Fire Starter
Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff is the #1 book in the country, with print unit sales nearing 29K. (Holt moved up the pub date from Tuesday, January 9, to Friday, January 5, so these figures reflect two days of sales rather than the typical five for a debut week.) A more favorable view of the president, Let Trump Be Trump, got a boost this week, up five slots to #8 on our hardcover nonfiction list, with print unit sales up 15% from the week before. And print unit sales for the mental health assessment The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump are up 53%, to more than 3,000 for the week.
(See all of this week's bestselling books.)
Marie Kondo for Goths
Move over, hygge. And lagom, we hardly knew you. Debuting at #10 in hardcover nonfiction, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson aims for the intersection of Scandinavian lifestyle trends and the mania for minimalism. But instead of suggesting that readers ditch what doesn’t spark joy, Magnusson urges them to toss anything that other people won’t want to deal with after they’ve died. Not surprisingly, decluttering was on the minds of many book buyers in the first week of the new year. The top five titles in BookScan’s house, home, and gardening subject group were all about cleaning house.
G Is for Grafton
When Sue Grafton died on December 28, her daughter Jamie Clark broke the news to fans on the author’s Facebook page and addressed her mother’s legacy. “She was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows,” Clark wrote, “and in that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name.”
Regarding the author’s Kinsey Millhouse books, Clark continued, “As far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends at Y.” Grafton’s final book, Y Is for Yesterday, which pubbed in August, returns to our hardcover fiction list at #16, up 137% from the previous week. The first alphabet mystery, 1982’s A Is for Alibi, is #9 on our iBooks Mysteries & Thrillers list.
New & Notable
The Woman in the Window
A.J. Finn
#1 Hardcover Fiction, #8 overall
An agoraphobic Manhattanite witnesses a stabbing while spying on her neighbors. Our review called the debut thriller “gripping,” praising its “genuinely surprising twists.”
Robicheaux
James Lee Burke
#5 Hardcover Fiction
The MWA grand master’s first book featuring sheriff’s detective Dave Robicheaux since 2013’s Light of the World is, our review said, an “enthralling yet grim novel of crime, hate, and tragedy.”
Little Blue Truck’s Springtime
Alice Schertle, illus. by Jill McElmurry
#1 Picture Books
This board book, which our review called “joyful,” is one of several in a series by Schertle and the late McElmurry, who died in August. The 2009 board book Little Blue Truck has sold 1.4 million print copies.
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Title | Author | Imprint | Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fire and Fury | Michael Wolff | Holt | 28,567 |
| 2 | The Sun and Her Flowers | Rupi Kaur | Andrews McMeel | 24,998 |
| 3 | Dog Man and Cat Kid (Dog Man #4 | Dav Pilkey | Graphix | 23,799 |
| 4 | Judgment Detox | Gabrielle Bernstein | North Star Way | 23,254 |
| 5 | Milk and Honey | Rupi Kaur | Andrews McMeel | 20,450 |
| 6 | No Middle Name | Lee Child | Dell1 | 9,837 |
| 7 | You Are a Badass | Jen Sincero | Running Press | 17,303 |
| 8 | The Woman in the Window | A.J. Finn | Morrow | 15,760 |
| 9 | The Getaway (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #12) | Jeff Kinney | Amulet | 15,484 |
| 10 | Wonder | R.J. Palacio | Knopf | 15,342 |
All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.
