Peak Ratings
New books by two Fox News hosts claim the top spots on their respective lists. Megyn Kelly’s memoir, Settle for More, debuts at #1 in hardcover nonfiction and #4 overall. In it she details her sexual harassment allegations against former Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, as well as her famously contentious relationship with Donald Trump. Within hours of the book’s release, the Los Angeles Times reported, more than 100 negative one-star reviews had appeared on Amazon, via a pro–Donald Trump Reddit forum called The_Donald, which is not officially associated with the president-elect.
Over in children’s picture books, Take Heart, My Child by Fox and Friends cohost Ainsley Earhardt, illustrated by Jaime Kim, leads the pack. The book is, in part, a message to Earhardt’s daughter, who was born in November 2015.
(See all of this week's bestselling books.)
Movie Watch
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang debuts at #22 in trade paper-back this week, 14 years after its original publication. Why the renewed interest? One of the pieces in the anthology, “Story of Your Life,” is the basis for the much-lauded film Arrival, which opened November 11. We’ve had our eye on Chiang’s book for a long time; when it pubbed in 2002, our starred review called it “the first must-read SF book of the year.”
Swing and a Hit
Zadie Smith has been a critical and fan favorite since the 2000 publication of White Teeth, which, alongside other accolades, Time named among the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. Swing Time, her latest, has garnered generally strong reviews (including a star from PW) and debuts this week at #15 in hardcover fiction, with Smith’s best first-week sales since BookScan began keeping records in 2001. Here’s a look at how earlier books compare.
First-Week Print Unit Sales for Zadie Smith
| The Autograph Man (2002) | 1,452 |
| On Beauty (2005) | 7,202 |
| NW (2012) | 4,707 |
| Swing Time (2016) | 9,272 |
Scrappy Somebodies
A trio of celeb memoirs passed the 10K print unit sales mark their first week out of the gate. Anna Kendrick, a best supporting actress Oscar nominee for 2009’s Up in the Air, debuts at #7 in hardcover nonfiction with Scrappy Little Nobody. Two notches below, Superficial is the follow-up to The Andy Cohen Diaries, by the executive producer of The Real Housewives and the host of Bravo’s Watch What Happens: Live. And at #12, Born a Crime by Trevor Noah revisits The Daily Show host’s apartheid-era South African childhood; as the son of a black mother and a white father, he spent much of his early life in hiding.
New & Notable
Turbo Twenty-Three
Janet Evanovich
#1 Hardcover Fiction, #3 overall
Evanovich nabs the top spot on two lists with her books starring bounty hunter Stephanie Plum; the previous book in the series, Tricky Twenty-Two, is #1 on our mass market list for the second week in a row.
Our Revolution
Bernie Sanders
#3 Hardcover Nonfiction, #9 overall
Sanders, whose book deal was announced in mid-July, shortly after he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, delivers an insider’s account of his campaign as well as his vision for the future.
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Title | Author | Imprint | Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Double Down (Wimpy Kid #11) | Jeff Kinney | Amulet | 112,655 |
| 2 | Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (screenplay) | J.K. Rowling | Scholastic/Levine | 99,778 |
| 3 | Turbo Twenty-Three | Janet Evanovich | Bantam | 64,689 |
| 4 | Settle for More | Megyn Kelly | Harper | 63,870 |
| 5 | Tales from a Not-So-Friendly Frenemy (Dork Diaries #11) | Rachel Renée Russell | Aladdin | 51,419 |
| 6 | The Whistler | John Grisham | Doubleday | 50,513 |
| 7 | No Man’s Land | David Baldacci | Grand Central | 49,218 |
| 8 | Killing the Rising Sun | O’Reilly/Dugard | Holt | 48,976 |
| 9 | Our Revolution | Bernie Sanders | St. Martin’s/Dunne | 44,735 |
| 10 | Night School | Lee Child | Delacorte | 39,144 |
All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.
