EarlyWord

Beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary celebrates a milestone on April 12th, her 100th birthday.

Interviewed on the Today Show, Cleary says about that achievement that she “didn’t do it on purpose!” and that she remembers “a very earnest conversation my best friend and I had when we were, I guess, freshmen in high school, about how long we wanted to live … and we decided that 80 was the cut-off date.”

Cleary became a school librarian and found that, as was the case when she herself was a reluctant reader, none of her students enjoyed the current crop of books for kids, finding them too foreign to their own lives. She recalls that “books in those days, back in the 1920s, had been published in England, and the children had nannies and pony carts.”

Her career as an author began when one of her students asked where the books were with “kids like us” and she sat down and started writing them.

Julie Blume and Kate DiCamillo both appear in the Today Show story to praise Cleary, remarking on how important and influential her books have been.

Cleary stopped writing years ago but that has not dented her popularity or diminished interest. Last month librarian Julie Roach wrote an essay for The Horn Book reporting on Cleary’s circulation stats:

“Twenty-first-century characters who are often compared to Ramona — such as Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine, Lenore Look’s Alvin Ho, and Megan McDonald’s Judy Moody and Stink — are in high demand at our library, but over the past year the print versions of Ramona held ten to twenty percent higher circulation figures than those other series.”

Eliciting the most holds of book arriving next week is Karen Robards’ romantic suspense novel, Darkness (S&S/Gallery; Brilliance Audio), its neon-colored jacket belying the title. Library ordering is in line with strong holds.

Two titles that libraries may have underbought, based on holds ratios, are Karen Kingsbury’s Brush of Wings (S&S/Howard; S&S Audio) and Jacqueline Winspear’s latest Maisie Hobbs novel, Journey to Munich (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe).

Kingsbury has gained new readers as a result of the Hallmark series based on her earlier book, The Bridge. More adaptations of her novels are coming. Hallmark is at work on another of her novels, A Time to Dance and Roma Downey recently acquired the rights to produce Kingsbury’s Baxter Family series for TV.

Winspear’s series has been growing in popularity. The last few titles in the have all landed on the NYT best sellers list in the top five

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of March 28, 2016

Advance Attention

Melancholy Accidents: Three Centuries of Stray Bullets and Bad Luck,  Peter Manseau, (Melville House)

Author Manseau has come up with a brilliant and haunting way to examine the history of American gun violence, by reproducing stories from old newspapers, which often used the term a “melancholy accident” for such events.

That clever idea gets equally clever marketing by the book’s indie publisher, Melville House, which has bombarded the NRA and pro-gun politicians like Ted Cruz with images from the book:

All the macabre history of gun accidents that’s fit to print, every day until we publish this tiny beauty. pic.twitter.com/UXvxg27TYJ

— Melville House (@melvillehouse) March 3, 2016

Appropriately, given the political implications, the book received an early review from Ron Charles in the Washington Post, who writes,

“While acknowledging that his compendium of mayhem may read like a political argument against guns, that wasn’t his intention. The people he’d really like to reach are gun owners. Their adaptation of smart guns, which electronically limit who can fire them, is our best chance for progress, he says.”

The author writes in an  opinion piece in the New York Times, Trigger Warnings, “Though often seen as an embodiment of the nation’s freedom-loving swagger, every gun comes loaded with an alternate history: not heroic self-reliance but hapless tragedy.”

Consumer Media Picks

People magazine’s “Book of the Week” is Lee Smith’s memoir Dimestore: A Writer’s Life, Lee Smith (Workman/Algonquin; OverDrive Sample), which came out last week; “With restrained prose and charming humor, she illuminates a way of life that has all but disappeared and explores the impulse to bear witness that underpins the storyteller in all of us.”

It is also an April LibraryReads pick.

Peer Picks

One LibraryReads title hits the shelves this week, the highly anticipated return of the Romance series known as the Bridgertons.

Mary Aileen Buss, of Long Beach Public Library, NY, offers this annotation of Because of Miss Bridgerton, Julia Quinn (HC/Avon; HarperAudio):

“This is the first in a prequel series to Quinn’s popular Bridgerton series, set a generation earlier. Billie Bridgerton spent her childhood running wild with the neighboring Rokesbys, Andrew, Edward, and Mary. Now she runs the family estate for her father and still runs as wild as she can. The eldest Rokesby, George, never really approved of Billie, but when he rescues her from a roof they begin to come to a new understanding.”

Another long awaited return of a fan favorite is an Indie Next pick, Lust & Wonder: A Memoir, by Augusten Burroughs (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; OverDrive Sample).

“We have read about his crazy childhood, his struggles with alcohol, and his troubled relationships with his father and Christmas. Now, we have Burroughs’ take on love and romance, and what a tale it is! This is a love story as only Burroughs can tell it — the wrong lovers, the long-term relationship that turned out to be toxic, and the love that was staring him in the face all along. Roses and moonlight it is not, but the course of true love never does run smooth. I laughed, I cried — just read it!” —Susan Taylor, Market Block Books, Troy, NY.

It will be issued as a one-day laydown on March 29.

There is also an All Star title with Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, Adam Hochschild (HMH; OverDrive Sample) hitting shelves on the 29th.

It earned starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. It is also reviewed in today’s New York Times.

Tie-ins

This week sees the release of the tie-in to John le Carré’s The Night Manager (TV Tie-in Edition) (PRH/Ballantine Books; OverDrive Sample).

It hits shelves in advance of the AMC limited series (by way of BBC One) that begins airing April 20 and stars Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers) and Hugh Laurie (House). It is directed by Academy Award winner Susanne Bier (In a Better World).

As we reported earlier, the tie-in is particularly notable as the 1993 best seller is no longer in print.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

It is not a happy week for directors, critics, or, it seems, viewers.

The hoped for blockbuster of the week, Batman v Superman, is not faring well. Variety reports that it is “facing a rocky start … with lukewarm reviews and … a bleak Rotten Tomatoes percentage.” Vox simply says it is “a crime against comic book fans.” UPDATE; Hang on! It seems the box office is improving. with Deadline reporting that the movie is “poised to be Warner Bros. best opening of all-time,” causing industry watchers to scratch their heads because,”rarely do we see a panned movie with OK audience reaction open to $100M-plus.”

The biopic about Hank Williams, I Saw the Light, similarly failed to win over critics, with Indiewire calling it “woefully shallow.”

NBC’s new show Heartbeat also had tough time with USA Today slamming it as a “terrible” and a “weak medical soap.”

With that as background the news does not look that good for next week either.

There is only one book adaptation hitting the screens and based on advanced reviews from its debut during the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, it does not seem to be a breakout.

Kill Your Friends opens on April 1 in limited release. It is based on the 2008 debut novel by John Niven, also titled Kill Your Friends (HC/Harper Perennial) and follows the life of a music insider as he does anything to further his bottom line during the heyday of the late 1990s.

It stars Ed Skrein, Nicholas Hoult, Rosanna Arquette and is directed by Owen Harris (The Gamechangers). According to The Hollywood Reporter, Niven wrote the screenplay himself.

It got panned last year upon its initial airing with The Guardian commenting, “TV director Owen Harris has stuffed his maniacally energetic film with so many attempts to shock that it ultimately grows dull and tiresome” Variety chimed in with the same general take, calling it an “initially sharp, increasingly tiresome and violent satire.”

No tie-in edition is being released.

An adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (HarperCollins/Morrow; a tenth anniversary edition is coming in August) has been inching towards the screen for five years and is now set to begin shooting next month, with expectations that the series will debut next year on the Starz network.

In the lead-up to production, a string of casting announcements have been released, including the leads, Emily Browning as Laura Moon and Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday.

Meanwhile, some other Gaiman adaptations are in limbo. A film version of the Sandman graphic novel series (Vertigo) was set to be directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who would also star, but he recently left the project, over “creative differences.”

In 2013, it was announced that Ron Howard was in talks to direct The Graveyard Book and that Joe Wright was set to direct an adaptation of Gaiman’s adult novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane, but there has been no news on either since.

Gaiman is publishing a collection of nonfiction in May, The View from the Cheap Seats (HarperCollins/Morrow). According to the publisher, “the title piece, at turns touching and self-deprecating … recounts the author’s experiences at the 2010 Academy Awards in Hollywood,” when the adaptation of his childrens novel Coraline was nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Coming in June is a graphic novel version of Gaiman’s short story, How to Talk to Girls at Parties (Dark Horse).

A film version began shooting in December starring Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman, and Alex Sharp. Expected for release in the UK this year, no US release date has yet been announced.

Each month, our GalleyChatter columnist Robin Beerbower rounds up the favorites from our most recent Twitter chat (#ewgc). Below is her post for March.

If you’ve missed Robin’s earlier columns, link below, for more  current and forthcoming titles:

February — GALLEYCHATTER, Heading into Summer

January — GALLEYCHATTER, Spring Announcements

December — GALLEYCHATTER Eyes 2016

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We know EarlyWord is a valuable tool for librarians, but it’s always great to hear it articulated. During our last GalleyChat, Darren Nelson, collection development librarian for Sno-Isle Libraries (Washington) mentioned how beneficial it was by saying, “Thanks to GalleyChat for the great recommendations! I have often increased order quantities and gone ahead and decided to order upcoming titles based on them and have never regretted it.”

Even if you can’t participate, all titles mentioned during the chat are compiled into an Edelweiss collection. The March list can be found here.

Of the many titles that came up during the March chat, some of the favorites will make the month of May even merrier. Unless otherwise noted, all titles are available as Digital Reading Copies on Edelweiss.

Tense Suspense

As usual, thrillers were on the tips of many tongues with favorite author Laura Lippman’s latest stand-alone, Wilde Lake (HarperCollins/William Morrow, May) at the top of the list. While preparing for a trial, Maryland state attorney Lu Brant finds herself reliving painful memories of a family occurrence in 1980. Janet Lockhart, Wake Co, NC, says, “We all think we know our family’s story, but do we, really?  Laura Lippman explores truth, lies and whether we ever know, or want to know, which is which.” This could be a prime choice for book groups.

Another top choice was City of the Lost (Macmillan/Minotaur, May; DRC for this one is only on NetGalley) by Kelley Armstrong, best known for her fantasy and paranormal novels . Elizabeth Kanouse from Denville Public Library (NJ) says of this first book in a new series, “What if there was a place you could go to start over, to run away and hide from your life. Well, Rockton is just such a place. Detective Duncan goes to Rockton to escape her past, and is immediately embroiled in the search for a killer. Fast-paced and mysterious, with a surprise ending, this is a new and fresh twist on the locked-room whodunit.”

It’s no surprise that film rights to  Before the Fall (Hachette/Grand Central, May) has already been acquired as the author is Noah Hawley, Emmy winner for the TV series Fargo. Poised to be a summer blockbuster, this slow-burn literary thriller about the aftermath of a private jet crash and the subsequent conspiracy theories raised by the quick-to-accuse news media didn’t have any big twists or surprises, but its unique storytelling kept me totally absorbed.

Pleasing Novels

Thorndike’s fiction selector Mary Smith reads a lot of novels, and one of her 2016 favorites is Phaedra Patrick’s Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper (HC/Harlequin/Mira, May). A year after the death of his beloved wife, Miriam, 69-year-old Arthur Pepper is cleaning out her closet when he finds an expensive bracelet hidden in a boot. Mary said, “I loved this charming, heartwarming story and enjoyed traveling with Arthur on his adventures searching for the meaning of the charms. Reminiscent of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, everyone I’ve handed this book to loves this sweet, poignant story.” It’s also a good readalike for The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin.

Swedish author Fredrik Backman’s Britt-Marie Was Here (S&S/Atria, May), the story of a socially inept and fussy woman who leaves her cheating spouse and finds her outlook changing after taking on the caretaking job at a local recreation center, has been quickly accumulating “much-love” votes on Edelweiss.  Vicki Nesting from St. Charles Parish Library (LA) also raved about it saying, “With its wonderful cast of oddball characters and sly sense of humor, this novel is sure to capture readers’ hearts. And who knew your favorite soccer team could say so much about your personality?”

Former reference librarian Camille Perry’s debut novel, The Assistants (PRH/GP Putnam’s, May) is delighting readers with its slyly funny plot of personal assistants discovering ways to pay off their student loans by siphoning funds from their one-percent bosses.  Adult services librarian Andrienne Cruz (Azusa City Library, CA) calls it, “An enjoyable read that you will zip through as Robin Hood Tina and her merry (wo)men find a way to set things right so they don’t end up in jail.” NOTE: This title was featured in First Flights, the Penguin Debut Author series. Read our chat with the author here.

Captivating Nonfiction

Betsy Lerner’s memoir The Bridge Ladies (HC/Harper Wave/May) is a winner according to Jennifer Dayton from Darien Library (CT). “When rebellious Betsy Lerner’s mom needs help after surgery, she finds herself back in New Haven chafing at decades old wounds. Enter the Bridge Ladies and their 50 year-old-game. Before you can say, ‘no trump,’ Betsy becomes enmeshed in their lives and fascinated by the ways that ritual can save. I loved this look at mothers and daughters, female friendship and the obsessive love bridge players have for the game.”

With endorsements from Cheryl Strayed and Ann Patchett, along with over 20 “much love” votes from Edelweiss readers, Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (PRH/Knopf, April) could be an unforeseen bestseller. Nonfiction collection development librarian for Wake County (NC), P. J. Gardiner, says this is her favorite so far this year. “Jahren’s back-to-back chapters of the plant world and her personal endeavors as a woman of science weave together in rich, powerful metaphors. Her symbiotic relationship with lab partner, Bill, and their passion for discovery is the heart of this splendid memoir.”

Please join us for another rousing GalleyChat April 5, from 4:00-5:00 ET, with virtual cocktails from 3:30-4:00.

To be added to my notification list of when lists and summaries are available, or to share how you use GalleyChat, email me at galleychatter@earlyword.com.

Author Helen Oyeyemi is in the NPR spotlight.

Yesterday Maureen Corrigan reviewed her newest collection of short stories, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours (PRH/Riverhead; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), on NPR’s Fresh Air, praising the author’s “nouveau Gothic stories” as so memorable that they “leave a deep impression — like a scar that stubbornly refuses to fade.”

NPR’s Steve Inskeep interviewed Oyeyemi earlier in the week for Morning Edition. He asks her about her use of fairy tales and the way her imagination works.

Of fairy tales she says:

“I am trying to find out what endures — because these stories are so old, and have been retold by so many tellers, in so many different forms. There’s a way in which, when you retell a story, you’re testing what in it is relevant to all times and places. Bits of it hold up, and bits of it crumble and then new perspectives come through, and I like that the fairy tale is one of the only stories that can bear the weight of all that.”

When asked if books are more real than the actual world she replies:

“I think everything is equally real. … It’s just a question of different categories of reality, I guess, and not giving one greater precedence than the other.”

Earlier in the month reviewer Michael Schaub offered his take on the collection for NPR book reviews (web only). In his glowing appraisal he says:

“What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is a lot of things: dreamy, spellbinding, and unlike just about anything you can imagine. It’s a book that resists comparisons; Oyeyemi’s talent is as unique as it is formidable. It’s another masterpiece from an author who seems incapable of writing anything that’s less than brilliant.”

Holds are high at several libraries we checked and even where systems have gotten on top of holds, circulation is brisk.

The film adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s Live By Night, directed by Ben Affleck, has been set for release on Oct. 20, 2017. Affleck also stars, along with Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana and Chris Messina. Deadline calls the date a “prime fall spot.

This is Affleck’s fourth time directing. His first effort as a director was also an adaptation of a Lehane novel, 2007’s Gone Baby Gone.

Live by Night (Harper/ Morrow) is a crime novel set in the Prohibition era about the rise of an Irish-American gangster. Prophetically, when it came out, Entertainment Weekly, called it a “ripping, movie-ready yarn that jumps from a Boston prison to Tampa speakeasies to a Cuban tobacco farm.

Lehane is no stranger to Hollywood. In addition to Gone Baby Gone, films have been made of his novels Mystic River (2003) and Shutter Island (2010). He has also written for the TV series The Wire and Boardwalk Empire.

Affleck appears in theaters this week as Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

The chat has now ended. Read the transcript, below.

Among the many books cited as a worthy successor to Gone Girl, including The Girl on the Train, was a title that considered as better than either by several librarians on  GalleyChat, The Kind Worth Killing, by Peter Swanson (HarperCollins/Morrow; HarperLuxe; OverDrive Sample).

It did not quite become a household name, but the rights were picked up for a film, which now has a director, Agnieszka Holland, according to Deadline.

Of the book, Holland says she was,

 “ … really intrigued by this story. It’s full of paradoxes and I love paradoxes. The main heroine is tough as steel, but also as fragile as glass. Is she a victim? A psychopath? An avenger? What a great role for a talented actress! The story line is unpredictable, the genre feels fresh. A psychological thriller, which sometimes veers off towards black comedy, mixing humor with gore, genuine emotions with a detective mystery. The Kind Worth Killing will be fun to shoot, but even more fun to watch!”

The world’s most prolific author has just figured out a way to publish even more titles. As reported by the New York Times, James Patterson plans to publish 3 to 4 “BookShots,” described as “short and propulsive novels” that are less than 150 pages long and sell for less than $5 each. He will write some himself, use co-authors on others and release some “James Patterson Presents” romances by other authors.

The first two will be published in June, reports the NYT, Cross Kill, featuring Alex Cross and  Zoo II, an SF novel with co-author Max DiLallo. Neither are yet listed on wholesaler or retailer catalogs.

The people who found TV series gold in the YA Gossip Girl books have turned their attention to books aimed at an older audience, the erotic romance series Calendar Girl.

About a woman who raises money to pay her father’s medical bills by becoming a high-priced escort, the twelve-book series is named for each month of the year. Each chronicles main character Mia’s relationship with a different client.

ABC Studio’s cable division has grabbed the rights to the series. reports  Deadline.

Several of the books hit the USA Today best seller list earlier this year, bringing attention to  author Audrey Carlan, who was profiled on the Today Show, with expectations that the series would follow in the footsteps of the Fifty Shades series.

The novels have been a boon for small independent publisher, Waterhouse Press, which currently has just three authors in its stable. In a Publishers Weekly profile of the company, CEO David Grishman attributes the success to his “heavily mathematical” approach to creating best sellers but declined to explain further. It might have to do with releasing the previously self-published titles very close together as $2.99 eBooks to seed combined best seller lists. The first, January, hit USA Today‘s list at #5, at the same time that four other in the series arrived in the top 50. The books have also been released in paperback, in four collected volumes.

The series has not followed the Fifty Shades of Grey continuous growth pattern, however. The titles have slid down the list since their initial success.

The Berlin International Film Festival does not get as much attention in the U.S. as does Cannes, but one of this year’s featured films, adapted from a book, is getting a bevy of press coverage.

Alone In Berlin stars Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson and is directed by Vincent Perez. For all accounts, it is a somber, quiet film with deft acting, not the kind of film that creates buzz.

But buzzy it is and one of the reasons it has become such a juicy topic is the book story behind it.

Alone in Berlin is an adaptation of Hans Fallada’s novel Every Man Dies Alone (Melville House, 2010; OverDrive Sample). Depicting the domestic resistance in Germany to Hitler, it was written just after the end of WWII and was based on Gestapo files kept on the real-life couple Otto and Elise Hampel. Deeply affected by the death of their son during the war, the Hampel’s began handwriting postcards with subversive messages such as “Mothers, Hitler Will Kill Your Son Too” and leaving them in public places around Berlin.

As NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday reports, Fallada was a best selling author between WWI and II, with his books picked as book-of-the-month-club selections and adapted into Hollywood films (which got him blacklisted by the Nazis).

However, Every Man Dies Alone wasn’t published in English until 2009, after Melville House publisher Dennis Johnson heard about the book from the fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg and tracked it down.

When it finally did come out here, it was a best seller and became a NYT‘s Notable Book and one of The New Yorker‘s Favorite Fiction Books of the year.

The film version does not yet have a U.S. distributor but check your copies. Circulation in strong in libraries we checked, with holds lists at many locations.

Charlie Rose featured the book previously:

The movie based on A. Scott Berg’s National Book Award-winning bio,  Max Perkins: Editor Of Genius, (Dutton, 1978; available in trade pbk. from PRH Berkley) with the title pared down to simply Genius, is set to open on June 10th.

The trailer just debuted online, to an apt comment by the Hollywood trade Deadline, “A movie about the work of a book editor seems on paper as promising as a movie about the drudgery of investigative reporting — until a Spotlight or an All The President’s Men comes along to challenge our preconceptions.”

It boasts a marquee cast, including Colin Firth as Perkins, Jude Law as writer Thomas Wolfe, Nicole Kidman as Wolfe’s lover Aline Bernstein and Laura Linney as Perkins’ wife. Other famous clients are Dominic West as Ernest Hemingway and Guy Pearce as F. Scott Fitzgerald.

ALA’s recently re-released David Bowie poster

In a refreshing change from the usual click bait stories, the website Bustle posts “6 Scientific Reasons Reading is Amazing For Your Health.”

We already knew that that reading is good for
our well being, reduces stress, is therapeutic
and increases attention spans. It turns out that
it is also improves memory, brain function, and longevity.

So, stop going to the gym and settle into your favorite reading spot.

In addition to her bestselling Neapolitan novels, the mysterious Elena Ferrante has written a book for children aged 6-10.

The Beach at Night (Europa Editions; ISBN 9781609453701; Dec. 6, 2016; it may not yet be on wholesaler sites), reports The Wall Street Journal, will hit shelves later this year,

“Star translator,” Ann Goldstein, who translated Ferrante’s blockbuster adult titles into English will translate this tale as well.

Previously published in Italy in 2007, sales were tepid, reports WSJ, but Ferrante’s U.S. publisher, Europa, says that was before she became a household name and booksellers were “perplexed” by how to position it.

All that has changed, prompting the re-release in America.

The Beach at Night is a spinoff of an earlier Ferrante novel, The Lost Daughter, which includes a scene of  an adult stealing a doll from a child during a seaside vacation. Abandoned rather than stolen in the new book, the doll is left alone to face the terrors of the night in Ferrante’s newest.

Is that a story that will work for young readers? According to the WSJ, Ferrante, known for her often dark adult novels, “doesn’t sugarcoat things for young readers.”

The British trade publication, The Bookseller offers this summary:

“Celina [the lost doll] is having a terrible night, one full of jealousy for the new kitten, Minù, feelings of abandonment and sadness, misadventures at the hands of the beach attendant, and dark dreams. But she will be happily found by Mati, her child, once the sun rises.”