Reviews and Publicity - Macmillan Library

Publishers Weekly’s 2012 Listen-Up Awards!

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Ali Fisher

Two beautifully read Macmillan Audio titles, SHINE SHINE SHINE and A HUNDRED FLOWERS, were selected for Publishers Weekly's 2012 Listen-Up Awards for Fiction!

Publishers Weekly's starred review for the audiobook of SHINE SHINE SHINE read, "While Jackson conveys all the book’s humor, her reading is also full of empathy, and she brings out the characters’ underlying humanity. This masterful, flawless narration of an imaginative novel is something special and not to be missed."

And don't forget, Nancy Pearl named SHINE SHINE SHINE one of her top ten favorite reads of the year!

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The Wisdom of James Patterson

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Ali Fisher

Mark Sullivan, the internationally bestselling author and bestselling co-author with James Patterson, tells all!

...Or at least he tells us a lot of really great stuff, like what he learned about commerical fiction while working with Powerhouse Patterson.

Sullivan told Publishers Weekly,

"I thought I knew what I was doing when it came to commercial fiction. Working with Patterson, however, I discovered quickly that I didn’t. [...] What I’ve learned from the global bestselling author could fill a book, but here are some of the lessons that have changed my writing life."

Read about those lessons at PublishersWeekly.com!

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Starred Review for Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Ali Fisher

Fine! I'll admit it. I've watched both trailers for Baz Luhrmann's new adaptation of The Great Gatsby a solid million times each.

Those cars! That champagne! Those jewels! Those jams! And, of course, literature's favorite billboard featuring the creepy gaze of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg!

As anticipation for the film rises I'm sure your copies of the original material will get more use than ever, but what stands up next to a novel like THE GREAT GATSBY? What read-alikes do you recommend to roaring readers that can't get enough of flappers and foul play?

We recommend Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler, the story of beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre and her scandalous adventures with Scott in the Jazz Age.

"Fowler has given us a lovely, sad and compulsively readable book." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Monday Fun Day! (12/17/2012 Edition)

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Ali Fisher

Well friends, the year is winding down. Macmillan offices will be closed for the holidays from December 24th until January 2nd and I'm heading home this Wednesday, so it's about to get pretty quiet on the blog.

Fortunately a bunch of wonderful librarians are chatting about their favorite reads from 2012 on Twitter all week (join them using #libfavs2012)!

Monks! Music! Mayhem! I join @acornsandnuts in nomination of BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY by Louise Penny #libfavs2012

— Janet Lockhart (@HartGami) December 15, 2012

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, great book for bibliophiles and technology lovers! #libfavs2012

— Scott Lenski (@LibraryScoots) December 12, 2012

Today's #libfavs2012 Suzanne Joinson's A LADY CYCLIST'S GUIDE TO KASHGAR. Interesting setting and characters.

— Jennifer Winberry (@jwinberry) December 16, 2012

Shelf Awareness featured the book trailer for the final installment of the Robert Jordan's bestselling Wheel of Time series, A MEMORY OF LIGHT, featuring Brandon Sanderson, Harriet McDougal, Tom Doherty, Jason Denzel, and Patrick Rothfuss. Watch it now:

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Nominees for YALSA’s 2013 Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Ali Fisher

We're so pleased to report that THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the End of Slavery in America written by Dwight Jon Zimmerman and illustrated by Wayne Vansant, TRINITY: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, and GOLIATH by Tom Gauld have been officially nominated for YALSA's 2013 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list!

See the full list of nominees here. [...]

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Monday Fun Day! (12/10/2012 Edition)

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Ali Fisher

Welcome to a new week, everyone!

- Thank you to all of the librarians who came out to last week's book buzzes in New York and Philadelphia. I had a wonderful time sharing the good word about our Winter 2013 titles and I hope you heard about a few books you simply can't run a library without!

- Library Journal's resident dude expert, Douglas Lord, has curated another list of Books for Dudes including THE UNINVITED by Liz Jensen, of which he says, "Both the hero and the mystery of this superb and engrossing novel will captivate readers." See the full article here.

- Twitter users: This Thursday @fsgbooks will be hosting a live chat with @YaelKohen at 12:30pm (Eastern) to discuss WE KILLED: The Rise of Women In American Comedy! Use the hashtag: #WeKilled.

Is this seat taken? twitter.com/EmergencyPuppy…

— Emergency Cute Stuff (@EmergencyPuppy) December 6, 2012

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Kirkus Reviews’ Best Nonfiction of 2012!

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Ali Fisher

Huzzah! Kirkus Reviews continues their year-end celebration by inviting all of their top nonfiction picks to the party! 18 of their top 100 nonfiction selections were published or distributed by Macmillan this year:

WINTER JOURNAL By Paul Auster

VISIT SUNNY CHERNOBYL: And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places By Andrew Blackwell

AFTERMATH: On Marriage and Separation By Rachel Cusk

CITY: A Guidebook for the Urban Age By P.D. Smith

THE TENDER HOUR OF TWILIGHT: Paris in the '50s, New York in the '60s: A Memoir of Publishing's Golden Age By Richard Seaver

WHAT MONEY CAN'T BUY: The Moral Limits of Markets By Michael J. Sandel

POWER, INC.: the Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government--and the Reckoning that Lies Ahead By David Rothkopf

HAITI: The Aftershocks of History By Laurent Dubois

FREEDOM'S CAP: The United States Capitol and the Coming of the Civil War By Guy Gugliotta

LIVING, THINKING, LOOKING: Essays By Siri Hustvedt

LEONARDO AND THE LAST SUPPER By Ross King

THE PATAGONIAN HARE: A Memoir By Claude Lanzmann

SAVAGE CONTINENT: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II By Keith Lowe

DESERT AMERICA: Boom and Bust in the New "New West" By Rubén Martínez

SUBVERSIVES: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power By Seth Rosenfeld

RED PLENTY By Francis Spufford

THE BIG SCREEN: The Story of the Movies By David Thomson

RISE TO GREATNESS: Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year By David Von Drehle

See the the full Best Nonfiction of 2012 list from Kirkus Reviews. Also take a look at all of the great Macmillan titles in their Best of Fiction 2012! [...]

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TIME’s Top 10 Everything of 2012

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Ali Fisher

TIME posted their ever-ambitious Top 10 Everything of 2012 including a few fine fiction and nonfiction books from Macmillan!

Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2012

PEOPLE WHO EAT DARKNESS: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo — and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up by Richard Lloyd Parry

"Richard Lloyd Parry, the Tokyo bureau chief for the Times of London, tells the story as a true-crime thriller, one that exposes another layer of the strangeness of Japanese society with every twist: its attitude toward foreigners, the culture of its police, its media, its racial and sexual politics. It’s the fate of all true-crime books to be compared to IN COLD BLOOD, but this one stands up to the comparison better than most."

Top 10 Fiction Books of 2012

BRING UP THE BODIES by Hilary Mantel

"Mantel infuses Anne Boleyn’s progression from palace to executioner’s block with taut suspense; her exhilarating prose, unrivaled in contemporary fiction, renders Cromwell one of literature’s most compelling characters."

AT LAST by Edward St. Aubyn

"Abused by his father and neglected by his mother, Patrick grows up ravaged both by financial riches and emotional poverty, and as an adult he struggles with drugs, alcohol and his own fecklessness. His sense of humor, however, is unimpaired, and he never stops trying to make peace with his legacy and find his way to some semblance of happiness and mental health."

See TIME's Top 10 Fiction list starting here and their Top 10 Nonfiction list starting here. [...]

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Booklist’s Best Adult Books for Young Adults 2012

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Ali Fisher

We're very excited to see four of our fine titles on Booklist's 2012 Editors’ Choice list of the best Adult books for a Young Adult audience.

That Adult-to-Teen crossover appeal makes these titles special for us and accessible to all of your patrons.

Here are the Macmillan titles:

GIRLCHILD by Tupelo Hassman

LITTLE STAR by John Ajvide Lindqvist

THIS IS HOW: Proven to Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More, for Young and Old Alike by Augusten Burroughs

RAIDERS!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made by Alan Eisenstock and others

The full list has not been posted online, yet. When I see it, I will update this post. [...]

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The New York Times’ Notable Books of 2012!

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Ali Fisher

Wow! Twenty of the one hundred excellent selections from The New York Times' Notable Books of 2012 list are published or distributed by Macmillan! Take a look:

Fiction:

ALMOST NEVER By Daniel Sada

AN AMERICAN SPY By Olen Steinhauer

AT LAST By Edward St. Aubyn

THE BOOK OF MISCHIEF By Steve Stern

BRING UP THE BODIES By Hilary Mantel

BY BLOOD By Ellen Ullman

CITY OF BOHANE By Kevin Barry

THE FORGETTING TREE By Tatjana Soli

HHhH By Laurent Binet

HOW SHOULD A PERSON BE? By Sheila Heti

THE RIGHT-HAND SHORE By Christopher Tilghman

SALVAGE THE BONES By Jesmyn Ward

SHINE SHINE SHINE By Lydia Netzer

THE STARBOARD SEA By Amber Dermont

SWIMMING HOME By Deborah Levy

Nonfiction:

ALL WE KNOW By Lisa Cohen

THE GREY ALBUM By Kevin Young

HAITI By Laurent Dubois

MY POETS By Maureen N. McLane

PEOPLE WHO EAT DARKNESS By Richard Lloyd Parry

SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID By Zakes Mda

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