The greatest activity this week is in childrens books. Unsurprisingly, The Tales of Beedle the Bard lands at #1 after just a few days on sale (it came out on Thursday and this list closed on Sunday). More surprising; nine-year-old Alec Greven’s manual on How to Talk to Girls hits the list.

Time magazine may have discovered the key to the book’s success,

…will the book actually help you talk to girls? Not really. But it makes for a good gag gift. Have a permanently single male friend? Want to creep out strangers by reading it alone at a bar? Self-help books written by 9-year-olds provide endless opportunities for awkward, uncomfortable amusement. 

Couple that with the amazing amount of publicity the book’s been getting and an appearance on the bestseller list is not surprising after all.

Clearly Greven’s publisher was not surprised; three more of his advice books are in the pipeline, each with progressively more difficult subjects:

How to Talk to Moms

Alec Greven

• Hardcover: $9.99; 48 pages
• Publisher: Collins (March 17, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0061710016
• ISBN-13: 978-0061710018

And yes, after that, it’s How to Talk to Dads.

[no cover yet]

How to Talk to Dads

Alec Greven

• Hardcover: $9.99; 48 pages
• Publisher: Collins (April 21, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0061729302
• ISBN-13: 978-0061729300

Below are all the titles new to the list. USA Today’s list is not broken down by categories, but to make it easier for library buyers, we divide the titles here by broad categories. The numbers reflect where the titles appear on the full list.

Adult Fiction

#9 Scarpetta, Patricia Cornwell,  Putnam

#50 The Charlemagne Pursuit, Steve Berry,  Ballantine Books

Adult Nonfiction

#96 Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, Guy Fieri, Ann Volkwein,  William Morrow

#138 The American Patriot’s Almanac, William J. Bennett, John Cribb,  Thomas Nelson

Paperback Originals

#38 Dead After Dark, Sherrilyn Kenyon, J.R. Ward, Susan Squires, Dianna Love,  St. Martin’s

#97 Zen and the Art of Vampires, Katie Macalister,  Signet

Childrens

#1 The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling,  Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic

#31 The 39 Clues: One False Note, Gordon Korman,  Scholastic

#53 How to Talk to Girls, Alec Greven, Kei Acedera,  Collins

#114 Gingerbread Friends, Jan Brett,  Putnam Juvenile

New to the USA Today list, this has been on the NYT Children’s list for 7 weeks.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 11:15 am and is filed under Bestsellers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.