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The cover for Jennifer Weiner’s forthcoming novel has been unveiled. We’ve embedded the full image for Who Do You Love above—what do you think?

US Weekly reports that this project marks the first time Weiner wrote a love story. Atria Books has set the publication date for August 11th.

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Writer Jennifer Weiner has contributed a piece to TIME magazine’s “Letters From Mom” series. This venture was organized in honor of Mother’s Day which is scheduled to take place on May 10th this year.

Weiner (pictured, via) shared a message for her two daughters, Lucy and Phoebe. She hopes that the two girls will realize that “you are so much more than your looks.” Over on Facebook, she posted a link to the piece and told her fans that she feels “proud of this one.”

Here’s an excerpt: “My prayer is that you’ll never lose sight of yourselves—all of yourselves. You are so much more than just your looks. Your bodies are perfect, perfectly made and perfectly sized. You don’t have to waste years of your life fighting against them, or trying to fit someone else’s idea of beautiful (especially if that person is taking your money and whispering snake-oil promises about how if you only stick to this diet/cleanse/fitness plan, if you only get this injection/operation/painful piece of shapewear, you’ll look the way you should). Love your bodies for what they can do.”

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We’ve collected the books debuting on Indiebound’s Indie Bestseller List for the week ending June 22, 2014–a sneak peek at the books everybody will be talking about next month.

(Debuted at #1 in Hardcover Fiction) Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling): “When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days–as he has done before–and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realizes.” (June 2014)

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The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling has debuted on Apple’s Top Paid iBooks in the U.S. this week at No. 2.

Apple has released its top selling books list for paid books from iBooks in the U.S. for week ending 6/23/14. Top Secret Twenty-One by Janet Evanovich and All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner also made the list this week.

We’ve included Apple’s entire list after the jump. (more…)

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Simon & Schuster has established a partnership with Scribd and Oyster. Readers will now have access to the publisher's backlist eBook titles. Some of the books now available through these two eBook subscription services include 11/22/63 by Stephen King, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult, In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner, and How to be Compassionate by The Dalai Lama. CEO Carolyn Reidy had this statement in the press release: "Consumers have clearly taken to subscription models for other media, and we expect that our participation in these services will encourage discovery of our books, grow the audience and expand our retail reach for our authors, and create new revenue streams under an author-friendly, advantageous business model for both author and publisher. We are delighted to work with Scribd and Oyster to offer this exciting new model for readers to find and read eBooks, and to do so in a manner that respects the value of our authors’ creative endeavors and supports our mutual goals of selling the most possible copies of their books."

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Anybody who knows me knows how I feel about labels. Applied to people. Applied to literature.

Still, those of us who write young adult fiction must, at times, face those who suggest that it is a lesser form, not nearly as important as the work written expressly for adults—a problem I discussed in a story for Publishing Perspectives titled, "Removing the YA Label: A Proposal, A Fantasy."

(Those of us who write quote-unquote literary contemporary YA fiction must also endure the suggestion that John Green has singlehandedly ushered in this genre's golden era, but that's a topic for another conversation, and we must be careful not to blame John Green for what is written about him.)

The problem with the YA-is-lesser assessment is that the YA writers I respect aren't writing down, aren't writing in haste, aren't writing with any less literary ambition than those who write novels for adults. We're just writing stories that happen to have younger protagonists at their heart; often we're writing "whole family" tales. Always, if we're serious about this stuff, if we're writing not toward known trends but toward felt story, we're writing as best as we can.

And so I will admit to feeling equal measures of joy and peace at finding Going Over on the Main Line Today list of 10 great beach reads by local authors. Not 10 YA books. Just ten books by authors ranging from Robin Black and Jennifer Weiner to Kelly Corrigan and Ken Kalfus. Ten books curated by Cathy Feibach of Main Point Books, who has made it her business, in this, the first year of her store's existence, to get to know who is writing what and to evaluate each book on its own terms.

I am honored. And I am looking forward to next Saturday, when I will drive down Lancaster Avenue and stop in Bryn Mawr and spend an hour signing both Going Over and Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir in Cathy's store. My signing caps a full day of signings, the details for which are here. And when I'm not signing, you can be sure that I'll be buying the books I want, seeing straight past their labels.

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Over the weekend, novelist Jennifer Weiner wrote on Twitter: “Saturday am. Iced coffee. NYT mag. See which actress Andrew Goldman has accused of sleeping her way to the top. #traditionsicoulddowithout,” criticizing writer Andrew Goldman‘s work in the “Talk” interview column at The New York Times Magazine.

Goldman responded directly to the novelist with this tweet: “sensing pattern. Little Freud in me thinks you would have liked at least to have had opportunity to sleep way to top.” Goldman later characterized his tweet as “absurd,” saying that it was written in the style of comedian Andrew Dice Clay.

The remark generated responses from Gimme Shelter author Mary Beth Williams and New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum. We’ve embedded the complete exchange in a Storify post below (CONTAINS NSFW LANGUAGE)–what do you think?

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Driving home with her GPS last week, author Jennifer Weiner was inspired to write her first ghost story, Recalculating. She published the story today as digital Halloween treat.

It took Weiner five hours to draft the 35 page story about a haunted GPS device. In a matter of two days, the team at Atria Books edited the book and designed a cover. You can find the digital short for 99-cents on Amazon, on B&N and on iTunes.

What do you think? Here’s more about the book: “I was thinking of a darker, more dangerous kind of GPS. And then, I started asking the writer’s big question: why? Why would a GPS want to do a bad, bad thing? Just like that, I had a story. An abused wife. A dead husband who doesn’t want to stay dead. A gift-wrapped box in the attic…and a GPS that starts telling its new owner to make some seriously wrong turns.”

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Summary: The lives of four very different women intertwine in unexpected ways in this new novel by bestselling author Jennifer Weiner (Then Came You; Best Friends Forever). Each woman has a problem: Princeton senior Jules Wildgren needs money to help her dad cure his addiction; Pennsylvania housewife Annie Barrow is gasping to stay financially afloat; India Bishop yearns to have a child, an urge that her stepdaughter Bettina can only regard with deeply skepticism until she finds herself in a most unexpected situation. Interlocking dramas designed to ensnare; bound to be a bestseller.

REVIEW: THEN CAME YOU, Jennifer Weiner’s 9th book, is probably one of her strongest to date. She uses her trademark skills of bringing the complicated thoughts, issues and struggles of women to life on the page. Weiner has a knack for amazing dialogue and descriptions that ring true and her humor is a constant presence. There isn’t a fake, forced or phony tone in any of her writing. In THEN CAME YOU Weiner explores the sensitive issues of infertility, egg donation and surrogacy, while also delving into the more universal issues surrounding marriage, family relationships, alcoholism, regret, and love. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character and as the story unfolds, the roles that each woman will play in the life of another is revealed. Annie, a stay-at-home mom, married her high school sweetheart and is now raising her 2 boys. She decides to become a surrogate to help her family out of their current financial problems. Jules, a recent Princeton graduate, decides to donate her eggs to a fertility clinic hoping that the money she gets can go towards helping her sick father. India is a trophy wife. She recently married a wealthy older man and decides to have a baby. When she can’t concieve naturally, she turns to surrogacy. Each individual story is woven together when Bettina, India’s stepdaughter, decides to investigate India’s past.

Weiner has never written a “perfect” character and this is why so many people love and relate to her novels. She writes about flawed individuals and doesn’t try to force sympathy from her readers. She allows the reader to enter the minds of these characters and decide for themselves if they like or dislike them while the story unfolds.  Weiner brings us into the journey of these four women and makes it almost impossible to put this book down.

Jennifer Weiner is an amazing writer and THEN CAME YOU is one of the most richly layered novels she has written. I can’t wait to see what topic she tackles next.

 

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With the publication of Jennifer Weiner’s latest novel, THEN CAME YOU, scheduled for tomorrow, I thought I would run a little interview from Jennifer.

Q. How would you describe your life in only 8 words?

A. Writer, reader, social networker, Mom. Busy, busy, busy!

Q. What is your motto or maxim?

A. “Don’t pick it.” My Mom told me that, and it applies to any number of situations.

Q. How would you describe perfect happiness?

A. A quiet afternoon, a down comforter, a fire in the fireplace, a great book. (Oh, and snacks. Maybe tea and shortbread).

Q. What’s your greatest fear?

A. Being between books, and unable to find a good one.

Q. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?

A. Cape Cod, on a perfect sunny July afternoon, paddling my kayak through the salt marsh with my daughters, looking for clams.

Q. What do you regret most?

A. Meeting one of my literary heroes — one of the men whose work made me think that I could become a writer, too. He turned out to be a horrible sexist who claimed to never read books by women. I’m still getting over that one.

Q. If you could acquire any talent, what would it be?

A. I can sing adequately, but if I could, I’d love to be really, really good. Good enough to take it on the road.

Q. What is your greatest achievement?

A. I think I’m supposed to say something about my children or my books here, but honestly, any morning that I wake up and find that I’ve successfully charged the various electronic devices that I’ll need, that’s a good day.

Q. What’s your greatest flaw?

A. I am terrifically thin-skinned, and I hold grudges. So don’t piss me off! Not even accidentally!

Q. What’s your best quality?

A. I’m an excellent tipper, I know lots of dirty jokes, and I watch lots of bad reality TV. So if you’re a struggling waitress who wants to talk about “America’s Next Top Model,” I’m your girl.

Q. If you could be any person or thing, who or what would it be?

A. I think I’d be me, only maybe a little younger and better-looking.

Q. What trait is most noticeable about you?

A. I’m usually smiling.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional hero?

A. Linda Voss, from Susan Isaac’s SHINING THROUGH, a secretary-turned-spy who saves the world and gets the guy.

Q. Who is your favorite fictional villain?

A. Pennywise in Stephen King’s IT. Seriously, if there’s anything scarier than a killer clown, I don’t even want to know about it.

Q. If you could meet any historical character, who would it be and what would you say to him or her?

A. After meeting the horribly s

1 Comments on Jennifer Weiner Revealed!, last added: 7/11/2011

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bermudaonion (Kathy) said, on 7/11/2011 1:33:00 PM

I got a chuckle out of her motto! When you think about it, it does fit lots of situations.

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To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Good in Bed, author Jennifer Weiner is hosting “Cannie’s Hollywood Getaway” contest–a chance for readers to win a luxurious trip to Los Angeles.

Prospective contestants need to log on to Weiner’s Facebook page and write about their best personal memory from the last ten years (minimum 125 words and maximum 175 words). The contest will be accepting submissions until May 31st.

Here’s more about the prizes: “Much like the beloved Cannie Shapiro, a winner and a guest will fly to Los Angeles and experience the best Hollywood has to offer. From Sunday, June 19th through Wednesday, June 22nd, they will stay at the luxurious Beverly Wilshire, enjoying breakfasts and spa treatments, a workout with a trainer, dinner at one of Los Angeles’ top restaurants, and an invitation to watch a taping of State of Georgia, the new ABC Family sitcom co-written and executive-produced by Jen herself.”

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Today The Morning News announced the roster for the annual Tournament of Books–a round robin competition that pits books against books every March. We’ve listed the complete roster of books below.

A panel of judges will compare these books against each other, eliminating one book each round until there is a winning book. Last year, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall topped the list.

Here’s more about the contest: “There will be surprises and controversies, upsets and kerfuffles. As usual, we’ll have our color commentators on hand to discuss the decisions, and our Rooster statistician will return to provide analysis and predictions. Then there’s you, the reader. Sometimes you’ll agree with the decisions, sometimes you won’t, and in both cases we hope you’ll voice your opinion in the discussion—which has become, as Salon critic Laura Miller put it last year, ‘a rare pocket of civility and informed intelligence.’”

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Sometimes all you can do is fly away home . . .

Written with an irresistible blend of heartbreak and hilarity, Fly Away Home is an unforgettable story of a mother and two daughters who after a lifetime of distance finally learn to find refuge in one another.

When Sylvie Serfer met Richard Woodruff in law school, she had wild curls, wide hips, and lots of opinions. Decades later, Sylvie has remade herself as the ideal politician’s wife—her hair dyed and straightened, her hippie-chick wardrobe replaced by tailored knit suits. At fifty-seven, she ruefully acknowledges that her job is staying twenty pounds thinner than she was in her twenties and tending to her husband, the senator.

Lizzie, the Woodruffs’ younger daughter, is at twenty-four a recovering addict, whose mantra HALT (Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?) helps her keep her life under control. Still, trouble always seems to find her. Her older sister, Diana, an emergency room physician, has everything Lizzie failed to achieve—a husband, a young son, the perfect home—and yet she’s trapped in a loveless marriage. With temptation waiting in one of the ER’s exam rooms, she finds herself craving more.

After Richard’s extramarital affair makes headlines, the three women are drawn into the painful glare of the national spotlight. Once the press conference is over, each is forced to reconsider her life, who she is and who she is meant to be.

Jennifer Weiner shines in her latest novel, FLY AWAY HOME. Touching on current events and what happens when famous men cheat (Tiger? John Edwards?) and what the repercussions are to the family left in the wake of the storm, Weiner explores three women and how their lives are changed. Sylvie Woodruff learns that her husband, Senator Richard Woodruff, has had an affair with one of his aides. While Sylvie tries to pick up the pieces of her life, her daughters, Diana and Lizzie both struggle with the ramifications of their father’s indiscretion. What is most enjoyable about this story are the differences that lie between these three women. Sylvie has done everything to be the perfect wife and partner to her husband. She has sacrificed her own goals in the name of her husband’s career. Meanwhile, Diana has done nothing but focus on perfecting her own life. She is as structured about her medical career as she is about her fitness and diet. She is trying to build a perfect life but in the meantime she is in a loveless marriage and cheating on her husband. And then their is Lizzie, a recovering addict trying to build her own life from the ground up. The tragic circumstances surrounding Richard’s affair bring these women together as they try to understand where they are in their own lives and where they are going.

Elle ran an in-depth interview with Jennifer Weiner where she discusses her latest novel, what inspired the plot, celebrity infidelity and body-image issues in our society.

A perfect, perfect read…great for the beach, vacation or just about anywhere! I loved this book and was immediately reminded why Ms. Weiner is so successful, because she explores women’s complicated lives beautifully and honestly with a perfect blend of humor, sadness and joy…just like life.

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Here is Jennifer Weiner’s perfect review of Frank Bruni’s BORN ROUND:

There are two kinds of people in the world. Not cat and dog people, not chocolate and vanilla. There are, I’d propose, people who will read Frank Bruni’s autobiography — in particular, the scene where he’s scarfing precooked Tyson chicken breasts, one-handed, in his car, while driving home from the grocery store and think, oh, ew…and then there are people, my people, who will read it and think, well, duh. That stuff smells good! And when you’re hungry, you’re hungry!

My people know what it’s like to watch a sibling push a half-full plate away and wonder, How do they do that? Don’t they see there’s more?. We’re the ones who’ve been on every diet, endured every form of exercise, and can tell you, at a glance, the calorie count and/or Weight Watchers point value of every morsel you could put in your mouth.

Bruni, the departing food critic for The New York Times, is one of us. He was born with an obdurate, ineluctable appetite, a voice inside that eternally cried, More, more, more and never once whispered, Enough.

The good news first: His memoir Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eaterpulls off the impressive feat of being both mouthwatering and heartbreaking. There are drool-worthy descriptions of the meals young Frank enjoyed: his mother’s lasagna, his grandmother’s frits: balls of fried dough with mozzarella and tomato sauce at their center, “like miniature thick-crust pizzas turned inside out, or rather outside in, only better, so much better, than any pizza could be.”

And, of course, there are the consequences: the love handles that Bruni disguised with a “shapeless, floppy, pale green Army-issue Winderbreaker,” the author photo that he had digitally stretched to suggest slimness, the desperate measures, from a flirtation with bulimia to a stint on Mexican speed, that Bruni employed to keep the excess pounds away; the boys he wouldn’t date or wouldn’t sleep with because he didn’t want to be seen shirtless.

It says a lot about the shame of being fat in America that, for Bruni, coming out of the closet proves less painful than hanging pants with a 40-inch waist inside of it. It’s revealing, too, to see the author lavish more description on the meals — as opposed to the men — that he’s loved. Bruni shucks partners like peel-and-eat shrimp shells while making his way ever upward, on the scale and toward theTimes. . . but maybe that’s not surprising. Boyfriends come and go; Ben & Jerry’s is forever. And, as Bruni admits, his “life-defining relationship, after all, wasn’t with a parent, a sibling, a teacher, a mate. It was with my stomach.” (Mom places a distant second).

The book’s final section finds Bruni relatively happy, having mastered, mostly, the art of portion control and vigorous exercise. It offers a procedural on weight management if your job involves eating most of your meals at the best restaurants in the world (taste, don’t finish), details about the mechanics of being a critic (fake names always, costumes on occasion), and the frisson of a few bold-faced names (who knew Sarah Jessica Parker had such problems with parsley?)

My only problem with Born Round isn’t Bruni’s fault, but it’s worth mentioning that his book will get more than its fair portion of attention.

Part of this has to do with Bruni’s job, more of it, with his gender. A woman with a painful relationship with food and her own body is a classic dog-bites-man story, where a guy willing to lament his jiggly chest and widening waistline, or describe how he cried in a country-club basement after his brother called him fat, is a little more man bites dog.

There is also the double standard that still applies to memoirs. Where a man is deemed brave for revealing his flaws and insecurities, a woman telling similar stories can depend on being called whiny, neurotic or just plain nuts.

Instead of serving Born Round as a one-dish supper, I’d put Bruni’s book on the buffet with Valerie Frankel’s Thin Is the New Happy, Betsy Lerner’s Food and Loathing: A Lament and Judith Moore’s excoriating Fat Girl: A True Story. There are plenty of painful, funny, revealing books about appetite and its consequences out there, books that shouldn’t be ignored simply because their authors were born round — and born female.

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Jennifer Weiner’s newest book, BEST FRIENDS FOREVER, will be releasing this month. As an author, she must be eagerly anticipating her own reviews surfacing over the next few weeks and months. As a human being with feelings and emotions, she is probably filled with intense fear. Great reviews can boost you up and send your soul soaring. Negative reviews can leave you in a curled-up ball of emotions. Best selling novelist, Alice Hoffman, recently defended her recent release, THE STORY SISTERS, against a negative review that ran in The Boston Globe. The story about Alice’s rantings spread like wildfire across the internet. Jennifer weighs in on Alice’s unfortunate headline-grabbing actions over at The Huffington Post.

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Here is a great article on book promotion from today’s Boston Herald. It includes advice from Emily Giffin, Claire Cook and Jennifer Weiner.

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