Shooting the Moon

At #2 in Children’s Frontlist Fiction and #8 in the country overall, Winter concludes Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series, a futuristic YA take on classic fairy tales. The first book, Cinder, introduces the main heroine of the series: Linh Cinder, a cyborg who loses not just her shoe, but her entire mechanical foot at the ball. Subsequent books, including a prequel, Fairest, riff on the stories of Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White. Together, the five novels have sold more than 651K units in hardcover and trade paper. Here’s a look at how each did its first week out.

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

New and Notable

Harry Potter Coloring Book
#1 Children’s Picture Books, #2 overall
70K print units

Includes illustrations and designs used in the making of the Harry Potter movies, and a cover color scheme reminiscent of Johanna Basford’s blockbuster coloring books.

Destiny and Power
Jon Meacham
#5 Hardcover Nonfiction
29K print units

Meacham, who received a Pulitzer Prize for his 2008 biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion, here focuses on the 41st U.S. president, George H.W. Bush.

Year of Yes
Shonda Rhimes
#11 Hardcover Nonfiction
10.5K print units

PW’s starred review says that in this memoir, Rhimes—creator of the TV shows Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, and executive producer of How to Get Away with Murder—“comes across as inspiring and real, every bit the heroine whom readers need.”

Movie Tie-In Watch

The film adaptation of In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick, which won the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction, opens December 11. The book, subtitled The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, purports to detail the real-life events that inspired Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. A tie-in edition lands at #21 on our Trade Paperback list, with 4,753 print units sold. The conventional trade paperback also had a good week: with 2,152 print units sold, it’s up 106% over last week.

Comfort Food

Meredith Laurence, known as the Blue Jean Chef, trained at New England Culinary Institute and has worked as a line cook, culinary instructor, test kitchen manager, and more. Currently a QVC fixture, Laurence has two previous cookbooks to her name: 2010’s Comfortable in the Kitchen and 2013’s Comfortable Under Pressure. Her new release, Delicious Under Pressure, is her breakout hit: it debuts at #5 on our Trade Paperback list, with 10K print units sold this week.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Title Author Imprint Units
1 Old School (Wimpy Kid #10) Jeff Kinney Abrams/Amulet 201,213
2 Harry Potter Coloring Book – Scholastic 70,223
3 Rogue Lawyer John Grisham Doubleday 46,167
4 Fallout 4: Vault Dweller’s Survival Guide – Prima 43,943
5 The Bazaar of Bad Dreams Stephen King Scribner 37,428
6 Lost Ocean Johanna Basford Penguin 33,902
7 The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime Ree Drummond Morrow 33,587
8 Winter (The Lunar Chronicles) Marissa Meyer Feiwel & Friends 32,295
9 Killing Reagan O’Reilly/Dugard Holt 32,273
10 Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates Kilmeade/Yaeger Penguin/Sentinel 31,271

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.