Archive for June, 2013

Stewart Begins Work On Film Based On A Book

Wednesday, June 12th, 2013

John Oliver began his stint as host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night, replacing Stewart, who is on hiatus from the show to direct a movie.

The film is based on one of the many books Stewart has featured on the show, Maziar Bahari’s memoir, Then They Came for Me, (Random House, 2011), about the author’s imprisonment in Iran. The film, titled Rosewater after the nickname of one of Bahari’s captors, stars Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, whose previous credits include playing Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries.

Below is Stewart’s 2011 interview with Bahari, in which he announces that they are working on the film.

The Daily Show – Exclusive – Maziar Bahari Extended Interview Pt. 1

Below, Stewart gives more background on the project as he signs off for the summer:

Colbert is Disturbed

Wednesday, June 12th, 2013

What Do Women Want?Scientific studies indicate that “when it comes to sex, monogamy may be more of a problem for women than men,” Daniel Bergner told Stephen Colbert on his show last night. The author of What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire (HarperCollins/Ecco) noted that the generally accepted view of women as naturally monogamous has been promulgated because it is “convenient and comforting to men.”

Colbert’s reactions proved Bergner’s point.

The book is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings. Library holds are also growing.

OnLine Chat with Derek Sherman

Wednesday, June 12th, 2013

Leads for HBO’s LEFTOVERS Adaptation Announced

Tuesday, June 11th, 2013

The LeftoversThe major roles have been cast for HBO’s pilot based on Tom Perrotta’s best selling 2011 novel The Leftovers, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s), according to the Hollywood Reporter. The novel, which examines what happens to those left behind after a rapture-like event, “The Sudden Departure,” is being adapted by Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the TV series Lost.

Stephen King was a fan of the book, reviewing it in the New York Times Book Review.

Justin Theroux will play the books main character, Kevin Garvey. Theroux has appeared in two films by David Lynch, Mulholland Drive, 2001 and Inland Empire, 2006. The public may know him best as Jennifer Aniston’s fiance.

Christopher Eccleston played Doctor Who for 13 episodes in 2005 and will play Matt Jamison, a reverend who, unable to believe that he was left behind, becomes a rapture denier and writes a newsletter revealing dark secrets about the Sudden Departed.

Two of Perrotta’s earlier novels Election (Penguin/Putnam) and Little Children (Macmillan/St. Martin’s) were made into successful movies.

OUTLANDER To STARZ

Tuesday, June 11th, 2013

Diana Gabaldon revealed during a talk at the recently-concluded Book Expo that she had just signed the final contract with the Starz network for the long-gestating project to bring her Outlander series (RH/Delacorte) to the TV screen. Shooting will begin in September, she said, and if all goes well, it will begin airing in spring of 2014.

Written in My Own Heart's Blood

This is probably the reason that the publishing date for the next title in the series, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, has been moved from a December publication date to March 25, when it will tie in to the publicity for the STARZ series.

Below is a video of the BEA Book and Author Breakfast during which Gabaldon revealed the news. She is featured along with Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, RH/Knopf, 10/29), Congressman John Lewis (March: Book One, a graphic novel from Top Shelf Productions, 8/13) and Chris Matthews (Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked, Simon & Schuster, 11/12). Gabaldon’s segment  begins just after the 52:00 time stamp.

Gabaldon spoke about the challenge of writing books in series and her goal to treat each new title as a standalone in a BEA interview:

Holds Alert: THE SON

Monday, June 10th, 2013

The SonThe book “positioned to be the big literary read of the summer,” according to the Wall Street Journal, Philipp Meyer’s second novel, The Son (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe) has been a big success with critics and now arrives at #10 on the 6/16 NYT hardcover best seller list during its first week on sale. Some libraries are showing heavy holds on modest orders.

The book has been praised by national newspaper critics Ron Charles at The Washington Post and Bob Minzesheimer USA Today (the NYT hasn’t weighed in yet) as well as by many of their colleagues at local newspapers:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Kansas City Star

The author was profiled in Texas Monthly recently (the Baltimore native now lives in Texas, the setting for The Son), in a story with an attention-getting headline, “Hog Hunting With Texas’s Next Literary Giant” (Meyer tells the article’s author that hunting and writing are the two most important activities in his life). The article quotes “one of the foremost scholars of Texas literature,” calling The Son, “the most ambitious Texas novel in thirty years—since at least Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian or Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove.”

Kids New Title Radar, Week of 6/10

Friday, June 7th, 2013

The second week in the month, the traditional release period for children’s titles, brings a flood of new books to our downloadable spreadsheet, Kids New Title Radar, Week of June 10, including the conclusion to actress Lauren Conrad’s Fame Game series. For those who buy movie tie-ins, we’ve listed the titles that are based on the animated Dreamworks movie, Turbo, about a garden snail and his dreams of becoming the fastest being on earth. It hits theaters on July 17, with a Netflix series following in December.

Last week’s Book Expo had us distracted, so we didn’t post the downloadable Kids New Title Radar, Week of June 3. It happens that two of the week’s most-anticipated books were also big at the show. Sarah Dessen was there, about to begin her book tour for The Moon and More (Viking/Penguin), which has been praised by YA GalleyChatters for showing a new level of maturity, focusing more on character than the author’s earlier, but nonetheless very popular titles.

The first in a new dystopian series, The Testing just arrived and ARC’s for the sequel, Independent Study coming in January (both from HMH) were already being handed out at the show (see previous post).

Go Ask Alice   Letting Ana Go

Also arriving this week is a book that mimicks the form of the still-popular nearly 45 year-old title, Go Ask Alice, a cautionary tale in the form of an anonymous diary. This one about anorexia, Letting Ana Go, (Simon Pulse) and even refers to its predecessor in the cover line (“In the tradion of…”). It cleverly begins as a high school sophomore’s food diary that gradually slides towards obsession. Kirkus calls it “A disturbing tale that feels meant to titillate rather than caution.”

If you weren’t already aware of it, your middle graders have probably let you know that Dork Diaries 6: Tales from a Not-So-Happy Heartbreaker, (S&S/Aladdin) was also released this week.

THE TESTING, The Sequel

Friday, June 7th, 2013

The Testing   Independent Study

The hottest spring teen dystopian title, one that our YA GalleyChat group has been buzzing about for months, The Testing (HMH) hit shelves on Tuesday, with this terrific tagline, “Its not enough to pass the test, you have to survive it.”

Days before, at Book Expo America, booksellers and librarians not only met the author in the HMH booth, but grabbed copies of the sequel, Independent Study, arriving in January.

UPDATE: Deadline announces that Paramount has bought the film rights

The trailer gives a good sense of the story:

Celebrating Mo Willems

Friday, June 7th, 2013
BEA - Mo Willems

Author Mo Willems signing at BEA, pictured with his editor Tracy Keevan

The longest line for a kids book author signing at BEA (although it did not beat the two-hour wait to gaze upon the latest internet sensation Tartar Sauce, aka Grumpy Cat) was for Mo Willems signing his two spring titles, the 19th Elephant and Piggy book, A Big Guy Took My Ball! (Disney/Hyperion) and  That Is Not a Good Idea!, (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray).

Busload of Pigeon Books

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of Mo Willems’ award-winning Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Disney published It’s a Busload of Pigeon Books!, a boxed set of three classic Pigeon titles with a smaller trim size and featuring an original poster illustrated by Willems.

1423144368Also, Don’t Pigeonhole Me!, (Disney Editions), available on June 18, gives adults a rare glimpse at Willems’ early self-published Pigeon illustrations, along with two decades’ worth of cartoons and sketches.

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA, will be unveiling their newest exhibition Seriously Silly: A Decade of Art and Whimsy by Mo Willems on Saturday June 22nd.

Kate DiCamillo’s Next

Friday, June 7th, 2013

Flora and UlyssesThe number one hot galley for children’s librarians at BEA was Kate DiCamillo’s Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, illustrated by K.G. Campbell, coming in September from Candlewick (also, Listening Library).

Betsy Bird, NYPL librarian and author of SLJ’s Fuse 8 blog, had this to say about  it when I ran into her on the show floor,

“Squirrels, to my mind, are the least lauded and most deserving city animal dwellers I know of. Mo Willems may have created the ultimate pigeon and there are few rats to compare with Templeton, but squirrels have few icons and fewer fans. I expect all that to change with the advent of Flora & Ulysses. Pithy and poignant, smart and good, this is a story that will allow you to fall in love with those chattering, perpetually hungry, tree denizens all over again.”

DiCamillo recevied the Kerlan Award at the University of Minnesota on Saturday.

Kevin Henkes, Booklover

Friday, June 7th, 2013
Kevin Henkes Grabs Galley

Kevin Henkes Snags A Galley

Kevin Henkes read aloud during BEA from his new middle grade novel, The Year Of Billy Millerdue out in September (HarperCollins/Greenwillow). Sadly, there were no galleys to be had, but it was fun to see Henkes get excited about a galley that he was dying to read, snagging the last copy at the HMH booth of My Mistake by Daniel Menaker.

What book lover could resist the publisher’s description:

“Daniel Menaker started as a fact checker at The New Yorker in 1969. With luck, hard work, and the support of William Maxwell, he was eventually promoted to editor. Never beloved by William Shawn, he was advised early on to find a position elsewhere; he stayed for another twenty-six years. Now Menaker brings us a new view of life in that wonderfully strange place and beyond, throughout his more than forty years working to celebrate language and good writing.”

John Green Accepts ABA’s Indie Prize

Thursday, June 6th, 2013

Below, John Green, accepting the Indie Prize given by the American Booksellers Association to writers who best represent commitment to independent book stores, calls “bullshit” to the concept that authors like him, who speak directly to their readers via social media, don’t “need the value-sucking middlemen of bookstores and publishers and in the future … no one will stand between author and reader except possibly an e-commerce site that takes just a tiny little percentage of each transaction.”

He hates being held up as an example of an author who doesn’t need support from publishers, editors, librarians and booksellers and ends by saying,”We built … the book business, the idea-sharing, consciousness-expanding business together … and we’re going to keep building this together.”

His comment about Ayn Rand is worth an award in itself.

Women’s Prize For Fiction Goes to AM Homes

Thursday, June 6th, 2013

May We Be ForgivenCalled an “often breathtakingly dark and crazy satire on modern American life ” by The Guardian, AM Homes’ novel, May We Be Forgiven won the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly  The Orange Prize), announced in London yesterday, confounding the bookmakers (the favorite was Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel), winning against a group of  finalists that also included Zadie Smith and Kate Atkinson.

The Prize has secured a new sponsor and will soon be called the Bailey’s Prize for Fiction. Perhaps Bailey’s is courting reading groups.

More Attention for SHINING GIRLS

Tuesday, June 4th, 2013

The Shining GrilsOur Summer Beach Read Challenge, asks whether you agree that Lauren Beukes’s The Shining Girls, (Hachette/Mulholland), is, as the NYT‘s Janet Maslin says, “a strong contender for the role of this summer’s universal beach read.”

USA Today is not so sure, saying that Beukes needs to hone her craft before, like Gillian Flynn, she achieves “universal beach read” status. This book, says reviewer Charles Finch author of six mysteries, the latest, A Death in the Small Hours, “feels as if it’s the book before The Book. It is not entirely successful in its execution, but its author is so profusely talented – capable of wit, darkness, and emotion on a single page – that a blockbuster seems inevitable. Here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor.”

The book was released today. One large library system has a holds ratio of 6:1 on modest ordering.

Meanwhile, Hollywood has given its accolade. Leonardo Dicaprio has bought the rights and may adapt it as a TV series.

If you’ve read The Shining Girls, be sure to let fellow librarians know if it’s time to order more, or if they should hold off, in the comments section of the earlier post. Opinions are fifty-fifty at this point.

FAIRYLAND Memoir on NPR

Tuesday, June 4th, 2013

FairylandFairyland, the title of journalist Alysia Abbott‘s memoir, is an ironic comment on her childhood; she was raised in San Francisco in the 1970’s by her gay father, sometimes sharing an apartment with drag queens. Interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, she expressed sympathy for her father, juggling the exhilaration of the newly liberated gay lifestyle in San Francisco while raising a young daughter.

The book is now rising on Amazon’s sales rankings (currently at #127, up  from #2,311