Meow in the Mix
The #1 book in the country is A Tale of Two Kitties, third in Captain Underpants author Dav Pilkey’s spin-off series Dog Man. The new book enjoyed the strongest first-week print unit sales of any installment of the series. Pilkey is touring not just for the new book but also for the 20th anniversary of Captain Underpants. At the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., on September 2, he signed for three hours (going well over the allocated one-hour time slot). Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden stopped by the signing to thank him for staying to accommodate the fans who’d waited to meet him.
(See all of this week's bestselling books.)
Darling Girls
Two new novels featuring adolescent female protagonists debut on our Hardcover Fiction list. At #7, My Absolute Darling is Gabriel Tallent’s debut, about which Stephen King gushed, “The word ‘masterpiece’ has been cheapened by too many blurbs, but My Absolute Darling absolutely is one.” Our review was mixed, praising the “harrowingly visceral” story while noting that the main character’s abusive father “is such an obvious psycho creep that readers will wonder why the characters he interacts with... don’t see through him.”
Claire Messud’s first book with Norton, The Burning Girl, lands at #21. Her “beautiful novel about two young girls,” our review said, follows best friends who grow apart when the one from the more volatile home “is drawn to boys, alcohol, and drugs.... Although it reverberates with astute insights, in some ways this simple tale is less ambitious but more heartfelt than Messud’s previous work.”
We Get the Job Done
Deepak Chopra and Kabir Sehgal, a former v-p at J.P. Morgan, teamed up with Grammy-winning new age artist Paul Averinos for Home, debuting at #25 in Hardcover Nonfiction. The book, which is packaged with a CD, compiles poems and songs inspired by immigrants such as Albert Einstein, Celia Cruz, Audrey Hepburn, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The authors have been outspoken about developments in U.S. immigration policy. On September 5, Chopra tweeted: “Dreamers are the future of America! They will make America great again!”
Novel Approach
Debuting at #6 in Children’s Frontlist Fiction, Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo launches DC Icons, a projected series of four origin-story novels written by major YA authors. January brings Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu (the Legend series); new takes on Catwoman by Sarah J. Maas (the Throne of Glass series) and Superman by Matt de la Peña (We Were Here and others) follow.
New & Notable
Glass Houses
Louise Penny
#1 Hardcover Fiction, #2 overall
The 13th Inspector Gamache mystery continues Penny’s streak of topping first-week print unit sales with each successive book, selling about 9,000 copies more in its debut week than 2016’s A Great Reckoning did.
No Is a Four-Letter Word
Chris Jericho
#13 Hardcover Nonfiction
The six-time WWE champion and heavy metal vocalist’s fourth memoir is dedicated to Lemmy, the late Motörhead frontman, and offers life lessons gleaned from prominent figures from the worlds of wrestling (e.g., Vince McMahon), music (e.g., Keith Richards), and more.
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Title | Author | Imprint | Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Tale of Two Kitties (Dog Man #3) | Dav Pilkey | Graphix | 43,750 |
| 2 | Glass Houses | Louise Penny | Minotaur | 38,784 |
| 3 | The Right Time | Danielle Steel | Delacorte | 27,605 |
| 4 | Wonder | R.J. Palacio | Knopf | 26,513 |
| 5 | Y Is for Yesterday | Sue Grafton | Putnam/Wood | 25,858 |
| 6 | The Woman in Cabin 10 | Ruth Ware | Scout | 18,056 |
| 7 | Milk and Honey | Rupi Kaur | Andrews McMeel | 16,664 |
| 8 | If Not for You | Debbie Macomber | Ballantine | 15,272 |
| 9 | Astrophysics for People in a Hurry | Neil deGrasse Tyson | Norton | 15,247 |
| 10 | What Do You Do with a Problem? | Yamada/Besom | Compendium | 14,757 |
All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.
