The trailer for the movie of the book that many experts considered unfilmable, David Mitchell’s 2004 Booker Prize finalist, Cloud Atlas, has just been released. The filmmakers, the Wachowski’s, best known for The Matrix trilogy , and  Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) faced the challenge of adapting a book that connects six stories set in different time periods and locations.

The film will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and open in U.S. theaters on Oct. 26. The cast, many of whom play multiple roles, include Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Keith David, Susan Sarandon and Hugh Grant

The trailer is six minutes long; according to the intro from the creators, “Unfortunately, in one way the experts were right: The movie is hard to sell, because it’s hard to describe, it’s hard to reduce. So we decided to make a really, really, really long trailer and just put it out there.”

Official Web Site: CloudAtlasMovie.com

The movie tie-in will be released Sept. 11 (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 9780812984415, $15). Both the print and ebook edition will include an essay by David Mitchell. In addition to the regular ebook, there will also be an enhanced ebook with footage from the film and interviews with the author and the filmmakers.

Arriving at #11 on the USA Today Best Seller list is a “mini eBook” Deep Down by Lee Child (RH/Delacorte, 7/16).

USA Today’s “Book Buzz” column calls it a “literary hors d’oeuvre,” an original short story, along with an excerpt of Child’s upcoming novel A Wanted Man, published exclusively as an eBook.

It is available to libraries via OverDrive.

Debuting at #10 on the new Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list is Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety by Daniel Smith, a book that was called a classic in the making by the Psychiatric Times and named a People pick last week.

Many libraries are showing growing holds on light ordering.

Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety Daniel Smith Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2012-07-03) ISBN / EAN: 1439177309/9781439177303

Blackstone Audio

The Swedish director, Lars Hallstrom (Chocolat, Dear John, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen) has made his first Swedish-language movie in 24 years, based on  The Hypnotist by the Swedish husband-and-wife team writing under the name Lars Kepler (some of you may have seen their charming talk at PLA this year). The trilogy is the second most popular crime series in Sweden, after Stieg Larsson’s Millennium  titles.

The film opens in Sweden in September. At this point, there is no US release date, but it is sure to find an American distributor, given the success of the Swedish-language versions of the Stieg Larsson trilogy.

The second book in the trilogy, The Nightmare (Macmillan.FSG/Sarah Crichton) was released in the US earlier this month. Hallstrom has said he doesn’t plan to film the entire trilogy, but if this one is successful, another director is likely to step in.

The Hypnotist stars Mikael Persbrandt (In A Better World, The Hobbit) and Lena Olin (The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, Chocolat).

Below is the Swedish-language trailer. There are no subtitles, but it gives a sense of the movie’s tone and atmosphere, which is quite different from the movies Hallstrom has made to date:

Talk about a long road to reality. Rights were optioned for the 2002 Booker winner, The Life of Pi by Yann Martel in 2003. The project went through several possible directors (including M. Night Shyamalan), before Ang Lee finally took over the helm. The film is now complete and the trailer has just been released. It opens on Nov. 21.

As visually arresting as the trailer is, the 3-D film will undoubtedly be even more so.

Official Web site: LifeOfPiMovie.com

Life of Pi (Movie Tie-In) Yann Martel Retail Price: $15.95 Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: Mariner Books – (2012-10-02) ISBN / EAN: 0547848412 / 9780547848419

The longlist for the Booker Awards was just announced in London. Hilary Mantel is one of the 12 authors, for Bring up the Bodies, her followup to the 2009 Booker winner, Wolf Hall. The second in a planned trilogy, Bring up the Bodies is already a best seller in the US. It hit the NYT bestseller list at #3, a direct result of the boost the Booker gave to the author’s visibility.

For reasons we’ve never been able to pinpoint, the Booker has more effect on sales in the U.S. than our own National Book Awards. Most of the winners of the British prize have ended up on the New York Times best seller list.

The award is open to citizens of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. Of the twelve writers just announced, nine are British, one Indian, one South African and one Malaysian.

The titles, with American publication information, are below:

Currently available in the US

Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis, Penguin Press, 4/12/12; Reviews, PW, starred;  The Millions

Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, Macmillan/Holt, 5/8/12; Review links

Michael Frayn, Skios, Macmillan/Holt, 6/19/12; Reviews, Washington Post, by Michael Dirda; New York Times, by Michiko Kakutani; New York Times Book Review, by Alex Witchel; Seattle Times, by Michael Upchurch

Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Random House, 7/24/12; Review links

Upcoming US Publications

Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists, Perseus/ Weinstein Books, 8/14/12; Booklist review; LJ review by Barbara Hoffert

Will Self, Umbrella, Grove Press, 12/10/12

Ned Beauman, The Teleportation Accident, Bloomsbury US, 2/26/13; Review, The Independent; Profile of the author, The Guardian

Not Yet Scheduled

(publishers listed are British)

Nicola Barker, The Yips, HarperCollins/Fourth Estate; Review, The Guardian; Review, The Independent

André Brink, Philida, Random House/Harvill Secker

Deborah Levy, Swimming Home, And Other Stories, Publishing; Review, The Guardian

Alison Moore, The Lighthouse, Salt Publishing

Sam Thompson, Communion Town, HarperCollins/Fourth Estate; Review, The Telegraph

The shortlist of six authors will be announced on  September 11th, and the winner on October 16h.

Below, director Joe Wright introduces a new, six-minute clip of his film of Anna Karenina (try to get past the surprisingly stilted into). Opening in theaters on November 9th, it stars Keira Knightly and Jude Law with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard.

Get those Russian-themed book displays ready.

Official Site: FocusFeatures.com/Anna_Karenina

Vintage is releasing a tie-in edition in October. The translation is by Tolstoy’s close American friends Louise and Aylmer Maude, originally published in 1918.

A 2004 Oprah book club pick, it is still available in that edition. Two of the beneficiaries of that pick were the husband-and-wife translators, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, who, according to a story in the New York Times, had never heard of Oprah or her club when they got the news that their translation was getting a new print run of 800,000 copies.

In reviewing this translation in the New Yorker, James Wood said the couple are “at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English, and their superb rendering allows us, as perhaps never before, to grasp the palpability of Tolstoy’s ‘characters, acts, situations.'”

New Yorker editor David Remnick explored translations of Russian classics in depth in “The Translation Wars: How the race to translate Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky continues to spark feuds, end friendships, and create small fortunes.”

Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy Retail Price: $17.00 Paperback: 862 pages Publisher: Penguin Classics – (2004-05) ISBN / EAN: 0143035002 / 9780143035008

Bill Moyers dedicates his most recent show to a book of “graphic journalism,” Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (Nation Books, 6/12/12), a collaboration between Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges and cartoonist Joe Sacco. It covers what the authors call ” sacrifice zones, those areas in America that have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and technological advancement.”

The book is now at #24 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Sam Kean managed to make the periodic table sexy in his book, The Disappearing Spoon. In his new book, The Violinist’s Thumb, (Hachette/Little,Brown), he takes on an already sexy subject, DNA.

After he appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, Thumb rose from #248 to #43 and Spoon from #886 to #228 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Cleveland isn’t the only place where things are hot; Wendy Bartlett, from Cuyahoga County reports that several titles are taking off there. Holds for he forthcoming debut The Light Between Oceans by Australian writer, M.L. Stedman (S&S, 7/31) have risen so quickly that she just placed an order for six times the original number. So far, it hasn’t received much review attention, other than the lead in O Magazine’s Summer Reading List. It’s been mentioned on GalleyChat and Wendy herself featured it during the BEA librarian’s Shout and Share panel. Several other libraries are showing heavy holds on light ordering.

You would have thought that Gwyneth Paltrow, the face of Australian company Spar Veggie, would have run screaming at the very mention of the words “Blood, Bones and Butter,” but it’s being reported that she is in negotiatons to star in a film based on the best-selling memoir by Gabrielle Hamilton (Blood, Bones and Butter, Random House, 2011).

Like Hamilton, Paltrow wrote a book about food that was published last year, My Father’s Daughter (Hachette/Grand Central, 2011).

As we reported in “New Title Radar,” Bailout; An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street by Neil Barofsky (S&S/Free Press; 7/24) is due for major media attention this week. The New York Times, in yesterday’s Business Section, calls it a “must read.” Below, the author is interviewed on CBS This Morning today. Dozens of other appearances are scheduled on media outlets from NPR to Fox News.

Barofsky was scheduled to appear on Face the Nation yesterday, but that appears to have been bumped by coverage of the Aurora shooting.

At a press conference for TV critics in Beverly Hills, the cast and creators of the multiple Emmy-nominated Downton Abbey series offered many tidbits, but little real information on season three, which returns on January 6.

Several clips and a brief trailer were shown. Unfortunately, they have not been released on the Web, so we have to make do with written reports, such as the L.A. Times story.

Fans are expecting sparks between new cast member Shirley MacLaine and the Dowager Countess played by Maggie Smith. It seems those hopes were not dashed.

Several new Downton Abbey related titles are coming this fall. The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, the “official inside story of the history, characters, and behind-the-scenes drama of Season 3, when Downton Abbey enters the 1920s” is sure to feed the frenzy when it arrives in November, two months before the series airs in the U.S. (it begins in the U.K. in September). It is co-written by Jessica Fellowes, author of The World of Downton Abbey and niece of the series creator, Julian Fellowes. Expect it to be a popular holiday gift.

The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era Jessica Fellowes, Matthew Sturgis Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press – (2012-11-13) ISBN / EAN: 1250027624 / 9781250027627

The script book for season one arrives in October, followed by season two in February.

Downton Abbey Script Book Season 1 Julian Fellowes Retail Price: $19.99 Paperback: 432 pages Publisher: HarperCollins/Morrow – (2012-10-16) ISBN / EAN: 0062238310 / 9780062238313

Downton Abbey Script Book Season 2 Julian Fellowes Retail Price: $19.99 Paperback: 432 pages Publisher: HarperCollins/Morrow – (2013-02-26) ISBN / EAN: 0062241354 / 9780062241351

Adding to the growing number of books about real life of the time, is a title that makes sly reference to an earlier popular series, Upstairs & Downstairs, According to the publisher, it “takes readers on a guided tour of a single day in an upper-crust English home of the Edwardian era.”

Upstairs & Downstairs: The Illustrated Guide to the Real World of Downton Abbey Sarah Warwick Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 128 pages Publisher: Carlton Books – (2012-09-04) ISBN / EAN: 1847327907 / 9781847327901

For those who want to play along at home, cookbooks are on their way, The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook, (Adams Media, 9/18/12) and Edwardian Cooking: Inspired by Downton Abbey’s Elegant Meals (Skyhorse Publishing, 11/1/12).

When Joseph Finder’s thriller, Paranoia (Macmillan/St. Martin’s), was released in 2004, it had already been sold to Hollywood. Nearly ten years later, filming has just begun, on location in Philadelphia, moving on to New York, with a planned release date of September 27, 2013.

Described as a “high-tech corporate espionage thriller,” the movie features an impressive cast, lead by Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), Gary Oldman, Harrison Ford, Amber Heard (The Rum Diary), and Richard Dreyfuss.

The plot concerns an ambitious young technologist, Adam (Hemsworth), who, after making a major misstep is blackmailed by his ruthless CEO (Gary Oldman) into spying on the company’s top rival, run by a character played by Harrison Ford. Adam finds himself living the life of his dreams, as a rich, successful young Manhattan bachelor but eventually has to find a way out from under his boss, “who will stop at nothing, even murder, to gain a multi-billion dollar advantage.”

After four spy thrillers, (including High Crimes, which was made into a movie in 2002, starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman), Joseph Finder began specializing in corporate espionage with the release of Paranoia, which was his breakout book. His most recent novels are the first two in a series, featuring Nick Heller; Vanished (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, 2009) and Buried Secrets (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, 2011).

The author notes on his blog that he doesn’t plan to write a sequel to Paranoia, but tells readers (take note, Hollywood) that if they like that book’s main character, they will like his new series character.

Seen a shoe-in to win several Oscars and a strong contender for Best Picture, Stenen Spielberg’s Lincoln biopic has finally been scheduled for a Nov. 9 limited release, expanding to more theaters on Nov. 16. The timing puts it after the Presidential election; Spielberg earlier voiced concerns that, if it was released earlier, it would “become political fodder,” presumably because Obama often compares himself to Lincoln. The film, which focuses on the last four months of Lincoln’s life, is based on portions of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (S&S, 2005), a book that experienced renewed popularity after the last election, when Obama repeatedly referred to it as the blueprint for selecting his cabinet.

So far, the only images from the film are some set photos. It stars and Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln and Sally Field as his wife, Mary and David Strathairn as Secretary of State William H. Seward, who, of his three former rivals for the presidency, became Lincoln’s closest friend.

Below, Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about why there can never be too many books about Lincoln.

Simon and Scuster is publishing tie-ins editions of both the book and the audio.

Spielberg’s next movie is also based on a book, Robopocalypse by Daniel Wilson  (RH/Doubleday, 2011). Deadline reports that Chris Hemsworth is in talks to star. It is scheduled for release on April 25, 2014.