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

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Crown – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 1400052173 / 9781400052172

Random House Audio; UNABR; 9780307712509; $35
Audio and e-book available from OverDrive.

Given the reviews so far, it seems you either get Jonathan Dee’s fifth novel, The Privileges, or you don’t.

In today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin says that, although the story is “excessively cryptic …[it] is so invitingly told that it’s much easier to be drawn in than turned off.”

The book rose to #108 on Amazon two weeks ago, based on a very strong review in the NYT BR. Holds are heavy in several large libraries, on very modest ordering.

The book follows the marriage of a New York City “golden couple” who rise to great wealth on insider trading. It’s not the plot that hooks the reviewers, but the way it is told; the Cleveland Plain Dealer says the first chapter, about the couple’s wedding, “could stand on it own as an exquisite short story.”

But the review that most makes you want to read the book is in the L.A. Times, which is worth reading in its entirety.

The Privileges Jonathan Dee Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 1400068673 / 9781400068678

e-book available on OverDrive.

The scoop-hungry National Enquirer, which is planning to enter the paper’s reporting on John Edwards and Rielle Hunter for the Pulitzer Prize, now claims that Oprah Winfrey is publishing a memoir.

The article reports, “Oprah wrote her memoirs years ago, but shelved the book on the advice of family and friends, sources say. But she’s releasing it now to thwart the impact of Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized book, Oprah: a Biography.”

Back in the mid-nineties, Oprah was indeed close to publishing an autobiography with Knopf, but pulled out at the last minute (there was even a lavish party for the book at the ABA convention; the predecessor to Book Expo America). Knopf told EarlyWord that they know of no plans to publish it now.

Meanwhile, sister imprint, Crown is publishing the Kitty Kelley book in April.

Oprah: A Biography Kitty Kelley Retail Price: $30.00 Hardcover: Publisher: – (2010-04-13) ISBN / EAN: 0307394867 / 9780307394866

Random House Audio; 9780307749246; $50
Crown Large Print; Pbk; 9780739377857; $30

Another skirmish in the e-book pricing war took place over the weekend. After Macmillan CEO Jon Sargent flew out to Amazon HQ to ask that Kindle pricing be restructured along the lines of the “agency model” offered by the new Apple iBooks store, Amazon not only rejected the suggestion, but retaliated by no longer selling Macmillan titles (which includes the imprints St. Martin’s, FSG, Holt and Tor/Forge); none were available for the Kindle and print editions could only be purchased through third-party retailers. This was covered in many news sources, including the L.A. Times.

On Sunday, it looked as if Amazon had conceded, posting this statement on the Kindle Community area (a somewhat hidden area of the site):

Dear Customers:

Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.

Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!

However, as of early Monday, Macmillan titles were still not for sale through Amazon.

What effect will this have on the public perception of e-books? It underscores that only certain titles are available for the Kindle and they can be removed from sale; issues librarians know only too well from dealing with database vendors (e.g., EBSCO & Gale). Corey Doctorow wrote on the tech site, Boing Boing, “this is a case of two corporate giants illustrating neatly exactly why market concentration is bad for the arts.” Futher, he objects to “Amazon draping itself in the consumer-rights flag,” when “Amazon’s ebooks are locked (by contract and by DRM) to the Kindle.” He also points to a post by John Scalzi, All the Many Ways Amazon So Very Failed This Weekend (even if you don’t care about this particular fight, read the post; it’s very funny).

Amazon has worked to give customers the perception that Kindle e-books cost $9.99, but if you are not buying bestsellers, Kindle prices can be quite a bit higher than that. Of the nine titles with full reviews in the current NYT BR, only one is available in a $9.99 Kindle edition; three are not available at all (these do not include any Macmillan titles; curiously, the one Macmillan title reviewed, from Palgrave Macmillan, is available for the Kindle. Guess Amazon doesn’t realize they’re part of Macmillan) and the rest were just $1.13 to $2.83 less than the hardcover price. In one case, the hardcover through a third-party retailer was cheaper than the Kindle version.

But consumers have proven they want the lower prices; none of the titles in the 100 top-selling Kindle titles was above $9.99 when we checked yesterday; the majority of the top “sellers,” 55 titles, were free; 25 titles range in price from $.01 to $9.60 and just 20 titles were at the magic $9.99 price. Clearly, people are still in the experimental phase and not willing to invest in buying content. Amazon sees e-book prices as a key to selling more Kindle readers. So, they’ve rejected the “agency model” (publisher sets the price; retailer gets 30%) even though it would earn them more money per title and get them out of the loss leader business.

Patti Smith can now sing “I’m on the cover of the New York Times Book Review.”

Well, maybe it doesn’t scan as well, or have the cache of “on the Cover of The Rolling Stone,” but she’s already achieved that milestone.

And, perhaps it doesn’t mean as much as the fact that her book, Just Kids, about her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe debuts at #7 on the new NYT nonfiction best seller list, or that holds are heavy in libraries and building fast.

The review says that  Just Kids,

…is the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s that any alumnus has committed to print. The tone is at once flinty and hilarious, which figures: she’s always been both tough and funny, two real saving graces in an artist this prone to excess. What’s sure to make her account a cornucopia for cultural historians, however, is that the atmosphere, personalities and mores of the time are so astutely observed.

The Washington Post was equally laudatory, in a review that makes you regret the book isn’t on your nightstand right now.

As part of her book tour, she appears at the Chicago Public Library on February 21.

Just Kids Patti Smith Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Ecco – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 006621131X / 9780066211312

Molly Ivins is often described as courageous and irreverent, so it’s no wonder that she also loved librarians, who share those characteristics. In fact, she began her career working in a newspaper library (see her 2001 interview in Special Libraries).

She died three years ago Sunday. You can help celebrate her life by tweeting your favorite Mollyisms, stories and memories using the hashtag #MollyIvins, in progress now.

The celebration is organized by Public Affairs, the publisher of the recent biography Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life; The Texas Observer, Molly’s former paper; and Vintage/Anchor, the publisher of Ivins’s books such as Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? and Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush.

Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life Bill Minutaglio, W. Michael Smith Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 360 pages Publisher: PublicAffairs – (2009-11-10) ISBN / EAN: 1586487175 / 9781586487171

Among the major releases coming next week are a “literary” author entering thriller territory, a novel that echoes events in Haiti and my personal favorite, the new Louise Erdrich.

Ordinary Thunderstorms William Boyd Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061876747 / 9780061876745

eBook available from OverDrive

Whitbread-award winning author Boyd (A Good Man in Africa), delves into the thriller genre in this, his ninth novel. It’s had  great prepub reviews and some early consumer coverage. The WSJ interviewed the author and called the book “gripping.”

Although set in London circa 2010, Ordinary Thunderstorms has a Dickensian cast of characters—predators and prey, tycoons and paupers, charlatans and stooges—orbiting one another in the mean streets of London.

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One Amazing Thing Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Retail Price: $23.99 Hardcover: 240 pages Publisher: Voice – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 1401340997 / 9781401340995

One Amazing Thing has already been featured in USA Today‘s look at what booksellers are expecting to do well this season, and, in a separate article on how the novel echoes events in Haiti, since it “tells the harrowing story of nine terrified people trapped in an office building in an unnamed U.S. city after an earthquake.” The BookReporter.com has selected it as “One to Watch.”

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Shadow Tag Louise Erdrich Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061536091 / 9780061536090

This one is my personal pick for the week. Erdrich examines a marriage through several lenses. The wife has been keeping a diary. Realizing her husband has been reading it, she begins writing entries designed to affect him. Meanwhile, she begins a separate diary to record her true feelings. The device brings you right into the heart of a difficult, passionate marriage.

More Major Fiction Releases Next Week:

Patterson, James and Michael Ledwidge, Worst Case, Little Brown
Bohjalian, Chris, Secrets of Eden, Crown; Entertainment Weekly gives it a B+
Hamilton, Laurell K. Flirt, Berkley
DeLillo, Dan, Point Omega, Scribner; gets a disappointing C+ in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly.
Harris, Robert, Conspirata, S&S
Mills, Mark,  Information Officer, Random House
Conrad, Lauren Sweet Little Lies, HarperCollins — the second in the L.A. Candy series by one of the stars of the MTV series, Hills
Hannah, Kristin Winter Garden, St. Martins

Childrens
Lerangis, Peter The 39 Clues Book 7: The Viper’s Nest

Not much information is available on Apple’s iBook app; the best coverage so far is Apple’s iPad: What book lovers need to know, on Entertainment Weekly’s Shelf Life blog.

News is leaking from a book by former John Edwards’ aide, Andrew Young. On the Today Show this morning, a reporter called the book,

…salacious, full of tawdry details, betrayal and countless lies. And as brutal as it is about John Edwards, it’s also tough on Elizabeth, who, the book says, became intoxicated by power, and sometimes looked the other way.

Tomorrow night, Young appears on 20/20.

The release date, originally scheduled for next week, has been moved up to Saturday, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down Andrew Young Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books – (2010-30-01) ISBN / EAN: 031264065X / 9780312640651

Unabridged audio will be available from Tantor:

Publisher: Tantor, 2/22/10
Read by: Kevin Foley
Trade: 9781400116508; 10 CD’s; $34.99
Library: 9781400146505; 10 CD’s; $69.99
MP3: 9781400166503; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

We’ve got a good feeling about the debut novel Wench (see earlier posts). Prepub reviews were great; the story brings to light a little-known, but fascinating piece of history, based on real events and the author is engaging (as proved by her interview on NPR last week; listen to it here).

Now, USA Today adds the icing to the cake by writing,

Readers entranced by Kathryn Stockett’s The Help…will be equally riveted by Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s Wench, a brutally told fictional account of slave women forced to be the “mistresses” of their white masters in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Like The Help, Wench immerses readers in its characters’ complex emotional lives.

Most libraries bought small quantities (fewer than 1 copy per branch) and are showing holds of 10:1.

We first heard about Wench at a HarperCollins library buzz session. Check out the buzz on their Summer 2010 titles by clicking here (and enter for a chance to win a set of five Advance Readers Editions).

Wench Dolen Perkins Valdez Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Amistad – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 006170654X / 9780061706547 Unabridged Audio: Books on Tape Audio and eBook downloadable from OverDrive

Clare Danes plays autistic animal specialist Temple Grandin in an HBO biopic debuting on Saturday, February 6th.

Entertainment Weekly is very enthusiastic about it, admitting that the subject, autism and cattle handling, doesn’t scream “must see,” but that the movie is “…relatable to anyone with a heart, and fascinating to anyone with a brain. The fact that it does so with such a singular story only makes the movie that much greater.”

Grandin has written several books, including last year’s Animals Make Us Human; her autobiography has been reissued as the tie-in.

Thinking in Pictures (Expanded, Tie-in Edition): My Life with Autism Temple Grandin Ph.D. Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Vintage – (2010-01-26) ISBN / EAN: 0307739589 / 9780307739582

eBook and audio available from OverDrive.

See the live coverage of Apple’s announcement here.

I guess “iPad” is an interesting variation on “iPod,” but I wonder if any women had a vote on the name?

Update: It will sell for much less than many had predicted;

Expect announcements of price cuts for the Kindle. The basic model now retails for $259 and the larger Kindle DX, which is the same size as the iPad, goes for $489.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the man who just last year dismissed the Kindle because “people don’t read any more,” now says, “Let me show you another one of our apps that we’re very excited about, an e-book reader…Today we’re announcing the iBooks store.”

He said the store is working with Penguin, Simon and Shuster and a number of other big publishers.

Of course, books will have to compete with movies, tv shows and videogames, which can also be accessed via the iPad.

The iPad site is now up and running.

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander is a talented (and heavily tattooed) computer hacker who uses her skills to investigate crimes.

In real life, there are hackers (with or without tattoos) who work to track down international high-tech criminals. The stories of two of these investigators are told a new book, Fatal Error, by the Financial Times‘ cyber-security reporter Joseph Menn. In an interview in the San Francisco Chronicle this weekend, he said hopes his book will wake up Americans to the dangers of cybercrime.

Stieg Larsson fan Vicky Raab writes on the New Yorker‘s “Book Bench” blog that Fatal Error corroborates much of what Larsson wrote about in his books; “how inept and/or corrupt law-enforcement, corporations, news agencies, and governments can be, and what the skinny really is on cybercrime.” As she points out, that should come as no surprise, since Larsson was a journalist himself. Further, she says the book kept her “riveted to the couch all weekend.”

The book, which was also featured on NPR’s Fresh Air last night (listen here) was embargoed until yesterday, so it was not reviewed prepub. It is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings, and is now at #62.

Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet Joseph Menn Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: PublicAffairs – (2010-01-26) ISBN / EAN: 1586487485 / 9781586487485

eBook downloadable from OverDrive.

A debut novel that imagines the life of Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, was reviewed last night by Maureen Corrigan on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Corrigan says Alice I Have Been, “…occasionally stumbles into melodrama, [but] most of the time it’s a nuanced, moody envisioning of the life of Alice Liddell” (listen to the full review here).

The book explores Lewis Carroll’s relationship with his seven-year-old muse, a relationship Alice’s parents mysteriously and suddenly cut short. It’s presented as less lurid than our modern imaginations might expect but still creepy in a peculiarly Victorian manner; Corrigan says Carroll  is portrayed as “… a gentle ancestor of Lolita‘s Humbert Humbert.”

The book was also reviewed in the Washington Post last week.

Alice I Have Been Melanie Benjamin Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 0385344139 / 9780385344135

Audio; UNABR; Books on Tape; 9780307713469; $90
Audio and eBook available from OverDrive.

Months of speculation will end today as Apple finally announces their new product at 1 p.m EST (10 a.m. PT).

You can follow along on live blogs, including the Wall Street Journal‘s “All Things D.”

Textbook publishers are particularly excited about the announcement because it offers a solution to their problems with the used book market. Terry McGraw, CEO of McGraw-Hill showed his eagerness as he spilled the beans yesterday (thanks to GalleyCat for pointing this out):