Swedish noir fiction author Henning Mankell developed an American following well before Stieg Larsson topped U.S. bestseller lists, but Mankell’s new novel, The Man from Beijing, may be benefitting from the popularity of his countryman. At several libraries we checked, Mankell’s latest has holds as high as 4:1.

Departing from Mankell’s ten-book Inspector Wallander series,The Man from Beijing focuses on a woman who was Maoist in her student days, and is now a middle-aged, middle-of-the-road Swedish judge.

The Economist calls Mankell “a master portraitist of Sweden’s underside,” but observes that the trouble starts when The Man From Beijing turns to international social commentary. “The picture he paints of Africa—with a leopard calmly surveying the world from its grassy hillock—is clichéd enough, but his China is positively hackneyed.”

PW adds that “While each section, ranging in setting from the bleak frozen landscape of northern Sweden to modern-day China bursting onto the global playing field, compels, the parts don’t add up to a fully satisfying whole.”

The Man from Beijing Henning Mankell Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-02-16) ISBN / EAN: 0307271862 / 9780307271860

Audio Available from Random House: 2/16/10

• CD: $45; ISBN 9780307712356

E-book and audio available from OverDrive

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Other Major Fiction Titles On Sale Next Week

• Michael Palmer‘s The Last Surgeon (St. Martin’s), about a trauma surgeon back in Baltimore after a stint in Afghanistan, gets mixed reviews: Booklist says it’s his “best novel in years” while PW calls it “an anemic medical thriller.” Holds are as high as 4:1 at several libraries we checked.
• Tim LeHaye’s Matthew’s Story (Penguin) is the new novel in the Jesus series, by the authors of the bestselling Left Behind series. Library holds are 2:1 or higher.

Jenny Sanford has been all over the media to promote her book, Staying True. She has been refreshingly frank about her feelings about her husband and how his actions have affected her family, but one of the strangest media moments occurred on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, when she said she really misses the inmates who helped out around the governor’s mansion.

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Staying True Jenny Sanford Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 240 pages Publisher: Ballantine Books – (2010-02-05) ISBN / EAN: 0345522397 / 9780345522399

Unabridged audio; 9780307736284; $25

Audio available from OverDrive

How could we not be excited about This Book is Overdue, which calls librarians the heroes of the cyber age?

Happily, others are giving the book (and the profession) its due as well. Today’s Wall Street Journal reviews it (love the torn jacket in the illustration; were reviewers fighting over it?). Although the reviewer appreciates author Marilyn Johnson’s “keen eye for detail” and “charming if meandering style” as she explores how today’s librarians are seeking to  “integrate the old mission of the library with the new possibilities of technology,” she fears that libraries may lose something in the transition.

It’s also reviewed very positively in the Boston Globe (In the digital age, librarians are pioneers) and the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Marilyn Johnson is fun and emphatic in ‘This Book is Overdue!’).

The Daily Beast lists it as one of the week’s five “Hot Reads,” and it’s one of Sarah Weinman’s “Picks of the Week” on her mystery blog, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.

The book has risen to #337 on Amazon and much more is coming:

NYT BR, 3/7 (plus, a possible review in the daily NYT)
NPR On the Media
USA Today interview

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All Marilyn Johnson Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061431605 / 9780061431609

Audio: Tantor; 2/22/10
Trade: 9781400116348; 7 CD’s; $34.99
Library: 9781400146345; 7 CD’s; $69.99
MP3: 9781400166343; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

The debut novel that’s being compared to The Help (NYT, Janet Maslin) and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (USA Today, Carol Memmott), rose to #31 on Amazon sales rankings today, one day after its release.

That makes it the fifth-highest ranking, currently available, hardcover fiction title on the list. We’ve been watching this one for a while and are now calling it as a bestseller and predict that it will debut on the Feb. 28 NYT best seller list in the top five.

The Postmistress Sarah Blake Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0399156194 / 9780399156199

Available from Blackstone Audiobooks

• CD: $100; ISBN 9781441725714
• MP3 CD: $29.95; ISBN 9781441725745
• Cassette: $65.95; ISBN 9781441725707

Audio and e-book available from OverDrive

One of the debuts we’re watching this season is The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. Many have compared it to Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. In fact, it’s received strong praise from Stockett (she even interviews Blake on Amazon’s site), and both books share the same editor, Amy Einhorn, who has her own imprint at Putnam.

In today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin also makes the comparison to The Help, which she calls a “socially conscious pulp best seller,”

Each of these novels appropriates galvanizing social issues in the service of a well-wrought tear-jerker. And each is crammed with talking points.

But Maslin also admits,

…the real strength of  The Postmistress lies in its ability to strip away readers’ defenses against stories of wartime uncertainty and infuse that chaos with wrenching immediacy and terror.

She also predicts that, like The Help, “this book will click in a major way.”

The books may share many qualities, but the settings are different. Rather than 1960’s Mississippi, The Postmistress takes place during World War II, which has led others to compare it to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.

The Postmistress releases today and has been steadily rising on Amazon (it’s now at #84). Library holds are also growing rapidly on conservative ordering; as high as 210 on 16 copies.

The Postmistress Sarah Blake Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0399156194 / 9780399156199

Available from Blackstone Audiobooks

• CD: $100; ISBN 9781441725714
• MP3 CD: $29.95; ISBN 9781441725745
• Cassette: $65.95; ISBN 9781441725707

Audio and e-book available from OverDrive

The CIA allows their agents to moonlight with financial firms, according to the online news site, Politico. Reacting to the story last week, Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, demanded answers on the policy.

Several newspapers reported on the story, which is drawn form a forthcoming book by Politico reporter Eamon Javers. As The Guardian put it,

It is hard to imagine two more distrusted and reviled professions. One has been accused of torturing detainees and failing to track down Islamist terror suspects; the other is widely perceived to be responsible for the worldwide recession.

Now, in a move likely to provoke a perfect storm of opprobrium, the two have joined forces: enterprising CIA officers who want to earn a little extra have been given the green light to moonlight for Wall Street firms.

The book is out today and on the rise at Amazon (to #160, from #2,230). Most libraries have not ordered it; as a book with breaking news, it was embargoed and therefore was not reviewed prepub.

Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage Eamon Javers Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: HarperBusiness – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061697206 / 9780061697203

E-book available from OverDrive

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Last night’s guest on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross was attorney David Dow, the author of Autobiography of an Execution (listen here). Dow defends death row inmates in Texas, the state with the highest number of executions in the US since 1976. In his book, he argues for the abolition of the death penalty and also writes about how his career  has affected his family life.

The book rose to #261, from #3,044, on Amazon. Libraries own it in modest quantities with hold ratios averaging 1:1.

The Autobiography of an Execution David R. Dow Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Twelve – (2010-02-03) ISBN / EAN: 0446562068 / 9780446562065

Audio downloadable from OverDrive.

Inevitably, any memoir of growing up in another country and then immigrating to the U.S. will be compared to Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, but A Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova, has a special connection. The author was actually one of  Frank McCourt’s students.

This memoir of life in Leningrad in the ’60’s and ’70’s was just enthusiastically reviewed in the NYT BR, which describes it as an “exquisitely wrought, tender memoir.” It climbed to #259 on Amazon, from #576, and is showing heavy holds in libraries; as high as 250 on 23 copies.

The author was interviewed on NPR’s The Leonard Lopate Show on January 13, 2010 (listen here) and the book has been reviewed widely, in publications from USA Today to The New Yorker.

As part of her book tour, Gorokhova will do a reading at the Princeton Public Library on Feb. 18.

A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir Elena Gorokhova Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-01-12) ISBN / EAN: 1439125678 / 9781439125670

Among next week’s releases are two much-buzzed-about debuts. Library demand is highest for The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, with holds of  6:1 or higher on modest orders.

The tale of an American radio reporter in WWII London, the novel is winning comparisons to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society from booksellers, one of whom touted The Postmistress in PW‘s Galley Talk column, and also in a USA Today story on breakthrough winter titles. The book also carries a blurb from Kathryn Stockett, author of the runaway bestseller, The Help.

Entertainment Weekly gives it an A- in the new issue, saying “There’s both exquisite pain and pleasure to be found in these pages, which jump from the mass devastation in Europe to the intimate heartaches of an American small town.”

The Postmistress Sarah Blake Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0399156194 / 9780399156199

Available from Blackstone Audiobooks

• CD: $100; ISBN 9781441725714
• MP3 CD: $29.95; ISBN 9781441725745
• Cassette: $65.95; ISBN 9781441725707

Audio and e-book available from OverDrive

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Union Atlantic, the first novel by Adam Hazlett, author of the bestselling story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here, is also attracting 2:1 hold ratios in libraries we checked. The novel explores the gilded age of the last decade, centering on a land dispute between a young banker and a retired schoolteacher, and was chosen as a #1 Indie Next Pick for February.

New York magazine profiles Hazlett this week, as did PWearlier, both noting that the book, which Hazlett began writing ten years ago, foretells the recent financial crisis and even the bailout. He tells New York that when he began writing it, he feared readers might not know, or even care, what the Fed is.

Libraries have ordered it in similar quantities to The Postmistress, with one-fifth the number of holds.

Union Atlantic Adam Haslett Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Nan A. Talese – (2010-02-09) ISBN / EAN: 0385524471 / 9780385524476

Other Major Titles On Sale Next Week

Adriana Trigiani‘s Brava Valentine (HarperCollins), the second in her Valentine trilogy about a loving but fiery Italian American family, is showing reserves of 6:1 at one library we checked, making it the most-anticipated fiction title of the week.

Alex Berenson‘s The Midnight House(Penguin), the fourth in a series featuring superspy John Wells,  is also much in demand, though not available at all libraries we checked.

Peter Straub‘s A Dark Matter (Knopf Doubleday) “ranks as one of the finest tales of modern horror,” according to PW.

Chuck Hogan‘s Devils in Exile(Simon & Schuster) is “a compelling portrait of a good man who makes bad choices and in the end must battle his way out of a destructive and deadly life,” PW said.

By now, you may feel that you know everything that is in The Politician by John Edwards’ aide, Andrew Young, but in today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin reviews the book, saying, “this,…like Game Change, is a book worth reading for its larger drama.”

Game Change has been in the top three on Amazon’s sales rankings since January 11th, sometimes occupying the #1 position (it was recently knocked down by Michael Pollan’s Food Rules; speaking of strange bedfellows).

The highest level The Politician has reached is #7; it is currently at #52.

Unabridged audio will be available from Tantor:

Publisher: Tantor, 2/22/10 (UPDATE: see comment; Available Now)
Read by: Kevin Foley
Trade: 9781400116508; 10 CD’s; $34.99
Library: 9781400146505; 10 CD’s; $69.99
MP3: 9781400166503; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99

Rebecca Skloot became obsessed with a story of Henrietta Lacks, a woman who contracted cancer in 1951; it was so virulant that it killed her within the year. She was just 31.

Amazingly, however, her cancer cells went on to have a life of their own. A medical researcher had been trying to find cells that would live indefinitely so he could use them in experiments. Lacks’ cells had that unique characteristic and have been used in labs around the world ever since; they were used to develop the first polio vaccine as well as drugs for many other diseases.

But neither Lacks nor her family knew that her cells were going to be used in this way.

Skloot just published a book about the story, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It was covered on ABC’s World News Tonight on Sunday and in the New York Times‘ “Health” section yesterday. Calling the book “gripping,”  the article notes that it raises difficult ethical issues; “if scientists or companies can commercialize a patient’s cells or tissues, doesn’t that patient, as provider of the raw material, deserve a say about it and maybe a share of any profits that result?”

The book is currently at #10 on Amazon. UPDATE: After the author was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross on Feb. 3, the book rose to #7 on Amazon.

Ordering is light with heavy holds in most  libraries. Where the audio is owned, it is also showing heavy holds

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Crown – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 1400052173 / 9781400052172

Random House Audio; UNABR; 9780307712509; $35
Audio and e-book available from OverDrive.

Given the reviews so far, it seems you either get Jonathan Dee’s fifth novel, The Privileges, or you don’t.

In today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin says that, although the story is “excessively cryptic …[it] is so invitingly told that it’s much easier to be drawn in than turned off.”

The book rose to #108 on Amazon two weeks ago, based on a very strong review in the NYT BR. Holds are heavy in several large libraries, on very modest ordering.

The book follows the marriage of a New York City “golden couple” who rise to great wealth on insider trading. It’s not the plot that hooks the reviewers, but the way it is told; the Cleveland Plain Dealer says the first chapter, about the couple’s wedding, “could stand on it own as an exquisite short story.”

But the review that most makes you want to read the book is in the L.A. Times, which is worth reading in its entirety.

The Privileges Jonathan Dee Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 1400068673 / 9781400068678

e-book available on OverDrive.

The scoop-hungry National Enquirer, which is planning to enter the paper’s reporting on John Edwards and Rielle Hunter for the Pulitzer Prize, now claims that Oprah Winfrey is publishing a memoir.

The article reports, “Oprah wrote her memoirs years ago, but shelved the book on the advice of family and friends, sources say. But she’s releasing it now to thwart the impact of Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized book, Oprah: a Biography.”

Back in the mid-nineties, Oprah was indeed close to publishing an autobiography with Knopf, but pulled out at the last minute (there was even a lavish party for the book at the ABA convention; the predecessor to Book Expo America). Knopf told EarlyWord that they know of no plans to publish it now.

Meanwhile, sister imprint, Crown is publishing the Kitty Kelley book in April.

Oprah: A Biography Kitty Kelley Retail Price: $30.00 Hardcover: Publisher: – (2010-04-13) ISBN / EAN: 0307394867 / 9780307394866

Random House Audio; 9780307749246; $50
Crown Large Print; Pbk; 9780739377857; $30

Patti Smith can now sing “I’m on the cover of the New York Times Book Review.”

Well, maybe it doesn’t scan as well, or have the cache of “on the Cover of The Rolling Stone,” but she’s already achieved that milestone.

And, perhaps it doesn’t mean as much as the fact that her book, Just Kids, about her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe debuts at #7 on the new NYT nonfiction best seller list, or that holds are heavy in libraries and building fast.

The review says that  Just Kids,

…is the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s that any alumnus has committed to print. The tone is at once flinty and hilarious, which figures: she’s always been both tough and funny, two real saving graces in an artist this prone to excess. What’s sure to make her account a cornucopia for cultural historians, however, is that the atmosphere, personalities and mores of the time are so astutely observed.

The Washington Post was equally laudatory, in a review that makes you regret the book isn’t on your nightstand right now.

As part of her book tour, she appears at the Chicago Public Library on February 21.

Just Kids Patti Smith Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Ecco – (2010-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 006621131X / 9780066211312

Among the major releases coming next week are a “literary” author entering thriller territory, a novel that echoes events in Haiti and my personal favorite, the new Louise Erdrich.

Ordinary Thunderstorms William Boyd Retail Price: $26.99 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061876747 / 9780061876745

eBook available from OverDrive

Whitbread-award winning author Boyd (A Good Man in Africa), delves into the thriller genre in this, his ninth novel. It’s had  great prepub reviews and some early consumer coverage. The WSJ interviewed the author and called the book “gripping.”

Although set in London circa 2010, Ordinary Thunderstorms has a Dickensian cast of characters—predators and prey, tycoons and paupers, charlatans and stooges—orbiting one another in the mean streets of London.

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One Amazing Thing Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Retail Price: $23.99 Hardcover: 240 pages Publisher: Voice – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 1401340997 / 9781401340995

One Amazing Thing has already been featured in USA Today‘s look at what booksellers are expecting to do well this season, and, in a separate article on how the novel echoes events in Haiti, since it “tells the harrowing story of nine terrified people trapped in an office building in an unnamed U.S. city after an earthquake.” The BookReporter.com has selected it as “One to Watch.”

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Shadow Tag Louise Erdrich Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061536091 / 9780061536090

This one is my personal pick for the week. Erdrich examines a marriage through several lenses. The wife has been keeping a diary. Realizing her husband has been reading it, she begins writing entries designed to affect him. Meanwhile, she begins a separate diary to record her true feelings. The device brings you right into the heart of a difficult, passionate marriage.

More Major Fiction Releases Next Week:

Patterson, James and Michael Ledwidge, Worst Case, Little Brown
Bohjalian, Chris, Secrets of Eden, Crown; Entertainment Weekly gives it a B+
Hamilton, Laurell K. Flirt, Berkley
DeLillo, Dan, Point Omega, Scribner; gets a disappointing C+ in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly.
Harris, Robert, Conspirata, S&S
Mills, Mark,  Information Officer, Random House
Conrad, Lauren Sweet Little Lies, HarperCollins — the second in the L.A. Candy series by one of the stars of the MTV series, Hills
Hannah, Kristin Winter Garden, St. Martins

Childrens
Lerangis, Peter The 39 Clues Book 7: The Viper’s Nest