USA Today casts Judith Orloff’s new book, Emotional Freedom, in the light of the economic downturn (“Hard Times Can Encourage a Wealthy Emotional Life“); 

Our faltering economy has cost many people more than money: They’ve lost their peace of mind.

But there are ways to stay calm and positive even as storms roil the seas around you, says psychiatrist Judith Orloff in her book, Emotional Freedom (Harmony Books, $24.95)

The book is currently at #9 on Amazon. Orloff’s previous title, Positive Energy (2005) was on the LA Times Paperback Non-fiction list for one week at #3.

Some libraries are showing heavy holds on modest ordering.

Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life 

Judith Orloff

• Hardcover: $24.95; 416 pages
• Publisher: Harmony (March 3, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0307338185
• ISBN-13: 978-0307338181

Yesterday, the Dr. Phil Show continued the theme of living smaller and smarter, by featuring the authors of America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money. As a result, the book rose from #33,738 on Amazon to #73.

When it first came out two years ago, the book appeared for one week on the NYT Paperback Advice list at #14. Some libraries are showing reserve lists.

America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money: Your Guide to Living Better, Spending Less, and Cashing in on Your Dreams

Steve Economides, Annette Economides

• Paperback: $12.95; 288 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (January 16, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0307339459
• ISBN-13: 978-0307339454

On her show yesterday, Oprah asked the question on many people’s minds,  ”What Can You Live Without?”

Featured was “reformed shopaholic” Mary Carlomango and her new book, Secrets of Simplicity: Learn to Live Better with Less, which shot from #37,076 on Amazon to #48. The publisher is showing it currently out of stock.

Unfortunately, the book is spiral bound, so libraries do not own it. Libraries do own her previous title, however, Give It Up!: My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less (at #23,887 on Amazon).

Oprah also issued a “Simplify Your Life” challenge, with the opportunity for contestants to appear on the show, so it’s likely you will have to continue explaining why the library doesn’t own Secrets of  Simplicity and to try to steer customers to Carlomagno’s earlier title.

Secrets of Simplicity: Learn to Live Better with Less

Mary Carlomagno

• Spiral-bound: $19.95; 143 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; Spi edition (December 3, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0811863948
• ISBN-13: 978-0811863940

Give It Up!: My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less 

Mary Carlomagno

• Hardcover: $14.95; 208 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (December 27, 2005)
• ISBN-10: 0060789808
• ISBN-13: 978-0060789800

Jodi Picoult’s 16th novel, Handle with Care, comes out today. The current issue of People (2/9 — not available online, but we track People‘s reviews in our Weekly Magazines listing) gives it four of four stars (Picoult is “a master of the domestic landscape”), it gets an equally strong review in the Washington Post today, and the author is interviewed in USA Today.

Her life in New Hampshire is not at all like her novels which deal with what USA Today calls “domestic angst and agony.” In fact, “Her family is so warm and connected, they come across as a high-tech version of The Waltons snuggling around the granite countertop with their laptops.”

So why does she write about families in crisis?

“Maybe I write these kinds of novels to create an imaginary safety net for my own family,” Picoult says. “If I write about these issues, I won’t have to live them.”

She is bothered that she is considered a commercial writer and therefore ineligible for literary awards;

“Because something is commercial fiction does not mean it isn’t worthy or well-written,” she says. “I write fiction of morality and ethics.

USA Today answers a burning question — the proper pronunciation of her name. It’s PEA-koe.

She begins an extensive book tour today. For listings, check her web site, under “Appearances.”

Total copies ordered by four large library systems:

Hardcover — 1,452 copies with 3,494 reserves

Large Type — 114 copies with 222 reserves (two systems did not order  it in LT)

Audio — 162 copies with 234 reserves (one system did not order the audio)

Handle with Care

Jodi Picoult

• Hardcover: $27.96; 496 pages
• Publisher: Atria (March 3, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0743296419
• ISBN-13: 978-0743296410

• Large Print: $34.95; Center Point Large Print;  (April 2009)
• ISBN-10: 1602854394
• ISBN-13: 978-1602854390

• Audio CD: $44.99; 14 CD’s
• Publisher: Recorded Books, March, 09
• ISBN-10: 1436198402
• ISBN-13: 978-1436198400

Just when you thought there couldn’t be another pictorial Obama title, the NYT comes out with theirs and it jumps to #3 on the list.

Note: No new childrens titles went on the lists this week, so we will not be covering it.

New to the Lists

For the following lists:

3/8 NYT list (for the week ending 2/21)  
2/26 USA Today list (week ending 2/22)

#65 USA Today General
#3 NYT Nonfiction

Obama, Intro by Bill Keller and Jill Abramson

——————————–

#12 NYT Nonfiction

How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer

——————————–

#15 NYT Nonfiction

Lords of Finance, Liaquat Ahamed

——————————–

#20 NYT Nonfiction, Extended

Big Rich, Bryan Burrough

——————————–

#29 NYT Nonfiction

Odd Man Out, Matt McCarthy, Viking

——————————–

#3 NYT Advice, How-to and Misc., Extended

Younger Thinner You Diet, Eric R. Braverman

——————————-

#15 NYT Advice, How-to and Misc., Extended
#46 USA Today, after two weeks (at #112 last week)

Get Motivated!, Tamara Lowe
——————————-

#70 USA Today

Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season

Christina Kahrl, Steven Goldman, Nate Silver

NYT reviewer Michiko Kakutani may not have the last word on The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell. It’s been a bestseller in Europe, selling over a million copies, and won the two most prestigious French literary awards. but Kakutani isn’t buying it;

The novel’s gushing fans…seem to have mistaken perversity for daring, pretension for ambition, an odious stunt for contrarian cleverness. [It is] Willfully sensationalistic and deliberately repellent…

In the Daily Beast, Michael Korda, who has read the book in both the original French and in the English translation, sounds like he read a different book altogether,

…a dreadful, compelling, brilliantly researched, and imagined masterpiece, a terrifying literary achievement, and perhaps the first work of fiction to come out of the Holocaust that places us in its very heart, and keeps us there.

And says,

I guarantee you, if you read this book to the end, and if you have any kind of taste at all, you won’t be able to put it down for a moment—lay in snacks and drinks!—you will be upset, disturbed, revolted, and deeply challenged.

Introducing an interview with the author in the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Trachtenberg reports that both Borders and Barnes & Noble are supporting the book. Independent booksellers are supporting it as well; it’s on the March Indie Next List.

Reviewers in the U.K., where the book has also just been released, are in the Kakutani camp. The Times of London calls it “so bloatedly inept that its reverential reception across the Channel seems barely comprehensible.”

It’s currently at #447 on Amazon sales rankings and library reserves are growing.

The Kindly Ones Littell, Jonathan Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 992 pages Publisher: Harper – (2009-03-01) ISBN-10: 0061353450 ISBN-13: 9780061353451