This Week's Bestsellers: August 17, 2015

Small Government, Big Sales

Debuting at #1 in Hardcover Nonfiction, and at #3 overall, Plunder and Deceit by Mark R. Levin sold 61,910 print units this week. Levin, who served as chief of staff for attorney general Edwin Meese among other positions in Ronald Reagan’s cabinet, is now a syndicated talk show host and frequent commentator with millions of listeners each week. Many of those listeners, likely, are also readers: print unit sales of his books total more than 2.1 million copies. Here’s how his titles have done their first weeks on sale.

First-Week Print Unit Sales

(See all of this week's bestselling books.)

Home-Field Advantage

Saban: The Making of a Coach by Monte Burke lands on our Hardcover Nonfiction list at #17 with 2,948 units sold. If you didn’t already know that the book’s subject, Nick Saban, is head football coach at the University of Alabama, you could guess from the biography’s regional sales.

Notable Debut

Wind/Pinball
by Haruki Murakami
#11 Hardcover Fiction
5,440 print units

New translations of the first two books by Murakami—Hear the Wind Sing (1979) and Pinball, 1973 (1980)—are collected in a single volume for their initial release in the U.S. These are the first and second installments in the Trilogy of the Rat; A Wild Sheep Chase, first published in the U.S. in 1989, is the third.

What’s the Buzz?

A pair of BEA 2015 darlings make their first appearances on our Hardcover Fiction list. At #22, Editors Buzz pick In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware is the first novel to pub under the Scout Press imprint, launched by S&S/Gallery’s Jennifer Bergstrom as a home for literary fiction. Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal just missed the list last week, its first week on-sale; this week, the book, which was showcased at an AAP Librarian Book Buzz Panel, is at #23.

Movie Tie-In Watch

Bill Bryson published A Walk in the Woods in 1998, and Robert Redford has had his eye on it since at least 2005, when he planned to star in a film adaptation opposite Paul Newman. Three years later, Newman died, and the movie stalled out. Next month, it finally hits theaters, with Nick Nolte in the role originally meant for Newman. A tie-in edition pubbed last week, and this week it’s at #24 on the paperback list with 4,036 print units sold.

Top 10 Overall