With just three weeks to go, UK betting odds put C by Tom McCarthy as the leading contender for the Booker prize (the top title in terms of sales is Room by Emma Donoghue; it’s number 2 in betting by a slight margin over Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room, which won’t be published here until 11/2, after the prize is announced).

After getting the cold shoulder from Michiko Kakutani in the daily NY Times, (“disappointing and highly self-conscious”), it has fared much better with critics in other papers, including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times (“An avant-garde masterpiece”) and the Sunday NYT Book Review (a “strange, original book”) and now gets an A- in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly,

The protagonist of Tom McCarthy’s experimental new work is named Serge, which is appropriate for a book so crackling with all things electric. Serge’s life — and his obsessions with telegraphy and Morse code — reads like W. Somerset Maugham tweaked to a frenetic and distorted frequency…

C Tom McCarthy Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-09-07) ISBN / EAN: 0307593339 / 9780307593337

Tantor Audio; UNABR; Narrated by Stephen Hoye

Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian politician, survived 6 horrific years held hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Today, she appears on the Oprah show as “The Bravest Mom in the World.”

Her book about her ordeal, Even Silence Has an End, was reviewed in the New York Times on Monday.

Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle Ingrid Betancourt Retail Price: $29.95 Hardcover: 544 pages Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The – (2010-09-21) ISBN / EAN: 1594202656 / 9781594202650

Spanish language edition: No Hay Silencio Que No Termine;  9781616052430; Publisher: Aguilar; 9/21/2010; Pbk $19.99

Maybe we should begin a pool on how quickly the next embargoed book will be leaked. The NYT reviews Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, in the “Asia Pacific” section, saying simply that the paper “obtained a copy of the book before it’s publication by Simon & Schuster, scheduled for next week.”

According to the review, the book describes the quarrels that have gone on in the administration about the war in Afghanistan; “Although the internal divisions described have become public, the book suggests that they were even more intense and disparate than previously known and offers new details.”

Many other news sources have now piled on, quoting the NYT story; Woodward’s own newspaper, the Washington Post, followed up with its own story on the book (without mentioning how they obtained it).

The book rose to #43 on Amazon sales rankings (from #952 yesterday).

Obama’s Wars Bob Woodward Retail Price: $30.00 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-09-27) ISBN / EAN: 1439172498 / 9781439172490

Also in abridged audio from S&S

This is exactly how I felt when I heard Rebecca Traister, author of the just released Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women, speak at the S&S Preview for librarians:

I thought I was awake and alert throughout the 2008 presidential election. I faithfully read two major American newspapers each day; I was glued to news and talking-head analysis on TV and the Internet; and I live in Washington, D.C., after all, where politics is the hometown industry.

But reading Rebecca Traister’s superb new book about the election, called Big Girls Don’t Cry, made me feel retrospectively dopey, like the “stupid sidekick” in detective fiction who dutifully takes in the details of a crime scene, but always fails to see the Big Picture.

The quote is from Maureen Corrigan on NPR’s Fresh Air last night.

Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women Rebecca Traister Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Free Press – (2010-09-14) ISBN / EAN: 1439150281 / 9781439150283

Tyler Perry known for “…churning out populist money-making vehicles that get slammed by critics for playing on stereotypes and going for cheap laughs and easy sentiment” (The Wall Street Journal) is breaking out of that mold with an adaptation of the Tony-nominated play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. The all-star cast includes Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Anika Noni Rose, Loretta Devine and Kerry Washington.

On the movie news site Deadline, Nikki Finke predicts that the producer, Lionsgate, “…doesn’t begin to understand yet what a PR nightmare will surround [the movie]” and says that even Oprah didn’t want him to do it (although now that she’s seen it, she’s given it her blessing), because as a black man, he cannot understand the black female experience that the play explores.

Doesn’t seem to be a problem for the women in the cast. It’s hard to imagine Whoopi Goldberg joining the project if she didn’t believe in it.

Below is the trailer; originally scheduled for January, it now debuts on Nov. 5, making it eligible for the Oscars. UPDATE: The publisher tells us that the release date has been moved up to Nov. 2.

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The tie-in is still showing a Dec. release date; expect it to be moved up, also.

NFL star Michael Vick was arrested for operating a dogfighting ring, but what happened to the 51 pit bulls that were seized? Turns out all but two were rehabilitated, despite having been abused and tortured.

John Gorant, a writer for Sports Illustrated, has followed the 49 surviving dogs and wrote a book about them, The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick’s Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption. It was featured on Fresh Air last night and rose on Amazon’s sales rankings to #14 as a result.

The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick’s Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption Jim Gorant Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Gotham – (2010-09-16) ISBN / EAN: 1592405509 / 9781592405503

Blackstone Audio; UNABR; 9/16/10; read by Paul Michael Garcia

So far, four of the six titles on the Booker shortlist are available in the US. The other two are on their way, but will not be available in time for Americans to read them before the prizes are announced on Oct. 12.

Tom McCarthy’s C is now in the lead in UK betting. Shortly after the longlist was announced, Peter Carey, who has won the prize twice, was the leader for Parrot and Olivier in America.

Current odds at UK book maker William Hill are:

2/1  Tom McCarthy – C
3/1  Emma Donoghue – Room
3/1  Damon Galgut – In a Strange Room
5/1  Peter Carey – Parrot and Olivier in America
7/1  Andrea Levy – The Long Song
8/1  Howard Jacobson – The Finkler Question

At least one UK critic feels that, despite having the lowest odds, The Finkler Question should win. The book will be published here on the day of the Booker announcement. Author Howard Jacobson, often called the “British Philip Roth,” is recently quoted in The Jewish Week (“Can Howard Jacobson Play In America?“), saying this comparison no longer makes sense, “Roth has essentially stopped being funny…He is perfectly within his rights to have stopped being funny … but [life’s] never too serious to laugh.”

Not yet reviewed here, the UK reviews have been strong:

Telegraph, 6/28/10; “Humour, insight and chutzpah pepper this fictional foray into what it means to be Jewish”

Guardian, 8/15/10; “In this dazzling novel, Howard Jacobson uses Jewishness as a way in to universal questions about life and society.”

The Independent, 8/1/10; “Jacobson’s prose is a seamless roll of blissfully melancholic interludes. Almost every page has a quotable, memorable line.”

The Times of London, 7/24/10; “How is it possible to read Howard Jacobson and not lose oneself in admiration for the music of his language, the power of his characterisation and the penetration of his insight? … The Finkler Question is further proof, if any was needed, of Jacobson’s mastery of humour.”

The Finkler Question Howard Jacobson Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA – (2010-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 1608196119 / 9781608196111

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Now in a tie for second place in betting with Emma Donoghue’s Room, South African Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room, won’t be published here until Nov. 2,  after the prize is announced.

This is the story of a young traveler, who, not knowing what he is seeking, follows various people he meets along the way. It has also received stellar reviews in the U.K.

Guardian, 6/22/10, Jan Morris, ‘Truly superlative… Extraordinarily readable… Galgut displays his wonderful sense of place, but also profoundly explores intimate relationships between people… A very beautiful book, strikingly conceived and hauntingly written, a writer’s novel par excellence without a clumsy word in it.”

Telegraph, 5/3/10; “…as inviting as it is troubling.”

In a Strange Room Damon Galgut Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Europa Editions – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 1609450116 / 9781609450113

The numerical cousin of truthiness is proofiness: “the art of using bogus mathematical arguments to prove something that you know in your heart is true — even when it’s not” and it is the title of a new book on the phenomenon, Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception by Charles Seife.

Reviewed in the NYT Book Review and featured on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday, it rose to #60 on Amazon sales rankings from #261 the day before.

Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception Charles Seife Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-09-23) ISBN / EAN: 0670022160 / 9780670022168

One of the books we’ve been keeping our eye on is Room by Emma Donoghue. In Sunday’s NYT Book Review, Aimee Bender (The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake) calls it,

…a truly memorable novel, one that can be read through myriad lenses — psychological, sociological, political. It presents an utterly unique way to talk about love, all the while giving us a fresh, expansive eye on the world in which we live.

Libraries are beginning to show heavy reserves (ratios of 10:1 in some cases).

Room: A Novel Emma Donoghue Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-09-13) ISBN / EAN: 0316098337 / 9780316098335

Hachette Audio; UNABR; 9781607886273; $29.98
Hachette Large Print; 9780316120579; Trade Pbk; $24.99

According to tweets from people who watched the live Oprah Show in Chicago, the next Book Club pick is the heavily-rumored Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. According to one tweet, Oprah said that she checked it out with Franzen first (good move).

UPDATE: A tweet from Franzen’s publisher, FSG (FSG_Books), confirms the selection. It is also posted on the Oprah Web site. But the really big news, according to PW Daily is that Oprah said this is not her final book club pick. She plans to pick books throughout the final season of her show AND it will “go with me to the Oprah Network.”

Plenty of fiction will be competing for readers’ attention next week, including a debut story collection from Riverhead Books that’s getting some buzz: Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans.

Entertainment Weekly gives the book a B+, saying that it “offers rich slices of African-American life . . . and carries a strong scent of freshness and promise.” But trade reviews are more mixed: while Booklist hails author Danielle Evans an “important new voice in literary fiction,”PW observes, “Evans has some great chops that would really shine with a little more narrative breadth.”

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self Danielle Evans Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 240 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2010-09-23) ISBN / EAN: 1594487693 / 9781594487699

Other Notable Fiction On Sale Next Week

Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella (Dial Press) is “chock-full of the kind of sitcom shenanigans Kinsella’s fans expect,” says Kirkus.” This latest in the series (Shopaholic & Baby, 2007, etc.) keeps the silly plot moving along. A little more growth from her iconic heroine, though, might have won over new readers as well.”

The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel by Diana Gabaldon and Hoang Nguyen (Del Rey) recasts Gabaldon’s bestselling time-travel romance from her 18th-century Scottish hero’s point of view. PW wasn’t impressed: “Scenes that ought to be exciting, such as sword fights and escapes from the law are breezed over in a page or two. Approximately four out of five panels are simply talking heads, and despite Nguyen’s most valiant efforts, it simply isn’t visually interesting.”

Don’t Blink by James Patterson and James Roughan (Little, Brown) finds reporter Nick Daniels interviewing one of baseball’s legendary bad-boys when he accidentally captures a piece of evidence that lands him in the middle of a mafia war.

Sante Fe Edge by Stuart Woods (Putnam) gets a decent review from Booklist: “while some plotlines are a bit repetitive, particularly regarding Teddy, who has been on the run for many novels, and [his ex-wife] Barbara, who is also always one step ahead of her pursuers, theres plenty of fun here for those who enjoy losing themselves in Woods entertaining escapist fare.”

Bad Blood by John Sandford (Putnam) is the fourth novel featuring Virgil Flowers, agent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Kirkus calls it “lurid and overscaled. . . The mystery, which is resolved early on, leads to an extended series of cat-and-mouse games between Virgil and the people he knows are guilty of some truly heinous crimes.”

Heaven’s Fury by Stephen W. Frey (Atria) follows a sheriff trying to solve a murder before a blizzard isolates his town. PW was not impressed: “The plot of this stand-alone crime thriller from Frey (Hell’s Gate) fails to generate much excitement, despite a gruesome murder that may be the work of a satanic cult and scenes set during a crippling snowstorm.”

And, One We Had to Mention..

Presenting…Tallulah by Tori Spelling and Vanessa Brantley Newton (Aladdin) is a picture book for very young readers by reality show star and bestselling author Spelling. PW and Kirkus both panned it, finding the poor little rich girl unbelievable and unsympathetic. Several libraries we checked haven’t ordered it – but given the success of Spelling’s previous books, you’re likely to be hearing about it.

In just a few hours, we’ll learn which title will get the magic book club sticker, when Oprah’s live show debuts on Chicago’s WLS at 10 am. EDT (it runs on other stations at 4 p.m. local times). Many news outlets are already claiming that it is the wild card, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, based on a story, released mid-afternoon yesterday, by the AP, quoting three anonymous booksellers who have seen early copies of the stickered book.

The Melville House Publishing blog posted a story way back on Monday, based on “reliable sources” and followed with post featuring the cover with an Oprah sticker. The L.A. Times is suspicious that the rather blurry photo may be a result of photoshopping. Below is the cover, next to the Melville House image. We leave it to you to judge — is this a poor photo shop job, a bad scan, or just a terrible photo?

A new book by David Foster Wallace, unfinished at the time committed suicide, will be released on April 15th, 2011, according to a Little, Brown press release picked up by several sources, including the Associated Press and the New York Times Arts Beat blog.

We will update the story with ordering information when it is available.

Featured in the new issue of USA Today is Doubleday’s heavily-promoted nonfiction title, The Wave.

On the web site, the story includes this video:

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The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean Susan Casey Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (2010-09-14) ISBN / EAN: 0767928849 / 9780767928847

After many stellar reviews, Knopf’s major nonfiction title of the season, Tiger by John Vaillant, was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday. The book is about a rare  tiger in remote Siberia who stalked the poacher that had wounded him and stolen his kill. Says the interviewer, “what has fascinated all of us is that the tiger is capable of vengeance. He waited and came back for [the man who shot him] later. “

The book rose to #27 on Amazon sales rankings, its highest rank to date. Several libraries are showing heavy holds on moderate ordering.

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival John Vaillant Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-08-24) ISBN / EAN: 0307268934 / 9780307268938

Random House Audio; 9780307715074; $40.00