It was inevitable. Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire series, adapted as the HBO series True Blood has been an enormous success, so someone had to begin looking at her other series. CBS’s eye has alighted on her Harper Connelly books (the fourth, Grave Secret, came out last year). It’s being adapted by Ridley Scott’s production company, to be called Grave Sight (the title of the first in the series).

It will be some time before the result hits the screen (it’s not even cast yet), but already MTV is questioning whether it can be as good as its predecessor, without the skills of creator Alan Ball, and the freedom to be edgy that HBO affords.

Grave Sight (Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 1) Charlaine Harris Retail Price: $23.95 Hardcover: 263 pages Publisher: Berkley – (2005-10-04) ISBN / EAN: 0425205681 / 9780425205686

Others in the series:

Grave Surprise, (#2)

An Ice Cold Grave , (#3)

Grave Secret, (#4)

What are adults reading? The Harris Polling service, which recently showed that 40% of Americans read eleven or more books a year, has taken a look at what kinds of books adults are reading, including graphic novels.

11% of all adults surveyed read graphic novels. Echo Boomers (ages 18-33) are the most avid graphic novels readers at 18%. The largest categories for this group are Literature at 42% and Mystery, Thriller and Crime at 41% (respondents could pick more than one category). Gen X-ers (ages 34-35) read the next highest amount of graphic novels, at 11%. More men read them than women; 15% as opposed to 8%.

In the survey, Graphic Novels are offered as a choice of “type of book,” along with Mysteries, Science  Fiction, Literature, Romance, Chick-lit, Westerns, and the catch-all  Other category. Unfortunately, this presents a misleading skew to the survey: graphic novels are not a genre but a format, and can fall in to any of the other genres mentioned (including nonfiction, which is broken out into separate statistics.)  You might better ask about who reads poetry, plays, graphic novels, prose, and listens to audiobooks.

As a genre reader, I find the pre-selected categories problematic in terms of definitions: where is fantasy, what exactly comprises literature, and just how is chick-lit defined?  How does each respondent understand the categories? I’ve had people insist to me that they don’t like fantasy and then list Harry Potter as their favorite book, so I know first hand how confusing genre can be.

Desperate for statistics on who reads graphic novels when researching five years ago, I was only able to uncover the already outdated figures collected about the direct, comic store market by Diamond Distributors: that the average reader was 29 years old, and readers were overwhelmingly men.  These new statistics are great fodder for discussion, but I’d also love to see a more in-depth survey about reading, graphic novels, and audiences.

Two articles published today seem to present contrasting views of whether eBooks are at the tipping point. The NYT declares, In a Digital Age, Students Still Cling to Paper Textbooks, while USA Today says More bibliophiles get on the same page with digital readers.

However, some statistics in the USA Today story indicate that a total conversion to eBooks is not around the corner. Commenting on an August Harris poll in which 80% of the respondents said they do not plan to buy an eReader in the next six months, an analyst predicts

…a gradual, uninterrupted growth in e-books…tipping point implies there will be something overnight which will instantly change the character of the publishing business. Thousands of new consumers are showing up in the e-book ‘yes’ column every day, but on the other hand, there are still over 120 million people who buy print books.

The NYT Dining & Wine section takes a look at Sunset magazine’s role in promoting the California life style. The article says that Sunset can be thought of as “the Betty White of food magazines,” getting a new life after being eclipsed by celebrity chefs and flashy cooking shows because of

… its extreme dedication to regional food, its reputation among readers for reliable recipes honed in a skilled test kitchen and its forays into the D.I.Y. ethos of backyard beekeeping and home vinegar making has helped with a rehabilitation.

A new collection of recipes from the magazine came out this week. It was not reviewed prepub and is not owned by most libraries we checked.

The Sunset Cookbook: Over 1,000 Fresh, Flavorful Recipes for the Way You Cook Today Sunset Books, Margo True Retail Price: $34.95 Hardcover: 816 pages Publisher: Oxmoor House – (2010-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0376027940 / 9780376027948

In the “who would have thunk it” category, the conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard tears apart Dinesh D’Souza’s best-selling The Roots of Obama’s Rage in a review titled “The Roots of Lunacy: How not to understand Obama”

Further, conservative political commentator Andrew Sullivan, calls the review, “satisfyingly brutal…” on his blog on The Atlantic‘s web site, and refers to D’Souza’s book as a “hallucinogenic hate-fest.”

The book was not reviewed prepub (nor elsewhere in the mainstream press to date) and is currently at #4 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction best seller list.

The Roots of Obama’s Rage Dinesh D’Souza Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 258 pages Publisher: Regnery Press – (2010-09-27) ISBN / EAN: 1596986255 / 9781596986251

Audio available from Blackstone

Maybe the public is more interested in us than we realized. Earlier this year, This Book is Overdue brought media attention to libraries in the digital age. Before that, Dewey brought small-town libraries to best seller lists.

Now, it’s prison librarians’ turn. In today’s NYT, Dwight Garner reviews Running the Books, saying,

[Steinberg’s] memoir is wriggling and alive — as involving, and as layered, as a good coming-of-age novel.

The author was also interviewed  on NPR’s Talk of the Nation yesterday and Laura Miller gave the book a thoughtful review on Salon on Monday.

The book is now up to #413 on Amazon’s sales rankings, putting it ahead of  most of the National Book Award nominees.

Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian Avi Steinberg Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0385529090 / 9780385529099

Debut novelist Nicolle Wallace sets her thriller, Eighteen Acres, in Washington, D.C. She knows the territory; she was the White House Communications Director for George W. Bush.

USA Today says this first-hand experience stands her well. Patrick Anderson concurs in the Washington Post,

To say that Nicolle Wallace’s Eighteen Acres is one of the best novels I’ve read about life in the White House may be faint praise — there haven’t been many good ones — but her book is both an enjoyable read and a serious look at what high-level political pressures do to people.

The title of the book comes from D.C. insiders’ slang for the White House. One important aspect of the story is not based on real life; it features a female president.

Eighteen Acres Nicolle Wallace Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Atria – (2010-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 1439194823 / 9781439194829

In Salon, Laura Miller says that Avi Steinberg’s Running the Books stands out from other stories by people who have worked with prisoners; rather than discovering that the inmates are like us, Steinberg exposes “a darker truth: We’re just like them.”

Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian Avi Steinberg Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0385529090 / 9780385529099

Canadian author Louise Penny won the 2010 Anthony Award for best novel for her The Brutal Telling. It also won the Agatha earlier this year.

Penny’s new book, Bury Your Dead, continues the Armand Gamache series and has been receiving acclaim. It was starred by all four of the prepub review media, is a People magazine Pick, (the review that called it her best yet) and is on the NYT Hardcover Fiction extended list. The only naysayer so far is Marilyn Stasio, who in her recent NYT BR mystery column, said that a “dubious device undermines the much more interesting central narrative.”

Bury Your Dead: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (Three Pines Mysteries) Louise Penny Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Minotaur Books – (2010-09-28) ISBN / EAN: 0312377045 / 9780312377045

Large Print; Thorndike; available now; 9781410431721; $32.99

The first book in the series, Still Life, won an Anthony for Best First Novel.

Below are the nominees and winners in the full-length novel categories, with information on each author’s next book, where available.

BEST NOVEL

Winner:

Finalists:

• The Last Child, John Hart, (Minotaur Books)
• The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, Charlie Huston, (Ballantine Books)
• The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson, (Knopf); We probably don’t need to tell you that the next book in the series is The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
• The Shanghai Moon, S.J. Rozan (Minotaur Books); the next in the Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels, #10 is  On the Line, published in September.

BEST FIRST NOVEL

Winner:

Finalists:

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Winner:

Finalists:

• Bury Me Deep, Megan Abbott, (Simon & Schuster)
• Tower, Ken Bruen and Reed Farrel Coleman, (Busted Flush Press); Bruen’s lastest solo novel, The Devil, was published by Minotaur in August. His 2009 book London Boulevard has been adapted to a movie starring Keira Knightley and Collin Ferrell, scheduled for release on Nov. 26
• Quarry in the Middle, Max Allan Collins, (Hard Case Crime); the 9th in the series, Quarry’s Ex came out in September
• Death and the Lit Chick, G.M. Malliet, (Midnight Ink); the third St. Just Mystery, Death at the Alma Mater came out in January
• Air Time, Hank Phillippi Ryan, (Mira); the next Charlotte McNally title, Drive Time, came out in February

For Best Short Story and Best Critical Nonfiction winners, link here.

Two eagerly anticipated movies made from books have been scheduled for release and on the same day, August 12, 2011; The Help and Mr. Popper’s Penguins.

The Help, based on Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling debut and directed by her childhood friend, Tate Taylor, includes the following cast,

Emma Stone … Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan
Bryce Dallas Howard … Hilly Holbrook
Mike Vogel … Johnny Foote
Sissy Spacek … Missus Walters
Allison Janney … Charlotte Phelan
Chris Lowell … Stuart Whitworth
Viola Davis … Aibileen Clark
Ahna O’Reilly … Elizabeth Leefolt
Anna Camp … Jolene French
Jessica Chastain … Celia Foote

Mr. Popper’s Penguins, starring Jim Carrey and Carla Gugino is directed by Mark Waters (Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, The Spiderwick Chronicles). Certain liberties have been taken with the script based on the 1938 Newbery Honor Book; Mr. Popper is a high-powered businessman, rather than a poor house painter.

Also, War Horse, based on the book by Michael Morpurgo, has been rescheduled from August to Dec. 28th, 2011, just a few days after The Adventures of Tintin. Both films are directed by Steven Spielberg.

War Horse Michael Morpurgo Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 176 pages Publisher: Scholastic Press – (2007-04-01) ISBN / EAN: 0439796636 / 9780439796637

Independent publisher Quirk Books, inventors of the mashup genre, are profiled in a story by the Associated Press, “Philly book publisher the BRAAAINS! behind phenom.”

Why publish books like Pride, Prejudice and Zombies?  “It was simply too crazy not to,” says founder David Borgenicht.

The company’s most recent title in the genre is Night of the Living Trekkies, about zombies at a Star Trek convention. More mashups are coming and a  “sci-fi slash political satire” book is being planned for the 2012 presidential election.

Night of the Living Trekkies Kevin David Anderson, Sam Stall Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: Quirk Books – (2010-07-28) ISBN / EAN: 1594744637 / 9781594744631

CBS Sunday Morning featured Mark Twain’s autobiography, about to be released 100 years after the author’s death, as stipulated in his will. As a result of the story, the book rose to #1 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

The book is the first of three vols.

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 Mark Twain Retail Price: $34.95 Hardcover: 760 pages Publisher: University of California Press – (2010-11-15) ISBN / EAN: 0520267192 / 9780520267190

Stacy Schiff makes a telling observation about the biographies she read growing up,

I notice in retrospect that biographies for kids seemed to be about women who are famous for their disabilities, delusions or sensational deaths. The big three were Helen Keller, Joan of Arc and Isadora Duncan.

Schiff is interviewed in the New York Times Magazine about her biography of a fabled woman, Cleopatra. The book will be released on Nov. 1.

Cleopatra: A Biography Stacy Schiff Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316001929 / 9780316001922

Hachette LARGE PRINT; Hdbk; 9780316120449; $31.99
Hachette Audio; UNABR; 9781607887010; 34.98

Deadline reports that James Cameron who is in talks to direct a movie based on the book, starring Angelina Jolie, is considering doing it in 3-D (yes, you read that correctly). Currently, he is at work on a sequel to Avatar and is also producing a 3-D remake of the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage and At the Mountains of Madness, based on the HP Lovecraft novella, which Guillermo del Toro plans to direct, also in 3-D. It seems Cameron is 3-D mad.

It may have seemed that she got a slow start. Belva Plain published her  first book, Evergreen, at 59, but she went on to write 20 more books, all best sellers. At 95, she died last week at her home in New Jersey, as reported by the New York Times.

Delacorte lists a new novel by Belva Plain to be published in February. It follows the story of the Stern family that began with her first book, Evergreen. Her previous title was Crossroads (Delacorte, 11/08).

Heartwood: A Novel Belva Plain Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 0385344120 / 9780385344128

NPR featured even more books than usual this weekend. Below is a roundup.

Sunday, All Things Considered, How Cafe Culture Helped Make Good Ideas Happen

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation Steven Johnson Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2010-10-05) ISBN / EAN: 1594487715 / 9781594487712

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Weekend Edition Sunday, Our Aging World Is In For A ‘Shock Of Gray’

Shock of Gray: The Aging of the World’s Population and How it Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival, and Nation Against Nation Ted C. Fishman Retail Price: $27.50 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2010-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 1416551026 / 9781416551027

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Weekend Edition Sunday, The Washington You Didn’t Know

Washington: A Life Ron Chernow Retail Price: $40.00 Hardcover: 928 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2010-10-05) ISBN / EAN: 1594202664 / 9781594202667

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Weekend Edition Saturday, Amish Romance: More Faith And No Sex In This Slice Of Christian‘Fiction; an interview with Shelley Shepard Gray. She sees a relationship between vampires and the Amish in romantic fiction.

Autumn’s Promise: Seasons of Sugarcreek, Book Three Shelley Shepard Gray Retail Price: $12.99 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Avon Inspire – (2010-08-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061852376 / 9780061852374

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Weekend Edition Saturday, ‘Heaven Bears’ Author Finds Beauty In ‘The Air’

How to Read the Air Dinaw Mengestu Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2010-10-14) ISBN / EAN: 1594487707 / 9781594487705