Popular Vote

In a week when seven of the 10 bestselling books in the U.S. are new releases, a pair of titles offer from-the-trenches accounts of the 2016 presidential election.

In the introduction to What Happened, the #1 book in the country, Hillary Rodham Clinton calls the experience of running for president “exhilarating, joyful, humbling, infuriating, and just plain baffling.”

Unbelievable by Katy Tur, #10 in the country, looks at the 2016 race from the perspective of the NBC News reporter who was embedded with the Trump campaign and whom the candidate derisively called “Little Katy.” The author’s note thanks “the Trump supporters and protesters who were unfailingly polite to a reporter just looking to understand,” as well as the ones “who were anything but polite: you also helped me understand.”

Clinton has a second new book this week: a picture book adaptation of the 1996 policy title It Takes a Village, written while she was first lady. Two-time Caldecott Honor–winner Marla Frazee did the illustrations for the new edition, which debuts at #14 in Children’s Picture Books.

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

Dig In

Three new cookbooks claim their spots at the Hardcover Nonfiction bestsellers table.

#5 F*ck, That’s Delicious

■ Who? Action Bronson, whose cookbook is named after his Vice TV show

■ Sample recipes: bacon chicharrón on white bread; My Momma’s Challah

#12 Half Baked Harvest Cookbook

■ Who? Tieghan Gerard, who blogs at Half Baked Harvest

■ Sample recipes: spring chicken soup with ravioli and poached eggs; strawberry-peach galette

#20 Milk Street

■ Who? Christopher Kimball, cofounder of America’s Test Kitchen and founder of multimedia venture Milk Street

■ Sample recipes: Japanese fried chicken, skillet-charred Brussels sprouts

Psyched Up

Several titles debuting this week in Hardcover Nonfiction approach the popular topics of motivation and inspiration from a variety of perspectives. Four of those books each sold more than 10K print copies in a single week; here’s a look.

#2 Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown
42K print units sold

#4 Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado
21K print units sold

#6 The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
12K print units sold

#8 Finish by Jon Acuff
11K print units sold

New & Notable

A Column of Fire

Ken Follett

#1 Hardcover Fiction, #2 overall

Follett’s not just a successful writer of spy thrillers. This novel, set in 16th-century England, is the third book in his Kingsbridge series, which began in 1989 with The Pillars of the Earth, set in the 12th century in the same fictional English town as Fire, and continued with 2007’s World Without End, which takes place two centuries later.

Little Fires Everywhere

Celeste Ng

#10 Hardcover Fiction

Our starred review called Ng’s new novel “both an intricate and captivating portrait of an eerily perfect suburban town with its dark undertones not quite hidden from view and a powerful and suspenseful novel about motherhood.”

Rank Title Author Imprint Units
1 What Happened Hillary Rodham Clinton Simon & Schuster 167,273
2 A Column of Fire Ken Follett Viking 48,694
3 Braving the Wilderness Brené Brown Random House 42,189
4 It (movie tie-in) Stephen King Scribner 33,542
5 The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye David Lagercrantz Knopf 29,686
6 Trim Healthy Mama’s Trim Healthy Table Barrett/Allison Harmony 27,449
7 It Stephen King Scribner 23,679
8 The Final Spark (Michael Vey #7) Richard Paul Evans Simon Pulse 22,234
9 Wonder R.J. Palacio Knopf 21,441
10 Unbelievable Katy Tur Dey Street 20,963

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.