Grey on Top

In its first four days on sale, Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, by E.L. James, sold more than 354K units in trade paper, making it by far the biggest debut of the year. The next-biggest debut was Stephen King’s Finders Keepers, which hit the Hardcover Fiction list two weeks ago with more than 68K units sold. In fact, to find a better start for any book, you have to go back to November 2013, when Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid #8: Hard Luck sold almost 384K units in hardcover in its first week on sale. Debut-week figures for the first three Fifty Shades books, though nowhere near as good as Grey’s, were certainly respectable by any measure.

(See all of this week's bestselling books.)

Funny Business

It’s a good week for men in comedy. Modern Romance, a look at the state of contemporary relationships, written by Parks and Recreation actor Aziz Ansari with sociologist Eric Klinenberg, debuts at #4 on our Hardcover Nonfiction list, with almost 23K print units sold.

Sick in the Head, by Judd Apatow—executive producer and writer for TV shows including Freaks and Geeks and Girls, and director of movies including Knocked Up and This Is 40­—debuts at #11 on the list, with 7,971 print units sold.

And in its second week on sale, the board book edition of Jimmy Fallon’s Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada cracks our Top 10 Overall, at #8 with more than 27K print units sold; it’s #1 on our Children’s Picture Books list, and the picture book edition is at #2.

Older titles are doing well, too. In its fourth week on sale, Gumption, by Ansari’s former Parks costar Nick Offerman (the series finale aired in February), holds steady at #19 in Hardcover Nonfiction, with 4,922 print units sold this week.

And back in Children’s Picture Books, The Book with No Pictures, by B.J. Novak (best known as a writer, executive producer, and actor on the Office), is, in its 38th week, at #15 on the list, with 5,301 print units sold this week and more than 408K print units sold to date.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Title Author Imprint Units
1 Grey E.L. James Vintage 354,229
2 The Wright Brothers David McCullough Simon & Schuster 42,160
3 Paper Towns John Green Speak 36,574
4 Finders Keepers Stephen King Scribner 36,209
5 The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins Riverhead 33,952
6 Country Danielle Steel Delacorte 32,527
7 Tom Clancy: Under Fire Grant Blackwood Putnam 27,672
8 Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada Jimmy Fallon Feiwel and Friends 27,258
9 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr Scribner 26,324
10 Legends and Lies O’Reilly/Fisher Holt 24,390