STATUS: The most frustrating morning with a foreign rights deal!
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? RUBY by Ray Charles
Since we kicked off the week with the YA Buzz panel, it’s only fair to close it out by talking about the adult title buzz panel. I have to say the crowd seemed to have responded much more enthusiastically to the upcoming titles then they did for the YA panel.
For the record, I wasn’t able to stay for the whole panel so I missed out on the last two titles: JULIET (shout out to my agent friend Dan Lazar whose book this is) and THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES (great title!). I can’t really give you insight to the reactions when the editors presented them.
For my part, I was very impressed with all the presentations. Here are the titles to get you started.
ROOM by Emma Donoghue
WEST OF HERE by Jonathan Evison
JULIET by Anne Fortier
BAD SCIENCE by Ben Goldacre
THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE by Benjamin Hale
THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES: A BIOGRAPHY OF CANCER by Siddhartha Mukherjee
For my take, the crowd really reacted to ROOM. It’s got a Lovely Bones element and is potentially the kind of story that you might say “ick, I don’t want to read that” but then you get caught and can’t put it down. I bet you’ll hear people talking about it this fall. I did snag a galley of this one. Love the cover.
I enjoyed the presentation for BAD SCIENCE as I like narrative nonfiction that illuminates the world we live in. In this case, the work tackles scientific misinformation. My book club loves this kind of stuff so my guess is that we’ll probably read it at some point.
BRUNO is exactly the kind of literary fiction that I can’t stand but I’m usually alone in this sentiment and the novel will probably be wildly popular. Just not my cup of tea.
I’ve heard amazing things about JULIET but alas, wasn’t there to hear the reaction. Sara snagged a galley so we’ll be reading.
WEST OF HERE is an Algonquin book (they did Water For Elephants) and the editor is the same, Chuck Adams. I have a lot of respect for his taste so even though the book didn’t stand out for me per se, I’ll willing to bet on it because of reputation of Chuck and the publishing house.
If any blog reader was there, feel free to chime in on the comments section.
