EarlyWord

A few years ago, Amazon decided to get a jump on best books lists with a mid-year “Best Books of the Year (So Far).” It had a noticeable effect on book sales, so the tradition has continued.

Others joined in and this year we have six lists (so far):

Amazon Editors

Book Riot

Flavorwire

New York magazine

Paste

The Washington Post

As we’ve come to expect from the annual lists, there is little consensus and no title appears on all six. In fact, among the hundred plus titles chosen, only 18 get multiple mentions. 3 titles appear on three lists and the remaining 15 appear on two lists apiece.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson and The Wright Brothers by David McCullough are among the selections made by Amazon, Paste magazine, and The Washington Post while The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is picked by Amazon, Flavorwire, and The Washington Post.

Surprisingly, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which got enough buzz early on to make it a hot contender, is only chosen by two sources, Book Riot and The Washington Post. In a separate review titled “This is one of the best books of 2015. I’m not sure you should read it,” Alyssa Rosenberg explains that because of it’s “exceptionally graphic depictions of physical abuse, sexual abuse and self-harm … it’s one of the few pieces of art that I could be convinced deserves a content warning even for adult readers.”

Based on its award history and lengthy holds lists, the lack of more multiple picks for H is for Hawk is also a surprise. It only makes the cut by Amazon and The Washington Post. [Note: this book was recently discussed by Slate’s Audio Book Club).

All 18 titles that received more than one nod are listed here.

On  The Daily Show last night Jon Stewart interviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample), echoing what many others have already said, the book “really is essential reading.” It is currently at #4 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

On the comics fast track, Scott Snyder has won an Eisner award for both The Wake (DC/Vertigo, 2014) and for American Vampire (DC/Vertigo, Vol 8 coming in January) and has worked on various superhero comics.

He may become a household name with his new comic Wytches (Image Comics, July 9, collects the original issues 1-6). In an interview with the author, New York magazine calls it “a tale of remarkably visceral terror” and notes that Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment is adapting it as a feature film.

When Wytches came out in serial form in 2014 it was covered by Entertainment Weekly (with a follow-up last month), USA Today, Nerdist (and a recent follow-up), and BuzzFeed.

The story, which takes place in a tiny remote area of New Hampshire, follows the Rooks family as they encounter a terrifying evil lurking in the woods. Each episode ends with a personal essay by Snyder addressing anxiety and depression. Illustrated with creepy genius by Jock (himself a cult figure in comics), the experience is pretty intense. Libraries that own it are showing heavy holds on light orders.

For more on Snyder, see the 2011 profile in the LA Times “Hero Complex”  (Parts One, Two and Three).

What challenge will super-hacker Lisbeth Salander, the main character in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series, take on next?

The NSA, of course.

That’s one of the “key details” about the plot released today by British publisher MacLehose Press and reported in the Guardian.

Swedish writer David Lagercrantz was authorized by Larsson’s estate, managed by his father and brother, to write The Girl in the Spider’s Web as a sequel to the third title in the series, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, (2009).

Not everyone is happy about the publication. Larsson’s long-time domestic partner, Eva Gabrielsson who lost a bitter dispute over who would manage the writer’s estate, says this book titled That Which Does Not Kill Us in Swedish, would have made Larsson “furious. Who knows, maybe he’ll send a lightning bolt at the book launch.” She claims to have 200 pages of a fourth novel by Larsson and will never allow them to be published.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series
David Lagercrantz
RH/Knopf; RH Audio; RH Large Print
September 1, 2015

E.L. Doctorow, best known for the novels Ragtime, The March, World’s Fair, and Billy Bathgate, has died at age 84 from complications of lung cancer.

In an exhaustive obituary The New York Times says, “he consistently upended expectations with a cocktail of fiction and fact, remixed in book after book; with clever and substantive manipulations of popular genres like the Western and the detective story; and with his myriad storytelling strategies… Mr. Doctorow was one of contemporary fiction’s most restless experimenters.”

The NYT also includes a link to a video of Doctorow discussing his work process.

Other notable obituaries include those by the LA Times, NPR, and New York magazine.

The LA Times reports President Obama posted his reaction on Twitter:

E.L. Doctorow was one of America's greatest novelists. His books taught me much, and he will be missed.

— President Obama (@POTUS44) July 22, 2015

NPR’s obituary points out that Doctorow was once a book editor working with a diverse range of writers, including Ayn Rand, Ian Fleming, Norman Mailer, and James Baldwin. The site also includes a video of Doctorow accepting the 2013 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters given by the National Book Foundation for lifetime achievement.

New York magazine includes a charming film clip of Doctorow discussing how difficult writing can be.

Readers Advisory: for those who haven’t read Doctorow’s books, a good place to begin is Ragtime, an exploration of America at the start of the 20^th century, including historical characters such as Sigmund Freud, Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, and Booker Washington.

Just after hearing librarians rave about the forthcoming Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy (HarperCollins/ Balzer + Bray, Sept. 15) during yesterday’s YA GalleyChat, comes the news that Disney is developing it as a movie.

DRCs are available on Edelweiss, where it’s already gotten “much love” from  47 peers, including 16 librarians.

Check out the full chat below:

A BBC TV series based on Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Tales, titled The Last Kingdom, after the first book in the series, is to premiere on BBC America on Oct. 10.

No full trailer yet, the following is just a teaser:

The Last Kingdom tie-in
Bernard Cornwell
Harper Papberbacks: September 22, 2015
9780062438621, 006243862X
Paperback; $15.99 USD

The ninth book in the series Warriors of the Storm, is coming in January (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe).

As we previewed in March, the Star Wars books are coming, spinning off from the new movie, Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, premiering on Dec. 18^th.

One of the titles we highlighted, Star Wars: Aftermath (RH/Del Rey/Lucas Books; Random House Audio, 9/15/15) by Chuck Wendig, is now excerpted on the Entertainment Weekly web site.

As Robin Nesbit, Columbus Metro Library, said when presenting the book at BEA’s Librarian Shout ’n’ Share program, libraries that don’t buy the  Star Wars books are missing some powerful “silent circulators,” adding that this one is by one of the series’ best authors.

Wendig has his own fans as well. His next book Blackbirds  (S&S/Saga Press; OverDrive Sample) comes out on the heels of Aftermath. A supernatural thriller about a woman who knows how people will die the moment she touches them, it is in development as a TNT TV series, with production expected to begin in October.

Carly Simon, perhaps most famous for the song You’re So Vain, is the daughter of one of the founders of Simon & Schuster.

She finally makes a foray into the family business (although not with the family company), with her first book, a memoir entitled Boys in the Trees (Macmillan/Flatiron; 9781250095893; Nov. 24). UPDATE: as one of our astute commenters notes, this is not Simon’s first time publishing. She has written children’s book.

While speculation is circling whether Simon will reveal the subject of her iconic song, neither the publisher nor the singer is saying right now.

Simon does share the scope of her book, however, in a widely quoted statement picked up by Entertainment Weekly, People, and the LA Times: “This book is my way of going back through my childhood, my music, my romances, my marriage … and trying to make sense of it all…I’ve been working on it for so long that it feels like my third child … but now it’s time to send that child out in the world.  It’s one of the most frightening — and exciting — things I’ve ever done.”

Boys in the Trees is due November 24^th and joins other popular musician memoirs like Patti Smith’s Just Kids and Keith Richard’s Life. Smith’s new memoir, M Train (RH/Knopf; RH Audio) hits shelves on Oct 6^th.

The release of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman has raised many issues, but it’s laid one controversy to rest.

There has been a persistent rumor that Lee’s longtime friend, Truman Capote actually wrote To Kill a Mockingbird.

According to a new computer text analysis system created by two literature scholars, “Harper Lee is the author of both To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set A Watchman.” (via the Wall Street Journal).

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart returns from hiatus this week, with two authors deeply concerned with the issues of race in America.

Tomorrow night’s guest is an author who has appeared on the show seven times, but hasn’t published a book since 2007 (Dreams from My Father), Barack Obama, His last appearance on the show was just before his 2012 re-election when he had to endure a ribbing by Stewart about a poor showing in one of the debates.

On Thursday, Stewart will interview Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau).

On Friday, the Washington Post explained why so many columnists are calling his book a “must-read.”

Holds are building quickly in many libraries.

In all the excitement over Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, some may have forgotten that earlier this year Theodor Geisel’s wife and his long time secretary found material for at least three new Dr. Seuss books as they were cleaning out Geisel’s office.

The first to be published arrives next week. What Pet Should I Get? (Random House Books for Young Readers; Listening Library.July 28, 2015) is believed to have been written between 1952 and 1962 and features the characters from One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.

At the time it was announced, Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles composed a poem in tongue-in-cheek disbelief. A sample:

“Book in Drawer”

Those yellowed notes,
Those yellowed notes,
I do not like those yellowed notes.

Will you read this ancient draft?

I will not read that ancient draft …

The New York Times’s chief book critic, Michiko Kakutani has read it and gets in to the act, with her own review in verse form.

Her conclusion?

Seuss never spoke down to his readers, no matter how small.
His tales were told with vim, vigor and zest.
What Pet Should I Get? entertains us just fine.
Who cares if this book’s not really his best?

For a comparison, listen to a clip from the audio:

Maggie Mitchell’s Pretty Is (Macmillan/Henry Holt; OverDrive Sample; July 7) gets a strong review in The New York Times.

The debut novel, a mix of literary fiction and crime story, received somewhat grudging praise from the trade reviewers (“Despite drawbacks here, Mitchell is on her way to a place at the femmes fatales fiction dais with Megan Abbott, Gillian Flynn, Tana French, and Sharon Bolton”). It comes across as much more intriguing in the hands of the NYT reviewer, Sarah Lyall who says “What a satisfying novel, with its shifting perspectives and competing stories and notion that our relationship to the truth changes with time and distance. And what a relief to read a kidnapping thriller that is not an extended piece of fetishistic torture porn, that does not end with some nice young woman lying dead and dismembered in a pit.”

The novel traces the history of two young girls who are kidnapped and held for weeks before rescue. Years later, as adults, they meet again after one of them has written a novel based on the story and the other is tapped to star in the book’s film adaptation.

Like the trade reviewers, Lyall compares  Pretty Is to books by another popular author, “Like Gillian Flynn’s spiky, damaged heroines — I’m thinking particularly of Camille in Sharp Objects and Libby in Dark Places — the girls, Lois and Chloe, have dry, self-aware senses of humor that make the book that much more fun to read.” Add this one to your RA file.

Holds are significant in some areas.

An unexpected venue has begun featuring novelists. The Wall Street Journal writes that Seth Meyers has created a “Late Night Literary Salon” on his TV show that boosts book sales.

When Hanya Yanagihara the author of the literary doorstopper, A Little Life, (RH/Doubleday, March) was invited to appear on the show, she assumed someone was playing a joke on her. Fortunately, she accepted. Meyers spoke to her for over six minutes, a long time for television and the interview caused sales to rise an impressive 54% according to BookScan. Meyers’s interview with Marlon James for A Brief History of Seven Killings (RH/Riverhead, 2014) resulted in a 31% sales bump. Those spikes are nothing, however, compared to the 500% jump Linda Fairstein saw after her appearance for Terminal City (Penguin/Dutton, June).

Other authors have not fared as well. Joshua Ferris’s To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (Hachette/Little, Brown, 2014) did not rise, but even so he told WSJ that “plugging a book is often a humbling enterprise… being on Seth’s show was the opposite. It was a gift.”

Meyers apparently reads very widely and picks the authors he wants to meet. As Marlon James says of his booking on the show, “I first just thought, well, my publicist is working overtime, which she is. But the idea that behind his booking was simply that he fell in love with these books just kind of blew my mind … it’s just not one of those things you expect.”

Meyers has featured authors who are no strangers to TV, such as Stephen King and George R.R. Martin as well and, according to the WSJ, Judy Blume and Junot Díaz are up soon.

A sample, below, in which Martin knights Meyers.

We end our tribute to Jon Stewart for his attention to books and reading as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with one of our favorites. This one is not an author interview, but a segment in which Stewart quotes the “Statement of Purpose of the Boston Public Library,” perhaps the only time it’s ever been quoted on national television.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart returns from hiatus next week. On Thursday, Stewart will interview Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of Between the World and Me (RH/Spiegel & Grau). In his New York Times column today, “Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While White,” David Brooks calls the book “a mind-altering account of the black male experience. Every conscientious American should read it.”

Stewart’s final day as host is August 6. His replacement Trevor Noah debuts on Sept 28. Here’s hoping he’s a reader.