Bestseller Lists for the Week Ending 12/18, with a Smidge of Commentary

Some of our top tens for the week. Now with the correct headers!

Hardcover Fiction
1. Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
2. Room, by Emma Donoghue
3. The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman
4. An Object of Beauty, by Steve Martin
5. Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny
6. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu
7. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, by David Sedaris
8. Safe from the Sea, by Peter Geye
9. Swan, by Mary Oliver
10. Fall of Giants, by Ken Follett

So much for my musing on whether Freedom had already peaked in sales. You can see the influence of our hand-picks here--numbers 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10 are part of our holiday recs program. Of course many of these books are selling elsewhere, but it certainly helps.

Hardcover Nonfiction
1. The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1, by Twain, with Smith, Fischer, Griffin, Frank and Goetz
2. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
3. Life, by Keith Richards
4. Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff
5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
6. Wisconsin's Own, by Wasserman and Connolly
7. Apollo's Angels, by Jennifer Homans
8. At Home, by Bill Bryson
9. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson
10. The Gourmet Cookie Book, by Gourmet Magazine

It feels like our print newsletter is working better than last year, but that's probably because we sent it to 1000 more people, getting it to more casual users instead of just our hardcore customers who would have come in anyway. Lots of compliments on the booksellers picks and accompanying photographs. Congrats to Stacie.

Want to read it? Link to it here. Alas, we're already out of the lamps (yes, we sold 4!), the animal cart ornaments, and several of the leather banks.

Paperback Fiction
1. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
2. Tinkers, by Paul Harding
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
4. Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
5. The Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
6. The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein
7. Even Sunflowers Cast Shadows, by Douglas Armstrong
8. Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann
9. The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson
10. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson

It doesn't hurt to have our events for 2011 up already. I think both Apollo's Angels and Tinkers are getting an extra pop from this. The New York Times article from earlier this week started generating Lord of Misrule enthusiasm.

Paperback Nonfiction
1. The Soul of a Port, by Leah Dobkin
2. Just Kids, by Patti Smith
3. Wordcatcher, by Phil Cousineau
4. Inside of a Dog, by Alexandra Horowitz
5. Holidays on Ice (2nd edition), by David Sedaris

We're chasing copies of #1. Congrats to History Press.

Kids Books
1. I am a Bunny, by Ole Risom, with illustrations by Richard Scarry
2. Of Thee I sing, by Barack Obama with illustrations by Loren Long
3. Diary of a Wimpy Kid Volume 5: The Ugly Truth, by Jeff Kinney
4. The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats
5. City Dog, Country Frog, by Mo Willems, with illustrations by John Muth

We're temporarily out of City Dog Country Frog, but we'll have stock in again before Christmas. It's Amie's pick and even more than with the adult books, I use the picks from Amie, Pam, and Jocelyn as a recommendation tool.

And yes, I am a Bunny now spends it's second year as our #1 non-event, non-bulk-sale kids book. Somebody find me another book like this that can fit on our impulse table (so it has to be a board book) and can sell like this.