Booksellers love to talk about the Next Big Thing—especially if they can be the first to get there. Because booksellers are, at heart, discoverers, always on the lookout for something new (or old) to unveil to their colleagues and customers. Book Expo America is where they go to plunder new territory.
Our colleague on the floor at BEA, which wraps up today, wrote to report this discovery morsel after running into Jamil Zaidi, who’s a manager at Elliott Bay Book Company and the president of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. “Just ran into Jamil on his way to the Random House booth to an author signing with Erin Morgenstern. Jamil received her book, Night Circus (due Sept.) as an ARC from Ruth Liebmann. It sat for a couple of weeks on his desk, and when he finally picked it up, he read it twice, back-to-back. He’d been to a cocktail party last night for Knopf and Doubleday. Margaret Atwood was there, Colson Whitehead was there, Harry Belafonte was there—and THIS is the book EVERYONE was talking about.”
We were happy to report that we already knew about the book, thanks to Emily Adams at Third Place, who had this to say recently on One Nightstand: “I fell in love with the mysterious and magical world of The Night Circus. When I finished the book, I just sat on the couch and stared at the cover, holding it in both hands, unwilling to let go, wanting the story to continue. Throughout the book I felt wide-eyed, dazzled, transported by vivid imagery to a world where anything is possible and not everything is as it seems.
(Kudos to the person who decided to put “Not for Sale. Violators will be Exsanguinated” on the cover of the ARC. How could I pass that up?)”
Thanks to Brian, Jamil and Emily for the buzz. The rest of us will have to wait.