NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLERS
Rankings reflect sales for the week ending Jan. 5, and include both electronic- and print-edition sales.
FICTION
1. VERSES FOR THE DEAD, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. (Grand Central) Agents Pendergast and Coldmoon track a killer who removes hearts and leaves handwritten letters. (Weeks on list: 1)
2. 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. (17)
3. TARGET: ALEX CROSS, by James Patterson. (Little, Brown) Alex Cross returns for the 26th book in the series bearing his name. (7)
4. BIRD BOX, by Josh Malerman. (Ecco) Malorie must get her two young children 20 miles downriver to escape an unseen terror. (2)
5. A DELICATE TOUCH, by Stuart Woods. (Putnam) The 48th book in the Stone Barrington series. (1)
6. THE RECKONING, by John Grisham. (Doubleday) A decorated World War II veteran shoots and kills a pastor inside a Mississippi church. (11) 7. THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ, by Heather Morris. (Harper) A concentration camp detainee tasked with permanently marking fellow prisoners falls in love with one of them. (17)
8. CIRCE, by Madeline Miller. (Little, Brown) Zeus banishes Helios’ daughter
to an island, where she must choose between living with gods or mortals. (3)
9. THE BOY, by Tami Hoag. (Dutton) Nick Fourcade and Annie Broussard, a husband-and-wife detective team, investigate a boy’s murder and the disappearance of his baby sitter. (1)
10. NINE PERFECT STRANGERS, by Liane Moriarty. (Flatiron) A romance writer becomes fascinated by the owner and director of a health resort. (9)
NONFICTION
1. 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. (8)
2. EDUCATED, by Tara Westover. (Random House) The daughter of sur-
vivalists, who is kept out of school, educates herself enough to leave home for university. (46)
3. THE POINT OF IT ALL, by Charles Krauthammer, edited by Daniel Krauthammer. (Crown Forum) A collection of essays, speeches and unpublished writings by the late conservative columnist. (5)
4. SAPIENS, by Yuval Noah Harari. (Harper) How Homo sapiens became Earth’s dominant species. (54)
5. BAD BLOOD, by John Carreyrou. (Knopf) The rise and fall of Theranos, the biotech startup that failed to deliver on its promise to make blood testing more efficient. (22)
6. THE LIBRARY BOOK, by Susan Orlean. (Simon & Schuster) The story of the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Public Library provides a backdrop to the evolution and purpose of libraries.
(7)
7. KILLING THE SS, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. (Holt) A look at the postwar manhunt for members of Hitler’s inner circle. (13) 8. BRIEF ANSWERS TO THE BIG
QUESTIONS, by Stephen Hawking. (Bantam) A collection of essays from the late scientist’s personal archive that address 10 imponderables. (12)
9. THE INNOCENT MAN, by John Grisham. (Bantam/Dell) Grisham’s first nonfiction book concerns a man wrongly sentenced to death. (2)
10. LEADERSHIP, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. (Simon & Schuster) The challenges that shaped the leadership abilities of four presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. (16)