Word of mouth must be working for Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken. Let us know, in comments below, what your readers are saying. Are the excruciating descriptions putting them off, or are they loving the ultimate triumph (a subject we explored in an earlier post)?

Unbroken is now at #3, from #5 last week, on USA Today‘s best seller list, making it the second best selling nonfiction title after George Bush’s Decision Points.

Holds in libraries are growing. Libraries have increased their copies by as much as ten times the initial order, to try to keep up with demand.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption Laura Hillenbrand Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-11-16) ISBN / EAN: 1400064163 / 9781400064168

RH Large Print; 9780375435010
RH Audio; 9780739319697

This morning, NPR’s Morning Edition reaches all the way back to a book published in February by Harvard U. Press and owned by just a few public libraries. In it, Suzanne Smith writes about A. G. Gaston, a little-known enterpreneur who was instrumental in the Civil Rights movement. Like other black funeral directors, he used his wealth to pressure for change (threatening to withdraw his money from  the local bank if they didn’t get rid of their segregated drinking fountains).

To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death Suzanne E. Smith Retail Price: $29.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press – (2010-02-25) ISBN / EAN: 0674036212 / 9780674036215

Who would have thought that a book about the 400-year-old history of ballet would crack Amazon’s Top 25? Apollo’s Angels, by Jennifer Homans is now at #23, after an interview with the author on NPR’s Fresh Air last night (it was also recently featured on the cover of the NYT BR, which also named it one of the Top 10 Best Books of 2010).

As with ballet itself, it may all be in the timing. As Terry Gross points out,

It’s kind of ballet season, with lots of companies perfoming the Nutcracker for the holidays and with the new film Black Swan, a psychological thriller, about a ballerina [played by Natalie Portman] preparing for her leading role in Swan Lake.

But, says Gross, you don’t need to be interested in ballet, to be fascinated by Apollo’s Angels…it’s rich with history about class structure, gender, costume, shifting images of the ideal body and ideas of what the body is physically capable of.”

Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet Jennifer Homans Retail Price: $35.00 Hardcover: 672 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 1400060605 / 9781400060603

On several best books lists, The Gun by C.J. Chivers, was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered last night. According to the author, a foreign correspondent for the NY Times, the AK-47, which American military leaders considered too small and not powerful enough for their troops, has changed the nature of war, making certain conflicts longer and bloodier.

The Gun C. J. Chivers Retail Price: $28.00 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 0743270762 / 9780743270762

It’s official; Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is now a best seller, arriving on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction (list dated 12/05) at-#2 (after Bush’s Decision Points).

The USA Today list shows that it is at #6 in overall sales, after:

1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth, Jeff Kinney, Amulet Books
2. Decision Points, George W. Bush, Crown
3. Cross Fire, James Patterson, Little, Brown
4. The Confession, John Grisham, Doubleday
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, Vintage trade pbk

Library holds are also growing. All of this is to be expected, given the heavy media attention the book has received. The question now, as we’ve written here before, is how word of mouth will treat it. Will readers be put off by the book’s realistic portrayal of the horrors Louis Zamperini endured in WWII, or will they embrace its ultimately positive message?

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption Laura Hillenbrand Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-11-16) ISBN / EAN: 1400064163 / 9781400064168

RH Large Print; 9780375435010
RH Audio; 9780739319697

CBS Sunday Morning featured a book about an anonymous philanthropist who offered to gave money to people in need during the Depression, in the form of just $5 each, and the profound effect it had on the recipients. The story was reported last month New York Times.

As a result of yesterday’s coverage, the book rose to #80 on Amazon sales rankings and library holds are growing.

…………………………

A Secret Gift: How One Man’s Kindness–and a Trove of Letters–Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression Ted Gup Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2010-10-28) ISBN / EAN: 1594202702 / 9781594202704

Large Print; Center Point; 9781602859258; 12/01/10

Random House Audio; 9780307578037; 11/09/10

British actor Daniel Day-Lewis has played several fictional American figures in the movies. He is about to take on an iconic real-life American figure, as the star of the movie Lincoln, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. Steven Spielberg will direct. The screenplay is being writtern by Tony Kushner (Angels in America). Filming is expected to begin in the fall of 2011, with release sometime in late 2012.

In other Lincoln-movies-based-on-books news, casting has begun for Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, produced by Tim Burton and directed by Timur Bekmambetov. The movie will begin shooting in New Orleans in March.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Doris Kearns Goodwin Retail Price: $21.00 Paperback: 944 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2006-09-26) ISBN / EAN: 0743270754 / 9780743270755

Laura Hillenbrand’s second book after her mega seller Seabiscuit is breaking records for media attention in advance of its release tomorrow. Library holds are growing on modest orders, so the issue now how many more copies to order.

Newsweek asks the central question, Can Laura Hillenbrand Top Seabiscuit?, and answers with a resounding “yes,”

Unbroken is wonderful twice over, for the tale it tells and for the way it’s told. A better book than Seabiscuit, it manages maximum velocity with no loss of subtlety. With a jeweler’s eye for a detail that makes a story live, Hillenbrand compresses pages of explanation into a paragraph and sometimes just a line. Even the planes come alive. One pilot describing what it was like to fly the unwieldy B-24s compares it to “sitting on the front porch and flying the house.”

But this doesn’t address how many readers will be willing to live through the book’s detailed descriptions of suffering. The hero of the story, Louis Zamperini, survives 47 excruciating days at sea after his WWII bomber crashes, only to be “rescued” by the Japanese and endure 2 more years of captivity in a brutal POW camp.

Janet Maslin, in today’s NYT says Unbroken tells a “much more harrowing, less heart-warming story” than did Seabiscuit and notes, “there’s a limit to how many times Ms. Hillenbrand can present a man-socks-shark-in-the-nose anecdote before it begins to get old.” But even so, she says, the book “manages to be as exultant as Seabiscuit.”

Hillenbrand, herself, addresses the differing appeal of the two books in the Wall Street Journal,

“Seabiscuit’s story is one of accomplishment. Louie’s is one of survival. Seabiscuit’s story played out before the whole world. Louie dealt with his ordeal essentially alone. His was a mental struggle.” That struggle, she adds, feels particularly resonant in 2010. “This is a time when people need to be buoyed by something, and Louie blows breath into people by making them realize that they can overcome more than they think.”

Our take; libraries that have ordered modestly should order more copies now as demand will be driven by the book’s considerable publicity (upcoming this week; the Today Show, NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, as well as the NYT BR). Will you need even more? That depends on whether readers are put off by the grimmer scenes, or whether they see it as a story of “survival, resilience and redemption” as the book’s subtitle describes it.

Will Unbroken follow Seabiscuit to the big screen? That would seem a no-brainer, but there are some sticky rights issues that have to be worked out, as outlined in the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Zamperini is still living (at 93, he is excited about promoting the book. Ironically, he is better equipped to do so than Hillenbrand, who suffers from chronic fatique syndrom). Universal optioned both Zamperini’s “life rights,” and his own earlier autobiography, Devil at My Heels, first in the 1950’s, with plans to star Tony Curtis and again in the 1990’s with Nicholas Cage in mind. It seems Universal still has the rights to the autobiography, although Zamperini says he’d rather they base the movie on Hillenbrand’s book.

Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, about a WWII hero who survived being shot down and drifting on a life raft in the open ocean, only to endure two years in a brutal Japanese POW camp, is poised to be next week’s biggest nonfiction release. As we wrote earlier, it’s a People Pick, was featured on the cover of USA Today‘s “Life” section, and is excerpted in the December issue of Vanity Fair. Hillenbrand’s appearances next week include the Today Show and NPR.

It also made PW and the Amazon Editors Top Ten lists for 2010. Today’s Wall Street Journal profiles the subject of the book, Louis Zamperini, and quotes a buyer for B&N, “We’re positioning it as the big book for the holidays.”

The one naysayer so far is Entertainment Weekly which gives the book a “B”:

Hillenbrand is a better writer than a lot of historians and biographers. At times her prose even veers toward the poetic. But… she gives this story a chronological structure that frankly gets a little plodding…. Also, as inspiring as Zamperini’s tale is, his ordeal isn’t exactly a joy to experience on the page.

Nevertheless, the book is rising on Amazon, reaching #11 this morning (making it the fifth highest nonfiction title on the list). We’ll see how it fares with word of mouth after its release.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption Laura Hillenbrand Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-11-16) ISBN / EAN: 1400064163 / 9781400064168

RH Large Print; 9780375435010
RH Audio; 9780739319697

Other Notable Nonfiction on Sale Next Week

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda (HarperCollins) is a biography by the veteran publisher. PW says “Korda perhaps exaggerates the novelty and significance of Lawrence’s military exploits and makes an unconvincing stab at framing him in Joseph Campbell-inspired heroic archetypes. Still, Korda’s vivid portrait of Lawrence and his warring impulses captures the brilliance and charisma of this fascinating figure.”

My Passion for Design by Barbra Streisand (Viking) is an illustrated tour of the great star’s homes and art collections – and her first book. Streisand will appear for a full hour on the Oprah Winfrey Show on November 16.

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters by Barack Obama (Knopf Books for Young Readers) explores the characteristics of 13 important figures in American history through a letter to the President’s daughters.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner) chronicles the history of cancer, cancer treatments and new research into the disease. Reviewing the book in the  New York Times, yesterday, Janet Maslin objects that it is “transparently glib” to call the book a “biography,”  but that, “With objectives so vast, and with such a beautiful title, The Emperor of All Maladies is poised to attract a serious and substantial readership.” While the tone of the review is generally negative, it’s clear that Maslin is fascinated by much of it, underscoring her assessment that it will attract readers.

Decoded by Jay-Z (Spiegel & Grau) is part memoir, part tribute to the genre of hip-hop by the superstar. Entertainment Weekly gives it an A-: “The memoir’s chief theme is Jay-Z’s obsession with words…. He situates his work in the English canon, comparing his chosen form to the sonnet and crediting favorite authors (”Shout-out to Alfred, Lord Tennyson”). After reading Decoded, you won’t doubt for a second that he deserves the same level of respect as any of those great scribes.”

Unfortunately, Depression era stories have particular resonance right now. A philanthropist from Canton, Ohio, gave away money anonymously, usually in the form of just $5, to those in need in the 1930’s.

On Friday, many of the living recipients of those gifts, gathered to talk about what those small gifts meant to them, reports the NYT. They were brought together by the donor’s grandson, Ted Gup, who discovered their letters in an old suitcase. Gup, a journalist, also used the letters as a basis of a book.

Most libraries own the hardcover; few have ordered the audio or the large type versions.

A Secret Gift: How One Man’s Kindness–and a Trove of Letters–Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression Ted Gup Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2010-10-28) ISBN / EAN: 1594202702 / 9781594202704

Large Print; Center Point; 9781602859258; 12/01/10

Random House Audio; 9780307578037; 11/09/10

Nora Ephron‘s latest collection of humorous essays, I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections is a People Pick in the new issue, and New York magazine has a Q&A with her. Entertainment Weekly rains on the parade a bit, with a B- review (worth reading as an example of saying a great deal in just a few lines) as does Jane Maslin in today’s NYT, at much greater length.

Ephron’s also said to be launching a divorce section on the Huffington Post this week.

We hope she can remember her schedule next week, it’s a crowded one:

NPR/Morning Edition– 11/8
Charlie Rose – 11/9
Today Show – 11/9
The View – 11/10

All that, coming off the heels of her 2006 bestselling collection I Feel Bad About My Neck, is adding up to a 500,000 print run for her latest.

Booklist says: “A master of the jujitsu essay, Ephron leaves us breathless with rueful laughter. As the title suggests, she writes about the weird vagaries of memory as we age, although she is happy to report that the Senior Moment has become the Google Moment. Not that any gadget rescued her when she failed to recognize her own sister.”

I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections Nora Ephron Retail Price: $22.95 Hardcover: 160 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-11-09) ISBN : 9780307595607

Other Notable Nonfiction On Sale Next Week

Decision Points by George W. Bush (Crown) gives personal insight into the major events of Bush’s presidency. Though it’s embargoed, there have been lots of leaks, as we’ve already mentioned.

Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory by Newt Gingrich, William R. Forstchen and Albert S. Hanser (Thomas Dunne) is historical fiction about the Continental Army during the winter of 1777, following up on the authors’ success with Try Men’s Souls (2009). Booklist says, “The dialogue tends to get a little long-winded, and the authors are unabashed cheerleaders for GW, but, really, who can blame them? American readers can’t get enough of Valley Forge, so expect high demand for this fair-to-middling fictional adaptation.”

Don’t Sing at the Table: Life Lessons From My Grandmothers Adriana Trigiani  (Harper)  was featured at the BEA – AAP  Librarian Lunch. PW says, “Trigiani combines family and American history, reflections on lives well-lived, and sound advice to excellent effect, as a legacy to her daughter and a remembrance of two inimitable women.”

Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman (Twelve) analyzes the composition and decisions of the Supreme Court during the 1940s and 50s. Kirkus calls it “an immensely readable history that goes behind the façade of our most august institution to reveal the flesh-and-blood characters who make our laws.”

“The Atlantic Ocean was absolutely critical to the story of America,” says Simon Winchester explaining why he’s written a “biography” of it. He spoke to Lynn Neary on NPR’s Morning Edition today.

Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories Simon Winchester Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 512 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061702587 / 9780061702587

Antonia Fraser’s memoir of her 30-year marriage to Nobel Laureate and playwright Harold Pinter, Must You Go?, coming next week, is beginning to draw attention on this side of the pond.

Best known as the biographer of Marie Antoinette and The Wives of Henry VIII, Fraser began her relationship with Pinter when he asked her book’s eponymous question while they were both married to other people.

The New York Times says

Must You Go? is not a proper biography of Pinter, nor a remotely full account of Ms. Fraser’s own life. Instead it’s a book of glowing fragments, moments culled from Ms. Fraser’s diaries. The prose is not overly winsome. “My Diary: it’s not about great writing,” she admits. “It’s my friend, my record, and sometimes my consolation.” But there’s hardly a dull page.

But Entertainment Weekly is more impressed, giving it an “A”:

Fraser’s bold, intimate, madly entertaining memoir of the years with her late husband Harold Pinter. . . . [is] a tender portrait of an exciting marriage, and a deliciously detailed account of living in the thick of creativity and fame.

Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter Antonia Fraser Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 0385532504 / 9780385532501

More Notable Nonfiction

Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People by Amy Sedaris (Grand Central) is a farcical guide to crafting hobbies. Booklist says: “The true joy of this book lies in its hilarious and amazingly well-styled photo spreads, many featuring Sedaris in one of her uncanny disguises, including a teenager, an elderly shut-in, and Jesus. She devotes equal time to instruction on making homemade sausage, gift-giving, crafting safety, and lovemaking (aka “fornicrafting”).”

Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester (Harper) chronicles the geological and sociopolitical history of the Atlantic Ocean. PW is less than impressed: “Although he does not neglect the chief tragedies of the Atlantic, like the slave trade and the maritime battles, Winchester occasionally flits beelike from scene to scene, and the facts become lost in a blur.”  But the Economist finds it more satisfying balanced.

Me by Ricky Martin (Celebra) is the memoir of a pop music superstar.

Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan (Doubleday) was previewed in USA Today this week, after very positive prepub reviews, including stars from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

They Call Me Baba Booey by Gary Dell’Abate and Chad Millman (Spiegel & Grau) recounts the early life and career of the Howard Stern Show producer.

Cake Boss: The Stories and Recipes from Mia Famiglia by Buddy Valastro (Free Press) is a memoir by the star of the TLC show. PW says “despite great technical descriptions, including his bakery’s cannoli recipe and photos of his spectacular cakes, Buddy’s tale of immigrant success proves too familiar.” Thousands of show fans may beg to differ.

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy (Nan A. Talese) is an examination of the books and book people that have had an effect on the novelist’s life.  The new issue of Entertainment Weekly gives it a just a B-; “Like a coal worker dutifully marching back down the mine shaft, Pat Conroy returns to the seemingly non-depletable source of most of his output: his own life…It’s hardly new terrain, but some of the chapters are still sweetly moving.”

Legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is setting the tabloid press abuzz over excerpts from his new memoir, Life, in the Times of London, where (big surprise) he says that Mick Jagger has been “unbearable” since the 1980s.

In the New York Times, Janet Maslin calls Richards’ memoir “a big, fierce, game-changing account of the Stones’ nearly half-century-long adventure. . . . some of its most surprisingly revelatory material appears in what Mr. Richards jokingly calls ‘Keef’s Guitar Workshop.’ Here are the secrets of some of the world’s most famous rock riffs and the almost toy-level equipment on which they were recorded.”

Life Keith Richards Retail Price: $29.99 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-10-26) ISBN / EAN: 031603438X / 9780316034388

• CD: Hachette Audio; $34.98; ISBN 9781600242403
• Large Print: Little Brown and Co., $31.99; ISBN 9780316120364

Other Notable Nonfiction On Sale Next Week

The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks (Knopf) explores how people with impaired senses handle, and even excel at, everyday life, drawing on six case studies including his own loss of depth perception due to a tumor.

Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe (Threshold) outlines the economic ideas of the Fox News pundit.

Memoirs and Biographies

Cleopatra by Stacy Shiff (Little, Brown). Sure, it’s a bio of a fascinating historical figure by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, but the buzz around this book has focused on its adaptation as a movie, with Scott Rudin producing, James Cameron in talks to direct (in 3-D!), and Angelina Jolie possibly starring.

The Elephant to Hollywood by Michael Caine (Holt) “revisits familiar territory” from his first memoir, according to Kirkus, “including childhood poverty, the deprivations of World War II, faltering first steps in show business before signature roles in The Ipcress File (1965) and Alfie (1966) made him an international film star—but his warm, wry delivery keeps the material interesting, even though many of the anecdotes have a distinctly practiced feel.”

You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness by Julie Klam (Riverhead) is about a “slightly wacky person who, instead of looking inward for answers [to how to be happy], decided to help others — specifically, Boston terriers,” according to the 11/1 issue of People, where the book is a People Pick and garnered 3.5 of 4 stars.

My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space: Adventures of an Ordinary Woman by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Scottolini Serritella (St. Martin’s Press) is a collection of true life stories originally written for the Philadelphia Inquirer by the popular suspense writer and her daughter.

Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage by Hazel Rowley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) examines the relationship between FDR and his wife.  PW says “Despite Rowley’s cheerleading that the cousins’ conflicts brought out their courage and radicalism, and that they loved with a generosity of spirit that withstood betrayal, FDR emerges as a narcissist while Eleanor carved a spectacular life.”

First Family: Abigail and John Adams by Joseph J. Ellis (Knopf) gets praise from PW: “Ellis’s supple prose and keen psychological insight give a vivid sense of the human drama behind history’s upheavals.”

Cookbook Season
The major gift-giving season will soon be upon us, bringing a raft of new cookbooks.

Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That?: Fabulous Recipes & Easy Tips by Ina Garten (Clarkson Potter) focuses on simplifying meals without sacrificing quality. The Food Network guru will appear on the Today Show October 26  and 27.

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century, Amanda Hesser (W.W. Norton) ; long before the Contessa became barefoot, the NYT was publishing recipes. In what is sure to be THE gift cookbook of the year, Amanda Hesser examined the NYT recipes since the newspaper began running them in the 1850’s, chronicling the effort in the NYT Magazine series Recipe Redux (the latest is about readers’ “most stained” recipes).

Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes, Harold McGee (Penguin Press) was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air last night, shooting the book to #15 on Amazon sales rankings.

Secret Service agents are supposed to carry their stories to the grave. That code was broken earlier this year when several former and current agents spilled some juicy secrets to Ron Kessler for his book In the President’s Secret Service.

In a book coming out next month, the code is broken again. In The Kennedy Detail, Gerald Blaine, who was guarded JFK for three years, draws on his own memories and those of fellow service agents, to give new details about the Kennedy years. He reveals he almost shot LBJ in the confusing days after Dallas, creating headlines in newspapers around the world today,

Ex-Agent: I Almost Shot LBJ Hours After JFK Murder, The Associated Press

US agent nearly shot President Johnson, Belfast Telegraph

I nearly shot Lyndon Johnson after JFK was killed: Secret Service agent claims, The Australian

Secret service almost shot Lyndon B. Johnson by accident hours after JFK’s.death..,  New York Daily News

Blaine’s claim that JFK did not have an affair with Marilyn Monroe is also mentioned, but doesn’t grab the headlines.

The book was embargoed and therefore not available to the prepub review media, so few libraries have ordered it.

The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence Gerald Blaine, Lisa McCubbin Retail Price: $28.00 Hardcover: 448 pages Publisher: Gallery – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 1439192960 / 9781439192962

Unabridged audio available from Tantor Audio