24 SUNDAY, JULY 26, 2020...................................................Value AddedSpend some time lurk-
ing on websites of best-selling authors
and you’ll be inspired by the clever ways
they’ve found to cheer up glum fans
during the pandemic. Take Hank Green,
whose novel “A Beau-
tifully Foolish Endeav-
or” enters the hard-
cover fiction list at No.
- He reminds you,
“Don’t forget to be
awesome,” and lets
you know he’s dis-
cussing his book on
Zoom, Crowdcast and
YouTube. Renée
Ahdieh, author of “The
Damned” (No. 5 on the
young adult list), not
only offers advice
(“Persist. Always Persist”), she also
dishes about her least favorite mode of
transportation (“Alpaca. Definitely al-
paca”).
But Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of
“Mexican Gothic” (No. 10 on the hard-
cover fiction list), may be the only au-
thor who is offering a downloadable
book club kit that includes a paper doll
inspired by her protagonist. Noemí
Taboada is a wealthy socialite in 1950s
Mexico; “Think Liz Taylor in ‘A Place in
the Sun’ or Audrey Hepburn,” says the
caption beside her likeness. She comes
with four changes of clothes: a Kelly
green ball gown, a teal suit with a calotte
hat, a sweater and matching kick pleat
skirt and a nightgown with a peignoir.
(Imaginative crafters will appreciate
easy lines for cutting and plentiful tabs
to hold each outfit in place.)
Moreno-Garcia included the dolls
because they were popular in her grand-
mothers’ era, which is when the novel
takes place. She says, “The experience
of women on both my father’s side and
my mother’s side seeped into little bits of
the book. It’s also greatly influenced by
classic gothic novels of the 19th century,
the gothic romance revival of the 1960s
and 1970s, horror films in the gothic
mode and a whole smorgasbord of ele-
ments that just went together into a
blender and I made a cake out of it.”
The Vancouver-based author, who
identifies as “Mexican by birth, Canadi-
an by inclination,” says, “I’m dyslexic
and English is not my first language, so
I think I went into this profession out of
stubbornness.” She has a master’s de-
gree in science and technology studies
and a day job as a communications
officer for the University of British Co-
lumbia. That’s where she was (“Working
on a press release about something
science-y”) when she learned she was
on the best-seller list for the first time.
Moreno-Garcia, who has written “a
bunch of other books,” from fantasy to
noir, says, “I’ve been around the block
for a while, so to get this type of atten-
tion is odd but good.” 0
Inside the List
ELISABETH EGAN
‘I went into
this profes-
sion out of
stubborn-
ness.’CHANCES ARE ...,by Richard Russo.
(Vintage, 320 pp., $16.)The author
of “Nobody’s Fool” and “Empire
Falls” mines the “reminiscences
and regrets” of three former col-
lege roommates gathered on
Martha’s Vineyard more than 40
years after a young woman they all
loved took off and disappeared. The
novel “unfolds as a mystery” and
builds to the men’s realization, as
our reviewer, Alida Becker, put it,
that “they might not know one
another as well as they thought.”THE GREAT PRETENDER:The Under-
cover Mission That Changed Our
Understanding of Madness, by
Susannah Cahalan. (Grand Central,
416 pp., $16.99.)When an inves-
tigative journalist tracks down the
“healthy volunteers” recruited to
feign mental illness for a 1973 study
that upended the field of psychia-
try, what she finds is far stranger
than she’d expected.THE REGENCY YEARS:During
Which Jane Austen Writes, Napo-
leon Fights, Byron Makes Love,
and Britain Becomes Modern, by
Robert Morrison. (Norton, 384 pp.,
$17.95.)Though it failed to con-
vince her that 19th-century Eng-
land’s post-Waterloo emergence as
the world’s most powerful nation
had much to do with its “capricious
and pleasure-loving ruler,” our
reviewer, Miranda Seymour, none-
theless found this “wide-ranging”
account of the Prince Regent’s
reign “elegant, entertaining and
frequently surprising.”THE WARLOW EXPERIMENT,by Alix
Nathan. (Anchor, 272 pp., $16.95.)
This “chilling” novel spins “gothic
horror,” in the words of our re-
viewer, John Vernon, from the true
story of an 18th-century British
botanist who conducted an experi-
ment to see if a human being could
survive in absolute solitude.THE MEMORY POLICE,by Yoko
Ogawa. Translated by Stephen Sny-
der. (Vintage, 288 pp., $16.)A final-
ist for the National Book Award
and the International Booker Prize,
this dystopian fable is narrated by
an amnesiac novelist trying to
protect her editor from arrest by
hiding him under the floorboards of
her home office. Reading it is like
“sinking into a snowdrift,” our
reviewer, Julian Lucas, wrote.
“Lulling yet suspenseful, it tingles
with dread and incipient numb-
ness.”FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE,by Taffy
Brodesser-Akner. (Random House,
400 pp., $17.)In this “witty and
well-observed” update to the
“miserable-matrimony novel,” by a
Times Magazine staff writer, the
left-behind spouse is the husband
— a scenario our reviewer, Tom
Rachman, called “potent, upsetting
and satisfying.”Paperback Row/ BY JENNIFER KRAUSS
PRINT | HARDCOVER BEST SELLERS
WEEKS
ON LIST
THIS
WEEK
LAST
WEEKTHIS WEEKLAST Fiction WEEK NonfictionWEEKS
ON LIST1
(^1) WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, by Delia Owens. (Putnam) In 97
a quiet town on the North Carolina coast in 1969, a woman
who survived alone in the marsh becomes a murder suspect.
2
(^2) THE VANISHING HALF, by Brit Bennett. (Riverhead) The 6
lives of twin sisters who run away from a Southern Black
community at age 16 diverge as one returns and the other
takes on a different racial identity but their fates intertwine.
3
(^3) 28 SUMMERS, by Elin Hilderbrand. (Little, Brown) A 4
relationship that started in 1993 between Mallory Blessing
and Jake McCloud comes to light while she is on her
deathbed and his wife runs for president.
4
A BEAUTIFULLY FOOLISH ENDEAVOR, by Hank Green.^1
(Dutton) Mysterious books hint at what caused the untimely
demise of April May and the sudden disappearance of robots
known as the Carls.
5
(^5) CAMINO WINDS, by John Grisham. (Doubleday) The line 11
between fact and fiction becomes blurred when an author of
thrillers is found dead after a hurricane hits Camino Island.
6
(^6) THE GUEST LIST, by Lucy Foley. (Morrow) A wedding 6
between a TV star and a magazine publisher on an island off
the coast of Ireland turns deadly.
7
(^4) SEX AND VANITY, by Kevin Kwan. (Doubleday) Lucie Tang 2
Churchill is torn between her WASPy billionaire fiancé and a
privileged hunk born in Hong Kong.
8
(^13) AMERICAN DIRT, by Jeanine Cummins. (Flatiron) A 25
bookseller flees Mexico for the United States with her son
while pursued by the head of a drug cartel.
9
(^7) THE SUMMER HOUSE, by James Patterson and Brendan 5
DuBois. (Little, Brown) Jeremiah Cook, a veteran and former
N.Y.P.D. cop, investigates a mass murder in Georgia.
10
(^9) MEXICAN GOTHIC, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. (Del Rey) In 2
1950s Mexico, a debutante travels to a distant mansion
where family secrets have been kept hidden.
1
(^1) THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED, by John Bolton. (Simon 3
& Schuster) The former national security advisor gives his
account of working for President Trump.
2
(^2) HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST, by Ibram X. Kendi. (One World) 19
A primer for creating a more just and equitable society
through identifying and opposing racism.
3
(^8) ME AND WHITE SUPREMACY, by Layla F. Saad. 8
(Sourcebooks) Ways to understand and possibly counteract
white privilege.
4
(^3) UNTAMED, by Glennon Doyle. (Dial) The activist and public 18
speaker describes her journey of listening to her inner voice.
5
SEPARATED, by Jacob Soboroff. (Custom House) The NBC^1
News correspondent examines the Trump administration’s
systematic separation of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico
border and the living conditions of the children in custody.
6
(^4) BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. 93
(Spiegel & Grau) A meditation on race in America as well as
a personal story, framed as a letter to the author’s teenage
son.
7
(^7) BECOMING, by Michelle Obama. (Crown) The former first 83
lady describes how she balanced work, family and her
husband’s political ascent.
8
(^5) BEGIN AGAIN, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Crown) An appraisal 2
of the life and work of James Baldwin and their meaning in
relation to the Black Lives Matter movement and the Trump
presidency.
9
(^6) THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE, by Erik Larson. (Crown) An 20
examination of the leadership of the prime minister Winston
Churchill.
10
(^10) COUNTDOWN 1945, by Chris Wallace with Mitch Weiss. 5
(Avid Reader) The Fox News Sunday anchor gives an
account of the key people involved in and events leading up
to America’s attack on Hiroshima in 1945.
An asterisk (*) indicates that a book’s sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.
SALES PERIOD OF JULY 5-11