Sue Monk Kidd, whose The Secret Life of Bees has been a big and growing seller since it was a Book Sense pick at the start of the year, is writing a new book for Viking Penguin executive editor Pam Dorman . The editor acquired world rights to Kidd's The Mermaid Chair, about a seemingly magical chair in a South Carolina monastery and the mystical effect it has on all who sit in it—particularly a married woman who falls in love with one of the monks there. The deal was made with agent Virginia Barber at the William Morris agency, and Dorman expects to publish next year; meanwhile Bees has been optioned for a movie by the producer of You've Got Mail, Lauren Shuler Donner, and has shipped more than 100,000 copies.