Variety takes a look at the marketing of Ang Lee’s movie Taking Woodstock, based on the book by Eliot Tibor. The film is opening in a limited release  (1,000 theaters) in two weeks.

The movie isn’t about the music (while the film includes music from the era, there is no concert footage), but about the strange confluence of events that brought the event about. This may be an advantage; instead of focusing on just the obvious boomer market, it is being billed as a “universal story of one man finding himself.” (Tibor’s memoir is about his bringing the event to Yasgur’s Farm, after it was shut out of its original venue, in an effort to save his parents’ motel from foreclosure).

Today’s Shelf Awareness points out a story in the Poughkeepsie Journal about the book’s unlikely journey to publication by Long Island independent publisher Square One. They are also publishing the tie-in.

Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life Movie Tie-in Elliot Tiber, Tom Monte Retail Price: $15.95 Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Square One Publishers – (2009-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0757003338 / 9780757003332

Newmarket is also publishing the shooting script.

Taking Woodstock: The Shooting Script (Newmarket Shooting Script) James Schamus Retail Price: $19.95 Paperback: 174 pages Publisher: Newmarket Press – (2009-08-04) ISBN / EAN: 1557048479 / 9781557048479

Woodstock’s 40th anniversary brings new books on the event. Gail Collins reviewed two new titles in Sunday’s NYT BR.

Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock Pete Fornatale Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Touchstone – (2009-06-23) ISBN / EAN: 1416591192 / 9781416591191

——

The Road to Woodstock Michael Lang Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Ecco – (2009-07-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061576557 / 9780061576553

Day After Night by Anita Diamant is the top choice on the independent booksellers’ Indie Next list for September. At one library we checked, reserves were as high as 106 on 38 copies, but World Cat shows that only 53 libraries have it.

Here’s how Kris Kleindienst, co-owner of Left Bank Books, Saint Louis, MO pitched the novel:

“Four women with four different stories of surviving the European Jewish Holocaust find themselves in an internment camp run by the British military in Palestine as illegals, Jews without papers. Based on the true story of a dramatic rescue in 1945 of more than 200 prisoners at the Atlit internment camp, this extraordinary novel is equal parts history, adventure, and celebration of the profound determination of the human psyche. I loved this book and will recommend it for reading groups.”

Day After Night: A Novel Anita Diamant Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2009-09-08) ISBN / EAN: 0743299841 / 9780743299848

Also available from Simon & Schuster Audio on Sept. 1

• CD $29.99; ISBN 9780743598392

The Indie Next #3 pick for September, Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin, is a debut novel that’s a strong favorite of Jen Childs, over at Random House’s library marketing department, and was also picked by librarians at the BEA “Shout and Share” panel. World Cat shows that 93 libraries have it, but libraries we checked show only modest reserves - though it’s still early.

Here’s a pitch from Sandy Scott at The Galaxy Bookshop, Hardwick, VT:

“Cake maker Angel Tungaraza lives in a multicultural community in Rwanda, where she finds healing after the losses of her two grown children as she helps others solve their own problems with equal doses of common sense and kindness. Tragedy and humor find balance in this thoroughly enjoyable novel.”

Baking Cakes in Kigali: A Novel Gaile Parkin Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2009-08-18) ISBN / EAN: 0385343434 / 9780385343435

While Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played with Fire is now #1 on the USA Today bestseller list (as we reported earlier), it’s worth noting that the U.S. is not the only place the Swedish author is popular. The second volume in Larsson’s Millennium trilogy (after The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is also blowing out in Spain, where our former colleague Adriana Lopez reports for Publishing Perspectives that she’s spotted the book everywhere from remote beaches to the cities to the airport, and that the trilogy has sold an eye-popping 3.4 million copies in Spanish, with another 300,000 in Catalan.

This could be interesting news for Spanish language readers in the U.S. - except that almost no libraries own the available Spanish import editions, according to WorldCat.

Grupo Editorial Planeta’s Ediciones Destino has published hardcover and paperback editions of the first book in the series, Los hombres que no amaban a las mujeres, translated by Martin Lexell and Juan José Ortega Román (which returns the original Swedish title, Men Who Hate Women). Yet World Cat says that only one U.S. public library owns it.

Los Hombres Que No Amaban a las Mjures LARSSON STIEG Retail Price:   Hardcover: 640 pages Publisher: DESTINO – (2009) ISBN / EAN: 950732111X / 978-9507321115

The second book, La chica que soñaba con una cerilla y un bidón de gasolina (The Girl Who Dreamed about a Match and a Can of Gasoline) is also available from Ediciones Destino, but no U.S. libraries own it, according to World Cat.

As we mentioned before, the critical consensus leans toward the second book as better than the first, though many say that you need to read the first book to fully appreciate the second.

La chica que soñaba con una cerilla y un bidón de gasolina (Spanish Edition)  LARSSON STIEG Retail Price:   Paperback: 736 pages Publisher: DESTINO – (2009) ISBN / EAN: 950732111X / 9789507321115

It’s a busy week for big league book critics – on the heels of reviewing Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, they’re quickly turning to Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo’s That Old Cape Magic, about a middle-aged college writing professor and screenwriter who struggles to deal with his father’s death, the dissolution of his marriage and the stress of his daughter’s wedding. As the reviews proliferate, libraries are showing widely varying reserves – from 5 to 160 – on anywhere from 5 to 53 copies.

But guess what?  While the guys like it, at least one female critic is skeptical of how Russo treats his women.

In Newsweek, Jennie Yabroff comes right out and asks, Is Richard Russo a Misogynist?, declaring  

“One would expect a writer of such celebrated humanism to treat his female characters with as much compassion as his male ones. But Russo simply doesn’t.  . . . [His] novels and stories contain multitudes, yet only two types of women: perfect bitches and perfect angels. Either way, these women are like smooth, shiny ball bearings, their interiors impenetrable and unknowable. None of them seems at all conflicted about who she is or what she wants.”

However, critic and online chat host Bethanne Patrick of The Book Studio.com disagrees with Yabroff:

“Where she sees foils, I see detailed portraits of women whose lives have been forever changed and sometimes ruined by the actions of men they’ve chosen to love and live with. . . . Where Yabroff sees men simmering with resentment towards women, I see men who can’t live without women and know it – they’re trying mightily to figure out what lack in themselves causes them to need women yet also not treat them on an equal level.”

Meanwhile, The Washington Post‘s Ron Charles calls the book a “dyspeptic romantic comedy” that’s more intimate and written on a smaller canvas than his recent sprawling epics, but which

“makes up for it with psychological nuance about the ties that bind — and snap. It’s a marvelous portrayal of the strands of affection and irritation that run through a family, entangling in-laws and children’s crushes and even old friends.”

The Wall St. Journal interviews Russo, who reveals that he “worked on the novel while he was mourning the death of his mother and marrying off his two daughters. (His marriage of 37 years is doing just fine, he says.)” He’s also working on an HBO pilot about the conflict between failing dairy farmers and people with second homes over the discovery of natural oil deposits in the Catskills and Western Pennsylvania, with a woman as the central character.

That Old Cape Magic Richard Russo Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2009-08-04) ISBN / EAN: 0375414967 / 9780375414961

Available from Random House Audio

•  CD $40; ISBN 9780739318928

Random House Large Print

• $26; ISBN 9780739328613

In the first major case where a publisher has changed a jacket in response to pointed feedback from bloggers and other early readers, Bloomsbury Children’s Books announced today that it will re-jacket the hardcover edition of Liar by Justine Larbalestier. The YA novel lit up the blogosphere in June and July, when early readers and then the author blogged about their dissatisfaction that a feminine white girl was on the cover even though the book is about a black tomboy. The controversy has already brought considerable attention to the novel, which has a 100,000 copy announced first print and has received positive early reads.

The decision to revise the hardcover jacket is a reversal for Bloomsbury, which at first defended the original image, although the house also said it would revise the paperback jacket. But in a new statement to PW, Bloomsbury officials said:

““We regret that our original creative direction for Liar—which was intended to symbolically reflect the narrator’s complex psychological makeup—has been interpreted by some as a calculated decision to mask the character’s ethnicity. In response to this concern, and in support of the author’s vision for the novel, Bloomsbury has decided to re-jacket the hardcover edition with a new look in time for its publication in October. It is our hope that the important discussions about race and its representation in teen literature continue. As the publisher of Liar, we also hope that nothing further distracts from the quality of the author’s nuanced and accomplished story, and that a new cover will allow this novel’s many advocates to celebrate its U.S. publication without reservation.”

The decision came at some cost to the publisher, since the book is already well into production and goes on sale September 29.

Here’s the old jacket:

Liar Justine Larbalestier Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books – (2009-09-29) ISBN / EAN: 1599903059 / 9781599903057

Here’s the new jacket:

The top hardcover fiction title on the new USA Today bestseller list is The Girl Who Played with Fire; expect to see it at #1 on the forthcoming NYT list.

As we reported earlier, the third volume in the series, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, is scheduled for release in the US next Spring (Knopf; 978-0-307-26999-7; May, 2010; projected print run of 300,000).

It is being published earlier in the UK  to coincide with the release of a Swedish film based on the trilogy. No deal has been struck yet for US distribution, but according to Variety, it is in negotiation.

The Girl Who Played with Fire Stieg Larsson Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 512 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2009-07-28) ISBN / EAN: 0307269981 / 9780307269980

As we noted earlier, Simon Pulse is publishing a teen edition of  The Secret. We now have bibliographic information, but no cover.

The trailer for The Vampire’s Assistant (originally titled Cirque du Freak and based on the first three books in Darren Shan’s series) has just appeared on the Web.

The movie will be in theaters on Oct. 23.

To see a full-screen, HD version, go to Moviefone

Last year, we were treated to a scary book titled How Not to Look Old. After years of being told we could be “fabulous at any age,” this book dared to say that looking younger is necessary for “personal and financial survival…people who are better-looking, younger, and slimmer are more likely to get a job and keep it.”

Naturally, it was a best seller.

Now we have a book that takes a humorous approach to the issue, with a slightly different title; How Not to Act Old: 185 Ways to Pass for Phat, Sick, Hot, Dope, Awesome, or at Least Not Totally Lame by Pamela Redmond Satra.

It looks like it may be a best seller, too. It came out a few days ago and rose to #364 on Amazon today. The Wall Street Journal covered it on Friday; A Dose of Behavorial Botox.

One of the hottest tips?  The best way to get a young person to return your cellphone call is ” to hang up without leaving a message.”

The book cover is a visual lesson in itself, but there are also several online video lessons, such as this one:

Most libraries do not own the book.

How Not to Act Old: 185 Ways to Pass for Phat, Sick, Hot, Dope, Awesome, or at Least Not Totally Lame Pamela Redmond Satran Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 192 pages Publisher: Harper Paperbacks – (2009-08-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061771309 / 9780061771309

The reviews are beginning  to come in for Nora Ephron’s movie, Julie and Julia, which opens on Friday. So far, it’s a thumbs up for Julia, but  not so much for Julie. People magazine (8/17) puts it succinctly in its three-star review, “Give us more Julia, less Julie.” New York magazine calls Meryl Streep’s performance as Julia “transcendental.” However, “Julie’s character doesn’t even track.”

Amazon rankings reflect this judgment, even though most of the public has only seen the trailer. Interestingly, though, it’s not the Julia Child My Life in France tie-in that is selling the best, but the book that sparked both J’s careers, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which is at #33 on Amazon.

Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Volume One (Fortieth – 40th – Anniversary Edition) Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck Retail Price: $40.00 Hardcover: 752 pages Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf – (2001-10-16) ISBN / EAN: 0375413405 / 9780375413407

Further down the list is the book that came from the blog that inspired the movie, at #53:

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously Julie Powell Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2009-07-01) ISBN / EAN: 031604251X / 9780316042512

A book that is not a tie-in at all, the recently rereleased Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom comes in at  #201

Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking Julia Child Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 160 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2009-06-23) ISBN / EAN: 0375711856 / 9780375711855

And, at #275 is the tie-in edition of Julia Child’s own autobiography, My Life in France.

My Life in France (Movie Tie-In Edition) (Random House Movie Tie-In Books) Julia Child, Alex Prud’Homme Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: Anchor – (2009-06-23) ISBN / EAN: 0307474852 / 9780307474858

For those who’d like to see the real Julia in action before they see the movie, there are videos of the original French Chef. Unfortunately, most library copies are out in circulation or on hold, but PBS has made some episodes available online.

In case you missed last night’s debut on Entertainment Tonight, below is the trailer for The Lovely Bones (coming Dec. 11).

If you want to view it in a full-screen version (minus the annoying Entertainment Tonight voice-over), go to the movie’s official site.

Mixed reviews of Thomas Pynchon’s much-anticipated new detective novel, Inherent Vice, are rolling in as the book goes on sale. Some bookstores in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Manhattan even hosted midnight parties so that fervent fans could purchase it at the first possible moment, according to Galley Cat. Yet reserves are light in libraries we checked.

New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani calls it “Pynchon lite.” She doesn’t hate it as much as Pynchon’s Against the Day, (which she refers to as “bloated and pretentious”), instead calling Inherent Vice

“a simple shaggy-dog detective story that pits likable dopers against the Los Angeles Police Department and its ‘countersubversive’ agents, a novel in which paranoia is less a political or metaphysical state than a byproduct of smoking too much weed.”

The Wall Street Journal gives the opposite spin, wondering if this new novel could actually be

“a classic Pynchon opus masquerading as a light read.”

Then again, New York magazine reviewer Sam Anderson confesses that he categorically hates Pynchon’s books, and savages Inherent Vice as 

“a manically incoherent pseudo-noir hippie-mystery that should fit in nicely with the author’s recent series of quirky late-career non-masterpieces (Mason & Dixon, Against the Day).”

And finally, the Los Angeles Times defends the novel’s climax, its “cushy denouement” and its willingness to tie up loose ends: 

“If this stands in counterpoint to Pynchon’s most acclaimed work, perhaps we should pay heed to the novel’s title: ‘Inherent Vice’ refers to a hidden defect that undermines a property’s worth… it could refer to the author’s work itself: With Pynchon’s brilliance comes readability.”

See Flavorwire for a more detailed review roundup.

Inherent Vice Thomas Pynchon Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2009-08-04) ISBN / EAN: 1594202249 / 9781594202247

Also available from Penguin Audiobooks

• CD: $39.95; ISBN 9780143144762

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday featured the third in British writer Sarah Dunant’s historical novels set in Renaissance Italy, Sacred Hearts.

As a result, all of the novels in the trilogy rose on Amazon:

The Birth of Venus — #166 (from 4,271); was on hardcover NYT fiction list for 9 weeks, and 7 more on the extended

In the Company of the Courtesan – #228 (8,450); was on the NYT fiction list for six weeks, plus 4 on the extended

Sacred Hearts — #40 (from 535)

Large libraries show a range of holds from heavy (231 on 33) to not so much (12 on 32).

Dunant is no stranger to enthusiastic reviews. Earlier this week, Brigitte Weeks explained why in the Washington Post,

In the Company of the Courtesan was entirely devoted to the platonic relationship between an elegant and tough-minded prostitute and her manager, a highly sophisticated dwarf. Given the unlikely subject matter, the novel’s international success cast welcome doubt on the publishing world’s conviction that only froth sells fiction and that romance can only succeed by starring two gorgeous protagonists.

Of the new book, Weeks says,

Dunant’s brilliant imagination is at its powerful best as she re-creates the routines, the crotchets and tiny details of convent life in 1570. The reader can hear the rustle of nuns’ habits and the murmur of their prayers.

The New Yorker blog, The Book Bench, also explained the books’ appeal,

Everyone praises Dunant’s ability to make the past come to life, citing her microscopic attention to “period detail” (for this book, she spent a week living in a convent near Milan) and her lively prose.

Sacred Hearts: A Novel Sarah Dunant Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 432 pages Publisher: Random House – (2009-07-14) ISBN / EAN: 1400063825 / 9781400063826

On NPR’s All Things Considered, novelist Elizabeth Berg recommended the cookbook Beat This! by Ann Hodgman, along with its companion, Beat That!, propelling the books to #124 and #128 on Amazon. However, they’re 1999 titles that are currently out of stock; no word yet from the publisher on whether or not they will reprint, but we’ll let you know what we hear.  At least 127 libraries have Beat This! and 272 libraries have Beat That!, according to World Cat.

Berg said she has probably recommended Beat This! more often than any other book, calling it ”a humor book and a self-help book and a security blanket and a kind of bible.” The bulk of the recipes are for ”familiar and beloved foods,” but Hodgman “makes them better,” she explains. Plus Hodgman has wit, according to Berg: when it comes to her buttercrunch, Hodgman says, “Master this recipe, and you control the world.”

Berg even manages to get in some further book recommendations when she offers the following recipe: 1. Buy Beat This! 2. Go to page 64, and make that roast chicken. 3. While it’s in the oven, lie on the sofa and read Susan Fletcher’s exquisite novel Oystercatchers. Or Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Or any short story by Alice Munro. Or Rita Dove’s poetry. Or E.B. White’s essays.

Beat This! Cookbook Ann Hodgman Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 208 pages Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – (1999-10-07) ISBN / EAN: 0395971772 / 9780395971772

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Beat That! Cookbook Ann Hodgman Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 208 pages Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – (1999-10-07) ISBN / EAN: 0395971780 / 9780395971789

President Obama is giving conservative publishing a shot in the arm, notes the Washington Post‘s “Short Stack” book blog. The post mentions two hardcovers: Michelle Malkin’s Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, which comes on the heels of Dick Morris’s Catastrophe – How Obama, Congress and the Special Interests Are Transforming a Slump Into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism, and a Disaster Into a Catastrophe … and How to Fight Back. Malkin reserves are as high as 112 on 19 or fewer copies in one system we checked, while Morris reserves reached 155 on 29 copies.

Malkin recently discussed Culture of Corruption on the left-learning talk show The View, dominating the conversation after co-hosts Joyce Behar and Whopee Goldberg admitted they had not studied her book, according to the Los Angeles Times blog “Top of the Ticket,” which includes the video. Malkin also appeared on the Today Show last Friday. Morris’s Catastrophe has received less media play, but reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list in early July.

Malkin’s Culture of Corruption prompted comedian Bill Maher to suggest on his HBO show that “If Malkin could write a comprehensive analysis of the Obama presidency based on, say, his first 15 minutes on the job, well, there had to be other titles with similar aspirations.” Books that Maher joked would also be ”a little premature” include Jonah Goldberg’s Failure: Why the Obama Girls Never Amounted to Anything and Rush Limbaugh’s Clownfall: How Al Franken Destroyed the Senate, Bankrupted Minnesota, and Ruined Ice Fishing Forever.

Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies Michelle Malkin Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Regnery Publishing – (2009-07-27) ISBN / EAN: 1596981091/978-1596981096

Also available from Tantor Audio

• MP3 CD: $24.99; ISBN 9781400163243
• CD: $69.99; ISBN 9781400143245

Catastrophe Dick Morris, Eileen Mcgann Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Harper – (2009-07-01) ISBN / EAN: 006177104X / 9780061771040

Also available from HarperAudio

• CD $29.99 ISBN 9780061774409

And from Playaway (with Earbuds)

• $59.99; ISBN 9781615455720

And from Overdrive

• As an Adobe e-book