Flash: Matt Drudge has renewed his interest in selected Bookscan sales figures. Today he features opening week numbers for Thomas Friedman’s HOT, FLAT AND CROWDED (69,285) versus Bob Woodward’s THE WAR WITHIN (55,432).
Statistics
This Week's Hot Titles?
The WSJ highlights three prominent releases this week–Andrew Davidson’s THE GARGOYLE; David Carr’s THE NIGHT OF THE GUN; and Ron Suskind’s THE WAY OF THE WORLD: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism (the biggest of the three by far, with an announced 500,000-copy first printing)–as a potential counterpoint to “the slumping book business.” Not a lot of statistical evidence there, but Gayle Shanks at Changing Hands in Tempe, Ariz., s”ays that sales of hardcover fiction at her 13,000-square-foot store are off sharply; she’s now offering a 20 percent discount on all fiction hardcover titles.”WSJ
Lunch for Wednesday, May 28
McLellan’s Book Criticizes Bush Former White House press secretary Scott McLellan’s book WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception makes headlines after Politico and then the NYT purchased embargoed copies in advance of next week’s release. Politico calls it a “surprisingly scathing memoir” that says Bush “veered terribly off course” and was not “open and forthright on Iraq.” President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment” and has engaged in “self-deception,” the NYT writes, and he says “White House officials deceived him about the administration’s involvement in the leaking of […]