Claiming His Place
Mark Greaney’s 2009 debut thriller, The Gray Man, launched the series of the same name; two years later, he was tapped to coauthor the Jack Ryan series with Tom Clancy. They wrote three books together, and, after Clancy’s death, Greaney wrote four more. He continued his own series all the while, and in February 2017 announced he was leaving Jack Ryan behind. His first Gray Man book since then, Agent in Place, debuts at #8 in hardcover fiction with the best first-week sales for the series to date.
(See all of this week's bestselling books.)
Meet and Greet
The ALA announced its Youth Media Awards, which include the Newbery and Caldecott, February 12. Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe debuts at #16 in children’s and YA frontlist fiction, with print unit sales up 59% from the week before.
The Caldecott Medalist, Matthew Cordell, saw a significant improvement in sales for Wolf in the Snow, though the run-up to the annual Read Across America promotions and associated surge of Dr. Seuss titles kept it from the current picture book list.
TV Watch
The police procedural Instinct, starring Alan Cumming, premieres March 11 on CBS. It’s based on 2017’s Murder Games by James Patterson and Howard Roughan, and features a first for a broadcast TV drama: the lead character is gay and has a husband. He’s also “a fuddy-duddy professor, a bit of a dandy, [and] a former spy [who] drives a motorbike,” Cumming said at a promotional event for the show. “[His sexual orientation is] the fourth or fifth most interesting thing about the character.” The Instinct TV tie-in debuts at #9 in trade paper.
New & Notable
Educated
Tara Westover
#4 Hardcover Nonfiction
In this “searing debut memoir,” our starred review said, “a girl claws her way out of a claustrophobic, violent fundamentalist family into an elite academic career.”
Sunburn
Laura Lippman
#18 Hardcover Fiction
According to our starred review, this “tale of the gray area between betrayal, lust, and murder” shows “Lippman at her observant, fiercest best, a force to be reckoned with in crime fiction.”
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Title | Author | Imprint | Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Wrinkle in Time | Madeleine L’Engle | Square Fish | 35,594 |
| 2 | Green Eggs and Ham | Dr. Seuss | Random House | 33,248 |
| 3 | Dog Man and Cat Kid (Dog Man #4) | Dav Pilkey | Graphix | 25,379 |
| 4 | One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish | Dr. Seuss | Random House | 24,951 |
| 5 | The Great Alone | Kristin Hannah | St. Martin’s | 23,097 |
| 6 | Fifty Fifty | Patterson/Fox | Little, Brown | 22,798 |
| 7 | The Cat in the Hat | Dr. Seuss | Random House | 19,959 |
| 8 | 12 Rules for Life | Jordan B. Peterson | Random House Canada | 19,593 |
| 9 | Fire and Fury | Michael Wolff | Holt | 17,785 |
| 10 | Wonder | R.J. Palacio | Knopf | 15,987 |
All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.
