Come See Us at ALA in Chicago

Written by Jon Williams

The ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition is on the horizon, taking place in Chicago June 22-27. We’ve made our travel plans, and we’re looking forward to connecting with our many library partners. So come see us! You can get all the latest information on Midwest Tape, hoopla digital, and Dreamscape Media at Booth #4420. Our booth hours are as follows:

Friday, June 23:  5:30pm – 7:00pm

Saturday, June 24:  9:00am – 5:00pm

Sunday, June 25:  9:00am – 5:00pm

Monday, June 26:  9:00am – 2:00pm

We’ll have a few special guests making appearances at our booth as well. Stop by and have a book signed!

Sarah Beth Durst has written several novels for young adults, and burst onto the adult fantasy fiction scene in 2016 with The Queen of Blood, winner of a 2017 Alex Award from ALA/YALSA. The second book in the Queens of Renthia series, The Reluctant Queen, will be released on July 4. She will be at our booth on Saturday from 2:00 to 3:00pm.

Shea Fontana has written for the animated children’s TV show Doc McStuffins and the movie Twinkle Toes Lights Up New York, among many others. One other project she’s been involved with is DC Super Hero Girls, and her latest outing is the graphic novel Summer Olympus, featuring Wonder Woman! You’ll find her at our booth on Sunday from 10:00 to 11:00am.

Kate White is a bestselling author of mystery and thriller novels whose most recent release, The Secrets You Keep, released in March of this year. This fall she’ll release Even if It Kills Her, the first new installment in her popular Bailey Weggins mystery series in five years. She will be at our booth on Sunday afternoon from 3:30 to 4:30pm.

Dates and times for these author appearances are subject to change, so be sure to stop by our booth ahead of time to make sure they still hold. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Hot This Week: May 29

The new thriller from M. Night Shyamalan leads four new titles on this Memorial Day movie list. Former One Direction member Harry Styles debuts at #1 on the music chart with his first solo outing. Dorothea Benton Frank is the top newcomer in fiction, which also sees the debut of a new novella from Stephen King. Nebraska senator Ben Sasse and basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar land on the non-fiction list with their new books.

DVD

1. Split
2. xXx: Return of Xander Cage
3. Sleepless
4. Hidden Figures
5. Why Him?
6. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
7. Sing
8. Gold
9. The Bye Bye Man
10. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

CD

1. Harry Styles, Harry Styles
2. Zac Brown Band, Welcome Home
3. Kendrick Lamar, DAMN.
4. Chris Stapleton, From a Room: Volume 1
5. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix, Vol. 2
6. Paramore, After Laughter
7. Machine Gun Kelly, Bloom
8. Ed Sheeran, Divide
9. Bruno Mars, 24K Magic

Fiction

1. Into the Water, Paula Hawkins
2. 16th Seduction, James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
3. Same Beach, Next Year, Dorothea Benton Frank
4. The Fix, David Baldacci
5. Testimony, Scott Turow
6. Gwendy's Button Box, Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
7. Golden Prey, John Sandford
8. Against All Odds, Danielle Steel
9. Full Wolf Moon, Lincoln Child
10. A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

Non-Fiction

1. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson
2. Option B, Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
3. The Vanishing American Adult, Ben Sasse
4. Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
5. Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann
6. Shattered, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes
7. Democracy, Condoleezza Rice
8. The American Spirit, David McCullough
9. Coach Wooden and Me, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
10. This Fight Is Our Fight, Elizabeth Warren

40 Years of a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Written by Jon Williams

Forty years ago today, on May 25, 1977, Star Wars opened in just thirty-two theaters across the United States. That number quickly expanded as the film took off, and many theaters were still showing the film on its first anniversary. A lot has changed in the intervening years—even that first movie’s title, which has expanded to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope—but the voracious appetite that fans have for stories set in the galaxy far, far away has not abated. Luckily, there’s a wealth of new material coming out.

Fans at the recent Star Wars Celebration in Orlando, as well as those streaming the event live around the world, were treated to the first teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Releasing in December, this will be the second in the new trilogy that picks up the story of the galaxy thirty years following the events of Return of the Jedi. The first installment, The Force Awakens, brought in nearly $1 billion at the box office in North America alone, and more than $2 billion globally. It came out in 2015; the most recent Star Wars movie, Rogue One, the first standalone, non-trilogy film, leads directly into the events of the original Star Wars.

Those who attended Celebration also got a first look at the upcoming fourth season of Star Wars: Rebels, the animated show that follows a small band of freedom fighters in the early days of the Rebel Alliance’s fight against the Galactic Empire. Show creator Dave Filoni also announced that the upcoming season will be the show’s last. The third season featured characters that appeared in Rogue One, such as Rebellion leader Mon Mothma and renegade Saw Gerrera, who was first introduced in Star Wars: Clone Wars.

The third season of Rebels also brought back Grand Admiral Thrawn, a beloved character from the old expanded universe that was wiped out to make way for new stories with Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise. Thrawn’s original entrance came in 1991’s Heir to the Empire, the popular novel by Timothy Zahn that revived interest in Star Wars and can be credited for everything that has come since. With the character coming back into the universe, Zahn stepped in once again to write a novel, released in April, detailing how the Grand Admiral rose to his rank in the Imperial military.

Novels and short stories are a great source of new stories in the Star Wars universe. Chuck Wendig’s recently concluded Aftermath trilogy picks up shortly after the destruction of the second Death Star and details the fall of the Empire and the first seeds of the First Order rising in its place. James Luceno’s Catalyst serves as a prequel to Rogue One, while Rebel Rising by Beth Revis and Guardians of the Whills by Greg Rucka (both unavailable on audio but available in eBook format on hoopla digital) give back stories for some of that movie’s heroes. Finally, releasing in October and celebrating forty years of the original Star Wars movie, From a Certain Point of View explores iconic scenes from that movie from the perspectives of background characters.

The popularity of Star Wars means that patrons will always be looking for the latest materials in your library. SmartBrowse on our website for more, and don’t forget to remind patrons that they can look on hoopla for even more Star Wars audiobooks, eBooks, comics, and music.

Hot This Week: May 22

Two new movies make the list this week, led by the smash hit success Hidden Figures. Logic's latest album edges out the new disc from Chris Stapleton as they debut atop the music chart. The new installment in Jo Nesbo's thrilling detective series is the hottest newcomer in fiction, while a new book by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leads three new titles in non-fiction.

DVD

1. Hidden Figures
2. Why Him?
3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
4. Gold
5. Sing
6. The Bye Bye Man
7. La La Land
8. Assassin's Creed
9. Moana
10. Monster Trucks

CD

1. Logic, Everybody
2. Chris Stapleton, From a Room: Volume 1
3. Kendrick Lamar, DAMN.
4. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix, Vol. 2
5. Ed Sheeran, Divide
6. Russ, There's Really a Wolf
7. Bruno Mars, 24K Magic
8. Gorillaz, Humanz
9. NOW That's What I Call Music 62
10. The Chainsmokers, Memories...Do Not Open

Fiction

1. Into the Water, Paula Hawkins
2. 16th Seduction, James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
3. Against All Odds, Danielle Steel
4. The Fix, David Baldacci
5. Golden Prey, John Sandford
6. The Thirst, Jo Nesbo
7. Since We Fell, Dennis Lehane
8. Men Without Women, Haruki Murakami
9. The Black Book, James Patterson and David Ellis
10. A Dog's Way Home, W. Bruce Cameron

Non-Fiction

1. Option B, Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
2. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson
3. Shattered, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes
4. Democracy, Condoleezza Rice
5. Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann
6. Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
7. The American Spirit, David McCullough
8. This Fight Is Our Fight, Elizabeth Warren
9. Jackie's Girl, Kathy McKeon 
10. Teammate, David Ross and Don Yaeger

Stephen King Fills 2017 with His Brand of Horror

Written by Jon Williams

Call it a hunch, but we’re guessing that a lot of your patrons are Stephen King fans. Luckily for those patrons, there’s plenty of recent and upcoming King material to keep them quivering in fear for quite some time.

To start, we need to go back almost to the very beginning. Now, of course, King is a well-known, bestselling author with more than fifty books to his credit, but that wasn’t always the case. The Dead Zone was just the fourth novel King published under his own name. Released in 1979, it deals with a young man both gifted and cursed with psychic abilities after a catastrophic car accident. The novel spawned both a 1983 movie and a 2002 TV series that ran for six seasons, but it has never been available in audiobook format until now. This classic is narrated by actor James Franco.

There’s also plenty of new material from King. His latest release, out this week, is Gwendy’s Button Box, a novella written with help from publisher, editor, and fellow horror writer Richard Chizmar. The story takes place in Castle Rock, Maine, a familiar setting for King fans. The Dead Zone was set in Castle Rock, as were Cujo, The Dark Half, and a number of novellas and short stories scattered throughout his collections. The 1991 novel Needful Things was originally billed as “the last Castle Rock story,” but apparently he wasn’t done with the little town after all.

And that’s not the only collaboration King has on his docket. Coming this September is Sleeping Beauties, a new novel written in tandem with his son Owen King. It details a dystopian future in which all women (except one!) fall prey to a strange cocooned state while they sleep, and men are left to their own devices. Of course, King is no stranger to this type of collaboration, having teamed up with his other son, author Joe Hill, for the short stories “Throttle” and “In the Tall Grass.”

As popular as his books are, when it comes to Stephen King, they’re only part of the story. Another part is all the adaptations that have taken his work from the page to screens both big and small. In that regard, there’s a pretty full slate on the horizon. First up is The Mist, a ten-episode series premiering on Spike on June 22. The novella, available on its own or collected with other short stories in Skeleton Crew, was previously made into a movie in 2007. Then, on August 9, Mr. Mercedes comes to the Audience Network, based on the first book of a trilogy King wrote about a retired detective facing off against a twisted killer.

In addition to regular TV, fans can also look to the streaming services for some upcoming adaptations. Coming to Netflix later this year is Gerald’s Game, the story of a woman who is trapped handcuffed to a bed after her husband dies suddenly. Much of the novel takes place within main character Jessie Burlingame’s head, so it will be interesting to see how it translates to the screen. Also coming to Netflix in 2017 is 1922, about a man who is convinced his murdered wife is haunting him. It’s based on a novella in Full Dark, No Stars, which also contains the story that was the basis for the movie A Good Marriage. Then, beginning production later this year with no set debut date, is the Hulu series Castle Rock. Not much is known about it other than the setting, the small Maine town mentioned above, but the first teaser contained elements of King classics like Misery and plenty of others.

And speaking of King classics, one of the biggest (both literally and figuratively) is coming to theaters on September 8. It, the epic novel about a shape-shifting creature that feeds on children and the gang of outcast kids that decide enough is enough, has engendered a fear of clowns in readers since its release in 1986. It’s a whopper: the print edition comes in at over 1,000 pages, and the audiobook narration takes up 35 discs. A previous adaptation came in the form of a 3-hour miniseries in 1990, and this time around will be split into two feature films, with the second installment coming in 2018.

And then there’s The Dark Tower…but we’ll have more to say about that soon. In the meantime, make sure you have plenty of Stephen King material on your shelves for patrons to explore and enjoy as these new works and adaptations come along. And don’t be surprised if some of them ask you if they can check out a nightlight, too.

Hot This Week: May 15

The comedy Why Him? spends another week atop the movie list, where it's joined by two new films. Likewise, Kendrick Lamar remains at #1 in music, which sees such heavy-hitting newcomers as Mary J. Blige, Willie Nelson, and John Mellencamp. In fiction, the latest collaborative novel from James Patterson debuts in the top spot, followed by a new thriller from the author of the breakout hit The Girl on the Train. In non-fiction, the only newcomer is the hottest of them all, a guide to astrophysics from Neil deGrasse Tyson.

DVD

1. Why Him?
2. Gold
3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
4. Sing
5. La La Land
6. Assassin's Creed
7. Rings
8. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
9. Monster Trucks
10. Moana

CD

1. Kendrick Lamar, DAMN.
2. Gorillaz, Humanz
3. Mary J. Blige, Strength of a Woman
4. Ed Sheeran, Divide
5. Bruno Mars, 24K Magic
6. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix, Vol. 2
7. The Chainsmokers, Memories...Do Not Open
8. Willie Nelson, God's Problem Child
9. John Mellencamp, Sad Clowns & Hillbillies
10. Moana Soundtrack

Fiction

1. 16th Seduction, James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
2. Into the Water, Paula Hawkins
3. Against All Odds, Danielle Steel
4. The Fix, David Baldacci
5. Golden Prey, John Sandford
6. The Broken Road, Richard Paul Evans
7. The Black Book, James Patterson and David Ellis
8. Anything Is Possible, Elizabeth Strout
9. A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
10. Beartown, Fredrik Backman

Non-Fiction

1. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson
2. Option B, Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
3. Shattered, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes
4. Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann
5. This Fight Is Our Fight, Elizabeth Warren
6. The Operator, Robert O'Neill
7. Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
8. Old School, Bill O'Reilly and Bruce Feirstein
9. The American Spirit, David McCullough
10. Hallelujah Anyway, Anne Lamott

Hot This Week: May 8

This week sees three new additions to each of our formats. In movies, those three include the first Harry Potter spinoff and the critical darling La La Land. New additions to the music chart range from Barry Manilow to Incubus. John Sandford, Elizabeth Strout, and Fredrik Backman all join the hot fiction list, while the non-fiction list sees Caitlyn Jenner's new memoir make its debut.

DVD

1. Why Him?
2. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
3. Sing
4. La La Land
5. Assassin's Creed
6. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
7. Live by Night
8. Monster Trucks
9. Office Christmas Party
10. Moana

CD

1. Kendrick Lamar, DAMN.
2. Ed Sheeran, Divide
3. Incubus, 8
4. Bruno Mars, 24K Magic
5. The Chainsmokers, Memories...Do Not Open
6. Moana Soundtrack
7. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix, Vol. 2
8. The Weeknd, Starboy
9. Migos, Culture
10. Barry Manilow, This Is My Town: Songs of New York

Fiction

1. Golden Prey, John Sandford
2. The Fix, David Baldacci
3. The Black Book, James Patterson and David Ellis
4. Anything Is Possible, Elizabeth Strout
5. Beartown, Fredrik Backman
6. All by Myself, Alone, Mary Higgins Clark
7. A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
8. One Perfect Lie, Lisa Scottoline
9. Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman
10. The Women in the Castle, Jessica Shattuck

Non-Fiction

1. Option B, Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
2. Shattered, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes
3. This Fight Is Our Fight, Elizabeth Warren
4. The Operator, Robert O'Neill
5. Old School, Bill O'Reilly and Bruce Feirstein
6. Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann
7. Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
8. The Secrets of My Life, Caitlyn Jenner and Buzz Bissinger
9. The American Spirit, David McCullough
10. Black Privilege, Charlamagne Tha God

Hot This Week: May 1

The first of May sees four new movies make the list, including the two at the top. Kendrick Lamar's acclaimed new album jumps atop the week's music chart. Perennial bestsellers David Baldacci and Stuart Woods land new novels on the fiction list, while the non-fiction list undergoes a significant refresh with six new titles.

DVD

1. Sing
2. Assassin's Creed
3. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
4. Live by Night
5. Collateral Beauty
6. The Founder
7. Office Christmas Party
8. Monster Trucks
9. Patriots Day
10. Moana

CD

1. Kendrick Lamar, DAMN.
2. John Mayer, The Search for Everything
3. Ed Sheeran, Divide
4. The Chainsmokers, Memories...Do Not Open
5. Moana Soundtrack
6. Bruno Mars, 24K Magic
7. Beauty and the Beast Soundtrack
8. The Fate of the Furious: The Album
9. Migos, Culture
10. The Weeknd, Starboy

Fiction

1. The Fix, David Baldacci
2. The Black Book, James Patterson and David Ellis
3. Fast and Loose, Stuart Woods
4. Star Wars: Thrawn, Timothy Zahn
5. All by Myself, Alone, Mary Higgins Clark
6. Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman
7. The Women in the Castle, Jessica Shattuck
8. Two from the Heart, James Patterson, Frank Constantini, Emily Raymond, and Brian Sitts
9. One Perfect Lie, Lisa Scottoline
10. A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

Non-Fiction

1. This Fight Is Our Fight, Elizabeth Warren
2. Shattered, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes
3. Note to Self, Connor Franta
4. Old School, Bill O'Reilly and Bruce Feirstein
5. Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann
6. Black Privilege, Charlamagne Tha God
7. The American Spirit, David McCullough
8. Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
9. Hallelujah Anyway, Anne Lamott
10. The True Jesus, David Limbaugh