People Pleaser
The fifth-bestselling book in the country is All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers, cohost of the true crime podcast Crime Junkie. Written with Alex Kiester (The Truth About Ben and June), the “twisty psychological thriller” (per our review) follows an Indianapolis crime reporter who returns to her hometown, where she tries to solve a cold case to which she has a personal connection—the murder 25 years earlier of her childhood best friend. “This intricate, intriguing puzzler should surprise even those readers certain they know where the plot’s heading,” our review said. “Flowers is off to a promising start.”
Clause and Effect
Weekly print unit sales for Rebel with a Clause In 2018, communications professional Ellen Jovin set up what she called the Grammar Table in Manhattan’s Verdi Square, inviting passersby to query her with “capitalization complaints” or the odd “comma crisis.” The warm response prompted Jovin and her husband to hit the road, and nearly 50 states later (the pandemic sidelined their completionist plans), she documents cross-country conversations and drops grammar knowledge in Rebel with a Clause. It debuts at #18 on our hardcover nonfiction list in its fifth week on sale; our review said it “reads less like a how-to guide and more like a usage-centered memoir. Fellow language lovers will enjoy the ride.”
Defining Moment
Are word-search puzzles the new adult coloring books? Seems unlikely, but nonetheless, the Thunder Bay release Definitive Word Search, Vol. 1, debuts at #5 on our trade paperback list with more than 14K print copies sold. The twist: the book includes definitions for each of the more than 2,500 answers to its hundred-plus puzzles. It may sound kooky (one of the book’s Awesome Adjectives), but the book is a bona fide (Everyday Latin) hit.
NEW & NOTABLE
VACUUMING IN THE NUDE
Peggy Rowe
#1 Hardcover Nonfiction
When a radio interviewer asked Rowe—mom of Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe—about the lack of salacious content in her provocatively titled latest, she responded, “It’s a memoir. There has been very little violence in my life. The same with language. There is some sex, however; it’s just not blatant.”
THE PRICE OF TIME
Edward Chancellor
#14 Hardcover Nonfiction
“Historian Chancellor offers an exhaustive history of credit and interest rates,” our review said—a timely topic given that college loan forgiveness is front-page news. “The current economy, he suggests, is one of ‘fake money [and] fake interest rates,’ likening it to The Truman Show, and concluding that ‘nobody knows’ how it will end.”
