This Week's Bestsellers: April 4, 2016

Building a Nest Egg

A pair of novels, one a high-profile debut and one a highly anticipated sophomore effort, land at #4 and #5 on our Hardcover Fiction list. In The Nest, which Ecco acquired in 2014 in a seven-figure preempt, first-timer Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney looks at privileged New Yorkers through the lens of a quartet of adult siblings and their endangered trust fund.

Helen Simonson’s The Summer Before the War, set in the English town of Rye in 1914, is a comedy of manners that examines social constructs and gender roles in Downton Abbey–era Britain. Her 2010 debut, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, was a book club favorite that sold 67K in hardcover, 373K in trade paper; this week, it sold 1,088 print copies, the first time weekly sales cracked four figures since December 2012.

(See all of this week's bestselling books.)

TV Dinners

Debuting at #5 in Hardcover Nonfiction, The Bob’s Burgers Burger Book is a companion to the Emmy Award–winning animated sitcom about a family-run burger joint. Written by show creator Loren Bouchard and the writing staff of the series, it offers, in the words of the subtitle, “real recipes for joke burgers”: “Bleu Is the Warmest Cheese Burger,” “If Looks Could Kale Burger,” etc.

Leaving parody cookbooks, of which there are many, out of this, here’s how Burger Book’s first-week sales stack up against other recent cookbooks with official links to popular shows.

First-Week Print Unit Sales

A Feast of Ice and Fire (2012)

1,702

Orange Is the New Black Presents: The Cookbook (2014)

375

The Portlandia Cookbook (2014)

968

The Bob’s Burger Burger Book (2016)

8,245

Movers & Shakers

On Fire, a memoir and self-help title by motivational speaker John O’Leary, debuted last week at #12 on our Hardcover Nonfiction list. This week, it’s up 187% and 11 notches, helping itself to the #1 spot on the list.

In the “no such thing as bad press” files, Batman vs. Superman is up 155% over last week, following the March 23 release of the movie of the same, and some comically bad reviews. The collection pubbed in December 2015 and hits our Trade Paperback list for the first time this week, at #12.

Not surprisingly, in the runup to Easter Sunday, several backlist children’s titles on that theme had good weeks, and four of the top 10 books in the country have Easter in the title. A fifth, Animals by Jennifer Quasha, has been a perennial seller since its 2008 release, but this week it had its best week ever. Why? Might have something to do with the basket-ready bunnies on the cover.

New and Notable

Fool Me Once

Harlan Coban

#1 Hardcover Fiction; #1 overall

In this standalone thriller, which our starred review called “stellar,” a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot whose career was ended by revelations of the civilian deaths caused by her actions in Iraq is also haunted by the murders of her husband and sister.

Top 10 Overall

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.