Just a few odds and ends to report from Moscow:

* The New York Review of Books has called Out of Mao’s Shadow “one of the most revealing books about China since it opened up to the outside world in the 1970s.”  Richard Bernstein’s kind piece in the March 26 edition here discussed my profile of Chen Lihua, the real estate tycoon who used her ties to party officials to demolish and redevelop neighborhoods in Beijing — and make herself the richest woman in the country.

*The Council on Foreign Relations has put Out of Mao’s Shadow on the short list for the prestigious Arthur Ross Book Award along with five other works of nonfiction.  The prize honors the best book published in the last two years on international affairs and will be awarded in late May.

*The paperback edition of Out of Mao’s Shadow is set to be published this summer. It is available for pre-ordering on Amazon and elsewhere, as are discount copies of the hardcover edition.  Check out the new cover!

*Both the Washington Post and the Economist magazine listed Out of Mao’s Shadow as one of their Best Books of 2008.  Listen to the Economist’s books editor Fiammetta Rocco discuss it at the top of the magazine’s books-of-the-year podcast.

*Links to my interviews on Bill Moyers Journal and China Digital Times.

*An invitation to share your thoughts on Out of Mao’s Shadow on Facebook, and a note of gratitude to Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, whose very kind review of the book there means a lot to me because I’m such an admirer of his reporting on China and now Russia for the BBC.

I have refrained from blogging during the Olympics, in part because I’ve been sharing my views in a series of interviews intended to promote Out of Mao’s Shadow.  This is basically my last media push; I’ll be cutting off the book tour and going to Moscow next week — earlier than scheduled, because of the situation in Georgia.

In print, you can read an interview with me here and a new review in Slate here, and I’ve been on radio across the country, as well as a few television shows.  One of my favorite interviewers, Charlie Rose, had me on his program, and you can watch it here.  For something a little lighter, check out my appearance on this episode of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, perhaps the funniest and smartest fake news anchor in the world.

Next week, I’m scheduled to be on the Bill Moyers show and answer questions at the Talking Points Memo website and the China Digital Times.

Here’s the latest review, a kind one from the influential Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times.

I’ve been trying to spread the word about the book, and thanks to the folks at Simon & Schuster, I have been a guest on ten radio talk shows so far — in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Albuquerque and, as of today, Dallas.

For someone who has been living in China the past seven years, the most interesting things about these interviews (and about the talks I’ve been giving at bookstores and other venues) are the questions from listeners.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, because I wasn’t sure what Americans knew about China, but I have to say I have been impressed by the quality of the questions.  Americans, at least the kind who call in to radio programs and go to book events, seem to be thinking hard about China.

I received some very good questions from callers in the Dallas area today, for example.  You can download or listen to the hour-long interview with me on Think, the program hosted by Krys Boyd on the local NPR affiliate KERA, by clicking this link.

Also today, the Christian Science Monitor published a nice review of the book here.

And, finally, a request for your help.  If you use Facebook and liked the book, please consider visiting the Out of Mao’s Shadow page on Facebook and becoming a “fan.”  This sends a non-intrusive message to your friends on Facebook.  You might also consider writing a review on Amazon.  Thanks!

Andrew J. Nathan — a distinguished political scientist at Columbia University, and one of my favorite China scholars — has written a very kind review of Out of Mao’s Shadow for The Washington Post’s Book World section.  You can read it here.

It was a pleasant surprise on Sunday to see Prof. Nathan’s piece because the Book World editors are serious about protecting the integrity of the process and very careful about keeping information about pending reviews from the rest of the newsroom, especially those of us who are new authors!

The book has received a strong first round of reviews, along with mentions in a variety of summer reading lists.  (My wife Sarah was disappointed it did not appear on the summer list in O, the Oprah Magazine. C’mon, Oprah, your readers want to learn about China!)

Here are links to some of the reviews:

Publisher’s Weekly, Starred Review (Scroll down)

Time Magazine, a must read in the Skimmer

Bloomberg News, “Mao Lives On in Tales of Blind Activist, Mad Poetess, Red Guard” Despite the odd headline, a good review by the former British MP and diplomat George Walden.

The New York Sun, “Letters from China, Written in Blood” The reviewer is Gordon G. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, and one of the few who think I was too soft on the Communist Party.

The Seattle Times, “China’s Unsung Heroes Face a Losing Battle, but Fight On”

The Rocky Mountain News

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