The Danish Girl (October 27)
The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff, first published in 2001, was inspired by the true story of Einar and Gerda Wegener, Danish artists in the early 20th century. When Gerda Wegener's female portrait model cancels, she asks her husband Einar to pose in women's clothes. Einar is transformed by the experience, and with his wife's encouragement begins cross-dressing. Einar undergoes the first recorded sex change operation in 1931, emerging as a woman named Lili Elbe. Though Gerda encouraged Einar's decision, her husband's transition may jeopardize their marriage.
A film adaptation of The Danish Girl, directed by Tom Hooper (director of Les Misérables and The King's Speech) opens November 10. Eddie Redmayne plays Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe. He won the Best Actor Academy Award in 2015 for his portrayal of a young Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. Penguin's movie tie-in edition (9780143108399) comes out October 27.
Noting that transgender themes are "in the air," Kathryn Court said Eddie Redmayne's casting in the role is "extraordinary. We've been waiting forever [for the film]."
In the Heart of the Sea (December 11)
In 1820, the Nantucket whaling ship Essex sank in the South Pacific after being rammed by a sperm whale. The 20-man crew drifted in three tiny boats for 90 days, beset by hunger, thirst, disease and weather. Some 2,000 miles away, near Chile, two survivors were found in a boat full of chewed human bones. In the end, only eight of the 20 crewmen were rescued.
This true story of madness and cannibalism wrought by an angry whale inspired Herman Melville's Moby Dick and, in 2000, Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Philbrick uses modern and archival sources, including a journal by the Essex's cabin boy discovered only in 1960, to explore a tale that was to the 19th-century as the sinking of the Titanic was to the 20th.
The story of the Essex also captured the imagination of director Ron Howard, whose film adaptation of In the Heart of the Sea opens December 11. The all-star cast includes Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Michelle Fairley and Brendan Gleeson. Penguin's movie tie-in edition (9780143126812) comes out November 10.