EarlyWord

Tim Burton will develop the surprise YA hit Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs (Quirk Books, Jun, 2011) as a “potential directing project,” according to Deadline.

Riggs has the strange hobby of collecting old snapshots, he published highlights of his collection in his blog on the Mental Floss magazine site. For Miss Peregrine, he wove a story around some strange and haunting Victorian photos. It’s been on the NYT Children’s Hardcover list for 22 weeks, raching a high of #2.

An as-yet-untitled sequel to Miss Peregine is scheduled for Spring 2013.

Coming in April is a book that expands on Riggs’s Mental Floss series, called Talking Pictures.

Talking Pictures Ransom Riggs Retail Price: $13.99 Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: It Books/HarperCollins(2012-04-10) ISBN / EAN: 9780062099495, 0062099493

Last year, Angelina Jolie told interviewers that she was planning to play Cleopatra in James Cameron’s 3-D adaptation of Stacy Schiff’s critically acclaimed and best-selling bio, Cleopatra: A Life, (Little, Brown/ Hachette, 2010). Cameron, however, dropped out when he decided to do Avatar 2.

News has been scarce since, but Variety now reports that David Fincher (The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) may direct. Angelina Jolie is still planning to play the Egyptian queen (who, according to Schiff’s biography as well as other historical sources, was ethnically Greek) and has her “heart set” on Fincher. It’s uncertain whether it will be shot in 3-D, as was planned when Cameron was set to direct.

Of course, Fincher could also turn his attention to the next title in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire, or any of several other possible projects, including a version of Jules Verne’s 20000 Leagues Under the Sea.

The National Book Awards will be Webcast live tomorrow evening, 8 p.m., ET. Below are the finalists, with links to consumer reviews, where available:

Fiction

Andrew Krivak, The Sojourn, (Bellevue Literary Press); review links

Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife, (Random House) – reviewed the most widely of all the finalists – links and excerpts here

Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic, (Knopf/ Random House) – review links

Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision, (Lookout Books/Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington) – review links

Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones, (Bloomsbury USA) – review links

Nonfiction

Deborah Baker, The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, (Graywolf Press) – review links

Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution, (Little, Brown/Hachette) – review links

Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, (Norton) – review links

Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, (Viking/Penguin) – review links

Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout, (It Books/HarperCollins) – review links

Young People’s Literature

Franny Billingsley, Chime, (Dial/Penguin)

Debby Dahl Edwardson, My Name Is Not Easy, (Marshall Cavendish)

Thanhha Lai, Inside Out and Back Again, (Harper)

Albert Marrin, Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy, (Knopf/Random House Children’s Books)

Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now, (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) –  NYT Book Review

Poetry 

Nikky Finney, Head Off & Split, (TriQuarterly/Northwestern University Press) – Interview

Yusef Komunyakaa, The Chameleon Couch, (FSG/Macmillan)

Carl Phillips, Double Shadow, (FSG/Macmillan) – Chicago Tribune review

Adrienne Rich, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010, (Norton) – San Francisco Chronicle review

Bruce Smith, Devotions, (University of Chicago Press) – review, NYT BR 

If, like us, you had difficulty downloading the first full-length Hunger Games trailer from iTunes yesterday, it’s now available via YouTube (click the link, to access the full-screen version).

Reactions from fans as well as critics (with the exception of the Wall Street Journal‘s”Speakeasy“) are positive.

Kirkus  “The World’s Toughest Book Critics” have released their Best Fiction lists for 2011. Coming soon are their with selections of Best Children, Teen, Nonfiction and Indie Books as well as Best Book Apps.

Around the corner are both LJ‘s and SLJ’s picks.

We’ll be rounding them all up into our monster spreadsheet.

UPDATE, 12/21:

We’re happy to announce that our annual spreadsheets, rounding up all the titles in the national best books lists, with ISBN’s and information on additional formats — audio, large print, and eformats from OverDrive — are now available for downloading and checking against your collections.

• 2011 Adult Fiction
• 2011 Adult Nonfiction
• 2011 Childrens and Young Adult

The NYT Book Review‘s special section on children’s books arrived this weekend, complete with a slide show of the NYT Best Illustrated Books.

On the left, a page from one of the featured “Picture Books About New York City Traditions,” (chosen by NYC icon Pete Hamill),  Balloons Over Broadway, by Melisssa Sweet, HMH).

Be sure to read EarlyWord Kid’s correspondent, Lisa Von Drasek’s review of Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver, illus by Kei Acedera (Harper/HarperCollins, Middle grade; ages 8 to 12).

By all accounts, screaming fans went crazy for the first full-length Hunger Games trailer when it appeared on Good Morning America‘s jumbotron on Times Square this morning.

It’s supposed to be on iTunes exclusively, but we didn’t have success in getting it to play (too much traffic?)

The first full-length trailer for The Hunger Games is set to debut on Good Morning America Monday during the  8 a.m. hour. It will also be displayed on GMA‘s jumbotron in Times Square.

Josh Hutcherson, who plays Peeta Mellark in the movie, will introduce the trailer. The movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen is based on the first book in Suzanne Collins’ trilogy and is scheduled for release on 3/23/12.

The second in the series, Catching Fire is scheduled for Nov. 22, 2013. In keeping with the traditions set by the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises, the final book in the series, Mockingjay, may be divided into two films, but no announcements have been made about that yet.

Co-starring in the film are:

Liam Hemsworth … Gale Hawthorne

Stanley Tucci … Caesar Flickerman

Woody Harrelson … Haymitch Abernathy

Elizabeth Banks … Effie Trinket

Donald Sutherland … President Snow

Two tie-ins are being released; an Official Illustrated Movie Companion as well as a regular tie-in edition. Both will be released by Scholastic on Feb. 7.

Photo: Lisa Von Drasek

You don’t need us to tell you that the next title in the Wimpy Kid series is around the corner, arriving on Tuesday, Nov 15 (above, Bank Street Books, one of six bookstores nationwide that was “wrapped” in anticipation of the big day). In this, the sixth in the series, Cabin Fever, (Amulet/Abrams) Greg Heffley finds himself in big trouble after school property is damaged. 

You and your kids can join Jeff Kinney via Webcast at 10 a.m., Eastern, this coming Tuesday, Nov. 15, for his appearance at the Bank Street College of Education (where EarlyWord Kids correspondent is the librarian). Register here (space is limited). The visit is being recorded and will be Webcast from School Library Journal, a few days later.

On the adult side, it seems to be the week of fiction based on reality. The three Kardashian sisters give us a novel about three celebrity sisters, Ann Beattie imagines the life of Pat Nixon, and  there’s even a novel about the Bin Laden raid. The week is rounded out by actual memoirs, including one by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her astronaut husband Mark Kelley, TV host Regis Philbin, basketball giant Shaquille O’Neal and actress/director/photographer Diane Keaton.

Fiction Based on Fact

Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life by Ann Beattie (Scribner/S&S; Audio, Dreamscape Media) is a fictional portrait of reticent First Lady Pat Nixon. In a starred review, Booklist said, “Beattie has created a resplendent paean to the pleasures of the literary imagination, and a riveting and mischievous, revealing and revitalizing portrait of an overlooked woman of historic resonance.” But Kirkus cautions, “there’s a whiff of condescension about the whole enterprise.” Last week, the New York Times ran an essay by Beattie  about writing the book.

KBL: Kill Bin Laden: A Novel Based on True Events by John Weisman (Morrow/HarperCollins; HarperLuxe Large Print) is a fictionalized account of the hunt for Bin Laden and the raid on his hideout. Kirkus says, “the novel is much better than the typical military fare, but like the inevitable movie, it’s also not as strange or impressive as the truth. A down-and-dirty thriller that feels as rushed as its publication date.”

Dollhouse by Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian (Morrow/HarperCollins) is a novel about a trio of rich sisters with celebrity problems – not unlike the authors, who are best known for their TV show, the E! Reality Series Keeping Up with the Kardashians. As the New York Times Media Decoder blog noted, “the ending of Kim Kardashian’s unusually brief marriage happened to be beautifully timed with a planned Kardashian book blitz” that includes the recently released Kardashian Konfidential, with pictures of the wedding that occurred 72 days ago.

Literary Favorites

The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories by Don DeLillo (Scribner; S&S Audio) includes stories ranging from the fiction master’s jazz-infused early work to the minimalism of his later stories. Library Journal says, “For readers of literary fiction, this book is a good introduction to DeLillo’s iconic postmodern style, though those new to the genre may find it a somewhat hard pill to swallow.” Indie booksellers see it as having broader appeal; it’s the #1 Indie Next pick for November.

Devil’s Gate by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown (Putnam; Wheeler Large Print; Penguin Audio) is the latest adventure featuring the NUMA Special Assignments Team. PW says, “thriller fans who aren’t too picky about credibility will be most rewarded.”

Kill Alex Cross (Alex Cross Series #18) by James Patterson (Little, Brown; Little Brown Large Print; Hachette Audio) finds the President’s teenage children slipping away from the Secret Service and into the hands of a sadist. PW is not impressed, saying that the story line is recycled from Along Came a Spider, and that “Patterson neither sweats the details nor invests his lead with more than two dimensions.”

V Is for Vengeance (Kinsey Millhone Series #22) by Sue Grafton (Marion Wood/Putnam; Thorndike Large Print; Random House Audio) invites speculation about how this venerated series will end, just four installments from now. Still, Kirkus likes this one reasonably well: “Grafton is as original, absorbing and humane as ever. The joints just creak a bit.”

Smokin’ Seventeen (Stephanie Plum Series #17) by Janet Evanovich (Bantam/RH; Random House Large Print; Random House Audio) has been on Amazon’s top 100 sales rankings for a while now. The film One for the Money, based on the 1994 book that launched the Stephanie Plum series, is now set for January 2012.

Memoirs

Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope by Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly with Jeffrey Zaslow (Scribner/S&S; Thorndike Press; S&S Audio) is the story of the Democratic congresswoman from Arizona and her astronaut husband, and includes her ongoing recovery from the Tucson shooting, which has left her continuing to struggle with language and with only 50 percent of her vision in both eyes. It is excerpted and on the cover of the new issue of People magazine.

How I Got This Way by Regis Philbin (It Books/HarperCollins; HarperLuxe Large Print; HarperAudio) is the memoir of the television host and entertainer and comes a month before he retires, with an announced 500,000-copy first printing.

Then Again by Diane Keaton (Random House; Random House Audio) is the film star’s memoir of her bond with her mother, Dorothy, who kept eighty-five journals about her marriage, her children, and, most probingly, herself, in a story that spans four generations and nearly a hundred years.

Shaq Uncut: My Story (on Library catalogs as Tall Tales and Untold Stories) by Shaqulle O’Neal and Jackie MacMullan (Grand Central; Hachette Audio) is the National Basketball Association giant’s memoir. PW says, “O’Neal has intriguing insights into the fraught group dynamics of a sport where positional roles are uniquely ill-defined… Preening and prickly, Shaq’s reminiscences illuminate the knotty psychology behind the swagger.” This one began rising on Amazon 11/2/11.

Current Events

Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony by Jeff Ashton and Lisa Pulitzer (Morrow/HarperCollins) gives the prosecutor’s account of the murder investigation and trial.

From Yesterday to TODAY: Six Decades of America’s Favorite Morning Show by Stephen Battaglio (Running Press) chronicles the history of NBC’s Today Show.

Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 by Ian W. Toll (Norton) uses primary sources, maps and illustrations to explore the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway from both sides.

The new book by New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food is marked as “on the rise” on the latest Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list. Libraries are showing heavy holds where ordering is light.

Prepub reviews, however, made it sound less than enthralling, as expressed by Library Journal, “Despite Gopnik’s allusive, witty prose, his supercilious and moralistic discussion will leave readers with a bad taste in the mouth.”

Consumer reviews have been much stronger, with Entertainment Weekly giving it an A-  (“By turns meaty and frothy, this ode to the social experience of eating combines a reporter’s eye for facts with a gourmand’s devotion to food.”) In Slate, Laura Shapiro vividly expresses her enjoyment of the book, even though (or, perhaps especially because) it “may be full of holes,”

I wish this book, The Table Comes First, didn’t have to be a book. I wish it could be a dinner table, instead, with maybe six people sitting around it…And I wish Adam Gopnik were at the table, leaning forward intently as the plates come and go, yakking away happily about food and history and Paris and cookbooks and life, just as he does in these pages. Then the rest of us guests could jump in and interrupt him whenever we want, probably knocking over a wine glass in our enthusiasm…

The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food Adam Gopnik Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-10-25) ISBN / EAN: 0307593452 / 9780307593450

Audio, Recorded Books

Jeff Kinney will appear on Tuesday, November 15th, 10:00 am at my school (Bank Street College of Education). Abrams has partnered with School Library Journal to Webcast the event to any school or library who wishes to watch. Some public libraries are inviting classes to visit that morning. Register here.

PS- sorry about the West Coast… we scheduled the visit before we came up with the idea of sharing it. The visit is being recorded and will be Webcast from School Library Journal, a few days later.

J.K. Rowling’s interactive site Pottermore.com was supposed to launch to the general public on Oct. 15, but problems in handling traffic have kept the site exclusive to Beta users and even they suffered for a few days last week when the site was taken down to fix some hardware glitches.

USA Today book editor Dierdre Donahue is a Beta user and has found the experience frustrating. Rather than making her a fan of the Web site, she says it’s made her want to reread the print books.

Meanwhile, JK Rowling has made headlines by saying she nearly killed off Harry’s friend Ron Weasley midway through the series.

A relatively new prize, the three-year-old  Wellcome Trust Book Prize for the “best of medicine in literature” has been awarded to a work of fiction for the first time. Alice LaPlante’s debut novel, Turn of Mind  (Atlantic Monthly, 7/5; Audio, Brilliance; Large Print, Thorndike; audio and eBook, OverDrive) is a mystery with a twist. The protagonist, a brilliant woman surgeon, is under suspicion of murder, but because of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, she does not know if she is guilty.

The book won over a distinguished short list, which includes Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies.

The prize committee chair described the book as “…a gripping, intricately plotted, and profoundly moving novel that takes the reader deep inside the mind of someone whose memories are being eroded by Alzheimer’s. As with all the books shortlisted for the Prize, it has something both interesting and important to say about the place of medicine and disease in our lives.”

The book has had a strong audience in libraries, showing holds of 10:1 this summer. Heavy holds continue in several libraries

Bill Clinton’s new book Back to Work is being widely regarded as critical of President Obama, a view Jon Stewart made subtle reference to in the beginning of Clinton’s appearance on the Daily Show last night. Stewart asked whether Obama had been sent a copy, because he might be “very interested” in the book’s specific prescriptions for running the country. Clinton carefully responded that Obama has already advocated several of the ideas in the book and that he gives the administration credit in each instance. Clinton went on to direct his criticisms at the Tea Party.

Click here for Parts Two and Three of the interview.

It’s clear that the White House has read the book. In a separate appearance, Clinton says he received a “clarifying memo” from Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling, which caused him to recant one of the book’s specific criticisms of the administration.

The book is #8 on Amazon sales rankings and rising. Where ordering is light, libraries are showing heavy holds.

Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy Bill Clinton Retail Price: $23.95 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-11-08) ISBN / EAN: 0307959759 / 9780307959751

Also available on OverDrive, RHAudio and RH large print.

HBO confirmed this week that they are developing a made-for-tv movie about Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff with Robert De Niro as producer and expected to play the lead.

It will be based on two books, the recently-released Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family by Laurie Sandell, based on interviews with Madoff’s family (they appeared on Sixty Minutes last week to help promote the book) and The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques (Times Books/Holt/Macmillan) published earlier this year (the author appeared on the Today Show in April).

Novelist John Burnham Schwartz is writing the screenplay.