Royal Family

The #3 book in the country is King’s Cage, third in a projected four-book YA fantasy series by Victoria Aveyard. The first two installments, 2015’s Red Queen and 2016’s Glass Sword, have sold a combined 394K copies in hardcover; the trade paper edition of Red Queen is at #20 in Children’s Frontlist Fiction, up two positions from the week before. Also up: first-week print unit sales of each book in the series.

First-Week Print Unit Sales for the Red Queen Series

Red Queen 6,184
Glass Sword 14,920
King’s Cage 23,551

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

Page to Screen

As media tie-in editions of two books—Hidden Figures and A Dog’s Purpose—hold the #5 and #10 spots in the country overall, two new tie-ins debut on our lists.

In Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, #11 in Children’s Frontlist Fiction, a popular teen lives the last day of her life seven times, Groundhog Day style. Conventional editions of the novel, which originally pubbed in 2010, have sold 131K copies in hardcover, 249K copies in trade paper. The movie opens March 3.

Big Little Lies, based on Liane Moriarty’s 2014 novel, is #24 in Mass Market. The HBO series debuted February 19 and stars Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and Shailene Woodley. The trade paper tie-in missed that list by just a couple of spots, but the 2015 conventional trade paperback outsold them both. Taking the three editions together, the title sold 14K print copies in the week.

Back for More

Swedish author Fredrik Backman sells respectably in hardcover, but he’s become a mainstay on our lists since the 2015 trade paper publication of his first novel, A Man Called Ove. He’s since published two more novels, the most recent of which just made its trade paper debut.

Week ended Feb. 12

#6 Overall A Man Called Ove 19,953 print copies
#5 Trade Paper My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry 9,111 print copies
#6 Trade Paper Britt-Marie Was Here 9,030 print copies

New & Notable

Norse Mythology

Neil Gaiman

#1 Hardcover Fiction, #1 overall

In this retelling of the tales of Odin, Thor, Loki, and others, “Gaiman has great fun in bringing these gods down to a human level,” our review said.

Universal Harvester

John Darnielle

#8 Hardcover Fiction

Our starred review called musician Darnielle’s second novel “a slow-burn mystery/thriller whose characters are drawn together by an eerie discovery.”

Pachinko

Min Jin Lee

#22 Hardcover Fiction

Lee mines the immigrant experience in what our review called “an exquisite meditation on the generational nature of truly forging a home.”

Listen to PW Radio’s interview with Lee.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Title Author Imprint Units
1 Norse Mythology Neil Gaiman Norton 42,914
2 Echoes in Death J.D. Robb St. Martin’s 34,450
3 King’s Cage Victoria Aveyard HarperTeen 23,551
4 1984 George Orwell Signet Classics 22,133
5 Hidden Figures (movie tie-in) Margot Lee Shetterly Morrow 20,806
6 A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman Washington Square 19,953
7 Love from the Very Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle Grosset & Dunlap 19,206
8 Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance Harper 17,710
9 The Cellulite Myth Ashley Black Post Hill 17,295
10 A Dog’s Purpose (movie tie-in) W. Bruce Cameron Forge 16,607

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.