Burns' 'War' finds beachhead in bookstore

0 Comments | USA TODAY, September, 2007 | by Jacqueline Blais

Ken Burns' much-anticipated look at World War II already is a hit -- in bookstores.

The War, Burns' seven-part PBS documentary, doesn't begin airing until Sunday. But the companion volume, The War ($50, Knopf), by Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward was released last week and makes its debut today at No. 34 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list.

Like the PBS series, the book follows the stories of civilians and soldiers from four towns -- Waterbury, Conn.; Mobile, Ala.; Sacramento; and the farming town of Luverne, Minn., from 1941 to 1945. The War opens with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and proceeds chronologically.

Ward, a historian, wrote the film script and the book, which gives him "two shots at the ball," he says. "Stuff ends...