The finalists for the 33rd annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize have been revealed, and we’ve collected free samples of all their books below–some of the best books released in 2012. Here’s more about the awards:

“The winners of the L.A. Times book prizes will be announced at an awards ceremony April 19, the evening before the L.A. Times Festival of Books, April 20-21. Held on USC’s campus in Bovard Auditorium, the awards are open to the public; tickets will be made available in late March.”

Read more

We’ve collected the books debuting on Indiebound’s Indie Bestseller List for the week ending September 16, 2012. Reported by independent booksellers around the country, the list gives you a peek at the books everybody will be talking about next month.

(Debuted at #2 in Hardcover Fiction) Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon: “When ex–NFL quarterback Gibson Goode, the fifth-richest black man in America, announces plans to build his latest Dogpile megastore on a nearby stretch of Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear it means certain doom for their vulnerable little enterprise.” (September 2012)

(Debuted at #2 in Hardcover Nonfiction) The Price of Politics by Bob Woodward: “The Price of Politics chronicles the inside story of how President Obama and the U.S. Congress tried, and failed, to restore the American economy and set it on a course to fiscal stability. It spans the three and a half tumultuous years beginning just before Obama’s inauguration in early 2009 and lasting through the summer of 2012.” (September 2012)

Read more

Disney’s John Carter has bombed at the box office, a blow for novelist Michael Chabon. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist had co-written the script for the film, achieving a 17-year-old dream to make a movie script about Mars.

We’ve embedded the trailer above–did you see the film? The New York Times compared the failure to the most famous movie flop in recent history, Ishtar.

Check it out: “John Carter, which cost an estimated $350 million to make and market, and was directed by Mr. Stanton, took in about $30.6 million at the North American box office, according to Rentrak, which compiles box-office data. That result is so poor that analysts estimate that Disney will be forced to take a quarterly write-down of $100 million to $165 million.”

Read more

In a series of recent tweets, novelist Ayelet Waldman bashed author Katie Roiphe–defending her husband, Michael Chabon, in the Twittersphere.

Here is the complete set of tweets: “I am so BORED with Katie Roiphe’s ‘I like the sexist drunk writers’ bull****. She happily trashes my husband, but guess what b****? … He not only writes rings and rings and rings around you, but the same rings around your drunken literary love objects … Really Roiphe? You seek ‘slightly greater obsession w/ the sublime sentence.’ My husband’s sentences are INFINITELY more sublime than yours.”

She ended the Twitter tirade with this note: “I do not like it when people insult those I love.”

Read more

Michael Chabon (pictured, via) and Ayelet Waldman will collaborate on an HBO drama called Hobgoblin.

Here’s more from Variety: “[It is] an offbeat drama project at HBO that revolves around a motley group of conmen and magicians who use their skills at deception to battle Hitler and his forces during WWII.”

The married couple will write the script and act as executive producers together. This endeavor marks the first time the two have worked together as professionals.

Read more

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon is the new chairman of the MacDowell Colony’s board of directors.

The nine-time MacDowell Colony fellow had this statement: “MacDowell is a miracle that has come through for me many times over the years. Serving as board chair gives me the opportunity to repay my indebtedness just a tiny bit.”

Chabon (pictured, via Stephanie Rausser) will succeed Robert MacNeil. Chabon will tackle MacDowell’s $13 million Campaign for the Second Century, a project to fortify the Colony’s endowment and fund a new library and media center.

Read more

In an upcoming edition of McSweeney’s, novelist Michael Chabon will publish the first four chapters of Fountain City–a “wrecked” novel Chabon abandoned in 1992. The booklet-sized paperback is 93 pages long, including author annotations and a poster jacket of a Leon Krier painting.

In the  preface to the paperback (pictured),  Chabon described the 1,500-page manuscript about “a poetically sad young man who apprenticed himself to a visionary, postmodern architect.”   McSweeney’s 36 will be released on December 7th–a 275-cubic-inch box containing writings from debut novelist Adam Levin, actor Jesse Eisenberg, and author Colm Toibin.

We wish more writers would give us a glimpse of abandoned manuscripts. Chabon offered aspiring writers some advice about advances  (which he admitted he didn’t follow). Here’s an excerpt: “Don’t take advances; sell your work only when it is complete. A monetary obligation to one’s publisher places all kinds of undue pressure, both subtle and overt, on the writer, chief among them the aforementioned pressure to persist on a f***ed project well beyond the point of reason.”

This year’s New Yorker Festival took place last weekend.  Twitter fans at the festival used the hashtag, #tnyfestival.

On Saturday, Joan Acocella (author of the vampire essay, “In the Blood”) moderated the Vampires Revival panel. On board to speak were philosophy professor Noel Carroll, horror novelist Stephen King, vampire film director Matt Reeves, and Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg. A video preview of the panel discussion is embedded above.

Several dozen King fans waited outside the venue only to be disappointed by King’s unwillingness to sign books. As he walked away with his arms in the air, he told the crowd: “I can’t sign guys, I got to get something to eat.” Alas, just because he’s a “king” doesn’t mean he isn’t human.

Read more

This week HarperCollins promoted Michael McKenzie to senior publicity director at Ecco.

Harper director of publicity Tina Andreadis announced the promotion in a staff memo. The Ecco imprint publishes a varied list of big-time authors, including: Russell Banks, Anthony Bourdain, and Charles Bukowski.

Here’s an excerpt: “Over the past three years at Ecco, Michael has delivered stellar campaigns–from the incredibly successful ‘The Story of Edgar Sawtelle,’ every Joyce Carol Oates book (and there are many!), to most recently, the amazing coverage for Patti Smith‘s book, ‘Just Kids.’ In addition to the Ecco list, Michael delivers wonderful campaigns for the Harper imprint, most notably all of Michael Chabon‘s works. Michael is dedicated to his authors and consistently delivers fabulous results.”

Disney has stopped production on a projected $150-million adaptation of a classic Jules Verne novel, a script co-written by novelist Michael Chabon (pictured, via).

According to the LA Times, Walt Disney Studios head Rich Ross axed the project that began under his predecessor; an adaptation entitled: “Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” The film studio had already spent a reported $10 million assembling the crew for the movie. Towards the end of the article, an anonymous source speculated that production could eventually resume.

Here’s more from the article: “Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,’ had just written a draft of the Burbank studio’s forthcoming production ‘John Carter of Mars,’ an adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel and the first live-action film to be directed by Pixar Animation Studios director Andrew Stanton.” (Via.)