Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending June 19, 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.
Apparently there are lots of small children in St. Louis who are resistant to bedtime. Their parents have found a kindred spirit in Adam Mansbach. Mansbach's book Go The Fuck to Sleep (illustrated by Ricardo Cortés, read in the audio version by Samuel L. Jackson) has catapulted to the top of the local adult bestseller list on the basis of verses like, "The owls fly forth from the treetops./ Through the air, they soar and they sweep./ A hot crimson rage fills my heart, love./ For real, shut the fuck up and sleep."
Over at Slate, cultural critic Katie Roiphe argues that Mansbach's lament illustrates the Freudian principle that jokes stem from "hostile purposes" -- that they allow us to express our hidden rage -- and that the parents in the book, who want nothing more than the simple pleasure of sitting on the couch with a bag of microwave popcorn and watching a nice DVD, would be better served by getting dolled up, hiring a babysitter and heading out for a night on the town. This suggestion naturally drew the not-so-veiled rage of hundreds of Slate readers who happen to be sleep-deprived parents and would honestly prefer a quiet evening at home on the couch even if they could afford a baby-sitter which, incidentally, they can't.
Let's go over to the kids' list to see what sort of material these parents are buying their young ones. Hmmm. At the top of the list are the first and third books in Suzanne Collins' excellent and also exciting and super-violent and possibly nightmare-inducing Hunger Games trilogy, followed by The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, a tale of a Jewish girl growing up in Nazi Germany.
Gosh, it's no wonder nobody wants to go the fuck to sleep.
Full lists after the jump.
Adult Bestsellers:
1. Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortés 2. Stan Musial: An American Life by George Vecsey 3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett 4. American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Design by Robert Sharoff 5. Room by Emma Donohue 6. The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy Seal by Eric Greitens 7. Just Kids by Patti Smith 8. The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them by Wayne Pacelle 9. Netsuke by Rikki Ducornet 10. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larsen
Children's/YA Bestsellers:
1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 2. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins 3. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 4. Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer by Megan McDonald 5. Dork Diaries 3: Tales from a Not-So-Talented Pop Star by Rachel Renee Russell 6. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson 7. Faith, Hope, and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor 8. Island by Gary Paulsen 9. Curious George at the Baseball Game by Margret and H.A. Rey 10. Heist Society by Ally Carter
