| 1. |
My Life
by Bill Clinton
price: $35.00
In what is sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year, My Life is a "riveting personal drama as well as a fascinating look a the American political arena," chronicling Clinton's life through his White House years. |  |
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| 2. |
McSweeney's 13
by McSweeneys
price: $24.00
This issue is all comics. It is edited by
Chris Ware (author of Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth), and
features so many artists to know and love: R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Daniel
Clowes, Lynda Barry, Los Bros Hernandez, Adrian Tomine, Julie Doucet, and on and
on.Available only in the store. |  |
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| 3. |
Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency
by Senator Robert C. Byrd
price: $23.95
The Senator argues that now is the time to regain the Constitution, to return to the values and processes that made America great, and to speak the truth to an increasingly aggressive and imperial White House. |  |
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| 4. |
What's the Matter with Kansas? Middle America's Thirty-Year War with Liberalism
by Thomas Frank
price: $24.00
In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"-how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union-Frank seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? "A brilliant analysis-and funny to boot-What's the Matter with Kansas? [tells] a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People." -Los Angeles Times |  |
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| 5. |
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: Essays
by David Sedaris
price: $24.95
With Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris returns to his deliciously twisted domain: hilarious childhood dramas infused with melancholy; the gulf of misunderstanding that exists between people of different nations or members of the same family; and the poignant divide between one's best hopes and most common deeds. |  |
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| 6. |
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
by Lynne Truss
price: $17.50
This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with. |  |
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| 7. |
The Rule of Four
by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
price: $24.00
A stunning first novel in the vein of Umberto Ecco and Dan Brown. Two friends find the key to the labyrinth that holds the secrets of an ancient text called the "Hypnerotomachia." But when a fellow researcher is murdered, they suddenly realize they are caught in a web of great danger.
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| 8. |
R Is for Ricochet
by Sue Grafton
price: $26.95
After five dark and gritty mysteries, Grafton changes tone, giving readers a lighthearted novel about a complex and clever money-laundering scheme. |  |
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| 9. |
The DaVinci Code
by Dan Brown
price: $24.95
In an exhilarating blend of scholarly intelligence, relentless adventure, and cutting wit, Robert Langdon (first introduced in "Angels Demons") and his new adventure combines the punch of Robert Ludlum, the intriguing historical touch of Umberto Eco, and the nonstop suspense of Michael Crichton. |  |
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| 10. |
Against All Enemies: Inside the White House's War on Terror--What Really Happened
by Richard Clarke
price: $27.00
The disturbing truth about the war on terror is revealed by the man who served--until spring 2003--for 11 years as the White House Counterterrorism Czar. Through gripping, thriller-like scenes, he tells the full story for the first time, and explains exactly what the Bush Administration is doing.
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Bestselling Paperback Titles
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| 1. |
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
price: $12.00
Christopher John Francis Boone relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating novels in recent years. "Think of The Sound and the Fury crossed with The Catcher in the Rye and one of Oliver Sacks's real-life stories." -The New York Times |  |
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| 2. |
The Dante Club
by Matthew Pearl
price: $13.95
A magnificent blend of fact and fiction, a brilliantly realized paean to Dante, his mythic genius, and his continuing grip on the artistic imagination. “[A] carefully plotted, imaginatively shaped, and stylistically credible whodunit of unusual class and intellect.” —The Boston Globe
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| 3. |
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
by Azar Nafisi
price: $13.95
The luminous memoir of an inspired teacher who defied Islamic morality squads to teach forbidden Western classics in Iran. |  |
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| 4. |
Me Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris
price: $14.95
A recent transplant to Paris, humorist David Sedaris, bestselling author of Naked, presents a collection of his strongest work yet, including the title story about his hilarious attempt to learn French. |  |
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| 5. |
Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides
price: $15.00
Spanning eight decades, Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. Eugenides was named one of America's best young novelists by both Granta and The New Yorker. |  |
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| 6. |
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
by Jon Krakauer
price: $14.95
Krakauer shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief in this true story of an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers who insist God commanded them to kill. |  |
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| 7. |
Color: A Natural History of the Palette
by Victoria Finlay
price: $14.95
Discover the tantalizing true stories behind your favorite colors.
For example: Cleopatra used saffron--a source of the color yellow--for seduction. Extracted from an Afghan mine, the blue "ultramarine" paint used by Michelangelo was so expensive he couldn't afford to buy it himself. Since ancient times, carmine red--still found in lipsticks and Cherry Coke today--has come from the blood of insects. |  |
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| 8. |
Loving the Cheney Within
by Jeremy Hutchins
price: $10.00
Poking fun at the nation's vice president, Hutchins asks readers such questions as "Do you have a secret desire to control the world?" If the answer is "yes," Hutchins encourages readers to embrace their inner Cheney. |  |
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| 9. |
The Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
price: $14.00
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. |  |
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| 10. |
Brick Lane
by Monica Ali
price: $14.00
Monica Ali's gorgeous first novel is the story of one woman, Nazneen, born in a Bangladeshi village and transported to London at age eighteen to enter into an arranged marriage. Already hailed by the London Observer as "one of the most significant British novelists of her generation," Ali has written a stunningly accomplished debut about one outsider's quest to find her voice. |  |
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* This list reflects overall sales for the week July 12 - 18, 2004.Back to this week's bestsellers
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