Steady On

Open Season, C.J. Box’s first novel starring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, pubbed in 2001, and the author has released one book in the series every year since. As of 2021’s Dark Sky, first-week print unit sales have circled the 30K mark, with release-to-date sales between 100K–110K units. Pickett’s 25th outing, Battle Mountain, looks likely to continue along that trail, and gets its start this week at the peak of our hardcover fiction list.

History of the Future

Former journalist Omar El Akkad is the author of two novels: 2017’s American War, set in “a terrifyingly plausible future in which the clash between red states and blue has become deadly,” per our starred review, and 2021’s What Strange Paradise, an “account of a young boy’s flight from Syria during the country’s civil war.” With his first work of nonfiction, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, El Akkad turns his attention to Gaza. The title comes from a tweet he wrote in October 2023: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” It’s #11 on our hardcover nonfiction list.

Samantha’s Versions

Debuting at #14 on our hardcover fiction list, The Dark Mirror by Samantha Shannon expands the world of her Bone Season series. It arrives four years after book four, The Mask Falling, and, according to our review, “readers who need their memories jogged regarding both the characters’ elaborate backstories and Shannon’s frequent neologisms will find a comprehensive glossary at the back of the book.” Those with sharp recall may want to consult the glossary anyway, because Shannon has made revisions to the first four books. Beginning with 2023’s 10th anniversary edition of The Bone Season, the novels have been “fully revised with new material” and are billed as the “author’s preferred text,” according to the coverline. “If The Bone Season had been a standalone, or if I had become emotionally distanced from it, I might have let it be,” Shannon wrote on her website. “My debut was the representative of a long series I was still working on, and was also its weakest link.”

Legacy Admissions

Rina Kent lands at #6 on our trade paperback list with God of Fury, the fifth book in her Legacy of Gods dark college romance series. Bloom began releasing new editions of the previously self-published titles in October.