Skip to footer

'Steve Jobs' and 'The Help' dominate reading lists in many American cities

Data gathered by Nielsen BookScan for The Daily Beast show many of the same titles are popular in American cities – but exceptions include 'Heaven Is For Real' and 'The Great Gatsby.'

'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett occupied both the No. 1 and No. 2 fiction slots in several cities, thanks to the movie tie-in edition.
  • By Molly Driscoll

Data gathered by Nielsen BookScan for The Daily Beast showed that while cities in America may be divided by politics or geography, many of their residents are enjoying the same books – namely “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson and “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett.

The data was compiled using information from various bookstores in 10 of America’s largest cities, including New York, Chicago, Boston, and Dallas, and examined which nonfiction and fiction titles were the most popular.

“Steve Jobs” topped the nonfiction list in every city listed except Dallas and Houston, where the book “Heaven Is For Real” by Todd Burpo took the top spot. Stockett’s novel about maids in 1960s Mississippi took the top fiction spot in every city, in many securing the top two with “The Help (Movie Tie-In Edition)” coming in at the second spot.

In non-fiction, books that often showed up in the top five of the list were Burpo’s book, “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand, and “Killing Lincoln” by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. “Bossypants” by Tina Fey showed up in spots No. 3 and 4 in several cities, including New York and Los Angeles, but were much further down in cities such as Dallas, Detroit and Houston.

While “The Help” swept the fiction list, another popular novel was “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen, which came in at No. 3 in many cities. Also often coming in the top five were “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larssen and “11/22/63” by Stephen King. In Dallas, Detroit, and Houston, the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee made the fiction list of most popular novels, although it did not appear on the list at all in any other city. The same went for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby,” which made the list in Los Angeles and Houston, but didn’t rank in any other city. (Maybe residents are re-reading to get ready for Baz Luhrmann’s big-screen adaptation due in December.)

Molly Driscoll is a Monitor contributor.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Steve Jobs' and 'The Help' dominate reading lists in many American cities
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0430/Steve-Jobs-and-The-Help-dominate-reading-lists-in-many-American-cities
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe