Allie Up

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh is the #3 book in the country. Her debut, 2013’s Hyperbole and a Half, takes its title from her popular webcomic of the same name and has sold 470K print copies. After its publication, Brosh stayed offline for seven years while coping with personal difficulties, many of which she illustrates in her new book. Her welcome return includes an October 14 appearance for the closing national keynote event of the ABA’s fall regionals, in conversation with Jenny Lawson of The Bloggess.

Life and Legacy

In the first full week of sales after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, readers flocked to titles by and about the Supreme Court justice. My Own Words, a 2016 collection of Ginsburg’s writings, is the #7 book in the country. 2019’s A Is for Awesome by Eva Chen, illustrated by Derek Desierto, returns to our picture book list at #6; Ginsburg is one of three women illustrated on the cover. Other titles showing gains include 2015’s Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik and Who Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg? by Patricia Brennan Demuth, a 2019 middle grade biography.

Meal Timing

As publishers serve up their fall cookbooks, titles on this week’s bestseller menu speak to time-strapped home cooks.

Just Feed Me by reality TV personality and country-pop singer Jessie James Decker, #1 in trade paperback, #8 overall, features simple recipes by an author who is “not a chef, nor do I pretend to be,” she writes in the introduction. “Because we’re all busy people—I get it, y’all!—I’ve also included a bunch of ‘quick feeds,’ recipes that you can make to feed your babies in 20 minutes or less.”

Ayesha Curry follows 2016’s The Seasoned Life with The Full Plate, #14 in hardcover nonfiction and “a winning collection of dishes that often come together in less than half an hour, designed for busy families,” our review said. “Her pantry includes convenience items deployed in novel ways, such as pancake mix used as a batter for coconut shrimp and refrigerated tubes of biscuit dough deployed for maple-glazed bacon doughnuts.”

Phyllis Good’s 5-Ingredient Natural Recipes, #3 in trade paper, takes a different tack, eschewing packaged foods entirely: “no canned soups, no processed meats, no cake mixes, no stabilizers,” she writes in the introduction. Each recipe includes two cooking method options—slow cooker and pressure cooker, for instance—so readers can choose what best suits their schedule.

NEW & NOTABLE

THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS
Jodi Picoult
#1 Hardcover Fiction, #4 overall
“Picoult explores age-old questions about a possible parallel universe in this shrewd tale,” our review said, that follows two possible futures for one woman’s life. “Along the way, Picoult unloads a great deal of info on quantum mechanics, parallel worlds, Egyptian history, religion and hieroglyphics, the machinations of archeological digs, and the process of dying.”

BATTLEGROUNDS
H.R. McMaster
#17 Hardcover Nonfiction
Rather than writing a Trump tell-all (“This is not the book most people wanted me to write,” he explains in the preface), the retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, who served 13 months in the Trump administration as national security advisor, takes the long view on American foreign policy.