We’ve been writing about The Help for quite a while, so we were pleased to see it break in to the top ten on Amazon this week, almost five months after publication.

Several libraries are showing heavy holds. Given the book’s slow and steady climb, it looks like word of mouth is still building, so it may not be too late to order more copies.

Those of you going to ALA will have a chance to hear from author Kathryn Stockett, who will be at the ALTAFF Gala Author Tea (Monday, 2 to 4 p.m.) along with Lisa Scottoline, Jill McCorkle, Gillian Flynn and Jane Stanton Hitchcock.

The Help Kathryn Stockett Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books – (2009-02-10) ISBN / EAN: 0399155341 / 9780399155345

Also on audio:

• Audio CD: $39.95, Unabridged
• Publisher: Penguin Audio;  (February 10, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0143144189
• ISBN-13: 978-0143144182

Large Type:

And downloadable eBook and audio from OverDrive.

These days anyone who dares to complain about work adds “But at least I have a job.”

Yet, as evidenced by what we’re reading, Americans are not fulfilled by their work. Alain de Botton’s The Pleasure and Sorrows of Work has been widely reviewed and is on waiting lists in most libraries. Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soul Class, which argues against the white-collar life and for working with your hands, is at #34 on Amazon.

It seems everywhere you turn, you find new books on chucking it all and raising goats (Brad Kessler’s Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese, Scribner, 6/23; featured on Salon today) or leaving a solid career to move as far away from what you know as possible (Waking Up in Eden: In Pursuit of an Impassioned Life on an Imperiled Island, Lucinda Fleeson, Algonquin, 6/16; I spent my weekend enchanted with this book), or staying put, but changing your life completely (Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, Novella Carpenter, Penguin, 6/11).

If you’re hearing echos of the ’60’s, you won’t be surprised to learn that a book called Yeah Dave’s Guide to Livin’ the Moment rose to #14 on Amazon over the weekend (it’s now at #42).

Author Dave Romanelli is co-founder of a Phoenix AZ yoga studio and teaches “Yoga+Chocolate” and “Yoga+Wine” courses. Of the book, PW said, “This lighthearted overview of awareness should provide seekers many ideas; accomplished yogis probably need not apply…”

Yeah Dave’s Guide to Livin’ the Moment: Getting to Ecstasy Through Wine, Chocolate and Your iPod Playlist David Romanelli Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Broadway – (2009-03-17) ISBN / EAN: 0767929489 / 9780767929486

Thanks to a review in today’s New York Times, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday, Neil MacFarquhar’s new book of reportage on the Middle East, is up to #328 on Amazon.com. Libraries we checked had fewer than eight copies, with up to 38 holds.

The book’’s title gives a hint of its unexpected point of view: MacFarquhar is an American who speaks Arabic, grew up in a Libyan oil town, worked for more than 13 years as a correspondent in the Middle East and is now The New York Times’ United Nations bureau chief. The Times review praises his grasp of history, and declares,

MacFarquhar writes most passionately about the activists and intellectuals struggling to liberalize their societies and Islam as a whole. These reformers — many of whom espouse an Islamic vision of democracy and human rights — are caught between religious zealots and repressive regimes that are often backed by the United States.”

The Washington Post also weighed in on the book back in May, calling it “an intelligent and fascinating romp full of anecdotes, acid asides and conversations with everyone from dissidents to diplomats and liberal religious sheikhs, and even a Kuwaiti woman with a sex-advice column.”

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday Neil MacFarquhar Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 359 pages Publisher: PublicAffairs – (2009-04-27) ISBN / EAN: 1586486357 / 9781586486358

Podcast: Play on page | Play in new window | Download

[Click above, for a sample of the audio of Darling Jim from Tantor]

EarlyWord was an early fan of Darling Jim, by Christian Moerk. It’s a perfect book for RA; you can pitch it as horror, mystery, psychological thriller, and storytelling. The Irish setting and story that unfolds via double diaries, adds extra appeal. People magazine may have put it best, “a chilling bedtime story for adults.”

More than two months after the book’s publication, today’s Washington Post gives it a rave. The fact that it’s being reviewed now is remarkable in itself, since newspapers generally run reviews around publication date. With so many books clamoring for attention at the beginning of the summer season, someone must have presented a strong case for reviewing an “older” book.

The Post’s reviewer, Daniel Mallory, a researcher in modern literature at Oxford, say it’s a

…spellbinding new novel…Aglow with fairy-tale inflections, this hypnotic, neo-Gothic suspense story unfolds like a hothouse bloom, lush and pungent; it’s a sprig of nightshade, all petals and poison. And it heralds the arrival of an astonishingly gifted storyteller.

Most libraries have bought modest quantities. In those that own more copies (an average of 4 per branch), the copies are turning over rapidly.

Do your RA staff a favor and buy more; it’s not too late.

Darling Jim Christian Moerk Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. – (2009-03-31) ISBN-10: 0805089470 ISBN-13: 9780805089479

Tantor released Darling Jim in audio on 5/4 [link to sample, above], narrated by Stephen Hoye and Justine Eyre.

It is also downloadable from OverDrive.

• 9 Audio CDs (Library Binder Pkg)    EAN: 9781400141982 $55.99
• 1 Mp3-CD (Retail Slimline Pkg)        EAN: 9781400161980 $19.99
• 9 Audio CDs (Retail Unikeep Pkg)    EAN: 9781400111985 $27.99

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie gets admiring reviews in both the current USA Today mystery column and in Marilyn Stasio’s “Crime” column in the NYT BR, adding to the chorus already building for what USA Today calls a “scrumptious first novel.”

Libraries are showing heavy reserves on moderate ordering (112 reserves on 16 copies in one large system).

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley Price: $23.00 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2009-04-28) ISBN-10: 0385342306 ISBN-13: 9780385342308

Also from Random House Audio

• Unabridged  (April 28, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0739384309
• ISBN-13: 978-0739384305

New York magazine points to nine nonfiction books and realistic novels, apparently anticipating a sober summer. The piece begins with the elephant in the room, Thomas Pynchon’s new novel Inherent Vice—“part noir, part psychedelic romp” and a “mere 400 pages”– which gets a brief mention, but no critical verdict.

Inherent Vice Thomas Pynchon Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Penguin Press (2009-08-04) ISBN-10: 1594202249 ISBN-13: 9781594202247

Available from Penguin Audio (8/4/09)

• Unabridged edition; $39.95;  978-0143144762

Dark Places, Gillian Flynn’s second novel, receives praise for the author’s skill in making a “caustic, self-loathing, unpleasant protagonist into someone you can come to root for, even if you never entirely like her.” The book is already on the extended NYT Fiction bestseller list at #35. It’s also discussed on the ARRT wiki – and the author will be at ALA in Chicago.

Dark Places: A Novel Gillian Flynn Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books – (2009-05-05) ISBN-10: 0307341569 ISBN-13: 9780307341563

Mark Kurlansky’s The Food of a Younger Land is dubbed “a thoroughly entertaining” collection of American Depression-era recipes, like ‘Squirrel Mulligan’  from the never-completed WPA project that sent depression era writers on the road in search of regional specialties. ” This one’s already at #400 on Amazon.

The Food of a Younger Land Mark Kurlansky Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2009-05-14) ISBN-10: 1594488657 ISBN-13: 9781594488658

Available from Tantor Media (05/09):

• MP3 CD;$24.99; 140016169X 
• Unabridged CD; $69.99; 1400141699   
• Playaway; $69.99; 161545683X

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin tells the story of how in 1927, Henry Ford, the world’s richest man, tried to annex a piece of Amazon jungle the size of Connecticut and build a rubber plantation. “Two things keep you reading: curiosity over how long this harebrained scheme could go on, and Ford himself, who, in his later years, was less a visionary than a wack job.” The book also received a starred PW review.

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City Greg Grandin Price: $27.50 Hardcover: 432 pages Publisher: Metropolitan Books – (2009-06-09) ISBN-10: 0805082360 ISBN-13: 9780805082364

In the Land of Invented Languages by Alicia Okrent is a survey of languages from Esperanto to Klingon, and the hilarious hubris of their creators, which New York called “a celebration of the power of natural languages” and also received a starred review from PW.

In the Land of Invented Languages Arika Okrent Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Spiegel & Grau – (2009-05-19) ISBN-10: 0385527888 ISBN-13: 9780385527880

How to Sell, Clancy Martin’s tale of the diamond trade is praised for it’s “fun, flash and fakery,” and also for being a “capitalist satire.” (In addition to the other reviews mentioned here yesterday, it was also called also called “a good, pacey and ultimately unchallenging read” by the New York Times Book Review).

How to Sell: A Novel Clancy Martin Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux – (2009-05-12) ISBN-10: 0374173354 ISBN-13: 9780374173357

Available from Blackstone Audio:

• 7 Tape; $59.95; 1-4332-7573-9
• 1 MP3CD; $29.95; 1-4332-7577-7
• 8 CD; $80; 1-4332-7574-6
• Playaway; $59.99; 1-4332-7581-4

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

Elizabeth Edwards’s recent appearances on Oprah and the Today Show have made her the author of the moment. But the media speculation about her motives for writing Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities has largely obscured the question of whether her memoir is actually a good read.

Now, a book review from the Los Angeles Times says the strength of her memoir about facing the loss of her 16-old son, resurgent cancer and marital betrayal by former Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards lies in “how little of it actually has to do with John Edwards’ caddish behavior.” Noting that Edwards emerged from her husband’s shadow in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns “on the power of her personality” and her willingness to take her own positions, such as her support of gay marriage, the review calls Resilience ”short but surprisingly deep… And when you finish it you have not just a deeper understanding of Elizabeth Edwards but also a better appreciation for the strength of will it can take to survive.”

For those who missed it, here’s a quick recap of the previous coverage. Edwards began her tour with an appearance Oprah, in which she said her feelings for her husband were “complicated,” and later appeared on the Today Show, where Matt Lauer quoted criticism of her book by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times (“it’s just a gratuitous peek into their lives, and one that exposes her kids”) and Sally Quinn in the Washington Post  (who suggests Edwards enabled her husband to cheat).  Tina Brown in The Daily Beast also weighed in; “If she had stuck with her health and her loss, Edwards might have held on to our sympathy. But her insistence on belittling to Oprah the dreaded ‘other woman,’ Rielle Hunter…was so embarrassingly self-righteous it almost made me feel sorry for the Democratic twinkie John.”

The book has been rising on both Amazon (currently at #12) and B&N.com (currently at #12). Libraries show heavy reserving, 15 to 1 in several cases.

Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities Elizabeth Edwards Price: $22.95 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Broadway – (2009-05-08) ISBN-10: 076793136X ISBN-13: 9780767931366

Also in audio from Random House:

• ISBN-10: 0307577198
• ISBN-13: 978-0307577191

Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours in the Toughest Firm on Wall St. by Kate Kelly has risen to #37 on Amazon, but none of the major library systems we checked had it in stock (it may have been embargoed, preventing prepub reviews). 

Released May 12, the Wall St. Journal reporter’s book is riding a publicity wave that began with yesterday’s New York Post report on Kelly’s revelation that Bear Stearns rebuffed last minute aid by rival investment bank Goldman Sachs shortly before its collapse last spring. Other major media hits include an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air and a rave Los Angeles Times review, which described Kelly’s look at the firm’s final 72 hours as “brilliantly reported” and “grippingly propulsive,” with well-sketched portraits of Bear’s upper ranks, “where executives were fiercely territorial and oddly inattentive to even critical operational questions. Bear Stearns was, in the end, an institution where denial was the executive suites’ emotion of first resort.”

Librarians may have skimped on Kelly’s book in favor of William D. Cohan’s book about Bear Stearns, House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street, which beat Kelly’s book to market by two months and is currently #4 on the New York Times bestseller list. That book, which focuses on the firm’s final 10 days, received a rave review from Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times. Now #117 on Amazon, Cohan’s book is better represented in the libraries we checked, although the ratio of holds to available copies is high – ranging from 117 to 158 holds on 4 – 39 copies. 

Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours of Bear Stearns, the Toughest Firm on Wall Street Kate Kelly Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover – (2009-05-12) ISBN-10: 1591842735 ISBN-13: 9781591842736

House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street William D. Cohan Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (2009-03-10) ISBN-10: 0385528264 ISBN-13: 9780385528269

House of Cards is available in audio:

• Publishers: Tantor Media.
• ISBN: 9781400141685
• $54.95; unabridged; 20 discs

There is also an e-book version:

• Overdrive Adobe ePub eBook; $27.95

On the Daily Beast, Daphne Merkin writes about the cleverly titled Masters of Sex, a biography of Masters and Johnson, the pioneers of sex research, Masters and Johnson, calling it

…a richly informed and elegantly organized account of the two people behind the logo that stood for new sexual horizons.

The review is as fascinating as the book sounds.

Several libraries have not yet ordered it.

Masters of Sex Thomas Maier Price: $27.50 Hardcover: 432 pages Publisher: Basic Books – (2009-04-13) ISBN-10: 0465003079 ISBN-13: 9780465003075

Who of us could resist this headline – A Sleuth Goes to the Library?

It’s for the Wall Street Journal’s review of a book most of us won’t be able to resist, Curiosities of Literature, “a book crammed with enough amusing trivia to fuel your cocktail-party conversation until Bernie Madoff’s memoirs come out.”

Indeed, the review is peppered with fascinating literary tidbits. 

Unfortunately, a full three paragraphs is spent detailing typos and errors in grammar.

Wait! Should my first line have started with “Whom of us…”?

Curiosities of Literature: A Feast for Book Lovers John Sutherland Retail Price: $22.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing – (2009-04-22) ISBN 10:     ISBN 13: 1602393710      9781602393714

The following is based on the 5/17 NYT list (sales through 5/2) and the 5/7 USA Today general list (sales through 5/3).

#1 NYT Fiction
#1 USA Today general

The 8th Confession (The Women’s Murder Club) James Patterson, Maxine Paetro Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2009-04-27) ISBN-10: 0316018767 ISBN-13: 9780316018760

Also available in audio from Books on Tape and  Hachette; as downloadable Adobe EPUB eBook and audio from OverDrive; and large print from Little, Brown.

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#1 NYT Paperback Trade Fiction
#3 USA Today general

This is Nora Roberts’s first trade original and the first in a new series. Upcoming titles are:

• Bed of Roses (12/09), 
• Savor the Moment (5/10),
• Happy Ever After (12/10)

Vision in White (The Wedding Quartet, Book 1) Nora Roberts Price: $16.00 Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: Berkley Trade – (2009-04-28) ISBN-10: 0425227510 ISBN-13: 9780425227510

Also available in audio from Brilliance; in downloadable eBook and audio from OverDrive.

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#2 NYT Fiction
#10 USA Today general

Breaking onto the hardcover fiction list for the first time, after several years on the paperback lists, is J.R. Ward’s seventh installment of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, a series about vampire warriors. The previous titles in the series are:

• Dark Lover; Book One; September 2005
• Lover Eternal; Book Two; March 2006
• Lover Awakened; Book Three; September 2006
• Lover Revealed; Book Four; March 2007
• Lover Unbound; Book Five ; September 2007
• Lover Enshrined; Book Six ; June 2008
• The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider”s Guide; October 2008

Ward begins another “dark and edgy paranormal romance” series this year Covet: A Novel of the Fallen Angels, (Signet; ISBN-10: 0451228219; ISBN-13: 978-0451228215; $7.99 pbk).

She will also continue the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. 

Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 7) J.R. Ward Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 544 pages Publisher: NAL Hardcover – (2009-04-28) ISBN-10: 0451225856 ISBN-13: 9780451225856

Also available in audio from Penguin and downloadable ebook and audio from OverDrive.

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#4 NYT Fiction
#19 USA Today general

Summer On Blossom Street Debbie Macomber Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Mira – (2009-05-01) ISBN-10: 0778326438 ISBN-13: 9780778326434

Also available in audio from Brilliance; in downloadable eBook and audio from OverDrive.

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#9 NYT Fiction
#121 USA Today general

This marks the first time in the NYT top ten for Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series. 

The Language of Bees Laurie R. King Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 448 pages Publisher: Bantam – (2009-04-28) ISBN-10: 0553804545 ISBN-13: 9780553804546

Also available in large print from Throndike and downloadable Adobe EPUB eBook from OverDrive.

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#14 NYT Fiction
#148 USA Today general

Home Safe Elizabeth Berg Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Random House – (2009-04-28) ISBN-10: 1400065119 ISBN-13: 9781400065110

Also available in audio from Random House and downloadable Adobe EPUB eBook from OverDrive.

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#19 NYT Fiction, Extended
#120 USA Today general

Mr. and Miss Anonymous Fern Michaels Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Kensington – (2009-05-01) ISBN-10: 0758212720 ISBN-13: 9780758212726

Also available in audio from Brilliance; in downloadable eBook and audio from OverDrive.

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#30 NYT Fiction, Extended

Debut novel with significant bookseller backing.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley Price: $23.00 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2009-04-28) ISBN-10: 0385342306 ISBN-13: 9780385342308

Also available in audio from Random House and downloadable Adobe EPUB eBook and audio from OverDrive.

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#34 NYT Fiction, Extended

Sag Harbor Colson Whitehead Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (2009-04-28) ISBN-10: 0385527659 ISBN-13: 9780385527651

Also available in audio from Books on Tape and downloadable Adobe EPUB eBook and audio from OverDrive.

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#35 NYT Fiction, Extended

This crime novel by National Book Award winning author (Tree of Smoke) originally appeared as a serial in Playboy. it’s being reviewed widely, including a very strong review in this week’s NYT Book Review.

Nobody Move Denis Johnson Price: $23.00 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux – (2009-04-27) ISBN-10: 0374222908 ISBN-13: 9780374222901

Also available in audio from BBC Audio and downloadable audio from OverDrive.

Healing the Addicted Brain: The Revolutionary, Science-Based Alcoholism and Addiction Recovery Program by physician Harold Urschel sped up Amazon’s bestseller list yesterday after Dr. Phil featured the author on a show about “How to Stay Sober.”

None of the major systems we checked have any copies.

Dr. Phil praised Urschel as “the number one addictionologist expert in this particular area,” for his treatment that combines brain chemistry science with psychiatry and environmental and lifestyle adjustments, with clients from around the world seeking his treatment at the Urschel Recovery Science Institute in Dallas, TX.

According to a press release from publisher Sourcebooks, 

Dr. Urschel starts with leading-edge thinking about brain science and neuronal chemistry, then integrates the latest anti-addiction medications and therapies, combined with unique, individualized psycho-social direction, stress management, coping skills, and even legal guidance, providing a comprehensive science-based program focused on the prevention of relapse.

Healing the Addicted Brain: The Revolutionary, Science-Based Alcoholism and Addiction Recovery Program Harold Urschel Price: $15.99 Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: Sourcebooks Trade – (2009-04-01) ISBN-10: 1402218443 ISBN-13: 9781402218446

When a 29 year-old author’s first novel jumps to #112 on Amazon the day after it goes on sale, it’s time to call it “a precocious debut.” The rise of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larson appears to have been sparked by an excerpt in Vanity Fair magazine and a Boston Globe writeup that focuses as much on the $900,000 advance paid for the book by Penguin Press as it does on the book’s 12 year-old narrator, Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet. The book follows the Montana rancher’s son on a journey to Washington (without his parents’ knowledge) to collect an award for the maps he obsessively makes, which are reproduced in hand-drawn marginalia that spills over the pages of Larsen’s book.

So far, library orders are on the low side (most in the 4-8 copy range) with reserves ranging from 17 to 30. That may be because early reviews of the novel have varied, with Booklist giving it a star, Library Journal fairly positive and PW and Kirkus more mixed. The book has also attracted publishers in two dozen other countries, and recently drew praise from the Times Online (UK), which called the writing “redolent of Mark Twain’s Roughing It in the rhythms of its humour and the picaresque deviations of its storytelling,” while also observing that the book “loses its poise” in the final chapters.

The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet Reif Larsen Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2009-05-05) ISBN-10: 1594202176 ISBN-13: 9781594202179

UPDATE; We just learned that Spivet is also available in audio:

• Publisher: Penguin Audio; Unabridged edition (May 5, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0143144650
• ISBN-13: 978-0143144656

Are library buyers multitasking too much to keep track of Winifred Gallagher’s new book, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life? It’s jumped to #26 on Amazon.com after a New York Times “Science” section story by John Tierney on “The Science of Concentration,” and by critic Laura Miller in Salon. Yet the libraries we checked showed low ordering (in some cases, no copies; in others, a single copy against 35 or more requests).

Gallagher argues that how we focus our attention is not only the key to mood, productivity and relationships, it’s the sum of our very being. A journalist and author of two other psychology books, she came to recognize the importance of attention while fighting cancer, when she discovered that consciously focusing on meaningful, productive or energizing subjects transformed her experience of the world. On a practical level, she recommends starting the workday with 90 minutes of undistracted attention on your most important task—bearing in mind that the brain can take 20 minutes to reset after an interruption.

Both reviewers clearly found Gallagher’s ideas engaging, although Miller found her writing “frustratingly scattered, self-contradicting and platitudinous” and questioned if we really need “more hand-wringing about families who don’t have dinner together or reheated summaries of scientific studies demonstrating the power of positive thinking?” Yet the Amazon rankings make clear that this subject strikes struck a chord. At this rate, we can expect to see it on bestseller lists next week.

Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life Winifred Gallagher Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2009-04-16) ISBN-10: 1594202109 ISBN-13: 9781594202100

Rapt is also available on audio from Brilliance:

• 7 audio CDs: 978-1-4233-9321-4
  $82.97 
• 1 MP3-CD: 978-1-4233-9323-8
  $39.97 

And a downloadable e-book is available from Overdrive:

• Adobe EPUB eBook ISBN:  9781101032596
  $25.95