the orange paperback of Smolin's bestselling The Trouble with Physics...and What Comes Next is due to go on sale in two months----beginning of September.

 

People are beginning to advance order it, so Amazon lists the book with instructions how to advance order, and gives the salesrank. Ordinarily you would not expect it to get on any bestseller lists at this stage

 

However I noticed it on Canada Amazon general physics bestseller today.

Why are Canadians such earlybirds?

 

In case anyone wants to check the book's standings here is the Canadian list:

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/bestsellers/books/956728/

 

will it stay in the top 100? I don't know.

here's the page for the orange paperback edition

http://www.amazon.ca/Trouble-Physics-String-Theory-Science/dp/061891868X/

 

For the time being, the blue hardcover edition is selling better of course---you can get it right away without waiting till September,

Oh, Smolin's book is currently the number one

bestselling physics book at Amazon in France.

 

The French translation came out in April, and has been doing amazingly well.

 

in case anyone wants to check the French physics bestseller list:

 

http://www.amazon.fr/gp/bestsellers/books/302107/

 

Here's the page for the book:

 

http://www.amazon.fr/Rien-va-plus-physique-th%C3%A9orie/dp/2100507028

 

Will it stay number one?

I don't know, it's been at the top of the list for several days.

 

The French edition has a preface by the father of noncommutative geometry, Alain Connes. I guess he nowadays he is the best known contemporary mathematician/physicist to the French public. So his praise for Smolin's book is influential and has probably helped sales. Connes is also a vocal string critic.

 

I just checked the overall salesrank, among all books amazon sells, and it was #353, for a physics book that's quite remarkable. So my guess is it will stay at the top of the physics list for a while.