One day I'll record a show of me counting down our bestselling books, a la Casey Kasem, but for now, here are our bestsellers for the week ending May 21st.
Hardcover Fiction
1. The Katyn Order, by Douglas Jacobson2. The Long-Shining Waters, by Danielle Sosin
3. Embassytown, by Chia Mieville4. When the Killing's Done, by T.C. Boyle
5. The Snowman, by Jo Nesbo
We've got events with our top two fiction stars coming up. Jacobson's talk/reading for his second novel is at Boswell on June 13, while Sosin appears at Boswell on June 8. Mieville seemingly sold out from the great Jim Higgins review in the Journal Sentinel, while the media is heeding the call to anoint Nesbo the next Stieg Larsson. And all I have to say about T.C. Boyle is that we are having a nice long sale on his novel. I should have gotten more signed!
Hardcover Nonfiction2. 365 Best Wisconsin Sports Stories, by Dale Hofmann and Cliff Cristl
3. In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson4. Area 51, by Annie Jacobsen
5. The Executive's Guide to High Impact Talent Management, by David DeLong
I can't remember the last time we were chasing so many books. In addition to Area 51, we've had trouble getting enough copies of Janny Scott's A Singular Woman, as well as Ron Johnson's The Psychopath Test. The Daily Show spiked #1 and #3. Imagine chasing books and it's not even Christmas. It's so 20th century!
Paperback Fiction
1. Room, by Emma Donoghue
2. Night of Flames, by Doug Jacobsen3. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
4. When Men are Young, by Terry Gavin
5. The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer
Our pal Cyndie crossed town to pick up Room for her entire book club. And being that it's Saturday, many customers stop in and look at Bev and say, "Didn't you used to work on Oakland Avenue" and even "Silver Spring Drive"? So anyway, I hand-sold a "Room" to one of those people. Also a "Postmistress." Why does that always give me a thrill?
Paperback nonfiction.2. Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv
3. Memoir of a Sunday Brunch, by Julia Pandl
4. Heaven is for Real, by Todd Burpo
5. Empire of the Summer Moon, by S.C. Gwynne (just out! in paper)
I've been yawning all day, and sure enough, I switched out the adult and kids paperbacks when I sent out today's list. Funny, sort of.
Kids books
1. Goodnight Moon Board Book, by Margaret Wise Brown2. Pat the Bunny, by Dorothy Kunhardt
3. How Rocket Learned to Read, by Tad Hills
4. Oh, the Places You'll Go, by Dr. Seuss
5. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
It's graduation season, as if you didn't know. I remembered when we suddenly started selling out of all our "graduation" and "congratulations" cards.
Oh, and speaking of cards, can I put a word out to smaller card vendors? I know you don't like to do holiday cards, but we really sell a lot of Mother's and Father's Day cards and it's hard to find enough good ones. I know that Beans and Barley has the same problem because we often wind up with the same cards for those holidays. I think there's a big opportunity there. We see way more Halloween card designs, which interesting enough, don't sell particularly well for us.
So what will pop next week. There are three local reviews in the Journal Sentinel this week, and two are from books that have already hit our bestseller lists. Mike Fischer reviews Silver Sparrow, the story of two African American families with one daddy. It's the #1 Indie Next Pick for June. Jim Higgins tackles The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road, a anthology edited by Paul Theroux. And Chris Foran enjoys Mary Doria Russell's Doc, which we've already gone on about quite a bit here.
All books are available for sale in the store and on our website. And yes, many are available as Google ebook downloads. I don't link to every book, but when I do, the Google E Book link will appear as available.
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