Best European Fiction a Surprise Sleeper

I always wanted to keep a rack of "best of" titles, and when we opened, we quickly created a makeshift rack, not being able to find the fancy one that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt gave us for Best American Short Stories.

Though we always sold the flagship title pretty well (up and down, based on who the guest editor was and how we promoted the title), the secondary titles would get a pop on release, and then hide. And the non-HMH titles might not get featured at all.

I'm convinced the books are doing better displayed this way, and it's a nice contrast to the gift items that are mostly lined up along our power aisle. But as we were selling our tenth copy of Best European Fiction 2010 (edited by former Boswell guest Aleksandar Hemon), it struck me that sales were actually better now than in the traditional November-December season for these kinds of books. Go figure!