On Monday, Seth Meyers hosted George Saunders on Late Night, a return of sorts.

As a result, Saunders’ novel, Lincoln in the Bardo (PRH/RH; RH Audio/BOT; Overdrive Sample), having already been a #1 on the NYT best seller, is moving up Amazon’s sales rankings this morning.

The two-part interview is a remarkable contrast to usual late-night celebrity fare.

Meyers introduces the second part of the interview with a phrase that may never have been uttered by a late night network host before, “the common architecture between writer and reader.”

Meyers has had experience with the author. He interviewed Saunders in February when he served as  the substitute host on the Charlie Rose Show.

Known for the her award winning and best selling adult novel, Room, Emma Donoghue, has just published a new novel and it’s for kids, The Lotterys Plus One (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books; Scholastic Audio; OverDrive Sample; illustrated by Caroline Hadilaksono). Written for middle graders, it’s rising on Amazon’s sales rankings thanks to an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Donoghue reads the opening:

“Once upon a time, a man from Delhi and man from Yukon fell in love, and so did a woman from Jamaica and a Mohawk woman. The two couples became best friends and had a baby together. When they won the lottery, they gave up their jobs and found a big old house where their family could learn and grow … and grow some more.”

Joining the overflowing household is one of the grandfathers, suffering from dementia. NPR notes that even though Donoghue’s adult books explore difficult subjects, this new novel is “all light.”

Donoghue, whose mother suffers from the disease, tells NPR “everything I read about dementia for children had a dreary tone to it, a sort of ‘let’s stop the action and all give you sad facts,’ you know? So I don’t believe there’s any subject that can’t be handled with a little bit of spark, so I try and make it very accurate, but also accept the humor that can be in misunderstandings … and above all, I avoided being too sad.”

Kirkus and PW give it stars, with PW calling it “a drily funny story about adjusting to new situations.”

For-profit colleges are examined on NPR’s Fresh Air via an interview with Tressie McMillan Cottom author of Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy (Perseus/PGW/Legato/The New Press).

Designed to make money for shareholders and company owners, rather than to transform students’ lives, she says, for-profit end up compound students’ “poverty and risk factors.”

The NYT reviews the book, calling it “revelatory” and writing it is “the best book yet on the complex lives and choices of for-profit students.”

The book has also been featured on Marketplace, MotherJones, The Leonard Lopate Show, and the Chicago Tribune.

Most libraries we checked have bought few copies or none at all.

Holds are growing for Ariel Levy’s attention-getting memoir, The Rules Do Not Apply (PRH/Random; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Levy, a staff writer at the New Yorker, is getting attention from a wide range of media. The NYT highlights the author in a lengthy feature story detailing Levy’s take on what the paper calls her “karmic smackdown” of how she went from pregnant and married to a woman grieving the loss of her baby and watching her marriage dissolve:

“Ms. Levy wanted to interrogate her own responsibility for such a sequence of grim events … That is the intellectual backbone [of the memoir, one that examines the] hoary conceit, the one about women and ‘having it all’ … A thoroughly modern memoir, the elements … seem plucked not from the script of Girls, which has also been exploring reproductive issues of late, but Transparent — even Portlandia.”

Blurbed by some big names, including Lena Dunham, Cheryl Strayed, David Sedaris, Amy Bloom, and Alison Bechtel, it is reviewed by a range of outlets including Bustle, Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Mother Jones, O magazine, and Time. Levy was also interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday.

The Atlantic says it is a “one-of-a-kind memoir” and that “Levy has the rare gift of seeing herself with fierce, unforgiving clarity. And she deploys prose to match, raw and agile. She plumbs the commotion deep within and takes the measure of her have-it-all generation.”

It is also stirring controversy. The New Republic calls it “Infuriating … a monument to obliviousness” and says it “buys into the myth that feminism promises each woman that she can have whatever she wants … It’s unlikely many Black women or Arab women or undocumented women would presume a similar degree of permission and mobility, regardless of their exposure to Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan.”

It is climbing the Amazon rankings, currently at #136, and a few systems we checked are showing holds above 6:1.

Beauty and the Beast‘s box office juggernaut continued over the weekend. Even the release of the Power Rangers reboot could not break the spell, coming in a distant second.

Six screen adaptations come out this week:

Netflix’s new series 13 Reasons Why will premiere on March 31.

Based on Jay Asher’s 2007 YA novel TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY, it is about a high school student who commits suicide and leaves behind several tapes, telling classmates how each contributed to her decision. The novel is a YALSA Best Books of 2008, and was a NYT best seller in hardcover for over two years.

The trailer debut alone was enough to send the book soaring on Amazon. A new featurette is out:

Thus far critics seem very happy with the show. Entertainment Weekly gives it a B+ and writes “A frank, authentically affecting portrait of what it feels like to be young, lost, and too fragile for the world.”

Variety writes “13 Reasons Why [will] pull viewers into a suspenseful tale that will keep most of them engaged until the final scene fades out.”

A tie-in came out earlier this month: 13 Reasons Why, Jay Asher Razorbill (PRH/Razorbill; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample).

Alec Baldwin stars in DreamWorks Animation’s adaptation of Marla Frazee’s Boss Baby (S&S/Beach Lane, 2010), opening on March 31.

Directed by Tom McGrath (Madagascar), it also features the voices of Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow.

As we posted earlier, the movie is described as “inspired” by Frazee’s picture book and adds several story lines. The tie-in, which came out in February, is a novelization of the movie script, The Boss Baby Junior Novelization by Tracey West (S&S/Simon Spotlight; also in trade pbk; OverDrive Sample).

Early reviews were glowing. Variety reported from the Annecy film festival that it “had the audience in stitches” and brought “whoops of applause.”

However, more recent reviews are not as strong. IndieWire headlines “The Boss Baby Might Pacify Kids, But This Dirty Diaper of a Movie Is Further Proof Hollywood Animation Needs a Change.”

The Wrap says “The Boss Baby runs in the opposite direction of real feeling in favor of bombast. There’s so much to like in this movie, but its best qualities are ultimately subsumed in formula. And not the nutritious kind.”

Ghost in the Shell, the live-action adaptation of Shirow Masamune’s SF manga series, which Movie Pilot calls “a pioneer of cyberpunk,” opens March 31. It stars Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbæk, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche, and Michael Pitt.

There are few reviews thus far but the NYT offers a feature on the many incarnations of the story.

There are multiple tie-ins. See here and here.

The Zookeeper’s Wife opens on March 31. It is is already selling books, taking Diane Ackerman’s nonfiction account of the heroic story of a zookeeper and his wife who harbored 300 Jews from the Nazis back to the best seller lists and rising on Amazon’s rankings.

The film stars Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Michael McElhatton, and Daniel Brühl.

Reviews are not great. The Guardian says it “suffers from an uneven script” while Den of Geek says it is “hurt by erratic pacing.”

The Wrap writes, “Turning an incredible true story of a couple who sheltered Jews into bland historical fare is the most noteworthy of the film’s shortcomings.”

The best-selling tie-in came out in February: The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, Diane Ackerman (W. W. Norton; Blackstone; OverDrive Sample).

In more limited release are two films. While they will not air to a wide audience at first, they will eventually be released on DVD, making them accessible for libraries creating book-to-film collections (and displays).

Carrie Pilby opens in limited release on March 31 and will be followed by VOD on April 4. It is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby: A hilarious and charming story (HC/Harlequin Teen; Harlequin Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The film stars Bel Powley, Nathan Lane, Gabriel Byrne, Jason Ritter, William Moseley, Vanessa Bayer, and Colin O’Donoghue.

The Hollywood Reporter calls it “a well-intentioned but imperfect young-adult-skewing comedy-drama … this often tritely plotted tale is not half as clever or cute as it thinks it is.”

Variety says “this is awfully soft stuff, its naval-gazing protagonist not nearly as unusual or delightful as we’re meant to think despite the high IQ she can’t stop referencing … For a story about a supposed genius, it’s not all that clever or complicated.”

The Guardian was much more favorable, giving it 4 out of 5 stars and calling it an “ambitious, upbeat and surprising comedy.”

There is no tie-in.

The Devotion of Suspect X, a Chinese-language film, opens in very limited release on March 31, just 45 theaters. It stars Wang Kai, Zhang Luyi, and Ruby Lin. There are no reviews as of yet.

The novel on which it was based, The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Macmillan/Minotaur; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), received attention when it was published. It was selected by the ALA/RUSA Reading List in 2012 for best Mystery and was nominated for an Edgar. It earned three star reviews, from LJ, PW, and Kirkus.

The Wall St. Journal says, “Whether it amounts to math, philosophy, psychology or cosmology, The Devotion of Suspect X is an elegant literary experiment. It suggests, among much else, that a lot of bad behavior is forgiven in the name of genius—and then even a genius can push the envelope just so far before it breaks.”

There is no tie-in.

Set to be her breakout Jessica Shattuck’s third book, The Women in the Castle (HarperCollins/Morrow) arrives this week. The novel looks at how ordinary German citizens dealt with the compromises they made to survive in WWII Germany. The story has personal resonance, as Shattuck reveals in a NYT Op/Ed piece titled, “I Loved My Grandmother. But She Was a Nazi.” The book is also a LibraryReads title (see below, under Peer Picks).

More highlights from the titles coming out next week are below. All are listed, along with other titles of note, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of March 27.

Holds Leaders

The Black Book, James Patterson, (Hachette/Little Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Publishers Weekly not only calls this “brilliantly twisty” but goes on make the pronouncement that “Many readers will agree with Patterson that this is the ‘best book [he’s] written in 25 years.'”

Media Magnets

Old School: Life in the Sane Lane, Bill O’Reilly, (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The host of Fox News The O’Reilly Factor, will undoubtedly use the show to flog his new book, which, according to the publisher, describes a “looming confrontation” between “Old Schoolers” and “Snowflakes,” who “[whine] about social injustice and income inequality and [cheer] Bernie Sanders as he [suggests] the government pay for almost everything,” adding that it is explained “so even the ladies on The View can understand it.”

How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life , Lilly Singh, (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

At 28, Singh can claim to know what she’s talking about in the “conquering life department.” She’s listed at #8 Forbes list of “The World’s Top-Earning YouTube Stars 2015.” She is set to appear on the Today Show on Tuesday, 3/28 and later that day on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Peer Picks

Only two peer picks arrive this week, but both are #1 selections.

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, Hannah Tinti (PRH/Dial; OverDrive Sample) is the #1 LibraryReads pick for March:

“Meet Samuel Hawley, a man in a constant struggle with his violent past, doing the best he can to raise his daughter. Meet Loo, his daughter, a girl with an obscure past and an uncertain future, on the cusp of adulthood. And meet Lily, the dead woman who connects them both. In this finely woven novel, the past and the present gradually illuminate the story of a man’s life through the bullet wounds he carries with him and makes readers consider what it is to be both good and evil.” — Dawn Terrizzi, Denton Public Library, Denton, TX

Additional Buzz: It is also an Indie Next selection for April 2017. It makes a number of monthly or seasonal best lists, including those by the BBC, Bustle, BuzzFeed, and InStyle. The BBC writes, “This is a surprising and celebratory father-daughter story told with astonishing language and scope.” It gets reviewed by The Rumpus and The Washington Post, for which Ron Charles offers a video review:

Tinti was interviewed as part of PBS’s showcase from the AWP Bookfair:

The Women in the Castle, Jessica Shattuck (HC/William Morrow; HarperLuxe; HarperAudio) is the #1 Indie Next pick for April:

“Three war widows and their children help each other survive at the end of World War II in this engaging novel filled with rich period details. Their husbands died as members of the resistance, but aside from that common thread, Marianne, Benita, and Ania bring very different backgrounds to their makeshift home in the castle’s kitchen. They also face repercussions from past choices and current secrets. Jessica Shattuck brings us into their world and shows us that the rules for love and loyalty are different in wartime.” —Dawn Rennert, The Concord Bookshop, Concord, MA

Additional Buzz: As we note above, this is likely to be the author’s breakout. In addition to the Indie Next #1 pick, it is a Library Reads pick for March. In an unusual pre-pub push, the owners of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Ann Patchett and Karen Hayes, suggest it to their readers writing it is a “book is for readers who love World War II novels and especially for anyone who thinks they don’t need to read another World War II novel.” In another bookstore connection, the top book buyer for Tattered Cover chooses three titles she recommends as she retires. One of them is The Women in the Castle.

The author was featured on NPR’s  Weekend Edition Saturday. Check your holds for this one.

Tie-ins

Four tie-ins come out this week.

American Gods, Neil Gaiman (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample; also mass market).

The Starz’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods premieres on Sunday, April 30, 2017.

One of the early reviews is particularly promising. Slash film calls the pilot “a Weird and Wonderful Start to a Promising Series … American Gods appears to do justice to Gaiman’s work, expanding on his world while being faithful to what makes it work in the first place. Green and Fuller seem to have crafted something very special, perhaps even a series that can replace the dark fantasy hole in our hearts when Game of Thrones comes to an end.”

The White Princess (MTI), Philippa Gregory (S&S/Pocket; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample; also mass market).

Returning to Starz’s is another adaptation of a Philippa Gregory novel, after the successful The White Queen. This time it is Princess Elizabeth of York’s moment in the spotlight. The power-play-power-struggle begins on April 16.

There are no reviews yet. See our coverage here and here.

The Dinner (Movie Tie-In Edition), Herman Koch (PRH/Hogarth; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

A tense meal will be served on May 5, with the premiere of the adaptation of Herman Koch’s The Dinner. The novel was on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list for seven weeks, reaching a high of #7.

The film stars Richard Gere, Steve Coogan, Laura Linney, Rebecca Hall, Chloë Sevigny, and Charlie Plummer. Early reviews, from film festival viewings, are mixed. Variety is on board, writing that it is “riveting” with “a catchy atmosphere of disturbance.” The Hollywood Reporter disagrees, saying the film “will probably see some arthouse action both in Europe and stateside before ending up as broadcast fodder for people watching TV with plates of microwaved food on their knees.”

Star Wars Rogue One Junior Novel, Matt Forbeck (Hachette /Disney Lucasfilm Press; Blackstone Audio).

Pitched to 9-12 year-olds, this is a concise retelling of the hit Star Wars movie, the newest of the series, which came out Dec. 16, 2016.

It ties in to the release of the film on HD. Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand follow on April 4.

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

The film version of David Finkel’s Thank You For Your Service opens on October 27, 2017. As Variety reports, the release date is timed for awards season.

Oscar-nominated Jason Hall (for Best Adapted Screenplay, American Sniper) wrote the script and makes his directorial debut. Amy Schumer (Trainwreck), Haley Bennett (The Girl on the Train), and Miles Teller (War Dogs) are among the large cast.

The book follows a group of soldiers as they try to adjust to civilian life after returning home from fighting in Baghdad. A critical success, it was reviewed by the NYT, Washington Post, NPR, and The Guardian, shortlisted for a National Book Critics Circle Award and selected as a NYT‘s Notable Books of 2013.

A tie-in edition (Macmillan/Picador; Macmillan Audio) comes out in September.

Currently filming, the adaptation of Vince Flynn’s thriller American Assassin, now has a premiere date of Sept. 15, 2017.

Dylan O’Brien plays the lead, CIA operative Mitch Rapp. The actor also stars in the Maze Runner film trilogy, based on the YA series by James Dashner. He suffered a serious injury on the set of the final movie in the series, Maze Runner: Death Cure. As a result, shooting of that movie was delayed until he recovered. The release date, also delayed, is now set for January 12, 2018. 

Michael Keaton (Birdman) is set for the role of Stan Hurley, Rapp’s CIA trainer. Michael Cuesta (Kill the Messenger, Homeland) directs. USA Today provides a few first look photos.

Although it is the eleventh in the book series, American Assassin moves back in time to depict Rapp’s first assignment, making it a good place to begin a possible movie series. A tie-in has yet to be announced. The paperback is still available (S&S/Pocket).

Gwendoline Christie, who plays Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones, is set to star in the film adaptation of The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken (Hachette/Disney-Hyperion).
The first in the YA dystopian trilogy, it features a group of teens with special powers who are persecuted by the government and are on the run hoping to find a sanctuary.

The news, announced by the Hollywood Reporter, caused a flurry of excitement on fan sites.

The cast already includes another fan favorite, Amanda Sternberg, who played Rue in The Hunger Games. She also stars as Maddy Whittier in the upcoming adaptation of Nicole Yoon’s Everything, Everything, set for release in May.

One of Time magazine’s Most Influential Teens 2016, Sternberg is described as:

“one of her generation’s leading social activists, especially regarding race, representation and gender identity. As a result, she’s earned some high-profile admirers. Among them: Gloria Steinem, who sat for a one-on-one interview with Stenberg for Teen Vogue, and Beyoncé …

Fans have more to look forward to. As theThe Hollywood Reporter notes, “a host of young up-and-comers [are] on the call sheet.”

Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Kung Fu Panda) directs, in her live-action debut.

The movie, still in pre-production, is expected to premiere in September 2018.

The first trailer for DreamWorks Animation’s Captain Underpants, based on the best selling Dav Pilkey series (Scholastic), was released yesterday, arriving in time to be featured before the kids movies set to dominate theaters for the next two weekends, Power Rangers and The Boss Baby.

Dropping a hint that this may be the first of series, Dreamworks adds the words The First Epic Movie to the title. It opens in theaters on June 2.

A tie-in is being released, Official Handbook (Captain Underpants Movie) by Kate Howard on April 25, 2017 (Scholastic), but libraries may prefer to spend their money on additional copies of the original twelve-volume series.

MARLENA is the Electric Debut Novel of 2017!

With FOUR phenomenal starred reviews and tons of acclaim, Julie Buntin’s MARLENA is the electric debut novel you need in your collection!

It’s also been selected for the the following:
B & N Spring 2017 Discover Picks
PW Most Anticipated Spring 2017 Debuts
April 2017 Indie Next List

“In Buntin’s vivid debut, Cath, now a New York City public librarian in her thirties, tells the story of the friendship that changed her forever. Though Cath tells her story in flashbacks, Buntin’s prose is emotional and immediate, and the interior lives she draws of young women and obsessive best friends are Ferrante-esque.”— Booklist, starred review

Rising on Amazon, currently at #72, and building holds is Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, Kory Stamper (PRH/ Pantheon; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

The NYT ran an illustrated feature in today’s paper and online yesterday, saying that Stamper is a word-nerd cult figure, with a joyful and invested following on social media. Of they book the paper writes it:

“mixes memoiristic meditations on the lexicographic life along with a detailed description of the brain-twisting work of writing dictionaries [it] describes [Stamper’s] own initiation into the art of lexicography, which involves wrestling with the continuous evolution of language. She walks the reader, chapter by chapter, through different aspects of a definition, including grammar, pronunciation, etymology and more.”

The Atlantic says it is an “eloquent love letter to letters themselves … a cheerful and thoughtful rebuke of the cult of the grammar scolds.”

Sites as diverse as the A.V. Club and The Economist weigh in as well.

The majority of libraries we checked have strong holds on very light orders or have not purchased at all.

Below is a sample of one of Stamper’s popular videos:

Megan Mullally (Will & Grace, Infinity Baby) and husband Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation, The Founder), have bought the film rights George Saunders’s NYT bestseller, Lincoln in the Bardo (PRH/RH; RH Audio/BOT; Overdrive Sample).

The couple will produce alongside the author. Both worked on the audiobook version with him.

“I am thrilled to be in artistic cahoots with Megan and Nick, two artists I’ve long admired,” Saunders told Deadline Hollywood, “This is going to be big fun. My hope is that we can find a way to make the experience of getting this movie made as wild and enjoyable and unpredictable as the experience of writing it — I am so happy to have such fearless companions on the trip.”

The A.V. Club points to the challenges facing the adaptation, “The book has more than 150 narrators … then there’s the matter of the archival texts intercutting the musings of Willie and his new neighbors. And that’s all before you get into those neighbors’ appearances.” However, the producers have already dealt with those issues for the audiobook version.

The Romance Writers of America announced on Tuesday the finalists for the RITA Awards for romance fiction.

There are 13 categories include over 80 nominees (a good opportunity for displays, see The Romance Dish for useful descriptions of all 13 classifications).

Among the finalists are popular authors such as Sabrina York, Tessa Dare, Elizabeth Hoyt, Sabrina Jeffries, J R Ward and Loretta Chase, whose Dukes Prefer Blondes (HC/Avon; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample), part of her Dressmakers series, appears in the Historical Romance: Long category.

Attesting to the growing reach of self-published novels, 11 of the nominees come from the authors’ own imprints, including  Always a Bridesmaid by Lizzie Shane (Create Space; OverDrive Sample), in the Contemporary Romance: Long category.

RWA’s the Golden Heart award nominees for unpublished manuscripts were also released.

All the winners will be announced on July 27.

One of the many lists soon to come, New York magazine has published their “Spring Book Preview,” a list of ten choices ranging across nonfiction and fiction, big names and new authors.

Among the big names is Joshua Ferris for The Dinner Party and Other Stories (Hachette/Little Brown; Blackstone Audio). New York magazine comments, “Ferris’s three novels have earned him a reputation as a high-concept high-wire artist … His stories, by comparison, are compact gems of timing and everyday absurdity.”

One of the debuts comes from award-winning reporter Omar El Akkad who was born in Egypt and now lives in Portland, OR.  A dystopian novel set in 2074,  American War (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), portrays a much smaller U.S., cue to global warming that “enters its second Civil War … Told through the lens of a young Southern refugee who comes of age in a time of horror … terrifying in its prescient vision of the future.”

Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night by Jason Zinoman (Harper; HarperAudio) gets one of the nonfiction nods. The magazine says “Zinoman presents a well-rounded portrait of the late-night legend … a must-read for any comedy fan.”

The full list is online.