EarlyWord is the home of GalleyChat, monthly online discussions where library staff share excitement about upcoming books. More information here.
Summaries of chats and announcements are posted to the right. Use them to add to your own TBR piles and for collection development.
Links on the far right of the site offer information useful to readers advisors.
Hope to see you during our next chat,
GalleyChatters
News for Collection Development and Readers Advisory Librarians
August 20th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Last night, Stephen Colbert used his stunned-conservative persona to good effect to discuss the issues raised by John Krakauer in his book Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.
The trade paperback is out now. A documentary, The Tillman Story (not based on Krakauer’s book) releases on 8/20.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Jon Krakauer | ||||
|
||||
……………………..
 |
|
August 20th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Librarians have the opportunity to win some very cool book-related prizes:
1) Trip to London! — Deadline, 9/17 — to celebrate the paperback publication of Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry, literary agent Regal Literary is sponsoring a trip to London, which includes a tour of Highgate Cemetary lead by Audrey Niffenegger. A separate blogger’s prize is lunch with a Regal Literary agent and an editor from one of NYC’s top trade houses (what an opportunity for an aspiring writer). To win that one, you must write a review of 250 words or more (positive or negative).
2) $200 gift certificates each for 50 reading groups — Deadline, 8/31 — Celebrating their 10th anniversary, ReadingGroupGuides.com asks groups to share their Top 10 Favorite Discussion Books. 50 winners will receive a $200 gift card to a retailer of their choice — which, in keeping with the 10th anniversary theme, totals $10,000. Be sure to tell your book groups (they’ve created special printable flyers for libraries so you can hand them out to your groups).
3) 50 copies of Frommer’s Guides and a visit from Arthur Frommer — Deadline, 9/30 — for the library display that best answers the question, “How do you travel with Frommer’s?”
August 20th, 2010 By: Charlotte Abbott
Will Ballantine’s major push for Anne Fortier‘s debut novel Juliet pay off? The tale of an American woman who travels to Italy and discovers her ties to the Giulietta who inspired Shakespeare was first touted on the BEA Editors’ Buzz panel and at ALA’s Shout and Share. Rights have been sold in 29 territories around the world.
Earlier this summer it was chosen as a summer reading pick by the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
But now, Entertainment Weekly gives it a “B-“, finding that it falls short of its aim to be,
…a distaff version of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, with a dash of A.S. Byatt’s Possession tossed in. . . . Fortier’s writing is on firm ground in the book’s historical passages. The modern section, by contrast, feels contrived, and the author resorts to more telling than showing to keep her plot zipping along.
Still, holds are edging up at libraries we checked.
 |
|
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic), the doorstopper final entry in the Hunger Games trilogy, is embargoed until 12:01 am next Tuesday, August 23, when bookstores will break into midnight party mode, says USA Today. It’s also been signed for a movie that’s drawn casting speculation from New York magazine’s Vulture blog.
Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney (Delacorte Books for Young Readers) is the suspenseful tale of twins seemingly separated at birth – or are they more than twins? This was one of LisaVon Drasek’s Picks for August, for ages 12 and up.
Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs (Scribner) is the 13th novel starring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Publishers Weekly says, “Reichs, who once again uses her own scientific knowledge to enhance a complex plot and continually developing characters, delivers a whopper of a final twist.”
The Town by Chuck Hogan is the mass market movie tie-in edition of the author’s third novel, Prince of Thieves (2004), about four friends and rivals who rob a bank in Charlestown. The movie, directed by Ben Afleck, opens in theaters on September 17.
The Sonderberg Case by Elie Wiesel, translated by Catherine Temerson (Knopf), is a novel about a New York theater critic whose parents are Holocaust survivors and whose children are Americans living in Israel. PW says, “Wiesel returns to the moral questions that characterize the post-WWII generation in this slim novel that is both overstuffed with plot and skimpy on motive. . . . The ambitious scope of the story, spanning generations, is compelling, but limited by the novel’s length.”
The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard (Morrow) follows the lives of two girls born on the same day in the same hospital in New Hampshire. Entertainment Weekly gives it a C,
The author, whose last novel, Labor Day, was more satisfying and sure-footed, seems to think she’s weaving a knotty tale of family secrets, told in the alternating voices of her likable main characters. And yet all her twists are clumsily telegraphed.
August 20th, 2010 By: Charlotte Abbott
An ALA Shout and Share pick, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by well-regarded natural history writer John Vaillant looks at how Siberian tigers are faring amid climate change and a porous border with China. Publishers Weekly interviewed him, and praised the book as,
…a mighty elegy that leads readers into the lair of the tiger and into the heart of the Kremlin to explain how the Amur went from being worshipped to being poached.
Holds are edging up at libraries we checked.
The book is also in development for film by Random House Films, with a projected release date some time in 2011.
 |
|
Random House Audio; 9780307715074; $40.00
The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons by Richard Rhodes (Knopf) explores the role of nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War and efforts to eradicate them. The LA Times reviews the final volume in the tetrology Rhodes calls The Making of the Nuclear Age, saying “some of this book’s most chilling passages . . . reflect the author’s acceptance of analysts’ opinions that nuclear terrorism may be much more technically feasible than generally admitted.”
August 19th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Most books that receive media attention get it all at once, right around publication date; a few are discovered more slowly. This is true for Zoo Story, by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Thomas French. Spotted by Laura Miller in Salon last month, it was also a People Pick and gets two major pick ups this week. A review in today’s USA Today calls it,
…both top-notch reporting and page-turning storytelling…French’s narrative reads like a mystery novel. What will happen next? Will politics win out? Who will end up leading this zoo? What will happen to the chimps that escape?
The author appeared on the Colbert Report last night.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Thomas French | ||||
|
||||
……………………..
|
Tantor Audio; Read by John Allen Nelson; UNABR; On Sale Date: 07/31/2010
Trade 9781400118830 9 Audio CDs $34.99
Library 9781400148837 9 Audio CDs $83.99
MP3 9781400168835 1 MP3-CD $24.99
August 19th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Yunte Huang’s examination of Charlie Chan, the Chinese detective that was featured in 40 movies beginning in 1934, has caught the attention of many reviewers. On NPR’s Fresh Air, critic Maureen Corrigan says Huang reveals that Chan was not always considered an outrageous stereotype. In his time, he was celebrated in China as the only positive portrayal of a Chinese character in American film.
The book is also featured in the current issue of Time magazine (Watching the Detective), was reviewed by Charles McGrath in the NY Times (Charlie Chan: A Stereotype and a Hero) and in today’s B&N Review (The Legacy of Charlie Chan).
|
August 18th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Coming to theaters Oct. 1, a documentary based on the best seller Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, (Harper).
August 18th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
On NPR’s Morning Edition today, the fascinating story of a man who lived in NYC in the 1880’s as a light-skinned African American, when he was actually white. As the story says, this was “highly unusual.”
Also highly unusual is NPR featuring a book that came out in hardcover over a year ago; the story is part of a special series Morning Edition is doing this week on how race is woven into American lives.
The book came out in trade paperback in January.
 |
|
OverDrive WMA and MP3 Audiobook
Tantor Audio
12 Audio CDs (Retail Unikeep Pkg); 9781400111510; $26.24
12 Audio CDs (Library Binder Pkg); 9781400141517; $52.49
2 Mp3-CDs (Retail SlimlineL Pkg); 9781400161515; $18.74
August 18th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Among the names that appear on lists of “What To Read After You Finish Larsson” are Henning Mankel, Jo Nesbo and Karin Fossum.
The Washington Post reviews Fossum’s latest, a “haunting psychological suspense novel,” which alternates chapters from the author’s point of view thus, “having some fun…with the old saw that, during the writing of a book, a novelist’s characters will take on lives of their own.”
|
August 18th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
A sure sign that it’s back to school season; USA Today looks at four books that give “updated advice on navigating college.”
Writing about the book with the most up-to-date sounding title, The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids in College (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up(Free Press), review editor Deirdre Donahue asks, “Are cellphones, Facebook and e-mail morphing into the campus equivalents of baby monitors? “
August 18th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
On the Today Show, Stephanie Dolgoff mourns former hotness, but tries to say the message of her book, My Formerly Hot Life, is to not fear aging. It rose to #80 on Amazon.
……………………..
 |
|
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
August 18th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
Jennifer Arnold charmed viewers of Good Morning America when she showed off her training techniques with her dog, Butch. Arnold is against the idea that people need to be dominating “alphas” to their dogs; “they try so hard to please us that I find it very sad that we would ever use anything other than kindness to work with them.”
Her book, Through a Dog’s Eyes, rose to #165 on Amazon’s sales rankings, from #6,547.
……………………..
 |
|
OverDrive; WMA & MP3 Audiobook
Books On Tape; UNABR; 9780307737199; #30
August 18th, 2010 By: Nora Rawlinson
News that Anne Hathaway would star in the movie of the British novel One Day propelled it up the charts. It’s currently filming in Scotland and is slated for release some time next year (the tabloid press has been going on about her “geeky look” on set).
Meanwhile, Hathaway is starring, with Jake Gyllenhaal, in another romantic comedy based on a book, Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, renamed Love and Other Drugs for the film version (and the paperback tie-in). It comes out this Thanksgiving.
(for more Movies Based on Books information, check the links at the right).
Original Title:
 |
|
Tie-in:
|
