Last week, we suggested that The Soloist, which landed at #25 on the Amazon list after an NPR interview, is a book to watch. Additional attention comes to the book this week, with Dana Goodyear’s five-page article in the New Yorker about the making of the movie. Unfortunately, the story is not on the New Yorker’s site, so we can’t link to it, but it’s worth seeking out in print. Much of the book and therefore the movie takes place in L.A.’s Skid Row. Director, Joe Wright (Atonement), insisted on casting the local street people as extras. Goodyear writes about the movie’s impact on their lives as well as on that of the soloist himself.

The movie is scheduled for release around Thanksgiving.

The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music Steve Lopez

• Hardcover: $25.95
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (April 17, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0399155066
• ISBN-13: 978-0399155062

• Audio CD: Unabridged, $19.95
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, (May 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1433215225
• ISBN-13: 978-1433215223

• Audio Cassette: Unabridged, $44.95
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, (May 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1433215217
• ISBN-13: 978-143321521

Pico Iyler, known for his writing on travel (Time magazine’s managing editor calls him “one of the world’s premier prose stylist.” Booklist says, “calling Iyer a travel writer is reductive, like saying George Plimpton was a sportswriter”) is the author of this week’s Time magazine cover story on the Dalai Lama. It is based on his forthcoming book, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Knopf, 3/25). The book is on order, in small quantities, in most libraries.

Now that Fidel Castro has stepped down, many are wondering about Cuba’s future under his brother Raul. The Wall Street Journal today reviews a book on just that subject first published in 2005 and updated last year.

The older edition is owned by the majority of the libraries I checked. It’s a good time to pull it out for display.

• Paperback:$14.95
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (February 6, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 1403975078
• ISBN-13: 978-1403975072

You know you want to read more about Andrew Morton’s new Tom Cruise tell-all. And, amazingly, the New York Times, yes the Times, has a review today by Janet Maslin (pub date is Tuesday).

The news rearely notes a changed publication date, but on Monday the New York Times ran a story on the fact that HarperCollins will release Benazir Bhutto’s book two months early. The new publication date is February 12th. As the Times notes, the release date is six days prior to Pakistans palriamentary elections.