Two of the past year’s great books of fiction have just come out in paper and have shot straight to the bestsellers’ list: Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” and “The Falls,” by Joyce Carol Oates. In nonfiction, one of the best political overviews of the last 50 years, Haynes Johnson’s “The Age of Anxiety,” popped right onto the list, after doing a wonderful lunch event at Diesel, A Bookstore last week. Also new to the nonfiction list, great new books by Eckhart Tolle, Larry Kane and Joan Didion, and local author Tori M. Eldridge.
For kids, Adam Gopnik and Jeff Stone came to Diesel in October, discussing their two new bestsellers, “The King in the Window” and “Monkey,” respectively. Also, “The Penultimate Peril: Book the Twelfth,” by Lemony Snicket heads the list with this latest of “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” The classic, ultimate gift for early readers, “The Nutshell Library,” by Maurice Sendak gladly made the list this week too.
Fiction
1. “Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini, paper, Riverhead, $14.00
2. “The Plot Against America,” by Philip Roth, paper, Random House, $14.95
3. “Coffee Trader,” by David Liss, paper, Random House, $14.95
4. “Wedding in December,” by Anita Shreve, cloth, TimeWarner, $25.95
5. “The Falls, by Joyce Carol Oates,” paper, HarperCollins, $14.95
6. “March, by E.L. Doctorow,” cloth, Random House, $25.95
7. “The Other Boleyn Girl,” by Philippa Gregory, paper, Simon & Schuster, $15.00
8. “Bangkok 8, by John Burdett,” paper, Random House, $13.95
9. “Lipstick Jungle,” by Candace Bushnell, cloth, TimeWarner, $24.95
10. “On Beauty, by Zadie Smith,” cloth, Penguin USA, $25.95
Nonfiction
1. “Malibu,” by Marian Hall, cloth & paper, Angel City Press, $35.00 & $25.00
2. “Lennon Revealed,” by Larry Kane, cloth, Perseus Book Group, $29.95
3. “The Year of Magical Thinking,” by Joan Didion, cloth, Random House, $23.95
4. “Letters to a Young Poet,” by Rainer Maria Rilke, paper, W.W. Norton, $9.95
5. “Bad Dog,” by R.D. Rosen, paper, Workman, $9.95
6. “New Earth,” by Eckhart Tolle, cloth, Penguin USA, $24.95
7. “Million Little Pieces,” by James Frey, paper, Random House, $14.95
8. “Empowered Living,” by Tori M. Eldridge, paper, PublishAmerica, $14.95
9. “Age of Anxiety: From McCarthyism to Terrorism,” by Haynes Johnson, cloth, Harcourt Brace, $26.00
10. “Buy the Beach, by Katie Bentzen,” paper, Buy the Beach, Inc., $14.95
Children
1. “The Penultimate Peril: Book the Twelfth,” by Lemony Snicket, cloth, Harper, $11.99
2. “Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurus,” by Robert Sabuda, cloth, Candlewick, $26.99
3. “The King in the Window,” by Adam Gopnik, cloth, TimeWarner, $19.95
4. “Monkey: Book Two in the Five Ancestors Series,” by Jeff Stone, cloth, Random House, $15.95
5. “There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bat!,” by Lucille Colandro, paper, Scholastic, $5.95
6. “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” by Price Stern Sloan Staff, paper, PenguinPutnam, $4.99
7. “Inkspell,” by Cornelia Funke, cloth, Scholastic, $19.95
8. “The Nutshell Library,” by Maurice Sendak, cloth, HarperCollins, $16.99
9. “Wizardology,” by Master Merlin, cloth, Candlewick, $19.99
10. “Zathura,” by Chris Van Allsburg, cloth, Houghton Mifflin, $19.00
Book list provided by Diesel, A Bookstore.