The summer movies season is about to begin, officially kicking off on 5/02 with the latest comic book-to-movie franchise, Iron Man, starring Robert Downey, Jr. Variety devotes a whole section of their Web site to it. Check out the trailers, even if you think you’re not a comic hero (in this case, anti-hero) fan.

Two weeks later, the second Narnia movie hits the screen. HarperCollins has a dizzying number of tie-ins. We parse them for you, under Upcoming Books to Movies.

We’ve updated the “Books to Movies” section with links to all available trailers for upcoming movies.

For a full summer movies preview, check out the Boston Globe’s listing (free registration required to view it).

Many tie-ins are available for Iron Man. Del Rey is publishing two tie-in paperbacks:

Iron Man

Peter David

• Mass Market Paperback: $7.99
• Publisher: Del Rey (March 25, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 034550609X
• ISBN-13: 978-0345506092

Iron Man: Beneath the Armor

Andy Mangels

• Trade Paperback:$19.95
• Publisher: Del Rey (April 15, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0345506154
• ISBN-13: 978-0345506153

HarperCollins is doing novelizations for different age levels:

Iron Man: I Am Iron Man! (I Can Read Book 2)

• Reading level: Ages 4-8
• Paperback: $3.99
• Publisher: HarperTrophy (March 25, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0060821930
• ISBN-13: 978-0060821937

Iron Man: A New Hero

• Reading level: Ages 4-8
• Paperback: $3.99
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment (March 25, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0060821906
• ISBN-13: 978-0060821906

Iron Man: The Junior Novel

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
• Paperback: $4.99
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment (March 25, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0060821973
• ISBN-13: 978-0060821975

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Paperback: $6.99
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment (March 25, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0060821981
• ISBN-13: 978-0060821982

Speaking of dueling reviewers, The Elegant Variation’s Mark Sarvas, puts up his dukes to NYT Book Review Mystery columnist, Marilyn Stasio, calling her review last week of The Silver Swan “bewildering.” Stasio felt that the book takes too many liberties with “the conventions of crime fiction.” Sarvas counters, “we urge you to ignore Ms. Stasio’s confining notions of what makes a good read and check out this wonderfully moody novel for yourself.”

The Silver Swan, Benjamin Black

• Hardcover:$25.00
• Publisher: Henry Holt (March 4, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0805081534
• ISBN-13: 978-0805081534

• Audio CD: $34.95
  
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio; Unabridged (March 4, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1427202893
• ISBN-13: 978-1427202895

Written under the pen name of Benjamin Black, the book is by “literary” author John Banville (his literary credentials proved by winning the 2005 British Man Booker Prize for The Sea).

If you like Jennifer Weiner, you’ll love watching chick-lit pioneer, Laura Zigman, stand up for her in The Wasington Post. You don’t often read a review that begins by taking another reviewer to task (if we did, review pages might be more lively). Zigman says “Jane Smiley’s dismissive review of ‘the pinkest book you can imagine’ — in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the paper Weiner herself used to write for — was funny enough in a bitterly ironic way to be something right out of one of Weiner’s novels.” And goes on to say,

Smiley thinks it’s a shame that Weiner doesn’t “address larger questions than the psychological ups and downs of her nice Jewish characters,” but to me there are few things larger, not to mention more interesting and entertaining, than the psychological ups and downs of nice Jewish characters, especially the ones Weiner writes about.

Let the Chick Lit Wars begin!

Weiner is not going to be taking the literary high road any time soon, however. She recently signed a two-year deal with ABC Studios. Hollywood Reporter sees this as following in the footsteps of Cecila Ahern, who signed with ABC in 2006 and created the comedy series “Samantha Who?”

The Nora Ephron-directed movie of the book Julie & Julia is currently filming in NYC and caused some New Yorkers agida when they were confronted with a very strong reminder of 9/11; a recreation of the memorial that sprung up around St. Paul’s Chapel, near the World Trade Center site. The memorial, removed in 2002, features in a brief scene in the movie.

In the book, Julie Powell, needing to escape a boring job, decides to cook her way through Julia Child’s classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking and write a blog about it. The blog became a book, the book did well, and she changed her boring job for a presumably more fulfilling one as a writer (you can judge for yourself on her new blog, “What Could Happen?”).

According to The Gothamist, the movie will intertwine both Julie and Julia’s lives (who never met in person). Meryl Streep plays Julia Child and Stanley Tucci, her husband, Paul. Amy Adams plays Julie. The movie will be released sometime in 2009.

In other movie news (I don’t know why, but that phrase cracks me up), The Hobbit continues its slow move to the screen. Variety reports that Guillermo del Toro has been signed to direct both The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring back to back. Release dates have not been announced, but Variety estimates we will seem them in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

Today’s NYT profile of Augusten Burroughs and his new memoir (the “prequel,” in a way, to his mega bestselling memoir, Running with Scissors) says it lacks the humor of his previous books. This one, focusing on his father, is a “chilling and terrifying depiction of a soulless sociopath…more Stephen King than David Sedaris.”

A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father

by Augusten Burroughs

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (April 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0312342020
• ISBN-13: 978-0312342029

Reflecting the NYT policy, in the wake of the the embarrassment brought on by fake memoirist, Margaret B. Jones, to “always include reporting from other sources…to verify the most important facts,” the article goes on to quote others who knew Burrough’s father, John Robison (Burroughs changed his name from Christopher Robison. His father died in 2005). Some regarded him as the kindly and “almost motherly” chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The NYT even seeks out Burroughs’s mother, Margaret Robison, who is writing her own memoir. She corroborates one passage, but of another, says, “We have different memories.” Burroughs’s brother, John Elder Robison, who wrote his own bestselling memoir Look Me in the Eye, is also quoted. He backs up Burroughs’s story, but says that some of what he writes is through the filter of a young boy’s exaggerated memory.

The San Francisco Chronicle finds the melodrama of the story overwhelming;

His father was quite possibly a very dangerous man and the events that Burroughs includes clearly make for a sad, lonely, confusing, scary childhood.

But what is unclear is why we should want to read about it.

The Chronicle also raises the specter of fake memoirs, but does not attempt to verify events in the book. Instead, the reviewer says readers must “assume that this book, as Burroughs has said of his other memoirs, is how he remembered events, not what may actually have been.”

It seems the fake memoirist issue will lurk behind all the reviews. Entertainment Weekly’s 4/18 review begins “How many lurid memoirs can a writer get away with before we suspect he’s full of baloney?” EW disingenuously states that “There is no one to challenge his version of events in Wolf, as his father is dead.” The Times has proven otherwise.

We all know how tricky memory can be. How far do we need to go in questioning authors’ memories of events? Margaret B. Jones completely fabricated her “memoirs.” Jonathan Frey knowingly changed events to make them more dramatic. These are quite different situations from someone writing what they honestly remember. Burroughs may remember some things differently than his brother, but the basic outlines of the story agree. That should be enough verification.

Roundups of first novels continue. USA Today offers their four picks of the new crop. White Tiger is shaping up to the critical success of the season.

The White Tiger

by Aravind Adiga

• Hardcover: $24.00
• Publisher: Free Press (April 22, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1416562591
• ISBN-13: 978-1416562597
• Amazon Ranking: 19,410

• Audio CD: Unabridged, $34.99
• Narrator: John Lee
• Publisher: Tantor Media; edition (May 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400106656
• ISBN-13: 978-140010665

The White Tiger was New York magazine’s favorite and is USA Today editor, Dierdre Donahue’s pick. She calls it “one of the most powerful books I’ve read in decades. No hyperbole. This debut novel from an Indian journalist living in Mumbai hit me like a kick to the head…”

So you can judge for yourself, USA Today also offers an excerpt, which proves what PW said in it’s 1/14 starred review, “It’s the perfect antidote to lyrical India.” LJ (2/15) also starred the book.

It is on order in most libraries in modest quantities. Some have already received it.

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The Story of Forgetting

By Stefan Merrill Block

• Hardcover: $25.00
• Publisher: Random House (April 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400066794
• ISBN-13: 978-1400066797
• Amazon Ranking: 1,386

• Audio CD: $34.99, Unabridged
• Publisher: Tantor Media, (May 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400107172
• ISBN-13: 978-1400107179

The Story of Forgetting is review editor Bob Minzeheimer’s pick; “Magical and scientific, Stefan Block’s surprisingly compelling novel explores the mysteries of Alzheimer’s disease. Yet it is not depressing.”

It was reviewed by Janet Maslin in the 3/27 New York Times. Maslin seems to have trouble figuring out what to make of it. While she dwells on the book’s idiosyncrasies (a meandering plot with no “schematic master plan”), she finds many of the book’s digressions charming, and, overall “ablaze with love and vitality.” Summing it up, she says, “The Story of Forgetting is a fresh, beguiling novel in what is sure to be the rapidly expanding genre of Alzheimer’s literature.”

It is owned, in small quantities with comfortable holds to copy ratios, in all libraries I checked.

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Girls in Trucks

By Katie Crouch

Girls in Trucks, Katie Crouch

• Hardcover: $21.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown (April 7, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316002119
• ISBN-13: 978-0316002110
• Amazon Ranking: 814

• Audio CD: $29.98
• Publisher: Hachette Audio (April 7, 2008)
• Reader: Author
• ISBN-10: 1600242723
• ISBN-13: 978-1600242724

• Large Type Paperback: $21.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown (April 7, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316027618
• ISBN-13: 978-0316027618

Girls in Trucks is USA Today review editor Carol Memmot’s pick. It is also the top BookSense pick for the month of April. It has the highest Amazon ranking of the five debut titles USA Today selected. It is owned by most libraries; some are still showing on order status. Heavy reserves, as high as 10 to 1, are building in some locations.

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Submarine

By Joe Dunthorne

• Hardcover: $22.00
• Publisher: Random House (March 25, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400066832
• ISBN-13: 978-1400066834
• Amazon Ranking: 239,059

Occasional USA Today contributor James Endrst says of this coming-of-age novel, “Dunthorne is an extraordinary talent who imbues his young Oliver, who is twisted in the throes of his parents’ marital woes, his emerging sexuality and penchant for social science, with enviable depth perception… While this adolescent journey hardly breaks new ground, it does offer a glimpse of greater things to come.” It is owned in small quantities by most libraries with no reserves.

We mentioned that The Art of Racing in the Rain was one of two books we heard librarians buzzing about at PLA. That buzz has reached Starbucks; USA Today just announced that the coffee chain has made it their next pick. Libraries have both the book and the audio on order in modest quantities with comfortable holds to copy ratios and it’s #43,728 on Amazon. Expect all that to change as word spreads.

I’ve read it and loved it, too. My only reservation was how do you get someone to read a book told from a dog’s point of view? Looks like that’s not going to be a problem.

Jenn Risko, publisher of the enewsletter, Shelf Awareness, read the book two years ago in manuscript and loved it (she has a great way of describing it; “wreckingly good”). In today’s issue of The Shelf, she writes about the book’s bumpy road to publication (Stein’s agent, as well as several others, turned it down).

Garth Stein was interviewed in the 4/1 issue of Library Journal.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Garth Stein

Hardcover: $23.95

Publisher: Harper (May 13, 2008)

ISBN-10: 0061537934

ISBN-13: 978-0061537936

Audio CD: $34.95

Publisher: HarperAudio; Unabridged edition (May 13, 2008)

ISBN-10: 0061565407

ISBN-13: 978-0061565403

Leaping onto the Amazon list at #25 after yesterday’s Fresh Air interview is The Soloist by Steve Lopez. The book was an LJ Editor’s pick on 4/1 and received a starred review in PW 2/18. Lopez, a columnist for the LA Times, developed a friendship with a homeless violinist and wrote several pieces about his efforts to help the man get off the streets and find treatment for his schizophrenia. Monday’s review in the LA Times notes, “I had some doubts that those fine columns I’d read would provide enough meat for a book, but he has fleshed out the story beautifully and engagingly.”

A movie from the book is now in production. After shooting in LA, it has moved to Cleveland, where local news says it is causing traffic backups. The movie stars Catherine Keener, Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. (who plays Lopez). The director is Joe Wright, well known for another movie based on a book, last year’s Atonement. The book is on order for all libraries I checked, with comfortable holds to copy ratios. This is one to watch, however.

The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music Steve Lopez

• Hardcover: $25.95
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (April 17, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0399155066
• ISBN-13: 978-0399155062

• Audio CD: Unabridged, $19.95
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, (May 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1433215225
• ISBN-13: 978-1433215223

• Audio Cassette: Unabridged, $44.95
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, (May 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1433215217
• ISBN-13: 978-143321521

The fourth and, so far, best episode of the online book discussion show Title Page is now online. Rather than the four separate talking heads of previous shows, this one has more real discussion going between the writers (I suspect they made these writers read each other’s work beforehand). To further involve viewers, host Dan Menaker is available in the discussion area today. His response about the challenges of moderating panels will bring a smile to anyone who’s tried it.

Featured in this show are three novelists and a poet. As in the previous episodes, the authors already are, or will be, getting attention.

The one exception to that rule is Episode Four guest, poet Edward Hirsch, only because poetry just doesn’t get coverage in the consumer media. Hirsch is the standout of the show, helping to foster discussion and speaking accessibly about his craft.

Special Orders

Edward Hirsch

• Hardcover: $25.00
• Publisher: Knopf (March 11, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0307266818
• ISBN-13: 978-030726681

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The Ten-Year Nap

Meg Wolitzer

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (March 27, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1594489785
• ISBN-13: 978-1594489785

Meg Wolitzer’s latest novel has been reviewed fairly widely already. The LA Times sums up the story as

focusing on the so-called opt-out generation — the much-discussed phenomenon of educated professionals (often daughters of feminists who fought for the right to work outside the home) who quit their jobs after having children. Is this the perk of women with wealthy husbands or a self-inflicted raw deal?

In a generally positive review, the Washington Post finds it witty even though it “occasionally reads like an overly earnest polemic.” The LA Times basically agrees, but with a much less positive spin,

Her writing abounds with lovely images that capture her characters’ lives — the “spackling of peanut butter onto bread” or coaxing “the last of the sunblock from the snouts of bottles.” But The Ten-Year Nap often sags like an old mattress with the weight of its characters’ earnest discussions about ambition, aging and societal expectations…but there’s enough between the covers to remind us that her writing is worth staying awake for.

Entertainment Weekly gave it an “A-”,

Wolitzer’s middle-aged moms are flawed: selfish, neurotic, and occasionally petty. But they — and their conflicts — feel vividly, satisfyingly real.

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Harry, Revised

Mark Sarvas

• Hardcover: $24.99
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (April 15, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1596914629
• ISBN-13: 978-159691462

Harry, Revised has not been reviewed, but was covered in New York magazine’s current roundup of 5 first novelists.

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Olive Kitteridge

Elizabeth Strout

• Hardcover: $25.00
• Publisher: Random House (March 25, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 140006208X
• ISBN-13: 978-140006208

Olive Kitteridge has been receiving a string of very positive reviews, including an “A” review in Entertainment Weekly. Friday’s New York Times review says,

The pleasure in reading “Olive Kitteridge” comes from an intense identification with complicated, not always admirable, characters.

We just got our copy of Macmillan Library Marketing newsletter and were delighted to see Chicago PL’s Collection Development Director, Megan McArdle selected as their “Librarian of the Month.”