Tana French’s fourth novel in her Dublin mystery series, Broken Harbor, (Penguin/Viking; Recorded Books; Thorndike Large Print), debuts at #2 on the new Indie Hardcover Fiction Bestseller list, the highest spot yet for the author.

The author is a reviewers’ darling. NPR lauds French’s “ability to … easily sow doubt, all the while building to a truly gut-wrenching conclusion.” Entertainment Weekly says she “has that procedural pro’s knack for making mundane police work seem fascinating. And she’s drawn not just to the who but also to the why — those bigger mysteries about the human weaknesses that drive somebody to such inhuman brutality.”

In the NYT, Janet Maslin says, “Ms. French’s books all give the same first impression. They start slowly and seem to need tighter editing. But as in Faithful Place, she patiently lays her groundwork, then moves into full page-turner mode … like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, this summer’s other dagger-sharp display of mind games, Broken Harbor is something more [than it appears].”

Jonah Lehrer, the author of the best selling book on creativity, Imagine, has admitted that he made up some of the quotes he attributed to Bob Dylan in the book. Publisher Houghton Mifflin has announced that it is canceling further shipments and has asked accounts to stop selling it.

The errors were brought to light in the article “Jonah Lehrer’s Deceptions” by Michael C. Moynihan published in the online magazine Tablet yesterday. The New York Times reported that, as a result, Lehrer has resigned his job as science writer for the New Yorker and that the book will no longer be shipped.

The story is being picked up by dozens of other news sources, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, NPR and CBS News. Jayson Blair, the former New York Times reporter who was the subject of a plagiarism case nine years ago, reflects on the story for The Daily Beast.

Imagine has been on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction list for the past 18 weeks. It debuted on the list at #1 and is on the current, 8/5 list at #14. Lehrer published two earlier books, How We Decide (HMH, 2009) and Proust Was a Neuroscientist (HMH, 2007).

Interest continues in the breakout book of the summer, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (RH/Crown). It moved back up to #2 on the 8/5 NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list (from #3 last week) after 7 weeks (two of them at #1). Holds continue to be heavy on both the book and the audio (RH Audio & BOT).

Flynn was interviewed on Friday’s CBS This Morning. Gayle King revealed that the book kept her up until 4:23 in the morning.

Flynn’s home town newspaper, the Chicago Tribune interviewed her on Sunday, “Peeking in Flynn’s Vault of Horror.”

The book was also the subject of Glamour magazine’s “five minute book club” (plenty of spoilers, so avoid it if you’re planning to read the book).

Glee star Chris Colfer was so excited to hear that his debut book lands at #1 on the 8/4  NYT Children’s Chapter Books Best Seller list that he  leaked the news yesterday afternoon, via a tweet. The leak was picked up by the Hollywood Reporter, which noted that “Colfer first came up with the idea when he was in grade school but wrote the book between scenes on Glee.

Prepub reviews for The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (Hachette/LBYR; Hachette Audio) were not particularly strong, but most acknowledge, as Booklist puts it,  that the many Glee fans “will not be disappointed by the giddy earnestness of the writing.”

Last week’s debut, Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman, (Random House YR), arrived on the list at #8 with much better prepub attention; four starred reviews. Booklist says, “Hartman proves dragons are still fascinating in this impressive high fantasy.” The Washington Post agreed, “Nothing strikes dread in a reviewer’s heart like a dragon on a book cover. Can the author infuse this tired trope with fresh blood, or is it doomed to flame out in blatant cliche? Happily, Rachel Hartman, with her richly imagined reptile and human characters, proves more than equal to the task.” The book continues on the new list at #9. The debut began bullding librarian buzz on YA GalleyChat back in March.

Arriving at #11 on the USA Today Best Seller list is a “mini eBook” Deep Down by Lee Child (RH/Delacorte, 7/16).

USA Today’s “Book Buzz” column calls it a “literary hors d’oeuvre,” an original short story, along with an excerpt of Child’s upcoming novel A Wanted Man, published exclusively as an eBook.

It is available to libraries via OverDrive.

An eager audience was clearly awaiting Deborah Harkness’s second book in her All Souls trilogy. Shadow of Night (Penguin/Viking; Thorndike Large Print; Penguin Audiobooks) arrives at #4 (immediately after the Fifty Shades of Grey titles) on the new USA Today best selling books list, making it the top-selling hardcover fiction title. It also arrives at #1 on the Indie Best Seller list.

The new James Patterson title, I Michael Bennett (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio) arrives at #5. As a result, the breakout novel of the summer Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl moves down to #6, from #4 last week.

That doesn’t indicate interest is slipping, however, but rather the strength of the first-week sales for both Patterson and Harkness. Library holds are higher for Gone Girl (RH/Crown; Audio, BOT; audio and ebook on OverDrive; Thorndike Large Print, Sept.) than the other two titles and they continue to mount, with some libraries showing a total of 1,600. We expect Gone Girl to continue to attract readers throughout the summer; it’s not too late to buy additional copies.

USA Today‘s “Book Buzz” column notes that the rise of Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone (Penguin/Riverhead; Thorndike Large Print; Blackstone Audio; Penguin Audio) to #21 from #155 last week is a result of Amazon’s special single-day sale of the Kindle version for $2.99. The column also notes, perhaps unwittingly breaking news, that Downton Abbey‘s Elizabeth McGovern “will star in the film adaptation.” She also reads the audio version.

Hollywood deal making isn’t just about self-published erotica these days. Gillian Flynn’s major breakout, Gone Girl, was the subject of a major rights auction, resulting in a 7-figure deal to 20th Century Fox, with Reese Witherspoon producing.

All three of Flynn’s books have been optioned. Dark Places (RH/Crown) is moving along; Amy Adams will to star and Gilles Paquet-Brenner direct (Word and Film recently interviewed Flynn about that project). Flynn’s first novel, Sharp Objects (RH/Broadway), was optioned by Alliance Films and has a producer, but no director or cast yet.

Gone Girl Gillian Flynn Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 412 pages Publisher: RH/Crown – (2012-06-05) ISBN: 9780307588364

Audio, BOT; audio and ebook on OverDrive; Thorndike Large Print, Sept.

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is #1 on the Indie Fiction Best Seller list  for the fifth week in a row. Sales are still climbing, as indicated by the USA Today list, where it rises to #4, from #6 last week, breaking through the Hunger Games blockade. Now all that stands between it and #1 on that list are the three Fifty Shades titles.

USA Today‘s Bob Minzesheimer looks into the reason Flynn’s third novel is her breakout, quoting Jackie Blem of  Denver’s revered Tattered Cover bookstore,

What is different about Gone Girl is she creates one story, carefully, with great detail, all very believable, and then turns all of it on its ear. The magic of this book, for the reader, is that there is actually two unreliable narrators and multiple versions of every event.

Holds continue to climb in libraries, with some showing over 1,500. Holds on the audio are also high. Large print coming from Thorndike in September.

Gone Girl Gillian Flynn Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 412 pages Publisher: RH/Crown – (2012-06-05) ISBN: 9780307588364

Audio, BOT; audio and ebook on OverDrive; Thorndike Large Print, Sept.

We’d sworn off writing about Fifty Shades of Grey, but damn USA Today‘s book editor, Dierdre Donahue who writes a smart piece about the “10 reasons Fifty Shades of Grey has shackled readers,” beginning with the observation that, “Despite its scarlet reputation, the series is an old-fashioned love story with some odd sex toys, riding crops and mild bondage tossed in.”

We’re hoping this will be the final word. We’re growing tired of those covers.

And, since it may be (no promises), we’ll make it a twofer, by pointing out that Goodreads has created an infographic of where Fifty Shades readers live, indicating that it is an East Coast phenomenon (click here for full graphic, with analysis).

Alan Furst continues on the path to becoming a household name (see our earlier story, Break Out the Alan Furst Backlist).

The Hollywood Reporter recommends his new book Mission to Paris, (Random House; Thorndike Large Print; S&S Audio) as their “Beach Read of the Week” and notes that BBC Four has commissioned a series of two 90-minute films based on an earlier title in the series, The Spies of Warsaw. It’s the first of his books to be adapted.

Starring David Tennant, the former Dr. Who in the long-running UK TV series, it is scheduled for release in the UK in October and could arrive in U.S. soon after.

We’ve been predicting that  Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl would be the first breakout best seller of the season. The new Indie Best Seller list verifies that prediction; it is at number one on the fiction list. It is also at #7 on the USA Today list, which doesn’t break out titles by format (it would be at number one, if two pesky trilogies weren’t blocking it). They note that this is the first of the author’s three titles to appear on the USA Today list.

Reviews have been stellar.

Gone Girl Gillian Flynn Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 412 pages Publisher: RH/Crown – (2012-06-05) ISBN: 9780307588364

Audio, BOT; audio and ebook on OverDrive

Self Published Edition

Another author has crossed over from self-publishing to a Big Six publisher. Tracey Garvis Graves, whose book On the Island, was bought by Warner for a movie adaptation in mid-May after having been on the NYT eBook best seller list for several weeks, has now landed a two-book deal with Penguin.

Penguin/Plume Edition

The novel, about a 30-year-old teacher shipwrecked with teenage boy she was tutoring, was originally published in paperback through Amazon’s self-publising division (Amazon/CreateSpace, 9781466363212, 3/14/12) and as an ebook (available on B&T’s Axis 360). Penguin will re-release it in paperback on July 17 (97801421967240) with a more glamorized cover. The egalley is available on Edelweiss and on NetGalley.

The author’s second book, Covet, will be released in hardcover by Penguin/Dutton in the spring.

USA Today reports the news today; the author expressed her excitement about the deal on her web site last week.

Since publishers are obviously eager to uncover popular self-published titles, GalleyCat, a publishing industry blog, just announced that it will begin tracking best selling self-published titles on Amazon, B&N and Smashwords.

It seems three instances are sufficient to declare a trend. Variety rounds up the news of three ebooks optioned for movies recently; Wool, On the Island and, of course, Fifty Shades of Grey. Says literary agent Jody Hotchkiss,”The effect is that [producers are] looking more closely than ever at the ebook [best seller] list for the original ebook bestsellers.”

Variety provides a list of  “currently high-charting ebooks” that have not yet been optioned, some of which are self-published. The list illustrates the range of publishing options these days, as well as the range of challenges for selectors.

The Marriage Bargain by Jennifer Probst — from Entangled Publishing, a non-traditional publisher that selects titles from submissions, and focuses on marketing and promotion, rather than editing (or, as they say, “we let writers do what they do best”). As profiled by Publishers Weekly in January, the company was launched in 2011 by a group of authors to expand publishing opportunities for genre writers, the selections focus on romance. The Marriage Bargain has been on the NYT Combined Print & E-Book best seller list for 6 weeks, as of the current list, reaching a high of #10. A sequel, The Marriage Trap, is coming in June.

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire — from CreateSpace, the self-publishing company owned by Amazon. Available in both paperback and ebook, it is on the NYT eBook only list, at #25, after two weeks. The paperback is available through wholesalers and the ebook from B&T’s Axis 360.

Mongoliad by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear and others — began life as an online subscription. Amazon Publishing’s science fiction imprint, 47North, released Book One in paperback, available through wholesalers. It’s not on the NYT lists but is at #89 on Amazon’s Science Fiction and Fantasy list. Brilliance (also now owned by Amazon) released the audio.

Beauty by Laurell K. Hamilton — is a 33-page ebook-only “Vampire Hunter outtake,” published by Penguin/Berkley. It landed at #14 on the NYT eBook only list this week and is not available for library lending.

In today’s NYT story, Libraries Debate Stocking ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Trilogy, publishing reporter Julie Bosman was stonewalled on her attempt to get sales figures for the series; “Paul Bogaards, a spokesman for Vintage Books, declined to provide a current sales figure for the trilogy, but said millions had sold so far.”

But Bosman eventually got her answer. The NYT “Arts Beat” blog just posted an update, quoting Knopf Doubleday President Anthony Chirico that “more than 10 million copies of the books have been sold in the United States in six weeks…putting the books among some of the best-selling series in modern publishing.”

Following the bidding wars for Fifty Shades of Grey (which began its life as Master of the Universe on a Twilight fan fiction site) and the sci-fi Wool, Hollywood continues its fascination with self-pubbed titles.

Film rights to Tracey Garvis-Graves’ On the Island, a NYT E-Book Fiction Best Seller (currently at #9 after 4 weeks; down from a high of #7), were just won at auction by Warner Brothers, reports Variety. In addition to the ebook format (available on B&T’s Axis 360), it is available in paperback (Amazon/CreateSpace, 9781466363212, 3/14/12). WorldCat indicates that few libraries own it.