Book Buzz: Editors' picks at BookExpo
NEW YORK — When book editors and publishers talk about "buzz," they mean that elusive quality that gets people chatting about a book even before it's released.
BookExpo America, the annual publishing convention, opens every year with an "Editors' Buzz" panel of prominent editors hoping to ignite buzz for one of their most promising titles.
Highlights from Wednesday's buzz-filled discussion:
We Are Not Ourselves (out Aug. 19): Matthew Thomas' debut novel traces three generations of a New York Irish-American family in search of the American Dream. Simon & Schuster editor Marysue Rucci calls it "an indelible portrait of the great unwinding of the American middle class."
The Miniaturist (Aug, 26): Jessie Burton's debut novel is set in Amsterdam at the end of the 17th century where a young woman is married off into a family with secrets. Ecco editor Lee Boudreaux says the "suspense builds and builds and builds."
Station Eleven (Sept. 9): Emily St. John Mandel's fourth novel deals with a civilization that collapses in the near future, where "survival is not sufficient." Knopf editor Jennifer Jackson says "it's sometimes funny, sometimes tense, but always incredibly smart," and a "requiem for the world we knew."
Neverhome (Sept. 9): Laird Hunt's sixth novel, set during the Civil War, is about a fiercely independent woman who takes her husband's place in the war. Little, Brown editor Josh Kendall says "it begins with a lie and ends with a revelation of truth."
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League (Sept, 23): Jeff Hobbs' non-fiction account of his former roommate at Yale, who seemed to have escaped the ghetto, only to become a drug dealer and end up murdered at 30. Scribner editor Colin Harrison calls it an "ambitious and big-hearted book" that's "troubling and impossible to put down."
On Immunity: An Inoculation (Sept. 30): Eula Biss' non-fiction exploration of the implications of vaccination and how vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio and measles, are on the rebound. Graywolf editor Jeffrey Shotts says "it hits a cultural nerve" and will have a lasting impact on families and health professionals.
My Sunshine Away (January 2015): M.O. Walsh's debut novel, is narrated by one of four suspects in a rape in Louisiana in 1989. Putnam editor Amy Einhorn calls it a "page-turner" that's not so much about rape as the loss of innocence of a 14-year-old boy. She dares "anyone to get to the end of the novel and not be surprised."