Kundera a Hit at Home

More than 20 years after Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being was released in the U.S., the Czech publishing house Atlantis has published the first Kundera-approved edition in the Czech Republic. The title immediately jumped to the top of the country's fiction bestseller lists in November. The runner-up, Petr Sabach's Identity Card, is also set in Prague and uses the Prague Spring of 1968 as a backdrop for his story. While the first four nonfiction titles topping the Czech list are a mix of the usual subjects, the #5 title is a bit of a surprise—The Might and the Almighty by Prague-born Madeline Albright; Almighty was published in the U.S. this spring by HarperCollins.

The top three titles on the French nonfiction list were new in November and, in order, touch on three topics of great importance to the country: wine, the environment and the future. Winning the most prestigious French literary prize last month, the Prix Goncourt, kept Jonathan Littell's The Benevolent Ones on top of the fiction charts, fending off several newcomers, including the latest holiday mystery from Mary and Carol Higgins Clark, Santa Cruise.

Paulo Coelho's newest, The Witch of Portobello, didn't make the top three spots in Spain, debuting at #4 last month. HarperCollins will publish Portobello in the U.S. next spring.

International Bestsellers