The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks

The movie adaption of the Nicholas Sparks novel THE LUCKY ONE opens in theaters on April 20th and stars teen heartthrob Zac Effron. The book is currently number 7 on USAToday’s bestsellers list and now Nicholas Sparks, king of romance, has another trick up his sleeve. Starting tomorrow (April 6) and running up until the movie’s release day (April 20) Sparks is asking his readers to collaborate on a story with him. He has written the first and last lines and he wants USAWeekend readers to fill in the rest. The story is titled THE END OF ALL THINGS and begins, “Jasmine Blake thought she understood what love meant until the day she almost died.” Starting tomorrow, it’s up to Sparks fans and readers to continue the story through to completion, sentence by sentence. Each day, USAWeekend will provide an editor’s update on where the story is so far, until they reach the last sentence, also provided by Sparks: “She was just falling asleep when the car stopped, and Rick whispered, ‘We’re home.’”

So head over to USAWeekend for more details and to take part in this unique collaboration.

Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin, creator of The Happiness Project, the phenomenally bestselling book and mega-popular blog, just revealed the cover for her next book, HAPPIER AT HOME (Crown). Here’s what we can expect in September 2012:

In the spirit of her blockbuster #1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin embarks on a new project to make home a happier place.

One Sunday afternoon, as she unloaded the dishwasher, Gretchen Rubin felt hit by a wave of homesickness. Homesick—why? She was standing right in her own kitchen. She felt homesick, she realized, with love for home itself. “Of all the elements of a happy life,” she thought, “my home is the most important.” In a flash, she decided to undertake a new happiness project, and this time, to focus on home.

And what did she want from her home? A place that calmed her, and energized her. A place that, by making her feel safe, would free her to take risks. Also, while Rubin wanted to be happier at home, she wanted to appreciate how much happiness was there already.

So, starting in September (the new January), Rubin dedicated a school year—September through May—to making her home a place of greater simplicity, comfort, and love.

In The Happiness Project, she worked out general theories of happiness. Here she goes deeper on factors that matter for home, such as possessions, marriage, time, and parenthood. How can she control the cubicle in her pocket? How might she spotlight her family’s treasured possessions? And it really was time to replace that dud toaster.

Each month, Rubin tackles a different theme as she experiments with concrete, manageable resolutions—and this time, she coaxes her family to try some resolutions, as well.

With her signature blend of memoir, science, philosophy, and experimentation, Rubin’s passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire readers to find more happiness in their own lives.

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I loved The Happiness Project and have written about it many times on this site so I can’t tell you how excited I am for Happier at Home. Have you read The Happiness Project? Do you follow Gretchen’s blog? Are you going to pick up Happier at Home when it hits bookstores in the fall?

Skinnydipping by Bethenny Frankel

SKINNYDIPPING by Bethenny Frankel

Publication Date: May 1, 2012

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Description: “Who do I have to sleep with to get a drink on this plane?”

Beloved by countless fans for being devilishly dishy, outrageously funny, and always giving it to us straight, three-time New York Times bestselling author Bethenny Frankel now makes her fiction debut with the story of Faith Brightstone. Faith is an aspiring actress just out of college, who moves to LA determined to have it all—a job on the most popular TV show, a beach house in Malibu, and a gorgeous producer boyfriend. But when reality hits, she finds herself with a gig as a glorified servant, a role that has more to do with T&A than acting, and a dead-end relationship. Finally, Faith decides she’s had enough of La La Land and moves back to New York with just a suitcase and her dog Muffin.
Five years later, Faith has finally found her groove as an entrepreneur and manages to land a spot on a new reality TV show hosted by her idol—the legendary businesswoman and domestic goddess Sybil Hunter. Diving into the bizarre world of reality TV, Faith’s loud mouth and tell-it-like-it-is style immediately get her in trouble with her fellow contestants—the delusional socialite, the boozy lifestyle coach, the moody headband designer, and her closest friend, the ambitious housewife who eventually betrays her. Even Sybil is not what she appears.
As the show comes to a dramatic close, Faith discovers that the man of her dreams may have just walked in to her life. Will she choose fame or love? Or can she have it all?

Will you be reading Bethenny Frankel’s debut novel? What do you think about the cover?

The Berenstain Bears

According to the AP, Jan Berenstain, who with her husband, Stan, wrote and illustrated The Berenstain Bears books that have charmed preschoolers and their parents for 50 years, has died. She was 88.

Berenstain, a longtime resident of Solebury in southeastern Pennsylvania, suffered a severe stroke on Thursday and died Friday without regaining consciousness, her son Mike Berenstain said.

The gentle tales of Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Brother Bear and Sister Bear were inspired by the Berenstain children, and later their grandchildren. The stories address children’s common concerns and aim to offer guidance on subjects like dentist visits, peer pressure, a new sibling or summer camp.

The first Berenstain Bears book, “The Big Honey Hunt,” was published in 1962. Over the years, more than 300 titles have been released in 23 languages — most recently in Arabic and Icelandic — and have become a rite of passage for generations of young readers.

“They say jokes don’t travel well, but family humor does,” said Jan Berenstain told The Associated Press in 2011. “Family values is what we’re all about.”

Stan and Jan Berenstain, both Philadelphia natives, were 18 when they met on their first day at art school in 1941.

They married in 1946, after Stan Berenstain returned home from serving as a medical illustrator at a stateside Army hospital during World War II. During that time, Jan Berenstain worked as a draftsman for the Army Corps of Engineers and as a riveter building Navy seaplanes.

Before their family of bear books was born, the young couple had already built a successful career in periodicals. A cartoon series they produced called “All in the Family” ran in McCall’s and Good Housekeeping magazines for 35 years, and their art appeared in magazines including Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post.

Stan and Jan Berenstain created hundreds of books until Stan Berenstain’s death in 2005 at the age of 82.

Mike Berenstain is an illustrator who collaborated on the books with his mother in recent years. His elder brother, writer Leo Berenstain, is involved with the business end of the family franchise.

The books in recent years have tackled modern subjects such as online safety and childhood obesity, and the bears (or their human helpers) answer children’s emails and letters, but the goal is to tell enduring, universal stories. Perennial favorites cover challenges of getting kids to doing chores, defuse fears of the first day of school and teach values of kindness and generosity.

“It’s wonderful to do something you love for so many years,” Jan Berenstain told the AP in 2011. “Not everyone has that.”

About 260 million copies of Berenstain Bears books have been held in the hands of children and their parents since the earliest books were published with the help of Theodor Geisel, a children’s books editor at Random House better known as Dr. Seuss.

Mike Berenstain said his mother worked daily at her home studio in an idyllic part of Bucks County, north of Philadelphia, which served as inspiration for the books’ setting. He said he will continue writing and illustrating future Berenstain books.

“Every day she was very productive,” he said. “She was working on two books and had been doing illustrations until the day before she passed away.”

Jan Berenstain is survived by her two sons and four grandchildren.

(Via Associated Press)

Letters in the Mail is his new venture, in which for $5 a month, subscribers will receive three to four letters from people like author Dave Eggers, comedian Margaret Cho, graphic novelist Dean Haspiel and novelist and TV producer, Jonathan Ames. The first letter comes from Elliot himself.

But what’s inside these letters are actually very short stories. Already 1,500 people have subscribed in a matter of weeks. Elliot was inspired by the Brooklyn outfit One Story, which send one story per week for $21 a year.

The letters are made to look authentic by having doodles, real signatures and return addresses. Just sign up and they’ll be in a mailbox near you.

Stephen Colbert

“Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t like children or books or children’s books but I do respect the free market and children’s books do sell.” -Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert recently joked on The Colbert Report about his distaste for children’s books but that isn’t stopping him from publishing one in May. When Colbert sat down with legendary children’s author Maurice Sendak, he asked him to critique his book geared towards the younger market, I Am a Pole (and So Can You!). Maurice grudgingly commented, “The sad thing is, I like it.” According to GalleyCat, Grand Central Publishing snapped up the rights to the book. Colbert commented, “It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to write a children’s book. I hope the minutes you and your loved ones spend reading it are as fulfilling as the minutes I spent writing it.”

(images via Comedy Central)

J.K. Rowling

Critically acclaimed bestselling author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling has just inked a deal with Little, Brown for an adult novel. Details about the novel and the release date were not announced but Rowling did make a statement regarding the new deal.

“Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world,” Rowling said in a statement released by Little, Brown. “The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry’s success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher. I am delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life.”

Rowling will now be joining the same publishing house that currently publishes Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally popular TWILIGHT series. Rowling will not have to win over a new audience, as many Harry Potter fans are adults and those who started reading her series when they were children, are now adults as well. This should be an exciting venture for Rowling, Little, Brown, and her fans.

From Publishers Weekly:

J.K. Rowling has a new book…and it’s not for kids. The author has signed a world English deal with Little, Brown, selling print, e-book and audio rights to her first novel for adults. David Shelley, publisher of the Little Brown Book Group in the U.K., will be editing the work, which is currently untitled; he brokered the deal with Neil Blair of The Blair Partnership. Rumors have surfaced that Little, Brown was given an exclusive on the work.

Michael Pietsch, publisher of Little, Brown in the U.S., will be handling the American publication of the novel.

LB said that, along with the book’s title, it will announce a publication date, and plot details, later in the year.

This news comes after much speculation about Rowling’s next moves in the publishing world. Last year, she announced Pottermore, a new Web site that would offer a deeper window into the Harry Potter universe. Pottermore launched in beta in October 2011 and, as a solo project. involving no publisher, it hinted that Rowling might be looking to leverage her brand outside of the print system that made her famous. (The site has still not gone live in any official capacity.) This deal, however, indicated that the author is, for the moment at least, seemingly not done with traditional publishing.

“The technology I like is the American paperback edition of Freedom. I can spill water on it and it would still work! So it’s pretty good technology. And what’s more, it will work great 10 years from now. So no wonder the capitalists hate it. It’s a bad business model,” Franzen said, during a press conference at the Festival in which he spoke about a number of different topics including President Obama, the financial system and the lack of Religion in his work and he also had plenty to say about the future of the book.

“Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book, I’m handling a specific object in a specific time and place. The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing – that’s reassuring.”

Jonathan Franzen has a forthcoming book of essays “Farther Away” coming out in April. The title piece is his reflections on the suicide of his best friend and writer David Foster Wallace, who would have celebrated his 50th birthday yesterday.

Gyllenhaal is up for the part of Denise Lambert, the talented bisexual young chef and family mediator. Gerwig would play Julia Vrais, middle child and Chip’s married girlfriend and Ifans would play Julia’s Lithuanian husband, Gitnas, in a cameo. Bruce Norris, playwright (Clybourne Park) and theatre actor is in talks to play Banker and amateur photographer, Gary Lambert.

The show, which will be written by Franzen, has already cast Diane Weist and Chris Cooper as Enid and Alfred Lambert. Ewan McGregor has also been casted to play the peter pan like Chip Lambert, the most outwardly screwed up member of the Lambert Family of St. Jude, Missouri.

It is rumored that the show will air in 2013 and will be produced by Scott Rudin (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.)

The pilot is about a Jewish family living in Washington, D.C. It has been described as“politically, religiously, culturally, intellectually, and sexually irreverent.”

Alan Alda is in talks to play Ben Stiller’s father, making the first time he’ll be on a series regular since M*A*S*H*.