Bestseller Stat Shot

Summer: time to take a trip, hit the beach, relax a bit, and, for many thousands of students across America, work through a summer reading list. Indeed, sales of American classic novels—the kind that often appear on summer reading lists—are trending upward, but they aren’t the only books to enjoy a seasonal boost: Harper Perennial’s updated edition of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor (originally published in 2003) has been quietly climbing the trade paperback list all summer, and this week it sits at #10. Here is a selection of this week’s most popular classics.

To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee Mass Market 8,540 30%
Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury Trade Paper 7,897 19%
Lord of the Flies William Golding Mass Market 6,556 30%
1984 George Orwell Mass Market 6,432 14%
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald Trade Paper 6,048 34%
The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger Mass Market 5,320 19%
Animal Farm George Orwell Mass Market 4,783 33%

From the Newsletters

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The BookLife Report

Copyright: the best $35 an indie author will ever spend.

Comics World

The big comics and graphic novels of fall 2014.

The most-read review on publishersweekly.com last week was Soldier of Change: From the Closet to the Forefront of the Gay Rights Movement by Stephen Snyder-Hill (Univ. of Nebraska/Potomac).

Podcasts

KidsCast

The pseudonymous Pseudonymous Bosch talks about his new book, Bad Magic, as well as strategies for staying one step ahead of his enemies.

More to Come

Talking with writer and comics editor Joe Illidge about his career, diversity in the comics industry, and cowriting the forthcoming graphic novel The Ren (Roaring Brook/First Second).

The Week Ahead

PW senior writer Andrew Albanese looks at the broad strokes of Apple’s e-book price-fixing settlement, and what the deal might mean for publishers—and for Amazon.

Blogs

Some things you may have missed if you haven’t checked PW’s Tumblr lately: the #worstbookever hashtag, a letter that Ayn Rand wrote to Cat Fancy magazine, Nabokov’s hand-drawn map of Ulysses, and more.

ShelfTalker

The thinking behind a free bookmobile in rural Vermont.

Events

Going to San Diego Comic-Con? PW staffers are moderating two panels that are not to be missed:

Behind the Digital Line (Friday, July 25, 10 a.m.)

A look at how technology has changed the way comics are created, distributed, written, illustrated, and read. Moderated by senior news editor Calvin Reid.

Creating Great Graphic Novel Events in Libraries (Sunday, July 27, 4 p.m.)

Ideas for putting on comics events at your local library: how to, why to, and more. Moderated by comics reviews editor Heidi MacDonald.

PW Radio

Joseph Luzzi discusses his new memoir, My Two Italies (FSG). Plus, Carl Pritzkat, PW’s v-p of business development, gives an overview of BookLife, our new website for indie authors.​