When authors make an appearance at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge,
Mass., customers take notice. "Our hardcover list is event driven,"
said head buyer Megan Sullivan, while the paperback list tends to be
less transient--distinctions that are evident in the store's bestseller
rankings for the week ending Sunday, September 23.
Nine of the fifteen hardcover bestsellers are by scribes who spoke at store-sponsored events in the last two weeks, and Jonathan Kozol's Letters to a Young Teacher leads the line-up. In his most recent book, the educator and Massachusetts native shares his correspondence with a Boston inner-city elementary school teacher.
"We're a general bookstore with an academic bent," said Sullivan, and the retailer's proximity to Harvard University yields results for authors associated with the school. University professor Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought (#5), and lecturer Nicola Denzey, author of The Bone Gatherers (#8), earned bestseller status after speaking to Harvard Book Store audiences. Denzey appeared as part of the store's Friday Forum scholarly series.
Although they did not delight the store's clientele in person, a Harvard connection has benefited university alumni Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, whose armchair philosophy guide, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, is at #12.
Philip Roth is the sole fiction writer on the hardcover list who did not make an appearance, and his latest offering, Exit Ghost, is the #11 seller. Patrons did hear from Edmund White, who despite teaching at rival school Princeton University has garnered a following among Harvard Book Store readers. His novel Hotel de Dream shows up at #6, while Amy Bloom's Away is at #14.
An author who has achieved bestsellerdom in advance of his appearance (on October 10) is Jeffrey Toobin, whose inside look at the Supreme Court, The Nine, is in the #10 spot. "Writers for the New Yorker are popular in Cambridge," Sullivan said.
A title that has outpaced expectations is The Age of Turbulence, the #3 seller. "I bought conservatively on this book," said Sullivan, "because a general memoir by Alan Greenspan didn't quite seem like a huge Cambridge topic." Until, that is, the weekend before the book's release when Greenspan's publicity began. The former Federal Reserve Bank chairman took aim at the Bush administration, and when The Age of Turbulence went on sale, noted Sullivan, it began selling swiftly.
The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman might owe its presence on the list at #15 to more than the author's Cambridge visit. Sullivan endorsed the book as a staff recommendation, earning it a place on a display in a heavily-trafficked area of the store. Shelf talkers with commentary accompany employee picks, which "sell like crazy," said Sullivan, who likened the experience to browsing in a wine store. "I always go for the handwritten tag because I figure someone who works there likes [the wine] enough to write something about it," she said. "The same concept goes for bookstores."
A staff recommendation has kept Case Histories in a prominent position on the paperback bestseller list. Kate Atkinson's novel was #1 last week but has been relegated to the #2 slot by Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, the only new title to appear on this week's list. Written by Harvard University professor Stephen Greenblatt, the nonfiction tome garnered the top spot thanks to being on a course syllabus.
Paperback bestsellers tend to have staying power at the Harvard Book Store, and steady performers include The Emperor's Children (#4) by Cambridge area resident Claire Messud and Istanbul: Memories and the City (#15) by Nobel Prize-winner and customer favorite Orhan Pamuk. (He is scheduled to speak at a Harvard Book Store event on October 12 to promote the recently published Other Colors: Essays and a Story.) Greg Mortenson's memoir Three Cups of Tea (#8) is the 2007 selection of the citywide book club Cambridge READS.
A single author has a title on both the hardcover and paperback bestseller lists: MIT professor Junot Díaz, who spoke at a store event on September 12. Published a decade ago, Diaz's story collection Drown (#12) earned him "an underground following," said Sullivan. "So many people read it and loved it and have been waiting for his novel." Sullivan predicts great things for Diaz's new page turner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (#9). For the Harvard Book Store, she said, "this is one of the biggest books of the fall."--Shannon McKenna
Harvard Book Store bestsellers during the week ended September 23:
Hardcover
1. Letters to a Young Teacher by Jonathan Kozol (Crown, $19.95, 0307393712/9780307393715)
2. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein (Metropolitan Books, $28, 0805079831/9780805079838)
3. The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan (Penguin Press, $35, 1594201315/9781594201318)
4. What on Earth Have I Done?: Stories, Observations and Affirmations by Robert Fulghum (St. Martin's, $22.95, 0312365497/9780312365493)
5. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker (Viking, $29.95, 0670063274/9780670063277)
6. Hotel de Dream: A New York Novel by Edmund White (Ecco, $23.95, 0060852259/9780060852252)
7. Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World by Bill Clinton (Knopf, $24.95, 0307266745/9780307266743)
8. The Bone Gatherers: The Lost Worlds of Early Christian Women by Nicola Denzey (Beacon Press, $27.95, 0807013080/9780807013083)
9. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Riverhead, $24.95, 1594489580/9781594489587)
10. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin (Doubleday, $27.95, 0385516401/9780385516402)
11. Exit Ghost by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin, $26, 0618915478/9780618915477)
12. Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein (Abrams Image, $18.95, 081091493X/9780810914933)
13. Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf, $23.95, 1400041155/9781400041152)
14. Away: A Novel by Amy Bloom (Random House, $23.95, 1400063566/9781400063567)
15. The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman (Norton, $24.95, 0393061728/9780393061727)
Paperback
1. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt (Norton, $14.95, 039332737X/9780393327373)
2. Case Histories: A Novel by Kate Atkinson (Back Bay, $13.99, 0316010707/978-0316010702)
3. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin, $15, 0143038419/9780143038412)
4. The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud (Vintage, $14.95, 030727666X/9780307276667)
5. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage, $14.95, 0307387895/9780307387899)
6. Suite Française: A Novel by Irene Nemirovsky (Vintage, $14.95, 1400096278/9781400096275)
7. Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen (Algonquin, $13.95, 1565125606/9781565125605)
8. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson (Penguin, $15, 0143038257/9780143038252)
9. A Spot of Bother: A Novel by Mark Haddon (Vintage, $13.95, 0307278867/9780307278869)
10. The Elements of Style Illustrated by Maira Kalman (Penguin, $15, 0143112724/9780143112723)
11. Half of a Yellow Sun: A Novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Anchor, $14.95, 1400095204/9781400095209)
12. Drown by Junot Díaz (Riverhead, $14, 1573226068/9781573226066)
13. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (Vintage, $14.95, 1400077427/9781400077427)
14. The Kite Runner: A Novel by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $15, 1594480001/9781594480003)
15. Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, $14.95, 1400033888/9781400033881)
Nine of the fifteen hardcover bestsellers are by scribes who spoke at store-sponsored events in the last two weeks, and Jonathan Kozol's Letters to a Young Teacher leads the line-up. In his most recent book, the educator and Massachusetts native shares his correspondence with a Boston inner-city elementary school teacher.
"We're a general bookstore with an academic bent," said Sullivan, and the retailer's proximity to Harvard University yields results for authors associated with the school. University professor Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought (#5), and lecturer Nicola Denzey, author of The Bone Gatherers (#8), earned bestseller status after speaking to Harvard Book Store audiences. Denzey appeared as part of the store's Friday Forum scholarly series.
Although they did not delight the store's clientele in person, a Harvard connection has benefited university alumni Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, whose armchair philosophy guide, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, is at #12.
Philip Roth is the sole fiction writer on the hardcover list who did not make an appearance, and his latest offering, Exit Ghost, is the #11 seller. Patrons did hear from Edmund White, who despite teaching at rival school Princeton University has garnered a following among Harvard Book Store readers. His novel Hotel de Dream shows up at #6, while Amy Bloom's Away is at #14.
An author who has achieved bestsellerdom in advance of his appearance (on October 10) is Jeffrey Toobin, whose inside look at the Supreme Court, The Nine, is in the #10 spot. "Writers for the New Yorker are popular in Cambridge," Sullivan said.
A title that has outpaced expectations is The Age of Turbulence, the #3 seller. "I bought conservatively on this book," said Sullivan, "because a general memoir by Alan Greenspan didn't quite seem like a huge Cambridge topic." Until, that is, the weekend before the book's release when Greenspan's publicity began. The former Federal Reserve Bank chairman took aim at the Bush administration, and when The Age of Turbulence went on sale, noted Sullivan, it began selling swiftly.
The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman might owe its presence on the list at #15 to more than the author's Cambridge visit. Sullivan endorsed the book as a staff recommendation, earning it a place on a display in a heavily-trafficked area of the store. Shelf talkers with commentary accompany employee picks, which "sell like crazy," said Sullivan, who likened the experience to browsing in a wine store. "I always go for the handwritten tag because I figure someone who works there likes [the wine] enough to write something about it," she said. "The same concept goes for bookstores."
A staff recommendation has kept Case Histories in a prominent position on the paperback bestseller list. Kate Atkinson's novel was #1 last week but has been relegated to the #2 slot by Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, the only new title to appear on this week's list. Written by Harvard University professor Stephen Greenblatt, the nonfiction tome garnered the top spot thanks to being on a course syllabus.
Paperback bestsellers tend to have staying power at the Harvard Book Store, and steady performers include The Emperor's Children (#4) by Cambridge area resident Claire Messud and Istanbul: Memories and the City (#15) by Nobel Prize-winner and customer favorite Orhan Pamuk. (He is scheduled to speak at a Harvard Book Store event on October 12 to promote the recently published Other Colors: Essays and a Story.) Greg Mortenson's memoir Three Cups of Tea (#8) is the 2007 selection of the citywide book club Cambridge READS.
A single author has a title on both the hardcover and paperback bestseller lists: MIT professor Junot Díaz, who spoke at a store event on September 12. Published a decade ago, Diaz's story collection Drown (#12) earned him "an underground following," said Sullivan. "So many people read it and loved it and have been waiting for his novel." Sullivan predicts great things for Diaz's new page turner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (#9). For the Harvard Book Store, she said, "this is one of the biggest books of the fall."--Shannon McKenna
Harvard Book Store bestsellers during the week ended September 23:
Hardcover
1. Letters to a Young Teacher by Jonathan Kozol (Crown, $19.95, 0307393712/9780307393715)
2. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein (Metropolitan Books, $28, 0805079831/9780805079838)
3. The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan (Penguin Press, $35, 1594201315/9781594201318)
4. What on Earth Have I Done?: Stories, Observations and Affirmations by Robert Fulghum (St. Martin's, $22.95, 0312365497/9780312365493)
5. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker (Viking, $29.95, 0670063274/9780670063277)
6. Hotel de Dream: A New York Novel by Edmund White (Ecco, $23.95, 0060852259/9780060852252)
7. Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World by Bill Clinton (Knopf, $24.95, 0307266745/9780307266743)
8. The Bone Gatherers: The Lost Worlds of Early Christian Women by Nicola Denzey (Beacon Press, $27.95, 0807013080/9780807013083)
9. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Riverhead, $24.95, 1594489580/9781594489587)
10. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin (Doubleday, $27.95, 0385516401/9780385516402)
11. Exit Ghost by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin, $26, 0618915478/9780618915477)
12. Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein (Abrams Image, $18.95, 081091493X/9780810914933)
13. Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf, $23.95, 1400041155/9781400041152)
14. Away: A Novel by Amy Bloom (Random House, $23.95, 1400063566/9781400063567)
15. The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman (Norton, $24.95, 0393061728/9780393061727)
Paperback
1. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt (Norton, $14.95, 039332737X/9780393327373)
2. Case Histories: A Novel by Kate Atkinson (Back Bay, $13.99, 0316010707/978-0316010702)
3. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin, $15, 0143038419/9780143038412)
4. The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud (Vintage, $14.95, 030727666X/9780307276667)
5. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage, $14.95, 0307387895/9780307387899)
6. Suite Française: A Novel by Irene Nemirovsky (Vintage, $14.95, 1400096278/9781400096275)
7. Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen (Algonquin, $13.95, 1565125606/9781565125605)
8. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson (Penguin, $15, 0143038257/9780143038252)
9. A Spot of Bother: A Novel by Mark Haddon (Vintage, $13.95, 0307278867/9780307278869)
10. The Elements of Style Illustrated by Maira Kalman (Penguin, $15, 0143112724/9780143112723)
11. Half of a Yellow Sun: A Novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Anchor, $14.95, 1400095204/9781400095209)
12. Drown by Junot Díaz (Riverhead, $14, 1573226068/9781573226066)
13. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (Vintage, $14.95, 1400077427/9781400077427)
14. The Kite Runner: A Novel by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $15, 1594480001/9781594480003)
15. Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, $14.95, 1400033888/9781400033881)