EarlyWord

To mark the second season of the Outlander TV show, Diana Gabaldon has released another Outlander novella (or short story, depending on your viewpoint), Virgins: An Outlander Novella (PRH/Dell, ISBN 9781101882528; Recorded Books), which arrives on the new USA Today best seller list at #10.

Previously published in the anthology Dangerous Women edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (Macmillan/Tor/Forge, December 2013; ISBN: 9780765332066), it is excerpted on Gabaldon’s website.

The story predates the events of Outlander and begins just after Jamie is flogged by Randall and escapes to France, where he joins a band of mercenaries that includes his great friend Ian Murray.

When the print collection was published, also featuring a Martin story from the universe of A Song of Ice and Fire, it earned a starred review from PW and the LA Times called it “a splendid cross-genre anthology” and is in many library collections.

Regardless of format, the strong debut on the USA Today best-seller list is another indicator of how well the STARZ series is doing and its ability to bring new readers to the books.

The Jungle Book continues to earn stellar reviews and is set to open to acclaim this week. Writing for RogerEbert.com, Matt Zoller Seitz sums up the general take:

“I saw the newest Disney version of The Jungle Book in the company of my enthralled 12-year old son, and there were moments when I envied him—but not too many, because the film is so surefooted in its effects, so precise and simple in its characterizations, and so clear about what it’s trying to say about the relationship between humanity and nature, that it made me feel about his age again, too. Maybe younger.”

Entertainment Weekly, Deadline, and USA TODAY all follow suit with The A.V. Club offering a rare dissent.

Today we focus on 3 movies of the adaptations arriving next week with tie-ins and big prospects (there are more, see our Upcoming Books to Movies and TV spreadsheet).

The Night Manager debuts on AMC (imported from the BBC) in a six-part miniseries that had already enjoyed gushing praise, so much so that fans are asking for a second season.

Promoting the the US release, stars Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie both say there will only be the one season.

The TV show is based on The Night Manager (TV Tie-in Edition) by John le Carré (PRH/Ballantine Books) in which a former British solider goes undercover to investigate an arms dealer.

The series begins in the US on April 19. One indicator of its success is that, after its release in the UK, tourist business increased to Mallorca, a major setting of the show.

Hologram for the King have sneaked up on many with even the tie-in edition coming out just a week ahead of the film’s opening.

If you aren’t aware of it, you’re not out of the loop. There hasn’t been a great deal of press coverage yet, even though the trailer got attention and Entertainment Weekly listed it as one of “20 of 2016’s Most Anticipated Book-to-Movie Adaptations.”

The film is directed by Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas) and stars Tom Hanks, Ben Whishaw, Tom Skerritt, and Sarita Choudhury. Based on Dave Eggers’s 2012 novel, a finalist for the National Book Award, it tells the story of a washed-out American salesman trying to change his fortunes with a deal out of Saudi Arabia.

The season six premiere of Game of Thrones airs on April 24th, finally putting an end to months of speculation over what is going to happen now that the TV series jumps ahead of  George R.R. Martin’s novels. As a result, there is no tie-in for this season, with Martin writing that the next book will “be done when it’s done.”

A new trailer was released this week, prompting the fan site Den of Geek to analyze the many promos to date.

Tickets to the Broadway show Hamilton are notoriously hard to get. Turns out the same is true for Hamilton in print form: Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter (Hachette/Grand Central Publishing; Hachette Audio and Blackstone Audio).

Early demand for the tie-in was huge. It tops Amazon’s best-seller list as well as Barnes & Noble’s and now, as the Associated Press and USA TODAY report, it is sold out on Amazon with a third printing expected in 9 to 12 days.

It is so popular the book has its own hashtag, #hamiltome.

Grand Central Publishing spokesman Jimmy Franco says “Hamilton: The Revolution already is going into its third printing, for a planned total of 210,000 copies.”

As we noted, Hamilton is likely to be the first Broadway script to hit bestseller lists.  Published on Tuesday, it should hit the weekly lists next week (it’s already on Amazon’s list which is updated hourly).

Libraries we checked that own copies are seeing strong circ. and high holds with ratios of 5:1 and larger. Libraries with copies still on order are building very long holds lists as they wait.

Ron Chernow’s biography, Alexander Hamilton (PRH/Penguin, 2004), the inspiration for the musical, remains popular but is still in stock. It is currently #18 on the Amazon charts. In libraries it is showing strong circ. and respectable holds lists as well.

Another alternative is Hamilton: Vocal Selections (Hal Leonard;  978-1495057540), with words and music.

The HBO documentary, Love & Mercy, released last year, looked at the many painful aspects of the life of the co-founder of the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson.

Wilson was not involved in the making of the movie, but he called it “very factual.”

He is about to add more facts to the story, in a memoir titled I Am Brian Wilson (Perseus/Da Capo Press, October 11, 2016). The press release announcing the publication  date has been picked up by several news sources, including the New York Times.  A brief  excerpt of the book is on The Rolling Stone Web site.

If you had a tough time imagining Kevin Wilson’s quirky novel The Family Fang (HarperCollins/Ecco, 2011) as a movie, the trailer released this week gives hope that the adaptation might actually work.

Early reviews, based on a showing at the Toronto Internation Film Festival, are mostly positive, with an 80% positive rating from critics tracked on Rotten Tomatoes.

A GalleyChat favorite, the book was acquired by Nicole Kidman’s production company, Kidman stars, along with Jason Bateman, who also directs the project.

For those unfamiliar with the book, it has nothing to do with vampires, but with a quirky family of performance artists.

The film was acquired for distribution by Stars Digital. It will be shown in a limited number of  theaters on April 29, followed by a national rollout and simultaneous VOD release on May 6.

A tie-in has not been announced, but the paperback edition carries a “Now major motion picture” sticker,

The shortlist of six finalists for the 2016 Booker International Prize has been announced. A younger sibling to the more well-known Booker Prize for Fiction (that longlist will be announced in July), it has been given every two years since 2005 to authors who are not citizens of the Commonwealth, for an entire body of work in any language (past winners have included Canadian Alice Munro and US citizens Philip Roth and Lydia Davis).

Now that the main Booker Award is open to all writers in English, regardless of citizenship, the International Award has been changed to one for individual novels in English translation, recognizing not only the authors, but also the translators, a change that the Guardian notes, “should help raise the profile of translated books.”

The judges call this shortlist “exhilarating,” praising its diversity.

The finalist best-known in the US is Elena Ferrante for The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four, translated by Ann Goldstein (PRH/Europa Editions, Sept. 1, 2015; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample). All the titles in the author’s series have been best sellers here, with even the translator achieving celebrity status.

Also having received attention here is The Vegetarian, by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith (PRH/Hogarth; Feb. 2, 2016; OverDrive Sample)

A profile of the author in the daily NYT Books section calls the novel, which was published ten years ago in South Korea,  a “mesmerizing mix of sex and violence.” The review in the NYT “Sunday Book Review” comes with the warning that nothing can “prepare a reader for the traumas of this Korean author’s translated debut in the Anglophone world.”

The winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature is also among the finalists, Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk for A Strangeness in My Mind, translated by Ekin Oklap (PRH/Knopf, Oct. 20, 2015; BOT; OverDrive Sample)

Daily NYT reviewer Dwight Garner calls this a minor work, lacking the “the visceral and cerebral impact of Mr. Pamuk’s best novels.”

The other titles on the list are:
A Whole Life, Robert Seethaler, translated by Charlotte Collins (Macmillan/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Sept. 13, 2016) — “Like John Williams’ Stoner or Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, A Whole Life is a tender book about finding dignity and beauty in solitude. It looks at the moments, big and small, that make us what we are.” — from the description on the Booker site

The Four Books, Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas (Perseus/PGW/Legato/Grove Press, March 8, 2016; OverDrive Sample)– ” No other writer in today’s China has so consistently explored, dissected and mocked the past six and a half decades of Chinese communist rule.” — the Guardian

A General Theory of Oblivion, Jose Eduardo Agualusa, translated by Daniel Hahn (PRH/Archipelago, Dec. 15, 2015; OverDrive Sample) — “a wild patchwork of a novel that tells the story of Angola through Ludo, a woman who bricks herself into her apartment on the eve of Angolan independence. For the next 30 years she lives off vegetables and pigeons, and burns her furniture to stay warm. ” — from the description on the Booker site..

The winner of the Prize will be announced on May 16th.

Julian Fellowes appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition today to talk about his new project. Harking back to an old form, his book Belgravia will be released in installments, but using modern technology, it will be delivered via an app.

Unfortunately, there is a hitch. According to the Belgravia App Page on Facebook,

“Our nineteenth century story has been stalled by twenty-first century technology! … We are currently resolving an unexpected technical issue and the launch of Julian Fellowes’s BELGRAVIA app has been delayed.”

As we noted earlier, a hardcover edition of the full series, as well as an audio, is set for July.
 

In recognition of her efforts to aid the citizens of Baltimore during the 2015 protests that followed the death of  Freddie Gray while in police custody, Melanie Townsend Diggs, Pennsylvania Avenue Branch manager of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library is the recipient of the  2016 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity, announced yesterday in a press release.

Ms. Diggs will receive $10,000, a certificate, and an “object selected from the personal collection of author Daniel Handler,” aka Lemony Snicket.

In the ALA press release Diggs says :

“in some ways it was a typical day, with people coming and going. But you also would have seen customers and community leaders coming in and thanking us for being open. A woman bringing us flowers, pastries. The media coming in to charge up their batteries, use the restrooms. You would have seen a young man coming in to fill out a job application online, and then coming back the next day to say that he had an interview scheduled for May 5. All of these things happened. If we had not opened our doors, we would have missed all those things.”

Handler adds, “During troubled times, we need open minds. Open minds need open books. Open books require an open library, and the work of Melanie Townsend Diggs provided such a necessary and hopeful beacon.”

Last year’s prize winner, Scott Bonner, was honored for keeping the library in Ferguson, Missouri open during protests there, and the 2014 winner Laurence Copel, was honored for her work in the Lower Ninth Ward Street Library of New Orleans.

Ron Fournier is a frequent face on cable news shows. Yesterday, he made the rounds not to talk politics but to discuss his new book Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent’s Expectations (PRH/Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

In a non-partisan move, he appeared on Fox, Bloomberg and MSNBC. As a result the title, on parenting a child with Asperger’s syndrome, is soaring on Amazon, jumping to #16 from #1,077.

Fournier is also promoting the book in print, with essays in Time and USA TODAY and Frank Bruni wrote about it in his NYT SundayReview Op-Ed, “Building a Better Father.”

Expect more coverage. According to the publisher, he is scheduled for an appearance on NPR’s Weekend Edition this Saturday, an upcoming Meet The Press segment and another on the Today show.

In libraries we checked holds are currently in keeping with orders.

Six authors made the leap from the longlist to the shortlist for Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, the UK’s most prestigious award for women of all nationalities writing in English:

Ruby, Cynthia Bond (RH/Hogarth; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Bond’s debut novel was an Oprah pick last Feb. and made the NYT‘s bestseller list. It was also very much admired abroad with The Guardian offering: “Many will compare Ruby to the work of Toni Morrison or Zora Neale Hurston … It may be most apt to compare Bond to Gabriel García Márquez [as] Ruby is woven with magical realism.”

The Green Road, Anne Enright (W. W. Norton; Thorndike; OverDrive Sample).

A Man Booker Prize winner, Enright was also on the Booker’s 2015 longlist for this title. When the hardback edition came out last May, People said, “With language so vibrant it practically has a pulse, Enright makes an exquisitely drawn case for the possibility of growth, love and transformation at any age.” It was one of  New York magazine’s 8 Books You Need to Read This May and an Indie Next pick.

The Glorious Heresies, Lisa McInerney (PRH/Tim Duggan Books; Random House Audio).

Also a debut, this title is scheduled to hit shelves in the US on Aug. 9. It is set in contemporary, post-crash Ireland. On that side of the ocean McInerney has already gained considerable praise with The Irish Times writing that she is “arguably the most talented writer at work in Ireland today.” 

The Portable Veblen, Elizabeth Mckenzie (Penguin Press; OverDrive Sample).

This was an Indie Next pick for Feb. 2016.  Bookseller Rico Lange, of Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA said: “This story of an engaged couple trying to navigate crazy family dynamics, betrayal, and professional dilemmas on their way to getting married is one of the funniest, most unique novels I’ve ever read.” Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly all gave it starred reviews.

The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild (RH/Knopf; OverDrive Sample) is the final of the three debuts on the list, written by the incoming chair of London’s National Art Galley. Rothschild (yes, one of THOSE Rothschilds) is the first woman to hold that position. Naturally, her first novel is inspired by one of her favorite artists, Jean-Antoine Watteau. It was both a LibraryReads and a Indie Next pick.

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara (RH/Doubleday; OverDrive Sample).

It is doubtful much more needs to be said about Yanagihara’s 2015 sensation. It was a National Book Award finalist and short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. As we wrote when it published, it enjoyed lavish attention. The LA Times’ review began, “I’ve read a lot of emotionally taxing books in my time, but A Little Life … is the only one I’ve read as an adult that’s left me sobbing.” Vogue said the book announces “the arrival of a major new voice in fiction.” Kirkus, in a starred review, claims “The phrase ‘tour de force’ could have been invented for this audacious novel.”

The award winner will be announced on June 8th.

When T.S. Elliot described April as “the cruelest month,” he wasn’t talking about taxes. But for many, doing taxes leads to cruel thoughts about the need to better understand finances, which is probably why the week of April 23 – 30, 2016 was designated “Money Smart Week.” A partnership between the ALA and Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago since 2002, it is aimed at helping libraries create programs that teach people how to better manage their money.

This year, libraries have a new resource for the program, unlimited access for one month to several HarperCollins’ eBooks on finances, for a flat fee of $100, from April 15 through May 15, an outgrowth of meetings the the ALA’s Digital Content Working Group’s meetings with publishers in December.

Carolyn Anthony, co-chair of the group calls the promotion, “is a positive development and a clear indication that the relationship between ALA and publishers is moving in the right direction. We welcome experimentation with terms and pricing that will help libraries develop breadth in their digital collections.”

The books included in the program are listed below. Contact your vendors for further information.

Real Money Answers for Every Woman, Patrice C. Washington, (HarperCollins/Amistad, 2016)

The New Totally Awesome Money Book for Kids, Arthur Bochner and Rose Bochner, (HarperCollins/Morrow, 2007)

The Wall Street Journal Guide to the New Rules of Personal Finance, Dave Kansas, (HarperBusiness, 2010)

The Aspirational Investor, Ashvin B. Chhabra, (HarperBusiness, 2015)

The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money, Ron Lieber, (Harper, 2015)

The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham, (HarperBusiness, 2006)

The Truth About Money, Ric Edelman, (HarperBusiness, 2010)

With its eye on awards season, Disney has set a the release dates for Queen of Katwe, beginning with a limited release on Sept. 23, 2016, expanding to more theaters the next week. IndieWire comments that the “awards-friendly release date suggests that the studio is confident that the Uganda-set drama has strong potential to make its presence felt come awards season.”  Perhaps next year, the Academy Awards will be a bit more diverse.

The film is based on Tim Crothers’s book, The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster (S&S/Scribner, 2012).

The book itself was based on Crothers’s ESPN The Magazine article which tells the true-life story of Phiona Mutesi who grew up in the slums of Kampala, Uganda to became a chess champion.

The film stars Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave), David Oyelowo (Selma), and newcomer Madina Nalwanga. Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) directs.

Tie-ins (in trade, mass market, and audio) are forthcoming from S&S (currently planned for September). The regular paperback edition is still in print (Scribner, 2013, ISBN 9781451657821).

A trailer has not yet been released, but several documentary shorts have been made about Mutesi. Below is an example:

Charles Robinson in1996, the year he retired as Director of BCPL.
Credit: Sean Kief

It seemed sadly fitting that, as the successful PLA Conference was in full swing in Denver, news arrived that Charles W. Robinson, former director of Baltimore County Public Library (BCPL), had died. Many of us had felt his absence at the conference, even as his ideas about public service continued to be fundamental to most of the meetings and conversations.

Charles relished getting together with colleagues at PLA. He enjoyed nothing more than taking a contrarian point of view and then proclaiming he “didn’t give a rat’s ass” if others agreed, all the while doing his level best to change their minds.

He was a bundle of contradictions. A man who passionately advocated for serving the people, he didn’t suffer fools gladly and would have been a disaster on a public service desk. Ready to go with his gut and implement any idea that struck him as smart, he also believed in long-range planning, creating and following dozens of carefully thought-out multiple-year plans. A strong believer in the intelligence of the library staff (one of his favorite sayings was “never try to bullshit the staff”) and in the importance of training and recognizing achievements, he was personally anything but warm and fuzzy.

One of his major achievements was to get local government to understand the importance of libraries, launching persuasive arguments based on data. He taught other directors to do the same and helped establish PLA’s Output Measures for Public Libraries, Planning and Role Setting for Public Libraries and the annual Public Library Data Service, Statistical Report. 

After his retirement, Charles continued his influence as the editor of Library Administrator’s Digest, a roundup of news along with his inimitable comments, a monthly dose of Charles.

But it’s the personal memories of Charles that can be the most revealing. I have dozens, but the one that made the biggest impression occurred even before I met him. He hired me without an interview, based solely on my letter of application. Trying desperately to distinguish myself from crowds of applicants (under the influence of What Color is Your Parachute?), I wrote about my part-time job in the U. of Michigan Undergraduate Library’s Fines and Overdues Department, saying I particularly liked trying to help students work their way through our often draconian rules. I even bragged that one student I  helped not only sent a check for his overdue fines (thus allowing him to get his degree on time), but a separate check for me, to buy myself a beer to thank me for my efforts.

Charles read the letter and immediately yelled to the Human Resources Director, “Hire her!” When I got the call, I couldn’t quite believe it, but figured a place that could make decisions like that was a place I wanted to work. I took the job sight unseen.

When I joined BCPL, I thought I was lucky to get a job, little did I know I was embarking on a profession that became, as it did for Charles, a lifelong obsession.

I would love to hear your memories of Charles (by the way, while the rest of the profession knew his as “Charlie,” those of us who worked with him called him by his more formal name). Please enter them in the comments section below.

Donations can be made in Charles’s name to:

The Foundation for the Baltimore County Public Library 320 York Road, Towson MD 21204

Church of the Holy Comforter,130 W. Seminary Ave, Lutherville, MD 21093

Plans are under way for a celebration of Charles’s life at ALA Annual in Orlando, Fla.

A new trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, based on the faux Hogwart’s textbook by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, 2015), aired during the MTV Movie Awards last night, promoting the film scheduled to release on November 18, 2016.

The Today show re-aired it this morning.

It provides much more detail about the setting and mood of the film than did the first trailer as well as  a bit more information on the plot.

The screenplay was written by Rowling and the film stars Eddie Redmayne as magician Newt Scamander, as well as Ezra Miller, Colin Farrell, and Katherine Waterston. It is directed by David Yates, who was responsible for 4 of the 7 original Potter films.

This new movie takes place seventy years prior to Harry Potter’s arrival at Hogwarts. It will come in three parts, the others in the series are planned for release in two-year intervals: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2 (2018) and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 3 (2020).

No tie-ins have been announced, but Warner Bros has agreements in place with Scholastic to “publish children’s movie tie-in books for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and its sequels, as well as tie-in books based on the original eight Harry Potter films.” and for adult tie-ins with HarperCollins that “will delve into, and behind the scenes of, the richly textured film and its sequels to enhance fans’ enjoyment of the new stories. Books will include details about how the films were made, the process of art and design, interviews with the cast and crew, and interactive formats such as colouring and postcard books.”

Two repeat authors hit new highs on the week’s best seller lists.

Julia Quinn’s Because of Miss Bridgerton (Harper/Avon; HarperAudio) hits #2 on the NYT‘s Paperback Mass-Market list, as many of her previous titles have, but that masks its true success.

The USA TODAY list reveals it is #2 in sales regardless of format or genres, a large jump from the author’s previous title, which debuted #48 and dropped off from there.

Because of Miss Bridgerton, a March LibraryReads pick, is the 10th in the series but a prequel to those already published. It tells the story of an aunt (on their father’s side) to all those Bridgerton siblings readers have followed for years.

Jacqueline Winspear can celebrate as well. Her newest, Journey to Munich (Harper/ HarperLuxe; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample), hits its highest spot on the USA TODAY list, landing at #6, which reflects library holds, as we noted in an earlier Titles to Know.

This is the 12th book in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series and USA TODAY has tracked its rise, reporting the “series has steadily been building a fan base. An Incomplete Revenge, the first to make USA TODAY’s list, peaked at No. 134 in 2008; last year’s A Dangerous Place landed at No. 13.”