COSBY ON COMMENCEMENTS
Hyperion has another bestseller hit, with a little bit of help from Oprah. In his Congratulations! Now What? A Book for Graduates, Bill Cosby states that one of his hobbies is giving commencement speeches (he had seven scheduled for this month). Media appearances have included Rosie, Letterman, Today and Regis &Kathie Lee. But a full hour on Oprah (May 13) about the work Cosby and his wife, Camille, do on behalf of education certainly did the bestseller trick.

SOUP'S ON FOR GOLFERS
Health Communications is ready to tackle another niche with its very successful Chicken Soup Series. Published this month is Chicken Soup for the Golfer's Soul, which was launched with a 1-million-copy first printing. Publicity plans include an excerpt of a story by President Bush in Golf Digest as well a taped segment on Today in which Bush and Matt Lauer play golf with the book's co-authors, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jeff Aubery and Mark &Chrissy Donnelly. The authors are in the midst of an 18-city tour that ends on June 21. One story in the book, "The Price of Success," is about another golf book author, the late -- and legendary -- Harvey Penick, whose Little Red Book has sold more than a million copies. Back in the early '90s, Penick had shown his observations about golfing (it spanned about 60 years of his experiences as a golf pro) to a writer acquaintance, Bud Shrake, who then passed the work on to Simon &Schuster. When Shrake called to tell his friend that S&S agreed to a $90,000 advance, Penick told him that with all his medical bills, there was no way he could advance S&S all that money.

URIS AT 74-STILL A CONTENDER
Leon Uris is back on the charts with his 12th novel, A God in Ruins, published by HarperCollins on June 1. First printing is 150,000, and Uris will be doing a TV satellite tour, online promotion and national shows next month. The noted author's track record is impressive -- all of his books are still in print and sales worldwide total more than 150 million copies.

GETTING FATTER ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK
Camryn Manheim has already made it on the small screen, having won an Emmy and Golden Globe for her leading role in the ABC-TV series The Practice. Now she is set on conquering the bestseller charts with her account of growing up fat in a thin-obsessed culture in Wake Up, I'm Fat. First printing from Broadway Books was 85,000, but by the time Manheim finished her nine-city tour, the publisher was back to press four times making it 115,000 copies in print.

MORE BRIGHT LIGHTS FOR BROADWAY
Armchair travelers quickly showed their pleasure with the trade paper edition of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, one of the top-10 nonfiction hardcover sellers in 1998. Broadway has gone back to press four times, bringing its 125,000-copy first printing to the 200,000 level. More than 1000 floor displays were shipped. Right below the hardcover nonfiction bestseller chart is Bryson's new book, I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away (he had been living abroad and recently moved back to the U.S. with his English wife and four children). Broadway's first printing was 75,000 copies; two additional printings bring the total to 100,000.

TIE-IN SUCCESSES
Two movie tie-ins make appearances on the mass market charts this week. Nelson DeMille's The General's Daughter (with a new foreword by the author) lands on the charts with two million copies in print from Warner. The movie, starring John Travolta and Madeleine Stowe, is opening on June 18. Cathleen Schine's The Love Letter was originally published by Signet in 1996. The movie, starring Tom Selleck and Kate Capshaw, was released May 21. The book has 603,000 copies in print.