IRISH EYES ARE SMILING

Thirteen is proving to be a very lucky number for Dubliner Maeve Binchy -- Oprah has chosen her 13th novel, Tara Road, as the 26th (that's 2x13) Oprah Book Club Pick. As the 25 books chosen over the last three years attest, Delacorte and Binchy can expect a strong bestseller run; all 25 picks have landed in one of the top three spots on the national lists within a week or so after Oprah's announcement and all have enjoyed a double-digit tenure on the charts. In Binchy's case, Tara Road has already had a 13-week run on PW's fiction list after its March 1999 publication, and has gone as high as #2; it also received a starred PW review (as have almost all of Oprah's selections). Pre-Oprah, Tara Road had 310,000 copies in print after 11 trips to press. Now Delacorte has gone back to press for 700,000 more copies in anticipation of the Oprah effect. The publisher also believes that this is the first time Oprah has chosen an established, nationally bestselling book within the year of its publication. The Oprah folk are planning a trip to Dublin to spend some time with Binchy and to do background taping for the book club program featuring Binchy set to air next month. Oprah's program has remained the #1 talk show for 13 consecutive seasons, winning every sweep since its debut in 1986. The show is syndicated to 206 domestic markets and 119 countries.

WARNER TOPPERS

Sandra Brown lands in the #2 fiction slot this week with her new hardcover, The Alibi (it will be #1 on the New York Times list September 19), and James Patterson's When the Wind Blows hits our mass market list in the #1 spot its first week out. Not a bad start for the fall season at Warner.

Brown's latest bestseller has 506,000 copies in print after three trips to press. The author now boasts 38 national bestsellers in nine years, with more than 50 million copies, in 29 languages, of her books in print. According to Warner, each of Brown's hardcovers outsells the previous one. Good news for all, as her contract for three books back in 1997 was reported at $10 million.

Patterson, too, has enjoyed increasing sales with each book. When the Wind Blows shipped more than 650,000 copies in its Little, Brown hardcover edition, and the Warner paperback has a 1,733,000 first printing. Warner is also repackaging and redistributing Patterson's backlist.

BANTAM'S TWO REASONS TO CROW

Two new Bantam hardcover novels lands on the fiction charts this week amid the top 10 slots. In the #5 position is Elizabeth George's In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner, the author's 10th novel and fastest out of the gate, according to her publishers. There are 200,000 copies in print after four trips to press, taking her total U.S. print figure to more than 6.3 million.

For Iris Johansen, author of more than 60 books, her latest bestseller, The Killing Game, is a special thrill. It's the author's first hardcover, and it follows four consecutive million-copy PW paperback bestsellers -- The Ugly Duckling, Long After Midnight, And Then You Die and The Face of Deception. The hardcover has 135,000 copies in print after five trips to press. The Atlanta-based writer is busy working on her next suspense novel, in which two secondary characters from The Killing Game take the lead. Plans are for a summer 2000 publication.

ANOTHER WINNING CARD

Orson Scott Card made science fiction history when he won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel two years in a row, back in 1986 and 1987, for Ender's Game and its sequel, Speaker for the Dead. Now the newest Tor addition to the Ender Cycle, Ender's Shadow, hits the charts with 125,000 copies in print after four trips to press. Scott is currently on a 19-city tour promoting the book.