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The free digital Publishers Lunch Buzz Books have proven themselves accurate predictors of bestseller and best-of-the-year titles, before they are published. This season Publishers Lunch has gathered substantial excerpts from 54 of the most buzzed-about books scheduled for publication this fall and winter in two exclusive, free new ebooks, BUZZ BOOKS 2015: Fall/Winter and BUZZ BOOKS 2015: Young Adult Fall/Winter, offered in consumer and trade editions.

Book lovers get an early first look at new books from New York Times bestselling authors Mitch Albom, Geraldine Brooks, Alice Hoffman, and Adriana Trigiani, and popular and critically acclaimed writers Lauren Groff, Janice Y.K. Lee, Elizabeth McKenzie, and Belinda McKeon; columnist and television host Jason Gay’s first book, the \"whip-smart\" fiction debut of Academy Award-nominated actor Jesse Eisenberg; an unprecedented look at feminist and legal pioneer Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik’s Notorious RBG; Dick Van Dyke’s memoir Keep Moving; Jesse Itzler on living with a Navy SEAL; and the first novels from essayist Sloane Crosley and award-winning short story writer Claire Vaye Watkins.

Following its highly successful introduction last year, Publishers Lunch again is presenting a stand-alone volume previewing exciting and outstanding material from publishing’s powerhouse sector, young adult and middle-grade novels, in BUZZ BOOKS 2015: Young Adult Fall/Winter. This edition holds a taste of eagerly awaited books like new work from bestselling and award-winning leaders in the field including James Dashner (The Maze Runner series), Jennifer Donnelly (A Northern Light and Revolution), Patrick Ness (A Monster Calls and the Chaos Walking trilogy), and Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall, Panic); authors best-known for their adult books (Eleanor Herman and Cammie McGovern); and a good number of exciting debuts (Tessa Elwood’s Inherit the Stars, Moïra Fowley-Doyle’s The Accident Season, and Estelle Laure’s This Raging Light, among others). Aaron Hartzler, author of the critically acclaimed YA memoir Rapture Practice, makes his fiction debut with What We Saw. In what appears to becoming a YA trend, four Buzz Books entries are highly graphic or archival-looking in form via vignettes, diary entries, texts, charts, lists, illustrations and more. These include Hannah Moskowitz’s History of Glitter and Blood, a lyrical fantasy with an unusual graphic format.

Of the 24 adult books previewed and published to date in the 2015 Spring/Summer edition, 19 have made \"best of the month/year\" lists and five are New York Times bestsellers.

BUZZ BOOKS 2015: Fall/Winter and BUZZ BOOKS 2015: Young Adult Fall/Winter are available for free download now on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple’s iBookstore, the Google Play Books store, and Kobo.

After deciding to leave her post as a publicist at Vintage and Anchor, author Sloane Crosley has been hired to write a weekly column for The Independent Magazine, a Saturday supplement at the British newspaper, The Independent.

The first column will be published on December 11th, the day after her tenure ends at Vintage and Anchor. The weekly column will also be available online.

Crosley (pictured, via) had this statement in the release: “I am consistently amazed and delighted when any American humour translates. Either we’re all outrageously funny or Independent readers are the most generous and forgiving people on the planet. Either way, I am honoured to publicly take advantage of the situation by contributing to a publication I so admire.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Last night, Steve Hely (pictured with Keith Olbermann) was pronounced this year’s winner of the Thurber Prize. His win includes $5,000 and a crystal plaque. Magazine journalist Jancee Dunn and memoir writer Rhoda Janzen were the other finalists; they each received a Thurber print.

Hely’s resume boasts an extensive career in comedy television writing. He has writing credits from his work on 30 Rock, The Office, The Late Show With David Letterman, and American Dad. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University where he served as president of The Harvard Lampoon. The Thurber Prize honored his debut novel, How I Became a Famous Novelist.

The event was held in New York City’s Algonquin Hotel. MSNBC personality Keith Olbermann made a quick appearance to read from a Thurber volume of fables. Judges for this year’s Thurber Prize include two 2009 finalists, Laurie Notaro and Sloane Crosley. Joining the finalists as a judge is writer-editor Bruce Tracy, who in the past served as editorial director for at Doubleday and Random House. Past winners of the Thurber Prize include David Sedaris, Christopher Buckley, Jon Stewart, and 2-time honoree Ian Frazier.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Of All the Stupid Things by Alexandra Diaz

When a rumor starts circulating that Tara’s boyfriend Brent has been sleeping with one of the guy cheerleaders, the innuendo doesn’t just hurt Tara. It marks the beginning of the end for an inseparable trio of friends. Tara’s training for a marathon, but also running from her fear of abandonment after being deserted by her father. Whitney Blaire seems to have everything, but an empty mansion and absentee parents leave this beauty to look for meaning in all the wrong places. And Pinkie has a compulsive need to mother everyone to make up for the mom she’s never stopped missing. This friendship that promised to last forever is starting to break under the pressure of the girls’ differences.

And then new-girl Riley arrives in school with her long black hair, athletic body, and her blasé attitude, and suddenly Tara starts to feel things she’s never felt before for a girl—and to reassess her feelings about Brent and what he may/may not have done. Is Tara gay—or does she just love Riley? And can her deepest friendships survive when all of the rules have changed?

Release Date: December 2009

Publisher: Egmont (Young Adult)

Pages: 272

The Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson

What if you were married to a wonderful husband for twenty-eight years but in love with another man? What if you were in love with them both?

Annabelle McKay knows she shouldn’t have any complaints. She’s been in a stable marriage that’s lasted almost three decades and has provided her with two wonderful children, thousands of family dinners around a sturdy oak table, and a husband so devoted that he schedules lovemaking into his calendar every Wednesday morning. Other wives envy the fact that Grant is not the type of man who would ever cheat on her or leave her for a younger woman. The trouble is Annabelle isn’t sure she wants to be married to Grant anymore. The trouble is she’s still in love with someone else.

In the early tumultuous years of her marriage, Annabelle carried on a clandestine affair with the one person whose betrayal would hurt her husband the most. When it ended, she and Grant found their way back together and made a pact that they would never speak of that time again. But now years later, with her children grown and gone, and an ominous distance opening between them, she can’t help but remember those glorious, passionate days and wonder if she chose the right man.

Then, when called to New York City to help care for her pregnant daughter, Annabelle bumps into her old lover. Offered a second chance at an unforgettable love, she must decide between the man who possesses her heart and the husband who has stood squarely by her side. A journey into the what-ifs that haunt us all, The Stuff That Never Happened is an intricate, heartfelt examination of modern marriage that brims with truths about the nature of romantic love.

Release Date: August 3, 2010

Publisher: Crown

Pages: 336

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I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley (Riverhead/Penguin)
(Bonus: Cake! Er, I mean another author who's a really decent human being!)

In observation of my birthday, I'm highlighting fellow befuddled but well-meaning white girl Sloane Crosley; I feel she would understand both the bittersweet moment of growing up (I'm 30 today), and my ravenous need for cake. Ms. Crosley, a publicist at Vintage (whom I've had the pleasure of working with as publicist and as author), has inspired a certain amount of backlash for the crime of having it all: a professional career, a writing career, A-listers like Jonathan Lethem in her Rolodex, and she's cute, too. Strangely enough, she seems to have these things because she actually deserves them: she's talented, professional, and a really nice person. And her essays even deserve the Lethem blurb they bear. From the story of locking herself out of two different apartments in the same day while moving, to the explanation for her collection of plastic ponies, to the cookie that ended her first (terrible) job, her stories are both bizarre and familiar to those of us who moved to the big city to grow up. Laugh-out-loud reading that doesn't fail to learn something serious, this is a legit (albeit light) literary effort.

And now I'll out my own little Sloane story: my one and only publication in the Village Voice was in response to an essay she wrote in 2004. Read it to see why I did not add it to my professional clips, nor show it to my mother. The ALP's parents sure got a kick out of it, though. Thanks for humiliation, Sloane. I feel we're both grown up enough to get a good laugh out of it now.