Inside Jobs

The Trump administration figures prominently in three books debuting on our lists this week.

President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, currently serving a prison sentence for tax evasion and campaign finance violations, has the #1 book in the country with Disloyal. “I bore witness to the real man,” he writes of his onetime boss, “in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.”

Another insider, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, lands at #8 in the country with Speaking for Myself. “President Trump—there are no words to describe how much you changed my life,” she writes in the acknowledgments. “I don’t care what the critics say—you will go down in history as a great president.”

Compromised by Peter Strzok, #8 in hardcover nonfiction, takes a different tack, as described in our review: “Former FBI agent Strzok offers an inside look at investigations into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, and links between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”

Backman in Action

Fredrik Backman’s 2014 debut, A Man Called Ove, had a modest start in hardcover and went on to sell 1.7 million copies in trade paper. Subsequent titles have followed similar trajectories—respectable hardcover sales, blockbuster trade paper sales—but with his latest, Anxious People, Backman appears to have broken part of that mold. It debuts at #4 in hardcover fiction, and in one week sold about half the number of print copies that each of his first three books have sold in hardcover since release.

Fruits of His Labor

Eat a Peach by David Chang, a “self-effacing, heart-on-sleeve memoir,” per our starred review, is #14 in hardcover nonfiction. “Chang writes about the sweaty tension of his manic episodes and his dark depression,” the review said. “In the book’s most heartfelt section, [he] rhapsodizes about the egalitarian Asian dining ethos he wanted to import to the West and even allows himself a rare pat on the back for his influence.” The James Beard Award–winning Momofuku restaurateur and Lucky Peach magazine cofounder also stars in the culinary culture program Ugly Delicious on Netflix.

NEW & NOTABLE

THINK LIKE A MONK
Jay Shetty
#2 Hardcover Nonfiction, #4 overall
“Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast and a former Vedic monk, debuts with a peppy and persuasive work that guides readers through a process of personal growth,” our review said. His “take on Hindu spirituality delivers practical wisdom for anyone looking to create better daily habits.”

EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN ITS TIME
Jenna Bush Hager
#4 Hardcover Nonfiction, #6 overall
“This endearing memoir brings readers deep into the heart of a family that many may feel they already know well,” our review said of this book by a daughter of the 43rd U.S. president and granddaughter of the 41st, now a cohost of Today with Hoda and Jenna. “Bush’s fans will delight in these intimate, funny remembrances.”