| New York Times bestsellers | | Posted Thursday, October 12, 2006 2:20:06 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | 1. The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. (Atria, $26.) A biographer struggles to discover the truth about an aging writer.2. The Book of Fate, by Brad Meltzer. (Warner, $25.99.) The apparent murder of a presidential aide reveals Masonic secrets in Washington and a code invented by Thomas Jefferson.3. The Mission Song, by John le Carré. (Little, Brown, $26.99.) An English translator, born in Congo, is sent by British intelligence to work for a syndicate that wants to subvert Congolese elections.4. Rise and Shine, by Anna Quindlen. (Random House, $24.95.) The lives of two sisters, one the host of a TV show and the other a social worker.5. Judge & Jury, by James Patterson and Andrew Gross. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) An aspiring actress and an FBI agent join forces against a mobster.6.... | |
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| | | The Making of a Bestseller: Success Stories from Authors and the Editors, Agents, and Booksellers Behind Them | | Posted Monday, September 11, 2006 11:41:33 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | According to Bowker, there are over 150,000 books published in the U.S. every year. Less than 1 percent of the books published make the bestseller list. People are fascinated by bestselling authors who have become every bit as much celebrities as rock musicians or film stars. Through some mysterious process, these individuals take blank pages and turn them into gold. And many authors do this over and over again. For authors, earning a spot on the bestseller list is the grand, often elusive prize at the end of many years of work. But what makes a bestseller happen? Brian Hill and Dee Power interviewed over 50 successful authors, publishers, editors, agents, book reviewers, and other experts to find the answer. The Making of a Bestseller: Success Stories from Authors and the Editors, Agents, and Booksellers Behind Them presents a comprehensive look at the publishing process from start to finish. Authors and would-be authors, individuals in the publishing industry, and passionate readers will learn: * How bestselling authors approach the craft of writing and marketing their books.* The many different paths authors take to the top of the list. * The impact a first bestseller makes on an author's life. * The workings of the selection process, from the query letter to the decision to publish. * How publishers know a book has bestseller potential. * The agent's role in helping create a bestseller. * Factors and events that influence whether a book makes the bestseller list, including TV "reading book clubs," the review process, publicity, marketing programs, and timing. * How Hollywood impacts the reading public. To provide a broad spectrum of experience, interviews are included with authors of nonfiction and fiction, as well as first-time novelists to serial bestsellers. In addition, avid readers will find fascinating stories behind some of their favorite authors' works.... | |
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| | | Da Vinci Code Decoded: The Truth Behind the New York Times #1 Bestseller | | Posted Thursday, September 07, 2006 9:41:37 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Da Vinci Code is a modern-day publishing phenomenon. With millions of copies in print, it is the most popular adult novel of the 21st Century. In an introductory note, author Dan Brown tells us that "all descriptions of documents and secret rituals . . . are accurate." But are they? Many scholars and theologians have attacked the book and the "facts" on which it is based. Some claim that Brown is anti-Catholic. Book clubs, reading groups, dedicated web-sites and countless reviews and articles in magazines and newspapers worldwide have fueled the fire, making Da Vinci Code not only the most successful book of its kind ever, but also the most controversial.Now Martin Lunn, an expert historian, reveals the truth behind Dan Brown's research. The reality of Catholic offshoot Opus Dei . . . the hard facts about the bloodline of Christ and King David . . . the origins of the Knights Templar and the infamous Priory of Sion . . . the secrets of Temple Church and Rosslyn Cathedral . . . the real Sauniere . . . the mysteries of Rennes-le-Chateau and much more.Da Vinci Code Decoded also provides an exhaustive tour of the locations visited by the novel's characters: The Louvre Museum, l'Eglise de Saint-Sulpice and Rue Haxo in Paris; Chateau Villette; Temple Church; Westminster Abbey; Newton's tomb; Chapter House; St. Faith's Chapel; Rosslyn Chapel and many others.Martin Lunn is a recognized expert in the Davidic bloodline and other issues presented in Da Vinci Code. He has a masters degree in history and an extensive background in journalism. He has lived throughout the Far and Middle East, the US and several countries in Europe, currently residing in Barcelona. He is also Grand Master of the Dragon Society, founded originally in 1408 by King Sigismund of Hungary.... | |
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| | | Conspiracy in Death | | Posted Saturday, September 02, 2006 1:41:51 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | J.D. Robb presents a gripping new novel that blends futuristic cop thriller with romantic suspense. A killer plays God-and puts Innocent lives int he palm of his hand. With the precision of a surgeon, a serial killer preys on the most vulnerable souls of the world's city streets. Just a lazer perfect fist size hole where his heart had once been. Lieutenant Eve Dallas is assigned to investigate. But in the heat of the cat-and-mouse game with the killer, Dallas' job is suddenly on the line. Now her hands are tied...between a struggle for justice---and a fight for her career. "This is sexy, gritty, righly imagined suspense."--Publishers Weekly... | |
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| | | The Assistant (G K Hall Large Print Perennial Bestseller Collection) | | Posted Tuesday, August 29, 2006 11:41:44 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | A true American classic, Bernard Malamud's THE ASSISTANT is acknowledged as one of the award-wiing author's greatest works. In a novel distinguished by unparalleled emotional power and authenticity, Malamud draws a penniless Italian-American drifter with a troubled conscience an a violent personal history into the world of a Jewish grocer struggling to eke out a living in a crumbling Brooklyn neighborhood. In the despair--and ultimately in the love--of the grocer's beautiful but unfulfilled daughter, Frank Alpine finds the motivation to confront his past and seek his own redemption, even if it costs him everthing he has gained.... | |
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| | | Fictional Feminism: How American Bestsellers Affect the Movement for Women's Equality | | Posted Friday, August 25, 2006 9:41:35 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | This book focuses on the ways in which second-wave feminism has been represented in American popular culture, and on the effects that these representations have had on feminism as a political movement. Kim Loudermilk provides close readings of four best-selling novels and their film adaptations. According to Loudermilk, each of these novels contains explicitly feminist characters and themes, yet each presents a curiously ambivalent picture of feminism; these texts at once take feminism seriously and subtly undercut its most central tenets. This book argues that these texts create a kind of "fictional feminism" that recuperates feminism's radical potential, thereby lessening the threat it presents to the status quo.... | |
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| | | Lovers All Untrue | | Posted Tuesday, August 22, 2006 7:41:42 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Norah Lofts, renowned as a bestselling novelist and storyteller, shows in this novel that she possesses a remarkable talent for suspense. Here is the romantic chiller at its finest, a stunning and engrossing work full of terrifying twists and suprises, quite literally from the first page to the last sentence. A Fawcett Crest book.... | |
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| | | The Third Millennium: The Classic Christian Fiction Bestseller | | Posted Friday, August 18, 2006 3:41:35 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Apocalyptic suspense, political intrigue, and blood-chilling spiritual warfare merge in Paul Meier's classic Christian fiction novel, The Third Millennium. This top-selling supernatural thriller from years past takes readers on a terrifying journey where last-day prophecies unfold while good and evil clash over the fate of the world. The Third Millennium is narrated by Michael, guardian angel to the Feinberg family. Facing angels, demons, and natural disasters of unprecedented magnitude, this family's faith is stretched to the breaking point as they struggle to survive the most harrowing time in the history of humanity. ... | |
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| | | China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids and Bestsellers Are Transforming a Culture | | Posted Monday, August 14, 2006 9:41:33 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | China Pop is a highly original and lively look at the ways that contemporary China is changing. Jianying Zha, hailed by The Nation as "incisive, witty and eloquent all at once," examines a wide range of developments largely unknown to Western readers: the careful planning of television soap operas to placate popular unrest after Tiananmen, the growth of the sex tabloid and pornography industries, and the politics of censorship and commercial success of the film directors Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) and Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern). ... | |
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| | | From Book Idea to Bestseller: What You Absolutely, Positively Must Know to Make Your Book a Success | | Posted Friday, August 11, 2006 7:41:33 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | From Book Idea to Bestseller is a very good soup-to-nuts guide for embarking on, and maintaining, a career as an author of non-fiction books. Michael Snell is an agent and writer, and Kim and Sunny Baker have authored nearly two dozen books between them. Here they share step-by-step information on creating book proposals, "cross-marketing," finding additional opportunities in ancillary markets (CD-ROMs, lectures, consulting, etc.), and developing a long-range "career" plan. Some of this information will apply to pragmatic fiction writers, too. And as for getting off your duff, one of the authors profiled herein published her first work at 12.... | |
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