Author: Tina Jordan (81-90 of 98)

Oct 29 2009 07:15 AM ET

Stephen King's 'Under the Dome': Exclusive trailer!

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We’re delighted to bring you an exclusive sneak peek at the trailer for Stephen King’s long-awaited epic novel Under The Dome, which goes on sale Nov. 10 (you can pre-order it here). More than 30 years in the writing, this sprawling, 1072-page supernatural thriller brings to life the town of Chester’s Mill, Maine, the day that an invisible force-field seals it off from the rest of the world. “Every time I went back and picked it up again, science had changed,” says King (who is a regular contributor to EW), noting that he asked good friend Russ Dorr to spearhead the book’s research, nailing down details about everything from cell phone technology to portable generators.

Want more? You can read an exclusive 4,000-word excerpt of Under The Dome in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, which goes on sale tomorrow. Also, come back tomorrow for another Shelf Life exclusive: a video clip of King reading a passage from the book. In the meantime, check out the official Under the Dome site here.

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Oct 27 2009 06:04 PM ET

Longtime Doubleday publisher Stephen Rubin lands at Holt

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When the Random House empire consolidated several imprints last December, one of the casualties was revered Doubleday publisher Stephen Rubin, who helmed the company during the successes of Dan Brown, John Grisham, Ian McEwan, and Pat Conroy, to name just a handful. Though Rubin wasn’t fired in the Random House upheaval — he was made a publisher-at-large for Random House, Inc. — he was reportedly bored in his new assignment. So I can’t say I was surprised today when I heard he had been tapped as publisher of Henry Holt, which is now part of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. When I talked to him this afternoon, Rubin said, “It’s a venerable old house. It has the current Nobel and Booker Prize winners. But,” he added, “It isn’t the house it used to be. There was a time when Holt published everyone from Philip Roth to Sue Grafton. I want to bring it back to that, to have it be a seriously competitive house.” To shake Holt out of its mid-list doldrums, he said, “We’re going to have to lure more high-revenue, big-ticket writers.” When asked if he would be a part of that — if he himself would be luring authors to the company from their current publishers — he replied, “You bet your ass I will!” Working with writers, he says, is one of the things he’s most excited about. “Holt’s not a big company. It’s small, so I’ll be able to really get my hands dirty.”

Rubin starts next Monday.

Oct 23 2009 12:26 PM ET

Stephen King on the delay of his e-book and the $9 price wars - can bookstores survive?

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44574551In the latest skirmish in the e-book war, Scribner announced this week that it will delay the e-book release of EW columnist and perennial best-seller Stephen King’s new novel, Under the Dome, until Dec. 24. That’s almost six weeks after the hardcover edition goes on sale November 10. “We think that this publishing sequence gives us the opportunity to maximize hardcover sales and at the same time allows people who receive a reading device or gift certificates as a holiday gift to enjoy the digital edition,” says  Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for Scribner (an imprint of Viacom’s Simon & Schuster). In an exclusive comment to EW, the author himself was more blunt: “It’s time to give the smaller bookstores a little breathing room (although not much chance of that, with Walmart offering Dome for nine bucks.)” He’s referring to the fact that Walmart (as well as Amazon and Target) this week began offering his book, along with nine hot titles, for as little as $8.98. The retail price of King’s book is $35, which means these retailers are taking a loss on each book.

King is not alone in his concern about the impact the $9 price wars will have on traditional booksellers. The recent price-chopping has led the American Booksellers Association, which represents independent bookstores, to file an official complaint with the U.S. Justice Department, charging that the three retail behemoths are engaging in “illegal predatory pricing.” In a letter released yesterday, the ABA went on to say that the practice was “damaging to the book industry and harmful to consumers.” A top publishing executive tells EW: “They had no choice. Bookstores are simply under siege. On one side, they’re facing the threat of e-books, and on the other they’re staring in the face of these three ugly superpowers.” David Young, the CEO of Hachette Book Group USA (publisher of James Patterson’s upcoming I, Alex Cross, another one of the $8.98 titles), told the New York Times: “I do think this massive devaluation of the industry’s crown jewels could very quickly be extremely harmful. And I would not be alone in thinking that.”

How can traditional bookstores compete against giant retailers who are willing to sell books at a loss (a luxury that books-only retailers can’t afford to do)? And is it fair for publishers to fight back by delaying the release of e-book versions of new titles like Under the Dome? What do you think?

Oct 19 2009 11:07 AM ET

Who's the most romantic character in literature?

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So, in a recent British poll on the most romantic literary character of all time (men, that is; they dealt with women in an earlier poll), top honors went to Rochester, the brooding hunk at the heart of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Though I’m a huge fan of Jane Eyre — I reread my well-thumbed copy at least once a year — I’m not enamored of Rochester, who, let’s face it, wasn’t very nice to poor Jane. (For those who you who haven’t read the book, or who read it so long ago it’s a distant blur, let’s just say Rochester was alternately cold, imperious, and withholding, and he proposed to Jane —  and was going through with the wedding — without  disclosing that he was already married to a madwoman he kept imprisoned in the attic). But am I possibility in the minority here? British best-selling novelist Penny Vincenzi wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “From that very first meeting [age 13, when she read the book for the first time], when Rochester’s horse slipped on the ice, and he was unseated, and I was confronted by his dark, unsmiling presence, his ‘stern features, and heavy brow… his considerable breadth of chest,’ I was completely in his thrall.”

So here’s the British poll in full:

1. Edward Rochester of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
2. Richard Sharpe of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series.
3. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
4. Heathcliff of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
5. Rhett Butler of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind
6. Mark Darcy, of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary
7. Captain Corelli of Louis de Berniere’s Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
8. Henry DeTamble of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife
9. Gabriel Oak of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd
10. Rupert Campbell Black of Jilly Cooper’s The Rutshire Chronicles

Several thoughts here. Maybe it’s because I’m a Southern, but Rhett Butler — the dashing Charleston-born blockade runner who lusted after Scarlett O’Hara — is tops with me. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 14 2009 12:52 PM ET

The National Book Awards: What Gives?

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Sigh: It’s happened again. I don’t want to rag on any of the nominees picked by the National Book Award judges, but I’m simply stunned by some of the omissions. Where is Cheever: A Life, Blake Bailey’s monumental biography of John Cheever, which received raves everywhere, including this magazine? It redefined biography for me. Where is Dave Cullen’s Columbine, or Robin Romm’s searing The Mercy Papers? Where is David Mazzuchelli’s stunning graphic novel, Asterios Polyp? (For that matter, why does the NBA continues to largely ignore the graphic novel category, even though some of the best, most imaginative work is being done in that genre? I see Stitches received a YA nod, but…). Where is Abraham Verghese’s incredible Cutting for Stone? Stephanie Kallos’ lyrical novel Sing Them Home? Laurie Scheck’s A Monster’s Notes? Jonathan Tropper’s big-hearted family drama, This Is Where I Leave You? Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely think the NBA panels should look for small, overlooked books, especially those that come from small presses. But the list of nominees looks inconsequential — and the NBA looks a little silly — when the year’s truly great books are nowhere to be seen.

What do you think? Are there any books you think are missing, or are you pleased with the nominees?

Oct 14 2009 09:05 AM ET

The explicit books teens read (and the ones we read when we were their age)

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43350518So I’m sitting on the train the other morning, minding my own business, my nose in a copy of Ellen Hopkins’ latest, Tricks. If you don’t know who the best-selling author Hopkins is, it’s because you don’t have a teenager in the house. Her utterly captivating books take on controversial and painful subject matter — abuse, drug use, family tragedy — in a most unusual form: They’re written in blank verse. I know you’re thinking, Yeah, right, what self-respecting teenager is going to read a novel written in free verse? The answer is: lots of them. I witnessed it first hand when my oldest daughter, then 13 or so, fell in love with Sonya Sones’ What My Mother Doesn’t Know, also written in free verse, and now I’m seeing it again with Hopkins, whose unadorned, unfettered narratives are very, very powerful.

But back to the train the other morning. I was lost in a copy of Tricks — which tackles teen prostitution — when I was startled back into reality by a woman from my town I know by sight, not by name. “I would never let my daughters read that,” she practically spat. “Do you know what she writes about?” I regarded her for a moment and said mildly, “You know, I don’t believe in censoring books.” “That’s your choice, of course, but I personally wouldn’t want my girls knowing any of this,” she replied. Honey, I thought to myself, I bet they already know most of it. But — and feel free to call me a coward — I didn’t say any of this her. (It’s just not worth it with some people.) I simply let myself get lost in the book’s lyricism again. READ FULL STORY »

Sep 23 2009 09:00 AM ET

Mackenzie Phillips details drug use and incest in new memoir

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High-on-Arrival_lHigh on Arrival, a memoir from actress Mackenzie Phillips, hits stores today, the same day that Phillips will make the requisite trip to Oprah’s couch to bare all. Oprah’s website has been touting the interview all week: “Mackenzie Phillips speaks out on the heroin and cocaine bust, Mick Jagger and the explosive family secret she says she’s kept for 31 years.”

And just what is that secret? Phillips is best known as a TV star (One Day at a Time) and as the daughter of John Phillips (founding member of the Mamas & the Papas). But she is also an addict, and hers is a book not about celebrity life, but about the frantic, unremitting scramble to get high. She did her best to obliterate a miserable childhood by shooting, snorting, and swallowing every drug possible. She says she was raped at 14 by a stranger and at 19 by her own father, then continued a pattern of using and detoxing until an August 2008 drug arrest at LAX forced her, she says, to embrace sobriety once and for all. Though Phillips’ incest revelations will make the headlines, the rest of the book — a raw glimpse into the mind of a junkie — is equally dispiriting. “It was, as I’ve said, a hard decision to reveal the sordid side of my relationship with my father,” she writes in the book’s afterword. “But these are complex, painful, heart-wrenching truths that infiltrate lives, many lives, not just mine. I can’t be the only one. And I needed to tell that part of the story because I wanted to earn the right to talk about forgiveness.”

What do you think? Is this a book you’ll read?

For more on Mackenzie Phillips: Clark Collis’ article in The Music Mix

Sep 18 2009 04:35 PM ET

Uwem Akpan: The first post-Oprah interview

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We had a chance to chat briefly this afternoon with Uwem Akpan, the Nigerian-born Jesuit priest whose short story collection, Say You’re One Of Them, was anointed by Oprah hours ago as her next Book Club pick.

Do I call you Father Akpan?

Actually, you call me Father Uwem.

Father Uwem, how do you reconcile two powerful callings — that of being a priest and that of being a writer?

They both require time and commitment and energy. But when you are writing fiction, you can set your characters aside. I can’t manipulate the people of my parish. If someone needs counseling, they need counseling. If someone is dead, they need to be buried. But the two callings also go together. For anyone to be a success on the pulpit, they must be a storyteller: They are using words to get into the heart of the congregation. Don’t forget that Jesus was a priest and a poet.

Are you currently on a church posting?

Yes, I have a parish in Lagos.

Does the church vet your writing?

I have permission to write, but I do not need an imprimatur from the church — that is more for people who are writing about theology and philosophy. They see that I am writing fiction and assume it is made up. I suppose it’s possible one day they could pose questions.

Are you working on another book yet?

Not yet. My parish has been very busy.

What kinds of books do you like to read?

I read the Bible a lot — other than that I am very eclectic. The stories from the Bible still amaze and baffle me. I especially like reading the Old Testament.

How did it feel when you learned Oprah had picked your book?

I couldn’t tell anyone because the contract was so full of confidentiality agreements. It was surreal. I’m very, very humbled by all of it.

Thank you, Father Uwem.

No, thank you. Entertainment Weekly has been very good to me.

Sep 16 2009 09:00 AM ET

Jacquelyn Mitchard's sequel to 'Deep End of the Ocean' disappoints

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40732444I don’t have anything against sequels. Honest. I can think of countless ones I’ve enjoyed. (And series are a whole other matter — I love a great series.) But there are two kinds of book sequels I can’t abide. The first, of course, is the sequel that’s written by someone other than the original author (the best recent examples of this are Gone With the Wind sequels, Scarlett and Rhett Butler’s People, both licensed by Margaret Mitchell’s estate). And then there’s the sequel written by an author who just doesn’t seem to be able to come up with anything else and so returns to one of the books that made him or her famous in the first place: Thomas Harris’ Hannibal. John Updike’s The Widows of Eastwick. And now Jacquelyn Mitchard’s No Time to Wave Good-bye.

You remember Jacquelyn Mitchard. Back in 1996, her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was plucked from obscurity by none other than Oprah, who used it to launch her now-famous book club. The tale of kidnapping and grief in a Midwestern family, the Cappadoras, went on to sell 3 million copies; it was later made into a movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams. For the sake of Shelf Life readers, I won’t give away plot points of No Time to Wave Good-bye. Suffice it to say they’re doozies. As I turned the pages, I kept shaking my head and thinking, What next? Haven’t the Cappadoras been through enough? What was in the first book a heartbreaking family drama has become almost ludicrous caricature. By the time I finished, I was more than a little annoyed at Mitchard for dredging up (and, to my mind, ruining) her old story for the sake of a few bucks.

And it’s a trend that doesn’t look like it’s ending anytime soon. Back in April, Grand Central Publishing announced that Scott Turow is writing a sequel to one of my all-time favorite thrillers, Presumed Innocent.

I’m already worried. You?

Sep 13 2009 07:42 PM ET

First review of Dan Brown's 'The Lost Symbol'

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6a00d8341bf6c153ef011570de1436970c-800wiThe New York Times’ Janet Maslin has posted a glowing review of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, which goes on sale Tuesday. “Too many popular authors (Thomas Harris) have followed huge hits (The Silence of the Lambs) with terrible embarrassments (Hannibal),” writes Maslin. “Mr. Brown hasn’t done that. Instead, he’s bringing sexy back a genre that had been left for dead.” According to Maslin, the new book is replete with plot tricks and twists, codes, secrets, and explorations into ancient philosophies and the occult.

SPOILER ALERT! Maslin says that Brown’s hero, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, has been lured to Washington, D.C., to give a speech on behalf of his old mentor Peter Solomon at the Capitol—only to find Solomon’s severed hand atop the Capitol Crypt. The mystery/treasure hunt that ensues does, as has been rumored, prominently feature the Freemasons. Only they do not occupy the villain role that Opus Dei played in The Da Vinci Code. According to Maslin, the villain this time out is a sinister psycho named Mal’akh.

Observant types will remember that back in 2003 Maslin also had the first review of The Da Vinci Code — and it was a rave as well. “Not since the advent of Harry Potter has an author so flagrantly delighted in leading readers on a breathless chase and coaxing them through hoops,” she wrote. Brown later admitted that “people called and said, ‘Is Janet Maslin your mother, because she never says stuff like that?’”

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