Island Books recently announced its Top-40 list of 2014, complete with a nice-looking display near the front of the store.
Which got me thinking. What does the Mercer Island Top-40 list reveal about what Mercer Islanders like to read? Is there any notable distinction between the local list and bestsellers nation-wide? Naturally, I turned to bookstore owner Roger Page and the Island Books staff for insights.
“Let me make a distinction,” Roger said. “The Top-40 list you’re asking about is a list of what Islanders like to buy. Not only for themselves, but as gifts. ‘Boys in the Boat’ is a title people read, and give, over and over again. ‘Mercer Island History’ is a title people read, and give, over and over again.
“But there’s something else going on here, too, something one of my customers said during the holiday shopping season. He called his book-buying ‘an occasion of sin.’ It impressed me so much I wrote about it in the January newsletter. Sure there’s literary stuff on the Top-40, but also guilty pleasures. People are not embarrassed or hesitant these days to buy ‘Gone Girl’ in hardcover, or ‘The Rosie Project.’ Books that are funny, that have love or romance in the equation. We’re reading books to feel good, books are guilty pleasures we’re allowing ourselves.”
According to Island Books staff Marni and Cindy, being a neighborhood bookstore influences what sells.
“People talk about books to each other on the Island,” Marni said. “We seem to sell a lot of books that way.”
“And they check our book club shelf,” Cindy added, “in order to find out: What’s everybody reading? What’s really popular right now?”
The Island Books Top-40 list does not include juvenile and children’s books (that’s a separate list). It’s interesting to note, though, that according to Publishers Weekly, juvenile books topped the 2014 overall bestseller charts. Sales of Green’s “The Fault In Our Stars,” “The Long Haul” (book nine of Kinney’s “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series), and Roth’s “Divergent” and “Allegiant” each rocketed above one million print copies sold. When it comes to adult fiction, only “Gone Girl” and “Killing Patton” managed to make it into the company of those young adult blockbusters. (Whereas, at Island Books, I notice, “Killing Patton” did not make it into the Top-40.)
The Island Books bestsellers are “not wildly different from other Top-40 lists,” Roger said. “Except the Island does not seem terribly media-driven. We have a few titles on our list, for instance Amy Poehler’s ‘Yes, Please,’ and Cheryl Strayed’s ‘Wild,’ which was released in 2014 as a movie.”
Then again, sales figures aren’t everything, as the staff at Island Books will be the first to point out. Their list of “staff picks” for the year diverges from the bestselling list more often than not. Titled simply “The Best of 2014,” staff picks are broken out into two lists: Fiction and Nonfiction, accessed via links in the December 2014 enewsletter found at www.mercerislandbooks.com.
The Island Books Top-40 List is found via the home page, or on the “Bestsellers” page.
Altogether terrific, helpful lists, a cornucopia of sinful delights.
Islander Claire Gebben is the author of the novel “The Last of the Blacksmiths” released February, 2014 by Coffeetown Press. It is available in bookstores and online. Contact Gebben on the Web: http://clairegebben.com; or on Twitter: @clairegebben.
