What's new in publishing and on the list by Craig Wilson and Carol Memmott

Book buzz: What's new in publishing and on the list

By Craig Wilson and Carol Memmott, USA TODAY

Holiday sales, writers helping writers and another Jane Austen mashup.

'Lost' is a holiday hit: What books were people buying over the holidays? A little bit of everything, in the big-box stores and at independents alike. Borders reports that its five top-selling titles were The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (No. 1 this week on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list), The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Going Rogue by Sarah Palin, True Compass by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom. "Our top sellers this holiday season reflect a wide variety of interests and viewpoints," says Borders' Larry Norton. At Idlewild Books in Manhattan, David Del Vecchio says gift books about the city were hot: "Our top sellers by far were New York-related gift books and international short-story collections."

TOP 150: See what’s moving on our Best-Selling Books list

Writers helping writers: When debut novelist Kathryn Stockett's The Help was published in February, it was helped along by blurbs from best-selling authors, including Adriana Trigiani and Dorothea Benton Frank. Now Stockett, a big best seller herself, is lending support. Of debut novelist Sarah Blake's novel, The Postmistress, out in February, Stockett writes: "A beautifully written, thought-provoking novel that I'm telling everyone to read." Other best-selling authors blurbing debut novels include Uwem Akpan, author of Oprah pick Say You're One of Them, who writes "What a beautiful book!" of Maaza Mengiste's Beneath the Lion's Gaze, out Jan. 11, and Michael Chabon, who calls Julie Orringer's The Invisible Bridge, out in May, a work of "genius."

'Dawn' of the zombies: The world is still a dangerous place for the Bennet sisters, who battled the undead in the literary mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, written by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. Publisher Quirk has announced the release March 23 of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith, a prequel to Zombies, which has 1 million copies in print. "We thought it would be fun to try making a segue into a completely original novel that explored how Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters became the seasoned warriors we meet in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," Quirk's Jason Rekulak says.

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