Which Authors Will Be ‘Times’ Favorites Next Week? Ian McEwan and Tina Brown

At the Book Expo today, Doubleday editors weren’t exactly hiding the secret advance reviews they’d acquired. New York’s Boris Kachka reports that Nan Talese was raving about Jonathan Lethem’s forthcoming Sunday Times praise of Ian McEwan’s latest novel On Chesil Beach. (Though she probably wasn’t happy about Michiko Kakutani’s ravaging of the book.) And Phyllis Grann was cradling a Times rave, set to come out late next week, of Tina Brown’s Princess Diana book, The Diana Chronicles. Though Brown herself was not playing coy: Asked if she believed she resembled Her Highness, the author replied, “The women in England are all blonde, mostly out of bottles — like this one.”