Dreaming with Dolly

Life lessons from the queen of country music.

Beloved, award-winning country music star Dolly Parton enters the Hardcover Nonfiction bestsellers list at #24 with Dream More: Celebrate the Dreamer in You, based on a commencement speech at the University of Tennessee. In this hybrid memoir/self-help volume that PW salutes for its charming "Dolly-isms," Parton (Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business) urges readers to "dream more, learn more, care more, and be more," illustrating with examples from her life. Though most know her as a performer, Parton is also a philanthropist and literacy advocate. Through her Dollywood Foundation, she sponsors the Imagination Library program to promote early literacy; Penguin Group (USA), as exclusive provider, has distributed more than 41.5 million books to prekindergarten readers since 2001.

Naturally, for a singer who has sold more than 100 million records, Parton's media appearances have included a generous helping of song. In addition to a profile on ABC's Nightline, on the eve of the book's November 27 publication, Parton appeared in three segements on ABC's Good Morning America, including a duet of "Islands in the Stream" with the day's cohost, Mr. Kermit the Frog, an interview with George Stephanopoulos, and a live performance of her new song, "Celebrate the Dreamer," written specifically for the book. Other media highlights include a duet with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report, with a nervous Colbert on guitar (see "Love Is Like a Butterfly" on YouTube) and the "Proust Questionnaire" in Vanity Fair's November issue. In December, Parton will be interviewed for NPR's Bullseye, MSNBC's Morning Joe, the Miami Herald, the Boston Globe, and more. —Jessamine Chan

Like a Virgin (Diet)

Harlequin means romance, but branching out from tradition has also spelled success as The Virgin Diet hits our Hardcover Nonfiction bestseller list, at #6, with 20,000 copies its first week out. Senior publicity manager Shara Alexander says everyone at the company had high hopes the moment they met JJ Virgin, sure they had the next diet trend. The mantra is "Drop 7 foods, Lose 7 pounds, Just 7 days." The theory is based on food intolerance, and from the looks of Virgin and, we're told, the Harlequin staffers who have tried the diet, it's a theory that works. And note all this success in a time of indulgence that started with Thanksgiving's turkey and stuffing and pie. Virgin, a board-certified holistic nutritionist, is currently appearing in a PBS special, and in January, her book tour will take her to New York, L.A., and Toronto. In a nutshell (raw, please, and no peanuts), according to v-p Katherine Orr, "The book is selling like crazy." —Louisa Ermelino

Movin' On Up

Outside of flood plains, swamps, and everglades, houses don't usually have legs, but Louise Erdrich's sure does. In its ninth week on the market, The Round House moves up a notch on the Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list. Is this a National Book Award or Black Friday bump? Probably both. The book sold 8,451 copies this week, compared to 3,618 in its first week (at outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan), selling 37,966 copies in hardback to date. Though the numbers for Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan's latest novel, run counter to those for The Round House—in its first week Sweet Tooth sold 14,217; this week, 7,836—its ranking, too, moves up a notch. To date it has sold 28,605 hardcover copies. While neither book is seeing James Patterson–like numbers, these are respectable figures for literary fiction, if not exactly what McEwan is used to seeing. —Mike Harvkey

Hard-Boiled Wizardry

Jim Butcher redefined urban fantasy with the first Dresden Files novel, Storm Front, in 2000. Readers were immediately hooked on the blend of hard-boiled detective fiction, magic, and legend: protagonist Harry Dresden is the only man listed under "Wizard" in the Chicago phone book, and he's fought demons, served a faerie queen, and even died and come back as a ghost. Butcher made the jump to hardcover with Dead Beat in 2005 and hasn't looked back. This week the 14th installment, Cold Days—which PW's review calls "engaging urban fantasy that leavens apocalyptic threats with smart-ass humor"—debuts at #3 on our Hardcover Fiction list. —Rose Fox

A 20-Year-Old Cold Case in 25th Book

Michael Connelly's The Black Box, his 18th crime novel to feature tenacious LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, debuts at #1 on the Hardcover Fiction list. The action opens in 1992, a few days after the acquittal of the cops who beat up Rodney King incited an eruption of violence in Los Angeles. In a South-Central alley, Bosch and his partner, Jerry Edgar, briefly examine the body of Danish photojournalist Anneke Jesperson, who's been shot dead, but they're unable to pursue the case due to lack of time and police will power. Twenty years later, while working cold cases in the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit, Bosch gets a second chance to answer for Jesperson.

The Black Box is the author's 25th book. In 2012, Connelly is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the publication of his first novel, The Black Echo, which introduced Harry Bosch and won the 1993 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Michael Pietsch, senior v-p and publisher of Little, Brown, says of his prize author: "Michael Connelly's novels, impossibly, continue to grow deeper, richer, and faster, as his detective Harry Bosch ages and becomes deeper, wilier, and more urgent about each case. And each novel sells better than the previous one. What a thrill it is to see Michael Connelly a #1 bestseller at the peak of the holiday bookselling season."—Peter Cannon

John Green Reaches for the ‘Stars'

Talk about a whirlwind year. YA novelist John Green's fourth novel, The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton), pubbed last January with a 150,000-copy first printing, and as the year nears an end, 825,000 copies are in print. In a feat of prestidigitation, Green signed every copy of the first printing; he then toured three weeks to 17 cities, tweeting tales of life on the road to his 1.3 million Twitter followers. His book, about two teens who meet in a cancer support group and fall in love, received eight starred reviews, including PW (we called it "smart, witty, profoundly sad, and full of questions worth asking"). Green was recently named one of Entertainment Weekly's Entertainers of the Year, and Time picked Fault as its #1 fiction title of the year. Rights have been sold in 34 countries, and a film version is currently in development with Fox 2000. When he's not writing, touring, or tweeting, Green collaborates with his brother Hank on a hugely popular series of vlogs, which have been viewed more than 270 million times. And next month the Green brothers will give a performance at Carnegie Hall; fans, who call themselves Nerdfighters, snapped up all available tickets within 10 days. How many YA authors can say they sold out Carnegie Hall? —Diane Roback