New York: Indian American Jhumpa Lahiri's new book "Unaccustomed Earth", which has been receiving rave reviews in the US press, has zoomed to the top in New York Times' list of best-selling fiction within two weeks of its April 1 launch.

The book, New York-based Lahiri's second collection of short stories, debuts at No. 1 slot in the list to appear in the Times on April 20, a paper's blog said Thursday.

"It's hard to remember the last genuinely serious, well-written work of fiction - particularly a book of stories - that leapt straight to No. 1; it's a powerful demonstration of Lahiri's newfound commercial clout," the blog Paper Cut said.

Lahiri's first collection of short stories, "Interpreter of Maladies", won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. But she is better known for her novel, "The Namesake", which was turned into a movie last year by Mira Nair, starring Taboo and Irfan Khan.

Major US papers have promptly reviewed "Unaccustomed Earth", a collection of eight stories. The New York Times Book Review featured the book on the cover Sunday.

USA Today wrote about the book: "Immigrants may be the stories' protagonists, but their doubts, insecurities, losses and heartbreaks belong to all of us. Never before has Lahiri mined so perfectly the secrets of the human heart."