So far, according to The Daily Beast, the top movie critics have been highly approving of “Green Zone,” an adaptation of bestselling book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. We’re very excited to have a re-titled movie-tie-in edition! If the good reviews keep coming, look for holds in your library.

-David

The big news from Steerforth Press last week was that they will be distributing an excellent (and useful!) line of graphic novels called Campfire. The first batch of books is mostly graphic adaptations of classic novels like Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, etc. with some Biography and Mythology mixed in. Eventually, Campfire’s line will move into 4 distinctive categories: Classics, Mythology, Biography and, coming in 2011, Originals.

In the meeting, I got to flip through the graphic novel version of H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man and was genuinely impressed with the quality of the artwork and the book itself, with a glossy finish and a highly respectable paper quality. They seem to work very well as adaptations, maintaining a fidelity to the original language while smartly condensing it so that it reads at a fast pace like a regular graphic novel. What impressed me further was their price: a budget-friendly $9.99(US). Look for them this summer!

If you have any questions about the series, email library@randomhouse.com and we will try our best.

-David

Curious about what we’ve all been reading these days? Here’s a department-wide update:

Jen – Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
A charming, heart-warming story of two widowers with very different backgrounds, but a shared love of Kipling. One of those books that just makes you smile as you read it. Perfect for Book Groups.

Erica - The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald
I picked this up in preparation for meeting Lisa Grunwald at the PLA conference in March. It is the unconventional coming of age story of Henry, who was raised by six mothers as part a college home economics course in the 1950s. It follows him through the conformist ‘50s and the psychedelic ‘60s, with cameos by Benjamin Spock, Walt Disney, Julie Andrews, and The Beatles.

 Marcia - The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell
A twisty thriller the author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries that crosses two centuries and two continents and thoroughly explores the notion of revenge.

David – Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky
I am of the opinion that David Foster Wallace was a genius and sort of my soul twin (minus the whole clinical depression thing). So I will read anything written by or about him. He somehow articulates the thoughts that I never even thought about thinking.

 Marie: Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel
So much to talk about in just under 200 pages. Wow! A taxidermist and a novelist working together on a play about a howler monkey and a donkey? I will definitely be talking about this one for a while so stay tuned!

Be sure to check our Staff Picks page for more of our recent favorites.

If you didn’t get the chance to go to ALA Midwinter this year and catch the Random House Inc. “Book Buzz,” here are the slides from the show. We presented our personal favorites and the ones we have high hopes for this Spring and Summer for a crowd of around 50 note-taking librarians.

Click here to scroll through our PowerPoint!

Publishing just around the corner is STAYING TRUE, a memoir by Jenny Sanford, now separated from her affair-having husband, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. But before its publication date, Jenny Sanford will be participating in a publicity tour that would make most folks’ heads spin. So be sure to check your advance orders; the demand is likely to skyrocket for this book when it’s spotlighted for the nation’s collective eyeballs. Here’s the highlights from the tour:

NATIONAL TELEVISION
20/20 Special: A Barbara Walters Interview: February 5th on ABC

In the days leading up to the interview, Barbara Walters will promote it on the following TV outlets:
-Good Morning America
-The View
-Entertainment Tonight
-Extra
-Access Hollywood
(With more to be announced!)

ABC will also run a full-page ad in USA TODAY on Feb. 5th promoting Walters interview.

Good Morning America: Two-part Interview
February 8th on ABC
The View
February 8th on ABC
Larry King Live
February 8th on CNN
The Jon Stewart Show
February 8th on Comedy Central
The 700 Club
February 11th on the Christian Broadcasting Network

NATIONAL RADIO
NPR’s “Morning Edition” —Feb. 8th
ABC Radio satellite—week of Feb. 8th
CBS Radio News satellite—week of Feb. 8th

NATIONAL PRINT

People Magazine: 1st serial excerpt with photos
On stands February 5th.

Washington Post/ Newsweek’s religion interview series, Divine Impulses—available on the (printed) religion section of the Washington Post, the home page of washingtonpost.com, and at “On Faith,” the joint project of the Washington Post and Newsweek—week of February 8th

USA Today: inclusion in Book Buzz column on upcoming political memoirs—January 7th

Sorry! For all of you who are dashing to your mail daily in hopes of a special advance mailing of ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” — it appears that there will be very few ARCs, largely because those are printed to spark interest, and I think we’d all agree the burning interest is ALREADY there! And no, I haven’t heard anything about moving the U.S. printing up from May. I know there’s been some stories in the mail about bookstores ordering copies from Amazon UK, but there are copyright issues, so don’t go into those murky waters. Of course you could always take a trip to the UK or a lovely Scandinavian country and bring a copy back, but that seems a bit extreme to me, and I’m a huge fan of the series.

Just to keep your interest at fever pitch, there appear to be “dueling [film] versions of Dragon Tattoo on the horizon”. Sony Pictures has taken the English-language screen rights. The script is being held up by a rights squabble between Stieg Larsson’s folks and his longtime partner, Eva Gabrielsson. Stay tuned. There is already a Swedish-language film version released last February. It’s grossed millions and millions across Europe and has been picked up for the U.S. by Music Box Films. It is scheduled to be released in March.

In the meantime…..go back and re-read the first two volumes. They stand up to re-examination. Those characters have a lot of depth and the plots are SO twisty! What?! Some of you haven’t read them AT ALL! No excuses about too many holds and not being able to get your hands on a copy. Either order more at once—or here’s a thought, rush out, buy copies, read them, and then give them as a gift!!

— Marcia

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
$14.95 | 978-0-307-45454-6 | Vintage

The Girl Who Played with Fire
$15.95 | 978-0-307-45455-3 | Vintage

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
$26.95 | 978-0-307-26999-7 | Knopf | May

If you Twitter (and follow us )you might have noticed my tweet last week saying we all got a call from Howie Mandel. Really. We did. The entire department (well, and company…) came in one morning to discover his enthusiastic voice in our voicemail inboxes. How’s that for special perks of the job?

The renowned funny man and host of the popular game show Deal or No Deal has a new memoir out in which he talks about his struggles with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Check out the book trailer below featuring an interview with Howie and if you’d like to learn more, visit ABC’s 20/20 website for video clips from a piece about him that ran in November. I was able to catch part of it on television that night and found it really interesting.

Also, don’t forget to add Here’s the Deal: Don’t Touch Me to your collection lists!

-Marie

Every once in a while, a book comes along that stands out from the pack early on.  RH staff reads early ebook galleys and soon everyone is buzzing about the same title. It has been some time since I remember so many in-house people LOVING the same book–3 of us in the Library Marketing Dept alone! Dare I say it?  It was perhaps The DaVinci Code and we all know what ended up happening there, so don’t say I’m not giving you a heads up here.

You may recognize Justin Cronin’s name, he was the winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for his radiant novel in stories, Mary and O’Neil.  His next novel, The Summer Guest was also lauded.  Cronin has decided to go down a different path with his next novel The Passage.  I loved The Summer Guest, but it was a literary novel where the action took a back seat.  Not so here.  The Passage is adrenalin-filled, twisty, suspense-packed, and rich in characters–and did I mention?–the writing is absolutely amazing. 

I’m afraid to tell you too much about the plot, because it is tough to explain with any brevity, but an anecdote related to us at our marketing meeting sets it up nicely.  Supposedly, the award-winning author asked his young daughter what it would take for her to read one of his novels.  She thought for a moment and finally replied that it would have to be about a little girl who saves the world.  From that germ of an idea was born this epic, post-apocalyptic story of humankind struggling to survive. 

The fact that is an amazing book, makes it a GOOD thing that the novel is more than 1000 pages AND the first in a trilogy.  I honestly did not want it to end.  It is the kind of book that you want to just force on people to read (oh come on, you know you’ve done it) and since I’m pretty much done with my co-workers (except for Dave Eicke who still needs to read it!!), friends and family, I’m moving on to you, faithful blog readers.  I have some excerpt booklets available and will send them out to anyone who leaves a comment, while supplies last. 

I’ll have galleys to give away at ALA Midwinter, but wouldn’t it be cool to get a sneak peek now?  That way you’ll be In The Know before you arrive in Boston this January.  I’m telling you: this is going to be BIG.

Jen

To add to the classics-through-the-juicer phenomenon, father and son team Manly W. Wellman and Wade Wellman have taken Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes character and dropped him in the middle of an H.G. Wells novel.

So…Sherlock vs. aliens…brilliant, really.

Strangely enough, as the author explains in his introduction, the original concept for this book was inspired by two movies: “A Study in Terror,” which pitted Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper in 1890 London; and a film called “Diary of a Madman” loosely based on Guy de Maupassant’s “The Horla,” which, the author guesses, was one of Wells’s inspirations for writing  War of the Worlds.

And with Robert Downey Jr.’s big new Sherlock movie coming out around Christmas time, expect added demand for the Detective of Detectives!

I have a couple finished copies of this sitting here on my desk. Leave a comment about who/what you’d like to see Holmes face next, and I may just send you one!

On sale tomorrow: The Further Adventure of Sherlock Holmes: The War of the Worlds.

Also available:

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Ectoplasmic Man

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Scroll of the Dead

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective

-David

Good news came last week with LJ’s posting of the top 20 NYPL holds; turns out we had 8 of the 20 this time! We’d like to congratulate the authors and publishers that made the list, but we’d also like to know what’s being held at YOUR library! Anything drastically different?? Demand can vary so greatly by region. And we’re very curious people.

-David