There is a wave of praise for Sonali Deraniyagala‘s memoir of life after the tsunami, which is Amazon’s spotlight pick for the month and one of the BN’s favorites as well 
(also tipped as one of our spring memoir/biography buzz books to watch for), as Mohsin Hamid‘s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia releases tomorrow as well after competing pre-publication first reviews in the NYT and Washington Post last month. It’s a very competitive week for new releases, including Anne Carson’s Red Doc, Andrew Pyper’s The Demonologist, and nonfiction from Jeb Bush (on immigration), Sandra Day O’Connor, Christa Parravani’s memoir (touted by multiple booksellers), and basketball coach Pat Summitt.
The New England Journal of Medicine gave new life to multiple Mediterranean diet cookbooks and the NYT took note of Britain’s No. 1 fad hit The Fast Diet. Tom Stoppard’s five-part adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End has been airing on HBO, and a poll of top novelists agreed with Philip Roth’s own pick for his best book (which he had asserted “a lot of people hate”).
We also feature all 6 NBCC winners as Flaherty-Dunnan first fiction winner Ben Fountain adds the PEN/Hemingway award to his prize chest for Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. As also covered elsewhere in Lunch, PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST will be the sole Jonah Lehrer work still in print from HMH after they remove from sale HOW WE DECIDE, which remains available today.
