New to the Bestseller Lists

NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers | USA Today Best-Selling Books

Twisted by Helen Hardt (Waterhouse)
Debuts at #2 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

The Wanted by Robert Crais (Putnam; LJ stars)
Debuts at #9 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list and at #5 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Fire and Fury

President Trump sought yesterday afternoon to stop the publication of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Holt). In response to the legal actions, the publisher, reports the NYT, “defied [the] demand to halt [the book’s] release and instead moved up its publication to Friday because of soaring interest.” The book will hit shelves today, rather than going on sale Jan. 9 as originally planned. In a statement, Holt says, “We see Fire and Fury as an extraordinary contribution to our national discourse, and are proceeding with the publication of the book.”

All the coverage is indeed driving interest. The book is currently #1 on Amazon and library holds are growing too, topping 12:1 ratios. Due to the embargo and resulting lack of reviews, many libraries bought low or not at all and are now adding orders. As a mark of demand, in at least one bookstore in Washington D.C., where the book went on sale at midnight, it sold out in 20 minutes.

The NYT offers a report of the author, writing that he has been “a prime piranha in the Manhattan media pond…. His arsenic-laced prose was well known among powerful figures…. But his nose for first-class gossip kept the machers circling.” They also report, as other news outlets have done in the last 24 hours, that “critics have raised questions about the veracity of his reporting, saying that he has a history of being casual with his facts.” Yesterday, Wolff, who was given unprecedented access to the White House, stated he had tapes to back up his reporting. He was on the Today show this morning; expect more interviews to come.

From a First Amendment stance, PEN America issued a statement: “The President’s attempt to halt publication of a book because of its content is flagrantly unconstitutional. President Trump’s threats represent a brazen attempt at imposing unlawful prior restraint, a form of censorship repeatedly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court…. The President should immediately withdraw and repudiate this outrageous demand, allowing the American people to render their own judgment of the book.”

Briefly Noted

USA Today releases the 100 top selling books of the year, based on its Best-Selling Books list. Wonder by R.J. Palacio (Knopf) leads the pack, due, as the paper points out, to the fact that film adaptations help push books. Social media does too; Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur is #2. Big names sell books as well; Origin by Dan Brown is #3.

The Washington Post interviews Daniel H. Pink, author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing (Riverhead).

The NYT looks at Continental Fiction, Malt Shop novels, and The Alienist adaptation. They also offer some late reviews: of “the powerful debut” The Floating World by C. Morgan Babst (Algonquin); Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How “The Graduate” Became the Touchstone of a Generation by Beverly Gray (Algonquin; LJ stars), writing it is “a puzzling project;” Three Floors Up by Eshkol Nevo, translated by Sondra Silverston (Other Pr.), a collection of linked novellas, one of which the paper calls “mesmerizing;” and Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (Soho; LJ stars), deeming it “stylistically daring.”

Entertainment Weekly reports that the final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones will not air until 2019; a specific date has yet to be released. In related news, USA Today reports that an adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s “1980 sci-fi novella Nightflyers” will air on the Syfy channel. A premiere date has not been announced but tie-in editions are set for May/June 2018.

Author Aharon Appelfeld has died. Badenheim 1939, reports the NYT, is his most famous novel.

Public library programming makes the NYT.

CLICK HERE to receive daily Book Pulse alerts in your inbox