Lots of Sleepers Culled from the Bestseller Data, Plus National Ads for 76 Picks on Stands Now

By Carl Lennertz

Here's an update on books to watch, thanks to the almost 400 stores who reported last week! Are you one of the stores contributing to that wealth of knowledge?

Hardcover Fiction:

#25 Dancer, by Colum McCann (Metropolitan, $26, 0805067922) -- 76 Pick
#27 A Box of Matches, by Nicholson Baker (Random House, $19.95, 0375502874) -- 76 Pick
#28 Small Town, by Lawrence Block (William Morrow, $24.95, 0060011904)
#38 Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing, by Coleman Barks (HarperSanFrancisco, $21.95, 0060523166)
#39 Isn't It Romantic?: An Entertainment, by Ron Hansen (HarperCollins, $17.95, 0060517662)
#57 Jennifer Government, by Max Barry (Doubleday, $19.95, 0385507593)

Hardcover Nonfiction:

#27 Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed is Undermining America, by Arianna Huffington (Crown, $22, 1400047714)
#33 The Threatening Storm, by Kenneth M. Pollack (Random House, $25.95, 0375509283)
#38 Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Human Brain, by Antonio Damasio (Harcourt, $28, 0151005575)
#43 Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies From Our Imprisoned Sisters, by Wally Lamb (ReganBooks, $24.95, 006053429X)
#55 Color: A Natural History of the Palette, by Victoria Finlay (Ballantine, $24.95, 0345444302)

Trade Paper Fiction:

#25 Boonville, by Robert Mailer Anderson (Perennial, $12.95, 0060516216)
#28 Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in 12 Fish, by Richard Flanagan (Grove, $14, 0802139590) -- 76 Pick
#52 Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, by Ruth Rendell (Vintage, $13, 1400031184) -- wonderful psychological thriller, creepy even!
#46 The Hard Questions: 100 Questions to Ask Before You Say "I Do," by Susan Piver (J.P. Tarcher, $10, 1585420042)

Children's Fiction:

#18 Time Stops for No Mouse, by Michael Hoeye (Puffin, $7.99, 0698119916) -- 76 Pick
#30 A Step from Heaven, by An Na (Speak, $7.99, 0142500275) -- 76 Pick in cloth, and now a Top Ten Teen Pick in paper!

Please check stock and display in support of the publishers who made these national ads possible:

In The New Yorker, these January/February Top Ten picks:

• January 20 issue -- The Passion of Artemisia, by Susan Vreeland (Penguin, $13 paper, 0142001821)
  
• January 27 issue -- Samaritan, by Richard Price (Knopf, $25, 0375411151)
  

In the January/February Atlantic Monthly, this January/February Top Ten pick:

• Old Flames, by John Lawton (Atlantic, $24, 0871138646)
  

76 Mentions in Publisher's Own Ads

• The Sunday February 9 New York Times Book Review -- Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish, by Richard Flanagan (Grove, $14, 0802139590)
  
• And a Top Ten 76 mention has, and is continuing to, run in many large ads for this bestseller: Forever: A Novel, by Pete Hamill (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316341118)

Thank you!

Carl
carl@booksense.com