This week, because of the controversy over eBook pricing, the general public was introduced to the concept of “windowing,” or deciding when to release books in cheaper versions.

Conventional wisdom says that publishers should try to get as much out of hardcover sales as possible, which is why the paperback release of The Help was moved from January to June, 2010.

Sometimes a publisher breaks rank with this thinking and decides to move the paperback release date earlier, to take advantage of publicity and give a price incentive to readers to take a chance on a book.

The unconventional approach seems to have worked for Colum McCann’s National Book Award winner, Let the Great World Spin. It was published in hardcover in June and as USA Today notes in their “Book Buzz” column, Random House decided to release the trade paperback several months earlier — on Dec. 2nd, rather than late Spring 2010. This week, the book jumps from #351 on the USA Today bestseller list to #126.

USA Today also notes that the movie option has been sold and McCann is at work on the screenplay.

Many libraries are continuing to show heavy holds on the book; here’s an opportunity to get through that list less cost.

Let the Great World Spin Colum McCann Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 400 pages Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks – (2009-12-02) ISBN / EAN: 0812973992 / 9780812973990

Ellen DeGeneres’ enthusiasm for The Life and Love of Trees sent the book all the way to # 28 on Amazon.

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The Life & Love of Trees Lewis Blackwell Retail Price: $50.00 Hardcover: 200 pages Publisher: PQ Blackwell – (2009-10-14) ISBN / EAN: 0473150956 / 9780473150952

The year’s major sleeper success, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, is being fast-tracked by producer Chris Columbus, according to Variety. Set to direct is actor-turned-director Tate Taylor.

Like Stockett, Taylor grew up in Mississippi. In fact, one of the characters in the book is based on his mother. He optioned the book before publication.

No word yet on who may star.

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

Penguin Audio; ISBN: 9780143144182 $39.95
Downloadable from OverDrive in both eBook and audio

On NPR’s All Things Considered last night, 85-year-old photographer Theodore Cross talked about his love of waterbirds, which he calls courageous because of the long migrations they make. He’s pretty courageous himself, having traveled seven days across the Arctic tundra to get a a shot of a particular bird.

His photographs are gathered in the book Waterbirds. Several are also on NPR’s photoblog.

Waterbirds Theodore Cross Retail Price: $100.00 Hardcover: 344 pages Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. – (2009-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0393072266 / 9780393072266

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David Sedaris is a master of the audio format, so it’s no wonder that he is also a fan.

On the New Yorker Book Bench blog last week, he writes about his favorite audios, a slim selection of four from all time, that achieve the perfect match of both material and narrator. Among his choices are the entire Harry Potter series, but the British version, featuring Stephen Fry a narrator, rather than the American favorite, Jim Dale. The idea of Elaine Stritch reading Dorothy Parker had us salivating, but, sadly, it is no longer available.

Fortunately, there’s plenty of tasty titles on these best audios of 2009 lists:

• Washington Post — The Top Audio Books of ’09
• AudioFile — Best Audiobooks and Best Voices

PW‘s provocative cover image and title for its annual African American feature stirred up plenty of controversy on Twitter and blogs yesterday – and now the book blogs at the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune are asking their readers to weigh in.

African American novelists Carleen Brice and Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant were among the first to criticize the cover for presenting the work of black authors in the context of a negative stereotype. PW editor Calvin Reid explained that he’d chosen the cover image from the book Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, edited by Deborah Willis. “While it never occurred to me that anyone would be offended by these images, I was very wrong and I have to acknowledge that,” he wrote. For a full summary of the debate, check out blogger and Examiner.com writer Nordette Adams’s post about it.

Many are arguing that the cover controversy distracts from the PW feature itself, which reviews the impact of the recession on the African American book market. It includes the disturbing news that there appears to be less serious fiction by black authors entering the marketplace, according to Jabari Asim, editor-in-chief of the Crisis and a former editor at the Washington Post Book World. In the article, book editors confirm that they are increasingly cautious about acquiring books by black authors at a time when chain bookstores are cutting back their orders, black bookstores have difficulty competing on price, consumers are extremely price-sensitive, and the popularity of street lit category is slowing.

Also included in the feature is a list of notable African-American titles slated for Fall 2009 and Winter 2010. Here are a few of the key fiction picks on the list:

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow is a “much-touted debut novel” about the biracial daughter of a black G.I and a Danish mother. In some libraries, there are already holds on this book, which is coming in February 2010.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Heidi W. Durrow Retail Price: $22.95 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2010-02-16) ISBN / EAN: 1565126807 / 9781565126800

Audio also available from Highbridge on February 1, 2010

• CD: $26.95; ISBN 9781598879230

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Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is set before the Civil War at a free-territory resort in Ohio that attracts four white female friends, as well as slaveholding men and their enslaved mistresses. Most libraries we checked had 10 or fewer copies on order, and a few holds.

Wench Dolen Perkins-valdez Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Amistad – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 006170654X / 9780061706547

Audio also available from Books on Tape in January 2010

• Unabridged CD (7 discs): $70; ISBN 9780307713704

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Best African American Fiction 2010, edited by Gerald Early is the second volume in an annual short fiction series. Libraries we checked have 10 or fewer copies.

Best African American Fiction 2010 Gerald Early Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: One World/Ballantine – (2009-12-29) ISBN / EAN: 0553806904 / 9780553806908

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Gloryland by Shelton Johnson is the story of a black man born on emancipation day in 1863 who joins the U.S. Cavalry and is posted to the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903 – and it’s written by a modern day Yosemite Park ranger. World Cat says 179 libraries have it. Those we checked had modest holds on modest numbers of copies.

Gloryland Shelton Johnson Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Sierra Club/Counterpoint – (2009-09-08) ISBN / EAN: 1578051444 / 9781578051441

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And here is the book that is the source of the controversial cover image:

Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present Deborah Willis Retail Price: $49.95 Hardcover: 244 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2009-10-05) ISBN / EAN: 0393066967 / 9780393066968

NPR keeps adding new best books lists; the latest are Memoirs, Mysteries, and today’s Best Books for a Book Club, selected by NPR books correspondent, Lynn Neary.

We’re happy to see one of our favorites, A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick, on her list of five titles. The trade paperback will be coming in January, with a new and dramatically different cover.

A Reliable Wife Robert Goolrick Retail Price: $13.95 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2010-01-26) ISBN / EAN: 1565129776 / 9781565129771

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A Reliable Wife Robert Goolrick Retail Price: $23.95 Hardcover: 291 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2009-03-31) ISBN / EAN: 1565125967 / 9781565125964

Audio: Recorded Books; Narrator; Mark Feuerstein

• Unabridged CD; C5952; 8 CDs; $92.75
• Unabridged Cassette; 99732; 8 Cassettes; $67.75

Large Type; Thorndike; Hdbk; $33.95

Imagine you write a novel about a guy who is a frequent flyer.

Then, imagine that the cover looks like this:

Then, imagine that the actual date of the book’s publication party is September 11, 2001. Sales, needless to say, were not great and a movie deal was tabled.

But, nearly ten years late, as author Walter Kirn recounts in in the Daily Beast (“George Clooney Saved My Novel“), the book is a bestseller and the movie is topping the Golden Globe as well as Oscar lists.

Up in the Air (Movie Tie-in Edition) Walter Kirn Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Anchor – (2009-11-24) ISBN / EAN: 0307476294 / 9780307476296

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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What on Earth Evolved?: 100 Species That Changed the World Christopher Lloyd Retail Price: $45.00 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA – (2009-11-10) ISBN / EAN: 1596916540 / 9781596916548

If you’re wondering about the price — the publisher says it’s “lavishly illustrated.”

Hoping that stores will be overwhelmed with shoppers this week before Christmas, publishers are giving them and their back room staffs a break, by releasing fewer big-name titles.

12/14

Patterson, James Witch & Wizard

Patterson begins a new YA series with co-author Gabrielle Charbonnet. Unsurprisingly, it is drawing the most holds of books being pubbed this week, averaging 5 to 1 at several large libraries.

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12/15

Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus Nanny Returns

Nanny is welcomed back with a B+ from Entertainment Weekly and  3.5 of 4 stars from People, which say it’s “as bitingly funny as its predecessor.” Holds are rather light (readers may have put off by that dreadful movie of the first title).

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12/15

Dominick Dunne, Too Much Money

Entertainment Weekly gives Dunne’s posthumous book a middling C, saying, “like a high-society dinner party — it promises glitz and excitement, but devolves into something of a bore.”

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12/15

Timothy Ferris, The Four-Hour Work Week

The work week may still have only four hours, but the new edition of the book has expanded from 320 pages to 416. An updated audio is also available.

I once heard a mystery writer, in a speech to a library crowd, say that he wanted his tombstone to read, “F**K Virginia Kirkus.”

His revenge may be sweeter now that Kirkus is the one with the tombstone.

It’s not surprising that the …

“codgerish” — Washington City Paper

“reliably cantankerous” — New York Times

“famously grouchy” — New York Observer

…Kirkus is not getting sympathy from all quarters, especially from agents and editors. Agent Esther Newberg tells the New York Observer,

…it’s never been a publication worth anything. The reviews were almost always negative and not helpful in any way. And so that’s it. Good riddance.

Tim Duggan, executive editor at Harper, observes in the NYT,

…it’s been a long time since a review there actually moved the needle in any meaningful way.

But David Wright, Seattle Public librarian and RA guru, gives Kirkus its fairest assessment in the Seattle Post Intelligencer (he’s also quoted in the NYT article):

Among its fellows – Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist and Library Journal – Kirkus often held itself apart, slow to join in a chorus of adulation, and often the only eye to catch some promising talent or sleeper sensation in the offing. Its criticism was at times merciless, but its knack for highlighting truly interesting and satisfying books will be deeply missed.

Let’s not be sanguine about the remaining prepub review publications. Three of them — Library Journal, School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly — have suffered several rounds of layoffs and their owner, Reed Business Information, put them back up for sale in July, after a failed attempt the year before. No buyers have emerged yet.

Most of the news stories focus on how booksellers used (or didn’t use) Kirkus, but The New York Observer quotes a previous Kirkus publisher who blames falling revenues on a decrease in library subscribers who “just could not afford it” anymore. More likely, libraries have found it not only more affordable, but more efficient to get reviews electronically from their wholesalers, an issue that affects subscription rates for all the prepub review media.

With libraries an increasingly important segment of the book market and given their heavy dependence on prepub reviews for buying, it’s shocking that anyone in the business does not consider this a loss.

In today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin says Greg Mortenson’s second book after Three Cups of Tea is “very different” from his first,  still hugely popular title; its  first-person narrative [is] much more vigorous than the third person of Three Cups of Tea”.

In the LA Times’ review, Bernadette Murphy offers more insight into the differences between the two books;

The new book is less focused on the plot drive found in Three Cups of Tea — will he succeed or fail to build the school? — and more concerned with educating readers about the region, the religions represented, the tribal customs and countless other details that animate the area…

Stones Into Schools has more characters, more regions to consider, more obstacles to overcome, more history to digest. At times, these “mores” can require a slow and careful read.

But be not discouraged: Like the trouble it takes to build these important and life-enriching schools, endeavoring to better understand this region through Stones Into Schools is worth the effort.

The book goes on to the NYT Nonfiction bestseller list for the first this week, at #2. It’s had a surprisingly slow start, given the popularity of the first title. Prior to publication, libraries were showing low holds on cautious ordering. In the last two weeks, however, holds have doubled and even tripled in several large libraries.

Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan Greg Mortenson Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 448 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2009-12-01) ISBN / EAN: 0670021156 / 9780670021154

Penguin Audio; UNABR; CD; 9780143144960; $26.95
Blackstone Audio; UNABR; CD; 9781433298271; $105
Blackstone Audio; UNABR; Cassette; 9781433298264; $72.95
Blackstone Audio; UNABR; MP3 CD; 9781433277184; $59.99
Thorndike Large Print; Hdbk; 9781410420350; $34.95

We’re not the only ones looking for under-the-radar gems from 2009; Nancy Pearl talked to NPR Morning Edition’s Steve Innskeep about her favorites, both adult and childrens titles.

She’s betting on When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead for the Newbery. Her enthusiasm raised the book from #211 on Amazon sales rankings to #170. It’s appeared on most of the childrens best books lists so far this year and our EarlyWord Kid, Lisa Von Drasek, picked it for her school’s Mock Newbery.

Covers and annotations are on the site.

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When You Reach Me Rebecca Stead Retail Price: $15.99 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books – (2009-07-14) ISBN / EAN: 0385737424 / 9780385737425

Library Binding; 978-0385906647; $18.99
Unabridged Audio; Listening Library; 978-0739380727; $28

The Lovely Bones movie opens this weekend, and the reviews are…rough. Peter Jackson, the director of Heavenly Creatures and Lord of the Rings, gets flack for being too faithful to the novel, and for going astray with special effects in his depiction of heaven, where the teenage protagonist ends up after she is murdered.

But remember – newly-jacketed tie-in editions displayed front-of-store in bookstores can remind readers of books they always meant to read. It’s worked in this case; the tie-in rose to #18 on last week’s USA Today bestseller list.

Newsweek calls The Lovely Bones an awkward mix of thriller, police procedural, family melodrama and mystical fantasy that lacks Sebold’s skill in holding its disparate elements.

By remaining faithful to Sebold’s myriad flights of fancy… [Jackson] has inadvertently highlighted the book’s vulnerabilities. When The Lovely Bones loses its grip on you, its momentousness turns into silliness.

People magazine gives the movie a dismal 1.5 of possible 4 stars in the 12/21 issue. The review is even more scathing (not available online): Jackson has made “a gallon-size, candy-colored margarita, but it contains only a thimble-full of actual tequila,” it says. “How much you like Bones may depend on how strongly you believe in a neon-bright afterlife.”

The Associated Press review is only slightly more tempered, praising Jackson’s striking imagery, but calling the resulting spectacle “showmanship, not storytelling, [that distracts] from the mortal drama of regret and heartache he’s trying to tell.”

The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: Back Bay Books – (2009-09-30) ISBN / EAN: 0316044938 / 9780316044936

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The Lovely Bones: Deluxe Edition Alice Sebold Retail Price: $16.99 Paperback: 328 pages Publisher: Back Bay Books – (2007-09-17) ISBN / EAN: 0316001821 / 9780316001823

Yann Martel’s new novel, Beatrice and Virgil, is set for publication in April 13, 2010, Random House announced today on its library marketing blog. (It’s a drop-in, meaning that it’s not listed in Random House’s Spring 2010 catalog).

And yes, Martel’s first book since The Life of Pi, his huge international bestseller which won the Man Booker Prize, has at least two animals in it. Here’s how Amazon describes it:

A famous author receives a mysterious letter from a man who is a struggling writer but also turns out to be a taxidermist, an eccentric and fascinating character who does not kill animals but preserves them as they lived, with skill and dedication — among them a howler monkey named Virgil and a donkey named Beatrice….

Galleys may be available at ALA Midwinter or PLA in Portland – so check the Random House booth if you’re there. There’s no jacket available yet, but here are the rest of the details: