During the last week of February 2018, I pondered about what type of post to make for “Books in Hand.” At first, I planned to discuss all the books customers came in asking for or buying, but that’s a bit too much because everybody came in asking for different books, and I didn’t remember all of them. My boss showed me a way to check our store’s best selling books, and I found out what we sold a lot of!
And that’s what this post is—seeing the top selling books of August 2023!
| FICTION |
|---|
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros | Icebreaker by Hannah Grace | Twisted Love by Ana Huang | A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara | Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
The Secret History by Donna Tartt | No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai | The Housemaid by Freida McFadden | Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica | This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu | Brutal Prince by Sophie Lark | The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb | Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin | Masters of Death by Olivie Blake
The Secret History by Donna Tartt | The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin | The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller | The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo | Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
| TEENS |
|---|
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins | The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han | We’ll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han | A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson | If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin |
The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes | Heartstopper: Volume 1 by Alice Oseman | Once Upon A Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber | The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins | The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Caraval by Stephanie Garber | Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo | The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes | Solitaire by Alice Oseman | Better than the Movies by Lynn Painter
| KIDS |
|---|
Coraline by Neil Gaiman | Hooky Vol. 1 by Miriam Bonastre Tur | A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park | Grumpy Monkey by Suzanne Lang | The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
Restart by Gordon Korman | Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good by Louie Stowell | The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill | Corduroy by Don Freeman | Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Invisible Emmie by Terri Libenson | The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson #1) by Rick Riordan | Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joose | Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling | Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea by Dav Pilkey
| NONFICTION |
|---|
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin | Atomic Habits by James Clear | The First 90 Days by Michael D. Watkins | The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz | You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner | Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman | Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins | The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel | The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk | Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki | How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie | Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher by Richard P. Feynman
NOTES:
- Every bookstore’s top-selling books will be different from each other. This list is just for my store.
- These books seem to be forever on the top-selling list: The Alchemist, anything Dog Man or Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, You Are A Badass, The Four Agreements, the 5 Love Languages, and Milk and Honey. (Don’t be surprise if you see these books here or in future “Books in Hand” posts. People love these books.)
- For the past year, we’ve been selling a lot of manga—so much that it exceeds the different subjects of books we sell. That will be in its own post.
I find these posts really interesting! I always like wandering into my local bookshop to see what’s selling and what is being promoted. I love that Jennifer Lynn Barnes is so popular at the moment that her Naturals series is making a comeback!