The New York Times-20080127-TBR- Inside the List

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TBR: Inside the List

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TICKING, GLEAMING: Sue Miller's new novel, The Senator's Wife, about the spouse of a philandering two-term liberal politician, is new on the hardcover fiction list at No. 10. It's Miller's fifth novel to appear here in hardcover, though her first -- The Good Mother (1986) -- was her most successful (24 weeks in hardcover) and her last, Lost in the Forest (2005) did not appear here at all. The Good Mother, the book that put Miller on the map, got a mighty push from this publication. It was reviewed on our cover by Linda Wolfe, who wrote: Very once in a while, a first novelist rockets into the literary atmosphere with a novel so accomplished that it shatters the common assumption that for a writer to have mastery, he or she must serve a long, auspicious apprenticeship. The novel arrives, all its parts gleaming, ticking, and we are filled with awe. The memorable, almost Kerouacian last bit -- the ticking, the gleaming, the awe -- helped put a buzz in readers' heads, and into bookstores they fled.

INDEPENDENTS' DAY: What are this country's best-selling small-press poetry books? Small Press Distribution -- a nonprofit distributor that represents books by some 450 small publishers -- knows. On the friendly S.P.D. Web site (www.spdbooks.org) you can find the following list, which reflects sales for December, the most recent month available.

1) Sleeping and Waking, by Michael O'Brien (Flood Editions).2) This Is What Happened in Our Other Life, by Achy Obejas (Midsummer Night's Press).3) Necessary Stranger, by Graham Foust (Flood Editions).4) You Are a Little Bit Happier Than I Am, by Tao Lin (Action Books).5) Eulogies, by Amiri Baraka (Agincourt).6) The Line, by Jennifer Moxley (Post-Apollo).7) Case Sensitive, by Kate Greenstreet (Ahsahta).8) The View From Zero Bridge, by Lynn Aarti Chandhok (Anhinga).9) Newcomer Can't Swim, by Renee Gladman (Kelsey Street).10) Lip Wolf, by Laura Solorzano (Action Books).

THE OBAMA FACTOR: As Barack Obama's stock rises in American politics, it is rising too in this country's bookstores ... and antiquarian bookstores. Both of his books, The Audacity of Hope (2006) and Dreams From My Father (1995), are on the nonfiction paperback list. And the used-books Web site AbeBooks.com reports the following: Rare book collectors are speculating that Barack Obama's rise to power will go all the way to the White House. Signed first editions of 'Dreams From My Father,' the Democrat's 1995 autobiography that actually went out of print at one time, have been sold for $1,798 and $1,299, respectively, by AbeBooks.com in the past 12 months. The site reports that signed copies of Hillary Clinton's memoir, Living History, have fetched as much as $575, while signed copies of John Edwards's memoir, Four Trials, can be scooped up for $99.

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