Speaking of William Boyd, who is currently at work on a new James Bond novel, his 2006 spy novel, Restless, has been made into a two-part series which concludes on the Sundance Channel tomorrow. Charlotte Rampling has been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for her starring role.

Unfortunately, Salon writes that she is “the only great thing about Restlesss … But sometimes seeing Charlotte Rampling holding an outsize firearm like she intends to use it is good enough.” The NYT indicates viewers would be better off reading the book, saying that the producers “have turned an entertaining and suspenseful novel into a surprisingly ordinary television production.”

Originally published in 2006, Restless is also available as a tie-in:

Restless: TV tie-in William Boyd Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA – (2012-11-27) ISBN / EAN: 1620402963 / 9781620402962

As Americans look forward to the third season of the UK’s Downton Abbey, news arrives that there will be yet another season to anticipate. ITV says they will begin filming in Februray, to air on British television in the fall of 2013.

The third season begins on Jan. 6 in the U.S. on PBS.

(Yes, the music is Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” sung by a choir.)

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail offrers photos from the upcoming Downton Abbey Christmas special and warns fans to get their tissues ready.

The companion volume to the third season was released here earlier this month.

The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era Jessica Fellowes, Matthew Sturgis Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press – (2012-11-13) ISBN / EAN: 1250027624 / 9781250027627

The new season of AMC’s zombie apocalypse series, The Walking Dead, beat out all other programming, including broadcast shows, to become the #1 entertainment series on TV. The first three episodes drew at least 6.5 million viewers each, stunning industry observers.

The Walking Dead began life as a comic series, written by Robert Kirkman (see our earlier story). Compilations of those series have dominated the NYT Graphic Books Best Seller list for months (Book 1, published by Image Comics, is at #3 on the o hardcover list after 67 weeks; the most recent, Book 8, at #2, took up residence 3 weeks ago).

Last year, Kirkman wrote the first in a projected series of prose novels, The Walking Dead: Rise of The Governor, which hit the extended list last year at #18 and stayed on for one week.

Volume two, The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury (Macmillan/Thomas Dunne Books; Macmillan Audio), outdid its predecessor last week, arriving on the main list at #11 (it slips to #31 on the extended list this week). Several libraries are showing heavy holds.

What was Sex and the City‘s Carrie Bradshaw like as a teenager? Candace Bushnell has already explored that question in The Carrie Diaries and its sequel, Summer and the City (both HarperTeen/Belzer + Bray).

Following in the footsteps of the grownup version, The Carrie Diaries is poised to become a TV series, beginning in January on the CW. The pilot premiered on the opening night of the New York Television Festival on Monday. Star AnnaSophia Robb (Soul Surfer, Bridge to Terabithia), producer Amy B. Harris and Bushnell were on hand for a Q&A session after the screening.

Naturally, the younger Carrie has a circle of friends, but thy are not named Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha. Her practice friends are Maggie, Walt and The Mouse.

Official Web site: CWTV.com/Shows/The-Carrie-Diaries.

A tie-in edition of The Carrie Diaries will be published on Dec 5.

CBS This Morning Reads, a new monthly book club, begins with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, which is the basis for Steven Spielberg’s upcoming movie, Lincoln. Excerpts and reading guides will be released each week on the CBS This Morning site. On November 15th, Goodwin, will appear on the show.

One of the CBS Morning Show anchors has had experience with book clubs, Oprah BFF, Gayle King.

An author’s appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, can turn a book into a bestseller.

Tonight (UPDATE: This appearance will be on Thursday night), however, Stewart features an author who already has several best sellers to his credit, but has not written in a book in several years.

The author last visited the show Oct. 27. 2010.

Leading in to her live appearance at Lincoln Center tomorrow night, J.K. Rowling will be interviewed by Harry Potter fan, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show tonight.

The Casual Vacancy, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print), the author’s first book for adults, moved from #1 on the USA Today best seller list, to #4 in its second week on sale. At #1 is Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena, followed by Sylvia Day’s Reflected in You and Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Kennedy.

In an interview with USA Today, Rowling was less than definitive about her next book, “I think the next thing I publish will be for children, but I don’t really want to be held to that because I also know what my next book for adults will be and I really like that too, so it depends. I’ve always had more than one thing going.”

Feeding her Harry Potter fanbase, Rowling appeared on a Scholastic telecast last Thursday, in an interview at her home in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The National Book Awards gets some needed media attention tomorrow. Although MSNBC’s Morning Joe, isn’t known for its book coverage, it will be the venue for the announcement of the Awards finalists tomorrow, by David Steinberger, publisher of Perseus Books, and chair of the National Book Foundation’s Board of Directors. The winners will be announced on Nov. 14.

No news on time; the show airs from 6:00 to 9:00 am ET. We will post the video when it is available

From space to vaginas to the super-rich, Colbert shows quite a range this week.

Tonight, Oct. 8

Former astronaut Mark Kelly on his new children’s book, Mousetronaut: Based on a (Partially) True Story (Simon & Schuster/Wiseman; 10/9/12).

Wednesday, Oct. 9

Naomi Wolf, Vagina: A New Biography (Harper/Ecco; 8/24/12).

Thursday, Oct. 10

Chrystia Freeland, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (Penguin Press, 10/11/12).

PBS calls their upcoming season the strongest fall schedule in years. This weekend brings the debut of two of the programs in the lineup, both based on books, Call the Midwife (see earlier story) and Half the Sky, which runs on Oct 1 and Oct 2.

You may also get demand from the schools; Random House Academic Marketing is making a push to high schools and colleges, including screenings of the documentaty at the upcoming National Council of Teachers of English and National Council of Social Studies. Online teaching resources will also be available

The PBS seal appears on new printings of the book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (RH/Vintage).

The DVD will be released in November.

It is also available in audio from HighBridge Audio.

Call the Midwife, the BBC series that, incredibly, beat the UK ratings for Downton Abbey‘s second season, debuts on PBS this Sunday.

People calls it ” the soppily tender story of ’50s midwives in London’s East End” and gives it 3.5 of a possible 4 stars.

The UKs Telegraph wonders “Will Downton Abbey’s stateside fans stomach the Call the Midwife crises?” and warns that, “with recent UK period drama focusing on upper-class glamour … US viewers … may be in for a bit of a shock – despite PBS’s carefully describing the drama as ‘colourful’ (as in blood-drenched).” Adding that “close-ups … will support the US view of the lamentable state of British dentistry.”

But US critics are won over. The Washington Post ranks it as one of the best of the new season, saying,

The cast is marvelous, the gritty, post-war set pieces are meticulously recreated and, even with all the warm-water enemas and splattered afterbirth, the story always has its eye on uplift and good cheer.

Watch Call the Midwife – Preview on PBS. See more from Call the Midwife.

The series is based on Jennifer Worth’s memoirs, released as a tie-in edition in August. In addition, there is a companion volume and an audio from HighBridge.

The Life and Times of Call the Midwife: The Official Companion to Season One and Two Heidi Thomas Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Harper Design – (2012-10-23) ISBN / EAN: 0062250035 / 9780062250032

Remember when there were two movies about writer Truman Capote, one of them with Toby Jones in the lead role?

We will soon be treated to two movies about director Alfred Hitchcock, one of them with Toby Jones in the lead role. Both are based on books.

The Girl, which airs on HBO on October 20th, is about Hitchcock’s relationship with Tippi Hedren, the star of The Birds. Sienna Miller plays Hedren and Toby Jones, the driector. It is based on Donald Spoto’s Spellbound By Beauty (RH/Three Rivers), which examines Hitchcock’s obsessive fascination with all his leading ladies.

Anthony Hopkins has the lead in the theatrical film, Hitchcock, based on the 1990 book, Hitchcock!: Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello, being re-released in January by Soft Skull Press. Helen Mirren plays Hitchcock’s wife, Alma with Scarlett Johansson as Psycho‘s star, Janet Leigh. No U.S. release date has been set. Earlier this summer, the Daily Mail published side-by-side shots of the stars on set and their real-life counterparts.

In addition, Bates Motel, a prequel to Psycho is in production for an A&E TV series. It was just announced that Vera Farmiga will play the creepy mother of young Norman Bates. Pscyho itself was based on a 1959 horror novel by Robert Bloch, which was re-released in 2010 by Overlook Press.

PBS is calling the upcoming season the strongest fall schedule in years. No wonder, several shows are inspired by books.

CALL THE MIDWIFE
Sundays, September 30 to November 4, 2012, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET

Topping the ratings of Downton Abbey, this series about a midwife in the slums of East London in the 1950s, was a surprise hit when it ran in the UK earlier this year. Based on a best-selling series of memoirs by Jennifer Worth, it brought the books back to the top of UK lists. Many libraries have copies of the 2009 US edition of the first title on the shelves (the others were not published here).

Trailer:

In addition to a tie-in edition of the original title (below), a behind-the-scenes companion volume will be released Oct. 9.

Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times Jennifer Worth Retail Price: $16.00 Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: Penguin Books – (2012-08-29) ISBN / EAN: 0143123254 / 9780143123255

Highbridge Audio

WALLANDER III – Masterpiece Mystery!

Sundays, September 9, 16 & 23, 2012, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET

HALF THE SKY
Monday, October 1 and Tuesday, October 2, 2012, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET

George Clooney introduces this series in which New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, authors of  Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, travel to ten countries to report on how women are overcoming oppression.

A bootlegged copy of the trailer for Season 3 of Downton Abbey appeared last week. It’s been pulled, but American fans need not feel bereft. Britain’s ITV has released two official clips. Both underscore the anticipated sparks between new cast member Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith.

See our earlier story for tie-ins.

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Downton Abbey season 3 arrives on these shores in January, following its September run in the UK.

To further whet already strong appetites, we have the following trailer. The tinny sound is because it was recorded from a TV in the UK (and smuggled here via New York magazine’s Vulture blog)

UPDATE: The video was pulled, but two official clips have appeared. Both hint broadly at the hoped-for sparks between new cast member Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith:

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Americans will get a more extensive preview when The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era is published in November. Billed as the “official inside story of the history, characters, and behind-the-scenes drama of Season 3, when Downton Abbey enters the 1920s,” it is co-written by Jessica Fellowes, author of The World of Downton Abbey and niece of the series creator, Julian Fellowes and likely to be on many wish for the holidays.

The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era Jessica Fellowes, Matthew Sturgis Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press – (2012-11-13) ISBN / EAN: 1250027624 / 9781250027627