Book Buzz: What's new on the list and in publishing

USA Today

April 22, 2009 by USA Today

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Score one for Tori Spelling in her "book war" with her mother, Candy; The Da Vinci Code's Dan Brown is bringing Robert Langdon back for a new adventure; and the Pulitzer Prize is doing wonders for Elizabeth Strout and Olive Kitteridge.

A round to Tori: In the long-running feud between actress Tori Spelling and her mother, Candy, Tori has landed a knockout punch when it comes to their dueling new memoirs. Tori's Mommywood pops onto USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list at No. 28. Candy Spelling's offering, Stories from Candyland: Confections from one of Hollywood's Most Famous Wives and Mothers (St. Martin's Press, $25.95), has not made the top 150, despite a publicity blitz. Tori is coming off the success of her memoir sTORI Telling, which made it to No. 16 last August.

'Code' red! Robert Langdon, the indomitable hero of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, will be front and center in Brown's The Lost Symbol, coming in September. That could mean renewed interest in The Da Vinci Code, which has 81 million copies in print. The Da Vinci Code spent 197 weeks in USA TODAY's top 150, 13 of them in the No. 1 spot, from 2003 to 2007. Brown's Angels Demons, which also features symbologist Langdon, is enjoying a resurgence. It's No. 9, thanks to publicity surrounding the May 15 opening of the movie starring Tom Hanks. Angels has spent 197 weeks on the list on and off since 2001, rising as high as No. 2. Brown's Deception Point and Digital Fortress, which, like Code, have fallen off the list, also could benefit from The Lost Symbol hype.

Second life for 'Olive': Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, linked stories about a crusty retired Maine schoolteacher, earned great reviews last year but never cracked USA TODAY's top 400. That's likely to change after it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction Monday. Within hours of the news, the paperback edition soared from No. 1,247 on Amazon's online sales rankings to No. 22, and Random House says it will print 100,000 additional copies. Strout, 53, says "she's thrilled" to be joining "on some level" previous Pulitzer winners "who I seemed to like when I wandered through libraries" while growing up in New England. American Lion, Jon Meacham's Pulitzer-winning biography of Andrew Jackson, reached No. 13 on USA TODAY's list as a hardcover last year. Random House is moving up the paperback (200,000-copy first printing) from June to April 30.

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candy spelling, elizabeth strout, publicity blitz, knockout punch, robert langdon, best selling books, digital fortress, kitteridge, da vinci code, pulitzer prize, tori spelling, usa today, score one, book war, s olive, coming in september, second life, Tom Hanks, Amazon, Dan Brown, deception point

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