The Millions Top Ten: March 2013

April 1, 2013 | 15 books mentioned 2 2 min read

We spend plenty of time here on The Millions telling all of you what we’ve been reading, but we are also quite interested in hearing about what you’ve been reading. By looking at our Amazon stats, we can see what books Millions readers have been buying, and we decided it would be fun to use those stats to find out what books have been most popular with our readers in recent months. Below you’ll find our Millions Top Ten list for March.

This
Month
Last
Month
Title On List
1. 1. cover Epic Fail: Bad Art, Viral Fame, and the History of the Worst Thing Ever 3 months
2. 3. cover Tenth of December 3 months
3. 4. cover An Arrangement of Light 4 months
4. cover The Middlesteins 1 month
5. 5. cover Building Stories 3 months
6. 6. cover Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story 6 months
7. cover Stand on Zanzibar 1 month
8. cover Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk 1 month
9. 8. cover Arcadia 3 months
10. 7. cover Both Flesh and Not 4 months

 

Last fall saw the arrival of three hotly anticpated titles from a trio of the most popular literary writers working today. Now those three titles are ending their run in our Top Ten by graduating to our Hall of Fame: This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz, NW by Zadie Smith, and Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon.

Those graduations made room for three debuts. Jami Attenberg’s The Middlesteins pops up at number four. Attenberg made an appearance in our Year in Reading in December. The most popular piece on The Millions last month, by a wide margin, was Ted Gioia’s unearthing of John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar and the remarkably prescient predictions contained within. The essay sent readers running to check out the book. Finally, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain completed its long, stead ascent onto our list. Fountain also appeared in our Year in Reading, and Edan Lepucki interviewed him in these pages last June.

Our first ebook original, Epic Fail: Bad Art, Viral Fame, and the History of the Worst Thing Ever by staff writer Mark O’Connell, stayed atop our list and continues to win praise from readers and critics. An exerpt is available here and you can learn more about the book here.

Near Misses: The Round House, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, Dear Life, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, and Sweet Tooth. See Also: Last month’s list.

created The Millions and is its publisher. He and his family live in New Jersey.