NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLERS
Rankings reflect sales for the week ending Saturday, Jan. 9.
FICTION
1. THE DUKE AND I, by Julia
Quinn. (Avon) The first book in the “Bridgerton” series. Daphne Bridgerton’s reputation soars when she colludes with the Duke of Hastings. The basis of the Netflix series “Bridgerton.” (Weeks on list, 2)
2. STAR WARS: LIGHT OF THE JEDI, by Charles Soule. (Del Rey) In this installment of the “High Republic” series, a disaster in hyperspace may cause far greater damage. (1)
3. NEIGHBORS, by Danielle Steel. (Delacorte) A Hollywood recluse’s perspective changes when she invites her neighbors into her mansion after an earthquake. (1)
4. THE VANISHING HALF, by Brit Bennett. (Riverhead) The lives of twin sisters who run away from a Southern Black community at age 16 diverge as one returns and the other takes on a different racial identity but their fates intertwine. (32)
5. THE VISCOUNT WHO LOVED ME, by Julia Quinn. (Avon) The second book in the “Bridgerton” series. Kate Sheffield gets in the way of Anthony Bridgerton’s intent to marry. (2)
6. THE WIFE UPSTAIRS, by Rachel Hawkins. (St. Martin’s) A recently arrived dog walker in a Southern gated community falls for a mysterious widower. (1)
7. ROMANCING MISTER BRIDGERTON, by Julia Quinn. (Avon) The fourth book in the “Bridgerton” series. Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton discover each other’s secrets. (2)
8. WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, by Delia Owens. (Putnam) In a quiet town on the North Carolina coast in 1969, a young woman who survived alone in the marsh becomes a murder suspect. (116)
9. A TIME FOR MERCY, by John Grisham. (Doubleday) The third book in the “Jake Brigance” series. A 16-year-old is accused of killing a deputy in Clanton, Mississippi, in 1990. (13)
10. OUTLAWED, by Anna North. (Bloomsbury) Ada, who apprentices midwifery under her mother, must decide whether to aid a band of outlaws who want to create a safe haven for outcast women. (1)
11. THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY, by Matt Haig. (Viking) Nora Seed finds a library beyond the edge of the universe that contains books with multiple possibilities of the lives one could have lived. (6)
12. ANXIOUS PEOPLE, by Fredrik Backman. (Atria) A failed bank robber holds a group of strangers hostage at an apartment open house. (18) NONFICTION
1. A PROMISED LAND, by Barack Obama. (Crown) In the first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama offers personal reflections on his formative years and pivotal moments through his first term. (8)
2. UNTAMED, by Glennon Doyle. (Dial) The activist and public speaker describes her journey of listening to her inner voice. (44)
3. GREENLIGHTS, by Matthew McConaughey. (Crown) The Academy Award-winning actor shares snippets from the diaries he kept over the last 35 years. (12)
4. ON TYRANNY, by Timothy Snyder. (Tim Duggan) Twenty lessons from the 20th century about the course of tyranny. (24)
5. EDUCATED, by Tara Westover. (Random House) The daughter of survivalists, who is kept out of school, educates herself enough to leave home for university. (126)
6. CASTE, by Isabel Wilkerson. (Random House) The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist examines aspects of caste systems across civilizations and reveals a rigid hierarchy in America today. (23)
7. THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE, by Bessel van der Kolk. (Penguin) How trauma affects the body and mind, and innovative treatments for recovery. (20) 8. BECOMING, by Michelle Obama. (Crown) The former first lady describes her journey from the
South Side of Chicago to the White House, and how she balanced work, family and her husband’s political ascent. (93)
9. BRAIDING SWEETGRASS, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. (Milkweed Editions) A botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation espouses having an understanding and appreciation of plants and animals. (2)
10. THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE, by Erik Larson. (Crown) An examination of the leadership of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. (32)
11. BREATH, by James Nestor. (Riverhead) A re-examination of a basic biological function and a look at the science behind ancient breathing practices. (5)
12. WORLD OF WONDERS, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. (Milkweed) In a collection of essays, the poet celebrates various aspects of the natural world and its inhabitants. (5)
Wi-Fi. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, they’re thrown back on their own wiles. They stare out the windows at one another, like animals curious about bristly new creatures that have gathered around the watering hole. The surveillance is nearly totalitarian. Everyone vaguely hates everyone else.
We meet Moss’ characters one by one, in discrete chapters. Justine, in middle age, is a compulsive runner who wishes she’d traveled more when young and hadn’t settled for Steve, her lumpish husband.
Have you ever sneered at a runner? Have you, running, ever sneered at a less fit bystander? Justine recalls being called a rude name by a larger woman and saying to herself: “What are you going to do, hm, chase me, bring it on love, bring it on. You can’t help thinking, well, if you’d done a bit more of this you wouldn’t be like that, would you now?”
Two thoughts about this quote: 1) Snarkiness aside, Moss writes as well about the physical and mental aspects of running as any writer this side of Jamie Quatro, author of the story collection “I Want to Show You More.” 2) You can as easily imagine Moss writing this scene from the nonrunner’s point of view.
“Summerwater” is intimately concerned with social class. Justine chose this remote park in the hope of avoiding the wrong sort of people and finding the right sort, “those who don’t need fried food and warm sweet milky drinks always on demand, gift shops and public toilets, people who want to get out of their cars.”
It’s comic gold when, a few pages later, a man looks out at her racing past in her skintight neon and thinks she’s the wrong sort of person.
We meet unhappy teenagers; frazzled mothers weary from the day’s hassle; a boy who goes too far out in a kayak; a woman in the early stages of dementia.
As always in Moss’ work, there is a strong sense of the natural world. There are riddles of existence she’s shaking down. As a character puts it in “Ghost Wall,” “ancient knowledge runs somehow in our blood.”
As always in Moss’ work, too, there is an ominous quality, slow uncanny beats from an extra subwoofer or two, mighty but muffled.
Iris Murdoch’s “A Severed Head” is a great fog novel. “Summerwater” is pretty close to a great rain novel. “The Scottish sky,” Moss writes, “is better at obscenity than any human voice.”