This Week's Bestsellers: November 21, 2016

You Can Buy Happiness, and It Costs $26

Given that we’re just now limping out of a cosmically brutal election cycle, it may not be surprising to see a book by two Nobel laureates for peace shooting up the bestseller list. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu lands at #13 this week on our Hardcover Nonfiction list, clearing 6,200 print units for the week ended November 13, by far its most successful week since its September publication. National mood aside, what really got the ball rolling was the book’s inclusion on Oprah’s Favorite Things of 2016 list, which was released just ahead of the election. In her endorsement, Oprah called the book “the best $26 you can spend.”

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

Power Outage

This holiday season’s must-have-but-nobody-has-it-in-stock toy is aimed at adults who grew up with a Nintendo controller all but soldered to their hands: the NES Classic Edition, a sandwich-size $60 game console loaded with 30 classic Nintendo games. It sold out of stock everywhere about four seconds after its release, and unless you want to spend a couple hundred bucks on eBay (though one hopeful seller had it priced at $5,000), chances are you’re going to be waiting for a while to get one. Till then, you can bide your time browsing Playing with Power, a tie-in title from Prima that includes game maps, repackaged content from Nintendo Power magazine, and other eight-bit nostalgia catnip packaged in a slipcase designed to look like an original Nintendo cartridge. You won’t be alone: the book is #19 on our Hardcover Nonfiction list with 4,900 copies sold.

Cubs Win!

Triumph was early out of the gate with Won for the Ages, an instant book about the Chicago Cubs’ World Series win. The book lands at #12 on our Trade Paperback list, and we’ll give you one guess as to where it sold best.

Chicago: 4,866

Everywhere Else: 1,953

Total Sales: 6,819

Rising Tide

It’s been quite a ride for Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose debut novel, The Sympathizer, might need a larger cover to accommodate badges for all the awards it’s won: the Pulitzer, Edgar Award for First Novel, Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize among them. (We also named it one of our best books of 2015.) The Sympathizer appears at #25 on our Trade Paperback list, with sales up 30% over the week prior. Recently, Nguyen has written for the New York Times about the election outcome, and NPR’s Fresh Air re-aired an interview with him from earlier this summer. Oh, and his nonfiction book Nothing Ever Dies was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award.

New & Notable

Night School

Lee Child

#1 Hardcover Fiction, #2 Overall

The latest Jack Reacher novel takes readers back to 1996, when Reacher, then in the army, is assigned to disrupt a secret terrorist plan. Our starred review called it “surprisingly and thrillingly credible.”

The Chemist

Stephenie Meyer

#5 Hardcover Fiction

Meyer, who sold millions of books in her Twilight series, returns with an adult thriller in which a former secret operative is drawn back into the spy life to prevent a bioterrorism attack.

Top 10 Overall

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.