BOOKS IN HAND • What Customers Are Buying in August 2023

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.

Were there any surprises? What did you think would be a top-selling book? What books from this list have you read?