TikTok Boom

TikTok’s future in the U.S. may be uncertain, but BookTok continues to exert its influence. In 2023, Bloom Books—which scored last week with Elsie Silver’s Wild Love—acquired six books in Chloe Walsh’s popular Boys of Tommen YA series, four previously self-published entries plus two additional titles. Bloom released the backlist titles, beginning with Binding 13, from November through March; the first new title, Taming 7, debuts at #3 on our children’s fiction list.

Truth Be Told

Memoirs by two writers who are better known as novelists land on our hardcover nonfiction list.

At #5, Knife is Salman Rushdie’s “forceful and surprisingly good-humored account of the 2022 knife attack that nearly killed him,” according to our review. The author “chronicles the year following the attack, during which he recovered from liver damage, the removal of part of his small intestine, and the loss of his right eye. Though he writes of being plagued by nightmares and gory memories of the assault, Rushdie’s wit shines through.”

Five spots below, Caleb Carr “delivers a lively and moving memoir about his 17-year companionship with a Siberian forest cat named Masha,” per our review of My Beloved Monster. “Carr’s gift for narrative momentum gives shape to the potentially flimsy premise, and he wrings real pathos from this tale of wounded souls finding one another.”

Political Position

Ahead of the landmark June 2 presidential election in Mexico—for the first time, the two leading candidates are women—outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador lands at #7 on our trade paperback list with ¡Gracias! / Thank You!, a memoir of his six years in office. The Spanish-language book sold best in Los Angeles, where it ranked #3 and where 22% of copies in the U.S. sold.

NEW & NOTABLE

A Calamity of Souls
David Baldacci
#2 Hardcover Fiction, #3 overall
“Baldacci’s stirring latest finds Black Vietnam veteran Jerome Washington on trial in 1968 Virginia for murdering Leslie and Anne Randolph, his married white employers and two of the most prominent citizens in fiercely segregated Freeman County,” per our review. “This ranks among the author’s best.”

An Unfinished Love Story
Doris Kearns Goodwin
#2 Hardcover Nonfiction, #7 overall
Pulitzer winner Goodwin revisits her late husband Richard Goodwin’s experiences as a speechwriter to presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and working on the 1968 presidential campaigns of senators Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy.