering this annotation of Evison’s This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! (Algonquin; HighBridge Audio).

“Harriet Chance receives word that her recently deceased husband, Bernard, has won an Alaskan cruise. Deciding to go on the trip, she is given a letter from her close friend Mildred, with instructions not to open it until she is on the cruise. The contents of this letter shatter Harriet and she begins to reevaluate her life and her relationships.”

The September Indie Next list is also available and Clegg’s Did You Ever Have a Family is tops for the month among booksellers.

Other LibraryReads picks that overlap with the Indie list include Stewart’s Girl Waits With Gun, Charles Belfoure’s House of Thieves (Sourcebooks Landmark), Young’s The Gates of Evangeline, and Evison’s This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!

Our recent Crystal Ball pick, In A Dark, Dark Wood (S&S/Galley/Scout Press; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample), also makes the bookseller’s picks.

With growing word of mouth, Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood (S&S/Gallery/Scout Press; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) is poised to hit next week’s bestseller lists.

Featured on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday with the wonderful headline “Scream Meets Agatha Christie,” it is also rising on Amazon, currently at #150.

Entertainment Weekly gave it an A- review, writing that the novel’s “foggy atmosphere and chilling revelations will leave you breathless.” As we noted earlier, it’s a LibraryReads pick for August and was one of GalleyChat’s unexpected BEA gems.

Holds are more than respectable on fairly light ordering.

NPR’s David Greene said that he began reading the book in a secluded park and that that was “a very bad idea. Even the title sends chills up the spine.” Here is the full interview:

Steve Hamilton, the NYT bestselling author with several Edgar wins under his belt, created a bit of a publishing tempest last week when he pulled out of his contract with St. Martin’s just weeks before his new book, The Second Life of Nick Mason was due on the shelves. (Note: cover art, left, is for the now cancelled St. Martin’s/Minotaur edition).

Libraries have solid holds lists for the start of this new series, one Harlan Coben blurbs as “A gamechanger. Nick Mason is one of the best main characters I’ve read in years. An intense, moving, absolutely relentless book — it will grab you from the first line and never let go.”

Within 23 hours of news breaking that Hamilton had walked away from St. Martin’s he was fielding multiple offers from other publishers, according to Entertainment Weekly, but the fate of his forthcoming book seemed murky (you can read the backstory here).

Separately, the AP reports that Hamilton has accepted a 4-book deal with Penguin/Putnam to publish the first two books in his Nick Mason series. The first title is now due out in the middle of 2016.

How is this for the plot of a book: Two kids grow up in the deep South 80 some years ago, making up stories, acting them out in the backyard. Fast forward a few decades and one of them writes what might be the most beloved debut novel of several generations and the other all but invents a new kind of book, one that still rivets readers to this day.

In a nutshell that is the real-life story of Harper Lee and Truman Capote, who were childhood neighbors and friends, continuing their friendship into adulthood until a dispute over the attribution for In Cold Blood drove them apart.

Their youthful friendship is the subject of a forthcoming novel for middle-grade readers, Tru & Nelle (HMH; Mar. 1, 2016; ISBN 9780544699601) by Caldecott Honor winner Greg Neri (Yummy: the Last Days of a Southside Shorty), following the pair on adventures through their small Southern town. It’s the topic of a detailed story in the NYT Books section and is also described on Neri’s own site, with historic photos of his subjects.

Neri’s book comes on the heels of new publications by both authors. Of course Go Set a Watchman is has been the subject of much attention, overshadowing the news that new Capote stories have been found as well, several of them in the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library.

The Capote stories were written when he was a teenager and a young man. Most have never been published. That will be corrected in October with the release of The Early Stories of Truman Capote (Random House; Random House Audio; Oct. 27; ISBN 9780812998221).

Like the fashion industry, the book world has its seasonal cycles. The fall book lists are now upon us and this week Entertainment Weekly debuts their runway favorites.

Highlighting “13 Blockbuster Novels to Look Out For This Fall,” the magazine leads with The Story of the Lost Child (Europa Editions; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) by Elena Ferrante. An underground literary cult favorite, this is the fourth and final book in her Neapolitan series.

If you need background (and you won’t be alone in that), check our rundown of praise for Ferrante. She has also  been the subject of Slate’s Audio Book Club (by the way, the Audio Book Club has now posted their August episode, featuring Go Set A Watchman – spoiler alert, they think it is a boring and pretty bad book).

Big names such as Franzen, Atwood, and Irving make the list of 13 but so do a few debuts including Knopf’s big investment, City on Fire (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio) by Garth Risk Hallberg, acquired for almost $2 million. Producer Scott Rudin also snapped up the movie rights.

Another buzzy title is Welcome to Night Vale (Harper Perennial; HarperAudio) by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. An expansion of their popular podcast of the same name, it got a boost and much attention after being widely suggested as a “what to listen to next” after the popular Serial. It was also
featured at this summer’s ALA.

The full list of fall titles selected by Entertainment Weekly  currently only available in print, is in the August 14th issue.