Kansas City librarians used the lack of a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as an opportunity to create the “Publitzer Prize for Fiction” (the play on the name indicates that the public chooses this prize).

Library Director Crosby Kemper III explains:

The three nominees were announced yesterday. The winner will be announced tomorrow.

Take that, Pulitzer Board!

What has your library done to combat the mistaken impression that this was a lousy year for fiction? Let us know in the comments section.

As we head toward Mother’s Day, a book about a decidedly non-Hallmark-card mother/daughter relationship, Alison Bechdel’s new graphic novel, Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama, is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings (currently at #29) in advance of its publication tomorrow.

It received an impassioned review in this week’s NYT BR and the author is interviewed in The Barnes and Noble Review/Salon.

Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama Alison Bechdel Retail Price: $22.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – (2012-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 0618982507 / 9780618982509

It can be trying for an author, after laboring months over a book in relative solitude, to suddenly face the glare of the book promotion spotlight. For the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, (RH/Crown; RHAudio; OverDrive ebook and audio; Center Point Large Print), the book tour took on an extra element of irony.

As Susan Cain writes in an essay in this week’s NYTBR,  her conversion to “that impossibly oxymoronic creature: the Public Introvert” required her to do “the very thing my book questions: putting down my pen and picking up a microphone.”

She writes about preparing for her most terrifying assignment; a speech for the TED conference.

She clearly succeeded; libraries continue to show heavy holds on her book, which after 11 weeks on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list, just moved to the extended list at #16 (it’s at #7 on the current Indie list, after 13 weeks).

After setting box office records for the Norwegian film industry, Headhunters, based on Jo Nesbo’s stand-alone thriller, opened this weekend in New York and Los Angeles and will expand to more theaters through May.

It was reviewed widely, receiving generally strong critical response, with the exception of the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal critic went so far as to put it on his “short list of the most enjoyable movies in recent memory.”

And, yes, following in the footsteps of movies based on Stieg Larsson’s books, an American version is in the works. Last October, it was announced that Summit had acquired the rights. Mark Wahlberg  recently gave the production a push. He was so impressed with the Norwegian film that he says he “pleaded with the studio that has the rights” to make an English-language version.

Official Movie Site: MagPictures.com/Headhunters

Headhunters (Movie Tie-In Edition) Jo Nesbo Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: RH/Vintage – (2012-04-17) ISBN / EAN: 0345803477 / 9780345803474

Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese has been attached to direct a film based on the seventh book in Nesbo’s Harry Hole series, The Snowman. It’s one of many projects the director has in the works, so it’s anyone’s guess which will make it to the screen first.

We generally hate book trailers that try to come across like cheap imitations of their movie counterparts. This one seems to fall into that trap, but a clever twist rescues it.

It’s for The Family Corleone by Ed Falco, a prequel to The Godfather.

Author Web Site: EdFalco.us

Libraries are showing a few holds on light ordering at this point.

The Family Corleone Ed Falco Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 448 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2012-05-08) ISBN / EAN: 0446574627 / 9780446574624

Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print

The nominees for the Edgars in the Best Fact Crime category demonstrate how much the category of narrative nonfiction has grown in the last few years. Fact Crime, once dominated by lurid tales of bloody murders, now features books that look at history through the lens of crime. A prime example is the winner, announced last night, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (RH/Doubleday; Thorndike large print). It is also a 2011 ALA Notable Book and was included on many of the year’s best books lists. Most libraries are still showing holds, despite heavy buying.

The winner in the Best Novel category is Mo Hayder, for the fifth book in her Jack Caffery series, Gone, now available in trade paperback.

Grove/Atlantic is in the process of publishing this British author’s books in trade paperback in the U.S. The first in the series, Birdman (9780802146120), will be published in May (also in audio by Dreamscape). The second, The Treatment (9780802146137; Dreamscape audio) is coming in July. Downloadable audio available on OverDrive.

Author Web site: MoHayder.net

Gone Mo Hayder Retail Price: $14.00 Paperback: 416 pages Publisher: Grove Press – (2012-02-14) ISBN / EAN: 0802145701 / 9780802145703

The full list of nominees and winners is here.

Jennifer Lawrence, star of The Hunger Games, is in talks to play the lead in the movie version of Jeannette Wells’ The Glass Castle,(S&S/Scribner), a best seller ever since it was published in 2005.

Lawrence begins shooting Catching Fire in September.

Popular internet personality “The Bloggess,” is now an old-media hit.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson (Penguin/Einhorn; Penguin Audio), arrives on the Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller list at #4 (and #17 on the USA Today list).

You can expect to see it in a high spot on the upcoming NYT list (the author spills the beans on her own site, so why shouldn’t we? It arrives at #1 on the Combined Print & E-Book list and at #2 on the Print Nonfiction list).

Over  to you, taxidermied mouse:

Here’s a great premise: “What if Darth Vader had a 4-year-old?” How would he handle potty time or bedtime stories? That’s the basis for Jeffrey Brown’s graphic novel  Darth Vader and Son (Chronicle), which debuts at #10 on the Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list this week.

The author was recently interviewed in the L.A. Times and USA Today’s PopCandy blog said, “Something tells me Brown’s latest effort, Darth Vader and Son is going to be quite a hit.”

A few libraries own it in small quantities.

Darth Vader and Son (Star Wars (Chronicle)) Jeffrey Brown Retail Price: $14.95 Hardcover: 64 pages Publisher: Chronicle Books – (2012-04-18) ISBN / EAN: 145210655X / 9781452106557

When Stephen Colbert interviewed Maurice Sendak in late February, he threatened to write his own kids book, I Am a Pole (And So Can You!). After he outlined the idea, Sendak proclaimed, “The sad thing is, I like it!” Colbert immediately pounced on that quote for his blurb.

And, so it came to pass:

I Am A Pole (And So Can You!) Stephen Colbert Retail Price: $15.99 Hardcover: 32 pages Publisher: Hachette/Grand Central – (2012-05-08) ISBN / EAN: 1455523429 / 9781455523429

Amazingly, the book is also going to be available in audio (Hachette Audio).

Colbert’s description of the book begins at the 3:13 time mark in the video below (but how can you not watch the entire thing?).

True to Colbert’s prediction (and Sendak’s irritation) it will also be an eBook, but Hachette no longer sells their eBooks to libraries.

The book’s “popular illustrator with a horrible sense of design” is not named.

NPR’s Fresh Air featured the novels of the “absurdist noir” Ukrainian writer, Andrey Kurkov yesterday, calling him the “most sheerly enjoyable of the new Russian authors” and his books, “short, sly page-turners.” Although the author is little-known in the US, he is “already a cult writer in Europe.” His works have not been available in the US until Melville House recently began publishing them under their International Crime imprint (Brooklyn-based Melville House got its own sly reference in the 4/15 premiere of HBO’s new series, The Girls).

The most recent title released here is The Case of the General’s Thumb, (reviewed in Shelf Awareness),”a sardonically amusing romp that’s well worth reading,” but the reviewer suggests starting with Kurkov’s 1996 novel Death and the Penguin. The book nearly cracked the Amazon  Top 100 list as a result, rising to #108 (from #479,549).

Excerpts are available on the book’s title pages on the Melville House site.

All the Melville House  editions of Kurkov’s book are available as eBooks via OverDrive.

Death and the Penguin (Melville International Crime) Andrey Kurkov Retail Price: $10.99 Paperback: 242 pages Publisher: Melville International Crime – (2011-06-07) ISBN: 9781935554554

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The Case of the General’s Thumb (Melville International Crime) Andrey Kurkov Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 194 pages Publisher: Melville International Crime – (2012-02-21) ISBN: 9781612190600

Melville House offers a simple but frightening book trailer for Penguin Lost, the sequel to Death and the Penguin (both books feature a penguin that the main character adopts when the local zoo can no longer afford to keep it).

Not that there was any real concern after Gary Ross bowed out of directing Catching Fire, the sequel to his hugely successful Hunger Games, but the announcement that an offer has been made, brought some sighs of relief. Without a director, the release date, Nov. 23, 2013, is now looming.

After much speculation, the candidates have been narrowed down to Francis Lawrence, who directed I Am Legend and Water for Elephants. He hasn’t officially signed on yet, so there’s the outside possibility that could change. Fans are excited by the choice and Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson has signaled his approval.

Thanks to all of you who are going out tonight to “Spread the Love of Reading, Person to Person” as you give out books to surprised (and delighted) strangers on World Book Night.

Share your stories by @ tagging World Book Night USA in your Facebook posts (organizer Carl Lennertz begs you not to email your photos; it will crash the mailbox). On Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr, use the hashtag #wbnamerica. We’re already seeing some great stories and photos on the WBN Facebook page.

USA Today ran an inspiring feature on the program today. An Associated Press story also appears in many newspapers across the country.

Book giveaways are also going on in the UK, Germany and Ireland (it may not be an actual worldwide event yet, but it’s more so than the World Series).

Have fun everyone, and be safe out there.

If you missed out this year, sign up here to be involved in the program next year.

Critics said it comes across more like an infomercial for the book than a movie, but Think Like a Man managed to knock The Hunger Games off the top spot on box office charts this weekend.

The subject of the infomercial part is, of course, Steve Harvey’s best seller, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man (HarperCollins/Amistad). The source material hasn’t toppled the Hunger Games book trilogy, but it does appear immediately below that series, at #7 on Amazon’s best seller list (a certain other trilogy, as yet not made into a movie, holds the top three positions). The tie-in edition is further down the list, at #635.

One of our earlier New Title Radar Watch List titles gets the lead review in Marilyn Stasio’s NYT mystery column this week. Stasio calls Mark Allen Smith’s The Inquisitor, (Macmillan/ Holt; Macmillan Audio) a “weird but transfixing first novel.” The main character, Geiger, is a professional torturer, who is transformed into a sympathetic character when he has to care for a young boy. He doesn’t give up torturing, however. Says Stasio, “The curious result is something like an X-rated Disney movie — extremely graphic scenes of physical violence and mental suffering embedded in a rather sweet adventure story about a damaged man who heals himself by saving a child from a similar fate.”

The burst on the cover is a blurb from Nelson DeMille, “This is one of the best and most engrossing debut novels I’ve read in years.”

On his Web site, the author notes that he is working on a second novel featuring Geiger. An excerpt is also available on the site.

Library ordering was generally light (except for one system that ordered over 70 copies for their 20+ branches; all are turning over rapidly) and most libraries are showing holds.