24 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020...................................................Pass It OnPeople in the publishing
world love to speculate about what will
“move the needle” on book sales. Enor-
mous marketing and publicity budgets
help. So does an author interview with a
major media outlet or
the benediction of an
influential club. It
helps if the author has
a track record as a
best seller or is a
household name or
has an interesting
story to tell about
another person who is
a household name.
But the most elusive
needle-mover — the
Holy Grail in an indus-
try that put the Holy
Grail on the best-seller list (hi, Dan
Brown) — is “word of mouth” book sales.
This is the phenomenon whereby one
reader recommends a book to another
reader who recommends it to her mother
who lends a copy to her co-worker who
buys the book for his mother... and so
forth, until the title becomes eligible for
inclusion in this column.
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s essay col-
lection, “Braiding Sweetgrass,” is a per-
fect example of crowd-inspired traction.
The book was published in 2013 by Milk-
weed Editions. It did not have a large-
scale marketing campaign, according to
Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the
Citizen Potawatomi Nation, who de-
scribes the book as “an invitation to
celebrate the gifts of the earth.” On Feb.
9, 2020, it first appeared at No. 14 on the
paperback nonfiction list; it is now in its
30th week, at No. 9.
Kimmerer has a hunch about why her
message is resonating right now: “When
we’re looking at things we cherish falling
apart, when inequities and injustices are
so apparent, people are looking for an-
other way that we can be living. We need
interdependence rather than independ-
ence, and Indigenous knowledge has a
message of valuing connection, espe-
cially to the humble.”
This self-proclaimed “not very good
digital citizen” wrote a first draft of
“Braiding Sweetgrass” in purple pen on
long yellow legal pads. She prefers work-
ing outside, where she “moves between
what I think of as the microscope and
the telescope,” observing small things in
the natural world that serve as micro-
cosms for big ideas. For instance, Kim-
merer explains, “The other day I was
raking leaves in my garden to make
compost and it made me think, This is
our work as humans in this time: to
build good soil in our gardens, to build
good soil culturally and socially, and to
create potential for the future. What will
endure through almost any kind of
change? The regenerative capacity of
the earth. We can help create conditions
for renewal.” 0
Inside the List
ELISABETH EGAN
‘This is our
work as hu-
mans in this
time: to build
good soil.’THE BOOK OF EATING: Adventures
in Professional Gluttony,by Adam
Platt. (Ecco, 272 pp., $17.99.)Gout,
expandable belts, diets, countless
bottles of antacid tablets: Platt, the
longtime food critic for New York
magazine, dishes up a painfully
honest account of what it’s like to
eat for a living. “He’s maniacally
self-deprecating,” Dwight Garner
wrote in The Times last year. “He
serves good stories because he
doesn’t over-batter them.”BUSTED IN NEW YORK:And Other
Essays,by Darryl Pinckney. (Picador,
416 pp., $19.)In the depth and
breadth of these pieces, which
range from the Million Man March
to the gentrification of Harlem to
the streets of Ferguson, Mo., Pinck-
ney “reveals himself to be a skillful
chronicler of Black experience in
literary criticism, reportage and
biography,” our reviewer, Lauretta
Charlton, wrote.LITTLE DARLINGS,by Melanie Gold-
ing. (Crooked Lane Books, 328 pp.,
$16.99.)Our horror columnist,
Danielle Trussoni, loved this debut
novel about a woman’s descent into
paranoia after delivering twins:
“Golding’s portrait of new mother-
hood was so spot on, so filled with
the horrible and gruesome realities
of childbirth, and the infantilization
of women by the medical system,
that I couldn’t turn away.”IN THE DREAM HOUSE:A Memoir,
by Carmen Maria Machado. (Gray-
wolf, 272 pp., $16.)Each chapter of
this gutting memoir — which
explores Machado’s abusive rela-
tionship with another woman while
in graduate school — “hews to the
conventions of a different genre:
road trip, romance novel, creature
feature, lesbian pulp novel, stoner
comedy,” Parul Sehgal explained in
her Times review. “It is a book in
shards.”A GOOD AMERICAN FAMILY:The Red
Scare and My Father,by David
Maraniss. (Simon & Schuster, 432
pp., $17.) Seventy years after the
House Un-American Activities
Committee accused his father of
being a member of the Communist
Party, Maraniss, a Pulitzer Prize-
winning journalist, “used his prodi-
gious research skills to produce a
story that leaves one aching with
its poignancy, its finely wrought
sense of what was lost, both in his
home and in our nation,” Kevin
Baker wrote in these pages.OLIVE, AGAIN,by Elizabeth Strout.
(Random House, 320 pp., $18.)Olive
Kitteridge, the tart, irritable retired
math teacher who groused her way
through Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-
winning 2008 novel, “fully deserves
the sensitive and satisfying follow-
up that Strout has written about
her,” our reviewer, John McMurtrie,
opined last year.Paperback Row/ BY TINA JORDAN
PRINT | HARDCOVER BEST SELLERS
WEEKS
ON LIST
THIS
WEEK
LAST
WEEKTHIS WEEKLAST Fiction WEEK NonfictionWEEKS
ON LIST1
(^) THE SENTINEL, by Lee Child and Andrew Child. (Delacorte) 1
Jack Reacher intervenes on an ambush in Tennessee and
uncovers a conspiracy.
2
(^1) A TIME FOR MERCY, by John Grisham. (Doubleday) The third 3
book in the Jake Brigance series. A 16-year-old is accused of
killing a deputy in Clanton, Miss., in 1990.
3 2 THE RETURN, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central) A doctor^5
serving in the Navy in Afghanistan goes back to North
Carolina where two women change his life.
4 THREE WOMEN DISAPPEAR, by James Patterson and Shan^1
Serafin. (Little, Brown) Detective Sean Walsh must solve
a case involving three missing women who had access to a
home where a man was murdered.
5
(^) THE WONDER BOY OF WHISTLE STOP, by Fannie Flagg. 1
(Random House) Bud Threadgoode returns to his hometown
and sets off some life-changing events.
6
(^4) THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE, by V. E. Schwab. (Tor/ 4
Forge) A Faustian bargain comes with a curse that affects
the adventure Addie LaRue has across centuries.
7
(^) THE NOEL LETTERS, by Richard Paul Evans. (Gallery) An 1
editor of a publishing house inherits her father’s bookstore
and receives letters from an anonymous source.
8
(^) TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY, by Karen Kingsbury. (Atria) An 1
18-year-old who wants to become a police officer falls in
love with a young woman who has an aggressive form of
cancer.
9
(^5) THE EVENING AND THE MORNING, by Ken Follett. (Viking) 7
In a prequel to “The Pillars of the Earth,” a boatbuilder, a
Norman noblewoman and a monk live in England under
attack by the Welsh and the Vikings.
10
(^3) THE SEARCHER, by Tana French. (Viking) After a divorce, 4
a former Chicago police officer resettles in an Irish village
where a boy goes missing.
1
(^1) GREENLIGHTS, by Matthew McConaughey. (Crown) The 2
Academy Award-winning actor shares snippets from the
diaries he kept over the last 35 years.
2
(^2) UNTAMED, by Glennon Doyle. (Dial) The activist and public 34
speaker describes her journey of listening to her inner voice
and finding self-acceptance.
3
(^3) CASTE, by Isabel Wilkerson. (Random House) The Pulitzer 13
Prize-winning journalist examines aspects of caste systems
across civilizations and reveals a rigid hierarchy in America
today.
4
(^5) ONE VOTE AWAY, by Ted Cruz. (Regnery) The Republican 5
senator from Texas gives his views on what might happen if
liberals gain a simple majority on the Supreme Court. (†)
5
(^6) KILLING CRAZY HORSE, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. 8
(Holt) The ninth book in the conservative commentator’s
Killing series focuses on conflicts with Native Americans.
6
(^) GROUP, by Christie Tate. (Avid Reader) A law student 1
grappling with feelings of sadness and isolation is invited to
join a psychotherapy group.
7
(^) OBAMA, by Pete Souza. (Little, Brown) More than 300 24
pictures of the former president by his White House
photographer, with behind-the-scenes stories.
8
(^9) BLACKOUT, by Candace Owens. (Threshold Editions) 7
The conservative commentator makes her case that
Black Americans should part ways with the Democratic
Party. (†)
9
(^) SHADE, by Pete Souza. (Little, Brown) Pictures of former 13
President Obama are juxtaposed with tweets, headlines and
quotes from the Trump administration.
10
(^) AMERICAN CRISIS, by Andrew Cuomo. (Crown) The New 2
York State governor gives his perspective on the Covid-19
crisis, prescribes ways to deal with future disasters and
shares lessons in leadership.
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 OCTOBER 25-31