Continued interest in anti-racist and social justice books drove up unit sales of print books 9.1% last week at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. The two top sellers in the week were How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and White Fragility by Robin Diangelo, which sold about 138,000 and 107,000 copies, respectively. In the week ended June 13, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins was #1 overall, selling nearly 70,000 copies; last week, it sold almost 58,000 copies.
Overall, aided by sales ahead of Father’s Day, sales of adult nonfiction print units rose 12.4% over the week ended June 13 and were up 11% in adult fiction. While sales of How to Be and White Fragility shot up 418% and 97%, respectively last week, not all social justice titles had gains in the week. So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo had a 28% decline in sales, selling a still very respectable 41,000 copies, and sales of Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum fell 16%, selling more than 22,000 copies. Print sales of I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown shot up 394% last week, selling more than 18,000 copies, putting it in 10th place on the adult nonfiction list.
A couple of titles also likely saw Father’s Day–inspired gains: Chris Wallace’s Countdown 1945 had a 28% sales increase in its second week on sale, selling about 49,000 copies, and The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larsson sold about 21,000 copies, an increase of 61% over the previous week.
In adult fiction, Elin Hilderbrand’s 28 Summers had a solid debut, selling more than over 52,000 copies in its first week on sale. Two John Grisham books had good gains in the week—Camino Winds sales rose 27% last week, selling over 27,000 copies, and the mass market edition of The Guardians sold more than 14,000 copies in its first week on sale.
Print unit sales of juvenile fiction rose 6.1% last week. A book first released in 1992, We’re Different, We’re The Same (Sesame Street) by Bobbi Kates and Joe Mathieu, saw sales skyrocket from 881 copies in the week ended June 13 to just over 42,000 last week.
The combination of social justice titles and the later Father’s Day than in 2019 resulted in an increase in print unit sales of almost 23% over the year ended June 22, 2019. Last year at this time Hilderbrand's Summer of 69 was the overall top title, selling about 46,000 copies and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens was second, selling approximately 41,000 copies.
