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 bestsellers—in the past seven days or the past four weeks.
And that’s what this post is—seeing the top ten selling books of March. Let’s take a look.
| FICTION |
|---|
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho | Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer | Ready Player One by Ernest Cline |
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman | Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead | Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan |
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
Authority (Southern Reach #2) by Jeff VanderMeer | The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
| KIDS + TEENS |
|---|
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle | Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli |
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas | Dog Man and Cat Kid by Dav Pilkey |
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss | Getaway (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #12) by Jeff Kinney |
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle | The Giver by Lois Lowry |
The Dragonet Prophecy (Wings of Fire Graphic Novel #1) by Tui T. Sutherland
Drama by Raina Telgemeier | Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties by Dav Pilkey |
Dawn and the Impossible Three (The Baby-Sitter’s Club #5) by Gale Galligan |
Marvel’s Black Panther: On the Prowl! | I Am Enough by Grace Byers
| NONFICTION |
|---|
The Subtle Art of Not Give A F*ck by Mark Manson |The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish |
Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in LA by Luis J. Rodriguez |
You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero | The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers
The Food Explorer by Daniel Stone |
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Miguel Ruiz |
Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff | Russian Roulette by Michael Isikoff and David Corn |
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson
We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union | Another Kind of Madness by Stephen P. Hinshaw |
Born A Crime by Trevor Noah | I’ve Been Thinking… by Maria Shriver | Ultimate Keto Cookbook
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.
- For fiction, the top 5 were in February’s list. I expected Ready Player One to continue to be #1 because the movie came out March 27th, but instead, The Alchemist took #1. My heart soars that Crazy Rich Asians is part of my store’s bestselling books.
- For Kids + Teens:
- A Wrinkle in Time stays at #1. (It’s the only book that has been #1, so no surprise there especially considering the movie came out at the end of February.)
- It makes sense we sold a lot of Dr. Seuss, specifically Green Eggs and Ham, since it was Dr. Seuss’s birth month.
- Children of Blood and Bone was an instant bestseller as soon as it hit the shelves. We sold out of them immediately.
- I’m surprised we sold a lot of The Very Hungry Caterpillar because we never do? Sure, lots of kids love to read it or be read to in the store, but buy it? Not usually.
- There’s a lot of picture based books—picture books and graphic novels.
- I personally had a lot of customers asking for Another Kind of Madness, and I wonder if it’s assigned reading or a book club.
- My bookstore sells a lot more nonfiction and Kids books than we do Fiction and Teens, so there’s not a lot of books of the latter here.
- 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 April. 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.
It’s interesting to see a few of these books are ones that are going to be on our screen soon. Movies are a good thing for books after all! I’m not surprised for Children of Blood and Bones, it’s even on the shelves in Switzerland which is extremely rare for new releases. Usually, I have to move heaven and earth to get books I see on the blogosphere!
THE ALCHEMIST has been top-selling for ages, which I can’t believe because I don’t hear people talk about it anywhere! Unless it’s a mandatory book to purchase for school? (I’m hoping you can provide some insight on this, haha …) It seems like a lot of the books are on this list because their movies are coming out, which is nice to see because that means people are reading!
I love these monthly lists, btw! Thanks for sharing! :)
Yay to Simon Vs. I assume the movie is a big reason for that. I’m SO excited to see that Call Me By Your Name was a top seller though. Again, I assume the movie helped with that, but I love that book! :)
-Lauren