# Jean Auel , book 6 announced!!



## Jesslyn (Oct 29, 2008)

http://crownpublishing.com/2010/05/27/press-release-the-land-of-painted-caves-by-jean-m-auel-to-be-published-march-29-2011/

(May 27, 2010-New York, NY) Jean M. Auel, whose novels about prehistoric life have won acclaim for their inspired storytelling, meticulous attention to detail, and historic accuracy, has written the highly anticipated sixth and final book in the mega-bestselling Earth's Children® series.

Titled The Land of Painted Caves, the book will be published in the United States on March 29, 2011, in both hardcover and eBook formats by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. The book will be simultaneously published worldwide, including in the U.K., Germany, France, Holland, Spain, Italy, Serbia, Croatia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Japan. A worldwide announcement was made today.

Bantam Books, which holds the rights to all of Auel's paperback backlist, will publish eBook versions of each of the previous five classic books in the Earth's Children® series in advance of the international release of The Land of Painted Caves. Bantam will also publish a paperback edition of the new book in 2012.

Auel's Earth's Children® is one of the most popular and celebrated book series of all time, with worldwide sales of more than 45 million copies, including nearly 22 million copies in the United States alone. The series has consistently made publishing history, beginning with the groundbreaking first novel, The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980), and continuing with The Valley of Horses (1982); The Mammoth Hunters (1985), which was the first hardcover novel to achieve a first printing of more than a million copies; The Plains of Passage (1990); and The Shelters of Stone (2002), which debuted at #1 on sixteen international bestseller lists.

The Land of Painted Caves continues the story of Ayla, her mate Jondalar, and their little daughter, Jonayla, taking readers on a journey of discovery and adventure as Ayla struggles to find a balance between her duties as a new mother and her training to become a Zelandoni-one of the Ninth Cave community's spiritual leaders and healers. Once again, Jean Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable re-creation of the way life was lived thousands of years ago, rendering the terrain, dwelling places, longings, beliefs, creativity, and daily lives of Ice Age Europeans as real to the reader as today's news. Auel's editor for the book is her longtime editor Betty Prashker.

Said Maya Mavjee, president and publisher of the Crown Publishing Group, "The Land of Painted Caves is a brilliant achievement by one of the world's most beloved authors. Jean M. Auel's millions of fans, who have been eagerly awaiting the next installment of the epic story of Ayla and Jondalar, will not be disappointed by this stirring and satisfying finale."

Auel's longtime agent Jean Naggar says: "Once again, the launch of this latest book in Jean Auel's unique series promises to be an international extravaganza. Working with this extraordinary author and series from its beginnings has been a great personal and professional pleasure. The Land of Painted Caves is a triumph and a wonderful read."


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## AnelaBelladonna (Apr 8, 2009)

Thank you.  I really love that series.


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## VictoriaP (Mar 1, 2009)

That's one book I'll be seriously grateful to have in ebook form.  All the rest I have are in hardcover--talk about aching wrists!


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## Sendie (Dec 3, 2009)

I love this series, I'll be sad to see it end.


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## Silver (Dec 30, 2008)

Woohoo!  Thank you, Jesslyn, for bringing this to KB attention.  It has been way too many years of waiting.  Exciting news, indeed.


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## cat616 (Nov 4, 2008)

Woo Hoo!  We have been waiting a very long time for this.  Thanks for the good news.


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## akpak (Mar 5, 2009)

I didn't want to know about this until next February... LOL, it's a long wait.


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

BEA has its big book: today Crown and the Jean Naggar Literary Agency announced that the sixth and final book of the record-breaking, bestselling Earth's Children series will be published on March 29, 2011. Titled The Land of the Painted Caves, *the book will be published in both hardcover and e-book editions*, and in a rare move, it will be published simultaneously in all territories, in a one-day laydown, orchestrated by Jennifer Weltz and the Naggar Agency, with deals so far in the U.K., Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Japan, Norway, Serbia, Spain, and Sweden.

The new book also marks a significant first for the author: The Land of the Painted Caves will also be published in an e-book edition, and for the first time, Auel's entire series will be published in e-book format. *Bantam will bring out e-book editions of each of the previous books in advance of the new installment's March pub date.* Brilliance Audio will bring out an audio version as well.

Auel's groundbreaking Earth's Children series has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide, and more than 22 million copies in the U.S. alone. The series began with the classic Clan of Cave Bear (1980). In 1985, the third book in the series, The Mammoth Hunters, was the first hardcover novel to achieve a one million-copy printing. The last installment, The Shelters of Stones, published in 2002, debuted at #1 on 16 international bestseller lists.

Maya Mavjee, president and publisher of Crown, said that Auel's "millions of fans will be thrilled with this stirring and satisfying finale."


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## joanne29 (Jun 30, 2009)

awesome news, and a good time to start rereading the series again.


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## melissaj323 (Dec 29, 2008)

I still want to read clan of the cave bear! I've heard so many good things about it.


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

I have the audio book, but haven't listened to it yet. Now that I know they're finally going to be made into ebooks, maybe I'll bump them up my TBR list. My mom has always loved the series. I can remember how excited she got when each book came out. 

With Jean Auel finally agreeing to ebooks, that's one more author closer to getting J.K, Rowling to agree.


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## Melonhead (Jan 1, 2010)

I bet this has been covered before, but was Auel resistant to ebooks?


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## Thumper (Feb 26, 2009)

Awesome!


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## CegAbq (Mar 17, 2009)

Oh - this is very exciting news!


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## Anne (Oct 29, 2008)

I read some of these book years ago. When they come out with the ebooks I may start the series again.


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## 1131 (Dec 18, 2008)

I'm glad to hear Auel is ending the series with the next book instead of writing one more like she had said in an interview.  But a year until it comes out?  This is an exciting yet cruel announcement.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I KNEW there were two threads on this topic but couldn't find the second one yesterday. . . .I have now merged them into one thread. . .sorry for any confusion. . . .it IS good news!


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

This thread just made my day! I began reading The Clan of the Cave Bear series in the early 80s and I can't wait to buy this book. A year seems like a long time, but heck, she must average at least 8 years between books, so what's one more year?  . 

I hope this sixth book isn't a lot of rehash of what came in the first five. (the fifth book seemed to have a lot of that.)


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## 1131 (Dec 18, 2008)

Amzon has The Land of Painted Caves available for preorder.











Don't wait to get your order in. It is only 9 1/2 months away.


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## jason10mm (Apr 7, 2009)

I loved Clan of the Cave Bear, but the following two novels became less about the people and life of that time and more about Ayla the pre-historic wonder woman, inventing everything. Plus Auel seemed to almost completely dump the neanderthals. Do the other stories continue this trend? I want more historical fact and less historical romance.


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## akpak (Mar 5, 2009)

I won't pre-order at that price... $15? No thanks. If the price drops to something reasonable, I'll pull the trigger.


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## 1131 (Dec 18, 2008)

jason10mm said:


> I loved Clan of the Cave Bear, but the following two novels became less about the people and life of that time and more about Ayla the pre-historic wonder woman, inventing everything. Plus Auel seemed to almost completely dump the neanderthals. Do the other stories continue this trend? I want more historical fact and less historical romance.


There is little to nothing on the Neanderthals in the next books and Ayla and Jondalar continue to invent just about everything ever invented. But at least in the last book, we had some new characters. Auel continues to provide a lot of information from previous books. Interesting if you have not read the other books, but why would you start a series in book 6. I do skim the repetitive sections of the books. 


akjak said:


> I won't pre-order at that price... $15? No thanks. If the price drops to something reasonable, I'll pull the trigger.


I'm not worried about ordering yet. This isn't a book I need to read the second it comes out. The publisher is Crown, a Random House imprint. If nothing changes by next March, Amazon should be able to set the price and I expect this book to hit the NYT bestseller list pretty fast.


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## akpak (Mar 5, 2009)

My favorites were The Mammoth Hunters and the Shelters of Stone. I like reading about characters and social organization more than what plants to eat


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

akjak said:


> My favorites were The Mammoth Hunters and the Shelters of Stone. I like reading about characters and social organization more than what plants to eat


See, now I loved those parts about the plants. lol. I liked Mammoth Hunters a lot, but didn't like Shelters of Stone nearly as much. I hate all the mystical parts. Blech.


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## CegAbq (Mar 17, 2009)

MaryMcDonald said:


> See, now I loved those parts about the plants. lol. I liked Mammoth Hunters a lot, but didn't like Shelters of Stone nearly as much. I hate all the mystical parts. Blech.


I loved those plant parts, etc as well, but I also LOVED the mystical parts & can't wait to see what happens.
I had a lot of fun suspending my requirements for reality & didn't mind at all that it seemed like Ayla & Jondolar were discovering & inventing everything themselves. Of course it couldn't happen like that - but I found it to be a fun read.


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## akpak (Mar 5, 2009)

I always took the "these two people invented everything" as a shorthand for how all those things got invented. Almost like Ayla and Jondalar were composites of many ancient creative thinkers. It's fiction, a little abbreviation of how culture, tools and "science" evolve was ok with me.


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## CegAbq (Mar 17, 2009)

akjak said:


> I always took the "these two people invented everything" as a shorthand for how all those things got invented. Almost like Ayla and Jondalar were composites of many ancient creative thinkers. It's fiction, a little abbreviation of how culture, tools and "science" evolve was ok with me.


Totally agree.


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## 1131 (Dec 18, 2008)

akjak said:


> My favorites were The Mammoth Hunters and the Shelters of Stone. I like reading about characters and social organization more than what plants to eat


Mammoth Hunter was not one of my favorites but it did have one of my favorite parts of the whole series - when Baby found her. I think Plains of Passage was my least favorite. The enjoyed both the social organization more than the plants. The plants got a little repetitive for me.


akjak said:


> I always took the "these two people invented everything" as a shorthand for how all those things got invented. Almost like Ayla and Jondalar were composites of many ancient creative thinkers. It's fiction, a little abbreviation of how culture, tools and "science" evolve was ok with me.


That's how I always looked at it.


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## bvlarson (May 16, 2010)

Wow, 30 years to get to book six! Jean is writing about one word a day! Still, good to see it coming out finally!


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Like others have said, it never bothered me that Ayla and Jondalar invented everything. I consider them to be representative of how it might have happened and find it interesting from that perspective. The mystical stuff bothers me more, not because they actually practice it, as that was probably common, but how Auel makes it seem as if people back then had *real* mystical powers. I don't believe in magic now, and I don't believe that people back then had any more powers to do it than we do. However, the Neanderthal mind meld thing was okay because their minds were different and I can imagine that maybe they could do those things.


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## lvoynich (Jun 5, 2010)

Thanks for the information. It's been so long since I read them, I don't even know if I read the 5th one. I'd love to have them all as ebooks so I could reread them before #6 comes out.


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## Sunnie (Apr 3, 2010)

I loved Book 1 and Book 2; after that, not so much.  But glad there is more and will be closure for you dedicated, loyal fans.


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