Dozens of suggestions have been offered for the poor bereft souls who are longing for more Downton Abbey (a third season has begun shooting. It is scheduled to air in the UK in Sept and the US in Jan). In an unusual dip into the past, this week’s People magazine recommends John Galworthy’s The Forsythe Saga (CORRECTION: in an earlier version of this story, we misidentified the recommendation as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon; People recommends that book for fans of The Artist).

Below are some of the other lists that have appeared (none of them include The Forsythe Saga):

“RA Crossroads: What To Watch (and Read) After Downton Abbey,” Neal Wyatt, Library Journal — focuses on DVD’s.

BiblioCommons, “Waiting for Downton Abbey,” by Anne Rouyer, Seward Park Library, NYPL — focuses on books.

Flavorwire.com, “Essential WWI Novels for ‘Downton Abbey’ Fans” — there are some extraordinary leaps on this list; will Downton fans really be interested in Johnny Got His Gun?

The Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver included some interesting choices in their Downton-themed promotion, including To Marry an English Lord, by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace (Workman, 1989; reissued in trade pbk in March). The show’s creator, Julian Fellowes, has said it was a major inspiration (full list is here; scroll down to the sixth story on the newsletter). Libraries that own it are showing holds on few copies.

Looking ahead, PBS Masterpiece returns to WWI, beginning April 22, with the BBC’s two-part Birdsong, based on the book by Sebastian Faulkes. The British tabloid, The Daily Star, referred to it as a “raunchy adaptation” and an “X-rated hit.” British critics applauded the first episode, but were divided over the second. The audiences, while strong, were not as large as those for Downton Abbey.

A tie-in edition is coming in April (check here for EarlyWord‘s full list of tie-ins to upcoming movies & tv series)

Birdsong (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Vintage International) Sebastian Faulks Retail Price: $15.95 Paperback: 496 pages Publisher: Vintage – (2012-04-03) ISBN / EAN: 0345802896 / 9780345802897

The Muppets do their own version of The Hunger Games trailer (to promote their DVD and VOD “Wocka Wocka Value Pack“):

Meanwhile, Lionsgate has released a new “exclusive” clip from the real thing on Yahoo!

We’re pleased to announce an opportunity for EarlyWord readers to become part of the launch of titles by major debut authors. Working with the Library Marketing team at Penguin (many of you already know Alan Walker and Dominique Jenkins), we’ve begun “First Flights — The Penguin Debut Author Program.”

I am particularly pleased that the first title in the program is The Orphanmaster by Jean Zimmerman (Penguin/Viking, June 16). A work of historical fiction, it appeals to me on several levels. It’s set in an area I’m familiar with, the island of Manhattan, in a time period many of us don’t know much about, when it was part of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. It features a remarkably free-spirited female character who is even more remarkable for being based on a real person. The details of daily life at the time are fascinating (foot-long oysters!) and rooted in the author’s deep knowledge of 17th C history.

When you join the program, you will get a copy of the advance readers edition of The Orphanmaster and will be invited to join an online conversation with the author and me on April 11.

You will also become part of the “Penguin First Flights” club and will automatically receive notice of each new title in the program. The second title, The Bellwether Revivals, by Benjamin Wood, is a book of psychological suspense, coming June 28.

We all love being the first to know about a book that later becomes a household name. As part of this program, you will not only be among the first to read each book, you will be among the first to get to know the authors. Find out more and sign up here.

Entertainment Weekly‘s “Inside Movies” blog just released a clip from the forthcoming The Trouble with Bliss, in which Michael C. Hall’s character explains how he chose the places he dreams of visiting. Turns out they are all based on books; something every book lover would find perfectly logical, but “Inside Movies” labels as “pathetic” (we’re betting their tone would different if the choices had been based on movies).

We can’t show you the scene, because it’s an Entertainment Weekly “exclusive,” but a portion of it appears in the beginning of the trailer.

After appearing at several film festivals last year, it will be in limited release (NYC and LA only) as well as VOD, beginning March 23rd.

It’s adapted from the book East Fifth Street Bliss by Douglas Light, (Behler Publ., 2006), which was reviewed by Library Journal and is currently owned by many libraries. It’s no longer in print, but Dreamscape is releasing an audio version, using the film’s title, that is available both as a CD and downloadable via OverDrive

We admit we were a bit skeptical when GalleyChatters first raved about The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller (HarperCollins/Ecco), a debut novel based on The Iliad.

Turns out we’re not the only ones with reservations; Mary Doria Russell, in her review in the Washington Post, admits, “Until I was 60 and writing about Doc Holliday (who read the classics in their original languages), the closest I came to The Iliad was watching Brad Pitt in Troy.”

Russell goes on to say that the book “draws the personal and the intimate” out of Homer’s story and makes it partly a “quiet love story” (about the adolescent friendship between Achilles and Patroclus, causing the Independent to dub it, “Brokeback Mountain sets sail for Troy“), peppered with “tense and exciting” battle scenes.

If you’ve been putting off reading the advance readers edition (HarperCollins was giving them away liberally), Russell’s review should put you over the top.

The multiple award-winning debut YA novel, Before I Die by Jenny Downham, (RH/David Fickling, 2007), has been adapted for the screen, with a strong cast, led by Dakota Fanning (trying on a British accent) as 17-year-old Tessa, who is trying to make the most of her life before she dies of leukemia. It also stars Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) as her shy next-door neighbor Adam and Kaya Scodelario (Skins) as her best friend Zoey.

Unfortunately, the title had to be prettied up for the movies, so it has been changed to Now Is Good and, naturally, it’s been given the Hollywood handle of “The Bucket List for Teens.”

A trailer has just been released online. Several sources note it will be released on May 25th, but that is the UK date; the US date has not been set.

Coming this weekend is one of Hollywood’s biggest gambles of the year, Disney’s $250 million John Carter.

In today’s NYT, Charles McGrath, former editor of the Book Review, looks at the movie’s source material, A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a book “filled with inconsistencies and plot threads that are never followed up.” It has nevertheless, stayed in print for decades.

McGrath defines its appeal as “a kind of cheerful boys’ adventure romanticism” and says that the very qualities that have “made it so transporting for generations of readers” are the ones that have made it “both tempting and daunting to filmmakers, who have struggled since the ’30s to come up with a version that will play to both young viewers and adults, newcomers and members of the cult.”

Many are waiting anxiously for the film’s opening this Friday, to see if the box office proves it to be the next Avatar or the next Ishtar.

To feed speculation, Disney released a new 10-minute trailer over the weekend (see our Upcoming Movies— with Tie-ins for the many re-releases of various versions of the book).

Sunday’s NYT Book Review caught up with Robert Harris’s Fear Index (RH/Knopf, Jan 31). Dozens of other reviews have already appeared (see summary here). It hit the 2/18 NYT fiction hardcover best seller list at #12 and is currently on the extended list at #24.

Last month, in a profile in The Washington Post, Harris was described as,

…[belonging to] the international community of the airport reader — the people of the paperback who demand burning plots and tense suspense. His stuff is Dan Brown, but better written. It’s Ken Follett, but less discovered. He does refined thrillers; he does restrained mania; he does social commentary disguised as potboiler.

A movie is also in the works, with Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum) directing. No cast has been announced.

Several libraries are showing heavy holds.

Markus Zusak‘s young adult novel The Book Thief  (RH/Knopf, 2006) was optioned by Fox six years ago, shortly after it was released.

Signs of life appeared this week, when Brian Percival (Downton Abbey) signed on to direct.

According to Variety, the studio wants to begin production this summer.

Nicole Kidman is in talks to star in Before I Go to Sleep, based on the debut psychological thriller by British writer S.J. Watson. A GalleyChat favorite long before publication in June of last year, it went on to become a NYT best seller, rising to #7 on the hardcover fiction list.

Kidman has several book-related projects in the works. She stars, with Clive Owen, in HBO’s Hemingway & Gellhorn, premiering in May. Shooting is complete on The Paperboy, based on the book by Pete Dexter, but no US release date has been set and she is getting ready to shoot The Railway Man opposite Colin Firth. Back in October, she acquired the screen rights to another GalleyChat favorite, Family Fang by Kevin Wilson.

Railway Man: A POW’s Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness Eric Lomax Retail Price: $16.95 Paperback: 294 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (Dec., 1980) ISBN : 9780393334982

You just knew it had to happen. The Carrie Diaries, Candace Bushnell’s YA prequel to Sex and the City, is being made into a pilot by the CW network. Austin Butler (Life Unexpected, Switched at Birth) has just been cast as Sebastian Kydd, the male lead. AnnaSophia Robb (Soul Surfer) is already in place as Carrie the Younger.

The Carrie Diaries Candace Bushnell Retail Price: $18.99 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: HarperTeen/Balzer + Bray – (2010-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061728918 / 9780061728914

HarperChildrensAudio; UNAB; 978-0061983948; $25.99

Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel Candace Bushnell Retail Price: $18.99 Hardcover: 421 pages Publisher: Balzer + Bray – (2011-04-26) ISBN / EAN: 0061728934 / 9780061728938

The media went on red-alert last week about an erotic fiction trilogy.The New York Post reported on Tuesday that Fifty Shades of Grey by first-time British author E.L. James “has NYC moms reading like never before.” Apparently, they are also talking nonstop to each other about what they are reading. So much sharing is going on that one woman called it “the new kabbalah for female bonding in this city.”

Canada’s Globe and Mail gives the publishing background,

Through an independent publisher in Australia [The Writer’s Coffee Shop is based in New South Wales, Australia; the company’s US address is in Waxahachie,Tex] the trilogy has sold more than 100,000 copies, the bulk of them e-books…First time-author E.L. James, a television executive living in London, honed her erotica chops penning BDSM-themed Twilight fan fiction. She has said that the bondage opus was her “midlife crisis.”

The story was picked up by several other news sources, culminating on the Today Show on Friday.

WorldCat indicates that a handful of libraries own or have ordered the print version of the book. Most are showing a modest number of holds. The first title in the series hit the NYT best seller list in ebook format last week (#24, rising to #23 this week).

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Lots of buzz on next week’s titles, including two novels that are the #1 and #2 Indie Next Picks for March: Carol Anshaw‘s Carry the One and Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. Literary favorites Kathryn Harrison and Jeanette Winterson are back too  – Harrison with a novel of the Romanovs and Winterson with a memoir of overcoming her difficult relationship with her adoptive mother. Usual suspects include Clive Cussler, Patricia Briggs, Thomas Perry and a tie-in to the second season of the George R.R. Martin HBO TV series.

Watch List

Carry the One by Carol Anshaw (Simon and Schuster; Tantor Audio; Thorndike Large Print) begins with a fatal car crash after a wedding reception that haunts the bridal party for the next 25 years. Booklist‘s starred review sums up the universally positive trade reviews: “masterful in her authenticity, quicksilver dialogue, wise humor, and receptivity to mystery, Anshaw has created a deft and transfixing novel of fallibility and quiet glory.” It just received an “A” rating from Entertainment Weekly and is the #1 Indie Next Pick for March 2012.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (HarperCollins/Ecco Press) retells Homer’s epic from the point of view of Patroclus, an exiled Greek prince taken in by the father of Achilles. Over the years, the two boys’ tentative friendship grows into a deep and passionate love that stands firm despite disapproval of the elders and the gods. The #2 Indie Next Pick for March, the annotation says, “Miller’s homage to The Iliad is sharp and strengthened by her knowledge and exquisite prose.” It’s also on Oprah’s Must-Read List for March.

Monday Mornings by Sanjay Gupta (Grand Central Publishing; Hachette Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is a debut novel by CNN’s chief medical correspondent, also the host of TV’s House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and author of the best-selling Cheating Death. It pulls back the curtain on the Morbidity and Mortality conference at Chelsea General, where surgeons answer for bad outcomes. LJ says, “Anyone who enjoys medical fiction should like this novel, despite a few less-than-realistic plot developments. Gupta keeps his numerous characters and their intermingled lives and crises in play and convinces readers to care about each one.”

Literary Favorites

Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison (Random House; Center Point Large Print) is set in the final days of Russia’s Romanov Empire, as the Bolsheviks place the royal family under house arrest and Rasputin’s 18-year-old daughter, Masha finds solace with the Czar’s son, Prince Alyosha. LJ says, “though the narrative can be confusing as Masha’s tales move rapidly from reality to fantasy, the ever-fascinating story of the fall of the Romanov dynasty will appeal to readers of historical fiction.” The author will appear on NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered on March 4, and the book will be covered in the New York Times Book Review on March 11. It’s also on Oprah’s Must-Read List for March.

Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru (RH/Knopf; Thorndike Large Print) follows a husband and wife after their son, Raj, vanishes during a family vacation in the California desert and reappears inexplicably unharmed—but not unchanged. This one is also on Oprah’s Must-Read List for March, which says “at its core, this thrill ride of a novel is about searching for truth, even as wife Lisa finally comes to realize, ‘at the heart of the world…is a mystery into which we are not meant to penetrate.'” Reviewed in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, it gets a B+, with points off for not always being “narratively satisfying,” although “it’s still a compelling exploration of cosmic-American weirdness.”

Usual Suspects

The Thief by Clive Cussler (Penguin/Putnam; Wheeler Large Type; Penguin Audio) is set on the ocean liner “Mauretania,” where two European scientists with a dramatic new invention are barely rescued from abduction by the Van Dorn Detective Agency’s intrepid chief investigator, Isaac Bell.

Fair Game (Alpha and Omega Series #3) by Patricia Briggs (Ace Books) is the third book in the popular urban fantasy series.

Poison Flower: A Jane Whitefield Novel by Thomas Perry (Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press; Tantor Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is the seventh novel in this series about a Seneca woman who helps abused women and other victims disappear. Here, Jane spirits James Shelby, a man unjustly convicted of his wife’s murder, out of a  criminal court building, and must endure the torment of men posing as police who kidnap her.

Young Adult

Everlasting by Elizabeth Chandler (Simon Pulse) finds fallen angel Ivy reunited with her her formerly dead boyfriend Tristan. But he has been cast down in the body of a murderer, and they must clear him before they can be together.

TV Tie-in

A Clash of Kings (HBO Tie-In Edition): A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two by George R.R. Martin (RH/Bantam; Random House Audio) is a tie-in to the HBO series that begins April 1.

Nonfiction

Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson (Grove Press) is a memoir about this accomplished author’s life work to find happiness, after growing up in a north England industrial town with an abusive Pentacostal adoptive mother. But getting herself into Oxford and becoming an acclaimed literary author doesn’t satisfy her quest for love. Kirkus says, “this is a highly unusual, scrupulously honest, and endearing memoir.”  It’s also on Oprah’s Must-Read List for March.

Shades of Hope: A Program to Stop Dieting and Start Living by Tennie McCarty (Penguin/ Amy Einhorn Books; Penguin Audio) offers advice breaking the diet cycle, by one of the foremost experts on eating addiction who has a famous retreat center, Shades of Hope. This is the first foray into self-help for star editor Amy Einhorn, who is better known for fiction (The Help, The Postmistress, The Weird Sisters).

You’ve undoubtedly seen a trailer or two for John Carter, Disney’s $250 million 3-D sci-fi epic, opening on March 9.

Not that the heavy promotion matters; the Daily Beast reports that it’s expected to tank at the box office.

One of the problems is that people can’t grasp what it’s about, even though a new trailer, which arrived this week, is less murky than the others (two fans were so disgusted with the SuperBowl trailer, that they pieced together their own from available clips).

Junot Diaz might have helped clear up some of the questions; he’s written the introduction to the Library of America version of A Princess of Mars, the Edgar Rice Burroughs’s book the film is based on.

Library of America? The folks whod do “authoritative texts of great American writing…printed on premium acid-free paper”? Yes, them.

Unfortunately, however, the book won’t be available until after the movie releases.

Meanwhile, we have just this quote from Diaz to go on; “A Princess of Mars is singularly important… in that it innovated the grammar for the American version of the lost world romance.”

Another major author is taken with the book; Michael Chabon worked the screenplay.

For more tie-ins, go to our listing of Upcoming Movies — with Tie-ins

Not that you really need to stock up.

A Princess of Mars Edgar Rice Burroughs Retail Price: $20.00 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Penguin/Library of America – (2012-04-12) ISBN / EAN: 1598531654 / 9781598531657