DALAI'S GOIN' STRONG

The Dalai Lama's visit to the U.S. -- beginning with a four-day visit in New York City, August 11-15 -- dovetailed perfectly with Riverhead's August 2 publication ofEthics for the New Millennium. His Holiness's New York itinerary included three days of sold-out teachings at the Beacon Theater, capped by a public talk in Central Park on August 15. (News reports put the attendance figure over 40,000.) Prior to his U.S. visit, Riverhead sent Newsweek religion editor Ken Woodward to India to interview the Dalai Lama for a four-page feature that hit the newsstands August 9. During the Dalai Lama's New York stay, interviews were conducted with the New York Times, People and the Associated Press, as well as a taping of the Charlie Rose Show that aired just before the Central Park appearance. On August 13, His Holiness also did his first online chat, on AOL. A starred PW review of his book, which debuts at #14 on our nonfiction list, praised its forceful views" and "personal flavor not seen in his books since his [1990] autobiography, Freedom in Exile." The publisher reports 108,000 copies in print after six trips to press.

DIANA REDUX

"If you're going to read one Diana book, this should be it." So said Newsweek in its August 23 review of Diana in Search of Herself, published by Times Books on August 24 -- one week before the second anniversary of Diana's death. Subtitled Portrait of a Troubled Princess, Sally Bedell Smith's account attempts, said Times publicity director Mary Beth Roche, "to sift through all the information and get a fix on who this enormously complicated woman really was." And Newsweek added that Smith "has done a remarkable job" in producing her "intelligent, evenhanded analysis." Roche notes that, following a 60,000-copy first printing, the book went back to press four times, bringing the total to 115,000. The barrage of publicity began early this month with an item in Liz Smith's nationally syndicated column, a New York Daily News cover story and a feature on NBC's Access Hollywood. A People cover story, an AOL feature and author profiles in W and Vanity Fair fueled the promotional flames -- and that was just the kindling. A five-person panel (including author Smith) discussed the book for the full hour of last Wednesday's Larry King Live, and Smith has appeared on CBS This Morning and Today. TV and radio satellite tours are set for next month, as are online chats with Smith. Clearly, the public's fascination with this tragic figure has not yet dimmed.

COONTS CONQUERS CUBA

St. Martin's launched Stephen Coonts's seventh national bestseller, Cuba, with a 250,000-copy first printing, national radio ads and airport dioramas. Former naval aviator Coonts has made his many fans happy -- his latest contemporary military action thriller brings back the popular Rear Admiral Jake Grafton to save the U.S. from a, you guessed it, Cuban missile crisis. Tour cities include New York, D.C., Miami and Atlanta. The author hit the bestseller charts with his first book in 1986, Flight of the Intruder and to date there are more than 15 million copies of his books in print worldwide.

A MINI LONDON HIT

Running Press is very excited about the latest success for its Running Press Miniature Editions. The series landed two books on the London Sunday Times list during these summer months -- Star Wars Episode 1: Who's Who and Star Wars Episode 1: What's What. Copies in print of the two books combined total more than one million. Another Miniature book, Tarot, (100,000 copies in print), made it onto the Melbourne Age chart. The publisher boasts that since it launched the miniature book line in 1989, it has sold more than 29 million copies of 166 titles and 14 book-plus products worldwide.

With reporting by Dick Donahue.