EarlyWord

ReadingGroupGuides.com is compiling a list of the 2010 Most Discussed Books of the Year.

Book club members are asked to share the books that their groups read each month in 2010. Groups who submit their lists are automatically entered in a contest to win 12 copies of one of the 33 featured titles, which include both recently published titles and upcoming 2011 books.

To view the complete list of featured titles click here. The 2010 Most Discussed Books of the Year feature and contest will be open through February 21, 2011.

Full details and contest rules are available here.

Continuing on its streak of success, the Scandinavian thriller Three Seconds, has just been optioned for a movie by New Regency.

The book #15 on the NYT Fiction best seller list, after three weeks, slipping from a high of #8 last week.

Three Seconds is the very first book from the new imprint, Silver Oak, a joint deal between six-year-old British Quercus Publishing (publishers of Stieg Larsson’s books in the UK) and Sterling Publishing in the U.S.

Three Seconds Anders Roslund, Borge Hellstrom Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: SilverOak – (2011-01-04) ISBN / EAN: 1402785925 / 9781402785924

Brilliance Audio; Unabridged Lib Ed; 9781455807222; 13 CD’s; $79.97

Yesterday’s GalleyChat was like readers advisory for readers advisers and raised several titles to the top of participants’ TBR piles.

Debuts

Among the debut novels, The Tiger’s Wife, by Téa Obreht, won a prediction that it will be one of the biggest books of the year. At 25, Obreht’s the youngest of the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 fiction writers, as well as the National Book Foundation’s 5 under 35 (selected by no less than Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin). The Village Voice said what many of us were thinking when they called her the “Best New York Writer Young Enough to Make You Slit Your Wrists.”

All of that acclaim arrived months before her first book, coming in March (a chapter was published in The New Yorker in 2009 and another story, “Blue Water Djinn” in Aug — subscription required for both).

The Tiger’s Wife: A Novel Tea Obreht Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Random House – (2011-03-08) ISBN / EAN: 0385343833 / 9780385343831

Another debut getting several nods is So Much Pretty, which also comes with a rave from Booklist, and an unlikely comparison, “A mixture of The Lovely Bones and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

So Much Pretty: A Novel Cara Hoffman Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2011-03-15) ISBN / EAN: 1451616759 / 9781451616750

The debut psychological thriller, Before I Go To Sleep, is about a woman who has lost her memory. The husband she wakes up with each morning is thus a perplexing stranger, as is the face in the mirror. One GalleyChatter warns, “you’ll never see the end coming!” Be sure to check out HarperCollins Director of Library Marketing, Virginia Stanley, presenting it at the HarperCollins Spring Summer Buzz session.

Before I Go To Sleep: A Novel S. J. Watson Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Harper – (2011-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0062060554 / 9780062060556

Memoirs

Several memoirs were mentioned (it’s probably the sheer number of memoirs that brought about Sunday’s rant about “oversharing” in the NYT BR).

My own favorite is Andre Dubus’s Townie. After his riveting speech at Midwinter (he managed to make you feel that he was not only talking directly to you, but he was actually flirting with you), I knew Townie would be my plane reading. Not only did it live up to my heightened expectations, but it made a cross-country flight in a middle seat almost bearable.

Given the current fascination with both memoirs and  chefs, it’s no surprise that there are several chef memoirs on the horizon.

Grant Achatz, writes about founding Alinea and overcoming tongue cancer in Life, on the Line. (Gotham/Penguin, March)

Season to Taste by Molly Birnbaum (also featured in HarperCollins Book Buzz) is by an aspiring chef who loses her sense of smell (Ecco, June).

Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton (RH, March);  one  GalleyChat participant called it  “amazing” and a book she is still talking about. It also arrives with stellar prepub reviews (Booklist, “lusty, rollicking, engaging-from-page-one memoir”).

Please join us for the next GalleyChat on Tuesday, March 1, 4 to 5 p.m., Eastern (details here).

On the Colbert Report last night, Michael Lewis explained why investing in nickels may be a good idea (4:15 in to the segment).

Lewis’s book on the U.S. financial crisis, The Big Short, came out in trade paperback yesterday; many libraries are still showing significant hold ratios on the title.

…………………………
Lewis’s next book, coming in June, is Bomerang. It explores how financial bubbles have turned other countries, such as Ireland, into “the new third world.”

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World Michael Lewis Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2011-06-13) ISBN / EAN: 0393081818 / 9780393081817

One of the key opposition leaders in Egypt is Mohamed ElBaradei. In March of 2010, he signed a deal with Holt’s Metropolitan Books imprint to publish a book on nuclear diplomacy in Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Originally scheduled for release in June, the publisher just announced that the release date has been moved to April 26th; several blogs, including the Washington Post‘s Political Bookworm and  the NYT ArtsBeat, have reported the news.

The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times Mohamed ElBaradei Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Metropolitan Books – (2011-04-26) ISBN / EAN: 0805093508 / 9780805093506

The movie version of the best-selling book Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, directed by Timur Bekmanbetov, with Tim Burton as one of the producers, is being called one of the hottest projects in Hollywood right now. Last week, Benjamin Walker was announced as the lead; yesterday, it was reported that Joaquin Phoenix is the front runner for the part of Henry Sturgess, Honest Abe’s vampire-killing mentor.

Two other film takes on our 16th president are also in the works. Steven Spielberg is set to direct Lincoln, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, with Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead.

Coming April 15 is the Robert Redford film Conspirator, about Mary Surratt, the lone woman accused of conspiring in the assassination plot. Robin Wright plays Surratt, Evan Rachel Wood her daughter Anna and Kevin Kline plays Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Lincoln is played by Lincoln impersonator Gerald Bestron. Since the majority of the film’s story takes place after the assassination, however, his screen time will be relatively short.

Conspirator is not based on a specific book, although, of course, there are many books on the assassination and several on Surratt specifically.

Official Movie Web Site: ConspiratorTheMovie.com

Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone, at #4 the NYT Paperback Trade Fiction Best Seller list after 52 weeks, has just been optioned for a movie by Anonymous Content, the production group behind the Oscar Best Picture nominee, Winters Bone.

Librarians embraced the book, beginning with Verghese appearance at ALA Midwinter 2009 in Denver, where he spoke at the Breakfast and BookTalk sponsored by the AAP Trade Libraries Committee.

Cutting for Stone Abraham Verghese Retail Price: $15.95 Paperback: 688 pages Publisher: Vintage – (2010-01-26) ISBN / EAN: 0375714367 / 9780375714368

NPR announces that they are starting a “a book-club-meets-social-media experiment.”

Via Facebook, Twitter and NPR.org throughout February, readers of Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken can join guided discussions about the book (details at npr.org/bookclub). At the end of the month, there will be a live chat with Hillenbrand.

The NPR site also mentions, that you can “join in to discuss the book in your own community,” which may be an interesting opportunity for library book clubs. More details are promised soon.

Here at EarlyWord, we’re continuing our own experiment in social networking with GalleyChat the first Tuesday of every month. Please join us today, 4 to 5 p.m., Eastern, to find out whichmnew galleys other librarians are reading. Details at earlyword.com/galleychat.

How about you? Are you using social networking for book discussions or other library activities? Tell us what you are doing in the comments section.

We’re looking forward to hearing what everyone is reading on GalleyChat tomorrow (4 p.m., Eastern — more info here).

To prime the pump, one of our regulars, Robin Beerbower, Readers Advisor at Salem (OR) Public Library, offers the following:

1) Jennifer Haigh, Faith, Harper, May — Like many of you, I adore this author and have loved everything she’s written (she’s the author of Mrs. Kimble, one of my top book group recommendations). An estranged daughter returns to Boston to help her Catholic family through the fallout of a scandal.

2) Michael Parker, The Watery Part of the World, Algonquin, April —  Michael Rockliff, who heads up library marketing at Workman, sent me this (Mike first introduced many of us to A Reliable Wife, so when he talks, we listen). It looks fantastic with one of the best cover art I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s based on the disappearance of Aaron Burr’s daughter, Theodosia, who disappeared in 1813 while going from South Carolina to New York.

3) Tayari Jones, Silver Sparrow, Algonquin, May — Another one from Michael. He’s really jazzed about this one. Almost looks like a cross between The Help and The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (in style, not plot).

4) Chevy Stevens, Never Knowing, St. Martins, July — Just got a bound manuscript of this one. Loved Still Missing, a GalleyChat favorite, and this looks as good, if not better.

5) Patrick DeWitt, The Sisters Brothers, Ecco, May — I’m excited to read this one because the author is from Oregon and it’s getting some good pre-pub buzz, most recently from Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here.  A historical novel about assassin brothers who travel from Oregon to the CA gold country. (Note: we’ve also heard from Wendy Bartlett, Coll. Dev. Manager at Cuyahoga, who says she’s buying extra copies — “after the popularity of True Grit, the ironic Western may be big.”)

6) Michael Lukas, The Oracle of Stamboul, Harper, Feb — Beautifully told historical novel (almost a fable) set in Turkey and featuring a young prodigy who changes the course of history. We shared the ARE with one of our library patrons who also loved it, calling in “haunting.”

Robin also put together a list of all the titles that came up in the last GalleyChat.

Thanks, Robin!

Although its official release date is not until next week, some libraries have received their copies of the heavily-anticipated novel, West of Here. It’s been popular on GalleyChat, well-reviewed prepub (stars from Booklist, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly) and has been selected as the #1 Indie Next Pick for February.

West of Here Jonathan Evison Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2011-02-15) ISBN / EAN: 1565129520 / 9781565129528

Audio; Highbridge; 9781615731169; $39.95

Colbert is giving the love to authors this week.

Mon, Jan. 31 — Dr. Paul Offit

Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All Paul A. Offit M.D. Retail Price: $27.50 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Basic Books – (2010-12-28) ISBN / EAN: 0465021492 / 9780465021499

Tue, Feb. 1– Michael Lewis, The Big Short

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine Michael Lewis Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 266 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2010-03-15) ISBN / EAN: 0393072231 / 9780393072235

Lewis’s next book, coming in June, is Bomerang

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World Michael Lewis Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2011-06-13) ISBN / EAN: 0393081818 / 9780393081817

Wed, Feb. 2 — Sean Kelly

All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age Hubert Dreyfus, Sean Dorrance Kelly Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Free Press – (2011-01-04) ISBN / EAN: 1416596151 / 9781416596158

Thurs, Feb. 3 — Jane McGonigal

Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World Jane McGonigal Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2011-01-20) ISBN / EAN: 1594202850 / 9781594202858

Expect an increase in interest in books about veganism. Beginning Tuesday, Oprah and 378 of her staff go vegan for a week. Michael Pollan and Kathy Freston will be featured on the show.

Freston’s latest book comes out tomorrow.

Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World Kathy Freston Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Weinstein Books – (2011-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 1602861331 / 9781602861336

Many of you are already aware of Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan (Morrow), from the author’s appearances at BEA and ALA. It’s the story of 29-year-old Grennan’s transformative experience volunteering in a Kathmandu orphanage, and going above and beyond the call of duty to reunite children taken from their parents by war-profiteers. It’s received a strong recommendation from SLJ’s Adult Books for Teens blogger Angela Carstensen.

Of course, it is drawing comparisons to Three Cups of Tea, but Carstensen says, “Conor has a wonderful voice all his own: self-deprecating sense of humor, and a real affection for his young charges, combined with a story of survival and rescue in a civil-war torn country. Perfect for summer reading, all-school reading, and One Book, One Community Reads.”

You will be hearing about this book in the media. Reuters profiled Grennan this week (also featured on the Huffington Post), USA Today is planning a profile, and the book is the #2 Indie Next Pick for February and, it is Costco’s Book Buyer’s pick for February. Grennan he will be making several appearances in libraries as part of his book tour.

Libraries are already showing holds that triple the modest orders.

Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal Conor Grennan Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: William Morrow – (2011-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061930059 / 9780061930058

Thorndike; LP edition; 2/16; ISBN 9781410435279; $31.99

Other Notable Nonfiction On Sale Next Week

Live and Let Love: Notes from Extraordinary Women on the Layers, the Laughter, and the Litter of Love by Andrea Buchanan (Gallery) is a collection describing women facing various hardships. Buchanan will appear on Good Morning America on February 3.

Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age by Susan Jacoby (Pantheon) refutes the misconception of carefree old age usually perpetuated by sellers of “anti-aging” products. Kirkus calls it, “a cogently argued and well-written corrective to the fantasy of beating old age.”

Of the debut novels going on sale next week, Swamplandia!, by New Yorker “20 Under 40″ writer Karen Russell, looks like one of the most promising. It builds on a short story from her 2006 collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and tells the tale of the Bigtree family, operators of an alligator wrestling tourist attraction deep in the Everglades, after their star wrestler dies of cancer.

EW gives it an A- for “its effortless prose and its small, beautifully drawn cast of characters…while the novel deals in ghosts, whether actual ectoplasms or just unexorcisable memories, the characters, and their tale of family lost and found, remain triumphantly alive.”

Libraries we checked are showing orders in line with holds.

Swamplandia! Karen Russell Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0307263991 / 9780307263995

Usual Suspects

Deep Black: Death Wave by Stephen Coonts and William H. Keith (St. Martin’s) follows NSA operatives trying to stop a terrorist plot to cause a cataclysmic landslide in the Canary Islands. PW is not impressed: “Coonts and Keith employ a laundry list of familiar elements in their ho-hum third Deep Black thriller.”

Fatal Error: A Novel by J.A. Jance (Touchstone), the sixth mystery with journalist-turned-police officer Ali Reynolds, gets love from PW: “the plot never stalls and leads to a logical and exciting finale.”

In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V by David Weber (Baen) continues the science fiction Honor Harrington series.

Young Adult Novels

Delirium by Lauren Oliver (HarperCollins), the follow-up to the bestselling debut Before I Fall (2010), takes place in a dystopian near future where love is considered a disease and is erradicated by mandatory medical procedures. PW says, “Oliver’s nightmare future lacks a visceral punch, primarily because of the weakness of the world-building. Her America has undergone a seismic shift, but the economic, religious, and cultural ramifications are all but ignored.”

Silverlicious by Victoria Kann (HarperCollins) continues the Pinkalicious children’s book series. PW says, “ungrateful Pinkalicious eventually learns that real sweetness comes from inside, but readers may wonder why it takes so long for the heroine to change her tune.”

Also Worth Watching

Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Minotaur)  is the U.S. debut of one of Japan’s bestselling crime novelists, about a woman who kills her abusive ex-husband, and hides the body with her neighbor, while seeking the ultimate logical alibi. The Wall St. Journal says, “Whether it amounts to math, philosophy, psychology or cosmology, The Devotion of Suspect X is an elegant literary experiment. It suggests, among much else, that a lot of bad behavior is forgiven in the name of genius—and then even a genius can push the envelope just so far before it breaks.”

The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael David Lukas (HarperCollins) is a debut novel about a child prodigy in 19th century Turkey who has a profound effect on itspolitical and cultural leaders. Baker & Taylor included it in its Galley Mailing for November, and librarians are giving it enthusiastic early reads. LJ says “first novel by a promising young writer is both vivid historical fiction and a haunting fable. It will appeal to a wide range of readers.”

The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale (Twelve) is the fictional memoir of a talking, reading chimpanzee held for murder, who goes on the lam with a woman who becomes his lover. It was highlighted at the BEA Editors Buzz Panel by Associate Publisher Cary Goldstein. And despite the questionable premise, it gets an enthusiastic review in New York Newsday, which calls it “one rollicking story. Adventure tale, love story, science fiction, novel of ideas – this one’s got it all.”

Prayers and Lies by Sherri Wood Emmons (Kensington) is a debut novel about two young girls and a family secret, set in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia. LJ says it’s “a bit like a West Virginia version of the 1998 Todd Solondz film “Happiness”—technically good, but everyone will need a quick jolt of antidepressants afterward. Readable, but only for those with a penchant for realistic, dark stories.”

We’re fans of author Francisco Goldman, so we’re excited to hear that Monday’s New Yorker will feature a piece adapted from Goldman’s forthcoming book, Say Her Name, to be published by Grove Press in April 2011. Below is  the publisher’s description,

In the summer of 2007, acclaimed writer Francisco Goldman’s young wife Aura Estrada died from injuries sustained in a surfing accident on a beach in Mexico. Blamed for Aura’s death by her family and blaming himself, Goldman wanted to die too. But instead, he wrote Say Her Name–a deeply personal novel about Aura and his life with her, weighing the glorious gifts of their shared journey against its heavy costs.

Several librarians were attended special dinners that Grove Atlantic gave for Goldman (the one in San Francisco was co-sponsored by EarlyWord).

Copies of the book as an eGalley are available on NetGalley.

Say Her Name: A Novel Francisco Goldman Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Grove Press – (2011-04-05) ISBN / EAN: 0802119816 / 9780802119810