EarlyWord

The first official trailer for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (a teaser, with no dialog, supposedly leaked earlier this year) just debuted on the Web. The American adaptation of the Stieg Larsson novel is directed by David Fincher and stars Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist, Rooney Mara as hacker Lisbeth Salander and Christopher Plummer as the man who hires them to investigate a murder. The movie opens on Dec. 21.

Looks like it will be at least as dark as the Swedish version.

Knopf announced late yesterday that they are publishing a new book by Bill Clinton, Back to Work, in November. According to the press release, Clinton,

…details how we can get out of the current economic crisis and lay a foundation for long-term prosperity. He offers specific recommendations on how we can put people back to work, increase bank lending and corporate investment, double our exports, restore our manufacturing base, and create new businesses. He supports President Obama’s emphasis on green technology, saying that change in the way we produce and consume energy is the strategy most likely to spark a fast growing economy and enhance our national security.

BACK TO WORK: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy Bill Clinton Retail Price: $22.95 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: – (2011-11-08) ISBN / EAN: 0307959759 / 9780307959751

Many libraries are now displaying the image on the left on their Web site home pages.

News sources are spreading the word. The story in today’s print New York Times, points out, “For years the availability of free e-books from libraries was something of an underground secret.”

No more, thanks to Amazon’s ability to get press attention. Libraries are now struggling to keep up with the increased demand.

The OverDrive update is in the midst of a roll out, which will be completed in a few days, so many libraries have to explain to customers that they can’t take the words “now available in over 11,000 libraries” at face value (have any of you posted “coming soon” notices on your sites?). In addition, not all titles are available; as OverDrive says on its blog, the update allows, “most existing eBooks in your library’s collection to be read on all Kindle devices.”

Several stories offer how-tos for users (including the reminder that a library card is required):

PCWorld — Borrowing Kindle E-Books: A Hands-On Guide

CNet — How to get free library books on your Kindle

The Seattle Times — Photo guide: How to check out Kindle library books

Charles Frazier’s first novel, Cold Mountain, received great acclaim, as well as commercial success (it was on the hardcover best seller list so long that the paperback ended up being delayed for several months) and went on to win the 1997 National Book Award (beating out Don DeLillo’s Underworld). It was also the basis for a movie of the same title, which was nominated for six Oscars (Renee Zellwegger won for Best Supporting Actress).

Frazier’s second book, Thirteen Moons, came out nearly ten years later, to wildly divergent reviews. History may repeat itself with his third book, Nightwoods, arriving this coming Tuesday. Entertainment Weekly gives it a solid A, saying, “The book feels longer than its 260 pages — a good thing, given what a joy it is to luxuriate in its words.” The plotting also comes in for praise, “By the book’s climactic scenes in the shadowy mountain forest that gives Nightwoods its title, the unhurried, poetic suspense is both difficult to bear and impossible to shake.”

Michiko Kakutani, in the New York Times, sees it differently; the book is “often heavy-handed” and Frazier’s prose is “ominous and purple” and “ridiculously melodramatic.” As a result, the the over-the-top passages “rip a hole in the textured emotional fabric of this novel, which Mr. Frazier has so painstakingly woven.”

Nightwoods: A Novel Charles Frazier Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Random House – (2011-09-27) ISBN / EAN: 140006709X / 9781400067091

Unabridged audio, Random House Audio and Books on Tape; Large Print, Random House; Audio currently on OverDrive, eBooks available soon.

Random House Library Services begins a new series on their library blog called “Use Me: Book Promo to repurpose” with a trailer for Nightwoods, which they encourage librarians to use on library web sites, blogs, enewsletters, or library video monitors.

Holds are growing for a book about the love of maps by the 74-time Jeopardy! winner, Ken Jennings, called Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks. He was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday.

Unsurprisingly, he’s a big fan of the the maps division of the Library of Congress. He talks about being awestruck when he toured it.

Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks Ken Jennings Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2011-09-20) ISBN / EAN: 1439167176 / 9781439167175

NPR’s Morning Edition calls Time for Outrage by Stéphane Hessel, a collection of essays that calls on young people to rage against the world’s injustices, “One of the literary world’s unexpected successes over the past year.”

Written by a 94-year-old WWII French resistance fighter, it has sold almost 2 million copies in his native country. It was published here on Tuesday.

The book was not reviewed in the prepub sources and is owned by just a few public libraries.

Time for Outrage: Indignez-vous! Stéphane Hessel Retail Price: $10.00 Hardcover: 48 pages Publisher: Twelve – (2011-09-20) ISBN / EAN: 1455509728 / 9781455509720

Back in July, independent booksellers predicted that The Night Circus would be bigger, in terms of sales, than either The Help or The Da Vinci Code.

The new Indie Best Seller list indicates that they have been working to fulfill that prophecy; The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday, 9/13; Audio, RH Audio and Books on Tape; Large Print,Center Point), debuts at #1 in its first week on sale. But the indies aren’t the only ones selling it, we hear it will appear at #2 on the 10/2 New York Times list.

As a result, the other debuts have moved down one notch on the Indie list:

Rules of Civility, Amor Towles (Viking, 7/26;  Books on Tape; Penguin Audio; audio on OverDrive; LT in Dec. from Thorndike) — showing great staying power for a debut as we move into the fall season, this one is at #6 after 8 weeks.

The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh, (8/23; Audio, Random House Audio and Books on Tape and OverDrive; Large Print, Thorndike) – #8, down from #7 after 4 weeks.

We The Animals, Justin Torres. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Blackstone Audio) — #10, moving down from #9 last week.

The Submission, Amy Waldman, (FSG; Audio, AudioGo; Large Type, Thorndike)  — falls off the list after appearing at  #14  last week.

Amazon’s press release announcing that “Kindle and Kindle app customers can now borrow Kindle books from more than 11,000 local libraries in the United States,” launched several news stories, raising customer expectations. Many, however, took the word “now” in the press release at face value and expressed frustration on Twitter and Amazon’s Kindle Library Lending customer discussion forum, because they were unable to download Kindle titles from their local libraries.

OverDrive responded to our queries by saying that Seattle Public and King County (WA) Library System began the program on Monday. The roll out to the rest of the libraries on the OverDrive system began today and is expected to be complete within a few days.

You can refer confused customers to OverDrive’s press release.

Author Ron Suskind hit the news shows yesterday to defend his book on Obama and the financial crisis, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President, (HarperCollins; Audio, Dreamscape and on OverDrive; LT, HarperLuxe).

Below, he appears on the Today Show. He also appeared on NPR’s “Fresh Air” and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show.

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

On NPR’s Fresh Air, Maureen Corrigan reviewed Stephen Greenblatt’s forthcoming book on the origins of the Renaissance, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, (WW Norton, 9/26) calling it a “non-fiction wonder.”

As a result, the book rose to #19 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

One of the key elements of the book is the rediscovery, in 1417, of the Greek philosopher Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things. Corrigan predicts that its sales, “will spike as a result of Greenblatt’s book: his awe-struck discussions of the poem make it sound so weird and beautiful that most readers will want to give Lucretius a whirl themselves.”

Greenblatt’s publisher, Norton, foresaw this reaction; they have reissued On the Nature of Things to accompany Greenblatt’s book.

On the Nature of Things Lucretius Retail Price: $15.95 Paperback: 177 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2011-09-26) ISBN / EAN: 0393341364 / 9780393341362

As the Muppets freely admit, it’s high time for a new parody. Previous trailers for The Muppets movie, coming this Thanksgiving, have parodied The Hangover (The Fuzzy Pack) and The Green Lantern (Being Green).

Now comes The Girl with the Froggie Tattoo (compare it to the original here).

What WOULD Stieg Larsson think?

The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach, (Little, Brown, 9/7), a debut that is currently enjoying major media attention (the October issue of Vanity Fair features a long article about its publishing) appears on two new fall previews — the L.A. Times  and People‘s. Absent from both lists, are two other major debuts with strong media attention, The Night Circus and The Language of Flowers.

In nonfiction, Joan Didion’s Blue Nights, (Knopf, 11/1) appears on both. Didion, who already chronicled her husband’s death in The Year of Magical Thinking, suffered the death of her daughter soon after. People says it is a “searing memoir” of that period in her life.

Three of today’s four major movie debuts are based on books (although two of them probably fall into the category of “Who knew?” for most movie goers). Click on the movie titles to watch the trailers.

I Don’t Know How She Does It — The movie has brought renewed attention to Allison Pearson’s 2002 best seller (a chick lit title from Knopf, of all houses); the tie-in is now at #75 on USA Today’s best seller list and #14 on the NYT Trade Paperback list. Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, it looks like Sex and the City with day care (the L.A. Times‘ review bears out this suspicion). Too bad; when the book first came out, it was regarded as fresh and new. Considered similar to, but better than Bridget Jones Diary, it was a hit in both the author’s native England and in the U.S. — Tie-in, Anchor, 9780307948564.

Drive — Here’s a twist; a Danish filmmaker directing a movie based on a noir thriller by an American writer. Nicolas Winding Refnbest won the Cannes best director award for this adaptation of James Sallis’s novel of the same title. PW describes the author’s audience as a “small but fiercely devoted readership,” One wonders how faithful the movie is to the book, his first to be adapted to the screen. Reviews emphasize the violence while, as PW describes the author, he is ” best known for his literate, exquisitely crafted crime novels [and] impressive body of work over the past 40 years, with more than two dozen volumes of fiction, poetry, translation, essays, and criticism.” Sallis’s latest, The Killer Is Dying, (Walker) was just released in August. — Tie-in, Mariner/HMH, 9780547791098.

Straw Dogs — Reviews focus on whether this version is better than Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 thriller, starring Dustin Hoffman. Few realize that both are based on a novel, The Siege of Trencher’s Farm, by Gordon Williams. The Peckinpah original was so sexually violent, that the British censors blocked its release in video until 2003. That brought new attention to the once-prominent author (The Guardian‘s profile was headlined, “Gordon Who?“), even though the objectionable scenes were not in the book. — Tie-in, Titan Books, 9780857681195

Winning this fall’s Big First Novel Sweepstakes so far is The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, (Little, Brown; Hachette Large Print), a book we’ve been writing about since it was introduced at BEA. It rises to #3 on the 9/15 Indie Bestseller list, from #15 last week, its first week on sale. We hear it will  arrive at #6 on the 9/25 NYT list, coming out later today (the list dates are confusing, but both cover virtually the same time period).

The spoiler on next week’s lists could be The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday, 9/13; Audio, RH Audio and Books on Tape; Large Print, Center Point), published this week after much fanfare. It’s outselling the other big debuts on both Amazon and B&N.com. Holds are growing in libraries and are heavy where ordering is light.

Below are the rankings for the rest of the titles on the new Indie Fiction List, with links to our coverage:

Rules of Civility, Amor Towles (Viking, 7/26;  Books on Tape; Penguin Audio; audio on OverDrive; LT in Dec. from Thorndike) — #5 after 7 weeks; technically this is not a fall title, since it came out the end of July, but it’s keeping some of the other titles out of the top 5. Libraries report that holds picked up after it was an Early Show on Saturday Morning book club pick.

The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh, (8/23; Audio, Random House Audio and Books on Tape and OverDrive; Large Print, Thorndike) — #7, down from #6 after 3 weeks; EarlyWord‘s coverage

We The Animals, Justin Torres. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Blackstone Audio) — #9, moving up from #14 last week; on our Watch List for the week of 9/5

The Submission, Amy Waldman, (FSG; Audio, AudioGo; Large Type, Thorndike)  — #13, first week; THE SUBMISSION — Michiko Likes It!

The book people are likely to be talking about next week, has already been in the headlines this week. Joe McGinniss’s The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin (Crown) arrives on Tuesday, along with another take Palin by her almost-son-in-law and metaphor-mixer, Levi Johnston, Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs (Touchstone/S&S). Check our earlier stories for more on both books.

Also competing for the headlines that day is Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Suskind‘s examination of  Obama and the financial crisis, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President. The AP reported one of the book’s revelations yesterday, “Treasury Secretary Ignored Obama Directive.”

Below, more on it, and the other titles you’ll need to know next week.

Watch List

Habibi by Craig Thompson (Pantheon) is a the author’s first graphic novel in seven years, a “lushly epic love story that’s both inspiring and heartbreaking,” according to PW, that recounts the story of a modern Arabic girl sold into marriage at age nine, who’s captured by slave traders and escapes with an abandoned toddler, who becomes her companion and eventually her great love. An interview with the author is featured in New York magazine’s fall preview. They note that the author’s 2003 graphic memoir, Blankets, “won its Portland, Oregon, author just about every cartooning award there is.”

Fan Favorites

Reamde by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow; Brilliance Audio) is a thriller in which a wealthy tech entrepreneur gets caught in the very real crossfire of his own online fantasy war game. If your’e worried about how to pronounce that title, listen to the approved, official pronunciation here. Booklist says, “not many writers can make a thousand-page book feel like it’s over before you know it, but Stephenson, author of Cryptonomicon (928 pages), Anathem (981), and the three-volume Baroque Cycle (about 900 each), is a master of character, story, and pacing.”

Usual Suspects

Lethal by Sandra Brown (Grand Central; Hachette Audio; AudioGo; Grand Central Large Print) revolves around a woman and her four year old daughter held hostage by an accused murderer who claims that he must retrieve something extremely valuable that her late cop husband possessed. LJ says, “Fast paced and full of surprises, this taut thriller, marking the author’s return to Grand Central, features a large cast of superbly drawn characters and the perfect amounts of realistic dialog and descriptive prose. Brown, who began her career writing romance novels, also adds palpable romantic tension to the proceedings. Public libraries should expect high demand.”

Son of Stone: A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods (Putnam; Penguin Audio; Thorndike Large Print) finds Stone Barrington back in New York, though his former love, Arrington Calder, has other plans for him, including introducing him to the child he fathered many years ago. Booklist says, “most of the book focuses on Stone setting [his son] up in an elite private school and [his son’s] application to Yale, which doesn’t make for the most scintillating reading. The pace picks up toward the end, though, when Arrington’s menacing former suitor decides to exact revenge [on Stone and Arrington].”

Children’s

You Have to Stop This (Secret Series #5) by Pseudonymous Bosch (Little Brown Books for Young Readers) is the final book in Bosch’s Secret Series. It revolves around the disappearance of a mummy from a local museum. Cass and her friends Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji try to solve the case.

Everything on It by Shel Silverstein (HarperCollins) is a posthumous collection of Silverstein’s previously unpublished poems and illustrations with a similar design to his beloved earlier books, and the same “whimsical humor, eccentric characters, childhood fantasies, and iconoclastic glee that his many fans adore,” according to PW.

Nonfiction

Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Ron Suskind (HarperCollins; Audio, Dreamscape and on OverDrive; LT, HarperLuxe) is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s look at how the Obama administration has handled the financial crisis, based on hundreds of hours of interviews with administration officials.

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medecine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (Random House; RH Audio; BOT Audio) is a three-way biography of president James Garfield, who was shot onlyfour months after he took office in 1881, his assassin, Charles Guiteau, and inventor Alexander Graham Bell, whose made an unsuccessful deathbed attempt to locate the bullet lodged in the president’s body. Booklist’s starred review calls it “splendidly insightful” and says it stands “securely at the crossroads” of popular and academic biography. 

Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King (Crown; BOT Audio) is the true story of a serial killer in WWII. PW says, “this fascinating, often painful account combines a police procedural with a vivid historical portrait of culture and law enforcement.” Kirkus calls it “expertly written and completely absorbing,” and Booklist‘s starred review says that unlike the many other stories that have been compared to Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, this one finally has the critical and commercial potential to meet Larson’s standard.”

Columbus: The Four Voyages by Laurence Bergreen (Viking) recounts the explorer’s three other voyages, in addition to the famous 1492 trip across the Atlantic. Each was an attempt to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. Kirkus, PW and Library Journal find fault with the author’s  scholarly rigor and uneven writing, though PW and Booklist see potential for a general readership.

The Orchard: A Memoir by Theresa Weir (Grand Central; AudioGo) is the story of a city girl who adapts to life on an apple farm after she falls in love with the golden boy of a prominent local family whose lives and orchards seem to be cursed by environmental degradation through pesticide use, and toxic family relationships. Booklist says, “Best known for her acclaimed suspense novels written as Anne Frasier, Weir’s own story is as harrowing as they come, yet filled with an uncanny self-awareness that leads, ultimately, to redemption.”