This Week's Bestsellers: April 20, 2015

Still Selling

Inside the O’Briens, new from neuroscientist-turned-novelist Lisa Genova, lands at #16 on our Hardcover Fiction list. If it seems like you’ve been seeing her name a lot lately, you have: her first novel, Still Alice—self-published in 2007 and released simultaneously in hardcover and paperback by S&S in 2009—has been on our Trade Paperback list for 15 weeks, with a tie-in to the film adaptation starring Julianne Moore. (You’ll also find both books on our Apple iBooks Fiction & Literature list, p. 20.) To date, her four books have sold more than 973K print copies; here’s a look at first-week sales for each.

BBQ, 52, and the Farm, Too

New on our Hardcover Nonfiction list: a trio of cookbooks, each with a different hook.

#4 Franklin Barbecue
9,667 units

Named for coauthor Aaron Franklin’s beloved Austin BBQ joint, considered one of the best in the country, the book is subtitled “a meat-smoking manifesto.”

#13 Food52 Genius Recipes
5,581 units

Kristen Miglore, executive editor of the Food52 online community, compiles recipes from Marcella Hazan, Jim Lahey, Nigella Lawson, and others. To make it into the book, each recipe had to pass one test: “Change the way we cook.”

#22 Living the Farm Sanctuary Life
4,000 units

With recipes for dishes such as pancakes with orange moscato syrup and pine nuts, this vegan lifestyle book encourages “eating in harmony with your values.”

White Glove Treatment

At #5 in Hardcover Nonfiction, with 9,575 print units sold, The Residence, by Kate Andersen Brower, compiles the anecdotes of White House service staff from the Kennedy Administration through the Obama years. Other insider views of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. include Wil Haygood’s The Butler (2013), a profile of Eugene Allen, who served during eight presidential administrations. That book sold 1,215 units in its first week, just ahead of the release of the film of the same name, and went on to sell 39.7K units in hardcover. And in My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House, Lillian Rogers Parks tells of working as a seamstress in the First Family’s residence from 1929 until 1960; originally published in 1961, the book was made into a miniseries in 1979.

Other Books of Note

Legends & Lies
Bill O’Reilly and David Fisher

The #1 Hardcover Nonfiction title, also #1 on our overall bestseller list, is a companion to a 10-week TV series about the Wild West that premiered on Fox April 12.

The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho

The 25th-anniversary paperback edition (2014) of Coelho’s inspirational classic is up 33% this week, from 3,044 units to 4,041 units. For more about why such titles continue to sell, see “Inspiration Is Where You Find It,” p. 35.

Top 10 Overall