Bonjour! What's Selling at Boswell This Week (for Sales through 7/9/11)

It was a quiet week for new releases, and did you notice how many interview programs used old material? "Madame X talked to us in 2010 about Subject Y. Let's hear what she had to say as we imply that everybody's at the beach except for you, listening to your public radio in the middle of the day as you drive to work for your closing shift."

Hardcover Fiction
1. State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett (almost out of signed copies)
2. Turn of Mind, by Alice LaPlante (event this Wednesday)
3. Caleb's Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks
4. Buried Secrets, by Joseph Finder
5. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain

Mr. Finder's Buried Secrets is keeping the company of several women this week.  It's always interesting to see authors jump from stand-alones to series and back again.  It seems to me that series folks feel locked in, and wind up writing stand-alones to expand their horizons and get more opportunities for movie rights (I think many film deals get the lead character along with the film, limiting most writers' options for future sales), while stand-alone writers imagine that a series will take them to the next level.  Read between the lines on Finder's bio.

Hardcover Nonfiction
1. Rescuing Regina, by Sister Josephe Marie Flynn
2. Bossypants, by Tina Fey
3. The Greater Journey, by David McCullough
4. The House in France, by Gully Wells
5. The Optimism Bias, by Tali Sharot

Dear Booksellers Everywhere,
You need to put up a Paris table.
Love, Daniel

Paperback Fiction
1. A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
2. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
3. Room, by Emma Donoghue
4. Montana 1948, by Larry Watson (It's the Shorewood Reads book for this fall.)
5. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin (thought it turns out we are not carrying this jacket, but the other one).

And what is coming this Tuesday, but Martin's fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance with Dragons!  It's a big release date, but I would be shocked if Martin wasn't our bestselling non-event book for next week. 

Paperback Nonfiction

1. Facing the Cognitive Challenges of MS, by Jeffrey Gingold

2. Memoir of a Sunday Brunch, by Julia Pandl

3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

4. The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin

5. Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes, by Elizabeth Bard

We've been doing pretty well with book club pick up for Rubin's The Happiness Project. And Lunch in Paris is yet another book that is selling well that focuses on you know where.

Kids' Books
1. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Coollins
2. Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury
3. Shark Life, by Peter Benchley
4. Throne of Fire, by Rick Riordan
5. The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan

I was talking to a customer about some of Helen Oxenbury's other board books from a number of years ago.  There are always so many new titles each year that (as is true in the adult area) sometimes the new books nudge out the backlist from the store.  But in kids, the backlist is an even more important driver of sales.  One title in the series, Clap Hands, is Oxenbury's third most popular, after We're Going on a Bear Hunt, and Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes.  Perhaps you'll eventually see it popping up again on one of these lists.

I'm way too lazy to link every title mentioned to our website, but know that all books are for sale, with several of the hardcovers part of our Boswell's Best program.  And yes, we also sell ebooks when available.  Just search by title, and click on the first edition that comes up of the book, and you should see the ebook available as well.  All you need is the Google Reader app and you can pretty much download to anything except a Kindle.