Fiction leading 2024 book sales in U.S., Canada

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This article was published 13/07/2024 (825 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A finalist for this year’s CBC Canada Reads competition is the top-selling book by Canadian authors for the first half of 2024, according to Quill & Quire.

Denison Avenue, written by Christina Wong and illustrated by Daniel Innes, topped the list of Canadian titles sold by 258 independent booksellers in Canada from Jan. 1 to June 19. It was followed by Jessica Johns’ Bad Cree, Catherine Leroux’s The Future, Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow and Carley Fortune’s Meet Me at the Lake. Rice’s follow-up Moon of the Turning Leaves was sixth highest, while further down the order, David A. Robertson’s 2020 middle-grade novel The Barren Grounds held down the 14th spot.

The top five books by Canadian authors and published by Canadian publishers were Denison Avenue, The Future, Moon of the Crusted Snow, Téa Mutonji’s Shut Up You’re Pretty and Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves.

To check out the top 25 sellers in both categories, see here.

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South of the border, the adult fantasy category has helped book sales stay relatively steady in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period the previous year, according to Publishers Weekly.

Overall, unit sales for the first half of 2024 were down 0.4 per cent compared to the first half of 2023. Adult fiction sales in the U.S., however, were up 6.4 per cent in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, driven by popular romantasy books by authors such as Rebecca Yarros (Iron Flame, Fourth Wing) and Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses).

Sales in the romantasy category jumped a staggering 85.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2023, with Maas and Yarros having penned five of the year’s top 10 overall bestsellers so far (Kristin Hannah’s The Women sits in the top spot currently).

In other categories, adult non-fiction sales were down by 2.9 per cent, as was juvenile fiction — although young adult fiction was up by 6.2 per cent.

For all the stats and details, see here.

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Whodunit? Mystery Bookstore (163 Lilac St.) is hosting a double book launch today — with two books by the same local author.

Kate Wiley will launch the first two thrillers in her new three-book series featuring detective Margo Phalen, The Killer’s Daughter and Her Father’s Secret, at 5 p.m. today. (The third book, The Killer Instinct, is slated to be published this fall.)

Wiley also publishes cosier mysteries under the name Gretchen Rue as well as urban fantasies and modern romances under the name Sierra Dean. You can get to know them all a little better at sierradean.com.

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It’s not too late to get the kids/grandkids signed up for the Free Press Summer Reading Challenge for Kids, which returns for its fifth year in partnership with McNally Robinson Booksellers.

Three reading lists for four books each have been compiled for kids in three age groups: 7-9, 10-12 and 13-15. Once young readers are finished with a book or books — which they can pick up at McNally Robinson or at local libraries — the Free Press is looking for short starred (out of five) reviews from kids, which will run in the books section as well as on the Free Press website in both July and August. (The first batch of reviews is slated to run July 27.)

This year’s selections include Manitoba-born Jon Klassen’s The Skull, Kate DiCamillo’s The Puppets of Spellhorst, Winnipeg author David A. Robertson’s The Kodiaks, Joanna Cacao’s The Secret of the Ravens and Joel A. Sutherland’s House of Ash and Bone.

For a complete list of the books in this year’s Summer Reading Challenge for Kids and to register for free, visit Kids Book Club.

books@freepress.mb.ca