Kitty Kelley, who looks for people who are “lightning rods” as subjects of her biographies has found her next one; Oprah.

Entertainment Weekly‘s blog Shelf Life reports that Crown is planning a 500,000 copy first printing. The publisher is mum on details other than “[the book] will reveal Oprah as she has never been seen before.”

Years ago, Oprah was set to write her autobiography, but backed out.

Oprah: A Biography Kitty Kelley Retail Price: $30.00 Hardcover: Publisher: – (2010-04-13) ISBN / EAN: 0307394867 / 9780307394866

Random House Audio; 9780307749246; $50
Crown Large Print; Pbk; 9780739377857; $30

The first big memoirs of the year arrive – with bestseller Elizabeth Gilbert at the forefront.

Gilbert‘s much anticipated Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage arrives after some delay. PW found her voice “clear and winning,” but declared that her hybrid of her own travelogue and the history of marriage “doesn’t work.” It’s a big year for Gilbert: in August, the film version of her international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love arrives, directed by Glee creator and producer Ryan Murphy, and starring Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, James Franco and Billy Crudup.

NOTE: Gilbert is the MidWinter Sunrise Speaker on Sat., Jan. 17, 8–9 a.m.

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage Elizabeth Gilbert Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 0670021652 / 9780670021659

Audio from Penguin Audiobooks

• CD: $29.95; ISBN 9780143145752

Audio also available from OverDrive

• OverDrive WMA Audiobook

Large Print from Thorndike Press

• $34.95; ISBN: 9781410422767

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Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him by Alanna Nash was reviewed recently by Janet Maslin in the New York Times – who called it “long, repetitive and dirt-digging” and also “embarrassingly tempting.”

Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him Alanna Nash Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 704 pages Publisher: It Books – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061699845 / 9780061699849

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Two memoirs by media-genic authors are also starting to pick up some online buzz. Mika Brzezinski‘s All Things at Once is an account by the co-host on CNBC’s “Morning Joe” about the difficulty of balancing her career and being the mother of two young daughters.

All Things at Once Mika Brzezinski Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Weinstein Books – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 1602861110 / 9781602861114

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Andrea Lyon‘s Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer is a lawyer’s story of how she helped 19 clients found guilty of capital murder avoid the death penalty, and also an Indie Next pick for January.

Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer Andrea Lyon Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Kaplan Publishing – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 1607144344 / 9781607144342

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Also to be released next week:

• Suze Orman’s Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny (Spiegel & Grau)

In the final week of the year, NPR’s Morning Edition is featuring the stories of various American lives.

Today, T. J. Stiles, author of the National Book Award winner for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, talked about the man who controlled 5% of the U.S. economy in his time, despite his lack of education.

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The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt T.J. Stiles Retail Price: $37.50 Hardcover: 736 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2009-04-21) ISBN / EAN: 0375415424 / 9780375415425

Books on Tape; UnAbr; 9781415965917; $100
Audiobook and eBook downloadable from OverDrive
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Tomorrow, the show will feature boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.

Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson Wil Haygood Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2009-10-13) ISBN / EAN: 1400044979 / 9781400044979

eBook downloadable from OverDrive.

THE biography catching reviewers’ attention this month is Joan Schenkar’s The Talented Miss Highsmith.

Highsmith’s books have had an enduring appeal, but were brought to a greater audience through recent movies based on the Ripliad, five novels featuring the charming sociopath Tom Ripley.

In the Washington Post, Jonatham Lethem’s review of the bio. is not as laudatory as others have been. Instead, he encourages readers to turn to the novels themselves.

As Lethem says, “The antidote to literary biography is literature.”

The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith Joan Schenkar Retail Price: $40.00 Hardcover: 704 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Press – (2009-12-08) ISBN / EAN: 0312303750 / 9780312303754

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The following are the Highsmith titles that Lethem recommends.

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s Game (Everyman’s Library) Patricia Highsmith Retail Price: $27.50 Hardcover: 880 pages Publisher: Everyman’s Library – (1999-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 0375407928 / 9780375407925

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The Cry of the Owl Patricia Highsmith Retail Price: $12.00 Paperback: 272 pages Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press – (1994-01-18) ISBN / EAN: 0871132907 / 9780871132901

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The Blunderer Patricia Highsmith Retail Price: $11.95 Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. – (2001-11) ISBN / EAN: 0393322440 / 9780393322446

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This Sweet Sickness Patricia Highsmith Retail Price: $13.95 Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. – (2002-10) ISBN / EAN: 0393323676 / 9780393323672

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The Tremor of Forgery Patricia Highsmith Retail Price: $12.00 Paperback: 264 pages Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press – (1994-01-14) ISBN / EAN: 0871132583 / 9780871132581

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Deep Water Patricia Highsmith Retail Price: $13.95 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. – (2003-07) ISBN / EAN: 0393324559 / 9780393324556

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A Dog’s Ransom Patricia Highsmith Retail Price: $12.95 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. – (2002-08-17) ISBN / EAN: 0393323366 / 9780393323368

If one of the functions of book awards is to bring attention to books that may not have received it otherwise, then the National Book Awards achieved that goal with one of the nonfiction nominees, The Poison King. In the Washington Post, Carolyn See reviewed it, saying,

I read this biography as a layperson, not a scholar, but I can say without reservation that it’s a wonderful reading experience, as bracing as a tonic, the perfect holiday gift for adventure-loving men and women…it’s drenched in imaginative violence and disaster, but it also wears the blameless vestments of culture and antiquity.

Put that in your nonfiction readers advisory bag.

The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy Adrienne Mayor Retail Price: $29.95 Hardcover: 472 pages Publisher: Princeton University Press – (2009-10-18) ISBN / EAN: 0691126836 / 9780691126838

BookForum‘s Omnivore blog (not to be confused with Amazon’s Omnivoracious blog) says Ayn Rand is currently “so in vogue that even designers such as Ralph Lauren are finding inspiration in her writing” and links to the stunning number of recent articles about her, fueled, in part, by two new biographies.

Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right Jennifer Burns Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA – (2009-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0195324870 / 9780195324877

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Ayn Rand and the World She Made Anne C. Heller Retail Price: $35.00 Hardcover: 592 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2009-10-27) ISBN / EAN: 0385513992 / 9780385513999

Jon Stewart asks the author of a new book on Ayn Rand whether members of the right, who often tout her, have noticed that she was an atheist and an intellectual.

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Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right Jennifer Burns Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA – (2009-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0195324870 / 9780195324877

The book rose to #232 on Amazon sales rankings after the show aired.

However, it didn’t rise as high as two books by the Daily Show staff, that Stewart pitched at the end of the show:

#179 (from #3,520)

I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President Josh Lieb Retail Price: $15.99 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Razorbill – (2009-10-13) ISBN / EAN: 1595142401 / 9781595142405

Penguin Audio: 9780143145066; $29.95

Audio downloadable from OverDrive

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#181 (from #291)

What to Expect When You’re Expected: A Fetus’s Guide to the First Three Trimesters David Javerbaum Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Spiegel & Grau – (2009-10-13) ISBN / EAN: 0385526474 / 9780385526470