NEW ON THE LIST AND IN PUBLISHING
‘Dragon’ slays: Nearly a decade after his death, Michael Crichton has a top 5 USA TODAY best seller. Dragon Teeth, a historical thriller about Ivy League dinosaur-bone hunters in the 1870s American West, lands at No. 4. This is the second posthumous Crichton tale to make the list. Pirate Latitudes landed at No. 9 in 2009. Crichton, whose many hits include Jurassic Park, Rising Sun and The Andromeda Strain, died in 2008 at age 66. Last year, publisher Harper announced that his widow, Sherri, had discovered the Dragon Teeth manuscript amid Crichton’s files. USA TODAY gave the novel eeee out of four and called it “fun, suspenseful (and) entertaining.” Crichton’s legacy lives on beyond bookstores. His dinosaur-theme-park series continues in movie theaters, with Jurassic World a big hit in 2015, and a sequel starring Chris Pratt coming in 2018.
It’s Revolutionary: Bill O’Reilly’s next Killing book is going back to 1776. The seventh book in the best-selling history series, co-written with Martin Dugard, is titled Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence. It will tell the story of the American Revolution and be released on Sept. 19 by Henry Holt. The announcement comes a little over a month after O’Reilly was ousted from The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News following sexual harassment allegations. Four books in the series have hit No. 1 on USA TODAY’s list: Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, Killing Reagan and Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan.