This Week's Bestsellers: May 11, 2015

Hue and Buy

With 28K print units sold, the sixth-bestselling book in the country this week is Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book, by Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford. You’ll find it at #1 on our Children’s Picture Books list, but as outlets such as the New York Times, Buzzfeed, CNN, and PW’s ShelfTalker blog have reported, adults are snapping up coloring books like Enchanted Forest for themselves. There’s no adult BISAC category for coloring books, so historically they’ve been categorized as Juvenile Nonfiction/Activity books. That hasn’t deterred adult buyers, especially lately: at this time last year, sticker books from Disney and Golden Books dominated the Activity Books category, but this week the picture looks a lot different, with adult-oriented coloring books making up six of the top 10.

Publishers have taken note. At #14 on our adult Trade Paperback list, Creative Cats Coloring Book, by Marjorie Sarnat, sold 4,520 print units this week. Dover Publications classifies it under the Art/General BISAC category; the publisher has also begun using Crafts & Hobbies/General for its adult-oriented coloring titles, though many older books still carry the Juvenile Nonfiction/Activity designation. Other publishers are tapping into adult BISAC subcategories; Ulysses Press and Fox Chapel/Design Originals are among those labeling some coloring books as Art/Techniques/Color. And the latest twist: on May 7, Penguin announced that it had acquired Johanna Basford’s next two coloring books—on the adult side.

Other Notable Debuts

Hope

by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus

#1 Hardcover

Nonfiction

29,877 units

Berry and DeJesus are two of the three women who were abducted and held captive in a home in Cleveland for over a decade by Ariel Castro. The third, Michelle Knight, published the memoir Finding Me in 2014; it debuted at #1 in hardcover, and this week lands at #20 on our Trade Paperback list.

Early Warning

by Jane Smiley

#15 Hardcover Fiction

3,736 units

The second installment in the Pulitzer Prize winner’s generational family-saga trilogy, which began with 2014’s Some Luck, follows the Langdon family from the 1950s through the early 1980s.

On the Move

by Oliver Sacks

#17 Hardcover

Nonfiction

5,328 units

The famed neurologist and author, best known for 1973’s Awakenings, trains his sharp eye on his own life.

Ember in the Ashes

by Sabaa Tahir

#3 Children’s

Frontlist Fiction

6,140 units

Paramount has bought the film rights to this debut high fantasy YA novel, and foreign rights have been sold in 24 countries.

Top 10 Overall