Book News: A Lahiri Novel, Algonquin's Teen Line, Adaptations and ALA Award Candidates

PublishersLunch

Pulitzer Prize winner for INTERPRETER OF MALADIES Jhumpa Lahiri's THE LOWLAND--her second novel after THE NAMESAKE--will be published on September 24 by Knopf (and by Bloomsbury UK). It's the second book in their deal from 2006, reportedly for $4 million.

The Fox Network has ordered a pilot for an adaptation of Lauren Oliver's DELIRIUM. Bookseller Mitchell Kaplan's Mazur/Kaplan Company is executive producing with Chernin Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television, with the pilot written by executive producer Karyn Usher wrote the pilot which Fox just approved.

In the day's most unusual adaptation news, Hilary Mantel's Booker-winning duo WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES are being adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company. She says the characters "were fighting to be off the page.... The books are in fact gigantic plays."

Director of the American movie version of The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo David Fincher is reported to be in discussions about directing Fox's adaptation of Gillian Flynn's GONE GIRL. And the Hollywood Reporter says that Ron Howard is considering taking over efforts to turn Neil Gaiman's Newbery-winning THE GRAVEYARD BOOK into a movie. A previous effort at an animated adaptation didn't work out; producer Gil Netter is overseeing a new effort to develop a live-action movie.

Speaking of the Newbery, the ALA will announce the new winners of their Youth Media Awards next Monday, January 28, starting at 8 AM Pacific time from the Midwinter meeting in Seattle. We've posted lists of recent Newbery, Caldecott and Printz medalists and honor books at Bookateria in anticipation, and Early Word handicaps some of the leading contenders for the prestigious awards. Their top potential picks include R.J. Palacio's WONDER and Joan Bauer's ALMOST HOME; Jon Klassen's THIS IS NOT MY HAT and Maira Kalman's LOOKING AT LINCOLN; and Elizabeth Wein's CODE NAME VERITY (up against easy favorite, John Green's THE FAULT IN OUR STARS).

Also at the ALA meeting, Algonquin will formally introduce their new Algonquin Young Readers imprint. The fall 2013 launch list features three middle-grade novels (The Time Fetch, by Amy Herrick; Three Ring Rascals Book One: The Show Must Go On, by Kate and M. Sarah Klise; and Anton and Cecil: Cats at Sea, by Lisa and Valerie Martin) and two YA novels in hardcover (If You Could Be Mine, by Sara Farizan; and Somebody Up There Hates You, by Hollis Seamon).