EarlyWord

And the winner, for the first time ever, is a u US citizen, Paul Beatty,  for his satirical novel about race in America,  The Sellout (Macmillan/FSG; OverDrive Sample).

US coverage of the longlist titles, below:

Paul Beatty, US, The Sellout (Macmillan/FSG; OverDrive Sample)
On several US best books lists for 2016 when it was published here, including the NYT Book Review‘s Top Ten and won the National Book Critics Award for Fiction. it was heavily reviewed here.

Ottessa Moshfegh, US, Eileen (PRH/Penguin; OverDrive Sample)
Featured on the cover of the  NYT Book Review,  it was also reviewed in the LA Times, The Washington Post, and NPR, and appeared on several 2015 “best”  lists and is being adapted as a movie.

Madeleine Thien, Canada, Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Norton)
Published two weeks ago in the US, the daily NYT reviewed it warmly this week, calling it “a beautiful, sorrowful work.”  That followed an equally warm review earlier in the NYT Sunday Review. 

Graeme Macrae Burnet, UK, His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae, by Scotsman Graeme MaCrae Burnet (Skyhorse; OverDrive Sample).
Published by the tiny 2-person press Saraband in Scotland, this title’s appearance on the list has drawn headlines in the UK. Up until the longlist announcement, the book had received little attention and now it’s the best selling of the shortlist titles in the UK. Since it’s the last of the titles released here, it hasn’t received much coverage here yet. The author was recently interviewed by The Wall Street Journal [subscription may be required]. Endearing himself to librarians, just today, he spoke out about library cuts in Scotland, saying that “providing an increasingly vital role for local communities.” It was recently acquired for a TV series adaptation.

David Szalay, Canada-UK,  All That Man Is (Macmillan/Graywolf; OverDrive Sample). Also released in the US this month, it is recently reviewed by the daily NYT as well as the NYT Sunday Book Review and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Deborah Levy, UK,  Hot Milk (Macmillan/Bloomsbury; OverDrive Sample), Reviewed when it came out this summer in the daily NYT, the Washington Post and the NYT Book Review.

A new take on Sherlock Holmes variations has Sarah Wendell excited for the launch of the first in Sherry Thomas’s romantic historical mystery series, A Study In Scarlet Women: The Lady Sherlock Series (PRH/Berkley; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Reviewing for NPR Books, the co-founder of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and the author of Everything I Know About Love, I Learned From Romance Novels, says that the “Gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes” story demands “a few hours of uninterrupted time — a rare thing, I know — to read it. You’ll probably finish it, and start the first page over again, because it’s that good.”

Stressing the novel’s strength in storytelling and style, Wendell concludes, “Thomas’s use of language, the way she uses gender reversal to conceal revelations, and the intricacies of her plotting mean that I will rediscover more things to relish in A Study in Scarlet Women each time I reread it … If you’re standing between me and my copy, you should probably move out of the way.”

Libraries that bought low are seeking spikes in holds as high as 5:1.

To mark the upcoming film premiere of The Dark Tower, Stephen King has written children’s book, Charlie the Choo-Choo: From the world of The Dark Tower, Beryl Evans, illustrated by Ned Dameron (S&S/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; 11/22/16).

Like J.K. Rowling’s publications of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them or The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Charlie the Choo-Choo is a fictional book mentioned in The Waste Lands, book three of the Dark Tower series. Entertainment Weekly says the book helps lead the character Jake in the direction of the Gunslinger.

It is written by “Beryl Evans” a character in the Dark Tower series and King uses that pseudonym on the cover of the real publication, under  a blurb in his own name: “If I were ever to write a children’s book, it would be just like this!”

It is illustrated by the real life artist Ned Dameron who created some of the art in King’s The Waste Lands, including, says EW, the cover of Charlie the Choo-Choo.

The picture book, about a sentient train who is best friends with his engineer Bob, first attracted attention during Comic-Con when it was offered as a real-life Easter egg for devoted fans, who stood in line, reports EW, in hopes of getting one of 150 copies signed by an actress playing the role of Evans.

The site Dread Central offers a full synopsis and six page spreads.

Literary history may be made when the winner of the UK’s Man Booker award is announced at a ceremony in London tomorrow night beginning at 8 p. (3 pm, Eastern). For the first time, two US authors are on the shortlist, Paul Beatty for The Sellout (Macmillan/FSG,  OverDrive Sample), which received awards and was on many best books lists when it was published here last year, and Ottessa Moshfegh for her debut, Eileen (PRH/Penguin; OverDrive Sample).

Most consider the field wide open, but in the UK, where it’s legal to do such things, bets are on Canadian Medeleine Thien for  Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Norton; OverDrive Sample). Recently published here, the daily NYT reviewed it warmly this week, calling it “a beautiful, sorrowful work.”  That followed an equally warm review earlier in the NYT Sunday Review. 

Second in odds is  the UK’s Deborah Levy for Hot Milk (Macmillan/Bloomsbury; OverDrive Sample), reviewed when it came out this summer in the daily NYT, the Washington Post and the NYT Book Review

Coming is third is His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae, by Scotsman Graeme MaCrae Burnet (Skyhorse; OverDrive Sample). As we wrote earlier, its selection for the longlist was a major surprise, both because it is a crime novel, a genre that has not received recognition from the Booker judges before, and because it is from the tiny two-person Scottish press, Saraband. In the US, it was recently released by a much larger small press, Skyhorse.

Beatty comes in fourth and Ottessa Mosfeght is last, but the punters rarely predict winners for literary awards. The only thing that can be said for certain is that someone’s literary reputation will be made tomorrow.

Only one book related film comes out this week, but it is a big one, the adaptation of Dan Brown’s Inferno.

Ron Howard and Tom Hanks both return to the film series with Howard directing and Hanks starring once more as Robert Langdon. Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything, Rogue One), Irrfan Khan (Jurassic World, Life of Pi), Omar Sy (The Intouchables), and Ben Foster (Lone Survivor) also star.

Thus far reviews are not great. The Guardian calls it “horrifically dull” and “fantastically boring” and adds the “story and character … are as flat as old, cold pancakes.”

Variety agrees, writing “the film more or less goes through the popcorn motions, but with less technical finesse (and even less mischievous irony) than one might expect from the Howard imprint.”

The Wrap says “Absurdity outweighs the thrills in Ron Howard‘s lifeless three-quel, a movie that’s not at all good — but never so bad as to be entertaining.”

In a pan of both book and film, The Telegraph writes “Ron Howard and Tom Hanks do perfect justice to Dan Brown’s book – tragically.”

There are multiple tie-ins:

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)

As we have previously posted, Brown’s next Robert Langdon book will be Origin (PRH/Doubleday; Sep 26, 2017; ISBN 9780385514231), the fifth in the series.

The movie premieres on October 28, 2016.

Beren and Lúthien, the star-crossed lovers of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, will have their own book reports Entertainment Weekly, Beren and Lúthien, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HMH, May 4, 2017). [Note: The cover, left, is from the UK edition, published there by HarperCollins.]

As Tor.com describes the story “Beren, a mortal man, falls in love with the elf Lúthien, thus inspiring legends and songs, as well as providing a model for the love of Aragorn and Arwen during the events of The Lord of the Rings.”

The Bookseller reports the story “has evolved since it was first written in 1917, and has been reworked in various forms, including poetry. To reflect this, the new book opens with Tolkien’s original text, before including passages from later texts that rework the tale.”

The book is edited by Tolkien’s son and will feature illustrations by Alan Lee, who won an Academy Award for his work on the third film of The Lord of the Rings cycle. He has also won the World Fantasy Award and the Kate Greenaway Medal.

The tale was personally important to Tolkien, reports Entertainment Weekly, so much so that the gravestone for the author and his wife refer to them as Beren and Lúthien.

Tor.com offers a introduction to Lúthien, calling her “Tolkien’s Badass Elf Princess.”

For those who recall the films, Aragorn sings the song of Lúthien in the first movie:

There have been several books about the Notorious RBG, also known as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The first book written by her, appropriately titled, My Own Words (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) debuts on this week’s hardcover NYT nonfiction best seller list.

She was the focus of the most recent edition of the NewsHour Bookshelf. Gwen Ifill interviews Ginsburg, opening with a question on how she became a cult icon.

Ginsburg says it has been “utterly amazing” and credits a second year law student at NYU who started the Notorious RBG Tumbler blog, posting Ginsburg’s dissent to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act (that post eventually led to a book, Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, HarperCollins/Dey Street Books, an unexpected hit last year).

Ifill says her reputation as a “folk hero” also has something to do with the way she writes and takes on her colleagues.

Ginsburg also says that until Jimmy Carter’s presidency it was unrealistic that a woman could ever be appointed to the Supreme Court. When she graduated there was not a single woman on any Federal bench. Carter, although he never got to appoint a Supreme Court Justice, changed that by appointing women to the Federal bench, paving the way for Ginsburg.

As we noted earlier, Ginsburg wears a special collar when she is on the dissenting side. The end of the PBS piece reveals she wears a gold lace one when she is with the majority opinion.

Holds to copies are not huge, but some systems are showing spikes of 5:1 ratios.

The latest John Grisham thriller, The Whistler (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio/BOT), arrives this week. As a result, it’s a week avoided by most other big name authors. Even James Patterson has only one title arriving and it’s for kids, Middle School: Dog’s Best Friend (Hachette/jimmy patterson; Blackstone; OverDrive Sample), which hits shelves while the film adaptation of the first book is still in theaters. Grisham will appear on the upcoming CBS Sunday Morning and, on the day of publication, on CBS This Morning.

Grisham hasn’t scared off Iris Johansen, publishing the fourth in her Kendra Michaels series, Night Watch (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; OverDrive Sample), or the queen of Christian fiction, Karen Kingsbury, releasing another Christmas novel, A Baxter Family Christmas (S&S/Howard Books; S&S; OverDrive Sample).

In picture books, Nanette’s Baguette by the Caldecott-honor recipient Mo Willems (Hachette/Disney-Hyperion), is set in a French village, where a young frog is entrusted with buying bread for her mother for the first time. Expect a host of rhymes on the title, of course.

In kids graphic novels, Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl) takes on an iconic superhero in Iron Man: The Gauntlet (Hachette/Marvel Press; OverDrive Sample), part of Marvel’s series that enlists well-known children’s authors to create books based on their characters. Kirkus says Colfer “successfully captures the vulnerability and infuriatingly seductive arrogance of Stark, who polices the world to atone for his father’s sins. Ideal for readers who are breathlessly awaiting the next film in the Marvel superhero franchise.”

These titles, and those highlighted below, along with other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Oct. 24.

Media Attention

Wild And Precious Life, Deborah Ziegler (S&S/Atria/Emily Bestler Books; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

When Brittany Maynard, who was suffering from terminal brain cancer, wrote an op/ed piece in 2014 titled “My right to death with dignity at 29,” the story was heavily covered by the news media. It was just announced that her husband is working with a film company on a movie about her life. Her mother is publishing a book next week, and was interviewed by Katie Couric on Yahoo News. The author is also scheduled to appear on CBS Inside Edition on Oct. 31.

Not Dead Yet, Phil Collins (PRH/Crown/Archetype; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

The musician will be profiled on the upcoming CBS Sunday Morning. He is also set for appearances next week on The View, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and The Daily Show w/ Trevor Noah as well as on NPR’s All Things Considered (date not yet set).

A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life, Pat Conroy (PRH/ Nan A. Talese; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

A collection of pieces by the author who died earlier this year, it is a Parade Pick, with an online excerpt. 

Fall Cookbooks 

It’s the big cookbook season and several titles featured in the “Best of the Rest” addendum to the NYT‘s The Best Cookbooks of Fall 2016 arrive. Ina Garten will receive media attention for Cooking for Jeffrey: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (RH/Clarkson Potter; OverDrive Sample) including appearances on the Today Show and even Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Anthony Bourdain releases his first cookbook in over ten years, Appetites (HC/Ecco) and Dorie Greenspan turns her attention to a deceptively simple delicacy in Dorie’s Cookies (HMH/Rux Martin; OverDrive Sample).

French Country Cooking: Meals and Moments from a Village in the Vineyards, Mimi Thorisson (PRH/Clarkson Potter; OverDrive Sample).

Popular food blogger Mimi Thorisson lived out many people’s fantasies by restoring a large house in the French countryside and creating a life that allows Thorisson and her husband to pursue their passions, hers for cooking, his for photography and their shared passion for restoring old houses. This book, which follows last year’s A Kitchen in France, is as much a travel book as a cookbook, will be featured in the NYT Travel section. She has already been profiled in the Wall Street Journal [subscription maybe required].

Peer Picks

After last week’s many titles, comes a quieter period with only four peer picks forthcoming, all of them Indie Next selections for November.

The Terranauts, T.C. Boyle (HC/Ecco; Harper Audio).

“In the early 1990s, a grand experiment began in the Arizona desert to determine if human life could be sustained in an engineered, sealed ecological system. The mission failed spectacularly, but fiction gives it another chance in this riveting story of eight scientists who commit to live under glass for two years. They battle hunger, fatigue, and isolation, but the real drama is personal. The story is told through the voices of three distinct narrators — two heating things up on the inside and one nursing resentments outside the glass walls. Master storyteller Boyle entertains, but never slips into schlock. He writes with wit and perspicacity on both human relations and ecology, and this novel is among his best.” —Sharon Flesher, Brilliant Books, Traverse City, MI

Additional Buzz: It is a Fall Reading choice from the Amazon Editors, io9, New York Magazine, and WSJ. The Washington Post compares the novel to the actual Biosphere 2 experiment and BuzzFeed includes it among the “24 Brilliant Books You Must Read This Autumn.” Boyle stops by The New Yorker Radio Hour to “pick three” things he is interested in right now – a musician, a YouTube series, and the book Winter World by Bernd Heinrich.

You Will Not Have My Hate, Antoine Leiris (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“This slender tome began as a social media viral sensation. Shortly after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, a husband and father wrote an open letter to the perpetrators of those attacks, stating time and again that they would not have his hate, despite the fact that he lost his wife and the mother of their infant son. This memoir closely follows the hours after the attack, chronicling Leiris’ thoughts and emotions for the next several days up through the funeral for his wife. Though brief, this is a powerful meditation on grief and resilience and the importance of building a legacy of forgiveness for his son.” —Emily Crowe, Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, MA

Additional Buzz: Elle picked it as a Fall Reading choice, calling it a “bracing, courageous, and utterly beautiful book.” The Guardian calls it a book of “exceptional grace.” Vogue offers an excerpt.

The Education of Dixie Dupree, Donna Everhart (PRH/Kensington; Tantor; OverDrive Sample).

“This debut novel is a page-turner from the very beginning. In a story of a family filled with pain, deceit, lies, and dark secrets across generations, Everhart allows readers to feel everything her young narrator, Dixie, must endure. For me, the mark of a good book is that I find myself thinking about it after I have finished reading, and The Education of Dixie Dupree will be with me for a long while.” —Mary O’Malley, Anderson’s Bookshop, Naperville, IL

Additional Buzz: Bustle counts it as one of their “21 Novels By Women To Add To Your TBR Pile This Fall.”

Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live, Peter Orner (Catapult).

“From beloved novelist and short-story writer Peter Orner comes a collection of essays on the reading life. Orner considers Chekhov in a hospital cafeteria, Welty on a remote island. He also throws Julian Barnes out the window of a moving car — after all, who would trust a man who only talked about what he loved? Behind and around and between these meditations flit the ghosts of the author’s life: his late father, his lost marriage, his self-deprecating take on his own career. The result is a book overflowing with charm — wry, delectable, and laugh-out-loud funny. Orner is a writer’s writer, but he is also a reader’s reader. Am I Alone Here? is an absolute treasure.” —Mairead Staid, Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, MI

Tie-ins

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger, Stephen King (S&S/Pocket Books; OverDrive Sample), a tie-in edition for the upcoming film, hits shelves this week.

Nikolaj Arcel directs the adaptation of Stephen King’s epic dark fantasy series, which stars Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey.

The film opens on February 17, 2017. As of yet, there is no preview or official film poster. There is, however, a great deal of buzz. See our additional coverage here, here, and here.

A Street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life, James Bowen (Macmillan/A Thomas Dunne Book for St. Martin’s Griffin; OverDrive Sample) is the tie-in edition for the film adaptation of the same name.

The story follows a homeless man who adopts a street cat. In turn, the cat helps him turn his life around. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Bob the cat along with Luke Treadaway, Ruta Gedmintas, Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey), and Anthony Head, it opens Nov. 11, 2016.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

In 2013 we wrote that the production company behind The Hunger Games had bought film rights to the satiric debut novel Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (RH/Doubleday).

The Hollywood trades are now reporting that Warner Bros has given the greenlight to the film with John M Chu (Now You See Me 2) to direct. Deadline Hollywood says that the production team plans to have “a fully Asian cast … a first for a Hollywood studio.”

The first book in a trilogy, New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin called it a “a dizzily shopaholic comedy of crass manners,” that “offers refreshing nouveau voyeurism to readers who long ago burned out on American and English aspirational fantasies.”

The second book is China Rich Girlfriend (RH/Doubleday, 2015). The third, Rich People Problems, is part of a new two-book deal Kwan signed with Doubleday, reports Entertainment Weekly, and is expected in 2017.

Kwan also told Entertainment Weekly that he loves the screenplay for Crazy Rich Asians, saying “I’m overjoyed by how they adapted the book. It was making me laugh so much I almost spat out my tea several times.”

If you could not get, or afford, tickets to Broadway’s hottest show, PBS is offering a bit of the experience tonight as it begins its Arts Fall Festival at 9 pm EST with the documentary Hamilton’s America.

But fair warning, it is not a full airing of the Lin-Manuel Miranda production by any means, although it includes footage beyond what is on YouTube.

Instead, as The Atlantic writes, “it’s a crash course on why Hamilton matters at all [and] concerns itself more with American history and present-day politics than it does with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway smash.”

USA Today adds that it “tells the chronological story of the founding father’s life, relying on historians and political heavyweights …The musical (and its creation) is the lens through which the audience sees Hamilton’s story.”

PBS says the documentary includes “footage of the New York production with its original cast, trips to historic locations, such as Mt. Vernon and Valley Forge with Miranda and other cast members, and a surprising range of interviews with prominent personalities, experts, politicians, and musicians.”

Several previews have been released:

As we have reported, the various books related to the musical continue to see strong sales and circulation:

Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio and Blackstone Audio),

Ron Chernow’s biography, Alexander Hamilton (PRH/Penguin, 2004), the book that inspired Miranda

Gore Vidal’s novel Burr (PRH/Vintage)

Our earlier post offers more clips of the show’s making and reception.

After several variations on the superhero genre, comes the latest, the grim and aging superhero.

The final in the Wolverine X-Men spinoff movies, Logan arrives on March 3rd. Entertainment Weekly unpacks 5 takeaways from the brief trailer.

Following the release of the trailer yesterday, a collection of the comics the film is based on by Mark Millar soared up Amazon’s sales rankings. Originally released in 2010, it is being reissued next year.

Wolverine: Old Man Logan, Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, (Hachette/Marvel; reissue of 2010, pub date, 2/14/17)

To start your Friday, below is something that made us laugh. We justify taking your time for it because it is somewhat, if tenuously, book-related.

It was created by the Brazilian YouTube mashup channel, Darth Blender. Thanks to GalleyCat for pointing it out.

Marvel’s quirky 2014 superhero film, Guardians of the Galaxy, was such a surprise hit that it required a sequel so fans can get hooked on even more feelings.

The first sneak peek debuted today. The movie debuts on May 5, 2017.

It lit up the Internet with commentary.

E News says the second in the series “picks up two months after 2014’s original Guardians chronicled their mission to stop an intergalactic force from destroying the universe.” CinemaBlend expands on that, saying the plot features “Peter Quill a.k.a. Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) reunited with his father … [the] script will hit on important subjects regarding family, where you come from, and how that affects who you are.”

Director James Gunn makes it clear that the 90 seconds dropped today is just the start, tweeting, “To make it clear: the sneak peek just released is NOT a teaser-for-the-trailer; it’s a totally separate piece from the eventual trailer(s).”

The new movie poster also drew comments for its style, “it’s downright dripping in the kind of confident, throwback attitude audiences expect” says ScreenRant.

Expect vol. 2 to also be a moneymaker. Says Forbes, “anyone betting against Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 being one of the summer’s very biggest hits is playing a fool’s game.”

Marvel is publishing tie-ins, including the following (for a full list see our catalog of current and upcoming tie-ins).

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Prelude, Marvel Comics, Ages 9 And Up, Grades 4 to 17 (Hachette/Marvel; April 18, 2017).

MARVEL’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Deluxe Junior Novel, Marvel , Ages 8 to 12, Grades 3 to 7, (Hachette/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; April 4, 2017)

The comics series has been through many iterations and different teams of Guardians over the last 40 years. The movies are based on the 2008 series by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Screenwriter Nicole Perlman, interviewed on Marvel’s Web site, recounted how, as part of  Marvel Studios writer’s program, she picked the obscure series to develop because it was “more like a space opera, and a very funny, sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek version of this kind of genre.” As a result, she became the first woman to receive screenwriting credit for a Marvel movie.

A new collection of Abnett/Lanning series will be published in May. In addition, DK is publishing a history of the comics from their introduction in 1969:

Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy: The Ultimate Guide to the Cosmic Outlaws, Nick Jones, Ages 7 to 10, Grades 2 to 5, (PRH/DK) — a history of the comics series.

Rising on Amazon’s sales rankings is Frazzled: Everyday Disasters and Impending Doom, Booki Vivat (HarperCollins; HC Audio; OverDrive Sample), a debut novel about middle schooler Abbie Wu who is full of worries.

The book is soaring up the charts on the strength of an NPR feature on All Things Considered, moving from #6,572 to #76.

Vivat tells NPR that the highly illustrated novel was born from her own daily planners which she fills with images and doodles.

Through what she calls “a series of very fortunate events” her planners ended up in the hands of a HarperCollins editor who found an “illustration that I had done in a moment of extreme crisis and very dramatic emotion that read, I live my life in a constant state of impending doom. And she pointed to the girl in that picture and said, there’s a story here; that’s our girl.”

Abbie, that very anxious girl, starts sixth grade full of doubts about what her “thing” will be, “The thing that makes her who she is, the thing that everyone knows her for, her capital-T thing.”

She does not find it in the first book, but she does manage to start an “underground lunch revolution” and set things up for a cliffhanger ending that will be followed up by a Frazzled two.

The first teaser trailer for HBO’s adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s 2014 best seller, Big Little Lies, has just been released. Shailene Woodley plays Jane, a young single mother who moves to a coastal community so her son can attend a better school. There she becomes entangled in the messy lives of the seemingly perfect mothers of her son’s classmates, Celeste (Nicole Kidman) and Madeline (Reese Witherspoon). PopSugar gives a full rundown of the cast, with comparisons to the characters in the book.

The setting has been changed from the book’s Australia to Southern California. The seven-episode series is directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club), who also worked with Witherspoon on the adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, Wild.

Release is planned for some time in 2017. No specific start date has been set.

Witherspoon, who set up her production company Pacific Standard to develop better roles for women, worked with Kidman to produce the series. The pair have also acquired the rights to Moriarty’s most recent book, Truly Madly Guilty (Macmillan/Flatiron; Macmillan Audio).

Tie-ins will be published in February.

Big Little Lies (Movie Tie-In)
Liane Moriarty
PRH/Berkley trade pbk; February 7, 2017
Mass Market