Asking why, given our country’s history in the Middle East, the president would “…think that initiating yet another war in this protracted enterprise is going to produce a different outcome,” Andrew Bacevich, author of Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, (Macmillan/Metropolitan Books; released last week), spoke with guest host Phil Donahue on Friday’s Bill Moyers and Company about the U.S. role in Syria.

Bacevich’s book, which is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings, was also featured in Sunday’s NYT Book Review.

Below is the video: 

Many shows have already covered Mark Leibovich’s take-down of politics in D.C. in This Town, (Penguin/Blue Rider). Bill Moyers gave it powerful new attention this weekend, introducing his interview with the author by saying, “Whatever you’re doing these last days of summer. Stop. Take some time, and read this book. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and by the last page I think you’ll be ready for the revolution.”

The book, which had been sliding down Amazon’s sales rankings from a high of #3 in late July, rose to #15.

Below is the video of the interview.

After a slow start in libraries, holds are growing fast on This Town by Mark Leibovich, (Penguin/Blue Rider), which zoomed to #1 on the NYT Combined Nonfiction bestseller list this week, its first week on sale.

The author appeared on Comedy Central’s Daily Show last night. Host John Oliver, standing in for Jon Stewart, notes that the book is much more than a collection of gossipy stories about D.C. insiders.

Today’s NYT review of Mark Leibovich’s takedown of D.C. insiders begins with a list of the many things the reviewer finds irritating about the city, including the fact that it is often referred to as “This Town,” which is also the name of the book. From title alone, says the reviewer,  “you know [Leibovich has]  a sharp ear, and a sharp eye to accompany it. You also know that he’s got the sharp knives out.”

This Town, (Penguin/Blue Rider) wasn’t always the book’s title. Many library catalogs are still showing it under an earlier version, The Club.

The book is embargoed until its release a week from Tuesday, but, predictably, the Washington Post already broke it, so the NYT followed suit, even though Leibovich, the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, is one of their own (the excerpt that is the cover story for the NYT Magazine was probably meant to be the first glimpse of the book).

Highly anticipated, not to mention feared, for months, the cover reportedly carries a frustrating label, “WARNING: This Town does not contain an index. Those players wishing to know how they came out will need to read the book.” The Washington Post overturned this clever marketing ploy by creating an index of their own. Library users seem unimpressd; most libraries are showing few holds on light ordering. The book has broken into the top 100 on Amazon sales rankings, however, reaching a high of #38 on July 4, the day the Washington Post index was released.

Mark Leibovich, author of the forthcoming THIS TOWN

The embargo that reporters will be racing to break this summer is the one for This Town, (Penguin/Blue Rider), by the New York Times Magazine‘s chief national correspondent, Mark Leibovich, arriving July 16.

POLITICO’s chief political reporter, Mike Allen and co-founder, Jim VandeHei try a clever, very insidery, end-run by reporting on Leibovich’s reporting in an effort to find out who should “worry most about his book.” And, guess what? They conclude that POLITICO itself, and specifically Mike Allen, are part of that elite group.

Originally called The Club, the book’s title has since been changed to This Town. POLITICO notes that the subtitle, “for reasons we cannot fathom, will soon be changed from The Way It Works in Suck Up City to Two Parties and a Funeral — Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking! — in America’s Gilded Capital.” The funeral refers to the one that was held for Tim Russert, which POLITCO describes as an event “where Washington’s self-obsession – and lack of self-awareness – was on full display.”

Libraries have ordered the book (LJ‘s Barbara Hoffert featured it in a Prepub Alert column in October; it was originally scheduled for release in April) and it appears on catalogs under the old title. Holds are light at this point.

Dirty Wars is both a documentary, with a newly-released hot trailer and a book (Perseus/Nation Books). Excerpted in The Nation, where the author, Jeremy Scahill is a correspondent, it accuses the Obama administration of continuing “the policies that liberals were outraged about under Bush … just with a kind of rebranding.”

He appeared yesterday on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes. The book is currently at #61 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

The documentary, which won an award at the Sundance Film Festival, will be released first in NY, LA, and Washington DC on June 7 and then nationwide.

Major media is lining up for a book about the CIA by Pulitzer Prize winner and NYT reporter, Mark Mazzetti. Titled The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, it is embargoed until release next Tuesday (probably to give the New York Times the first crack at it).

Covering the hot topic of the day, it examines the use of drone strikes that have been referred to as “surgical” (thus, “the way of the knife“) and the consequences of that policy.

Coverage begins Sunday with a New York Times page one story and the author’s live one-on-one with Bob Scheiffer on CBS’s Face the Nation. On publication day, 4/9, the author is scheduled to appear on NPR’s Morning Edition, CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, and PBS’s Charlie Rose Show. Later in the week, comes MSNBC’s Morning Joe and NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, among others. The next week, Mazzetti is scheduled for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

In addition, the first serial will appear in the 4/12 issue of the New York Times Magazine (online on 4/9)

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s book about the challenges women face in trying  to climb the corporate ladder, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio; BOT) doesn’t arrive until next week but there is already a backlash.

Now the backlash has its own backlash. The New Yorker published a long piece yesterday headlined, “Maybe You Should Read the Book.”

Some have taken heed; libraries are showing holds; some as a high as 10:1 on light ordering.

The news from Jeb Bush’s appearance on the Today Show this morning is what he refused to say — whether he plans to run for president in 2016.

Bush appeared on the show to talk about his new book, which releases tomorrow, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, (S&S/Threshold; S&S Audio; also published in Spanish under the title, Las guerras inmigratorias: Forjar una solución estadounidense).

The Today Show‘s Matt Lauer noted that publishing a book can be a sign that a politician is gearing up for a run, but Bush refused to take the bait (he was given precious little time to talk about the actual subject of his book, even in a separate segment).

He’ll have more opportunities to dodge the 2016 question; several other appearances are scheduled for this week, including CBS this Morning,  NPR’s Morning Edition. and on Telemundo-TV.

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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)

Journalist Charlie LeDuff’s appearance on Fresh Air yesterday propelled his book, Detroit: An American Autopsy (Penguin Press) up Amazon’s sales rankings (currently at #22, above Phil McGraw’s new book, Life Code) and it’s no wonder; he’s as fascinating, and as heartbreaking, as the city he writes about.

After years working for the New York Times (where he won a Pulitzer), LeDuff returned to his home town of Detroit where he is now known for his unconventional style on the local Fox TV station.

When you finish listening to the interview (which we urge you to do), you’ll want to get a taste of his muckraking TV journalism. Here’s a sample (via Fresh Air interviewer Dave Davies’ blog):

“We’re leaving behind a third of Americans,” who cannot afford Internet access, creating a “digital divide.” As a result, some kids have to go to McDonald’s to do their homework, says Susan Crawford author of Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age (Yale U. Press) on Friday’s Bill Moyers & Company.

This is an issue librarians have discussed for years. Although Crawford doesn’t mention it on the show, she wrote in earlier about the role libraries play in a piece for the NYT’s “Room for Debate; Do We Still Need Libraries?”

The few public libraries that own the book are showing heavy holds. An excerpt below. The full video is on the Moyers’ site.

Yesterday, Al Gore visited the Today Show to promote his just-released book, entitled, grandly, The Future, (Random House; RH Audio; BOT). Lauer took him to task for selling his Current TV channel to al Jazeera, which some regard as hypocritical in light of the accusation in his book that “Virtually every news and political commentary program on television is sponsored in part by oil, coal, and gas companies … with messages designed to soothe and reassure the audience that everything is fine, the global environment is not threatened.”

Unsuprisingly, it appears this will be a common theme on talk shows; it also came up during MSNBC’s Morning Joe interview today. We’ll see if Jon Stewart addresses it when Gore appears on The Daily Show tonight.

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Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (Penguin Press, 10/11/12) rises to #5 (from #14) on Amazon’s sales rankings today, after the author, Chrystia Freeland’s appearance on Bill Moyers and Company on Friday. Earlier in the week, Freeland appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition and The Colbert Report. In addition, her opinion pieces were published in several magazines and newpapers, including The New Yorker and the New York Times. Libraries are showing heavy holds on light ordering.

Plutocrats is also the first book in the Moyers Book Club, which will post reviews, and interviews over the next few weeks and invites readers and book clubs to join a live chat with the author in four weeks.

Tom Wolfe and John Grisham go head to head with new novels next week – and so far, Wolfe is getting the lion’s share of media attention, but the Grisham title is showing the most holds. Meanwhile, watch out for Jami Attenberg‘s potential breakout, The Middlesteins. Usual suspects include Debbie Macomber and Karen Kingsbury, while YA authors P.C. Cast and Gena Showalter team up on a paperback original, and A.S. King and Becca Fitzpatrick deliver new hardcovers. In nonfiction, Jerry Sandusky’s accuser, “Victim One,” unmasks himself upon the publication of his book, while former Goldman Sachs honcho Greg Smith reveals why he left the company. The Onion and Thomas Bouchon provide humorous and culinary relief.

Watch List

The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg (Hachette/Grand Central) may be the surprise hit of the season, according to our Crystal Ball. Comparisons to The Corrections are underscored by a blurb from Jonathan Franzen himself (who rarely gives blurbs), “The Middlesteins had me from its very first pages, but it wasn’t until is final pages that I fully appreciated the range of Attenberg’s sympathy and the artistry of her storytelling.” The tale of a Jewish husband and wife in suburban Chicago whose marriage unravels after 40 years, as the attorney wife nears 350 pounds, it’s on People‘s list of ten Hot Fall Titles and described as “The sleeper hit of the fall” on CBS This Morning‘s fall book roundup (9/17). Entertainment Weekly throws some rain on this parade, giving it just a “B” and saying, “Attenberg’s slender fourth novel is an intriguing dysfunctional-family story told from multiple, fast-shifting points of view, but it never sits still long enough to truly explore the complicated minds of its characters. It’s a deeply sympathetic novel that could use a little more insight.”

The Art Forger by Barbara A. Shapiro (Workman/Algonquin; HighBridge Audio; Thorndike Large Print, Jan.) was a librarians Shout ‘n’ Share pick at BEA and is the #1 Indie Next Pick for November. It’s about an art world pariah who gets drawn into a forgery scheme, and has to dig into an unsolved art heist to clear her name. It gets a “B+” in the current Entertainment Weekly: “Shapiro’s plot seems rushed at times. Still, she’s done meticulous research and has such interesting things to say about authenticity — in both art and love — that her novel becomes not just emotionally involving but addictive.”

Returning Favorites

Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio, read by Lou Diamond Phillips; Hachette Large Print) has been dubbed by one critic as “Bonfire of the Miamians” and comes with a full PBS documentary, Tom Wolfe Gets Back to Blood, airing on Friday. As we’ve noted, major reviewers have weighed in extensively this week, ahead of the novel’s release next Tuesday, October 23, with most saying it’s got Wolfe’s usual manic prose, obsession with class and status, and wide range of characters – which is fine if you liked his other books.

The Racketeer by John Grisham (Random House; RH Audio and Large Print; BOT Audio) is the other major title going on sale on Tuesday, and somewhat overshadowed in the media by Tom Wolfe. Still, as we wrote earlier, the New York Times‘s Janet Maslin says it shows Grisham’s “rekindled vigor,” perhaps because he has “gone back to what he does best, storytelling rather than crusading.”

Usual Suspects

Angels at the Table: A Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy Christmas Story by Debbie Macomber (RH/Ballantine; Random House Audio; BOT Audio; Thorndike Large Print) finds three seasoned angels shadowing an apprentice angel in Times Square at Christmas. This is Macomber’s first book with her new publisher, Ballantine.

The Bridge by Karen Kingsbury (S&S/Howard Books; S&S Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is a Christmas story about a Tennessee bookstore named The Bridge that struggles to survive declining book sales and the rise of e-books. It’s been rising on Amazon sales rankings – at #99 as of October 18.

Young Adult

After Moonrise by P.C. Cast and Gena Showalter (Harlequin) is a paperback original in which two bestselling YA authors team up to deliver two paranormal love stories.

Ask the Passengers by A. S. King (Hachette/LBYR; BOT Audio) is about a character who sends messages to people in planes flying overhead, who feel “bursts of unexplainable love that prompts them to do certain things.” The author is a Printz Honor Prize Winner. It has found fans on both our August and September YA GalleyChats. One called it “phenomenal” and “by far, one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. And inspiring.” Another reader commented, “Can’t wait for my teens to read it.”

Finale (Hush, Hush Saga) by Becca Fitzpatrick (S&S BYR, S&S Audio) began rising on Amazon on October 17. Previous titles in this series have hit the NYT list; Hush, Hush , Crescendo and Silence.

Movie Tie-In

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy,  translated by Louise Maude and Alymer Maude (RH/Vintage) is the official tie-in to the movie, starring Keira Knightly and Jude Law, to be released November 9. Other translations are also available (see our rundown, here). Vintage will also release the screenplay, by Tom Stoppard, on November 13.

Embargoed

Silent No More: Victim 1’s Fight for Justice Against Jerry Sandusky by Victim One (RH/Ballantine) is written by the young man who testified dramatically at the child molestation trial of Former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky. Victim One’s identity was kept a secret until late  yesterday when it was revealed in promos for an interview by ABC’s Chris Cuomo, to air on ABC’s 20/20 tonight and for a People magazine interview, to appear, with excerpts from the book, in the issue on stands next Friday.

Nonfiction

Why I Left Goldman Sachs: Or How the World’s Most Powerful Bank Made a Killing but Lost its Soul by Greg Smith (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio and Large Print) grew out of the author’s eponymous op-ed in the New York Times, which went viral. The book details what the author sees as the decline of the storied investment bank, after he started at Goldman Sachs at age 21 in 2001 and left in 2011 as the head of the United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The Onion Book of Known Knowledge: A Definitive Encyclopedia of Existing Informationby The Onion (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio) is the 8th book by the award-winning humor website. With typical bravado, the authors proclaim that this comprehensive reference source is “the last book ever published.”

Bouchon Bakery by Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel (Workman/Artisan) collects recipes for the French classics this famous chef loved while apprenticing in Paris.