OPRAH TURNS 28

Does this item have a certain ring of familiarity? Last Wednesday, Oprah Winfrey created yet another bestseller, when she announced Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay as the 28th selection of her on-air book club. With its searing portrait of the Midwest's dark side, the novel was greeted with huzzahs such as "brilliant"; "sweet, tender, and chilling"; and "one of the best books of the year" upon its original publication in 1994. Avon's trade paperback edition appeared in 1998, and had about 18,000 copies in print before its Oprahization. The publisher has just reprinted 750,000 copies, said publicity director Joan Schulhafer, who added that within 10 minutes of Oprah's announcement, the book went from an Amazon.com sales ranking of approximately 2200 to 120 -- and to no one's surprise, its rank on the site is now #1. In a nice bit of serendipity, Schulhafer remarked that the book's audio version had been signed as a HarperAudio -- now, of course, "it's all together in one place, and we're delighted it's worked out this way." Three earlier Ansay titles are available from Avon as well: Sister, River Angel and an intriguingly titled story collection, Read This and Tell Me What It Says. The author's latest, Midnight Champagne, was published by Morrow in June. Hear that, Oprah?

NEW AND BLUE AT NORTON

Norton scores a double play on our charts this week, as The New New Thing debuts on the nonfiction list and Blue at the Mizzen climbs to #11 from its #15 debut last week. Billed as "A Silicon Valley Story," by author Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker), Thing was published on October 25 with an initial print run of more than 250,000. Even before publication, the book got a huge first serial boost from the New York Times Magazine, where it appeared as the October 10 cover story. Fitting its theme, Lewis's latest got a bicoastal launch, with major events at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley and at Bloomberg News in New York City, where the guest list included Tom Wolfe. Lewis is on a whirlwind 17-city tour, and has been interviewed by all the usual suspects -- and then some. "Praise has been fantastic," reported Norton publicity director Louise Brockett, who cited the Wall Street Journal's notice that Lewis's prose "ranges from the beautiful to the witty to the breathtaking."

Blue at the Mizzen is the 20th book in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/ Maturin series of maritime adventure novels; it was published November 1 with a 100,000+ first printing. O'Brian will be hitting the publicity trail this week in New York City; events include an onstage interview today with Walter Cronkite at the New York Public Library, a Barnes & Noble reading, a tribute by the New York Yacht Club, and more. By popular demand, Brockett noted, C-Span will tape the Cronkite interview. Even though O'Brian's genre d sn't fit its usual public affairs format, she said that the station received more than 150 phone calls from the author's fans across the country, who "implored C-Span to tape the event."

POKEY IS AS POKEY D S

"Pokemania" has officially taken the book world by storm. Of Borders' top 100 children's titles for October, 23 of them were Pokémon books. Golden Books shipped its first Pokémon title on August 15; with 20 titles in print, they have a collective in-print total of more than 26 million copies. "They're being printed continuously now, instead of in batches," said Greg Rosen, Pokémon brand manager at Golden, "because demand has been so great." He adds that the Pokémon books "have opened up nontraditional retail outlets for us," such as movie theaters, video stores and the Warner Brothers Studios stores. Scholastic has nine Pokémon titles in print, for a combined total of seven million copies sold. According to Michael Jacobs, v-p of trade at Scholastic, "We had the right property at the right time. With first the Game Boy game, then the TV show and now the movie, Pokémon shows every sign of staying hot through Christmas and beyond."

With reporting by Dick Donahue and Diane Roback.