Penny’s Great Fortune

Canadian author Louise Penny published her first novel, Still Life, in the U.S. in 2006, launching the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries. In the decade since, books in the series, which is set in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, have garnered numerous accolades, including five Agatha Awards for best novel. This week, the 12th title, A Great Reckoning, debuts at #1 in Hardcover Fiction, and #3 in the country overall, thanks to the highest first-week print-unit sales of any book in the series.

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

Marching On

Georgia Congressman John Lewis has been detailing his work with the civil rights movement in the three-part graphic memoir series March, coauthored by Andrew Aydin, his digital director and policy advisor, and illustrated by Nate Powell, whose Swallow Me Whole won a 2009 Eisner Award for best original graphic novel. March: Book Three pubbed August 2 and debuts this week at #22 on our Trade Paperback list. Book one was released in 2013 to positive reviews, and Book two, which pubbed in 2015, won the Eisner Award for best reality-based work in July this year. All three volumes had strong sales this week.

Print-Unit Sales for Week Ending September 4

Book One 8,573
Book Two 5,191
Book Three 4,233

Hill Screen News

Nathan Hill’s buzzy first novel, The Nix, lands at #9 on our Hardcover Fiction list. How loud is the buzz? New York called the 640-pager “fall’s splashiest debut novel.” John Irving, in a New York Times interview, praised the author’s “Dickensian range.” And so on. This all happened prepublication, and in the days since, the buzz has only gotten louder: on September 8, Deadline reported that Warner Bros. is working on a TV adaptation; J.J. Abrams and Hill are executive producing, and Meryl Streep is in talks to star.

New & Notable

A Torch Against the Night

Sabaa Tahir

#2 Children’s Frontlist Fiction

This is the sequel to Tahir’s 2015 YA fantasy debut, An Ember in the Ashes, which has sold 101K copies in hardcover and trade paper.

Dog Man

Dav Pilkey

#4 Children’s Frontlist Fiction

Author-illustrator Pilkey, of Captain Underpants fame, launches a spin-off series about a half-human, half-canine crime fighter.

The Jealous Kind

James Lee Burke

#11 Hardcover Fiction

Burke’s new entry into the Holland family saga—each a standalone novel featuring a descendent of Hackberry Holland—is a coming-of-age story set in 1952 Texas.

Clean House

Tom Fitton

#4 Hardcover

Nonfiction

Fitton, head of Judicial Watch (described on its website as “a conservative, nonpartisan educational foundation”), delves into, in the words of the subtitle, Our Government’s Secrets and Lies.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Title Author Imprint Units
1 Harry Potter and the Cursed Child J.K. Rowling Scholastic/Levine 117,264
2 The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins Riverhead 34,064
3 A Great Reckoning Louise Penny Minotaur 29,823
4 Rushing Waters Danielle Steel Delacorte 26,602
5 The Girl on the Train (mass market movie tie-in) Paula Hawkins Riverhead 25,389
6 The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo Amy Schumer Gallery 24,308
7 The Girl on the Train (trade paper movie tie-in) Paula Hawkins Riverhead 19,002
8 Uninvited Lysa TerKeurst Thomas Nelson 18,703
9 Always a Cowboy Linda Lael Miller Harlequin 18,322
10 See Me Nicholas Sparks Grand Central 17,989

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.