Holds queues are growing quickly for the debut novel The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (HC/Ecco; HarperAudio), just announced as the #1 Indie Next pick for April.

Entertainment Weekly calls it “one of 2016’s most talked-about debuts,” borne out by its appearance on several other most anticipated lists for the spring. Librarians are also fan, it delighted GalleyChatters and is a LibraryReads pick for March.

Jennifer Oleinik, University Book Store, Seattle, WA offers this summary:

“Welcome to the strikingly dysfunctional Plumb family: four siblings connected by little more than ‘The Nest,’ a joint trust fund that each has earmarked to support their unrealistic lifestyles. When Leo, the older brother and the center of the Plumb family universe, injures himself and a 19-year-old waitress in a scandalous car accident and endangers ‘The Nest’ just months before the funds are to be made available, the siblings come together for damage control. Sweeney artfully touches on each family member as they scramble to save the precarious lives they have built for themselves, bringing light and humor to her characters’ various plights. Funny, thoughtful, and filled with unique and complex characters — this book is a must-read.”

The memoir Lab Girl, Hope Jahren (PRH/Knopf; OverDrive Sample) also makes the list.
It too is picking up attention, with the WSJ selecting it as one of the six “The Hottest Spring Nonfiction Books.”

Pete Mulvihill, Green Apple Books, San Francisco, CA says that:

“This book has it all: nature, love, science, drama, heartbreak, joy, and plenty of dirt. Not since Cheryl Strayed’s Wild have I read such a rich and compelling nonfiction narrative. Lab Girl is the story of Jahren’s life in science, and her writing on the wonders of nature will renew your sense of awe. But more than that, it is an exploration of friendship, mental illness, parenthood, and the messiness of life. The only flaw — these pages fly by too quickly, leaving you wondering what you could possibly read next that will be just as good.”

The full list of bookseller picks, which is notably wide ranging this month, includes titles from big name authors (Augusten Burroughs, Tracy Chevalier, and Lisa Scottoline), another debut, and more nonfiction. Featured as well are two more titles that are also March LibraryReads picks, The Summer Before the War and Jane Steele.

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series moves closer to the big screen with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey set to star. Entertainment Weekly reports confirmation of long-standing rumors that Elba will play the gunslinger, joining.McConaughey as the man in black.

Efforts to adapt the series date back to at least 2007.  King told EW he is “delighted” and “surprised” that the series, which spans eight novels and flows into short stories and comics, is finally getting adapted:

“The thing is, it’s been a looong trip from the books to the film …When you think about it, I started these stories as a senior in college, sitting in a little sh-tty cabin beside the river in Maine, and finally this thing is actually in pre-production now.”

With all those titles to choose from, King says the film will not start at the beginning with 1982’s The Gunslinger (PRH/NAL, trade pbk. 2003)

“[The movie] starts in media res, in the middle of the story instead of at the beginning, which may upset some of the fans a little bit, but they’ll get behind it, because it is the story.”

EW speculates on which book might take center stage, guessing it could be “The Waste Lands  (PRH/NAL, trade pbk 2003.), the third book in the series, which is where much of King’s broader tower mythology began to coalesce.”

As recently as Oscar Sunday, Elba had been rumored to be a key contender for the next 007. While that could still happen, it is certain that Elba has his next hero character all lined up.

Sony plans to release the movie on Jan. 13, 2017 (UPDATE: Release moved to 2/17/17).

This month Costco’s book buyer, Pennie Clark Ianniciello, calls attention to a sleeper hit and its follow-up.

The influential Costco buyer is well known for bringing new attention to titles re-released in trade paperback, such as The Art Forger, The Orchardist and Beautiful Ruins, resulting in each book rising or making its debut on best seller lists.

This month she mixes it up, going back in time to a book first reviewed in the trades in 2009, Kathleen Grissom’s debut, The Kitchen House (S&S/Touchstone; OverDrive Sample), also setting up the author’s forthcoming second novel.

The Kitchen House is likely already in most collections. While the sleeper languished at first it became a huge book club hit based on the PR efforts of Grissom. So remarkable was its rise that in 2012 The Wall Street Journal ran a story on its rags to riches turn around (link may require a subscription).

Now Pennie is pushing it again, saying the antebellum story of a white indentured servant
has her “ready for Grissom’s follow-up novel,”
Glory Over Everything: Beyond the Kitchen House,(S&S; S&S Audio; April).

The Kitchen House is still in demand with
active holds at many libraries we checked and Glory Over Everything already showing
solid demand.

The second season of Outlander, debuting, April 9 on Starz, is featured with a steamy photo on the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly, (and an even steamier one on the interior pages. Sorry, it’s not online yet), which belies the network’s reluctance to call the series a romance.

According to the story, Outlander has made Starz the second-most popular premium network behind HBO. It has also helped sell 5 million more copies of Diana Gabaldon’s books, raising the total to 27 million worldwide.

In a sidebar, Gabaldon says she is at work on book 9 in the series, which may be titled A Stubborn Mind. Refusing to say how close she is to finishing it, she notes it takes her three years to write a new book (the most recent in the series, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood was published in hardcover in 2014). Success takes a toll on writing time and “the more popular your books get, the mor popular you get.”

She also addresses how long the series will continue,  “I think 10 is probably as many as will take me to the end of Jamie and Claire’s lifetimes, because it’s their story. It ends when they do.”

Season two is based on the second novel in the book series, Dragonfly In Amber (PRH/Delacorte, 1992; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), which creates challenges for the show creators, says Entertainment Weekly, because it is “far more complicated structurally. It also alternates points of view and begins in the 1960’s with the introduction of Jamie and Claire’s adult daughter, Brianna,”

The first full-length trailer was released earlier this month.

Tie-ins (cover not final):

Dragonfly in Amber (Starz Tie-in Edition)
Diana Gabaldon
PRH/Delta, March 8, 2016
Trade Paperback

Tye Sheridan is now “near the top of young actors to watch,” according to Deadine as a result of being selected by Steven Spielberg for the lead in his adaptation of Ernest Cline’s debut Ready Player One, (RH/Crown; Random House Audio/BOT). Deadline adds, “For Sheridan, it’s the latest in a short career full of landing showy roles.”

It’s been a fairly long search for the lead. According to the Hollywood Reporter “Sheridan’s casting comes after numerous waves of searches dating back to fall 2015. Spielberg read and tested across several continents but was never quite happy. In an unusual situation, the romantic interest [Olivia Cooke] and the villain [Ben Mendelsohn] were picked even as the lead role remained vacant.”

Spielberg is currently at work on Roald Dahl’s The BFG, set to open July 1, and is expected to follow up with Player One.

To date, Sheridan has received the most acclaim for his role in Mud, with Matthew McConaughey. He is featured in the trailer, below (he’s the boy with the longer brown hair). An extended 10minute preview is here.

Sheridan will next appear as Cyclops in the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse and in the adaptation of The Yellow Birds, also set to be released this year.

Ready Play One was recently bumped from its original fall 2017 slot to March 30, 2018, so it won’t be overpowered by  Star Wars Episode VIII.

The first trailer has just been released for the film adaptation of The Light Between Oceans, based on the long-running best seller by M.L. Stedman (S&S/ Scribner).

The movie’s stars are up for Oscars this weekend for their roles in other movies, Michael Fassbender for   Steve Jobs and Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl.

Light opens on Labor Day weekend, having been held back from release last year, a move was probably made, as Deadline suggests, to save it for next year’s awards season.

Released in trade paperback in 2013, tie-ins will be published in late August:

The Light Between Oceans
M.L. Stedman, 8/30/16
Trade Paperback, (S&S/Scribner)
Mass Market, (S&S/Pocket Books)

Holds are growing in libraries on Fiona Barton’s The Widow (PRH/NAL; BOT; OverDrive Sample), which the A.V. Club headlines as “a delightfully trashy thriller.” A debut, orders are light, so requests are outpacing copies.

Little wonder. It is a book much in the news. Currently rising on Amazon’s sales rankings, it is the verge of breaking on to best seller lists.

As we reported, it is a March Indie Next pick, a People pick, and listed in the WSJ  as a potential big thriller of the year.

In the Washington Post, Lisa Scottoline notes, “Barton is a veteran British journalist who has reported for the Daily Mail and other publications, so it comes as no surprise that her prose is deft and her story well told. What does come as a surprise is that her novel is also richly character-driven in a way that is both satisfying and engrossing.”

Barton talks about her background as a reporter, the basis for her character, in an interview in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune. She is at work on a second novel that will also feature Kate Waters, the reporter in The Widow.

The third book in Pierce Brown’s Red Rising trilogy, Morning Star (PRH/ Del Rey) debuts at #1 on the 2/28 New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list, More significantly, it’s also #1 on the USA Today list, outselling books in all categories and formats.

Interest is growing in the series. The previous two titles debuted in lower positions. Golden Son arrived at #6, dropping down to the extended list the next week. Red Rising debuted was on the extended list for three weeks. It was a #1 LibraryReads pick.

Brown is at work on another trilogy, titled Iron Gold, reports USA Today. It picks up after Morning Star, but focuses on different characters.

A movie adaptation of Red Rising is in the works. In an interview earlier this month, Brown said it is in development with World War Z director Marc Forster. Don’t expect it any time soon, however. Brown says, “we’re not trying to do a rushed job of this. I did the first two drafts and my buddy is doing a new draft.”

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (RH/Crown; Random House Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) rose on Amazon’s sales rankings overnight, likely due to a NYT’s article on how Science Fiction expands the creativity of engineers and coders working on virtual reality (VR).

While techies can engineer VR headsets, they don’t really know what kinds of experiences to create for them or how to explain the technology in a way that makes people buy headsets with iPod-esque frenzy.

CEOs of tech companies are turning to SF for help, hoping the genre will expand the creativity of their staff and illustrate the possibilities and range of virtual worlds that might be possible. According to the article:

“Science fiction is shaping the language companies are using to market the technology, influencing the types of experiences made for the headsets and even defining long-term goals for developers.”

The tech world’s book of choice is Ready Player One, which is given to new hires at Oculus, a leading VR company. Co-founder Palmer Luckey told the NYT,

“Like many other people working in the tech space, I’m not a creative person. It’s nice that science fiction exists because these are really creative people figuring out what the ultimate use of any technology might be. They come up with a lot of incredible ideas.”

In addition, the company Magic Leap has hired three science fiction and fantasy writers, most notably Neal Stephenson, who imagined the virtual reality Metaverse in the novel Snow Crash.

The article asserts, “Virtual reality is a medium, like television or video games.”

Sarai Walker’s debut novel debut about weight, beauty, and gender inequality, Dietland (HMH; Highbridge Audio; OverDrive Sample) is set to become a TV series, developed by Marti Noxon who co-created the Lifetime channel’s UnREAL and has worked on Mad Men, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Grey’s Anatomy, and Glee.

Entertainment Weekly is clearly excited, having been fans of both Dietland, the book, and Noxon’s  series UnREAL, calling  the new project “a match made in feminist-media heaven.”

Dietland received a great deal of attention when it came out last year. It was a June 2015 Indie Next pick, made multiple “best of the month” lists, and, in addition to being an EW favorite, was also picked by Amazon, Kirkus, and BookPage as a top title of 2015.

Riffing on the success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train, The Wall Street Journal picks five candidates to become the “world’s biggest thriller of 2016.” [link may require subscription]

The list should please Penguin Random House as all five titles are published through their imprints. Pleasing librarians who want to second-guess the WSJ, all five are available to request in e-galley.

First up is The Widow, Fiona Barton (PRH/NAL; BOT; OverDrive Sample; pubbed today)

As we reported earlier, it is a People and an Indie Next pick and that Entertainment Weekly thinks it “might have more of a right to the [Girl] comparison than most.” The Wall Street Journal also notes film have been sold to Playground Entertainment, one of the production companies behind the adaptation of Wolf Hall.

Maestra, L.S. Hilton (PRH/Putnam; BOT; April 19). WSJ reports the “steamy femme fatale story,” expected to be the first in a trilogy, sold in a seven-figure deal. Film rights were optioned by TriStar Pictures, with a screenplay in development by the writer behind The Girl on the Train film.

I Let You Go, Clare Mackintosh (PRH/Berkley; BOT; May 3) makes the WSJ list due to its “twisty” nature and its reception in the UK, where it ended 2015 as “the seventh best-selling product—not just book—on Amazon.co.uk last year (with Adele’s 25 coming fourth and The Girl on the Train claiming first).” [NOTE: you can chat with author Clare Mackintosh, as part of the EarlyWord/Penguin First Flights program on April 20th)

The Crow Girl, Erik Axl Sund (PRH/Knopf; BOT; June 14). WSJ writes that this book about a serial killer of children in Stockholm leads to “something even bigger and more sinister. “An international best seller, it’s the first in a trilogy that has already been published in 38 countries. At 758-pages, the WSJ calls it a “doorstopper.” Knopf, of course, has had success with other Scandinavian doorstoppers that feature “Girl” in the title.

Dark Matter, Blake Crouch (PRH/Crown; BOT; Aug. 2). Rounding out the list, is a novel by the author of the Wayward Pines trilogy. adapted by Fox TV. Based on just a particle manuscript, the author scored $1 million dea. Film rights sold soon after. The WSJ says the novel “has drawn comparisons to [the movie] Inception, is slated to be published in 20 territories.”

This weekend (and online now) the NYT‘s Sunday Magazine will feature a profile of Dana Spiotta, author of Innocents and Others (S&S/Scribner, Mar. 8), one of the critics’  most highly anticipated novels of the spring season,

The feature, written by author Susan Burton, traces the objects that inspire Spiotta (currently phones and sound) and dips into her biography (her dad once ran Francis Ford Coppola’s studio, Zoetrope).

Burton summarizes Spiotta’s approach and interests as an author, saying she “writes radiant, concentrated books that, as she has put it, consider ‘the way things external to us shape us: money, technology, art, place, history.’ ”

Despite the critical interest in Spiotta, Burton points out that her work still is not as “well known as it should be” and goes on to speculate that:

“this may have something to do with its deep and uncategorizable ambition: Her books are simultaneously vast and local, exploring great American themes (self-invention, historical amnesia) within idiosyncratic worlds (phone phreaks, ’80s Los Angeles adolescence). She has been compared with Don DeLillo and Joan Didion, but her tone and mood are distinctly her own: She’s fascinated, not alienated.”

It is that connection to the world that author George Saunders, who works with Spiotta in the creative writing program at Syracuse University, highlights as among her most notable features, saying:

‘‘Her gaze is very smart and witty but doesn’t have any of that empty, snarky irony you sometimes see in writing about contemporary culture, that sense that America is rotten, past its prime, capable of nothing good. On the contrary, I think her main stance is that most difficult one: She who praises.’’

Innocents and Others is Spiotta’s fourth book. Earlier titles have gotten strong award attention. Stone Arabia was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist and Eat the Document was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Two years ago, the NYT‘s Sunday Magazine brought Spiotta’s colleague to a wider audience and best seller status with a cover story, “George Saunders Has Written The Best Book You’ll Read This Year.” Keep your eyes open for a similar ripple effect.

A bidding war is on to pick up the Scott Rudin production of Jonathan Franzen’s novel Purity (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), reports Variety. Daniel Craig is attached as the male lead Andreas Wolf, a charismatic trader of the world’s secrets à la Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.

Showtime, Netflix, FX, and at least three others are each reportedly interested. Deadline, in a gossipy piece, says Hulu and Amazon are both in as well, but gives the early odds to Showtime.

The adaption is thought to be a 20-episode deal and will be written by both Franzen and the director of the project.

It is early days yet, and, as Variety notes, Rudin tried to get Franzen’s The Corrections on air with HBO but the project failed to move forward after the pilot was shot.

Purity, which is not widely considered Franzen’s best book (signature reviews in both the NYT and NPR were tepid), is timely however, touching on the seismic changes social media and the Internet have wrought.

The newest Game of Thrones teaser has been released, promoting the April 24th return of the series.

Fans are on edge for the premiere, hoping to discover if the beloved character Jon Snow really died at the end of season five.

Viewers will find no comfort in the newest teaser, a clip that certainly lives up to its name and taunts fans. As Deadline puts it, “HBO Trolls Hard On Jon Snow’s Fate.”

Definitely missing this season is a tie-in book. The first four seasons were fairly faithful to George R.R. Martin’s novels and all were released as tie-ins. Season five deviated from the book. Nonetheless, A Dance with Dragons, was released as mass market and trade paperback tie-in editions.

But Martin has famously not caught up with the series. Book six is not completed, leading even Conan OBrien to speculate last week on what the author has been doing instead of writing

After years of refusal, Nelle Harper Lee has agreed to a Broadway adaptation of her iconic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. That decision comes on the heels of her reversing an earlier stance that she would never publish another book and agreeing to last year’s publication of Go Set A Watchman.

Rights to Mockingbird have been acquired by well-known Hollywood producer Scott Rudin. He has hired Aaron Sorkin to write the screenplay, with plans for it to debut in the 2017-18 season. The two have worked together on many projects in the past, including the films Steve Jobs and The Social Network.

Lee’s literary agent Andrew Nurnberg, quoted in the New York Times story says, “While [Lee] had always had misgivings about anyone who might want to bring To Kill a Mockingbird to Broadway — and there have been many approaches over the years — she finally decided that [Ridley] Scott would be the right person to embrace this,” Nurnberg said.

This is not the first stage adaptation of the book. A 1991 play by Christopher Sergel has been produced by regional theaters, annually in Lee’s hometown and recently in London. Although it is true to the book, critics have accused that version of being plodding and static.

Horton Foote’s adaptation for the screen won an Oscar and was embraced by Lee. According to an interview with Foote. “The studio asked Harper Lee to do the script, and she didn’t feel she knew enough about dramatic form. I was her choice.”

How might Sorkin handle the material differently? Sorkin has a distinctive style, characterized by the NYT as “machine-gun spray of dialogue.”

While he tells the NYT that he feels resposibility to the many fans of the book, he adds, “You can’t just wrap the original in Bubble Wrap and move it as gently as you can to the stage. It’s blasphemous to say it, but at some point, I have to take over.”