Read the South

Reese Witherspoon’s Draper James lifestyle website/brand is going old school.

See, the Oscar winner is writing a book about all things Southern chic, which, of course, will be sold on Draper James.

Officially, the untitled tome will be a “Southern influence lifestyle book,” a memoir-esque offering filled with personal essays about the people and places that have impacted Witherspoon throughout her life.

Well alright.

Photo: Dallas.CultureMap.com.

Cursed and Final

Say it isn’t so, J.K. Rowling!

The British powerhouse all but broke the world’s heart last Saturday, at the premiere of the two-part play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, when she announced that her most famous saga is, indeed, pretty much finished.

“Harry goes on a very big journey during these two plays and then, yeah, I think we’re done,” she said of the story, which is set 19 years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and follows the Chosen One and his son Albus Severus as the latter enrolls in Hogwarts.

“This is the next generation, you know. So I’m thrilled to see it realized so beautifully but, no, Harry is done now.”

Put your wands in the air if you are hoping this one’s of those situations where, sure, Rowling’s saying that now, but....

Alas, it probably isn’t.

So, suckers, go and buy the special rehearsal edition script now, and tide yourself over – at least until a blockbuster gets made or until this play gets the Broadway treatment.

Photo: Amazon.com.

G.P. Starts the Presses

Well she must be doin’ som’in’ right.

Oft-mocked for her GOOPing around, Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website is getting its own imprint through Grand Central Publishing.

GOOP Press will take on the book market by publishing a tome a year, as well as three others sourced from GOOP editors and contributors, given the wealth of “incredible content now being produced at GOOP.com on a daily basis” and a burning desire to take over the world, really...let’s not front.

Damn, G.P. Show ’em what you’re made of!

GOOP Press’ first offering will be the actress-turned-webtrepreneur’s third cookbook, It’s All Easy: Delicious Weekday Recipes for the Super-Busy Home Cook, which is due out next spring.

Not the holidays?

Guess someone got distracted there for a sec.

Photo: JustJared.com.

Amy Writes Books

Emmy winner and Madonna fluffer Amy Schumer’s swimmin’ in it now.

See, the funny gal reportedly has inked a book deal maybe-worth $10 million.

Now that’s a whole lotta boat rides with new BFF Jennifer Lawrence!

Tentatively titled The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Schumer’s tome will be a memoir that will touch on her childhood, her big Hollywood takeover, and, of course, feminism.

Photo: E! Online.

Gone and Read the Watchman

Tweet and RT this if you are excited about Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee’s follow-up to To Kill a Mockingbird.

The book won’t hit the shelves until Tuesday, but you can preview it now with a little help from Reese Witherspoon.

The actress read the first chapter of the novel for a podcast, and, well...here it is. Have a listen:

Gina the Writer

Gina Rodriguez became even more It last winter when she picked up her first Golden Globe for her endearing portrayal of TV’s Jane the Virgin. Her acceptance speech was an ebullient and memorable homage to the advice she grew up hearing from her dad.

Now, that advice is becoming a book.

Indeed, the actress is prepping I Can and I Will: Tools My Daddy Gave Me for publication next year.

“My father would always remind me to give away your blessings to make room for more,” Rodriguez said as she announced the tome. “This book has been a dream of mine for many years now, a love letter to a father who has given me strength I only know is right to share with others.”

Well ain’t that just swell!

Photo: HollywoodReporter.com.

Gabby’s Big Book

Gabourey Sidibe is turning author.

It just kinda had to happen, didn’t it.

Indeed, Sidibe, the Precious Oscar-nominated actress with the cheeks I could just eat (last seen playing a plum role on TV’s Empire), is writing a memoir that’s set to hit shelves in 2017.

The tome will touch on our girl’s life, style, fame, family, and depression, and will feature “many stories that are too long, shady, and impolite to share in interviews.”

Loves it. Can we pre-order this now?

Photo: Bossip.com.

The Good Writer

Julianna Margulies is writing a book.

Alas, the Emmy winner shall not be explaining Kalindagate within its pages....

No, Margulies is actually coming out with Three Magic Balloons, a children’s tome based on the one her ad exec-father, Paul Margulies, wrote for his three daughters. The actress and her sisters found his original manuscript after he died last October.

Three Magic Balloons will center on three girls who take weekly trips to the zoo with their dad. On account of their kindness to the animals, a nice vendor gives the girls these balloons that carry them off to magical adventure at night. The book is due out next May.

Photo: People.com.

Anna Kendrick the Fackin’ Author

Quotable-as-f--- Anna Kendrick is writing a book.

Indeed, the Into the Woods and Pitch Perfect 2 star – and Lip Sync Battler extraordinaire – is set to release a collection of humorous essays not this fall, but next.

So you got that to look forward to, kids.

I know I am.

Photo: FashionGoneRogue.com.

Taraji P. Author

You go strike while that iron’s hot, Cookie Lyon!

Taraji P. Henson’s becoming an author now that she has inked a deal to pen a memoir, y’all.

In the time, the actress will recount her experiences growing up in the rougher parts of Washington and her being a single mother, as well as, of course, chronicle the success she has found in Hollywood (which includes an Oscar nomination, for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and the runaway success of TV’s Empire).

Henson’s book will come out next year.

Photo: PopSugar.com.au.

Harper Lee Has a New Book (Cover)!

Behold the cover of Harper Lee’s upcoming second book, Go Set a Watchman.

The tome is due on July 14.

Photo: EW.com.

Harper’s Seconds

The unthinkable is happening this summer, people.

We are getting a new book by one Harper Lee.

Indeed, and as you probably know by now, the reclusive author, 88, will publish Go Set a Watchman, a follow-up to her beloved Pulitzer Prize winner, To Kill a Mockingbird, this July.

Good timing for me since I just took out To Kill a Mockingbird from the San Francisco Public Library.

Go Set a Watchman is reportedly set after the events of the classic novel and will focus on an adult Scout. Oh, and get this: the novel was actually completed before To Kill a Mockingbird.

Lee revealed when she made her announcement earlier this week that, given that her editor at the time was so “taken” by all the flashbacks to the character’s childhood, that she was encouraged to write a novel from the younger Scout’s POV.

So the follow-up – which will hit bookshelves on July 14 – will see her returning to Maycomb, Ala., after a 20-year absence, to visit Atticus and, by default, to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father’s attitude toward society, as well as her own feelings about her birthplace.

Photo: Vulture.com.

Update 1: In case this was something that you were wondering about, Harper Lee is totally with it.

Mentally, that is.

This according to a historian-friend who reportedly visits with the author at least once a month. So Lee’s decision to publish this second book was totally and fully hers.

Update 1: Lee is so with it, in fact, that she is said to be quite “hurt and humiliated” that people could be thinking she could be out of her mind and easily duped into releasing this second tome.

Fighting On

There was nothing about sequels in the rulebook – so Fight Club is getting a follow-up.

But, it’ll be a while before Brad Pitt flexes his world-famous six-pack as Tyler Durden on screen again (if he ever does): The upcoming Fight Club sequel is coming out in comic-book form first.

Author Chuck Palahniuk has announced that Fight Club 2 is, indeed, very much in the pipeline, and that it will debut as a 10-issue Dark Horse title early next summer.

The sequel will center on the unnamed Narrator we met as embodied by Edward Norton’s in David Fincher’s 1999 cult classic, and he will be 10 years older, and the husband to Marla Singer and the father to a 9-year-old named Junior.

And, yes...Durden definitely will be part of the story. So, perhaps, Fincher, Pitt, Norton & Co. can stage a reunion for, say, 2017?

Photo: People.com.

F--- Yeah, Amy Poehler!

People have been waiting with breath that is bated ever since her book deal was announced early last year, and now we’re gonna have to keep waiting.

Just a little more.

As you can see, I’m talking about Yes Please, Golden Globe winner Amy Poehler’s memoir-esque (it’s got true stories! fictional anecdotes! and lots of humor!) first foray into the non-for-TV written-word arena, the cover for which was just shared with the world.

Can you dig it?

Yes Please will be released on Oct. 28.

Photo: EW.com.

J. Lo the Author

She dances, she acts, she sings.

She’s tried her hand at the fragrance and clothing-design games.

She’s a humanitarian.

Etc.

Frankly, it really quite baffles my mind she hadn’t yet written a book, but there ya go – she hadn’t.

Until now.

Indeed, Jennifer Lopez is finally ready to be called an author as well, now that she’s releasing her “deeply cathartic” first tome, True Love, in the fall. 

La Lopez’s book reportedly will focus on “one of her life’s most defining periods.”

No, not the aftermath of her Versace-dress moment but the two-year journey there during which she faced her greatest challenges and zeroed in on her biggest fears as an artist and a mother, and ultimately emerge better and stronger – not to mention bigger! – that ever before.

True Love will be published, both in English and Spanish, on Oct. 28.

Photo: HollywoodReporter.com.

Baring Her Cover

If you watch HBO’s Girls you know that Lena Dunham has no qualms about baring her body.

But now gf’s gone and bared her soul.

In the form of an Instagrammed tease of the book cover of her upcoming Not That Kind of Girl.

Dunham’s literary debut is set to hit shelves on Oct. 7.

So put that on your Amazon.com Wish List now.

Photo: EW.com.

The Tao of Cam

Wait – what?!

Cameron Diaz is a published author now?

Her tome is called The Body Book…and I am guessing it’s all about being confident in your own skin, and about being the kind of gal who can f--- a Ferrari without shame.

An empowering thing for ladies everywhere....

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

La Lohan Writes Her Life

’Cause, y’ know…it’s so easy everybody can do it.

Lindsay Lohan is said to be in the process of becoming an author.

That is, of course, when she is not like, acting allegedly egging on thug-like acts.

L2 reportedly is in the early stages of writing a tell-all book about her all-too-well-chronicled life.

Does anyone else think La Lohan is kinda not on Oprah control anymore?

Photo: OhNoTheyDidnt.LiveJournal.com.

When Sheryl Sold Out Lance?

It was reported yesterday that a new book titled Wheelmen, about the Lance Armstrong scandal that’s coming out next week, alleges that, as rumored, Sheryl Crow was a key witness to the cyclist’s doping.

And that, indeed, she collaborated with federal investigators in exchange from immunity from prosecution.

Authors Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell, two Wall Street Journal reporters, claim that Crow accompanied Armstrong to Belgium in 2004 for an illicit, red-cell-boosting blood transfusion, and that he nonchalantly explained to the Grammy winner that it was no biggie, that everyone was doing it.

Crow and Armstrong split up in 2006, after a brief engagement. The last time she reportedly spoke to investigators about the Armstrong affair was two years ago, and she has publicly kept mum on the issue ever since.

That has got to change. I cannot imagine any interview in which the question won’t be asked.

Btw, there’s a new doc about the Armstrong lie, aptly titled The Armstrong Lie, coming up soon. Check it if you care.

Photo: E! Online.

Manganiello Writes

Lest you think he is just a hot body pretty face, Joe Manganiello is coming out with a book.

About fitness, natch.

Hey: they always say to write what you know. And the Manga-beast knows his fitness.

The tome – titled Evolution: The Cutting Edge Guide to Breaking Down Mental Walls and Building the Body You’ve Always Wanted – is due out in December.

So it will be the perfect stocking stuffer for any man looking to get back in shape in the new year after all the holiday feasting. And for any lady seeking a little...imagination material, knowwhatImean.

Photo: PinkHeartSociety.blogspot.com.