What's Selling This Week? And Oops, I Forgot to Link to Lake Effect!

It seems like months ago Lake Effect aired an interview with me talking up September books, but it was actually August 23, in the midst of my Seattle bookstore browsing.  Here's the link to the interview if you'd like to listen to it. And look at that, one of the books discussed is our #1 fiction book this week.

Hardcover fiction:
1. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline (signed copies available)
2. The Leftovers, by Tom Perrotta
3. A Trick of the Light, by Louise Penny
4. Shame the Devil, by Debra Brenagan
5. The Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles
6. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain
7. American Boy, by Larry Watson (event  9/29)
8. The Cut, by George Pelecanos
9. The Borrower, by Rebecca Makkai
10. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

Since we've got The Help selling in hardcover and paperback (yes, we had let the hardcover go until Jason noted it was still high on the national bestseller lists)...

Paperback fiction:

1. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
2. Tinkers, by Paul Harding
3. Montana 1948, by Larry Watson
4. A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
5. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson
6. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, by Tom Franklin
7. One Day, by David Nichols
8. The All of It, by Jennifer Haien
9. The Fall of Giants, by Ken Follett
10. The Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress, by Beryl Bainbridge

Interesting that even though the jacket is different, they kept that very distinctive yellow color. I really like that they embraced what worked about the book--they seemed to do that with the script as well.

Hardcover Nonfiction
1. The Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers, by Michael Holroyd
2. In My Time, by Dick Cheney
3. Arguably, by Christopher Hitchens
4. In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson
5. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
6. Eighty Dollar Champion, Elizabeth Letts
7. All my Friends are Dead, by Avery Monsen
8. Forty Years of Chez Panisse, by Alice Waters
9. Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff (paperback on sale Tuesday, event at library 10/4)
10. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, by Alexandra Fuller

While Cheney and Hitchens fight it out at Boswell (the numbers are close at our store, but I would suspect that this is not the case outside of urbany or college-towny indie bookstores), Holroyd wins with pent-up demand for his lauded new The Book of Secrets, that had some reprint delays.  It's just a harbinger of things to come--and yes, we're all panicky about the slower reprints.

Paperback Nonfiction
1. Living Large in Lean Times, by Clark Howard
2. How to Survive the Loss of a Love, by Harold Bloomfield
3. The Emperor of All Maladies, by Siddhartha Mukherjee
4. The Immortal Life o Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
5. Half a Life, by Darin Strauss
6. The Hare with Amber Eyes, by Edward de Waal
7. The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
8. Misquoting Jesus, by Bart Ehrman
9. Unlikely Friendships, by Jennifer Holland
10. The S Word, by John Nichols

Glad that Jason put Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project back on our front table, as while we're very happy with our numbers, there are other indie stores selling ten times that number. I thought about this as I met the head of Hapacus, a happiness consulting group who is holding a happiness panel after a showing at the Downer.  Hope to fill in the details shortly.

Kids' Books
1. Esperanza Rising, by Pam Ryan
2. Home of the Brave, by Katherine Applegate
3. Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai
4. Wildwood, by Colin Meloy
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

A little bit of school sale in there, but Colin Meloy's Wildwood is the real deal of bookstore sales. I can't remember how many folks read it, Jason and Amie at least, and both are fans.

Don't forget that all books are available on our website, and if you are an ebook reader, you can use Google Editions to buy ebooks from our website that can be used on just about anything except a Kindle.