Phinney Books Bestsellers: Year Two
Our bestselling books from June 20, 2015 through June 19, 2016. Totals for hardcover and paperback for a single title are combined. Notebooks and coloring books not included.
Between the World and Me
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Narrated by Ta-Nehisi Coates / 3 hours 35 minutes
Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the single best writer on the subject of race in the United States” (The New York Observer)
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER | NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER | PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST | NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS... Read More »
My Brilliant Friend
The Neapolitan Novels: Book #1
By Elena Ferrante & Ann Goldstein
Narrated by Hillary Huber / 12 hours 37 minutes
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila, who represent the story of a nation and the nature of friendship.The story begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these... Read More »
H Is for Hawk
By Helen Macdonald
Narrated by Helen Macdonald / 11 hours 6 minutes
When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer captivated by hawks since childhood, she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators: the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral anger mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and... Read More »
All the Light We Cannot See
A Novel
By Anthony Doerr
Narrated by Zach Appelman / 16 hours 2 minutes
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris... Read More »
Euphoria
A Novel
By Lily King
Narrated by Simon Vance & Xe Sands / 6 hours 53 minutes
From New England Book Award winner Lily King comes a breathtaking novel about three young anthropologists of the 1930s caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens their bonds, their careers, and ultimately, their lives.English anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in... Read More »
Station Eleven
A novel
By Emily St. John Mandel
Narrated by Kirsten Potter / 10 hours 39 minutes
2014 National Book Award Finalist
A New York Times Bestseller
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for... Read More »
Being Mortal
Medicine and What Matters in the End
Kushiel's Legacy: Book #36
By Atul Gawande
Narrated by Robert Petkoff / 9 hours 3 minutes
In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death,... Read More »
A Brief History of Seven Killings
By Marlon James
Narrated by Ryan Anderson, Dwight Bacquie, Cherise Boothe, Robertson Dean, Johnathan McClain & Robert Younis / 25 hours 59 minutes
On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert, gunmen stormed his house, machine guns blazing. The attack nearly killed the Reggae superstar, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Marley would go on to perform at the free concert on December 5,... Read More »
Gratitude
By Oliver Sacks
Narrated by Dan Woren / 36 minutes
“My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
—Oliver Sacks
No writer has succeeded in capturing... Read More »
The Boys in the Boat
Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
By Daniel James Brown
Narrated by Edward Herrmann / 14 hours 24 minutes
The Boys in the Boat
“Determined to beat the odds, nine working-class boys from the University of Washington's rowing team overcome a depressive beginning to defeat the world at Hitler's 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Underdogs from day one, fighting poverty and privilege along the way, this crew shocks all with their unbelievable come-from-behind effort to become gold medalists. Filled with details of a post-Depression and a pre-WWII era, this is the inspiring tale of a team winning the hearts of a nation while achieving their lifelong dream. Read by Edward Herrman, "The Boys in the Boat" is a must-listen for all non-fiction fans.”
Kristin, McLean & Eakin Booksellers
Go Set a Watchman
A Novel
By Harper Lee
Narrated by Reese Witherspoon / 6 hours 57 minutes
Performed by Reese Witherspoon
#1 New York Times Bestseller
“Go Set a Watchman is such an important book, perhaps the most important novel on race to come out of the white South in decades…
— New York Times (Opinion Pages)
A landmark novel by Harper Lee, set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece, To Kill a... Read More »
M Train
By Patti Smith
Narrated by Patti Smith / 6 hours 31 minutes
National Best Seller
From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: an unforgettable odyssey of a legendary artist, told through the prism of the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. It is a book Patti Smith has described as “a roadmap to my life.”
M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes... Read More »
Just Mercy
A Story of Justice and Redemption
By Bryan Stevenson
Narrated by Bryan Stevenson / 11 hours 3 minutes
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING MICHAEL B. JORDAN AND JAMIE FOXX
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by The New... Read More »
The Story of a New Name
The Neapolitan Novels: Book #2
By Elena Ferrante & Ann Goldstein
Narrated by Hillary Huber / 19 hours 3 minutes
The Story of a New Name follows Elena Ferrante's critically acclaimed My Brilliant Friend, featuring Lila and Elena. The two protagonists are now in their twenties, and marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila. Meanwhile, Elena continues her journey of self-discovery. These young women share a complex and evolving bond that brings them close at... Read More »
Fates and Furies
A Novel
By Lauren Groff
Narrated by Will Damron & Julia Whelan / 14 hours 3 minutes
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A FINALIST FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
NPR MORNING EDITION BOOK CLUB PICK
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, TIME, THE SEATTLE TIMES, MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE, SLATE, LIBRARY JOURNAL, KIRKUS, AND MANY MORE
“Lauren Groff is a writer of rare gifts, and Fates and Furies is an unabashedly... Read More »
The Book with No Pictures
By B. J. Novak
Narrated by B. J. Novak & Busy Phillips / 9 minutes
This innovative and wildly funny read-aloud by award-winning humorist/actor B.J. Novak will turn any reader into a comedian.
You might think a book with no pictures seems boring and serious. Except . . . here’s how books work. Everything written on the page has to be said by the person reading it aloud. Even if the words say . . .
BLORK. Or... Read More »
Ready Player One
By Ernest Cline
Narrated by Wil Wheaton / 15 hours 39 minutes
Ready Player One
“If you are at all into video games or the 1980's you are going to love Ready Player One. In a future where people often prefer to live in virtual reality than the real world, the man who invented The Oasis is one of the most famous people in the world. Inside the Oasis you can travel from planet to planet, go to school and live out your wildest dreams. But when he dies and leaves his fortune to whoever can find his "easter egg" hidden inside The Oasis - the challenge begins. I'm not even a huge fan of video games and thought this book was a lot of fun. I listened to the audio book read by Wil Wheaton which was great.”
Madison, Liberty Bay Books
Mercy Watson to the Rescue
Mercy Watson: Book #1
By Kate DiCamillo
Narrated by Ron McLarty / 19 minutes
To Mr. and Mrs. Watson, Mercy is not just a pig–she’s a porcine wonder. And to the portly and good-natured Mercy, the Watsons are an excellent source of buttered toast, not to mention that buttery-toasty feeling she gets when she snuggles into bed with them. This is not, however, so good for the Watsons’ bed. BOOM! CRACK! Welcome to the wry and... Read More »
When Breath Becomes Air
By Paul Kalanithi & Abraham Verghese
Narrated by Sunil Malhotra & Cassandra Campbell / 5 hours 34 minutes
When Breath Becomes Air
“With a message both mournful and life-affirming, When Breath Becomes Air chronicles a young doctor's journey from literature student to promising neurosurgeon and finally to a patient in his own hospital after being diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. Always profound, never sentimental, this important book refuses to take refuge in platitudes, instead facing mortality with honesty and humility. Written in engaging prose and filled with penetrating insights, this story is relevant to everyone and will captivate fans of memoir, literature, philosophy, and popular science alike. Lyrical passages of great beauty and vulnerability are deftly balanced by bright, candid moments of joy and even humor. Come prepared with plenty of tissues; over and over again this exquisite book will break your heart.”
Carmen Tracey, Loganberry Books
The Story of the Lost Child
The Neapolitan Novels: Book #4
By Elena Ferrante & Ann Goldstein
Narrated by Hillary Huber / 18 hours 26 minutes
"Nothing quite like this has ever been published before," proclaimed the Guardian about the Neapolitan Novels in 2014. The first book in the series, My Brilliant Friend, was a New York Times bestseller. Book three was a Times bestseller and a Notable Book of the Year. It was named a best book of 2014 twenty-five times, including in the Times... Read More »