Hot books - 2010/03/14

Is it just me or are the Americans obsessed with food and politics titles?!

Sunday is here and once again we take a look at what books are proving popular with the various online retailers.

It looks like LJ Smith is still dominating the local scene and I am still very tempted to get my hands on that Flash Forward book!

Take2.co.za
1. Vampire Diaries, Vol. 1, Books 1 & 2 - Smith, L. J.
2. Vampire Diaries, Vol. 2, Books 3 & 4 - Smith, L. J.
3. Pleasure of a Dark Prince - Cole, Kresley
4. The Return: Nightfall - Smith, L. J.
5. Black Jack - Leigh, Lora
6. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Larsson, Stieg
7. Girl Who Played with Fire - Larsson, Stieg
8. Hot Rocks - Roberts, Nora
9. Born to Be Wild - Warren, Christine
10. Flash Forward - Sawyer, Robert J.

Kalahari.Net
1. The Return: Nightfall - LJ Smith
2. Vampire Diaries: Bks. 3 & 4 - LJ Smith
3. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Stieg Larsson
4. Vampire Diaries: v. 1 & 2 - LJ Smith
5. The Struggle: Bks. 1 & 2 - LJ Smith
6. The Gabriel Method: The Revolutionary Diet-Free Way to Totally Transform Your Body - Jon Gabriel
7. The Metabolism Miracle: 3 Easy Steps to Regain Control of Your Weight...Permanently - Dianne Kress
8. Captain in the Cauldron - Mike Greenaway
9. Pleisters Vir Die Siel: Soos Uitgesaai in Brekfis Met Derrich Op RSG - Riekert Botha
10. Introduction to business management - J. Strydom; G. du Toit; B Erasmus

Amazon.com
1. Food Rules: An Eater's Manual - Michael Pollan
2. The Five Thousand Year Leap: 30 Year Anniversary Edition with Glenn Beck Foreword - W. Cleon Skousen
3. A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror - Larry Schweikart
4. World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony - Will Tuttle
5. Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted - Daniel G. Amen
6. The Help - Kathryn Stockett
7. The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet - Alicia Silverstone
8. Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight - Karl Rove
9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
10. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang - Chelsea Handler

"The Help" picks up coveted Boeke Award

Kathryn Stockett’s novel, The Help, swept the boards at the 2009 Exclusive Books Boeke Prize Awards, held yesterday at a glamorous lunch for bibliophiles at Pomodoro in the new Morningside Shopping Centre.

The awards were the culmination of a six week competition in which top book reviewers and Exclusive Books Fanatics members were asked to read the following six shortlisted titles and to then vote for their favourite reads:

• The Help, Kathryn Stockett
• Testimony, Anita Shreve
• The Angel’s Game, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
• The Children’s Book, A.S Byatt
• The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, Reif Larsen
• The Help stole Fanatics and journalists’ hearts, scooping first place by a large margin of over 40% of the votes, followed by The Angel’s Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and The Children’s Book, by A.S Byatt in third place.

To celebrate the winner of the 2009 Boeke Award, Fanatics members will earn 350 bonus points when you purchase The Help until 18th October.

The Help is set in 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi, a place where lines are clearly drawn and never crossed. A place where black women, like wise Aibileen and sassy Minny, raise white babies and cook in kitchens while white madams play bridge or belong to the Junior League where bossy bullies, like Hilly, rule the roost. It is a place where black women have no voice and where the likes of Hilly decide who is allowed into society circles and who should be snubbed. But Jackson is also a place where things are starting to change...

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the rules by which we abide, and those we don't.

“Kathryn Stockett’s ‘The Help’ has significant resonance for those brought up in SA, often spending a great deal of time being brought up by black ‘nannies’ or ‘help’. The complex and complicated relationships between these women, their employers and their charges are skilfully drawn and the many issues that emerge are dealt with courageously” - Fiona Ramsay

“The Help features a moving examination of themes most South Africans are only too familiar with.” - Bruce Dennill, The Citizen

About the Author
Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama, she moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. She currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter. The Help is Kathryn’s first novel and is garnering the most amazing reviews from around the world. Visit http://www.kathrynstockett.com/

www.fanatics.co.za

Boeke Prize

Fanatics and Exclusive Books invite you to celebrate the art of superb fiction in September by voting for your choice of the six titles short-listed for this year’s Exclusive Books Boeke Prize awards. You’ll earn 250 bonus points on each short-listed title you purchase this month, saving you a very handy R75 if you feel tempted to buy all six!

The Boeke Prize started out in 1995 as our light-hearted response to the Man Booker Prize, but has since become firmly established as a highlight of the South African literary calendar. Here’s this year’s short-list, selected by our store managers as titles which ‘truly live up to the promise of being compelling reads’:

• Testimony by Anita Shreve
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
• The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
• The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

Let Exclusive Books know which of these six titles you think deserves the coveted Boeke Prize for 2009. Vote for your choice now and you, too, could be a winner! There are over 20 prizes to be won (worth a total of over R40 000) in our free Boeke Awards competition:

• 1st prize – a trip for two to the luxurious Madikwe ‘Big five’ game reserve worth R20 000-00
• 2nd prize – 10 x R2 000 Exclusive Books gift vouchers
• 3rd prize – 10 sets of the six titles on our Boeke prize short list.

You’ll find entry forms on display at all branches of Exclusive Books. Complete your entry form and drop it in the special box provided before the competition closing date of 30th September.

New releases from Exclusive Books and Penguin Books SA

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Set in 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, there are lines that are not crossed. Black maids raise the white children, but no one trusts them not to steal the silver. Aibileen is a black maid, raising her seventeenth white child, but with a bitter heart after the death of her son. Minny is the sassy woman of the town and Skeeter is a white woman with a degree but no ring on her finger. Skeeter discovers her beloved maid Constantine has disappeared without a trace. And as different as they may be, these three women will come together for a clandestine project that will put all of them at risk.

The Girl Next Door by Elizabeth Noble

A gorgeous and unforgettable novel set in a turn-of-the-century New York apartment building on the Upper West Side, The Girl Next Door features four interwoven stories about love, life and living together. Meet Eve Gallagher in Apartment 7A, newly relocated to New York from London with her ambitious banker husband. But she's lonely and lost ... until she meets elderly neighbour Violet, who's concealing a tragic story of her own. The Kramers and the Schulmans in Apartments 6A and 6B are about to find their lives intersecting in a most unfortunate manner when Jason Kramer falls head-over-heels for Rachael Schulman.

These books are available to purchase or order at your nearest Exclusive Books branch.