BESTSELLERS for April 08   x=bulk order

 Title                       Author            Price  Sold
 =========================== =============== ======= ====
 hardcover fiction
 BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCA DIAZ,JUNOT        30.00    6
 THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS      HOSSEINI,KHALED   34.00    5
 RAIN BEFORE IT FALLS        COE,JONATHAN      27.95    5
 LUSH LIFE                   PRICE,RICHARD     28.50    5
 MIRACLE AT SPEEDY MOTORS    SMITH,ALEXANDER   29.95    4
 FORGERY OF VENUS            GRUBER,MICHAEL    26.95    3
 APPEAL                      GRISHAM,JOHN      33.00    3
 MAPS OF NARRATIVE PRACTICE  WHITE,MICHAEL     32.50    3
 UNACCUSTOMED EARTH          LAHIRI,JHUMPA     29.95    3
 TWIST OF ORCHIDS            WAN,MICHELLE      29.95    3

  paperback fiction
 LATE NIGHTS ON AIR          HAY,ELIZABETH     22.00   23
 WHAT IF RED RAN OUT         GRUBISIC,KATIA    17.95   22x
 DREAM WORLD                 PICK,ALISON       17.99   12
 BOYS IN THE TREES           SWAN,MARY         15.50   12 
 OUTLANDER                   ADAMSON,GIL       18.95    7
 SHACK                       YOUNG,WILLIAM P   16.50    7
 KING LEARY                  QUARRINGTON,P     19.95    6
 MARCH                       BROOKS,GERALDIN   20.00    6
 ORPHIC POLITICS             LILBURN,TIM       17.99    6
 FINAL SOLUTION              CHABON,MICHAEL    16.95    6
 WATER FOR ELEPHANTS         GRUEN,SARA        16.50    6
 BE NEAR ME                  O'HAGAN,ANDREW    21.00    5
 RECOVERING JESUS            NEUFELD,T YODER   25.99    5
 BOOK OF AIR & SHADOWS       GRUBER,MICHAEL    15.95    5
 OTHER BOLEYN GIRL           GREGORY,PHILIPP   10.99    5
 WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN SHRIVER,LIONEL    16.50    5
 STUDENT OF WEATHER          HAY,ELIZABETH     21.00    4
 MEMORY KEEPERS DAUGHTER/N   EDWARDS,KIM       16.50    4
 LULLABIES FOR LITTLE CRIMIN O'NEILL,HEATHER   17.50    4
 SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE         VONNEGUT          11.99    4

hardcover nonfiction
 LAST LECTURE                PAUSCH,RANDY      23.50   25
 TWELVE MONTHS OF KNITTING   YORDANOU,JOANNE   27.00   21
 UNDER PRESSURE              HONORE,CARL       32.00   12
 IN DEFENSE OF FOOD          POLLAN,MICHAEL    26.50   12
 OPEN ROAD   DALAI LAMA      IYER,PICO         28.00    9
 THIRD JESUS                 CHOPRA,DEEPAK     28.00    8
 THINGS I LEARNED FROM KNITT PEARL-MCPHEE,ST   12.95    6
 I DONT BELIEVE IN ATHEISTS  HEDGES,CHRIS      28.99    6
 SHAKESPEARE’S WIFE          GREER,GERMAINE    36.99    5
 ARMAGEDDON IN RETROSPECT    VONNEGUT,KURT,J   24.95    5
 WATERLOO AN ILLUS HIST 1857 MCLAUGHLIN,KEN    39.95    5
 IMPERFECT OFFERING          ORBINSKI,JAMES    35.00    5
 HOW JESUS BECAME CHRISTIAN  WILSON,BARRIE     32.95    5
 GRAND RIVER  AN AERIAL JOUR HIEBERT,CARL      59.95    4
 WITH OR WITHOUT GOD         VOSPER,GRETTA     29.95    4
 LONG WAY GONE               BEAH,ISHMAEL      26.95    4
 YOUR INNER FISH             SHUBIN,NEIL       28.00    4
 NEXT PLACE                  HANSON,WARREN     18.75    4

 paperback nonfiction
 100 MILE DIET               SMITH,ALISA       19.95   93
 MENTORING MATTERS           LIPTON            25.95   75x
 WHATS SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACEYANCEY,PHILIP     15.99   36
 LAROUSSE POCKET FRENCH ENG  LAROUSSE           7.95   32x
 NEW EARTH  AWAKENING TO YR  TOLLE,ECKHART     15.50   29
 MACHO PARADOX               KATZ,JACKSON      19.95   28
 BETTER ANSWERS              COLE,ARDITH       25.95   26x
 STRUCK BY LIGHTNING         ROSENTHAL,JEFFR   21.95   21
 EAT PRAY LOVE               GILBERT,ELIZABE   18.50   13
 INTEGRATED TREATMENT FOR DU MUESER,KIM T      63.50   11x
 UPSIDE OF DOWN              HOMER-DIXON,THO   24.95   11
 GLASS CASTLE                WALLS,JEANNETTE   16.50   11
 THREE CUPS OF TEA           MORTENSON,GREG    16.50    9
 CANADAS DEADLY SECRET       HARDING,JIM       24.95    9
 OMNIVORES DILEMMA           POLLAN,MICHAEL    19.00    9
 IN PRAISE OF SLOW           HONORE,CARL       22.00    8
 BRAIN THAT CHANGES ITSELF   DOIDGE,NORMAN     17.50    7
 GETTING TO MAYBE            WESTLEY,FRANCES   22.00    6
 RADICAL GRATITUDE           LEDDY,MARY JO     19.95    6
 WAY OF ZEN (R)              WATTS,ALAN W.     17.95    5
 I AM HUTTERITE              KIRKBY,MARY-ANN   24.95    5
 MIND OVER MOOD              GREENBERGER,DEN   24.95    5
 POWER OF NOW                TOLLE,ECKHART     14.95    5
 TAKE THIS BREAD             MILES,SARA        16.50    5
 
 Juvenile
 OH THE PLACES YOULL GO      SEUSS,DR          22.00   12
 MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN (R) GEORGE,JEAN CRA    9.99   11
 LOVE YOU FOREVER            MUNSCH,ROBERT      5.95    6
 TWILIGHT                    MEYER,STEPHANIE   11.99    5
 FRIEND LIKE YOU             PARE,ROGER         1.25    4
 SAMUELS MOST IMPORTANT MESS GLEW,FRANK        10.00   4
 SNAKEHEAD                   HOROWITZ,ANTHON   21.50    4
 KING DORK                   PORTMAN,FRANK     11.99    4

2007 BESTSELLERS                            (bulk orders and textbooks excluded)

You had a good chance of making it into our 2007 bestseller list if your name was Elizabeth (Gilbert, Ruth or Hay). Smoke was this year’s One Book One Community selection. Last year’s chosen book was Three Day Road, which sold 344 copies that year placing it at #1. Obviously Harry Potter pulled that spot this year, selling 68% more copies than Three Day Road.

Author events continue to impact out sales: Chrétien, Hay, Beah, Nolen, Gilmour, Malone, and English all did events with Words Worth. Marla Shapiro’s Life in the Balance was a St. Mary’s Hospital event. Likewise, the Judy Chicago book was sold largely to the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery.

Local authors also continue to do well especially with golf books – see #16 and #19. But hardcover fiction is still in decline. Only the Giller (Late Nights on Air) and the G-G (Divisadero) winners, plus the A Thousand Splendid Suns (the new novel by the author of The Kite Runner), made it on our list, compared to four titles on the 2006 list

2006 BESTSELLERS

This year’s top 25 bestsellers at Words Worth books stack up in a pretty even comparison to those of 2005 although they bear little resemblance to Canada-wide lists. Our top seller was Three Day Road, the chosen book of the One Book One Community program. Last year’s list included Hominids, the OBOC choice, along with two other titles by the same author, Robert Sawyer. Stephen Lewis’s Race Against Time actually ranked higher this year at #2 than last at #3. The Giller winner, Bloodletting by Dr. Vincent Lam, stands at #5. This book has sold almost twice as many copies this fall in Canada as previous Giller winners have averaged.


Local authors continued their prominence on the top 25: Proudly She Marched, about the WW2 women’s army training in Kitchener, and John English’s Trudeau bio, Citizen of the World, ranked third and fourth. Local trail guides again meandered across our list: Waterloo Trails at #6, Woolwich Trails at #17, but for the first time in many years, none of Katherine Jacob’s trail guides made the top 25. Two new local authors did well: Tom Slee’s No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart (#18) and Peter Russell’s Manitoulin Rocks (#20). The recently reissued Food That Really Schmecks by the late Edna Staebler tied for #22 with the Da Vinci Code and The Golden Compass.

The latter, a young adult novel, was joined by three other kids books: Charlotte’s Web (#19) Lemony Snicket’s final volume The End (#23) and King Dork (#20). Last year Harry Potter ranked the top bestseller, selling ten times as many copies as the #25 ranked books. King Dork and Tropic of Night (#14) both make the list as the result of handselling – via personal recommendation from Words Worth’s assistant manager, David Worsley.

Environmental concerns drove book sales with The Weather Makers, ranked at #7, Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth at #13, and also the late Jane Jacob’s Dark Age Ahead (#10). By the way, Weather Makers is now out in paperback. There were no environmental titles on last year’s list. Malcolm Gladwell with two titles, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, were the high ranking non-fiction authors in 2005. This year in non-fiction, Karen Armstrong’s overview of world religions, the Great Transformation reached #8.

Hardcover fiction continues to have a hard time making our top bestsellers. This year only Mary Lawson’s Other Side of the Bridge, and Irene Nemirovsky’s tale of WW2 occupied France, Suite Francaise, made the list. Last year, Jane Urquhart’s Map of Glass, was the sole hardcover fiction bestseller. This fall’s sales of new hardcover novels by established authors such as Alice Munro and Wayne Johnston were disappointing. But paperbacks do better, including Gilead, Kite Runner, Inheritance of Loss (a Booker Prize winner), Sweetness in the Belly, and Memory Keeper’s Daughter.

Though remainders and sale books are traditionally excluded from bestseller lists, four title would’ve made our top 25: Home for the Vinyl Café, The Ironic Christian’s Companion, Simon Winchester’s the Meaning of Everything and Finding God in the Garden.

Publishers know that you can’t sustain bestseller status without adequate stock and this year they had many fewer mistakes than previous years. Last minute reprints came through on December 21st for Natalie Maclean’s Red, White and Drunk All Over, and Stephen Brunt’s Searching for Bobby Orr. Mike Holmes on Homes was reprinted a week before these, and You on a Diet and The God Delusion were among many that stayed successfully in stock. On the other hand, Allan Gotlieb’s Washington Diaries, the story of the Nobel Peace Prize winner (Banker to the Poor) and a book called Bird Songs with a built-in audio player, all failed to get reprinted in time.

2005  BESTSELLERS