So what goes into bringing a number one best seller like Kathryn Stockett‘s The Help to the big screen? A good script is essential but set design is certainly the biggest component to transporting an audience back in time to the deep south of the sixties. According to Cinema Style, the inspiration for many of the interior shots for the movie came from the book Under Live Oaks by Caroline Seebohm and Peter Woloszynski as well as old Better Homes and Gardens magazines and referencing the movie version of  Gone With The Wind.

Designed by production designer Mark Ricker (Nanny Diaries and Julie and Julia) and set decorator Rena Angelo, the houses of the five characters are as diverse as the characters themselves. … Ricker found the book in particular to be “wonderfully rich in details and worked quite nicely to inform Skeeter and Celia Foote’s houses – both of which would have more history and layers than the newer houses in the film (Hilly and Elizabeth’s).”

You can view a few of the interior set shots and read the full post here.  The Help opens nationwide this Wednesday, August 10th.

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Summer is here and one book to movie I am most looking forward to is Kathryn Stockett’s The Help due in theaters August 12th.  Here is some behind the scene footage just to get you primed.

Of the six books pitched this year, I must say I’m most drawn to  Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus pitched by Alison Callahan, Executive Editor, Doubleday. Callahan recalls how her heart started banging after reading the first 30 pages of Morgenstern’s manuscript.  Finishing the manuscript some five hours later in the Random House cafeteria, she knew she had to have this book. The novel is set at the turn of the 19th century in a circus, a circus unlike any you or I have ever been to before.  Black and white tents pop up in the middle of the night, anywhere in the world, without warning.  Each tent holds a unique amazement.  The heart of the story is about a dual between two magicians who must keep fighting until there is only one left standing. The trouble is they fall in love.  Callahan uses words like “feast for the senses”, “like reading in 3D”, “a great big romantic spell casting love story”, “it’s for everyone…13 to 80 years olds”.  The book comes out on September 13th, its been sold to 25 countries and the film rights have been snapped up by Summit Entertainment.  Can’t wait to enter The Night Circus.

I’ve provided the link if you wish to view the entire 1 hour presentation of  BEA Editor’s Buzz session http://bookexpocast.com/2011/05/24/2011-bea-editors-buzz/

Below, author Erin Morgenstern signs copies of The Night Circus for BEA attendees. (via Shelf Awareness)

What books are the librarians loving this season?  Emma Donoghue‘s The Room, Susan Henderson’s Up From The Blue and Tom Franklin‘s Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. Already on the NY Times bestseller list coupled with a stellar audio version, Donoghue’s Room looks to be ‘the’ book of the fall season.  ~via Earlyword

Calling all Henning Mankell fans.  Wallender is back!  Faceless Killers, the first of this years three part Wallender II series aired last Sunday on PBS?   If you missed out, fear not.  You still have time to tune in and catch The Man Who Smiled which airs this Sunday, October 10th followed by The Fifth Women on  October 17th.

In case you’re wondering just who is Mario Vargas Llosa, the winner of this year’s Nobel prize for literature. Book Beast comes to the rescue by telling  you all you need to know about this prolific Peruvian novelist.

Several good books have been adapted into good movies and are showing now.  The American, Never Let Me Go, The Town, Freakonomics, The Social Network, Secretariat, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest (10/29).

For book clubs in need of filling out their reading calendar,  Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) announced their Great Group Reads 2010.  The website states

These titles were selected on the basis of their appeal to reading groups for whom they are bound to open up lively conversations about a host of timely and provocative topics, from the intimate dynamics of family and personal relationships to major cultural and world issues.

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Here are some great shots of Reese Witherspoon playing the part of avid horsewoman, Marlena Rosenbluth, in the film adaptation of Sara Gruen‘s very popular novel ‘Water For Elephants’.  Film production began last month.  Other cast members are: Robert Pattinson as Jacob Jankowski, Christoph Waltz as August, Mark Povinelli as Kinko/Walter,  Jim Norton as Camel, Hal Holbrook as old Jacob Jankowski and Tai as Rosie.   Release date is set for 2011.

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‘Winter’s Bone’ is a new art-house movie that is getting rave reviews.   It is adapted from Daniel Woodrell’s eighth novel of the same name.   Set in the Missouri Osarks, ‘Winter’s Bone’ tells a grim tale of a daughter’s search for her meth- cookin’ dad who has missed his court appearance thus putting the family home in jeopardy.

In an 2007 interview with Barbara Peters of Poison Pen Press and Bookstore, Woodrell, a crime writer known for his sleazy characters and white trash settings, reveals his fondness for 30′s and 40′s noir and first person voice.  “It’s a voice that allows my character’s ambition to do something that they know they shouldn’t be doing.  Something that in the end tests their fate and character and brings dramatic forces to bare.”

6/18/10 Seattle Times:   ‘Winter’s Bone’ made in part by Seattleites, hits it big on art-house movie circuit.

Ang Lee’s newest movie, Taking Woodstock, (based on Elliot Tiber’s memoir) is set to be released later this month in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of upstate New York’s most infamous music festival.  To get yourself in the right 60′s frame of mind, go to the  FilmInFocus website and transform a photo of yourself into a psychedelic poster (You know you want to.)

Click here to purchase this book from your favorite Indie Bookseller

A surprise best seller when it was first released in 2003, this novel is a love story about a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to travel through time and the emotional toll his unexpected absences take on his wife.  Now this is what I call one serious case of the left behinds.