Evidently, the following Allegiant trailer, released yesterday, is the final one before the film opens on March 18. Den of Geek gives a rundown of all the trailers to date.

As per the now accepted franchise tradition, the final book in Veronica Roth young adult trilogy is being split into two movies. Director Robert Schwentke is not returning for part 2, however. After directing Insurgent and the Allegiant back to back, he said he needed a break, leaving Lionsgate to scramble for a new director before filming in Atlanta this summer.

Arriving tomorrow is Allegiant Movie Tie-in Edition (Harper/Katherine Tegen Books; HarperCollins Audio) in this hardback edition as well as a paperback version.

A bidding war is on to pick up the Scott Rudin production of Jonathan Franzen’s novel Purity (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), reports Variety. Daniel Craig is attached as the male lead Andreas Wolf, a charismatic trader of the world’s secrets à la Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.

Showtime, Netflix, FX, and at least three others are each reportedly interested. Deadline, in a gossipy piece, says Hulu and Amazon are both in as well, but gives the early odds to Showtime.

The adaption is thought to be a 20-episode deal and will be written by both Franzen and the director of the project.

It is early days yet, and, as Variety notes, Rudin tried to get Franzen’s The Corrections on air with HBO but the project failed to move forward after the pilot was shot.

Purity, which is not widely considered Franzen’s best book (signature reviews in both the NYT and NPR were tepid), is timely however, touching on the seismic changes social media and the Internet have wrought.

The Grammy Awards are not known for celebrating books, but this year’s opening number has its roots in Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton (Penguin, 2005), the inspiration for the hip hop musical Hamilton.

As a result, the book rose to #49 on Amazon’s sales rankings. Holds are growing in many libraries.

The cast recording went on to win Best Musical Theater Album, a category that included another musical adapted from a book Fun Home, based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.

Hamilton‘s composer-lyricist-star Lin-Manuel Miranda accepted the award in rhyme:

This gives Miranda another footnote to add to his book, coming in April, about the musical’s improbable path to success, Hamilton: The Revolution,  (Hachette/Grand Central Publishing; Hachette Audio and Blackstone Audio)

The winner for Best Spoken Word Album is A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety by Jimmy Carter (S&S Audio). This is Carter’s second Grammy. He won in 2007 for Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis (S&S Audio).

The other nominees were:

Blood On Snow, Jo Nesbø, narrator, Patti Smith (Random House Audio)

Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, And Assorted Hijinks, Dick Cavett (Macmillan Audio)

Patience And Sarah, by Isabel Miller; narrators, Janis Ian & Jean Smart (Audible/Brilliance)

Yes Please, Amy Poehler (HarperAudio)

The newest Game of Thrones teaser has been released, promoting the April 24th return of the series.

Fans are on edge for the premiere, hoping to discover if the beloved character Jon Snow really died at the end of season five.

Viewers will find no comfort in the newest teaser, a clip that certainly lives up to its name and taunts fans. As Deadline puts it, “HBO Trolls Hard On Jon Snow’s Fate.”

Definitely missing this season is a tie-in book. The first four seasons were fairly faithful to George R.R. Martin’s novels and all were released as tie-ins. Season five deviated from the book. Nonetheless, A Dance with Dragons, was released as mass market and trade paperback tie-in editions.

But Martin has famously not caught up with the series. Book six is not completed, leading even Conan OBrien to speculate last week on what the author has been doing instead of writing

Michael Pollan’s fame is about to spread to Netflix with the series Cooked set to debut this coming Friday, Jan 19.

Directed by Alex Gibney (Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief), it explores how human developed their relationship to food, a subject Pollan wrote about in his 2013 book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (Penguin; OverDrive Sample). The four-episode YV series will be a mix of culinary travelogue, anthropology lessons, and sessions in Pollan’s home kitchen.

No tie-in is planned but the book is available in various print editions and in eBook.

The stirring trailer was released recently and showcases Pollan’s approach to the powerful emotions surrounding food, the connections food has to tradition and family, and the ways the modern food industry has separated us from the real heart of cooking, which, says Pollan works to “undermine cooking as an everyday practice.”

Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History’s Great Personalities by Claudia Kalb (PRH/National Geographic; OverDrive Sample) got a big boost after the author appeared on CBS This Morning, shooting the book to #35 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Kalb investigates the mental health issues of celebrities and national figures including Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, and Princess Diana, exploring such conditions as borderline personality disorder, hoarding, and depression. Using historical records and primary sources, and through discussions with experts, Kalb illustrates the symptoms of some common conditions in the hopes that the less famous will not feel so alone in their own diagnosis.

She goes into fascinating detail about Warhol in an interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, which aired a few weeks ago.

Several libraries show copies still on order, even though it was published nearly two weeks ago and holds are rising.

The most heavily anticipated titles this week, as demonstrated by hold queues, are Jeffrey Archer’s Cometh the Hour, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio) and Jo Nesbo’s Midnight Sun (PRH/Knopf; RH Large Print: RH Audio).

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Feb. 15, 2016

GIRL Successors

After a string of books with “Girl” in the title, it’s a relief to hear of a successor that uses a more grownup name. The Widow, Fiona Barton (PRH/NAL; OverDrive Sample) is a People pick for the week, “a twisted psychological thriller you’ll have trouble putting down.” Entertainment Weekly’s review invokes comparisons to those Girl books, adding, “Barton’s debut, already a best-seller in her native U.K., might have more of a right to the comparison than most.”

Booksellers made it an Indie Next pick:

“Readers on the hunt for the newest, hottest thriller can take heart: Barton’s debut novel is impeccably paced and quietly terrifying, sure to fill any void left after reading The Girl on the Train. Jean Taylor is reeling over the loss of her husband, but the man she knows and the man the police know are two very different people. Told in alternating voices, The Widow is perfect for fans of Paula Hawkins and Tana French and will have readers on the edge of their seats.” —Annie B. Jones, The Bookshelf, Thomasville, GA.

Prepub reviews were generally strong, with PW giving it a star. Kirkus was more mixed, “The idea of a woman who stands beside an alleged monster is an intriguing one, and very nearly well-executed here, if it weren’t bogged down with other too-familiar plotlines.”

Most libraries ordered it cautiously. A few are showing holds. Watch this one; you may need to order more.

But we’re not escaping girls completely. Kate Hamer’s debut, The Girl in the Red Coat
(Melville House; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample) has already been hailed by the NYT‘s Michiko Kakutani, who also invoked the girl comparisons (as Entertainment Weekly says, “Apparently, the first rule of Gone Girl Club is: Never stop talking about Gone Girl.”).

It is also a LibraryRead pick. Kim Dorman of the Princeton Public Library, Princeton, NJ says:

“There is not much more terrifying than losing your child. There’s the terror, the guilt, and then the relentless and unending chasm left behind by your child. I am grateful to not know that pain, and yet what Beth, the main character of this book, went through, resonated with me. I have had so many things on my to-do list, and yet I found myself delaying laundry and dusting and research so that I could find out how this story would unfold.”

It comes with an impressive three stars from the prepub review media.

Check your holds; they are high on modest orders in many areas.

Media Magnets

A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy. Sue Klebold, Andrew Solomon, (PRH/Crown)

To be featured tonight on an ABC Prime Time Special with Diane Sawyer, it is  promoted on Good Morning America today.

Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man, William Shatner, (Macmillan/Thomas Dunne; Macmillan Audio)

No news yet on media coverage, but given the subject and the author, we’re sure to be hearing about it.

Master of Ceremonies: A Memoir,
Joel Grey, (Macmillan/Flatiron; Macmillan Audio)

Grey was interviewed by Terry Gross on Monday’s Fresh Air about his memoir, which is also a People pick this week, “as much about his struggle coming out of the closet as it is about the theate …this is a refreshingly honest look back at an actor’s life, regrets and all.”

Peer Picks

In addition to the “Girl Successors” above, more LibraryReads and Indie Next picks hit the shelves.

Joshilyn Jackson’s The Opposite of Everyone (Harper/William Morrow; OverDrive Sample)  is the #1 IndieNext pick for March as well as a LibraryReads selection.

Beth Mills of New Rochelle Public Library, New Rochelle, NY offers this take:

“Fans of Jackson’s Someone Else’s Love Story will be pleased to see William’s acerbic friend Paula take center stage. A successful divorce lawyer, Paula’s carefully constructed life starts to fracture when family secrets come to light, forcing her to try to come to terms with the power of her story to hurt and heal, and a growing need for family connections. A wonderful cast of offbeat, memorable characters make this book a winner.”

More IndieNext picks coming this week:

A Doubter’s Almanac, Ethan Canin (Random House; OverDrive Sample).

“I love settling into a novel where I meet smart yet conflicted protagonists and get right into their skin. In A Doubter’s Almanac, Milo Andret’s mathematical genius is as much a burden as it is a gift. He makes a series of choices — damaging to both himself and his family — that would seem to unravel any empathy readers might have for him, but Canin’s eloquent prose brings out the humanity in even the most flawed individuals. This is a novel filled with characters whose struggles with intellect, family, and vulnerability I won’t soon forget.” —Sarah Bagby, Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, KS.

It is also People magazine’s “Book of the Week”

“Reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind — at times almost unbearably painful. But Canin also shows how families can work through their divisions, making a kind of peace with even the most abhorrent behavior. Surprising and beautifully written, this hefty book is a gem.”

Hide, Matthew Griffin (Bloomsbury USA; OverDrive Sample).

“On the outer edge of a struggling small town in North Carolina lives a long-married — in name, if not in fact — couple, Frank and Wendell. For all the decades they have been together they have hidden from the world to protect themselves, but now Frank’s health is failing. The poignancy of Wendell’s struggle to keep Frank safe is heartbreaking. These are not characters we see often in fiction — poor and rural and gay and old — but Griffin draws them so honestly and well that we quickly know them and come to care deeply for them.” —Michael Barnard, Rakestraw Books, Danville, CA.

All the Winters After, Seré Prince Halverson (Sourcebooks Landmark; Brilliance Audio).

“This is the compelling story of a damaged young woman, Nadia, who has taken refuge in a cabin in the Alaskan woods for the last 10 years after escaping an abusive marriage. Kachemak Winkel, the cabin’s owner, returns to Alaska after a long absence, still mourning for his parents and older brother who lost their lives in a plane crash 20 years earlier. Two young, damaged souls are at the heart of this beautifully written novel, and the wild and dangerous beauty of Alaska is present throughout. Perfect for book groups!” —Patricia Worth, River Reader Books, Lexington, MO.

Tie-ins

The tie-ins arriving this week are connected to three very popular series.

Veronica Roth sees the third adaptation of her Divergent series hit the screens on March 18.  Allegiant Movie Tie-in Edition (Harper/Katherine Tegen Books; HarperCollins Audio) comes out Tuesday in this hardback edition as well as a paperback version.

The film series stars Shailene Woodley and Theo James (the same actor who played Kemal Pamuk on Downton Abbey – Lady Mary’s first season indiscretion).

Holy Catnip, Batman! Super Heroes collide in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Starring Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman, and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, it opens March 25th.

A junior novel tie-in comes out this week.
Billed as a companion novel, it tells a new story but riffs off the movie, Cross Fire: An Original Companion Novel (Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice), Michael Kogge (Scholastic Inc.; OverDive Sample).

Finally, two more Star Wars books arrive, seemingly late to the party since the movie debuted in December. The first is the junior novelization of The Force Awakens film. The novelization for adults was delayed in print for weeks after the movie opened and it is only now that kids are able to get their hands on a version of their own.

Star Wars The Force Awakens Junior Novel, Michael Kogge (Hachette/Disney Lucasfilm Press; Blackstone Audio).

Also out this week is a Chapter Book focused on the female star, Rey: Star Wars The Force Awakens: Rey’s Story, Elizabeth Schaefer (Hachette/Disney Lucasfilm Press).

(For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins).

Blame it on the Super Bowl, but last week’s new movies failed to perform, with Variety reporting that both The Choice and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies did not do well at the box office.

There are more hopes for Deadpool. opening today even though it’s not your normal superhero movie. Entertainment Weekly lauds it  for having “the balls to mess with the formula and have some naughty, hard-R fun. It’s a superhero film for the wise-asses shooting spitballs in the back of the school bus.”

There are no tie-ins, but collected editions of the comics are available in book form. Wired recommends “The 5 Comics You Have to Read Before Seeing Deadpool.”

The comedy How to Be Single, very loosely based on the book by Liz Tuccillo, will be taking aim at those opting out of Valentine’s Day.

On TV, only one new adaptation airs in the upcoming week, a Hulu special series based on Stephen King’s 11/22/63 (S&S/Gallery; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

An alternative history about a man traveling through time to prevent the assassination of JFK, it has big names attached, produced by  J.J. Abrams (The Force Awakens, Lost) and starring  James Franco the time traveler.  However, Entertainment Weekly gives it a lowly C+.

The attention has brought the novel back to best seller lists. It is #6 on the 2/21 NYT Paperback Mass-Market Fiction list. In late January, it came out in both mass market and trade with a sticker linking it to the adaptation.

The eight-part series premiers on President’s Day, Feb. 15.

After yesterday’s announcement that the Boss will publish a memoir in September, the book instantly rose to #1 on Amazon sales rankings, indicating it may be worth the reported $10 million advance.

Born to Run
Bruce Springsteen
S&S, September 27, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1501141515

A middle-grade novel exploring the effects of war and the bonds of love between pets and humans is getting media attention.

Pax by Sara Pennypacker, illustrated by Jon Klassen (Harper/Balzer + Bray; OverDrive Sample) is about a twelve-year-old boy who has a pet fox named Pax. Separated by war, the two seek to find each other again, each telling their part of the story.

Pennypacker was on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday and today her book rose to #10 spot on Amazon’s sales ranking. UPDATE: The book debuts at #2 on the 2/21 NYT Children’s Middle Grade Hardcover Best Sellers list.

During the conversation she describes how smart foxes are (they can communicate with other species) and her take how children see the world, saying:

“I wanted to … celebrate this extraordinary sense of no boundaries — it’s kind of a boundary issue where kids don’t realize there are boundaries and I love that! They’re right, they’re correct! Why can’t they love an animal, a wild animal or a pet? Why can’t they? … Humans sort of get narrow as they age and I think the older we get, the less we’re able to see we can have real relationships with more of life.”

The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have devoted attention to it as well. The novel received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and SLJ.

After years of refusal, Nelle Harper Lee has agreed to a Broadway adaptation of her iconic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. That decision comes on the heels of her reversing an earlier stance that she would never publish another book and agreeing to last year’s publication of Go Set A Watchman.

Rights to Mockingbird have been acquired by well-known Hollywood producer Scott Rudin. He has hired Aaron Sorkin to write the screenplay, with plans for it to debut in the 2017-18 season. The two have worked together on many projects in the past, including the films Steve Jobs and The Social Network.

Lee’s literary agent Andrew Nurnberg, quoted in the New York Times story says, “While [Lee] had always had misgivings about anyone who might want to bring To Kill a Mockingbird to Broadway — and there have been many approaches over the years — she finally decided that [Ridley] Scott would be the right person to embrace this,” Nurnberg said.

This is not the first stage adaptation of the book. A 1991 play by Christopher Sergel has been produced by regional theaters, annually in Lee’s hometown and recently in London. Although it is true to the book, critics have accused that version of being plodding and static.

Horton Foote’s adaptation for the screen won an Oscar and was embraced by Lee. According to an interview with Foote. “The studio asked Harper Lee to do the script, and she didn’t feel she knew enough about dramatic form. I was her choice.”

How might Sorkin handle the material differently? Sorkin has a distinctive style, characterized by the NYT as “machine-gun spray of dialogue.”

While he tells the NYT that he feels resposibility to the many fans of the book, he adds, “You can’t just wrap the original in Bubble Wrap and move it as gently as you can to the stage. It’s blasphemous to say it, but at some point, I have to take over.”

The #1 pick on the just-released LibraryReads list for March is The Summer Before the War, Helen Simonson (PRH/Random House; Random House Audio; BOT). This is only Simonson’s second novel; her first was the bestselling Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand.

Paulette Brooks of Elm Grove Public Library, Elm Grove, WI says the following in her annotation:

“Fans of Simonson’s Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand have reason to rejoice. She has created another engaging novel full of winsome characters, this time set during the summer before the outbreak of World War I. Follow the story of headstrong, independent Beatrice Nash and kind but stuffy surgeon-in-training Hugh Grange along with his formidable Aunt Agatha. Make a cup of tea and prepare to savor every page!”

Another fan-favorite author, Lyndsay Faye, makes the list with Jane Steele (PRH/Putnam; BOT), an historical crime novel using Charlotte Brontë’s
Jane Eyre as a launching pad.

Abbey Stroop of Herrick District Library, Holland,
MI describes it:

“Jane Steele is a great read for lovers of Victorian literature who especially love their characters to have a lot of pluck! Jane Steele is the adventurous, irreverent, foul-mouthed broad that I so often loved about Jane Eyre, but in more wily circumstances. Remember that fabulous scene in Jane Eyre when she stands up to her aunt for the first time, and how you wanted to stand up from your comfy reading chair and cheer for her? Imagine an entire book just of those sorts of scenes. Absolutely fabulous fun!”

Lisa Lutz, who grabbed readers with her Spellman Files books takes a turn to thrillers, in The Passenger (Simon & Schuster).

Beth DeGeer of Bartlesville Public Library, Bartlesville, OK writes:

“This is a compulsively readable story of a young woman who has to keep switching identities and stay on the run. Is she a reliable narrator or not? What was the original event that sent her on the run? There is a lot of action and suspense as she tries to survive and evade the law while trying to keep her moral center intact. Unlike Lutz’s Spellman books, this reads more like a Charles Portis road novel, though considerably more serious and dangerous. Highly recommended.”

Novelist Lee Smith takes a turn to nonfiction in
her memoir Dimestore: A Writer’s Life (Workman/Algonquin Books).

Lois Gross, Hoboken Public Library, Hoboken, NJ writes:

“Evenly divided between a book about Smith’s process and her life, first as a Southern mountain child and, later, as the parent of a schizophrenic child, this book is interesting and compelling. Despite being surrounded by loving family and being blessed with an active imagination, Lee copes with a mentally ill mother. Later, her son’s mental illness and early death brings her to the breaking point but she is saved by her writing. This is a read-alike for Karr’s The Liars Club. It desperately needs a cinematic translation for it’s elegant and evocative writing.”

Two debuts make the list, The Nest, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (Harper/Ecco; HarperAudio) and The Madwoman Upstairs, Catherine Lowell (S&S/Touchstone; Blackstone Audio).

Mary Kinser of Whatcom County Library System, Bellingham, WA says the following about Sweeney’s debut, which is also a top 15 Most Anticipated title:

“If you think your family is dysfunctional, move over, because here come the Plumbs. Suddenly faced with the dismantling of the nest egg they’ve counted on to solve their financial woes, the four Plumb siblings have to grow up, and fast. But though they all do some terrible things in the name of ambition, there’s something lovable about the Plumbs. You can’t fail to be moved by the beating heart of this novel, which seems to say that family, for good or ill, unites us all.”

Kristen McCallum, Algonquin Area Public Library, Algonquin, IL offers this recommendation for The Madwoman Upstairs, another riff on Jane Eyre:

“Meet Samantha Whipple, a descendant of the Bronte family, who arrives at Oxford to study literature, as her father did before her. She receives a copy of Jane Eyre – a volume that she thought was destroyed in the fire that took her father’s life. When a second Bronte novel belonging to her father turns up, she is convinced he has staged an elaborate treasure hunt for her promised inheritance. Enlisting the help of her sexy, young professor, Samantha sets out on a quest to find buried treasure and learns the value of friendship and courage along the way.”

The full list of suggestions is available beginning today.

Our GalleyChatters were also fans of many of these books (see here, here, and here).

If you already felt it’s a long wait for Steven Spielberg’s movie adapation of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (PRH/Crown), that wait just got longer.

Originally scheduled for release on Dec. 15 of next year, the date has now been moved to March 30. 2018, bumped by Star Wars Episode VIII.

Cline published a second book in the series, Armada, last July and has signed with Crown to write a third. Title and release date have not yet been announced.

The trade paperback edition of Armada will be released in April, with a new cover (called “kick-ass” by the author).

A couple of months ago, we wondered what had happened to the film adaptation of The Light Between Oceans, based on the long-running best seller by M.L. Stedman (S&S/ Scribner).

We just got our answer. Deadline reports it is scheduled for September 2nd, to take advantage of Labor Day weekend. Deadline suggests it may have been held back to save it for next year’s awards season. Both its stars are already up for Oscars this year, Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs and Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl.

Tie-ins:

The Light Between Oceans
M.L. Stedman, 8/30/16
Trade Paperback, (S&S/Scribner)
Mass Market, (S&S/Pocket Books)

For other adaptations in the works, check our Upcoming Adaptations list. For tie-ins, Upcoming — Tie-ins