There are a lot of heavy hitters this year at BEA, and
while the books that are
generating excitement run
the gamut of writers and
subjects, four came up in
conversation over and over
with book buyers and are
getting buzzed about on the
floor.
Top of that list is Colson
Whitehead’s The
Underground Railroad
(Doubleday, Sept.). It’s the
story of a young woman try-
ing to escape bondage and
make it to the North from
the antebellum South. Bill
Carl, assistant manager of
Wellesley Books, in
Wellesley, Mass., says he’s
“so excited, I’m jumping up
and down.” Jake Cumsky-
Whitlock, head buyer at
Kramerbooks &
Afterwords, in Washington,
D.C., calls The Underground
Railroad “an unflinching,
arresting, and unforgettable
book.” He says he has “high
hopes that this will be the
title to vault Whitehead to
the next plateau of recogni-
tion.” Matt Keliher, manager
at Subtext Books, in St. Paul,
Minn., calls Whitehead’s
book “an absolute bombshell.”
Next is a debut novel, The
Nix by Nathan Hill (Knopf,
Aug.), which Cathy Langer,
head buyer at Tattered
Cover Books, in Denver,
Colo., says “has some of the
funniest writing I’ve read
in years. And the 1968
Chicago [Democratic] con-
vention [where the book
is set] is so timely.” Valerie
Koehler of Blue Willow
Bookshop, in Houston, Tex.,
is another fan: “The staff is
going to do a book club this
summer with this one.”
Jamie Fiocco of Flyleaf
Books, in Chapel Hill, N.C.,
says The Nix is “very enter-
taining. I think folks are
really going to like his style.
It’s a big book but reads very
quickly.” And Jamie Thomas,
the store manager of
Women & Children first
in Chicago said it’s “the
newest in a long line of
fat, bold debut novels.
But it’s the most assured
I’ve read in a long time.”
Then there’s
Commonwealth
(Harper, Sept.), Ann
Patchett’s new novel,
which Langer says has
“fans chomping at the
bit.” Matt Norcross,
co-owner of McLean &
Eakin Booksellers, in
Petoskey, Mich., calls
Patchett’s latest “quick
and snappy. A thoroughly
enjoyable take on the modern family—heartwarming,
but with complications and
tragedy.”
The Girls, the debut novel
that won a headline-grab-
bing advance for author
Emma Cline from Random
House, also has booksellers
jazzed. “It’s easy to see it as
simply the gripping story of
a young woman caught up
in a violent hippie cult, yet
it’s Cline’s unsparing
examination of young wom-
en’s relationships that
will stay with me long
after the chills have
gone away,” says David
Enyeart of Common
Good Books, in St. Paul,
Minn. Sarah Hollenbeck,
co-owner of Women &
Children First, says that
The Girls “captures so
viscerally what it is to be
young and female—the
serrated desire to be
desired, the vulnerabil-
ity, and the loneliness
that feels like forever.”
Plenty of other books
are on booksellers’ radars.
Paul Yamazaki, the head
buyer of City Lights
Booksellers, in San
Francisco, weighs in on sev-
eral of his favorites, from
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here
I Am (FSG, Sept.), which he
predicts will be very big, to
Mauro Javier Cardenas’s
The Revolutionaries Try
Again (Coffee House, Sept.):
“[Cardenas] is a tremen-
dously skilled storyteller
and monologist; his writing
is so exuberant.” Yamazaki is
also bullish on Tim Murphy’s
Cristadora (Grove, Aug.).
“It’s the best novel I’ve ever
Books by Whitehead, Patchett Among Show’s Biggest
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continued on p. 4
DAY
3
ALL THE BUZZ ON BOOKEXPO AMERICA
Publishers Weekly’s Show Daily is produced each day during the 2016 BookExpo in Chicago.
The Show Daily press office is in room W474-B. PW’s booth is #740.
By Louisa Ermelino, with reporting by Claire Kirch and Judith Rosen
“Cristadora is
the best novel
I’ve read about
the cost of
activism.” Paul
Yamazaki, City
Lights, San
Francisco
“The Girls
captures so
viscerally what
it is to be young
and female.”
David Enyeart,
Common Good
Books, St. Paul,
Minn..
