Hitting a series high on the new USA Today bestseller list is the 12th title in Laurie King’s Russell & Holmes mysteries, Garment of Shadows (RH/Bantam; Recorded Books; Thorndike large print).  It debuts at #59. The previous title, The Pirate King, was on the list for one week at #88.

King’s series features Mary Russell, who teams up with Sherlock Holmes in the first title in the series, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice and later becomes his partner and wife.

Holmes has enjoyed a recent revival, with two hit films starring Robert Downey Jr.; Sherlock Holmes 3 is in development. A third season is also in the works for the BBC’s Sherlock, a co-production with PBS’Masterpiece.

This fall, CBS begins a new prime-time series, Elementary, which features Holmes as a 21st-century Manhattanite, played by Jonny Lee Miller, aided by Dr. Joan Watson played by Lucy Liu. It premieres Sept. 27.

Fifty Shades of Grey has finally been pushed out of the #1 spot on USA Today‘s best seller list after 20 weeks. The feat was accomplished by the healine-making Navy SEAL book No Easy Day. USA Today‘s ”Book Buzz” blog notes that Fifty Shades holds the record, just ahead of The Hunger Games, which spent 17 weeks in the top spot.

No Easy Day also arrives #1 on PW’s list. BookScan shows that it sold 253,000 copies in its first week on sale, nearly three times as many as Fifty Shades sold that week.

Although most libraries still have long hold lists for Fifty Shades in all formats (including the large print edition; we’ll leave you to figure out what that indicates), the number of new holds are slowing.

Two titles that were embargoed prior to release are currently dueling for headlines. The attention has propelled each title into top spots on Amazon’s sale rankings, even topping the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

At number one is  No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden (Penguin/Dutton; Penguin Audio). The full 60 Minutes coverage is available here, including several additional “Overtime” segments. This appears to be the first and last of the author’s appearances for the book. Remember, Mark Bowden’s The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden, also embargoed, is arriving soon (Grove/Atlantic, 10/2).

At number three on Amazon sales rankings is The Price of Politics by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster; S&S Audio). Following his interview with Diane Sawyer, Woodward has appeared on several shows, including today’s CBS This Morning.

Libraries are showing heavy holds on both titles and many have ordered additional copies.

Meanwhile, a recent headline-making embargoed title, Paterno, which hit #1 on the NYT best seller list, has dropped off precipitously in sales, says The Hollywood Reporter, in a story about a possible movie based on the book (weird alert; Al Pacino may star).

Carrots may be creepy, but Peter Brown has never met an eggplant he didn’t like.

Creepy Carrots (S&S Young Readers), Brown’s first collaboration with picture book author, Aaron Reynolds, debuts on the NYT Children’s Best Seller list at #7 this week.

Mystery writer William Kent Krueger’s previous book came tantalizingly close to hitting the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list, spending one week at #18 on the extended list. Appropriately, the twelfth title in his Cork O’Connor series, Trickster’s Point (S&S/Atria; Thorndike Large Print), lands solidly on the  list at #12 this week.

Krueger’s main character is a rural Minnesota P.I. who is half-Ojibwa Indian and half Irish. The author is known for the northern Minnesota settings of his book. He clearly loves the region, as expressed in the trailer for his previous title, Northwest Angle.

In a recent post on is blog, God Bless Librarians, Krueger gives tribute to the person who turned him into a reader.

It’s been a good summer for debuts, as we’ve noted before, and it continues with the final Indie Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list of the season.

Making a leap from #11 to #2 is Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Thorndike Large Type in Dec.). Janet Maslin’s early plug in the NYT, was followed by several others, including NPR’s review, which calls it a “screwball satire,” and USA Today‘s,  praising the portrayal of the main character for being “complex and hilarious.” Author Semple was profiled in the NYT. Most libraries are showing heavy holds.

At #16 and marked as “on the rise” is The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin (Harper; Thorndike Large Print), a debut about a lonely widowed orchard owner, whose life is transformed when two pregnant escapees from the local brothel appear on his farm. NPR reviewed it last week, calling it “a stunning accomplishment, hypnotic in its storytelling power, by turns lyrical and gritty, and filled with marvels. Coplin displays a dazzling sense of craftsmanship, and a talent for creating characters vivid and true.” Holds are heavy in several parts of the country, with the heaviest in the NorthWest, where the author grew up and the book is set.

Look at that cover.

Just look at it.

Is it any surprise that I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems About Cats by Francesco Marciuliano (Chronicle Books) is a best seller?

Marciuliano, when not channeling feline bards, writes the comic strip Sally Forth. He invites people to send him photos of their cats reading the book:

Send a photo of your erudite and discerning kitty reading the book to me at fmarciuliano@gmail.com and I will post it on [my blog], on the home page, in Facebook, and through Twitter. Plus, I would love it if you could post your photo through the customer share link at the the I Could Pee on This Amazon page. Maybe the cats could even form a book club.”

And please cc: EarlyWord with your photos. In fact, we’d love a photo of your cat reading ANY book.

I’m trying to get a shot of my gray tabby reading Fifty Shades. She’s confused; it doesn’t seem to be about her.

The end of the summer is proving to be great for first-time authors; two new debuts join the three already on the new Indie Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list.

#3. The Dog Stars, Peter Heller, (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio; BOT)  – moves up after debuting at #14 last week (see previous story)

#7. The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman, (S&S/Scribner; Large type coming in November from Thorndike)  – moves up after debuting at #11 last week (EarlyWord coverage)

#9. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce, (Random House; RH Audio; BOT) — down slightly after 3 weeks on the list (EarlyWord coverage)

#11. Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Thorndike Large Type in Dec.) – Debuts on this week’s list (EarlyWord coverage)

#14.  In the Shadow of the Banyan, Vaddey Ratner, (Simon & Schuster; Thorndike Large Print) – Debuts on this week’s list (EarlyWord coverage)

Making quite a leap, Peter Heller’s apocalyptic novel, The Dog Stars (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio) rises to #3 on the new Indie Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list (it debuted at #14 last week).

Known for his articles and books about adventure travel, this is Heller’s first work of fiction, the story of two men struggling to survive after a pandemic wipes out 99% of the population. Heller draws on many of his own experiences for the adventure scenes, as he explained last week on NPR’s Fresh Air. As she does so often, Caroline Leavitt (Pictures of You), gets to the heart of the book’s appeal in her review in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The trailer focuses on the emotional side of the book.

Now officially a best seller, Dearie, Bob Sptiz’s bio of Julia Child debuts on the Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller list at #5, during the week that marks the 100th anniversary of the author’s birth.

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child  Bob Spitz Retail Price: $29.95 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: RH/Knopf – (2012-08-07) ISBN / EAN: 0307272222 / 9780307272225

Random House Audio; BOT Audio (strong review from AudioFile).

Child’s landmark book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, also receives a boost this week, rising to #40 on Amazon sales rankings. Few would have anticipated this continued success fifty years ago, certainly not the publishers, Alfred A. and Blanche Knopf, who prided themselves on publishing “important” books. Cookbooks were not considered important and those they did publish could be out of step with the times. Spitz writes that the recipes in an earlier Knopf French cookbook served a surprisingly large quantity of people. When asked why, the author responded that one had to feed the help.

But Child’s book came along at the perfect time. As Spitz points out, American women were being exhorted to use convenience foods, turning the kitchen into a factory assembly line. Julia appealed to women’s desire to reach for something more.

A first edition of the book that was published so reluctantly is currently offered for sale on AbeBooks.com for $6,500. Mastering the Art of French Cooking , as well as Child’s other titles, have become staples on the Knopf list.

The publisher’s prediction that word-of-mouth best seller, The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman (S&S/Scribner,; Large type coming in November from Thorndike) will do as well as  Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants and Kim Edwards’ The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, may not be far off the mark. It arrived on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list last week at #7 and on the USA Today list at #21. It holds steady this week on USA Today, so expect it to do the same when the NYT  list arrives.

Last week’s other word of mouth debut, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Random House; RH Audio; BOT) slides a bit, from #107 on the USA Today list to #127.

It’s been quite a summer for word of mouth successes, beginning with Gillian Glynn’s Gone Girl, (RH/Crown; RH Audio; BOT) which, after 10 weeks, appears on the USA Today list immediately after that other word of mouth phenomenon, Fifty Shades of Grey, (RH/Doubleday). Interest in Gone Girl is continuing; holds are continue to rise. One library shows over 2,000 holds on 250 copies.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (HarperCollins/Ecco, 2008), may be one step closer to the screen. The best-selling, Oprah anointed title was acquired by Universal back in 2009, with Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey producing, in their first collaboration. A screenwriter was announced in 2010. Yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Wentworth Miller may take over. Although he is best known as the star of Fox’s Prison Break, Wentworth also has a career as a screenwriter.

Meanwhile, another 2008 best selling book that involves dogs, The Art of Racing in the Rain (Harper) by Garth Stein, is also in development. It has both a screenwriter and a star; Patrick Dempsey, of Grey’s Anatomy, is set to play the lead and a screenwriter was signed in December. Both the author and the star are racing buffs; Stein’s Web site pictures the two together at Daytona in February.

The new Indie Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list confirms the growing word of mouth for The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by British author Rachel Joyce, which arrives at #7. It seems to be doing better with indies than with other sellers; it debuts in lower spot, at #107, on USA Today‘s list. Expect it to arrive on the lower rungs of the upcoming NYT main list, or on the Fiction Extended List.

Reviews have been generally stellar, with the marked exception of the NYT‘s Janet Maslin, who couldn’t get into the spirit of it, calling the simple premise — a retired Englishman learns that an old friend is dying and decides to walk 627 miles to see her — “twee.” More typical is Ron Charles in the Washington Post, who counters that the plot summary,

…sounds twee, but it’s surprisingly steely, even inspiring, the kind of quirky book you want to shepherd into just the right hands. If your friends don’t like it, you may have to stop returning their calls for a little while until you can bring yourself to forgive them.”

You might suspect that Charles wrote that as a direct rebuttal, but his review came out several days before hers.

People magazine gave it four stars last week and named it a People Pick, comparing it to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time; “Joyces’ beguiling debut is another modest seeming story of ‘ordinary’ English lives that enthralls and moves you as it unfolds.”

Librarians on this week’s GalleyChat said that they enjoy recommending it; “Everyone I give Harold to falls in love with him.” One librarian plans to use it with her book club, pairing it with a nonfiction title about a journey of self-discovery, Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

Harold Fry is on the UK’s Man Book prize longlist and currently shows odds of 6:1 at William Hill bookmakers, putting it just behind books by two already established authors, Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies and Will Self’s Umbrella.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry Rachel Joyce Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Random House – (2012-07-24) ISBN / EAN: 0812993292 / 9780812993295

As predicted by library holds (see our first story July 23, thanks to Cuyahoga’s Wendy Bartlett; followed by another alert on 8/1), M.L. Stedman’s debut novel, The Light Between Oceans arrives on the USA Today Best Seller list at #22 and is called “August’s ‘it’ book” in the “Book Buzz” column. The publisher tells USA Today that booksellers are comparing it to Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants and Kim Edwards’ The Memory Keeper’s Daughter and predicts it will do as well as those books, indicating that it’s not too late to order more.

The book is the #1 IndieNext pick for August and was a big hit with librarians on BEA’s Shout ‘n’ Share panel. It was reviewed in a NYT  “Newly Released” roundup piece, which dunned it for “initial clunkiness” but concluded, “It’s a moving tale, regardless. Prepare to weep.” The 7/31 Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 newsletter featured it with the headline, “The One Book You Must Read Before Summer Ends, Plus 46 More,” linking to O‘s 2012 Summer Reading List.

Expect to see it on the upcoming NYT Best Seller list as well.

Large type coming in November from Thorndike

The Light Between Oceans ML Stedman Retail Price:  $25 Hardcover: 369 pages Publisher: S&S/Scribner – (2012-07-31) ISBN / EAN: 1451681739/9781451681734

Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (Nation Books, 6/12/12), a collaboration between Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges and cartoonist Joe Sacco debuts on the Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller list at #4. It was recently featured on Bill Moyers and Company. 

Libraries are showing a wide range of holds, from just a few to over 100.

Kirkus reviewed it, saying that the authors are each known for covering international wars, but “the war they document here is in America, where ‘[c]orporate capitalism will, quite literally, kill us, as it has killed Native Americans, African Americans trapped in our internal colonies in the inner cities, those left behind in the devastated coalfields, and those who live as serfs in our nation’s produce fields.’ Through immersion reportage and graphic narrative, the duo illuminate the human and environmental devastation in those communities, with the warning that no one is immune.”