2D z THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019 z USA TODAY LIFE
THE REST
11 6 Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls/Dav Pilkey Youth: Dog Man discovers he’s the target of a new villain; seventh in series (F) (H) Scholastic(^123) The Testaments/Margaret Atwood The Republic of Gilead is still in control, but its power may be weakening; sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale” (F) (H) Nan A. Talese
13 —Wayward Son/Rainbow Rowell Youth: Simon, Penny and Baz take a trip across the American West in a vintage convertible; second in series (F) (H) Wednesday Books
(^14) —Know My Name/Chanel Miller Memoir: A challenge to the systems and prejudices that hold women accountable for their own sexual assaults (NF) (H) Viking
15 —Over the Top/Jonathan Van Ness Memoir: Subtitle: “A Raw Journey Through Self Love” (NF) (H) HarperOne
16 —Exonerated/Dan Bongino Subtitle: “The Failed Takedown of President Donald Trump by the Swamp” (NF) (H) Post Hill Press
17 —Immortal Born/Lynsay Sands Magnus meets Allie when she breaks into a blood bank to help the child she’s trying to protect; 30th in series (F) (E) Avon
18 —Archangel’s War/Nalini Singh Elena Deveraux and the other archangels have to face down a potentially deadly evil; 12th in series (F) (E) Berkley
(^19) —Super Attractor/Gabrielle Bernstein Subtitle: “Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams” (NF) (H) Hay House
20 —The Ride of a Lifetime/Robert Iger Subtitle: “Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company” (NF) (H) Random House
(^21) —All the Way/Kendall Ryan Hockey player Owen helps his friend Becca navigate online dating; second in series (F) (E) Kendall Ryan Books
2210 Educated/Tara Westover Memoir by a Cambridge Ph.D. who was raised by Idaho survivalists and did not enter a classroom until she was 17 (NF) (H) Random House
(^23) —Sins of the Fathers/J.A. Jance Retired cop J.P. Beaumont is asked by an old acquaintance to find his missing daughter; 24th in series (F) (E) William Morrow
24 7 Permanent Record/Edward Snowden Memoir: A whistleblower exposes the depth of government surveillance (NF) (H) Metropolitan Books
(^2517) Room on the Broom/Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler Children: A witch in search of her hat welcomes myriad creatures onto her broom (F) (P) Puffin
26 —The Great Alone/Kristin Hannah In 1970s Alaska, a teenage girl – the daughter of a disturbed Vietnam War POW – has to grow up in a hurry (F) (P) St. Martin’s Griffin
(^27) —Wrapped Up in You/Jill Shalvis Kel O’Donnell falls for food truck owner Ivy Snow while on vacation in San Francisco; eighth in series (F) (E) Avon
28 —The Midnight Line/Lee Child The discovery of a West Point 2005 ring in a pawn shop leads Jack Reacher on a hunt for the female cadet who left it and onto a larger
conspiracy (F) (E) Dell
29 9 The Goldfinch/Donna Tartt First-person story of Theodore Decker, an art dealer whose New York adventures revolve around a Dutch masterwork, The Goldfinch (F)
(P) Little, Brown
3011 The Handmaid’s Tale/Margaret Atwood The story of a handmaid named Offred who lives in the repressive Republic of Gilead (F) (P) Anchor
(^3113) Call Sign Chaos/Jim Mattis, Bing West Subtitle: “Learning to Lead” (NF) (H) Random House
3215 Killer Instinct/James Patterson, Howard Roughan Dr. Dylan Reinhart and Detective Elizabeth Needham investigate a terrorist attack in New York City (F) (H) Little, Brown
(^33) —Hey Grandude!/Paul McCartney; art by Kathryn Durst Children: A hip grandfather takes his grandkids around the world with a magic compass (F) (H) Random House Books for Young Readers
3416 It/Stephen King Seven adults return to their small Maine town to battle an evil creature that preys on children (F) (P) Scribner
(^3525) The Tattooist of Auschwitz/Heather Morris A fictionalized account of the true story of Lale Sokolov, an Auschwitz inmate forced to tattoo numbers on fellow prisoners (F) (P) Harper
Paperbacks
(^3628) The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck/Mark Manson Subtitle: “A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life” (NF) (H) HarperOne
37 35 The Only Plane in the Sky/Garrett M. Graff Subtitle: “An Oral History of 9/11” (NF) (H) Avid Reader Press
(^38) —The World That We Knew/Alice Hoffman Ettie creates a golem to protect Lea as she runs from Nazi Germany (F) (E) Simon & Schuster
3924 The Girl Who Lived Twice/David Lagercrantz Mikael Blomkvist tries to find Lisbeth Salander, who has disappeared; sixth in series (F) (H) Knopf
4012 The Oracle/Jonathan Cahn Subtitle: “The Jubilean Mysteries Unveiled” (NF) (H) Charisma House
41 —Idiot/Laura Clery Subtitle: “Life Stories from the Creator of Help Helen Smash” (NF) (H) Gallery Books
4260 My Name Is Eva/Suzanne Goldring Evelyn Taylor-Clarke is confronted by her niece Pat about secrets from her past (F) (E) Bookouture
(^43) —Kittyzen’s Arrest/Addison Moore, Bellamy Bloom Bizzy Baker investigates a murder with the help of her cat and a mutt; first in series (F) (E) Hollis Thatcher Press
44 —You Are the Girl for the Job/Jess Connolly Subtitle: “Daring to Believe the God Who Calls You” (NF) (P) Zondervan
(^4546) The Very Hungry Caterpillar Board Book/Eric Carle Classic children’s story of a caterpillar that eats all the time and turns into a butterfly (F) (H) Philomel
46 —On Tyranny/Timothy Snyder Subtitle: “Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” (NF) (E) Tim Duggan Books
(^4739) The 5 Love Languages/Gary Chapman Subtitle: “The Secret to Love That Lasts” (NF) (P) Northfield Publishing
4836 Before We Were Yours/Lisa Wingate Rill Foss fights to keep her siblings together after they’re forced into an orphanage (F) (P) Ballantine
(^4973) Pete the Cat: Trick or Pete/James Dean Children: Pete the Cat goes trick-or-treating from house to house (F) (P) HarperFestival
50 —Stories That Stick/Kindra Hall Subtitle: “How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business” (NF) (H) HarperCollins Leader-
ship
The book list appears
every Thursday.
For each title, the format
and publisher listed are for
the best-selling version of
that title this week.
Reporting outlets include
Amazon.com, Amazon
Kindle, Apple Books,
Barnes & Noble.com,
Barnes & Noble Inc., Barnes
& Noble e-books,
BooksAMillion.com,
Books-A-Million, Costco,
Hudson Booksellers,
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
(Lexington, Ky.; Cincinnati,
Charlotte, Cleveland,
Pittsburgh), Kobo, Inc.,
Powell's Books (Portland,
Ore.), Powells.com, R.J.
Julia Booksellers, Schuler
Books & Music (Grand
Rapids, Okemos, Eastwood,
Alpine, Mich.), Target,
Tattered Cover Book Store
(Denver).
THE TOP 10
(^1) — The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hiram Walker is born with the gift, and a near drowning
floods him with images of his ancestors – and a yearning to
escape slavery (F) (H) One World
(^2) — Lethal Agent
Vince Flynn, Kyle
Mills
Mitch Rapp and Irene Kennedy investigate an ISIS terrorist
threat; 16th in series (F) (E) Atria/Emily Bestler Books
(^3) — The Trials of Apollo:
The Tyrant’s Tomb
Rick Riordan
Youth: Apollo has to face an evil trio of Roman emperors;
fourth in series (F) (H) Disney-Hyperion
(^4) — Inside Out
Demi Moore
Memoir: Actress discusses struggles with her career and
personal life (NF) (H) Harper
(^5) — The United States
of Trump
Bill O’Reilly
Subtitle: “How the President Really Sees America” (NF) (H)
Henry Holt and Co.
6 2 The Institute
Stephen King
Luke Ellis is whisked away to the Institute, where psychic
kids are being held captive to save the world (F) (H) Scribner
7 1 Guts
Raina Telgemeier
Youth: Author explores how worries about her friends and
school affect her physical health (NF) (P) Graphix
8 5 Where the
Crawdads Sing
Delia Owens
The reclusive Kya Clark is suspected in the death of Chase
Andrews (F) (H) G.P. Putnam’s Sons
9 — The Dutch House
Ann Patchett
A doomed house, distant father and wicked stepmother
forge an unbreakable bond between two siblings (F) (E)
Harper
10 4 Talking to Strangers
Malcolm Gladwell
Subtitle: “What We Should Know about the People We Don’t
Know” (NF) (H) Little, Brown
nnRank this week nnRank last week (F) Fiction(NF) Nonfiction (P) Paperback(H)Hardcover (E) E-book Publisher initalics
WHAT
AMERICA’S
READING®
USA TODAY BEST-SELLING BOOKS BOOKLIST.USATODAY.COM
A couple of literary horror masters
can conjure a story of existential fear in
the most innocuous situations. Even a
family meal at IHOP.
The new Netflix horror movie “In the
Tall Grass”(streaming Friday) is based
on the 2012 novella by Stephen Kingand
son Joe Hill. It was hatchedwhen Hill
flew down to spend time with his dad in
Florida and was pretty hungry after get-
ting off the plane.
“He had just finished working on
something and I had just finished work-
ing on something, and so over pancakes
we decided to spend the week and write
a story together,” says Hill, whose new
short-story collection “Full Throttle”
contains “In the Tall Grass.”
Directed by Vincenzo Natali, the
movie centers on a pregnant woman
(Laysla De Oliveira) and her brother
(Avery Whitted), who stop along a rural
Kansas road and hear cries for help from
a young boy (Will Buie Jr.) amid a huge
field of tall grass. The siblings venture
in, get separated and lost, and the situa-
tion grows more terrifying from there.
King’s books and adaptations speak
for themselves – 2017’s “It” and its
sequelare the biggest horror movies of
all time. And Hill’s no stranger himself
to the screen. His novel “Horns”got the
cinematic treatment with Daniel Rad-
cliffe and “NOS4A2” recently finished
its first season on AMC. But the younger
author proudly allows that “one of the
grossest things” he’s ever thought up is
in “Tall Grass.”
“You’re thinking to yourself, ‘He’ll
never do that in the movie,’ and then he
did do that in the movie,” says Hill, 47.
King, 72,quickly moves into paternal
mode: “We’ve got to watch what we say,
though. No spoilers!”
The two writers talked to USA TODAY
about their creepy collective landscape.
Q: “In the Tall Grass” expands the
scope of your novella. What addition
did you like most?
Joe Hill:It’s like a gory Midwestern
“Inception.” It does all this freaky bend-
ing with time and space that I love. It’s
people in an awful situation that gets
worse and worse, terrible things happen
to them and then there’s a final twist of
the knife. The movie does go to some
really upsetting places, but there’s a lit-
tle more hope in it.
Stephen King: The hope is the char-
acters say, “I hope I die soon so this aw-
fulness will stop.” That’s kind of a “Tales
From the Crypt” joke. We sort of send
these things off like a kid to college: “I
hope you do a good job and everything’s
great. If you get in trouble, call home.”
Q: So many of your stories have ma-
triculated, it’s pretty much King Uni-
versity at this point. Do you find film-
makers more successfuladapting the
short stories or the longer books?
King:With the streaming platforms
(and cable TV), somebody can tackle a
long novel the way they tackled
“NOS4A2” or “Mr. Mercedes.” But with a
shorter thing, it’s tailor-made for the
movies. I think of “Shawshank
Redemption”and the upcoming adapta-
tion from Spain of “A Good Marriage.”
The original “Children of the Corn”
wasn’t too bad either.
Hill:It has to do with how they ap-
proach the characters. In the case of “It,”
there’s so much warmth and affection
toward the Losers’ Club. They get to be
funny, they get to have full, rich emo-
tional lives. When the films have failed,
it’s because they managed to shock you
and do disturbing things, but you didn’t
fall in love with the characters like you
did when you read the books.
Q: Describe what it’s like when you
guys write together.
Hill:You ever watch the Road Runner
cartoons? Wile E. Coyote gets a big crate
that says “ACME” on the side, and he
pulls it open and inside there’s a rocket.
He lights the fuse, he climbs on top and
it takes off and just about blows his face
off. I’ve written with Dad two times and
both times I was like Wile E Coyote
hanging onto the rocket.
King: (Laughs) No, I don’t think that’s
exactly true. Good try, son. We look alike
and we’re interested in the same things,
and what we’re really like is the Everly
Brothers: His style and my style, we
don’t write the same but we’re in harmo-
ny with one another. The thing kind of
flows naturally. Both times, I felt like I
was getting a sweet ride, like I was get-
ting in a Mercedes-Benz because I was
with a pro who’s somebody I also hap-
pen to love a lot.
Q: Joe, your dad took the directing
reins himself adapting “Maximum
Overdrive.” Would you ever do the
same?
Hill:I would direct a remake of “Max-
imum Overdrive” in a heartbeat. Obvi-
ously, the time has come because Tesla
is introducing these self-driving trucks.
Q: What piece of advice would you
give your director son?
King:Get a film crew that you can
communicate with because my guys
were all Italian. I learned a lot of profan-
ity in Italian.
Hill:I think the film got a bad rap. I
remember watching a totally unrated
version of it when I was a little kid and
loving it. It had the kid’s head popping
under a steamroller and I was hooked.
From there on, I was all in.
MOVIES
Stephen King and son scare up ‘In the Tall Grass’
Brian TruittUSA TODAY
Tobin (Will Buie Jr., left) and his dad (Patrick Wilson) try to figure out a way out of a supernatural maze of plant life in “In
the Tall Grass,” based on the novella by Stephen King and Joe Hill.NETFLIX
Stephen King, left, and his son Joe Hill