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If you've been on this blog before, then you've probably seen the Buy it on Amazon and Support Independent Bookstores buttons under whichever book I'm blathering about. Those are affiliate links. If someone clicks the link and buys the book, I earn a few pennies. I can't see who is buying the books, but I can see which books get purchased.
The most common question I get on Pinterest is "Do you actually make money from your affiliate links?" The answer is yes. I make money from them, but it's not a life-changing amount. There's no way I'm quitting my day job anytime soon.
Another common question is "Which books are people buying?" That's what we're talking about today! I crunched the numbers from last year and figured out the top 8 bestselling books on the blog. Why 8 and not 10 or another number? Because several books are tied for 9th place, and I have to draw the line somewhere.
Here's what bookworms are buying.
Book Blog Bestsellers
8. Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Adult Historical Fiction
Thomas McNulty, aged barely seventeen and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland, signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes on to fight in the Indian Wars—against the Sioux and the Yurok—and, ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in.
Why I recommend it: It's a beautifully written found family story. The characters are memorable outcasts who are attempting to build a life that works for them. Also, the descriptions of the American plains are spot-on.
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7. Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Young Adult Fantasy
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere . . . else.
But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.
Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced . . . they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.
But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.
No matter the cost.
Why I recommend it: The cover and synopsis sound sweet and innocent, but the insides are dark and bloody. Every character is a weirdo because they’ve spent years in worlds that don’t make sense. The characters are eager to get back to their portal worlds, even though some of the worlds are horrible. I guess it’s easy to overlook creepy things when you’re an important person in a scary place.
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6. The Lottery And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
Short Story Collection
“The Lottery,” one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker. “Power and haunting,” and “nights of unrest” were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's lifetime, unites “The Lottery” with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range—from the hilarious to the truly horrible—and power as a storyteller.
Why I recommend it: “The Lottery” is one of my favorite short stories of all time. It had a massive influence on the horror genre, and you can still see its echoes in books like The Hunger Games. “Unusual” is a good way to describe Shirley Jackson’s short stories. There isn’t much violence on the page, but it lurks in the background of every sentence. There’s a sense that the careful social disguises people wear in public could slip, and something could go horribly wrong at any moment. In Jackson’s world, the “monsters” are racism, greed, superiority, suppression, lies, and alienation. These stories are subtle, yet impressive.
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5. The Higher Power Of Lucky by Susan Patron
Middle Grade Realistic Fiction
Lucky, age ten, can't wait another day. The meanness gland in her heart and the crevices full of questions in her brain make running away from Hard Pan, California (population 43), the rock-bottom only choice she has.
It's all Brigitte's fault—for wanting to go back to France. Guardians are supposed to stay put and look after girls in their care! Instead Lucky is sure that she'll be abandoned to some orphanage in Los Angeles where her beloved dog, HMS Beagle, won't be allowed. She'll have to lose her friends Miles, who lives on cookies, and Lincoln, future U.S. president (maybe) and member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers. Just as bad, she'll have to give up eavesdropping on twelve-step anonymous programs where the interesting talk is all about Higher Powers. Lucky needs her own—and quick.
But she hadn't planned on a dust storm.
Or needing to lug the world's heaviest survival-kit backpack into the desert.
Why I recommend it: It’s the kind of story I would have read over and over as a preteen. I would have appreciated the honest way the author depicts the problems of a small town. Every character in this novel is realistically flawed. There isn’t much to do in Lucky’s town, so her favorite hobby is eavesdropping on twelve-step addiction recovery meetings. She hears about the worst moments in her neighbors’ lives. I like this aspect of the novel because it shows young readers that everybody has problems. Everybody makes mistakes. You can recover from them if you put in the effort.
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4. Annabel by Kathleen Winter
Adult Historical Fiction
In 1968, into the devastating, spare atmosphere of Labrador, Canada, a child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor fully girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret—the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and their trusted neighbor and midwife, Thomasina. Though Treadway makes the difficult decision to raise the child as a boy named Wayne, the women continue to quietly nurture the boy’s female side. And as Wayne grows into adulthood within the hypermasculine hunting society of his father, his shadow-self, a girl he thinks of as “Annabel,” is never entirely extinguished.
When Wayne finally escapes the confines of his hometown and settles in St. John’s, the anonymity of the city grants him the freedom to confront his dual identity. His ultimate choice will once again call into question the integrity and allegiance of those he loves most.
Why I recommend it: A quiet, believable story about an intersex child growing up in rural Labrador during the 1960s. The author is a brilliant writer. She captures the loneliness of being an outsider in a small town and the complicated relationship between Wayne and his father.
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3. Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
He has his own suitcase full of special things.
He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself.
His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!!
Bud's got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father. Once he decides to hit the road and find this mystery man, nothing can stop him—not hunger, not fear, not vampires, not even Herman E. Calloway himself.
2. Stay With Me by
Yejide and Akin have been married since they fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage—after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures—Yejide is not pregnant. She assumes she still has time—until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant, which, finally, she does—but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine.
Why I recommend it: Have you ever read a book that left your brain empty? I don’t have words to describe how I felt about this novel. I never thought I’d be riveted by a book about marriage and the pressure that society puts on couples to have children, but that’s what happened. I was listening to the audiobook at work and getting irritated when I had to pause the book for job stuff. I needed to know what happened next! I was invested in Yejide’s story. She badly wants to be a mother, but everything keeps going wrong. The problems just make her more and more desperate. It's a book I'll never forget.
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1. Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
For two weeks, the length of her father's vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie's father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.
The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?
I remember my daughter reading Bud, Not Buddy when she was young and that it was stunning. She still remembers it almost 15 years later.
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