We just got word from Random House that they are releasing Joe Biden’s Promises to Keep in trade paperback. The book became a bestseller on Amazon over weekend, and is still at #25. Evidently, RH expects interest in the vp candidate to continue throughout the campaign; they are printing 150,000 copies. 

The edition will be available 8/29. Random is also reprinting the hardcover; that printing will be available this week.

PROMISES TO KEEP

JOSEPH BIDEN 

RANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACK, $15

ISBN: 978-0-8129-7621-2 

A thousand-page book analyzing the 1988 presidental campaigns and the candidates, published in 1992, went to #8 on the Amazon bestseller list over the weekend.

Why?

Because Joe Biden was one of those candidates and news sources are turning to the book to find out more about him. Politico.com looks at the literature on Biden in a piece called “Biden for Dummies” and advises,

Go to Amazon right now and place a rush order for Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes for a vivid depiction of Biden’s 1988 campaign, which is when Biden first sprang to national attention.

Another Politico writer suggests a faster method; just use Amazon’s “Search Inside” feature to read the book’s sections on Biden.

The book is not owned by any of the libraries I checked.

Biden’s own book, Promises to Keep, published last year, rose to #27 over the weekend. It is owned by all the libraries I checked; most have comfortable holds to copy ratios.

What It Takes: The Way to the White House
by Richard Ben Cramer

• Paperback: $24.00
• Publisher: Vintage (June 1, 1993)
• ISBN-10: 0679746498
• ISBN-13: 978-0679746492

“Untitled on Bush” by Bob Woodward is now The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, according to the AP. S&S has announced a 900,000 copy first printing, with a “strict embargo,” until it’s Sept 8th release date. Woodward will appear on 60 Minutes the night before. The Washington Post will run excerpts on the 7th.

In a statement, Woodward’s editor, Alice Mayhew claims big things for the book,

There has not been such an authoritative and intimate account of presidential decision making since the Nixon tapes and the Pentagon Papers. This is the declassification of what went on in secret, behind the scenes.

The blog Politico says the are  the first to reveal the cover. On Amazon and B&N, the book is still listed as of 9:30 this morning as “Untitled” with “Cover to be Unveiled.”

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008

Bob Woodward

• Hardcover: 512 pages; $32.00
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (September 8, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1416558977
• ISBN-13: 978-1416558972

After Andrew Bacevich appeared on the Bill Moyers Journal on PBS this Friday, his newest book, The Limits of Power, leaped up the Amazon bestseller list to #1, where it remains this morning. In addition, all his previous titles increased in sales; most significantly The New American Miliatarism rose to #53.

Bacevich is a retired Army Colonel, Boston University professor, critic of American militarism and author of several books. Limits of Power is owned by less than half the libraries I checked. Most own at least one of his previous titles.

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
Andrew Bacevich

• Hardcover: $24.00
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books (August 5, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0805088156
• ISBN-13: 978-0805088151

The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War 

Andrew J. Bacevich

• Paperback: $15.95
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 7, 2006)
• ISBN-10: 0195311981
• ISBN-13: 978-0195311983

The press coverage of Obama Nation makes repeated references to the book debuting at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, but other lists show a different story.

On the Wall Street Journal nonfiction list, it is a distant second to The Last Lecture (which doesn’t appear on the Times nonfiction list because it’s categorized as “Hardcover Advice.” It’s at number one on that list).

The WSJ’s sales index shows Obama Nation is selling at less than 1/3 the rate of The Last Lecture. Comparing it to the number one fiction title, Obama Nation is selling at a bit more than 10% the rate of Breaking Dawn.

The USA Today list shows all titles in one ranking, regardless of age level or category. On that list, Obama Nation is at #12 (it was at #25 last week), after the paperback of Debbie Macomber’s The Manning Brides.

The Amazon list is updated hourly and therefore responds quickly to media attention. On that list, Obama Nation rose from #10 two days ago to #1 today, above Breaking Dawn.

Obama Nation, at #1 on the 8/17 New York Times bestseller list (it’s on the list with a dagger, which  “indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.” In a NYT story on Tuesday, these were characterized as “a large volume of bulk sales”), has come under scrutiny from various sources.

The Obama campaign itself has just issued a rebuttal as a 40-page PDF, called “Unfit for Publication,” (download it here). The third page of the pamphlet links to commentary on the book in the NY Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Time magazine, the New Republic and Politico.com.

More rebuttals appeared last night and today: 

Washington Post editorial, “Par for Mr. Corsi; An expert at misrepresentation takes on Barack Obama” says the book “is rife with inaccuracies and innuendo.”

Washington Post, “Obama Faces the Smear Machine,” Eugene Robinson

Rachel Maddow on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” last night said the book “stretches the credulity of its being classified as ‘nonfiction’”

In addition, John Kerry has set up a Web site, Truth Fights Back

According to an AP “Exclusive,” the Barack Obama campaign will release Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s Promise, outlining the candidate’s stand on various issues, on Sept 9th as a $13.95 paperback with a printing of 300,000 copies. An e-book version will be published at the same price a day earlier. It is also being released in audio.

The publisher is Three Rivers Press, the paperback imprint of the Crown Publishing Group (a division of Random House), publisher of Obama’s two bestselling memoirs. The book will include a foreward by the candidate.

Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s Promise 

by Barack Obama (Foreword)

• Paperback: $13.95
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (September 9, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0307460452
• ISBN-13: 978-0307460455

Since yesterday, Ron Suskind’s book, Way of the World has received much more media attention, including an appearance on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. The book is now at #15 on Amazon.

Today’s Salon has an actual review of the book, beginning, 

Diligent, linear-minded readers will have to ford through 370 pages of his alternately incisive and gauzy book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism,” to reach the accusation that has set the nation’s blogs abuzz.

Several libraries do not show the book on their catalog. For those that do, reserves are building, but reserve to copy ratios are still comfortable.

• Hardcover: $27.95
• Publisher: Harper (August 5, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061430625
• ISBN-13: 978-0061430626

Ron Suskind’s embargoed book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism, releases today with a 500,000 first printing and media attention. So far, however, it’s not translating into demand in libraries. 

Suskind appeared on the Today Show this morning. According to the story online, the hot news is Suskind’s charge that Bush ordered the “CIA to manufacture a false pretense for the Iraq war in the form of a backdated, handwritten document linking Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.” In the book, Suskind calls this “one of the greatest lies in modern American political history.” 

The embargo was not air tight; Politico got the book last night and leaked the story. However, since no major news source picked up on it, there seemed to be no major affect on the Today Show appearance. For a behind-the-scenes look at the tensions that surround an embargo, check The New York Observer’s story.

Four of nine libraries I checked do not have the book on their catalogs. One library shows that the book is in processing; the rest show it on order.

• Hardcover: $27.95
• Publisher: Harper (August 5, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061430625
• ISBN-13: 978-0061430626