They may be a day later than the books that actually won Pulitzers, but the three finalists for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction have jumped considerably. Yesterday, none of the three books (Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace) were above #900 on the bestseller list (Pale King was in the 2,000s), but, likely because of the lingering uproar caused by the board's decision not to award a prize, Train Dreams has cracked the top 100 (going from #990 to #98), Swamplandia! has jumped from #984 to #155, and The Pale King has jumped to both #561 (paperback) and #625 (hardcover). The e-book versions for Train Dreams (#241) and Swamplandia! (#259) also saw significant upticks.
As for the Pulitzer winners, some have been able to sustain sales, and some have fallen off. As compared to yesterday's sales, poetry winner Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith has held steady (#101 to #132), while history winner Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable (#314 to #486) and biography winner George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis have both dropped slightly (#356 to #403). The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt, the general nonfiction winner, has actually increased sales since yesterday (#143 to #111).
