Stars Shailene Woodley and Theo James kicked off the marketing campaign for Divergent, which arrives in theaters on March 21, by introducing the movie’s second and final trailer on Jimmy Kimmel Live Monday night. Tie-ins in hardcover and paperback, (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen), release next week.

Woodley, considered to be “on the verge of genuine stardom,” can also be seen in the recently released trailers for The Fault in Our Stars, coming in June, and for White Bird in a Blizzard, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as in last year’s The Spectacular Now, recently released on DVD.

All four movies are based on books (White Bird in a Blizzard by Laura Kasischke, was published by Hyperion in 1999).

The media has been giving attention to the books that are about to become movies, from Oprah.com, to CNN, to the Today Show, which featured BuzzFeed’s 16 Books to read before their films open, a story that got over a million hits before the show.

You can also capitalize on the interest — use our lists of  books to movies in various states of production, Upcoming, In Production or those that are  still In Development to create real and virtual displays. Also don’t forget the highly anticipated TV shows based on books, such as Outlander, The Leftovers, Olive Kitteridge and The Strain.

Below are the titles that are getting media attention. Links are to trailers (after all, it is your professional duty to watch them) or to their listing on IMDB:

Labor Day, Joyce Maynard — in theaters now — CNN; Oprah.com

The Monuments Men, Robert M. Edsel, 2/7/14  — Today Show; Oprah.com

Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead, 2/7/14 — CNN

In Secret, 2/21/14, based on Thérèse Raquin, Émile Zola —  Oprah.com

Endless Love, Scott Spencer, 2/14/14 —  Oprah.com

Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin, 2/14/14 — CNN; Oprah.com

(more…)

Fans of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show know how often he has mined the ongoing story of  the man he calls “Toronto’s crack mayor,” Rob Ford.

So naturally, he’ll compare notes tomorrow night with Toronto Star‘s city hall reporter Robyn Doolittle, whose book, Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story (Penguin) is being released today.

The book wasn’t reviewed pre-pub, so many U.S. libraries have not ordered it. In Toronto, libraries have been “flooded with requests.” For those who can’t get their hands on it, Toronto Life offers “Seven crazy things we learned from Crazy Town” and the book  has brought strong denials from Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother.

UPDATE — As expected, Stewart had fun with this interview. He even extended it to three parts. Below is part one:

Holds continue to rise on Jennifer Senior’s All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood  (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperAudio), spurred by the author’s appearance on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report (video below) as well as NPR’s Fresh Air. The book has also jumped from #24 on Amazon’s sales rankings to #4.

Still to come; an interview with the author is scheduled for Feb. 27 on Good Morning America.

Several years after it was first announced, a TV series based on Neil Gaiman’s award-winning novel, American Gods, (HarperCollins) may be moving forward. Originally set as an HBO series to be produced by Tom Hanks’ Playtone company, the rights have just been picked up by FremantleMedia. On his blog, Gaiman says, “As to where you will be able to see it, who is going to be in it, who will be writing or show-running, none of these things have yet been settled. But it already looks like it’s going to be a smoother run developing it than it had at HBO, so I am very pleased.”

Gaiman also announces that a separate project, based on the American Gods followup, Anansi Boys (HarperCollins), is set to be made into a TV miniseries in the UK for the BBC.

There is also movement on another title in the “long awaited Gaiman adaptations” category. Last month, it was announced that a film version of the Sandman graphic novel series (Vertigo) will be directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who may also star. In an interview, however, Levitt warns it is still “Very, very early days.”

Last year, it was announced that Ron Howard had signed on to direct The Graveyard Book as had Joe Wright for an adaptation of Gaiman’s adult novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Howard is currently filming another adaptation, Heart of the Sea, based on Nathaniel Philbrick‘s In The Heart of the Sea, scheduled for release on March 13, 2015. Wright is in pre-productionan on Pan, a original prequel to Peter Pan, with Hugh Jackman starring as Blackbeard, now set for release in July, 2015

Back in 2008, when book trailers were in their infancy, the paperback of Kelly Corrigan’s first book, The Middle Place, soared as a simple video of her reading from it made its way around the Internet.

Corrigan’s third book Glitter and Glue, (RH/Ballantine, out today), comes with another equally affecting video of Corrigan doing a simple reading. Now that  book trailers are often indistinguishable from movie trailers,  with some even including well-known actors, it is particularly refreshing.

The book is now rising on Amazon. The audio version (RH Audio)  is, of course, read by the author.

A spot on yesterday’s CBS Evening News sent the debut middle-grade title, releasing today,  Just Jake (Penguin/Grosset & Dunlap) rising on Amazon’s sales rankings (it is now at #40). The hook? Author, Jake Marcionette, is just 13.

Prepub reviews are considerate of the author’s age. SLJ notes, “At times, Jake’s arrogance can be overwhelming, but readers will see through it and realize it is simply a yearning to be accepted” and PW, “Jake’s youthful exuberance shines through and keeps the story speeding ahead.”  Kirkus is a bit harsher, suggesting that “The novel would have benefited had Jake spent a little less time on his own awesomeness … It’s an eye-catching read without a whole lot of depth.”

Several libraries we checked have not ordered it; those that did ordered in modest quantities.

In the video of the segment, below, Jake says he is at work on a sequel:

Rising on Amazon’s sales rankings (currently at #24) is All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior (HarperCollins/Ecco), which was featured on the cover of Sunday’s NYT Book Review.

Reviewer Andrew Solomon, whose most recent book Far From the Tree, is also about parenthood, says this “trenchant and engrossing” book inspired him “to think differently about my own experience as a parent.”

When Senior published an essay, also called All Joy and No Fun in New York magazine in 2010, it caused a furor (which may have been generated by the subtitle,”Why parents hate parenting”). So far, reactions to the book have been positive and remarkably personal; Slate’s reviewer even comed close to saying it made her rethink her own decision to not have children.

Senior has several media appearances coming up — NPR’s Fresh Air on Tuesday, Comedy Central’s Colbert Report tonight and ABC’s Good Morning America, scheduled to Feb. 27.

Library holds are heavy where ordering is light.

As  book people know, it’s important tune in to major cultural events to see what book information they may convey.

What did yesterday’s Superbowl broadcast tell us about forthcoming books?

Unsurprisingly, books got scant attention on the field, so we had to turn to the commercials. At $4 million per 30-second spot, we didn’t expect an actual book ad, but there were a few for book adaptations, including the usual comics-based movie teaser; this time for two Marvel productions, Captain America: Winder Solder, coming April 4th, and  Amazing Spider-Man 2, which releases on May 2nd. Several children’s tie-ins are coming for each, which are listed on our Upcoming Movies Based on Book, with Tie-ins.

Also featured, a trailer for the already heavily-promoted FX TV series based on Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s vampire trilogy, The Strain, (HarperCollins/Morrow, 2009). This one has already appeared on the Web, so no surprises. The moody trailer seems to have mystified some and it still only gives “Summer” as the release date.

We did learn that Fox, in partnership with National Geographic, is putting marketing bucks behind their reboot of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, hosted by the world’s best-known astrophysicist, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, with the tagline, “14 billions years in 13 episodes.” It begins airing on March 9.

Tie-in:

Cosmos by Carl Sagan, Foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson

RH/Ballantine
December 10, 2013

9780345539434, 0345539435 $15.00

The star of several films based on books, actor Philip Symour Hoffman was found dead in his apartment yesterday,

His received strong reviews for his portrayal of a German spy in A Most Wanted Man, based on the 2008 novel by John LeCarre, which was shown at the recent Sundance Film Festival.

His most amazing transformation was as the author Truman Capote, in the film Capote, for which he won an Oscar. One of our favorites was his supporting role as the conniving Freddie Miles in The Talented Mr. Ripley (based on the book by Patricia Highsmith). He recently shot scenes in Atlanta for the the two upcoming Mockingjay movies, in which he plays Plutarch Heavensbee (news sources say this will not cause a delay. Hoffman’s scenes for Part One are said to have been completed, but there is no information on how the studio will handle Part Two).

There’s no exact U.S. release date yet for A Most Wanted Man but it is expected later this year.

The 2014 RUSA Notables include several titles that have already received wide recognition, such as Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. Curiously, a few award winners did not make the cut, such as James McBride’s National Book Award winner, The Good Lord Bird.

More interesting are the titles that haven’t appeared on other best books lists:

Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See by Juliann Garey (Soho Press; released in trade pbk in Nov,)

Award Annotation: “The fragmented and unsettling perspective of a man grappling with mental illness.”

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma (Penguin/Viking; trade pbk. coming Feb, 25)

Award Annotation: “Around the world with a charmingly unreliable narrator in this coming-of-age tale.”

Note: This was featured in our Penguin First Flights Debut Author Program  — view a transcript of our live online chat with the author here.

Year Zero: A History of 1945 by Ian Baruma (Penguin)

Award Annotation: “A fresh look at the aftermath of World War II challenges the traditional, heroic narrative.”

Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit (Penguin/Viking; trade pbk. coming in April)

“Apricots and Alzheimer’s come together in a meditation on how lives are created and sustained through story.”

RUSA also handed out awards for genre fiction, in the 2014 Reading List and for audio, in the 2014 Listen List.

“For fans of  Downton Abbey” has become one of the most used phrases in promotional copy. As the NYT Book Review asks,

Is it possible nowadays for otherwise intelligent Americans to reflect on England without thinking first of Downton Abbey? To put it another way: Can beleaguered American publishers expect to sell any English author without promising — however absurdly — a tie-in with Julian Fellowes’s opulent confection?

That’s the opening line for the review of the original trade paperback, The Secret Rooms, (Penguin; Thorndike) which goes on to say, “in the case of Catherine Bailey’s stylish new book about one of England’s grandest dynasties, the link proves apt.”

The book, a December LibraryReads pick, was also also featured in the Daily Candy (although with the British cover), which, of course,  made the requisite reference, “If you add a dash of the macabre and a hefty serving of intrigue to Downton Abbey, you get Catherine Bailey’s latest, a true story about a creepy castle and a duke whose private space was sealed in 1940 and reopened only in 1999.”

We hear it will appear at #20 on the upcoming NYT Paperback Nonfiction best seller list.

Thanks to all of  you have asked for a children’s and YA version of our popular Penguin First Flights program, we are  delighted to announce the launch of the Penguin Young Readers Author Program— an opportunity to be part of the launch of major new YA and middle grade titles.

Sign up to automatically receive advance readers copies (in print or via NetGalley) of new titles.

A few weeks later, you will be invited to an exclusive live online chat with the author, led by EarlyWord Kids Correspondent, Lisa Von Drasek.

The first title in the program is Space Rocks!, a middle grade title by comedy writer Tom O’Donnell. Kirkus is the first to review it, saying the main character is “charming and [the book’s] alien perspective on the human invaders and the ensuing culture clash never falters.”

The second title in the program is Nightingale’s Nest, by Nikki Loftin, the author of The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy.

Many thanks to our sponsor, Penguin Young Readers. Sign up here.

Photos from the set of the BBC production of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, based on Susanna Clarke’s 2004 best seller, are available via The Daily Mail.

The 7-part series, which Time magazine’s critic calls “Possibly my most-anticipated new TV show of the year” will air in the U.S. on BBC America, but no dates have been announced.

In its day, the book was also eagerly anticipated, as Michael Dirda’s Washington Post review makes clear. Although Clarke said in a 2004 interview that she plans to continue the story, the only book she has published since is a collection of short stories, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, (Macmillan/Bloomsbury, 2006).

The book is still in print. Media tie-in editions have not yet been announced.

A sneak peek of the trailer legions have been waiting for aired yesterday on The Today Show (the full trailer is below).

Thanks to the snow in many parts of the country, lots of kids got to see it. For those in school, some sympathetic teachers let them watch.

The original tagline, “One Sick Love Story” was controversial. It seems the producers are now going with the far less interesting, “Bring on the Feelies.”

The movie opens June 6.