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Getting picked to be in Oprah’s Book Club generally means a big boost to an author’s sales; no surprise to anyone.

However, the latest Oprah pick, Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose seems to be doing better than anyone could have ever predicted in their wildest dreams.

In just under 4 weeks, Penguin Books reports that it has shipped more than 3.5 million copies - that’s 1 book for every 100 man, woman and child in the US! You can read the full story here.

Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, has retracted her 2005 statement that she would give up writing about her blood-sucking heros and focus solely on her Christian books chronicaling the life of Jesus.

In a recent interview with Time magazine, she said will be releasing one more book in the series featuring the horrifying but strangely sexy vampire Lestat, as made famous by Tom Cruise in the 1994 movie Interview With The Vampire. The final, as-yet-unnamed novel will have a “Christian framework” and “a theme of redemption”.

Check out the audio book version of Interview With A Vampire, an easy 3-hour read in its current abridged format with great narration by F. Murray Abraham.

… William F. Buckley passed on this morning in his home. The author, journalist, and vehement conservative advocate, Buckley spent more than 35 years editing the National Review, and hosted the Firing Line for 33 years.

He also managed (perhaps in his free time?) to write more than 40 books. You can check out two of them on audio book : Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography, and Getting It Right. The first is narrated by the man himself!

I was shocked (shocked!) to see that Starbucks is in financial straits right now, including layoffs from last week, and now a 3-hour closure to “re-enthuse” employees right across the country.

However, when I saw this bit of news on CNN, I was irresistibly reminded of The Onion’s spoof on a nation-wide closure from 2001. Prescient, perhaps? I hope not.

If you like this article, you should check out The Onion’s audio books: Finest News Reporting and Our Dumb World, available for rent and download at Simply Audiobooks. They feature very slightly twisted insights into the common man and everyday news. Kind of like John Stewart reading your local newspaper, if John Stewart had just chugged… well, a venti double-espresso no foam latte!

And finally, the third part of my series of Hollywood-actors-turned-narrators: the Brits! These are the actors from across the pond who have brought their unique voices to the spoken word. 

1) You can’t talk about actors who narrate without mentioning Kenneth Branagh. He’s reknowned for his love to Shakespearean works in movies and stage, and so its not surprising he’s done Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, but then he’s also lent his voice to the Chronicles of Narnia Adult Box Set. Its amazing the man has time for anything else!

2) Famous for playing the villan, it was kind of odd to find out that Jeremy Irons has narrated one of the most beloved kids books of all time – James and the Giant Peach. He’s also narrated The Alchemist and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.

3) Like Mr. Irons, Alan Rickman falls into the category of “Actors Who Have Been Villans in Die Hard Movies” and like Mr. Branagh, he also falls into the category of “Actors Who Have Been Villans in Harry Potter Movies”. Thus, he’s in good company with his narration of The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.

4) Finally, my favorite X-Man Ian McKellan has brushed off some classics of his own including The Tempest by Shakespeare.

Happy Oscar Night, Simply Audiobooks readers!

As promised, the second part of my series on Hollywood-actors-turned-narrators: The leading ladies.

1) Although she’s kind of fallen off the radar in the movie industry, Rachael Leigh Cook petitioned hard to be able to narrate The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. She got mixed reviews by Simply Audiobooks patrons… sort of like the book!

2) Sisey Spacek did an excellent job narrating last years big hit, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. Her mild southern accent is perfect for story set from the view point of a young girl in the south.

3) As one of Hollywood’s favorite leading ladies, you’d think that Julia Roberts has her pick of narrating roles. Apparently she picked The Nanny Diaries! Long before it was made into the movie staring Scarlett Johansson, Ms. Roberts was doing an excellent job bringing the book to life for the audio book reader.

Tomorrow - the Brits!

In honor of Oscar weekend in Hollywood, I’m bringing attention to all the fantastic audio books to which Oscar-winners, Oscar-nominees, and simply great actors have lent their voices. There are so many, this has to be a 3-part blog!

Today’s selection covers books narrated by Hollywood hunks:

1) Brad Pitt does an exceptional job narrating his favorite book, All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. If you ever wondered what its like to have Mr. Pitt murmur in your ear, this is your chance. Female Simply Audiobooks subscribers in particular seem to rate his work highly.

2) At 6′ 4″ and with action movies like The Mummy under his belt, you’d think that Brendan Fraser is probably an odd choice to do little kids’ books, and yet he is very successful in both Dragon Rider and Inkspell, by Cornelia Funke.

3) While I haven’t read it personally, I can imagine that Edward Norton doesn’t embarass himself with Ambush at Fort Bragg by Tom Wolfe. He’s so versatile as an actor that I can imagine that has to carry over to voice work as well.

Tomorrow – Hollywood ladies as narrators!

Lisa, our VP of Marketing here at Simply Audiobooks, has introduced me to the fascinating world of readability grading. This neat little tool in Microsoft Word can assess any blob of text I give it for reading ease (from 1 to 100) and grade level (i.e. what school grade this text is suited for).

I’ve read a few (precious few) books on writing and I’ve never heard of such a thing. Sounds like its time to add some more titles to my Rental Shelf.

I’m going to start with Dwight Swain: Master Writing Teacher, just because I’m curious to see if a writer who has the balls to say that his insights are “legendary” and “priceless” can actually live up to the hype.

I’m going to try On Writing Well next, on a friend’s recommendation. This book is (I’m told) a classic based on a famous course at Yale. If it’s good enough for Ivy League, it can’t be all bad.

And, just for fun, I’m going to re-rent one of my favorite old books, Stephen King’s On Writing. King writes so fluidly that even in print, it “sounds” like he’s talking directly to you; the audio book experience is even better.

A couple of nifty things about this book:

1) You get to hear an early draft of the creepy story 1408 (the one that inspired the movie with John Cusak) and

2) Half way through writing this book, King was involved in a wild car accident that nearly killed him. As a result the end part of the book is about how he recovered from the accident and returned to his craft; a clever touch.

For those of you who are curious, this blog has a readability rating of 79 and a grade level of 8.

With tonight’s full lunar eclipse expected around 7pm (EST) this evening, I have Frank Sinatra’s song running through my head over and over.

As a big fan of NASA space missions, I think its kind of neat that there is both an lunar eclipse and a safe space shuttle landing in the same day; its like the stars have converged (sorry, I couldn’t resist). In honor of this unique day, Happy Reader, may I suggest a couple of relevant books?

John Glenn’s self-titled book is a good read. With quiet dignity, he tells readers about his career as a WWII fighter pilot, the early days of NASA, and the story of his two trips into orbit, in 1962 and again in 1998 (thus claiming the auspicious title “The Floating Fogey”). This book rates 4-1/2 stars among Simply Audiobooks readers – clearly a good book.

 If you’re looking for something a little more indepth and with a wider perspective, try In Thier Own Words: The Space Race. This is a medly of authentic Mission Control transmissions and interviews with astronauts and crew from the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury missions.

Alright, follow me here.

Lindsay Lohan, Hollywood’s favorite partying minx, is in the news today because she’s done a nude spread (no pun intended) for the infamously stuffy New Yorker, thus kindly ensuring that the 138 million American men who hadn’t previously seen her feminine assets on a personal level, will at least see them on the public stage.

Ms. Lohan is doing this in tribute to Marilyn Monroe’s famous nude shoot for Vogue in 1962, just 6 weeks before Monroe overdosed a-la-Heath-Ledger-style at the ripe age of 36. At only 21, Ms. Lohan outpaces her idol in age, and (given her history of drug abuse), likely in risk of premature death as well. But I digress.

Ms. Monroe other well-known trait was hooking up with famous (and occasionally married) men, including:

•  one or both of Kennedy brothers (depending on who you ask),
•  baseball great Joe DiMaggio, and…
•  celebrated playwright Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman and The Crucible.

To add both of his famous plays to your Simply Audiobooks Rental Shelf quickly, simply check out the Arthur Miller Audio Collection, featuring full cast recordings of both plays and an introduction by the author himself!