Bestseller Stat Shot

The runaway popularity of lo-fi video game megahit Minecraft has been a boon for Scholastic, the publisher of a number of game strategy guides. The game, which, at its core, is about “breaking and placing blocks” (or so says the game’s official website), can spin off in an infinite number of directions and is available for just about any gaming platform out there, including Amazon’s just-released Fire TV. Perhaps coincidentally, the same week Fire TV started landing in living rooms across the country, Scholastic’s Minecraft: Essential Handbook saw unit sales more than double, after two weeks of declining sales, and it became the bestselling print Minecraft book in the country. With all the Minecraft reading going on, who’s got time to actually play the game? Here are release-to-date sales figures for three popular strategy guides.

From the Newsletters

Tip Sheet

Michael Wood, one of the editors of the massive Dictionary of Untranslatables (Princeton Univ.), on 13 words that you can’t quite translate.

Children’s Bookshelf

For his latest trick, Caldecott-winning author/illustrator Jon Klassen pulls an impressive number out of his “Hat” books: one million copies in print worldwide.

Cooking the Books

Would you like some books with that bourbon? A survey of new titles on the rise of American whiskey.

Religion Bookline

Talking with Sarah Jakes, daughter of T.D. Jakes and author of the new book, Lost and Found: Finding Hope in the Detours of Life (Bethany House).

Reviews

Last week, after a brief hiatus, The One by Kiera Cass (HarperTeen) reclaimed its title as the most-read review on publishersweekly.com.

Blogs

PW on Tumblr

From the movie Under the Skin to new books that look like old books, some recent obsessions of PW staffers. Plus, from the PW archives: anyone seen a 17th-century bound Ethiopian bible manuscript? One disappeared from the offices of Pynson Printers in 1939.

ShelfTalker

Which books make you cry?

Authors

Scott Phillips on the violence simmering just below the surface of 1870s Denver, as portrayed in his new novel, Hop Alley (Counterpoint).

What happens in a world where we depend entirely on smart devices? Word flu. Or, at least, that’s what happens in The Word Exchange (Doubleday), Alena Graedon’s new novel.

Mariko and Jillian Tamaki—cousins and co-creators—discuss their latest graphic novel, This One Summer (Roaring Brook/First Second).

Podcasts

Author/illustrator Peter Brown discusses his new picture book, My Teacher Is a Monster (No, I Am Not), from Little, Brown.

PW Radio

Adam Begley discusses his new biography, Updike (Harper). And PW reviews editor Alex Crowley joins us for our annual celebration of Poetry Month.