Second Time’s a Charm for Schumer and S&S

Comedian, actress, and Emmy-winner Amy Schumer scored a big payday last fall when she signed with Gallery Books—which won a spirited auction—for reportedly close to $9 million to pen a personal essay collection. She recently recorded the audiobook edition for Simon & Schuster Audio, and it goes on sale August 16. The print-book deal materialized last fall in the wake of Schumer’s successful feature-film debut (Trainwreck) and her first Emmy win, for her sketch show, Inside Amy Schumer, which airs on Comedy Central. Before her star took a significant rise, Schumer had signed a book deal with HarperCollins in 2013, for a much lower $1 million advance. But according to a September 2015 piece in the New York Times, when the project was moving only in fits and starts, Schumer cited a busy schedule and canceled the contract, returning her advance. Timing is indeed everything.

At Audible, Offerman Tackles Twain

Best known for his meat-loving man’s-man character Ron Swanson on TV’s Parks and Rec, Nick Offerman—actor, writer, and woodworker—took to his duties narrating The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for Audible Studios like a raft to water. After all, just like Mark Twain’s fictional Tom, Offerman knows a bit about watercraft. He is a professional boat builder, and his own humorous advice book (which he also narrated) Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man’s Fundamentals for Delicious Living was released in 2013 by Penguin Audio. Offerman reflected on his July stint in the studio in this statement shared with Audible: “Being paid to perform such a gratifying activity as reading Mark Twain aloud felt powerfully akin to Tom Sawyer hoodwinking other boys into paying him for the privilege of whitewashing a fence. Let’s keep that between us.” The Adventures of Tom Sawyer goes on sale September 20.

Moore’s New Direction Leads to Oasis

The Undoing of Saint Silvanus by Beth Moore (Tyndale, Sept.) is her first contemporary mystery, set in New Orleans—and not quite the kind of project Moore’s fans are used to. Moore’s followers have made her works of nonfiction based in Bible study national bestsellers. She’s founder and leader of the Houston-based Living Proof Ministries, which Moore has described as designed for “teaching women how to love and live on God’s word.” Narrator Shannon McManus recently recorded The Undoing of Saint Silvanus for Oasis Audio, which is due out September 20. According to Oasis, Moore personally selected McManus for the project because she was impressed by McManus’s ability to deliver a convincing Southern accent.

Listening Library Raises Riordan’s ‘Hammer’ with Kieran Culkin

Versatile actor Kieran Culkin, whose credits include the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Broadway’s This Is Our Youth, has taken up the microphone for two new audiobooks in bestselling author Rick Riordan’s series inspired by Norse mythology, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard. Culkin recorded the second installment, The Hammer of Thor (October 14), which picks up an unresolved plot element (Mjolnir, the missing hammer) from last fall’s launch title, The Sword of Summer; Culkin also narrated a companion audiobook to the series, The Hotel Valhalla Guide to the Norse World, due out August 16.

Acrobat Bricker’s Inspirational Story Leaps onto Mission Audio’s List

Jen Bricker was born with no legs and with her heart located on the opposite side of her chest—which compelled her biological parents to give her up for adoption. Growing up, Bricker adhered to the motto of her adoptive parents—“Never say can’t”—and became an accomplished athlete, acrobat, and aerialist, largely inspired by her childhood idol, Dominique Moceanu, the Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics. But it wasn’t until Bricker was 16 that she learned from her parents that she had more in common with Moceanu than she imagined: Moceanu is her biological older sister. Several years later, in 2007, Bricker wrote to Moceanu with the bombshell, and the two eventually met and formed a close relationship. Moceanu shared her account of the family secret in her memoir, Off Balance (Touchstone, 2012; Audible Studios 2014), and now Bricker tells her version of the story in Everything Is Possible, written with Sheryl Berk. Bricker has also narrated the audiobook for Mission Audio, which goes on sale September 6.