Magazines, Books Join the Rack Pack With Sinatra Tributes

“SINATRA BEGS: GIVE ME MIRACLE CANCER DRUG--NOW!” Star magazine screams from the cover of the issue dated May 26. “Hollywood stars offer $millions for cure.”

Not to worry about the awkward timing, however, for the Star caught up with the news of Frank Sinatra’s death late last week by racing its “Special Memorial Tribute” issue to the same newsstands.

After a weekend of continuous Sinatra programming on TV and radio, the Star special is but one example of the intense publishing activity picking up where the broadcasts left off.

The magazine is joined on racks by hefty cover packages on the singer in this week’s Time and Newsweek, while U.S. News & World Report limits its appreciation to two pages, plus a farewell by columnist John Leo. Also on newsstands is a commemorative magazine by the staff of TV Guide.

And, for a few dollars more, fans can go home starting Friday with the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, featuring Sinatra on the cover, and a separate Sinatra keepsake that will be available on newsstands only.

In addition to EW, two other Time Inc. publications have issues ready to go Friday. People magazine will put on sale more than a million copies of a newsstand-only tribute issue, and Life will target supermarket and bookstore customers with “Remembering Sinatra: A Life in Pictures” in softcover and hardcover formats. They will feature a remembrance by Tony Bennett.

Learning of Sinatra’s death in the wee hours of Friday morning, editors of the newsweeklies, like their newspaper colleagues, had time to refine packages long ready for publication. But book publishers had the more cumbersome task of distributing or redistributing Sinatra tomes to stores in time to capitalize on reader interest.

Bantam Books’ stock of 10,000 copies of Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized “His Way” were spoken for quickly, prompting the publisher to print an additional 25,000 copies of the 1986 biography. They are expected to reach stores this week.

Meanwhile, authors of other Sinatra books were in demand for talk shows, which had kept their phone numbers on file in anticipation of the singer’s death.

Shawn Levy, whose “Rat Pack Confidential” (Doubleday) went on sale April 13, was awakened at about 2 a.m. Friday at home in Portland, Ore., by the MSNBC news channel, which wanted to do an interview--now at a local TV studio. Over the weekend, he would do more than 15 interviews about Sinatra and his Las Vegas antics--with National Public Radio, the Chicago Tribune, Fox News Channel and others.

Bottom line: “Rat Pack Confidential,” which had been selling respectably well before Sinatra died, went back to press Friday morning for an additional 25,000 copies. There are now more than 50,000 in print.

Other recent Sinatra titles in circulation include John Lahr’s “Sinatra: The Artist and the Man” (Random House), which originated as a piece in the New Yorker, and Bill Zehme’s “The Way You Wear Your Hat” (HarperCollins), a primer on Sinatra’s swaggering style that draws, in part, on the singer’s replies to questions submitted by the author in 1995.

Santa Monica-based General Publishing Group announced plans for a June 10 reissue of “Frank Sinatra: An American Legend,” a 1995 coffee-table book by Sinatra’s daughter, Nancy. The new edition will have additional text, including a 16-page discography.

But early reports of book sales showed no dramatic movement of Sinatra titles during the week ending May 16. None made the weekly list of top sellers at Barnes & Noble stores, the country’s largest chain. Nor were they expected to show up on USA Today’s weekly ranking of last week’s top 150 sellers, out today. Publishing observers suggested that continuing coverage of Sinatra’s career and reports about his funeral Wednesday would spur interest in the books.

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The Hamptons Literary Genre: It started last spring with publication of James Brady’s “Further Lane: A Novel of the Hamptons.” It continues this spring with release of Brady’s second mystery in the series, “Gin Lane: A Novel of Southampton.”

This time, though, Brady is not alone in spinning an entertaining yarn set in the land of green fields, wide beaches and celebrity vacationers. Publishers Weekly recently identified “a notable emerging mini-genre: books actually set in the Hamptons.”

Among the others are Steven Gaines’ “Philistines at the Hedgerow,” a social history of the moneyed area subtitled “Passion and Property in the Hamptons.” Little, Brown & Co. hopes the book will do for the East End of Long Island what John Berendt’s evocative “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” has done for Savannah, Ga.

From Stewart O’Nan, author of “Snow Angels” and “The Names of the Dead,” comes “A World Away” (Holt), a novel set at a beachfront cottage in the Hamptons during World War II as a couple awaits word about a son fighting in the Pacific. Ellen Feldman’s “God Bless the Child” (Simon & Schuster) is the story of a top TV producer who opts for the slower pace of working in a Hamptons bookstore--until major complications ensue.

As for Brady, the East Hampton resident and Parade magazine columnist has brought back Beecher Stowe, a former foreign correspondent, and his lady pal Alix Dunraven. In “Gin Lane,” the stylish couple sort out another murder mystery--the slaying of radio personality “Cowboy in the Morning,” a bull in the Southampton china shop who sounds a lot like Don Imus.

Published by St. Martin’s Press, Brady also has signed for the third and fourth capers featuring Stowe over the next two years.

Schiller Eyes Ramsey Case: Wily and resourceful Lawrence Schiller collaborated with Norman Mailer on two of Mailer’s more ambitious nonfiction efforts, “The Executioner’s Song” and “Oswald’s Tale,” and then worked alongside O.J. Simpson on “I Want to Tell You” before producing his own bestseller, “American Tragedy,” a view from inside the Simpson camp (written with James Willwerth of Time).

Schiller has since shifted his base to Boulder, Colo., to explore the still-unsolved Jon Benet Ramsey slaying. In a recent interview he said the book, to be published by HarperCollins next spring and titled simply “Boulder,” seeks to offer insights into the Ramsey case by exploring the wider social history of the town.

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Afterwords: Letter to the Editor of the week (from National Journal): “After reading William Schneider’s April 18 National Journal column, ‘The GOP’s Unappealing Options,’ I wanted to let you know that I am not a lobbyist, and I do not consider myself to be a loser. Thank you for the opportunity to set the record straight.’ ” Signed, Bob Dole.

* Paul D. Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His e-mail address is paul.colford@newsday.com. His column is published Thursdays.