Making the dramatic argument that the food industry has consciously hooked consumers on junk food, much as the tobacco industry hooked people on nicotine, Michael Moss, author of Salt Sugar Fat, (Random House; RH Audio; BOT)  appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air  yesterday. Among his many stunning anecdotes, he describes how food scientists developed the “bliss point,” the precise amount of sugar to make consumers want more, without crossing the line to overly sweet.

The book is excerpted as the cover story for this week’s New York Times Magazine (the author is a NYT reporter who won a Pulitzer for reporting on E. coli in beef), as “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food.“

It is currently at #3 on Amazon’s sales rankings; libraries are showing heavy holds on modest orders.

Reports on a new study that supports the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet caused several titles to rise on Amazon’s sales rankings. Stories appeared in multiple news sources, including the New York Times, USA Today and on TV.

Studies indicate that hearing loss is likely to be a pecursor of dementia, reports the NYT‘s Katherine Bouton in the newspaper’s popular “Well” column.

The news is particularly alarming to Bouton, who has a strong connection to the issue. Her book, arriving next week, Shouting Won’t Help: Why I-And 50 Million Other Americans-Can’t Hear You (Macmillan/FSG/Sarah Crichton) is about her own hearing loss. In an audio interview on the “Well” site, she explains that she wrote the book to help others understand what serious hearing loss is like (it’s very different from just wearing earmuffs).  Kirkus calls it a “poignant, enlightening memoir.”

The Today Show took a skeptical look at a new diet book that just arrived in the US after becoming a big success in the UK. Six Weeks to OMG: Get Skinnier Than All Your Friends by Vince Fulton (yes, it’s a pseudonym) was covered in two segments, each featuring a bathtub.

The hosts of the segments sounded unconvinced by the author’s recommendations, but a significant number of viewers felt otherwise. The book jumped into the Amazon Top Fifty, rising from #5,012 to #44. Library holds, however, are very light.

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William J. Broad’s article, “How Yoga Can Wreck your Body,” published in the New York Times on Jan. 5 brought protests from the yoga community .

Broad appeared on Fresh Air yesterday to talk about his less sensationally-titled new book, The Science of Yoga, which looks at both the risks and rewards of the practice.

Libraries are showing heavy holds on modest orders.

The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards William J Broad Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2012-02-07) ISBN / EAN: 1451641427 / 9781451641424

Broad emphasizes the advantages of yoga in the book’s trailer:

David Angus’ book, The End of Illness, hardly needs more attention. It’s been at #1 on the NYT Hardcover Advice & Misc. best seller list for the last two weeks. Several features on ABC News in mid-January, sent it to the top ten on Amazon for a week. It settled back down in to the 100’s, and shot back up again, after Jon Stewart issued the magic words during his talk with the author on The Daily Show, “The book is phenomenal. For anyone who is up at night, looking at WebMD…you should get this.”

(UPDATE: some health web sites, including HealthNewsReview.org, have criticized some of Dr. Angus’ recommendations).

Libraries are showing heavy holds in most areas.

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The End of Illness David B. Agus Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: S&S/Free Press – (2012-01-17) ISBN / EAN: 1451610173 / 9781451610178

S&S Audio

After the author’s appearance on the Rachel Ray Show yesterday, Syndrome W: A Woman’s Guide to Reversing Weight Gain, by Harriette R. Mogul, rose to #18 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Syndrome W: A Woman’s Guide to Reversing Midlife Weight Gain Harriette R. Mogul Retail Price: $16.95 Paperback: 280 pages Publisher: M.Evans & Company – (2010-07-25) ISBN / EAN: 1590771613 / 9781590771617

Expect an increase in interest in books about veganism. Beginning Tuesday, Oprah and 378 of her staff go vegan for a week. Michael Pollan and Kathy Freston will be featured on the show.

Freston’s latest book comes out tomorrow.

Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World Kathy Freston Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Weinstein Books – (2011-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 1602861331 / 9781602861336

A recent Earlyword Galley Chat favorite goes on sale next week: Running the Books, Avi Steinberg‘s memoir of his adventures as a prison librarian and writing instructor in Boston, after graduating from Harvard.  As we’ve mentioned, he published an amusing essay in the New York Times magazine last week, which should help the book get more attention in other media.

PW called the memoir “captivating…. Steinberg writes a stylish prose that blends deadpan wit with an acute moral seriousness. The result is a fine portrait of prison life and the thwarted humanity that courses through it.”

Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian Avi Steinberg Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-10-19) ISBN / EAN: 0385529090 / 9780385529099

Other Notable Nonfiction On Sale Next Week

Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook: Crazy Delicious Recipes that Are Good to the Earth and Great for Your Bod by Kim Barnouin (Running Press), more vegan dishes.

Final Verdict: What Really Happened in the Rosenberg Case by Walter Schneir (Melville House) contends that Ethel Rosenberg was not a Soviet spy and challenges enduring myths surrounding the case. The New York Times Book Review compares it favorably to another recent book on the Rosenberg case by Allen M. Hornblum.

My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth That Led to an American Tragedy by Nora Titone (S&S) hinges on its portrait of the Booth family. Kirkus declares that “though some historical detail seems more tangential than pertinent, the multiple portraits display hidden facets of all the Booths.”

The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer by Jane Smiley is a biography of the brilliant but mostly forgotten physicist who created a protype for the computer. Kirkus raves, “As in her novels, the author displays a talent for keeping a dozen fully realized characters on stage…. Smiley takes science history and injects it with a touch of noir and an exciting clash of vanities.”

Children’s

Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson, about a runaway slave who joins the Continental Army at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78, is the second installment in the author’s American Revolutionary trilogy, following the National Book Award finalist Chains. Kirkus praises its “vivid setting, believable characters both good and despicable and a clear portrayal of the moral ambiguity of the Revolutionary age. Not only can this sequel stand alone, for many readers it will be one of the best novels they have ever read.”

We can’t help but cringe at the title of a new book that criticizes current treatments for prostate cancer; Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers.

It’s been rising on Amazons sales rankings (currently at #207, from #28,021 yesterday), based on coverage in the New York Times Well Column on Monday. The book’s authors point out that only 1 man in 48 is saved by prostate surgery; the others would be better off if it was treated as a chronic condition.

The NYT columnist finds the book’s arguments persuasive, even though he happens to be one of the 48 who was saved by surgery, which uncovered the fact that his cancer was more advanced than his doctors had originally thought.

Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers: No More Unnecessary Biopsies, Radical Treatment or Loss of Sexual Potency Mark Scholz M.D., Ralph Blum Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Other Press – (2010-08-24) ISBN / EAN: 1590513428 / 9781590513422

Based on library holds, the most anticipated title next week is the new thriller by Daniel Silva.

The Rembrandt Affair Daniel Silva Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Putnam Adult – (2010-07-20) ISBN / EAN: 0399156585 / 9780399156588

This is the 10th in the author’s Gabriel Alon series. Alon, the former assassin for the Israeli secret service, is looking for peace and quiet on the Cornish coast, but, of course, trouble finds him as an art restorer is murdered while working on a recently discovered Rembrandt.

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Holds are also building for by Iris Johansen’s third outing with her son, Roy.

Shadow Zone Iris Johansen, Roy Johansen Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Press – (2010-07-20) ISBN / EAN: 0312611609 / 9780312611606

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Coming in plenty of time for kids who will be heading off to college in the Fall, a new edition of the 2006 best seller, by the daughter of Memet Oz (who provides the forward). Most libraries have the earlier edition, but have not yet ordered the new one.

The Dorm Room Diet: The 10-Step Program for Creating a Healthy Lifestyle Plan That Really Works Daphne Oz Retail Price: $16.95 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: Newmarket Press – (2010-07-13) ISBN / EAN: 1557049157 / 9781557049155

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Geoffrey O’Brien’s The Fall of the House of Walworth is an L.A. Times summer reading pick; “O’Brien turns his acute eye onto a scandalous story of the 1870s, an act of patricide that destroyed a prominent family after the Civil War.” Booklist calls it a ” darkly mesmerizing true-crime tale.” A few libraries are showing holds. For those that don’t have holds, this sounds like a good readers advisory choice.

The Fall of the House of Walworth: A Tale of Madness and Murder in Gilded Age America Geoffrey O’Brien Retail Price: $30.00 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. – (2010-07-20) ISBN / EAN: 0805081151 / 9780805081152

Can the anti-diet book, Women Food and God reach an even wider audience? It’s already been on the NYT Hardcover Advice best seller list for 16 weeks, largely because Oprah has called it “the miracle we’ve been waiting for.”

Today, Oprah brings the author back to her show for a second session.

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything Geneen Roth Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2010-03-02) ISBN / EAN: 1416543074 / 9781416543077

S&S Audio; UNABR; 9781442336605; $29.99

Women, Food and God hit number 1 on several major best seller lists after Oprah’s endorsements, beginning in O, The Oprah Magazine and continuing with a full hour show last week. Now, it adds another one as it hits #1 on the USA Today list (which, unlike lists in other newspapers, is not divided by category).

It will get a further boost on July 12th, when Oprah again features the author, as USA Today‘s “Book Buzz” column notes.

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything Geneen Roth Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2010-03-02) ISBN / EAN: 1416543074 / 9781416543077

S&S Audio; UNABR; 9781442336605; $29.99

She’s already made a best seller of Women, Food and God by featuring the book in her magazine. Now she’ll send it even higher by featuring it on her Wednesday show, headlined  “Why Oprah Says She’ll Never Diet Again!”

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything Geneen Roth Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2010-03-02) ISBN / EAN: 1416543074 / 9781416543077

S&S Audio; UNABR; 9781442336605; $29.99

Geneen Roth’s Women, Food, and God, is hitting #1 in many places:

Just hit #1 on Amazon

#1 on B&N.com

#1 on the 4/11 NYT Hardcover Advice best seller list, rising from #3 last week)

Libraries are showing heavy reserves; an average of 10:1 on modest ordering.

What’s fueling it? Perhaps it’s a little help from Oprah, who interviews the author in April issue of O, the Oprah Magazine; the promo for the issue calls it “the book Oprah’s telling everyone to read”; the cover headline proclaims, “The Battle is Over!”

Could an appearance on The Oprah Show be far behind?

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything Geneen Roth Retail Price: $24.00 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Scribner – (2010-03-02) ISBN / EAN: 1416543074 / 9781416543077