The author of the Wolf Hall series, Hilary Mantel, puts the BBC on notice that she won’t appreciate it if their adaptation of her books, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, indulges in the kind of “nonsense” that the Americans brought to history in The Tudors TV series on Showtime. Speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival over the weekend,  she said, “At some point, someone had decided that it was too complex for Henry VIII to have two sisters, so they rolled them into one. Then they had to find a fictitious king for her to marry, so I think they invented a king from Portugal unknown to history. It’s so shaming, and it stems from not trusting the intelligence of the viewer,”

Reporting on the session, The Telegraph notes that the author dashed hopes that the third in the book trilogy, The Mirror and The Light, will appear next year, saying it is “unlikely to be ready until 2016.“

What do you do when the first movie in a planned YA series bombs at the box office?

You may want to consider another medium, television.

The producers of The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, based on the first in the Y.A. fantasy series by Cassandra Clare, are doing just that, with wrier-producer Ed Decter (Helix, Unforgettable, In Plain Sight and The Client List) as showrunner.

There’s no information on whether the cast of the movie will be returning. On her blog, author Clare addresses that question, declaring, “I have absolutely no idea! I am sure they are not casting at the moment and probably nobody knows. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever I could possibly ever do to influence whether they kept the same cast (assuming they were available) at all, so I will be waiting, like you, to see if they cast new people, and hoping that if they do, those people will be good.”

Cassandra Clare’s series consists of six books, as well as a 3-part prequel series, Infernal Devices, which concluded with Clockwork Princess, (S&S/ Margaret K. McElderry, 3/19/13). The author has also announced a new series of sequels, called The Dark Artifices, to begin in 2015.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s goal is to bring “beautiful, literary language to really solid information” about nature. Her most recent book is The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild,(Hachette/Little, Brown, 2013).

Nancy Pearl interviews her for her series on The Seattle Channel, Book Lust.

Before you roll your eyes and exclaim, “Not another person jumping on the Y.A. movie bandwagon,” consider the book that Lena Dunham wants to adapt. It’s not dystopian, or an angst-filled teen romance, but Karen Cushman’s Catherine, Called Birdy, (HMH/Clarion) the 1994 Newbery Honor book about a girl growing up in the 13th century.

Interviewed at the New Yorker Festival on Friday night, Dunham said, “I’m going to adapt it and hopefully direct it, I just need to find someone who wants to fund a PG-13 medieval movie.”

She also said she has been obsessed with the book since she was a kid. If her tattoos from children’s books didn’t already tip you off, she is a big reader. In a 2012 NYT Book Review interview, she mentioned dozens of books, and said Birdy one of the two best books she’s ever read about girls. The other one? Nabokov’s Lolita.

UPDATE:
EarlyWord Kids Correspondent Lisa Von Drasek is such a fan of this book that, when told her the news, she instantly recalled the opening lines, nearly verbatim (we know; checked the OverDrive Sample):

I am commanded to write an account of my days; I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.

The 20th anniversary edition, published as part of a re-release of 4 of Cushman’s books in trade paperback, includes an intro by Linda Sue Park (also on the OverDrive Sample), who says, “Cushman shows us a very different image of medieval England from the one we are used to seeing. Dirtier and smellier, yes, but also fuller, richer and more complete.”

We have to wonder how Dunham, who says in her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, that she was a germaphobe as a kid, was able to deal with those details.

The favorite children’s book, Madeline (Penguin/Viking Juvenile) turns 75 this year and is celebrated with an exhibition at the New York Historical Society and a feature yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning.

A 75th Anniversary Edition of the book, that includes a pop-up spread of Paris, was published in May.

John Bemelmans Marciano, the originator’s grandson, is interviewed on the show.

He has published several books that continue Madeline’s adventures, including  Madeline at the White House, (Penguin/Viking Juvenile, 2011) a story that his grandfather and fan Jackie Kennedy once talked about doing.

Next week, Elin Hilderbrand trades in sand for snow as she jumps on the Christmas-themed novel band wagon. The setting is still the familiar Nantucket … fitting with the holiday theme, a book of short stories by Y.A. authors will also intrigue adults … blasts from the past include Norman Lear’s memoir and Cary Ewes’s story of the making of The Princess Bride.

All the titles highlighted here, and several more notable titles arriving next week, are listed, with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of 10/13.

Holds Leaders

Leaving Time, (RH/Ballantine; RH Audio; Thorndike, 11/5), OverDrive Sample

Audio sample:

The number one holds leader for the week, and in a tie with next week’s Gray Mountain by John Grisham, is also a LibraryReads pick:

“Leaving Time is a love story – love between mother and child, love between soulmates, and love between elephants. The story is told from a variety of narrators, all of whom are broken and lost. Jenna is searching for answers to the disappearance of her mother, and seeks the help of a retired police detective and a psychic. Alice, Jenna’s mom, disappeared after a tragic accident at the elephant sanctuary, and her work with the elephants is fascinating and touching. The book is an ode to motherhood in all its forms–the good, bad and the ugly–and it is brilliant.” — Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX

Winter Street, Elin Hilderbrand, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print); OverDrive Sample

Kirkus notes, “increasingly, best-selling authors are producing Christmas novels, family dramas in which the Christmas Spirit prevails. They often seem like rushed marketing ploys, though occasionally they hold up to the author’s own standards. Hilderbrand’s falls somewhere in between; her skill at creating character is present, but the plot feels constrained and a little predictable.” Both Booklist and LJ were more forgiving.

LibraryReads Pick

The Life We Bury, Allen Eskens, (Prometheus Books/Seventh Street Books); OverDrive Sample 

An original trade paperback from indie publisher Prometheus Books’ new mystery imprint (the name refers to the address of the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia).

LibraryReads recommendation:

“In this well-crafted debut novel, Joe Talbert has finally left home, but not without guilt over leaving his autistic brother in the care of his unreliable mother. A college assignment gets the young man entangled in a cold case, racing to clear the name of a Vietnam veteran. Characters with layers of suppressed memories and emotions only add to the suspenseful plot. Looking forward to more from this Minnesotan author!” — Paulette Brooks, Elm Grove Public Library, Elm Grove, WI

Celebrity Authors

Even This I Get to Experience, Norman Lear, (Penguin; Penguin Audio); OverDrive Sample 

Audio sample:

The media has already jumped on this, beginning with yesterday’s interview on front page of the NYT arts section. Giving it just a B-,  Entertainment Weekly calls it, “sharply written, always entertaining, yet surprisingly shallow autobiography.”

Choose Your Own Autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris, (RH/Crown Archetype; RH Audio); OverDrive Sample 

Harris, who plays a creepy character in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, here writes his autobiography in the form of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. If you have trouble imagining that, check the OverDrive Sample. Harris, of course, also narrates the audio (the publisher assures us that it won’t force us to try to jump around). UPDATE: Harris is interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air.

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes, (S&S/Touchstone; S&S Audio)

Elwes, featured on the Today Show this morning (read an excerpt of the book on the site), is scheduled for NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered this Sunday (UPDATE: Listen to the interview here) as well as Fox News’s Fox & Friends on Tuesday. As in the book, the audio includes reminiscences from other stars of the show, including Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, and Rob Reiner.

Media Attention

The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig (Norton)

The author was already interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air this week and the book is covered in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. The review includes this tidbit, “Eig notes that when [birth control pioneer Margaret] Sanger gave an interview to Mike Wallace she was asked, ‘Could it be that women in the United States have become too independent — that they followed the lead of women like Margaret Sanger by neglecting family life for a career?’ The year was 1957.” You can view that interview on C-Span.

Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can’t Ignore by Jay Sekulow, Jordan Sekulow, (S&S/Howard)

Fox TV, of course, will be all over this one:

• Hannity, October 14
• Fox & Friends, October 15
• Lou Dobbs Tonight, October 15
• Fox News-TV/Fox & Friends, October 18
• The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, October 15
• Fox & Friends, October 18
• America’s News HQ, October 19

YA Holiday/Crossover

My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories, Stephanie Perkins, Rainbow Rowell, David Levithan, and more, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin’ Listening Library);  OverDrive Sample 

Leave it to Y.A. authors to bring a thoughtful twist to holiday-themed books. Says Kirkus of these twelve stories, “Rich language and careful, efficient character development make the collection an absorbing and sophisticated read, each story surprisingly fresh despite the constraints of a shared theme.”

The Listening Library sample is from Rainbow Rowell’s story (the embed code is not working, link to it here); read it in full via the OverDrive Sample.

The Nobel Peace Prize this year goes to two people, Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person ever to win the prize and Indian children’s rights activist, Kailash Satyarthi.

Now 17, the Pakistani woman was shot by the Taliban in 2012 for her campaign for women’s rights to education.

She was also nominated for the Prize last year, the same year she published a memoir, I Am Malala, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio). She wowed Jon Stewart when she appeared on The Daily Show:

Confounding odds makers once again, the Nobel Prize in literature, announced today, goes to French author Patrick Modiano, whose more than 30 novels often focus on the Nazi occupation of France. The Academy described him as “a Marcel Proust of our time.” If you’re not familiar with him, you’re in good company. The Guardian comments, “Modiano is well known in France but something of an unknown quantity for even widely read people in other countries.”

The Telegraph calls Modiano’s The Search Warrant (RH/Vintage Digital, 2012) one of his best-known books. You can read a sample via OverDrive.

Several titles by Modiano are listed in on American library catalogs, including the 1974 film Lacombe, Lucien, by director Louis Malle, for which Modiano co-wrote the script which is partially based on Malle’s own experiences during the occupation and a children’s title, Catherine Certitiude.

Publisher David R. Godine’s web site today features the three Modiano titles they have published in English (the Washington Post‘s Ron Charles delivered the news to Godine, who was “staking dahlias” at the time and exclaimed, “This means we’ll be ahead this year!”):

Missing Person, Patrick Modiano, translated by Daniel Weissbort, 2004 — Also winner of the most prestigious French literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, it was reviewed by Booklist and Library Journal. Saying it is probably his “best known novel,” The Guardian describes it as being, “about a detective who loses his memory and endeavours to find it.”

Honeymoon, Patrick Modiano, 1995 — also reviewed by Booklist and Library Journal 

Catherine Certitude, Patrick Modiano — A children’s title, it was reviewed by several library publications. The following is the publisher’s description:

This charming book will delight any child — or adult — who appreciates ballet, Paris, New York, childhood, and mystery (not necessarily in that order). The book’s plot is deceptively simple: Catherine, the eponymous heroine, begins her story watching her own daughter demonstrate jazz steps in their ballet school on a snowy afternoon in New York. Memory takes her (and the reader) back to her childhood, spent in the tenth arrondissement of Paris. In her youth, Catherine lives with her gentle father, Georges Certitude, who runs a shipping business with his partner, a loud, failed poet named Casterade. The real partners in this story, however, are the father and daughter who share the simple pleasures of daily life: sitting in the church square, walking to school, going to her ballet class every Thursday afternoon.

As a result of the prize, Yale University Press has moved up the publication of the following title from January to November:

Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas, Patrick Modiano, translated by Mark Polizzotti

Includes Afterimage, Suspended Sentences, and Flowers of Ruin.

The author of the #1 LibraryReads title for September, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes And Other Lessons from the Crematory, Caitlin Doughty, (Norton; Recorded Books) was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, sending the book up Amazon’s sales rankings.

Remember to nominate your favorite forthcoming titles for LibraryReads.

Also, in celebration of LibraryReads first anniversary, you can vote for your favorites from the first twelve lists here (even if you haven’t nominated before). The top vote-getters will be released on December 1.

Former defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticizes President Obama in his new book, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (Penguin Press; Penguin Audio). He explains why in an interview with Charlie Rose on today’s CBS This Morning. He was also interviewed yesterday on NPR’s Morning Edition and is scheduled for the Daily Show tonight.

On Fox News, Bill O’Reilly worked hard to get him to criticize Hillary Clinton’s handling of Benghazi. Panetta responded that, as head of the Defense Department, he was not familiar with the inner workings of the State Department, but could say, “If I know Hillary Clinton, if she knew there was a problem at Benghazi, she would have done something about it.’

The book is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings and is currently at #14. Libraries are showing holds on light ordering.

Lionsgate has announced that John Krokidas (Kill Your Darlings, 2013) will direct the film adaptation of the word-of-mouth debut hit Wonder, R.J. Palacio, (RH/ Knopf Young Readers).

The book is still #1 on the NYT Middle Grade Best Sellers list after 96 weeks. Entertainment Weekly predicts the movie will also be successful, saying it’s “bound to be the latest in a string of enormously successful YA adaptations,” (presumably, referring to what Hollywood now calls “grounded” Y.A. adaptations, like The Fault in Our Stars and If I Stay, rather than the dystopian hits).

The big question: how will the movie deal with the main character’s facial deformity?

The trailer for the book avoided the issue:

The NYT today looks at the halo effect of the success of the Starz adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander on the books. After the TV series debuted, the first in the book series went to #1 on best seller lists for the first time since its publication twenty years ago, two others in the series also hit the lists (in addition, the most recent in the series, Written In My Own Heart’s Blood, RH/Delacorte, which came out in June, hit the list at #1).

The final eight episodes of season one are set for release on April 4 of next year. Starz has also ordered a second season, to be based on the next book in the series, Dragonfly in Amber, (RH/Delacorte, 1992). Like Game of Thrones, to which it is compared, there are plenty more books to draw on, eleven novels plus several novellas and shorter pieces (see Gabaldon’s own chronology here).

While Game of Thrones and other TV series have brought readers to the original books, the article does not mention that this is not always the case. The just-concluded HBO series The Leftovers, for instance, had only a small effect on Perrotta’s book and it seems most people didn’t even get that NBC’s About A Boy is based on Nick Hornby’s novel.

Predicting which adaptations, whether film or TV, will have a halo effect can drive selectors (and de-selectors) nuts. Over a dozen more adaptations are on TV schedules through 2015, with many more in the works (see our downloadable Books to TV listing; our full list, including film adaptations is here).

Play along with us as we try handicapping the adaptations coming up through the end of the year:

Big Driver — Lifetime TV movie, 10/18/14 — A one-off movie, based on a lesser-known Stephen King title (a novella published in Full Dark, No Stars,, S&S/Scribner, 2010), won’t inspire many to seek out the original.

Death Comes to Pemberley — PBS, 2 episodes, begins 10/16 — P.D. James riffed on Pride and Prejudice in her 2011 book. Matthew Rhys plays Darcy in the adaptation, but sorry, we don’t think he’ll have the impact that Colin Firth did when he played the role in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. As a two-part series, it won’d have time to build an audience, so we are not expecting a big resurgence of interest in the book. Tie-in, RH/Vintage.

Olive Kitteridge, HBO, four parts, begins 11/2/14 — Winning the Pulitzer Prize shortly after it was released in trade paperback sent Elizabeth Strout’s novel on to the NYT list where it stayed for nearly two years, rising to #5. HBO publicity will remind people who always meant to read it to pick it up and it will go on to lists again, but won’t reach previous heights. Tie-in, Random House Trade

The Red Tent, Lifetime, 12/7 & 12/8/14 — Just two nights long, this won’t have much time to build a following. However, as a reading club favorite, the title has remained in the public consciousness, so the series promotion may remind people to look for the book. That beautiful new cover, displayed in the front of book stores won’t do it any harm, either. Tie-in, Picador

Mr. Miracle, Hallmark, Holidays — This is the fourth holiday-themed movie based on a Debbie Macomber book. This time, both Mr. Miracle, the book, RH/Ballantine and the movie are being released in the same season. Hallmark has already burnished Macomber’s brand, so there’s little room for growth. Watch next year, however,  when Hallmark plans to do the same for Karen Kingsbury and Sherryl Woods.

Surgeon Atul Gawande shook up the medical profession a few years ago when he told doctors in his book The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, that they could improve their results by borrowing a simple idea from the airlines, going through a checklist to make sure that important items aren’t overlooked during medial procedures.

In his new book, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, (Macmillan/Holt/Metropolitan; Macmillan Audio), he has something to tell the medical profession that may be even more difficult to swallow. Doctors don’t listen to their patients, and that if they did, he says, they would discover that at the end of life, living longer is often not a person’s top  priority.

His opinion piece in this week’s NYT Book Review, “The Best Possible Day,” based on the book, is now the most emailed story on the NYT site.

Arrving tomorrow, the book is rising rapidly on Amazon’s sales rankings (at #38 this morning from #108, it’s now at #17).

Libraries have ordered it conservatively and holds are rising. They are likely to increase even more after Gawande’s appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight.

UPDATE: Below is the appearance. As a result, the book rose to #7 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

David Fincher’s film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’ Gone Girl was a hit at the box office, beating out, but just barely, the original horror flick, Annabelle, the sequel to The Conjuring.

Most critics have also been fans (a notable exception is Joan Smith in The Guardian, “Gone Girl’s recycling of rape myths is a disgusting distortion“). NPR’s David Edelstein went so far as to declare it “more fun than the book” on Fresh Air.

Not declaring either better, the Independent grabs attention with a headline asking the crucial question, “Gone Girl: How was the book’s ending different from the film?”

Their answer, however, is “not that much.”

The book-to-movie site, Word & Film does an an analysis of “Gone Girl’s 5 Big Book-to-Film Differences.” The site is owned by Random House, publisher of the book, so they should know.

Three upcoming major book awards will be announced within a week of each other.

First, the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced this Thursday, Oct. 9. The current favorites are Haruki Murakami, whose books are owned widely by U.S. libraries, and Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, whose works are available in the U.S., but are less widely owned.

Don’t take the wagering too seriously, however, as the Christian Science Monitor outlines, this award is notoriously difficult to predict.

A week from tomorrow, on Tuesday, October 14, the Man Booker Prize will be presented by the Duchess of Cornwall  at a ceremony at London’s Guildhall. This is the first time that Americans have been allowed in to the competition. Two made itto the shortlist of six titles; To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. Currently, both are trailing in the odds. Neel Mukherjee is in the lead for The Lives Of Others, followed closely by Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road To The Deep North.

The next day, Wednesday, Oct. 15, sees the release of the shortlist of finalists for the National Book Awards (winners to be announced on Nov. 19). Now that Americans are included in the Booker Awards, it would have been interesting if there were overlaps.  However, just one title was on both longlists, Richard Powers’ Orfeo, and it did not make it to the Booker shortlist.