The surprise winner of two Golden Globes last week, for Best TV Comedy or Musical as well as for Best Actor in the same category, was Amazon’s series, Mozart in the Jungle. Amazon streamed both seasons of the series for free over the weekend, bringing new viewers (and taking the opportunity to offer special discounted subscriptions to Amazon Prime).

Even those familiar with the series may not realize that it is based on the 2005 memoir of the same title by oboist Blair Tindal detailing the highs and lows of her adventures in New York’s classical music world. Subtitled Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music it was a gossiped-about book among fellow musicians. Interviewing the author at the time, Entertainment Weekly, referred to it as a “hoity-toity version of VH1’s Behind the Music.” As the NYT writes this week, that fascination has been revived by the show.

With all this attention, expect to hear soon that Mozart has been renewed for a third season.

Season One trailer:

Season Two trailer:

After stealing key scenes in Downton Abbey and wowing small girls in Cinderella, Lily James stars in one of the great epics of all time, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. She takes up the role along side another familiar PBS face, James Norton from Grantchester.

The two help lead the newest BBC historical drama (in partnership with the US based Weinstein company), which is set to air in the US on January 18th on no less than three channels, A&E, Lifetime, and the History Channel.

Reaction to the sexy, violent, and lush drama has been mixed at best.

Here is The Guardian’s drooling take:

“This is proper, proper costume drama at its most lavish and its most dreamily, romantically Russian. This is how you do it, people. This is how you do it. Stop all period dramas being made now because nothing is going to match up to this. Sunday-night TV has been rescued. It’s hard to imagine how the BBC could have done a better job. It makes Downton Abbey look like am dram. It’s tonally perfect, striking exactly the right balance between drama and wit, action and emotion, passion and humour.”

On the other hand, in their preview, Flavorwire says:

“It’s hard to say whether American audiences will take to a literary miniseries comprising six one-and-a-half-hour episodes, but any low ratings won’t be for lack of celebrity or sex or war or incest … it’s Downton Abbey with war scenes, which should be enough to draw and retain an American viewership … Still, based on a single episode, it seems unlikely that this production of War and Peace will reach the heights of the 1966-67 Sergei Bondarchuk version, or the 1956 King Vidor adaptation starring Audrey Hepburn … Anyway, shouldn’t you be reading the book?”

Oddly, War and Peace: Tie-In Edition to Major New BBC Dramatisation, Leo Tolstoy, (BBC Books) is not due to be released until Feb. 23.

Hitting a completely different note, The 5th Wave is coming out on Jan. 22nd.

An alien invasion movie based on the novel by Rick Yancey, it stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Matthew Zuk, and Gabriela Lopez.

As we reported earlier, tie-ins came out in November. In addition, another book the series has been released, The Infinite Sea (Penguin YR/Putnam, 2014). A third book The Last Star (Penguin YR/Putnam) is due in late May.

Robert Redford is planning to adapt Elizabeth Strout’s The Burgess Boys (Random House; RH Audio; BOT) for an HBO miniseries according to Deadline Hollywood.

This is the second of Strout’s books to make it to the cable network, following the Emmy winning Olive Kitteridge.

Frances McDormand, who worked for years to get Olive made, produced that hit pavinf the way for Redford.

Strout’s newest book, My Name Is Lucy Barton (Random House; Random House Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), will be published on Tuesday.

See our Titles to Know and Recommend, Week of January 11, 2016 for more. Strout is scheduled to appear on NPR’s Fresh Air on Wednesday, Jan. 13.

No word yet on an air date for Burgess.

After the flurry of releases timed to the awards season cut-off, only one movie based on a book premieres in the upcoming week (The Revenant, which debuted in a very few theaters last month, opens wide today amid buzz for Sunday’s Golden Globes). TV takes up the slack with one movie and a new series.

Opening next Friday, January 15, is 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi based on 13 Hours: The Inside Account Of What Really Happened In Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff (Hachette/Twelve trade paperback tie-in; also mass-market). Opening the same weekend that American Sniper did last year, the producers are hoping for similar magic.

The movie revisits an event with heavy political implications, explored by the New York Times although director Michael Bey and the producers, “shared the conviction … that partisan politics should generally be avoided,” focusing instead on “an unabashed celebration of the armed operatives, who were defying orders when they moved to defend the diplomatic compound.”

Starring John Krasinski and James Badge Dale, the release of the trailer, as we previously reported, was enough to send the book moving up Amazon’s sales rankings. This week it hit the NYT Nonfiction paperback list at #8.

On TV, the Hallmark channel debuts the next in the Murder She Baked series, The Peach Cobbler Murder this Sunday, January 10.

Also airing back-to-back on Sunday are the previous two titles in the series based on Joanna Fluke’s Hannah Swensen series.

Tie-ins have been published for all three:

Peach Cobbler Murder, Joanne Fluke, (Kensingon, trade pbk and mass market)

Plum Pudding Mystery,  Joanne Fluke, (Kensingon, trade pbk and mass market. Sept 2015)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, Joanne Fluke, (Kensington, April, 2015)

As a result of the success of the series,  Kensington is re-releasing Fluke’s backlist. The next book in the Hannah Swensen series, Wedding Cake Murder is coming in February.

The seven-episode Shadowhunters series premiers on Jan. 12.

Based on Cassandra Clare’s YA series, The Mortal Instruments, it airs at 9 p.m. on the Freeform network (formerly ABC Family). A tie-in edition came out in late December, City of Bones: TV Tie-In (S&S/Margaret K. McElderry).

This is not the first time Clare’s book has been adapted. As we reported earlier, it was made into a movie in 2013. After it flopped at the box office, the producers changed their plans of creating a film franchise and turned to TV, with a new cast of actors, all of whom are fairly new to the screen.

For those not familiar with the story, E! Online offers a  Shadowhunters 101.

Debuting on Monday on the cable channel VH1 is a fictional movie about the origins of hip hop, The Breaks, inspired by the nearly 700-page nonfiction title, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop.  Examining the journey from book to TV movie, Forbes magazine suggests tit may be the beginning of a series. There is no tie-in, however.

Sister station MTV begins its big gamble (the most expensive original production in the network’s history) in trying to attract new audiences on Tuesday, Jan. 5th with the 10-part series Shannara Chronicles.

The L.A. Times notes, “Yes, the network of Real World and Jersey Shore is now channeling Tolkien.” Switching to another comparison, reporter Steve Zeitchik (formerly of Publishers Weekly) adds, “Shannara is a counterpart of sorts to HBO’s Game of Thrones and seeks both to ride that wave and set itself apart from it, though whether it can do both simultaneously is among the more interesting questions of the winter television window.”

Reviewing it under the to-die-for headline “The Next Game of Thrones Is Great On MTV, But It’s Really The Next Star Wars,” Forbes does not equivocate on that question,

“…while Shannara appears like another small screen Lord of the Rings in its marketing, its premise and actual presentation make it much more akin to the likes of Star Wars … From the first scene of its pilot, The Shannara Chronicles sets itself apart from the pack and makes it clear that this is going to be unlike any magical fantasy series we’ve seen before. The ways it does this are vast and supremely accessible to audiences that may not typically find much enjoyment in the genre, and that’s wonderful. Even if the series is nothing more than a gateway drug to the likes of heavier fantasy, it will still go down as one of the first great new shows of 2016 and one of the best new shows of the 2015/2016 television season.”

As we noted earlier, tie-in editions of the first two titles in the book series have been released (although the TV series is actually based on the second volume):

The Elfstones of Shannara (The Shannara Chronicles) (TV Tie-in Edition) by Terry Brooks (PRH/Del Rey; OverDrive Sample), released in both a trade edition and a mass market version and

The Wishsong of Shannara (The Shannara Chronicles) (TV Tie-in Edition) by Terry Brooks (PRH/Del Rey; OverDrive Sample).

The heavily promoted movie The Revenant opens wide this coming Friday, after it Oscar-qualifying debut in December. The trade paperback hit the NYT best seller list this week at #6. Released to little fanfare over ten years ago, LJ reviewed the new tie-in edition last week, calling it “A must-read for fans of Westerns and frontier fiction.” More on the book in our earlier story.

Debuting on Friday is the indie movie Lamb, based on a novel of the same title by Bonnie Nadzam (Other Press, 2011). About the friendship of an 11-year-old girl and a 47-year-old man,  it was featured at film festivals earlier this year, called “beautiful and troubling” and “dangerously unclassifiable” by Variety and “difficult to market” by the the Hollywood Reporter. Likewise, the book was called “daring and disturbing” (The Telegraph). The movie receives a lackluster C+ in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly; “about as strange as it sounds: a Lolita story almost more unsettling for the lines it doesn’t explicitly cross.”

Nadzam’s next novel Lions, is scheduled for publication in July (Grove Press).

The holiday season marks an end and a beginning for Downton Abbey.

In Great Britain, the beloved series is coming to a close with the final episode airing on Christmas Day.

Season six began there on Sept. 20th, marked by this tearjerker of a preview:

To jolly-up viewers, the show offered a holiday spoof created as a fundraiser for the U.K. charity Text Santa:

(Last year’s effort featured George Clooney, see it here).

In the U.S., all things Downton are just getting started. Season six begins on PBS Sunday, Jan. 3 at 9 p.m.

PBS offers American viewers a decidedly more upbeat preview than the U.K. version:

For those who cannot wait to find out what’s happened to the huge cast, there is plenty of coverage of Downton events to date in the London papers, such as this summary in the Daily Mail. as well as the book,  Downton Abbey – A Celebration: The Official Companion to All Six Seasons by Jessica Fellowes, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press. 11/10/15).

Debuting in theaters today is a new version of Macbeth, with Michael Fassbender as Shakespeare’s troubled king and Marion Cotillard (Inception) as his wife, Lady Macbeth. The Guardian calls a “noir-thriller soaked with operatic verve.”  People magazine lists it as a pick of the week, “this gruntingly powerful version tells the tale with… coiled fury.” Entertainment Weekly lauds Fassbender’s acting, but ultimately gives it a B grade, because “the rest of the movie isn’t nearly as interested in playing as many nuanced notes as its star.”

There is no specific tie-in edition (image above is of the poster).

Premiering Sunday on the Hallmark Channel is The Bridge, based on Karen Kingsbury’s novel, part of Hallmark’s deal with “the queen of Christian fiction.”

A tie-in edition came out in October, The Bridge by Karen Kingsbury (S&S/Howard Books; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The first teaser for the next season of HBO’s Game of Thrones has just arrived, along with the news that it will debut in April.

Those 41 seconds are bringing much speculation on what will happen this season (see Rolling Stone, the Telegraph, and Wired).

There is no tie-in to turn to because George RR Martin has not yet completed the sixth in the book series, Winds of Winter, although he recently dropped hints about what to expect. In the past, he declared it was his goal was to finish it before the HBO series begins. That window is now getting shorter.

The first trailer for new season of Outlander on STARZ was just released.

Based on the second novel in the book series, Dragonfly In Amber (PRH/Delacorte, 1992; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample), it follows Jamie and Claire as they escape to France and try to stop the Jacobite rising. This moves the action from the Scottish Highlands to upper-class life in France.

Once again, it spans multiple time periods and also introduces new characters, including Jamie and Claire’s adult daughter Brianna, Fergus, Jamie’s spy and one-day-adopted son, and a young Lord John Grey.

Season two is slated to air some time this spring.

Tie-ins (Season 2 Cover Art to Come):

Dragonfly in Amber (Starz Tie-in Edition) ,  Diana Gabaldon
PRH/Delta, March 8, 2016
Trade Paperback

The new Amazon series, The Man in the High Castle began streaming last week and is bringing people to the Philip K. Dick novel on which it is based. The trade paperback edition debuted at #13 on the NYT‘s  list and is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings, now at #34.

Coverage, as we have been reporting (here, here, and here), is both plentiful and favorable, powering the book’s rise along with heavy promotion by Amazon.

Holds are also strong, spiking to 8:1 in some locations. Resourceful readers are even seeking out the Library America edition containing The Man in the High Castle along with three other Dick novels.

To feed the demand, a tie-in edition (HMH/Mariner Books; OverDrive Sample) just arrived with cover art that evokes the dystopian alternate reality of the series.

Once readers get their hands on the book they will find, as Laura Miller, Slate’s books and culture columnist, writes, a story very different than the one currently streaming on Amazon.

“the new TV series is so alien to the book in spirit that it would be a shame if it came to supplant our understanding of what is also one of the best mid-20th-century American novels about colonialism and its corrosive effects on the human psyche.”

On a side note, the PR for the show is gathering its own attention.

NPR’s The Two-Way reports that the New York Metro Transportation Authority has removed Nazi-themed subway advertisements for the show at the request of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio joined the call as well, saying the images are “irresponsible and offensive to World War II and Holocaust survivors, their families, and countless other New Yorkers.” (NPR has images of the subway cars as part of their story).

A second trailer captures the alternate reality and the moody feel of the show:

A TV adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series is in the works by the BBC with New Line cinema producing. Pre-production and casting will not begin until next year and  no date has been set for the series debut.

The first book in the series, The Golden Compass, was made into a movie in 2007, starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, with plans for it to become a franchise.

According to Deadline, “Critical reception was tepid, and it failed to match the box office expectations domestically of New Line and Warner execs hoping for another Lord of the Rings.”

The Guardian, sees it differently, ” It was a success, taking £230m around the world, but some fans were upset about departures from the original storyline and planned sequels never materialised.” They also dismiss claims from cast member Sam Elliot that New Line was scared off by opposition from the Catholic church to its themes of atheism.

In a separate article, the Guardian writes “Why TV could be perfect for Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.”

This is not the first time a movie franchise has switched to TV. The 2013 movie City Of Bones based on Cassandra Clare’s popular YA series made a similar move and will debut on Jan. 12 as a TV series titled Shadowhunters.

Signaling high expectations, AMC debuted the first  trailer for their upcoming series, Preacher, during Sunday’s extended episode of the Walking Dead series, utilizing what Deadline calls “prime preview real estate.”

 It also has some prime talent attached. Developed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the show runner will be Breaking Bad‘s Sam Catlin, who also wrote the script, it stars Dominic Cooper. It is expect to debut midyear 2016.

As the trailer states clearly, the series is “Based on the cult comic series” by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. Published by DC Comics/Vertigo, it is available in several compilations (no tie-in has been announced yet).

Can a quirky nonfiction book on cleaning sustain a half-hour comedy show? Deadline  reports that NBC is willing to find out.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo, (Ten Speed Press; Tantor Audio) by Marie Kondo will serve as the inspiration for a new show.

The cult hit racked up long holds lists and sat atop bestseller lists for nearly a year. It is currently holding tight to the #2 spot on the NYT Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous list. So popular is Kondo’s message, she was named one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People” of 2015.

Writer Erica Oyama (Burning Love, Schooled) and Greg Malins (Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Will & Grace) will work on the project, which “centers on a young woman in a moment of crisis who attempts to get her messy life in order.” Note to neat freaks, it sounds like the show will be very loosely based on the book, basically just using the title as a launching point.

The group behind the project and is also, as we noted earlier, working on Josh Schwartz’s horror dramedy Horrorstör for Fox TV. It is based on Grady Hendrix’s faux-IKEA catalog/horror story, Horrorstör (Quirk).

Netflix is adapting Jay Asher’s multi-award winning 2007 YA novel about teen suicide into a 13-episode series. The news caused the book to jump up Amazon’s sales rankings (#355 from #719).

According to Variety, Selena Gomez will serve as an executive producer and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Brian Yorkey will write the pilot. Back in 2011, Universal acquired rights for a big-screen adaptation, but it seems those plans have changed.

Asher’s novel, with the stylized title TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY, (Penguin/RazorBill; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample), is about a high school student who commits suicide and leaves behind several tapes, each addressed to one of her classmates, explaining how they contributed to her decision.

Deadline reports that Gomez will not star in the show herself and the leads not been cast. An air date has yet to be set.

A YALSA Best Books of 2008, it was a NYT best seller  in hardcover for over two years and continued as a paperback best seller until two weeks ago.

Last night two high profile authors got late night treatment.

Lauren Groff appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers. She is in countdown mode for the Nov. 18 announcement of the National Book Award and is fresh off her Morning Edition Book Club appearance.

Meyers is proving to be a deft interviewer of authors. That may be because, as he revealed last night in a throwaway aside  he thinks of himself as a writer too, having been the head writer for Saturday Night Live.

The pair discuss Groff’s process, her stereoscopic approach to Fates and Furies, and writing sex scenes.

Jonathan Franzen starred in a skit on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and sat down for a conversation as well.

The skit mocks Amazon through a bedtime story entitled “Little Read Reading Hood.” The US Department of Justice stars as the woodsman and there is a typical Colbert twist at the end.

The conversation, in which Colbert’s snark sometimes got the better of Franzen, ranged from Twitter to reading to football. Nevertheless, n the strength of his appearance, Purity rose on Amazon’s sales rankings, from 445 to 356.