This Week's Bestsellers: January 12, 2015

New Year, New Ways to Lose It

We start 2015 with five weight-loss-focused books making their debut on our Hardcover Nonfiction list, and a sixth, The Skinnytaste Cookbook, holding strong since September. It’s something of an annual occurrence, a raft of diet books landing on bookstore shelves—and the bestseller list—as people start strong on their new year’s resolutions. Last year, the major trend in weight-loss titles was, carbs bad, protein good: see Grain Brain, The Doctor’s Diet, The Skinnytaste Cookbook, Practical Paleo, two Against All Grain cookbooks, and Wheat Belly and an accompanying cookbook, which combined sold more than one million copies in 2014. What will be hot this year? Based on this week’s list, the public hasn’t quite lost its taste for paleo, but hard science seems to be making inroads.

Diet Debuts for the Week Ended January 4, 2015

Ghost 'Girl'?

Zoe Sugg, aka Zoella, a British fashion and beauty vlogger, hits our Children’s Fiction list this week at #14, selling 5,044 copies of her first novel, Girl Online. In the digital world, she’s a bona fide sensation, with a YouTube fan base approaching seven million subscribers. When her book pubbed in the U.K. in December, it sold more than 78K its first week out—a stronger debut than both E.L. James and J.K. Rowling—and Sugg appeared to be a bona fide bestselling author, too. The truth, as fans learned shortly thereafter, is a little slipperier. The 24-year-old, who built her brand on authenticity and openness with her viewers, admitted that she wrote the novel with “help” from Penguin U.K.’s editorial team. The publisher issued a statement—“The factual accuracy of the matter is simply that Zoe Sugg did not write Girl Online on her own”—and many observers suggest that YA author Siobhan Curham, whom Sugg said in her acknowledgments was with her “every step of the way,” acted as Sugg’s ghostwriter. One teen, writing in the Guardian, said that he felt “conned” when he learned of the revelation; others rushed to defend Sugg, pointing out that everyone from Baby-Sitters Club author Ann M. Martin to Sweet Valley High author Francine Pascal employed ghostwriters.

Top 10 Overall