EarlyWord

USA Today asks booksellers what new voices they’re most looking forward to in the upcoming season.

Among the fiction picks are several that are just out now, or about to be released.

The Postmistress Sarah Blake Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0399156194 / 9780399156199 Simultaneous Unabridged Audio: 9780143145448; $39.95 Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive

Bookseller Elaine Petrocelli from Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA thinks this debut will have “the kind of following that The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society had.” The author will be at MidWinter, signing at the Penguin booth, #1324, on Sunday, 1:30 to 2:30.

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Wench Dolen Perkins-valdez Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Amistad – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 006170654X / 9780061706547 Unabridged Audio: Book on Tape Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive

This debut novel is about slave owners who vacationed with their black mistresses at a summer resort in Ohio. “Almost every copy we had pre-ordered was spoken for by the time it came in,” says a bookseller from Cincinnati, where the local setting may have particular appeal. All four prepub sources are enthusiastic about it; PW calls it “heart-wrenching, intriguing, original and suspenseful.” People gave it 3.5 of 4 stars, calling it a “devastating beautiful account of a cruel past.”

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The Swan Thieves Elizabeth Kostova Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0316065781 / 9780316065788 Audio from Hachette: CD: $39.98; ISBN 9781600247453 Large Print:Little Brown: $28.99; ISBN 9780316043663 Book and audio downloadable from OverDrive

The Swan Thieves is getting considerable attention, largely because of the huge success of the author’s 2005 debut title, The Historian. Borders tells USA Today that they are throwing support behind it. This week, rival B&N.com published Laura Miller’s intriguing review of the book in The Barnes and Noble Review.

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One Amazing Thing Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Retail Price: $23.99 Hardcover: 240 pages Publisher: Voice – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 1401340997 / 9781401340995

Petrocelli is also excited about a book we’ve been hearing advance reader buzz for, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s One Amazing Thing. PW and Kirkus are both lukewarm about this story of seven people trapped in an American consulate after an earthquake, but Booklist calls it a “a suspenseful, astute, and unforgettable survivors tale.”

In a sure sign that a new publishing season is upon us, USA Today has posted its interactive calendar of the major titles coming out through April. It includes covers, annotations and pub dates — great for reminding yourself of what’s upcoming. You could think of it as flashcards for readers advisory work.

And, hurrah, This Book is Ovedue! is one of the selected titles.

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All Marilyn Johnson Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061431605 / 9780061431609

We’ve set up a new section for links to the season’s previews (on the right, under “Books of Winter/Spring ’10 — Previews.”)

If you have time to hunt down just one galley at MidWinter, go directly to HarperCollins’ booth (#1403) for This Book is OverDue! And, overdue it is; finally, a book written for a general audience that gives librarians the respect we deserve and recognizes how important, rather than irrelevant, we are in the digital age.

We just learned the book is being featured in the February issue of O the Oprah Magazine, saying it shows that “today’s librarians make it their mission to rescue us from chaos, managing the information overload that saps our souls” and that the author “celebrates [librarians] who risk prosecution by refusing to let government officials invade our privacy…”

The author, Marilyn Johnson will also be signing at the Harper booth on Monday, from 11:30 to 12:30 and will appear at the ALTAFF Author Tea from 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm on Monday (Hyatt Regency; Grand Ballroom).

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All Marilyn Johnson Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061431605 / 9780061431609

What else should you look for? Of course, you’ll be stalking galleys from your favorite authors, but it’s even more valuable to stay ahead of the curve by picking up some debut authors. Here’s just a few to tempt you:

The Postmistress Sarah Blake Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0399156194 / 9780399156199

USA Today recently covered this debut in their “Book Buzz” column, noting that Kathryn Stockett, author of the continuing sleeper success, The Help calls it, “A beautifully written, thought-provoking novel that I’m telling everyone to read.” The author will be signing at the Penguin booth, #1324, Sunday, 1:30 to 2:30

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The Passage Justin Cronin Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 800 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2010-06-08) ISBN / EAN: 0345504968 / 9780345504968

We noted earlier that Ballantine is pinning big hopes on this book for the summer. The author will be featured at the Random House booth during the Spotlight on Adult Lit., Saturday, 2 to 4.

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Saving CeeCee Honeycutt: A Novel Beth Hoffman Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0670021393 / 9780670021390

Another title we covered earlier, this is the inaugural pick for the Sam’s Club Book Club and we’re hearing rapturous responses from early readers. The author  will be featured at the Penguin booth, #1324 during the Spotlight on Adult Lit., Saturday, 2 to 4.

Gossipmongers have been riveted all week by revelations from the book Game Change, keeping it at #1 on Amazon sales rankings. Sarah Palin, the Clintons, the McCains and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have all various amounts of dirty laundry aired. But some of the most eyebrow-raising sections are about John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth, excerpted in this week’s New York magazine; far from being the humble man of the people, John Edwards developed into a megalomaniac, Elizabeth was an “abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending, crazy woman”, and campaign workers agonized over Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter.

And, John Edwards’ $400 haircut? It really cost $1,250.

There’s more to come.  Andrew Young, the Edwards’ aide, who pretended to be the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby to protect his boss, is publishing his own tell-all, The Politician. He is scheduled to get some serious air time:

1/29 — 20/20 begins a multiple-part interview with Bob Woodruff
2/1 — Book will be featured on World News with Diane Sawyer
2/2 — Interview with George Stephanopolous on Good Morning, America
2/2 — Nightline appearance

Few libraries have ordered The Politician; it was not reviewed prepub.

UPDATE: Unabridged audio will be available from Tantor:

Publisher: Tantor
Read by: Kevin Foley
Trade: 9781400116508; 10 CD’s; $34.99
Library: 9781400146505; 10  CD’s; $69.99
MP3: 9781400166503; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down Andrew Young Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 031264065X / 9780312640651

Alice, of Wonderland fame, is getting a mini-revival this year. As USA Today points out, in addition to the novel that imagines the life of the real-life model, Alice I Have Been, a new biography of Lewis Carroll is coming out next month, as well as the Tim Burton movie in March.

Alice-themed book clubs, anyone?

Alice I Have Been Melanie Benjamin Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0385344139 / 9780385344135

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The Mystery of Lewis Carroll: Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created “Alice in Wonderland” Jenny Woolf Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Press – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 0312612982 / 9780312612986

Elizabeth Gilbert became a household name largely because Oprah fell in love with Eat, Pray Love. Tomorrow, she appears on Oprah’s Marriage Around the World show, to talk about the sequel, Committed.

This time around, the book has been covered nearly everywhere, including the cover of the NYT Book Review this week:

NYT BR — Curtis Sittenfeld, who knows a thing or two about sudden success after her novel American Wife took off last year, like most of the book’s reviewers, is sympathetic to the fact  that Eat, Pray, Love is a tough act to follow, a problem Gilbert herself addresses in the  preface, saying that, after the previous book’s success, she feared she’d ever “write unself-consciously again.”

Sittenfeld sounds regretful when she says Gilbert hasn’t managed to pull it off; “the book is rather chatty and personal to be so heavy on research, but it’s rather researched to be so chatty and personal. Gilbert is equally likely to quote Plato or her friend Ann…”

Washington Post — Carolyn See is much more forgiving, “It’s a charming narrative that ends, Shakespearean-fashion, with a happy-hearted wedding. What’s not to like?”

Time —  compares Committed to another sequel to a popular memoir, Julie Powell’s Cleaving, the followup to Julie & Julia, making this vivid comparison: Cleaving is a “ghastly work of revelation without enough self-reflection,” but it’s “a much livelier book than Committed, in the way that your narcissistic pal is more riveting than your earnest, loyal girlfriend.”

Entertainment Weekly — “The deeper that Gilbert agonizes about marriage — the more she luxuriates in her dithering on What It Is All About — the more Committed loses its brightness, sharpness, and sense of welcome.” Rating: C

New Yorker — typical of many New Yorker reviews, this one uses the book as a pretext for  an exploration of the book’s subject, without actually reviewing the book, like an intelligent and fascinating Cliff’s Notes.

For links to dozens of other reviews, check the Bookmarks site.

Most of the reviews refer to the movie of Eat, Pray, Love, starring Julia Roberts, which is scheduled to debut August 13. No trailer yet, but the first photos have just begun appearing:

Drums are already beating for Ballantine’s big summer gamble; The Passage by Jason Cronin, due in June. It’s the lead title in the Wall Street Journal‘s 2010 “Books Preview.”

The entire Random House sales and marketing team appears to be behind the book, including the Library Marketing group, who will have ARC’s available at MidWinter (it’s 700 pages; imagine the shipping charges!)

News first broke about the book over two years ago, when Variety reported that Ridley Scott had optioned the film rights for $1.75 million and that rights to it and two other books in a planned trilogy had sold to Ballantine for $3.75 million (the next month, in a NYT story, the book’s editor said that figure was “not correct, but in the ballpark”).

This is quite a change from the author’s previous two titles, which are characterized by the WSJ as “sober, literary fiction, including Mary and O’Neil, a short story collection that won the Pen Hemingway Award.”

What’s The Passage about? Cronin’s agent compares it to both Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Stephen King’s The Stand (with vampires). The WSJ reports that Stephen King himself hails the book  “…as a captivating epic.”

It also has an appealing back story. Cronin’s daughter told him that his books were “kind of boring” and challenged him to write a book about a girl who saves the world.

Looks like her college fund is assured.

The Passage Justin Cronin Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 800 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2010-06-08) ISBN / EAN: 0345504968 / 9780345504968

Given the number of pages, it’s no surprise that the audio will be abridged:

Random House Audio; $45; 6/1/10; 9780739366509

The ’08 presidential campaign may seem like old news, but a new book that examines it in depth is dominating headlines and is currently #1 on both Amazon and B&N.com sales rankings.

Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, releasing today, has been featured on Sixty Minutes, The View, as well as in countless news stories. A section about the Edwards’ campaign is excerpted in NY mag under the headline, “Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster.”

Fox News delineates the “juicy bits” that have “rocked Washington despite arriving on the shelves months after a number of other campaign 2008 retellings.” Among the allegations are that Bill Clinton was having an affair during his wife’s campaign; Elizabeth Edwards was an “abusive, paranoid, condescending crazy woman;” and further evidence that Sara Palin lacked basic knowledge about world events.

Of course, the book caused Harry Reid to apologize about comments he made about Obama. Last night, Stephen Colbert commented on that issue (John Heilemann, coauthor of Game Change will appear on his show tomorrow).

In the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reviews the book, saying that the authors use the technique pioneered by Bob Woodward, “relying heavily on ‘deep background’ interviews, along with e-mail messages, memorandums and other forms of documentation to create a novelistic narrative that often reflects the views of the authors’ most cooperative or voluble sources.” However, she notes, “Unlike Mr. Woodward’s last two books this volume has no source notes at the end.”

On Good Morning America yesterday, George Stephanopoulos questioned the authors about their sources and why many of these stories have not come out before (the video is not embeddable; view it here).

HarperCollins has already increased the print run twice, from 75,000 to 135,000,and then to 155,000, according to the AP. Libraries are showing heavy holds on moderate ordering; an average of 10:1 in the libraries we checked.

Below, the women of The View discuss the book with coauthor Mark Halperin:

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Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime John Heilemann, Mark Halperin Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061733636 / 9780061733635

HarperLuxe; 9780061945991; $27.99

eBook downloadable from OverDrive

Entertainment Weekly gave it a middling “C” grade, but Elizabeth Kostova’s second book The Swan Thieves (after her 2005 blockbuster vampire-themed The Historian) gets more love from the Associated Press. The author was also interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

But the review that blows away the nay-sayers is from Laura Miller in the Barnes and Noble Review. Miller, a respected critic who writes for Salon, opens the review by marveling that The Historian was such a success; it’s “a vampire story without gore or brooding passions, a historical thriller without much in the way of action” but Kostova “…placed her faith in the conviction that readers are pleased to sink slowly into a novel, until the world it conjures has closed over their heads, submerging them entirely.” Miller feels she does the same with this book, even though the subject matter (Impressionist painting, rather than vampires) is quite different.

You can read an excerpt here. The book’s Web site offers information on the historical background of the novel.

The Swan Thieves Elizabeth Kostova Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0316065781 / 9780316065788

Audio from Hachette:

• CD: $39.98; ISBN 9781600247453

Large Print:

• Little Brown: $28.99; ISBN 9780316043663

Playaway:

• $104.99; ISBN 9781607884828

Deadline is Friday!

Sponsored by Asset Based Thinking for Teens and James Patterson’s James Patterson’s Read Kiddo Read, the program will donate $2,500 to a school or library for creating a program that sparks the passion for reading in teens.

1) Teen librarians and teachers are invited to submit a program plan by Jan. 15

2) The top ten programs will be selected by a panel of judges. Each library will receive a Kodak Vid Camera to document the program

3) One grand winner will be selected to win $2,500

For more specifics, click here

Now that the fall season is over, publishers are competing to get attention for lesser-known or first novelists, hoping to build them into tomorrow’s household names.

Today’s big winner is Grand Central, who first began touting Roses by Leila Meacham at BEA back in May. USA Today takes the bait, featuring it today under the headline “Roses heralded as the new Gone with the Wind,” and describing it as,

…the tale of three generations of powerful plantation owners in East Texas. There are struggles between timber magnates and cotton tycoons and more than a few secrets, of course, including an illegitimate child. The book is screaming to be made into a TV miniseries.

As USA Today notes, prepub reviews have mirrored the publisher’s enthusiasm. The Dallas Morning News concurs today, saying the book delivers “larger-than-life protagonists and a fast-paced, engaging plot.”

On the other hand, the Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s reviewer says, “There is no way I can recommend this book…” because the writing is “formal and stilted” and “a barely disguised thread of racism runs through the book.”

Roses Leila Meacham Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 624 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2010-01-06) ISBN / EAN: 0446550000 / 9780446550000

Read an Excerpt

The heaviest holds for fiction going on sale next week are on Robert Crais‘s thriller, The First Rule: A Joe Pike Novel, an IndieBound pick for January and a popular Amazon preorder.

The First Rule (Joe Pike Novels) Robert Crais Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Putnam Adult – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0399156135 / 9780399156137

Audio available from Brilliance Corporation:

• CD: $87.97; ISBN 9781423375494
• CD, MP-3: $24.99; ISBN 9781423375500

Large Print from Wheeler Publishing:

• $35.99; ISBN 9781410421418

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Elizabeth Kostova‘s The Swan Thieves – her second novel after her blockbuster 2005 debut, The Historian – has hold ratios of about four to one in libraries we checked.

Entertainment Weekly grades it a “C,” with the criticism that this literary thriller about a mentally ill painter obsessed with a dead woman doesn’t maintain a sense of urgency – “a desperate flaw for a story of passion and obsession.”

The Swan Thieves Elizabeth Kostova Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0316065781 / 9780316065788

Read an Excerpt

Audio from Hachette:

• CD: $39.98; ISBN 9781600247453

Large Print:

• Little Brown: $28.99; ISBN 9780316043663

Playaway:

• $104.99; ISBN 9781607884828

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Beth Hoffman’s debut novel Saving Ceecee Honeycutt, which was acquired by the same editor as Sue Monk Kidd’s Secret Life of Bees, is getting a push from the publisher and many enthusiastic quotes from booksellers. It’s also the first pick in the new Sam’s Club Book Club, according to GalleyCat, and will be featured in all 600 of the chain’s big box stores.

Prepub reviews included a starred Library Journal review:

“Southern storytelling at its best, this coming-of-age novel is sure to be a hit with the book clubs that adopted Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees.”

Libraries we checked are showing modest holds.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt Beth Hoffman Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0670021393 / 9780670021390

Penguin Audio

• CD: $39.95; ISBN 9780143145547

Large Print from Thorndike

• $34.95; ISBN 9781410422750

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Melanie Benjamin‘s portrait of Alice Liddel, Lewis Carroll’s muse in Alice I Have Been, is a big favorite of Random House’s library marketing team, who compare it to Nancy Horan’s reading-club favorite Loving Frank. In fact, the author invites reading groups to contact her and possibly arrange a phone-in.

Prepub reviews bear out the inhouse enthusiasm; Booklist says, “First-novelist Benjamin tells … a story that is a mixture of historically accurate fact and liberally imagined fiction, including her solution to the mystery of what actually happened to estrange Carroll … from his muse’s family.”

Most large libraries have ordered modestly, with 2:1 holds. However, one library clearly expects strong demand, ordering 80 copies.

Alice I Have Been Melanie Benjamin Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0385344139 / 9780385344135

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Elena Gorokhova‘s memoir of  growing up in 1960s Leningrad, A Mountain of Crumbs, has already received positive reviews in Elle and More magazines. Libraries are showing holds of three to one on modest orders.

A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir Elena Gorokhova Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 1439125678 / 9781439125670

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Also on sale next week:

• John Lescroart’s new mystery, Treasure Hunt
• Amy Bloom’s new story collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. Her novel, Away, was a bestseller. People gives the new collection 3.5 stars and makes it a People Pick. Bloom’s subject is love. Several of the stories are interlinked and People says they “hit harder than the stand-alones: mapping passion’s fallout takes time.”

New York Times book critic Dwight Garner is at it again – writing a review that immediately compels you to pick up a book you might not have given a second glance, based on his confident comparisons to similar titles, his sensitivity to good writing, and his own seductive storytelling flair.

This time it is I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay, a look at the roots of the global financial crisis by English novelist John Lancaster (The Debt to Pleasure), who began by researching a novel but found the facts so compelling he chose to write a work of nonfiction. It’s already up to #94 on Amazon.

Forty-six libraries have this book, according to World Cat. Those we checked show reserve ratios of five to one on modest orders.

Here are a few of Garner’s most compelling endorsements of the book:

“Few if any [similar] books will be as pleasurable — and by that I mean as literate or as wickedly funny — as John Lanchester’s.”

“If you don’t know how derivatives or credit default swaps work, or what securitization is, or why futures are riskier than options, this is a book for you.”

“Mr. Lanchester’s history lesson is peppered with dead-on references to everything, including ‘Annie Hall,’ ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘The Wire,’ Hemingway and Jacques Derrida. He is effortlessly epigrammatical.”

I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay John Lanchester Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 1439169845 / 9781439169841

If you’re looking for a quick reminder of favorite winter-themed titles for a book display, check out my article in the new Nick Jr. on “Books that Celebrate Winter.”

George Lucas appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart  last night. They spent barely a minute talking about the ostensible reason Lucas was on the show, to promote the book, George Lucas’s Blockbusting. Nonetheless, the book is currently the fastest-rising title on Amazon’s sales rankings, going to #116 from #40,609.

Stewart commented that he loves all the “crazy details” in the charts in the book. It reminds him of one of “those great Jane’s sports books that are filled with great statistics and facts.” Who knew that Jane’s had branched out into sports!

A much better description of the book is available at the StarWars site,

…a comprehensive look at 300 of the most financially and/or critically successful motion pictures of all time — many made despite seemingly insurmountable economic, cultural, and political challenges — set against the prevailing production, distribution, exhibition, marketing, and technology trends of each decade in movie business history.

The post also features an interview with one of the editors.

The book was not reviewed prepub and is not owned by most libraries

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George Lucas’s Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success Alex Ben Block, Lucy Autrey Wilson Retail Price: $29.99 Paperback: 976 pages Publisher: It Books – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061778893 / 9780061778896