Publishing News

"What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures" by Malcolm Gladwell. Little, Brown & Co. 410 pages. (Also on 10 CDs read by the author. Hachette Audio.)

Here are the best sellers for the week ending Saturday, November 14, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide.

A remarkable coffee-table book provides flashes of fancy with each page, not slow-burning reading material. These new books are ripe for the flipping.

As a "famous minor television personality," John Hodgman is almost a household name.

"Generosity: An Enhancement" by Richard Powers; Farrar Straus (296 pages, $25)

"Stitches: A Memoir" by David Small; Norton (329 pages, $24.95)

"War Dances" by Sherman Alexie; Grove (208 pages, $23)

"A New Literary History of America," Harvard University Press (1,095 pages, $49.95)

Talk about a bad week. Rhoda Janzen's husband ditched her for a man he met on Gay.com and she was in a car accident that left her, as she writes, with "assorted broken bones and Frankenbruises the size of my head."

"Wrench in the System: What's Sabotaging Your Business Software and How You Can Release the Power to Innovate" by Harold Hambrose; Wiley (272 pages, $45)