Middlebrow Bestsellers — Week of 10/11/09
By:
October 12, 2009
1) THREE CUPS OF TEA, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. (Penguin, $15.) A former climber builds schools in villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Sentimental, uplifting, a favorite gift from compassionate conservatives to their liberal undergrad children.
2) THE GLASS CASTLE, by Jeannette Walls. (Scribner, $15.) The author recalls a bizarre childhood during which she and her siblings moved constantly. “Bizarre” — a middlebrow keyword. Also, see Joshua Glenn on “premature biographication.”
3) FREAKONOMICS, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. (Harper Perennial, $15.99.) A scholar and a journalist apply economic theory to nearly everything. Magical science!
4) THE TIPPING POINT, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $14.95.) A study of social epidemics, otherwise known as fads. Magical science!
5) CLUNK, by Gladwell Moore (Threshold Editions, $14.99.) The neuroscience of car accidents. Magical science!
6) JULIE & JULIA, by Julie Powell. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $14.99;, Little, Brown, $7.99.) A memoir of trying every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking Memoir. Cooking. Ur-middlebrow Nora Ephron directed the movie. Three strikes and you’re out! NB: MY LIFE IN FRANCE, by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme, currently #2 on the NYT paperback nonfiction bestseller list, is not middlebrow.
7) BLINK, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $15.99.) Instinct in the workings of the mind. Magical science!
8 ) EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Penguin, $15.) A writer’s yearlong journey in search of self takes her to Italy, India, and Indonesia. Memoir. Cooking/Eating. Exotic Tourism. Strike three!
9) THE P WORD, by Julee Schlesinger. (HarperOne, $13.99.) Subtitle: “How I Ate Myself Into a Deeper, Richer, and Fuller Postpartum Sex Life.” ’Nuff said.
10) SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME, by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent. (Nelson, $14.99.) “The unlikely friendship between a homeless drifter and a successful art dealer who meet at a shelter in Texas.” There’s that word, again: unlikely.