Brian Grazer appears tonight on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss his new book A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) co-written with Charles Fishman.

Grazer, a high-powered Hollywood producer best known for films such as Apollo 13 and the currently hot Fox show Empire, was profiled early last month on CBS Sunday Morning, helping the book to land on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction best seller list.

His book explores the power of curiosity as a motivating and life-changing force. It has been such a central concept in Grazer’s life that he has conducted hundreds of “curiosity conversations” with a who’s who of famous names.

On Tuesday the legendary Willie Nelson sits down with Stewart to talk about his memoir It’s a Long Story: My Life (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), which chronicles the 82-year-old’s life from childhood in small town Abbott, TX, through the heyday of his career, following up on his 1988 memoir, Willie, and the more philosophical The Tao of Willie (2006) and 2012’s Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.

Nelson’s memoir is written with David Ritz, an award-winning author focused on music biographies, who also helped Ray Charles and Rick James tell their tales.

Nelson performed one of his most well-known hits on the finale of PBS Austin City Limits:

Causing the book ro rise to #7 on Amazon sales rankings and holds to grow, The Wright Brothers by David McCullough (S&S; S&S Audio; Thorndike; OverDrive Sample), was featured on CBS Sunday Morning.

The book, which come out tomorrow, is also reviewed by Janet Maslin in today’s New York Times.

Yucatán by David Sterling (University of Texas Press) is the 2015 James Beard Foundation Cookbook of the Year.

Sterling runs a Yucatán cooking school in Mexico and his book is an ode to the food he loves, a huge, 576 page encyclopedic tome, filled with photos and a richly detailed text. It weighs more than a five pound bag of flour and lists for $60. It won the award for best International Cookbook as well.

The James Beard Awards come on the heels of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Awards, which were announced late last month.

Their top pick is A New Napa Cuisine by Christopher Kostow (RH/Ten Speed Press; OverDrive Sample), the chef running The Restaurant at Meadowood, a three-Michelin-starred destination eatery in California. A mix of chef’s journey, regional spotlight, and artistic expression, it is a good example of the trend, as we reported last week, for cookbooks to be more than compilations of recipes.

Between the two awards there are five overlapping winners:

Liquid Intelligence by David Arnold (W.W. Norton) which won the James Beard Award for best Beverage book and the IACP Jane Grigson Award.

Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat and Pork by Adam Danforth (Workman/Storey Publishing; OverDrive Sample) which won the James Beard award for Reference and Scholarship and the IACP Beverage/Reference/Technical award.

Bar Tartine by Nicolaus Balla and Cortney Burns (Chronicle; OverDrive Sample) which won the James Beard Cooking from a Professional Point of View award and the IACP award for best Chefs and Restaurants book.

Heritage by Sean Brock (Workman/Artisan) which won the James Beard American Cooking award and the IACP Julia Child First Book award.

At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen by Amy Chaplin (Shambhala/Roost Books) which won the James Beard award for Vegetable Focused and Vegetarian cookbook and the IACP award for Health & Special Diet.

The full list of James Beard winners and IACP winners is available at each award’s website.

Judith Miller, a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist, reported in 2002 that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD, Those stories, which were used by the Bush administration to help build the case for the invasion of Iraq, were later discredited for being based on false information. The NYT forced Miller to resign, but, before that, she was jailed for 85 days for not revealing the sources of information for a different story, one that outed Valerie Plame as a member of the CIA.

Now a FOX News commentator and a member of the conservative Manhattan Institute, she has written a memoir about her years at the NYT, The Story: A Reporter’s Journey (Simon & Schuster; Random House Audio; Thorndike;  OverDrive Sample).

Following a round of appearances earlier this month on several FOX shows, CBS This Morning, and on the Bill Maher Show, she will appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this Wednesday.

She is getting a tough reception by most commentators, her former employer, and other media outlets.

Lloyd Grove of The Daily Beast offers a scathing review, stating:

Much of The Story, including a chapter titled “Scapegoat,” is Miller’s self-pitying account of how she was demonized by critics and enemies, inside and outside the Times, as an influential cheerleader for an unjustified and ultimately ruinous war conducted under false pretenses.

The NYT calls her book “sad and flawed” while The Washington Post‘s media critic says:

This dynamic — Judy Miller against the world — lends her book an aspect that is both depressing and desperate. Over more than 300 pages, Miller flays her critics (particularly those who write for blogs) and lays out a defense of her reporting that relies on bluster, repetition and a highly selective set of facts, some of the same ingredients that the Bush administration dropped into its case for the Iraq war.

The Columbia Journalism Review, which offers perhaps the most even handed review, still holds that:

The Story turns out to be less personal than we might wish, less a memoir than an apologia and an assault… alternately turgid and fascinating, if not in equal measure.

Published on April 7th, holds are light on light ordering around the country despite the amount of media attention.

UPDATE:
Stewart did not go easy on her. Holds are still modest.

Owls are literally in the air. First came the PBS Nature episode “Owl Power” and now comes The House of Owls by Tony Angell (Yale UP; OverDrive Sample).

The book is a cross between natural history, bird watching, and memoir. Lavishly illustrated by Angell, who is a celebrated artist from the Pacific Northwest, it also strikes a cord for those who enjoy grown-up picture books.

It is getting attention in The Wall Street Journal, in a review that makes the book sound as irresistible as the cover art,  The Seattle Times, which lists it as one of its “30 Books for Spring Reading,” and is climbing Amazon’s rankings, putting it, if its rise continues, in striking range of bestseller lists.

Check your copies, Kate Andersen Brower’s The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House (Harper; HarperCollins and Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) is a holds superstar with wait-lists growing into triple digits and holds ratios topping 5:1 across the country.

As we reported earlier, the book is a behind-the-scenes account of the staff that the runs the White House – from the Kennedy administration through the Obamas. It recently made the news due to its Clinton connection (dishy details over the Monica fallout).

The book is only going to get hotter with the news that Kevin Spacey’s production company, Trigger Street, (responsible for House of Cards, Captain Phillips, The Social Network), has bought the TV rights.

According to Politico, the plan for the show is to create:

… a modern and fictional 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue spin on Downton Abbey, wherein the White House’s butlers, stewards, maids and the like are the stars, often more committed to the mansion and upholding its historic traditions than to the family who lives there.

The book is currently #5 on NYT Best Seller list (down from #3 last week) but is rising on Amazon and out of stock at both Ingram and B&T.

According to the NY Post the juicy gossip is not limited to the Clintons, there are plenty of other revelations about Presidential behavior (good and salacious), first wives (Nancy Regan is called “spoiled rotten”), and first kids behaving badly.

It is also full of history and context and likely to prove irresistible on TV.

A year after it was controversially featured as the opening film at Cannes, American audiences will finally get to see the bio-pic featuring Niclole Kidman as Princess Grace, titled after the book it is based on, Grace of Monaco by Jeffrey Robinson (Perseus/Da Capo; Audio, Dreamscape).

It is not coming to the big screen, however. In quite a comedown from opening the Cannes Festival, it makes its U.S. debut on the cable network Lifetime on Memorial Day, May 25th.

The film was booed at Cannes and the kinder critics said is was “not Kidman’s finest hour.”

Remember when people thought the digital age would spell the end to cookbooks?

Ironically, the online recipe site, Epicurious, begs to differ. Calling this the “Cookbook Golden Age,” they say, “If cookbooks were just collections of recipes, you could sum them up in an index. But the best books weave the wit and spirit of their authors right into every page.”

They have whittled “The Epicurious Cookbook Canon Longlist,” based on nominees from readers, down to just ten.

Either list is a great opportunity for a display, real or virtual.

Also check out Epicurious‘s list of 30 Spring Cookbooks We’re Excited For (hurrah! our favorite Brooklyn ice cream truck/stand reveals their secrets in June; Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream, HarperCollins/Ecco).

Steve Osborne is a storytelling genius as is clear by his appearance on NPR’s Fresh Air.

At a time when cops are in the news for all the wrong reasons, Osborne brings a new voice to the conversation, an authentic and compelling one telling vivid and visceral stories about life on the line.

In his debut memoir, The Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop (RH/Doubleday; BOT Audio; OverDrive Sample), Osborne relates stories from 20 years in the New York Police Department.

Osborne is also a favorite on The Moth (a not-for profit storytelling collective) where he has honed his story telling chops, a fact quite evident as he turned his interview on Fresh Air into a performance of its own. His book jumped up the Amazon rankings as a result.

In a wise move, Books on Tape has Osborne narrate the audiobook.

Jon Krakauer was interviewed on today’s CBS Early Show about his new book, which goes on sale today, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town (RH/Doubleday; RH & BOT Audio; RH Large Print).

He will appear tomorrow on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. He has also appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday

The book has been reviewed in USA Today, by Janet Maslin in the New York  Times and by Caitlin Flanagan in the Washington Post.

Last night, Jon Stewart’s guest was Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield (Harper, 4/21/15), the story of a group of  women who volunteered for a mission to help Rangers in Afghanistan, by making contact with a group they could not, Afghan women. Called “cultural support” rather than front theater combat troops, they were in fact on the front lines and the woman at the center of the story died.

Visibly moved, Stewart called it “a terrific book.”

A hot property in Hollywood, the film rights to the Ashley’s War were recently won at auction by Reese Witherspoon.

 
The interview was somewhat overshadowed by Stewart’s announcement that his last show will be Aug. 6.

Tomorrow night, the show will feature Dana Perino, former White House Press Secretary for George W. Bush and a political commentator for Stewart’s favorite punching bag, Fox News. Her book And the Good News Is…: Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side. (Hachette/Twelve; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print) is being published today.

On Thursday, Stewart will interview one of his favorites, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium. His new TV series StarTalk begins on Monday night on NatGeo. He is the author of several books, including, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier (Norton, 2012), The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet (Norton, 2009) and Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries (Norton, 2007).

It may seem bad timing that Jon Krakauer’s book, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town (RH/Doubleday; RH & BOT Audio; RH Large Print) arrives just months after the Rolling Stone‘s story on an incident at the University of Virginia,  “A Campus Rape,” was discredited. However, as Krakauer tells NPR Weekend Edition yesterday, the book was originally planned for release in the fall, but was rushed into print as a form of rebuttal. He says the “Rolling Stone fiasco” ended up as ammunition for those who believe the myth that women lie about being raped and notes that, “in 90% of rapes, the rapist walks away.”

The author will also appear on the CBS Early Show on Wednesday and NPR’s Diane Rehm Show the next day.

The local community is disturbed by the attention the book may bring, as evidenced by the number of stories in the local newspaper. At his request, Krakauer is scheduled to take questions from Missoulians on May 6 at a public forum held by the local bookstore, Fact and Fiction.

The book is reviewed today in USA Today and by Janet Maslin in the New York  Times.

Calling it “the most anticipated and feared book” of Hillary Clinton’s nascent presidential campaign, the New York Times breaks the embargo in a story published today on the forthcoming Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich by Peter Schweizer (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe, 5/9/15). Fox News immediately lept on the story, but New York Magazine is less excitable, “New Book Will Ostensibly Make People Care About Shady Clinton Donations.”

Expect to hear more about the book. Schweizer is a conservative writer with strong media ties. His previous book Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets (HMH, 2013), was the basis of a 2013 CBS 60 Minutes feature. One of the subjects of that story, N.J. Rep. Rob Andrews (D) resigned this February amidst an investigation by the the House Ethics Committee, begun before the 60 Minutes story, into his use of campaign funds.

Due to the book’s embargo, it has not been reviewed in the pre-pub media. As a result, some libraries have not ordered it.

Columnist and commentator David Brooks’s new book, The Road to Character (Random House; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample) is a blend of self-examination and an exploration of what makes a richly fulfilling inner life.

In an interview yesterday on NPR’s All Things Considered, he says he began this journey after meeting a group of people who tutor immigrants and realizing that they “radiated gratitude for life,” a quality he found missing in his own life, despite his outward successes.

The Guardian calls the book “a powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin.”

It rose to #2 on Amazon’s sales rankings today, possibly benefiting not only from people on the search for their own roads to character, but from those on the search for interesting (if pointed) graduation gifts. As The Washington Post‘s Ron Charles points out in a story satirizing printed version of famous graduation speeches aimed at that market, it is the season for such books.

Author Fareed Zakaria will appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight, and U.S. Navy SEAL Eric Greitens on Thursday.

CNN host Zakaria, a frequent guest on Stewart’s show (see his post 9/11 appearance here), generally writes about  the Middle East. Last week, he engaged in a heated discussion with Bill Maher on HBO’s Real Time about Maher’s views on Islam.

His newest book, In Defense of a Liberal Education (Norton; S&S Audio), addresses a different topic. A short ode to the value of a well-rounded education, it is an argument against the growing focus on vocational training over more traditional subjects.

Zakaria advocates for the importance of learning how to think critically, write well, and communicate effectively, and perhaps most of all, for acquiring the ability to continuously learn over the course of a lifetime, a message well-timed for college graduation gifs.

Eric Greitens, who appears on Thursday, is the founder, chairman and CEO of The Mission Continues. Librarians might recognize his name from his 2011 New York Times bestseller The Heart and the Fist.

His newest book, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life (HMH; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), is a series of letters (which read like a cross between a pep talk and an essay) written to a fellow solider in need of aid. The central message is the importance of resilience and ways to live a more focused, wise, and strong life.