Bestselling books the week of 5/17/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.

4. TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson, Broadway
 2. Bossypants, by Tina Fey, Reagan Arthur Books
 3. Unlikely Friendships, by Jennifer S. Holland, Workman
 4. Turn Right at Machu Picchu, by Mark Adams, Plume
 5. Then Again, by Diane Keaton, Random House
 6. Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from Storycorps, by Dave Isay (Ed.), Penguin
 7. Nothing Daunted, by Dorothy Wickenden, Scribner
 8. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, Broadway
 9. Heaven Is for Real, by Todd Burpo, Thomas Nelson
 10. Moonwalking With Einstein, by Joshua Foer, Penguin
 11. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, by The Countess of Carnarvon, Broadway
 12. F in Exams, by Richard Benson, Chronicle
 13. The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin, Harper
 14. The Hare With Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal, Picador
 15. Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall, Vintage

ON THE RISE:
 17. The Psychopath Test, by Jon Ronson, Riverhead
 Ronson investigates psychopaths and the industry of doctors, scientists, and everyone else who studies them.

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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.

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