To Tired to do Anything but Analyze Bestsellers

I'm exhausted. I posted that New York Times article on my Facebook account twice, instead of once on the Daniel account and once on Boswell's. I sent a note about returns to my booksellers, but instead I sent it to a distribution list I made of my friends who were booksellers at other stores. Our vacuum cleaner and our backup vacuum cleaner both broke, so Kirk came in and vacuumed the front of the store while I sent out our weekly bestseller lists after closing on Saturday.

Here's our top ten nonfiction paperbacks, with a bit of annotation.

1. The Power of Kindness, by Piero Ferrucci. It's the right book in the right package at the right time, despite being two years old. Joe tells me I have Diana at Penguin to thank for talking this up.
2. Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson. Sales spurred by the new Stones into Schools.
3. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies, by Michael Spradlin. We ramped up our promotion after hearing this was working at other stores. And since we sold 9 Zombie playsets over the holidays, it was a natural. An email feature helped.
4. Mary Nohl, by Barbara Manger and Janine Smith.
5. The Ascent of Money, by Niall Ferguson. Selling well off our front paperback table.
6. Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman. A top after a sales lull.
7. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, by John McWhorter.
8. Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.
9. In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan. His new book Food Rules lands next week.
10. Logicomix, by Apostolos Doxiadis et al.