Hand-Picked Indie Favorites Hit the 2014 Indie Bestseller Lists

As 2014 draws to a close, the many favorite titles that independent booksellers enthusiastically hand-sold and helped book buyers discover during the year are appearing across the year-end Indie Bestseller Lists.

The 15-title hardcover fiction list, in particular, reflects the critical early support of indie booksellers, who, throughout the year, read each month’s new releases to discover the best, most interesting picks and recommended those titles for a spot on the Indie Next Lists.

Through a series of monthly interviews, Bookselling This Week highlighted the number-one Indie Next List picks and gave readers the chance to learn more about their authors, including their love for independent bookstores. (Booksellers are invited to browse the full archive of author interviews on BookWeb.org and to share them with customers who are looking for recommendations for holiday gifts and beyond.)

Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner), which landed at number three on the year-end hardcover fiction bestseller list, was an early favorite of indie booksellers. When the title debuted in the number-one spot on the May Indie Next List, Doerr spoke to Bookselling This Week about his novel, which was his fifth book and more than 10 years in the making.

“In terms of a career, I wouldn’t have one if it weren’t for independent booksellers — especially as a literary writer who came up writing short stories,” Doerr said. “The only way readers found my book is if I was lucky enough to have a bookseller spend time with one of my earlier books and like it enough to pass it on to somebody.”

The recommendations of independent booksellers boosted Doerr’s novel to the Indie Bestseller List in May, and the title’s success continued to grow: in October, All the Light We Cannot See was a fiction finalist for the National Book Award, and this month it was named one of the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review.

Also a favorite of booksellers, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (Algonquin) launched at the top spot on April’s Indie Next List. The novel, which centers around a bookseller on an island in the Northeast, appears at number nine on the 2014 Indie Bestseller List.

In a February interview with Bookselling This Week, Zevin said of her research process for the book: “I’ve gotten to meet a lot of booksellers and book people over the years. And, sometimes, when you don’t have J.K. Rowling-level success, you’ll do an event and a lot of people will show up, and sometimes you’ll do an event and one or two people will be there ... and one of them is the bookseller. Luckily, booksellers tend to be pretty interesting and amusing people. I feel like I’ve been doing 10 years of research because when you go into a store and the only person there is the bookseller, you should talk and learn something.”

Zevin also told BTW about her choice of setting for the novel. “I believe that people love their bookstores. I believe that, because I know that — because when I go to a town and visit somebody, the first thing they tell me is that I have to visit their bookstore,” she said. “The bookstore for so many people defines their town; it defines what is good in the town. I believe that people love their bookstores, but I also believe they need to be reminded of why they love bookstores.”

This year’s number two spot on the fiction bestseller list belongs to The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, booksellers’ top pick for the January Indie Next List, and The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, which was September’s top pick, sits in spot number 14 on the year-end list.

Browse BTW’s interviews with the authors of all of this year’s number one Indie Next List picks here.