OK folks.  This is the blog we've been waiting for. Kevin MacDonald is going to direct the film version of How I Live Now -- and I'm completely thrilled about the choice.

Though not a household name like, say, Steven Spielberg, Kevin is best known for directing The Last King of Scotland, which won two Baftas and an Oscar, Touching The Void, a superb documentary about mountain climbing gone horribly wrong, and the amazing One Day in September, which also won an Oscar.

Let's put it this way, if you mention his name to people in the film business, their jaded haunted eyes shoot open and they look at you with new respect and want to be your friend. Which is nice.

The screenplay, nearly complete, has been written by Jeremy Brock (who also wrote Mrs Brown, The Last King of Scotland and Kevin's soon-to-be-released film, The Eagle) and Tony Grisoni (who also wrote the screenplay for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and In This World), and though I haven't read the final version, an earlier draft was fantastic -- and considerably more coherent than the book. Oops. There's something disorientating and thrilling about hearing new dialogue from the mouths of your own characters.

Casting has not yet begun, and I'm not even sure a casting director has been chosen. For anyone I've promised to inform about casting, I haven't forgotten. Should be announced soon. I think shooting is tentatively planned for summer 2011.

It must be said that moviemaking makes me a little nervous -- ever since I heard Deborah Moggach's story about having the whole cast for Tulip Fever assembled on location, cameras ready to roll, 15,000 tulips at the ready -- and then Gordon Brown changed the tax laws and they pulled the whole production on the spot.

So I'm not buying my frock for the Oscars just yet, but am quietly, privately, very excited indeed.