Jeff Sharlet returned to NPR’s Fresh Air to talk to Terry Gross about the secretive fundamentalist group “The Family,” which counts among its members influential congressmen and senators. Recent news stories, including those about family members John Ensign’s and Mark Sanford’s sex scandals, have brought new attention to the group.

Sharlet’s book, The Family, came out in hardcover last year; the paperback was released in May.

Holds are heavy in many libraries.

The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power Jeff Sharlet Retail Price: $15.99 Paperback: 464 pages Publisher: Harper Perennial – (2009-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 0060560053 / 9780060560058

Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive.

We’ve seen articles on how Starbuck’s, Costco, Barnes and Noble, Borders and the Indie Next program get behind certain titles and turn them in to best sellers.  Now it’s big-box retailer Target’s turn. (One day I dream of seeing a similar article about libraries.)

According to the New York Times, Target’s “Bookmarked” program has had a big affect on sales of several midlist titles (Target Can Make Sleepy Titles into Bestsellers).

Of the titles mentioned in the article,  Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, is the only one showing heavy holds in the libraries we checked (20 to 1 in one case). The current selection, The Wednesday Sisters by Meg White Clayton shows just a few holds.

On their Web site, Target lists their “Club Picks” as well as “Breakout Books” (titles in both categories get special endcap displays in the stores). You can also sign up for their free newsletter, alerting you to new picks (we will monitor new selections and report on them here).

Sarah’s Key Tatiana de Rosnay Retail Price: $13.95 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin – (2008-09-30) ISBN / EAN: 0312370849 / 9780312370848

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For Target’s description of The Wednesday Sisters, click here.

The Wednesday Sisters Meg Waite Clayton Retail Price: $23.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2008-06-17) ISBN / EAN: 0345502825 / 9780345502827

Speaking of Stephenie Meyer’s blog; she occasionally steps away from Twilight-related books and recommends titles to her fans in her posts. Last week, she enthused about The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester,

It’s the oddest/sweetest mix of Little House on the Prairie and X-Men. I was smiling the whole time (except for the part where I cried). I gave it to my mom, and I’m reading it to my kids—it’s absolutely multi-generational. Prepare to have your heart warmed.

Back in September, she recommended Hunger Games.

Here’s a good readers advisory catch-phrase; “Stephenie Meyer loves it.”

The Girl Who Could Fly 

Forester, Victoria

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
• Hardcover: $16.95; 336 pages
• Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (June 24, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0312374623
• ISBN-13: 978-0312374624

If you’re feeling in the need of uplift, listen to NPR’s This American Life’s fascinating profile of Geoffrey Canada and his plan to save Harlem’s children. Canada shows that simple steps (like getting poor parents to read to their kids) can have an amazing impact. The story is reported by Paul Tough and is based on his book, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America.  It rose to #45 on Amazon over the weekend.

The book also received a strong review in the LAT on Sunday and was featured in USA Today’s Education section earlier in the week. The book has also been featured on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

Library ordering is light, with one to one holds in most areas. A few libraries have not ordered it. In the case of this book, perhaps it’s worth going beyond the expressed demand.

Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America

Paul Tough

• Hardcover: $26; 304 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; (August 12, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0618569898
• ISBN-13: 978-0618569892

Amazingly, the rerun of  Andrew Bacevich’s appearance on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS (originally aired on 8/15) shot his most recent book, The Limits of Power to #2 on Amazon’s bestseller list, bypassing the Twilight series and even the new Oprah pick (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle). 

Holds are running heavy on in some libraries (as high as 9 to 1).

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

After a string of reviews, Anglo Files: a Field Guide to the British by Sarah Lyle is piling up holds in some areas (over 70 on 4 copies in one library).

Library purchasing was light, which is odd given the innate appeal of poking fun at the Brits. The PW review probably put buyers off, saying the author’s observations of the British are “neither overly perceptive nor interesting and much of her material is creakingly familiar.”

The consumer reviews have essentially agreed with that assessment, but less harshly. The most recent, in Sunday’s NYT BR says,

Throughout her frequently amusing account of living in England as a reporter for The New York Times, Ms. Lyall takes refuge in roomy generalizations that are hard to refute while at the same time being, at best, half true.

“Frequently amusing” applied to a book on life among the Brits may be all readers need to hear.

Tantor has just released an audio verison which is not yet on order in the libraries I checked.

The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British

 Sarah Lyall

• Hardcover: $24.95; 256 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton (August 18, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0393058468
• ISBN-13: 978-0393058468

Currently, the third most emailed article from the New York Times is Economic View: Is History Siding With Obama’s Economic Plan?, from Saturday’s Business Section.

Examining the differences in economic policies between Democrats and Republicans, the article is based on the book Unequal Democracy by Larry M. Bartels. According to the article, understanding these differences, “brilliantly delineated” in Bartels’s book, “might help voters see what could be at stake, economically speaking, in November.”

As a result of the article, Unequal Democracy rose to #196 (from #4,936) in Amazon’s sales rankings. It is owned by 3 of the 7 libraries I checked.

Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age

Larry M. Bartels

• Hardcover: $29.95; 328 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (April 27, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0691136637
• ISBN-13: 978-0691136639

Your first question after hearing that McCain had chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate was undoubtedly, “Is there a book about her?”

The answer is “yes, and it’s now #12 on Amazon.”

Published with uncanny foresight in April by Alaska’s Epicenter Press, the book is partisan towards its subject (as is clear from its subtitle). 

According to Publishers Weekly.com the publisher is out of stock and is working with Lightning Source to meet demand until it can do another reprint. 

Joe Biden’s book, Promises to Keep went to #8 on Amazon after his nomination last week. It is now at #246.

The libraries I checked do not own it.

Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment on Its Ear 
by Kaylene Johnson

• Hardcover: $19.95; 159 pages
• Publisher: Epicenter Press (April 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0979047080
• ISBN-13: 978-0979047084

In NPR’s regular feature, “Books We Like,” Barrie Hardymon praises both of Tana French’s psychological thrillers; In the Woods (2007, which won the Edgar for best first novel; it has been on the NYT Paperback Fiction bestseller list since its release in that format) and The Likeness (July).

Reviewers have trouble figuring out how to describe the appeal of French’s books. Hardymon says that, in Into the Woods, French,

…audaciously denied the closure that mystery fans crave; one of the crimes remained unsolved. Readers hoping that this follow-up novel would deliver that resolution should be disappointed for about a minute and a half — the time it takes for the new story to grip.

In The Likeness, the main character takes on the identity of a murder victim,

…inheriting an intense and exclusive group of friends…[this] cagily charismatic group drinks, banters, screws and harbors its intimacies as seductively as the oddballs in Donna Tartt’s classic The Secret History. As in that novel, the thrill comes in exploring the peculiar, collective psychology of the clique — the members of which keep secrets about Lexie’s murder from outsiders and each other.

Reserves are running five to one in some areas on The Likeness, six weeks after publication. The book will also be coming out in large type in October.

• Hardcover: $25.95
• Publisher: Viking, (July 17, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0670018864
• ISBN-13: 978-0670018864

The affect of Jerome Corsi’s book Obama Nation is examined in the New Yorker this week by the magazine’s main political commentator, Hendrik Hertzberg.

Although enumerating the book’s “fabrications and distortions” as the Obama campaign has done, is necessary, he says, it “can leave the impression of quibbling over details. The problem for Obama isn’t little lies. It’s the Big one.” The real harm of the book he says, is how it feeds “the sprawling conservative slander industry.”

It’s no wonder the review of The Grift by Debra Ginsberg is the most emailed of the stories in the NYT Book section today; it makes you want to tell people about it (amazing how rare that is).

One of the goals of EarlyWord is to find consumer reviews that have quotable lines for RA. This one has it;

For anyone who seeks an escape between two covers in these last few weeks of summer…The Grift is a gift with no strings attached… a satisfyingly voyeuristic vision of a mysterious stranger’s supernaturally charged fortunes.

The prepub reviews were decent, but not nearly as enthusiastic. Some libraries I checked don’t have it on order; those that do have holds.

Attention Southern California libraries; the review praises the depiction of San Diego (“a lifelike, multishaded rendering of San Diego’s blend of cultures, classes, ancestries and motivations”), the author’s home town.

The Grift

Debra Ginsberg

• Hardcover: $23.95
• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books (August 12, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0307382729
• ISBN-13: 978-0307382726

Our Consumer Book Coverage links keeps you up to date with the reviews your customers are reading. Unfortunately, People’s reviews are not online, so here is a rundown of the book coverage in this week’s issue (Sept. 1, Cover: “Ellen & Portia’s Wedding!”):

People Pick; Four (out of four) stars, Nonfiction

After the Fire: A True Story of Friendship and Survival 

Robin Gaby Fisher

• Hardcover: $24.00
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (August 25, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316066214
• ISBN-13: 978-0316066211

The true story of two friends who friends supported each other during agonizing recoveries from severe burns suffered during a fire at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.  People calls it “Unimaginably moving — readers will want to kep a box of tissues at hand — an deeply compassionate.”

Oprah, anyone?

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Three (out of four) stars, Fiction:

A Stopover in Venice

Kathryn Walker

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: Knopf; (August 19, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0307267067
• ISBN-13: 978-0307267061

Now that the NYT has spilled the beans on the author’s past, she is identified in the review’s first line as “an actress divorced from folk singer James Taylor.” The story is about an unhappy musician’s wife who escapes to Venice while her husband is on tour. People likes the book’s “racy, voyeuistic quality,” but finds the plot “labored.”

It’s also been reviewed in The New York Daily News and the Boston Globe (in a review so much more positive, that you have to wonder if they read the same book).

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Three (out of four) stars, Fiction:

Confessions of a Contractor

Richard Murphy

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (August 14, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0399155074
• ISBN-13: 978-0399155079

I’ve been enjoying the book’s ads on Shelf Awareness (“The First Thing a Woman needs to know about home renovation is simple: Do not…under any circumstances…sleep with your contractor.”) and the book’s elaborate Web site (even though it’s difficult to see how the “video testimonials” relate to the book).

About a contractor’s interactions with wealthy Angelenos, People finds it “sexy and filled with enough decor details to keep any HGTV addict happy.” USA Today recently intereviewed the author, an LA contractor himself.

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The One Hundred

Nina Garcia

• Hardcover: $21.95
• Publisher: Collins Living (August 26, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061664618
• ISBN-13: 978-0061664618

People quotes from the Project Runway judge’s selection of 100 fashion classics, with such practical hints as “You’re going to see a lot of [tuxedos on women] since Yves Saint Laurent has passed away. It’s a bold woman who can wear a tuxedo rather than a cocktail dress.”

One City/One Book programs rarely (if ever) select a brand new book.

But One Book/New Orleans has chosen the just-released (as of yesterday) City of Refuge by Tom Piazza.

Piazza has lived in New Orleans since 1994. An author of several books on jazz and blues as well as fiction and a memoir, his response to Hurricane Katrina was the book Why New Orleans Matters. According to the Times Pacayune, the signing for that book in Oct. 2005 was “one of the first great literary homecomings after the flood.”

The title of City of Refuge comes from a 1920’s gospel song by New Orleans singer Blind Willie Johnson. The Times Pacayune heralds it, saying

…the big Katrina novel here at last, reconstructing a city’s stubborn spirit through a writer’s keen vision into singular human hearts. It remembers the life before, honors the lives lost, and adds its urgency to the struggle that continues.

Piazza appeared at a kick-off event in a New Orleans bookstore last night and will continue to make appearances in the city throughout August.

City of Refuge

Tom Piazza

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: Harper (August 19, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061238619
• ISBN-13: 978-0061238611

I admit it, I failed the “Presidential Physics Quiz.” Too bad, since I obviously need the contest’s prize, a copy of Physics for Future Presidents by Richard Muller.

The quiz, featured on the NYT science blog, TierneyLab, was created by Dr. Muller, author of the book and teacher of a popular course with the same title at the U. of Cal., Berkley. The book is described in the blog as,

a marvelously readable and level-headed explanation of basic science principles and how they relate to issues like terrorism, energy policy, global warming, nuclear weapons and the space program.

There’s a wide range of ordering for this book; some have it on order in relatively large quantities (one large midwest library has 26 copies on order), others in small quantities, with holds, while a few others haven’t ordered it.

Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines  

Richard A. Muller

• Hardcover: $26.95
• Publisher: W. W. Norton (August 4, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0393066274
• ISBN-13: 978-0393066272

The Gargoyle appears at #14 (tied with #13) on the 8/24 NYT Fiction Bestseller list, joining the other debut fiction titles that have enjoyed pre-pub media attention this summer:

• #3 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, rising from #5 after two weeks on the list
• #6 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, down from #4 last week, its first dip after rising steadily up the list for the last nine weeks
• #7 The Lace Reader, its second week at #7
• #14 The Gargoyle, its first week on the list

The New York Times Book Review lets Princeton English professor Sophie Gee have at The Gargoyle in the 8/15 issue. She has a fine time picking apart the book’s inconsistencies and literary pretensions, but is less eloquent about the book’s appeal, 

As straight-up entertainment,The Gargoyle is so-so. It’s not exactly unputdownable, but it has enough unexplained details to remain interesting. Could it be true that Marianne lived in the 14th century, and how did she get to the present? Why does she now compulsively carve stone gargoyles in the basement of her house, and what have these grotesque physical forms to do with the hero’s own disfiguring burn scars? All fine questions, which build to a moderately satisfying conclusion.