Weighing the Options
The #1 book in the country, with 103K hardcover copies sold, is Option B, by Lean In author and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Adam Grant, a Wharton School professor and the author of Originals. In 2015, Sandberg wrote a famously viral Facebook post one month after the death of her husband, in which she credited Grant with teaching her about resilience; their book is subtitled “Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy.” First-week print unit sales for Option B, the biggest debut this year so far, beat those of either of the authors’ top-selling solo projects.
(See all of this week's bestselling books.)
A Tale Well Sold
Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood premiered April 26, catapulting the 1998 trade paperback edition, which had already been selling well this year, to the #7 position in the country overall, with double the print-unit sales of the previous week. The TV tie-in edition, which just missed our Trade Paperback list in its first week on sale, enjoyed a 137% increase in print-unit sales in its second week, landing at #8 on that list.
Sometimes the Bad Guys Win
Debuting at #6 in Children’s Frontlist Fiction, The Furball Strikes Back is the third Bad Guys chapter book from Australian author-illustrator Aaron Blabey, in which Mr. Wolf, Mr. Shark, and other notorious characters seek to rehabilitate their reputations. The series appears to be building an audience, with increasingly strong debut-week sales.
New & Notable
Anything Is Possible
Elizabeth Strout
#4 Hardcover Fiction
Strout, who won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Olive Kitteridge, revisits characters from 2016’s My Name Is Lucy Barton in a “powerful, sometimes shocking, often emotionally wrenching novel,” per our starred review.
Beartown
Fredrik Backman
#6 Hardcover Fiction
The latest offering from the popular author (A Man Called Ove and others) “veers close to the saccharine,” our review said, “but readers may be too spellbound to notice.”
The Operator
Robert O’Neill
#3 Hardcover Nonfiction
The highly decorated Navy SEAL, who, in the words of the subtitle, fired “the shots that killed Osama bin Laden,” recounts his childhood and military career.
The Secrets of My Life
Caitlyn Jenner
#8 Hardcover Nonfiction
The athlete and reality TV star’s “uneven tell-all autobiography,” our review said, “won’t win over her critics,” though “her fans will appreciate this candid look into her life.”
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Title | Author | Imprint | Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Option B | Sandberg/Grant | Knopf | 102,815 |
| 2 | Golden Prey | John Sandford | Putnam | 36,037 |
| 3 | Make Your Bed | William H. McRaven | Grand Central | 30,610 |
| 4 | Thirteen Reasons Why | Jay Asher | Razorbill | 30,430 |
| 5 | The Fix | David Baldacci | Grand Central | 25,583 |
| 6 | Oh, the Places You’ll Go! | Dr. Seuss | Random House | 23,385 |
| 7 | The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood | Anchor | 20,961 |
| 8 | The Operator | Robert O’Neill | Scribner | 20,640 |
| 9 | Everything, Everything | Nicola Yoon | Ember | 19,120 |
| 10 | The Woman in Cabin 10 | Ruth Ware | Scout | 18,850 |
All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.
