This Week's Bestsellers: February 18, 2019

Black Leopard, Read Widely
Marlon James debuts at #3 in hardcover fiction with Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the literary fiction author’s first foray into fantasy and first in a planned trilogy. Our review said, though the book is “marred by its lack of subtlety, this is nonetheless a work of prodigious imagination capable of entrancing readers.” As first-week sales show, James has banked substantial goodwill thanks to the Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings, which has gone on to sell 102K copies in trade paper.

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

Up and Comer
YA novelist Angie Thomas had a high-profile debut with 2017’s The Hate U Give, which sold 7K print units in its launch week. Her sophomore effort, On the Come Up, sold two-and-a-half times as many copies out of the gate, and our starred review deemed it a worthy follow-up: “Thomas introduces readers to an unforgettable cast of characters who seek to thrive in close-knit neighborhoods that are also shaped by violence and systemic racism.” On the Come Up debuts at #2 in children’s frontlist fiction, and the 2018 movie tie-in edition of The Hate U Give is at #21.

Brave New World
New nonfiction titles on our list walk the line between self-help and success manual. Reshma Saujani, whose Brave, Not Perfect debuts at #8 in hardcover nonfiction, explained at January’s Winter Institute that her assertion—girls are taught to be perfect, so women are afraid to fail—has a lesson for booksellers of any gender: “Bravery means being authentic,” she said. “Perfectionism stands in the way of our power and our happiness.”

One notch below, Cal Newport, whose 2016 title, Deep Work, has sold 100K copies in hardcover, returns with Digital Minimalism, a lesson in “choosing a focused life in a noisy world,” per the subtitle. In order to help readers reclaim their time, Newport offers guidance on doing a digial decluttering and on cultivating what he calls “a sustainable digital minimalism lifestyle.”

New & Notable

Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds
Gwenda Bond
#12 Hardcover Fiction
YA author and longtime PW contributor Gwenda Bond’s prequel to the popular Netflix series delves into Eleven’s mysterious origins.

Figuring
Maria Popova
#19 Hardcover Nonfiction
Popova, whose Brain Pickings blog has 4.8 million Facebook followers, “explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries,” according to the publisher.

Empty Bottles Full of Stories
R.H. Sin and Robert M. Drake
#7 Trade Paperback
Instagram poets Sin and Drake have a combined 3.3 million followers and several solo collections between them, with total print unit sales topping one million.

Top 10 Overall

All unit sales per NPD BookScan except where noted.