AbeBooks Top 10 Signed books from April 2013

AbeBooks Top 10 bestselling books from April 2013
1. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
2. Night by Elie Wiesel
3. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young
6. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
7. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
8. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber
9. Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch
10. Animal Farm by George Orwell

AbeBooks.com top 10 bestselling books for March 2013

AbeBooks top 10 bestselling signed books in March 2013
1. Wool by Hugh Howey
2. The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee 
3. The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates  
4. Life Of Pi by Yann Martel 
5. Sum it Up By Pat Summitt    
6. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia
7. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
8. Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia
9. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
10. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Unfortunately the recent popularity of Kyle’s book can be attributed to his recent death on February 2, 2013.  Kyle was shot and killed at a shooting rage in Erath County, Texas by a fellow veteran whom Kyle was accompanying to the range, reportedly as part of a post-traumatic stress disorder therapy program.  Kyle was 38.

Top 10 bestselling books on AbeBooks.com
1. American Sniper by Chris Kyle
2. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
6. Latin for the New Millennium by Milena Minkova
7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
8. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
9. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
10. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Top 10 bestselling signed books on AbeBooks
1. American Sniper by Chris Kyle
2. Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
3. Tenth of December by George Saunders
4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
5. Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
6. Ghostman by Roger Hobbs
7. My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
8. Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia
9. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
10. Who I Am by Pete Townshend

Here are three covers that I did like from the list:

And if you’d like to see a few more beautiful book covers from 2012, The Quill & Quire have a small offering, chosen by five book designers. These ones are a bit more my taste.

Congratulations to Hilary Mantel. As predicted by many, her novel Bring up the Bodies has just been announced in London’s Guildhall as the winner of this year’s £50,000 Man Booker Prize award. This also means that signed copies of Bring Up the Bodies will increase in value very quickly, so jump on it if you want one.

The announcement makes Mantel the first British author ever to be awarded the Booker Prize twice (she won previously in 2009 for Wolf Hall). Both Peter Carey (Australia) and J.M. Coetzee (South Africa) have won the prize twice.

The Booker Prize judges had the simultaneously daunting and enviable task of selecting just 12 semi-finalists for the longlist, down from a list of 145 submissions. Then from the 12 that made the longlist, they cut away half, leaving just six novels for the shortlist, including the winner. The other five finalists consisted of:

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil
Swimming Home by Deborah Levy
The Lighthouse by Alison Moore
Umbrella by Will Self
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

All six of the shortlisted authors receive £2,500.

The Booker Prize was first awarded in 1969, and goes to the judges’ determination of best English language full-length novel. There were some murmurs and grumbles of dissent last year around that rule, as the 2011 award went to Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending which many assert should be classified as a novella at only 150 pages.

Enormous admiration and congratulations to the winner, the finalists, and even all those who made the longlist – an astonishing accomplishment, and a sign of excellent literature. We will be sure to read as many as we can.

And now, in case you want a little more variety in our erotica-themed baked goods, there is this: as found on the Cute Little Cupcakes flickr page – there are also 50 Shades of Grey cupcakes. I enjoy the thought and detail that clearly went into them – we have a cupcake with Christian Grey’s infamous tie, a cupcake with a flogger, a cupcake with a collar, a cupcake with handcuffs….a bra, a pair of panties, a blindfold, and a riding crop, as well as some titillating little sayings, and all are in varying shades of grey (or black and white) – except for one muscled, shocking pink torso.

One has to wonder, though…what flavor are they? Surely not vanilla.

The bestselling signed book on AbeBooks.com for August was The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, the debut novel from English author Rachel Joyce.

The top 10 bestselling books on AbeBooks.com in August included two titles by Toni Morrison – her first and fifth novels, The Bluest Eye and Beloved, respectively. The surge in people reading Morrison’s work is likely due to the recent release of her 10th and much-lauded novel, Home.

AbeBooks Top 10 Bestselling Signed Books in August 2012

1. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
3. Hobbit to Hero by Elizabeth M. Stephen
4. Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
5. The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman
6. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
7. The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
8. A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
9. The Wrath of Angels by John Connolly
10. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

AbeBooks.com Top 10 Bestselling Books in August 2012

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey  
2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
5. Beloved by Toni Morrison
6. They Say / I Say by Gerald Graff
7. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
8. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl 
9. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The shortlist has been announced for this year’s Man Booker Prize. The judges went from a list of 145 novels down to just 12 titles for the longlist, down to these six finalists.

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil
Swimming Home by Deborah Levy
Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
The Lighthouse by Alison Moore
Umbrella by Will Self
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

Most of the opinions seem to lean toward Hilary Mantel taking the prize, but my money is on Narcopolis, Jeet Thayil’s exploration of heroin addiction in Mumbai, India. The winner will be announced October 16th, and will receive £50,000 (~$80,000).

Do people really bet seriously on these outcomes, I wonder? What would you call the people who take the bets – Booker bookies? The bookies for bookies? Booker book bookies? Food for thought.

Tickets go on sale September 10th – I expect to hear some Emergency Room stories of badly-sprained dialing fingers.