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Janet Maslin reviews Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars in today’s NYT using the apt headline, “All the Right Stuff and the Gross Stuff.”
The author is interviewed by the editor-in-chief of the NYT Book Review (which also reviewed it on Sunday), Sam Tanenhaus.
The book rose to #15 on Amazon’s sales rankings over the weekend.
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The periodic table is an unlikely topic for a best seller, yet The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean hit the NYT Nonfiction list last week at #12, and continues in the same position on the upcoming 8/15 list.
Published early last month, it’s been reviewed in several consumer publications (including Entertainment Weekly, which gave it an A-), but until today, not in the NYT. Reviewer Janet Maslin clearly enjoys the ”nonstop parade of lively science stories,” but finds it “is more notable for its gymnastics than its coherence.”
Entertainment Weekly had no such trouble, applauding author Sam Kean for bringing “an enthusiasm for the material that infects even those of us who wouldn’t usually give a flying photon,” and combining “the anecdotal flourishes of Oliver Sacks and the populist accessibility of Malcolm Gladwell…”
Libraries are showing holds as high as 10:1 on moderate ordering. Note that it will soon be available in audio from Tantor (see below).
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Tantor Audio; UNABR; Read by Sean Runnette; On Sale Date: 08/23/2010
Trade; 9781400119523; 11 Audio CDs; $34.99
Library; 9781400149520; 11 Audio CDs; $83.99
MP3; 9781400169528; 2 MP3-CD; $24.99
A 2003 novel from the University of Chicago Press made a leap in sales (from a lowly #646, 688 to #137), based on a recommendation from Sue Miller on NPR’s All Things Considered last night.
Miller picked McKay’s Bees by Thomas McMahon, for,
…its frequent hilarity; its occasional tender sexiness; the sheer erudition on display within its pages; and the modest, generous terms in which this last is offered. Do you want Darwin’s theory explained? Why, it’s about “the greenness of every living thing, its sexual purpose, and its mortal nature.” Do you want to know, say, how to divide and multiply bee hives? You’ll find it here. How to build a small funicular to get you upstairs without electricity? How to make a daguerreotype? Construct a kiln? All included for the price of admission, and all connected intimately to the foibles, the hopes, the aims, the character of the characters in this book.
Most libraries we checked do not own the book.
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The University of Chicago Press is doing well this week. The NYT reviewed its book on shell identification (including a stunning online slide show of images from the book), also causing a rise on Amazon.
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Says Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air, “Chances are, you’ve never heard of William Stewart Halsted, but if you’ve ever had a surgical procedure of any kind, you could say he’s affected your life…no one did more to modernize medical surgery.”
He was also a cocaine and morphine addict.
Gerald Imber, who has written a book about Halsted, was interviewed on last night’s show (listen here. Warning: surgical procedures are described; don’t listen before lunch)
The book rose to #74 on Amazon. Library ordering is light.
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The essential question when deciding whether to buy more copies of a suddenly-successful book is, “How long will the interest last?”
In the case of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, all signs indicate that interest is not going to fade soon.
The book tells the sad and fascinating story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her knowledge, some of her cancer cells were removed and are still living in medical laboratories where they have played a part in major medical breakthroughs, including the discovery of the polio vaccine. The fact that her descendents are unable to afford medical care is just one of the many moral issues that the book raises.
The book’s story as well as the story of the author who became obsessed with it, have generated a great deal of media coverage, as we noted earlier, but beyond that, the reviews indicate the book is as strong as the story it tells.
Entertainment Weekly’s review editor, Tina Jordan, who has read a LOT of books, calls it ”The best book I’ve read in quite a while,” on the magazine’s blog Shelf Life. She even included this personal information in the review that appears in the magazine’s current issue,
Honestly, I shouldn’t even have been reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I had the flu and was so feverish that sweat was dripping off my nose and spattering the pages. But I could not put the book down — or even stop for a glass of ice water. Lacks’ story was that compelling.
The many consumer reviews to date have been strong, with several attesting to the book’s readability.
San Francisco Chronicle, “[Lack's descendent], Deborah at times seems as if she walked out of a novel’s pages. She is so vivid, so unforgettable, that it seems as if Skloot must have invented her. On the other hand, maybe no novelist, however skilled, could have imagined a character quite like Deborah.”
The New York Times, “…floods over you like a narrative dam break, as if someone had managed to distill and purify the more addictive qualities of Erin Brockovich, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Andromeda Strain.
Boston Globe, “…a fascinating read and a ringing success. It is a well-written, carefully-researched, complex saga of medical research, bioethics, and race in America. Above all it is a human story of redemption for a family, torn by loss, and for a writer with a vision that would not let go.”
It’s on the 2/28 NYT Nonfiction list for the second week, and is rising on the US Today list; libraries are showing heavy holds.
We recommend buying more now; word of mouth could carry this into the summer.
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Random House Audio; UNABR; 9780307712509; $35
Audio and e-book available from OverDrive.
Rebecca Skloot became obsessed with a story of Henrietta Lacks, a woman who contracted cancer in 1951; it was so virulant that it killed her within the year. She was just 31.
Amazingly, however, her cancer cells went on to have a life of their own. A medical researcher had been trying to find cells that would live indefinitely so he could use them in experiments. Lacks’ cells had that unique characteristic and have been used in labs around the world ever since; they were used to develop the first polio vaccine as well as drugs for many other diseases.
But neither Lacks nor her family knew that her cells were going to be used in this way.
Skloot just published a book about the story, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It was covered on ABC’s World News Tonight on Sunday and in the New York Times‘ “Health” section yesterday. Calling the book “gripping,” the article notes that it raises difficult ethical issues; “if scientists or companies can commercialize a patient’s cells or tissues, doesn’t that patient, as provider of the raw material, deserve a say about it and maybe a share of any profits that result?”
The book is currently at #10 on Amazon. UPDATE: After the author was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross on Feb. 3, the book rose to #7 on Amazon.
Ordering is light with heavy holds in most libraries. Where the audio is owned, it is also showing heavy holds
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Random House Audio; UNABR; 9780307712509; $35
Audio and e-book available from OverDrive.
The New York Times Science section calls Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle, “an exquisite picture guide to the universe,” adding, “Actually ‘exquisite’ does not really do justice to the aesthetic and literary merits of the book…”
Online, the NYT offers a slide show of some of the book’s amazing images.
The book is owned by most large libraries. Today, it rose from #29,203 on Amazon sales rankings to #18.
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After the author appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation yesterday, What on Earth Evolved? rose to #134 on Amazon; few libraries show it on their catalogs.
The book celebrates the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by ranking the top 100 species, in terms of their impact on evolution, human history and the environment. Species also get marks for how long they’ve survived and how far they have expanded across the globe.
The most influential species? Earthworms. Humans don’t even make the top five.
The book was not reviewed prepub, but it is described on the the National Geographic blog.
Be sure to check out the What on Earth Evolved? game on the book’s web site; it’s challenging and £1 is donated to charity for each person who plays.
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If you’re wondering about the price — the publisher says it’s “lavishly illustrated.”
One of the people interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning’s cover story about the safety of flu vaccine, was Michael Specter, author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. As is probably clear from the book’s subtitle, Specter, who writes about science and technology for The New Yorker, believes that the risks of not getting the vaccine outweigh any other concerns. He also was interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday and the book was reviewed in the New York Times.
Holds are heavy on modest ordering in the large libraries we checked.
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eBook downloadable from OverDrive.
CBS sunday Morning
Two books released on the same day, make quite different cases; the atheist Richard Dawkins makes the case for evolution in The Greatest Show in Earth, while Karen Armstrong makes The Case for God.
Armstrong’s book was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered last night; Dawkins is scheduled for the Colbert Report tomorrow night.
Both are showing heavy holds (Dawkins is running ahead of Armstrong) on light ordering.
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Unabridged Audio:
Simon & Schuster Audio; 9780743579278 $ 39.99; 9/1/09
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Unbridged Audio:
Large Type:
Thorndike Press; 9781410421531; $ 32.95; 11/1/09
Downloadable audio and eBook from OverDrive
The NYT BR calls The Strangest Man, a biography of Paul Dirac, a mathematical physicist and the youngest theoretician to receive the Nobel Prize, “a gift,” saying it is both “wonderfully written” and “a thought-provoking meditation on human achievement, limitations and the relations between the two.”
Booklist, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly were all equally rhapsodic. The book is on order in small quantities in most large libraries, with some holds.
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Downloadable ebook available from OverDrive.
This week’s CBS Sunday Morning Cover Story featured Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart. The book is now at #12 on Amazon and is showing heavy holds in some libraries (119 on 25 in one large system). It’s also on the Indie Bound nonfiction bestseller list, at #13.
The book was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition in mid-June. The LA Times called it “Deliciously eerie…entertaining, informative — and a little unsettling.”
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In the 8/3 issue of Time magazine, Lev Grossman calls Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, the “most flat-out fascinating book so far this year” and,
You wouldn’t get that from its title, which sounds like a tender coming-of-age novel, nor from its subtitle —How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science — which sounds like a course you napped through in college. But Holmes’ account of experimental science at the end of the 1700s — when amateurs could still make major discoveries, when one new data point could overthrow a worldview — is beyond riveting. Science was like punk rock: if you had a basement, some free time and some hubris, you could do it.
Large libraries are showing heavy holds on light ordering (27 on 2 copies in one instance).
It’s also been admiringly reviewed in the NY Times, the NYT Book Review, and the Wall Street Journal.
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Now at #109 on Amazon, Bill Streever’s new book about life at polar and scientific extremes, Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places, is the happy beneficiary of two prominent New York Times reviews–and both critics love the book. Dwight Garner weighed in on Friday, July 24th in the daily Times, while Mary Roach, the much-praised author of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, reviews it for the cover of the New York Times Book Review on Sunday, July 26. According to World Cat, 126 libraries have Cold. But of the four major systems we checked, two didn’t have it, and the other two had substantial holds on fewer than 10 copies.
Streever’s travels to the coldest places on our warming planet spark reflections on hibernation, frostbite and life in a snowpack, among many other intriguing topics. Garner praises his writing as ”flinty and tough-minded, with just enough humor glowing around the edges to keep you toasty and dry,” calling the book “an unusual and welcome addition to the literature of cold weather and the great north.”
Roach, meanwhile, heartily embraces Streever’s quirky science: “Streever reminds us that everything is molecules — bouncing energetically off one another in heat, sticking closer together and moving sluggishly in cold. As he makes clear, the sluggishness can spell trouble, whether it’s affecting your nerves (freezing digits go numb because synapses are too cold to fire), your blood, your car.”
And although Roach cautions that the book is “structured more like a blog,” with chapters that “aren’t united by easily discerned themes,” she declares “the book is so interesting it doesn’t matter.”
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Fueled by Wayne Dyer’s appearances on PBS pledge drives since mid-May, Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits is back at #1 on Amazon, and has spent 17 days in the Top 100. Libraries we checked are catching up to heavy reserves, with copies on order.
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However, none of the libraries we checked had copies of Dyer’s related children’s book, now up to #88 on Amazon: No Excuses!: How What You Say Can Get In Your Way, written with Kristina Tracy and illustrated by Stacy Heller Budnick.
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Dyer’s publisher, Hay House, is also promoting two related adult books to his readers on Amazon:Virus of the Mind and The Biology of Belief. Both have spent nine days in Amazon’s Top 100, probably helped by the discount Amazon offers for buying the books together with Dyer’s. We’re not sure if this activity will stimulate library demand, but just in case, read on for more info about the books. And please use our comments are to alert us to any related activity you find in your library!
Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme by Richard Brodie, currently at #21 on Amazon, is a hardcover reissue of the book, which was first published in 1995 by Integral Press. One library has 32 holds on a single copy, but none of the others we checked had it. The book ”builds on the work of scientists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett,” according to the publisher, and describes how “mind viruses have already infected governments, educational systems, and inner cities, leading to some of the most pervasive and troublesome problems of society today.” It was featured on Oprah in the late 90’s, after its original publication.
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The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles by Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D. is currently # 19 on Amazon. Libraries have up to 39 holds on modest numbers of copies, in several cases the 2005 edition published by Mountain of Love/Elite Books. According to Hay House, the book “shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology, that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our thoughts.”
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Audio available from Sounds True
Also available on Playaway
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