Randall Munroe, author of the runaway hit What If? has a new book coming out in November, Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words (HMH, Nov. 24).

Munroe announced the book on his popular website xkcd, “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language,” yesterday and it has already shot to #8 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

As Munroe details on his site, the book is a large format (9″ by 13″) collection of blueprints with diagrams of objects and explanations of their parts and uses, using only the most common 1,000 words in the English language. The result sometimes sounds like a precocious six-year-old (see the Saturn V rocket, called here, “Up Goer Five — The only flying space car that’s taken anyone to another world”). It could be the basis of some memorable party games.

There are still holds on What If? in libraries across the country. Expect high demand for Munroe’s upcoming title as well.

The Daytime Emmys for children’s programming are usually the provence of PBS. This year, however, some new players got nods, including Netflix, Youtube and Amazon Studios which won five awards for their original stop-motion adventure series for preschoolers, Tumble Leaf, tying with the perennial winner, Sesame Street.

Amazon Studios is now turning to adaptations. Of the six pilots offered in January, four got series orders, including the two that are based on childrens books.

The Stinky & Dirty Show
Based on the award winning series that began with I Stink! by Kate and Jim McMullan (HarperCollins Childrens), Amazon’s adaptation is expected to debut in 2016. EarlyWord Kids Correspondent, Lisa Von Drasek is a looking forward to it, saying, “The pilot episode is brilliant, high production values and a great story.”

Just Add Magic
Based on the book by Cindy Callaghan (S&S/Aladdin, 2010).

Amazon also announced that they have ordered six more pilots for kids, three of them based on books. Following their now-established process, Amazon will debut the pilots this summer for  customers to review and vote on their favorites.

The Kicks
Based on the middle-grade book series about four soccer players by US Olympic Gold Medalist Alex Morgan The Kicks, which began with Saving the Team (S&S Books for Young Readers).  The fifth in the series, Hat Trick, is set for publication next month. The adaptation will be directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum (Ramona & Beezus).

Bear in Underwear
Based on the books by Todd Goldman, (Blue Apple Books)

Lily the Unicorn
Based on the book by Dallas Clayton (HarperCollins, 2014) and produced by the Jim Henson Company.

The Lost Generation will be back on the big screen this year. The film adaptation of A. Scott Berg’s National Book Award winning bio, Max Perkins: Editor Of Genius, (Dutton, 1978; available in trade pbk. from Penguin Berkley), has been acquired for distribution by Lionsgate.

Colin Firth plays the legendary Scribner editor, with Jude Law as Thomas Wolfe, Dominic West as Ernest Hemingway and Guy Pearce as
F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Also in the cast are Laura Linney as Perkins’ wife Louise Saunders, and Nicole Kidman as Aline Bernstein, who was romantically involved with Wolfe.

To be released some time this year, the film has already generated Oscar buzz (which means it’s likely to be released towards the end of the year).

No trailer is available yet, but the Daily Mail gives glimpses of the actors during production last fall.

Our Books to Movies & TV listing has updated information on over 400 adaptations in the works (for tie-ins, check our Edelweiss collection).

Recent news:

The Circle, adapted from Dave Eggers’ book of the same title (RH/Knopf, 2013), starring Tom Hanks and Alicia Vikander is set  to begin filming in California, Aug, 2015

Queen of the South, based on the novel by Arturo Perez-Reverte, (RH/Alfaguara, 2010), already adapted as a hit show by Telemundo, has been ordered as a series by USA Network, to be released some time in 2016.

The Sense of an Ending, based on Julian Barnes’ Booker award winner, (RH/Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), produced by BBC Films, has signed Jim Broadbent to star.

A Dog’s Purpose, based on the 2010 best seller by Bruce Cameron (Macmillan/Forge), is in development with Lasse Hallstrom to direct

American Crime Story: The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson, a series for FX, based on the book by Jeffrey Toobin, (Random House, 1996) is ramping up. Selma Blair just joined the cast to play Kris Jenner, the ex-wife of Simpson’s attorney, Robert Kardashian, to be played by David Schwimmer. Also in the cast are Cuba Gooding Jr. as Simpson and John Travolta as Simpson’s co-counsel Robert Shapiro. No boadcast date yet, but the tie-in is scheduled for 9/29/15.

The Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement in horror and dark fantasy were announced at the World Horror Convention in Atlanta, Georgia last weekend.

Steve Rasnic Tem won in the Novel category for Blood Kin (Solaris Books; OverDrive Sample) while Maria Alexander’s Mr. Wicker (Raw Dog Screaming Press) was selected as best First Novel. John Dixon took honors for best Young Adult Novel for Phoenix Island (S&S/Gallery Books; OverDrive Sample) and Jonathan Maberry won the Graphic Novel category for Bad Blood (Dark Horse Books; OverDrive Sample).

Jack Ketchum and Tanith Lee each received Lifetime Achievement Awards.

The full list of winners and nominees is available on the Horror Writers Association website.

Holds are spiking well over a 3:1 ratio at some libraries for Greg Iles’s The Bone Tree (HarperCollins/Morrow; HarperLuxe; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample), the fifth novel in his Penn Cage series and the second in a 3-book arc that began last year.

The novel, which picks up where Natchez Burning left off, debuted on the NYT best seller list at the #4 spot on May 10 and moved down slightly to #6 on the May 17 list.

We listed it as one of the “Six Titles to Make You an RA Guru” the week of April 21 and The Washington Post’s Bill Sheehan gave it a glowing review yesterday, saying:

Like Natchez Burning, Iles’s latest is a hugely elaborate illustration of a famous line by William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Iles puts his own distinctive stamp on that Faulknerian theme, and the result is a very American epic-in-progress that leaves us waiting, none too patiently, for whatever revelations are still to come.

Deadline Hollywood reports that Tobey Maguire is developing a cable series based on Natchez Burning, working with David Hudgins who was the co-showrunner for Friday Night Lights. The project is with Amazon Studios, which has ordered scripts for two episodes.

Stephen King will release an audiobook-only title this summer, Drunken Fireworks (Simon & Schuster Audio; CD and DD, OverDrive Sample), about a fireworks rivalry that gets way out of hand.

To be released on June 30^th, at the close of audiobook month, it is narrated by Tim Sample, who also read King’s Four Past Midnight: The Sun Dog.

In early November the short story will be released in print as part of a new King collection, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (S&S/Scribner; Nov 3.; ISBN 9781501111679). The full collection of stories will also be published in audio (no word yet on the narrator).

According to The Wall Street Journal, Drunken Fireworks will stream for free on July 2 as a promotion for CBS’s new web-based podcast platform Play.it. CBS Radio stations in more than 20 markets will run promotions for four days starting June 29.

The Wall Street Journal sees this as a case of corporate synergy, since King is published by the CBS-owned Simon and Schuster.

King is known for his interest in helping promote new technologies. Back in 2000, he brought attention to eBooks by releasing the digital novella Riding the Bullet, causing the NYT‘s critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt to wonder, “is this the wave of the future or just a confluence of unusual circumstances?”

As season one of the Outlander series winds down on Starz (the finale airs May 30), shooting has begun on the next season.

Based on the second novel in the book series, Dragonfly In Amber (RH/Delta; 2001; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), it follows Jamie and Claire as they escape to France and try to stop the Jacobite rising.

Once again, it spans multiple time periods and also introduces new characters, including Jamie and Claire’s adult daughter Brianna, Fergus, Jamie’s spy and one-day-adopted son, and a young Lord John Grey.

According to the website zap2it, author Diana Gabaldon is pleased with the plans for season 2, saying:

The Parisian stuff is very good, and in fact I’m deeply impressed by the outlines I’ve seen of those scripts … I think they’ve done a wonderful job of pulling out the most important plot elements and arranging them in a convincing way …

Season two is slated to air in the spring of 2016, so fans will have to endure a year-long wait, or as they call it, #Droughtlander.

Click on the image above.

Below are newly added items:

May 11 — Sign up for LJ’s BEA Galley Guide here

May 1 — PW ‘s list of Adult Galleys to Grab
and Can’t Miss Kids’ Galleys.

A limited number of FREE show passes available to qualified library staff from Unshelved. Link here.

Christopher Bollen’s second novel,  Orient (Harper; HarperCollins and Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) “might well be this summer’s most ambitious thriller or this summer’s most thrilling work of literary fiction” according to author Ivy Pachoda in her glowing LA Times review of Bollen’s second novel.

It is a review with plenty of juicy quotable lines for readers’ advisors to reference – especially when working with patrons who like their crime novels filled with high body counts and a thrumming sense of place.

And Pachoda knows a thing or two about capturing a strong sense of locale — she did it in her book Visitation Street (HarperCollins/Ecco; OverDrive Sample), set in Red Hook, Brooklyn. In her review of Orient she clearly appreciates a fellow author who is able to create a similar vibrant evocation of place, saying:

The Orient of Bollen’s novel is of course Orient Point, the town at the eastern-most tip of Long Island’s less fashionable North Fork — think Gatsby’s West Egg to Daisy’s East Egg — which has so far resisted the Ralph Lauren and McMansion uprising of the Hamptons to the south. But the artists are coming, scooping up pricy shorefront properties, gutting the charming homes, bringing their cavalier city ways and transforming the quaint town as they see fit.

Her quotes just get better, ending with this summary:

There’s a smorgasbord of delights in Orient, from its murderous plot to the cheeky fun Bollen has at the expense of the art world. And there is ample room in this expansive novel for surprisingly soulful descriptions of everything from the intricacies of beekeeping to the beauty of deer hunting. Most impressive is how Bollen’s book is rich in literary diversions, moments of keen sociological and emotional insight — often into personal isolation — that transcend the conventions of its story.

Pachoda is not alone in her admiration. USA Today offers another quotable line:

… a gorgeously written book whose literary chops are beyond doubt. Come for the prose, and stay for the murders.

Buried in Entertainment Weekly’s new issue, long after the “Baby Power List,” the lavish look at Quentin Tarantino’s “Bloody, Brutal Hateful Eight” and the excerpt of Stephen King’s upcoming Finders Keepers, (not online) comes the “Summer Books Preview.”

The full listing of 40 titles is not available online, but we’ve created an Edelweiss collection of all the titles so you can check for Digital Review Copies (NOTE: Ernest Cline’s hotly anticipated Armada, RH/Crown, just became available).

Below are links to the sections that are available online.

10 Big Fat Beach Reads To Look Out For This Summer

Hot Reads: 6 Sequels Coming To Bookshelves This Summer

5 Out-Of-This-World Tales To Read This Summer

Calling it the “next True Detective,”  the Hollywood trades announce that HBO is set to adapt Liane Moriarty’s best seller Big Little Lies (Penguin/Putnam/Einhorn), winning it away from Netflix in a competitive auction. Niclole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon are producing and plan to star. They originally acquired the rights to the book, planning to adapt it as a feature film.

Like True Detective, which burnished the careers of its two stars, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, Hollywood watchers think this may do the same for Witherspoon and Kidman.

Both actress/producers have developed a taste for domestic thrillers. Kidman starred in Before I Go to Sleep, based on the novel by S.J. Watson (Harper, 2011). She’s also bought the rights to The Silent Wife, by A. S. A. Harrison (Penguin original trade pbk, 2013).

Reese Witherspoon recently optioned Watson’s upcoming mystery thriller Second Life (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe) and was a producer for Gone Girl, based on the novel by Gillian Flynn (RH/Crown, 2012).

Emily St. John Mandel has won the Arthur C. Clarke award, recognizing the best in Science Fiction, for her bestselling novel Station Eleven (RH/Knopf; RH & BOT Audio; Thorndike; OverDrive Sample).

The book, a post-apocalyptic tale that weaves back and forth in time as it follows the fate of several characters while also exploring the sustaining power of art, has racked up a litany of accolades.

A finalist for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner, it was picked as one of the Favorite of Favorites by LibraryReads, and made multiple best books of the year lists including Entertainment Weekly’s which selected it as their #1 pick.

As we reported, George R.R. Martin is on the bandwagon too, lobbying fans to support it for the Hugo award.

The genre categorization doesn’t sit well with Mandel. Responding to a review in the Washington Post’s “Science Fiction and Fantasy” column she told Ron Charles,

I was surprised to discover that if you write literary fiction that’s set partly in the future, you’re apparently a sci-fi writer … my only objection to these categories is that when you have a book like mine that doesn’t fit neatly into any category, there’s a real risk that readers who only read “literary fiction” won’t pick it up because they think they couldn’t possibly like sci-fi, while sci-fi readers will pick up the book based on the sci-fi categorization, and then be disappointed because the book isn’t sci-fi enough.

On the other hand, this offers readers advisors an opportunity to use Station Eleven to expand both SF and literary readers’ horizons.

Check your holds, they  are heavy in some libraries and trade paperback edition is scheduled for June 2,

The seven-part adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, is finally set to air on BBC America beginning June 13.

The U.S. trailer has just been released:

When the book was published in 2004, it went on to  become a hit, heralded by an profile of the author in the NYT Magazine. In the NYT Sunday Book Review, Gregory Maguire approvingly called it “Hogwarts for Grown-Ups,” saying, “Clarke’s imagination is prodigious, her pacing is masterly and she knows how to employ dry humor in the service of majesty.”

Today, the TV series is being compared to Game of Thrones.

The U.S. tie-in is scheduled for the end of this month.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
Macmillan/Bloomsbury USA, May 26, 2015
9781620409909, 1620409909
Trade Paperback, $18.00 USD, $20.00 CAD

There are no clear-cut holds leaders this week, but familiar names will hit the shelves, like Jefferey Deaver, Steve Martini, Lincoln Child and Craig Johnson.

Some libraries are showing holds on a debut, Luckiest Girl Alive, media attention will be focused on Tom Brokaw’s memoir about living with multiple melanoma and several titles arrive with Indie Next recommendations.

The titles covered 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 May 11.

Title to Watch

Luckiest Girl Alive, Jessica Knoll, (S&S; S&S Audio)

One of many titles described by some as a successor to Gone Girl, underscored on the cover by a blurb that reads, “With the cunning and nerve of Gillian Flynn, but with an intensity all its own, ” it gets a strong B+ from Entertainmet Weekly.

There are some similarities between the two books, notes the reviewer,

Both have dark, twisty, true-crime-inspired plots … Both have been optioned by Reese Witherspoon to become dark, twisty, true-crime-inspired films. And both feature shrewd, prickly, damaged heroines who have made their careers at glossy magazines—much like Knoll and Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn once did. (Knoll used to work at Cosmo and Self; Flynn used to work here at EW.).

However, says EW, Luckiest Girl Alive “isn’t innovative enough to inherit Flynn’s mantle, but it’s gripping enough to earn a spot on a nearby shelf.” Our GalleyChatters agreed, considering it an “absorbing study of a woman trying to get out of a bad past by remaking herself into a perfect mold … not quite the Gone Girl readalike we expected, it was still fascinating.”

Check your holds; they are heavy relative to copies ordered in some libraries.

Media Attention

A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir of Hope, Tom Brokaw, (Random House; RH & BOT Audio; RH Large Print)

Brokaw writes about dealing with his diagnosis of multiple melanoma. Heavy media attention begins tonight with NBC’s Dateline, promoted on NBC Nightly News on Thursday:

Coming up:

NBC Today Show – 5/11
NPR Fresh Air – airs 5/13
Comedy Central Daily Show – 5/12
PBS Charlie Rose – 5/12

The Great War of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism–From al Qa’ida to ISIS, Michael Morell, Bill Harlow, (Hachette/Twelve; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print)

Written by the former deputy director of the C.I.A., this book is getting press coverage. The Washington Post says the book includes “the bleakest assessments of the CIA’s performance during that tumultuous period by an official who was in the agency’s leadership at the time” and the New York Times says the author asserts, “Republicans, in their eagerness to politicize the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, repeatedly distorted the agency’s analysis of events.”

Peer Picks

The Book of Aron, Jim Shepard, RH/Knopf; RH & BOT Audio)

In a very early rave in the Washington Post, Ron Charles calls The Book of Aron no less than a masterpiece.  New York magazine lists it as one of “8 Books You Need to Read This May,” saying, “Shepard deserves attention far beyond the cozy circle of writers who worship him … Aron retells the well-known story of a doomed Warsaw Ghetto orphanage through the eyes of a very young and very flawed would-be survivor, eluding mawkishness and thereby evoking tears.”

Indie Next:

Shepard has performed a small miracle in channeling the voice of a young Jewish boy trapped in the Warsaw ghetto. He traces Aron’s progression from country bumpkin and reluctant scholar to a ‘macher’ on the streets of Warsaw, where his cunning and courage prolong the lives of his increasingly oppressed and desperate family. Aron’s story meshes with that of Janusz Korczak, well-known pediatrician, child rights advocate, and orphanage operator, when Aron is rescued from the streets after the death of all of his family members. The final scene of Korczak leading the ragtag parade of children to the train to Treblinka closes an astonishing portrayal of the Nazi evil viewed through the eyes of a very resourceful, tragic, but indefatigable child.” —Darwin Ellis, Books on the Common, Ridgefield CT

The Green Road, Anne Enright, (Norton; Thorndike; OverDrive Sample)

New York magazine’s ‘8 Books You Need to Read This May’

Indie Next:

Steeped in the moist earth of Ireland, this is the story of the Madigan family and the life that forces them apart, only to return again to a home filled with memories. Rosaleen suffers greatly at the loss of her four children — not to death, but to lives of their own: her eldest to New York, another to Mali, one daughter to a hospital career, and another to the ‘big city’ of Dublin. The concept of ‘family’ still holds them together despite years and circumstances, and as Rosaleen announces plans to sell the family home, a last Christmas gathering proves profound. —Linda Bond, Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA

How to Start a Fire, Lisa Lutz, (HMH; Blackstone Audio; Wheeler Large Print)

Indie Next:

How to Start a Fire integrates Lutz’s trademark humor, quippy dialog, and quirky characters with a story of three college friends who meet in Santa Cruz in 1993. Readers will fall in love with these three women as they experience failed marriages, career decisions, and other significant life events. Those who are new to Lutz will gobble up this standalone entry and then race to their bookstore to begin reading about the Spellman family in her earlier bestselling series —Terry Gilman, Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, San Diego, CA

Just released, the LibraryReads picks for June, a list of the  ten titles librarians are most looking forward to sharing with readers next month. Topping the list, a book that may be the author’s breakout, Eight Hundred Grapes (Simon & Schuster; June 2; OverDrive Sample) by Laura Dave.

It was also a hit with the librarians on GalleyChat back in February. Some comparing author Laura Dave to Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner.

LibraryReads recommendation:

Take your time and savor the family dynamics. Enjoy the romantic twists in this tale of a career-minded young woman circling back to her roots at a California winery. The appeal is broader than that of a romance since it delves into the complexities of various relationships– parent to parent, parents and children, even winery and owner.This is an excellent summer read! — Joan Hipp, Florham Park Public Library, Florham Park, NJ

Annie Barrows, who will speak at the AAP/LibraryReads lunch at BEA, takes the no. 2 spot for The Truth According to Us (RH/The Dial Press; June 9; RH and BOT Audio; OverDrive Sample).

It is 1938 in a rural West Virginia town and a young woman arrives to write the town’s history. Layla doesn’t really know what to expect from the town, and the town doesn’t know what to make of her. This is the heart of the South, the soul of small towns, where everyone looks out for you and knows your history. Sweet story tailor-made for fans of Billie Letts, Fannie Flagg, Pat Conroy and Harper Lee. — Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX

Two other hot picks from previous GalleyChats also make this month’s list. The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; June 23;Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample) was a hit in March while The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George (RH/Crown; June 23; Random House Audio; OverDrive Sample) was a favorite in April.

Erika Johansen returns with The Invasion of the Tearling (Harper; June 9; HarperCollins and Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), and is joined by other big names including Judy Blume and Elin Hilderbrand.

In nonfiction, pirates win the day with Robert Kurson’s Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship (Random House; June 16; RH and BOT Audio; OverDrive Sample) rounding off the picks.

The Indie Next titles have also been announced, with Kent Haruf’s Our Souls at Night (RH/Knopf; May 26; RH and BOT Audio; OverDrive Sample) taking the top spot.

Johansen and Barrows get nods from the booksellers at IndieBound as well.