The Millions Top Ten: August 2013

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 May.

This Month
Last Month

Title
On List

1.
1.

Norwegian by Night
6 months

2.
2.

Lincoln in the Bardo
4 months

3.
4.

A Separation
4 months

4.
7.

Ill Will
2 months

5.
5.

Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living
4 months

6.
6.

The North Water
6 months

7.
8.

American War
2 months

8.
–

Men Without Women: Stories
1 month

9.
9.

Homesick for Another World
5 months

10.
10.

Swing Time
4 months

April showers bring May flowers, but a month of May book purchases launched Michael Chabon’s Moonglow into our Hall of Fame. It’s the author’s second appearance there; Telegraph Avenue made the list four years back.

Chabon’s success freed up an opening on this month’s Top Ten. Filling his place in 8th position is another author who’s no stranger to our Hall of Fame: Haruki Murakami. In our Great 2017 Book Preview, Murakami’s latest story collection, Men Without Women, was said to “concern the lives of men who, for one reason or another, find themselves alone.” Emily St. John Mandel continued:
In “Scheherazade,” a man living in isolation receives regular visits from a woman who claims to remember a past life as a lamprey; in “Yesterday,” a university student finds himself drawn into the life of a strange coworker who insists that the student go on a date with his girlfriend.
Could this book become Murakami’s third to make our Hall of Fame? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile Derek B. Miller’s Norwegian by Night continues its reign over our list, further demonstrating that if you want to sell books to Millions readers, you ought to get an endorsement from Richard Russo first.

Elsewhere on the list, a few movers moved and shakers shook, but overall things held steady. Next month, we’ll likely graduate two titles to our Hall of Fame, which means we’ll welcome two more newcomers. By then, we’ll be in full swing with our Great Second-Half 2017 Book Preview, which was a shocking thing to type. Can 2018 come soon enough?

This month’s other near misses included: The Idiot, Eileen, The Nix, Exit West, and Enigma Variations. See Also: Last month’s list.