Announcing: The First Book Sense Category Bestseller List: Cookbooks

Based on the last four weeks of sales from over 300 independent bookstores across America.

Next week: Business Books

Thanks to all the stores that report, the new ABA electronic upload system, and the software our team here has built to slice and dice (appropriately enough, this first time) a ton of data according to BISAC categories, this is the first of many subject category lists to run in BTW each week. These are intended as inventory checking tools for booksellers, alerts to publishers as to what’s selling, and lists that the media can run.

Attention Media: Please contact Kristen Gilligan at [email protected] for reprint guidelines for your newspaper or magazine.

Thank you to all who participated in this major new Book Sense initiative.

Carl Lennertz
[email protected]

(Next 25 next week; see also top ten Cooking Lit. titles below.)

1. The Healthy Kitchen: Recipes for a Better Body, Life, and Spirit
   Andrew Weil & Rosie Daley (Knopf, $24, 0375413065)
   
2. Beer-Can Chicken: And 74 Other Offbeat Recipes for the Grill
   Steven Raichlen (Workman, $12.95 p., 0761120165)
   
3. How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques
   Steven Raichlen (Workman, $19.95 p., 0761120149)
   
4. Back to the Table: The Reunion of Food and Family
   Art Smith (Hyperion, $34.95, 0786868546)
   
5. Chez Panisse Fruit
   Alice Waters (HarperCollins, $34.95, 0060199571)
   
6. Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting With Your Slow Cooker
   Dawn Ranck & Phyllis Pellman Good (Good Books, $16.95 p., 1561483397)
   
7. Al Roker’s Big, Bad Book of Barbecue
   Al Roker (Scribner, $27.95, 0743228642)
   
8. Joy of Cooking
   Irma S. Rombauer et al. (Scribner, $35, 0684818701)
   
9. Local Flavors: Recipes & Menus from America’s Farmers’ Markets
   Deborah Madison (Broadway, $39.95, 0767903498)
   
10. A Man, a Can, a Plan: 50 Great Guy Meals Even You Can Make
    David Joachim (Rodale, $15.95, 1579546072)
    
11. I’m Just Here for the Food
    Alton Brown (Stewart, Tabori and Chang, $32.50, 1584790830)
    
12. The Barbecue! Bible
    Steven Raichlen (Workman, $19.95, 1563058669)
    
13. How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food
    Mark Bittman (Macmillan, $29.95, 0028610105)
    
14. Bread Baker’s Apprentice
    Peter Reinhart (Ten Speed, $35, 1580082688)
    
15. How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking
    Nigella Lawson (Hyperion, $35, 0786867973)
    
16. The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook
    Ina Garten (Clarkson Potter, $32.50, 0609602195)
    
17. The Foster’s Market Cookbook
    Sara Foster, with Sarah Belk King (Random House, $35, 0375505466)
    
18. Let the Flames Begin: Techniques & Recipes for Real Live Fire Cooking
    Chris Schlesinger & John Willoughby (Norton, $30, 0393050874)
    
19. Moosewood Restaurant New Classics
    The Moosewood Collective (Clarkson Potter, $25.95 p., 0609802410)
    
20. Weber’s Big Book of Grilling
    Jamie Purviance & Sandra McCrae (Chronicle, $22.95 p., 0811831973)
    
21. The Cake Mix Doctor
    Anne Byrn (Workman, $14.95 p., 0761117199)
    
22. Weber’s Art of the Grill Deck
    Jamie Purviance (Chronicle, $14.95 p., 0811833364)
    
23. Joy of Cooking
    Irma S. Rombauer & Marion Rombauer Becker (Plume, $18 p., 0452279232)
    
24. The Thrill of the Grill
    Chris Schlesinger & John Willoughby (Morrow, $17.95 p., 0060084499)
    
25. Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home
    Moosewood Collective (Fireside, $17 p., 0671679929)

1. A Cook’s Tour
   Anthony Bourdain (Bloomsbury, $25.95, 1582341400)
   
2. Restaurant Confidential: The Shocking Truth About What You’re Really Eating When You’re Eating Out
   Michael Jacobson & Jayne Hurley (Workman, $10.95 p., 0761100350)
   
3. Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food
   Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (Free Press, $25, 0743226445)
   
4. Goose in Toulouse: And Other Culinary Adventures in France
   Mort Rosenblum (North Point Press, $16 p., 0865476454)
   
5. Vie De France: Sharing Food, Friendship, and a Kitchen in the Loire Valley
   James Haller (Berkley, $22.95, 0425184722)
   
6. Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book 2002
   Hugh Johnson (Mitchell Beazley, $13.95 p., 1840004436)
   
7. Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s and Party Guide
   (Warner, $10.95 p., 0446676888)
   
8. Endless Feasts: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet
   Edited by Ruth Reichl (Modern Library, $24.95, 0679642501)
   
9. The New Food Lover’s Companion: Comprehensive Definitions of Nearly 6000 Food, Drink, and Culinary Terms
   Sharon Tyler Herbst (Barrons, $14.95 p., 0764112589)
   
10. What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained
    Robert L. Wolke (Norton, $25.95, 0393011836)