books in the works

Sales figures to date for the five books nominated for the National Book Awards were posted at Publishers Lunch yesterday (subscription required, so no link):

LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN, by Colum McCann                 17,200

LARK AND TERMITE, by Jayne Anne Phillips                              15,250

IN OTHER ROOMS, OTHER WONDERS, by Daniyal Mueenuddin    8,750

FAR NORTH, by Marcel Theroux                                                        1,275

AMERICAN SALVAGE, by Bonnie Jo Campbell                           1,100

Also in the news—sales figures for the new video game “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″:

The video game went on sale all over the world on Tuesday, but Activision provided figures Thursday only for North America and Britain. The company estimates that it sold about 4.7 million copies of the game in the first 24 hours in those markets, making it the biggest-selling launch in the history of entertainment. [emphasis added]

Draw your own conclusions, but whatever they are, do not forget that the world of entertainment—and, more important, the market for entertainment—includes both books and video games.

I wrote about “sales figures to die for” here.