TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of May 26, 1996

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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1
BAD AS I WANNA BE
Dennis Rodman with Tim Keown
Cover of BAD AS I WANNA BE

BAD AS I WANNA BE

by Dennis Rodman with Tim Keown · Delacorte Press

8 wks at #1 · 2 on list

Autobiography from one of the most popular and eccentric basketballers currently playing in the US.

6
NEW
MOTHER
Judy Olausen
Cover of MOTHER

MOTHER

by Judy Olausen · Penguin Studio

1 wks on list

In the spirit of William Wegman and Cindy Sherman, Judy Olausen offers up a hilarious yet oddly unsettling collection of portraits of that most sacred of institutions: Mother. Photographing her own mother using 1950s-inspired props, she turns a lifelong homemaker into a surreal icon of all-American-style domestic submission. From "Mother as Coffee Table" to "Mother as Doormat" or "Roadkill", Olausen creates visual metaphors for Mother's role in the era just preceding the women's liberation movement. Vivian Olausen, the sole model in Mother, proved to be an enthusiastic and professional participant. She lugs a boulder up a staircase in "Mother Under Pressure" and drags a cross in "Mother Goes to Market". She's shown strapped to an old sedan, chained to a chair, chased by a giant tarantula in one image and a bear in another - all with good humor. "I'm just Judy's model", says Vivian, "I leave the rest up to her".

8
NEW
HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!
Laura Schlessinger
Cover of HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!

HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!

by Laura Schlessinger · HarperCollins

In her hard-hitting new book, Dr. Laura Schlessinger delivers a witty, wise, and workable moral philosophy - based on the principle of personal responsibility. How Could You Do That?! argues passionately against the self-indulgent subjective morality used in our society to excuse all sorts of bad behavior. In her lively, pull-no-punches style, Dr. Laura takes on the moral dilemmas of our time: from the mindless pursuit of pleasure and immediate gratification to taking the easy way out when those actions produce ugly or uncomfortable life-altering consequences. She demonstrates in no uncertain terms that personal values are never someone else's responsibility, but our own, and why choosing not to honor them actually compounds unhappiness. Finally, she explains that by disciplining self-indulgence and rising above temptation we can discover the infinite pleasures, the true happiness, of the moral high ground.

10
KNEE DEEP IN PARADISE
Brett Butler
Cover of KNEE DEEP IN PARADISE

KNEE DEEP IN PARADISE

by Brett Butler · Hyperion

3 wks on list

A best-selling autobiography by the stand-up comedienne and star of the sitcom Grace Under Fire recounts her coming-of-age in the South, her abusive first marriage, and her rise to television celebrity. Reprint. PW.

11
5
BLOOD SPORT
James B. Stewart
Cover of BLOOD SPORT

BLOOD SPORT

by James B. Stewart · Simon & Schuster

9 wks on list

Drawing on scores of interviews with highly placed sources, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter--author of Den of Thieves and The Prosecutors--cuts through the rumors and innuendos surrounding the First Family to get to the facts about the Whitewater land deal, Vince Foster's suicide, and other alleged scandals plaguing the Clinton White House.

13
5
HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Cover of HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS

HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS

by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen · Knopf

6 wks on list

This groundbreaking international bestseller lays to rest many myths about the Holocaust: that Germans were ignorant of the mass destruction of Jews, that the killers were all SS men, and that those who slaughtered Jews did so reluctantly. Hitler's Willing Executioners provides conclusive evidence that the extermination of European Jewry engaged the energies and enthusiasm of tens of thousands of ordinary Germans. Goldhagen reconstructs the climate of "eliminationist anti-Semitism" that made Hitler's pursuit of his genocidal goals possible and the radical persecution of the Jews during the 1930s popular. Drawing on a wealth of unused archival materials, principally the testimony of the killers themselves, Goldhagen takes us into the killing fields where Germans voluntarily hunted Jews like animals, tortured them wantonly, and then posed cheerfully for snapshots with their victims. From mobile killing units, to the camps, to the death marches, Goldhagen shows how ordinary Germans, nurtured in a society where Jews were seen as unalterable evil and dangerous, willingly followed their beliefs to their logical conclusion. "Hitler's Willing Executioner's is an original, indeed brilliant contribution to the...literature on the Holocaust."--New York Review of Books "The most important book ever published about the Holocaust...Eloquently written, meticulously documented, impassioned...A model of moral and scholarly integrity."--Philadelphia Inquirer

14
NEW
I LIVED TO TELL IT ALL
George Jones with Tom Carter
Cover of I LIVED TO TELL IT ALL

I LIVED TO TELL IT ALL

by George Jones with Tom Carter · Villard

1 wks on list

Finally, George Jones opens up and writes candidly and intimately about his failures and successes, his losses and loves.

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THE CLOISTER WALK
Kathleen Norris
Cover of THE CLOISTER WALK

THE CLOISTER WALK

by Kathleen Norris · Riverhead

2 wks on list

Why would a married woman with a thoroughly Protestant background and often more doubt than faith be drawn to the ancient practice of monasticism, to a community of celibate men whose days are centered around a rigid schedule of prayer, work, and scripture? This is the question that poet Kathleen Norris asks us as, somewhat to her own surprise, she found herself on two extended residencies at St. John's Abbey in Minnesota. Part record of her time among the Benedictines, part meditation on various aspects of monastic life, The Cloister Walk demonstrates, from the rare perspective of someone who is both an insider and outsider, how immersion in the cloistered world -- its liturgy, its ritual, its sense of community -- can impart meaning to everyday events and deepen our secular lives. In this stirring and lyrical work, the monastery, often considered archaic or otherworldly, becomes immediate, accessible, and relevant to us, no matter what our faith may be.

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