Bestseller Stat Shot

Believe it or not, we’re halfway through 2014, and YA titles dominate in this issue’s roundup of the bestselling books of the year to date (see p. 5). Spoiler alert: John Green and Veronica Roth have had a pretty good six months. With only a few adult titles among the year’s bestsellers, we wondered what all the grown-ups have been reading (other than The Fault in Our Stars and the Divergent trilogy). Below, we’ve listed the top 10 adult fiction and nonfiction bestsellers for the first half of the year.

Fiction

Rank Title Author Imprint YTD sales
1 The Goldfinch Donna Tartt Little, Brown 294,391
2 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn Broadway 260,552
3 The Invention of Wings Sue Monk Kidd Viking 245,777
4 Never Go Back Lee Child Dell 241,731
5 Shadow Spell Nora Roberts Berkley 239,820
6 Orphan Train Christina Baker Kline Morrow 225,696
7 The Target David Baldacci Grand Central 198,743
8 Inferno Dan Brown Anchor 195,571
9 Daddy’s Gone A Hunting Mary Higgins Clark Pocket Books 192,306
10 Unlucky 13 Patterson/Paetro Little, Brown 191,316

Nonfiction

Rank Title Author Imprint YTD sales
1 Jesus Calling Sarah Young Thomas Nelson 364,150
2 Heaven Is for Real Todd Burpo Thomas Nelson 342,384
3 Heaven Is for Real (movie tie-in) Todd Burpo Thomas Nelson 333,267
4 Strengths Finder 2.0 Tom Rath Gallup 253,850
5 Duty Robert M. Gates Knopf 219,018
6 Killing Jesus O’Reilly/Dugard Henry Holt 215,674
7 Grain Brain David Perlmutter Little, Brown 185,130
8 The Five Love Languages Gary Chapman Northfield 184,191
9 Flash Boys Michael Lewis Norton 177,641
10 Things That Matter Charles Krauthammer Crown 168,540

Source: Nielsen BookScan, unit sales through June 29, 2014

From the Newsletters

Children’s Bookshelf

Remembering Walter Dean Myers, who died last week at age 76.

Comics World

Get ready for San Diego Comic-Con 2014 with a show preview and more.

Blogs

Great first pages in literary history, including the start of A Better Angel by Chris Adrian. This, plus gems from our archives and book-world ephemera can be found on PW’s Tumblr.

ShelfTalker

The unlikely ways some people order books.

Podcasts

More to Come

The More to Come crew talk with Matt Kindt and comics veteran Jim Starlin.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay (Harper) was the most-read review on publishersweekly.com last week.