NEW ON THE LIST AND IN PUBLISHING

Voting with their wallets: It’s a good week for Democrats in bookstores. Al Franken, the U.S. Senator from Minnesota, lands at No. 2 this week on USA TODAY’s BestSelling Books list. His humorous memoir, Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, is second only to Come Sundown, a suspense novel by Nora Roberts, which debuts at No. 1.

And Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, is No. 5 with her new children’s book, She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World.

Illustrated by Alexandra Boiger, the picture book celebrates such trailblazers as Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, Sally Ride and yes, Hillary Clinton (who has her own, so-far untitled, memoir coming out this fall).

Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, says she wrote her book “for everyone who’s ever wanted to speak up but has been told to quiet down — for everyone who’s ever been made to feel less than.” Both Clinton and Franken, a Saturday Night Live alum, have done high-profile media events and interviews. Franken did his first interview about Giant of the Senate with USA TODAY’s Susan Page. He said that when he first got to Washington, he kept his sense of humor in check.

“I felt it was really important for me to prove to the people of Minnesota that I was there to do the work for the people of Minnesota,” he said.

These days, he’s using humor as a weapon to oppose President Trump and his administration, Page writes.