Book Buzz: Chelsea Handler's hot; Erik Larson's 'Garden' grows

By Carol Memmott, Deirdre Donahue and Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY

Handler is hot: There's no stopping Chelsea Handler? or her cohorts. Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me by Chelsea's Family, Friends and Other Victims enters USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list at No. 8. But that's not as high as last year's Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, written by Handler, which made its debut at No. 2. Her TV empire also is expanding. NBC has optioned a sitcom pilot based on her 2008 best seller Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea.Laura Prepon will play Handler, who will co-star as a fictionalized version of her older sister Sloane. It's in the midseason pipeline.

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  Comedian Chelsea Handler's latest book enters the list at No. 8.

Comedian Chelsea Handler's latest book enters the list at No. 8.

'Garden' grows:Erik Larson is no stranger to USA TODAY's list. His last three non-fiction books, including The Devil in the White City, have been best sellers. But none made its debut as high as In the Garden of Beasts, at No. 12. It is the true story of an American father and daughter who witness Hitler's rise to power after William Dodd's appointment as ambassador to Germany in 1933. Though Larson, 57, had written about a serial killer before in Devil, he says Garden's subject was so harrowing that by the end, "I was dealing with a low-grade depression. My wife and kids noticed it."

At Ground Zero: Reality can inspire, as well as intrude, on fiction. Amy Waldman's debut novel, The Submission, out Aug. 9, imagines an anonymous competition to select the designer of a 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero. The winner turns out to be a Muslim-American, which triggers a controversy. At a lunch in New York, Waldman, a former correspondent for The New York Times, said her novel was inspired by the 1982 debate over the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. She thought her novel was finished last summer, when another controversy erupted over a proposed Muslim mosque near Ground Zero. "I felt like I was reading my novel in the newspapers." That led to "quite a bit of rewriting," she said, "but a richer novel."

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