Every week, the Harvard Book Store shares its list of bestsellers with us, and we look at what’s among the top fives (hardcover and paperback) and compare it with what’s on the New York Times’ lists of national bestsellers.
Hardcover Two writers with extensive catalogs return: Pulitzer-winning Maine author Richard Russo (11 novels to his name) takes the top-selling slot with the new novel “Under the Falls,” which mixes crime and cops into one of his classic small-town portraits. The No. 5 slot is for “Whistler” by Ann Patchett (10 novels to her name) about a woman reconnecting with her former stepfather after many years. Between are two nonfiction works: Falling to No. 2, “What Happened to Liberal Democracy?” by Daron Acemoglu, a 2024 Nobel laureate in economics who says liberalism, a philosophy built to challenge power, never adjusted to becoming the establishment; new to us at No. 3, “Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences” by Neal Allen and Anne Lamott. The real story here is the persistence of “Yesteryear,” Claire Burke Caro’s novel about a tradwife influencer who somehow wakes up in 1855, the brutal era she extolled as great in online videos. It’s at No. 4 this week.
Where do local hardcover bestsellers overlap with the Times’ top five? Only in fiction: “Yesteryear” is No. 3 (and has been a bestseller for 18 weeks) and “Whistler” is at No. 4 after 10 weeks on the list.
Paperback Still much about the classics, and all about fiction: Homer is again at No. 1 with “The Odyssey” as Christopher Nolan’s epic film lingers in theaters (and No. 4 is Madeline’s Miller “Circe”). No. 2 is John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” (soon to be a Netflix series starring Florence Pugh). No. 3 is the rediscovered 1965 novel “Stoner” by John Williams. And No. 5 is the Belgian science fiction translation “I Who Have Never Known Men” by Harpman Jacqueline.
Cambridge and Somerville have gone their own way here. The Times’ weekly fiction lists none of these.
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge
