Houghton Scores a Double
by Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 10/11/2004
With a major new fiction arrival last week and a nonfiction newbie today, Houghton Mifflin is sitting pretty on PW's lists. A new Philip Roth novel is always a publishing event, but The Plot Against America has generated bigger buzz than usual for this noted author—no doubt due in part to the book's premise (Lindbergh defeats FDR for the presidency in 1940). With some 1,000 galleys scooped up at BEA, favorable comments began almost overnight. Just as books were shipping, an essay by Roth in the September 19 New York Times Book Review created an immediate demand, further fueled by a September 26 front-page piece in the paper's Arts & Leisure section. A front-page review ran in the October 3 NYTBR—the issue that launched that section's redesign. Major reviews and/or interviews have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, People, USA Today, etc.; broadcast interviews have included All Things Considered (interspersed with Lindbergh's actual speeches), Fresh Air and, airing later this month, Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen. HM reports 250,000 copies after four trips to press.
And again with 250,000—that was the first printing for quite the culinary coup, HM's The Gourmet Cookbook, which went on sale September 28. (As we went to press, HM announced an additional printing of 50,000). The mammoth tome (nearly 1,100 pages, more than 1,000 recipes) was edited by celebrated foodie/author Ruth Reichl, working closely with Gourmet executive editor John Willoughby and executive food editor Zanne Stewart. Here, too, buzz began at BEA, with a dinner for the threesome; they were feted again at a gala pub-date "do" at Gourmet's test kitchens in Times Square. Media hits for the trio—who have been on the PR trail big time, both separately and in groups—have included Today and Fresh Air. A nine-city tour for Reichl kicked off September 29; meanwhile, Stewart was on a TV satellite tour and Willoughby was being interviewed by radio stations across the country. As with Roth, reviews and print features have been extensive, with national advertising and publicity set to continue through the holiday season.
