Twice Blessed

At #3 on our hardcover fiction, Kin by Tayari Jones is “a triumphant novel,” per our starred review, “of two motherless girls from rural Honeysuckle, La., who follow very different paths into adulthood.” It’s the author’s second book selected for Oprah’s Book Club; the first was 2018’s An American Marriage. After that title was released, Jones told PW in a prepub interview for Kin, she was worried that she’d peaked. “I believe that to write a book is a gift from God,” she said. “I thought, Who am I to ask God for another one?”

A Good Forecast

B.K. Borison’s And Now, Back to You takes the #2 spot on our trade paperback list. Our review called it a “sweet and sassy enemies-to-lovers rom-com” starring a pair of meteorologists. First-week print unit sales have been heating up for the author, and her most recent two books—2025's First Time Caller and Good Spirits—have sold well over 100K print copies apiece.

Mindful Matters

In A World Appears, #2 on our hardcover nonfiction list, Michael Pollan “delivers an enlightening exploration of what is and isn’t known about consciousness,” according to our review. “He questions whether a brain is a prerequisite for consciousness and describes how a growing cadre of plant neurobiologists have found plants to be ‘highly intelligent beings, able to read their environment and solve novel problems.’ ” In a recent interview with PW, Pollan discussed Henry David Thoreau, who had plenty of thoughts on both plants and consciousness. “Thoreau has been a really important writer to me for a very long time,” Pollan said. “There’s a vitality to his prose that I really admire.”

I Will Survive

A pair of new books on our hardcover nonfiction list speak to the prominence of reality TV in pop culture. At #4, Survivor, subtitled Forged by Fire, looks back on 25 years of the show that brought the phrase “voted off the island” into the lexicon; Jeff Probst, the book’s author and an executive producer on the show, has hosted all 50 seasons. Four notches below, the memoir You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It by former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills personality Lisa Rinna covers her life from various angles—her marriage to actor Harry Hamlin, the death of her mother—but saves plenty of room for reality dish. She opens the book by peeking behind the curtain of one of the first scenes she shot for RHOBH, when Brandi Glanville threw a glass of wine in Eileen Davidson’s face. “Love that story?” she writes. “Well, every bit of it is true, and it only gets more bananas from there.”