When asked what she thought of some libraries removing Fifty Shades of Grey from their shelves on The View on Friday, the book’s author, E.L. James responded, “I think people should read what they like, providing it is age appropriate,” bringing applause from the audience.

The studio audience went away with a copy of the book (as well as $100 Marshall’s gift certificate and a copy of Weeknights with Giada — how mainstream can you get?).

Earlier in the week, the co-hosts discussed the “Hot Topic” of whether it’s appropriate for libraries to remove the book. All agreed that it’s not (even though, in another segment, they expressed strong reservations about the book’s theme of female submission). Whoopie Goldberg said, “If people want to see the book for themselves, the library is obligated to provide it.”

Beautiful demonic serial killer Gretchen Lowell may materialize in a TV series. According to Deadline, FX has put Chelsea Cain’s books, Heartsick, Sweetheart and Evil At Heart, into development. No cast has been named.

On her blog, Cain says she is “over the moon” that the network responsible for Justified,  American Horror Story and Sons of Anarchy has given the green light for the pilot, saying, “These people clearly buy fake blood in bulk and know how to use it.” If it succeeds, the network plans on doing three 13-episode seasons, each based on one of the titles.

After that, there’s more material to work with. The fifth book in the series is coming in August, following the fourth, Night Season, published last year.

Kill You Twice Chelsea Cain Retail Price:  $25.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Macmillan/Minotaur – (2012-08-07) ISBN / EAN: 0312619782/9780312619787

Macmillan audio; Thorndike released Evil at Heart and The Night Season in large type.

An Associated Press story released late yesterday uncovers more libraries withdrawing a #1 NYT Best seller weeks after it first arrived in that spot, Fifty Shades of Grey.

Earlier in the week, the Palm Beach Post published a story about Brevard County withdrawing their copies. The AP reports that three other libraries have removed their copies — Gwinnett County in Georgia, Leon County, Florida and an unnamed library system in Wisconsin. The story is being picked up widely. A Google search on “Fifty Shades Libraries” returns over 300 hits, from Gawker.com to the UK’s Guardian.

The majority of the 345 comments on the AP story express opposition to the action, such as this one from “GolfingSusan”:

I am glad I have the freedom to buy a book if I want it because I sure as hell don’t want some librarian deciding what I should or shouldn’t read. It’s none of her business! Having been to the library often, I can safely say, I find a lot of the “selections” offensive. There are a lot crappy books in there no one wants to check out!

A Brevard County resident has begun an online petition to have the books reinstated. It has 327 signatures so far.

Author Kiera Cash gushes on her blog today (time-stamped 12:02 a.m. — did she have to sit on the news until it was official?),

You guys! I’m totally a New York Times bestselling author! The Selection made it to #9 on the children’s list [the 5/13 NYT Chapter Books list]. My whole world is upside down! Thank you all so much for going out and buying my book. I hope you’re having as much fun reading it as I had writing it. THANK YOU!

It also just makes it on to the USA Today list at #150.

The first in a trilogy, The Selection is a dystopian novel with a difference. As made clear by the cover, this one is heavy on romance with no bloodsport. Of the pre-pub reviews, only Publishers Weekly gave it a thumbs-up. Kirkus called it a “probably harmless, entirely forgettable series opener,” and VOYA said, “readers who enjoy commonplace romances will gravitate to this novel while dystopian lovers who revel in series such as Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games and Uglies will be disappointed.”

That doesn’t seem to matter to readers; most libraries are showing holds, heavy in some areas.

The Selection (Selection – Trilogy) Kiera Cass Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: HarperTeen – (2012-04-24) ISBN / EAN: 0062059939/9780062059932

It comes comes with a trailer:

There are no surprises on the new Indie Fiction Best Seller list. Stephen King’s The Wind Through the Keyhole arrives at #1, moving Grisham’s baseball novel, Calico Joe to #2. The Paris Wife is enjoying the most longevity, at #8 after 62 weeks, (it was on our Crystal Ball back in March, 2011, but we had no idea it would last this long).

Popping back on to the list, at #15, after having moved to the extended list for a couple of weeks is The Night Circus. Meanwhile, another of the Big First Novels of last fall, Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding, is out in trade paperback and hits that list at #4.

On the Nonfiction list, Rachel Maddow’s book on how the US has outsourced war, Drift, continues at #1 after five weeks. Anna Quindlen’s memoir, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, debuts at #2 and Madeleine Albright’s, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 arrives at #5.

Debuting at #14, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel, questions our current obsession with marketplace solutions (such as schools paying kids to read books or companies making money from life insurance on their employees). It has gotten attention in the business press, with an admiring review from an unexpected source, The Wall Street Journal (noting, for readers who may be put off, that the author is “not a socialist, and his critique of markets is measured”). Several libraries are showing heavy holds on moderate ordering. It is also available in audio (Macmillan Audio).

What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets Michael J. Sandel Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: MacmillanFSG – (2012-04-24) ISBN / EAN: 0374203032 / 9780374203030

It can be trying for an author, after laboring months over a book in relative solitude, to suddenly face the glare of the book promotion spotlight. For the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, (RH/Crown; RHAudio; OverDrive ebook and audio; Center Point Large Print), the book tour took on an extra element of irony.

As Susan Cain writes in an essay in this week’s NYTBR,  her conversion to “that impossibly oxymoronic creature: the Public Introvert” required her to do “the very thing my book questions: putting down my pen and picking up a microphone.”

She writes about preparing for her most terrifying assignment; a speech for the TED conference.

She clearly succeeded; libraries continue to show heavy holds on her book, which after 11 weeks on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list, just moved to the extended list at #16 (it’s at #7 on the current Indie list, after 13 weeks).

Popular internet personality “The Bloggess,” is now an old-media hit.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson (Penguin/Einhorn; Penguin Audio), arrives on the Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller list at #4 (and #17 on the USA Today list).

You can expect to see it in a high spot on the upcoming NYT list (the author spills the beans on her own site, so why shouldn’t we? It arrives at #1 on the Combined Print & E-Book list and at #2 on the Print Nonfiction list).

Over  to you, taxidermied mouse:

Here’s a great premise: “What if Darth Vader had a 4-year-old?” How would he handle potty time or bedtime stories? That’s the basis for Jeffrey Brown’s graphic novel  Darth Vader and Son (Chronicle), which debuts at #10 on the Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list this week.

The author was recently interviewed in the L.A. Times and USA Today’s PopCandy blog said, “Something tells me Brown’s latest effort, Darth Vader and Son is going to be quite a hit.”

A few libraries own it in small quantities.

Darth Vader and Son (Star Wars (Chronicle)) Jeffrey Brown Retail Price: $14.95 Hardcover: 64 pages Publisher: Chronicle Books – (2012-04-18) ISBN / EAN: 145210655X / 9781452106557

Critics said it comes across more like an infomercial for the book than a movie, but Think Like a Man managed to knock The Hunger Games off the top spot on box office charts this weekend.

The subject of the infomercial part is, of course, Steve Harvey’s best seller, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man (HarperCollins/Amistad). The source material hasn’t toppled the Hunger Games book trilogy, but it does appear immediately below that series, at #7 on Amazon’s best seller list (a certain other trilogy, as yet not made into a movie, holds the top three positions). The tie-in edition is further down the list, at #635.

A.J. Jacobs’ Drop Dead Healthy is the third in his “triathlon devoted to upgrading my mind, my spirit and my body,” following The Know-It All (2004) which chronicled his reading of the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and The Year of Living Biblically, (2007), in which he did just that.

It seems readers are more interested in his pursuit of physical perfection than in intellectual or spiritual. His newest title arrives on the USA Today best seller list at #42, the highest spot for the series to date.

Drop Dead Healthy A. J. Jacobs Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2012-04-10) ISBN / EAN: 141659907X/9781416599074 Other Formats: Thorndike Press; Simon & Schuster Audio

The classic title on the sinking of the Titanic, Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember, (Macmillan/Holt)  is back on the USA Today best seller list, nearly 60 years after it was first published in 1955, at #16. However, this time, it’s the e-Book edition that is listed (published by Open Road, which makes its books available to libraries via OverDrive).

Its most recent appearance was Jan. 15, 1998 (shortly after  James Cameron’s movie hit theaters the first time around).

We’ve been following the rise of Charlotte Rogan’s debut novel, The Lifeboat, which has received admiring reviews (check out the Washington Post’s) and media attention (including an interview the author on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday) as well as growing holds.  It arrives on the new Indie Hardcover Fiction Bestseller list at #10 (you can also expect to see it on the upcoming NYT list).

The Lifeboat: A Novel Charlotte Rogan Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Hachette/Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur – (2012-04-03) ISBN : 9780316185905 Also: Hachette Audio

An EarlyWord “Book of the Week,” Ron Rash’s The Cove (Harper/Ecco; Thorndike Large Print) is noted as “on the rise.”

Donna Leon is still on the rise. Her 21st Commissario Brunetti mystery, Beastly Things, (Atlantic Monthly; Thorndike Large Print; AudioGo), moves up to #7, after debuting at the highest spot ever for the author last week.

Unsurprisingly, John Grisham’s baseball novel, Calico Joe,(RH/Doubleday) arrives on the list at #1.

Now that Greg Mortenson has agreed to pay $1 million to settle a suit alleging he mishandled his charity’s money, attention it turning to a civil suit accusing him of misrepresentations in his best-selling books, Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools.

The Associated Press reports that a hearing is set for today. The suit asks the judge to order refunds to everyone who purchased the book. The story quotes a First Amendment expert who says, “It’s [Mortenson’s] story. It purports to be his experiences … He has the right to publish anything he wants about himself. The idea that you can be sued because perhaps they don’t like what you wrote, for whatever reason, is absurd.”

The author of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, E. L. James,  appeared (very uncomfortably) on the Today Show this morning:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 Looks like #21 is lucky for author Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti mysteries. Beastly Things, (Atlantic Monthly; Thorndike Large Print; AudioGo), the 21st title   in the series, arrives at #9 on the Indie Bestseller list and at #10 on the NYT Fiction list; the first time Leon has broken in to the top ten.

For those not familiar with the series, long-time fan, NYT mystery columnist, Marilyn Stasio, offers a succinct readers advisory; “Donna Leon is the ideal author for people who vaguely long for a ‘good mystery’. That Leon is also a brilliant writer should only add to the consistently comforting appeal of her Venetian procedurals featuring Commissario Guido Brunneti. Leon allows her warmhearted detective to take what solace he can from the beauty of his city and the homely domestic rituals that give him the strength to go on.”

Leon has also written nonfiction about her adopted home, Venice; book about Venice’s myths and legends, Venetian Curiosities and a book on Venetian cooking, Brunetti’s Cookbook (her fictional detective is an avid cook).

Author’s Web Site: Grove Atlantic/Leon