The upcoming HBO film based on Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the 1971 history of 19th century Native Americans by the late Dee Brown, is just that--based on the book--according to Ed Wyatt in today's New York Times. The biggest liberty taken: at its center "a new character: a man who was part Sioux, was educated at an Ivy League college and married a white woman." A film writer said such a character was needed "to carry a contemporary white audience through this project."

Brown's grandson, who said the estate has no control over the film's content--near the end of his life, Brown optioned the rights to the current producers--expressed unhappiness, to put it mildly.

--- 

To find out more about Shelf Awareness publisher Jenn Risko--her role in the industry, for example--go to the Book Industry Characters section on BEA's website.

--- 

BookExpo America aims to make itself attractive to bargain book buyers. 

"We are the second-largest remainder show in the country," show director Lance Fensterman told Bargain Book News. "There is a lot happening in remainders, and our show has responded to that by expanding what we offer to people in the bargain book side of the business. There's an extra day just for remainders on Thursday from 12 to 5 p.m. During that time, the BookExpo America show floor will open exclusively for remainder buyers and sellers, and no one else. The idea is to try to allow capitalism to happen a little bit quicker."

--- 

An NRA Show Celebrity Bookstore will be one of the new features at this year's National Restaurant Association's Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago. According to Fast Casual magazine, celebrity chefs and star restaurateurs in attendance will be autographing books available for purchase at the on-site bookstore.

---

Barnes & Noble has announced two more store openings:

• One store will open in August 2008 in Harker Heights, Tex., near Killeen, in Market Heights at 201 East Central Expressway.
• Another store will open this coming October in Whitehall, Pa., in the Lehigh Valley Mall on MacArthur Road. When the store opens, the B&N store at 2590 MacArthur Road will close.

International "set-jetting" tourists in search of Harry Potter film locations are descending upon Scotland in anticipation of the July 21 pub date for HP7. A spokeswoman for Beyond Boundaries told the Edinburgh Evening News that the company usually has a lot U.S. and Canadian customers, "but this year we are holding English- and Spanish-speaking events so we have had a lot of inquiries from people in countries [and commonwealths] such as Argentina, Mexico and Puerto Rico."

And in a refreshing twist on the "new media always trumps old media" truism, HP has even become yardstick by which to measure the projected impatience of television viewers. In a USA Today piece on plans for the TV series Lost to run for three more short seasons (with eight-month gaps in between), co-creator Damon Lindelof defended the decision by saying, "People wait longer than eight months for the next books and films in the Harry Potter story and they don't seem to lose interest."

---

Speaking of the young man, B&N and Amazon yesterday had something that might be called Harry Potter and the Dueling Press Releases.

Worldwide Amazon.com has taken more than one million orders for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, some 95 days after the book could first be ordered. In 2005, it took 174 days for the company to amass a million orders. In the U.S., some 620,000 copies have been ordered.

In addition, Amazon.com knocked down the price of the book to $17.99, a 49% discount. The new price will be effective for the million orders alrelady taken, too.

For its part, B&N said that Jim Dale, the voice of Harry Potter (and everyone else in the HP books), will appear at the Midnight Magic Party at the company's Union Square store in New York City beginning late on Friday, July 20. Dale, who narrates the Harry Potter audiobooks, will discuss "how he got the role of narrator, how he creates his characters' voices and read excerpts from previous Harry Potter books. He will then lead the magical countdown to midnight," when the last in the series goes on sale.

B&N members can buy the book for $18.89, a 46% discount. B&N announced nearly a month ago that it had taken more than 500,000 orders for the book.
 

Christine Onorati had barely opened the doors of WORD, Brooklyn, N.Y., on March 14 when a customer expressed his enthusiasm for the new bookstore with a dramatic gesture. "He literally kissed the ground in front of the door," Onorati said.

In this metropolitan locale, Onorati has discovered something that was missing during her six-year stint owning and operating a bookstore in the Long Island suburb of Northport: a small-town atmosphere. "Who knew that Brooklyn would feel more like a small town?" mused Onorati. "The neighborhood is far beyond what I expected. It's really a tight-knit community."

WORD is located in Brooklyn's Greenpoint section, an up-and-coming residential neighborhood in the midst of a redevelopment effort. "There isn't a lot of retail here yet," Onorati said. "I'm sort of like a pioneer, which is fun." The storefront was boarded up for the last two decades, and the landlord restored the historic building's exterior according to landmark codes. Onorati revamped the interior, which features hardwood floors, an abundance of windows, exposed brick behind the counter and brightly colored walls.

With 800 square feet of selling space, WORD is nearly twice the size of Onorati's previous store. Title selection is divided evenly between adult and children's books, which reflects the store's sales pattern. "Half of everything I sell is kids' stuff because there are a lot of families in the neighborhood," said Onorati. Also selling "extremely well" are stationery items--which aren't available at other nearby retailers--including loose cards, boxed note cards, journals and notebooks. Adult titles consist primarily of trade paperbacks: literary fiction and nonfiction, reference and humor, along with gift books, cookbooks and graphic novels.

Merchandise in the store "has been carefully curated by me," said Onorati, "and you hope that people have similar sensibilities when they come in." She added, "I can't carry everything, but I at least want to have a good selection so that customers can always find something for themselves or for a gift or discover something they hadn't expected." WORD patrons are responding, Onorati said. "I'm making probably in a week here what I made in a month at my old store."

Next up for Onorati is re-doing the store's basement level, a 900-sq.-ft. space that will be used for readings, workshops, children's parties and other events. She is particularly looking forward to hosting in-store reading groups. "They were probably my best community builders," said Onorati, who still gets together monthly with a group that met at the Northport store, "and it's a great source of business."

Onorati expects to begin holding events within the next two months and already has one high-profile gathering in the works. Brooklyn scribe Mo Willems will appear at the store when his new kids book, There Is a Bird on Your Head!, is published in the fall.

For now this bookseller is savoring her second act. "People seem really happy to have a bookstore here," said Onorati, who relocated from Northport to Greenpoint and lives near the store. On display in WORD is a memento she brought along when she made the move: a vintage typewriter a friend gave to her for good luck.--Shannon McKenna

WORD is located at 126 Franklin St., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11222; 718-383-0006; wordbrooklyn.com.

 

Today on Good Morning America, Eduardo Xol offers Home Sense: Simple Solutions to Enhance Where and How You Live (Rayo, $24.95, 9780061249761/0061249769).

---

This morning on the Early Show: Criss Angel, author of Mindfreak: Secret Revelations (HarperEntertainment, $24.95, 9780061137617/0061137618).

---

This morning's Book Report, the weekly AM radio book-related show organized by Windows a bookshop, Monroe, La., has the theme "water in Louisiana" and features an interview with Elise Blackwell, author of The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish (Unbridled Books, $23.95, 9781932961317/1932961313).

The show airs at 8 a.m. Central Time and can be heard live at thebookreport.net; the archived edition will be posted this afternoon.

---

Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Joseph Califano, Jr., author of High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It (PublicAffairs, $26.95, 9781586483357/1586483358).

---

Today the View hosts two celebrity scribes: Brooke Shields, author of Down Came the Rain: My Journey through Postpartum Depression (Hyperion, $13.95, 9781401308469/1401308465), and Goldie Hawn, author of A Lotus Grows in the Mud (Berkley, $15, 9780425207888/0425207889).

---

Today on Live with Regis and Kelly: actress Jane Fonda, whose memoir is My Life So Far (Random House, $16.95, 9780812975765/0812975766).

---

Today on Ellen: Carmen Electra, whose new book is How to Be Sexy (Broadway, $22.95, 9780767925419/0767925416).

---

Today on Fox & Friends: Roger Gould, author of Shrink Yourself: Break Free from Emotional Eating Forever (Wiley, $24.95, 9780470044858/0470044853).

---

Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Michael Beschloss, whose new book is Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989 (S&S, $28, 9780684857053/0684857057).

--- 

And here's an appearance that's difficult to imagine: tonight on the Colbert Report, Salman Rushdie.
 

As a select group knows, there is life after Publishers Weekly. Two former colleagues, coincidentally named Karen, give further testimony to this fact. Congratulations to both of them!

Karen Gray Ruelle is the author with Deborah Durland DeSaix of Hidden on the Mountain: Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon (Holiday House, $24.95, 9780823419289/0823419282), an account of how the people of a town in the south of France saved the lives of more than 3,500 Jews, most of them children. The authors interviewed some 30 people in the U.S. and Europe, including onetime refugees, rescuers, Resistance fighters and historians. Their work, geared for ages 10 and up, includes 110 photographs. For more information about this poignant, uplifting title, go to hiddenonthemountain.com.

---

Karen Jones, onetime art director at PW, is founder with f-stop Fitzgerald of BAND-F Ltd., a book packaging company whose first title is appearing in time for Memorial Day. The Mighty Fallen: Our Nation's Greatest War Memorials (Collins/Smithsonian, $29.95, 9780061170904) by Larry Bond, best known for Red Phoenix, Vortex and Red Storm Rising with Tom Clancy, and photographer f-stop Fitzgerald includes 125 photographs and focuses on war memorials from the Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War.

Fitzgerald has been a partner of Balliett & Fitzgerald, which during 20 years produced more than 200 titles. BAND-F will produce titles in the categories of popular reference, travel, sports, biography, health and wellness and will do branded titles and illustrated volumes. Future titles include Doo Wop: The Music, the Times, the Era by "Cousin Brucie" Morrow (Sterling), a Smithsonian Institute collecting series and Orvis-branded outdoor titles. For more information, call 516-742-3779 or visit www.band-f.com.
 

Mark McNay was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and raised in a former mining village. After failing his electrical engineering course, he moved to England, where he spent 15 years doing odd jobs, including construction, factory work and window cleaning. In 2003, he graduated from the University of East Anglia's well-known creative writing course. He lives now in Norwich, working with people suffering from mental illnesses. His first novel, Fresh (MacAdam/Cage, hardcover, $23, 9781596922112; paperback, $13, 9781596922112), won the 2007 Arts Foundation Fellowship for new fiction in the U.K. and is being published in the U.S. May 18. Here, in economic fashion, he answers questions we pose occasionally to people in the industry:


On nightstand now:

The Accidental by Ali Smith

Favorite book when you were a child:

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Top five authors:

Alisdair Gray, Angela Carter, Evelyn Waugh, James Kelman, James Joyce

Book you've "faked" reading:

The Bible

Book you are an "evangelist" for:

1982, Janine by Alisdair Gray

Book you've bought for the cover:

None

Book that changed your life:

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Favorite line from a book:

"The ineluctable modality of the visual."--James Joyce in Ulysses

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh