Menendez launches new book with signing in Union City

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez's new book, Growing American Roots : Why Our Nation Will Thrive as Our Largest Minority Flourishes, has been published by Penguin Group (USA).  Menendez did his first book signing on Sunday in his old home town of Union City, where he broke into politics as a young school board member, Mayor, Assemblyman and State Senator before winning a seat in Congress in 1992. He is now the lone Latino in the United States Senate.

Menendez's book is now at 145,057 on the Barnes & Noble sales rank.  As a matter of comparison, as of this morning: former Gov. James E. McGreevey's book is ranked 119,152, ex-U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli's book on great political speeches is at 190,079, and former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley's most recent book is at 101,309.  Menendez leads another Cuban American Senator, Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), whose book is at 404,504.  He is also in a tight contest with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose boom is at 116,354.

Another tight race: sales of Menendez's book are trailing pre-sales of John Wefing's biography of another prominent New Jersey Democrat. The Life and Times of Richard J. Hughes : The Politics of Civility, a biography of the former two-term Governor and Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.  The Hughes book is at 114,697 and is due to be released on November 15.

Again for comparison purposes, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's book is at 32,016.  And True Compass: A Memoir, written by the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, is at #7.

It's My Party Too, written by former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, is ranked at 86,808.

Alvin Felzenberg's 2006 biography of former Gov. Thomas Kean, Governor Tom Kean: From the New Jersey Statehouse to the 9/11 Commission, is ranked at 614,104.  Kean's son, Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, Jr., (R-Westfield), ran against Menendez in the 2006 U.S. Senate race.