A stage adaptation of 1984, George Orwell’s famous vision of a dystopian future, is heading to Broadway.

The production team behind Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will open the play on June 22 in NYC, reports Variety. It is based on Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s London production, which was a hit there in 2014.

Of the London run, the NYT wrote it was “willfully assaultive … Doublethink, a key notion in the Newspeak vocabulary that Orwell invented for 1984, spirals into quadruplethink and beyond.”

According to the paper it has already been staged in US theaters in California, Massachusetts, and Washington DC.

The story is being picked up widely, from the Rolling Stone to Paste.

New York Magazine says “Big Brother is arriving from overseas … from the land of Brexit to the land of Trump” and reports “it will arrive in New York with its London creative team intact, adding a new American cast of party members and proles.”

As we have noted, interest is booming for dystopian stories, which Paste recognizes in their headline, “1984 Comes to Broadway—With Excellent Timing.”

Below are samples from the London production:

There’s a new girl in town. Landing at #5 on the NYT‘s hardcover fiction list is JP Delaney’s psychological thriller, The Girl Before (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Interviewed in the NYT‘s “Behind the Best Sellers” column, Delaney connects his novel to a nonfiction sensation, saying “he wanted to explore the ‘weird and deeply obsessive’ psychology of minimalism, evident in the fad for [Marie] Kondo” author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

“On the face of it,” he tells the paper, it “is baffling — all that focus on folding and possessions. But I think it speaks to something that runs deep in all of us: the desire to live a more perfect, beautiful life, and the belief that a method, or a place, or even a diet, is going to help us achieve that …But my book is about what happens when people follow it too far. As one of my characters says, you can tidy all you like, but you can’t run away from the mess in your own head.”

The book is cleaning up in libraries, showing heavy holds that have increased over the last several weeks. Demand is likely to grow stronger as word spreads about its appearance on lists. It is currently #15 on the USA Today list.

Librarians predicted the book’s success. It is the #1 LibraryReads pick for January 2017 with the following annotation:

“A page turner that is sure to be a hit. Each chapter alternates between two time periods. Back “then,” there is Emma, looking for the perfect flat. Her agent suggests One Folgate Street, built by architect Edward Monkford. In present day, Jane, a single thirty-something also ends up on Folgate Street. Both women learn the sinister history of the property and readers won’t know who to trust as Delaney’s debut clutches you by the throat and won’t let you go.” — Kara Kohn, Plainfield Public Library District, Plainfield, IL

It was a hit with our GalleyChatters as well. Jennifer Winberry, Hunterdon County Library (NJ) described it as “a high speed ride through a tale of obsessions with twists and turns that don’t stop until after the final page is turned.”

The week brings a dozen titles that are favorites among librarians and booksellers (see Peer Picks, below), including one that arrives to hefty holds lists, Sophie Kinsella’a My Not So Perfect Life, (PRH/Dial; BOT Audio;OverDrive Sample). The holds leader however is the 44th in J D Robb’s “In Death” series, Echoes in Death (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; OverDrive Sample). PW notes that Robb “is not only prolific but consistently inventive, entertaining, and clever in her crime series set in a near-future New York City.”

The titles covered in this post, as well as several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Feb. 6, 2017.

Media Magnets

This Close to Happy: A Reckoning with Depression, Daphne Merkin,(Macmillan/FSG; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, Merkin, described as “a productive and admired professional, a writer and critic for the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine, a novelist and essayist,” has nevertheless struggled with depression all her life. Her memoir is reviewed on the cover of this week’s NYT BR by Andrew Solomon, a clinical psychologist acclaimed for his own memoir of depression, The Noonday Demon. Denotes that Merkin writes this “long-awaited chronicle of her own consuming despair” with “insight, grace and excruciating clarity, in exquisite and sometimes darkly humorous prose,”adding that “Merkin is unlikely to cheer you up, but if your misery loves company, you will find no better companion.”

Make Your Kid A Money Genius (Even If You’re Not): A Parents’ Guide for Kids 3 to 23, Beth Kobliner, (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample)

Giving voice to the implied hope of the title is the New York Post’s story headlined, “Your child is an untapped gold mine.” The author is scheduled to be interviewed next week on Fox Business Mornings with Maria and on NPR’s Here & Now.

Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street, Shellac Kolhatkar (PRH/Random House)

The stories of underhanded hedge fund dealings are depressingly endless but, like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, each is fascinating in its own way. This week’s NYT Book Review says this one “is many things: a Wall Street primer; a procedural drama; a modern version of Moby-Dick, with wiretaps rather than harpoons.” The author is scheduled for an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air on Tuesday.

Peer Picks

There’s a dozen titles to take special note of this week. Four of them are LibraryReads:

Garden of Lamentations, Deborah Crombie (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio).

“Picking up where To Dwell In Darkness left off, Crombie’s new mystery resolves unresolved issues from that book while telling a compelling new story. Gemma is investigating the puzzling death of a nanny while Duncan is dealing with what looks disturbingly like corruption in the police force. As always in Crombie’s novels the look we get at the domestic lives of Duncan, Gemma and their children is as interesting as the mystery. Another fine entry in this excellent series.” — Beth Mills, New Rochelle Public Library, New Rochelle, NY

Additional Buzz: The StarTribune counts it among their “7 mysteries to chill your soul on a wintry night,” writing “The tricky balance of the personal and the professional has always been one of the stellar aspects of  Deborah Crombie’s exceptional series … The novel’s title suggests sorrow, deep and debilitating, the kind of grief that chokes. It also alludes to Gethsemane and all that garden implies — betrayal, sacrifice and forgiveness. It’s all here.”

Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman (W. W. Norton; HarperAudio).

“After reading Gaiman’s account of Norse mythology, I doubt that I will ever forget how the gods of Asgard acquired their treasures. Thor’s hammer that never misses its mark, Frey’s incredible ship that shrinks to the size of a pocketable silk scarf, Odin’s powerful spear, all came to be because of Loki’s mischief. Above all, I will not forget the ill-gotten and ill-treated children of Loki who bring about Ragnarok, the end of earth and heaven and the death of the gods. Everything feels very real and very now when told by someone who has obviously drunk of the ‘mead of the poets.’” — Catherine Stanton, Madison Library District, Rexburg, IL

Additional Buzz: Nobody sells Gaiman’s enthusiasms better than Gaiman himself, as he illustrates in the book trailer below.  The NYT offers a very early feature in which he says “Those Norse tales have accompanied me through pretty much everything I’ve done.” 

My Not So Perfect Life, Sophie Kinsella (PRH/Dial; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Katie Brenner has moved from her family’s farm to the big city. She goes to great lengths to present the face that she thinks the world wants to see. When she’s fired from her job and forced to return home she helps her family get their new venture up and running. Learning the truth about herself and those around her leads to the realization that nobody’s life is as perfect as it seems from the outside. Kinsella never loses her sense of humor, even when her characters are facing serious situations. She makes you believe in them and leaves you wanting to know what happens next.” — Kristen Gramer, Lewes Public Library, Lewes, DE

All Our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastai (PRH/Dutton; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Mastai’s debut is a clever and funny time travel romp which turns into an, action-packed science fiction thriller. Tom Barren stumbles through life and accidentally ruins the glittering jetpack and flying car future of 2016, replacing it with the one you and I know. The world may be worse off, but Tom’s life is better than ever. That is, until his mind starts splitting between the two realities and he must track down the genius who invented the other future. Tom’s journey through the past, across realities, and inside his mind make for a thrilling conclusion.” — Dan Brooks, Wake County Public Libraries, Cary, NC

Additional Buzz: Entertainment Weekly picks it as one of “The 23 Most Anticipated Books of 2017.” It is also the #1 Indie Next book for February and we featured the title as part to of our EarlyReads series.

There are eight additional Indie Next titles coming out this week:

Desperation Road, Michael Farris Smith (Hachette/Lee Boudreaux Books; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Russell, just released from an 11-year prison sentence, finds anger and revenge waiting for him on the outside. Maben, homeless, broken, and walking along the interstate in the blazing Mississippi heat toward McComb, is forced to make a decision that puts her and her young daughter on the run from the police. In a desperate moment of chance or fate, Russell and Maben’s paths cross, their shared past is revealed, and Russell is left to make the ultimate choice. Smith’s novel is mesmerizing from its opening pages; you will have to pace yourself while reading it to fully enjoy and appreciate the pitch-perfect language and descriptions that can only come from one who has a masterful command of storytelling.” —Matt Kelly, Lemuria Bookstore, Jackson, MS

A Separation, Katie Kitamura (PRH/Riverhead Books; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“We all have a secret self, parts of our personalities that are unknowable, even to the people closest to us. In A Separation, Kitamura stays largely inside the narrator’s head, musing on a great many things: the muddled truth that can exist between married couples, the precise pain of infidelity, the myriad tiny betrayals we commit every day. Her prose is perfect, spare and beautiful, and her observations are spot-on. Some of her sentences were so good they startled me out of the story, which might sound like a bad thing, but it really isn’t. It just meant I spent a little longer with this book, my mind wandering like the narrator’s.” —Lauren Peugh, Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, AZ

Additional Buzz: Entertainment Weekly picks it as one of “The 23 Most Anticipated Books of 2017.”

The Lonely Hearts Hotel, Heather O’Neill (PRH/Riverhead Books; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“If there is Canadian magical realism, this is it! The Lonely Hearts Hotel is the charming story of Rose and Pierrot, two children raised in a Montreal orphanage in the early 20th century. O’Neill traces their romance from their childhood of entertaining rich people in their homes to their less salubrious post-orphanage careers. When Rose and Pierrot meet again as adults, magic happens—but can this magic survive the rigors of the real world? Fantastic and fabulous in the truest sense of both words.” —Susan Taylor, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, NY

The Refugees, Viet Thanh Nguyen (PGW/Grove Press; OverDrive Sample).

“This eloquent and detailed collection of aspirations and dreams tells of those torn between two worlds, the country and family left behind in trade for a distant place of hope and desires fulfilled. Each chapter is an experience of memory suffused with subtle moments that will leave you breathless.” —Shannon Alden, Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, MI

Additional Buzz: While the term “timely” seems overused these days, it clearly applies to this book by the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction last year for The Sympathizer. The author is scheduled to be interviewed next week on NPR’s All Things Considered as well as on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Holds are growing.

Pachinko, Min Jin Lee (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio).

“A father’s gentle nature, a mother’s sacrifice, a daughter’s trust, and a son’s determination are the cornerstones of this grand, multilayered saga. Pachinko follows one family through an ever-changing cultural landscape, from 1910 Korea to 1989 Japan. As the bonds of family are put to the test in the harsh realities of their world, Sunja and those she holds dear manage to carve themselves a place to call home with hard work, self sacrifice, and a little kimchi. Through it all is a message about love, faith, and the deep-rooted bonds of family. Min Jin Lee gives us a phenomenal story about one family’s struggle that resonates with us today. It will take hold of you and not let go!” —Jennifer Steele, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI

Additional Buzz: It is also on the Chicago Review of Books list of “The 10 Best New Books to Read This February.”

The Impossible Fortress, Jason Rekulak (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio).

“You don’t have to remember the 1980s to deeply ‘get’ this sweet memory trip back to the decade when video games, personal computers, and mixtapes were new. But if you did come of age in the 1980s, look out. All those awkward boy/girl moments, all those songs that comprised the soundtracks of your make-out sessions and your break-ups, all the wonder of your first encounters with MS-DOS buried deep in a far corner of your memory… Jason Rekulak will bring it all back to you.” —Carol Spurling, BookPeople of Moscow, Moscow, ID

Additional Buzz: Another of Entertainment Weekly‘s “The 23 Most Anticipated Books of 2017” picks. They write “Revel in 1987 nostalgia in this debut about a teen boy, a coveted copy of Playboy and a computer-nerd girl.”

300 Arguments: Essays, Sarah Manguso (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample).

“Sarah Manguso is a master of the minimalist form. She can do more with a sentence than many authors can do with an entire book. In this collection of brief ruminations, she covers everything from sex and mortality to ambition, mental illness, writing, desire, and motherhood. These ‘arguments’ are aphoristic gems in which a seemingly random thought has hardened into a bold, cutting, crystalline truth. There is no exposition. Manguso lets these minute statements stand on their own, and the reader is left with nowhere to hide from direct engagement with a most remarkable literary mind.” —Keaton Patterson, Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX

Additional Buzz: It is among The Millions “Most Anticipated: The Great 2017 Book Review.”

Swimming Lessons, Claire Fuller (Norton/Tin House).

“With Swimming Lessons, Claire Fuller confirms her place as a writer of exceptional insight and warmth. This tale of a marriage, of a family, and especially of children bearing the brunt of the fallout of betrayals and abandonment, pulls you in and refuses to let you emerge from the lives of its characters until the tale is finished. Even then, it takes time to shake the spell the book creates. A wonderful follow-up to Our Endless Numbered Days that explores similar themes through an entirely different story, Swimming Lessons will be a great book for fans of Fuller’s first novel and will bring her new fans as well.” —Anmiryam Budner, Main Point Books, Wayne, PA

Additional Buzz: The Guardian calls it a “poignant multilayered tale of love and loss” and BuzzFeed counts it as one of the “27 Brilliant New Books You Need To Read This Winter.” It is also on the Chicago Review of Books list of “The 10 Best New Books to Read This February.”

Tie-ins

Before I Fall Movie Tie-in Edition, Lauren Oliver (HarperCollins; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

Debuting at Sundance, Before I Fall is based on Lauren Oliver’s 2010 bestselling YA novel about a teen who relives the last day of her life over and over again.

The Hollywood Reporter says “this neatly written Heathers-meets-Groundhog Day high-concept package delivers both technical polish and a toothsome yet likeable cast. Better still, it has just enough tragic edge to draw young adults, and young-at-heart adults, with melancholy temperaments, a sizeable constituency judging by the popularity of dying teen stories.”

It opens in theaters on March 3 and stars Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Kian Lawley, Jennifer Beals, Diego Boneta, and Elena Kampouris.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Broadway Tie-In, Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake (PRH/Puffin Books; Listening Library).

 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The New Musical, opens on Broadway March 28 (previews, full roll out on April 23).

NYT‘s ArtsBeat blog writes that the show, which has been running in London since 2013, will be revamped for its US debut, to make it more familiar to fans of the Gene Wilder film version, including songs made famous by the movie. Two-time Tony winner Christian Borle plays Wonka.

The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, Diane Ackerman (W. W. Norton; Blackstone; OverDrive Sample).

This nonfiction adaptation stars Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Michael McElhatton, and Daniel Brühl.

It is set in the Warsaw Zoo during WWII, and tells the heroic story of a zookeeper and his wife who harbored 300 Jews from the Nazis.

The film debuts March 31.

Big Little Lies (Movie Tie-In), Liane Moriarty (PRH/Berkley trade pbk; February 7, 2017; mass market; OverDrive Sample).

HBO’s adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s 2014 best seller, Big Little Lies, begins airing on February 19. It stars Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Shailene Woodley.

Glamour calls it “The Mom Version of Pretty Little Liars You’ve Been Waiting For.”

Deadline Hollywood dubs it the “Murderous Moms of Monterey.”

 I Am Not Your Negro: A Companion Edition to the Documentary Film Directed by Raoul Peck, James Baldwin, Raoul Peck (PRH/Vintage; OverDrive Sample).

 A documentary based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House, I Am Not Your Negro  reflects on the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Samuel L. Jackson narrates the film, which includes stunning archival footage.

Entertainment Weekly gives it an A- and Variety says “Raoul Peck’s transcendent documentary takes a kaleidoscopic journey through the life and mind of James Baldwin, whose voice speaks even more powerfully today than it did 50 years ago.”

The NYT ranks it as as one of the 10 best films of 2016, writing “In his thrilling documentary, Raoul Peck closes the divide between the personal and political through a portrait of James Baldwin. Expressively narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the movie largely draws on Baldwin’s own writing — as well as material like his F.B.I. files — to create a portrait of a man that turns into a harrowing indictment of his country.”

The film is nominated for an Oscar in the Best Documentary category and opens on Feb. 3.

Another tie-in to a Broadway play is Jitney: A Play – Broadway Tie-In Edition, August Wilson (The Overlook Press). Part of August Wilson’s 10-play The American Century Cycle, it was the only one that had yet to be preformed on Broadway until its debut on January 19th of this year.

It is directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and stars Harvy Blanks, Anthony Chisholm, Brandon J. Dirden, André Holland, Carra Patterson, Michael Potts, Keith Randolph Smith, Ray Anthony Thomas, and John Douglas Thompson.

The Manhattan Theater Club offers a summary: “Set in the early 1970s, this richly textured piece follows a group of men trying to eke out a living by driving unlicensed cabs, or jitneys. When the city threatens to board up the business and the boss’ son returns from prison, tempers flare, potent secrets are revealed and the fragile threads binding these people together may come undone at last.”

The NYT raves, writing “Conversation sings and swings, bends and bounces and hits heaven smack in the clouds, in the glorious new production of August Wilson’s Jitney … words take on the shimmer of molten-gold notes from the trumpets of Louis and Miles.”

Wilson, Daniel Clowes (Macmillan/Drawn and Quarterly).

The live-action adaptation of Clowes’s 2010 graphic novel Wilson, starring Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, and Judy Greer also premiered at Sundance. Unfortunately, it was not a hit with the critics there. Variety writes, that it “boasts some funny vignettes but fails in the crucial test of making us care much about the title character.”

It opens March 24.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Ever alert to trends, the publishing powerhouse of James Patterson has announced the release of a YA dystopian novel on May 22, Crazy House (Hachette/Jimmy Patterson; Hachette Audio).

Announcing the book, Patterson tells Entertainment Weekly, “I promise you that [it] is even more exciting, scarier, and of course, crazier—in the best way—than anything I’ve written.”

EW has an excerpt and offers this lead-in:

“Brainy Cass and wild Becca are twin sisters living in a world controlled by The United, an all-powerful government that commands a ‘separate but equal’ society. Suddenly, Becca is thrown into prison, forced to fight her fellow inmates for survival. Cass is determined to save her sister, but she is in danger herself: the captors took the wrong twin, and when they find out they’ll be coming for her.”

The novel was written with Gabrielle Charbonnet, who has co-written other novels with Patterson,  Sundays at Tiffany’s and Witch & Wizard.

Originally the novel was titled Dragonflies, which still shows on the cover art in Edelweiss.

If you choose the Puppy Bowl over the Super Bowl this weekend, you will miss an ad for Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 1986). Good news, it has been released on YouTube, so you can have both. [UPDATE: as a result, the book shot to #1 on Amazon’s rankings on Monday].

The Super Bowl clip features more backstory as well as footage of the terror the handmaid’s face.

Two tag lines emerge. Elizabeth Moss, playing the handmaid Offred says: “My name is Offred — and I intend to survive.”

Joseph Fiennes, playing Commander Waterford, officially empowered to imprison and force Offred to bear his child, says: “We only wanted to make the world better, but ‘better’ never means better for everyone.”

Entertainment Weekly reports on the trailer in detail.

The series will premiere on April 26, 2017. A tie-in comes out in late March: The Handmaid’s Tale (Movie Tie-in), (PRH/Anchor, trade pbk; March 28, 2017). The book is rising on best seller lists and some see that as having more to do with protests against the Trump administration than with the upcoming series. The producer and the cast themselves have called the 20-year-old dystopian novel it is based on “prescient.”

Known for her satirical Facebook posts as “The Honest Toddler,” Bunmi Laditan just announced that she is publishing a novel this summer, Confessions of a Domestic Failure (HC/MIRA; May 2, 2017), sending it soaring to #16 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

The publisher bills it as a witty “lambasting [of] the societal pressures placed upon every new mother” and seals that with a blurb from satiric-blogger-turned-best-selling author Jenny Lawson, “Freaking hilarious. This is the novel moms have been waiting for.” No pre-pub reviews have appeared so far.

Only a few of the libraries we checked have placed orders.

Laditan also wrote The Honest Toddler: A Child’s Guide to Parenting (S&S/Scribner; Tantor Media; OverDrive Sample) and Toddlers are A**Holes: It’s Not Your Fault (Workman; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Way back in 2011, the title Go The F@@K to Sleep by Adam Mansbach (Akashic; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample) had a certain shock value. After that, the word you still can’t say on TV began to show up on multiple book jackets. Even tidying up got the treatment with the recent Unf*ck Your Habitat by Rachel Hoffman (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin), described by the publisher as “Marie Kondo meets Thug Kitchen.” Once swear words hit coloring books, the shock value seems to have worn off.

Not so says the Wall Street Journal, which reports that bookstores face a dilemma about whether to display these titles (subscription may be required to view). Some do, others keep them behind the counter, or make sure they are not displayed at kid-friendly heights.

That may not be an issue for libraries, since books like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (HC/HarperOne; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample) are still showing holds lists and therefore are not available for display.

A new hybrid live-action/animated film based on the Newbery Medal-winning Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O’Brien, illustrated by Zena Bernstein (S&S/Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1971) is in development by MGM.

Variety reports it will be titled The Rats Of Nimh, led by first time director James Madigan who has won Emmys for special effects and worked on such films as Iron Man 2 and The Da Vinci Code.

The “hope is to create a franchise” using O’Brien’s two sequels, O’Brien wrote two sequels. reports Deadline.

MGM produced a previous adaptation, the 1982 animated film The Secret of NIMH. CinemaBlend says this new project is part of MGM’s “recent business strategy of rebooting their most classic franchises.” 

No word yet on stars or a premiere date.

In a high-profile prime-time announcement last night, Donald Trump delivered on his promise to nominate a conservative to the Supreme Court, Neil M. Gorsuch. As a result, Gorsuch’s 2006 book, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (Princeton University Press) is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings.

As might be expected for a book written primarily for the legal profession, it is widely held in college and law libraries but few public libraries own copies, mostly in ebook format.

In it, Gorsuch argues against laws that allow patients the right to physician-assisted suicide, such as those in Oregon, which gained national attention when Brittany Maynard chose that path. A book on her story was published late last year.

The Washington Post writes of the Gorsuch book:

“The front cover looks almost like a Tom Clancy novel, with purple all-caps block text set against a black background. But the book itself is a deep, highly cerebral overview of the ethical and legal debate surrounding the practices. In it, Gorsuch reveals that he firmly opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia … “

Jodi Picoult’s most recent novel, Small Great Things (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), is movie-bound with an attention-getting all-star cast.

Deadline Hollywood reports that Viola Davis and Julia Roberts will star and that a producer for La La Land will help shepherd the project.

As we noted at the time it hit shelves, the LibraryReads selection generated media attention.  It debuted on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list at #1 and is currently at #8 after 14 weeks.

NPR Weekend Edition Saturday featured the author, opening with a gripping summary:

“Ruth Jefferson, a labor and delivery nurse at a hospital in Connecticut … is barred from tending to a newborn baby by the baby’s parents. Ruth Jefferson is African-American. Brittany and Turk Bauer are white supremacists. But Davis, their baby, goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is on duty, briefly alone in the nursery. Should she disobey the order she’s been given by the hospital or touch the baby to try to save him? And does her slight hesitation doom the newborn boy?”

Picot also appeared on CBS This Morning. Host Gayle King noting that the book is “thought-provoking … interesting … and so timely,”asked Picoult how a “white woman of privilege” writes a book confronting racism.

It is early days yet so there is no word on when filming will begin. The paperback edition comes out in June from PRH/Ballantine.

A memoir from a MIT mathematician who beat the casinos at their own game is building reserve lists in libraries and climbing Amazon’s sales rankings, moving from #424 to within the Top 100.

A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market, Edward O. Thorp (PRH/Random House; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) recounts Throp’s life in finance, distilling advice as well as mob-tinged tales.

The Wall Street Journal says the memoir “delightfully recounts his progress (if that is the word) from college teacher to gambler to hedge-fund manager. Along the way we learn important lessons about the functioning of markets and the logic of investment.”

Thorp, says the New York Post, invented the art of card counting, and incurred the wrath of the casino industry, so successfully that he was targeted for harm when he proved he could beat the house at blackjack. His 1962 guide, Beat the Dealer, sold over a million copies and is still in print.

After his careers in academia and the casinos, Thorp started hedge funds and tangled with Rudy Giuliani, who at the time was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Thorp prevailed and continued his successful career making money. 

Holds range from almost 5:1 to 47:1 on modest ordering in systems we checked.

Getting rave reviews, a TV movie adaptation of Agatha Christie’s short story and play, The Witness for the Prosecution, comes to the small screen January 30th when Acorn TV begins streaming the BBC movie. The Wall Street Journal says it has “character … depth and startling bitterness … [the] times are vividly evoked in this splendidly written work whose surprise ending is the kind worth waiting for.”

The Guardian reviewer calls it “Perfectly crafted, expertly cast and beautifully scripted … I doubt there has ever been more brought by a cast, crew and writer to Agatha Christie. It is the most gorgeous gift to the viewer.”

The two-episode series stars Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall along with Toby Jones and Andrea Riseborough.

We may see yet another version. Ben Affleck is planning his own adaptation according to Variety, and “will produce with Matt Damon, Jennifer Todd and the Agatha Christie estate.” Of course, he may bow to fan press to do the next Batman movie first.

It was famously adapted into the 1957 film directed by Billy Wilder, starring Tyrone Power and Marlene Dietrich. That production eared six Oscar nominations.

There is no tie-in, but the book is still in print, published by HarperCollins (HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House, which reflects on the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Samuel L. Jackson narrates.

The film is nominated for an Oscar in the Best Documentary category and opens on Feb. 3.

Entertainment Weekly gave it an A-, writing “it’s impossible not to think: The more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s enough to make you weep.” The New Yorker says it is “incisive” and Variety calls it “transcendent.”

There is a companion book: I Am Not Your Negro: A Companion Edition to the Documentary Film Directed by Raoul Peck, James Baldwin, Raoul Peck (PRH/Vintage; OverDrive Sample).

The fourth in the Ring horror franchise, Rings, premieres on Feb. 3.

The first US version of the story, about a cursed videotape, debuted in 2002. The series is based on the Japanese horror novel Ring by Koji Suzuki, originally published in 1991.

This new version stars Vincent D’Onofrio, Laura Wiggins, and Aimee Teegarden.

There is a tie-in edition: RINGS, Koji Suzuki (PRH/Vertical).

It had seemed that Outlander season 3 would air in February but that now looks unlikely and a premiere date has yet to be announced.

The show just won four People’s Choice Awards, for Favorite TV Show, Favorite Premium Sci-Fi/Fantasy Series, and Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Actor and Actress.

We do know season three will be based on Voyager (PRH/Delacorte; OverDrive Sample), the third book in Diana Gabaldon’s long-running series. TV Guide has an article on what to expect and Movie Pilot offers a catch-up. Entertainment Weekly offers a first look, with Brianna as a baby.

The holds leader for the week, Lisa Gardner’s Right Behind You, (PRH/Dutton; RH Large Print; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample) marks the return, a welcome one, according to both PW and Booklist, of series characters last featured in 2008’s Say Goodbye.

Each week seems to bring a new Gone Girl/Girl on the Train contender. This week’s candidate is My Husband’s Wife, a debut by Jane Corry (PRH/Pamela Dorman; BOT; Thorndike; OverDrive Sample).

A best seller in the UK, it is showing high holds ratios in advance of its release here.  Parade Magazine features it this week,  predicting, “If you loved Gone Girl and The Talented Mr. Ripley, you’ll love My Husband’s Wife …It’s got every thriller’s trifecta: love, marriage and murder.” It received strong reviews from Booklist and PW, but Kirkus panned it. Note that holds are heavier, on another contender,  The Girl Before by JP Delaney (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), as we wrote last week.

The titles highlighted in this column, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Jan 30,2017

Media Attention

Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin, Sybrina Fulton, Tracy Martin,  (PRH/Spiegel & Grau; Random House/BOT Audio; OverDrive Sample)

The parents of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin, an African American high school student who was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida in 2012, an incident that helped spur the Black Lives Matter movement, will appear on several shows this week.

USA Today –  video interview, today
ABC Nightline – 1/27
ABC The View  – 1/30
Comedy Central Daily Show w/ Trevor Noah – 1/30
ABC Good Morning America – 1/31

I Don’t Belong to You: Quiet the Noise and Find Your Voice, Keke Palmer (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample)

Actress (Scream Queens) and singer Palmer offers advice to young women. She is scheduled for appearances on the following shows

NBC Today Show — 1/31
ABC The View — 1/31
Fox Wendy Williams — 2/1
NBC Harry — 2/1

Peer Picks

One LibraryReads selection comes out this week, Behind Her Eyes: A suspenseful psychological thriller, Sarah Pinborough (Macmillan/Flatiron Books; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Louise meets a charming man in a bar and is smitten. The attraction is mutual, but David confesses he is married. They go their separate ways…until the next morning when Louise goes to work and realizes that the new psychiatrist who has been hired by the practice is David. Adele, David’s wife, is struggling to keep their marriage alive, but David has tired of her lies. A friendship begins between Adele and Louise. David and Louise are still attracted to each other and the triangle is complete. This is not your average thriller. It is absolutely riveting!” — Mary Vernau, Tyler Public Library, Tyler, TX

Additional Buzz: The Guardian includes it in a recent thrillers round up review, leading with a description of the author as a woman “prepared to move decisively beyond the parameters of the possible – but who somehow disable[s] our scepticism.” The paper continues, calling the book a “lively … Hitchcockian thriller.” The Stylist includes it on their list of the “Best New Books for 2017,” pointing out its most used hashtag is #WTFthatending. It is also an Indie Next February selection and a GalleyChat pick.

One additional Indie Next title arrives this week, 4 3 2 1, Paul Auster (Macmillan/Henry Holt; Macmillan Audio).

“I celebrate whenever there’s something new by Paul Auster. I wasn’t prepared, though, for just how moved, awed, and astonished I found myself while immersed in his inventive and grand novel 4 3 2 1. About a life lived fully, about possibility in love and finding a path to take that’s the right one, this is a large novel in all respects, but, most importantly, in spirit. In its writing, Paul Auster has created nothing short of a masterpiece.” —Mitchell Kaplan, Books & Books, Coral Gables, FL

Additional Buzz: The Guardian offers a review and interview. It is on BuzzFeed‘s list of “27 Brilliant New Books You Need To Read This Winter” and on The Millions “Most Anticipated” list. It is one of the five books LitHub say is “making news this week.” They write “Critics are intrigued, occasionally baffled.” Two examples of those reactions: The Washington Post calls it “a multitiered examination of the implications of fate” and says “what’s compelling always is its sense that the most important time exists within us, the time of memory and imagination, out of which identity is forged.” New York Magazine is not impressed, saying of the 900 page novel, “what really defeats Auster in 4321 is his decision to write against his strengths. His B-movie plots and narrative sleights of hand thrive on elision, and this book is overstuffed. The one thing he always seemed to know was the power of brevity.”

Tie-ins

Disney’s live-action version of Beauty and the Beast opens in theaters on March 17. The film stars Emma Watson as Belle, Luke Evans as Gaston, and Downton Abbey‘s Dan Stevens as the Beast. Ewan McGregor is Lumiere and Emma Thompson plays Mrs. Potts.

Variety reports the film is getting lots of buzz and Forbes predicts it will be one of the “three biggest domestic grossers of the year.”

Arriving this week are six tie-ins:

Beauty and the Beast Novelization, Disney Writers (Hachette/Disney Press)

Tale as Old as Time: The Art and Making of Disney Beauty and the Beast (Updated Edition): Inside Stories from the Animated Classic to the New Live-action Film, Charles Solomon (Hachette/Disney Editions)

World of Reading: Beauty and the Beast Something More: Level 2, Eric Geron, illustrated by the Disney Book Group (Hachette/Disney Press)

Beauty and the Beast Read-Along Storybook and CD, Disney Book Group, illustrated by the Disney Storybook Art Team (Hachette/Disney Press)

Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book, Jennifer Donnelly (Hachette/Disney Press)

Beauty and the Beast: Belle’s Library: A collection of literary quotes and inspirational musings, Brittany Rubiano, illustrated by Jenna Huerta (Hachette/Disney Press)

The live-action version of the Archie comics, Riverdale, premiered last night on the CW.

In their rave review of the first four episodes, Den of Geek! calls the show “highly addictive” and writes “Yes, this is a show that mixes sex and murder and noir with Archie, but it does so in a way that is self-aware and instantly ready to shatter expectations … And you know what? It is magnificent.”

The tie-in comes out at the end of the month: Road to Riverdale, Mark Waid, Chip Zdarsky, Adam Hughes, Marguerite Bennett (PRH/Random House; OverDrive Sample).

Debuting in theaters on March 31 is The Ghost in the Shell, a SF film based on Masamune Shirow’s manga series of the same name, which Movie Pilot calls “a pioneer of cyberpunk.” Over a decade ago, it was adapted as an animated version, which IndieWire reports will run in a limited release this February.

The live-action adaptation stars Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbæk, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche, and Michael Pitt. It is already getting criticized for whitewashing, and TasteofCinema wonders if it will succeed.

The tie-in comes out on Jan 31: The Ghost in the Shell 1 Movie Tie-In Edition, Shirow Masamune (PRH/Kodansha Comics).

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Daphne du Maurier’s moody Gothic romances have been adapted by many directors. Alfred Hicthock was a particular fan, basing two of his movies on her novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and a third, The Birds on one of her short stories.

One that escaped him was 1951’s My Cousin Rachel (republished in 2009 by Sourcebooks Landmark; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample). Adapted as a film in 1954, it starred Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton, winning him a Golden Globe award as “Most Promising Newcomer, Male.” 

The international trailer for a new adaptation, set to debut on July 14, has just been released.

Director Robert Michell (Notting Hill) tells The Telegraph that his version, starring Rachel Weisz (The Mummy) and Sam Claflin (Hunger Games), will be “detailed, dark, sexy, cinematic and full of surprises.” 

Variety summarizes the Cornwall-set story as that “of a young Englishman who plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin, believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.” As Slate notes, the sex between cousins angle was toned down for 1950’s sensibilities. It seems that will not be an issue this time around.

Several NYT best seller list are no longer being updated. With little advance notice, the NYT announced that it is eliminating “a number of their print and online bestseller lists,” starting with this week’s lists, dated Feb. 5.

PW reports the lists for “graphic novels and manga, as well as the lists for mass market paperbacks, middle-grade e-books, teen e-books have been eliminated.” Entertainment Weekly says those books will be eligible for the remaining fiction lists.

The comic world is outraged. Eric Reynolds, an editor at Fantagraphics Books, told the New York Magazine “Good comics have forever had to scratch and claw for legitimacy and resist marginalization, and this feels like a step backwards.”

A spokesperson for the NYT told New York magazine that “The discontinued lists did not reach or resonate with many readers … This change allows us to expand our coverage of these books in ways that we think will better serve readers and attract new audiences to the genres … [the change] allows us to devote more space and resources to our coverage beyond the best-seller lists.”

“Comics need to be measured against themselves, not the larger whole of books,” Charles Kochman, editorial director of Abrams ComicArts, the graphic novel imprint of Abrams, told PW.

The comics site The Beat reports that the decision came from New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul, who took to Twitter to say, across three tweets:

“Quick note to fellow comics/graphic novel fans: The Times is not cutting back on coverage of these genres/formats but rather expanding on coverage in ways that reach more readers than the lists did. To wit: new graphic reviews by comic artists, more reviews and more news and features about then [sic] genre and it’s [sic] creators. We are big fans, and want to recognize growing readership. Stay tuned.”

On the mass market side, PW quotes Steven Zacharius, CEO of Kensington Publishing, saying cuts were “enormously troubling … [it] effects sales, and not having this list will hurt authors tremendously.”

Click here for the NYT‘s full statement.