This Week's Bestsellers: April 18, 2016

We Are Family

The Rainbow Comes and Goes, a collection of recent correspondence between CNN broadcaster Anderson Cooper and his mother, socialite Gloria Vanderbilt, is the #3 book in the country. In the introduction to the book,

Cooper writes of his hope that the reader will be encouraged “to think about your own relationships and perhaps... start a new kind of conversation with someone you love.”

Cooper and Vanderbilt aren’t the only ones with family on their minds this week. Debuting at #12 on our Hardcover Nonfiction list, Mother, Can You Not? is based on Kate Siegel’s Instagram account Crazy Jewish Mom. Siegel posts screenshots of text messages from her mother—who affectionately calls her daughter Spawn—to an audience of 813K followers. And at #13, Becoming Grandma by Leslie Stahl is the TV journalist’s examination of the emotional and physiological effects of grandparenthood.

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

Start Me Up

From six-figure Etsy shops to venture capital–funded tech companies, entrepreneurship is hot, and two new books on our Hardcover Nonfiction list clue readers into how to play the game. AOL cofounder Steve Case’s first book, The Third Wave, debuts at #4, and although it’s strange to think of AOL as having been a startup, when Case helped launch the company in 1985, only 3% of Americans were online.

The #5 book, Born for This by Chris Guillebeau, is a guide to finding one’s dream career, whether by traditional employment or by striking out on one’s own. Guillebeau has written three other books, including 2012’s The $100 Startup, which has sold 103K copies in hardcover. For more books on finding one’s bliss in the workplace, check out our May 16 business feature.

How Old Are You Now?

Millennials may be headline grabbers, but older folks aren’t going gently into that good night, especially when it comes to publishing. A trio of new books on our Hardcover Nonfiction list address issues of concern to the aging (which, let’s face it, is everyone alive).

At #6, The Longevity Book by Cameron Diaz and Sandra Bark looks at how women can maintain optimum health as they get older. It follows up the pair’s 2014 title, The Body Book, which has sold 214K copies in hardcover. Disrupting Aging by Jo Ann Jenkins, CEO of the AARP, checks in at #9 this week and, using a business buzzword in its title, focuses on three areas: health, wealth, and self. One notch below, The End of Heart Disease is the latest health title from physician Joel Fuhrman (Eat to Live), whose books have sold 1.6 million print units.

For more books that address aging, look for our health and fitness feature in next week’s issue.

New & Notable

Dream Home

Jonathan Scott and Drew Scott

#3 Hardcover Nonfiction, #10 overall

With 17K print units sold in its first week, this guide to buying, selling, and renovating houses, by HGTV’s Property Brothers, is the third bestselling house & home title of the year so far; only Marie Kondo’s books have sold better.

Lab Girl

Hope Jahren

#20 Hardcover Nonfiction

Our starred review called this memoir, by a geobiologist who is one of four scientists (and the only woman) to have been awarded both of the Young Investigator Medals given within the earth sciences, “darkly humorous, emotionally raw, and exquisitely crafted.”

Top 10 Overall

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.