Chain Reaction
Adrian McKinty, an Edgar Award–winning author whose Belfast crime novels weren’t paying the bills, was about to give up on writing, when an agent suggested that he try setting his next book in America. As has been widely reported, a six-figure book deal and seven-figure film deal followed, and The Chain debuts at #10 in hardcover fiction. PW’s starred review praised the novel’s “original premise, relentless pacing, and strong female characters,” which support “a no-holds-barred look at how far a parent will go to protect her child.”
Total Ballers
A pair of baseball titles debut on our lists, each with hometown appeal.
#10 Hardcover Nonfiction:
For the Good of the Game by Bud Selig, former MLB commissioner and, before that, the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers.
69% of sales were in NPD’s East North Central Region, which includes Milwaukee.
#20 Trade Paper:
If These Walls Could Talk by Jerry Remy and Nick Cafardo, about the Boston Red Sox.
78% of sales were in New England.
Avid Attention
Journalist and Pushcart Prize–winning story writer Lisa Taddeo debuts at #4 in hardcover nonfiction with Three Women, an “ambitious, if flawed, debut,” our review said, in which “Taddeo reports on the risks women take to fulfill their sexual desires.” Finding interviewees for the book, almost 10 years in the making, required a lot of legwork, Taddeo told PW. “I did a lot online, but also used traditional methods,” she says. “I put up posters in Starbucks, in a dive bar in Texas.” Three Women is the first release from Simon & Schuster’s Avid Reader imprint.
New & Notable
Justice on Trial
Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino
#1 Hardcover Nonfiction, #5 overall
Hemingway, a Fox News contributor, and Severino, an attorney whose Judicial Crisis Network was the lead organization advocating for the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, present their perspective on his confirmation hearings.
America’s Reluctant Prince
Steven M. Gillon
#6 Hardcover Nonfiction
History Channel scholar-in-residence Gillon profiles John F. Kennedy Jr., with whom he shared a decades-long friendship.
Wilder Girls
Rory Power
#22 Children’s Frontlist Fiction
Billed as a feminist Lord of the Flies, this YA debut centers on three teens whose boarding school has been under quarantine for 18 months, while a deadly virus ravages staff and students.
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Title | Author | Imprint | Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Where the Crawdads Sing | Delia Owens | Putnam | 47,407 |
| 2 | Under Currents | Nora Roberts | St. Martin’s | 36,361 |
| 3 | The Reckoning | John Grisham | Dell | 22,587 |
| 4 | Educated | Tara Westover | Random House | 19,289 |
| 5 | Justice on Trial | Hemingway/Severino | Regnery | 17,297 |
| 6 | Before We Were Yours | Lisa Wingate | Ballantine | 16,080 |
| 7 | Summer of ’69 | Elin Hilderbrand | Little, Brown | 15,954 |
| 8 | Unfreedom of the Press | Mark R. Levin | Threshold | 15,740 |
| 9 | Cottage by the Sea | Debbie Macomber | Ballantine | 15,304 |
| 10 | Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid | Jeff Kinney | Amulet | 13,814 |
All unit sales per NPD BookScan except where noted.
