Cracking Up
Originally published in 2012 by New Zealand indie press Oratia Books as I Need a New Bum!, Dawn McMillan and Ross Kinnaird’s I Need a New Butt! was released in the U.S. by Dover Publications in 2014. Weekly print unit sales remained in the low double digits until the Scottish Granny, of Wonky Donkey fame, posted a YouTube video on September 22 of her reading the book to her infant grandson. The post went viral, garnering more than 925K views and tens of thousands of shares to date. Dover went back to press, and the book, which several outlets are pairing with Donkey, debuts at #5 on our children’s picture books list.
(See all of this week's bestselling books.)
Movie Watch
The big-screen adaptation of A Dog’s Way Home, based on W. Bruce Cameron’s 2017 entry in his canine reincarnation series, hits theaters January 11. It follows the 2017 film A Dog’s Purpose, which was a critical flop but a fan favorite. The tie-in edition of A Dog’s Way Home debuts at #4 on our trade paperback list; the book has sold 66K copies in hardcover and another 68K in conventional trade paper.
Comfort in Numbers
QVC host David Venable has the #2 book in the country with Comfort Food Shortcuts. Venable got his start with the network in 1993, promoting the company’s food products, and has hosted In the Kitchen with David since 2009. An appearance on his show moves thousands of cookbooks in minutes for widely known and regional authors alike. In August, Good Housekeeping reported that presales of Comfort Food Shortcuts had topped 135K copies. QVC began shipping the title November 27; the book officially pubbed December 4.
New & Notable
Kingdom of the Blind
Louise Penny
#4 Hardcover Fiction
The “insightful, well-plotted 14th novel featuring Chief Supt. Armand Gamache,” our review said, “sends recurring characters in surprising directions” as Gamache and series stalwart Myrna Lander, a psychologist turned bookseller, get entangled in a murder case.
Trump’s Enemies
Corey R. Lewandowski and David N. Bossie
#13 Hardcover Nonfiction
The coauthors of Let Trump Be Trump “flaunt their presidential access” and “lambaste a rogue’s gallery of Trump foes” in a book our review calls “simplistic, not persuasively argued, and as partisan as the anti-Trump sentiment it’s reacting to.”
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Title | Author | Imprint | Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Becoming | Michelle Obama | Crown | 368,598 |
| 2 | Comfort Food Shortcuts | David Venable | Ballantine | 160,222 |
| 3 | The Meltdown (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #13) | Jeff Kinney | Amulet | 102,335 |
| 4 | The Wonky Donkey | Smith/Cowley | Scholastic | 76,048 |
| 5 | Homebody | Joanna Gaines | Harper Design | 61,982 |
| 6 | Girl, Wash Your Face | Rachel Hollis | Nelson | 50,182 |
| 7 | The Reckoning | John Grisham | Doubleday | 40,740 |
| 8 | Fire & Blood | George R.R. Martin | Bantam | 40,290 |
| 9 | Magnolia Table | Joanna Gaines | Morrow | 40,090 |
| 10 | Target: Alex Cross | James Patterson | Little, Brown | 37,837 |
All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.
