A Topping Timeline
Michael Crichton's latest bestseller, Timeline, hits the top of the PW chart after just a few days on sale. Knopf's first printing was 1.5 million copies. On most other national lists, it takes the #3 or #4 slot, right after the record-breaking Harry Potter books, which continue to dominate charts that combine adult and children's titles. A TV satellite tour and major features in large and small newspapers and in national newsweeklies are part of the media blitz.
Recipes for Success
Emeril, Julia and Jacques are all stirring up the numbers right below the top 15 nonfiction hardcover top sellers, boding very well for even bigger sales during the holiday rush. The three bestselling chefs -- we all know them by their first names -- will all be very visible on TV during this busy season, advising home cooks all over the country on how to serve up the savories that make their books so popular. On Rosie O'Donnell two days before Thanksgiving, Julia Child showed the hostess how to make the perfect turkey. Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin is the companion volume to their eponymous PBS series. Both chefs are on the road promoting the book and are drawing crowds of 500 to 800 at every stop. Knopf has 252,000 copies in print of the $40 hardcover. Emeril Lagasse's Every Day's a Party: Louisiana Recipes for Celebrating with Family and Friends is also percolating right below the top 15. His stint as food correspondent for ABC's Good Morning America and his very successful Food Network programs provide the TV exposure that makes sales sizzle. Being voted one of the "25 Sexiest Men Alive" in a recent People magazine poll d sn't hurt, either. Morrow reports there are now 400,000 copies in print. Earlier in the year, we noted that four of Emeril's books -- Emeril's TV dinners, Emeril's Creole Christmas, Louisiana Real & Rustic and Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking -- have a combined in-print total of more than one million copies.
The Hinges of Fortune
Thomas Cahill's third book in his Hinges of History series, Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus, seems to be following in the bestselling footsteps of How the Irish Saved Civilization and The Gifts of the Jews. It, too, would be among the new nonfiction bestsellers if our list stretched to 20 slots. Doubleday has 240,640 copies in print of the new book and plans a 15-city publicity tour that kicks off in late January, going through the end of February.
A Father's Pride
Dava Sobel scores another hit for Walker & Co. with Galileo's Daughter. Rave reviews, including a starred one in PW, got the buzz going so quickly that the publisher jumped pub date by three weeks. Walker has 135,000 copies in print after three trips to press and is particularly proud that the book has hit the #1 spot on the Independent Bestseller list.
Internationally Speaking
A quick look at current bestseller charts outside the U.S. reveals that Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune is among the top 10 in more countries than any other book, fiction or nonfiction. It is the #1 bestseller in Germany and Italy, #2 in South Africa, #3 in Argentina and #7 in Holland. Other books making multiple appearances on the international charts, according to the November Publishing Trends newsletter (published by Market Partners International), are James Patterson's Pop Goes the Weasel (#1 in Australia and #9 in the U.K., South Africa and Canada) and Elizabeth George's In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (#2 in Holland, #4 in Germany and #6 in France).
