TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of November 22, 2009

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NEW
ARGUING WITH IDIOTS
Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others
Cover of ARGUING WITH IDIOTS

ARGUING WITH IDIOTS

by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others · Mercury Radio Arts/Threshold Editions

Glenn Beck, the New York Times bestselling author of The Great Reset, provides the ultimate handbook for tackling and winning life’s most important arguments. FUNNY. FRIGHTENING. TRUE. The #1 New York Times bestseller that gives you the right answers when idiots leave you speechless! It happens to all of us: You’re minding your own business, when some idiot* informs you that guns are evil, the Prius will save the planet, or the rich have to finally start paying their fair share of taxes. Just go away! you think to yourself—but they only get more obnoxious. Your heart rate quickens. You start to sweat. But never fear, for Glenn Beck has stumbled upon the secret formula to winning arguments against people with big mouths and small minds: knowing the facts. And this book is full of them. The next time your Idiot Friends tell you how gun control prevents gun violence, you’ll tell them all about England’s handgun ban (see page 53). When they insist that we should copy the UK’s health-care system, you’ll recount the horrifying facts you read on page 244. And the next time you hear how produce prices will skyrocket without illegal workers, you’ll have the perfect rebuttal (from page 139). Armed with the ultimate weapon—the truth—you can now tolerate (and who knows, maybe even enjoy?) your encounters with idiots everywhere! *Idiots can’t be identified through voting records; look instead for people who hide behind stereotypes, embrace partisanship, and believe that bumper sticker slogans are a substitute for common sense.

6
NEW
THE AUDACITY TO WIN
David Plouffe
Cover of THE AUDACITY TO WIN

THE AUDACITY TO WIN

by David Plouffe · Viking Press

1 wks on list

The forty-fourth president's campaign manager reveals the strategies that he credits with Obama's successful primary and general elections, explaining how a combination of technology and grassroots organization is revolutionizing politics.

8
NEW
THE SELLOUT
Charles Gasparino
Cover of THE SELLOUT

THE SELLOUT

by Charles Gasparino · Harper Business/HarperCollins

1 wks on list

In the spirit of Barbarians at the Gate and Liar's Poker comes The Sellout, the definitive book on the recent collapse of Wall Street, one of the most dramatic and anxiety-ridden era in national socioeconomic history. In this powerful business narrative, Charles Gasparino, the author of Blood on the Floor and King of the Club, captures how avarice, arrogance, and sheer stupidity eroded Wall Street's dominance, made many of our country's most fabled financial institutions vulnerable to significant new foreign control, and profoundly weakened the financial security of millions of poor and middle-class American families.

11
NEW
THE TIME OF MY LIFE
Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi
Cover of THE TIME OF MY LIFE

THE TIME OF MY LIFE

by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi · Atria

4 wks on list

Veteran actor Swayze recounts much more than his struggle with stage IV pancreatic cancer. In vivid detail, he describes his Texas upbringing, his personal struggles, his commercial success, and the soul mate who's stood by his side through it all: his wife, writer and director Lisa Niemi.

13
NEW
INSIDE OF A DOG
Alexandra Horowitz
Cover of INSIDE OF A DOG

INSIDE OF A DOG

by Alexandra Horowitz · Scribner

2 wks on list

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think, now in paperback.The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draws a picture of what it might be like to be a dog. What’s it like to be able to smell not just every bit of open food in the house but also to smell sadness in humans, or even the passage of time? How does a tiny dog manage to play successfully with a Great Dane? What is it like to hear the bodily vibrations of insects or the hum of a fluorescent light? Why must a person on a bicycle be chased? What’s it like to use your mouth as a hand? In short, what is it like for a dog to experience life from two feet off the ground, amidst the smells of the sidewalk, gazing at our ankles or knees? Inside of a Dog explains these things and much more. The answers can be surprising—once we set aside our natural inclination to anthropomorphize dogs. Inside of a Dog also contains up-to-the-minute research—on dogs’ detection of disease, the secrets of their tails, and their skill at reading our attention—that Horowitz puts into useful context. Although not a formal training guide, Inside of a Dog has practical application for dog lovers interested in understanding why their dogs do what they do. With a light touch and the weight of science behind her, Alexandra Horowitz examines the animal we think we know best but may actually understand the least. This book is as close as you can get to knowing about dogs without being a dog yourself.

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