By Rachel Deahl
If there was any question about the ability of books to generate excitement
at this year’s BookExpo, one need look no further than what happened at
Wednesday night’s Adult Editors’ Buzz Panel, where booksellers pushed and
shoved to get galleys of the five books touted. Though the show floor was
much more genteel, booksellers still scrambled for galleys by both marquee
authors and newcomers.
Among the new names generating excitement was A.J. Finn, the pseudonym
for publishing veteran (and HarperCollins v-p and executive editor) Dan
Mallory. A buzz panel selection, Finn’s The Woman in the Window (Jan.
2018) has all the trappings of a big book: it’s already sold for film (to Fox
2000) and was acquired by William Morrow just before the 2016 Frankfurt
Book Fair for a rumored seven figures. Drawing comparisons to Hitchcock
and Hawkins, Paula, that is, the novel follows a recently divorced woman with
agoraphobia who spies on her neighbors. Liate Stehlik, senior v-p and pub-
lisher at HarperCollins, said everyone she gives the book to is enamored with
it. “It’s a special book with the kind of magic you cannot manufacture.”
Another buzz selection being
talked up on the show floor:
Gabriel Tallent’s debut, My
Absolute Darling. Riverhead,
which will publish the book in
August, gave away more than
500 galleys at the show; the
imprint’s associate publisher,
Jynne Martin, said the book is
“an absolutely huge one for us
this year.” Anne Holman,
co-owner of the King’s English
bookstore in Salt Lake City, said
everyone at her store is talking
about the novel, which they’re
comparing to A Little Life. Hol-
man called the book “at once hor-
rifying and beautiful” and “com-
pletely unforgettable.”
Among the books at the show
being compared to The Hand-
maid’s Tale (and there were a
few), one stood out: Leni Zumas’s
Red Clocks. Lee Boudreaux, who
is publishing the debut novel
The Galleys They Grabbed:
The Big Books at BookExpo
At a packed event yesterday, Hillary
Rodham Clinton, the former secretary
of state, sat down for an hour with
memoirist Cheryl Strayed. The pair discussed Clinton’s forthcoming memoir,
after an introduction by Simon &
Schuster president and CEO Carolyn
Reidy. The book is due this fall, alongside the picture book edition of It Takes
a Village. Upon hearing an audience
comment, a visibly moved Clinton said:
“I have to tell you, as booksellers... how
much you mean to me.”
The magic of reading
BEGINS WITH CHILDREN’S BOOKS
AND LASTS A LIFETIME.
LBYR BOOTH #2502 • ARC GIVEAWAY TODAY AT 9: 30 AM
FALL 2017:
PURE MAGIC.
LBYR.com ; @lbkids
OCTOBER 31
NOVEMBER 21 OCTOBER 3
A
AD3809_PWBookExpoShowDailyFriday_Final.indd 1 5/9/17 2:25PM
®
ALL THE BUZZ ON BOOKEXPO
Publishers Weekly’s Show Daily is produced each day during the 2017 BookExpo in New York.
The Show Daily press office is in room W4A01. P W’s booth is 1748.
RICH DAD GRADUATE SCHOOL
Robert Kiyosaki N E W F R O M BOOTH 2562
FRI.
JUNE 2,
2017
through her eponymous imprint at Little, Brown in January, said the book,
set in an America where abortion is illegal, is about “what it means to be a
mother.”
Debut authors were not the only ones on booksellers’ minds. John
Grisham’s just released Camino Island (Doubleday), which he will be signing
finished copies of today, is something of a love letter to the bookselling com-
munity. About a rare books dealer in Florida, the novel is the first title for
which he’s touring in 25 years. Why now? A rep at Doubleday said the tour is
meant to be a “gift” to booksellers, for all the support they’ve given Grisham
throughout his career.
Books by three other heavy hitters were being scooped up: Jeffrey Eugenides’s
Fresh Complaint (FSG, Oct.), Nicole Krauss’s Forest Dark (Harper, Sept.),
and Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach (Scribner, Oct.). Eugenides’s first
continued on p. 8
Hillary!
©
S
T
E
V
E
K
AG
A
N
.
CO
M
