TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of May 20, 2007

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1
SIMPLE GENIUS
David Baldacci
Cover of SIMPLE GENIUS

SIMPLE GENIUS

by David Baldacci · Warner

2 wks at #1 · 2 on list

Two ex-Secret Service agents must face a dark world of violence, codes, and spies at a secret CIA training camp in this #1 New York Times bestseller about a mystery that could destroy the nation. Near Washington, D.C., there are two clandestine institutions: the world's most unusual laboratory and a secret CIA training camp. Drawn to these sites by a murder, ex-Secret Service agent Sean King encounters a dark world of mathematicians, codes, and spies. His search for answers soon leads him to more shocking violence-and an autistic girl with an extraordinary genius. Now, only by working with his partner, Michelle Maxwell, who is battling her own personal demons, can he catch a killer...and stop a national threat.

2
NEW
THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION
Michael Chabon
Cover of THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION

THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION

by Michael Chabon · HarperCollins

1 wks on list

In The Yiddish Policemen's Union, his first major novel since the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon delivers a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption. This special limited first edition is personally signed by the author and numbered. The jacketed hardcover is packaged in a handcrafted wooden slipcase which is shrinkwrapped. A must-have for collectors.

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THE CHILDREN OF HÚRIN
J. R. R. Tolkien. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Illustrated by Alan Lee
Cover of THE CHILDREN OF HÚRIN

THE CHILDREN OF HÚRIN

by J. R. R. Tolkien. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Illustrated by Alan Lee · Houghton Mifflin

3 wks on list

One of the three 'Great Tales' of the Elder Days, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Children of Húrin takes place in Middle-earth thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The Children of Húrin is the first complete book by Tolkien since the 1977 publication of The Silmarillion. Six thousand years before the One Ring is destroyed, Middle-earth lies under the shadow of the Dark Lord Morgoth. The greatest warriors among elves and men have perished, and all is in darkness and despair. But a deadly new leader rises, Túrin, son of Húrin, and with his grim band of outlaws begins to turn the tide in the war for Middle-earth—awaiting the day he confronts his destiny and the deadly curse laid upon him.

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THE WOODS
Harlan Coben
Cover of THE WOODS

THE WOODS

by Harlan Coben · Dutton

3 wks on list

NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES! The bestselling author and creator of the hit Netflix drama Fool Me Once takes readers into the heart of a family in this twisty page-turner that proves the darkest secrets are often closest to home. Twenty years ago, four teenagers disappeared in the woods. Now, two decades later, everything is changing... Paul Copeland's sister went missing 20 years ago. Now raising a daughter alone, Cope balances family life with a career as a prosecutor. But when a murder victim is found with evidence linking him to Cope, the well-buried secrets of the past are threatening everything. Is this body one of the campers who disappeared with his sister? Could his sister be alive...? Confronting his past, Cope must decide what is better left hidden in the dark and what truths can be brought to light...

5
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RANT
Chuck Palahniuk
Cover of RANT

RANT

by Chuck Palahniuk · Doubleday

1 wks on list

TheRant Limited Editionis specially packaged in a one-piece preprinted case, printed black, with the title created in spot gloss; a 4-color slipcase that matches the original jacket of the trade book; a 1/8" ribbon marker; a signed tip-in sheet, speckled edges; and an exclusive 1300-word "Automotive Afterword" entitled "Recipes for Disasters" which is not available in print anywhere but only in this limited edition. “Like most people I didn’t meet Rant Casey until after he was dead. That’s how it works for most celebrities: After they croak, their circle of friends just explodes…” Rantis the mind-bending new novel from Chuck Palahniuk, the literary provocateur responsible for such books as the generation-defining classic Fight Club and the pedal-to-the-metal horrorfest Haunted. It takes the form of an oral history of one Buster “Rant” Casey, who may or may not be the most efficient serial killer of our time. “What ‘Typhoid Mary’ Mallon was to typhoid, what Gaetan Dugas was to AIDS, and Liu Jian Lun was to SARS, Buster Casey would become for rabies.” A high-school rebel who always wins (and a childhood murderer?), Rant Casey escapes from his small hometown of Middleton for the big city. He becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. On appointed nights participants recognize each other by such designated car markings as “Just Married” toothpaste graffiti and then stalk and crash into each other. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death after which his friends gather testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. Their collected anecdotes explore the possibility that his saliva caused a silent urban plague of rabies and that he found a way to escape the prison house of linear time… “The future you have, tomorrow, won’t be the same future you had, yesterday.” –Rant Casey Expect hilarity, horror, and blazing insight into the desperate and surreal contemporary human condition as only Chuck Palahniuk can deliver it. He's the postmillennial Jonathan Swift, the visionary to watch to learn what's–uh-oh–coming next.

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ALL TOGETHER DEAD
Charlaine Harris
Cover of ALL TOGETHER DEAD

ALL TOGETHER DEAD

by Charlaine Harris · Ace

1 wks on list

Betrayed by her longtime vampire lover, cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has her hands full dealing with every kind of undead and paranormal creature, as well as the new man in her life, the shapeshifter Quinn, and the upcoming vampire summit, which may involve a power struggle between the vampire queen of Louisiana, weakened by hurricane damage, and some ambitious vamps out to seize control.

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I HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE
Mary Higgins Clark
Cover of I HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE

I HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE

by Mary Higgins Clark · Simon & Schuster

5 wks on list

In a riveting psychological thriller, Queen of Suspense Mary Higgins Clark takes you deep into the mysteries of the human mind, where memories may be the most dangerous things of all. Kay Lansing, who has grown up in Englewood, New Jersey, is the daughter of the landscaper to the wealthy and powerful Carrington family. Their mansion—a historic 17th-century manor house transported stone by stone from Wales in 1848—has a hidden chapel. One day, accompanying her father to work, six-year-old Kay succumbs to curiosity and sneaks into the chapel. There, she overhears a quarrel between a man and a woman who is demanding money from him. When she says that this will be the last time, his caustic response is: “I heard that song before.” That same evening, the Carrington’s hold a formal dinner dance after which Peter Carrington, a student at Princeton, drives home Susan Althorp, the eighteen-year-old daughter of neighbors. While her parents hear her come in, she is not in her room the next morning and is never seen or heard from again. Throughout the years, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Peter Carrington. At age forty-two, head of the family business empire, he is still “a person of interest” in the eyes of the police, not only for Susan Althorp’s disappearance but also for the subsequent drowning death of his own pregnant wife in their swimming pool. Kay, now living in New York and working as a librarian in Englewood, goes to see Peter. Kay sees Peter as maligned and misunderstood, and she soon falls in love with him. Over the objections of her beloved grandmother, she marries him. To her dismay, she soon finds that he is a sleepwalker whose nocturnal wanderings draw him to the spot at the pool where his wife met her end. Kay develops gnawing doubts about her husband. She believes that the key to the truth about his guilt or innocence lies in the scene she witnessed as a child in the chapel and knows she must learn the identity of the man and woman who quarreled there that day. What Kay does not know is that uncovering what lies behind these memories may put her own life in danger…

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BODY SURFING
Anita Shreve
Cover of BODY SURFING

BODY SURFING

by Anita Shreve · Little, Brown

2 wks on list

Struggling to start over again after being divorced and widowed while still in her twenties, Sydney tutors the daughter of a wealthy couple during a New Hampshire summer but finds herself caught up in a bitter family squabble involving her charge's two grown brothers. By the author of The Pilot's Wife.

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BACK ON BLOSSOM STREET
Debbie Macomber
Cover of BACK ON BLOSSOM STREET

BACK ON BLOSSOM STREET

by Debbie Macomber · Mira

2 wks on list

When Susannah, the owner of a new flower store, and her employee, a young widow named Colette Blake, join the knitting class at A Good Yarn, they meet a group of unforgettable women who offer them life-changing advice, support, and friendship.

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THE RIVER KNOWS
Amanda Quick
Cover of THE RIVER KNOWS

THE RIVER KNOWS

by Amanda Quick · Putnam

2 wks on list

From New York Times bestselling author Amanda Quick comes a delightful romp filled with breathtaking suspense, dazzling wit, and steamy Victorian passion... The first kiss occurred in a dimly-lit hallway on the upper floor of Elwin Hastings’s grand house. Louisa Bryce never saw it coming. Of course, handsome, wealthy Anthony Stalbridge couldn’t possibly have had romantic intentions. The kiss was merely meant to distract the armed guard about to catch the two unlikely sleuths. After all, the only thing these two interlopers have in common is a passionate interest in uncovering the dastardly secrets of Mr. Hastings—a prominent member of Society whom they suspect of murder. Brought together by their desire for the truth, Anthony and Louisa finally discover the incriminating evidence they’re looking for. But bringing Hastings to justice will be more perilous than they anticipate, especially since their thrilling attraction to danger—and, it turns out, to each other—might very well get in the way...

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NO HUMANS INVOLVED
Kelley Armstrong
Cover of NO HUMANS INVOLVED

NO HUMANS INVOLVED

by Kelley Armstrong · Bantam

1 wks on list

Readers around the world have fallen for Kelley Armstrong’s intoxicating, sensual and wicked tales of the paranormal, in which demons and witches, werewolves and vampires collide – often hilariously, sometimes violently – with everyday life. In Armstrong’s first six novels, Elena, Paige and Eve have had their way with us. Now get ready for Jaime Vegas, the luscious, lovelorn and haunted necromancer. . . Jaime, who knows a thing or two about showbiz, is on a television shoot in Los Angeles when weird things start to happen. As a woman whose special talent is raising the dead, her threshold for weirdness is pretty high: she’s used to not only seeing dead people but hearing them speak to her in very emphatic terms. But for the first time in her life – as invisible hands brush her skin, unintelligible fragments of words are whispered into her ears, and beings move just at the corner of her eye–she knows what humans mean when they talk about being haunted. She is determined to get to the bottom of these manifestations, but as she sets out to solve the mystery she has no idea how scary her investigation will get, or to what depths ordinary humans will sink in their attempts to gain supernatural powers. As she digs into the dark underside of Los Angeles, she’ll need as much Otherworld help as she can get in order to survive, calling on her personal angel, Eve, and Hope, the well-meaning chaos demon. Jeremy, the alpha werewolf, is also by her side offering protection. And, Jaime hopes, maybe a little more than that. “As I knelt on the cobblestones to begin the ritual, I opened not some ancient leather pouch, but a Gucci make-up bag. . . . I know little about the geography and theology of the afterlife, but I do know that the worst spirits are kept secured, and my risk of “accidentally” tapping into a hell dimension is next to nil. Even if I do bring back some depraved killer’s spirit, what can it do to me? When you deprive someone of the ability to act in the living world, he’s pretty darned helpless. In death, even the worst killer plummets from lethal to merely annoying. Yet whatever had been trying to contact me apparently could cross that barrier, could act in the living world. . .at least on me. I added an extra helping of vervain to the censer.” —from No Humans Involved

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DREAM WHEN YOU’RE FEELING BLUE
Elizabeth Berg
Cover of DREAM WHEN YOU’RE FEELING BLUE

DREAM WHEN YOU’RE FEELING BLUE

by Elizabeth Berg · Random House

1 wks on list

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Berg takes us to Chicago at the time of World War II in this wonderful story about three sisters, their lively Irish family, and the men they love. As the novel opens, Kitty and Louise Heaney say good-bye to their boyfriends Julian and Michael, who are going to fight overseas. On the domestic front, meat is rationed, children participate in metal drives, and Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller play songs that offer hope and lift spirits. And now the Heaney sisters sit at their kitchen table every evening to write letters–Louise to her fiancé, Kitty to the man she wishes fervently would propose, and Tish to an ever-changing group of men she meets at USO dances. In the letters the sisters send and receive are intimate glimpses of life both on the battlefront and at home. For Kitty, a confident, headstrong young woman, the departure of her boyfriend and the lessons she learns about love, resilience, and war will bring a surprise and a secret, and will lead her to a radical action for those she loves. The lifelong consequences of the choices the Heaney sisters make are at the heart of this superb novel about the power of love and the enduring strength of family.

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KINGDOM COME
Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
Cover of KINGDOM COME

KINGDOM COME

by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins · Tyndale

In the final chapter of the Left Behind saga, the horrors of the Tribulation are over and Jesus Christ has set up his perfect kingdom on Earth, but as believers enjoy a newly perfected relationship with their Lord, evil still lurks in the hearts of the un

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.