In her Library News email last week, Golda Rademacher, Norton’s Library Marketing Manager, alerted librarians to the following drop-in title:

Ebola: The Natural and Human History of a Deadly Virus
DAVID QUAMMEN
9780393351552, pbk, $13.95
NORTON, 10/20/14

With all the news about Ebola lately, we had a lot of requests for the Ebola chapter from David Quammen’s Spillover. We’ve pulled the chapter out and are publishing it as a paperback with some updates and a new introduction by the author.

In today’s New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reviews it, saying that Quammen warns readers not to take Richard Preston’s “lurid descriptions of Ebola’s consequences literally” in his best selling book, The Hot Zone. Nevertheless, Quammen ” shows in these pages that the reality of the virus is horrifying without any apocalyptic embellishment.”

Kakutani also mention journalist Laurie Garrett’s  “illuminating and encyclopedic book The Coming Plague” (Penguin Books).

When Ebola began making headlines this year, one of the few books on the topic was the 20-year-old nonfiction title that the NYT says could “be classified as dystopian nonfiction,” The Hot Zone,(RH/Anchor Trade; Mass Market; S&S Audio).

The author, Richard Preston publishes new reporting on Ebola in the 10/28 issue of the New Yorker. In an interview in this week’s NYT Book Review, he says so much has changed in the last 20 years that he is “dying to update the book” and is clearly doing so, outlining what he plans to change.

Asked about rumors of a Fox TV series based on the book, he confirms that efforts are now underway, (The Hollywood Reporter also confirmed that story on Thursday, adding that Preston’s new reporting  will be incorporated).

Asked why he and brother Doug Preston each write such scary books, he says people often wonder if they come from terrible childhoods. But no, he says, “It comes from storytelling around the dinner table. We all just got into the habit of telling weird and interesting stories.”

Look what’s rising on Amazon’s sales rankings:

Ebola Survival Handbook: A Collection of Tips, Strategies, and Supply Lists From Some of the World’s Best Preparedness Professionals
Lost Arts Publishing (Author)
Pbk, 138 pages, $7.95
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 9/22/14
ISBN-10: 1502449870

Published via Amazon’s self-publishing platform, CreateSpace, the book appears to only be available via Amazon (some copies are being sold on EBay).

Bloomberg News published a story earlier this month, “Ebola Fears in U.S. Boost Sales of Emergency Supplies,” which includes the book. It is also featured on several survivalist Web sites, many of which are run by the authors of the articles collected in the book.

Also rising in sales is Richard Preston’s 1994 book The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus, (RH/Anchor trade paperback, also available as mass market pbk; S&S Audio), about an Ebola outbreak in Washington D.C. It’s currently at #27 on Amazon’s sales rankings and libraries are showing holds. OverDrive Sample.

UPDATE: Preston publishes new reporting on Ebola in the 10/28 issue of the New Yorker, and is interviewed in the NYT Book Review.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s goal is to bring “beautiful, literary language to really solid information” about nature. Her most recent book is The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild,(Hachette/Little, Brown, 2013).

Nancy Pearl interviews her for her series on The Seattle Channel, Book Lust.

The Nobel Peace Prize this year goes to two people, Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person ever to win the prize and Indian children’s rights activist, Kailash Satyarthi.

Now 17, the Pakistani woman was shot by the Taliban in 2012 for her campaign for women’s rights to education.

She was also nominated for the Prize last year, the same year she published a memoir, I Am Malala, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio). She wowed Jon Stewart when she appeared on The Daily Show:

Former defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticizes President Obama in his new book, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (Penguin Press; Penguin Audio). He explains why in an interview with Charlie Rose on today’s CBS This Morning. He was also interviewed yesterday on NPR’s Morning Edition and is scheduled for the Daily Show tonight.

On Fox News, Bill O’Reilly worked hard to get him to criticize Hillary Clinton’s handling of Benghazi. Panetta responded that, as head of the Defense Department, he was not familiar with the inner workings of the State Department, but could say, “If I know Hillary Clinton, if she knew there was a problem at Benghazi, she would have done something about it.’

The book is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings and is currently at #14. Libraries are showing holds on light ordering.

Surgeon Atul Gawande shook up the medical profession a few years ago when he told doctors in his book The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, that they could improve their results by borrowing a simple idea from the airlines, going through a checklist to make sure that important items aren’t overlooked during medial procedures.

In his new book, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, (Macmillan/Holt/Metropolitan; Macmillan Audio), he has something to tell the medical profession that may be even more difficult to swallow. Doctors don’t listen to their patients, and that if they did, he says, they would discover that at the end of life, living longer is often not a person’s top  priority.

His opinion piece in this week’s NYT Book Review, “The Best Possible Day,” based on the book, is now the most emailed story on the NYT site.

Arrving tomorrow, the book is rising rapidly on Amazon’s sales rankings (at #38 this morning from #108, it’s now at #17).

Libraries have ordered it conservatively and holds are rising. They are likely to increase even more after Gawande’s appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight.

UPDATE: Below is the appearance. As a result, the book rose to #7 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Based on upcoming rocker memoirs, it seems black, white and a touch of sepia are jacket requirements.

USA Today notes that seven new rock memoirs are coming out this fall.

Two arrive tomorrow:

Dancing with Myself, Billy Idol, (S&S/Touchstone)

Featured yesterday on  CBS Sunday Morning.Tomorrow, Idol is scheduled to appear tomorrow on NBC’s ‘Today Show.

 Rocks: My Life in and out of Aerosmith, Joe Perry, David Ritz

Scheduled appearances include Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, October 6 and CBS This Morning,” October 7

A memoir, aimed at young adults, by a young woman who was diagnosed at 13 with HIV and then became the victim of bullying so ferocious that she considered suicide, is the next title in the Today Show Book Club.

Positive : A Memoir
Paige Rawl, Ali Benjamin, Jay Asher (Intro. by)
HarperCollins: August 26, 2014
9780062342515, 0062342517
Hardcover
$18.99 USD, $23.99 CAD

OverDrive Sample

Former First Daughter Jenna Bush Hager introduced the author and the book on Monday’s show.

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

The Today Show‘s book club began last fall with the debut Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, sending it on to best seller lists for a brief time. Since then, there have been just four more picks, the most recent in May, The Fault in Our Stars, which capitalized on the attention surrounding the movie.

For the new pick, the Today Show invites people to:

“Read along with TODAY viewers, sharing your reaction to the book on Twitter via @TODAYsBooks and the TODAY Book Club Google+ community. Be sure to follow the TODAY Book Club newsletter for the latest information.”

Hager will host an online conversation with Rawl on Nov. 14.

Lena Dunham was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air today about her book, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned,” (Random House; RH Audio). Listen to the interview here.

Tomorrow, she will appear on  ABC’s Good Morning America, followed by the Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Wednesday.

Holds are rising rapidly in libraries on modest ordering. Holds are also rising on the audio, which Dunham narrates.

First there was:

This fall there’s:

Like the first book, this one will be published by Brooklyn indie press, Akashic Books, 978-1617753787, 11/27/14 (ship date, 10/27/14).

The official announcement is being covered widely by the press, including Entertainment Weekly, ABC News, and the L.A. Times

Given how famously insecure Lena Dunham is, we can’t help but think she was nervous when she learned that her forthcoming book, Not That Kind of Girl, (Random House; RH/BOT Audio; 9/30) was going to be reviewed in advance of publication, by the daily NYT‘s famously stringent Pulitzer Prize winning reviewer, Michiko Kakutani.

She may have even made the following video, one of a series, to address such reviewers.

She need not have worried. Michiko likes it, a LOT.

Dunham, of course, narrates the audiobook (RH/BOT). A short sample here.

After a glowing, gotta-read-the-book review on the cover of the 9/21 New York Times Book Review, Jeff Hobbs, the author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League,  (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio) was interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday.

Library holds are rising on modest ordering.

Read a sample via OverDrive.

Adam Driver appears in two movies adapted from books this weekend. Getting the most promotion is the one based on Jonathan Tropper’s comic family novel, This Is Where I Leave You, (Penguin/Dutton, 2009), also starring Tina Fey, Jason Bateman and Jane Fonda.

The other, Tracks, is based on the 1980 memoir by Australian Robyn Davidson of her solo trip through the outback. It may not be getting the same level of promotion, but it ranks at #4 in the week’s People Picks, while This Is Where I Leave You  is at #10.

In the film, Mia Wasikowska plays Robyn and Driver, the real-life National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan, who took stunning photos of the journey. Smolan talks about that project in the following interview.and how eerie it was to go on set with Robyn, who is still a friend, and watch the actors recreate their younger selves.

Those who remember the heady days of CD-Rom may also remember that Smolan’s 1992 book, From Alice to Ocean included the first CD-Rom for the general public. That book is about to be re-released, with updated technology. Readers can point their smart phones at the photos to see how each scene plays out in the movie.

Inside Tracks : Robyn Davidson’s Solo Journey Across the Outback
Rick Smolan
Against All Odds Productions (Sterling) October 21, 2014

Davidson’s book, which is still available in trade paperback, has also been released as a tie-in:

Tracks (Movie Tie-in Edition): A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
Robyn Davidson
RH/Vintage: August 26, 2014

Following yesterday’s announcement of the poetry longlist, the National Book Awards today announces the nonfiction nominees.

The titles include one that hasn’t been published yet, Walter Isaacson’s The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, (Simon & Schuster, Oct 7; Vintage Espanol, 11/4; Thorndike, 1/7/15).

The list is dominated by weighty tomes, so it is refreshing that it also includes Roz Chast’s graphic memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, (Macmillan/Bloomsbury USA).

Continuing a family tradition, Evan Osnos, son of Peter Osnos, former Washington Post reporter and founder of Public Affairs (now an imprint of Perseus), is nominated for his book, based on his reporting on China for the New Yorker, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China, (Macmillan/ FSG)

In this age of large corporate publishing, independent publisher W.W. Norton published 3 of the ten titles on the list, tying with Macmillan.

Links, in the list below, are to the National Book Award annotations.

Roz Chast, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Macmillan/Bloomsbury USA)

John Demos, The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic
(RH/ Knopf)

Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes
(Macmillan/Holt)

Nigel Hamilton, The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941 – 1942 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (Simon & Schuster)

John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (Norton)

Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China (Macmillan/FSG)

Ronald C. Rosbottom, When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944
(Hachette/ Little, Brown)

Matthew Stewart, Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic (Norton)

Edward O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence (Norton/Liveright)