Debuting in theaters today is Disney’s big budget, The Finest Hours, based on the true rescue story written for young adults by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman (see our earlier story).

The big kids animated movie opening is Dreamworks Kung Fu Panda 3. Check our list of tie-ins.

The upcoming week brings several adaptations for TV as well as for a high-profile movie.

The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story is the first in a new series on FX, produced, in part, by Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story).

The 10-part project premiers Feb. 2, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. as O. J. Simpson, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, Courtney B. Vance as Johnnie Cochran, and Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey.

It is based on Jeffrey Toobin’s 1996 book The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson. The tie-in edition (Random House; OverDrive Sample) went on sale last September.

The series is getting strong reviews for its intimate, 360 degree take on the crime that kept viewers glued to their TV screens twenty years ago.

Riffing off the popularity of Serial and Netflix’s Making a Murderer, FX’s plans for American Crime Story to re-create other true life stories. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the events of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath will be the subject of a second season.

As we reported earlier, on Feb. 3, ABC will begin airing a miniseries detailing the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme with Richard Dreyfuss playing Madoff and Blythe Danner playing his wife, Ruth.

The show is based on the 2009 book by ABC News’s chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross, The Madoff Chronicles (Inside the Secret World of Bernie and Ruth) (Kingswell; OverDrive Sample). A tie-in edition came out earlier this month.

Taking aim at the Valentine’s Day crowd (who last year crowded theaters to see Fifty Shades of Grey), Nicholas Sparks’ The Choice hits theaters a bit ahead of the holiday, on Feb. 5.

The film stars Teresa Palmer and Tom Welling and tells the story of two neighbors in a small town who fall in love when one moves next door to the other.

The tie-in came out in late December, The Choice by Nicholas Sparks (Hachette/Grand Central Publishing; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith (Quirk Books, 2009), starring Lily James (Cinderella, Downton Abbey) as Elizabeth Bennett, Sam Riley as Mr. Darcy and Bella Heathcote as Elizabeth’s sister opens on Feb. 5th as well.

The tie-in edition came out in mid-December: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Movie Tie-in Edition), Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith (Quirk Books; OverDrive Sample).

As we reported, it has been a bit of a rocky road getting the film made but with star Lily James set to return to Downton Abbey in upcoming episodes of the final season (with strong hints that her character, Lady Rose is pregnant) the many shifts in lead actresses ended up with a hot star. Now the producers hope audiences will forget that an earlier mashup adaptation, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, was a major flop.

For more books to movies and TV, see our list of upcoming book adaptations, as well as our list of tie-ins.

Librarian Nancy Pearl sits down with Elizabeth Strout to talk about writing and reading in the latest episode of herr Book Lust author interview show for the local Seattle channel.

Strout, whose newest book is My Name Is Lucy Barton (Random House; Random House Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), says that writing for her is a long and messy process.

She begins by sketching out pieces of scenes, by hand, on paper, and moves them around on her desk until some shape starts to form.

She always searches for the voice of the character, never writes from beginning to end, and focuses on characterization always.

In fact, she says that, for her,  everything starts and ends with character, and that even a description of a setting makes her think about how a character would respond to seeing it.

Pearl and Strout end the conversation with a lovefest about Stewart O’Nan and his books they have both treasured, including West of Sunset (PRH/Viking, 2015) and Emily, Alone (PRH/Viking, 2011).

Of Strout’s books, Pearl urged readers especially to pick up Amy and Isabelle (Random House, 1998) as well as Olive Kitteridge (Random House, 2008).

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, J. Kenji López-Alt (W. W. Norton, 2015; OverDrive Sample) was a New York Times bestseller when it came out last year. It was also considered one of the best cookbooks of the year by both LJ and Amazon.

Gaining renewed attention, it moved up Amazon’s sales ranking from just outside the top 100 to #4.

The author tweeted he would be on The Chew yesterday:

The show did not post the video, but they did post his recipe.

Holds are still strong in libraries we checked.

The editor-in-chief of the science fiction site io9.com, Charlie Jane Anders, is receiving critical attention for her new novel  All the Birds in the Sky (Macmillan/Tor Books; OverDrive Sample), which is an example of the rich possibilities along the crossroads of genre.

As we reported last week, it is a Feb. Indie Next pick. In addition praising the story, characters, and writing, reviewers say Anders is re-examining the genre.

The Los Angeles Times offers:

“[A] brilliant, cross-genre novel [that has all] the hallmarks of an instant classic. It’s a beautifully written, funny, tremendously moving … Like the work of other 21st century writers — Kelly Link and Lev Grossman come immediately to mind — All the Birds in the Sky serves as both a celebration of and corrective to the standard tropes of genre fiction.”

Cory Doctorow agrees, writing on Boing Boing that the novel is “smartass, soulful … everything you could ask for … a fresh look at science fiction’s most cherished memes, ruthlessly shredded and lovingly reassembled.”

The Guardian echoes those thoughts, saying that the novel “subverts genres … coming up with something greater than the sum of its parts … the result is a weird and charming read.”

Finally, Jason Heller, reviewing for NPR, says:

Anders has been writing with passion and insight about science fiction and fantasy for years — so it only makes sense that … she’s melded the two genres in a way that opens a profound, poetic new perspective on each … With All the Birds in the Sky, Anders has given us a fresh set of literary signposts — and a new bundle of emotional metaphors — for the 21st century, replacing the so many of the tired old ones. Oh, and she’s gently overturned genre fiction along the way.”

All the attention has yet to transfer into large hold queues but this is certainly a book to watch as award season comes around again.

Today on io9, in the essay “What It Means To Be a Science Fiction Writer in the Early 21st Century,” she describes how the process of writing the book led to her believe that “There is a huge opportunity, in 2016, for authors (and creators of all kinds) to scrape off the accumulated layers of meta from old story ideas—and to come up with brand new story ideas as well.”

Anders also recently gave a Harvard TedX presentation.

A new book exploring the scientific evidence of mind/body healing (using such practices as meditation, biofeedback, placebos, and more) is getting a great deal of attention and is rising on Amazon as a result, jumping from #1,177 up to #37.

Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body, Jo Marchant (PRH/Crown; OverDrive Sample) was the subject of yesterday’s Fresh Air conversation with Terry Gross. On Monday, it as reviewed in the NYT’. Even Scientific American is getting in on the topic, posting an interview with Marchant.

Gross is clearly fascinated in the topic, especially the biological process of mental healing, the effects of stress, and the ethics of alternative therapies.

NYT’s nonfiction reviewer, Jennifer Senior, is a bit less engaged. She takes issue with some of the topics, saying little of this book is new, but praises Marchant’s writing ability, her solid approach (she says Marchant is “a scientist to her bones”), and her well-chosen subjects – “very moving characters to show us the importance of the research she discusses.”

Libraries we checked generally bought few copies. As a result, holds ratios are high, even though the overall numbers are modest.

Move over Dr. Seuss and make way for Beatrix Potter. She too is now among the list of beloved children’s authors with a newly found manuscript.

According to The Guardian, the treasured find, The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots, has been lying low for 100 years, hidden in the V&A archives.

The project dates back to at least 1914, when Potter informed her editor that she was at work on a story of “a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads rather a double life.”

Various life events got in the way of Potter completing the tale, including WWI and marriage, but Potter drafted a mock-up of the book, complete with one finished illustration and a rough sketch.

Publisher Jo Hanks, who found the tale, says it offers some of the “best of Beatrix Potter … It has double identities, colourful villains and a number of favourite characters from other tales [even an “older, slower and portlier” Peter Rabbit].

Artist Quentin Blake, who in the past created new art for Roald Dahl’s books, has been selected to illustrate the tale. He told the paper, “I liked the story immediately – it’s full of incident and mischief and character – and I was fascinated to think that I was being asked to draw pictures for it … I have a strange feeling that it might have been waiting for me.”

According to The Washington Post, the new tale will be published world-wide in September by Frederick Warne & Co, Beatrix Potter’s original publisher, now owned by PRH. The 2016 publication date coincides with the 150th anniversary of Potters’ birth.

The Guardian offers images of Potter’s illustration and the new art by Blake. The BBC provides an excerpt of the story.

With 75 puppets, music, and charming set design, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is about to make his Off-Broadway debut in a musical for children.

Created by Jonathan Rockefeller, the The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show re-tells four of Eric Carle’s stories, The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse, Mister Seahorse, The Very Lonely Firefly and, The Very Hungry Caterpillar (all published by PRH/Philomel) in a format and manner designed to offer young children an introduction to the joys and magic of live theater.

The show debuted in Australia with that country’s edition of Time Out raving:

“Beautiful, rhythmic and faithful to the author’s works, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a triumph for first time theatregoers … Simply put, the makers behind the first stage adaptation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar know and understand kids … Filled with ‘wow’ moments and stunning effects throughout, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is mesmerizing.”

It opens in NYC on Jan. 30, running through March 27th,  at the 47th Street Theater.

Michael Pollan’s 2013 book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (Penguin; OverDrive Sample) is about to become a Netflix series.

Set to air on February 19th, the four-episode adaptation offers viewers a mix of culinary travelogue, anthropology lessons and sessions in Pollan’s home kitchen.

Based around elemental cooking methods, the globe-spanning series will focus on fire, water, air, and earth. Eater, one of the leading culinary websites, reports:

“In the ‘Fire’ episode, Pollan will delve into the cross-cultural tradition of barbecue by looking at fire-roasts of monitor lizards in Western Australia and visiting with a barbecue pitmaster; in the ‘Water’ episode, he’ll take lessons from kitchens in India and cover the issues surrounding processed foods. An episode titled ‘Air’ explores the science of bread-making and gluten, while the final episode, ‘Earth,’ looks at how fermentation preserves raw foods.”

Variety says,

“Personalities and places featured in Cooked include … a Connecticut Benedictine nun and microbiologist who makes traditional French cheese; Peruvian brewers who use human saliva to ferment a traditional beverage; and an ancient Moroccan granary powered by rivers.”

Alex Gibney (Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief) is the executive producer of the series. Eater reports a different filmmaker is in charge of each episode.

No tie-in is planned but the book is available in various print editions as well as eBook.

Based on recent best seller lists, people love to read about death.

NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday examines the trend, prompted by a recent article in The Guardian which, based on the popularity of Paul Kalanithi’s memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, (PRH/Random House; BOT; OverDrive Sample), offers two explanations: the books present examples of ways to face the inevitable and the seemingly sad subject holds a measure of optimism, because the act of writing a memoir grants a measure of immortality.

The interview highlights a couple of well-known examples, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (Hachette/Hyperion, 2008) and Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom (PRH/Doubleday/Broadway, 2002).

There are plenty of newer examples too, including Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (Macmillan/Holt; 2014), which has been on the NYT hardback nonfiction bestseller list for over a year and Gratitude by Oliver Sacks (PRH/Knopf, 2015), now in its fifth week on that same list.

There’s a single holds leader for the week, James Patterson’s NYPD Red 4 (Hachette/Little, Brown) co-written with Marshall Karp, but fans are also looking forward to new titles by Alafair Burke, Elisa James, Marcia Muller and Brandon Sanderson.

The titles covered here, and several more notable books arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Jan. 25, 2016

In the Media 

The Innocent Killer : A True Story of a Wrongful Conviction and its Astonishing Aftermath
Michael Griesbach, narrated by Johnny Heller, (Tantor Audio)

The Netflix series Making a Murderer is now a bona fide cultural phenomenon, having made the cover of People magazine. Next week Tantor releases an audio of a book by one of the an assistant district attorneys in the department that prosecuted the case (big surprise, he thinks the prosecution got it right). Published by the American Bar Association in 2014, long before the series debuted, the print version is currently out of stock, but it is available as an eBook (OverDrive sample). In the U.K., PRH is releasing it under the Windmill imprint, as reported by the Guardian.

Interest in the series may continue; the producers hinted recently that a second season may be coming

Peer Picks

The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin (PRH/Delacorte Press; OverDrive Sample) is the big Peer Pick book of the week, selected as both a January LibraryReads title and as the #1 IndieNext pick for February, as well as  Entertainment Weekly‘s #4 pick on the “Must List” for the week.

Emily Weiss, of the Bedford Public Library, Bedford, NH says:

“Benjamin transports readers to 1960s Manhattan. This story gives us the chance to spy on Truman Capote’s close friendship with Babe Paley and his society “swans,” and the betrayal and scandal that drove them apart. I loved the description of the Black and White Ball.”

All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders (Macmillan/Tor Books; OverDrive Sample) also made the Feb. IndieNext list, with Sara Hinckley, of Hudson Booksellers, Marietta, GA saying:

“All the Birds in the Sky reads like an instant classic. In tackling big questions about what is really important in life and how we are all connected, the novel soars through magic and science, good and evil, and all the shades in between; through the struggles of children against clueless parents, teachers, and spiteful kids; and through the struggles of adults against a heedless society, all with a love story at its heart. Deep, dark, funny, and wonderful!”

Another Feb. IndieNext pick out this week is The Unfinished World: And Other Stories, Amber Sparks (WW Norton/Liveright; OverDrive Sample).

“The beautiful stories in Sparks’ debut collection have an ephemeral quality that is difficult to categorize. Comparisons can be made to Haruki Murakami or George Saunders, but the writing is honestly unlike anything I have ever read. The otherworldliness of these stories will transport you beyond the minutiae of your everyday life and alter the way you look at the world.” —Shawn Donley, Powell’s Books, Portland, OR.

Tie-ins

How to Be Single, Liz Tuccillo (S&S/Washington Square Press; OverDrive Sample – also in mass market) releases this week in order to promote the Feb. 12 opening of the film starring Rebel Wilson, Dakota Johnson, Leslie Mann, Dan Stevens, Alison Brie, and Damon Wayans Jr.

The romantic comedy, a big Valentine’s Day bet, follows singles on the dating scene in NYC.

Timed for Easter is the new Biblical movie, The Young Messiah, starring Sean Bean, David Bradley, and Jonathan Bailey. It comes out on March 11th.

Based on a novel by Anne Rice, the tie-in editions have both the movie title and Rice’s original book title: The Young Messiah (Movie tie-in) (originally published as Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt), Anne Rice (PRH/Ballantine Books; OverDrive Sample – also in mass market).

In a rare event for a university press, a tie-in edition is also out for Free State of Jones, starring Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Keri Russell.

The movie centers on the true life account of a Southern farmer who led a rebellion against the Confederacy.

The Free State of Jones, Movie Edition: Mississippi’s Longest Civil War (The University of North Carolina Press) was written by Victoria E. Bynum, a Texas State University professor, now retired.

The movie opens 5/13.

Arriving in theaters today is The 5th Wave, based on Rick Yancey’s YA novel and expected to be the first in a franchise (see our earlier story). The upcoming week brings several adaptations for TV as well as for a high-profile movie.

Talk about your anti-hero. On the new debut of FOX’s Lucifer, the bored ruler of Hell comes to L.A., meets a girl, and somehow starts working with the cops.

As we reported earlier, the series is based on a character in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, which was then spun off into the comic Lucifer, written by Mike Carey, both published by DC/Vertigo.

It stars Tom Ellis as Lucifer and premiers Jan. 25.

Also airing on the 25th, this time on the Syfy channel, is The Magicians, based on Lev Grossman’s bestselling novel.

The Syfy channel has already released the first full episode:

As we noted when it aired, reaction was not fully positive.

A tie-in came out in Nov: The Magicians (TV Tie-In Edition) by Lev Grossman (Penguin/Plume).

In movie news, Disney’s big budget disaster/rescue move, The Finest Hours, opens on Jan. 29th.

It is not getting great reviews either. Variety says:

“…perhaps the worst one could say about Craig Gillespie’s film is that, rather than their finest hours, the whole cast and crew all put in a solid shift at the office making the movie, producing a perfectly entertaining, sometimes quite well-crafted disaster drama that nonetheless retreats from the memory almost as soon as the credits roll.”

The Hollywood Reporter bottom lines it with “Too much of this action thriller feels dead in the water,” but goes on to say, “Even so, the film’s promise of thrill-ride spectacle — it’s going out in a variety of 3D formats — should help it ride a strong wave at the box office.”

A tie-in came out in late December: The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Most Daring Sea Rescue by Michael J. Tougias, Casey Sherman (Pocket Books).

Rave reviews and a storm of attention are helping Tessa Hadley’s newest novel wrack up impressive holds queues.

The Past (Harper; OverDrive Sample), is a character-centered novel about families.

Entertainment Weekly gives it an A-, saying:

“Hadley is so perceptive about the tiny ways we find ourselves performing for one another, and so skilled at fluidly dipping in and out of the minds of her characters—whether they’re 6 and wishing to spy on the grown-ups or 76 and considering the comforts of decades-long marriage—that it can feel like she’s revealing little secrets about life that it would have taken you years to notice on your own.”

Ron Charles writes in The Washington Post:

“… for anyone who cherishes Anne Tyler and Alice Munro, the book offers similar deep pleasures. Like those North American masters of the domestic realm, Hadley crystallizes the atmosphere of ordinary life in prose somehow miraculous and natural.”

The Guardian flat out raves:

“In her patient, unobtrusive, almost self-effacing way, Tessa Hadley has become one of this country’s great contemporary novelists. She is equipped with an armoury of techniques and skills that may yet secure her a position as the greatest of them. Consider all the things she can do. She writes brilliantly about families and their capacity for splintering. She is a remarkable and sensuous noticer of the natural world. She handles the passing of time with a magician’s finesse. She is possessed of a psychological subtlety reminiscent of Henry James, and an ironic beadiness worthy of Jane Austen. To cap it all, she is dryly, deftly humorous. Is that enough to be going on with?”

It has made The Millions “Most Anticipated: The Great 2016 Book Preview,” The NY Magazine list of the “7 Books You Need to Read This January,” and The Huffpost Arts & Culture’s “32 New Books To Add to Your Shelf in 2016,” which says:

“Hadley’s popular reputation, especially in the U.S., hasn’t caught up with her critical one. But this novel, which uses her much-praised perceptiveness and her fine-brushed prose to tell a story of familial secrets and tensions, may help her break through.”

Indeed. Holds are exceeding a 3:1 ratio by wide margins at many libraries we checked.

To catch up with the book, listen to this interview with Hadley, which aired earlier in the month on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

In 2014 few Americans knew Italian author Elena Ferrante’s name, let alone the name of her English-language translator Ann Goldstein.

In a profile yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reports that Goldstein, who by day is chief of the New Yorker magazine’s copy department, often draws packed audiences at events where she stands in for the author, who does not make appearances.

Goldstein tells the WSJ that she became attracted to writing translations in typical copy editor fashion, because it focused her attention. “I liked it as a way of reading,” she said, “If you have to copy down every word of something, you become very close to it.”

Describing her take on translation, Goldstein says,

“Sometimes, I think, it’s puzzle-solving. I want to make good English sentences but without losing the particular voice of the Italian writer. I can’t explain how that happens. I think it has to do with staying pretty close to the original.”

“Her name on a book now is gold,” says Robert Weil, editor in chief of Norton’s Liveright imprint (she translated the imprint’s enormous Complete Works of Primo Levi). Her upcoming projects include Jhumpa Lahiri’s new memoir In Other Words (PRH/Knopf; BOT), which was composed in Italian when Lahiri moved to Italy and decided to write in that language, and Frantumaglia: Bits and Pieces of Uncertain Origin (Europa Editions) Ferrante’s upcoming collection of interviews, letters, and other writing.

Her fame will only grow if circulation is any measure. Libraries still have active holds queues on all four of Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, (Europa Editions).

Goldstein discusses them in this New Yorker “Out Loud” podcast.

As the result of an embargo, preventing pre-pub reviews, many libraries are facing high demand on few, if any, copies of a new book on right wing money and politics, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (PRH/Doubleday; BOT).

Author and journalist Jane Mayer appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday and as a result the book is now #4 on Amazon’s sales ranking and holds are skyrocketing.

Mayer shares some horrifying stories about the Koch’s, the bad blood in the family, and the secret way they (and other wealthy conservative families) give money to shape politics.

Calling them the political equivalent of secret tax shelter banks in the Cayman Islands, she explains how the Koch’s and others have undertaken a concerted campaign to shape the political environment by financing think tanks to formulate ideas, bankrolling advocacy groups to support those ideas, and pressuring politicians to create laws to enact them – all constructed in a way to hide the identity of those funding the process.

PBS’s Newshour is running a series of reports on autism this week, “Understanding Autism.”

The first episode aired last night and highlighted a book we’ve covered before, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman (Penguin/Avery; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

As a result, it rose back up Amazon’s sales rankings to #112.

Tonight, Newshour will feature a just-released title, In A Different Key: The Story of Autism (PRH/Crown; BOT; OverDrive Sample).

It was featured yesterday on NPR’s All Things Considered and has risen to #169 on Amazon’s rankings.