Bestselling books the week of 4/19/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.

1. HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Calico Joe, by John Grisham, Doubleday
 2. Sacré Bleu, by Christopher Moore, Morrow
 3. The Beginner's Goodbye, by Anne Tyler, Knopf
 4. The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection, by Alexander McCall Smith, Pantheon
 5. Elegy for Eddie, by Jacqueline Winspear, Harper
 6. The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, Knopf
 7. Beastly Things, by Donna Leon, Atlantic Monthly
 8. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain, Ballantine
 9. The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach, Little Brown
 10. The Lifeboat, by Charlotte Rogan, Reagan Arthur Books
 11. The Shoemaker's Wife, by Adriana Trigiani, Harper
 12. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, Bantam
 13. Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James, Knopf
 14. Carry the One, by Carol Anshaw, S&S
 15. Defending Jacob, by William Landay, Delacorte

ON THE RISE:
 17. The Cove, by Ron Rash, Ecco Press
 Rash's lyrical, heart-rending novel of a doomed love affair caught in the turmoil of a nation at war is an April 2012 Indie Next List Great Read.

1 of 8

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.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.