Legendary musician Burt Bacharach has landed a book deal with HarperCollins. Bacharach will collaborate with journalist Robert Greenfield on the book, Anyone Who Had a Heart. Publication is set for November 2012.

Publisher Jonathan Burnham and executive editor Claire Wachtel negotiated the deal with Intellectual Property Group literary agents Amy Schiffman and Brian Lipson.

Here’s more from the release: “As powerful and moving as Burt Bacharach’s most unforgettable songs, Anyone Who Had a Heart will provide readers with a backstage pass to a world of show business that no longer exists. It will also give them an up close and personal look at the life of an artist whose incredible body of work has earned him a unique position in the American cultural landscape while also providing the sound track for the lives of millions of devoted fans all over the world.”

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Simon & Schuster imprint Atria Books has acquired the English language rights for Le Second Souffle (Second Wind) by Philippe Pozzo di Borgo.

In 2001, Pozzo di Borgo published his memoir in his native France. The book inspired the 2011 French film adaptation titled Intouchables (Untouchables); the movie has become a big hit in France with almost 14 million ticket sales. Above, we’ve embedded the film’s theatrical trailer.

Here’s more from the release: “In Second Wind, Philippe recounts his story of being left a quadriplegic after a paragliding accident, which transformed him in an instant from an aristocratic business and social leader into a helpless and tragic figure, an ‘untouchable’ in contemporary society. Eventually, he hired an unlikely caregiver—an unemployed, hot-headed, uninhibited Algerian immigrant who turned out to be just as lost and lonely as Philippe, and who was instrumental in helping him return to the world of the living.”

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Focus Features has released the first official trailer for a film adaptation of Nick Flynn‘s memoir, Another Bulls**t Night In Suck City. We’ve embedded the trailer above–what do you think?

According to Deadline, Oscar nominated-director Paul Weitz helmed the project and co-wrote the screenplay. The film will hit theaters in spring 2012.

Here’s more from Fandango: “The movie has undergone several title changes over the past year, beginning with its crude Another Bulls**t Night in Suck City to Another Night to let’s shelve this thing for a couple months and revisit it another day. Alas, we’ve arrived at the rather benign compromise of Being Flynn which finds Robert DeNiro playing a brilliant but troubled writer/father who through some fated coincidence meets a twenty-something man (Paul Dano) who works at a homeless shelter in Boston. The twist – the young man is his son!”

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The Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) dedicated an entire week of essays to Joan Didion and her new memoir Blue Nights. Six writers shared their thoughts about the new book; one essay was published each day this week.

The group includes LARB senior fiction editor Matthew Specktor, Take One Candle Light a Room author Susan Straight, literary journalism professor Amy Wilentz, Cool Shades author Amy Emphron and LA Times columnist Meghan Daum. The last piece, written by Los Angeles Without a Map novelist Richard Rayner, will be published tomorrow.

LARB editor-in-chief Tom Lutz gave this statement in the release: “Didion is an icon of literary L.A. despite living in New York much of her life. In 1976 she wrote that ‘[t]o shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.’ That attention to style, structure, perspective, and meaning animates the essays we’re featuring this week.”

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Controversial rock star Courtney Love has landed a deal with HarperCollins’ William Morrow imprint for a “tell-all” memoir. The music video embedded above features Love singing with her band, Hole.

Love will collaborate with writer Anthony Bozza on this project. In the past, Bozza has co-authored books with musical artists Tommy Lee, Slash and INXS. Deputy publisher Lynn Grady negotiated the deal with literary agent David Vigliano.

Here’s more from the release: “Although Love is often associated with deceased husband, music legend and front man of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, she has had an incredible artistic career of her own crisscrossing into music, film, popular culture, and fashion…The as yet untitled memoir will offer a no-holds-barred look into Love’s life from childhood to the present day.”

RadarOnline.com speculated this weekend that Maria Shriver could receive $15 million or more for a hypothetical tell-all book after her divorce from former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Despite the provocative post, Shriver has not expressed any desire to write such a book.

Here’s more from the article: “One top publishing exec told RadarOnline.com that California’s former First Lady could garner more than the all-time advance record, the $15 million paid to Bill Clinton for his memoir, My Life … But a tell-all about growing up a Kennedy and especially her life with the cheating Arnold and learning he fathered a child by their maid, that’s a whole different story — literally — and it could set sales records.”

Shriver has written three nonfiction titles and three picture books. Her 2000 title, Ten Things I’d Wish I’d Known Before I Went Out Into The Real World, was based on a commencement address she gave at the College of the Holy Cross. Shriver has also established a successful career as a television journalist with two Emmy Award wins under her belt.

Oscar-winning actress Melissa Leo (pictured, via) has signed with Simon & Schuster to publish her memoir.

The title is slated for release in 2013. Executive editor Priscilla Painton negotiated the deal with Trident Media Group CEO Dan Strone.

Leo had this statement in the press release: “My work requires that I inhabit other people’s lives but my memoir demands that I take on the toughest role of my career – playing myself.  I will give it my whole heart and soul.”

Osama Bin Laden‘s death was carried out by a group of United States Navy SEALs called Team Six. Past member, Howard E. Wasdin, signed a book deal with St. Martin’s Press one year ago. In light of current events, the publisher is preparing for wide spread interest in the title.

On May 24th Wasdin’s memoir, SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper, will be released. Publishers Weekly reports that the memoir will have full national distribution by the middle of next week.

The book was co-authored by Meio University professor Stephen Templin. According to the description, the book talks about Wasdin’s entrance into military service and a past mission concerning Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

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In a Psychology Today essay, Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother’s Compulsive Hoarding author Jessie Sholl criticized Mark Medley‘s “Confessions of a Book Hoarder” essay as “flippant and smirky.”

Sholl (pictured, via) wrote about how we misuse the term “hoarder” in popular culture–disrespecting people who suffer from  the mental disorder. What do you think?

Sholl explained: “Just because you have a lot of books, that doesn’t mean you’re a bibliomaniac. Can you walk through the room in which your books are stored? Have you depleted any of your life savings on these books? … Since my memoir came out, numerous people have confessed to me that they think they’re hoarders, too … you might have packed bookcases and, yes, too many books, but that doesn’t mean you’re a book hoarder.”

In his new memoir, Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock, Sammy Hagar recounts his early hard times on welfare, his adventures with rock band Van Halen, and an experience with extraterrestrials.

The video embedded above features Hagar and the book’s co-author, Joel Selvin.

Jacket Copy posted this excerpt from the memoir: “I saw a ship and two creatures inside of this ship. I couldn’t see their faces. I just knew that there were two intelligent creatures, sitting up in a craft in the Lytle Creek forest area about twelve miles away in the foothills above Fontana. And they were connected to me…” What do you think?