December 16, 2020



Bestseller List for December 16, 2020
Based on sales for the week ending December 13, 2020
For an independent bookstore store near you, call 1-888-266-5736,
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  Trade Paperback Fiction Last Week/
Weeks on List
1. Shuggie Bain
Douglas Stuart, Grove Press, $17.00, 9780802148506
A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. A 2020 National Book Award Finalist and winner of the 2020 Booker Prize.
3/7
2. The Overstory
Richard Powers, Norton, $18.95, 9780393356687
National Book Award-winner Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of--and paean to--the natural world.
4/89
3. Home Body
Rupi Kaur, Andrews McMeel, $16.99, 9781449486808
Kaur's greatly anticipated third collection of poetry.
1/4
4. Circe
Madeline Miller, Back Bay, $16.99, 9780316556323
Miller's masterful follow-up to The Song of Achilles is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.
6/35
5. Devotions
Mary Oliver, Penguin, $20.00, 9780399563263
A personal selection of Oliver's best work in this definitive collection spanning more than five decades of her esteemed literary career.
5/5
6. Interior Chinatown
Charles Yu, Vintage, $16.00, 9780307948472
Yu's deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play. Winner of the 2020 National Book Award.
7/4
7. The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, $18.00, 9780399590610
Coates' debut novel is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.
2/4
8. The Queen's Gambit
Walter Tevis, Vintage, $16.95, 9781400030606
Engaging and fast-paced, this gripping coming-of-age novel of chess, feminism, and addiction speeds to a conclusion as elegant and satisfying as a mate in four. Now an acclaimed Netflix series.
8/2
9. This Tender Land
William Kent Krueger, Atria, $17.00, 9781476749303
A magnificent novel about four orphans on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression.
14/28
10. The Best American Short Stories 2020
Curtis Sittenfeld, Heidi Pitlor (Eds.), Mariner, $16.99, 9781328485373
A very satisfying collection of the year's best short stories.
10/6
11. A Gentleman in Moscow
Amor Towles, Penguin, $17.00, 9780143110439
Towles' transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.
9/83
12. Homegoing
Yaa Gyasi, Vintage, $16.95, 9781101971062
Gyasi's extraordinary novel illuminates slavery's troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed--and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.
15/43
13. The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller, Ecco, $16.99, 9780062060624
Miller's monumental debut novel is an action-packed adventure and epic love story that brilliantly re-imagines Homer's enduring masterwork, The Iliad.
11/15
14. The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead, Anchor, $15.95, 9780345804341
Whitehead's masterful and haunting novel about two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida is the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
12/24
15. Normal People
Sally Rooney, Hogarth, $17.00, 9781984822185
Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.
/42


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