TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of August 11, 2002

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
Jump to
1
SLANDER
Ann Coulter

SLANDER

by Ann Coulter · Crown

8 wks at #1 · 5 on list

Coulter, whose examination of the Clinton impeachment was a major national bestseller and earned widespread praise, now takes on an even tougher issue. At the risk of giving away the ending: It's all the liberals' fault.

2
THE LOBSTER CHRONICLES
Linda Greenlaw
Cover of THE LOBSTER CHRONICLES

THE LOBSTER CHRONICLES

by Linda Greenlaw · Hyperion

4 wks on list

Greenlaw returns to Isle au Haut--a tiny Maine island with a population of 70 year-round residents, 30 of whom are Greenlaw's relatives.

4
1
YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS
John McEnroe with James Kaplan
Cover of YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS

by John McEnroe with James Kaplan · Putnam

7 wks on list

A no-holds-barred, intimate memoir by John McEnroe—the bad boy of professional tennis. John McEnroe stunned the tennis elite when he came out of nowhere to make the Wimbledon semifinals at the age of eighteen—and just a few years later, he was ranked number one in the world. You Cannot Be Serious is McEnroe at his most personal, an intimate examination of Johnny Mac, the kid from Queens, and his “wild ride” through the world of professional tennis at a boom time when players were treated like rock stars. In this “bracing serve-and-volley autobiography” (The Boston Globe) he candidly explores the roots of his famous on-court explosions; his ambivalence toward the sport that made him famous; his adventures (and misadventures) on the road; his views of colleagues from Connors to Borg to Lendl; his opinions of contemporary tennis; his marriages to actress Tatum O'Neal and pop star Patty Smyth; and his roles as husband, father, senior tour player, and often-controversial commentator.

5
1
STUPID WHITE MEN
Michael Moore
Cover of STUPID WHITE MEN

STUPID WHITE MEN

by Michael Moore · ReganBooks/ HarperCollins

23 wks on list

Rember when everything was looking up? When the government was running at a surplus pollution was disappearing peace was breaking out in the middle East and Northern Ireland and the Bridge to the Twenty-First century was strung with Internet cable and paved with 401 (k) gold? Well, so much for the future. Michael Moore the award winning povocateur behind Roger & Me and the best seller Downsize This! now returns to size up the new century and that big, ugly special interest group that's laying waste to the world as we know it: stupid white men. Among the targets of Mike's Manifesto on Malfeasance and mediocrity are the Bush family Junta, Bll Clinton the Idiot Nation and Corporate American.

6
9
LUCKY MAN
Michael J. Fox

LUCKY MAN

by Michael J. Fox · Hyperion

17 wks on list

Autobiografie van de Amerikaanse filmacteur (1961- ), die in 2000 zijn carrière heeft moeten beëindigen vanwege de ziekte van Parkinson.

8
3
JOHN ADAMS
David McCullough
Cover of JOHN ADAMS

JOHN ADAMS

by David McCullough · Simon & Schuster

57 wks on list

Profiles John Adams, an influential patriot during the American Revolution who became the nation's first vice president and second president.

9
THE SEXUAL LIFE OF CATHERINE M.
Catherine Millet
Cover of THE SEXUAL LIFE OF CATHERINE M.

THE SEXUAL LIFE OF CATHERINE M.

by Catherine Millet · Grove Press

6 wks on list

Catherine Millet, una figura de gran prestigio en el ámbito de la estética, autora de ensayos y monografías sobre artistas contemporáneos, decidió explicar su intensa y tumultuosa vida sexual, con una crudeza y una claridad absolutamente inesperadas. el r

10
NEW
THE RIGHT WORDS AT THE RIGHT TIME
Marlo Thomas
Cover of THE RIGHT WORDS AT THE RIGHT TIME

THE RIGHT WORDS AT THE RIGHT TIME

by Marlo Thomas · Atria

Featuring reflections on how different people found wisdom and hope in the inspirational words of loved ones, a collection of thoughtful advice includes contributions by Tom Brokaw, Jimmy Carter, Steven Spielberg, Amy Tan, and many others.

12
4
A MIND AT A TIME
Mel Levine
Cover of A MIND AT A TIME

A MIND AT A TIME

by Mel Levine · Simon & Schuster

18 wks on list

"Different minds learn differently," writes Dr. Mel Levine, one of the best-known education experts and pediatricians in America today. And that's a problem for many children, because most schools still cling to a one-size-fits-all education philosophy. As a result, these children struggle because their learning patterns don't fit the schools they are in. In A Mind at a Time, Dr. Levine shows parents and others who care for children how to identify these individual learning patterns. He explains how parents and teachers can encourage a child's strengths and bypass the child's weaknesses. This type of teaching produces satisfaction and achievement instead of frustration and failure. Different brains are differently wired, Dr. Levine explains. There are eight fundamental systems, or components, of learning that draw on a variety of neurodevelopmental capacities. Some students are strong in certain areas and some are strong in others, but no one is equally capable in all eight. Using examples drawn from his own extensive experience, Dr. Levine shows how parents and children can identify their strengths and weaknesses to determine their individual learning styles. For example, some students are creative and write imaginatively but do poorly in history because weak memory skills prevent them from retaining facts. Some students are weak in sequential ordering and can't follow directions. They may test poorly and often don't do well in mathematics. In these cases, Dr. Levine observes, the problem is not a lack of intelligence but a learning style that doesn't fit the assignment. Drawing on his pioneering research and his work with thousands of students, Dr. Levine shows how parents and teachers can develop effective strategies to work through or around these weaknesses. "It's taken for granted in adult society that we cannot all be 'generalists' skilled in every area of learning and mastery. Nevertheless, we apply tremendous pressure to our children to be good at everything. They are expected to shine in math, reading, writing, speaking, spelling, memorization, comprehension, problem solving...and none of us adults can" do all this, observes Dr. Levine. Learning begins in school but it doesn't end there. Frustrating a child's desire to learn will have lifelong repercussions. This frustration can be avoided if we understand that not every child can do equally well in every type of learning. We must begin to pay more attention to individual learning styles, to individual minds, urges Dr. Levine, so that we can maximize children's learning potential. In A Mind at a Time he shows us how.

13
1
WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY
Kevin Phillips
Cover of WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY

WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY

by Kevin Phillips · Broadway

4 wks on list

For more than thirty years, Kevin Phillips' insight into American politics and economics has helped to make history as well as record it. His bestselling books, including The Emerging Republican Majority (1969) and The Politics of Rich and Poor (1990), have influenced presidential campaigns and changed the way America sees itself. Widely acknowledging Phillips as one of the nation's most perceptive thinkers, reviewers have called him a latter-day Nostradamus and our "modern Thomas Paine." Now, in the first major book of its kind since the 1930s, he turns his attention to the United States' history of great wealth and power, a sweeping cavalcade from the American Revolution to what he calls "the Second Gilded Age" at the turn of the twenty-first century. The Second Gilded Age has been staggering enough in its concentration of wealth to dwarf the original Gilded Age a hundred years earlier. However, the tech crash and then the horrible events of September 11, 2001, pointed out that great riches are as vulnerable as they have ever been. In Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips charts the ongoing American saga of great wealth–how it has been accumulated, its shifting sources, and its ups and downs over more than two centuries. He explores how the rich and politically powerful have frequently worked together to create or perpetuate privilege, often at the expense of the national interest and usually at the expense of the middle and lower classes. With intriguing chapters on history and bold analysis of present-day America, Phillips illuminates the dangerous politics that go with excessive concentration of wealth. Profiling wealthy Americans–from Astor to Carnegie and Rockefeller to contemporary wealth holders–Phillips provides fascinating details about the peculiarly American ways of becoming and staying a multimillionaire. He exposes the subtle corruption spawned by a money culture and financial power, evident in economic philosophy, tax favoritism, and selective bailouts in the name of free enterprise, economic stimulus, and national security. Finally, Wealth and Democracy turns to the history of Britain and other leading world economic powers to examine the symptoms that signaled their declines–speculative finance, mounting international debt, record wealth, income polarization, and disgruntled politics–signs that we recognize in America at the start of the twenty-first century. In a time of national crisis, Phillips worries that the growing parallels suggest the tide may already be turning for us all.

14
3
ONCE UPON A TOWN
Bob Greene
Cover of ONCE UPON A TOWN

ONCE UPON A TOWN

by Bob Greene · Morrow

8 wks on list

This New York Times bestseller shares the true story of a small Midwest town's hospitality to U.S. soldiers traveling to the battlefields of World War II. In search of "the best America there ever was," award-winning journalist Bob Greene finds it in Nebraska where he discovers the echoes of the most touching love story imaginable: a love story between a country and its sons. During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska, on troop trains en route to their ultimate destinations in Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town, wanting to offer the servicemen warmth and support, transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen. Every day of the year, every day of the war, the Canteen—staffed and funded entirely by local volunteers—was open from five a.m. until the last troop train of the day pulled away after midnight. Astonishingly, this remote plains community of only twelve,zero people provided welcoming words, friendship, and baskets of food and treats to more than six million GIs by the time the war ended. In this poignant and heartwarming eyewitness history, based on interviews with North Platte residents and the soldiers who once passed through, Bob Greene tells a classic, lost-in-the-mists-of-time American story of a grateful country honoring its brave and dedicated sons. "Bob Greene is a virtuoso of the things that bring journalism alive." —Tom Wolfe "Lovely . . . inspiring . . . uplifting . . . I was moved to tears, and you will be, too." —Ann Landers

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