You ever want to know what people are buying in bookstores? Well, it so happens that I work at one!
During the last week of February, 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 ten selling books of April. Let’s take a look.
| FICTION |
|---|
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline | Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter | The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho | Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi | Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr | Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult |
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer | Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders |
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
| KIDS + TEENS |
|---|
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle | The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein |
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli |
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi | The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Dog Man and Cat Kid by Dav Pilkey | A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss & John Oliver |
Black Panther: The Young Prince by Ronald L. Smith | I Am Enough by Grace Byers |
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli
Kristy’s Great Idea (The Babysitter’s Club #1) by Raina Telgemeier |
Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman by Dav Pilkey |
Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova | Marvel’s Black Panther: On the Prowl! |
The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
| NONFICTION |
|---|
A Higher Loyalty by James Comey | The Subtle Art of Not Give A F*ck by Mark Manson |
Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in LA by Luis J. Rodriguez | The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Miguel Ruiz | Killing the Deep State by Jerome R. Corsi
You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero | 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson |
The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish | Michelle Obama: A Photographic Journey |
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
Obama: An Intimate Portrait by Pete Souza | Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover |
I’ve Been Thinking… by Maria Shriver | Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman |
Born A Crime by Trevor Noah
NOTES:
- Every bookstore’s top-selling books will be different from each other. This list is just for my store.
- I decided to have a top 15 for Kids + Teens and nonfiction books because we sold a lot of those books in March than we did general fiction books.
- It’s so fascinating to see what books continued to be in to the top 10-15 list and what rank they’re in.
- I’m pleased Homegoing and Pachinko are our top sellers because any time somebody asks for Pachinko, I recommend Homegoing because they’re both family sagas.
- I love that we’ve been selling a lot of The Prince and the Dressmaker. The cutest graphic novel ever.
- When Michelle McNamara’s book I’ll Be Gone in the Dark came out, my bookstore didn’t sell a lot, which was strange considering this is about a serial killer based in California. Of course when the killer was caught(!!!!!), we sold out all of our copies. Super crazy.
- Everybody wanted A Higher Loyalty, and thankfully, we stocked up (I’m sure we learned from Fire and Fury, but that book came out suddenly because of the threat of a lawsuit.)
- 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 in May. People love these books.)
- I omitted the poetry list because it didn’t change from February, so it was The Sun and Her Flowers, Pillow Thoughts, Milk and Honey, and 2Fish.
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