Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Aug. 16, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "For Richer ...Read more

Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.’s “The El” follows several members of a Chicago street gang as they traverse the city via the elevated train system that gives the novel its name. But while the story is loosely inspired by 1979’s “The Warriors,” a cult classic film set in New York City, this novel and the man who wrote it are distinctively �...Read more

Sometimes, being a dog — free to roam and sniff and run as you please — is easier than being a girl, always being monitored, with expectations of domesticity and meekness heavy on your shoulders.

Xenobe Purvis’ eerie “The Hounding” is the story of the five Mansfield sisters, whom the villagers of Little Nettlebed have pegged as ...Read more

The title of Jason Mott’s oddly riveting “People Like Us” refers to several groups: Black people (like its three narrators), Europeans, writers, Southerners, Americans, those who feel left out.

“I wonder what it feels like to be somewhere in this world and not feel like an outsider,” says a guy named Dylan in a poignant exchange late ...Read more

On July 8, 1877, the New York Herald declared that Deadwood, a South Dakota town near the Black Hills that had been established on land stolen from the Lakota Indians, “was beyond question the wickedest spot this side of the infernal regions.”

Writer Peter Cozzens’ “Deadwood” asserts that this view — which also appeared in the ...Read more

Elaine Castillo made the Financial Times’ “30 of the Planet’s Most Exciting Young People,” and her debut novel, “America Is Not the Heart,” was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, Lit Hub, Kirkus Reviews and more outlets.

Her new book is “Moderation.” Here, she takes the Book Pages Q&A.

Q. Please tell readers about your new ...Read more

As a child in Harlem, James Baldwin (1924-1987) hewed to his family’s strict Baptist beliefs and would have known I Corinthians 13, the New Testament’s famous “love chapter,” verse by verse.

Nicholas Boggs’ magisterial “Baldwin,” the first biography of the author in 30 years, employs love as the organizing principle, depicting his...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Aug. 9, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The Fallen and...Read more

Sometimes, you need a bit of soothing.

I was talking to a friend this week, and she said her husband was reading Stephen Graham Jones’ latest book, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter,” and I told her that when I’d first started listening to the audiobook of Jones’s “The Only Good Indians,” I hadn’t known it was a horror novel.

A ...Read more

“I’m not a saint, William,” says Hannah, the main character in “The Art of a Lie.” She‘s not kidding.

Laura Shepherd-Robinson, whose last book was a twisty bit of historical fun called “The Square of Sevens,” returns to the bad behavior of another era in “The Art of a Lie,” which is alternately narrated by two characters who...Read more

“Dear Miss Lake,” the fourth and final book in the series begun by “Dear Mrs. Bird,” suggests that it was time to wrap things up.

It’s been a charming ride with Emmy Lake. As AJ Pearce’s “Dear Mrs. Bird” opened, it was World War II in London. Adventure-seeking Lake joined Woman’s Friend, a magazine that balanced news for ...Read more

Kashana Cauley, whose previous novel was the acclaimed “The Survivalists,” is the author of the just-published, “The Payback.”

Cauley has written for TV shows such as “The Great North,” HBO’s “Pod Save America” and “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” and has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — "The Carpool Detectives," a true crime mystery that reads like a novel, begins in the liminal moment before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the country and concludes on an upbeat note two and a half years later: Four L.A. moms with no law enforcement training have solved an icy cold case and moved on to their next, buoyed by ...Read more

“A Dog in Georgia” is Lauren Grodstein’s sixth novel under her own name, following the breakout success of “We Must Not Think of Ourselves,” a World War II novel set in Warsaw. The current narrative is also set in Eastern Europe — it’s that Georgia — but the history that affects the plot is much more recent: 2023’s wave of ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Aug. 2, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "Atmosphere: A ...Read more

Growing up in Studio City, Daphne Woolsoncroft wanted to be one of two things: a detective or an author.

And you could argue she’s done both: As co-host of the true crime podcast “Going West,” which just celebrated its 500-episode milestone in May, she’s been doing plenty of detective work, albeit in more of an armchair-style capacity. ...Read more