Abraham Verghese, a doctor and the author of Cutting for Stone (STILL on the NYT Trade Paperback best seller list, now at #3, after 63 weeks) gives Diane Ackerman’s book about her husband’s stroke, One Hundred Names for Love, an accolade many writers dream about. In his review in Sunday’s NYT Book Review, he writes,

This book has done what no other has for me in recent years: it has renewed my faith in the redemptive power of love, the need to give and get it unstintingly, to hold nothing back, settle for nothing less, because when flesh and being and even life fall away, love endures. This book is proof.

One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing Diane Ackerman Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 322 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2011-04-04) ISBN / EAN: 9780393072419 / 9780393072419

Large Print; Thorndike; 9781410436481
Audio; Recorded Books

Ackerman’s long-running best seller, The Zookeeper’s Wife, was signed for a movie in September, but there has been no news about it since.

In his book Idea Man, (Portfolio/Penguin) arriving tomorrow, Paul Allen levels accusations against his former partner, Bill Gates. Lesley Stahl interviews Allen on 60 Minutes and ends by wondering whether he is a “Tech Visionary” or a “Bitter Billionaire.”

The week leading in to the Easter holiday weekend is dominated by repeat authors, including a new David Baldacci.

GalleyChat RA Pick

The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips (Random House) is the author’s fifth novel. About a long-lost Shakespeare play, PW gives it a starred review, and calls it “a sublime faux memoir framed as the introduction to the play’s first printing—a Modern Library edition, of course.” It got mentions in our recent GalleyChat: one participant called it “quirky and rompish” and likened it to Michael Crummey’s Galore. Entertainment Weekly gives it an A- in the new issue, “Phillips invests the metafictional gamesmanship with bracing intelligence and genuine heart. The fun starts with the opening line — ‘I have never much liked Shakespeare’ — and the energy never flags as the book develops into both a literary mystery and a surprisingly effective critique of the Bard.”

Usual Suspects

The Sixth Man by David Baldacci (Grand Central) is a new mystery with former Secret Service agents and current private investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.

Eve by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s Press) features forensic sculptor Eve Duncan in her 11th investigation, and the first installment in a new trilogy, in which she works to solve a case that has haunted her for years; the abduction and murder of her own seven-year-old daughter Bonnie. Fans will not have long to wait for the other books in the trilogy; Quinn is coming this July, followed by Bonnie in October.

The Priest’s Graveyard by Ted Dekker (Center Street) is the story of a vigilante priest and a woman dedicated to avenging the man she loved. Booklist says it’s “skillfully written, surprising, and impossible to put down. It might, in fact, be his best novel to date.” It arrives complete with its own book trailer.

Quicksilver: Book Two of the Looking Glass Trilogy by Amanda Quick (Putnam) is a paranormal romance, the latest in her Arcane Society series.

The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice (Pamela Dorman Books) is a portrait of three sisters who come home to Martha’s Vineyard one last time and has a 100,000-copy print run. Rice was a featured author at the ALA MidWinter Author Tea.

Nonfiction

Reading My Father: A Memoir by Alexandra Styron (Scribner) is William Styron’s youngest daughter’s exploration of his talent, and whether it justified his alcohol abuse and the debilitating depression that cast a long shadow over his wife and four children. Entertainment Weekly gives it an A-.

Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft by Paul Allen (Portfolio) gives an insider’s account of the dawning of the digital age. “Allen offers a clearheaded diagnosis of Microsoft’s problems, including its complicated future,” says BusinessWeek, adding that “Allen can be a scatterbrain. That quality slips into his writing.” An excerpt in Vanity Fair, made advance headlines because of Allen’s pointed criticism of former partner, Bill Gates. Allen will appear on 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Young Adult

Twelfth Grade Kills #5: The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer (Penguin) is the final installment in this series about a teenage vampire who has spent the last four years trying to handle the pressures of school while sidestepping a slayer out for his blood.

Expect to see Tina Fey’s memoir, Bossypants, arrive at #1 on the upcoming 4/24/11 NYT Print Hardcover Best Seller list.

It’s been receiving considerable media attention, including an interview with Fey on NPR’s Fresh Air last night and on Oprah this week (where she revealed that she is pregnant with her second child).

Bossypants Tina Fey Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books – (2011-04-05) ISBN / EAN: 0316056863 / 9780316056861

Audio;

• Hachette Audio; 9781609419691
• AudioGo Library (previously BBC Audio); 9781609417192
• Playaway; 9781611138795
• OverDrive WMA Audiobook, coming soon

Large Print; Little, Brown, 9780316177894

Yesterday on Oprah, Shirley MacLaine revealed she once had sex with three different men on the same day and that she was in an open marriage for 30 years, engendering a storm of headlines.

The 77-year-old MacLaine  is promoting her twelfth book, I’m Over All That: And other Confessions (Atria/S&S), released last week.

The book rose to #7 on Amazon. Her 1986 book, Out on a Limb, also rose to #102.

Janet Maslin is so enthralled with the memoir This Life is in Your Hands, that she dissolves into a booktalking cliche at the end of her NYT review, “If you want to know what happened, read it for yourself.”

In the book, author Melissa Coleman reveals what is was like to grow up with back-to-the-land zealot parents (her father, Elliot Coleman, is a major force in the organic farming movement and the author of several books on the subject). Maslin admits that it can be faulted for too much detail (“…the plink-plink of every freshly picked berry dropped in a bucket can almost be heard”) but, “More often, there is haunting power here, as well as lush, vivid atmosphere that is alluring in its own right.”

An excerpt appears in the April issue of O Magazine.

This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone Melissa Coleman Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Harper – (2011-04-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061958328 / 9780061958328

Co-founder  of Microsoft, Paul Allen’s forthcoming memoir, Idea Man (Portfolio/Penguin, 4/19), is making news, based on the excerpt in the new issue of Vanity Fair. The headlines reflect each publication’s orientation.

Microsoft’s local paper, the Seattle Times, sees it as personal “Paul Allen goes public with hard feelings toward Gates”

The Financial Times puts it in corporate terms, “Where Microsoft went wrong – by Paul Allen”

The L.A. Times follows the money, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen says Bill Gates schemed to dilute his share.

While the NY Times is more measured, Regrets and Resentment in Microsoft Partnership

Yesterday on the Today Show, Meredith Vieira interviewed JFK Jr’s ex-girlfriend, Christina Haag about her memoir, Come to the Edge. The interview did not address the issues that have made tabloid headlines (pot smoking, tantric sex), but instead focused on the book as a “beautiful tribute to John.”

Excerpted in the March issue of Vanity Fair, the book was also featured in USA Today and reviewed in the NYT last week. Libraries are showing light holds on modest ordering.

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

One of the most engaging reviews in the 3/27 NYT Book Review is for the memoir, My Korean Deli by Ben Ryder Howe, about the author’s adventures running a deli in Brooklyn, with his mother-in-law, while maintaining his job as editor at the Paris Review. Any author would love this opener,

It’s hard not to fall in love with My Korean Deli. First, it’s the (very) rare memoir that places careful, loving attention squarely on other people rather than the author. Second, it tells a rollicking, made-for-the-movies story in a wonderfully funny deadpan style.

The book rose to #124 (from #258) on Amazon’s sales rankings.

My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store Ben Ryder Howe Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. – (2011-03-01) ISBN / EAN: 0805093435 / 9780805093438

Audio: Blackstone; read by Bronson Pinchot

Chef/author Gabrielle Hamilton was interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered last night about her surprise best selling memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter (listen here).  Show host Guy Raz calls the book,

…the sort of hard-edged restaurant memoir we’ve come to expect from fellow New York chefs like Anthony Bourdain, who, coincidentally, described Hamilton’s book as “simply the best memoir by a chef. Ever.

This is her first book, but Hamilton says she intends to continue both cooking and writing.

Audio: Books on Tape; narrated by the author.

The media’s already got the jump on next week’s laydown of Sarah Vowell‘s Unfamiliar Fishes, a short, idiosyncratic history of Hawaii by the National Public Radio star and bestselling author.

Entertainment Weekly gives it a “B,” saying it “could use a little more of Vowell’s voice peppered throughout some of the long stretches of history and reporting, [but] her brainy wit and savvy cultural references keep the book from seeming like homework.”

There are also short interviews with Vowell in USA Today and Vanity Fair.

Unfamiliar Fishes Sarah Vowell Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2011-03-22) ISBN / EAN: 9781594487873 / 9781594487873

Also up next week is Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations about Food and Money by Geneen Roth, the author that Oprah made into a star. It arrives with a 200,000-copy laydown. Kirkus calls it, “a timely portrait of one woman’s devastating loss and subsequent rise from the ashes of the Bernie Madoff scandal.”

Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money Geneen Roth Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2011-03-22) ISBN / EAN: 0670022713 / 9780670022717

T.J. English (Havana Nocturne) will be getting media attention next week for his book about New York in the 1960’s, The Savage City. It will be reviewed in the NYT Metro section on Sunday and the author is booked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge T. J. English Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: William Morrow – (2011-03-01) ISBN / EAN: 9780061824555 / 9780061824555

Thanks to a controversial video trailer for Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell, the book’s publication date has been pushed up by a week. In the video, the Grand Rapids, Michigan mega-church pastor and bestselling author of Velvet Elvis leans toward “universalism ─ a dirty word in Christian circles that suggests everyone goes to heaven and there is no hell,” as CNN.com’s “Belief Blog” puts it.

On March 14, Bell will be the subject of a New York Times profile, and will appear on Good Morning America and Nightline.

Several libaries we checked did not have copies on order. Others showed holds of up to 10:1 on light ordering.

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived Rob Bell Retail Price: $22.99 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: HarperOne – (2011-04-01) ISBN / EAN: 006204964X / 9780062049643

Other Notable Nonfiction On Sale Next Week…

(more…)

As we noted in our look-ahead to this week’s big books, two chef’s memoirs hit the shelves. Each received media coverage yesterday.

Grant Achatz was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air about recovering from tongue cancer and his book, Life, On the Line (Gotham/Penguin). As a result, it rose to #42 (from #155) on Amazon.

Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter (Random House), has been doing well all week (see our heavy holds alert) and is now at #18 on Amazon. The author appeared on the Today show.

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

Next Week’s Notable Nonfiction

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe, will receive  major media exposure next week. She has written the cover story about Hilary Clinton for Tina Brown’s newly-redesigned Newsweek, which debuts next week (with a weekly book section!). The book will be featured on several NPR shows, including Morning Edition, it will be excerpted in USA Today and several reviews are scheduled.

Lemmon’s book is the story of an Afghan woman who became an entrepreneur under the Taliban, employing over 100 women, despite being banned from schools and offices, in the vein of Three Cups of Tea.

Libraries are showing modest reserves on modest orders, but interest could increase as Lemmon makes her media rounds.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe Gayle Tzemach Lemmon Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Harper – (2011-03-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061732370 / 9780061732379

Memoir to Watch

The Source of All Things: A Memoir by Tracy Ross (Free Press) is an exploration of the author’s childhood sexual abuse. Kirkus says, “Ross’s seesawing of emotions left her in a constant state of flux, but this uncertainty of emotion is one of the narrative’s primary strengths. Ross continually explores the boundaries of father-daughter intimacy, never demonizing her stepfather, but instead, humanizing him—a far more difficult task.”

Usual Suspects

The Money Class: Learn to Create Your New American Dream by Suze Orman (Spiegel and Grau) reassesses the American Dream — home, family, career, retirement — in view of current economic realities.

Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan by Jeff Greenfield (Putnam) is the veteran CBS News reporter and commentator’s journey in what-ifs, based on his extensive research, and has a 100,000 printing. PW calls it “fun but insubstantial.”

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions by Guy Kawasaki (Portfolio) offers a new perspective on the art of influence, by the author of bestseller The Art of the Start.

One of the most-discussed titles on Tuesday’s GalleyChat was Townie, the memoir by Andre Dubus (we also hear that in lands on the upcoming NYT Extended Nonfiction Hardcover list).

One of the chat participants, Angela Carstensen, writes about Townie on SLJ‘s Adult Books for Teens.

She also points out that segments of Dubus’s ALA presentation are available on YouTube. The videos give new meaning to the term “hand-held” (if you have a tendency towards dizziness, close your eyes and listen to the audio), but they give a good sense of the style of both the author and the book.

Below, he reads from the book (Dubus is the narrator for the audiobook, from Blackstone):

In the following segment, Dubus talks about why he loves libraries and how he became a “reluctant memoirist.”

…………………….

Townie: A Memoir Andre Dubus III Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2011-02-28) ISBN / EAN: 0393064662 / 9780393064667

Audio: Blackstone; UNABR, simultaneous; read by the author