EarlyWord

Following a critical 60 Minutes story about the running of his charity and the truth of events recounted in his best selling books, Greg Mortenson responded via an interview in his local newspaper. He has now also given a lengthy interview to Outside online (via GalleyCat).

Noting that he is not a journalist, he says his co-author on Three Cups of Tea, David Oliver Relin, insisted that it was necessary to create a narrative arc out of Mortenson’s various trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan, so,

…rather than me going two or three times to one place, [Relin] would synthesize it into one trip. I would squawk about it and be told that it would all work out.

Mortenson’s publisher, Viking, has announced that they are conducting their own investigation into the accuracy of the books.

Here it is:

Having just won the National Book Critics Circle fiction award, Jennifer Egan is now adding the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction to the awards for A Visit from the Goon Squad, (Knopf). The two finalists were The Privileges by Jonathan Dee (Random House) and The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee (Riverhead Books). Absent from the list is Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, which is often mentioned in the same breath as Egan’s book (The Guardian recently pointed out that the two books share similar themes). In the introduction to a recent interview, Entertainment Weekly writes,

Unlike Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, which had years’ worth of hype before it sold its first copy, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, released last summer, has been a slower-burning literary sensation.

A Visit from the Goon Squad has just been released in paperback. Many libraries are showing heavy reserve ratios.

A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: Anchor – (2011-03-22) ISBN / EAN: 9780307477477 / 9780307477477

Audio:

AudioGo (formerly BBC AudioBooks); 9780792771746; 8 CD’s; $79.95
Adobe EPUB eBook from OverDrive

In the other book categories, the winners are:

HISTORY

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, Eric Foner (W. W. Norton)

Audio: Tantor Media; OverDrive WMA Audiobook

BIOGRAPHY

Washington: A Life. Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press)

Large Type; Thorndike; 9781410431172
Audio: Books on Tape and Playaway

GENERAL NONFICTION

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)

Audio: Tantor Media

POETRY

The Best of It: New and Selected Poems,  Kay Ryan (Grove Press)

Abraham Verghese, a doctor and the author of Cutting for Stone (STILL on the NYT Trade Paperback best seller list, now at #3, after 63 weeks) gives Diane Ackerman’s book about her husband’s stroke, One Hundred Names for Love, an accolade many writers dream about. In his review in Sunday’s NYT Book Review, he writes,

This book has done what no other has for me in recent years: it has renewed my faith in the redemptive power of love, the need to give and get it unstintingly, to hold nothing back, settle for nothing less, because when flesh and being and even life fall away, love endures. This book is proof.

One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing Diane Ackerman Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 322 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2011-04-04) ISBN / EAN: 9780393072419 / 9780393072419

Large Print; Thorndike; 9781410436481
Audio; Recorded Books

Ackerman’s long-running best seller, The Zookeeper’s Wife, was signed for a movie in September, but there has been no news about it since.

In his book Idea Man, (Portfolio/Penguin) arriving tomorrow, Paul Allen levels accusations against his former partner, Bill Gates. Lesley Stahl interviews Allen on 60 Minutes and ends by wondering whether he is a “Tech Visionary” or a “Bitter Billionaire.”

Last night, CBS 60 Minutes aired an investigation into complaints about how Greg Mortenson runs his charitable foundation and whether all the stories in his best sellers, Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools, are true.

Mortenson chose not to appear on the show to defend himself, but denied most of the allegations in a story in his hometown newspaper, admitting that some of the events recounted in his books are “compressed,” and revealing he is about to undergo heart surgery. He also asked supporters to circulate a letter he wrote in his defense (a Forbes.com columnist, while cheering on Mortenson, analyzes this as an approach to mustering grassroots support pioneered by Sarah Palin).

The big book news this weekend comes from TV; after years of trying to make it happen, A Game of Thrones (Bantam), the first in George R.R. Martin’s fantasy epic finally hits screens on Sunday, beginning a 10-episode run on HBO. Reviews are strong; USA Today says “It’s hard to imagine a better screen transfer.” Attests the San Francisco Chronicle, “Beyond violence and sex…[the] series pulls in viewers with intrigue and character and doesn’t let go.” For those who feel fantasy is not their cup of tea, series star Sean Bean says it has more in common with The Sopranos than Tolkein, albeit with a different landscape.

HBO clearly thinks it has a hit on its hands; they’ve ordered up yet another series based on a fantasy epic, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

Martin fans got more good news recently; A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in A Song of Ice and Fire series, which began with A Game of  Thrones, is coming on July 12th.

For those not already familiar with the story, helpful guides are already appearing online, raising the question of whether a series that needs elaborate scorecards will sit well with television viewers.

The week leading in to the Easter holiday weekend is dominated by repeat authors, including a new David Baldacci.

GalleyChat RA Pick

The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips (Random House) is the author’s fifth novel. About a long-lost Shakespeare play, PW gives it a starred review, and calls it “a sublime faux memoir framed as the introduction to the play’s first printing—a Modern Library edition, of course.” It got mentions in our recent GalleyChat: one participant called it “quirky and rompish” and likened it to Michael Crummey’s Galore. Entertainment Weekly gives it an A- in the new issue, “Phillips invests the metafictional gamesmanship with bracing intelligence and genuine heart. The fun starts with the opening line — ‘I have never much liked Shakespeare’ — and the energy never flags as the book develops into both a literary mystery and a surprisingly effective critique of the Bard.”

Usual Suspects

The Sixth Man by David Baldacci (Grand Central) is a new mystery with former Secret Service agents and current private investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.

Eve by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s Press) features forensic sculptor Eve Duncan in her 11th investigation, and the first installment in a new trilogy, in which she works to solve a case that has haunted her for years; the abduction and murder of her own seven-year-old daughter Bonnie. Fans will not have long to wait for the other books in the trilogy; Quinn is coming this July, followed by Bonnie in October.

The Priest’s Graveyard by Ted Dekker (Center Street) is the story of a vigilante priest and a woman dedicated to avenging the man she loved. Booklist says it’s “skillfully written, surprising, and impossible to put down. It might, in fact, be his best novel to date.” It arrives complete with its own book trailer.

Quicksilver: Book Two of the Looking Glass Trilogy by Amanda Quick (Putnam) is a paranormal romance, the latest in her Arcane Society series.

The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice (Pamela Dorman Books) is a portrait of three sisters who come home to Martha’s Vineyard one last time and has a 100,000-copy print run. Rice was a featured author at the ALA MidWinter Author Tea.

Nonfiction

Reading My Father: A Memoir by Alexandra Styron (Scribner) is William Styron’s youngest daughter’s exploration of his talent, and whether it justified his alcohol abuse and the debilitating depression that cast a long shadow over his wife and four children. Entertainment Weekly gives it an A-.

Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft by Paul Allen (Portfolio) gives an insider’s account of the dawning of the digital age. “Allen offers a clearheaded diagnosis of Microsoft’s problems, including its complicated future,” says BusinessWeek, adding that “Allen can be a scatterbrain. That quality slips into his writing.” An excerpt in Vanity Fair, made advance headlines because of Allen’s pointed criticism of former partner, Bill Gates. Allen will appear on 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Young Adult

Twelfth Grade Kills #5: The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer (Penguin) is the final installment in this series about a teenage vampire who has spent the last four years trying to handle the pressures of school while sidestepping a slayer out for his blood.

Expect to see Tina Fey’s memoir, Bossypants, arrive at #1 on the upcoming 4/24/11 NYT Print Hardcover Best Seller list.

It’s been receiving considerable media attention, including an interview with Fey on NPR’s Fresh Air last night and on Oprah this week (where she revealed that she is pregnant with her second child).

Bossypants Tina Fey Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books – (2011-04-05) ISBN / EAN: 0316056863 / 9780316056861

Audio;

• Hachette Audio; 9781609419691
• AudioGo Library (previously BBC Audio); 9781609417192
• Playaway; 9781611138795
• OverDrive WMA Audiobook, coming soon

Large Print; Little, Brown, 9780316177894

Arriving this fall is a collection of “lost” stories by Dr. Seuss. The book came about in an interesting way, as revealed on All Things Considered last night. Via eBay, a Random House art director discovered a Dr. Seuss-obsessed collector who had identified magazines from the ’50’s featuring Seuss stories (he had a great business of buying the magazines for a few dollars and reselling them, with the Seuss name noted, for $200 to $400). Those, combined with some stories that were partially finished at Seuss’s death and voilà, The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories.

The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories Seuss Retail Price: $15.00 Hardcover: 72 pages Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers – (2011-09-27) ISBN / EAN: 0375864350 / 9780375864353

British actor Hugh Laurie, known for his role as the acerbic main character on the TV series House, has won the lead role in a movie adaptation of Mister Pip, the novel by Lloyd Jones. Production will begin in New Zealand next month. Laurie will play Mr. Watts, a teacher in a school on the island of Bougainville during its civil war in the 1990’s. He reads Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations to the children, who become fascinated with the character of Pip. (Deadline)

The book was the winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was short-listed for the Booker, losing that year to Anne Enright’s The Gathering. Lloyd Jones’s next book Hand Me Down World, published last fall in the UK, will be released here by Bloomsbury in September.

The movie is set to be directed by the seemingly unlikely choice of Andrew Adamson, co-director the first two Shrek movies and director of the first two The Chronicles of Narnia films.

Hand Me Down World: A Novel Lloyd Jones Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA – (2011-09-27) ISBN / EAN: 1608196992 / 9781608196999

Dragonflight, the first novel in Anne McCaffrey’s extensive science fiction series, The Dragonriders of Pern, is being scripted for a live-action feature, with a plans to begin production some time next year. The series includes 21 novels and novellas as well as several short stories. One of the producers noted, in a bit of an understatement, that there is plenty of material for a franchise. No director or cast has been announced yet.

Pern fans should not hold their collective breaths, however, this is not the first time an adaptation has been attempted.

The Orange Prize for Fiction‘s short list, announced at the London Book Fair yesterday, includes three debuts and one second novel. Of the debuts, Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife, has already received a great deal of media attention (need we mention, again, that Obreht is the youngest of the New Yorker‘s best 20 writers under 40?) and has appeared on the NYT best seller list. The UK bookies’ favorite, however, is Emma Dongahue’s seventh novel, Room, which has been a best seller in both the UK and the US. Reporting on the award, the Independent writes that Donoghue is working on her next book, about a murder in San Francisco in the 1870’s. Says Donaghue, “It’s nice to be doing something completely different to Room; some writers get caught up in weird simulacrum of their previous novel and it’s good to be plunging into a completely different world,” The well-respected A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Eagan, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, did not make the cut to the short list. The winner of the Prize, which is awarded to women writers from around the English-speaking world, will be announced on June 8th. The Orange Short List:

• Emma Donoghue (Canadian/Irish) – Room, Little, Brown, 9/13/11, 9780316098335 (7th novel); was on the Booker short list, but lost to Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question.

• Nicole Krauss (American) – Great House, Norton, 10/12/2010, 9780393079982; (3rd novel); Krauss, along with Obreht, is one of The New Yorker‘s best 20 writers under 40. The book was a finalist for the National Book Award.

• Téa Obreht (Serbian/American) – The Tiger’s Wife, Random, 3/8/11, 9780385343831 (1st novel)

• Aminatta Forna (British/Sierra Leonean) – The Memory of Love, Atlantic Monthly, 1/4/11, 9780802119650 (2nd novel); Set in Sierra Leone, Booklist calls this a “stunning and powerful portrait of a country in the aftermath of a decade of civil war,” It also received admiring reviews from the San Francisco Chronicle and the NYT Book Review. Nancy Pearl interviewed the author on Seattle Cable TV.

• Emma Henderson (British) – Grace Williams Says it Loud; not published in the U.S.; Sceptre in the UK (1st novel); a love story about two people who meet in a mental home.

Yesterday on Oprah, Shirley MacLaine revealed she once had sex with three different men on the same day and that she was in an open marriage for 30 years, engendering a storm of headlines.

The 77-year-old MacLaine  is promoting her twelfth book, I’m Over All That: And other Confessions (Atria/S&S), released last week.

The book rose to #7 on Amazon. Her 1986 book, Out on a Limb, also rose to #102.

Daniel Radcliffe’s post-Harry-Potter career includes his current Broadway run in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He also stars in the upcoming film adaptation of Susan Hill’s 1983 ghost tale, The Woman in Black. A very brief taste is offered in the teaser trailer just released online.

Radcliffe plays a young lawyer, who, while sorting through the papers of a dead client in an appropriately creepy British village, encounters terror and a mysterious woman dressed in black. British author Susan Hill’s book has also been adapted as a play that has been running in London’s West End since 1989.

[UPDATE: The movie is now scheduled for release in the US on 2/3/12, according to IMDB]

Radcliffe is also attached to star in a new adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, planned for 2012.

For those of you suffering Harry Potter separation anxiety as the series draws to a close on July 12th, a behind-the-scenes Deathly Hallows documentary is in the works.

The Woman in Black is currently available in an illustrated edition from Godine. Vintage/Knopf is releasing a movie tie-in in September (an audio version is coming from Blackstone).

Hill is also known for her Simon Serrailler mystery series, published in the U.S. by Overlook Press.