Winter’s Tale, based on Mark Helprin’s 1983 novel has been set for release on Valentine’s Day next year. It stars Colin Farrell, William Hurt, Russell Crowe, Will Smith, Jennifer Connelly and Eva Marie Saint. The trailer hasn’t been released yet, but a series of stills from the set are available here.

The film’s director, Akiva Goldsman. worked for  years to get  financing for the movie. Shooting finally started last year, only to be delayed by Hurricane Sandy.

The novel is complicated, with elements of magical realism, time travel and science fiction. The NYT book reviewer, ater several paragraphs trying to describe the book, finally despaired, saying, “We’re now scarcely more than a tenth of our way through Winter’s Tale, and my plot summary is a tissue of (to me) painful omissions.” He also despaired of doing the writing justice, saying he found himself, “nervous, to a degree I don’t recall in my past as a reviewer, about failing the work, inadequately displaying its brilliance . . . Not for some time have I read a work as funny, thoughtful, passionate or large-souled. Rightly used, it could inspire as well as comfort us. Winter’s Tale is a great gift at an hour of great need.”

Warner Bros. describes it simply as “a story of miracles, crossed destinies, and the age-old battle between good and evil.”

Three other movies based on books will open on that day, Endless Love, based on the 1979 novel by Scott Spencer, The Maze Runner,  based on the YA novel by James Dashner and Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters based on the first in a series of six YA novels by Richelle Mead.

The film adaptation of the best-selling nonfiction title The Lost City of Z (RH/Doubleday, 2009) has been in limbo for several years. Rights were acquired shortly after the book was published, with James Gray set to direct, Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B overseeing the project and expectations that Pitt would star. In late 2010, however, it was abandoned and Pitt left to take the lead in the film Killing them Softly (based on the book Cogan’s Trade, by George V. Higgins).

But now it appears the project is being resuscitated. Benedict Cumberbatch is in negotiations to star, according to Deadline, with James Gray still directing and Plan B still producing.

The book grew out of a New Yorker article by David Grann, (Doubleday, Feb, 2009), about British explorer, Percy Fawcett, who disappeared int the Amazon in 1935, during an attempt to prove his claim that a highly sophisticated city, which he called the City of Z, was hidden in the jungle. At the time it was published, the NYT critic Michiko Kakutani gave it a rare rave, “at once a biography, a detective story and a wonderfully vivid piece of travel writing that combines Bruce Chatwinesque powers of observation with a Waugh-like sense of the absurd,” adding, “it reads with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller and all the verisimilitude and detail of firsthand reportage.” It ended up topping most of the year’s best books lists.

John Oliver has received universal praise for his stint as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, filling in for Jon Stewart, who was off directing his first film, Rosewater, but his attention to books and authors has not been up to the regular host’s.

Stewart returned last week and the book business again heard the magic words, “You gotta get this book now. It’s brilliant,” causing holds to jump in libraries and the title to rise on Amazon sales rankings.

In this case, the book was Mario Livio’s Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein – Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe, (S&S; Brilliance Audio; published in May).

Stewart really steps it up this week, with an author featured every night of the show:

Tonight — Sheri Fink, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, (RH/Crown; RH Audio/BOT) — holds are already rising on this one, based on earlier media attention

Tuesday — Bill Dedman, Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune, (RH/Ballantine) — also reviewed in the NYT Book Review

Wednesday — David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, Hollywood Said No!: Orphaned Film Scripts, Bastard Scenes, and Abandoned Darlings from the Creators of Mr. Show,  (Hachette/Grand Central)

Thursday —  Billy Crystal, Still Foolin’ ‘Em, (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio) — the author is getting heavy media attention

The September LibraryReads pick, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sheri Fink, (RH/Crown; RH Audio/BOT; excerpts of both the book and the audio are on the NPR Web site), releasing tomorrow, is building holds in libraries.

It was reviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday (listen here), in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, and gets a solid A from Entertainmend Weekly. The author is scheduled to appear tonight on Comedy Central’s Daily Show and on NPR’s Morning Edition this week.

Below is the LibraryReads annotation:

“Through exhaustive interviews and extensive research, Fink offers a spellbinding account of Hurricane Katrina, a disaster which held the staff, patients and families of a New Orleans hospital captive and left thousands of others marooned by rising flood waters in the heart of city. Filled with unforgettable life and death stories, Fink’s fine work of investigative journalism reads like a novel. The book causes you to rethink your opinions about end of life, do-not-resuscitate orders and medical ethics.” — Marilyn Sieb, L.D. Fargo Public Library, Lake Mills, WI

Asking why, given our country’s history in the Middle East, the president would “…think that initiating yet another war in this protracted enterprise is going to produce a different outcome,” Andrew Bacevich, author of Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, (Macmillan/Metropolitan Books; released last week), spoke with guest host Phil Donahue on Friday’s Bill Moyers and Company about the U.S. role in Syria.

Bacevich’s book, which is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings, was also featured in Sunday’s NYT Book Review.

Below is the video: 

Actor/comedian Billy Crystal releases his new book, which is part memoir, part comedy, Still Foolin’ ‘Em, (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio) tomorrow. He and the book have received plenty of pre-pub attention,  featured on yesterday’s CBS Sunday Morning (video not yet posted), on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday (listen here), in the NYT and USA Today. He is scheduled to appear on Comedy Central’s Daily Show on Thursday.

Needless to say, the book is  rising on Amazon’s sales rankings, now at  #32. The audio, recorded by Crystal, is also rising, and is currently at #349 (from #4,577).

Leading the pack in holds next week is Sue Grafton’s 23nd title, W is for Wasted (Penguin/Putnam/Marian Wood; RH/BOT Audio; Thorndike), reminding us that she has only three letters left for this series. It’s always fun to see what dog-related pun Spencer Quinn will come up with for the next in his Chet and Bernie series; the new one is The Sound and the Furry (S&S/Atria). Tom Perrotta uses an attention-getting title for his new collection of short stories, Nine Inches, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio).

But this week is less about recognizable names than a wide range of intriguing debuts and narrative nonfiction vying for attention; check our downloadable spreadsheet New Title Radar, Week of Sept 9, with notes on why they caught our interest and ordering information. Below are some highlights:

Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin; Listening Library)

This has been THE top favorite on both our adult and YA Galleyhats, so we weren’t surprised when it was chosen as the #1 LibraryReads pick for the inaugural, September LibraryReads list. It gets a two-page centerfold ad, highlighting the selection, in the upcoming 9/8 NYT Book Review. Published as a YA title, it was chosen for it’s strong crossover appeal:

“At turns funny, sweet, smart, and sad, Fangirl traces Cath’s journey to independence as she begins college, struggles to have an identity separate from her twin sister, find her voice and passion as a writer and fall in love, maybe, for the first time. As sharp and emotionally resonant as Rowell’s previous novel, Eleanor & Park.” — Stephanie Chase, Seattle Public Library, Seattle, WA

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, Sheri Fink, (RH/Crown; RH Audio/BOT)

About the heart-wrenching decisions that had to be made after Hurricane Katrina devastated Memorial Hospital in New Orleans, this is another LibraryReads pick and is connecting with the media. It’s reviewed in the 9/8 New York Times Book Review, and will be featured next week on Comedy Central’s Daily Show as well as NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

Cat Sense: How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet, John Bradshaw, (Basic Books)

The author of the best-selling Dog Sense now turns to the world’s most popular pets. This was already featured yesterday on NPR’s Fresh Air.

USA Today‘s Bob Minzesheimer reports on booksellers’ picks for the fall, based on the opinions of three of them — Amazon’s Sara Nelson, Barnes & Noble’s Patricia Bostelman and, representing the indies, Matt Norcross of the charming McLean & Eakin bookstore in Petoskey, Mich. (someday, Bob, we hope you’ll check in with a librarian or two).

Leading up to the major gift-giving holidays, the fall is filled with household names, so the selections won’t be surprising to anyone who follows the book business. Included are Doctor Sleep, (S&S/Scribner; Sept. 24), Stephen King’s long-awaited sequel to The Shining, Jumpa Lahiri’s Lowland, (RH/Knopf; Sept. 24), and Ann Patchett’s This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, (Harper; Oct. 16).

Indie bookseller Norcross picks a slightly lesser known title, Jennifer Dubois’ Cartwheel, (Random House, Sept. 24), a novel that echoes the true crime story of Amanda Knox, but set in Buenos Aires. He says it “will keep you guessing as well as up past your bedtime” (available as digital ARC from Edelweiss and NetGalley). It is also on PW‘s Top Ten Literary Novels of the Fall and is a Millions Most Anticipated pick.  Dubois’ debut, last year’s A Partial History of Lost Causes, was a PEN/Hemingway award finalist.

The so-called “sleeper” picks have also been heralded elsewhere. Hannah Kent’s debut novel, Burial Rites (Little, Brown, Sept. 10), is both a LibraryReads and Indie Next pick (where it is #1) and Help for the Haunted (Morrow, Sept. 17), was a hit at BEA and is on the LibraryReads list.

Also featured in the USA Today section are interviews with three of the seasons “coolest” authors, (curiously, none of them are among the booksellers’ choices)  — Tom Perrotta, for his story collection, Nine Inches, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, Sept. 10), Veronica Roth for the final book in her YA trilogy, Allegiant, (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen), and Billy Crystal, for the actor/comedian’s memoir, Still Foolin’ ‘Em, (Macmillan/Holt).

And, finally, the section includes a look at the “Season’s 30 Coolest Books.”

For all the Fall book picks to date, see our links at the right, under “Season Previews.”

Oh, to be in the U.K., where people seem to care about book awards. There, they actually bet on the longlist for the Booker Prize and the recent Hugo Awards caused The Guardian to assert that, “there are few things as entertaining as the ruck that follows the announcement of literary awards, and the Hugos … are no exception.”

The winner for best novel was John Scalzi for Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas (Macmillan/Tor; Brilliance Audio), described as a “sort of a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for the SF crowd” because it “deconstructs the Star Trek mythos with a nudge-nudge-wink-wink” by focusing on “the ubiquitous disposable crewmen from USS Enterprise on the TV show, usually the first to die on any given mission.”

The controversy appears to be whether the Hugos should be give any credence, since, unlike the Clarkes or the Kitschies, they are voted on by the public (or, at least, those who attend the annual WorldCon); the Guardian thinks there should be room for populism.

Costco’s book buyer, Pennie Clark Ianniciello’s monthly “Buyers Pick” often brings new attention to titles rereleased in trade paperback, such as The Art Forger, The Orchardist and Beautiful Ruins, resulting in each book rising or making its debut on best seller lists.

This month, she changes things up by picking a trade paperback original, released over a year ago, Outside the Lines by Amy Hatvany, (S&S/Washington Sq. Press; Feb, 2012), Ianniciello writes that Hatvany “pulls readers in to the family situations she creates.” This, her fourth novel, is about a daughter who tries to reconnect with  her mentally ill father who has disappeared. In the accompanying interview, Harvany says the idea originated in a dream, in which she found her late father’s “emaciated body unter a tarp on Seattle’s Aliki Beach.”

Libraries that own the book are showing holds on modest orders.

Hatvany’s fourth novel, Heart Like Mine came out  came out last March and Safe with Me arrives next March.

The first image has just been released for the big screen adaptation of Suite Francaise, (RH/Knopf), which has finished filming in France and Belgium. Irène Némirovsky’s book, on which it is based, became a surprise hit when it was published in 2004, more than 60 years after the author’s death in Auschwitz.

The photo shows Michelle Williams as Lucile, from the second novella in the book Dolce. While her husband is in a WWII German prisoner of war camp, she is living with her mother-in-law in rural France. Behind her is Matthias Schoenaerts as the German officer who occupies their house.

The Weinstein Co. bought the U.S. distribution rights in April. It is expected to be released next year, but no specific date has been annnounced.

Directed by Saul Dibb, the film also stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Sam Riley and Ruth Wilson.

The debut word-of-mouth best seller, The Light Between Oceans, by M.L. Stedman (S&S/Scribner; Thorndike), first spotted by librarians at last year’s BEA Shout ‘n’ Share panel, went on to become a best seller in hardcover and continue in trade paperback, at #14 after 21 weeks and is a reading group staple.

DreamWorks acquired the film rights and has just named Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) as the director according to Deadline.

The book trailer outlines the story:

The 2010 surprise best seller, Room by Irish/Canadian author Emma Donoghue (Hachette/Little,Brown), is being adapted as a film, with the book’s author writing the script and Lenny Abrahamson directing, reports Deadline.

The novel features a story that has become familiar from news stories; a woman is kidnapped and forced to live in a small shed. In this case, the woman has a son who she tries to protect from the truth. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was featured on the majority of the best books lists for that year.

The movie Philomena, based on The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, by UK journalist Martin Sixsmith (Macmillan U.K., 2009), received such great buzz at the Venice Film festival that the Weinstein Co., which has U.S. distribution rights, quickly  set a limited release date of this Christmas, qualifying it and star Judi Dench for Oscar nominations, followed by a wider release in January.

The book recounts Sixsmith’s efforts to help a woman find the son she had  been forced to give up for adoption fifty years earlier. The movie, directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen), stars Dench as the mother, Philomena Lee and Steve Coogan as Sixsmith. 

The book will be published here in September as a trade paperback tie-in, titled Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search  (Penguin), with a foreword by Dench. UPDATE: both the movie release and the pub date for the tie-in has been moved to 11/27/13.

The first trailer has just been released for season 4 of Downton Abbey, which begins in the U.K. on Sept, 22. American audiences will have to wait until Jan. 5, when the series returns to PBS for an eight-week run. Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith will be back to trade barbs, but Siobhan Finneran, who played the conniving lady’s maid O’Brien, is not returning. Among the new faces are Paul Giamatti, who will appear in the season finale as Lady Cora’s playboy American brother and the show’s first black character, jazz singer Jack Ross, played by Gary Carr.

For those who can’t wait, the official season 4 tie-in book, Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey (Macmillan/St. Martin’s) will be published here at the end of October and promises to be “full of images from the new season.”

Also arriving at the end of October is Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway) by the current resident of Highclere Castle, where Downton is set, Countess Fiona Carnarvon. It follows the author’s best selling book about the Castle’s earlier resident, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey (RH/Broadway; Tantor Media).

Below is the trailer: