This Week's Bestsellers: January 19, 2015

Seeing the ‘Light’

Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See claims the #1 spot on our Hardcover Fiction list for the second week in a row, an unusual distinction for a work of literary fiction that was published eight months ago. It debuted on our May 19 list at #13 with 6,568 units sold, according to BookScan, and, after a brief climb, sales held steady in the 4K–6K range, then exploded after Black Friday. Scribner cites bookseller support and consumer word of mouth as reasons for the big buildup; the title appeared on numerous annual best-books lists, everywhere from People and Amazon to NPR and the New York Times. The publisher also credits a December 26 NYT feature for fueling continued post-holidays success.

What Sophomore Slump?

Debut author Pierce Brown had a surprise hit with last year’s Red Rising, the first in a projected SF trilogy set on Mars. A month after the book was published, Universal won screen rights at auction for seven figures, with World War Z’s Marc Forster attached to direct. Sales have been respectable—16K in hardcover and 19K in trade paper—and if the first-week performance of Golden Son, the sequel, is any indication, Brown’s star is on the rise.

Power Move

When Mark Zuckerberg announced on January 2 the launch of A Year of Books, his Facebook book club, with Moíses Naím’s The End of Power, perhaps no one was as surprised as the book’s publisher, Perseus’s Basic Books, which had very few copies of the title available. Outlets that report to Nielsen BookScan show trade paperback sales of 3,089 units this week, up from 29 copies in the previous week; though the title shot to #1 on a number of Amazon subcategory bestseller lists and the publisher reports the e-book edition sold some 10K copies, these are hardly Oprah-level sales. Perseus CEO David Steinberger says that thanks to digital publishing, the company has now shipped almost 30K copies, and an offset print run will follow. Zuckerberg is scheduled to make his next selection for the club in the next few days.

Movie Tie-In Watch

Is there anyone left who wants to read Fifty Shades of Grey but hasn’t? Apparently: the movie tie-in lands at #16 on our Trade Paperback list, with 6,009 copies sold; the film’s out February 23. A few notches below, at #19, is a tie-in for Still Alice, and a mass market tie-in edition debuts at #25 on its respective list, with combined unit sales for the two formats of about 16K. The wide release of the film adaptation of Lisa Genova’s book is slated for January 16 (a smaller, Oscar-qualifying run began in December, earning Julianne Moore a best-actress nomination for the title role).

Top 10 Overall