In this business, we all hope that there's a book for every reader--and a reader for every book. However, each year at BEA there are a few books that capture the attention of many readers at once. While there's plenty of preshow buzz about which titles will hit it big, it's not until everyone hits the floor that clear frontrunners emerge. Here at Shelf Awareness, we turned to our most reliable sources--booksellers--about which spines to crack first.
When it comes to debut novels, one of the most talked-about titles is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Random House), a fantastical tale of dueling magicians. "It's totally different, totally sexy, totally smart," said Calvin Crosby, manager at the Books Inc. in Berkeley, Calif. Betsy Burton, owner of the King's English in Salt Lake City, Utah, admitted she doesn't usually like books with fantastic elements, but "I opened it up, and all of a sudden it's morning." However, Sheryl Cotleur, head buyer for Book Passage in Corte Madera and San Francisco, cautioned, "I don't want people to think it's a romance. It's imaginative beyond belief. I haven't read a book in years that is this imaginative and completely plausible." (At right, Morgenstern signs a copy for Denise Bethiaume of Books & Books, Westhampton Beach, N.Y.)
Another debut Burton loves is Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante (Grove), which benefited from some early bookseller buzz during Winter Institute. Burton raved, "It's the best book I have read all year. You can't put it down. It's brilliant." LaPlante has entwined the story of a retired surgeon's progressive dementia--told in the first person--with the murder of that women's best friend, in which Dr. Jennifer White becomes the prime suspect.
Cotleur's rave is for We the Animals by Justin Torres (HMH): "It's a very moving, very powerful book. It's about three brothers who love each other and show it by hitting each other like mad. Not only is there fierce love in this family, but how it plays out is gorgeous and painful."
And we heard plenty of chatter about some upcoming books from previously published authors, including Alice Hoffman's The Dovekeeper (Scribner). As head book buyer of the Tattered Cover in Denver, Colo., Cathy Langer has no lack of books to choose from, and this year, she made Hoffman's latest her on-the-plane reading. She loved that it takes place in the Masada Fortress built by King Herod. "I'm halfway through," Langer said. "It's amazing; an historical novel with great characters."
Langer alerted Chuck Robinson, co-owner of Village Books in Bellingham, Wash., to Hillary Jordan's sophomore novel, When She Woke (Workman); Langer had sent a letter to bookseller colleagues saying it was not to be missed. "I read the first chapter, and it's pretty compelling," said Robinson. Cotleur, who read the novel in manuscript, said, "It's a takeoff of The Scarlet Letter, loosely set in 2020. It's not far out in terms of the possibility of people elected to office insisting that their beliefs be the only way, and the people that bump up against that."
Other much-anticipated fiction included The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (St. Martin's Press), Colson Whitehead's Zone One (Doubleday), Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos (Morrow) and Ed King by David Guterson (Knopf). A couple more debuts worth mentioning, both from Little, Brown: Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding and Ayad Akhtar's American Dervish.
When it comes to nonfiction, Robinson and Cotleur did not hesitate. Karl Marlantes's What It Is Like to Go to War (Grove) may not be available yet, but it's on their lists. Robinson said the author's Matterhorn was one of his top two favorite books of 2010, so saying he is eager to read this is "putting it mildly." Cotleur said of the book (20 years in the making): "Boy, is he ever the right person to write this book. He's really done the homework and examined his own life, too. It's a culture changer--we hope."
Many readers are excited about Susan Orlean's Rin Tin Tin (Simon & Schuster), and we would just like to say that Shelf Awareness editors Marilyn Dahl and Bethanne Patrick give it a "double woof." (At left: Orlean signing copies at the S&S booth.) Another much-anticipated, but unavailable, book is Hyperion's Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, with a foreword by Caroline Kennedy. The volume of never-before-heard 1964 interviews Arthur Schlesinger had with the young widowed First Lady will be accompanied by a set of CDs with the full interviews on them.
Michael Moore's upcoming memoir from Grand Central is sure to pique the interest of his admirers and pester the consciences of his detractors, as might Dr. Justin Frank's Obama on the Couch (Free Press), in which the noted D.C. psychoanalyst and academician takes on the nation's First Patient. Two other, much earlier U.S. presidents with BEA buzz cred: Ulysses S. Grant, in Grant's Final Victory by Charles Bracelen Flood (Da Capo) and James Garfield, in Candace Millard's detail-packed Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President (Doubleday).
Last and not least, though lesser known, are a couple of outliers: a historical novel set in 1938 New York, Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (Viking), which Diesel co-owner John Evans called "masterfully written" and "a richly pleasurable read," and Bonnie Nadzam's debut novel, Lamb (Other Press). Calvin Crosby of Books Inc. said, "I like a lot of what Other Press is doing."--Bethanne Patrick and Bridget Kinsella