BOOKS IN HANDS • What Readers Bought During Holidays 2020

You ever want to know what people are buying in bookstores? Well, it so happens that I work at one, and I wanted to write about what books customers have been asking for during the holiday season.

All bookstores are different, so the customers coming in ask for different things—which they shouldn’t be coming into the store because we are in shelter in place due to COVID. These are just the books the customers in my area asked for during the past week leading up to the Holidays in 2020.

This list isn’t a conclusive list; the books here are the ones that I’ve remembered because I’ve been asked about it a bazillion times or I’ve seen customers holding it.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett | Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia | The Midnight Library by Matt Haig | Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell | Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Macksey | Home Body by Rupi Kaur | Star Wars: Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston | Dune by Frank Herbert | Flowers on the Moon by Billy Chapata

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman | Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass by Lana Del Rey | The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis | A Time for Mercy by John Grisham | The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian

Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds | Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison | The Deep End (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) by Jeff Kinney | Cat Kid Comic Club by Dav Pilkey

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson | Untamed by Glennon Doyle | The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris | A Promised Land by Barack Obama

To Selena, With Love by Chris Perez | Bag Man by Rachel Maddow | Is This Anything? by Jerry Seinfeld | The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell | Sapiens: A Graphic History Volume 1 by YUval Noah Harari, David Vandermeulen, & Daniel Casanave | Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh | The 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars

The Full Plate by Ayesha Curry | Half Baked Harvest Super Simple by Tieghan Gerard | Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz | Beautiful Boards: 50 Amazing Snack Boards for Any Occasion by Maegan Brown 

I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of books that I’ve recommended. This holiday season was super busy, and I spent a lot of time helping the cashier ring up customers. Now I can try to decompress, but yknow tis the time for returns.

Were there any surprises? What books do you think people asked for a lot? If you work at a bookstore, tell me what books your customers asked for.