Nickel and Climb

Colson Whitehead has the #4 book in the country with The Nickel Boys, which our starred review called "a stunning novel of impeccable language and startling insight." It follows the author's Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning The Underground Railroad, and first-week print unit sales, already on an upward trajectory, are more than double what they were for that title.

On A Role

Debuting at #1 in trade paperback and the #3 book in the country, The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited! is the second graphic novel based on the McElroy family’s role-playing podcast. The first Adventure Zone title, Here There Be Gerblins, pubbed a year ago with similar stats: #1 trade paper, #3 overall.

The difference: the first book was trade paper only, whereas the new one is a simultaneous hardcover/trade paper release; the hardcover is #10 on that list. Gerblins sold 38K its first week; Rockport Limited sold 41K in traade paper and another 7,500 in hardcover.

In the Limelight

Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass pubbed in December, had a nice debut week, and then sales quickly fell off. Lee, front man for Canadian prog rock band Rush, had done a few one-off book tour dates, and then in the second week of July had a seven-day run in the South, Midwest, and on the East Coast. The ticketed events each sold out several hundred copies, and the book lands at #8 in hardcover nonfiction with its best weekly sales to date.

NEW & NOTABLE

The New Girl
Daniel Silva
#1 Hardcover Fiction,#1 overall
The 19th Gabriel Allon thriller is “an excellent introduction for new readers,” our review said, with “sharply drawn characters, a complex plot, and vivid backgrounds that add to the book’s realism.”

American Carnage
Tim Alberta
#2 Hardcover Nonfiction
Interviews with President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and many others inform what our starred review called a “sweeping study of modern American politics” by the chief political correspondent for Politico, in which “Republican congressional factions battle each other and Donald Trump for the party’s soul.”

They Called Us Enemy
George Takei et al.
#11 Trade Paperback
“Takei challenges Americans to look to how past humanitarian injustices speak to current political debates,” our starred review said, in this graphic novel recounting his family’s internment during WWII.

Top 10 overall

Rank Title Author Imprint Units
1 The New Girl Daniel Silva Harper 59,293
2 Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens Putnam 48,867
3 The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited! McElroy/Pietsch First Second 40,636
4 The Nickel Boys Colson Whitehead Doubleday 39,044
5 Educated Tara Westover Random House 19,721
6 Under Currents Nora Roberts St. Martin’s 19,276
7 Window on the Bay Debbie Macomber Ballantine 17,120
8 Unfreedom of the Press Mark R. Levin Threshold 16,943
9 The Reckoning John Grisham Dell 16,463
10 Before We Were Yours Lisa Wingate Ballantine 14,991

All unit sales per NPD BookScan except where noted.