This Week's Bestsellers: November 9, 2015

‘Ocean’ Plus Eleven

Sharpen your crayons and uncap your markers: half of this week’s top 25 trade paperbacks are adult coloring books, with a dozen titles selling more than 126K print units combined. More than half of those sales belong to the #2 book in the country, Lost Ocean by Johanna Basford, the game-changing Scottish illustrator’s first coloring book with Penguin, and her first to be released as an adult title. (2015’s Enchanted Forest and 2013’s Secret Garden, both with Laurence King, take the top two spots on PW’s children’s picture book list this week.)

While many adult coloring books focus on the therapeutic side of the phenomenon, using words such as calm and stress relieving, two of this week’s biggest books are licensed titles, appealing to fans of decidedly adult—not to mention violent and sexually explicit—properties. The Official “A Game of Thrones” Coloring Book by George R.R. Martin and The Official “Outlander” Coloring Book by Diana Gabaldon debut at #3 and #5 in trade paper, respectively. PW continues our coverage of the adult coloring book trend in the November 9 issue, with an extensive look at titles pubbing this spring.

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

Spinning Stories

As election season heats up, our hardcover nonfiction list sometimes has the look of a battle for the American soul—or at least the look of a presidential-debate lineup (this week: Ben Carson at #5; next week, we’ll check in with Donald Trump).

But the fiction lists, too, give some indication of the tenor of public conversation. Rush Limbaugh gallops to the top of our children’s fiction list with Rush Revere and the Star-Spangled Banner, fourth in his time-travelling U.S. history series, which features a talking horse named Liberty. With 47.6K print units sold, it’s the #4 book in the country.

Another powerhouse of conservative political broadcasting, Glenn Beck, scores with an adult novel. The Immortal Nicholas, at #6 in hardcover fiction with 14K print units sold, relates the story of Santa Claus (aka St. Nicholas) to the birth of Jesus.

Our Books, Ourselves

Debuting on this week’s hardcover nonfiction list are books by and about a trio of feminist icons. At #13 with 9,530 print units sold, Notorious RBG is Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik’s look at, per the subtitle, “the life and times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” the U.S. Supreme Court justice and women’s rights advocate. The memoir Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein, Portlandia cocreator and cofounder of influential riot grrrl band Sleater-Kinney, debuts at #17 with 8,017 print units sold. And Gloria Steinem—journalist, activist, and Ms. magazine cofounder—lands at #18 with My Life on the Road, selling 7,266 print units.

New & Notable

The Witches
Stacy Schiff
#6 Hardcover Nonfiction
17K print units

Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize winner for 1999’s Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) and the author of 2010’s Cleopatra, here turns her historian’s eye on the Salem Witch Trials.

Slade House
David Mitchell
#12 Hardcover Fiction
8,585 print units

The genre-jumping author delves into horror with a slender novel that began life as a Twitter short story.

Lights Out
Ted Koppel
#16 Hardcover Nonfiction
8,133 print units

The founding Nightline anchor, in a book subtitled A Cyberattack, a Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath, outlines the vulnerability of the U.S. power grids.

Top 10 Overall

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.