The top comic in the US, outselling all others with an impressive one-month sales count of over 250,000 copies is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Black Panther. That number is likely to be revised upwards to 300,000 once reorder figures are known, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The comic, released on April 6th, is the first of eleven single issues that will be collected into paperback complications, beginning with #1-4, Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book 1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates, illustrated by Brian Stelfreeze (Hachette/Marvel; Sept. 27, 2016; ISBN: 9781302900533; $16.99).

Part of the demand may be a result of the hugely successful movie Captain America: Civil War  which features a super fast Black Panther played by Chadwick Boseman, but Ta-Nehisi Coates’s project was buzzy before the movie hit theaters, with plenty of pre-pub attention, from the NYT, WSJ, and The Atlantic (where Coates is national correspondent).

Writing from the UK perspective, The Guardian quotes Kate McHale, comics buyer at Waterstones (the UK’s largest bookstore chain):

“The anticipation about what new angles a brilliant writer like Ta-Nehisi Coates could bring to the character … I think we’re expecting a level of depth and insight that could make this one of Marvel’s most interesting and compelling titles, and one of the must-reads of the year. After a great first issue that looks likely.”

Reviews range from glowing to supportive. Vox writes:

“It’s excellent. Coates and Stelfreeze have created a pocket in the ever-expanding Marvel comic universe that’s daring and wondrous, but also organic and natural — a place and a comic that feels crucial and important to the company’s legacy.”

io9 offers the headline “The New Black Panther Comic Is Off to an Amazing Start” and says:

“By giving us a starting point of T’Challa at his weakest, Black Panther is setting itself on a road that could give us some of his strongest stories in years.”

IGN offers a history of the character for all those trying to catch up:

Tom Hanks returns as symbolist Robert Langdon in the film based on the Dan Brown novel, Inferno, arriving in theaters on Oct. 28th.

Below is the first trailer, released yesterday.

Like the previous two in the series, the new film stars Hanks and is directed by Ron Howard. Several years ago, Howard announced that he had reached his limit on directing Langdon movies, but clearly something drew him back in (Deadline objected at the time Howard made that statement, that the director “could use a surefire hit”).

The movies do not follow the sequence of the books:

Angels & Demons first book (2000); second movie

The Da Vinci Code, second book (2003); first movie

The Lost Symbol, third book (2009); movie in limbo

Inferno fourth book (2013); third movie

Will there be more Langdon books? Brown has said his next novel will feature the character but that it may take a while to complete. He also added that he has dozens of ideas for more titles.

Several tie-ins arrive in September (see our listing of tie-ins to current and upcoming movies)

Inferno (Movie Tie-in Edition)
Dan Brown
Trade Paperback, (PRH/Anchor)
Mass Market, (PRH/Anchor)
Audio CD (PRH/Random House Audio)
Inferno (Movie Tie-in edition en Espanyol), (PRH/ Vintage Espanyol)

Megyn Kelly, Fox News anchor and host of The Kelly File, announces on Facebook that she will publish her memoir this fall.

Kelly’s profile has risen lately thanks to Donald Trump’s attacks.

Everybody should boycott the @megynkelly show. Never worth watching. Always a hit on Trump! She is sick, & the most overrated person on tv.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2016

Trump is not sticking to the boycott. In a new twist, Deadline Hollywood reports that Kelly will interview the candidate in her first prime time special, Megyn Kelly Presents, airing during sweeps week on May 17.

The untitled book (Harper: ISBN 9780062494603) is available to preorder through library vendors and will release on 11/16/2015, one week after the presidential election.

According to the publisher the book will detail Kelly’s rise in journalism, her career at Fox, and the 2016 primary.

The following tweet …

Climb into my brain kids. Pre-order now at https://t.co/MGBxhY9GIF #ScrappyLittleNobody pic.twitter.com/BiGkgghCsK

— Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) April 25, 2016

…sent the Pitch Perfect actress/comedian’s book of autobiographical essays rising on Amazon’s sales rankings to #27. Libraries we checked have not ordered it yet.

Scrappy Little Nobody, Anna Kendrick, (S&S/Touchstone; S&S Audio, November 15, 2016)

The HBO documentary, Love & Mercy, released last year, looked at the many painful aspects of the life of the co-founder of the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson.

Wilson was not involved in the making of the movie, but he called it “very factual.”

He is about to add more facts to the story, in a memoir titled I Am Brian Wilson (Perseus/Da Capo Press, October 11, 2016). The press release announcing the publication  date has been picked up by several news sources, including the New York Times.  A brief  excerpt of the book is on The Rolling Stone Web site.

The first black superhero in mainstream American comics, the Black Panther, appeared in 1966 in an issue of Marvel comics Fantastic Four. The character was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Jump ahead decades and he is about to debut again, in a story written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the best-selling author of the National Book Award winner Between the World and Me.

The first issue of the comic, with art by Brian Stelfreeze, will appear on April 6th. It is the first of eleven that will be releases in paperback complications, beginning with #1-4, Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book 1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates, illustrated by Brian Stelfreeze (Hachette/Marvel; Sept. 27, 2016; ISBN: 9781302900533; $16.99).

Coates writes about creating a new vision for Black Panther, writing comics, and the role of comics in his life for the newest issue of The Atlantic, where he is a national correspondent, explaining why he found the opportunity irresistible,

“Some of the best days of my life were spent poring over the back issues of The Uncanny X-Men and The Amazing Spider-Man. As a child of the crack-riddled West Baltimore of the 1980s, I found the tales of comic books to be an escape, another reality where, very often, the weak and mocked could transform their fallibility into fantastic power.”

The story is getting coverage elsewhere as well, with a piece on the NYT‘s Web site today, an illustrated story on the pop culture site The Mary Sue earlier the month, and a Speakeasy interview in the WSJ with the Editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics.

All this comes as the Black Panther set to make his big-screen debut on May 5th in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War. As we reported earlier, Chadwick Boseman will play the superhero monarch. The most recent movie trailer, below:

For background on the character, SuperHeroHype provides an illustrated look.

Artist Jim Kay, winner of the UK’s Kate Greenaway Medal, is working his way through the Harry Potter canon, illustrating each novel in turn.

Up next is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Illustrated Edition (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books; October 4, 2016; ISBN 9780545791328; $39.99)

J.K. Rowling’s website Pottermore released a set of sample drawings which include the cover image (of Harry and Ron in Mr. Weasley’s flying car), a portrait of Hagrid, an exterior view of Hogwarts, and a “da Vinci-esque study of Mandrakes.” There will be 115 images in all.

Entertainment Weekly and many other sites are reporting the story, and sharing the illustrations.

Kay’s version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came out last October. This new edition is due on October 4th and is available to pre-order through wholesalers and retailers.

What would you do after the above hits?

Underwater Cats?

Don’t be silly. That would just be cruel (not to mention, not pretty).

No, you would have to change it up, featuring what cats do best …

Pounce, Seth Casteel, (Havhette/Little, Brown).

Sorry, it’s not coming until October. Entertainment Weekly claims to have the “exclusive cover reveal” on their site.

The hosts of HTGV’s popular design show Fixer Upper, Chip and Joanna Gaines, have teamed up with New York Times bestselling collaborator Mark Dagostino on a memoir.

The Magnolia Story (Thomas Nelson) is due out on Oct. 18 (Magnolia is the name of their various businesses).

People offered a “first look” at the cover and reports the memoir starts long before the couple became famous for their 360-degree restorations of houses in need of repair.

Casual viewers of Fixer Upper may be surprised that the book is published by Christian publisher Thomas Nelson, not known for design books. Although they don’t talk about it on the show, the Gaines have a strong Christian faith (the Billy Graham web site published a story last fall titled, “How God Used Billy Graham to Influence Fixer Upper Family“) and The Magnolia Story is primarily a memoir.

Joanna Gaines is also working on a design book, as noted in a press release, to be published by Thomas Nelson Gift Books in early 2017.

Expect an extensive media campaign for the memoir closer to pub. date.

It’s become predictable that a new title in the Diary of A Wimpy Kid series (Abrams/Amulet) will be released in November.

News sources quote today’s press release confirming that expectation. There’s no title or cover yet (they will be unveiled on April 28, as a capper to “the third annual Wimpy Kid Month“) but the pub date is Nov. 1.

Author Jeff Kinney states that he was not so sure there would be an eleventh book in the series,

“After the tenth book, I found myself at a crossroads in my career, I wasn’t sure if I should continue writing Diary of a Wimpy Kid books or go down a different path. I had the opportunity last year to travel all over the world and meet fans of the series in places like China, Brazil, and Romania. The trip was incredibly energizing, and made me feel certain that there is a demand for more stories about Greg Heffley for years to come. This book is really special to me, because it reflects a renewed commitment to the series and a plan for the future.”

The book is not yet listed on wholesaler catalogs.

After yesterday’s announcement that the Boss will publish a memoir in September, the book instantly rose to #1 on Amazon sales rankings, indicating it may be worth the reported $10 million advance.

Born to Run
Bruce Springsteen
S&S, September 27, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1501141515

If a woman eats garlic while she is pregnant, her child will be predisposed to enjoying garlic as an adult.

That is just one of the fascinating facts about how we develop taste revealed in Bee Wilson’s
First Bite: How We Learn to Eat  (Perseus/Basic Books) and in her interview today with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air.

On the strength of an article in Saturday’s New York Times, a book on forests and trees soared up the Amazon sales rankings to #22.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries From a Secret World, Peter Wohlleben (PGW/Perseus/Greystone Books; ISBN: 9781771642484;09/13/2016) explores the wonders of trees and the ways they communicate with, and care for, each other – through their own version of a social network.

Already a surprise best seller in Germany where it remains atop the German news magazine Spiegel’s nonfiction list sixth months after publication, it has the potential to become a hit here as well, caught not only in the wake of interest in wild spaces in general, but also in books that present personal views of nature such as H Is for Hawk and The Shepherd’s Life and nature/science books such as The Soul of an Octopus.

The NYT’s feature reports how Wohlleben’s book has enchanted and intrigued readers in Germany:

“The matter-of-fact Mr. Wohlleben has delighted readers and talk-show audiences alike with the news — long known to biologists — that trees in the forest are social beings. They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbors; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the “Wood Wide Web”; and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.”

Canada’s Greystone Books (distributed in the US by Publishers Group West/Perseus) will publish an English version in September. It is listed on wholesaler catalogs.

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.

When asked the secret of her long and active career, Julia Child replied, “Well, I have been known to eat well.”

The same could be said of her friend, Chuck Williams, the founder of Williams-Sonoma and prolific cookbook author who died in his sleep on Saturday in his San Francisco home. He was 100 years old.

As the New York Times obituary puts it, before Williams discovered the amazing range of cookware available in France, inspiring him to open his first store in Sonoma, California, in 1956, U.S. kitchens were drab affairs, stocked with “pots, pans and knives from a department store.”

The obituary also credits him with writing over 200 cookbooks, the latest of which is Cooking at Home, (Weldon Owen, dist. by S&S) re-released in September to celebrate Williams’ 100th birthday. It was originally published in 2010 when Williams was  a mere 95.