A Look at 2008 Top Religion Bestsellers
By Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 1/14/2009 10:37:00 AM
Forty-seven different titles landed on PW’s monthly 2008 hardcover charts but only two of them—Joel Osteen’s Become a Better You (Free Press) and Emerson Eggerichs’ Love & Respect (Thomas Nelson)—enjoyed double-digit monthly runs, 11 times for each. There was no single title that dominated the top spot and seven books made it to #1. The longest run was Become a Better You, which lead the charts five times, followed by Mistaken Identity with two months at #1. The other titles—Quiet Strength, Walking with God, Before You Do, What in the World Is Going On? and The Purpose of Christmas each had a single landing.
Best hardcover performance by a publisher was Thomas Nelson with seven hardcover bestsellers on the 2008 charts and a combined 29 landings—roughly about 25% of the available hardcover positions. Tyndale and HarperOne had five books apiece; total months on the list was nine and seven months respectively. And 16 hardcover bestsellers made a single appearance during 2008.
There was a much smaller group of titles on the monthly religion paperback charts. Only 26 titles made up the 120 available slots on the list. Three books did not miss a single month in 2008—Don Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven (Revell), Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages (Moody) and Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life (Zondervan). Richard Dawkins’ The God 
Delusion (Mariner Books) was on for 11 months and C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity (HarperOne) for 10 months. Two popular authors of Christian romances—Karen Kingsbury and Wanda E. Brunstetter—each had three new bestsellers in 2008, more than any other author last year.
Two titles dominated the lead spot on the paperback charts. The Shack by William P. Young (Windblown Media) led eight times and 90 Minutes in Heaven was #1 four times. And only six of the paperback top sellers made a single appearance last year.
