Blogs Travel Too, Plus Bestsellers

While I was in Washington DC, our friend John was selling to accounts in the Pacific Northwest. Here are his last missives from Seattle and Portland. I spent the day in meetings, but did get to have dinner in Chinatown with my friend Eric. You might hear about that again when I finish reading Country Driving, by Peter Hessler; he's reading at Boswell on Friday, February 11th, at 7 PM.

It's Sunday! When I have nothing else to say, there are always the bestsellers.

Hardcover Fiction
1. Lord of Misrule, by Jaimy Gordon
2. The Empty Family, Colm Toibin
3. Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry, by Christine Sneed
4. We, the Drowned, by Carsten Jensen
5. Gryphon, by Charles Baxter

Hardcover Nonfiction
1. Welcome to my World, by Johnny Weir
2. Apollo's Angels, by Jennifer Homans
3. Decision Points, by George W. Bush
4. Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff
5. Life, by Keith Richards

Paperback Fiction
1. Tinkers, by Paul Harding
2. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
3. Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
4. The Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
5. The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson

And our #1 nonfiction paperback was Just Kids, by Patti Smith.

Jason's very excited to see We, the Drowned. It's a great novel of a seafaring culture (Danish) that takes place over 100 years, a brutal depiction of that life through the perspective of the Madsen family.

The only other interesting thing I have to say is that in 2009, our perennial fiction titles (Olive Kitteredge, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and The Elegance of the Hedgehog) were all by women, while of late, it's men. When will it flip again?