NYT BR Cover; NEMESIS
Philip Roth’s new book Nemesis (HMH) has received several slaps in the face from reviewers, including a rather weary one from the daily NYT reviewer, Michiko Kakutani on Monday (“It’s not unmoving, exactly, but all a little synthetic — less like a vintage Roth narrative than like a very well-executed O. Henry story, complete with a deliberately ironic plot twist and a sentimental outcome.”)
This week, the NYT Book Review puts it on the cover, with a rave from a writer who admits that she had once written off Roth.
Scott Spencer, on the other hand, has been piling up great reviews for Man in the Woods (Ecco), with the notable exception of the Boston Globe, and gets yet another one here.
On the Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list, Follett’s Fall of Giants (Dutton) goes straight to #1 in its first week on sale, beating out James Patterson’s Don’t Blink (Little, Brown) at #2.
The Help (Einhorn/Putnam) slides down to #10 for the first time in months, after a remarkable 79 weeks on the list, 28 of them in the top 3. The paperback may finally be around the corner.
On the Hardcover Nonfiction list, Woodward’s Obama’s Wars (S&S) arrives at #1. A different view, The Roots of Obama’s Rage by Dinesh D’Souza, from the conservative publisher Regnery, comes in at #4.
Jenny McCarthy’s Love, Lust and Faking It (Harper) debuts on the Advice list #4.