2013 Top Sellers of the Year at Boswell--Adult Fiction Edtion

If I had my druthers, I would count these down American Top 40 style, from 40 to 1, but it just doesn’t work well in print. In determining our lists, events are counted, bulk sales are not.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Doomed, by Chuck Palahniuk (Thank you again to all involved!)
2. How the Light Gets In, by Louise Penny
3. The Valley of Amazement, by Amy Tan
4. Tenth of December, by George Saunders (top non-event book)
5. And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini
6. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
7. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
8. The View from Penthouse B, by Elinor Lipman
9. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
10. The Illusion of Separateness, by Simon Van Booy
11. Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, by Jennifer Chiaverini
12. Inferno, by Dan Brown
13. The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton
14. Dog Songs, by Mary Oliver
15. Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson
16. The Edge of the Earth, Christina Schwarz
17. The Silver Star, by Jeannette Walls
18. Jewelweed, by David Rhodes
19. A Hologram for the King, by Dave Eggers
20. Standing in Another Man’s Grave, by Ian Rankin
21. Someone, by Alice McDermott
22. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, by Mohsin Hamid
23. A Cuckoo’s Calling, by J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith
24. Aimless Love, by Billy Collins
25. TransAtlantic, by Colum McCann
26. The Dinner, by Herman Koch
27. Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent
28. The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri
29. Stella Bain, by Anita Shreve
30. The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout
31. The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer (event with author 4/24/14)
32. Enon, by Paul Harding
33. Critical Mass, by Sara Paretsky
34. The Woman Upstairs, by Claire Messud
35. Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King
36. The Round House, by Louise Erdrich
37. Let Him Go, by Larry Watson
38. Bad Monkey, by Carl Hiaasen
39. The Circle, by Dave Eggers (only author with two books on list)
40. Benediction, by Kent Haruf

Honestly, articles (the, a, an) will be the death of me. We still take them out of our database, like a library classification system. Is this something that other bookstores have stopped doing? I'd love to know. Obviously our online competitors do not do this. 

Paperback Fiction:
1. Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walter (Jason was counting towards our breaking the 400 mark on this)
2. This is How You Lose Her, by Junot Díaz
3. Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, by Maria Semple
4. The President’s Hat, by Antoine Laurain
5. City of Dark Magic, by Magnus Flyte
6. Dear Life, by Alice Munro
7. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller
9. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce
10. Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver
11. Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
12. The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson
13. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain
14. Tinkers, by Paul Harding
15. The Light Between Oceans, by M.L. Stedman
16. The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
17. Pepperland, by Barry Wightman
18. This Most Amazing, by Jenny Benjamin
19. The Art Forger, by B.A. Shapiro
20. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin
21. The Round House, by Louise Erdrich (also on hardcover and paperback list)
22. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain
23. The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker
24. Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel
25. The Beautiful Mystery, by Louise Penny
26. The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka
27. Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles
28. The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach
29. The Dinner, by Herman Koch (one of two books on both hardcover and paperback list)
30. The Aviator’s Wife, by Melanie Benjamin
31. The Way Out, by Meg Choi
32. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R Martin
33. Best American Short Stories 2013, edited by Elizabeth Strout
34. A Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling
35. A Storm of Swords, by George R. R. Martin
36. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
37. Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow
38. State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
39. The Hunters, by John Bolger
40. The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers

I will be following these lists with adult nonfiction and then kids' lists. Thanks to Mike who noticed that not just Herman Koch but Louise Erdrich was on both the hardcover and paperback yearend lists.