Bestseller Stat Shot
The world said goodbye to Maya Angelou this past weekend as the life of the acclaimed poet, memoirist, and civil rights champion was honored at a memorial service at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Angelou rose to national prominence with the 1969 publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and went on to write six more autobiographies, culminating with 2013’s Mom & Me & Mom; along the way, she also wrote cookbooks, poetry, and essays. In the days after her death, sales of her books (Caged Bird, in particular) shot up. Here’s a look.
| Title | Unit Sales, Week Ended 6/1 | Unit Sales, Week Ended 5/25 |
|---|---|---|
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (mass market) | 8,610 | 922 |
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (trade) | 1,564 | 70 |
| Mom & Me & Mom | 1,273 | 85 |
| Maya Angelou: Poems | 1,154 | 39 |
| Letter to My Daughter | 999 | 52 |
From the Newsletters
Nancy W. Sindelar, author of Influencing Hemingway (Rowman & Littlefield), ranks Ernest Hemingway’s fiction books.
A photo recap of highlights from children’s authors and events at BEA.
Lucky Peach looks to get into the cookbook game, and more cookbooks news from BEA.
Dynamite Entertainment resurrects the out-of-print Shaft novels, and has graphic novel adaptations in the works.
The most-read review on publishersweekly.com last week was The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan by Rick Perlstein (Simon & Schuster).
Blogs
What you missed if you didn’t visit the PW Tumblr last week: “The Hallowed Ways of Breaking into the Modern Novel” (from 1911), book covers separated at birth, and much more.
What happens when a bunch of children’s book writers and illustrators get together in Vermont? Singing the YA blues, of course. We’ve got the video.
Penguin Random House unveiled its new logo last week, and the reactions were mixed: either the new branding was fresh, clean, and innovative, or it was a real snoozer. We rounded up feedback from other media and our own audience. Check out the highlights at publishersweekly.com/prhlogo.
Podcasts
Director and producer Chris Weitz discusses his debut novel, The Young World (Little, Brown), set in a not-too-distant future in which a mysterious disease has killed all the adults.
PW senior writer Andrew Albanese checks out the reviews on BookCon and BEA 2014, and offers the latest on Amazon-Hachette.
The More to Come crew recaps BEA and discusses concerns about the harassment policies in place at comics conventions.
Events
Get the latest tips and information about how libraries are developing their digital collections at PW’s next live webcast. PW senior writer Andrew Albanese hosts a discussion with representatives from GM Queens Library Enterprises, the Nashville Public Library, and Recorded Books. Mark your calendar: June 12 at 1 p.m. EST. Registration is free!
Edward Lewis talks about his new memoir, The Man from ‘Essence’: Creating a Magazine for Black Women (Atria), plus PW deputy reviews editor Gabe Habash on the debut authors to look out for this fall.
