BEST-SELLERS: PAPERBACK BOOKS

Rankings reflect sales for the week ending Saturday, March 17, which are reported on a confidential basis by vendors offering a wide range of general interest titles. Every week, thousands of diverse selling locations report their actual sales on hundreds of thousands of individual titles. The panel of reporting retailers is comprehensive and reflects sales in stores of all sizes and demographics across the United States. An asterisk (*) indicates that a book’s sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A (b) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders. The New York Times Best Sellers are compiled and archived by The Best-Seller Lists Desk of The New York Times News Department, and are separate from the Culture, Advertising and Business sides of The New York Times Company. More information on rankings and methodology: www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology.

NONFICTION

1. A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, by Stephen W. Hawking. (Bantam)

The British cosmologist reviews efforts to create a unified theory of the universe; first published in 1988.

THIS WEEK: 1

WEEKS ON LIST: 14

2. BEING MORTAL, by Atul Gawande. (Picador)

The surgeon and New Yorker writer considers how doctors fail patients at the end of life, and how they can do better.

THIS WEEK: 2

WEEKS ON LIST: 28

3. HORSE SOLDIERS, by Doug Stanton. (Scribner)

A small group of Special Forces soldiers fought the Taliban on horseback shortly after 9/11. The basis of the movie “12 Strong.”

THIS WEEK: 3

WEEKS ON LIST: 14

4. JUST MERCY, by Bryan Stevenson. (Spiegel & Grau)

A law professor and MacArthur grant recipient’s memoir of his decades of work to free innocent people condemned to death.

THIS WEEK: 4

WEEKS ON LIST: 95

5. THINKING, FAST AND SLOW, by Daniel Kahneman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

A winner of the Nobel in economic science discusses how we make choices in business and personal lives and when we can and cannot trust our intuitions.

THIS WEEK: 5

WEEKS ON LIST: 163

6. THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY, by Erik Larson. (Vintage)

A story of how an architect and a serial killer were linked by the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Originally published in 2003.

THIS WEEK: 6

WEEKS ON LIST: 355

7. THE POWER OF HABIT, by Charles Duhigg. (Random House)

An examination of the science behind habits, how we form them and break them.

THIS WEEK: 7

WEEKS ON LIST: 108

8. EVICTED, by Matthew Desmond. (Broadway)

How poor people repeatedly lose their homes while landlords profit.

THIS WEEK: 8

WEEKS ON LIST: 27

9*. THE NEW JIM CROW, by Michelle Alexander. (New Press)

A law professor on the war on drugs and its role in the disproportionate incarceration of black men.

THIS WEEK: 9*

WEEKS ON LIST: 170

10. THE GLASS CASTLE, by Jeannette Walls. (Scribner)

The author recalls a bizarre childhood. Originally published in 2005 and the basis of the movie. (b)

THIS WEEK: 10

WEEKS ON LIST: 416

11. QUIET, by Susan Cain. (Broadway)

Introverts — approximately one-third of the population — are undervalued in American society.

THIS WEEK: 11

WEEKS ON LIST: 152

12. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by Ron Chernow. (Penguin)

A biography of the first Treasury secretary and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Originally published in 2004 and the basis of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical.

THIS WEEK: 12

WEEKS ON LIST: 97

13. DODGE CITY, by Tom Clavin. (St. Martin’s)

This history of the “wickedest town in the West,” full of colorful characters, focuses on Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.

THIS WEEK: 13

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

14. THE RADIUM GIRLS, by Kate Moore. (Sourcebooks)

A group of female factory workers get a nickname from the effects of radium paint used at their jobs. Years later, their illnesses are the grounds for a fight for workers’ rights.

THIS WEEK: 14

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

15. THE SILK ROADS, by Peter Frankopan. (Vintage)

A history of the Central Asian trade routes linking Europe and China offers a new approach to understanding the movement of ideas and goods that shape global civilization.

THIS WEEK: 15

WEEKS ON LIST: 5

TRADE FICTION

1. READY PLAYER ONE, by Ernest Cline. (Broadway)

It’s 2044, life on a resource-depleted Earth has grown increasingly grim, and the key to a vast fortune is hidden in a virtual-reality world.

THIS WEEK: 1

WEEKS ON LIST: 50

2. THE SUN AND HER FLOWERS, by Rupi Kaur. (Andrews McMeel)

A second collection of poetry from the author of “Milk and Honey.”

THIS WEEK: 2

WEEKS ON LIST: 24

3. MILK AND HONEY, by Rupi Kaur. (Andrews McMeel)

A collection of poetry about love, loss, trauma and healing.

THIS WEEK: 3

WEEKS ON LIST: 101

4. THE LYING GAME, by Ruth Ware. (Gallery/Scout)

Four friends, who had been expelled during their final year of school after the mysterious death of their art teacher, come together as their long-held secret threatens to emerge.

THIS WEEK: 4

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

5. SMALL GREAT THINGS, by Jodi Picoult. (Ballantine)

A medical crisis entangles a black nurse, a white supremacist father and a white lawyer.

THIS WEEK: 5

WEEKS ON LIST: 4

6. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, by André Aciman. (Picador)

A love affair between an adolescent boy and a 24-year-old graduate student begins in the Italian Riviera in the 1980s.

THIS WEEK: 6

WEEKS ON LIST: 11

7*. CAMINO ISLAND, by John Grisham. (Bantam)

A search for stolen rare manuscripts leads to a Florida island.

THIS WEEK: 7*

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

8. THE HANDMAID’S TALE, by Margaret Atwood. (Anchor)

In the Republic of Gilead’s dystopian future, men and women perform the services assigned to them. The basis of the Hulu series; originally published in 1985.

THIS WEEK: 8

WEEKS ON LIST: 56

9. WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES, by Georgia Hunter. (Penguin)

In 1939, members of a Jewish family in Radom, Poland, are forced into different circumstances as the horrors in Europe increase.

THIS WEEK: 9

WEEKS ON LIST: 11

10. THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10, by Ruth Ware. (Scout)

A travel writer on a cruise is certain she has heard a body thrown overboard, but no one believes her.

THIS WEEK: 10

WEEKS ON LIST: 41

11. PACHINKO, by Min Jin Lee. (Grand Central)

In the early 20th century, a Korean fisherman’s daughter has a wealthy stranger’s child, marries a pastor and moves to Japan.

THIS WEEK: 11

WEEKS ON LIST: 9

12. LILAC GIRLS, by Martha Hall Kelly. (Ballantine)

The lives of a New York socialite and a young German doctor intersect with a Polish teenager who is sent to Ravensbrück, a Nazi concentration camp for women.

THIS WEEK: 12

WEEKS ON LIST: 53

13. LINCOLN IN THE BARDO, by George Saunders. (Random House)

Visiting the grave of his recently deceased young son in 1862, Lincoln encounters a cemetery full of ghosts. The author’s first novel and winner of the 2017 Man Booker Prize.

THIS WEEK: 13

WEEKS ON LIST: 6

14. ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, by Anthony Doerr. (Scribner)

The lives of a blind French girl and a gadget-obsessed German boy before and during World War II.

THIS WEEK: 14

WEEKS ON LIST: 40

15. NORSE MYTHOLOGY, by Neil Gaiman. (Norton)

A modern retelling of Norse folklore.

THIS WEEK: 15

WEEKS ON LIST: 1