Another weekend and another book news round-up. I hope you’re all surviving the August heat, bookworms! Stay cool!
- Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the widely successful memoir Eat Pray Love will release her much-anticipated follow-up, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage in January. Though Gilbert herself says Committed isn’t strictly a sequel, it does follow her journey to explore the idea of marriage through interviews with her friends, family and the people she meets during her travels. Viking, which is publishing the new book, is preparing for high demand with an initial printing of one million hardcover copies.
- Kate DiCamillo is on a role! The popular children’s book author, whose two Newbury-winning novels Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux were made into big-screen movies, will now see her latest offering, The Magician’s Elephant become a Hollywood movie as well. Elephant hasn’t even been published yet (it’s available Sept. 8th) and already Tinsel Town has snapped up the movie rights.
- Amazon.com’s book blog, Omnivoracious, is giving away signed copies of Dan Brown’s newest Robert Langdon adventure, The Lost Symbol. This highly awaited novel will be released in September and is rumored to involve Washington, DC and the Freemasons. If you’re a Dan Brown fan, don’t miss the chance to get that signed copy.
- Twilight phenom Stephenie Meyer recently spoke with MTV about the songs and musicians making regular rounds on her iPod playlists. Meyer has often spoken about her need for constant music while writing and has credited a number of musicians (chief among them, Muse) with inspiring whole scenes or chapters in her incredibly popular books.
- Classic literature provides a treasure trove of material for Hollywood, so Amazon’s Armchair Commentary blog has posted an ode to the Top 15 Movies Made from Classic Books. Naturally, the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice made the list (“It is a truth universally acknowledged that Colin Firth’s famous gaze causes much swooning”) but they also included some lesser known favorites of mine: Dickens’ Little Dorrit and William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.
