Book News
“Power” author lying low.
“The Power,” a follow-up to Rhonda Byrne’s wildly successful self-help book “The Secret,” was released last week. Published in 2006, “The Secret” sold more than 19 million copies in its hardcover edition, and “The Power” is expected to have a similarly seismic impact.
But even though “The Power” will almost certainly be a major publishing event, Byrne herself has been oddly quiet, granting no interviews about the book and in fact shying away from doing any publicity at all.
The publisher, Atria Books, is rolling out a promotional campaign that combines radio ads, TV spots and billboards in four major markets.
Before she was a best-selling author, Byrne worked as a television producer in Melbourne, Australia. It seems unlikely that a veteran TV producer and world-famous author would lack the savvy to partake in the customary blitz surrounding the release of an anticipated book. Herein, then, are four reasons why Byrne may be avoiding the limelight.
1. She “wants the book to speak for itself.”
2. She just doesn’t like doing the promotional circuit.
3. If she goes out in public, she’ll have to address her critics.
4. Who needs a book tour when you know “The Secret”?
First Lines
Cure, by Robin Cook
It happened in the blink of an eye. One instant everything was fine, considering the fact that Benjamin Corey was breaking into a foreign biological laboratory; the next instant it was a disaster in the making, and Ben Corey went from reasonably relaxed to simply terrified. Within seconds of the overhead lights flashing on, flooding the entire floor with raw fluorescent light, a cold sweat rose on his forehead, his heart began pounding in his chest, and, of all things, the tips of his fingers became numb, a fight-or-flight symptom he’d never experienced previously. What was supposed to be a walk in the park, as described the previous evening in Tokyo by his Japanese Yakuza contact, was now threatening to be anything but. An elderly uniformed guard approached down the lab’s central corridor, his visored hat tipped back from his forehead, a flashlight held high in his right hand near the side of his head. As he advanced he swung both his head and the flashlight beam down the aisles between the rows of laboratory benches. He held a cellphone against his left ear and spoke in a hushed staccato voice, apparently keeping Kyoto University’s central security office apprised of his progress investigating a lone light that had suddenly gone on in an office on the third floor in an otherwise completely dark and supposed empty building.
Children’s Fiction Best Sellers
1. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
2. The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan
3. Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
4. Linger, by Maggie Stiefvater
5. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
6. Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater
7. Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, by John Grisham
8. Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So-Popular Party Girl, by Rachel Renee Russell
9. Big Nate: In a Class by Himself, by Lincoln Pierce
10. Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So- Fabulous Life, by Rachel Renee Russell
