A little like Warner’s launch of Jack Welch’s first book right after 9/11, Bantam faces uncertainty as their expensive authorized biography of legendary investor Warren Buffett releases next Monday in the midst of what Buffett himself calls an “economic Pearl Harbor.” Will current conditions make readers hungrier than ever for insights into one of the greatest investors ever, or leave them with no appetite for personal details about one of the world’s richest men? Time magazine appears to have had the first official look at the book, which they say “reveals that in his personal life, the Oracle of Omaha […]
New Releases/Forthcoming
Scholastic Announces Deathy Hallows Paperback
The final Potter novel, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, will release on July 7, 2009 from Scholastic, just under two years after the hardcover publication, priced at $14.95. With an announced first printing of 2 million copies, Scholastic says the total of Potter books in print in the US will reach 143 million copies. Separately, Amazon announced that for Rowling’s next charity book, THE TALES OF BEETLE THE BARD, they will provide December 4 release-day delivery for the standard shipping price on pre-orders (and free for their “prime” members). They anticipate first-day orders for “hundreds of thousands” of copies.
A "Feast" of Lincoln Books
“At least 50 titles about Lincoln are due out between next month and early 2010, not counting those recently published,” the Boston Globe notes, with the bicentennial of his birth on Feburary 12, including “at least seven children’s books.” Simon & Schuster editorial director Alice Mayhew says, “People are hungry for details about Lincoln. He’s clearly the greatest hero, with a poignance and a sadness – what he had to endure as president and in his personal life.”Globe
Sparks Writes for Both Grand Central and Miley Cyrus
Nicholas Sparks’s new novel, for publication in fall 2009, is being written simultaneously with the author’s own adaptation of that story as a starring vehicle for Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus (Offspring Entertainment is producing, for Walt Disney Pictures). Sparks had pitched “a premise for a novel that intrigued Cyrus, her family and the producers,” Variety says, though no details are being shared. Sparks says, “This is similar to the way it’s gone with movies based on my novels; it’s just out of order. Certain opportunities garner your interest, and this was one of those.”Variety
Some Actual News from the Gelman Book
An LA Times blog takes an amusing approach to Barton Gellman’s book on Vice President Cheney, noting that the Washington Post has been “shamelessly flakking excerpts from the book on page one of its newspaper. But some portions are still embargoed.” They go on to reproduce an anecdote in the book in which Cheney has turned down President Bush on a request to go spearhead relief efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: “I asked Dick if he’d be interested in spearheading this,” Bush announced. “Let’s just say I didn’t get the most positive response.” Bush nodded ironically toward the […]
Cheney Book Looks at Conflict Over Spying
The Washington Post is running excerpts from Barton Gellman’s THE ANGLER: The Cheney Vice Presidency, which publishes on Tuesday. The book’s take on domestic surveillance conducted post 9/11: “Cheney and his counsel would struggle for months to quash the legal insurgency. By the time President Bush became aware of it, his No. 2 had stoked dissent into flat-out rebellion. The president would face a dilemma, and the presidency itself a historic test. Cheney would come close to leading them off a cliff, man and office both.” Washington PostSecond excerpt