TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of March 16, 2008

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1
NEW
LOSING IT
Valerie Bertinelli
Cover of LOSING IT

LOSING IT

by Valerie Bertinelli · Free Press

3 wks at #1 · 1 on list

Popular actress, Jenny Craig spokeswoman, and America's sweetheart Bertinelli reveals in this courageous and candid memoir her complicated past and how she has taken control of her own life to gain self-esteem and happiness. 8 pages of b&w photographs.

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1
LIBERAL FASCISM
Jonah Goldberg

LIBERAL FASCISM

by Jonah Goldberg · Doubleday

8 wks on list

Den konservative kommentator gør op med begreberne højre og venstre i det politiske spektrum.

3
NEW
BEAUTIFUL BOY
David Sheff
Cover of BEAUTIFUL BOY

BEAUTIFUL BOY

by David Sheff · Houghton Mifflin

1 wks on list

Sheff's story tells of his teenage son's addiction to meth, in this real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the family's gradual emergence into hope.

4
2
IN DEFENSE OF FOOD
Michael Pollan
Cover of IN DEFENSE OF FOOD

IN DEFENSE OF FOOD

by Michael Pollan · Penguin Press

9 wks on list

#1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of This is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Food Rules Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it? Because in the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion--most of what we’re consuming today is longer the product of nature but of food science. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American Paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we see to become. With In Defense of Food, Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Pollan’s bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.

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2
REAL CHANGE
Newt Gingrich with Vince Haley and Rick Tyler
Cover of REAL CHANGE

REAL CHANGE

by Newt Gingrich with Vince Haley and Rick Tyler · Regnery

7 wks on list

Can we create a government that is small, efficient, and responsive--from the state house to the White House? Is that kind of real change even possible? Newt Gingrich says it's time for citizens to demand results from our elected officials. He shows how America can achieve transformational change--from a bureaucratic failure to a government that can meet the challenges of the 21st century. First, he busts the myth that America is divided between conservative red states and liberal blue states--the American people are united on almost every important issue facing our country, including immigration, taxes, defending America, and freedom of religion. America believes overwhelmingly that we need a change in course--but our politicians aren't listening. Gingrich reveals why the Democratic Party can't deliver real change and why the Republican Party won't. He provides answers and a step-by-step, issue-by-issue toolkit for building a better America.--From publisher description.

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2
I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!)
Stephen Colbert, Richard Dahm, Paul Dinello and Allison Silverman
Cover of I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!)

I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!)

by Stephen Colbert, Richard Dahm, Paul Dinello and Allison Silverman · Grand Central

21 wks on list

The host of the popular Colbert Report show celebrates the lighter side of the modern world's most relevant issues, providing straightforward discussions of such topics as faith, politics, and how the author believes the country can reacquire its nerve. 500,000 first printing.

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THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON
Susan Jacoby
Cover of THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON

THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON

by Susan Jacoby · Pantheon

3 wks on list

A cultural history of the last forty years, The Age of American Unreason focuses on the convergence of social forces—usually treated as separate entities—that has created a perfect storm of anti-rationalism. These include the upsurge of religious fundamentalism, with more political power today than ever before; the failure of public education to create an informed citizenry; and the triumph of video over print culture. Sparing neither the right nor the left, Jacoby asserts that Americans today have embraced a universe of “junk thought” that makes almost no effort to separate fact from opinion.

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3
AN INCONVENIENT BOOK
Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe
Cover of AN INCONVENIENT BOOK

AN INCONVENIENT BOOK

by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe · Threshold Editions

15 wks on list

Glenn Beck, the New York Times bestselling author of The Great Reset, tackles some of our country’s biggest problems in this funny, outrageous, and entertaining book. Glenn Beck believes that the reason why some of our biggest problems never seem to get fixed is simple: the solutions just aren’t very convenient. And as the host of a nationally syndicated radio show and a prime-time television show on CNN Headline News, Glenn Beck doesn’t care much about convenience; he cares about common sense. Take the issue of poverty, for example. Over the last forty years, America’s poorest cities all had one simple thing in common, but politicians will never reveal what that is (or explain how easy it would be to change). Global warming is another issue that’s rife with lies and distortion. How many times have we heard that carbon dioxide is responsible for huge natural disasters that have killed millions of people? The truth is, it’s actually the other way around: as CO2 has increased, deaths from extreme weather have decreased. But that would never be shown in an Al Gore slide show. Combining honesty with a biting sense of humor, An Inconvenient Book contains hundreds of these "why have I never heard that before?" types of facts that will leave readers wondering how political correctness, special interests, and outright stupidity have gotten us so far away from the common sense solutions this country was built on.

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THE REASON FOR GOD
Timothy Keller
Cover of THE REASON FOR GOD

THE REASON FOR GOD

by Timothy Keller · Dutton

2 wks on list

A New York Times bestseller people can believe in—by "a pioneer of the new urban Christians" (Christianity Today) and the "C.S. Lewis for the 21st century" (Newsweek). Timothy Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, addresses the frequent doubts that skeptics, and even ardent believers, have about religion. Using literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and potent reasoning, Keller explains how the belief in a Christian God is, in fact, a sound and rational one. To true believers he offers a solid platform on which to stand their ground against the backlash to religion created by the Age of Skepticism. And to skeptics, atheists, and agnostics, he provides a challenging argument for pursuing the reason for God.

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2
MANIC
Terri Cheney
Cover of MANIC

MANIC

by Terri Cheney · Morrow

2 wks on list

In the tradition of "Girl, Interrupted" and "An Unquiet Mind" comes this heartbreaking, beautifully written memoir of one woman's experience with bipolar disorder.

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1
HOPE’S BOY
Andrew Bridge
Cover of HOPE’S BOY

HOPE’S BOY

by Andrew Bridge · Hyperion

4 wks on list

Andrew grew up in the 1970s with his funny, loving but deeply unstable mother. Life with her was totally chaotic. She left him alone in motel rooms at night and took him with her when she went house burgling. But Andrew's mother wasn't bad, she was just lost herself and one thing she did was always tell him she loved him. Gradually, though, the bad times got worse. One day Andrew, aged seven, found his mother in the bathroom in the middle of a breakdown, the walls covered in her pleas for help all written in the blood from the cuts she'd inflicted on herself. He was taken into care and put with a foster family who treated him with loneliness and neglect at best and cruel indifference as standard. This is a groundbreaking story of a childhood destroyed by mental illness. It is also a heartbreaking love story about a mother's legacy of love.

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5
GOD’S PROBLEM
Bart D. Ehrman
Cover of GOD’S PROBLEM

GOD’S PROBLEM

by Bart D. Ehrman · HarperOne

2 wks on list

¿Cómo es posible que Dios, omnisciente y bondadoso, permita la guerra, la enfermedad, los desastres naturales, los abusos, el dolor y la muerte? Si Dios no es responsable de estas desgracias, ¿quién lo es? Solemos acudir a la Biblia cuando no encontramos respuesta a nuestras preguntas. Sin embargo, los textos sagrados no nos proporcionan una sola explicación, sino muchas, y a menudo controvertidas.

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NEW
THE HEROIN DIARIES
Nikki Sixx with Ian Gittins
Cover of THE HEROIN DIARIES

THE HEROIN DIARIES

by Nikki Sixx with Ian Gittins · Pocket

8 wks on list

A brutally honest rock memoir, The Heroin Diaries chronicles Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx’s descent into heroin addiction and his harrowing fight for recovery at the height of fame. When Mötley Crüe was at the height of its fame, there wasn’t any drug Nikki Sixx wouldn’t do. He spent days—sometimes alone, sometimes with other addicts, friends, and lovers—in a coke- and heroin-fueled daze. The highs were high, and Nikki’s journal entries reveal some euphoria and joy. But the lows were lower, often ending with Nikki in his closet, surrounded by drug paraphernalia and wrapped in paranoid delusions. Here, Nikki shares the diary entries—some poetic, some scatterbrained, some bizarre—of those dark times. Joining him are Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Slash, Rick Nielsen, Bob Rock, and a host of ex-managers, ex-lovers, and more. Brutally honest, utterly riveting, and surprisingly moving, The Heroin Diaries follows Nikki during the year he plunged to rock bottom—and his courageous decision to pick himself up and start living again.

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NEW
FREAKONOMICS
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Cover of FREAKONOMICS

FREAKONOMICS

by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner · Morrow

111 wks on list

The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics was a worldwide sensation, selling over four million copies in thirty-five languages and changing the way we look at the world. Now, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with SuperFreakonomics, and fans and newcomers alike will find that the freakquel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first. Four years in the making, SuperFreakonomics asks not only the tough questions, but the unexpected ones: What's more dangerous, driving drunk or walking drunk? Why is chemotherapy prescribed so often if it's so ineffective? Can a sex change boost your salary? SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands? How much good do car seats do? What's the best way to catch a terrorist? Did TV cause a rise in crime? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Which adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically. By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is – good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky. Freakonomics has been imitated many times over – but only now, with SuperFreakonomics, has it met its match.

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