A few days after Amazon announced that the Steve Jobs biography was its top-selling book of 2011 (combined print and e-book sales), the book debuted on bestseller charts around the world, including the three countries highlighted this month. Steve Jobs was #3 in France and the Netherlands, and atop Spain’s nonfiction list, where it knocked Pedro J. Ramírez’s The First Wreck to #2. Also on the nonfiction list in France, Stéphane Hessel has two titles including Indignez-vous!, which was released in the U.S. by Twelve in September as Time for Outrage.

On the fiction list in Spain, the top three titles were all debuts: The Wise Man’s Fear (published in the U.S. by Daw Books in March); The Murderers’ Bridge (the newest in Arturo Perez-Reverte’s 17th-century adventure series; Penguin published the sixth in the series, Pirates of the Levant, last year); and The Empire Is You by Javier Mojo, who has not been published in the U.S. in a major way.

Shooting to the top of the French fiction list was The French Art of War, whose author, Alexis Jenni, won the Prix Goncourt in early November; no U.S. publisher yet. In the Netherlands, Dutch crime writer Saskia Noort’s latest, Fever, was #1; her earlier works have been published in English by the U.K. house Bitter Lemon Press and distributed into the U.S.

Spain

Fiction

El temor de un hombre sabio
The Wise Man’s Fear
Patrick Rothfuss
Plaza & Janés

El puente de los asesinos
The Murderers’ Bridge
Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Alfaguara

El imperio eres tú
The Empire Is You
Javier Moro
Planeta

Nonfiction

Steve Jobs. La biografía
Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson
Debate

El primer naufragio
The First Wreck
Pedro J. Ramírez
La Esfera de los Libros

De aquí se sale
From Where It Comes
Mario Conde
Martínez Roca

France

Fiction

L’art français de la guerre
The French Art of War
Alexis Jenni
Gallimard

Rien ne s’oppose à la nuit
Nothing Opposes the Night
Delphine de Vigan
Lattès

La couleur des sentiments
The Help
Kathryn Stockett
Jacqueline Chambon

Nonfiction

Indignez-vous !
Rise in Protest!
Stéphane Hessel
Indigène

Le chemin de l’espérance
The Path of Hope
Stéphane Hessel and Edgar Morin
Fayard

Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson
Lattès

Netherlands

Combined

Koorts
Fever
Saskia Noort
Anthos

Bonita Avenue
Bonita Avenue
Peter Buwalda
De Bezige Bij

Steve Jobs. De biografie.
Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson
Spectrum

De Nederlandse maagd
The Dutch Maiden
Marente de Moor
Querido

Logboek van een onbarmhartig jaar
Diary of a Relentless Year
Connie Palmen
Prometheus

De provocatie
Zero Day
David Baldacci
A.W. Bruna Uitgevers