Bestsellers of 1999--Hardcover: So Far, Little Has Changed
Daisy Maryles with research by Laurele Riippa -- 4/10/00
Even with e-commerce and e-books, it's still the name that rings up the sales
Back in 1979, Stephen King made his first appearance on these end-of-the-year lists. King's The Dead Zone placed at #6, with sales for that year of about 175,000. The popular author continued to be a fixture for the next 20 years, often garnering one of the top three slots, and missed only in 1988 and 1997--the two years when he chose not to publish any new hardcovers. For 1999, King has two books in the top-10 lineup, a feat he has accomplished many times in the past two decades. All this historical data is worthy of note precisely because the time may come when these annual charts are just history, and our bestsellers may be calculated using distribution channels that are yet to be established.
In fact, less than a month ago, King and his publisher Scribner released a 66-page novella, Riding the Bullet, exclusively as an e-book. Customer orders for the novella--priced at about $2.50, and even free in many cases--went as high as 500,000 in less than three days--a very hefty figure and one that King certainly never matched in such a brief time with any of his print titles. While King's venture is a clear indication that there is a sizable audience for electronically published works, it is way too early to suspend any traditional book publishing or distribution apparatus. Indeed, we may still be doing these lists 10 or 20 years from now, even though the folks at Microsoft predict that in the year 2020, 90% of all books will be sold in electronic form.
And while publishers, authors, agents and retailers of all types are trying to figure out what the Internet and print-on-demand publishing mean to the future of the book, right now the goal of all of these constituents is, as always, to sell as many books as possible. Success for the predictable present is measured by sales performance, and bestseller charts based on retail sales--through, to a large extent, bricks-and-mortar stores--are still the best barometer.
Who Were the Lead Players
So how did the 1999 bestsellers compare to previous years?
As usual, the name is still the main part of the game. In fiction, veteran bestseller authors dominate, and for debut novels, a nod from Oprah is the only way to real success. The only two first novelists in the top 30 are White Oleander and Mother of Pearl--both were book club picks on her show. For the sixth year in a row, John Grisham commands the top spot, followed by such familiar names as King, Crichton, Steel and Cornwell. The only newcomers to the top 15 are two books in the biblical Left Behind series, Assassins and Apollyon, both by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. Evangelical Christian publisher Tyndale brilliantly built on the success of these books in the Christian retail marketplace, using carefully coordinated marketing and promotion tactics (one-day laydown, massive distribution of point-of-purchase displays and aggressive advertising in print and broadcast media) to get the books into secular stores. And several other authors of religion and inspirational titles enjoyed increased sales in both general and Christian outlets, including Frank Peretti and Jan Karon.
The top sellers in nonfiction are also by or about recognizable names. Many of the authors have made it onto the charts previously; in fact, four of the bestsellers on the 1998 annual list make a second appearance on the 1999 top 15: Tuesdays with Morrie, The Greatest Generation, Sugar Busters! and The Century. Self-help, especially in the diet and fitness area, continues to do well. Riverhead is to be congratulated for placing a book by the Dalai Lama on the national charts, something that has not been done before, although His Holiness has written or inspired many books. The only notable new trend among the nonfiction blockbusters are two books written by champions of the World Wrestling Federation.
Looking at the Numbers
In 1999, only 92 hardcover novels sold more than 100,000 copies, lower than the record set last year, when 101 books reached that level. In nonfiction, the year's tally was 121 books, considerably higher than the 1998 figure of 105, but still lower than the record set in 1997, when 128 new titles hit the six-figure mark. There were more fiction titles at the higher sales units level than in nonfiction. Eight novels went over the one-million mark, versus five in nonfiction. Nine more fiction titles racked up sales of 750,000 copies or more; there were four nonfiction books at this level. Last year, a new sales record was set for the #15 spot on the fiction annual charts, with Danielle Steel rounding out the list at approximately 775,000 copies for Granny Dan. Ten years ago, Martin Cruz Smith was able to take that position with sales of less than 300,000 copies for Polar Star. Twenty years ago, Robert Ludlum captured the #1 spot with sales of just 250,000 for The Matarese Circle.
Nonfiction sales, too, showed major growth. This year a total of 20 hardcovers were over the 500,000 mark; in 1998, there were only 12 books that could claim those sales. And while a figure of 630,000+ for the #15 spot--achieved by Don't Sweat the Small Stuff in Love--is impressive, the record at this level was set by The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Cookbook in 1995, when that title claimed 650,000+ sales. Both books are the beneficiaries of another trend that flourished in the last decade--lots of sales in outlets that are not traditional bookstores.
One interesting trend that continued only in fiction is the number of books with reported sales of more than 100,000 that appeared on PW's weekly charts. Only seven of the 92 novels with sales of more than 100,000 did not show up on a weekly list. That is down considerably from the 22 no-shows in 1998 and the fiction record of 25 books set in 1997. There was a bit of slippage on the nonfiction side, where 46 of the 121 books have yet to show up on PW's weekly chart or our monthly religion chart. Last year's tally was 39, and the 1997 number was 60. About two-thirds of these no-shows were in the 125,000-copy or less level. The fact that more nonfiction titles can attain higher sales levels without book retail benefit is indicative of the many more special sales opportunities or alternative outlets available to them.
The Net vs. Gross Issues
Every year we note the same disclaimers: all the calculations for this annual bestseller list are based on shipped and billed figures supplied by publishers for new books issued in 1999 and 1998 (a few books published earlier that continued their tenure on this year's bestseller charts are also included). These figures reflect only 1999 domestic trade sales; publishers were specifically instructed not to include book club and overseas transactions. We also asked publishers to take into account returns through February 15. None of the sales figures noted in these pages should be considered final net sales. For many of the books, especially those published in the latter half of last year, returns are still to be calculated.
Also note the table "Who's on first? What's on Second?," in which we compare PW's top 15 rankings with how those books fared at select groups of independents, chains and online booksellers. What's missing is how these titles fared at the price clubs, mass merchandisers and in the gift retail market-figures we tried but were unable to obtain. For many bestsellers--e.g., commercial fiction and titles like Don't Sweat the Small Stuff in Love--sales are strongest at some of these outlets. This year, we also have figures from Book Corner, reflecting sales at 14 of its stores in transportation locations around the country. While its fiction bestsellers closely matched PW's top 30 bestsellers, that was less true for nonfiction; that list had many business titles not on our list (for example, Hyperion's How to Become CEO by Jeffrey Fox was #3 on Book Corner's nonfiction chart).
The Fiction Runners-Up
This second tier, too, includes veteran authors whose books have graced these charts for many years. Ten of them have had runs on the weekly charts of 10 weeks or more; three--Personal Injuries, We'll Meet Again and Mother of Pearl--were each on the lists for 14 weeks.
16. Bittersweet by Danielle Steel (Delacorte)
17. Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler (Putnam, 764,769)
18. Saving Faith by David Baldacci (Warner, 633,709)
19. Personal Injuries by Scott Turow (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 630,000)
20. We'll Meet Again by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster, 619,360)
21. Southern Cross by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam, 610,564)
22. Mother of Pearl by Melinda Haynes (Hyperion, 592,625)
23. "O" Is for Outlaw by Sue Grafton (Henry Holt, 560,000)
24. A New Song by Jan Karon (Viking, 546,874)
25. The Visitation by Frank Peretti (Word, 536,701)
26. The Looking Glass by Richard Paul Evans (Simon & Schuster, **450,000)
27. River's End by Nora Roberts (Putnam, 425,806)
28. False Memory by Dean Koontz (Bantam, 425,000)
29. The Alibi by Sandra Brown (Warner, 421,297)
30. Monster by Jonathan Kellerman (Random House. 355,460)
300,000+ Fiction Didn't Place
Once again, a number of fiction titles with sales of more than 300,000 copies didn't make our top 30 list. This year there are five books, down from a record nine in 1998. All five books had healthy runs on PW's weekly charts, with two marking double-digit runs of 11 weeks apiece; they are Hunting Badger by Tony Hillerman (HarperCollins) and East of the Mountains by David Guterson (Harcourt). Certain Prey by John Sandford (Putnam) and Vittorio by Anne Rice (Knopf) each had a nine-week run, and Ransom by Julie Garwood (Pocket) was on our charts for five weeks.
Fiction's 200,000+ Group
Sixteen books with sales at this impressive level did not make the top-30 fiction list, two more than the 1998 figure. All of the titles did make an appearance on the weekly charts, but four had short runs of less than a month. They are: The Secret of Shambhala by James Redfield (Warner); In a Class by Itself by Sandra Brown (Bantam); Fortune's Rocks by Anita Shreve (Little, Brown); and Void Moon by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown).
Perhaps the cleanest sale in this group--meaning minimal returns--will be The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank (Viking), as it was on the list for 18 months. That's twice as long as the next two titles with the highest weekly tally--Single & Single by John le Carré (Scribner) and Ashes to Ashes by Tami Hoag (Bantam). One book, In Danger's Path by W.E.B. Griffin (Putnam), had an eight-week run.
The other bestsellers in the 200,000+ group are: Vector by Robin Cook (Putnam); The Edge by Catherine Coulter (Putnam); Dark Lady by Richard North Patterson (Knopf); Second Wind by Dick Francis (Putnam); The White House Connection by Jack Higgins (Putnam); High Tide by Jude Deveraux (Pocket); Star Wars: The New Jedi Order, Vector Prime by R.A. Salvatore (Lucas Books/Del Rey); and In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George (Bantam).
At Fiction's 150,000+ Level
There were 16 books with sales of more than 150,000 that did not make the year's top 30 bestsellers, one less than the 17 books in 1998. For the first time, every one of the books in this group appeared on PW's weekly lists. Twelve enjoyed runs of four weeks or more; Plainsong by Kent Haruf (Knopf) had the longest tenure at nine weeks. Dune: House Atreides by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (Bantam) had an eight-week run; The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike (Houghton Mifflin), and A Sudden Change of Heart by Barbara Taylor Bradford (Doubleday) were on the list for seven weeks each.
Four books in this group had runs of three weeks or less. They are: The Soldier Spies by W.E.B. Griffin (Putnam); Beyond the Great Snow Mountains by Louis L'Amour (Bantam); Cuba by Stephen Coonts (St. Martin's); and Carnal Innocence by Nora Roberts (Bantam).
The other books with runs of four to six weeks are: Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs (Scribner); The Cat Who Saw Stars by Lilian Jackson Braun (Putnam); Lake News by Barbara Delinsky (Simon & Schuster); Big Trouble by Dave Barry (Putnam); Hush Money by Robert B. Parker (Putnam); Family Honor by Robert B. Parker (Putnam); Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind (Tor); and Send No Flowers by Sandra Brown (Bantam).
Looking at the 125,000+ Group
This group includes 15 books that did not make the top 30 list, one more than in 1998. All but three landed on the weekly charts.
Out of the 12 that made the charts, two titles tied for the longest run, seven weeks each--Abide with Me by E. Lynn Harris (Doubleday) and Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O'Brian (Norton). Dangerous Kiss by Jackie Collins (Simon & Schuster) had a six-week run and Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins) was on the charts for four weeks in 1999, but a boost from Oprah put the book back in bestseller play. Other titles with appearances on the charts are: Jupiter's Bones by Faye Kellerman (Morrow); Joining by Johanna Lindsey (Avon); The Killing Game by Iris Johansen (Bantam); A God in Ruins by Leon Uris (HarperCollins); All the Queen's Men by Linda Howard (Pocket); Hard Time by Sara Paretsky (Delacorte); Worst Fears Realized by Stuart Woods (HarperCollins); and I Thee Wed by Amanda Quick (Bantam).
The three that did not make an appearance on PW's weekly lists are: Eye of the Beholder by Jayne Ann Krentz (Pocket); Battle Born by Dale Brown (Bantam); and Close Range by Annie Proulx (Scribner).
At the 100,000+ Level
Last year, 10 books with sales of more than 100,000 did not make the top 30 annual list. That was considerably less then the 1998 figure of 23 novels. Five of these 10 books never landed on PW's weekly charts, including authors Belva Plain, John Saul and Frederick Forsyth, who at one time could count on strong showings on the charts. The other five were on the lists at least four weeks each.
The five that did not make it onto the weekly lists are: The Right Hand of Evil by John Saul (Ballantine); Fortune's Hand by Belva Plain (Dell); The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth (St. Martin's); Gravity by Tess Gerritsen (Pocket); and Bagombo Snuff Box by Kurt Vonnegut (Putnam).
The five that did make the weekly charts are: Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card (Tor); High Five by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's); Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (Avon); Havana Bay by Martin Cruz Smith (Random House); and Be Cool by Elmore Leonard (Delacorte).
The Nonfiction Runners-Up
A motley crew make up the second tier of nonfiction--juicy books about President Clinton, century retrospectives, inspirational empowerment and food and fitness tomes, to name just a few. According to publishing claims, Monica Lewinsky sold more copies than George Stephanopoulos, even though the former was on the list for only six weeks, with just one week in the top slot, while the latter was on for 13 weeks, including six in the #1 spot. John Glenn hit #21 without a PW bestseller appearance. Iyanla Vanzant was the longest-running performer on these charts, with 20 appearances on the weekly lists.
16. Monica's Story by Andrew Morton (St. Martin's, 623,704)
17. All Too Human by George Stephanopoulos (Little, Brown, 606,279)
18. The Rock Says ... by The Rock (ReganBooks, 542,636)
19. And the Crowd G s Wild by J Garner (Sourcebooks, 504,691)
20. Yesterday, I Cried by Iyanla Vanzant (Simon & Schuster, **500,000)
21. John Glenn: A Memoir by John Glenn with Nick Taylor (Bantam, **450,000)
22. LIFE: Our Century in Pictures, edited by Richard Stolley (Little, Brown/Bulfinch, 429,745)
23. Every Day's a Party by Emeril Lagasse (Morrow, 416,352)
24. How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have by John Gray (HarperCollins, 402,964)
25. Every Man a Tiger by Tom Clancy with Gen. Chuck Horner (Ret.) (Putnam, 400,098)
26. The Carbohydrate Addict's Healthy Heart Program by Richard and Rachael Heller (Ballantine, 392,558)
27. Dutch by Edmund Morris (Random House, 377,175)
28. Shadow by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster, 350,000)
29. Business @ the Speed of Thought by Bill Gates (Warner, 344,816)
30. When Christ Comes by Max Lucado (Word, 344,127)
300,000+ NF Didn't Place
Competition in the nonfiction arena was fierce, and for the first time, nine books with sales of 300,000 or more did not make the top 30 chart. Only one of these books--Sugar Busters Quick & Easy Cookbook by H. Leighton Steward, Morrison C. Bethea, Sam S. Andrews and Luis A. Balart (Ballantine)--did not make it onto the weekly charts. And two enjoyed double-digit tenures on the weekly PW list. They are Faith of My Fathers by John McCain with Mark Salter (Random House) and When Pride Still Mattered by David Maraniss (Simon & Schuster).
The other 300,000+ performers are: Friendship with God by Neale Donald Walsch (Putnam); She Said Yes by Misty Bernall (Plough); The Other Side and Back by Sylvia Browne (Dutton); Reaching to Heaven by James Van Praagh (Dutton); All the Best, George Bush by George Bush (Scribner); and A Man Named Dave by Dave Pelzer (Dutton).
Nonfiction's 200,000+
Fourteen more books with sales of 200,000 and more did not make the top 30 charts. Two of these enjoyed long runs on the weekly charts. Bella Tuscany by Francis Mayes (Broadway) was on for 13 weeks, and The Majors by John Feinstein (Little, Brown) stayed for 14 weeks. Two others in this group had long runs on PW's monthly religion lists: The Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill (Doubleday) and The Lady, Her Lover, and Her Lord by Bishop T.D. Jakes (Putnam).
The other titles that made it onto the weekly charts in 1999 are: Children Are from Heaven by John Gray (HarperCollins); Real Age by Michael F. Roizen (HarperCollins/Cliff Street); The New New Thing by Michael Lewis (Norton); Hillary's Choice by Gail Sheehy (Random House); and We Interrupt This Broadcast by J Garner (Sourcebooks).
The following eight books with sales of 200.000+ did not make it onto the weekly PW charts: Martha Stewart's Hors d' uvres by Martha Stewart (Clarkson Potter); Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin (Knopf); People of the Century by Dan Rather (Simon & Schuster); If Love Is a Game These Are the Rules by Cherie Carter-Scott (Broadway); Suzanne Somers' 365 Ways to Change Your Life by Suzanne Somers (Crown); and A Golfer's Life by Arnold Palmer and James Dodson (Ballantine).
A New Record for the 150,000+
Last year, 23 books with sales of more than 150,000 copies did not make a top 30 list. This is a new high at this level, breaking the previous record of 21 books set in 1997; the 1998 figure was 17 books. Five of the books with sales of 150,000-plus have yet to make a weekly PW chart or the monthly religion chart; that's a big improvement over the 17 of the 21 150,000+ sellers in 1997 that never landed on a chart in the course of that year.
The five books that did not make the charts are: Aretha by Aretha Franklin and David Ritz (Villard); The Tae-Bo Way by Billy Blanks (Bantam); How Now Shall We Live? by Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey (Tyndale); The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber (Pocket); and Living the 7 Habits by Stephen Covey (Simon & Schuster).
A few books in this group enjoyed more than a month on the weekly charts. Something More by Sarah Ban Breathnach (Warner) enjoyed sales of more than 900,000 in 1998 and about 158,000 in 1999, and had a 21-week tenure on the weekly charts. Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (Public Affairs) was on the list for a total of 16 weeks, 13 0f them in 1999. Encore Provence by Peter Mayle (Knopf) had an 11-week run in 1999 and I Ain't Got Time to Bleed by Jesse Ventura (Villard) had an eight-week run. Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel was on the list for six weeks in 1999 and two more in 2000. Are We Living in the End Times? by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye (Tyndale) was on PW's monthly religion list for three months.
The other bestsellers with runs of six weeks or less are: LaBelle Cuisine by Patti LaBelle (Broadway); ESPN SportsCentury, edited by Michael MacCambridge (Hyperion); The 30-Day Total Health Makeover by Marilu Henner (ReganBooks); The Hungry Ocean by Linda Greenlaw (Hyperion); Just Like Jesus by Max Lucado (Word); The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); River-Horse by William Least Heat-Moon (Houghton Mifflin); Ethics for the Next Millennium by His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Alexander Norman (Riverhead); Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever by Judy Sheindlin (HarperCollins/Cliff Street); Perfect Murder, Perfect Town by Lawrence Schiller (HarperCollins); The Endurance by Caroline Alexander (Knopf); and The Educated Child by William J. Bennett, Chester E. Finn Jr. and John T.E. Cribb Jr. (Free Press).
The 125,000+ Level
This group includes 17 books that did not make our top 30 list, one less than the 1998 group. Only seven books in this group had a presence on last year's weekly charts, and five of them were on the list for more than a month. They are: Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson (Crown); Cinderella Story by Bill Murray with George Peper (Doubleday); The First World War by John Keegan, with an eight-week tenure (Knopf); Live Now, Age Later by Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld (Warner); and Bill and Hillary: The Marriage by Christopher Andersen (Morrow). Two others, Hell to Pay by Barbara Olson (Regnery) and The Terrible Hours by Peter Maas (HarperCollins), had a two-week and a one-week run, respectively.
The 10 that did not make a weekly PW slot are: And Never Let Her Go by Ann Rule (Simon & Schuster); Dave Pelz's Short Game Bible by Dave Pelz with James A. Frank (Broadway); American Thunder by Jo Sgammato (Ballantine); A Coach's Life by Dean Smith with John Kilgo and Sally Jenkins (Random House); The Secret Language of Destiny by Gary Goldschneider and Joost Elffers (Viking Studio); Codes of Love by Mark Bryan (Pocket); Cook Right 4 Your Type by Peter J. D'Adamo (Tarcher); God Is in the Small Stuff and It All Matters by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz (Barbour); A Charge to Keep by George W. Bush with Mickey Herskowitz (Morrow); and Comfort from a Country Quilt by Reba McEntire (Bantam).
Nonfiction's 100,000+ List
In 1999, 28 additional hardcovers sold more than 100,000 copies, two more than the same group in 1998. As usual, this is also the group with the largest number of titles that never made PW's weekly lists. Five books did land with runs of three to five weeks. They are: Congratulations! Now What?!? by Bill Cosby (Hyperion); Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam (Random House); Protecting the Gift by Gavin de Becker (Dial); If Life Is a Game, These Are the Rules by Cherie Carter-Scott (Broadway); and Diana in Search of Herself by Sally Bedell Smith (Times Books).
The 23 that did not show up on the 1999 charts are: Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall (Warner); The Bible Jesus Read by Philip Yancey (Zondervan); Customers.Com: How to Create a Profitable Business Strategy for the Internet and Beyond by Patricia B. Seybold with Ronni T. Marshak (Times Books); Lightposts for Living by Thomas Kinkade (Warner); Raising Cain by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson (Ballantine); The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene (Norton); Fresh Faith by Jim Cymbala with Dean Merrill (Zondervan); Leadership by the Book by Ken Blanchard, Bill Hybels and Phil Hodges (Morrow); Until Now by Anne Geddes (Cedco); Shy Boy by Monty Roberts (HarperCollins); Women by Annie Leibovitz with essays by Susan Sontag (Random House); Witness to Hope by George Weigel (HarperCollins/Cliff Street); Blind Eye by James B. Stewart (Simon & Schuster); The Way We Lived Then by Dominick Dunne (Crown); Another Country by Mary Pipher (Riverhead); Letters of the Century by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler (Dial); Feel This Book by Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo (Ballantine); First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham (Simon & Schuster); Sincerely, Andy Rooney by Andy Rooney (Public Affairs); Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell (Viking); How to Get Started in Electronic Day Trading by David S. Nassar (McGraw-Hill); All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson (Putnam); and The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Dr. Betty Edwards (Tarcher).
FICTION
1. The Testament by John Grisham.
Doubleday (2/99) **2,475,000
2. Hannibal by Thomas Harris.
Delacorte (6/99) **1,550,000
3. Assassins by Jerry B. Jenkins & Tim LaHaye.
Tyndale (8/99) 1,484,752
4. Star Wars: Episode 1, The Phantom
Menace by Terry Brooks.
Lucas Books/Del Rey (4/99) 1,419,852
5. Timeline by Michael Crichton.
Knopf (11/99) 1,351,800
6. Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King.
Scribner (9/99) **1,325,000
7. Apollyon by Jerry B. Jenkins & Tim LaHaye.
Tyndale (2/99) 1,172,132
8. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King.
Scribner (4/99) **1,075,000
9. Irresistible Forces by Danielle Steel.
Delacorte (11/99) **975,000
10. Tara Road by Maeve Binchy.
Delacorte (3/99). **950,000
11. White Oleander by Janet Fitch.
Little, Brown (5/99) 903,729
12. A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks.
Warner (10/99) 860,652
13. Pop G s the Weasel by James Patterson.
Little, Brown (10/99) 832,145
14. Black Notice by Patricia Cornwell.
Putnam (8/99) 800,769
15. Granny Dan by Danielle Steel.
Delacorte (6/99) **775,000
NONFICTION
1. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.
Doubleday (8/97) * **2, 500,000
2. The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw.
Random House (11/98) *1,968,597
3. Guinness World Records 2000
Millennium Edition. Guinness
Publishing (9/99) 1,908,770
4. 'Tis by Frank McCourt.
Scribner (9/99) **1,675,000
5. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson.
Putnam (9/98) 1,000,000
6. The Courage to Be Rich by Suze Orman.
Riverhead (3/99) 950,584
7. The Greatest Generation Speaks by Tom Brokaw.
Random House (11/99) 936,710
8. Sugar Busters! By H. Leighton Steward, Morrison C. Bethea, Sam S. Andrews and Luis A. Balart.
Ballantine *762,432
9. The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler.
Riverhead (11/98) *750,744
10. The Century by Peter Jennings &Todd Brewster.
Doubleday (11/98) * **700,000
11. Body for Life by Bill Phillips.
HarperCollins (5/99) 698,684
12. Life Strategies by Phillip C. McGraw.
Hyperion (1/99) 671,954
13. Have A Nice Day! by Mick Foley.
ReganBooks (10/99) 636,874
14. Suzanne Somers' Get Skinny on Fabulous Food by Suzanne Somers.
Crown (5/99) 631,952
15. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff in Loveby Richard and Kristine Carlson.
Hyperion (9/99) 631,299
NOTE: Rankings are determined by sales figures provided by publishers; the numbers generally reflect reports of copies "shipped and billed" in calendar year 1999 and publishers were instructed to adjust sales figures to include returns through February 15, 2000. Publishers did not at that time know what their total returns would be--indeed, the majority of returns occur after that cut-off date--so none of these returns should be regarded as final net sales. (dates in parenthesis indicate month and year of publication.)
*Sales figures reflect books sold only in calendar year 1999.
**Sales figures were submitted to PW in confidence, for use in placing titles on the lists. Numbers shown are rounded down to the nearest 25,000 to indicate relationship to sales figures of other titles.
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