EarlyWord

The last-minute buyer for Kirkus has been revealed; it’s Herb Simon, owner of the Indian Pacers. The New York Times’ Motoko Rich reports the story in the “Media Decoder” blog.

Simon, who made his money as a shopping mall developer, including the Mall of America, is a voracious reader and longtime subscriber who thought it would be a “shame” if the publication folded.

It was also announced that editor Elaine Szewcyzk and managing editor Eric Liebetrau will  continue in their positions and Kirkus will continue as a print publication, with expanded digital offerings.

The new chief executive of the renamed Kirkus Media, Marc Winkelman, told the NYT,

Over the years librarians have submitted a lot of comments to Kirkus about things they would like to see enhanced. We hope to do that and make Kirkus even more relevant in the world of book buying and book reading.

Still on the block, with no potential buyers named, are Library Journal, School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, all owned by Reed Business Information.

One nonfiction title going on sale next week has been getting some buzz in the library world: journalist Roger Rosenblatt‘s memoir Making Toast, about helping to raise his grandchildren after his daughter’s sudden death at age 38.

So far, holds are modest at libraries we checked, but this title was highlighted at a buzz panel at ALA and is a favorite of Harper’s library marketing maven Virigina Stanley. It was also excerpted in the New Yorker, and is an Indie Next Pick for March.

PW says: “Rosenblatt draws sharply etched portraits of his grandchildren; his stoic, gentle son-in-law; his wife, who feels slightly guilty that she is living her daughter’s life; and Amy [the daughter] emerges as a smart, prickly, selfless figure whose significance the author never registered until her death.”

UPDATE: Rosenblatt was interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered by Melissa Block, who called it an “exquisite, restrained little memoir filled with both hurt and humor.” Listen here. The book rose to #173 on Amazon.

Making Toast Roger Rosenblatt Retail Price: $21.99 Hardcover: 176 pages Publisher: Ecco – (2010-03-01) ISBN / EAN: 006182593X / 9780061825934

Available from Blackstone Audiobooks

3 Tape LIBRARY 1-4417-2133-4 $44.95

1 Playaway LIBRARY 1-4417-2140-2 $54.99

1 MP3CD LIBRARY 1-4417-2137-2 $29.95 $

3 CD LIBRARY 1-4417-2134-1 $55.00

E-book and audio available from OverDrive

Other Major Nonfiction Titles On Sale Next Week

• Chip and Dan Heath‘s Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (Random House) follows their bestseller Make To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Library Journal calls praises its “fresh ideas and a breezy style that will work equally well for company executives, undergraduates, and average joes.” Holds are as high as 4:1 in libraries we checked.
• Daniel Amen‘s Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: To Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted (Harmony) applies the insights of brain imaging technology to weight loss.

Although February is typically a quiet month for general fiction, some booksellers are talking about Heidi Durrow’s The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, a debut novel about a biracial girl whose mother jumped to her death after apparently pushing her children off a rooftop. Libraries are showing holds of 1:1 on modest orders.

Durrow’s novel, which goes on sale next week, won the 2008 Bellwether Prize for best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice. It’s also an Indie Next Pick for Feb, and was touted at the American Bookseller Association’s Midwinter Institute (as reported by Daniel Goldin of Boswell & Books in Milwaukee).

You will be hearing more about the book; on tap is a profile in USA Today, an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered, a review in the NYT BR, the Washington Post and several other consumer magazines.

PW praises The Girl Who Fell From the Sky for its “taut prose, a controversial conclusion and the thoughtful reflection on racism and racial identity.”

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Heidi W. Durrow Retail Price: $22.95 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2010-02-19) ISBN / EAN: 1565126807 / 9781565126800

Audio from Highbridge:

• CD: $29.95; ISBN 9781598879230

Audio available from OverDrive

Swedish noir fiction author Henning Mankell developed an American following well before Stieg Larsson topped U.S. bestseller lists, but Mankell’s new novel, The Man from Beijing, may be benefitting from the popularity of his countryman. At several libraries we checked, Mankell’s latest has holds as high as 4:1.

Departing from Mankell’s ten-book Inspector Wallander series,The Man from Beijing focuses on a woman who was Maoist in her student days, and is now a middle-aged, middle-of-the-road Swedish judge.

The Economist calls Mankell “a master portraitist of Sweden’s underside,” but observes that the trouble starts when The Man From Beijing turns to international social commentary. “The picture he paints of Africa—with a leopard calmly surveying the world from its grassy hillock—is clichéd enough, but his China is positively hackneyed.”

PW adds that “While each section, ranging in setting from the bleak frozen landscape of northern Sweden to modern-day China bursting onto the global playing field, compels, the parts don’t add up to a fully satisfying whole.”

The Man from Beijing Henning Mankell Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-02-16) ISBN / EAN: 0307271862 / 9780307271860

Audio Available from Random House: 2/16/10

• CD: $45; ISBN 9780307712356

E-book and audio available from OverDrive

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Other Major Fiction Titles On Sale Next Week

• Michael Palmer‘s The Last Surgeon (St. Martin’s), about a trauma surgeon back in Baltimore after a stint in Afghanistan, gets mixed reviews: Booklist says it’s his “best novel in years” while PW calls it “an anemic medical thriller.” Holds are as high as 4:1 at several libraries we checked.
• Tim LeHaye’s Matthew’s Story (Penguin) is the new novel in the Jesus series, by the authors of the bestselling Left Behind series. Library holds are 2:1 or higher.

I was going to do a round-up of great titles for Black History Month, but school librarian Judy Freeman over at James Patterson’s Read Kiddo Read has done it for me with 76 Unforgettable Books for Black History Month. Of course, there are tons of other lists out there, but this one is the most comprehensive.

My pick of the list is Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney new book Sit-In; lyrically written and historically accurate, with sweeping paintings evocative of the time.

The Pinkneys talk about the book and the story it explores in the following video:

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Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down Andrea Pinkney, Brian Pinkney Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 40 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2010-02-03) ISBN / EAN: 0316070165 / 9780316070164

Jenny Sanford has been all over the media to promote her book, Staying True. She has been refreshingly frank about her feelings about her husband and how his actions have affected her family, but one of the strangest media moments occurred on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, when she said she really misses the inmates who helped out around the governor’s mansion.

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Staying True Jenny Sanford Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 240 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2010-02-05) ISBN / EAN: 0345522397 / 9780345522399

Unabridged audio; 9780307736284; $25

Audio available from OverDrive

How could we not be excited about This Book is Overdue, which calls librarians the heroes of the cyber age?

Happily, others are giving the book (and the profession) its due as well. Today’s Wall Street Journal reviews it (love the torn jacket in the illustration; were reviewers fighting over it?). Although the reviewer appreciates author Marilyn Johnson’s “keen eye for detail” and “charming if meandering style” as she explores how today’s librarians are seeking to  “integrate the old mission of the library with the new possibilities of technology,” she fears that libraries may lose something in the transition.

It’s also reviewed very positively in the Boston Globe (In the digital age, librarians are pioneers) and the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Marilyn Johnson is fun and emphatic in ‘This Book is Overdue!’).

The Daily Beast lists it as one of the week’s five “Hot Reads,” and it’s one of Sarah Weinman’s “Picks of the Week” on her mystery blog, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.

The book has risen to #337 on Amazon and much more is coming:

NYT BR, 3/7 (plus, a possible review in the daily NYT)
NPR On the Media
USA Today interview

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All Marilyn Johnson Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061431605 / 9780061431609

Audio: Tantor; 2/22/10
Trade: 9781400116348; 7 CD’s; $34.99
Library: 9781400146345; 7 CD’s; $69.99
MP3: 9781400166343; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

The debut novel that’s being compared to The Help (NYT, Janet Maslin) and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (USA Today, Carol Memmott), rose to #31 on Amazon sales rankings today, one day after its release.

That makes it the fifth-highest ranking, currently available, hardcover fiction title on the list. We’ve been watching this one for a while and are now calling it as a bestseller and predict that it will debut on the Feb. 28 NYT best seller list in the top five.

The Postmistress Sarah Blake Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0399156194 / 9780399156199

Available from Blackstone Audiobooks

• CD: $100; ISBN 9781441725714
• MP3 CD: $29.95; ISBN 9781441725745
• Cassette: $65.95; ISBN 9781441725707

Audio and e-book available from OverDrive

It can be a very long time between a book being signed for the movies and it actually appearing on the screen.

This is proved once again with Janet Evanovich’s One for the Money, which was signed in 1994, before the book was published. For a while, it was rumored that Reese Witherspoon would star as lingerie-buyer-turned-bounty-hunter Stephanie Plum.

According to Variety, Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy) has just signed for that role and the movie is “back on the fast track.”

The 16th book in the series, Sizzling Sixteen, is coming in June.

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Evanovich is also releasing a graphic novel in July, written with her daughter. It’s the third in a series, after Metro Girl and Motor Mouth, neither of which are in graphic format. The NYT wrote about it today as well as the forthcoming manga version of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (see our earlier story).

Troublemaker: A Barnaby Adventure Alex Evanovich, Janet Evanovich Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: Publisher: Dark Horse Comics – (2010-07) ISBN / EAN: 159582488X / 9781595824882

One of the debuts we’re watching this season is The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. Many have compared it to Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. In fact, it’s received strong praise from Stockett (she even interviews Blake on Amazon’s site), and both books share the same editor, Amy Einhorn, who has her own imprint at Putnam.

In today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin also makes the comparison to The Help, which she calls a “socially conscious pulp best seller,”

Each of these novels appropriates galvanizing social issues in the service of a well-wrought tear-jerker. And each is crammed with talking points.

But Maslin also admits,

…the real strength of  The Postmistress lies in its ability to strip away readers’ defenses against stories of wartime uncertainty and infuse that chaos with wrenching immediacy and terror.

She also predicts that, like The Help, “this book will click in a major way.”

The books may share many qualities, but the settings are different. Rather than 1960’s Mississippi, The Postmistress takes place during World War II, which has led others to compare it to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.

The Postmistress releases today and has been steadily rising on Amazon (it’s now at #84). Library holds are also growing rapidly on conservative ordering; as high as 210 on 16 copies.

The Postmistress Sarah Blake Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0399156194 / 9780399156199

Available from Blackstone Audiobooks

• CD: $100; ISBN 9781441725714
• MP3 CD: $29.95; ISBN 9781441725745
• Cassette: $65.95; ISBN 9781441725707

Audio and e-book available from OverDrive

The NYT reports today that publishers’ “conversations with Google have taken a more flexible tone” since the unveiling of the iPad and Amazon’s concessions on e-book pricing.

The CIA allows their agents to moonlight with financial firms, according to the online news site, Politico. Reacting to the story last week, Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, demanded answers on the policy.

Several newspapers reported on the story, which is drawn form a forthcoming book by Politico reporter Eamon Javers. As The Guardian put it,

It is hard to imagine two more distrusted and reviled professions. One has been accused of torturing detainees and failing to track down Islamist terror suspects; the other is widely perceived to be responsible for the worldwide recession.

Now, in a move likely to provoke a perfect storm of opprobrium, the two have joined forces: enterprising CIA officers who want to earn a little extra have been given the green light to moonlight for Wall Street firms.

The book is out today and on the rise at Amazon (to #160, from #2,230). Most libraries have not ordered it; as a book with breaking news, it was embargoed and therefore was not reviewed prepub.

Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage Eamon Javers Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: HarperBusiness – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061697206 / 9780061697203

E-book available from OverDrive

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Last night’s guest on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross was attorney David Dow, the author of Autobiography of an Execution (listen here). Dow defends death row inmates in Texas, the state with the highest number of executions in the US since 1976. In his book, he argues for the abolition of the death penalty and also writes about how his career  has affected his family life.

The book rose to #261, from #3,044, on Amazon. Libraries own it in modest quantities with hold ratios averaging 1:1.

The Autobiography of an Execution David R. Dow Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Twelve – (2010-02-03) ISBN / EAN: 0446562068 / 9780446562065

Audio downloadable from OverDrive.

Inevitably, any memoir of growing up in another country and then immigrating to the U.S. will be compared to Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, but A Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova, has a special connection. The author was actually one of  Frank McCourt’s students.

This memoir of life in Leningrad in the ’60’s and ’70’s was just enthusiastically reviewed in the NYT BR, which describes it as an “exquisitely wrought, tender memoir.” It climbed to #259 on Amazon, from #576, and is showing heavy holds in libraries; as high as 250 on 23 copies.

The author was interviewed on NPR’s The Leonard Lopate Show on January 13, 2010 (listen here) and the book has been reviewed widely, in publications from USA Today to The New Yorker.

As part of her book tour, Gorokhova will do a reading at the Princeton Public Library on Feb. 18.

A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir Elena Gorokhova Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 1439125678 / 9781439125670

Check out the warning section about the side effects of reading from this promo for  Unbridled Books:

If you enjoy it, be sure to also check out their books on the Unbridled web site.