Donald Trump’s election is sure to fuel many political “what happened” books but one of the most anticipated is by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, the authors who wrote the 2010 title, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (Harper).

Entertainment Weekly reports Halperin and Heilemann’s take on the 2016 election, as yet untitled, will be published by Penguin in early 2018.

HBO has already bought the film rights for a mini series adaptation to air shortly after the book hits shelves.

Heilemann tells the NYT in an interview that in the book, “We’ll be looking at all the big unanswered questions of the race, some of them are obvious, some of them are less obvious, but of course we’re interested in breaking news.”

Game Change was turned into a popular HBO movie of the same name, starring Julianne Moore (as Sarah Palin), Woody Harrelson (as campaign strategist Steve Schmidt), and Ed Harris (as John McCain).

The pair also created the Showtime series The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth which ran during 2016 and will return on March 19 for a second series focused on Trump’s first 100 days in office. Stephen Colbert interviewed Halperin and Heilemann on his show last night.

Halperin and Heilemann followed Game Change with Double Down (PRH/Penguin), about the 2012 election.

The NYT lists some of the other titles forthcoming about the 2016 election, including “Katy Tur of NBC News, who is writing a book about covering the Trump campaign, and Amy Chozick of The New York Times, who is working on a memoir of her years covering Hillary Clinton.” In addition, Melville House is publishing The Destruction of Hillary Clinton by Susan Bordo in April.

Disappointing many, Halperin and Heilemann tell the NYT that Alec Baldwin is not in the running to play Trump in the HBO adaptation. No mention was made about the possibility of Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton.

Former CBS New Anchor Dan Rather is writing a book on patriotism, What Unites Us (Workman/Algonquin Books; ISBN 9781616207), to be published on Nov. 7, 2017, the off-year election day.

Rather, who has been active on social media,  posted the news on Facebook, saying he understands patriotism not as “a divisive cudgel but a common purpose … [it does not] ignore the sins of our nation, but challenge[s] them honestly and head on. So in the book, I will be exploring themes that I see as fundamental to holding together this great experiment in democracy.”

The AP reports that the book will be “a collection of essays about topics ranging from civil rights to schools and libraries and what it means to be an American.”

Publisher Algonquin says the essays will also address “the values that have transformed us, such as the … drive toward science and innovation that has made the United States great.”

Rather has written several other books, including his memoir Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News (Hachette/Grand Central, 2012).

Cover art for the new title has not yet been released.

Add Kerry Washington to the list of Hollywood women seeing the possibilities in book adaptations. Variety reports she will produce the planned Warner Bros. feature based on Brit Bennett’s debut novel, The Mothers (PRH/Riverhead; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). Bennett is on board to write the screenplay and will serve as an executive producer.

The Mothers was a LibraryReads selection for October 2016. Jennifer Ohzourk, St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, MO wrote the annotation:

“In a contemporary Black community in California, the story begins with a secret. Nadia is a high school senior, mourning her mother’s recent death, and smitten with the local pastor’s son, Luke. It’s not a serious romance, but it takes a turn when a pregnancy (and subsequent cover-up) happen. The impact sends ripples through the community. The Mothers asks us to contemplate how our decisions shape our lives. The collective voice of the Mothers in the community is a voice unto itself, narrating and guiding the reader through the story.”

Bennett made waves last year and was named one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 authors for 2016. Her novel was a NYT bestseller for two weeks, starting in late October 2016 where it debuted at #18. It did better and stayed longer on the LA Times list, where it rose to #7 and lasted six non-consecutive weeks.

Bestseller performance aside, it was a literary hit, getting critical attention, glowing reviews, and several best book nods. It was also a Librarian Favorite of 2016, making the top 7 picks.

Kerry, known for her portrayal of the take-no-prisoners Olivia Pope in the hit TV show Scandal, is on the path to becoming “a Producing Powerhouse” wrote Vanity Fair last year, pointing out that she was the executive producer for HBO’s Confirmation. She also starred in the series, earring nominations for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe award.

The studio optioned the book just recently, so it will be a while before plans firm up, but naming the high-profile Washington to the project is a major step.

Jonathan Kellerman’s best-selling Alex Delaware series is in development for a TV series. IDW Entertainment (Dirk Gently, Wynonna Earp) is creating the show. It’s early in the game, so no stars have been named and it hasn’t been picked up by any of the networks.

The newest Delaware novel, Heartbreak Hotel (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), released last month, is the 32nd in the long running series, which began in 1985 with When the Bough Breaks. That novel won Kellerman both the Anthony and the Edgar Award for best first novel. It was made into a TV movie in 1986 starring Ted Danson and Richard Masur.

IDWs’ press release states “every book in the series made the Top 10 on the New York Times best-seller list, most premiering in the Top 5.” Heartbreak Hotel, currently at #6 on the Hardcover Fiction list, debuted at #4 during its first week on sale.

Known for his rich characterizations, Kellerman says “What sets the Delaware series apart is the meld of page-turning compelling crime stories with authentic psychological insights …The books illuminate the ‘whydunit’ without sacrificing the whodunit.”

This is not the first attempt to create a Delaware TV series. In 2013, Fox had plans for the books as well, but that project seems to have faded away.

Stephen King’s horror classic IT is getting closer to its release date, one of them, that is.

The 1986 story that made a generation terrified of clowns is being made into a 2-part movie.

Part one follows a group of teenagers, members of the Losers’ Club, who live in a small town in Maine and fight against an ancient and shape-shifting evil that terrorizes the town every 27 years. Part one of the film version follows those kids. It releases on September 8, 2017.

King, never shy about sharing his views on adaptations of his movies (he famously hates Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining), let it be known that he was happy with what he has seen so far. His message board now has a post reading that “he saw a screening of IT today and wanted to let everybody know that they should stop worrying about it as the producers have done a wonderful job with the production.”

Part two will follow those same terrorized teens as adults, as they once again stand guard against the recurring evil of It. Filming is about to begin, a surprise to the film fan site BloodyDisgusting  , which thought the studio would wait to see how well part one does, “We figured cameras wouldn’t start rolling unless/until box office numbers came in, but it seems we were quite wrong about that … filming will begin March 17, 2017 on the second film, under the secret title Accordion.”

Andrés Muschietti (Mama) is directing and Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård plays the evil clown Pennywise. One of the producers is Seth Grahame-Smith, known for launching the mashup craze with his books Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

The producers were clearly holding their breath for King’s reaction. Muschietti posted on Instagram, “Not a humblebrag. A brag! Mr King, you had us at ‘stop worrying’.”

Entertainment Weekly posted a creepy picture of Pennywise, calling the character a “bloodthirsty jokester — just one incarnation of a shape-shifting evil that feeds on fear, misery, and the occasional child.”

A mass market tie-in edition, It (MTI): A Novel, Stephen King (Pocket/S&S), comes out on July 25, 2017. Cover art has yet to be released.

Jojo Moyes is writing a third novel starring her beloved character Louisa Clark, reports USA Today. Lou first charmed readers in the international bestseller Me Before You as she cared for and eventually fell in love with the paralyzed and bitter Will Traynor. That book became the successful film with the same title, earning over $200 million worldwide.

In the sequel After You, Lou tries to move on after Will’s death, finds new love, and a job in New York City. In the yet-to-be-titled third novel, according to USA Today, “Lou must decide if her personal Brexit should be permanent.” It will be published sometime in spring 2018.

In a statement, Moyes said:

“I always knew that once I committed to write the sequel to Me Before You, I would also write a third book; I saw it quite clearly as a trilogy. Revisiting Lou has been a joy, as I push her into a completely new country, a brand new world, and a house full of secrets. With her usual blend of humor and emotion she has to ask herself some pretty fundamental questions — not least, which side of the Atlantic does she really belong?”

Meanwhile Moyes is publishing a new paperback original on April 11, The Horse Dancer (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio/BOT).

According to the publisher, it is “A quintessential Jojo Moyes novel about a lost girl and her horse, the enduring strength of friendship, and how even the smallest choices can change everything.”

Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Strout’s newest novel, Anything Is Possible (PRH/RH; RH Audio/BOT), is the number one pick for the April LibraryReads list.

It marks her second time at the top of the list, first winning in January 2016 for My Name is Lucy Barton, a novel that also was on the Favorite of Favorites annual list the same year.

“Strout does not disappoint with her newest work. Her brilliant collection takes up where her novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, leaves off. The chapters read like short stories with Lucy Barton as the thread that runs between them. The characters populate Amgash, Illinois and their stories are woven together carefully and wonderfully. No one captures the inner workings of small town characters better than Strout. Written to be read and enjoyed many times, I highly recommend for readers of fine literary fiction.” — Mary Vernau, Tyler Public Library, Tyler, TX

Additional Buzz: It is on a number of 2017 forecast lists including the NYT‘s “What You’ll Be Reading in 2017,” Nylon‘s count of “50 Books We Can’t Wait To Read In 2017,” and the AV Club‘s list of”Lose yourself in 2017 with these 17 books and comics.”

Another multiple favorite also returns to the list, Fredrik Backman with Beartown (S&S/Atria). He first landed on the list in 2015 with My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry and then again in 2016 for Britt-Marie Was Here, which was the #1 pick in May.

“Backman’s most complex novel to date takes place in the small, hockey-crazed village of Beartown. He deftly weaves together the stories of the players, the coaches, the parents, and the fans as Beartown’s hockey team chases its dream of winning a championship. Weighty themes are explored. How high a price is too high for success? How deadly is silence? Who can you trust with your secrets? How far will you compromise your beliefs in the name of friendship? There are no easy answers. A great book club choice.” — Janet Lockhart, Wake County Public Library, Cary, NC

Additional Buzz: It was picked by Canadian librarians as part of their Loan Stars selections. Backman is also the COSTCO buyers pick this month, featured for his long running best seller,  A Man Called Ove.

A new voice for LibraryReads comes via Kate Eberlen with her debut, Miss You (HC/Harper).

“Tess and Gus meet at when they are both eighteen and on holiday in Italy. Their meeting is one of those instant connections, but they go in different directions. Tess returns home, expecting to go to university, but instead her mother dies leaving her to care for her much younger sister. Gus goes to medical school and must deal with the death of his brother. Tess and Gus’ lives momentarily intersect at various points over the years. I enjoyed both of their stories and the anticipation of hoping they would meet again and make a final connection.” — Mary Bennett, Carmel Clay Public Library, Carmel, IN

Additional Buzz: It was a smash in the UK with The Telegraph comparing it to David Nicholls’s One Day, and saying “Following on from a lucrative deal in the UK, there has already been a ‘pre-emptive’ bid in the United States, and a subsequent scramble to buy it in 24 other countries – so don’t be surprised to see it being devoured by sunbathers on holiday this summer.” The Guardian says it is a “funny, poignant and really rather lovely ships-in-the-night debut, although it’s not until the end that ‘will they/won’t they?’ becomes a burning question. Grief, family dynamics and how to live with, but not be defined by, the cards one is dealt are the central concerns here.”

The book trailer gives a sense of the story and feel:

The full list of ten picks is available now.

Announced Wednesday, International Women’s Day, as it has been since its founding in 1996, is the longlist of 16 titles for the Womens Prize for Fiction sponsored by Bailey’s.

As The Guardian points out, it is a list of established authors rather than new voices, “including three previous winners, four second novels and only three debuts, compared with 11 last year.” The full list is online.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Award, Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Norton; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample) swept Canada’s literary awards, taking the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize, an award worth $100,000 dollars, as well as the highly prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

The NYT calls it “a beautiful, sorrowful work. The book impresses in many senses: It stamps the memory with an afterimage; it successfully explores larger ideas about politics and art (the mind is never still while reading it); it has the satisfying, epic sweep of a 19th-century Russian novel, spanning three generations and lapping up against the shores of two continents.”

C.E. Morgan won the Kirkus Prize for The Sport of Kings (Macmillan/FSG;Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), a title that was also a Carnegie Medal longlist selection.

Mary Gaitskill’s The Mare (PRH/Pantheon; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) racked up holds in libraries and was widely reviewed.

On Fresh Air, Maureen Corrigan said, “Mary Gaitskill writes tough … You have to write tough — and brilliantly — to pull off a novel like The Mare … a raw, beautiful story about love and mutual delusion, in which the fierce erotics of mother love and romantic love and even horse fever are swirled together.”

The New York Times Magazine featured Gaitskill in a lengthy profile, as did The New Yorker.

Other well-known authors on the list are Annie Proulx for Barkskins (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample), Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed, (PRH/Hogarth; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), as well as past winners, Eimear McBride, for The Lesser Bohemians, (PRH/Hogarth; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), and Rose Remain, The Gustav Sonata, (Norton; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample)

Two titles have yet to be published in the US, one of the three debuts on the list, Midwinter by Fiona Melrose and The Dark Circle by Linda Grant, who has won the prize before.  Several others will arrive later this year:

First Love, Gwendoline Riley (Melville House) comes out on March 28

Stay with Me, Ayobami Adebayo (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT) arrives on August 22; a debut

The Power, Naomi Alderman (Hachette/Little, Brown) publishes on October 10.

The prize was created in 1996 by a group of U.K. reviewers, librarians and others in the book world, to address the fact that a disproportionate number of men won literary prizes.

The short list of six titles is expected in April. The winner will be announced on June 7th.

Attached is our spreadsheet of the titles, for use in ordering and creating displays, Bailey’s Longlist, 2017.

John le Carré’s most famous literary creation, George Smiley, has not had a literary outing in 25 years. That is about to change.

The Cold War spymaster is coming back in A Legacy of Spies (PHR/Viking; Sept. 5; ISBN 9780735225114; cover art not final). On his website le Carré writes, “George Smiley is back… The past has come to claim its due.”

Le Carré’s agent, Jonny Geller, told The Guardian that the new book will “close George Smiley’s story.” That story began with Call for the Dead in 1961, played out in multiple novels including the iconic The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, and was thought to have ended in 1990 with The Secret Pilgrim.

The new book will also feature another familiar character, Peter Guillam, who, reports The Guardian, has “retired from the world of spooks to a farm in southern Brittany … Summoned back to London, Guillam and his colleagues are subject to scrutiny for past misdemeanours, committed at a time when there were fewer scruples about the methods used to win the ideological war raging between the west and the Soviets.”

The Guardian adds, “It is believed that the author was inspired to revisit his old characters because of the current political situation.” Geller tells the paper that idea was “far too simplistic” although he admits, “As a readers you can see parallels between what we thought was over and what is happening now.”

As we have posted and the LA Times points out, le Carré’s “books are currently hot material for film and television adaptations.”

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was adapted in 2011 and starred Gary Oldman as Smiley and Benedict Cumberbatch as Guillam. Last year, AMC and BBC aired the miniseries The Night Manager based on the 1993 novel. The networks are partnering again on an adaptation of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, which was earlier made into a famous film, starring Richard Burton as Smiley. 2016 also saw the release of Our Kind of Traitor starring Ewan McGregor, Damian Lewis, and Stellan Skarsgård.

The renewed attention a brand-new audience to both the books and the author and to his memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (PRH/Viking; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample), which was covered widely last year.

A book that gives a unique look at Hitler is rising on Amazon after author Norman Ohler discussed the Nazi leader’s drug use on NPR’s Fresh Air.

In his book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (HMH; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), Ohler says Hitler became increasingly dependent on drugs from high power vitamin and hormone injections to opioids, cocaine, and more, “to substitute [for] his natural charisma, which … he had lost in the course of the war.”

Further, the drugs enabled much of the long war effort. “For him it was important to be able to function at all times, to never have a day off, because he distrusted anyone in his surroundings, especially the generals. He had to make all the military decisions,” Ohler says. His drug-induced and manufactured optimism tricked the generals and made them wonder “if he had a secret weapon up his sleeve.”

Ohler also reports that German soldiers were given meth. It was considered a perfect drug for the fighters because it reduced fear levels and the need to sleep. “Thirty-five million tablets of methamphetamine” were given out just as the invasion of France took place. “It actually worked. The Germans reached Sedan after an amazingly short period of time … while the French and British [armies] were still in northern Belgium, where they had actually expected the German attack.”

The book rose to #31 on Amazon, from #2,736. Holds are high in libraries, where few systems have yet to receive copies. In some locations ratios are topping 5:1.

Critical attention continues to build for Mohsin Hamid’s newest novel, Exit West (PRH/Riverhead; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). The book review aggregator LitHub excerpts fifteen consumer reviews and several libraries are showing high holds ratios on light ordering. UPDATE: The New Yorker adds to the reviews, calling the novel “Instantly Canonical” and Entertainment Weekly gives it a straight A.

As we noted in Titles to Know for this week, Michiko Kakutani gave it a laudatory early review in the daily NYT, saying that, like Hamid’s earlier works, the novel explores, “the convulsive changes overtaking the world, as tradition and modernity clash headlong, and as refugees — fleeing war or poverty or hopelessness — try to make their way to safer ground.”

Considered important enough for double coverage, it is also be featured on the cover of the upcoming NYT Sunday Book Review, in  another strong review by Viet Thanh Nguyen [not available online yet], whose own novel about refugees, The Sympathizer (Grove Press, April 2015) won him a Pulitzer Prize and even landed him among the celebrities on late night TV. He praises Hamid’s ability to “exploit fiction’s capacity to elicit empathy and identification to imagine a better world.”

NPR does a double take as well. Steve Inskeep interviews Hamid on Morning Edition and frequent NPR reviewer Michael Schlub calls Exit West “breathtaking” and “haunting” and says it is “at once a love story, a fable, and a chilling reflection on what it means to be displaced, unable to return home and unwelcome anywhere else.”

Inskeep and Hamid talk about immigration and draw parallels between Pakistan and America, with Hamid saying:

“I think America needs to be very careful. America has built something with great difficulty over a large period of time. And for America to start to become the kind of democracy that Pakistan is would be an incredible loss for America and for the world.”

In February of last year, Michael V. Hayden, the former Head of the National Security Agency and the CIA during the most tense and controversial years of the Bush administration, went on the book circuit to promote his account of that time, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample). It rose as high as #10 on Amazon after several media appearances.

The paperback edition, released last month, is getting renewed attention as General Hayden is on news shows to comment on Trump’s weekend tweet accusing Obama of wiretapping him in Trump Towers before the election. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday, Hayden said that’s not possible because “the plumbing does not work that way.” He further said that Trump’s tweet was an attempt “to distract attention from what was a very very bad news cycle and he put his reputation, that of his predecessor and that of his nation at risk to get at least a draw out of the nesxt 24 hours news.”

The book rose again on Amazon, moving from #55,946 to #226. It’s likely to move higher, after Hayden appears on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert tonight.

Most libraries are showing hardcover copies available.

A graphic nonfiction work is zooming up Amazon’s sales rankings, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything (PRH/Penguin, October 17, 2017; ISBN 9780399563829), well in advance of its October release date..

Created by Zach Weinersmith, who writes the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and has over 100,000 followers on Twitter, it is co-written with his wife, Dr. Kelly Weinersmith, an Adjunct Faculty in the BioSciences Department at Rice University and the cohost of the podcast Science… Sort Of.

Comics Beat says to think about it as “sort of in the vein of Randall Munro’s immensely popular science books, if by that you mean a book about science by a webcomics superstar.”

Weinersmith ran a pre-order book promotion on his site, promising to do certain feats if the book hit #1 on Amazon, such as eat an entire peanut butter pie.

The book reached #3 yesterday, saving him from having to consume the pie. It marks, however, a very impressive rise on Amazon, going from “no ranking” to #3  within just a few hours.

Soonish gets announced this morning, hits #3 on Amazon a few hours later. HECK YES. https://t.co/EvybDloyPE

— Seth Fishman (@sethasfishman) March 6, 2017

The big hit at the box office over the weekend was Logan, pulling in an astounding $85 million and further solidifying Hollywood’s love with comic adaptations. The tie-in went to #224 on Amazon’s rankings. The real winner, in terms of book sales, is the #3 movie, The Shack. Its release caused all the titles by author William Paul Young to rise, especially his newest, to be published tomorrow,  Lies We Believe About God, (S&S/Atria; S&S Audio) which rose to #40.

The week sees the debut of just one new adaptation, The Sense of an Ending starring Jim Broadbent, Matthew Goode, Michelle Dockery, Emily Mortimer, and Charlotte Rampling.

Based on the Booker winning novel of the same name by Julian Barnes, about a man trying to come to terms with his past and present, it opens in a limited number of theaters on Friday.

The tie-in came out last week. The Sense of an Ending (Movie Tie-In), Julian Barnes (PRH/Vintage; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

As we wrote then, the reviews are reserved:

The Wrap says “Many of the best features of Julian Barnes’ acclaimed novel don’t make the leap to the screen … had this well-meaning movie been more willing to directly embrace its origins in Barnes’s luminous prose, it’s quite possible [it] might be something special rather than something worthy. It’s not quite the same thing.”

The Hollywood Reporter says it is “A mildly engaging adaptation of a bold book.” IndieWire gives it a B.

The film Arrival was nominated for eight Oscar awards but nabbed just one, for Sound Editing. However, clips from the film, shown during the Academy Awards show, served to prime audiences for the film’s On Demand debut on Saturday.

In turn, the the collection that included the short story it is based on, Stories Of Your Life And Others by Ted Chiang (originally published in 2002 by Macmillan/Tor; re-released by PRH/Vintage in 2016; Tantor Audio; OverDrive Sample) is moving up Amazon’s sales ranking again. Demand is also strong in libraries we checked, with most systems topping 4:1 ratios.

This marks a second wave of interest in the collection, after the film’s release in November, when the paperback appeared on the NYT Best Seller List for several weeks.

The formerly under-the-radar Science Fiction writer has since received a even more attention. Wired picked the collection last month for their book club, saying the lead story is so moving that it made participating staff members cry in public.

The New Yorker featured Chiang in January and Syfy Wire published an interview in the lead up to the Oscars.