If you’re like most booksellers, you celebrated Labor Day by working.

If you spent you holiday weekend selling books to folks who weren’t working, you may have missed these interesting bits of Internet flotsam.

Nobody is really sure who is going to direct a film adaptation of Hunger Games, but everyone is pretty sure that the lead will be played by Kick-Ass’ Hit Girl. She’ll definitely have to tone down the potty mouth if this film is to get a PG-13 or younger rating.

The New Yorker eviscerates Rhonda Byrne, The Secret and the mega-cottage industry it has spawned.

The new Odd Couple: he digs his iPad, she likes old-fashioned books. Can two readers devoted to different content delivery systems live in the same apartment without driving each other crazy?

Speaking of Hit-Girl, the actress who plays her (and possibly Hunger Games’ Katniss), Chloe Grace Moretz, is playing the eternally prepubescent vampire in the American remake of Let the Right One In, now titled Let Me In.

Okay, this isn’t exactly new. I had avoided looking at this for a long time, but it turns out my fears may be unwarranted. As long as they don’t tack on a Hollywood ending, it should be pretty good. Check out the trailer and see if you agree. If you haven’t seen the Swedish film of Let the Right One In…do it…now!

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AMC, the basic cable channel that brought us Mad Men, will tackle Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic The Walking Dead (published by Image Comics), turning it into a live-action series.

Yes, I am tired of all the zombie mash-ups, but this is a good old-fashioned hordes of undead trying to turn the survivors into Meow Mix.

Appropriate, the series will premiere on Halloween, which I guess will become National Speak Like a Zombie Day.

Fortunately, there’s enough time to stock up on the twelve volumes (so far) of Walking Dead graphic novels. They’re already selling like hotcakes, so it’s not hard to imagine their sales skyrocketing once these zombies star to strut their stuff.

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Wow! I’m trying to remember the last time THREE high-profile movies opened on the same day. It could have happened last week, but I still don’t remember.

And it’s a pretty diverse triumvirate of films: there is the action fanboy movie The Expendables (starring Stallone, Willis, & Schwarzenegger in a team-up that is coming out about 25 years too late) to pull in the guys. There is Eat, Pray, Love, which is some memoir I think Oprah my have plugged a while back, to pull in the women. And then there is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which my prove to be the spoiler for either of these making mega-lucre.

I don’t doubt that the latter two films will draw lots of new readers to their source material. As for The Expendables, well, there is a graphic novel based on the film if that strikes your fancy.

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Last night I got to see an advance screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and, unlike certain adaptations of graphic novels I adore (*ahem * Watchmen), this just blew me away.

I don’t want to go into too much detail over it, but let’s just say that as these things go, it’s pitch perfect, and will play very well to the coveted 18-30 male demographic (although the women present were there enjoying themselves as well).

The advice I have to offer is this: no matter how many copies you have in stock of these books, it won’t be enough.  I had a chance to speak to somebody in the know, and he told me that the moment a 100k print run lands at Diamond Book Distributor (who distribute this Oni publication to the retail book trade), it’s already spoken for.

The movie opens up on Friday…order up while you can.

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It’s bad enough that we have to wait over a year longer for the American publication of Haruki Murakami’s new novel 1Q84, but now a mere slip of a teaser trailer has been released for the film adaptation of his first successful novel Norwegian Wood.

It’s due to be released in Japan in December, which means we should be getting it right around the time 1Q84 is published in English.

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The fact that Amazon has introduced (yet another) faster, cheaper Kindle, or that Anne Rice, after ditching vampires for Christ, has decided to ditch Christianity as well?

Instead, how about killing some time before the weekend watching the trailer for Howl, the story of Allen Ginsberg’s landmark obscenity trial about a poem that isn’t available in a Kindle edition.

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Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour hit the streets (in most places) on Tuesday to the delight of legions of Scottaholics.

Check out the picture below at the release party held in Scott’s stomping ground of Toronto, where an estimated 2000 lined up to meet Scott Pilgrim’s creator, Bryan Lee O’Malley.

If you think it’s crazy now, wait until the movie comes out next month. O’Malley, on his blog, gives the soundtrack to the film a listen, comparing the cuts he suggested with those suggested by director Edgar Wright. I have to admit that Frank Blank’s I Heard Ramona Sing often popped into my head as I was reading this series.

Maybe, just maybe, this film will enthrall a tidal wave of girls into thinking that slacker boys who spend way too much time playing videogames are far more interesting than pigeon-chested vampires that sparkle in sunlight, sparking a new trend and making people forget ol’ whatshisname.

(Photo via radiomaru.com)

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Here’s a video primer to get you ready for both Tuesday’s release of the final volume in the series, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour (Oni PB 9781934964385 $11.99), and the film adaptation due August 13th. There are a few spoilers if you prefer to not know such intimate details of a movie before you see it, but if you’re clueless about the phenomenon (okay, that’s too strong of a word if you compare it to Twilight).

(via io9)

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It’s already beginning. Although it’s not scheduled to release until August, the hoopla surrounding the film Eat, Pray, Love, based on the megaselling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, is kicking into high gear.

Carolyn Kellogg, blogging over at Jacket Copy, describes the circus that was a press screening. Not of the entire film, but of a mere 21 minute edit of it.

In addition to the invited guests, there were a  variety of vendors, hawking their wares that tie into the film. None of the vendors are actually featured in the film, but they offer everything from Lonely Planet travel guides to fashion and accessories to guided tours to the three ports of call that Gilbert visited in her book (Italy, India, Bali).

Who needs self-discovery when Cost Plus and the Home Shopping Network can help.

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Johnny Depp, who channeled Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo vibe to astounding effect in Terry Gilliam’s film of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas steps again into the good doctor’s shoes in this upcoming adaptation of The Rum Diary.

The Rum Diary was released towards the end of Thompson’s life, and was a thinly veiled biography exploring time he spent in Cuba in the late 50’s.

I’m intrigued, as I haven’t read this book. I kinda lost interest in Thompson when he didn’t have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore (although he did get  a few good licks in on the Reagan administration).

What makes this even more intriguing is that the film is directed by Bruce Robinson, who directed Whithnail & I and How To Get Ahead In Advertising.

(via EW Popwatch)

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