Here is a list of the most popular books sold last month at Books Inc. in the Marina.
HARDCOVER FICTION
1. The Emperor of Gladness, by Ocean Vuong
2. Hotter in the Hamptons, by Tinx
3. Great Big Beautiful Life, by Emily Henry
HARDCOVER NON-FICTION
1. Original Sin, by Jake Tapper
2. Mark Twain, by Ron Chernow
3. Let Them Theory, by Mel Robbins
PAPERBACK FICTION
1. The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley
2. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
3. Blue Sisters, by Coco Mellors
PAPERBACK NON-FICTION
1. The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel
2. Greenlights, by Matthew McConaughey
3. The Wager, by David Grann
YOUNG READERS
Young Adult: Sunrise On the Reaping, by Suzanne Collins
Middle Readers: Chef’s Secret, by Kelly Yang
Picture Book: Golden Gate Twins, by Tomoko Maruyama
Kid Graphic Novel: Narwhal’s Sweet Tooth, by Ben Clanton
NEW AND NOTABLE RELEASES
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, by Sophie Elmhirst
The electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits. Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream — as we all dream — of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away? Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But Maurice began to study nautical navigation. Maralyn made detailed lists of provisions. And in June 1972, they set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves. What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive on the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves. Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, An adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable
Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp, by Tracy Slater
On a late March morning in the spring of 1942, Elaine Yoneda awoke to a series of terrible choices: between her family and freedom, her country and conscience, and her son and daughter. She was the child of Russian-Jewish immigrants and the wife of a Japanese-American man. On this war-torn morning, she was also a mother desperate to keep her young mixed-race son from being sent to a US concentration camp. Manzanar, near Death Valley, was one of ten detention centers where our government would eventually imprison every person of Japanese descent along the West Coast — alien and citizen, old and young, healthy and sick — or, in the words of one official, anyone with even “one drop” of Japanese blood. Elaine’s husband Karl was already in Manzanar, but he planned to enlist as soon as the US Army would take him. The Yonedas were prominent labor and antifascist activists, and Karl was committed to fighting for what they had long cherished: equality, freedom, and democracy.
Yet when Karl went to war, their son Tommy, three years old and chronically ill, would be left alone in Manzanar — unless Elaine convinced the US government to imprison her as well.
The consequences of Elaine’s choice did not end there: if she somehow found a way to force herself behind barbed wire with her husband and son, she would leave behind her white daughter from a previous marriage. Together in Manzanar tells the story of these painful choices and conflicting loyalties, the upheaval and violence that followed, and the Yonedas’ quest to survive with their children’s lives intact and their family safe and whole.
The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant, by Liza Tully
A great detective’s young assistant yearns for glory, but first they must learn how to get along, in this delightful feel-good mystery. Olivia Blunt doesn’t want to be an assistant detective for the rest of her life. She’s determined to learn everything she can from her mentor, renowned investigator Aubrey Merritt — but the latter is no easy grader. After weeks of fielding phone calls from parties pining for the celebrated detective’s help, a case comes across Olivia’s desk that just might be worthy of Merritt’s skills. On the evening of her 65th birthday party, Victoria Summersworth somehow fell to her death over her balcony railing on the rocky shore of Lake Champlain. She was a happy woman — rich, beloved, in love, and matriarch of the preeminent Summersworth family. The police have ruled it a suicide, but her daughter, Haley, thinks it was murder. Merritt is ever the skeptic, but Olivia believes Haley. Plus, she’s desperate to prove her investigative skills to her aloof boss. But the Summersworth family drama is complicated. Olivia realizes she might be in over her head with this whole detective thing … or she might be unravelling a mystery even bigger than the one she started with.
Chris Hsiang can help you find your next book at Books Inc., 2251 Chestnut St., 415-931-3633, booksinc.net.
