If this early review posted on Anne Thompson’s blog at Variety.com is any indication, Sam Mendes’ adaptation of Richard Yates’ 1961ode to suburban angst Revolutionary Road (Vintage PB 9780375708442 $14.95) could be this year’s prestige picture.

Stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have both grown as actors since their Titanic days, and the material is right up Mendes’ alley. And everywhere I’m turning, readers are discovering (or rediscovering) this novel, completely unaware that a movie is coming out.

Of course, now that Vintage is selling copies with the sticker saying “soon to be a major motion picture”, this will probably happen less and less.

I can’t imagine that somebody would bandy about phrases like I daresay it may be a modern classic lightly. Well, if you’re one of those film critic blurb-whores maybe. But I think this film is going to shift a lot of units over the holidays and beyond as we go into Oscar season (think No Country For Old Men).

Here’s the trailer to help you kill some time as you ease into your weekend.

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It was only a matter of time before before publishers would find a way to cash in on the current economic downturn. Time looks into this new wave of titles (along with a few updated classics).

While updating a book like Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin makes perfect sense, paying a ton of cash for new titles in such sour times seems ludicrous.

According to the article: Within a span of 48 hours, Penguin imprints scooped up three of the hottest gets, shelling out millions in advances.

Yes, shooting first and asking questions later has worked so well for this country. I guess they have to spend their Eat Pray Love & Three Cups of Tea lucre.

However, my favorite personal finance book was overlooked in this article: How to Profit From the Coming Rapture: Getting Ahead When You’re Left Behind By Steve and Evie Levy (LB PB 9780316017305 $12.99). The real funny thing about this book is that when I show it to people, there is a fifty-fifty split between folks who get the joke and others who think it is dead serious.

(Via BookNinja)

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There is a great interview with Haruki Murakami over at the SF Chronicle.

It doesn’t cover a whole lot of new ground, but his description of writing process, as well as his view of the post-9/11 world, make it well worth looking at.

(Via io9)

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I love strange juxtapositions.

For example, next time you’re in the checkout line at a supermarket, look at the magazines targeted towards the average hausfrau. I guarantee that on the cover of these you’ll see not only a miracle diet (Lose 60 Pounds in 60 Days) being featured, but also a delicious chocolate cake recipe.

So today, as I’m reading my RSS feed, I see that GalleyCat has a feature about the recent night of the short knives at Doubleday, in which 16 jobs were sacrificed at the altar of publishing profitability.

Okay, fine enough, but when I look at the bottom of the piece, there is a link to New Career Opportunities Daily: The Best Jobs in Media.

I know this is the bottom of every article that is supplied by Media Bistro (the company that controls GalleyCat’s Meow Mix), but it was hard not to chortle at this unintended pairing.

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In Bellingham, WA, a pair of drunks interrupted a game of Magic: The Gathering at a comic book store, and, when they mooned the players, a window was shattered. Two of the players, aged 19 and 42, gave chase to the drunks and proceeded to give them such a beat-down that their bat broke!

Read the full story (with video) here.

Perhaps, if the Magic players had a +3 bat it wouldn’t have broken.
(Via The Beat)

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Book uber-designer Chip Kidd unleashes Bat-Manga (Knopf PB 9780375714849 $29.95) with an event tonight at legendary Big Apple bookseller The Strand.

Bat-Manga is a collection of Japanese Batman comics, and let me tell you, this is not like any of the Detective Comics that you read growing up, or even last week.

Former Vertical first-stringer (now one-woman army of darkness) Anne Ishii handles the translation duties. For that reason alone, you must read it, buy multiple copies and give them to everyone you know this holiday season. She’s one of the coolest people I know, and each copy purchased will get her that much further out of Brooklyn and back into Manhattan.

And if that isn’t enticing enough, The New Yorker has a nice little write-up on it.

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It appears fantasy fiction prodigy and bestselling wunderkind Christopher Paolini has discovered the world of graphic novels.  While he was in our warehouse signing earlier this month, he rattled off several titles that he has read and enjoyed.  Want to know what they are?  Watch the clip below to find out!

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I was going to link to several well-written obituaries for the acclaimed mystery writer, but I think this video, posted with his LA Times‘ obit, really says it all.

Edit-sorry, the video was being cooperative yesterday, but is being fussy today. So instead, I’ll just link to the video. It’s worth the extra click.

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Heidi MacDonald over at PW’s The Beat has a piece about how this graphic novel by Alan Moore, maybe you’ve heard of it, it’s called Watchmen, despite selling around 10,000 copies a week since mid-July, still hasn’t appeared in the hallowed halls of the NY Times Bestsellers Lists.

The Times explanation is that they don’t cover every outlet that sells Watchmen (ie. comic book stores), so they can’t really tell. I guess every trade retailer selling it by the metric ton doesn’t really count.

But, they also say that they’re in the midst of compiling their own graphic novel bestseller list. Wouldn’t that still be to the exclusion of reporting by comic book stores? Or, will they send a staffer to Midtown Comics to see what has sold that week.

Personally, if Watchmen is good enough to make Time’s Best 100 All-Time Novels, it should be good enough for the NY Times list.

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Yes, just because he finished tormenting the Baudelaire orphans doesn’t mean that the rest of us are off the hook. According to Publishers Weekly, Herr Snicket has penned another holiday book The Lump of Coal, a picture book follow-up to the Hanukkah story The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming (is a Kwanzaa book waiting in the wings for next year?).

PW describes the book thusly: In his trademark glass-almost-completely-empty fashion, (snicket) writes about Christmas by anthropomorphizing the traditional gift left by Santa for very bad children.

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