In his latest career incarnation, newscaster Tom Brokaw recently added a third bestseller to his impressive literary track record. The Greatest Generation, published by Random House in 1998, spent 69 weeks on our list and has just over two million copies in print; its Delta trade paper edition debuts this week in the #9 position with a 400,000-copy first printing. The follow-up volume, The Greatest Generation Speaks (also from RH), enjoyed a nine-week run on our list at the close of 1999. Now An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generation is marking its second week on our charts; published by RH on May 8, that tome is already at 500,000 copies in print. Not surprisingly, Brokaw's been all over the networks, chatting with Katie Couric, Imus, Larry King, Regis, Letterman, Conan O'Brien, etc. He's also done an AOL chat, a radio satellite tour and a print teleconference. An additional sales boost is bound to occur after this Memorial Day weekend, when NBC and the National Geographic channel are airing Pearl Harbor specials; that's in addition to this Friday's opening of the much-ballyhooed film Pearl Harbor. (The Hyperion mass market tie-in hits #11 on our list.)
With reporting by Dick Donahue.
