The next Starbuck’s Pick, The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper, is the lead book review in People this week (9/8; Jessica Simpson on the cover. She’s in love — again).

The book, a memoir of the author’s privileged childhood in Liberia, which her family had to escape in 1980, gets 3 1/2 out of a possible 4 stars.

The author set sweet, funny stories…against the darker canvas of [her parent's] divorce…Nearly three decades after fleeing Liberia, Cooper offers an indelible view of her homeland and makes palpable the pain that she felt when she lost it.

The book was also reviewed in the Spring ‘08 issue of Ms. Magazine (review not posted online).

Ordering in the libraries I checked is light (the prepub reviews were good, but not overly enthusiastic). Reserves are building, but still at comfortable levels (four holds to one copy). None have ordered the audio or large type editions.

The House at Sugar Beach

Helene Cooper

• Hardcover: $26.00
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (September 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0743266242
• ISBN-13: 978-0743266246

• Simon & Schuster Audio, September 2008
• 9 Compact Disks (Unabridged)
• Read by: The Author
• ISBN-10: 0-7435-7951-8
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7435-7951-3

• Large Type, Hardcover: $31.95
• Publisher: Thorndike Press; (September 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1410410382
• ISBN-13: 978-1410410382

An excerpt from the book was the cover story of the NYT Magazine on 7/20. The author is a NY Times journalist (the Bloomberg review begins, “I try never to miss a story under David Carr’s byline. The New York Times’s media reporter is talented, aggressive and witty”), so his unusual approach to writing a memoir may have come naturally; he reports his own story, by interviewing the people who witnessed it. This has excited some speculation that he is trying to overcome the James Frey effect. 

There’s more news today on the tell-all by Madonna’s brother, from the AP’s Hillel Italie, with this great headline in USA Today, “Living With a Material Girl: Memoir says Madonna’s true love is Madonna.”

The book will be released next Tuesday, July 15. Announced first printing is 350,000.

Life with My Sister Madonna
Christopher Ciccone and Wendy Leigh

• Hardcover: $26.00
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment (July 15, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1416587624
• ISBN-13: 978-1416587620

Although People gives primary placement to Stephen Carter’s Palace Council in this issue (July 14; on newsstands now), they give it just three stars. The book that receives a complete set of stars (four) is the American trade paperback edition of a UK original, What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn. People calls it a “ghost story and satire of consumer culture… at once moving and wickedly funny, it’s one dazzling debut.”

Originally pubbed in the UK, it was the winner of the British Costa Award for best first novel. The Library Journal review said; This seamlessly written, character-driven novel offers up well-appreciated humor along with its darker material, and readers who enjoy sideswiping surprises will not be disappointed.”

It received starred reviews in PW and School Library Journal; some libraries have it on order for YA only.

In consumer reviews, it was reviewed in the LA Times earlier this month, by Jane Smiley;

This is a novel that should have no jacket copy, no advance notices. It should come into your hands unheralded, because if you simply open to the first page and begin reading, you’ll proceed in a state of innocent pleasure.

The 6/29 Dallas Morning News called the author the “British book trade’s ‘Newcomer of the Year’” and describes the book’s appeal;

Just when you think you are settling into a quirky English mystery in the tradition of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Ms. O’Flynn reveals she has bigger and broader ambitions. Just when you think the mood is becoming a little too somber, she unleashes a comic riff that nicely skewers consumer culture without getting preachy. Just when you think you have the crime solved, she raises new possibilities.

The book ranks at #1,343 in sales on Amazon, which is high for the trade paperback of a book originally published in the UK. Libraries I checked also show a surprising number of holds.

• Paperback: $14.00
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; June 24, 2008
• ISBN-10: 0805088334
• ISBN-13: 978-0805088335

• Unabridged Audio: $79.95
• Publisher: BBC Audio
• Narrator: Catherine Skinner
• CD: 9780792754954

Yesterday, Morrow, a division of HarperCollins, announced that John Grogan, author of Marley & Me, is at work on a memoir of his years before Marley, called The Longest Trip Home, to be pubbed in October.

The release describes the book as,

The powerful, often hilarious story of a son in the making, and of growing up in a loving, but comically old-school Catholic family. From his troublemaking childhood to his courtship of a fiery blonde named Jenny, Grogan writes about how he came to terms with who he is and what he believes.

The AP did a story which was picked up in several newspapers, including USA Today.

[No cover yet]

The Longest Trip Home

John Grogan

• Hardcover: $25.95
• Publisher: William Morrow (October 21, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061713244
• ISBN-13: 9780061713248

• Audio CD: Unabridged, $34.95
  
• Publisher: HarperAudio,(October 21, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 006172629X
• ISBN-13: 9780061726293

As I mentioned earlier, my personal pick of the fall books is Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (one of the books featured at the BEA’s Librarian Book Buzz session).

Well, why not? I love libraries and I love cats. But it seems I’m not the only one to be bitten by Dewey. USA Today featured the book in Thursday’s Book Buzz column. No lesser source than Barnes & Noble buyer Bob Wietrak says he expects Dewey to be a hit, “comparable to Marley or Anna Quindlen’s Good Dog. Stay.”

Congrats to Vicki Myron, author of the book and director of the Spencer (Iowa) Public Library.

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World

Vicki Myron

• Hardcover: $19.99
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (September 24, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0446407410
• ISBN-13: 9780446407410

• Audio CD: Unabridged, $22.98
• Publisher: Hachette Audio, (September 24, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1600243827
• ISBN-13: 9781600243820

• Large Print Hardcover: $22.99
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, (September 24, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0446541192
• ISBN-13: 9780446541190

The New York Post gossip columnist Richard Johnson is not happy. In today’s column, he calls S&S’s Adam Rothberg a “fork-tongued flack.” It seems Adam refused to give him the scoop about Madonna’s brother’s tell-all book, due next month. Instead, he gave the story to Hillel Italie of the AP.

Good for you, Adam. Hillel is on the publishing beat full time and Johnson only covers books when it suits his gossip-mongering.

Johnson adds some tidbits to the story — he claims the book will be “brutal”;

“It’s extremely graphic and devastating,” said a source who declined to give details. “He wrote it on the sly without telling Madonna. They want to put it out before her lawyers can get a hold of it.”

We’ll let you know when we get biblio info on the title, due next month.

Did you know there was a Madonna mystery? Well, don’t worry about it too much, it’s been solved.

S&S has been promoting a mystery celebrity memoir to bookstores, asking them to order the book on faith.

The AP just broke the news that Madonna’s brother, Christopher Ciccione, is writing a memoir about his famous sister, to be released in mid-July, with a printing of 350,000 copies.

No ISBN, title, or cover yet; we’ll let you know when pub info is available.

It’s worth checking out the article for the photo of the siblings from 1991. I’d almost forgotten Goth Madonna.

Salon continues its quirky summer reading recommendations (earlier, they selected chick lit and thriller titles) with a list of “First Person Narratives” (is it significant that they avoid calling them “memoirs”?) Of course, they include David Sedaris’s When You are Engulfed in Flames. The other four picks are less heralded titles:

The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind - and Almost Found Myself - on the Pacific Crest Trail

Dan White

• Paperback: $14.95
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 20, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061376930
• ISBN-13: 9780061376931

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The Importance of Music to Girls

Lavinia Greenlaw

• Hardcover: $23.00
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (April 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0374174547
• ISBN-13: 9780374174545

NPR also selected this title as one of the “Summer’s Best Nonfiction,” saying;

In her eccentric new memoir, The Importance of Music to Girls, British writer Lavinia Greenlaw writes about the way music — especially rock — propelled her into her first experience of puppy love (with Donny Osmond) and later, her Clash- and Banshee-inspired punk rebellions.

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Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever

Joel Derfner

• Hardcover: $23.95
• Publisher: Broadway (May 13, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0767924304
• ISBN-13: 978-0767924306

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Drunkard: A Hard-Drinking Life

Neil Steinberg

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (June 19, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0525950656
• ISBN-13: 978-0525950653

The title’s great and I love the jacket, even if the L.A. Times review opens with a diatribe against it. From the consumer reviews, Bob Morris’s Assisted Loving sounds like just the thing to pass the time while waiting to get to the head of the David Sedaris reserve list.

Libraries own it in modest quantities, with comfortable holds to copy ratios.

Here’s what consumer reviewers have been saying:

Entertainment Weekly, 5/23, Tina Jordan

Just months after his mother died, journalist Bob Morris noticed with horror that his 80-year-old dad, Joe, had — quite unmistakably — begun to troll for babes….Morris laces his droll, sweet story with some pretty unflinching descriptions — not just of his dad but of himself.

Los Angeles Times, 6/3, Dinah Lenney

Morris alternates chapters about their love lives, his and his father’s, to hilarious and touching effect…[a] heartfelt contribution to the canon of father-son memoir; an expression of civility, a grace note unto itself.

Interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, Terry Gross, 5/28

Before Assisted Living was a book, it was an off-Broadway comic review. Morris’s experience on the stage makes him a great interviewee.

Assisted Loving by Bob Morris

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: Harper (May 27, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061374121
• ISBN-13: 978-0061374128