PW: Behind the Bestsellers

It's Miller Time at Oprah
Sue Miller's bestseller While I Was Gone is the latest novel to be Oprahized. Last Friday (May 26), Oprah chose the book as her #34 on-air club title, thus guaranteeing huge sales for the already successful work. Since its first appearance on our trade paper list on March 6, Miller's novel has been on the charts for 10 weeks and was right below the top 15 in the last two. The Knopf hardcover had a 150,000-copy first printing and was on PW's 1999 hardcover list for three weeks. Ballantine's first printing was 67,000, and before the Oprah announcement, the book had 235,000 copies in print after eight trips to press. The publisher is planning an additional 750,000-copy printing to meet the post-Oprah demand. While I Was Gone got a starred review back in November 1998; we noted that the narrative "is a beautifully textured picture of the psychological tug of war between finding integrity as an individual and satisfying the demands of spouse, children and community."

Scoring a Literary Double
Two Houghton Mifflin titles currently garnering critical acclaim (and spots on several bestseller lists) are by authors of very different reputations--think old school and new school. With The Human Stain, Philip Roth concludes his trilogy of postwar American lives that began in 1997 with the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral and continued with I Married a Communist. This distinguished author's 24th novel was published May 10; copies in print after two trips back to press: 90,000. In a boxed, starred review, PW noted that Roth "is working at the peak of his imaginative powers." Press coverage and review attention have been extensive, said HM publicity v-p Lori Glazer; "Just this week we have lead reviews in Entertainment Weekly, New York magazine and People." Features and reviews have also appeared in Esquire, George, the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, Newsweek the New York Times, etc.

The buzz about Jhumpa Lahiri started practically the minute Houghton published her first book, Interpreter of Maladies: Stories as a Mariner original in June 1999. "Right off the bat," said Glazer, "the response from all quarters was so enthusiastic that we knew we were onto something special." Not only did the 32-year-old win the Pulitzer Prize, but she's also racked up the following: the PEN Hemingway Foundation Award, New Yorker magazine's Best Debut of the Year, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award. Since the Pulitzer announcement, Lahiri has been interviewed by Time, EW, the New York Times, the Associated Press, Charlie Rose and Jim Lehrer. The publisher reports 165,000 copies in print after eight printings.

Best-Case Scenario
Hitting the national bestseller charts (#7 on PW's list this week) is the best-case scenario for The Worst-Case Scenario Handbook by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht. Apparently, there are lots of people interested in getting solid information from experts on what to do in a crisis--if your parachute d sn't open, for example, or you're trapped in quicksand. Chronicle Books has gone back to press eight times in the last five months, for a total of 381,500 copies. The authors have been getting a lot of attention in the last few weeks, with media appearances and interviews on 20/20, Today, National Enquirer TV as well as Time, USA Today, the New Yorker, People and Entertainment Weekly.

Good Bank Hunting
Melissa Bank is scoring very well with her trade paper edition of The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing. To date, the Penguin edition has 300,000 copies in print after three trips to press and is riding high on chain and independent bestseller lists. Bank's book was one of the more successful Bridget Jones clones; the Viking hardcover edition has 270,000 copies in print after 21 trips to press. Bank has just completed a 15-city tour and will do limited publicity in June, including an appearance at the Cleveland Plain Dealer Book and Author event on June 20. Highlights from her tour included the Detroit News Book and Author luncheon, which drew an audience of about 1300 people. She is also featured in the June issue of Harper's Bazaar and has written upcoming pieces for Allure and Rolling Stone.

With reporting by Dick Donahue.
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