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In My Father’s Country, Saima Wahab’s memoir about growing up in Afghanistan rose to #60 on Amazon’s sales rankings after the author appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night. It’s no wonder; Stewart was clearly smitten with her story.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones, the “official companion book” to the series based on George R. R. Martin’s books, will be released on September 25. Entertainment Weekly is touting an exclusive look at four of the interior pages (click through to view details with a clever virtual magnifying glass).
The book includes interviews with actors and crew members, a preface by Martin and is bound with a “lavishly debossed padded cover” (we’re not sure what “debossed” means, either).
It may not be an exclusive, but we have our own spread, via Edelweiss (no virtual magnifying glass, but you can click on the image for a larger version and then use your own magnifying device):
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Season three begins March 31. It’s based on the first section of A Storm of Swords, the third in the book series.
At a press conference for TV critics in Beverly Hills, the cast and creators of the multiple Emmy-nominated Downton Abbey series offered many tidbits, but little real information on season three, which returns on January 6.
Several clips and a brief trailer were shown. Unfortunately, they have not been released on the Web, so we have to make do with written reports, such as the L.A. Times story.
Fans are expecting sparks between new cast member Shirley MacLaine and the Dowager Countess played by Maggie Smith. It seems those hopes were not dashed.
Several new Downton Abbey related titles are coming this fall. The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, the “official inside story of the history, characters, and behind-the-scenes drama of Season 3, when Downton Abbey enters the 1920s” is sure to feed the frenzy when it arrives in November, two months before the series airs in the U.S. (it begins in the U.K. in September). It is co-written by Jessica Fellowes, author of The World of Downton Abbey and niece of the series creator, Julian Fellowes. Expect it to be a popular holiday gift.
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The script book for season one arrives in October, followed by season two in February.
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Adding to the growing number of books about real life of the time, is a title that makes sly reference to an earlier popular series, Upstairs & Downstairs, According to the publisher, it “takes readers on a guided tour of a single day in an upper-crust English home of the Edwardian era.”
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For those who want to play along at home, cookbooks are on their way, The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook, (Adams Media, 9/18/12) and Edwardian Cooking: Inspired by Downton Abbey’s Elegant Meals (Skyhorse Publishing, 11/1/12).
Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series has been optioned several times for movies.
Sony Pictures TV just closed a new deal, with plans for a TV series. A producer and script writers have been assigned and, according to Deadline, the project is being pitched to cable networks this week.
All those fans who have made dozens of videos offering cast suggestions, have reason to hope that the project will finally come to pass.
Hitting theaters this week is the trailer for A&E’s two-night movie Coma, based on the Robin Cook’s first novel, which launched the medical thriller genre. Cook, a medical doctor, says he chose the thriller as a way to educate readers about various public policy issues.
The series, which begins on Labor Day, stars James Woods, Geena Davis, Richard Dreyfuss, Ellen Burstyn, Lauren Ambrose and Stephen Pasquale.
Official Site: AETV.com/coma/
The book, still in print in a 25th anniversary edition, was made into a film in 1978, directed by Michael Crichton, starring Michael Douglas and Geneviève Bujold.
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Cook’s next novel, his 29th, is coming in January.
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Penguin Audio
AMC’s Walking Dead weekend marathon, capped by a preview of season 3 (coming in October) brought renewed attention to the Robert Kirkman comics that the series is based on.
Amazon’s sales rankings reveal that there are still newbies to the series. Compendium One rose to #62 from #180. A larger number of fans are looking for the latest in the series; The Walking Dead, Vol 16 rose from #61 to #44.
For more about Kirkman’s series, see EarlyWord Comics contributor Robin Brenner’s earlier post.
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The next book in “Al’s Book Club” for kids, Rebecca Stead’s Newbery winner, When You Reach Me, (RH/Wendy Lamb) was featured on the Today Show yesterday. As a result, the book rose to #228 on Amazon’s sales rankings.
That’s no match for the Newbery announcement in 2010, which sent the book to #21.
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A clip from season three of Downton Abbey, featuring Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith, is making the rounds on the Web and whetting fans’ appetites for the series debut on PBS’ Masterpiece in January (UK fans get first crack at the series, beginning in September).
Elizabeth McGovern introduces the clip, as part of the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award ceremony honoring MacLaine. The event was held nearly three weeks ago and was aired on TV Land this Sunday. This obviously hand-held recording looks like it was shot directly from the tv screen.
Time to update your read-alike lists (we’ve listed a few new titles to consider, after the jump).
On the eve of the launch of the fifth season of the HBO series, True Blood, Charlaine Harris announces that her next Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead Ever After, coming next May, will be the last in the series. Appropriately, it’s the 13th installment. The twelfth book in the series, Deadlocked (Penguin/Ace) came out last week.
Harris first mentioned that the series is ending in an interview in the Houston Press and then confirmed it on her Facebook page (May 14).
Earlier this year, Alan Ball, creator of the tv series, announced that he will not return for a sixth season of True Blood. A replacement has not yet been named.
The tie-in to the new season, Dead as a Doornail (Penguin/Ace) releases next week. The trailer is below.
ABC announced last week that they are canceling the series, GCB.
We will miss it. Back in February, we posted a story titled, What Does GCB Stand For? It seems those were just the right words for a Google search. We received close to 89,000 hits on it.
We’re rooting for the online campaign to bring the show back.
The series was based on a book, originally published by Brown Books in Dallas, reissued by Hyperion in January.
Booklist, reviewed it, saying, “Chick lit tackles the Christian Right, with amusingly predictable results in Gatlin’s solid freshman effort,” but LJ Express said, “The characters are obsessed with labels and bank balances, and the book is a tiresome exercise in unfettered consumption. Of possible interest to Texans who may enjoy identifying the thinly veiled Dallas environs. Other than that, there’s nothing to like here.”
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The CW network, well-known for its teen series, several of which are adapted from books (Gossip Girl, Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle) is adding a record five new teen series to their upcoming schedule, according to Deadline. Among them is a series based on The Carrie Diaries and Summer in the City (both HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray), Candace Bushnell’s YA prequels to Sex and the City. It stars AnnaSophia Robb as Carrie the Younger and Austin Butler as her love interest.
Deadline notes that, while it didn’t make the first cut, the network may still approve another adaptation, The Selection, from the recently published book of the same title by Kiera Cass (also HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray). Set 300 years in the future, it’s about a poor girl chosen by lottery to compete to win the heart of a prince and is being billed as The Hunger Games meets The Bachelor. The book appeared on the NYT Chapter Book Best Seller list last week, but dropped off the current one. UPDATE: 5/17, CW president tells the Hollywood Reporter that he is very high on the project and may redevelop it.
It’s been buzzed about for months, has an amazing cast already in place, but HBO announced yesterday that plans for the series based on Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections have been called to a halt.
Deadline reports, “Word is HBO brass liked the performances but the decision came down to adapting the book’s challenging narrative, which moves through time and cuts forwards and back…hampering the potential show’s accessibility.”
Unless someone releases the pilot, we will not get the chance to see Chris Cooper and Dianne Wiest as parents to the dysfunctional Lambert family, including their adult children, played by Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
The Today Show site offers “The Draper Papers,” a list of six titles that give a sense of that era, including two by ad execs. The contrast between the period covers and the updated versions demonstrates how much the show has stylized the past. (See also our earlier roundup of new titles by some other real mad men, and one woman.)
From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor: Front Line Dispatches from the Advertising War, Jerry Della Femina (S&S)
“For a nonfiction take on Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s three-martini lunches, office dalliances, and innovative ad campaigns, Della Femina’s frank and funny book is just the ticket. “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner even cites the memoir as an inspiration for the series.”
Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy, (current edition, Southbank Publishing)
“Unlike Della Femina’s book, Confessions of an Advertising Man is more of an advertising handbook, dispensing advice and wisdom from Madison Avenue wunderkind David Ogilvy. Regarded as the father of modern advertising, Ogilvy lays down some mind-blowing concepts that can benefit many industries and business professionals.”
One of the titles in our roundup of books by a few of the real Mad Men (and one woman) rose to #100 on Amazon after the author was interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition. Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential By America’s Master Communicator (Phaidon) by George Lois appears to be owned in just a handful of libraries.
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The AMC series, Mad Men, returns for its 5th season on Sunday, after 17 long months. How accurate is the show? Former copy writer Jane Maas, often called “the real-life Peggy Olson,” writes about the era in Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the ’60s and Beyond (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Tantor Audio).
On Saturday’s CBS This Morning, the 80-year-old says, “Whatever they did on the show, we did more…The only thing they got wrong is that women copy writers wore hats all the time, even in the ladies’ room.”
Andrew Cracknell also has first-hand knowledge of that world. He focuses less on tales of drinking and debauchery and more on the creativity that fueled a revolution in the formerly humdrum business in The Real Mad Men: The Renegades of Madison Avenue and the Golden Age of Advertising (Perseus/Running Press). PW is a fan; “Advertising geeks will gobble this up, but even those completely unaware of Don Draper and Sterling Cooper will appreciate this lively and spirited account” and Adweek calls it “a thoughtful paean about the creative people who pioneered modern advertising and the dynamic cultural environment that influenced them.” Get a taste of it here.
Today, NPR’s Morning Edition interviewed one of the men behind that revolution, George Lois. His new book is Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential By America’s Master Communicator (Phaidon). The book’s trailer demonstrates Lois’s belief that any problem can be solved through creativity.
The AMC site includes a list of other Mad Men inspired books and the New York Public Library’s Billy Parrott is keeping a list of the books mentioned on the show.