BEST-SELLERS
Fiction
1. SYCAMORE ROW, by John Grisham. A sequel, about race and inheritance, to A
Time to Kill.
2. THE GOLDFINCH, by Donna Tartt. A painting smuggled out of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after a bombing becomes a boy’s prize, guilt and burden.
3. DOCTOR SLEEP, by Stephen King. Now grown up, Dan, the boy with psycho-intuitive powers in The Shining, helps another threatened child with a gift.
4. WE ARE WATER, by Wally Lamb. About to marry a woman who is a gallery owner, a divorced artist and mother must confront secrets from her past.
5. THE LONGEST RIDE, by Nicholas Sparks. The lives of two couples converge unexpectedly.
6. IDENTICAL, by Scott Turow. Paul Giannis, running for mayor of Kindle County, is accused of having played a role in the murder of his identical twin brother’s girlfriend for which his brother, Cass, has served time.
7. STORM FRONT, by John Sandford. Minnesota investigator Virgil Flowers becomes involved in the hunt for an ancient inscribed stone smuggled out of the Middle East.
8. GONE, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. Detective Michael Bennett, living with his 10 adopted children on a California farm, is pursued by the head of a Mexican drug cartel he once put in jail. 9. BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE
BOY, by Helen Fielding. Bridget, now 51 and a mother and widow, is once again looking for love.
10. JUST ONE EVIL ACT, by Elizabeth George. In the 18th Inspector Lynley novel, Lynley’s partner Barbara Havers searches for a friend’s kidnapped child in Italy.
Nonfiction
1. KILLING JESUS, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. The host of The O’Reilly
Factor recounts the events leading up to Jesus’ execution.
2. DAVID AND GOLIATH, by Malcolm Gladwell. How disadvantages can work in our favor.
3. I AM MALALA, by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb. The experience of a Pakistani girl who advocated for women’s education and was shot by the Taliban.
4. THINGS THAT MATTER, by Charles Krauthammer. Three decades’ worth of essays from the conservative columnist.
5. 40 CHANCES, by Howard G. Buffett with Howard W. Buffett. What Warren Buffett’s son and grandson have learned in their efforts to feed the hungry.
6. THE REASON I JUMP, by Naoki Higashida. A 13-year-old boy with autism answers questions.
7. JOHNNY CARSON, by Henry Bushkin. A recollection by Carson’s lawyer and confidant for 18 years.
8. EXTORTION, by Peter Schweizer. A Hoover Institution fellow argues that politicians shape legislation in order to extract donations.
9. MY STORY, by Elizabeth Smart with Chris Stewart. A woman kidnapped from her Utah home in 2002 at age 14 describes her captivity and rescue.
10. HUMANS OF NEW YORK, by Brandon Stanton. Four hundred color photos of New Yorkers, with brief commentary by Stanton.
Paperback fiction
1. DEAR LIFE, by Alice Munro. The latest collection of stories—some “autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact”—by this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
2. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, by E.L. James. An inexperienced college student falls in love with a tortured man who has particular sexual tastes; the first book in an erotic trilogy.
3. THE HIT, by David Baldacci. Government hit man Will Robie uncovers a serious threat as he tries to stop Jessica Reel, a fellow assassin who has gone rogue.
4. THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, by M.L. Stedman. An Australian lighthouse keeper and his wife decide to keep a baby who has washed ashore.
5. WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, by Maria Semple. A teenage daughter compiles emails, official documents and secret correspondence in an effort to find her eccentric mother.
Paperback nonfiction
1. ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, by Piper Kerman. A memoir by a Brooklyn woman whose relationship with a drug runner gets her sentenced to a year in prison. The basis for the Netflix series, originally published in 2010.
2. PROOF OF HEAVEN, by Eben Alexander. A neurosurgeon recounts his near-death experience during a coma from bacterial meningitis.
3. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. Why some people succeed; it has to do with luck and opportunities as well as talent.
4. JESUS > RELIGION, by Jefferson Bethke. Thoughts on faith from the author of the viral video poem “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus.”
5. WILD, by Cheryl Strayed. A woman’s account of a life-changing 1,100-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail during the summer of 1995.