"If there's any theme to the year," said David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint, "it's that people only want to read the truth." That explains why the NYT's circulation numbers are down. So while nonfiction sales are generally good, he said, fiction sales are best defined, in Mr. Rosenthal's usual plain-spoken manner, by an expletive. Yup, thath's the TimesThis continues a trend that began at least four years ago, when, after 9/11, a large segment of readers seemed to give up on fiction, flocking instead to nonfiction works, first about 9/11 itself, then about Islam, the Middle East, Iraq and United States politics.
Two books that are selling well ahead of expectations this fall fit that mold: "Our Endangered Values," by Jimmy Carter, an assessment of the country's current political and religious debates, published by Simon & Schuster; and "A Man Without a Country," by Kurt Vonnegut, a series of essays leavened with the author's trademark humanist view, published by Seven Stories Press. Why do I have the susicion these are not the only two books selling ahead of expectations?
"Both of these men have a moral profile" that is helping their books, said Jim Harris, an owner of Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City. He added that the authors' "authoritative voices" have attracted buyers who do not place themselves at one political extreme or the other. In Iowa city that's probably true. How about Dubuque, Des Moines, Davenport, Marshalltown, Mason City, Keokuk, Ames, Clear Lake? Well, maybe not Ames, either.
Mr. Carter's book has sold nearly all of the 310,000 copies in its initial printing, said Mr. Rosenthal of Simon & Schuster, and the company has since pushed the number in circulation to 675,000. Mr. Carter has had best-selling books before, most notably his 2001 memoir, "An Hour Before Daylight," which sold 300,000 hardcover copies.
Mr. Vonnegut, too, is no stranger to the best-seller lists, but he has more often arrived there with works of fiction. His latest book, his first best seller since the 1997 novel "Timequake," has sold nearly 100,000 copies, according to the publisher, and spent six weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. It is also the first entry on the Times list for Seven Stories Press, an independent publisher that in 2000 published a previous book of essays by Mr. Vonnegut, "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian."
Gerry Donaghy, an inventory supervisor at Powell's Books in
If you're not offended yet, check the NYT Non-fiction best cellars:
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
Top 5 at a Glance
1. OUR ENDANGERED VALUES, by Jimmy Carter
2. TEACHER MAN, by Frank McCourt
3. TEAM OF RIVALS, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
4. THE WORLD IS FLAT, by Thomas L. Friedman
5. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, by Joan Didion