Sizzling Spring Slate for Audio

Sizzling Spring Slate for Audio
Trudi M. Rosenblum -- 2/5/01
Grisham, King, Grafton top list, while military audios are out in force

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With names like Grisham, King, Clancy, Cornwell, Grafton, Patterson, Koontz and Binchy leading the pack, the audiobook industry is looking forward to a hot spring season.

Next to top authors, the biggest trend for the spring is war-related audiobooks: no fewer than 17 military titles are due out in the next few months, six from BDD alone. Spurred by the success of The Greatest Generation and Flags of Our Fathers, "we started to look for other strong publishing opportunities in this area," explained Christine McNamara, v-p and director of marketing for Random House Adult Audio Publishing. "At the same time, we had been receiving requests from some of our accounts for additional titles in this category, so we've begun mining military-themed backlist to respond to market demand."

The CD format continues to gain momentum. Nearly all of the upcoming titles from major publishers will be available in both cassette and CD form. Unabridged offerings, too, continue to grow, although they tend to be limited to the higher-profile titles.

Here are some of the highlights that have audio retailers licking their lips.

Fiction: Grisham's A Painted House (BDD, Feb.), is a certain bestseller, as is Stephen King's highly anticipated Dreamcatcher (Simon & Schuster, Mar.).

Popular female authors are especially well represented this season. Back When We Were Grownups is the new novel from bestseller Anne Tyler (Random House, May). Fresh off the success of Tara Road, Maeve Binchy returns with Scarlet Feather (BDD, Mar.). A Theory of

With big guns like Koontz and Grisham
already out of the gate, spring is off
to a great start.

Relativity (Harper, May)is the latest from Oprah fave Jacquelyn Mitchard, whose bestsellers include The Deep End of the Ocean. Fans of Danielle Steel can look forward to two new romances by the prolific author, Lone Eagle (BDD, Apr.) and Leap of Faith (BDD, June). Amy Tan, author of such bestsellers as The Joy Luck Club, returns with The Bonesetter's Daughter (New Millennium, Feb.).Fans of Bridget Jones will want to sample Helen Fielding's earlier novel, Cause Celeb, available on audio for the first time (Brilliance, Feb.). Nora Roberts's new hardcover romance on audio is The Villa (Brilliance, Mar.).
Mystery and Suspense:Tom Clancy'sOp-Center:Line of Control, co-written by Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, will be out simultaneously with the paperback (S&S, June). James Patterson launches a new thriller series with 1st to Die (Time Warner, Mar.). Sue Grafton's popular alphabet mystery series continues with P Is for Peril (Random House, June). Patricia Cornwell weighs in with Isle of Dogs (Putnam Berkley, June). Mary Higgins Clark serves up a new mystery, On theStreet Where You Live(S&S, Apr.). Cold Paradise is the latest from Stuart Woods (abridged through Putnam Berkley, unabridged through Brilliance, Apr.). Robin Cook gives us another medical thriller in Shock (Putnam Berkley, June). Fearless Jonesis Walter Mosley's newest mystery (Time Warner, June). Lisa Scottoline presents TheVendetta Defense (Harper, Feb.). Dean Koontz's From the Corner of His Eye (BDD, Jan.) is already out and selling well, as is Michael Connelly's A Darkness More Than Night (Time Warner, Jan.).

Nonfiction: The many audio listeners who loved Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation will likely flock to Dan Rather's The American Dream, read (naturally) by the veteran newscaster(Harper, Apr.). Henry Kissinger speculates D s America Need a Foreign Policy? (S&S, June). Sports fans will want to pick up Yogi Berra's When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It! (Harper, May). Exhausted parents will be eager to hear what nanny-to-the-stars Tracy Hogg reveals in Secrets of theBaby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg with Melinda Blau (HighBridge, Jan.).

War, What Is It Good For?: Sales, apparently:publishers are launching a veritable invasion of military forces-related audiobooks this spring.

BDD's six titles include Beyond Valor: World War II's Rangers and Airborne Reveal the Heart of Combatby Patrick K. O'Donnell (Feb.), Death in the Jungle: Diary of a Navy SEALby Gary R. Smith and Alan Maki (Mar.) and Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Missionby Hampton Sides (May).

Simon & Schuster has perhaps the highest-profile war title: Pearl Harbor by Randall Wallace, due out in May simultaneously with the $130-million movie of same name.

HighBridge, too, has war on its mind, with four titles, including The Pearl Harbor Collectionby Gordon W. Prange with Donald Goldstein and Katherine Dillon (Mar.) and The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle: Memoir of a World War II Bomber Pilot by Col. Robert Morgan with Ron Powers (May).

Other military audios this spring include Days of Infamy: Military Blunders of the 20th Centuryby Michael Coffey (Books on Tape, Jan.), a companion to the History Channel's series; Band of Brothersby Stephen Ambrose, simultaneous with the HBO movie (S&S, June); Above Valor: 15 Hours of Real Stories by Real Men in All-Too-Real Action! by Stephen Bower Young and Audie Murphy (Penton Overseas, Jan.); and Combat, edited by Stephen Coonts (Soundelux, Jan.).

Humor: Get ready to laugh with George Carlin's Napalm and Silly Putty (HighBridge, Apr.), Calvin Trillin's Tales from the Tummy Trilogy (HighBridge, Apr.), Margaret Cho's I'm the One That I Want (HighBridge, May) and Valerie Harper's Today I Am a Ma'am (Harper, Apr.).