Amazon preorders have shot The Beckham Experiment, to #243 (from #13,878), likely because of an excerpt, titled “How Beckham Blew It,”  in the July 6th Sports Illustrated. According to author Grant Wahl, soccer star David Beckham’s move to the LA Galaxy team, which was supposed to bring new American fans to the sport, has been a “soccer fiasco.”

The book’s release, originally scheduled for October, has been moved up to July 14th. According to WorldCat, only Seattle & Gwinnett County, GA, have it on order.

The Beckham Experiment: How the World’s Most Famous Athlete Tried to Conquer America Grant Wahl Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Crown – (2009-07-14) ISBN / EAN: 030740787X / 9780307407870

It will also be downloadable from OverDrive beginning July 14.

May 17 was a banner day for books on CBS Sunday Morning, which launched three featured titles into Amazon’s top 350 bestsellers. T.C. Boyle’s novel The Women, about the loves of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, moved to #100, while The Ashley Book of Knots by Clifford Ashley jumped to #295, and organization guru Julie Morgenstern’s SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life: A Four-Step Guide to Getting Unstuck leapt to #336. 

Libraries we checked favored Morgenstein’s self-help guide, with an average of 10 copies and signficant reserves. Quantities were more mixed and reserves more modest on Boyle’s novel, which came out in February, and The Ashley Book of Knots.

The Women: A Novel T.C. Boyle Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2009-02-10) ISBN-10: 0670020419 ISBN-13: 9780670020416

An audiobook version is available in three formats from Blackstone Audio:

• 15 CDs; $100; ISBN 978-1-4332-6061-2 
• 2 MP3CD; $29.95; ISBN 978-1-4332-6064-3    
• Playaway; $69.99; ISBN 978-1-4332-6068-1

Ashley Book of Knots Clifford Ashley Price: $80.00 Hardcover: 640 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (1944-06-21) ISBN-10: 0385040253 ISBN-13: 9780385040259

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SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life Julie Morgenstern Price: $15.00 Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: Fireside – (2009-03-03) ISBN-10: 0743250907 ISBN-13: 9780743250900

An audiobook is available in three formats from Tantor Media

• 9 CDs; $24.99 (Retail Pkg); EAN: 9781400107872       
• 9 Audio CDs (Library Binder Pkg); $69.99; EAN: 9781400137879
• Mp3-CD; $24.99; EAN: 9781400157877

In the Sunday NYT’s sports section, the story Powerful Agent’s Blunt Warning About Future of the N.B.A. is about the new book, The Bald Truth by David Falk. It was not reviewed prepub and most libraries have not ordered it.

The Bald Truth

David Falk

• Hardcover: $27; 384 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (February 3, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 1416584382
• ISBN-13: 978-1416584384

Two sports books in the headlines this week are predicted to be losers:

• NPR, Are Readers Tired Of Sports Doping Books? (on Bases Loaded by  Kirk Radomski)

• Fox Sports, “Rocky Racoon’s Blog,”  7 Huge Reasons Torre’s Book Will Fail

Who has it right? It looks like NPR is the best predictor; Amazon shows the just-released Radomski book at #952, while the Torre book is at #6 even though it isn’t available yet.

Library hold patterns in four large library systems also back up NPR:

• Torre — total of 46 copies on order, with 144 holds
• Radomski — total of 46 copies on order, with 9 holds

(Yes, that’s right, the total copies add up to exactly the same number, even though the individual libraries ordered different quantities of each title.)

Getting attention in the sports pages is a dispute over claims in a coming out next week about steroid use in the major leagues, Bases Loaded.

Of seven large libraries I checked, five have it on order. Reserves are light.

Among today’s stories are the following;

New York Times,  For Second Time in 2 Days, Mitchell Disputes Part of Radomski’s Book

USA Today, Radomski backs former Clemens’ trainer McNamee in new book

Sporting News, Radomski sides with McNamee over Clemens

Bases Loaded: The Inside Story of the Steroid Era in Baseball by the Central Figure in the Mitchell Report

Radomski, Kirk

• Hardcover: $25.95; 256 pages
• Publisher: Hudson Street Press (January 27, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 1594630569
• ISBN-13: 978-1594630569

Reviewed in the new issue of Sports Illustrated (Dec. 15) is a biography of Benny Friedman, the now-forgotten 1920’s sports icon who revolutionized football by inventing the forward pass.

Friedman, an Orthodox Jew from Cleveland was one of the few (VERY few, see The God Blog from L.A.’s Jewish Journal) Jews to excel in football, making this worth owning if only for school assignments (a book longer than 100 pages that can be cited in a bibliography; outstanding!). SI calls it “a rich, well-researched narrative.”

The book was reviewed pre-pub only by Kirkus and it is owned lightly in libraries.

Passing Game: Benny Friedman and the Transformation of Football

Murray Greenberg

• Hardcover: $26.95; 368 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs (November 3, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 158648477X
• ISBN-13: 978-1586484774

Vindicated:

Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball

• Hardcover: $25.95
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment (March 31, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1416591877
• ISBN-13: 978-1416591870

Speculation is building about who will be named in Canseco’s second book (after Juiced, 2005) for using steriods. The book is set for release on March 31st, following a change in publisher and allegations that Canseco offered to not name a player in exchange for investment in a movie project.

Of the ten libraries I track, only one has it on order. All of them own the earlier title.