Three new films open this weekend.

The one drawing the most attention is from ground-breaking director Ang Lee (Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain, both of which won him Best Director Oscars). It is adapted from the 2012 debut novel by Ben Fountain, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and a finalist for the National Book Awards, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Not only did Lee challenge himself by choosing as his source a novel many considered unfilmable, but, says Entertainment Weekly he “decided to push the boundaries of technical prowess,” by  dramatically increasing the number of frames shot and employing a higher 3D resolution.

Variety writes the advances have “the potential to be a revolutionary … It opens the door to a new way for movies to be shot, a new way for them to look and feel, a new way for them to be experienced.”

However, writes Entertainment Weekly, “reactions have been mixed, with some calling the technology a distraction.” Lee responds that he is not surprised by the criticism in an interview with USA Today, saying, it’s “a lot to absorb; it’s not a universally pleasing movie. If it doesn’t split [the critics], there’s something wrong with it.”

Starring newcomer Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin and Chris Tucker, the film opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend, and expands nationwide on Nov. 18.

A tie-in came out in September: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain, (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

Arrival is an SF film starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg and Tzi Ma. It is directed by Denis Villeneuve and based on the short story by Ted Chiang “Story of Your Life” about a linguist (Adams) trying to communicate with aliens.

Reviews are strong thus far. The Verge calls it “a soulful sci-fi instant classic” and “one of the best films of the year.” io9 headlines their review with a “Masterpiece You Won’t Stop Thinking About” and continues “Arrival is the kind of science fiction film we dream of. It’s got big stars, a bigger concept, and the longer it goes, the more it demands of its audience. The pacing is methodical, the story captivating, and filmmaking beautiful. You rarely have a clue where it’s going—but once it gets there, you won’t be able to get it out of your head.”

An updated release of the book the story appears in was published earlier this year, Stories Of Your Life And Others (originally published in 2002 by Macmillan/Tor; re-released by PRH/Vintage in 2016; Tantor Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Elle is a psychological thriller based on the novel Oh… by Philippe Djian (English translation not currently available).

Directed by Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers, Showgirls) and starring Isabelle Huppert, it is a story about a woman who stalks and finds her rapist.

Critics are hooked. Variety says “High-risk material yields unexpected rewards in this remarkable rape-revenge drama, a possible career high for Paul Verhoeven … You’ve never seen a rape-revenge fantasy quite like Elle, not least because the rape, revenge and fantasy components of that subgenre have never been quite so fascinatingly disarranged … [it is a] many-layered provocation.”

The Guardian calls it “a dangerous delight … turn off the lights and let the horror begin. Paul Verhoeven’s new film, Elle, is an outrageous black comedy, volatile and deadly … utterly gripping and endlessly disturbing.”

Expect controversy. The LA Times writes “Its politically incorrect portrayal of a rape victim is sure to prompt critical essays and set Activist Twitter ablaze.”

It is the French entry for the Best Foreign Language film for the Academy Awards.

It may seem we’ve seen every possible variation on the adult coloring book, including the weird offshoot, “relaxing” swear word coloring books.

But trust Chuck Palahniuk, the iconoclastic author of Fight Club, to bring a new twist to the genre, as reported by The Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required).

Bait: Off-Color Stories for You to Color by Chuck Palahniuk, illustrated by Duncan Fegredo, Lee Bermejo, and Joelle Jones (PRH/Dark Horse Books) is not a full coloring book but rather a series of eight short stories along with multiple illustrations that readers can color at will.

Palahniuk tells the paper that the idea grew out of his work on the Flight Club 2 comic book:

“I would go to the artists and suggest what I thought they could do with an image, and they would counter with an even more outrageous image … And I would go with an even more outrageous image, and we would have this back-and-forth race to the bottom until we agreed on a scandalous image that neither of us would have proposed in the first place.”

He hopes the coloring opportunity will appeal to his fan base, saying “So many of the readers I interact with are creative people themselves … I thought this would be a great way for them to participate in the project.”

Palahniuk enjoyed making Bait, telling the paper “I would love to do another coloring book every year for the rest of my life.”

He also says he has “most of Fight Club 3 written … [and] a graphic novel based on what would be the third book following the first two I’ve done about a dead little girl named Madison Spencer (Damned and Doomed). This would complete that story and it would kind of start a new franchise, but in graphic form.”

The stories in Bait he says are “about misplaced nurturance … They’re all about someone trying to save someone else, trying to rescue someone else, but in doing so, kind of destroying this person.”

As we noted in a recent Titles to Know and Recommend post, fans of the hit TV show Mr. Robot can experience the story in print via MR. ROBOT: Red Wheelbarrow by Sam Esmail and Courtney Looney (Abrams; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The Wall Street Journal reports on the new title and interviews one of the authors (subscription may be required), writing:

“For a show immersed in the digital world – it’s about a massive hack – the book is a unique analog piece of the puzzle and features Elliot narrating throughout, as well as asides from the character ‘Hot Carla.’ Also included are little artifacts like newspaper clippings, a church group pamphlet, and an empty cigarette pack with notes jotted on it. For Mr. Robot fans, who look for meaning in everything, these new, tangible nuggets will give clues to the story as well as dive into the feelings of loneliness and isolation that the season explored.”

Esmail tells the paper the book spans the gap between seasons 1 and 2, offering “the unfiltered world through Elliot’s eyes that you won’t get from the show … I wanted to create this next-level engagement where you can also learn things about the story if you dig a little deeper … The great thing about it is, that’s up to the audience to engage in.”

IndieWire warns fans who have not finished watching season 2 to stay away as “pretty much right from the beginning, one of Season 2’s biggest twists is spoiled, and there’s enough overlap with the rest of the season to warrant not reading it until after you’re all caught up with the series.”

Entertainment Weekly offers some illustrated sample pages.

Filming has begun for Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of the beloved Newbery Medal-winning novel, A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle.

The LA Times reports that DuVernay tweeted out the news:

A behind the scenes look from the first day of production on #WrinkleinTime with director @AVAETC! pic.twitter.com/0JNxVUQxj8

— A Wrinkle In Time (@WrinkleInTime) November 3, 2016

ACTION. #WrinkleInTime pic.twitter.com/90JBOmDLCj

— Wrinkle In Time (@WrinkleInTime) November 3, 2016

That's a wrap for Week One of #WRINKLEINTIME! Incredible crew. Scarily talented cast. A magical time. Thanks to all! #TeamWrinkle pic.twitter.com/YZCGfdL0nd

— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) November 5, 2016

She also tweeted that Scandal star Bellamy Young has joined the cast.

Happy to reunite with my SCANDAL screen siren @BellamyYoung as she joins the cast family of #WRINKLEINTIME. Welcome, Bellamy! pic.twitter.com/1Na5MINE5Z

— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) November 1, 2016

Deadline Hollywood recently reported that Michael Peña (The Martian), Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover), Chris Pine (Star Trek), André Holland (Selma), and Levi Miller (Pan) will also be in the movie.

As we have written previously, Entertainment Weekly notes the film makes “DuVernay the first woman of color to direct a live-action movie with a budget of more than $100 million.” The Hollywood Reporter writes that “DuVernay is hoping to break ground with the movie, making a big tentpole with a cast that is multicultural.”

The film is expected in 2018.

Why the Wheel Is Round: Muscles, Technology, and How We Make Things Move, Steven Vogel (University of Chicago Press) is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings, reaching a high position for a university press science book. It is currently ranked #228, up from #1,227.

The big jump coincides with a glowing review in The Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required) that says Vogel’s posthumous last book (he died in 2015), is “wonderful … in the literal sense of the word, full of wonders of nature, human invention, history and the sheer joy of looking at the world through the eyes of a keen—and amiable—scientific observer.”

Reviewer Stephen Budiansky, author of Code Warriors: NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union, continues, calling the work “intriguing, insightful and revealing … [a] marvelous and frequently entertaining exploration of the science of everyday things, illuminating why many of the things (both living and man-made) that we take for granted are the way they are.”

While none of the libraries we checked have yet ordered Vogel’s newest (it appears that there were no pre-pub reviews), interest in his other works mentioned in the article, The Life of a Leaf (University of Chicago Press, 2013) and Cats’ Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People (Norton, 2000; OverDrive Sample), is clear. As an example, in one library we checked, every copy of The Life of a Leaf is either currently checked out or on hold.

It seems each week leading up to the big gift-giving season is dedicated to one big-name author. This week, it’s Lee Child for Night School, picked by both LibraryReads and Indie Next (see below under “Peer Picks”). As a testament to his status, Janet Maslin steps out of semi-retirement to assess it in the context of the 20 titles that have come before it for the daily New York Times. This new title shakes things up by reaching back in time to when Reacher was a mere lad of 30. Good thing, says Maslin, because his previous title, Make Me, “wandered so far down into the dark web that an about-face was clearly needed.” Maslin appreciates this return to an old-fashioned spy story.

This Was a Man, Jeffrey Archer (Macmillan/St. Martins; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). Archer finishes out his popular Clifton Chronicles with this, the 7th volume in the series, which brings the family into the Thatcher era.

Well-known YA author Stephenie Meyer publishes an adult spy novel, The Chemist (Hachette/Little, Brown and Company; Hachette Audio). Announcing it in a press release this summer, she said it “is the love child created from the union of my romantic sensibilities and my obsession with Jason Bourne/Aaron Cross. I very much enjoyed spending time with a different kind of action hero, one whose primary weapon isn’t a gun or a knife or bulging muscles, but rather her brain.”

Another Meyer, Marissa, writes her first stand-alone YA novel since her very popular Lunar Chronicles series, Heartless (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), a prequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, about the Queen of Hearts. She talks about the catalysts for the  book in a recent interview. It has a moody trailer:

The titles highlighted here, along with many other notable titles arriving this week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Nov. 7, 2016.

Award Contender

The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, David Sax (PublicAffairs; OverDrive Sample).

On the Carnegie Medal Longlist, this book explores the current vogue for older technologies (it’s not nostalgia, it’s passion). It’s not surprising that this speaks to librarians who have been forced to live with multiple technologies as they fade in and out of fashion. Booklist, which is one of the sources of titles for the Carnegie list, starred it, saying “Here is a compulsively readable book after a Luddite’s heart.”

Peer Picks

Two LibraryRead selections hit shelves this week.

Orphans of the Carnival, Carol Birch (PRH/Doubleday; OverDrive Sample).

“Julia is an accomplished young woman who can sing, dance, ride horseback and speak three languages. Unfortunately for her, most people can’t get past what they see because Julia’s face is covered with thick hair, giving her an apelike appearance. Orphaned as a small child but raised in a wealthy household, Julia decides to travel the world as a carnival performer. This beautifully written work of historical fiction allows readers to consider what it means to be “other,” to always be on the outside looking in.” — Vicki Nesting, St. Charles Parish Library, Destrehan, LA

Additional Buzz: It is also a November Indie Next selection. Nancy Pearl highlights it in a recent KUOW book talk, saying it is “magnificent but not an easy read” due to the topic. PopSugar list it as one of “21 Fiction Reads to Check Out This Fall” writing, it “will leave a mark on your heart.” The Guardian is not as receptive, saying “although Birch writes beautifully and creates some wonderful moments, the narrative never quite takes off.”

Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel, Lee Child (PRH/Delacorte Press; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Child goes back to the well and gives readers another glimpse into Jack Reacher’s past as a military cop — and what a worthwhile trip it is. It’s 1996 — after Reacher receives a Legion of Merit medal, he’s sent to “Night School” with two other men, one from the FBI and another from the CIA. Soon the trio learns that they’ve been selected for a covert mission. Child layers his page-turning story with careful and sometimes dryly humorous details. This suspense series keeps getting better — it’s a joy to read.” — Elizabeth Eastin, Rogers Memorial Library, Southampton, NY

Additional Buzz: It is an Indie Next pick for November and a Fall Reading choice by the Amazon Editor’s, Entertainment Weekly, and USA Today. Charles Finch includes it in his round up of “Six New Thrillers for Fall” in the NYT, calling the series “a little silly, and completely addictive” and praising Child for his “clean, hard and fast” writing. Unfortunately, Finch feels that this 21st outing “stumbles” about a third of the way in.

Tie-ins

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

The second look at the next comic film adaptation from DC, Wonder Woman, has just been released.

Fans first saw this version of the Amazon princess in Batman v Superman, followed by the Comic-Con trailer in July.

SlashFilm offers a frame-by-frame breakdown of the new trailer, pointing out that the dual-time period movie will tie “into the large DC movie universe and further push us toward [the upcoming film] Justice League.”

Gal Gadot (Fast & Furious franchise) stars while Star Trek‘s Chris Pine co-starts as her romantic interest and ally. Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, Lucy Davis, and Danny Huston round out the cast.

The film premieres on June 2, 2017. Tie-ins have yet to be announced.

The Cat From Hunger Mountain

Written and illustrated by Ed Young, Philomel Books.

The Dead Bird

By Margaret Wise Brown. Illustrated by Christian Robinson. Harper/HarperCollins

Freedom in Congo Square

By Carole Boston Weatherford. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, S&S/Little Bee Books

Little Red

Written and illustrated by Bethan Woollvin, Peachtree Publishers

polar-bear

Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis

By Jabari Asim. Illustrated by E. B. Lewis. PRH/Nancy Paulsen Books

The Princess and The Warrior

Written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh. Abrams

The Tree in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank’s Window

By Jeff Gottesfeld. Illustrated by Peter McCarty, PRH/Knopf Books for Young Readers

A Voyage in the Clouds

By Matthew Olshan. Illustrated by Sophie Blackall, Macmillan/Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR

The White Cat and the Monk

By Jo Ellen Bogart. Illustrated by Sydney Smith, Groundwood Books

The influential list has been issued since 1952 and evaluates titles “purely on artistic merit.” As always, the jury includes a librarian. This year, that spot is filled by Cheryl Wolf who works at both the Neighborhood School and S.T.A.R. Academy in NYC.

The ten selections are listed below (and, for ordering purposes, on our downloadable spreadsheet, NYT Best Illus., 2016) :

The Cat From Hunger Mountain, Ed Young (PRH/Philomel Books; OverDrive Sample)

The Dead Bird, Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Christian Robinson (HarperCollins)

Freedom in Congo Square, Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (S&S/little bee books)

Little Red, Bethan Woollvin (Peachtree Publishers)

The Polar Bear, Jenni Desmond (Enchanted Lion Books

Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis, Jabari Asim, illustrated by E. B. Lewis (PRH/Nancy Paulsen Books)

The Princess and the Warrior: A Tale of Two Volcanoes, Duncan Tonatiuh (Abrams; OverDrive Sample)

The Tree in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank’s Window, Jeff Gottesfeld, illustrated by Peter McCarty (PRH/Knopf Books for Young Readers; OverDrive Sample)

A Voyage in the Clouds: The (Mostly) True Story of the First International Flight by Balloon in 1785, Matthew Olshan, illustrated by Sophie Blackall (Macmillan /Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR; OverDrive Sample)

The White Cat and the Monk: A Retelling of the Poem “Pangur Bán,” Jo Ellen Bogart, illustrated by Sydney Smith (Perseus/PGW/Legato/Groundwood Books)

The first US author ever to win the Man Booker Prize, Paul Beatty, is seeing a strong uptick in sales as a result. We have already reported that The Sellout (Macmillan/FSG; OverDrive Sample) jumped on Amazon‘s sales rankings, and now it hits the USA Today Best-Selling Books list at #12, its first time on the list.

This is the first time any of Beatty’s books have hit the USA Today list. Before the Man Booker, The Sellout appeared on the IndieBound best seller list, with a high of #19. It was also briefly on the L.A. Times list, where it started off strong but soon dropped.

Another new face to the USA Today list, at least in the top ten, is Brent Weeks who is holding the #10 spot with The Blood Mirror (Hachette/Orbit; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), the fourth in his Lightbringer series. Weeks has been on the list before, his previous high was #26, for The Broken Eye (book three in that same series).

Regardless of what happens on election day, several people are set to win big book contracts.

The Wall Street Journal reports that everyone from Vice President Joe Biden to Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway have the opportunity to write books for large payouts (subscription maybe required).

Of course, the big prize authors are the President and First Lady.

The President has already proven his writing chops with The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream and Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (both from PHR/Crown). He still has one book left under his contract with Crown. WSJ reports it is “not clear” whether that third book will be his hotly anticipated presidential memoir and the publisher declined to comment.

That leaves open the slim possibility of a bidding war for the Presidential memoir. Based on Obama’s previous efforts, it is likely to be a more interesting book than any that have come before, just as his pre-election Dreams from My Father was not a typical candidate biography.

One editor told the paper “This is a book that will be read in 100 years.”

Bidding wars will have to wait until his term has concluded however, and others, such as Conway, have their hands full until after the election.

In the meantime, a new book by Bernie Sanders comes out on Nov. 15, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In (Macmillan/Thomas Dunne) and Former Attorney General Eric Holder has already sold a book project, Pursuing Justice, for seven figures to PRH/One World.

Diana Gabaldon is talking about the inevitable, the end of the Outlander series. As reported by Entertainment Weekly, she plans to conclude the series with book ten.

Eight books have been published. Book nine, not yet scheduled for publication, has the working title. Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone.

Gabaldon told fans at the EW PopFest that she already knew the ending of the last book, however, an explanation of the famous ghost scene in the first novel in which Frank, Claire’s husband, sees the ghost of Jamie staring up at their window.

“It’ll be the very last thing in the last book, which I think is probably book 10,” says Gabaldon.

That could be some time from now. It took the author five years to finish the current title after book seven hit shelves in 2009 and she has not turned a book around in less than two years since 1994.

On her website she tells readers, “An official publication date for this new book has not been announced. In other words: No, I don’t know yet when I will finish Book Nine of the OUTLANDER series! I am working on it now, and don’t even have a ballpark date.”

Fans may want to temper their expectations about the series length as well. Gabaldon is far from definitive about her plans and has said different things at different times.

Currently on her website she tells readers:

“There’s at least one more. I’ve never been willing to commit to more than one at a time, because I just don’t know — I don’t plan the books out ahead of time. So I have no idea how much ground we’ll cover in each book. But there is certainly one more book, because I wasn’t finished telling the story at the end of book eight.”

For those who need consolation reading while they wait, Gabaldon sometimes posts working excerpts from book nine.

Even before Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in theaters on Nov. 18, Deadline is reporting that Johnny Deep will star alongside Eddie Redmayne in the upcoming sequel.

There is no word yet on his role, but Deadline says that it might be revealed via a Depp cameo in the first film.

Also making news, J.K. Rowling, who is the screenwriter for the film and serving as one of the producers, announced earlier in the month that there will be five films in the franchise. As we had noted earlier, the original plan was to create a trilogy: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2 (2018) and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 3 (2020).

The screenplay of the first film will be published on Nov. 19, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay, JK Rowling (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books).

The final trailer for the film is also available:

After “spirited bidding,” Variety reports that AMC bought the rights to the TV adaption of Dietland by Sarai Walker (HMH; Highbridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Marti Noxon will head the project. She is the co-creator of UnREAL and has worked on hits such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Mad Men says Den of Geek.

The show, “envisoned as a mix of character drama and revenge fantasy with a feminist perspective,”is expected to skip the pilot stage and go directly to series next year, according to Variety.

Walker’s debut novel, an Indie Next pick, made a number of end of year best lists in 2015.

Entertainment Weekly gave it an A, writing “If Amy Schumer turned her subversive feminist sketches into a novel, dark on the inside but coated with a glossy, palatable sheen, it would probably look a lot like Dietland—a thrilling, incendiary manifesto disguised as a beach read.”

The author of the children’s classic Tuck Everlasting (Macmillan/Square Fish) has died from lung cancer. Natalie Babbitt was 84 years old.

In addition to Tuck, which as been adapted into films and a Broadway play, Babbitt is also known for the Newbery Honor book Kneeknock Rise and the National Book Award finalist The Devil’s Storybook (both from (Macmillan/Square Fish). Five of her books have been named ALA Notable Children’s Books.

Her other honors include the inaugural E.B. White Award for achievement in children’s literature and being the U.S. nominee for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award.

Bustle reports that Tuck, which marked its 40th anniversary in 2015, has sold over 3.5 million copies since publication and has never been out of print.

Her most recent published  book was The Moon Over High Street (Scholastic/Michael di Capua Books, 2011).