The Monday Morning Memo
Below is a quick look at titles to know before you work the information desk today.
Media Attention
The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, Mark Mazzetti, (Penguin Press) — NYT front page story, Washington Post book review, plus an appearance on Face the Nation, with much more coming this week (see our New Title Radar, Media Magnets).
Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story, Carol Burnett, (S&S; S&S Audio) — Carol Burnett was featured on CBS Sunday Morning, yesterday (see video).
Holds Alert
Life After Life, Kate Atkinson, (Hachette/Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print) is on the rise. It has been reviewed widely, most recently in the L.A. Times and the Seattle Times.
Expect to see it on next week’s best seller lists; it is currently at #4 on Amazon sales rankings and has been in the top 100 for 2 weeks.
NYT Notable Hardcover Best Seller Debuts
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, Therese Anne Fowler, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio; Thorndike Large Print)
The latest in the “Real Housewives of Historical Fiction” genre (recent titles include The Paris Wife, which continues as a best seller at #8 on the Trade Paperback list and The Aviator’s Wife, which is now on the extended hardcover list) follows in the footsteps the other titles’ footsteps, arriving on the NYT Fiction best seller list at #10. See our earlier coverage (also note that promotion for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby may bring additional interest).
World War II continues to be a strong interest in Nonfiction, with
Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941, (Random House) — #10 in nonfiction. It was featured on NPR at the end of March.
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, Denise Kiernan, (Touchstone, $27.) About the women who worked on a project was enriching uranium for the first atomic bomb. — at #14. The author appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
The popularity of “bonnet fiction” continues with a new title by the “queen of the genre,” Beverly Lewis’s The Guardian, (Baker/Bethany House). It debuts at #5 on Trade Paperback fiction list.
Childrens Books
New to the NYT Children’s Picture Books best seller list:
Poems to Learn by Heart, collected by Caroline Kennedy, illus. by Jon J. Muth, (Disney/Hyperion, 3/26/13). arrives at #1. See our earlier story.
Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, (Macmillan/Roaring Brook), the perfect title for spring, debuts at #9 even though it has been out for a year. EarlyWord Kids contributor Lisa Von Drasek included it in her annual list of “Best Books To Give Younger Kids You Don’t Know Very Well.” The book’s trailer shows off its clever cut-outs: