Monday, March 28th, 2011
Archive for March, 2011
What to Expect, the Week of 3/28
Friday, March 25th, 2011Next week is dominated by new books in series (two of which are coming to an end), but one debut mystery may break through.
To Watch
The debut mystery Bent Road by Lori Roy, (Dutton/Penguin), arrives with the kind of inhouse excitement the publisher felt for Tana French’s breakout. It’s received stars from Kirkus, Library Journal and PW, and a review that reads like a star from Booklist, “Terrifying and touching, the novel is captivating from beginning to end.” Publishers Weekly called it “Midwestern noir with gothic undertones [that] is sure to make several 2011 must-read lists.”
Movie Tie-in
Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin, (St. Martin’s Mass Mkt., 9780312993177; Trade Pbk. 9780312600723). The tie-in arrives this week, the movie opens in theaters on May 6th, starring Kate Hudson and Ginnifer Goodwin. Check out the trailer here.
Usual Suspects
The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel (Crown) is the sixth and final book in the Earth’s Children series. Despite some long spells between books (the first, The Clan of the Cave Bear, came out in 1980; the most recent, The Shelters of Stone, in 2002), this one is hotly anticipated. It’s been on the Amazon Top 100 (now at #12) for 67 days.
The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell (Knopf) is, sadly, the final mystery featuring Kurt Wallander, which is likely to bring it extra media attention.
Lover Unleashed by J. R. Ward (NAL/Penguin), book nine in the Black Dagger Brotherhood vampire series, it’s getting a 300,000 printing.
Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal (St. Martin’s Press). The girls of the popular Sweet Valley High series, which began in 1983, are now grown up and what grownup fan can resist them? Entertainment Weekly‘s reviewer, for one. That former fan rates it a lowly C.
Mystery: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman, (Ballantine Books). The book is a mystery, but the title actually comes from the nickname of the murder victim in this 26th book featuring the L.A. psychologist/detective.
Nonfiction
Come to the Edge: A Memoir by Christina Haag (Spiegel & Grau). The ex-girlfriend of JFK Jr. revealed some supposed scandal (Tantric Sex! Marijuana! Thrill-seekng!) in an excerpt in Vanity Fair, riling up the tabloids. The book received more measured attention in an early review this week from Janet Maslin in the NYT. The author is scheduled to appear on the Today Show next week.
The Weirdest Film Adaptation Ever
Friday, March 25th, 2011
We suspected it was a hoax when it was first announced last fall, but it looks like it may be real. Workman’s uber-popular pregnancy manual, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, is en route to theaters. Lionsgate announced this week that Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine and Nanny McPhee) has been tapped to direct it as a romantic comedy. They describe it this way, “…in the vein of Love Actually and Valentine’s Day. The film is a modern look at love through the eyes of four interconnected couples experiencing the thrills and surprises of having a baby.”
We just hope they leave in the part about belly piercing and pregnancy.
Most-Ordered Upcoming Cookbooks
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
Have we caught your attention with these covers?
They’re a just a few of the cookbooks you can look forward to in the coming months, from the Edelweiss list of the cookbooks most-ordered by independent booksellers. Edelweiss produces online catalogs for publishers (a few publishers are not on the system, such as S&S, so their titles are not included). Many independent booksellers use Edelweiss for ordering.
Earlier, we posted the Edelweiss most-ordered fiction and nonfiction lists.
Full cookbook list below, after the jump.
S&S CEO on Ebooks in Libraries; Size of Ebook Market
Thursday, March 24th, 2011Simon and Schuster is one of the two publishers in the Big Six that do not sell ebooks to libraries (Macmillan is the other one). In a public interview yesterday, Carolyn Reidy, CEO of the company, indicated that is not likely to change soon. As reported on TeleRead, she said, “We don’t yet sell ebooks to libraries because haven’t found a business model that they are happy with…[we] have met with various people about library solutions but haven’t found one yet.”
This serves to further highlight what we wrote earlier, that librarians concerned about their ability to circulate ebooks need to look beyond the change in HarperCollins’ policy (LJ’s Editor-in-Chief, Francine Fialkoff also addresses this issue in yesterday’s editorial, “It’s Not About HarperCollins“).
Ebook Sales
Information on sales of ebooks has been dominated by Kindle hype (at MidWinter, several librarians were using the term “anecdata” for the kind of information generally available). The view from a publisher is valuable because it is less likely to be influenced by the desire to sell hardware. Reidy said that ebooks are “now 15 – 20 % of units,” sold (she was not able to be definitive because B&N had some reporting problems early in the year) and that she expects that number to be 50% in five years.
Earlier this week, Hachette Livre reported to the UK publication, The Bookseller, that for their US division (which includes imprints Little, Brown and Grand Central), ebooks are now 23% of sales volume and, since the beginning of the year, they represent 8 to 10% in terms of dollars (Reidy did not have information on S&S’s dollar sales).
The Borgias Rule Again
Thursday, March 24th, 2011The heavily (and bloodily) promoted Showtime series The Borgias, starring Jeremy Irons, debuts on April 3.
USA Today offers a list of new and re-released titles about the family. Showtime is using Mario Puzo’s quote that they were the “original crime family.” His novel proving his case, which he was working on at his death, is being re-released.
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Reading Elizabeth Taylor
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
Hang on to your out-of-print copies of Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry. They are now selling online for up to $1,999. It’s currently the most popular Taylor book on Alibris.
There were dozens of books about Taylor and various sources have weighed in on their favorites (more will surely come):
Books To Help You Remember The Great Elizabeth Taylor — NPR
Elizabeth Taylor’s life was a true page-turner — USA Today
16 Elizabeth Taylor books, scandals included — L.A. Times
Every one of the lists includes My Love Affair with Jewelry (says NPR’s Linda Holmes, “If you don’t have Elizabeth Taylor’s campy, frothy tribute to her bauble collection on your coffee table, you are really missing out.”)
Also included on each list is the recent book on the Taylor/Burton romance, Furious Love, which Holmes calls a “soapy, delicious and highly literary double biography.”
Tomorrow, the authors are scheduled to appear on The Early Show (CBS) and an ABC 20/20 special with Barbara Walters.
For our money, the best description of the book came from Kayleigh George, HarperCollins Library Marketing.
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Large type; Thorndike; 9781410429858; $32.99
OverDrive WMA Audiobook; Adobe EPUB eBook
IT GETS BETTER On Fresh Air
Thursday, March 24th, 2011Addressing the issue of LGBT teen suicides yesterday, NPR’s Fresh Air spoke to the organizers of the It Gets Better Project, Terry Miller and Dan Savage. The project grew from a simple idea; ask adults to create videos reassuring LGBT teens that it’s worth surviving high school, because life does get better. Since the project began last fall, over 10,000 videos have been submitted from gay as well as straight people, including President Obama (a “historic moment” says Miller; the first time a US president has reached out to the LGBT community).
This week, Miller and Savage published a companion book to the It Gets Better Project, which is a collection of expanded essays and new material from people who have posted videos to the site, as well as new contributors, and resources for teachers.
A segment on the project is scheduled to air on ABC’s Nightline tonight.
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Ten Thousand Kids Showin’ The Love For Picture Books
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
I am thrilled to announce that over 10,000 children have registered to participate in the Irma S. Black Award for Excellence in Picture Books. Whoo Hooo!!!!! Thanks for helping us reach our goal.
It’s not too late to register and participate with your classes.
Nuts and Bolts available here. Remember, votes are due by midnight on April 11th.
If you are in the New York area and would like to attend the award breakfast, the date is May 19th. The keynote speaker is Perri Klass, noted pediatrician/ journalist talking about early childhood literacy. Questions? Just email me.
SAILOR MOON Returns!
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
The week’s big news in the world of comics and graphic novels is the announced return of Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon, a much-beloved shojo (or girls) comic, one of the key titles that ushered in manga boom beginning around 2000. Alongside other now out-of -print series like Tokyo Mew Mew and Marmalade Boy, Sailor Moon proved the importance of female fans to a skeptical (and yes, startled) comics industry.
Originally published in 1997 by Tokyopop (known then as Mixx), Sailor Moon is remembered by many librarians for its terrible binding, poor printing and paper quality; the volumes flew off the shelves until they fell apart. Kodansha Comics is resurrecting the series with a brand new translation and a deluxe edition (although what makes it “deluxe” is not yet clear). The series will be released bi-monthly starting in September 2011 and will combine the original 18 volumes into 12 plus one more of side stories.
WHEN TITO LOVED CLARA
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011We love it when a fellow librarian does well. Jon Michaud, head librarian at The New Yorker, just published his first novel, When Tito Loved Clara, which is getting some powerful recommendations:
O Magazine’s “17 Books to Watch for in March 2011”
NPR Review by Michael Miller — “Michaud…writes with a librarian’s sense of perfectionism.” (note: this is meant as a good thing!)
The New Yorker interviewed Michaud last week, describing the book this way,
The two protagonists are a pair of young lovers, whom we first meet in later years, when their paths have diverged: Clara is a librarian who lives with her husband and son in a nice house in the suburbs; Tito is still at the same job he had in high school, still living with his parents in Inwood, and still hung up on Clara. A series of events, fortunate and unfortunate, bring them together again, with surprising consequences.
An interview with fellow New Yorker librarian Erin Overbey on the Algonquin Books Blog reveals that several plot points involve library work; one character digitizes an archive (much as the New Yorker librarians themselves did, resulting in the New Yorker DVD set and NewYorker.com) and another catalogs a personal library.
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OverDrive; Adobe EPUB eBook
SAVAGES Moves Closer to Screens; DUNE is Done
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011Several bits of news about major upcoming book-to-film adaptations emerged yesterday on the movie news site Deadline.
Savages, Don Winslow, S&S, 7/13/10
The film based on the 2010 novel (which critic Sarah Weinmen calls her #1 favorite crime novel of the year) is moving closer to the screen, with the signing of Benicio Del Toro. Oliver Stone will direct. Deadline
Dune, Frank Herbert, 1965
After working for four years to put together a new version of Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 sci-fi book, Paramount has thrown in the towel and given up the rights, for which they paid over six figures. The project is haunted by past history. Back in 1984, David Lynch directed a version of the book that was both a commercial and critical flop. Deadline
Cleopatra, Stacy Schiff, Little Brown, 11/1/10
News that Angelina Jolie would star in an adaptation of the biography helped push the book on to best seller lists. James Cameron was going to direct it in 3-D. That was before he decided to do two sequels to Avatar. Now David Fincher (The Social Network) is working on it with producer Scott Rudin. However, Fincher has several projects coming up, including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so he may also have a time problem. Deadline.
Sing You Home, Jodi Picoult, Atria, 3/15/11
Ellen DeGeneres is working with partners to produce Picoult’s latest best seller as a feature film. The author’s My Sister’s Keeper became a 2009 movie, directed by Nick Cassavetes and starring Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin and Alec Baldwin. Deadline
Suzanne Collins on Hunger Games Casting
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011There’s been some grousing about the casting of blonde Jennifer Lawrence as the dark-haired, olive-skinned Katniss Everdeen in the film version of Hunger Games.
In a statement to Entertainment Weekly‘s “Inside Movies,” author Suzanne Collins weighs in on the choice, saying she was part of the casting process and “…after watching dozens of auditions by a group of very fine young actresses, I felt there was only one who truly captured the character I wrote in the book” and that actress was Lawrence.
On Comedy Central
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011Last night Sarah Vowell accused Jon Stewart of getting his history from The Brady Brunch. Perhaps she was smarting because NPR had just called her new book about Hawaii, Unfamiliar Fishes (Riverhead/Penguin) “glib luau tales” (she can be comforted by the fact that this is a contrarian view).
Buyers were more influenced by Stewart’s clear enjoyment of the author and book; it rose to #36 (from #318) on Amazon.
Tomorrow night, Stewart interviews T.J. English.
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While the Colbert Report features the author of the season’s most expensive cookbook (which is nonetheless currently out of stock).
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Another YA Book/Movie Franchise In the Works
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011Dozens of movie news sources, including Entertaiment Weekly‘s “Inside Movies”, are reporting that Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges will star in the Warner Bros/Legendary Pictures’ adaptation of the YA series, The Last Apprentice by Joseph Delaney. Originally titled after the book series, the movie is now being called The Seventh Son. Moore will play Mother Malkin, “the most evil witch in the world.” Bridges plays the exorcist mentor to the young apprentice (not yet cast) in the 1700’s.
The movie, planned as the first in a series, will be based on Revenge of the Witch.
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The next book in the series, the eighth, Rage of the Fallen, has a 4/19/11 on sale date. Series Web site: LastApprenticeBooks.com