The top two books in the business category on Amazon’s sales rankings right now are not owned by most libraries.

The Lean Startup, coming in September, is by Eric Ries, who is called “the face of the lean startup movement.” He’s even trademarked the concept and promotes it constantly at tech conferences. Several blogs call the concept the “next big thing” in business (Fast Company’s Expert Blog, Forbes’s Rethink, SmartMoney’s Encore).

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Eric Ries Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Crown Business – (2011-09-13) ISBN / EAN: 0307887898 / 9780307887894

Crown is a Random House imprint, so the book will also be available from OverDrive.

The number two book (number 1 last week), is also aimed at entrepreneurs. Anything You Want by CD Baby founder Derek Sivers is published by Seth Godin’s “cut out the middleman” Domino Project, which he launched with Amazon in December. It’s promoted with this engaging video, “I Miss the Mob,” sure to appeal to anyone who has dealt with MBA types or business consultants. Personally, I could watch it all day long.

Talk about a lean startup; Sives began CDBaby.com, a distributor of independent music, in 1998 with $500 and grew it with no outside investors. Ten years later, he sold it for $22 million. He didn’t pocket the money himself, however. It all went to a charitable trust for music education.

The book is available through library wholesalers. It is also on audio from Brilliance and downloadable from OverDrive.

Anything You Want Derek Sivers Retail Price: $14.99 Hardcover: 88 pages Publisher: The Domino Project – (2011-06-29) ISBN / EAN: 1936719118 / 9781936719112

George R.R. Martin has threatened to go all medieval on the Amazon.de employee who accidentally shipped 180 copies of A Dance with Dragon before its official release date. Spoilers have now appeared online and Martin’s response is to threaten to put the person’s head on a spike.

How important are spoilers, really? Go The F@@k To Sleep, continues to be s bestseller, even though it was available online in its entirety before publication. In fact, many attribute it’s success to just that fact.

Nonetheless, a lot of passion is being expressed online about A Dance with Dragon‘s release now being “marred.”

But those supposed spoilers may be red herrings; Entertainment Weekly quotes Elio M. Garcia, Jr. webmaster for Martin fansite Westeros.org, that most of them are “inaccurate or garbled.”

So, what’s the punishment for inaccurate spoilers?

The book’s official release date is Tuesday, July 12

A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice and Fire) George R.R. Martin Retail Price: $35.00 Hardcover: 1008 pages Publisher: Bantam – (2011-07-12) ISBN / EAN: 0553801473 / 9780553801477

Following the success of her debut novel, Push, which was adapted into the Oscar-winning 2009 movie Precious, the book’s author Sapphire has published a sequel, The Kid (Penguin Press), released yesterday. The story begins with the death of Precious, and follows the difficult life of her son Abdul Jones into his teens.

USA Today‘s Bob Minzesheimer says the new book, which “…explores the shame of the foster home system and why more black kids like Abdul aren’t adopted” is “…more ambitious”  than the first book.

Reviewers agree that Abdul’s life is harrowing; Carolyn Kellogg in the Kansas City Star, calls it “…an accomplished work of art, but it is a grueling story, one whose depictions of brutality and desire may be too challenging for some readers.” Michiko Kakutani in yesterday’s NYT takes a more dim view, “What is meant to be provocatively obscene in this novel, however, often feels merely willfully perverse, just as what is meant to be shocking often feels like sensationalistic contrivance.” People gives it 3.5 of 4 stars in the 7/11 issue.

The author was interviewed by USA Today at NYPL’s Harlem branch, at the beginning of her 17-city book tour. Below is the video of the interview that accompanies the story on the USA Today Web site:

Library holds are light, averaging 1:1 in the libraries we checked, on modest ordering.

Next week, look out for two titles librarians have been talking about – a new thriller by Chevy Stevens about an adoptee who discovers her fraught roots, and Alice LePlante’s probing look into the mind of a woman with dementia. Usual suspects Barbara Delinsky, Tess Gerritson and J.A. Jance also weigh in, along with YA author Sara Shepard. And in nonfiction, Rolling Stone writer Janet Reitman reveals the inner workings of Scientology.

Watch List

Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens (St. Martins) is a thriller about an adoptee who searches for her birth mother, only to discover that the woman is the only surviving victim of the serial killer who was her father. This one could be big: it follows Stevens’ popular debut, Still Missing (2010). and has been a buzz title among librarians in our Twitter GalleyChat (reminder: the next GalleyChat is on Tuesday, July 12, from 4 to 5 pm, Eastern). Kirkus says it’s “as finely calculated in its escalating suspense as Stevens’ grueling debut.”

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante (Atlantic Monthly) is a debut novel about a retired orthopedic surgeon succumbing to dementia, who is uncertain whether or not she was involved in the murder of her friend. The publisher has high expectations for this one, co-sponsoring a librarian dinner in San Francisco with EarlyWord to get the word out. A New York Times is in the works.

Usual Suspects

Escape by Barbara Delinsky (Doubleday) is the story of a lawyer who breaks abruptly from her career and marriage and seeks a fresh start in New Hampshire. PW says, “Delinsky keeps the story moving with some nice twists on a familiar plot, rich characterizations, and real-feeling dilemmas that will keep readers hooked.”

Betrayal of Trust (J. P. Beaumont Series #20) by J. A. Jance (Morrow) is a thriller about privileged teens and the well-heeled parents who extricate them from the consequences of their crimes. Kikus declares that this story that will leave readers “wanting more.”

The Silent Girl: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel by Tess Gerritsen (Ballantine) is a thriller about a twisted killer in Boston’s Chinatown, featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles in their 10th outing. Booklist says, “Recent series entries have been solid, workmanlike thrillers, but this one has some real spark to it. Fans should definitely check it out, and readers who have wandered away from the series might want to give it another try.”

Young Adult

Twisted (Pretty Little Liars Series #9) by Sara Shepard (HarperTeen) is the latest installment in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, which is also an ABC Family hit TV series.

Nonfiction

Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is an exploration of the “church” created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, by a contributing writer to Rolling Stone. LJ says her tone is “evenhanded,” while PW declares that “Reitman plows through her abundant material without an organizing narrative arc; consequently, many of the chapters pile on without providing satisfying conclusions. The only hopeful conclusion Reitman offer,sand most readers will agree, is that Scientology is shrinking, with less than 250,000 members worldwide.”

A childhood favorite that lives up to rereading in adulthood is E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.

How did White create this masterpiece, which is also the best-selling children’s book in U.S. history?

Michael Sims addresses that question in a slim but fascinating book, The Story of Charlotte’s Web. (Walker, 6/7). Several reviews have appeared recently, but the one that addresses the book’s appeal most clearly is Heather McAlpins’s in both Salon and The Barnes and Noble Review; “…Sims brings visceral attention to this beloved classic, highlighting its many joys.”

This week, we get two versions of Diana’s life if she were still living.

In Newsweek, editor Tina Brown imagines Diana without the car crash. Botox? Of course. Continued interest in causes? No doubt. Twitter followers? Ten million.

In her novel, Untold Story, (Scribner), published today, Monica Ali imagines that Diana faked her death so she could live away from the public eye. Just like its subject, the book has been receiving more than its fair share of press attention. It’s on the cover of the NYT Book Review, the author is interviewed on today’s Morning Edition on NPR, and the book is reviewed on the NPR site (“…a thriller that’s well-structured and engaging — if not much deeper than the swimming pool in which Lydia [Diana] obsessively works out her troubles.”)

Holds are heavy in a few libraries; in most, they are slightly over 1:1.

Wendy Bartlett, Collection Development Manager, Cuyahoga P.L. emailed us about a YA title that is taking off,

I think the word is out among teens about Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (Quirk Books). We’d ordered enough for a single copy for most of our branches and then I doubled it. I just checked holds and was amazed to find 91 waiting. I’m buying enough to cover the holds, plus additional copies so the book will be available for browsing.

Cuyahoga isn’t the only one; other large libraries we checked are showing holds as high as 200, with ratios ranging from 10:1 to 20:1.

USA Today covered the book recently on their PopCandy blog, which mentions that film rights were recently sold to 20th Century Fox.

The book, true to the spirit of its publisher, Quirk Books (the folks responsible for starting the monster mashup craze with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), is based on a series of eerie vintage photos collected by the author (more on how the book came to be in this AP story).

Published as a YA title, it debuted on the NYT Children’s Chapter Books Best Seller list at #7 last week, moving up to #5 on the 7/3/11 list.

Author Riggs, who is a filmmaker, created this atmospheric book trailer for it:

There’s even a “making of” the trailer video:

Strange animal friendships have already been documented in several children’s books. In a new book for adults, National Geographic senior writer, Jennifer Holland examines 50 such stories, several that are already well known and many that have not been covered before, in Unlikely Friendships (Workman, 6/30). Coming out this week, it was featured in Parade magazine over the weekend and rose  to #14 on Amazon’s sales rankings from #314.

Unlikely Friendships: 50 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom Jennifer Holland Retail Price: $13.95 Paperback: 160 pages Publisher: Workman Publishing Company – (2011-06-30) ISBN / EAN: 0761159134 / 9780761159131

Children’s books on the topic include:

Friends: True Stories of Extraordinary Animal Friendships, Catherine Thimmesh, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; (May 23, 2011;) 9780547390109

Suryia and Roscoe: The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship,
Dr. Bhagavan Antle, Henry Holt and Co. BYR. (April 26, 2011); 9780805093162

Tarra & Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best Friends, Carol Buckley Putnam Juvenile (September 8, 2009); 9780399254437

Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship, Isabella Hatkoff , Scholastic Press (February 1, 2006);  9780439829731

The Hypnotist, by Lars Kepler (FSG, 6/21), heavily promoted as the next big Swedish noir novel, rose to #29, from #118 on Amazon sales rankings over the weekend. It was selected by Salon‘s Laura Miller on NPR Weekend Edition‘s “Three Critics Pick The Best Books For Summer.” She calls it “Stieg Larsson without the rough edges.”

Miller expands on that in her “Crime Fiction for Summer” story on Salon, suggesting that “Those who find Larsson’s colorless, methodical style intolerable may even prefer The Hypnotist.”

Libraries show growing holds.

Audio from Blackstone Audio. Downloadable audio on OverDrive.

On tap next week, a controversial UK novel that has received early attention here, the first novel by singer/songwriter Josh Ritter, plus several titles from repeat authors, poised for best seller lists.

Watch List

Untold Story by Monica Ali (Scribner) finds Princess Diana alive and well, living incognito in an ordinary American town, in this fourth novel from the British author who was named by Granta as one of Britain’s 20 best young novelists in 2003. Her first novel, “Brick Lane,” was on the shortlist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize.

Its big rollout in the UK, just before the William/Kate Royal wedding, brought accusations that the timing was poor and the subject beneath a literary writer. Perhaps because of this attention, it got an early review from Michiko Kakutani the 6/13 NYT. She points out that this book seems “quite a departure from the subject matter of Ms. Ali’s earlier work; both Brick Lane and her second novel, In the Kitchen, drew portraits of a gritty, multicultural London,” yet it allows Ali to “address some of the same questions of identity and exile that animated her earlier work.” In the end, however, she finds it “preposterously gimmicky.”

Ali defends the book in an interview in the Wall Street Journal today. In the 6/25 NYT Book Review, Curtis Settenfeld, who reimagined Laura Bush’s life in the novel American Wife, also finds Untold Story falls short. Entertainment Weekly gives it a solid B, saying the story is told with “empathetic energy that puts a literary gloss on a beachread subject.” It is on O magazine’s Summer Reading List. Holds are building in some libraries.

The Girl in the Blue Beret by Bobbi Ann Mason (Random House) is the story of an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe, inspired by the wartime experiences of the novelist’s late father-in-law. LJ says, “the rich setting, detail, and intimate character nuances ring true. Great crossover appeal for fans of the award-winning author, World War II fiction, and novels with French settings.”

Bright’s Passage by Josh Ritter (Dial Press) is the story of a soldier who returns to West Virginia to take care of his infant son after his wife’s death, by a singer and songwriter Entertainment Weekly declared one of the “Ten Most Exciting Artists Now.” Library Journal says, “This expressive and darkly humorous tale of a man desperately attempting to salvage his future while coping with his past will attract Ritter’s fans and readers who enjoy a bit of magical realism in their fiction.”

Usual Suspects

Flashback by Dan Simmons (Regan Arthur Books) is set in an America in near-total collapse, where the citizens are addicted to a drug that allows them to rexperience the best moments of their lives. LJ finds it “believable in a grim sort of way. As always, Simmons keeps the reader’s attention from start to finish. Midway between science ficion and detective fiction, this will appeal to aficionados of both genres.”

Now You See Her by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Little, Brown) is a thriller about a lawyer and mother, who must finally tell the truth about her past when an innocent man is framed for murder.

Thunder of Heaven: A Joshua Jordan Novel by Tim LeHaye and Craig Parshall (Zondervan) Library Journal says, “this fast-paced novel is in its own right a strong one with a multidimensional hero. Ripped right from today’s headlines, it will attract fans of the “Left Behind” series and other apocalyptic fiction.”

Young Adult

Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson with Chris Tebbetts (Little, Brown) is about a middle schooler who decides to break every one of his school’s rules. Publishers Weekly says, “the book’s ultrashort chapters, dynamic artwork, and message that “normal is boring” should go a long way toward assuring kids who don’t fit the mold that there’s a place for them, too.”

In a story in today’s New York Times, Chip McGrath tries valiantly to come up with some news from the memoir by Eva Gabrielsson, Stieg Larsson’s longtime companion, “There Are Things I Want You to Know” About Stieg Larsson and Me.” (Seven Stories Press, 6/21; Audio, Tantor Media, 6/21).

Basically, there is a manuscript for another Millennium novel on Larsson’s laptop, which she has but isn’t telling anyone where it is, and it features Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.

She may be willing to complete it herself (the story notes that Gabrielsson’s “straightforward tone and terse, unadorned style are unlikely to provide much support for the conspiracy theorists,” who believe she is the actual author of Larsson’s books), but then again, maybe not. Discussing that issue with McGrath, she muses, “How long are we going to kid ourselves? Stieg is dead. Maybe we just have to accept that — all the readers and me, too.”

Library holds are light.

Gabriellson also appeared on the Today Show:

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

A story in the Science section of the New York Times has propelled a university press book about bird’s nests to #45 (from #1,453 yesterday) on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build Peter Goodfellow Retail Price: $27.95 Hardcover: 160 pages Publisher: Princeton University Press – (2011-06-05) ISBN / EAN: 069114849X / 9780691148496

The article mentions the detailed drawings of construction techniques, such as this spread :

Despite an early cold shoulder from the NYT‘s Janet Maslin, Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder (Harper. 6/6) has since been showered with generally stellar reviews (we are partial to Ron Charles’s review in the Washington Post) and debuted on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list at #3 this week (right behind Laurell K. Hamilton and Clive Cussler). It’s doing even better as an eBook; it is currently at #2 on the E-Book Fiction list (it is available to libraries via OverDrive, with HarperCollins’ restriction of 26 loan periods). Unsurprisingly, libraries are showing heavy holds.

Maureen Corrigan added to the ecstatic reviews on NPR’s Fresh Air last night, saying, “It’s not often that a novel leaves me (temporarily) speechless. But Ann Patchett’s new novel isn’t called State of Wonder for nothing, because that’s exactly the state I’ve been in ever since I first opened it.”

Former New Orleans mayor made  national TV appearances yesterday to promote his self-pubbed book, Katrina’s Secrets: Storms After the Storm (coming tomorrow from Amazon’s self-publishing division, CreateSpace; although it is listed as “Volume 1,” there is no indication of when a Volume 2 will be published).

On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked why he went the self-publishing route; he said that he was worried that a traditional publisher would make changes to his “voice.”

What is Nagin doing now? Nagin’s response, “Disaster consulting” brought a big laugh.

Nagin also appeared on the Today Show:

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

The Today Show site also offers an excerpt from the book. As a result of the attention, it received a bump on Amazon’s sales rankings, but still only rose to #1,223.

Last night marked the finale of Game of Thrones, HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s first book in A Song of Ice and Fire series, which has made best sellers of all the books (Book 5, A Dance with Dragons, Random House, July 1, is currently at #3 on Amazon’s sales rankings. The 4-vol boxed set is at #1).

Season Two begins in the Spring of 2012. Production hasn’t begun yet, which is the reason the teaser trailer is a bit sketchy.