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Authors on the Air: Lidia Bastianich, Dennis Lahane
The Today Show today features Lidia Bastianich, author of Nonna Tell Me a Story: Lidia's Christmas Kitchen (Running Press Kids, ISBN 978-0762436927). Back in August, Bastianich, known for her cookbooks and restaurants, talked to Cooking the Books about writing for children.
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Authors on the Air: Buddy Valastro, Jamie Oliver, Rachael Ray
Cake Boss: Stories and Recipes from Mia Famiglia author Buddy Valastro is on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. Free Press published the book earlier this month (ISBN 978-1439183519). PW's review said, "Best known on TLC cable as the Cake Boss, Valastro shares recipes and a sometimes treacly tale of family, tradition, and ambition.... His is the American dream told in flashbacks; like his show, the book plays on charm and the idea that to know Buddy is to like his work. Still, the book offers hard-won baking know-how."
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Authors on the Air: Korda, Oliver, Rushdie
Today, NPR's Talk of the Nation interviews Michael Korda, author of Hero (Harper, ISBN 9780061712616). PW's starred review said, "This magisterial biography of British soldier and adventurer T.E. Lawrence celebrates a life spent subverting authority in the most glamorous--and bizarre--ways.... Korda's vivid portrait of Lawrence and his warring impulses captures the brilliance and charisma of this fascinating figure."
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Overlook Sees Portis Boost from 'True Grit'
The Coen Brothers' forthcoming adaptation of Charles Portis's True Grit has brought the celebrated, if reclusive, author back into the headlines... and onto peoples' bookshelves. Overlook, Portis's publisher, has seen strong sales on its tie-in edition of the book; the indie house went to press for 100,000 copies of the edition and is planning a second printing for before Christmas.
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Authors on the Air: Susan Cheever, Ian Frazier
The Leonard Lopate Show today welcomes Susan Cheever, author of Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography (Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-1416569916). PW's starred review said, "While some may find Cheever's digressions and self-referencing grating, most will savor this work--surely a future book club staple--as keen, refreshing, and authoritative." Also on the show today are John and Patricia Adams, authors of A Force for Nature: The Story of NRDC and Its Fight to Save Our Planet (Chronicle, ISBN 978-0811865357); and Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 978-0374278724).
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Authors on the Air: Sandra Lee, Wes Yoder, Mike Lupica
Domestic diva and shortcut smarty (but not First Lady of New York State) Sandra Lee is on Good Morning America today. Her latest book, Semi-Homemade: The Complete Cookbook (Wiley, ISBN 978-0470874059), came out in October, and this month she releases Semi-Homemade Comfort Food (Wiley, ISBN 978-0470645949).
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Authors on the Air: Danticat, Barry, Silverman, Osmond
Edwidge Danticat is on The Leonard Lopate Show today to discuss her new book, Create Dangerously (Princeton Univ. ISBN 978-0691140186). PW's starred review said, "this lean collection of jaw-breaking horrors side by side with luminous insights... is uneven and inorganic in patches. But in Danticat's many remarkable stories and pensees from the gut, one locates the inimitable power of truth."
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Authors on the Air: George W. Bush, Adriana Trigiani
The Today Show today features former president George W. Bush, whose Decision Points is just out from Crown (ISBN 978-0307590619); Adriana Trigiani, whose latest book is Don't Sing At The Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers (Harper, ISBN 9780061958946), and Julie Andrews Edwards, whose Little Bo in Italy is just out from HarperCollins (ISBN 9780060089085).
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RH Launches Literary Site for Film Buffs
Random House has launched a new marketing site dedicated to books and movies, www.wordandfilm.com. The site, which comes out of the publisher's digital initiatives division is, as the group's director Sheila O'Shea put it, something that "celebrates the intersection of books, movies, and television."
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Authors on the Air: Schiff, Nicholl, Cooper, Hedges
Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra (Little, Brown, ISBN 978-0316001922), is on The Diane Rehm Show today. PW's starred review called the book, "[An] excellent, myth-busting biography.... Schiff enters so completely into the time and place, especially the beauty and luxury of the 'great metropolis' of Alexandria, Cleopatra's capital, describing it in almost cinematic detail. And though we all know the outcome, Schiff's account of Cleopatra's and Antony's desperate efforts to manipulate their triumphant enemy, Octavian, make for tragic, page-turning reading. No one will think of Cleopatra in quite the same way after reading this vivid, provocative book."
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Authors on the Air: Cole, Carter, and Baldacci
Natalie Cole, author of Love Brought Me Back (Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-1451606058), is on The Today Show. PW's review said, "A second memoir (after Angel on My Shoulder) by singer Cole, daughter of legendary Nat King Cole, proves a stunning, uplifting, however brief story of her sudden diagnosis of hepatitis C and her subsequent need for a kidney transplant... Grief battles with spiritual faith and transcendence in Cole's moving personal story."
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Authors on the Air: 'For Colored Girls'; 'Fair Game'
The movie For Colored Girls, starring Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Michael Ealy, Kimberly Elise, and Omari Hardwick, opens today. It is based on the play For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange (Scribner, ISBN 978-1451624205). Also opening today is Fair Game, starring Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, and Noah Emmerich. It is based on Fair Game: How a Top CIA Agent Was Betrayed by Her Own Government by Valerie Plame Wilson (Pocket Star, ISBN 978-1451624045).
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Authors on the Air: Amy Sedaris, David Sedaris
Amy Sedaris, author of Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People (Grand Central, ISBN 978-0446557030) is on The Leonard Lopate Show today, along with James Kakalios, author of The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics: A Math-Free Exploration of the Science that Made Our World (Gotham, ISBN 978-1592404797) and Kathy Reichs, whose latest YA novel, Virals, is just our from Razorbill (ISBN 978-1595143426).
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Authors on the Air: Lawson, Dunham, Chiarello
The Today Show interviews Nigella Lawson, whose latest cookbook is Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home (Hyperion, 978-1401323950). Check out a review of the book's recipe for Tomato Curry with Coconut Rice from Cooking the Books here.
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Authors on the Air: Flay, Lewis, Poliafito, Lawson
The Early Show today features Bobby Flay's Throwdown!: More Than 100 Recipes from Food Network's Ultimate Cooking Challenge by Bobby Flay (Clarkson Potter, ISBN 978-0307719164). PW's review said, "This companion volume is one part recap and one part cookbook. For true fans of the show, Flay recounts each episode in his trademark cocky prose ("I heat things up with Jamaican jerk jockey Nigel Spence") and in doing so provides a tasty travelogue of eateries, from Asian dumplings at the Good Fork in Brooklyn, N.Y., to chile cheeseburgers at the Buckhorn Tavern in San Antonio, Tex."
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Authors on the Air: Seinfeld, Lawson, Armstrong
Jessica Seinfeld is on Good Morning America today with tips from her new book, Double Delicious!: Good, Simple Food for Busy, Complicated Lives (Morrow, ISBN 978-0061659331). In an interview with Cooking the Books back in July, Seinfeld talked about why she wanted to write another book, and why parents shouldn't feel bad about slipping cauliflower into their kids' egg salad.
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Authors on the Air: 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest,' Edwidge Danticat
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest opens today, based on the blockbuster novel by Stieg Larsson (Knopf, ISBN 978-0307269997). The film has been getting mixed reviews: Metro Times in Detroit called it a "dark and glacially paced way to wrap up a trilogy," and the Chicago Tribune said, "It's a rather wobbly blend of courtroom drama and loose ends tied, albeit rather leisurely."
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Authors on the Air: The Von Trapps, Michael Caine
Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, and Oprah are a few of our favorite things, and they converge today when The Sound of Music cast reunites on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Books on those crazy singing Von Trapps abound, including The Sound of Music Companion by Laurence Maslon (Fireside, ISBN 978-1416549543); The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta Trapp (Harper Paperbacks, ISBN 9780060005771); and Memories Before and After the Sound of Music by Agathe von Trapp (Harper Paperbacks, ISBN 9780061998812).
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Authors on the Air: Apolo Ohno, Ming Tsai
The Today Show talks to Apolo Anton Ohno, whose Zero Regrets is just out from Atria (ISBN 978-1451609066 ); Ming Tsai, author of the forthcoming Simply Ming One-Pot Meals: Quick, Healthy & Affordable Recipes (Kyle Books, ISBN 978-1906868369); and Kim Barnouin, the nice person behind Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook: Crazy Delicious Recipes that Are Good to the Earth and Great for Your Bod (Running Press, ISBN 978-0762439379).
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Authors on the Air: Ina Garten, Kelly Valen, 4TROOPS
Ina Garten is on The Today Show today for her newest book, Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That (Clarkson Potter, ISBN 978-0307238764). Garten talked to Cooking the Books back in August, and PW's review of her book noted, "True to her trademark style, Garten once again shows that delicious food can be prepared with a minimum of fuss, even with guests on the way."