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Reese Witherspoon will produce an adaptation of J. Courtney Sullivan‘s The Engagements, a novel that won’t be published until June 11. Deadline Hollywood had the scoop:

The novel tells a deeply romantic story that follows a diamond engagement ring from the 1930s to the present, connecting five very different relationships in surprising and unexpected ways. Witherspoon might be part of an ensemble cast.

Witherspoon is already working on adaptations of Wild by Cheryl Strayed (also published by Knopf) and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (published by Crown, another Random House imprint).

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This is the amusing, thoughtful, downright zany story of a young woman's eye-opening 1,000-plus-mile trek up the Pacific Crest Trail, all the way to the Bridge of the Gods. It inspired me to undertake my own hike — 10 miles on the Appalachian Trail. It was exhausting! Books mentioned in this post $17.95 Used Hardcover add [...]

Thriller novelist Gillian Flynn has just landed a “seven-figure” deal with 20th Century Fox for the movie rights to her bestseller, Gone Girl. The novelist will write the screenplay.

Reese Witherspoon, Bruna Papandrea and Leslie Dixon will produce the Gone Girl project. Witherspoon also optioned Wild by Cheryl Strayed earlier this year. If you want to explore the book, check out our Gone Girl library post.

Deadline Hollywood had the scoop: “Flynn, who has three novels on the bestseller lists all at once, has two other movie projects in the works. Dark Places has Amy Adams attached to star, with Gilled Paquet-Brenner directing and her first novel, Sharp Objects, was optioned by Alliance with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum producing.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Goodreads has opened up voting for the 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards, a contest in which readers can decide on the best books of the year. Books up for nomination include titles from Junot Díaz, Barbara Kingsolver, Damien Echols, Cheryl Strayed, Baratunde Thurston and many more.

The site, which now counts 12 million members, has nominated 15 books in each category and users are invited to vote on their favorites. The nominees are based on the number of ratings and average ratings on the site. Here is more from the Goodreads blog: “We analyzed statistics from the 170 million books added, rated, and reviewed on the site in 2012 and nominated books based on the number of ratings and average rating. A nomination is truly an honor because it comes straight from the readers!”

This opening round of voting lasts through November 12th. Readers will have two more chances to vote after this round.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

With 11,525 votes, The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling has won the Best Fiction award at the Goodreads Choice Awards. Earning 20,328 votes, Veronica Roth was named Best Goodreads Author for Insurgent.

We’ve collected all the winners below, each winner nominated and picked by Goodreads users.

What do you think of the choices?

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

I know this title is everywhere right now. I was very fortunate to get an advanced copy, and I immediately fell in love. Why? Well, like many, my favorite books are those that seem to have been written just for me. I deeply understood the raw ache of grief, anger, and loneliness. I wanted to [...]

When I was 21 I saw the movie Henry and June in Minneapolis and was so affected by it I walked straight from the theater to a bookstore, where I purchased every book written by Anaïs Nin they had in stock. And so began my years-long obsession with Nin's diaries. She published volumes and volumes [...]

Yesterday was Wild's publication day — the day my book was released into the world and available in bookstores and online across the land. In my Sugar column, Tiny Beautiful Things I wrote: "Your book has a birthday. You don't know what it is yet." That's true enough, but I've known for months that March [...]

Last night I had my launch reading for Wild at the Powell's downtown store. I felt overwhelmed with emotion when I saw the room was packed full. Writing is solitary work, it's true, but it's also work that has brought so many people into my life.Writing is solitary work, it's true, but it's also work [...]

I've arrived at the final post in my stint as guest blogger for Powell's. It's been a hectic, joyous, exhausting and exhilarating week.It's been a hectic, joyous, exhausting and exhilarating week. Often, as I dashed from one thing to the next, I wrote these posts in my head and then found once I actually got [...]

Cheryl Strayed discusses the experience of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and the experience of writing about it almost two decades later.

Oprah Winfrey relaunched her book club today, celebrating Wild by Cheryl Strayed in a video about “Book Club 2.0.” The New York Times broke the news with a Winfrey video and story.

“I was reading this book. As a real book. Holding up the book. I was on the edge of my seat reading the book and I was like, ‘Where is The Oprah Winfrey Show when you need to announce and tell everybody about this book? I need the book club.’ So I created Book Club 2.0 for this book, Wild by Cheryl Strayed!” cheered Winfrey, waving the book in a video presentation.

The new club will feature social media components, annotated eBooks and be tied in with Winfrey’s cable station.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Oprah’s Book Club is back with a new, more modern approach to the club. According to information released by Oprah herself, the club will be much more interactive online and will utilize all the social networking outlets like Twitter (using the hashtag #oprahsbookclub), Facebook, and Oprah.com. Oprah will be taking questions from readers online and using them in her July 22nd interview with Cheryl Strayed, author of WILD, the first pick of Oprah’s Book Club 2.0.

“I love this book,” Oprah writes in the July issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. “I want to shout it from the mountaintop. I want to shout it from the Web. In fact, I love this book so much and want to talk about tit so much, I knew I had to reinvent my book club.”

According to the New York Times, Oprah will bring back the sticker on the jacket of printed books and is expected to make several selections each year.

Bookfinds will be following the each and every move of Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 and will be reading along with everyone! Stay tuned for quotes, posts, interviews and more!

We could not be more thrilled about the return of the book club and are looking forward to the adventures ahead! So let’s get reading!

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

“A world I thought would both make me into the woman I knew I could become and turn me back into the girl I had once been” – Cheryl Strayed

Summary:

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

Today Amazon editors revealed their picks for the best books of the year so far. The top ten books on the list were all published by the Big Six publishers–no Amazon Publishing, indie presses or self-published titles.

The editors also picked their top ten books in all the popular categories: biographies & memoirs, business & investing, cookbooks, food & wine, crafts, hobbies & home, literature & fiction, mystery & thrillers, nonfiction, romance, science fiction & fantasy, comics & graphic novels, and teens,  middle grade and picture books for kids.

Here’s more from Amazon: “Customers can also enter the Best Books of the Year So Far Sweepstakes on the Amazon.com Books Facebook page through July 23 for a chance to win one of 10 Kindle Fire devices, each accompanied by a $100 Amazon.com Gift Card. There is no purchase necessary to enter. Must be a legal resident of the 50 United States or D.C., 18 or over. Learn more [here] and enter for a chance to win.”

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Recently, I ran into a writer acquaintance a week before her first book — a memoir — was to be published. When she saw me, she screamed. "I'm terrified," she said a moment later, clutching onto me. "Are you terrified? Please tell me you're terrified." "Yes," I replied with more equanimity than I felt. "How [...]