Based on two anonymous sources, Shane Salerno’s forthcoming movie about the late J.D. Salinger 
and the tie-in book SALINGER co-written by Salerno and David Shields asserts that the late author instructed his estate to publish at least five posthumous books, “authorizing a specific timetable” for publication running from 2015 through 2020.
The NYT says the books are described as including “a novel set during World War II and based on his first marriage to Sylvia Welter, and a novella modeled on his own war experiences.” A story collection called THE FAMILY GLASS would expand previously published stories about the Glass family with five additional stories. Another title would rework the never-published story, The Last and Best of the Peter Pans. In a separate piece, Michiko Kakutani reviews the “revealing but often slapdash” book for the paper.
Elmore Leonard’s son Peter told the BBC that he has “discussed among family members” the idea of completing his father’s 46th novel, BLUE DREAMS. “I would, I think so,” Peter Leonard said — though he does not know how much of the book is already written.
Alan Warner’s novel THE DEADMAN’S PEDAL and Tanya Harrod’s THE LAST SANE MAN won the UK’s James Tait Black Memorial Prize in fiction and nonfiction, respectively.
The sexual harassment and workplace discrimination lawsuit filed against Paula Deen and her brother Bubba Hiers by Lisa Jackson (which led to the deposition of Deen disclosing racial epithets that resulted in cancelled contracts with the Food Network and Random House) has been dismissed after both sides agreed to an undisclosed settlement last week, WTOC reports. In a statement Deen said “while this has been a difficult time for both my family and myself, I am pleased that the Judge dismissed the race claims and I am looking forward to getting this behind me, now that the remaining claims have been resolved.”
Harper’s Zondervan unit will remain in Grand Rapids, MI but plans to relocate to a new building that is currently being retrofitted for their occupancy. The lease on their current offices expires at the end of January, 2014.
The opening of the movie version of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones was more Beautiful Creatures than Twilight. It ranked third in North American box office, with an estimated weekend gross of $9.3 million (for a total of $14 million since its Wednesday opening). Despite the soft opening, Sony Pictures — which distributed the title through Screen Gems, acquiring the $60 million production from Germany’s Constantin Film) — tells the WSJ that a sequel remains “on the drawing board.”