The Bestselling Books of 2014

Led by John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, the top of the 2014 print bestseller list was dominated by children’s and young adult titles that sold more than one million copies. Green’s novel, adapted into a film that premiered in June, sold more than 1.8 million paperbacks last year according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks approximately 80% of print book sales.

The ninth book in Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, The Long Haul, landed at #2, selling more than 1.5 million copies in 2014 (and in a relatively short period of time—the book went on sale November 4). Roughly 20% of The Long Haul’s total sales occurred in the first week, when the book moved nearly 320,000 units, the highest first-week sales of the year. The three books in Veronica Roth’s wildly popular young adult Divergent trilogy, Divergent (1.4 million copies sold), Insurgent (1.3 million copies sold), and Allegiant (1.2 million copies sold), hit #3, #4, and #6, respectively.

In fact, per Nielsen, the only adult title to sell more than one million print copies last year was Killing Patton, the fourth book in Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s Killing series. The book, released September 23, sold 1.19 million copies, landing at #5 on the list. The book also topped the adult nonfiction list, followed by Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling, which moved more than 700,000 copies in the year.

In addition to The Fault in Our Stars, other books with big-screen adaptations thrived in 2014. Gillian Flynn’s 2012 phenomenon Gone Girl, adapted into a film released in October, took the #1 spot on the adult fiction list (the movie-tie in claimed the #4 spot), and the #7 spot on the overall bestseller list. The first film based on Roth’s series, Divergent, hit theaters in March (the big-screen version of Insurgent will open in March, and the final book, Allegiant, will be split into two subsequent films).

Frozen, a Golden Book by Victoria Saxon based on the Disney sensation of the same name (the highest-grossing animated film of all time), sold more than 780,000 copies, hitting #10 on the overall list and was in eighth place on the juvenile list, where it was joined by four other Frozen books. The August film adaptation of Gayle Forman’s young adult novel If I Stay sent the book up the bestseller list throughout the year—it netted nearly 750,000 copies in 2014 (the hardcover, released in April 2009, sold roughly 40,000 copies in its first year on sale, according to Nielsen).

Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken hit #3 on the adult nonfiction list, selling more than 660,000 copies. The book, first published in 2012, was adapted into a film by Angelina Jolie and premiered on Christmas Day.

Turning to digital, Green also topped Amazon’s Kindle bestseller list, followed by Gone Girl at #2. Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, hit #4 on Amazon’s list (the book came in at #5 on the adult fiction print list). Once again, the 2014 charts revealed that, with the exception of Unbroken at #10, fiction still outperforms nonfiction digitally. Killing Patton, the top-selling adult nonfiction title in print and the only adult print title to sell more than one million copies last year, didn’t land in the top 50 on Amazon’s Kindle list for 2014 (as of December 30, it sat at #56).

Editor's Note: In the juvenile top 20 listing, The Blood of Olympus, book five in Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series, failed to make the top 20 because it is sold under two separate ISBNs, even though it is the same book. A special edition for Barnes & Noble sold 209,356 copies while the regular hardcover sold 445,128 copies. The combined sales of 654,484 copies sold would place the book in the 16th spot on the juvenile list.

Top 10 Print Bestsellers, 2014

Source: Nielsen Bookscan

Top 10 Amazon Kindle Bestsellers, 2014

Source: Amazon. Sales are through Dec. 30, 2014

Bestselling Books of 2014

Nielsen BookScan Adult Fiction Top 20

Nielsen BookScan Adult Nonfiction Top 20

Nielsen BookScan Juvenile Top 20