TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of September 3, 2023

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TOM LAKE
Ann Patchett

TOM LAKE

by Ann Patchett · Harper

1 wks at #1 · 3 on list

In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers. "Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature." --The Guardian In the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew. Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

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FOURTH WING
Rebecca Yarros
Cover of FOURTH WING

FOURTH WING

by Rebecca Yarros · Red Tower

15 wks on list

As war grows more deadly, Violet Sorrengail joins the elite Navarre: the dragon riders. But she'll need to keep her wits because once you enter the Basgiath War College, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

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LION & LAMB
James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski
Cover of LION & LAMB

LION & LAMB

by James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski · Little, Brown

1 wks on list

There are two sides to every story. Husband and wife Archie and Francine Hughes are heroes in their hometown of Philadelphia. Archie is a football star, while Francine is a Grammy-winning singer. So everyone is in a state of shock when news breaks about the seemingly perfect couple. One spouse is murdered. The other is Suspect Number One. Even before the case hits the courtroom, it's the hottest ticket in town. For the defence: Cooper Lamb, private investigator to the stars. For the prosecution: Veena Lion, an attorney so bright she's got to wear shades. Between them, they know every secret in the Hughes household. Together, they prove how two wrongs can make a right. ______________________________________ PRAISE FOR JAMES PATTERSON 'It's no mystery why James Patterson is the world's most popular thriller writer ... Simply put: nobody does it better.' JEFFERY DEAVER 'No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades.' LEE CHILD 'Patterson boils a scene down to the single, telling detail, the element that defines a character or moves a plot along. It's what fires off the movie projector in the reader's mind.' MICHAEL CONNELLY 'James Patterson is The Boss. End of.' IAN RANKIN 'The master storyteller of our times' HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON 'One of the greatest storytellers of all time' PATRICIA CORNWELL 'Patterson knows where our deepest fears are buried ... there's no stopping his imagination' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 'Patterson is in a class by himself' GUARDIAN

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DEMON COPPERHEAD
Barbara Kingsolver
Cover of DEMON COPPERHEAD

DEMON COPPERHEAD

by Barbara Kingsolver · Harper

WINNER OF THE 2023 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION A New York Times "Ten Best Books of 2022 * An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post Bestseller "Demon is a voice for the ages--akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield--only even more resilient." --Beth Macy, author of Dopesick "May be the best novel of 2022. . . . Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love." (Ron Charles, Washington Post) From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.

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