How much time do we spend immersed in various technologies? Adam Alter, an Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University, says it is far too much, and is even more than we think.

His book Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) details the problem. It is rising on Amazon after he appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air, moving from #400 to #23.

Other media attention has come from The Guardian, The Washington Post, and the NYT. The WP calls it “enjoyable yet alarming.”

In the NPR interview Alter reviews some of the downsides of technology, saying our attention spans are “shorter than the attention of the average goldfish, which is nine seconds.”

Video games, such as World of Warcraft, which he calls “one of the most addictive experiences on the planet,” have become so all consuming that some players have had to go into recovery programs. “The gratification it provides is similar to that of other addictive behaviors, such as drug abuse or gambling,” says Alter.

On the horizon, he says, virtual reality is looming as the next big way to escape reality.

His solution to all of this is not new advice: decide for yourself if you are too immersed and counter it by going outside, without your phone, and spend time in a landscape that is not made out of pixels.

Most libraries bought a minimal number of copies, 2 or fewer for only their largest branches. Those that bought the fewest copies are seeing holds ratios of 5:1.

Publishing today and already rising on Amazon is The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher (PRH/Sentinel; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), moving from #727 to #18.

Dreher, a senior editor at The American Conservative and the author of How Dante Can Save Your Life, believes that Christians have lost the culture wars and suggests that, rather than continuing to fight a losing battle, they should retreat into their own communities, following the example of St. Benedict of Nursia, a sixth-century monk whose followers kept their faith alive through the Dark Ages. Dreher suggests contemporary Christians do the same, creating strong churches, private religious schools, and strengthening their community bonds to one another.

David Brooks features it in his popular NYT column today. While vehemently disagreeing with Dreher’s points, he calls the book  “the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade.”

In late February The Atlantic ran an in-depth feature, saying Dreher’s “work is largely a project of lament. He speaks about Christianity in apocalyptic terms … He prophesies dire scenarios for Christians in America … Most importantly, he writes with resentment, largely directed at those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender and their supporters—the people, he believes, who have pushed Christians out of the public sphere.”

The Washington Post predicts that we will  “hear a lot about the Benedict Option” and “Dreher calls Christians to build Christian institutions ‘that can outwit, outlast, and eventually overcome the occupation.’ The Benedict Option is nothing if not embattled. Readers are left to wonder if military metaphors are the best way for Christians to think of relating to non-Christians — that is, their neighbors.”

It was not widely reviewed pre-pub and few libraries we checked have placed orders. Those that have are showing holds as high as 7:1 on token numbers of copies.

Dreher was on Fox news last night. Host Tucker Carlson said the book is “blowing up the Internet.”

This week, CBS Sunday Morning focuses on one of the most dreaded diseases, cancer, reporting on its history, treatments, and survivors.

Two of the stories have book connections, and are included in a lengthy web resources page.

The best-known title is Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (S&S/Scribner, 2010; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Mukherjee is featured in one of the segments. He says one of the earliest cures, surgery, was made possible because of the development of anesthesia.

A piece about nutrition features Margaret I. Cuomo, MD, author of
A World without Cancer: The Making of a New Cure and the Real Promise of Prevention, (Macmillan/Rodale, 2012; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Donald Trump’s election is sure to fuel many political “what happened” books but one of the most anticipated is by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, the authors who wrote the 2010 title, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (Harper).

Entertainment Weekly reports Halperin and Heilemann’s take on the 2016 election, as yet untitled, will be published by Penguin in early 2018.

HBO has already bought the film rights for a mini series adaptation to air shortly after the book hits shelves.

Heilemann tells the NYT in an interview that in the book, “We’ll be looking at all the big unanswered questions of the race, some of them are obvious, some of them are less obvious, but of course we’re interested in breaking news.”

Game Change was turned into a popular HBO movie of the same name, starring Julianne Moore (as Sarah Palin), Woody Harrelson (as campaign strategist Steve Schmidt), and Ed Harris (as John McCain).

The pair also created the Showtime series The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth which ran during 2016 and will return on March 19 for a second series focused on Trump’s first 100 days in office. Stephen Colbert interviewed Halperin and Heilemann on his show last night.

Halperin and Heilemann followed Game Change with Double Down (PRH/Penguin), about the 2012 election.

The NYT lists some of the other titles forthcoming about the 2016 election, including “Katy Tur of NBC News, who is writing a book about covering the Trump campaign, and Amy Chozick of The New York Times, who is working on a memoir of her years covering Hillary Clinton.” In addition, Melville House is publishing The Destruction of Hillary Clinton by Susan Bordo in April.

Disappointing many, Halperin and Heilemann tell the NYT that Alec Baldwin is not in the running to play Trump in the HBO adaptation. No mention was made about the possibility of Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton.

Former CBS New Anchor Dan Rather is writing a book on patriotism, What Unites Us (Workman/Algonquin Books; ISBN 9781616207), to be published on Nov. 7, 2017, the off-year election day.

Rather, who has been active on social media,  posted the news on Facebook, saying he understands patriotism not as “a divisive cudgel but a common purpose … [it does not] ignore the sins of our nation, but challenge[s] them honestly and head on. So in the book, I will be exploring themes that I see as fundamental to holding together this great experiment in democracy.”

The AP reports that the book will be “a collection of essays about topics ranging from civil rights to schools and libraries and what it means to be an American.”

Publisher Algonquin says the essays will also address “the values that have transformed us, such as the … drive toward science and innovation that has made the United States great.”

Rather has written several other books, including his memoir Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News (Hachette/Grand Central, 2012).

Cover art for the new title has not yet been released.

A book that gives a unique look at Hitler is rising on Amazon after author Norman Ohler discussed the Nazi leader’s drug use on NPR’s Fresh Air.

In his book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (HMH; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), Ohler says Hitler became increasingly dependent on drugs from high power vitamin and hormone injections to opioids, cocaine, and more, “to substitute [for] his natural charisma, which … he had lost in the course of the war.”

Further, the drugs enabled much of the long war effort. “For him it was important to be able to function at all times, to never have a day off, because he distrusted anyone in his surroundings, especially the generals. He had to make all the military decisions,” Ohler says. His drug-induced and manufactured optimism tricked the generals and made them wonder “if he had a secret weapon up his sleeve.”

Ohler also reports that German soldiers were given meth. It was considered a perfect drug for the fighters because it reduced fear levels and the need to sleep. “Thirty-five million tablets of methamphetamine” were given out just as the invasion of France took place. “It actually worked. The Germans reached Sedan after an amazingly short period of time … while the French and British [armies] were still in northern Belgium, where they had actually expected the German attack.”

The book rose to #31 on Amazon, from #2,736. Holds are high in libraries, where few systems have yet to receive copies. In some locations ratios are topping 5:1.

In February of last year, Michael V. Hayden, the former Head of the National Security Agency and the CIA during the most tense and controversial years of the Bush administration, went on the book circuit to promote his account of that time, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample). It rose as high as #10 on Amazon after several media appearances.

The paperback edition, released last month, is getting renewed attention as General Hayden is on news shows to comment on Trump’s weekend tweet accusing Obama of wiretapping him in Trump Towers before the election. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday, Hayden said that’s not possible because “the plumbing does not work that way.” He further said that Trump’s tweet was an attempt “to distract attention from what was a very very bad news cycle and he put his reputation, that of his predecessor and that of his nation at risk to get at least a draw out of the nesxt 24 hours news.”

The book rose again on Amazon, moving from #55,946 to #226. It’s likely to move higher, after Hayden appears on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert tonight.

Most libraries are showing hardcover copies available.

In a rare feat, historian Yuval Noah Harari’s name appears twice on the latest NYT Nonfiction Hardcover Best Seller list.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (HC/Harper; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample) debuts at #3.

The book explores how the development of artificial life and intelligence affects real human beings. It has received widespread attention from the media. The author is interviewed by The Atlantic, Time, and Wired. NPR calls the book “enlightening and slightly terrifying.” The Guardian says it is “spellbinding” and says, “it is hard to imagine anyone could read this book without getting an occasional, vertiginous thrill.”

The NYT reviewer, however, is lukewarm, writing “an argument can look seamless and still contain lots of dropped stitches.”

It is joined on the best seller list by Harari’s previous title, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Harper; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample, 2015), returning at #10 on the strength of the attention to the new title.

A hit when it first came out, it received a second wind from Bill Gates who picked it as one of his Summer Reads.

Below are NPR’s interviews with the author for each book:

Debuting on the latest NYT Paperback Nonfiction list at #9 is Why I March: Images from the Woman’s March Around the World (Abrams Books), a collection of photos from the global Women’s March held the day after this year’s  inauguration ceremonies. The American marches may have been the largest single-day demonstrations in U.S. history. Websites and newspapers were full of images of the record-setting crowds.

A related book Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope–Voices from the Women’s March (Workman/Artisan) has also been published, featuring images of the creative and notable signs carried that day.

Royalties from both books will be donated to organizations that deal with some of the issues supported by the marchers.

Are Americans still movers and shakers? In his new book The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; OverDrive Sample), George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen says the answer is no. His analysis is receiving wide spread media attention.

On NPR’s Morning Edition today, Cowen argues that Americans “have grown more risk averse and are reluctant to switch jobs or move to another state.” As a result, they are not exposed to new ideas and have become less innovative. This has also brought about a new form of segregation, “wealthier people tend to live together more than before and so do poorer people.” Living in their own bubbles, they are unaware of much that is going on around them, “we see a version of this in the last election where so many people are shocked by the candidate who actually won.”

Thus far holds are heavy in just a few places on light orders, but the topic is much in the news and attention is growing. David Brooks writes about it in his NYT Op-Ed column, Cowen was interviewed in the Washington Post and featured on the Charlie Rose Show.

The following is the first in a set of videos Cohen has released.

Below, the NPR story.

As expected, both Obamas will publish books now that they have left office. Penguin Random House (PRH) won the bidding war for worldwide rights to their books.

In the brief press release announcing the deal, the publisher did not give details on what the books will cover, but the Associated Press reports that,  “A publishing official with knowledge of the negotiations said that Barack Obama’s book will be a straightforward memoir about his presidency, while Michelle Obama plans to write an inspirational work for young people that will draw upon her life story.” CNN reports the books are projected to be released in 2018.

The NYT reports the heated race to win publishing rights “probably stretched well into eight figures … the opening offers for Mr. Obama’s book alone were in the $18 million to $20 million range.” The Guardian says the deal is a “record sum for US presidential memoirs … By comparison, fellow Democrat and former president Bill Clinton earned $15m for rights to his 2004 memoir My Life after he left office … Republican George W Bush, reaped some $10m from his 2010 book Decision Points.”

It has not been announced which of the many PRH imprints will publish the books. The NYT says that it is likely that two imprints will be involved, to help share the cost of the large advance each Obama will receive.

Crown published the previous books by the Obamas, including Mrs. Obama’s book about the White House garden and both of Mr. Obama’s memoirs, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

The NYT notes “a postpresidential memoir has even greater potential to be a critical and commercial hit. Mr. Obama kept a journal during his time in office, which suggests his memoir could include behind-the-scenes moments that were captured as major events unfolded … frank discussion of his time in the White House, and of issues like race relations in America, could reach an even wider audience, becoming a worldwide blockbuster.”

According to the press release, as part of the deal, PRH will donate one million books in the Obama family’s name to two nonprofits providing access to reading materials for children and the Obamas will donate a significant portion of their author proceeds to charity, including to the Obama Foundation.

“We are absolutely thrilled to continue our publishing partnership with President and Mrs. Obama,” Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Penguin Random House, said in a statement. “With their words and their leadership, they changed the world, and every day, with the books we publish at Penguin Random House, we strive to do the same. Now, we are very much looking forward to working together with President and Mrs. Obama to make each of their books global publishing events of unprecedented scope and significance.”

Growing press attention has sent George W. Bush’s  Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors (Random House/Crown; RH Audio) to #1 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Bush was on the Today show yesterday to promote his book of paintings and stories of veterans. During the opening interview he was asked about the current administration. His responses, while hedged and careful, made front-page news, described by the NYT as “tacit criticism” of Trump’s immigration policy and his relationship with the media.

Today then aired a lengthy segment with some of the vets Bush features in the book.

More press coverage is forthcoming. Bush will be on Fox News’s Hannity show in a one-hour special on March 3. On that same day People Magazine will run a feature.

In the midst of a project to photograph every species of animal held in a zoo, aquarium, rehab center, or similar location, National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore has published a sampling in his new book The Photo Ark: One Man’s Quest to Document the World’s Animals (National Geographic).

Interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, his book soared up the Amazon rankings to #32 this morning.

After a decade of shooting in the wild Sartore says he hopes that creating intimate, close up portraits will help humans become more invested in saving the other species that share the planet.

To give each species its due, the animals are presented studio style against a black or white background. “A mouse is every bit as glorious as an elephant, and a tiger beetle is every bit as big and important as a tiger. It’s a great equalizer.” It also reveals aspects of the personality of each animal. Some look joyful, some curious, some scared.

By the turn of the next century we stand to lose nearly 1/2 of all species, Says Sartre, making the project particularly urgent. “A lot of the species that you see in The Photo Ark would be extinct by now if it weren’t for captive breeding programs … I know of at least four or five animals now that are the very last of their kind in the world’s zoos and I’ve got to get to them, and it means I’m gone all the time, and once I get there I’ve got to do the world’s best picture of this animal before it’s lost.”

Soaring on Amazon’s sales rankings are two books by Nigel Hamilton, the first titles in an expected three book series on Franklin Roosevelt and WWII.

Hamilton appeared on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS on Sunday to talk about FDR’s role in creating the current world order, which say Zakaria, is what’s  “been keeping the peace in the world for 70 years … it’s that world order, of course, that Trump sometimes seems intent to disassemble.” His appearance caused the first book in the set, The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941–1942 (HMH/Mariner; Tantor Audio; OverDrive Sample), to leap to #58 and the second, Commander in Chief: FDR’s Battle with Churchill, 1943 (HMH; OverDrive Sample) to rise to #16.

Hamilton tells Zakaria that because FDR died prematurely he never got to write his account of WWII, leaving the field clear for Winston Churchill to publish his own six volume set that went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The story Churchill told paints a different picture from historical fact says Hamilton, who tells Zakaria he hopes to change our perception of history by showing that it was FDR, not Churchill, who was directed the war’s military strategy and its global reordering.

Hamilton says that FDR had a vision of how the world order could be changed for the better. He was an idealist who was against imperialism and colonialism. Churchill, on the other hand, was leading a country highly invested in both.

Writing for the NYT BR, historian Evan Thomas calls Mantel of Command “fast-paced, smartly observed … Hamilton writes with brio and narrative drive. On the whole, The Mantle of Command is splendid: It’s the memoir Roosevelt didn’t get to write.”

Self-styled “provocateur” Milo Yiannopoulos has finally gone too far. His book DANGEROUS (S&S/Threshold Editions; S&S Audio), originally announced for release on March 14, then delayed to June 13, has now been canceled by publisher Simon and Schuster because, reports the NYT, of the release of a “video in which he condones sexual relations with boys as young as 13 and laughs off the seriousness of pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests.” Further, states the story, he may lose his position as Senior Editor at Breitbart News.

That doesn’t mean the book will not be published. Yiannopoulos can now shop the book to other publishers.

Roxane Gay, who canceled her contract for future books with Simon and Schuster in protest over the Yiannopoulos book, released a statement that the move does not change her position.