It’s the end of summer and back-to-school time, so it’s no surprise that “The Berenstain Bears Go to School” has popped up onto the children’s bestseller list this month. The new picture book to get is “Bad Kitty, Cat-nipped Edition,” a very funny and clever book, artfully produced with a cat-bite taken out of it. A nice addition to the list: a beautifully illustrated book on the Hindu god Ganesh, “Elephant Prince;” good for keeping the imagination alive, rich and diversified.
In nonfiction, new to the list is “The Green Book,” as all things environmental return to our concerned minds. The same could be said for all things global, and Friedman’s “The World is Flat” is now out in paperback, version three, in updated and revised form.
The much-anticipated and now well-reviewed William Gibson novel, “Spook Country,” goes straight onto the fiction bestseller list this month. The healthy array of excellent paperback summer reads take up the bulk of the rest of the list. It is worth noting two other titles, however: this summer’s sleeper mystery bestseller, “Ghostwalk,” and a moving new novel set in Tehran after the 1979 revolution, “The Septembers of Shiraz.”
Fiction
1. “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” by Khaled Hosseini, hardcover, Riverhead, $25.95
2. “The Emperor’s Children,” by Claire Messud, paperback, Vintage, $14.95
3. “Literacy and Longing in L.A.,” by Jennifer Kaufman, paper, Delta Publishing, $12
4. “The Power of the Dog,” by Don Winslow, paperback, Vintage, $14.95
5. “Water for Elephants,” by Sara Gruen, paperback, Algonquin Books, $13.95
6. “The Inheritance of Loss,” by Kiran Desai, paperback, Grove/Atlantic, $14
7. “The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini, paperback, Riverhead, $15.95
8. “Spook Country,” by William Gibson, hardcover, Putnam, $25.95
9. “The Septembers of Shiraz,” by Dalia Sofer, hardcover, Ecco, $24.95
10. “Ghostwalk,” by Rebecca Stott, hardcover, Spiegel & Grau, $24.95
Nonfiction
1. “Eat, Pray, Love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert, paperback, Penguin, $15
2. “The Dangerous Book for Boys,” by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden, Collins, hardcover, $24.95
3. “The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time,” by Elizabeth Rogers, paperback, Three Rivers Press, $12.95
4. “God is Not Great,” by Christopher Hitchens, hardcover, Twelve Press, $24.99
5. “Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous,” by Kim Barnouin and Rory Freeman, paperback, Running Press, $13.95
6. “The Female Brain,” by Louanne Brizendine, paperback, Broadway, $14.95
7. “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century,” by Thomas Friedman, paperback, Picador, $16
8. “The Diana Chronicles,” by Tina Brown, hardcover, Doubleday, $27.50
9. “Here if You Need Me: A True Story,” by Kate Braestrup, hardcover, Little, Brown, $23.99
10. “The Book of General Ignorance,” by John Lloyd, hardcover, Harmony, $19.95
Children
1. “Walter the Farting Dog Banned,” by William Kotzwinkle, hardcover, Dutton, $16.99
2. “Dog,” by Matthew Fleet, hardcover, Simon & Schuster, $14.99
3. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” by J.K. Rowling, hardcover, Scholastic, $34.99
4. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” by Jeff Kinney, hardcover, Abrams, $12.95
5. “Out From Boneville (Bone #1),” by Jeff Smith, paper, Scholastic, $9.99
6. “Warriors: All the Truth, Tactics and Triumphs of the World’s Greatest Fighters,” by James Harpur, hardcover, Atheneum, $21.99
7. “The Berenstain Bears Go to School,” by Stan Berenstain, paperback, Random House, $3.99
8. “Elephant Prince: The Story of Ganesh,” by Amy Novesky, hardcover, Mandala Publishing, $16.95
9. “The Lost Files of Nancy Drew,” by Carolyn Keene, hardcover, Grossett & Dunlap, $19.99
10. “Bad Kitty, Cat-nipped Edition,” by Nick Bruel, hardcover, Roaring Brook Press, $16.95
List provided by Diesel, A Bookstore