Remember the novel Dark Debts by Karen Hall? It came out in 1996 and was a Book of the Month Club main selection. Called by the publisher as a cult hit that “wildly original theological thriller ” that “masterfully combines southern gothic, romantic comedy, and mystery.” Entertainment Weekly gave it an unimpressive C-. Paramount optioned it for a project that never took off.

As The New York Times reports, Ms. Hall, once a TV writer and now an indie bookstore owner, was never completely happy with it either and spent twenty years obsessing over her one and only novel,

“I never stopped thinking about it … I always knew I would never write another book until I got this one right … everything I didn’t like about it made me cringe.”

In a unique publishing path, she is getting a do-over. The audio producer, Audible approached Ms. Hall about doing an adaptation, which made her editor at Simon & Schuster think that would make a good launching pad for a 20th anniversary edition (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). Ms. Hall agreed on the condition that she could revise it.

After twenty years of thinking about the novel, her alterations are “dramatic and subtle” says the NYT. She changed the story’s ending, added and cut characters, took out the profanity, and toned down the violence.

Time will tell if the second shot grabs readers. Currently the novel, which published yesterday, is pretty low on Amazon’s rankings and orders are low to nonexistent in libraries we checked (a few of which still have the 1996 edition). But just think of the book club possibilities!

Librarian Nancy Pearl knows a thing or two about reviewing which adds extra interest to her interview with A. O. Scott, chief film critic for The New York Times. In the latest episode of her Book Lust Author Interview show, Nancy weighs what Scott says about films against what she knows about books.

His book, Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth (PRH/Penguin; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), addresses criticism itself as well as the process of being a critic.

In the interview, Scott and Nancy talk about the importance of criticism and contrast movie and book reviewing (he’s done both). He maintains the fundamental difference has to do with scale.

With the huge number of titles released in a year, book critics tend to focus on a narrow segment, literary novels and serious nonfiction. There are far fewer movies, so film critics can see a great many in the course of a year. As a result, they can cover a wider range of genres and have a broader perspective on what is interesting and valuable.

He also notes that book reviewing, since so much of it is done by other authors with vested interests, can be incestuous.

His own book is getting of attention. How could it not,  as a comment on criticism for other critics to take on?

In what could be called an incestuous action of its own, Scott’s own publication, the NYT runs a strong review by Michael Wood. The Atlantic does not agree, saying the book “says nothing.” The New Yorker, LA Times, Slate, and The Millions have all weighed in as well.

No soaring for The Little Prince film, at least not yet.

In an odd and sudden move, Paramount has decided not to distribute the film in the US, on the eve of its March 18th scheduled arrival. UPDATE: Netflix has since picked up the rights with plans to stream it “later this year.”

According to Variety there is no word on why, but director Mark Osborne tweeted out a promise that it will come out later this year via a different distributor:

.@SarahSerata @ParamountPics All I can say is #thelittleprince will in fact be released by another distributor later this year.

— Mark Osborne (@happyproduct) March 12, 2016

As we have been reporting (here, here, and here), it has gotten a warm reception where it has aired globally and publisher HMH issued two tie-ins and released a new translation in hardcover last October as well as board books.

Beyond the comforts of those books, another look at the enchanting trailer is the only option right now for frustrated fans.

Following last week’s first look at Tim Burton’s adaptation of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, the first trailer was released this morning.

Some of the book’s fans had difficulty with certain changes to the characters. revealed in the First Look.

The book’s author, however, has no such qualms, tweeting,

There are changes from the book, but every change makes the movie better while still honoring the book’s heart. It works beautifully.

— Ransom Riggs (@ransomriggs) March 11, 2016

Starring Asa Butterfield as 16-year-old Jacob with Eva Green as Miss Peregrine and Chris O’Dowd, Ella Purnell, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp, Judi Dench and Samuel L. Jackson, the movie opens.on Sept. 30.

No tie-ins have yet been announced.

The hip hop musical Hamilton is sweeping the box office and every award it encounters. Yesterday, the Broadway sensation headed off-Broadway, all the way to the White House.

It was actually a return performance. Seven years ago, rapper and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda gave the president a taste of a “concept album based on the life of I someone I think embodies hip hop: Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton.” Yesterday, the full cast performed songs from the resulting musical.

In this first clip, the President talks about the musical and then the cast performs the opening number, “Alexander Hamilton.”

Here the cast performs “My Shot.”

There was a even a Rose Garden rap session, which, fulfilling POTUS’s prediction, immediately went viral.

Miranda’s preview of the work in progress seven years ago brought the President to his feet.

The familiar mass market paperback edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird will no longer be available, as a result of what the New Republic calls a “baffling decision” by Lee’s estate.

The mass market edition is published by Hachette’s Grand Central imprint. The trade paperback, published by HarperCollins is not affected. The New Republic notes that “the more accessible mass-market paperback, particularly favored by students,  sells significantly more copies than the trade paperback.”

In an email to booksellers Hachette states that the paperback will no longer be available after April 25th.

That decisions  does not affect the $10.99 HarperCollins eBook edition, finally made available in 2014, after Lee reversed her opposition to it, saying she was “old-fashioned.”

The New Republic story, confirmed by the New York Times, is being reported widely. The NYT adds that “It is possible, though, that the estate may relicense the mass market rights for a new advance, most likely with HarperCollins.”

The interest in the hidden identity of Elena Ferrante, author of the Neapolitan novels that have swept through the best seller lists, hit a boil this weekend, sending her titles soaring again on Amazon.

The real author behind the Ferrante pseudonym has rigorously kept her (or his) true identity private. She grants email interviews only and those exchanges pass through her publisher.

That only fuels speculation, and the latest, reports The New York Times, comes from an Italian author and professor who has conducted an historical and literary study of the books. He sets his eyes on a fellow professor from Naples named Marcella Marmo. Both Ms. Marmo and Ferrante’s publishers flatly deny it.

“It’s nonsense,” said the publishers and “I’m not Elena Ferrante,” said Ms. Marmo. Those predictable responses have not quelled speculation.

Holds and circulation remain high across the series that includes My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of The Lost Child (all published by Europa Editions)

Just last week, it was announced that Ferrante is on the longlist for the Man Booker International Prize, adding even more interest to this long-running literary parlor game.

Time to re-check your holds on The Widow (PRH/NAL; BOT; OverDrive Sample). It is steadily climbing the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list, hitting #9 this week, its highest point to date.

The USA Today list shows a different pattern, where Widow appears to be dropping, moving to #34 this week from a high of #12. However, that list is more volatile because it tracks all formats, age ranges and subjects.  This week the paperbacks of several Oscar-related books jumped ahead of Widow, as did the paperback of the most recent Coctco pick, Kathleen Grissom’s  The Kitchen House (S&S/Touchstone; OverDrive Sample) which came back on the list at #9.

The greatest activity is on the NYT Nonfiction Hardcover list, with six new titles. Debuting in the highest spot is Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli at #5. As the NYT  “Inside the List” column notes, it comes to the U.S. at a propitious time,  less than a month after scientists reported findings that confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity. Most libraries show heavy holds on light ordering

The holds leaders of the titles arriving next week are by two authors who, despite long histories, keep up an amazing pace.

Private Paris, James Patterson (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print, OverDrive Sample)

In a spinoff of the Private series that Patterson began with co-author Maxine Paetro, the head of the investigative agency, Jack Morgan drops in on offices around the world. Sometimes, as he did in Private India, Patterson takes the opportunity to work with a local author. Not so this time. Mark Sullivan is an American who has co-authored several previous Private titles (Games, Berlin, L.A) and has written several solo novels. His first, The Fall Line (1994), was a New York Times’ best book of the year.

Property of a Noble Woman, Danielle Steel (PRH/Delacorte; RH Large Print; Brilliance)

If it seems that you’re seeing more from Danielle Steel than usual, that’s correct. The publisher has declared 2016 the “Year of Danielle Steel,” with six new titles being released (an increase from the slothful pace of just four). Blue arrived in January. Upcoming are The Apartment in May, Magic in July, Rushing Waters in August and The Award in November. In this one, two people bond while investigating the contents of a mysterious safe deposit box.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of March 14, 2916. NOTE; Beginning this week, the list also include all the week’s picks from People magazine.

Consumer Media Picks

If at Birth You Don’t Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny, Zach Anner, (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio)

People magzaine’s “Book of the Week” (the other five pics for the week are listed on our downloadable spreadsheet).

Comedian Zach Anner has cerebral palsy, but that hasn’t slowed him down. In this memoir, he writes about winning his own travel show on the Oprah Winfrey Network, Rollin’ With Zach and hosting the Have A Little Faith show produced by Rainn Wilson’s media company SoulPancake. People calls the result, “Hilarious and inspiring, Anner has made life filled with fans, love and Internet fame.”

Peer Picks

Five Indie Next picks hit the shelves next week, from the March and April lists:

At the Edge of the Orchard, Tracy Chevalier (PRH/Viking; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Robert Goodenough was born in Ohio’s Black Swamp. The youngest of 10 children, he was the only one with any interest in his father’s obsession of buying seedlings from John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, and trying to cultivate and perfect his apple orchard in the inhospitable black muck. Family tragedy sends Robert running west to California and the Gold Rush, where he finds solace in the redwoods and sequoias and meets a naturalist who recognizes his love of botany. But Robert is reluctantly forced to face his past and must decide to either claim it or set out on his own path. Chevalier’s tale is a thoughtfully crafted and vivid slice of pioneer life.” —Jody Misner Chwatun, Saturn Booksellers, Gaylord, MI

Shelter, Jung Yun (Macmillan/Picador; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Shelter is the perfect example of that extraordinary kind of story that careens down a path toward a conclusion that feels somehow both completely surprising and totally inevitable. Kyung Cho is a young father whose anxiety over present financial concerns couples with damage from past traumas to inhabit every breath he takes. His precarious equilibrium is shattered when his parents are the victims of a cruel act of violence and he is called upon to react with a compassion and forgiveness that he may not possess. This novel is a dark and moving portrait of a family and what it ultimately means to love.” —Mary Cotton, Newtonville Books, Newton Centre, MA

It was also a GalleyChat favorite.

Two If by Sea, Jacquelyn Mitchard (Simon & Schuster).

“Mitchard has woven a gripping narrative of a family borne out of tragedy. Frank loses his wife and unborn son to a tsunami, and in the midst of rescuing others saves a small boy. This child, Ian, possesses a special gift that impacts those around him in powerful ways. As Frank tries to form a new family, there are repercussions from Ian’s past that put them both at risk. This is the marvelous story of Frank and Ian’s journey as both try to handle the pain of the past and accept the joy of new beginnings. I loved it!” —Stephanie Crowe, Page & Palette, Fairhope, AL

A Man Lies Dreaming, Lavie Tidhar (Melville House; OverDrive Sample).

If this book’s reception in the U.K. is any indication, we will be hearing a lot about this book. The Guardian writes, “Somehow this shocking book turns genocide into pulp fiction – and gets away with it.” The Telegraph adds, that it is “weird, upsetting, unmissable.” NPR.org is the first to cover it here, “Unnerving WWII Noir In A Man Lies Dreaming.”

“Tidhar’s brilliant novel channels pulp fiction conventions to grapple with the horrors of the Holocaust. In its opening pages, readers are dropped into late 1930s England where Oswald Mosley is about to become prime minister and Hitler, whose Nazi party was defeated by the Communists, is a down-at-the-heels private investigator, a sad and tortured little man. As it turns out, this alternate history is a fever dream of a prisoner at Auschwitz. Who is to say that turning the powerful into the defeated — even as a fantasy — isn’t an important tool in coping with brutality and dehumanization?” —Anmiryam Budner, Main Point Books, Bryn Mawr, PA

Margaret the First, Danielle Dutton (Perseus/Catapult; OverDrive Sample).

“Dutton’s novel takes the already extraordinary life of Margaret Cavendish — 17th century natural philosopher, author of The Blazing World, and Duchess of Newcastle — and transforms it into a stunning work of historical fiction. With women in the sciences a hot issue today, Margaret the First satisfies a craving for women’s writing, women’s voices, and women’s stories, painting a portrait of a sensitive, thoughtful woman hungry not just for praise and recognition, but acknowledgment, affirmation, and validation. Margaret the First is a triumph!” —Liz Wright, Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX

All Star

Exit, Pursued by a Bear, E.K. Johnston (PRH/Dutton Books for Young Readers; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

A YA novel about a star cheerleader who is drugged and raped during a party garners star reviews from every pre-pub source. Booklist says “Fierce and gorgeously drawn, this is a rape story that doesn’t focus on victimhood,” while Kirkus says “Middle and high school readers will pass this powerful, engaging story around and around. Adults should be ready to join in the discussion that follows.”

Tie-ins

There are no tie-ins publishing this week. For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

There is plenty to watch next week, with six adaptations airing on screens big and small.

The newcomers arrive after a so-so week for books to screen performances. Season 2 of Bosch, based on Michael Connelly’s character, got little attention and the reviewers who did take note offered warm, but not glowing, praise.

Forbes panned The Young Messiah, based on Anne Rice’s Christ The Lord: Out Of Egypt, (RH/Knopf, 2005) saying “the writer-director is either grossly pandering to his perceived audience, or has forgotten how to make a movie.”

Next week’s hopefuls are:

Allegiant, part one of the last in the film adaptations of Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, opens March 18 and is already taking hits.

Variety says: “Allegiant will seem awfully meager to those who so recently feasted on … countless other superior examples of the genre.”

Like so many YA adaptations, it will be split in half with the second part due in the summer of 2017.

Tie-ins came out in mid February: Allegiant Movie Tie-in Edition (Harper/Katherine Tegen Books; HarperCollins Audio; OverDrive Sample; in paperback as well).

Next up in the running for the Easter movie to see is Miracles from Heaven, the inspirational story of a young girl inexplicably cured from a terminal illness. It is also getting a lot of buzz with Jennifer Garner on the cover of the most recent issue of Vanity Fair. People has also featured the film.

Tie-ins came out a few weeks ago: Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl and Her Amazing Story of Healing, Christy Wilson Beam (Hachette Books; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample; also in Mass Market). The movie opens March 16.

It is a busy week for adaptations. Here is a run-down on the rest:

The Little Prince, based on the beloved novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is getting praise for its fresh approach. While not a straight adaptation, there are tie-ins, The Little Prince Family Storybook: Unabridged Original Text  and The Little Prince Read-Aloud Storybook: Abridged Original Text
(both HMH Books for Young Readers). The film opens in limited release on the 18th, and goes wide on the 25th.

And Then There Were None is a BBC/Lifetime three-episode adaptation of Agatha Christie’s famous novel. It begins airing on March 14. There is a tie-in: And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (Harper/William Morrow Paperbacks; OverDrive Sample).

A.V. Club is already a fan, calling it “note-perfect” and saying “if you’re looking for an unabashedly bloodstained gothic take on pre-war psychological horror that locks 10 great actors in a room and makes them battle it out … are you ever in luck.”

Season two of Netflix’s Daredevil starts up again on March 18. There is not a direct tie-in but there are plenty of comics. Reading guides are offered by the sites Comic Book Hero and Comic Vine.

The Program, a biopic about Lance Armstrong with Ben Foster playing the role of the disgraced cyclist, premieres March 18. Although it is an adaptation of David Walsh’s 2013 book Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, there is no US tie-in edition.

Called one of the “most anticipated” novels of this season, with that status further cemented by an author profile in the NYT‘s Sunday Magazine, Dana Spiotta’s Innocents and Others (S&S/Scribner; Simon & Schuster Audio; OverDrive Sample) is the book that all the critics want to weigh in on.

The Washington Post ‘s influential critic Ron Charles is a fan, calling it a “quiet miracle,”

“If you enter the theater of this novel, get set to weather some disorientation as soon as the lights dim … but stay in your seat and pay attention. Soon enough, all [Spiotta’s] literary chicanery comes into focus, creating a brilliant split-screen view of women working within and without the world of Hollywood.”

But the daily NYT‘s formidable Michiko Kakutani couldn’t disagree more:

“Unfortunately, Innocents does not deliver on its ambitions … [it] turns out to be a lumpy, unpersuasive novel — enlivened by some arresting moments and thoughtful riffs, but ultimately a sort of hodgepodge of derivative scenes and ideas that have been cut together into a meaning-heavy montage.”

Few are on Kakutani’s side. This week’s NYT Book Review devotes an entire page to an  appreciative review saying, “Highbrow and lowbrow have cohabitated before, of course, but rarely with this ease or this empathy.” Also strongly positive are the Los Angeles Times, New York magazine, and Vogue.

Entertainment Weekly, however, having listed it as one of “25 books we can’t wait to read in 2016,” follows with a review that gives it just a “B,”  saying the “taught modernist” writing is ultimately “chilly emotionally.”

So far, all the attention isn’t grabbing reader interest. Holds queues are modest, but since libraries ordered very few copies, the ratios are high.

The longlist of 20 titles for the Baileys’ Womens Prize for Fiction was announced on Tuesday, International Women’s Day. The prize was created in 1996 by a group of U.K. reviewers, librarians and others in the book world, to address the issue of  book prizes being disproportionately awarded to men. Now funded by R & A Bailey & Co, makers of Bailey’s Irish Cream, it is open to any woman writing in English

We were pleased to see one of the debuts on the list was part of our First Flights/Penguin Debut Authors program. Jackie Copleton, the author of  A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding (PRH/Penguin Books, Dec., 2015), a novel about survivors coping with the effects of the bombing of Nagasaki,  chatted with librarians in the program late last year.

Many authors with more novels under their belts, are on the list, including Elizabeth Strout, My Name Is Lucy Barton (a number one LibraryReads pick) Geraldine Brooks, The Secret Chord, Anne Enright, The Green Road, Kate Atkinson, A God in Ruins, and Attica Locke, Pleasantville

Also on the list is a second novel that received a great deal of attention last year, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

Libraries own most of the titles (three have not been released in the U.S.). Attached is our spreadsheet of the titles, for use in creating displays, Baileys Longlist, 2016

As the award-winning musical Hamilton has proved, Broadway shows based on books can be a good bet. Two drastically different book adaptations try their odds this spring.

Opening on April 26th is Tuck Everlasting: The Musical, based on the modern classic children’s novel by Natalie Babbitt in which a young girl meets the immortal Tuck family. Tuck has already been adapted into two films. It comes to Broadway under the leadership of Tony winner Casey Nicholaw (Aladdin, The Book of Mormon).

On the other end of the spectrum is American Psycho: The Musical based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. It was also previously adapted as a film (starring Christian Bale as the wealthy investment banker serial killer).

To those familiar with the book, the concept of it as a musical may be tough to imagine. According to NewYork.com, “after Sweeney Todd, American Psycho is probably the first Broadway musical with a serial killer as the main character.” It opens in previews March 24.

Beyond the pure adaptions, there is at least one other book hook as well. Danai Gurira, who plays Michonne on The Walking Dead, is a playwright. Her play, Eclipsed, opened on Broadway at the start of this month. Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (Twelve Years a Slave) makes her Broadway debut in the play, set in a Liberian army camp in 2003.

For those who were disappointed that Fifty Shades of Grey wasn’t about “old people getting it on,” a new book takes on the topic. Scary Old Sex: Stories  (Macmillan/Bloomsbury; OverDrive Sample), a debut short story collection by Arlene Heyman, a practicing psychiatrist  is soaring up the Amazon charts, jumping from #6,527 to #303.

In his recent NYT’s review, Dwight Garner praises the collection of stories largely concerned with sex and love past a certain age, saying it is “rueful and funny and observant” and that a few of the stories “take startling turns and have edges made from razor wire.”

While acknowledging that some of the stories are not completely successful, Garner says “Ms. Heyman is never an uninteresting writer … These men and women are busily and blissfully humanizing themselves, the kind of bliss that lifts right off the page.”

Heyman, 73, has been writing privately for decades. Once a student of Bernard Malamud’s, she put that career on the back burner to train as a pyschiatrist. Garner says that readers “can be glad she didn’t abandon it completely, and has been slowly composing these mature and soulful stories.”