EarlyWord

Nearly a month after her book was named the winner of the National Book Award, Jaimy Gordon is profiled in the New York Times. It’s just as well that media attention is coming late to Lord of Misrule, since the publisher, McPherson, has struggled to get copies into the pipeline.

McPherson is not only a small press, it’s tiny; a one-man operation, with an owner that is, as the NYT puts it, “…the kind of publisher who sometimes seems more concerned with how his books look than how they sell. Lord of Misrule, for example, has a full cloth cover and a stitched binding, which is practically unheard of these days.”

The paperback, however, will be coming from a much larger publisher. It was acquired by Knopf’s Vintage division along with the rights to Gordon’s next hardcover to be published by Knopf/Pantheon. No news yet on when it will appear.

Lord of Misrule Jaimy Gordon Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 296 pages Publisher: McPherson – (2010-11-15) ISBN / EAN: 0929701836 / 9780929701837

Taylor Lautner will star as Finn in Incarceron, based on Catherine Fisher’s YA novel. When Fox signed it up, Variety reported that the studio hoped to turn it into a franchise (the second book in the series, Sapphique releases on Dec. 28th and is on three Best Children’s Books lists — PW, SLJ and the Washington Post).

Lautner stars as Jacob in the Twilight Saga.

Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) Catherine Fisher Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 448 pages Publisher: Dial – (2010-01-26) ISBN / EAN: 0803733968 / 9780803733961

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Sapphique Catherine Fisher Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Dial – (2010-12-28) ISBN / EAN: 0803733976 / 9780803733978

After many delays, it appears that The Life of Pi may actually become a film (in 3-D no less). Director Ang Lee just cast Gerard Depardieu as the chef and Irrfan Khan as the grown-up version of the title character.

Irrfan Khan starred in the most recent season of HBO’s In Treatment and also appeared in the films Slumdog Millionaire and The Namesake.

In October, Ang cast newcomer Suraj Sharma for the lead, over 3,000 other teenagers he auditioned.

Life of Pi Yann Martel Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 326 pages Publisher: Mariner Books – (2003-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 0156027321 / 9780156027328

Coming in January, Anthony Hopkins stars as an exorcist in The Rite, based on the nonfiction title by Matt Baglio, which came out last year. The movie opens on January 28.

Official Movie Site, What-Do-You-Believe.com

Tie-in:

The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist Matt Baglio Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Doubleday Religion – (2010-06-15) ISBN / EAN: 0385522711 / 9780385522717

On the heels of the expected success of the Coen brothers’ adaptation of True Grit, two more books about the West are queuing up. The Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne, a book about the Comanche warrior Quanah, which came out this summer and was chosen as a Best Book by the NYT Book Review, has been acquired by Warner Brothers, with Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) set to direct. Larry McMurtry is working with Diana Ossana on the script, according to the movie news blog, Deadline.

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History S. C. Gwynne Retail Price: $27.50 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2010-05-25) ISBN / EAN: 1416591052 / 9781416591054

The pair, who wrote the script for Brokeback Mountain, are also working on a script for The Color of Lightning by Paulette Jiles for Ridley Scott to direct at 20th Century Fox. In this case, the book is a novel about a man trying to rescue his family and friends from the Comanches.

The Color of Lightning: A Novel (P.S.) Paulette Jiles Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Harper Perennial – (2010-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061690457 / 9780061690457

It’s a title that pulls no punches, Living with Purpose in a Worn-Out Body.

The author, Missy Buchanan, spoke with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America yesterday, sending the book up Amazon’s sales rankings to #57. It’s published by Christian publisher, Upper Room.

Living with Purpose in a Worn-Out Body: Spiritual Encouragement for Older Adults Missy Buchanan Retail Price: $12.00 Perfect Paperback: 96 pages Publisher: Upper Room – (2008-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 083589942X / 9780835899420

UPDATE: We overlooked the Kirkus adult selections, which appeared this week.

Top 25 Fiction

Top 25 Nonfiction

Best Mysteries

Those titles have now been added to the collated adult list and the figures below have been updated.

So, NOW, we’re ready to declare it a wrap for Best Books 2010. A few new lists appeared this week; Time‘s choices of the Ten Best Fiction and Ten Best Nonfiction are in the current issue (along with many other Top Ten lists, like the Top 10 iPhone Apps — iBooks is one of them) and the Washington Post published their lists on Sunday. The final lists will be Booklist‘s and Horn Book‘s, at the beginning of the year.

We’ve put together the Links to the Major Lists, but if you want an exhaustive (and exhausitng) compilation, go to LargeHeartedBoy.com.

We’ve also updated our collated list of all the titles from the major sources.

What can we conclude? There’s not a lot of concensus (perhaps inevitable, give the number of books published every year) and if the critics were on the National Book Awards committees, the outcomes would have been very different. In fact, the winner in the Young Readers category, Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine, did not appear on any of the critics’ lists.

Below are the links to the spreadsheets of the adult and children’s titles, with the top titles by number of picks. If you have any trouble downloading either list, or have any suggestions for making them more useful, please email me).

Adult Titles, Collated (Downloadable Spreadsheet); UPDATED Version 4

Top Titles:

Skloot, Rebecca, The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks, Crown; Seven of  eight

Wilkerson, Isabel, The Warmth Of Other Suns: The Epic Story Of America’s Great Migration, Random House; Seven of  eight

Smith, Patti, Just Kids, Knopf; Six of eight

Egan, Jennifer,  A Visit From The Goon Squad, Knopf; Six of eight

Schiff, Stacy, Cleopatra: A Life, Little, Brown; Six of eight

Franzen, Jonathan, Freedom, FSG; Five of eight

Grossman, David, To The End Of The Land, Knopf; Five of eight

Mukherjee, Siddhartha, The Emperor Of All Maladies: A Biography Of Cancer, Scribner; Five of eight

Mitchell, David, The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet, Random House; Six of eight

Richards, Keith, with James Fox, Life; Five of eight

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Childrens Titles, Collated (Downloadable Spreadsheet) UPDATED Version 3

Top Titles:

Williams-Garcia, Rita, One Crazy Summer, HarperCollins/Amistad; Seven of ten

Sidman, Joyce, illus. by Beckie Prange, Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Five of ten

Wiesner, David, Art & Max, Clarion; Five of ten

Burningham, John, illus. by Helen Oxenbury, There’s Going To Be A Baby, Candlewick; Four of Ten

Greenberg, Jan & Sandra Jordan, illus. by Brian Floca, Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring Roaring Brook/Neal Porter; Four of ten

DiCamillo, Kate and Alison McGhee, illus by  Tony Fucile, Bink and Gollie Candlewick; Four of ten

Lin, Grace, Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same!, Little, Brown; Four of ten

Stead, Philip C., illus. by Erin E. Stead,  A Sick Day for Amos McGee, Roaring Brook/Neal Porter; Four of ten

Kerley, Barbara, illus. by  Edwin Fotheringham, The Extraordinary Mark Twain, (According to Susy) Picture Bk. Scholastic; Four of ten

Underwood, Deborah, illus. by Renata Liwska, The Quiet Book Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Four of ten

Collins, Suzanne,  Mockingjay, Scholastic; Four of ten

Who would have thought that a book about the 400-year-old history of ballet would crack Amazon’s Top 25? Apollo’s Angels, by Jennifer Homans is now at #23, after an interview with the author on NPR’s Fresh Air last night (it was also recently featured on the cover of the NYT BR, which also named it one of the Top 10 Best Books of 2010).

As with ballet itself, it may all be in the timing. As Terry Gross points out,

It’s kind of ballet season, with lots of companies perfoming the Nutcracker for the holidays and with the new film Black Swan, a psychological thriller, about a ballerina [played by Natalie Portman] preparing for her leading role in Swan Lake.

But, says Gross, you don’t need to be interested in ballet, to be fascinated by Apollo’s Angels…it’s rich with history about class structure, gender, costume, shifting images of the ideal body and ideas of what the body is physically capable of.”

Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet Jennifer Homans Retail Price: $35.00 Hardcover: 672 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 1400060605 / 9781400060603

The Colbert Report

Monday, December 13 — Patti Smith

Just Kids Patti Smith Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Ecco – (2010-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0060936223 / 9780060936228

Tuesday, Dec 14 — Stephen Sondheim

Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes Stephen Sondheim Retail Price: $39.95 Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-10-26) ISBN / EAN: 0679439072 / 9780679439073

Wed, Dec 15 — Laird Hamilton

Extreme surfer Laird Hamilton is featured in Susan Casey’s book The Wave.

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean Susan Casey Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (2010-09-14) ISBN / EAN: 0767928849 / 9780767928847

He also published a book, which was released in paperback this summer.

Force of Nature: Mind, Body, Soul, And, of Course, Surfing Laird Hamilton Retail Price: $19.99 Paperback: 260 pages Publisher: Rodale Books – (2010-08-31) ISBN / EAN: 1609611020 / 9781609611026

Thurs, Dec. 16 — Amy Sedaris

Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People Amy Sedaris Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 044655703X / 9780446557030

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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Mon, 13 — Gordon Brown,  former U.K. prime minister

Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization Gordon Brown Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Free Press – (2010-12-07) ISBN / EAN: 1451624050 / 9781451624052

Thu, Dec. 16 — Mike Huckabee

Can’t Wait Till Christmas Mike Huckabee Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 32 pages Publisher: Putnam Juvenile – (2010-10-05) ISBN / EAN: 0399255397 / 9780399255397

In advance of the release of the Coen brother’s movie, True Grit, on 12/22, both Newsweek and the New York Times Magazine look at its true source; not the 1969 John Wayne movie, but Charles Portis’s book. Newsweek calls it,

…one of the great American novels, with two of the greatest characters in our literature and a story worthy of their greatness. It is not just a book you can read over and over. It’s a book you want to read over and over, and each time you’re surprised by how good it is.

The book rose to #341, from #846, on Amazon’s sales rankings over the weekend.

True Grit Charles Portis Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: Overlook TP – (2007-08-28) ISBN / EAN: 1585679380 / 9781585679386

On several best books lists, The Gun by C.J. Chivers, was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered last night. According to the author, a foreign correspondent for the NY Times, the AK-47, which American military leaders considered too small and not powerful enough for their troops, has changed the nature of war, making certain conflicts longer and bloodier.

The Gun C. J. Chivers Retail Price: $28.00 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 0743270762 / 9780743270762

The movie adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help is scheduled for release on August 12. It’s the directorial debut of Stockett’s childhood friend, Tate Taylor.

Below is a still. Featured in the center of the photo is Emma Stone as Skeeter. More stills are available at BuzzFocus.com (several were featured in People in early November).

The current tag line:

Based on one of the most talked about books in years and a #1 New York Times best-selling novel, The Help is a provocative and inspiring look at what happens when a southern town’s unspoken code of rules and behavior is shattered by three courageous women who strike up an unlikely friendship.

A trade paperback edition of the book is scheduled to release in April.

The Help Kathryn Stockett Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 544 pages Publisher: Berkley Trade – (2011-04-05) ISBN / EAN: 0425232204 / 9780425232200

It’s a slow week for book releases. During this big shopping season, publishers assume that booksellers are out front selling, rather than unpacking new shipments from publishers.

As a result, major releases are slim next week and are all for younger readers.

The Gift (Witch and Wizard Series #2) by James Patterson and Ned Rust (Little Brown Books for Young Readers), ages 10+, about teen sibling magicians, elicits utter contempt from Kirkus: “There are no characters that even rise to the level of stereotypes and no genuine emotions in this embarrassing attempt at a ‘fantasy’ series that insults both genre and audience at every turn… A new low in children’s publishing.”

Entice by Carrie Jones (Bloomsbury Children’s Books) is the latest book in the bestselling paranormal romance series. Kirkus says, “Fans of the first two will continue to swoon, enjoying prose that’s idiosyncratically casual and indulgently, oh-so-teen-like angsty.”

The Vixen by Julie Larkin (Delacorte for Young Readers) is the first in a new series, set in the 1920’s. Like the Luxe series, in which Gossip Girl meets Edith Wharton, this one could be considered Gossip Girl meets F. Scott Fitzgerald. PW called it a “frothy debut,” but felt “the plot doesn’t live up to scrutiny.”

Coming for adults is the followup to last year’s How to Sew On a Button: And Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew (which is still showing holds in several libraries):

How to Build a Fire: and Other Handy Things Your Grandfather Knew, by Erin Bried, (Ballantine Books) imparts the skills the Greatest Generation supposedly knew, from chapters on “How to Buy Meat” to “How to Plan a Date.”

The most important cultural moment of 2010 may have been when the 92nd St. Y refunded money to those who bought tickets to hear an interview with Steve Martin (reportedly, many were disappointed that Martin talked too much about “art”), satarized on the Colbert Report last night.

…………………………

An Object of Beauty: A Novel Steve Martin Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2010-11-23) ISBN / EAN: 0446573647 / 978

OverDrive WMA Audiobook; BBC Audio America
Hachette Audio, UNABR, Campbell Scott Narrator, 9781607886129, $34.98
BBC Audio; UNABR; Campbell Scott, Narrator, 9781607889403; $74.99

A new trailer has just been released for Julie Taynor’s version of Shakespeare’s play. It debuts this weekend in select theaters.

Shakespeare might have enjoyed the star-studded premiere.

Official Movie Site: Tempest-TheMovie.com