EarlyWord

The Children’s Book Committee
Bank Street College of Education

Cordially invites you to attend a breakfast

celebrating the presentation of

The 2012 Children’s Book Awards

The Josette Frank Award for fiction

The Flora Stieglitz Straus Award for nonfiction

The Claudia Lewis Award for poetry

Thursday, February 23, 2012

9:30 to 11:30 a.m.

Bank Street College of Education

The Evelyn Rome Tabas and Daniel Tabas Auditorium

610 West 112th Street

New York, NY 10025-1898

RSVP to bookcom@bankstreet.edu

On the Colbert Report “TA-night”, the man who has made yoga controversial (and his book a best seller; it’s currently at #41 Amazon’s rankings and has heavy holds in libraries), William J. Broad.

The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards William J Broad Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2012-02-07) ISBN / EAN: 1451641427 / 9781451641424

Coming to the show on Thursday, the woman who brings introverts their due, Susan Cain. Her book, Quiet, debuted is #5 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction best seller list after two weeks.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking Susan Cain Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 266 pages Publisher: RH/Crown – (2012-01-24) ISBN : 9780307352149

RH Audio; ebook and audio on OverDrive

It’s our newest addition — Young Adult GalleyChat. Join us today, from 4 to 5 pm Eastern (pre-chat warmup begins at 3:30). We’ll be looking ahead to books that look promising for the spring and summer. How-to is here.

We expect that many of you grabbed galleys at MidWinter. Below are a few that EarlyWord Kids correspondent, Lisa Von Drasek snapped with her iPad on the show floor:

Below, LBYR’s Zoe Luderitz shows off I Hunt Killers by Lyga Barra (Hachette/LBYR, April 3). There have been books about what it would be like if your child were a killer (Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin). This one looks at it from the other side, what would it be like if your father were a serial killer.

The debut everyone is talking about as a crossover title, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (Random House, June 26):

And, the “Gotta Get Galley of the Show,” Kristin Cashore’s Bitterblue (Penguin/Dial, May 1):

After Saturday’s tease of the AL:VH trailer, feast your eyes on the full 82 minutes.

So, what’s happened to the once-hot adaptation of that progenitor of literary mashups, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? New York magazine’s “Vuture” blog casts strong doubt on whether it will ever materialize, now that three directors and countless A-list actresses have backed away.

Of course, that will all change if AL:VH is a hit.

As part of CBS Saturday Morning‘s tribute to Abraham Lincoln on his 203rd birthday, they leaked a bit of the film adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s mashup, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Hachette/Grand Central), scheduled to open June 22. The segment begins 1:25 minutes into the video, below.

Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, based on the final section of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, with Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead, debuts next fall, according to the story (all other sources list it as coming this December, so we’re sticking with that).

On The Daily Show tonight, Jon Stewart interviews Fawzia Koofi, Afghanistan’s first female deputy speaker of parliament (2005 to 2007) and a candidate for her country’s 2014 presidential elections. Her book, The Favored Daugher, was released early this year.

The Favored Daughter: One Woman’s Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future Fawzia Koofi, Nadene Ghouri Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan – (2012-01-03) ISBN / EAN: 0230120679 / 9780230120679

William Landay’s thriller, Defending Jacob, landed at #4 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction best seller list on Sunday, after its first five days on sale.

Playing a bit of catchup, Janet Maslin reviews it in today’s NYT. She presents the review as its own mystery; whether Landay, “a former district attorney with two well-received novels behind him, has developed the chops to catapult himself into the Scott Turow tier of legal-eagle blockbuster writers.”

While she doesn’t definitively answer that question, she comes close to saying “yes,” giving Landy kudos for “creating a clever blend of legal thriller and issue-oriented family implosion,” calling the result “ingenious.”

Libraries are showing heavy holds (as high as 35:1) on modest orders. Those that own the audio (Blackstone) are showing heavy holds on that format. Ebook and downloadable audio are available via OverDrive.

Defending Jacob William Landay Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 432 pages Publisher: RH/Delacorte – (2012-01-31) ISBN : 978-0-385-34422-7

Blackstone Audio; Thorndike Large Print

Betty White has another Grammy Award to add to her large trophy case (her first was in 1975 for her supporting role on The Mary Tyler Moore). She won best Spoken Word Album last night for If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won’t), Penguin Audio.

The other nominees were:

Bossypants, Tina Fey, Hachette Audio

Fab Fan Memories – The Beatles Bond; Nathan Burbank, Bryan Cumming, Dennis Scott & David Toledo, producers, WannaBeats Records

Hamlet, William Shakespeare; Dan Donohue & Various Artists – Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Blackstone Audio

The Mark Of Zorro, Val Kilmer & Cast, Blackstone Audio

In the weekend leading up to Valentine’s Day, the top box-office draw was the romantic movie, The Vow, starring Rachel McAdams as a woman who is left with no memory after a car accident. Her husband, played by Channing Tatum has to work to rebuild their marriage.

The movie is based on a true story. A book by the real-life couple is being re-issued as a tie-in by Christian publisher, B&H Publishing Group. The couple appeared on the Today Show this morning.

The book is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings. Holds are growing at several libraries.

The Vow: The True Events that Inspired the Movie Kim Carpenter, Krickitt Carpenter, Dana Wilkerson Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 208 pages Publisher: B&H Books – (2012-02-10) ISBN / EAN: 143367579X / 9781433675799

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The NYT takes a look at the auction for a book by Amanda Knox, who spent four years in an Italian jail for a sexually violent murder. The conviction was overturned on appeal and she was released in October.

Is it worth spending a potential seven figures for the book? It all depends on factors that nobody can safely predict at this point; whether she is appealing to the American public and what she is willing to reveal in the book.

The Times notes that several books have already been published about the case and all have “sold only modestly.”  None of those books, however, are by an author that news shows like 60 Minutes is “drooling over.” UPDATE: HarperCollins won the auction, for a reported $4 million. They plan to release it in early in 2013.

Jeffrey Zaslow co-author with Randy Pausch of The Last Lecture, (Hyperion, 2008) and author of several other best sellers, including The Girls from Ames, (Penguin/Gotham, 2009) died in a car accident on Friday morning while touring for his latest book, The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters, according to a report by Detroit’s local Fox station (via Publishers Marketplace’s Automat). He was 53.

UPDATE: NYT Obituary

The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters Jeffrey Zaslow Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Penguin/Gotham – (2011-12-27) ISBN / EAN: 1592406610 / 9781592406616

In the book’s trailer, Zaslow describes The Magic Room as a tribute to his three daughters.

On the weekend before the first day of filming the adaptation of her book The Host, Stephenie Meyer updates her “awesome” fans on her last year of movie making.

About the director of The Host, Andrew Niccol, she says,

It’s somewhat of a dream to have the creator and director of my favorite sci-fi film (Gattaca) helming this movie. I love the script he’s written, I love his beautiful vision, and I love working with him.

She is also producing an adaptation of Austenland, which wrapped this summer. It seems it was a totally enjoyable experience. She lived in the English countryside, worked with her “bestie” as well as many other “sweet and lovely” and “unbelievably funny” people who continually made laugh herself “into hysterics.”

The movie is now in post-production but no release date has been set. It is based on the Shannon Hale’s first book for adults, Austenland, (Bloomsbury USA, 2007) about a woman (played in the movie by Keri Russell) who tries to overcome her debilitating infatuation with Mr. Darcy (specifically, Colin Firth’s version in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice) by going to an English resort that caters to the Austen-obsessed. Keri Russell stars, with JJ Field (as a Mr. Darcy stand-in), Jennifer Coolidge (as Miss Elizabeth Charming, another Austenland guest) and Jane Seymour (Austenland’s hostess).

A sequel, Midnight in Austenland (Bloomsbury USA), was released on Jan 31.

Meyer also writes about the 101 days she spent on the set of Breaking Dawn, Parts One and Two (or, “BD 1&2”), for which she also plays producer. It’s refreshing to hear that, while  most of the experience was “magic”  and “amazing,” there were a few rough patches.

Next week, watch for Lauren Fox‘s delicious new chick lit novel, David Rosenfelt‘s clever legal thriller-cum-mystery and Tatiana de Rosnay’s latest historical novel. Usual suspects include Anne Rice, Sophie Kinsella, James Patterson and Michael Palmer. And in nonfiction, there’s a new biography of founding father James Madison.

Watch List

Friends Like Us by Lauren Fox (RH/Knopf; Dreamscape Audio) focuses on two close girlfriends, one of whom falls in love with the other’s oldest (male) friend. Booklist gives it a starred review: “the plot is pure Emily Giffin, but Fox tackles quarter-life angst with the honesty of Ann Packer’s The Dive from Clausen’s Pier (2002). The hard emotional truths go down easily amid the smart, rapid-fire wit. A pure if heartbreaking pleasure.”

Heart of a Killer by David Rosenfelt (Macmillan Minotaur Books; Listen & Live Audio) begins as a legal thriller about an underachieving lawyer assigned a case in which a convicted murder demands to end her life so she can donate her heart to her daughter. Then it becomes a murder mystery and finally a suspense novel. Kirkus calls it “warmhearted, satisfyingly inventive and almost too clever for its own good. Why isn’t Rosenfelt a household name like Michael Connelly and Jeffery Deaver?”

The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Wheeler Large Print; Macmillan Audio) is set in Paris in the 1860s, as a woman fights the destruction of her home as hundreds of houses are being razed – and is written by the author of the popular book and film Sarah’s Key. PW says “though this epistolary narrative is slow to build, its fraught with drama… In Rose, one gets the clear sense of a woman losing her place in a changing world, but this isnt enough to make up for a weak narrative hung entirely on the eventual reveal of a long-buried secret.”

Usual Suspects

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice (RH/Knopf; RH Large Print; RH Audio) marks Rice’s return to the dark side – this time it’s werewolves – after her recent fictional flights with the angels. Kirkus says, “despite some of the creakiness of the machinery, Rice finds new permutations in an old tale.”

I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella (Dial Press; Thorndike Large Print; RH Audio) is about Poppy, who’s on the verge of marrying her ideal man, until she loses her engagement ring and her phone, finds another phone in a trash can, and begins an unpredictable exchange with the phone’s owner, Sam. Booklist gives it a starred review: “Readers will know that Poppy and Sam are destined to be together, but getting there is a delightful and exciting ride. One of Kinsella’s best.”

Private Games by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio) is set in the world’s most renowned investigation firm, Private, which has been commissioned to provide security for the 2012 Olympic Games in London – and suddenly must track the killer of a high-ranking member of the games’ organizing committee.

Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Command by Paul Garrison (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio) finds Paul Janson rescuing a doctor abducted in international waters by African pirates, as the situation goes haywire. Kirkus says “there’s sufficient knife work, sniper shots, RPGs, private jets, helicopters, betrayals and corporate machinations to satisfy every armchair covert agent. Formulaic yet entertaining.”

Oath of Office by Michael Palmer (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio) begins as respected doctor John Meacham goes on a shooting spree. The blame falls on Dr. Lou Welcome the counselor who worked with Meacham years before. Looking into the story, he discovers Meacham’s connection to a conspiracy that may lead to the White House. Kirkus says, “this thriller raises compelling issues and features a likable hero, but the plot is dragged out and undercooked and the White House scenes ring false.”

Movie Tie-in

Being Flynn by Nick Flynn (Norton) was originally published as Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, and is the story of how Nick Flynn met his father, a con man and self-proclaimed poet, while Nick was working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. This retitled edition ties in to the movie starring Robert De Niro and Paul Dano, set for release March 2.

Nonfiction:

James Madison and the Making of America by Kevin R. C. Gutzman (Macmillan/St. Martin’s) is a portrait of this influential Founding Father and the sometimes contradictory ways in which he influenced the spirit of today’s United States. Kirkus deems it “a well-considered and -written biography of this gifted Founding Father’s many contributions to the early republic.”

Late last year, the Penguin Group suspended libraries’ ability to lend the company’s new ebooks and audio downloads, pending evaluation. The evaluation is now complete and the news is not good. Yesterday, the company announced that they have terminated their contract with OverDrive. For the titles that libraries have already purchased, Library Journal reports OverDrive is negotiating a “continuance agreement,” to allow ongoing access.

The Penguin Group imprints include NAL, Berkley, Dutton, Riverhead, Viking, Dial Young Readers, Philomel, Putnam, and Speak.

The LJ story concludes with this chilling scenario;

…publishers [may] demand a business model in which they will only make their ebooks available to public libraries if they are used in the library or if a patron is required to bring their device to the library and load the title onto the device in the library, then bring it home.

It’s been a year since the news that Abraham Verghese’s long running best seller Cutting for Stone had been optioned for a movie.

Yesterday, news arrived that Danish director Susanne Bier (In A Better World, winner of an Oscar last year for Best Foreign Language Film )  has been signed for the adaptation. There’s no start date yet and Bier has another movie in the queue, but Playlist notes that, after releasing six films in the last ten years, Bier “shows no signs of slowing down.”

Librarians embraced the book, beginning with Verghese’s appearance at ALA Midwinter 2009 in Denver, where he spoke at the Breakfast and BookTalk sponsored by the AAP Trade Libraries Committee.

Cutting for Stone Abraham Verghese Retail Price: $15.95 Paperback: 688 pages Publisher: Penguin/Vintage – (2010-01-26) ISBN / EAN: 0375714367 / 9780375714368