In a review that will be appear in the print NYT tomorrow, Dwight Garner writes that Emma Brockes’s account of trying to piece together the mysteries of her mother’s past, She Left Me the Gun (Penguin Press), is “…one of those memoirs that remind you why you liked memoirs in the first place, back before every featherhead in your writers’ group was trying to peddle one. It has the density of a very good novel.”

That quote is only topped by a those from the book itself, such as, “Being an only child is a bit like being Spanish: you have your dinner late, you go to bed late, and, with all the grown-up parties you get dragged to, you wind up eating a lot of hors d’oeuvres.”

Salt Lake City librarian Josh Hanagarne is interviewed in today’s issue of USA Today for his book, The World’s Strongest Librarian,  (Penguin/Gotham. 5/2/13). Both weight lifting and books have helped him deal with his Tourette’s. About being a librarian, he says, “As a breed, we’re the ultimate generalists. I’ll never know everything about anything, but I’ll know something about almost everything and that’s how I like to live.”

Hanagarne announces on his blog that the book has sold out of its first printing.

Below, he describes what libraries mean to him.

Tom Hanks’ next movie role is based on Captain Richard Phillips’ memoir, A Captain’s Duty, about the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the unarmed merchant marine ship he commanded. Phillips became a national hero by courageously leading his crew to safety.

Titled Captain Phillips, it is directed by Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Supremecy), and is coming to theaters on Oct 11.

Official Site: CaptainPhillipsMovie.com

The book was heavily covered in the media when it came was first published in 2010 (see the real Captain Phillips on Dateline and on The Daily Show). A tie-in will be published on Sept. 24 (Hyperion).

The next project from the creator of the hit cable series Weeds, Jenji Kohan, is an original series for Netflix, Orange Is the New Black, adapted from Piper Kerman’s 2010 memoir (Norton). Netflix just announced that all thirteen episodes will be released on July 11.

Netflix recently began developing their own programs, in an effort to attract and retain subscribers. The first two, House Of Cards (February) and Hemlock Grove (April) were also based on books.

Actress Taylor Schilling stars as Piper, who was incarcerated for 13 months in the Danbury Federal Prison in Connecticut. A Smith college graduate, just beginning her career, she seemed an unlikely candidate for prison, until a ten-year-old drug trafficking charge caught up with her.

At the time of publication, USA Today said the book “transcends the memoir genre’s usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you. You’d expect bad behavior in prison. But it’s the moments of joy, friendship and kindness that the author experienced that make Orange so moving and lovely.”

Diane Sawyer’s heavily promoted interview with Amanda Knox aired on ABC’s Nightline last night.

The full interview is available here. Knox’s book, Waiting to Be Heard, (Harper; HarperLuxe, HarperAudio), released yesterday, rose to #11 on Amazon’s sales rankings as a result.

Entertainment Weekly reviewed it, giving it a “B.”

Eve Ensler, whose memoir, In the Body of the World, (Macmillan/Metropolitan; Macmillan Audio) is being published today, was profiled on the Today Show this morning by Maria Shriver.

Shriver, who left NBC in 2004, also announced that she is returning as a “special anchor,” and will be profiling people like Ensler whom she calls “architects of change” and “reporting on women’s evolving experiences.”

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Diane Sawyer was supposed to have the first word on Amanda Knox’s memoir, Waiting to Be Heard,(Harper; HarperLuxe, HarperAudio) in an interview with the author on April 30, the book’s publication date. Instead, the NYT‘s publishing reporter, Julie Bosman got it first, breaking the embargo with a story on Friday.

Knox, an American attending college in Perugia, Italy, was accused, along with her boyfriend, of killing her roommate. She was tried, convicted and imprisoned, but released after the the decision was was overturned. In March, the Italian courts again changed their minds and ordered a new trial, which is to be held some time next year.

Holds are heavy in many libraries.

Michael Hainey’s memoir, After Visiting Friends, (S&S/Scribner) came out in February, was an IndieNext pick for March, racked up many admiring reviews, and is now gaining new fans. It was on the Today Show yesterday, and  will be reviewed in this Sunday’s NYT Book Review.

The book is about Hainey’s quest to find out what really happened to his father, a Chicago newspaperman, who died unexpectedly when the author was six years old. Reports simply stated that he had died “after visiting friends.”

Libraries are showing heavy holds on modest orders.

HBO has begun promotion for its Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra, which premieres on May 26th. It features Michael Douglas in the lead, with Matt Damon, as his lover, Scott Thorson (pictured, at left, on the cover of the March 15 issue of Entertainment Weekly).

It is based on Thorson’s 1988 memoir, Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace, which is being re-released by Tantor Audio in three formats; print, audio, and ebook on May 2.

This may be the last film directed by Steven Soderbergh, who, after 26 films in 24 years, has announced he is taking a break from filmmaking and will turn his attention to other interests (among them, importing cognac from Bolivia. What may be his last theatrical film, Side Effects, is currently playing in theaters).

Interviewed in The Hollywood Reporter, the director says he is very happy with his swan song, “I think people are gonna be surprised at how intimate it is, and that there’s no attempt to make fun of them or … to make them seem like cartoons… at the end of the day, [it’s just] two people in a room … there’s just a lot of rhinestone in it.”

An emotional segment featuring Susan Spencer-Wendel, author of the memoir, Until I Say Good-bye: My Year of Living with Joy, (Harper) was broadcast on The Today Show this morning. She has also been featured in USA Today and on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Upcoming is a feature on Inside Edition with Deborah Norville and another  in People

The book rose to #6 on Amazon sales rankings today and holds are growing in libraries.

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The subtitle of the book Wave only hints at the heartache that lies within; A Memoir of Life After the Tsunami (Rh/Knopf; RH Audio; BOT). In it, Sonali Deraniyagala, a British citizen originally from Sri Lanka, recounts how she struggled to cope with the loss of her husband, two sons, ages 5 and 7, and both her parents to that catastrophic event.

The book is currently receiving a round of media attention, with glowing reviews from Laura Miller in Salon, “a spare, radiant book … The extremity of Deraniyagala’s story seizes the attention, but it’s the beauty of how she expresses it that makes it indelible,” the NYT and a feature on NPR Morning Edition. It is also the #1 Amazon Editors’s pick for the month and is even considered “required reading” by the NY Post.

In spite of the attention, however, library holds are relatively light. The story may be a difficult sell, but as Miller attests, the writer’s “extraordinary gifts” reward those who are willing to try it.

Dr. Ben Carson has become the “New Conservative Folk Hero,” declares Atlantic magazine, since he confronted President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast, a venue that isn’t known for making news (see below; as the Atlantic advises, “Things don’t get interesting for a while, so you might want to skip to about halfway through”).

The soon-to-retire head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital has even been called on to run for President in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

His latest book, America the Beautiful, published last year and now available in paperback (HarperCollins/Zondervan), has been in the top ten on Amazon for the last two weeks, rising as high as #1 and appears on the March 3 NYT Paperback Non-fiction Best Seller list at #12. Libraries are showing heavy holds.

Media attention is in the works; Carson appeared on NPR’s On Point today, he will appear on Glenn Beck’s internet TV show on Thursday and on FOX’s Lou Dobbs show.

Also on the rise are Carson’s other titles, also from Zondervan;

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story by Ben Carson  (1992)

Gifted Hands, Kids Edition: The Ben Carson Story (ZonderKidz Biography) by Gregg Lewis and Deborah Shaw Lewis (2009)

Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence by Ben Carson  (2005)

Take the Risk: Learning to Identify, Choose, and Live with Acceptable Risk by Ben Carson M.D. and Gregg Lewis (2007)

The Big Picture by Ben Carson and Gregg Lewis (2000)

Jenni Rivera, an American singer who became popular in Mexico for developing an “urban ranchera” style of music, was killed in a plane crash in December. Today, the Atria imprint of S&S announced that her memoir will be released in July, in both Spanish and English.

Both editions immediately moved up Amazon’s sales rankings, with the Spanish-language title, Inquebrantable, (S&S/Atria) rising higher, currently at #79, well above the English-language Unbreakable at #230.

This is just the second time we’ve seen a Spanish-language edition outstrip the English; the first was La Reina Del Sur, (Alfaguara), the tie-in to Telemundo’s popular 2011 telenovela. It did not break into Amazon’s Top 100, however.

Shirley MacLaine had “no comment” for ABC’s 20/20 Show on Friday’s interview with her daughter Sachi Parker about her book, Lucky Me: My Life With–and Without–My Mom, Shirley MacLaine, (Penguin/Gotham), which releases tomorrow.

It seems she’s changed her mind. A story in Entertainment Weekly‘s “Shelf Life” about some of the book’s “weirdest moments” includes this update:

EW has received a statement from MacLaine in response to allegations from the memoir: ‘It’s a painful moment for me as a mother and as someone who values the truth. I’m shocked and heartbroken that my daughter would make statements about me that are virtually all fiction. I’ve praised her lovingly and truthfully in my own autobiographies. I’m sorry to see such a dishonest, opportunistic effort from my daughter for whom I’ve only ever wanted the best.”

UPDATE: after reports that the video of the interview caused problems for those trying to browse using Internet Explorer, we have taken it down. Link to it here.

In the midst of a media blitz for his book, Hitmaker, (Hachette/Grand Central), music mogul Tommy Mottola appeared on the Today Show with Matt Lauer yesterday. Gossip columnists (and Lauer) are fascinated with the section of the book in which he apologizes to ex-wife Mariah Carey, but his career is as legendary as his personal life (check the Huffington Post interview and the New York Observer story).

The book is rising on Amazon Sales Rankings (currently at #143), but libraries are not showing holds.

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