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Reading on WaldenBookstore

Beverly Hills / Morgan ParkChicago, Illinois

Bestsellers · March 21, 2006

The books of a reading moment.

Reading on Walden carried seven bestseller categories through a national independent-bookseller programme. These hardcover lists were dated March 21, 2006, based on sales ending March 19.

Seven categories, a wider reading community

The store’s bestseller section placed fiction, nonfiction and children’s books within a shared national programme. Its rankings reflected sales reported across participating independent bookstores. They supplied a period view of books circulating in that wider bookselling community, rather than a tally limited to Reading on Walden.

The categories were hardcover fiction, hardcover nonfiction, trade paperback fiction, trade paperback nonfiction, mass market, children’s interest and children’s illustrated. Format and audience both shaped the arrangement. Readers encountered several distinct lists within one bestseller section.

The two hardcover rankings below recorded fifteen titles each. Sarah Dunant’s In the Company of the Courtesan headed fiction, while John Grogan’s Marley & Me headed nonfiction. The rankings belonged to March 2006 and to the programme’s reporting period.

HARDCOVER FICTION

  1. In the Company of the Courtesan — Sarah Dunant
  2. The Tenth Circle — Jodi Picoult
  3. Labyrinth — Kate Mosse
  4. The Da Vinci Code — Dan Brown
  5. The Templar Legacy — Steve Berry
  6. The 5th Horseman — James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
  7. The Last Templar — Raymond Khoury
  8. The Rebels of Ireland: The Dublin Saga — Edward Rutherfurd
  9. The Brief History of the Dead — Kevin Brockmeier
  10. The Old Wine Shades — Martha Grimes
  11. Intuition — Allegra Goodman
  12. The March — E. L. Doctorow
  13. Cell — Stephen King
  14. Dirty Blonde — Lisa Scottoline
  15. The Two Minute Rule — Robert Crais

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

  1. Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog — John Grogan
  2. Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq — Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor
  3. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century — Thomas L. Friedman
  4. The Year of Magical Thinking — Joan Didion
  5. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything — Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
  6. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why — Bart Ehrman
  7. What Jesus Meant — Garry Wills
  8. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln — Doris Kearns Goodwin
  9. You're Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation — Deborah Tannen
  10. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia — Elizabeth Gilbert
  11. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking — Malcolm Gladwell
  12. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer — James L. Swanson
  13. A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller — Frances Mayes
  14. Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis — Jimmy Carter
  15. Teacher Man: A Memoir — Frank McCourt

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

Trade paperback fiction was one of the store’s seven named categories. It gave fiction in paperback a separate place beside the hardcover list, recognizing the book’s format within the wider arrangement of reading choices.

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

Trade paperback nonfiction supplied the corresponding category for nonfiction. The division between fiction and nonfiction continued across hardcover and trade paperback, giving those two forms parallel places in the store’s bestseller section.

MASS MARKET

Mass market had its own heading. It stood separately from the two trade paperback categories and the hardcover lists. The store’s arrangement therefore distinguished several book formats within its shared bestseller programme.

CHILDREN'S INTEREST

Children’s interest was one of two categories devoted to younger readers. It placed children’s reading within the same main bestseller section as fiction and nonfiction for the store’s wider audience.

CHILDREN'S ILLUSTRATED

Children’s illustrated gave picture-led books a distinct heading. Alongside children’s interest, it reflected the place of younger readers and illustrated storytelling within a general neighborhood bookstore’s selection.

Lists beside local selections

The bestseller section was one route into the store’s reading life. Store Picks and the monthly discussion group followed particular selections, while Outstanding Local Authors drew attention to a writer with a local connection. New Arrivals That We Recommend supplied another kind of choice.

Together, those sections joined a national picture of independent bookselling with the particular interests of Reading on Walden. The hardcover rankings belonged to a moment in early 2006; the seven categories described the range through which the shop presented its bestseller lists.