Staying Power

Percival Everett’s National Book Award–winning novel James, which reimagines Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective, tops our hardcover fiction list for the fourth week in a row. It’s the author’s most commercially successful book to date, but what it’s not, Everett told PW in a prepub interview, is a slave story: “He happens to be a slave, but it’s about Jim, and about what Jim represents in the American literary landscape, and his relationship with Huck.”

For Richer or for richer

Financial guru Ramit Sethi, whose Money for Couples debuts at #7 on our trade paperback list, takes a sunny view of finances. “Money is joyful,” he told PW in a prepub interview. “You have to talk about it regularly, positively, proactively.” PW’s review said that “Sethi’s emphasis on positioning oneself to ‘spend extravagantly’ on favored items is a welcome departure from the asceticism espoused by other guides” and predicted that the book “will be a balm for anyone who’s struggled to see eye to eye with their partner about money.”

Hey, Make Me Over

A trio of new books on our hardcover nonfiction list aim straight for the resolution-making crowd with bold subtitle come-ons.

#2
The Muscle Ladder by Jeff Nippard promises that the reader will “get jacked using science.”

#5
Self Help by Gabrielle Bernstein offers hope for the stuck: “This is your chance to change your life.”

#9
The Rebel Diet by Benji Xavier suggests it’s possible to “feed your appetite and lose weight with 100 defiantly delicious recipes.”

New in Paperback

Poet Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel, Martyr!, was a National Book Award finalist and has sold 71K copies in hardcover since it pubbed a year ago. PW’s starred review called it an “electrifying story of a Midwestern poet struggling with addiction and grief” and praised the author’s “incisive lyricism.” In a prepub interview with PW, Akbar expressed gratitute for his strong support network, which includes fellow writers Tommy Orange and Lauren Groff. “I was the hand that moved the pen, but it is indelibly inflected by the labor of countless others, including people who died before I was born.”