Photo: Lisa Von Drasek

You don’t need us to tell you that the next title in the Wimpy Kid series is around the corner, arriving on Tuesday, Nov 15 (above, Bank Street Books, one of six bookstores nationwide that was “wrapped” in anticipation of the big day). In this, the sixth in the series, Cabin Fever, (Amulet/Abrams) Greg Heffley finds himself in big trouble after school property is damaged. 

You and your kids can join Jeff Kinney via Webcast at 10 a.m., Eastern, this coming Tuesday, Nov. 15, for his appearance at the Bank Street College of Education (where EarlyWord Kids correspondent is the librarian). Register here (space is limited). The visit is being recorded and will be Webcast from School Library Journal, a few days later.

On the adult side, it seems to be the week of fiction based on reality. The three Kardashian sisters give us a novel about three celebrity sisters, Ann Beattie imagines the life of Pat Nixon, and  there’s even a novel about the Bin Laden raid. The week is rounded out by actual memoirs, including one by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her astronaut husband Mark Kelley, TV host Regis Philbin, basketball giant Shaquille O’Neal and actress/director/photographer Diane Keaton.

Fiction Based on Fact

Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life by Ann Beattie (Scribner/S&S; Audio, Dreamscape Media) is a fictional portrait of reticent First Lady Pat Nixon. In a starred review, Booklist said, “Beattie has created a resplendent paean to the pleasures of the literary imagination, and a riveting and mischievous, revealing and revitalizing portrait of an overlooked woman of historic resonance.” But Kirkus cautions, “there’s a whiff of condescension about the whole enterprise.” Last week, the New York Times ran an essay by Beattie  about writing the book.

KBL: Kill Bin Laden: A Novel Based on True Events by John Weisman (Morrow/HarperCollins; HarperLuxe Large Print) is a fictionalized account of the hunt for Bin Laden and the raid on his hideout. Kirkus says, “the novel is much better than the typical military fare, but like the inevitable movie, it’s also not as strange or impressive as the truth. A down-and-dirty thriller that feels as rushed as its publication date.”

Dollhouse by Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian (Morrow/HarperCollins) is a novel about a trio of rich sisters with celebrity problems – not unlike the authors, who are best known for their TV show, the E! Reality Series Keeping Up with the Kardashians. As the New York Times Media Decoder blog noted, “the ending of Kim Kardashian’s unusually brief marriage happened to be beautifully timed with a planned Kardashian book blitz” that includes the recently released Kardashian Konfidential, with pictures of the wedding that occurred 72 days ago.

Literary Favorites

The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories by Don DeLillo (Scribner; S&S Audio) includes stories ranging from the fiction master’s jazz-infused early work to the minimalism of his later stories. Library Journal says, “For readers of literary fiction, this book is a good introduction to DeLillo’s iconic postmodern style, though those new to the genre may find it a somewhat hard pill to swallow.” Indie booksellers see it as having broader appeal; it’s the #1 Indie Next pick for November.

Devil’s Gate by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown (Putnam; Wheeler Large Print; Penguin Audio) is the latest adventure featuring the NUMA Special Assignments Team. PW says, “thriller fans who aren’t too picky about credibility will be most rewarded.”

Kill Alex Cross (Alex Cross Series #18) by James Patterson (Little, Brown; Little Brown Large Print; Hachette Audio) finds the President’s teenage children slipping away from the Secret Service and into the hands of a sadist. PW is not impressed, saying that the story line is recycled from Along Came a Spider, and that “Patterson neither sweats the details nor invests his lead with more than two dimensions.”

V Is for Vengeance (Kinsey Millhone Series #22) by Sue Grafton (Marion Wood/Putnam; Thorndike Large Print; Random House Audio) invites speculation about how this venerated series will end, just four installments from now. Still, Kirkus likes this one reasonably well: “Grafton is as original, absorbing and humane as ever. The joints just creak a bit.”

Smokin’ Seventeen (Stephanie Plum Series #17) by Janet Evanovich (Bantam/RH; Random House Large Print; Random House Audio) has been on Amazon’s top 100 sales rankings for a while now. The film One for the Money, based on the 1994 book that launched the Stephanie Plum series, is now set for January 2012.

Memoirs

Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope by Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly with Jeffrey Zaslow (Scribner/S&S; Thorndike Press; S&S Audio) is the story of the Democratic congresswoman from Arizona and her astronaut husband, and includes her ongoing recovery from the Tucson shooting, which has left her continuing to struggle with language and with only 50 percent of her vision in both eyes. It is excerpted and on the cover of the new issue of People magazine.

How I Got This Way by Regis Philbin (It Books/HarperCollins; HarperLuxe Large Print; HarperAudio) is the memoir of the television host and entertainer and comes a month before he retires, with an announced 500,000-copy first printing.

Then Again by Diane Keaton (Random House; Random House Audio) is the film star’s memoir of her bond with her mother, Dorothy, who kept eighty-five journals about her marriage, her children, and, most probingly, herself, in a story that spans four generations and nearly a hundred years.

Shaq Uncut: My Story (on Library catalogs as Tall Tales and Untold Stories) by Shaqulle O’Neal and Jackie MacMullan (Grand Central; Hachette Audio) is the National Basketball Association giant’s memoir. PW says, “O’Neal has intriguing insights into the fraught group dynamics of a sport where positional roles are uniquely ill-defined… Preening and prickly, Shaq’s reminiscences illuminate the knotty psychology behind the swagger.” This one began rising on Amazon 11/2/11.

Current Events

Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony by Jeff Ashton and Lisa Pulitzer (Morrow/HarperCollins) gives the prosecutor’s account of the murder investigation and trial.

From Yesterday to TODAY: Six Decades of America’s Favorite Morning Show by Stephen Battaglio (Running Press) chronicles the history of NBC’s Today Show.

Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 by Ian W. Toll (Norton) uses primary sources, maps and illustrations to explore the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway from both sides.

The new book by New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food is marked as “on the rise” on the latest Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list. Libraries are showing heavy holds where ordering is light.

Prepub reviews, however, made it sound less than enthralling, as expressed by Library Journal, “Despite Gopnik’s allusive, witty prose, his supercilious and moralistic discussion will leave readers with a bad taste in the mouth.”

Consumer reviews have been much stronger, with Entertainment Weekly giving it an A-  (“By turns meaty and frothy, this ode to the social experience of eating combines a reporter’s eye for facts with a gourmand’s devotion to food.”) In Slate, Laura Shapiro vividly expresses her enjoyment of the book, even though (or, perhaps especially because) it “may be full of holes,”

I wish this book, The Table Comes First, didn’t have to be a book. I wish it could be a dinner table, instead, with maybe six people sitting around it…And I wish Adam Gopnik were at the table, leaning forward intently as the plates come and go, yakking away happily about food and history and Paris and cookbooks and life, just as he does in these pages. Then the rest of us guests could jump in and interrupt him whenever we want, probably knocking over a wine glass in our enthusiasm…

The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food Adam Gopnik Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-10-25) ISBN / EAN: 0307593452 / 9780307593450

Audio, Recorded Books

Jeff Kinney will appear on Tuesday, November 15th, 10:00 am at my school (Bank Street College of Education). Abrams has partnered with School Library Journal to Webcast the event to any school or library who wishes to watch. Some public libraries are inviting classes to visit that morning. Register here.

PS- sorry about the West Coast… we scheduled the visit before we came up with the idea of sharing it. The visit is being recorded and will be Webcast from School Library Journal, a few days later.

J.K. Rowling’s interactive site Pottermore.com was supposed to launch to the general public on Oct. 15, but problems in handling traffic have kept the site exclusive to Beta users and even they suffered for a few days last week when the site was taken down to fix some hardware glitches.

USA Today book editor Dierdre Donahue is a Beta user and has found the experience frustrating. Rather than making her a fan of the Web site, she says it’s made her want to reread the print books.

Meanwhile, JK Rowling has made headlines by saying she nearly killed off Harry’s friend Ron Weasley midway through the series.

A relatively new prize, the three-year-old  Wellcome Trust Book Prize for the “best of medicine in literature” has been awarded to a work of fiction for the first time. Alice LaPlante’s debut novel, Turn of Mind  (Atlantic Monthly, 7/5; Audio, Brilliance; Large Print, Thorndike; audio and eBook, OverDrive) is a mystery with a twist. The protagonist, a brilliant woman surgeon, is under suspicion of murder, but because of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, she does not know if she is guilty.

The book won over a distinguished short list, which includes Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies.

The prize committee chair described the book as “…a gripping, intricately plotted, and profoundly moving novel that takes the reader deep inside the mind of someone whose memories are being eroded by Alzheimer’s. As with all the books shortlisted for the Prize, it has something both interesting and important to say about the place of medicine and disease in our lives.”

The book has had a strong audience in libraries, showing holds of 10:1 this summer. Heavy holds continue in several libraries

Bill Clinton’s new book Back to Work is being widely regarded as critical of President Obama, a view Jon Stewart made subtle reference to in the beginning of Clinton’s appearance on the Daily Show last night. Stewart asked whether Obama had been sent a copy, because he might be “very interested” in the book’s specific prescriptions for running the country. Clinton carefully responded that Obama has already advocated several of the ideas in the book and that he gives the administration credit in each instance. Clinton went on to direct his criticisms at the Tea Party.

Click here for Parts Two and Three of the interview.

It’s clear that the White House has read the book. In a separate appearance, Clinton says he received a “clarifying memo” from Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling, which caused him to recant one of the book’s specific criticisms of the administration.

The book is #8 on Amazon sales rankings and rising. Where ordering is light, libraries are showing heavy holds.

Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy Bill Clinton Retail Price: $23.95 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-11-08) ISBN / EAN: 0307959759 / 9780307959751

Also available on OverDrive, RHAudio and RH large print.

HBO confirmed this week that they are developing a made-for-tv movie about Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff with Robert De Niro as producer and expected to play the lead.

It will be based on two books, the recently-released Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family by Laurie Sandell, based on interviews with Madoff’s family (they appeared on Sixty Minutes last week to help promote the book) and The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques (Times Books/Holt/Macmillan) published earlier this year (the author appeared on the Today Show in April).

Novelist John Burnham Schwartz is writing the screenplay.

In the Best Books sweepstakes, Amazon is next up after Publishers Weekly, with their list of editors selection of the Top 100 for 2011.

At number one is one of the most celebrated of the fall debuts, The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach, (Little, Brown, 9/7, Hachette Large Print, 9780316204729).

Amazon presents separate lists this year, for print and one for Kindle titles. The differences in the Top 100 are slight, however and a result of a few heavily illustrated print titles, like Alexander McQueen: A Savage Beauty (Metropolitan Museum of Art) not being available for the Kindle.

Amazon has an active publishing program. Did their books receive special attention? Only one of the Top 100 titles is published by an Amazon imprint. Carry Yourself Back to Me, by Deborah Reed was released in September from AmazonEncore (which was founded in May, 2009) and is at #56 on both the print and Kindle lists.

Amazon publishing does get special attention in a separate list for the Best Kindle Singles, shorter works published by Amazon and only available in Kindle editions.

The inner workings of skyscrapers were revealed on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday during an interview with expert Kate Ascher. Her forthcoming book rose on Amazon’s sales rankings as a result.

The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper Kate Ascher Retail Price: $35.00 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2011-11-10) ISBN / EAN: 1594203032 / 9781594203039

Her previous book, on the inner workings of cities, also received a boost.

The Works: Anatomy of a City Kate Ascher Retail Price: $20.00 Paperback: 240 pages Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) – (2007-11-27) ISBN / EAN: 0143112708 / 9780143112709

Based on Mary Norton’s classic children’s tale, The Borrowers, (Harcourt, 1953), the Japanese film The Secret World of Arietty was the third-highest-grossing movie of 2010 in Japan, after Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3.

The U.S. version, which opens here February 17, uses the voices of American actors including Amy Poehler and Will Arnett as Arrietty’s parents and Carol Burnett as the housekeeper.

When the British version opened in the UK, it received kudos for its hand-drawn elegance.

Trailer for the American version:

VIZ Media is releasing tie-ins:

The Art of The Secret World of Arrietty Hiromasa Yonebayashi Retail Price: $34.99 Paperback: 200 pages Publisher: VIZ Media LLC – (2012-01-03) ISBN / EAN: 1421541181 / 9781421541181

.

The Secret World of Arrietty (Film Comic), Vol. 1 (Arrietty Film Comics) Hiromasa Yonebayashi Retail Price: $16.99 Paperback: 272 pages Publisher: VIZ Media LLC – (2012-01-03) ISBN / EAN: 1421541165 / 9781421541167

.

The Secret World of Arrietty (Film Comic), Vol. 2 (Arrietty Film Comics) Hiromasa Yonebayashi Retail Price: $16.99 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: VIZ Media LLC – (2012-01-03) ISBN / EAN: 1421541173 / 9781421541174

Kirkus said of the true crime story, The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seal (Viking, 6/2/11), “Patricia Highsmith couldn’t have written a more compelling thriller.” Director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) has been in talks to direct a movie based on this unlikely tale of a man who managed to con people into believing he was a member of the Rockefeller family, helping him to land prestigious jobs on Wall Street. He was sentenced to jail after kidnapping his own daughter and is now facing charges that he murdered his former landlord in 1985.

The movie may be on the back burner for a while, however. Cooper’s next project is likely to be the adaptation of the Claire Messud novel, The Emperor’s Children (Knopf, 2006), replacing Noah Baumbach. It’s set to star Keira Knightley, Michelle Williams, Eric Bana and Richard Gere.

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter Mark Seal Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: VIKING ADULT – (2011-06-02) ISBN / EAN: 0670022748/9780670022748

Thorndike Large Print

The Financial Lives of the Poets by cult favorite Jess Walters (Harper, 2009) is being adapted for a movie titled Bailout, directed by independent filmmaker Michael Winterbottom. First announced back in the spring, it’s now scheduled to begin shooting in January.

The novel satirizes the economic meltdown by following a man who becomes a pot dealer after his idea for a Web site that reports financial news in the form of poetry fails (unsurprisingly). Reviewing it in the NYT, Janet Maslin said, “Mixing financial advice with poetry is a terrible idea. But combining the elements of tragedy with a sitcom sensibility is a good one. And it’s what Jess Walter continues to do best.”

The Financial Lives of the Poets Jess Walter Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Harper – (2009-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061916048 / 9780061916045

Publishers Weekly released its Best Books selections today (100 adult titles in various categories and 40 in childrens). The new “interactive” format features each book’s cover, an annotation and link to the original PW review.

Once again this year, we are collating the titles from various lists into a spreadsheet, with ISBNs, so you can check the titles against your collection and place orders for those you may be missing. UPDATE as of 12/21, all the lists to date have been collated:

• 2011 Adult Fiction
• 2011 Adult Nonfiction
• 2011 Childrens and Young Adult

As we’ve come to expect, there is little overlap between the lists (last year, of the 228 titles that appeared on 12 childrens and YA lists, two-thirds of them were picked by just one publication).

We will update the spreadsheet as new lists appear. Look for the spreadsheet for adult titles later this week.

Former President Bill Clinton will appear on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart tomorrow night to promote his new book on economic policy, Back to Work.

Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy Bill Clinton Retail Price: $23.95 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-11-08) ISBN / EAN: 0307959759 / 9780307959751

Also available on OverDrive, RHAudio and RH large print.

The book is generating news stories. USA Today reports it suggests everything from “from granting property tax breaks for investments that create jobs to painting every flat tar roof in U.S. cities white for the energy savings.”

The New York Times focuses on what it means for Obama, saying that it, “marks a new and somewhat warmer stage in the [Clinton and Obama] rivalry and relationship…The awkward twist: the former president has been so frustrated at what he sees as the current one’s failure to explain his economic policies that he has literally decided to write his own version of the story.”

Next week, watch for Nancy Jensen‘s debut The Sisters, much anticipated fiction titles from Stephen King, Umberto Eco, and Christopher Paolini, and a book about the Osama Bin Laden raid which may be controversial.

Watch List

The Sisters by Nancy Jensen (St. Martin’s Press; Blackstone Audio) is a debut novel about two girls separated by a tragic misunderstanding in 1920 Kentucky, affecting four generations of women. It’s had strong support on GalleyChat. Some libraries report it’s getting an unusually large number of holds for a midlist debut. It’s also the #1 Indie Next pick for Dec and was featured as one of the Hot Fall titles for book clubs at BEA.

Heavily Anticipated

11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King (Scribner; S&S Audio; Thorndike Press) finds the horror master venturing in science fiction, with a Maine restaurant owner who asks the local high school English teacher to grant his dying wish, to enter a time portal to 1958 in his diner and go back in time to prevent the 1963 assassination of JFK. Janet Maslin gave it gave it a glowing review in Monday’s NYT. Unsurprisingly, it’s been in Amazon’s Top 100 for months.

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Audio, Recorded Books) pivots on the creation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the discredited document used by anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists as proof of a worldwide Jewish cabal, by a fictional main character, Simone Simonini – a spy, a forger, a murderer, and a misanthrope. Kirkus says, “Simonini keeps good and interesting company, hanging out with Sigmund Freud here, crossing paths with Dumas and Garibaldi and Captain Dreyfus there, and otherwise enjoying the freedom of the continent, as if unstoppable and inevitable. What does it all add up to? An indictment of the old Europe, for one thing, and a perplexing, multilayered, attention-holding mystery.” 200,000 copy first printing.

Young Adult

Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle) by Christopher Paolini (Knopf; RH Audio; Books on Tape) finds the young Dragon Rider Eragon in a final confrontation with the evil king Galbatorix to free Alagaesia from his rule once and for all. It has been on Amazon’s top 5 for months.

Nonfiction

SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden by Chuck Pfarrer (St. Martins Press; Macmillan Audio) is based on a series of interviews with SEAL Team Six [UPDATE: CNN reports that the SEALs deny speaking to Pfarrer] by a former commander of the group. The Hollywood Reporter, in a story about film and tv rights being shopped, says it disputes the Obama Administration’s official account of the Bin Laden raid.
Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie (Random House) is the biography of a minor German princess, Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst, who became Empress Catherine II of Russia (1729-1796), by the Pulitzer-winning biographer of Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great. PW calls it “a masterful, intimate, and tantalizing portrait of a majestic monarch.” It broke into the Amazon Top 100 earlier this week.

War Room: Bill Belichick and the Patriot Legacy by Michael Holley (It Books; HarperLuxe) is “a deeply reported, thoroughly engaging look at what it takes to succeed in the NFL–and a perfect complement to the NFL Network’s compelling miniseries Bill Belichick: A Football Life,” says Kirkus.