Havana Nocturne climbed on to the Amazon Top Ten for several days last week (it’s now at #11) after having been on the NYT Extended Nonfiction list two weeks ago.

Sharp-eyed Raine Sedore at Timberland Regional Library explains the renewed interest; author T.J. English appeared on the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Wednesday (the segment appears 13:34 minutes into the show). Stewart began the interview by declaring, “I love this book” and said the real Cuba as portrayed in the book is more colorful than the Cuba in Godfather II. Stewart described the books appeal,

Here’s how you know this is a fascinating book; JFK being set up for a three-girl orgy by a mobster is a throw-away line…you could have an entire book about that night. And there’s a two-way mirror and the two mobsters are watching and later on, they think, “Hey, we should have filmed that.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is recognized by publishers as being effective at promoting books. Not only is it clear that Stewart has read the books he talks about, but In the brief time that he can give to an author (in this case, over seven minutes, which is actually an eternity in television time), he manages to convey his own enthusiasm. And, although it may sound silly but it is nearly as important, he shows the book’s cover and repeatedly mentions its title.

By contrast, have you noticed how different he is with actors? With all the kibitzing around, they hardly get a chance to mention their new movies.

Thanks for the tip, Raine.

Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution

T. J. English

• Hardcover: $27.95
• Publisher: William Morrow (June 3, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061147710
• ISBN-13: 978-0061147715

• Audio CD: Unabridged, $37.95
• Publisher: Tantor Media; Unabridged edition (July 28, 2008)
• Reader: Mel Foster
• ISBN-10: 1400107695
• ISBN-13: 978-1400107698

Often, publishers feel reviews have limited effect on sales. But it seems that Empires of the Sea, by Roger Crowley, is the exception to the rule. The Wall Street Journal ran a strong review by eminent historian John Julius Norwich on Monday and the book shot from #4,045 to #12. It’s now at #22.

The only other consumer review it’s received thus far is in the Christian Science Monitor (”A dramatic retelling of the 16th-century clash of Christian and Muslim armies”) on July 14.

Half of the libraries I checked have not ordered it. Those that own it, have small quantities, with reserves building. None have the audio

Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World

Roger Crowley

• Hardcover: $30.00
• Publisher: Random House (July 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400066247
• ISBN-13: 978-1400066247

• Audio CD: Unabridged, $34.99
• Publisher: Tantor Media; (July 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400107229
• ISBN-13: 978-1400107223

As a result of an appearance on Bill Moyers Journal on Friday, Douglas Blackmon’s Slavery by Anther Name rose to #14 on the Amazon list. It’s currently at #17 on the general list and at at #5 on the nonfiction list.

The book, reviewed in April in the New York Times, was also reviewed yesterday in the Boston Globe.

Libraries own it in small quantities, with reserves building.

Slavery by Anther Name

Douglas A. Blackmon

• Hardcover: $29.95
• Publisher: Doubleday (March 25, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0385506252
• ISBN-13: 978-0385506250

Friday is “Guilty Pleasure Day” (reading something fun while pretending to work). So, take a little time to check out Tony Horwitz’s blog about his book tour for the just-released A Voyage Long and Strange, on the USA Today site. What a brilliant pairing; a great road trip writer blogging his own book tour. If you really can’t spare the time to look at the whole thing, just read the post about his appearance on a D.C. TV station (but it’s like potato chips, you can’t eat just one).

The book has received a spate of reviews this week. Horwitz, unlike those lying authors who claim they don’t read their reviews, has read them all closely. He notes that while they have all been positive, they are also contradictory. Does this sound like a selection committee meeting?

One reviewer judges me to be politically correct, another insufficiently so. My book is “a romp,” fit for the summer beach bag; or it’s a “disturbing” expose of early America. It’s so readable that “the pace never flags,” unless you believe another reviewer, who thinks “only a true history buff will devote the effort needed to see it through.” Go figure.

Whatever their “quibbles” (as Horwitz says, “I review books, too; you can’t just slobber all over them”), every review makes it clear that the book is fun to read. But it was today’s Salon review that made me put a reserve on the book. Oddly, given all the attention, it’s slipping a bit on the Amazon list, but is still at a very respectable #75 (after debuting at #37 on May 1). Most libraries have just received their copies. Holds are building in some areas.

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

by Tony Horwitz

• Hardcover: $27.50
• Publisher: Henry Holt (April 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0805076034
• ISBN-13: 978-0805076035

• Audio CD: Abridged, $31.95
• Publisher: Random House (April 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0739317237
• ISBN-13: 978-0739317235

• Large Type: $32.95
  
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (June 4, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1410405583
• ISBN-13: 978-1410405586

Tony Horwitz scores three interviews this week for his new book, A Voyage Long and Strange:

NPR “All Things Considered”

USA Today, “Life Section” Cover — USA Today also features Tony as a Guest Blogger, with live reports from his book tour.

The New York Times

The book is now on Amazon’s bestseller list at #52. It is on order in all libraries I checked with comfortable holds to copy ratios.

The Times describes it this way:

The book starts with the Viking discovery of North America, dispels a number of myths about Columbus (a much lousier navigator than we were taught) and then traces the various Spanish and French explorations of America before turning to the English settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth.

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

by Tony Horwitz

• Hardcover: $27.50
• Publisher: Henry Holt (April 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0805076034
• ISBN-13: 978-0805076035

• Audio CD: Abridged, $31.95
• Publisher: Random House (April 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0739317237
• ISBN-13: 978-0739317235

• Large Type: $32.95
  
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (June 4, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1410405583
• ISBN-13: 978-1410405586

Featured in Salon today is a long review (actually, not so much a review as an essay based on the book) with the inspired title, “Through a Bong, Darkly,” of a book that deconstructs the sixties.

The Sixties Unplugged:

A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade

Gerard J. DeGroot

• Hardcover: $29.95
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 28, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0674027868
• ISBN-13: 978-067402786

The book is owned widely.

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

Rescuing Da Vinci:

Hitler and the Nazis Stole Europe’s Great Art - America and Her Allies Recovered It

• Hardcover: $55.00
• Publisher: Laurel Publishing (December 15, 2006)
• ISBN-10: 0977434907
• ISBN-13: 978-0977434909

Today’s CBS Sunday Morning cover story sent self-published Rescuing Da Vinci by Robert M. Edsel onto the Amazon bestseller list (it’s now at #17). It tells the story of the “Momument Men,” American and British officers who recovered art that was taken by the Nazis. Edsel also co-produced a documentary on the story, The Rape of Europa.

This Republic of Suffering:

Death and the American Civil War

• Hardcover:$27.95
• Publisher: Knopf (January 8, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 037540404X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375404047

In July, Civil War scholar Drew Gilpin Faust became the first woman president of Harvard (appropriately, replacing Lawrence H. Summers, who got into trouble for his denigrating remarks about women in the sciences).

Now, she has her first bestseller (she already has many titles to her credit, the most recent being Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War, 1996, University of North Carolina Press). This Republic of Suffering is currently #24 on the Amazon list and #10 on the Boston Globe hardcover nonfiction list. It’s also the featured review on the cover of this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review and received an equally laudatory USA Today review (”Faust’s analysis will profoundly alter your understanding of the Civil War — perhaps of any war”) on Wednesday.

If you haven’t already, check your hold situation, you may need to buy more copies.