Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending June 26, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books, Subterranean Books and Sue's News.
Have you heard? Go the Fuck to Sleep is not the funny, charming children's book parody we all thought it was. We were deceived. It's really an agent of child abuse. (Or maybe some of you heard Werner Herzog's creepy reading and figured that out already.)
Writes Karen Spears Zacharias on CNN.com:
Nobody is suggesting that there's a connection between Adam Mansbach's book and child abuse or child neglect. Still, there's no denying the reason "Go the F*** to Sleep" should be kept out of reach of children is because of its violent language and because of the way it demeans children."Imagine if this were written about Jews, blacks, Muslims or Latinos," says Dr. David Arredondo....It is hard to imagine this kind of humor being tolerated by any of the marginalized groups Arredondo cited.
Oh, Karen Spears Zacharias and Dr. David Arredondo, you are too, too clever, comparing small children who don't want to go to sleep to historically oppressed minorities!
So parents of St. Louis, the many of you who bought this book and made it the number-one adult bestseller in this fair city, be sure to keep it out of sight of your young ones. Hide it in the secret drawer where you keep your porn and your sex toys. It's as bad as Mein Kampf. If your little ones get their hands on it -- and if they know how to read -- you could have a revolution on your hands. (And if they read Mockingjay, the number-one children's bestseller, they'll know exactly how to do it.)
Or maybe they'll stop at this verse: "The flowers doze low in the meadows/And high on the mountains so steep./My life is a failure, I'm a shitty-ass parent./Stop fucking with me please, and sleep." And they'll feel some pity and compassion.
In other news, there's a baseball book on the bestseller list that does not feature a St. Louis Cardinal. Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourne, star of Fifty-nine in '84, played for the now-defunct Providence Grays where, in 1884, he notched 59 wins, a record that will probably never be broken.
Full lists after the jump:
Adult Bestsellers:
1. Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortés 2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett 3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot 4. Fifty-nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had by Edward Achorn 5. The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees 6. Grant by Jean Edward Smith 7. The Strawberry Letter by Shirley Strawberry 8. A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron 9. Why We Believe in Gods: A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith by Thomas Anderson Jr. 10. Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
Children's/YA Bestsellers:
1. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins 2. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins 3. Oggie Cooder by Sarah Weeks 4. Green Lantern: Blackest Night by Geoff Johns 5. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs 6. Only One You by Linda Kranz 7. Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots? by Carmela Coyle 8. Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter 9. Mom, I Love Spaghetti by Gary W. Fort 10. Remarkable Animals: 1000 Amazing Amalgamations by Tony Meeuwissen
