True Blue Sales
The trade paper reissue of 2019’s The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris pubbed August 4 to modest sales. A week later, Joe Biden tapped Harris as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, and the following week, the book debuts at #9 on our trade paper list. Other Harris-associated titles enjoyed strong weeks, including her memoir’s hardcover edition and the 2020 picture book Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea, written by Meena Harris, the candidate’s niece, and illustrated by Ana Ramírez González. Looking ahead, August 25 is pub day for the picture book Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice by Nikki Grimes, illustrated by Laura Freeman.
Free to Be You and Me
The #4 book in the country is Finding Freedom, a biography of Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Coauthors Omid Scobie, royal editor for Harper’s Bazaar, and Carolyn Durand, who reports on the royals for the websites of Elle and Oprah magazine, conducted 100 interviews for the book and have done a similarly extensive number of TV and radio appearances since the title’s publication; other media hits include a multipage excerpt in People. Royal watchers can anticipate several more books in coming months, among them Battle of Brothers by Robert Lacey (Oct.), about Harry and Prince William; HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style by Elizabeth Holmes (Nov.); and Meghan Misunderstood by Sean Smith (Dec.).
Behind the Screens
The Distance Learning Playbook by education experts Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie, which pubbed in July, debuts at #6 in trade paperback. As anxiety about the approaching school year has risen, so too have print unit sales.
New & Notable
A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL
James Lee Burke
#3 Hardcover Fiction
MWA Grand Master Burke’s “superb 23rd novel featuring New Iberia, La., cop Dave Robicheaux,” our starred review said, is “an imaginative blend of crime and other genres” that’s “both exquisitely executed and profoundly moving.”
I PROMISE
LeBron James, illus. by Nina Mata
#1 Children’s Picture Books
NBA superstar James and illustrator Mata, whose books include She’s Got This by Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez, relay a story-in-verse inspired by the LeBron James Family Foundation’s I Promise school in his hometown, Akron, Ohio.
