The Help Proves Its Worth

According to Monday's issue of Shelf Awareness, Deadline.com has recently reported that Kathryn Stockett's break-out hit has been optioned for film. The movie will be done by Dreamworks, and written and directed by Stockett's long-time friend Tate Taylor. According to one of the comments on the original article (which I haven't been able to verify), Taylor's rights to the film adaptation expired soon after the book became widely popular, and in a very classy move, the author renewed the rights to her friend. If it's true, then good move Stockett.

The Help is currently ranked #2 on Amazon, and has been on the NY Times bestseller list for 48 weeks (the NYT book review of the book called it "button-pushing, soon to be wildly popular novel about black domestic servants working in white Southern households in the early 1960s, one woman works especially tirelessly"). It was also featured on the Today show's "10 must-read books for spring."

This is the first book published by Amy Einhorn books, which launched its first list in February 2009. Other titles from the publisher's first lists include The Postmistress, Kingdom of Ohio, an The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, all of which have garnered significant amounts of blog/book club/review outlet attention. Is there something special about this new publisher? What is Amy Einhorn doing so... right? Any theories? Any other Amy Einhorn books worth noting? This might prove fodder for a further post...