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Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of January 15, 2023

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THE LIGHT WE CARRY
Michelle Obama
Cover of THE LIGHT WE CARRY

THE LIGHT WE CARRY

by Michelle Obama · Crown

8 wks at #1 · 7 on list

#1 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • In an inspiring follow-up to her acclaimed memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today’s highly uncertain world. There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much? Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles—the earned wisdom that helps her continue to “become.” She details her most valuable practices, like “starting kind,” “going high,” and assembling a “kitchen table” of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness. “When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it,” writes Michelle Obama. A rewarding blend of powerful stories and profound advice that will ignite conversation, The Light We Carry inspires readers to examine their own lives, identify their sources of gladness, and connect meaningfully in a turbulent world.

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I'M GLAD MY MOM DIED
Jennette McCurdy
Cover of I'M GLAD MY MOM DIED

I'M GLAD MY MOM DIED

by Jennette McCurdy · Simon & Schuster

21 wks on list

"A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor--including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother--and how she retook control of her life"--]cProvided by publisher.

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FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING
Matthew Perry
Cover of FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING

FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING

by Matthew Perry · Flatiron

9 wks on list

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER The BELOVED STAR OF FRIENDS takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this “CANDID, DARKLY FUNNY...POIGNANT” memoir (The New York Times) A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK by Time, Associated Press, Goodreads, USA Today, and more! “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty.” So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more. In an extraordinary story that only he could tell—and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it—Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening—as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for.

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SURRENDER
Bono
Cover of SURRENDER

SURRENDER

by Bono · Knopf

9 wks on list

Las memorias de Bono, el vocalista principal de U2. Un libro honesto e irreverente, íntimo y profundo, Surrender es la historia de su vida, de sus retos, y de los amigos y familia que lo han sostenido. Se trata de uno los artistas más icónicos de la música en todo el mundo y se han escrito miles y miles de páginas sobre su carrera; sin embargo, en Surrender, es ahora Bono quien se sienta ante la hoja en blanco para contarnos, por primera vez y en primera persona, los detalles de su formidable vida y las personas con las que la ha compartido. Su indistinguible voz nos conduce en un recorrido que va desde su infancia en Dublín, pasando por la repentina muerte de su madre cuando tenía 14 años y el insólito camino que hubo de recorrer U2 para convertirse en uno de los grupos de rock más influyentes del planeta, hasta llegar a un examen de las más de dos décadas que ha dedicado al activismo, luchando contra el SIDA y la pobreza extrema. La escritura de Bono, con la que ha realizado un ejercicio de autorreflexión honesta, no exenta de un saludable sentido del humor, logra abrir más el foco sobre su vida, así como sobre su familia, sus amigos y sus creencias, los cuales le han servido de apoyo, acicate y ejemplo durante todos estos años.

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THE REVOLUTIONARY
Stacy Schiff
Cover of THE REVOLUTIONARY

THE REVOLUTIONARY

by Stacy Schiff · Little, Brown

10 wks on list

This "glorious" revelatory biography from a Pulitzer Prize winner is about the most essential Founding Father (Ron Chernow)—the one who stood behind the change in thinking that produced the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd and eloquent man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution. A singular figure at a singular moment, Adams amplified the Boston Massacre. He helped to mastermind the Boston Tea Party. He employed every tool available to rally a town, a colony, and eventually a band of colonies behind him, creating the cause that created a country. For his efforts he became the most wanted man in America: When Paul Revere rode to Lexington in 1775, it was to warn Samuel Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason. In The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Schiff brings her masterful skills to Adams’s improbable life, illuminating his transformation from aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies. Arresting, original, and deliriously dramatic, this is a long-overdue chapter in the history of our nation. ONE OF WALL STREET JOURNAL'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF LOS ANGELES TIMES TOP 5 NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 And named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by The New Yorker, TIME, Oprah Daily, USA Today, New York Magazine, Air Mail, Boston Globe, and more! "A glorious book that is as entertaining as it is vitally important.” —Ron Chernow "A beautifully crafted, invaluable biography…Schiff ingeniously connects the past to our present and future, underscoring the lessons of Adams while reclaiming our nation’s self-evident truths at a moment when we seemed to have forgotten them." —Oprah Daily

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THE SONG OF THE CELL
Siddhartha Mukherjee
Cover of THE SONG OF THE CELL

THE SONG OF THE CELL

by Siddhartha Mukherjee · Scribner

10 wks on list

**Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2023** A NEW YORK TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, ECONOMIST, MAIL ON SUNDAY and GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR From the dawn of life itself, every being that has ever lived owes its existence to the cell. 'Will leave you in awe' Guardian The discovery of this vital form led to a transformation in medicine but also in our understanding of ourselves - not as bodies or machines but as ecosystems. It has also given us the power to treat a vast array of mortal maladies...and even to create new kinds of human altogether. Rich with stories of scientists, doctors and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is a stunning ode to the building blocks of life and the cutting-edge science harnessing their power for the better. 'Profound...As big a topic as life itself' The Times 'Medical magic' Daily Telegraph 'Vast...important...optimistic' Mail on Sunday

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AND THERE WAS LIGHT
Jon Meacham
Cover of AND THERE WAS LIGHT

AND THERE WAS LIGHT

by Jon Meacham · Random House

11 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how—and why—he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America. “Meacham has given us the Lincoln for our time.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize • Longlisted for the Biographers International Plutarch Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen as the greatest of American presidents—a remote icon—or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment, essential to the story of justice in America, began as he grew up in an antislavery Baptist community; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him to see the right. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination in 1865: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans, Lincoln’s story illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events.

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NEW
CRYING IN H MART
Michelle Zauner
Cover of CRYING IN H MART

CRYING IN H MART

by Michelle Zauner · Knopf

61 wks on list

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American—“in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR). • CELEBRATING OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG
Bob Dylan
Cover of THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG

by Bob Dylan · Simon & Schuster

9 wks on list

The Philosophy of Modern Song is Bob Dylan’s first book of new writing since 2004’s Chronicles: Volume One—and since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers his extraordinary insight into the nature of popular music. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on the human condition. Running throughout the book are nearly 150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence. In 2020, with the release of his outstanding album Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan became the first artist to have an album hit the Billboard Top 40 in each decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft in all those years, and like everything that Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.

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AN IMMENSE WORLD
Ed Yong
Cover of AN IMMENSE WORLD

AN IMMENSE WORLD

by Ed Yong · Random House

10 wks on list

** WINNER OF THE 2023 ROYAL SOCIETY TRIVEDI SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE ** AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ** This is our world, as you've never seen it before. 'Immersive and mind-blowing' Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving only a tiny sliver of this world. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, welcoming us into previously unfathomable dimensions - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. Showing us that in order to understand our world we don't need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes. A NEW YORK TIMES, GUARDIAN, ECONOMIST, SPECTATOR, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT and NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR **Winner of 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction** 'Suffused with magic' Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Song of the Cell 'A book that prompts awe at the world around us' Sunday Times Sunday Times bestseller, July 2023

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CINEMA SPECULATION
Quentin Tarantino
Cover of CINEMA SPECULATION

CINEMA SPECULATION

by Quentin Tarantino · Harper

9 wks on list

Instant New York Times bestseller The long-awaited first work of nonfiction from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a deliriously entertaining, wickedly intelligent cinema book as unique and creative as anything by Quentin Tarantino. In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans—and all movie lovers—could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining. At once film criticism, film theory, a feat of reporting, and wonderful personal history, it is all written in the singular voice recognizable immediately as QT’s and with the rare perspective about cinema possible only from one of the greatest practitioners of the artform ever.

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THE MYTH OF NORMAL
Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté

THE MYTH OF NORMAL

by Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté · Avery

9 wks on list

In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Mate eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really "normal" when it comes to health?

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FINDING ME
Viola Davis
Cover of FINDING ME

FINDING ME

by Viola Davis · HarperOne

25 wks on list

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A mind-blowing and emotionally honest tale of survival against all odds.' BERNARDINE EVARISTO 'A breathtaking memoir...I was so moved by this book.' Oprah 'It is startlingly honest and, at times, a jaw-dropping read, charting her rise from poverty and abuse to becoming the first African-American to win the triple crown of an Oscar, Emmy and Tony for acting.' BBC News THE DEEPLY PERSONAL, BRUTALLY HONEST ACCOUNT OF VIOLA'S INSPIRING LIFE In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose and my strength, but also to finding my voice in a world that didn't always see me. As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. They are bogarted, reinvented to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone who is searching for a way to understand and overcome a complicated past, let go of shame, and find acceptance. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be...you. Finding Me is a deep reflection on my past and a promise for my future. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

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STARRY MESSENGER
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Cover of STARRY MESSENGER

STARRY MESSENGER

by Neil deGrasse Tyson · Holt

9 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time—war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, and race—in a way that stimulates a deeper sense of unity for us all. In a time when our political and cultural views feel more polarized than ever, Tyson provides a much-needed antidote to so much of what divides us, while making a passionate case for the twin chariots of enlightenment—a cosmic perspective and the rationality of science. After thinking deeply about how science sees the world and about Earth as a planet, the human brain has the capacity to reset and recalibrates life’s priorities, shaping the actions we might take in response. No outlook on culture, society, or civilization remains untouched. With crystalline prose, Starry Messenger walks us through the scientific palette that sees and paints the world differently. From insights on resolving global conflict to reminders of how precious it is to be alive, Tyson reveals, with warmth and eloquence, an array of brilliant and beautiful truths that apply to us all, informed and enlightened by knowledge of our place in the universe.

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