Bestsellers and....not

'Tis the season for everyone and their book review section to list their best books of the year. I thought I would run down what's hot this holiday season, and a few things we thought we'd be selling better than we are. To begin, the single bestselling item at Green Apple since Thanksgiving is (drumroll)- finger monsters! Yeah, we're a bookstore, but people have a hard time resisting these little guys at a buck a pop. The next bestselling item is...Mad Libs! Holy cow, I thought we had a serious literary venture going here. Our remainder buyer bought a huge assortment of Mad Libs, and we're moving them out by the armload at just $1.98 each. OK, let's get serious now. The bestselling book in the store, even though we were out of it until the middle of the month, is R. Crumb's awesome Book of Genesis. We've got a bunch in stock right now, but it's going fast. The other bestselling books, in descending order, are The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, National Book Award winner Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, Alice Munro's new collection of stories Too Much Happiness, and Ad Hoc at Home, which unfortunately is about to be out of stock for a while. Our current Book of the Month, Bicycle Diaries, is next on the list, and to complete the list is a book off our staff favorites display, Art & Fear. Our new and very functional website lists inventory as of last midnight, and you can order a book to be picked up in the store. Technology actually making your life easier for once.

Now for some books that we had high hopes for, but our customers don't seem to share our enthusiasm. Topping that list is James Ellroy's magnum opus, Blood's a Rover. Not sure why folks aren't putting this one under their tree. Another book we had high hopes for is Justice, which seems like a perfect dad book. Lastly, all of the folks who bought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies don't seem to be as enthusiastic for Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, at least not at Green Apple (I have noticed it on nation bestseller lists).