Reese Witherspoon Announces First Novel, Co-Written With Harlen Coben
I have long wondered why Witherspoon didn’t have her own imprint…or house. But after the spate of high profile celebrity thriller collaborations (Viola Davis, both Clintons, etc), I should have seen something like this coming. (I know you will be shocked to hear that this will be a thriller.) I am surprised that she didn’t choose to team up with a woman, since most of her book club selections are by women and she has stated clearly that her bookish enterprises are geared toward women. I also would pay folding money to see the terms of the deal (advance, royalty split, etc etc). Vegas is not taking bets that one of the main characters will be a 40ish blond woman.
Lionsgate TV Options ‘Yellowface’ by R.F. Kuang, Karyn Kusama Attached to Direct
Prediction: 6 episodes on Hulu.
The Millions’ Great Fall Book Preview
There aren’t too many things on the bookish internet that I wish I made, but the seasonal previews at The Millions are one of them. In-depth, wide-ranging, and well-written, the preview should serve as the reading menu of choice for most readers of literary work, both fiction and otherwise. I think I do a pretty good job catalog diving, but there are things here that I myself missed: Lydia Davis translating Proust for one, and a collection of actually great Amazon reviews. This one is for the real ones.
Meryl Streep to Star in Series Adaptation of ‘The Corrections’ From Jonathan Franzen, CBS Studios
I had to check the calendar when I saw this news over the weekend. And no it was not April 1st, so this is legit. Meryl Streep is “attached” to star in a series adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s 2001 novel, The Corrections. For those of you who don’t know, there are several pieces of this that are surprising. First of all, Franzen’s star has faded in the intervening years since Time did this. Second, there was already an attempt a decade ago to adapt the book as a series that even saw a pilot shot, which starred a truly wild cast (Chris Cooper, Dianne Wiest, Ewan McGregor, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rhys Ifans and Greta Gerwig!). Third, big budget adaptations have been on the wane, and The Corrections doesn’t have a murder/mystery plot that maps neatly onto some of the more popular mid-budget literary adaptations we have seen do well, somehow all starring Nicole Kidman. I could not be more interested in how this is going to go. Still, I give it less than a 50/50 shot of becoming a thing, but with Streep willing to do it, some producer somewhere is going to kick the tires.