EarlyWord

The Vampire Diaries, now in its 2nd season, and based on the books by L.J. Smith is the CW Network’s biggest hit. Unsurprisingly, then, they have just given the greenlight to a pilot based on another series by Smith, The Secret Circle (departing from vampires, this one is about witches).

The Secret Circle: The Initiation and The Captive Part I L. J. Smith Retail Price: $8.99 Paperback: 416 pages Publisher: HarperTeen – (2008-08-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061670855 / 9780061670855

It seems Smith will no longer write The Vampire Diaries books (which are produced by Alloy Entertainment). According to the author’s blog, the next title, Midnight, coming in March, is by her but the following one, Phantom will involve a ghostwriter.

The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight L. J. Smith Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: HarperTeen – (2011-03-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061720852 / 9780061720857

One of the YALSA Best Books of 2008, Jay Asher’s novel 13 Reasons Why has been acquired by Universal as a starring vehicle for Selena Gomez, who made her big screen debut in Ramona and Beezus last year (she is also know as Justin Bieber’s girlfriend).

MTV jumped in with casting suggestions for the other roles.

After a successful run in hardcover (two years on the NYT Childrens Chapter Books Best Seller list), the book will finally be released in paperback in June.

Thirteen Reasons Why Retail Price: $9.99 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Razorbill – (2011 -06-14) ISBN / EAN: 159514188X / 9781595141880

Debuting this Sunday on PBS Masterpiece is a four-part big-budget adaptation of Any Human Heart, by William Boyd.

In the UK, where it played in November, reviewers (The Telegraph and The Guardian) preferred the book to the series, despite a strong cast.

Below is the British trailer:
.

…………………………

Any Human Heart William Boyd Retail Price: $15.95 Paperback: 512 pages Publisher: Vintage – (2004-01-06) ISBN / EAN: 1400031001 / 9781400031009

Add People to the long list of fans of the debut A Discovery of Witches. Naming it a People Pick in the 2/21 issue, the review gives the ultimate accolade, “[author Deborah] Harkness has created a wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter or Twilight…An irresistible tale of wizardry, science and forbidden love.”

As we noted earlier, now is the time to consider ordering more copies, as well as buying the large type and audio formats.

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel Deborah Harkness Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 592 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 0670022411 / 9780670022410

Large type; Thorndike; March (9781410436337)

Audio:

Penguin, UNABR CD; 9780142429112, Feb. 8; $49.95

Recorded Books; UNABR; CD, Cassette & MP3

The New York Times critic Dwight Garner is so smitten with Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo that he ends up quoting several of the “sensual, smart, wired-up” sentences from the book and says he “could fill the rest of this space with the [book’s] resonant lines.”

Libraries have ordered modest quantities of this memoir about living in the Middle East and particularly about the region’s food.

Garner says to not be put off by the book’s “feeble cover…[that] looks like the cover of some mediocre nonprofit group’s annual report, or of Guideposts magazine.”

Not everyone would agree.

Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War Annia Ciezadlo Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Free Press – (2011-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 1416583939 / 9781416583936

NPR’s Morning Edition today continues the media attention on a book that is sharply critical of the quality of undergraduate education in the US (listen here).

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses Richard Arum, Josipa Roksa Retail Price: $25.00 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: University Of Chicago Press – (2011-01-15) ISBN / EAN: 0226028569 / 9780226028569

Above: Author Megan McDonald with Jordanna Beatty, who plays Judy Moody in the upcoming movie

The movie Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer will be released in the US on June 10, 2011.

Candlewick will publish five totally Moody movie tie-in titles which go on-sale May 24th.

In more Moody News, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Judy Moody books, Candlewick has reissued the entire series, with new covers (below is the first title; see them all in Candlewick’s Spring Catalog, pg. 92 or on the new Judy Moody Web site).

Judy Moody (Book #1) Megan McDonald Retail Price: $15.99 Hardcover: 160 pages Publisher: Candlewick – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0763648507 / 9780763648503

See Candlewick’s Spring Catalog, pgs. 93 to 95 for the movie tie-ins.

As Robin Brenner said in her most recent column, “Super heroes are everywhere lately.” That will only intensify at the movies this summer, as indicated by the Super Bowl ads. One movie news site calls it Comic Book Cacophony.

Below is the schedule, with the Super Bowl spots.

5/6 — Thor — Based on Stan Lee’s Marvel Super Hero series, and directed by Kenneth Branagh (!)

5/13 —Priest –  Not a Super Hero, but based on a manga series from TokyoPop.

6/3 —  X-Men: First Class — Based on another Marvel Super Hero series, this one did not get the Super Bowl treatment.

6/17 — Green Lantern — Based on a D.C. Super Hero series. Also no Super Bowl spot, outraging some fans.

7/22 — Captain America: The First Avenger – Marvel comics Super Hero adaptation.

7/29 — Cowboys & Aliens – The Western theme continues to be turned on its head; True Grit casts it in an ironic light. This adaptation of a non-Supero-Hero comic combines a Western with the theme of alien invastion. Highly anticipated, it’s directed by Jon Favreau and stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness, releasing today is a debut that has the earmarks of a big hit. Consider increasing your orders.

Cuyahoga P.L. has taken a much larger stand on the book than other libraries we checked. Collection Development Coordinator Wendy Bartlett explains,

Ever since The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, I’ve kept my eye out for another “witch” book that had a manuscript involved in some way, because readers loved that combo. Add to that, the setting is the Bodleian library at Oxford, book lovers’ Nirvana. Throw in vampires and excellent cover art, and it’s the hottest non-big-name title of the season!

She’s in good company. The book was one of the big titles at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009. It’s also received enviable coverage in the past week:

Parade Magazine pick of the week on Sunday

In last week’s Entertainment Weekly, twice, on the “Must List” and in a review that, although it awarded the book just a B+, attests to its appeal,

“…a thoroughly grown-up novel packed with gorgeous historical detail, has a gutsy, brainy heroine to match…Harkness writes with thrilling gusto about the magical world…Alas, there’s a bit of bloat to the book…[but] As the mysteries started to unravel, the pages turned faster, almost as if on their own. By the most satisfying end, Harkness had made me a believer”

O Magazine — “…romantic, erudite and suspenseful…Harkness attends to every scholarly and emotional detail with whimsy, sensuality and humor.”

A February pick by Amazon

One of Sessalee’s picks at B&N

Independent booksellers made it an IndieNext Pick for February

The author also has a great back story (like her character, she discovered a missing manuscript in the Bodleian), which she talked about during her presentation at the AAP Trade Libraries Breakfast at ALA MidWinter.

More will be coming; this is the first in a planned trilogy.

The author, who teaches at the U. of Southern California, also wrote The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (Yale University Press, 2007).

And, she writes the “Good Wine Under $20” blog (a book club idea — “Read the Book; Taste the Author’s Wine Selection”).

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel Deborah Harkness Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 592 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 0670022411 / 9780670022410

Large type; Thorndike; March (9781410436337).

Audio: Recorded Books

How can you not love the Weird Sisters, portrayed in Eleanor Brown’s first novel? Their motto is “There is no problem a library card can’t solve.” Also, their Shakespeare-besotted, but emotionally distant father insists that they communicate via quotes from the Bard.

On NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, Brown talked to Liane Hansen about how she found the right Shakespearean phrases. But, even with this elaborate conceit, says Brown, she wanted to write “…the kind of novel that I like to read — a novel about relationships and about family and about people getting lost but then finding themselves again.”

………………..

The Weird Sisters Eleanor Brown Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2011-02-17) ISBN / EAN: 0399157220 / 9780399157226

Penguin Audio; 9780142428948

Coming in Large Type from Thorndike in May, ISBN 13: 9781410437051, $30.99

The film adaptation of reader club favorite, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See, has been scheduled for a July 15 release date.

It is directed by Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club, Maid in Manhattan and Because of Winn-Dixie). No trailer is available yet, but some stills have been released.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Lisa See Retail Price: $23.95 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Random House – (2005-06-28) ISBN / EAN: 1400060281 / 9781400060283

See’s next book is Dreams of Joy, comes out in May.

Dreams of Joy: A Novel Lisa See Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Random House – (2011-05-31) ISBN / EAN: 140006712X / 9781400067121

Feeling left out because you didn’t see the Superbowl ads? No worries; you can see them on the USA Today site, minus the annoying interruptions, and ranked by a panel of viewers.

The cost of an ad this year? $3 million for a 30-second spot.

Among the movie ads, the top rated is children’s animation, Rango, with Johnny Depp as the voice of the chameleon Rango, arriving March 4th.

Below is the full trailer (but check out the spot — it gains in charm what it lacks in length).

Official movie site: RangoMovie.com

Sterling has the tie-ins:

6 and up:

Rango: The Novel Justine Fontes, Ron Fontes Retail Price: $4.95 Paperback: 144 pages Publisher: Sterling – (2011-01-28) ISBN / EAN: 1402784430 / 9781402784439

4 to 8:

Rango: The Movie Storybook Justine Fontes, Ron Fontes Retail Price: $9.95 Hardcover: 48 pages Publisher: Sterling – (2011-01-28) ISBN / EAN: 1402784422 / 9781402784422

..

Rango: The New Sheriff in Town Annie Auerbach Retail Price: $3.95 Paperback: 24 pages Publisher: Sterling – (2011-01-28) ISBN / EAN: 1402784414 / 9781402784415

Beginning reader:

Rango: A Hero at Last Annie Auerbach Retail Price: $3.95 Paperback: 32 pages Publisher: Sterling – (2011-01-28) ISBN / EAN: 1402784449 / 9781402784446

Also getting the Super Bowl treatment was The Eagle, based on Rosemary Sutcliffe’s 1954 ALA Notable Children’s book, opening this Friday, as well as the following children’s titles, which arrive this summer:

Rio (voices of Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg and Jamie Foxx)

In Theaters: May 27

Official Movie site: Rio-TheMovie.com

Tie-ins: HarperCollins, April 15

Transformers, Dark of the Moon

In Theaters: July 1

Official Movie site:  TransformersMovie.com

Tie-ins: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, May 17

Kung Fu Panda 2

In Theaters: May 27

Official Movie site: KungFuPanda.com

Tie-ins: Penguin, 4/28

Michael Oher, the offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens, finally tells his side of his adoption story, which is central to Michael Lewis’s bestseller The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game and the subsequent film starring Sandra Bullock. He explains on the Huffington Post that he wrote his memoir, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond (with Don Yeager) because “I wanted to talk about some of the questions people have about how I was portrayed in the movie and about my life before I came to live with the Tuohys.”

Kirkus says: “The book is strongest when Oher conveys his hard-won wisdom through specific examples and anecdotes from his life. When he dispenses more generalized advice, the narrative reads like a generic public-service announcement.”

At libraries we checked, orders were in line with modest reserves.

I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond Michael Oher Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Gotham – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 1592406122 / 9781592406128

Other Notable Titles on Sale Next Week

Known and Unknown: A Memoir by Donald Rumsfeld (Sentinel) chronicles the career of the Secretary of Defense during 9/11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani calls it: “tedious, self-serving. . .  [and] filled with efforts to blame others — most notably the C.I.A., the State Department and the Coalition Provisional Authority (in particular George Tenet, Colin L. Powell, Condoleezza Rice and L. Paul Bremer III) — for misjudgments made in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the failure to contain an insurgency there that metastasized for years.” On Monday, February 7, Rumsfeld will appear on “World News” with Diane Sawyer at 6:30 p.m. ET and on “Nightline” at 11:35 p.m. ET. On Tuesday, February 8, he will appear on “Good Morning America” at 7 am ET.

Spousonomics: Using Economics To Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson (Random) is a quirky and practical look at relationships by, respectively, a front-page editor for the Wall Street Journal and an award-winning New York Times reporter who’s covered Wall Street. Based on the authors’ survey of 1,000 couples, Szuchman explains that the key to a good sex life is to keep it “affordable.” If couples are tired, “they make it quick. Maybe they don’t even bother to take their shirts off. When one of them is in the mood, they say so,” she says in an essay on the Daily Beast.

The Foremost Good Fortune by Susan Conley (Knopf)  is a memoir of family’s move from Maine to Beijing, only to find that the cultural differences between their two homes pale when the author gets a cancer diagnosis. Booklist calls it, “Beautifully written and insightful on many levels.”

Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in the Happiest Kingdom on Earth by Lisa Napoli is a memoir of an ex-journalist’s search for wholeness and spiritual renewal in Bhutan, while helping to launch Kuzoo FM, the nation’s fledgling radio station. Kirkus says, “the author’s authentic voice and light, pleasant cultural insights make for a refreshingly uplifting book.”

Fondly remembered by critics and booksellers for her 2003 debut hit I Don’t Know How She Does It, Allison Pearson returns next week with I Think I Love You, a wistful novel about a grown woman who looks back on her dream of becoming Mrs. David Cassidy in 1970s Wales, and winds up heading to Las Vegas to meet him in mid-life.

People gives it four stars and designates it a People Pick. Even the New York Times‘ Michiko Kakutani is wooed:

[Pearson] shows how Petra’s crush on David Cassidy is really a kind of rehearsal for the love and passion she wants to one day lavish on a real boy in real life, and how those youthful emotions both endure — and are transformed — as the years and decades tick by. . . . [A] groovy little novel whose charms easily erase any objections the reader might have to the prepackaged and heavily borrowed plot.

I Think I Love You Allison Pearson Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-02-08) ISBN / EAN: 1400042356 / 9781400042357

CD: Random House Audio, $40, ISBN 9780307747525

Check Your Holds

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah E. Harkness (Viking), a debut is the first in a planned trilogy, about witches and vampires that is rising fast on Amazon (now at #3), with growing holds in libraries. Part of the story is based on real events; like her main character, Harkness discovered a manuscript, missing since the 1600’s, that was once owned by Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer.  Entertainment Weekly gives it a B+, complaining of some bloat, but summing up, “as the mysteries started to unravel, the pages turned faster, almost as if on their own.”  Parade Magazine was unequivocal on Sunday, making it a Pick of the Week and calling it “580 pages of sheer pleasure.” Harkness spoke at the AAP Trade Libraries Breakfast at ALA MidWinter. It will be available in large type from Thorndike in March (9781410436337).

Usual Suspects

The Secret Soldier by Alex Berenson (Putnam) is the fifth thriller featuring ex-CIA man John Wells, by the winner of the 2007 first novel Edgar for The Faithful Spy. Kirkus says, “the plot unfolds along predictable lines in a story arc that Tom Clancy readers or viewers of TV’s 24 will find old hat.” 

A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Mystery by Bradley Alan (Delacorte) is Ms. Flavia de Luce’s third outing, after her bestselling debut in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and return in The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag. Here, she demonstrates a firm knowledge of poisons while saving a gypsy from accusations of child abduction. PW calls it, “a splendid romp through 1950s England led by the world’s smartest and most incorrigible preteen.” 

The Matchmaker of Kenmare by Frank Delaney (Random) is the sequel to Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show, in which matchmaker Kate Begley plies her profession in neutral WWII Ireland. Booklist says, it “combines the charm of an Irish yarn with the excitement of a political thriller and the romance of a 1940s war movie.”

Heartwood: A Novel by Belva Plain (Delacorte) explores the inevitable endings of romantic relationships through the experiences of a mother and daughter. 

Also worth watching:

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French (Doubleday) is the tale of a once unwitting subject of an experiment in radioactivity, who sets out to avenge the dire consequences of that same study. It follows the author’s much praised 2002 debut novel, Mermaid on the Moon. LJ says, “mixing the suburban angst of Tom Perrotta with the snarky humor of Carl Hiaasen, Stuckey-French has written a page-turner that is thoughtful, amusing, and nearly impossible to put down.”

Kids:

No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko (Dial) is a children’s fantasy about three siblings whose plane lands in a mysterious world, by an author best known for her Newbery Award-winning historical fiction. Kirkus calls it, “convoluted” with “a confusing host of secondary characters. Fascinating, if not entirely successful.”

Long-time readers adviser favorite, Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin is set for the full Hollywood treatment, a Warner Bros movie with a $75 million budget. Casting is about to begin, according to the movie news site Deadline.

The movie will be directed by Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the scripts for A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code, Batman & Robin and I am Legend, for which he was also one of the producers.

Winter’s Tale Mark Helprin Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 768 pages Publisher: Mariner Books – (2005-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0156031191 / 9780156031196