The best-selling books in quarantine

• Javier Castillo. The 'best seller' of the quarantine
• The propitious moment: what is and what is not in the spotify of the books

The dramatic moment we live in also has comic quirks. In the publishing house La Esfera de los Libros they say that the best-selling titles in their catalog during the two months of confinement are by two authors who have been crossing many years in other fields. One is not surprising: it is the Memory of Communism by Federico Jiménez Losantos, it premiered its thirtieth edition during the quarantine and, despite being a large and expensive book, it is probably the best-selling book in the history of the label. The funny thing is that the other best seller of the moment of La Esfera is La España en que que creo , by Alfonso Guerra, a book that is a year old and has found its readers in the spring of the coronavirus. Why? Who knows.

If you ask publishers about the books that have sold well for the past two months, there are some similar stories from titles that hit the button unexpectedly: " I called him a tie , by Milena Michiko Flasar, is a book that passed discreetly ago a few years and now it has resurfaced because it deals with the phenomenon of the hikikomori , the boys who voluntarily lock themselves in their room for years in Japan. The Jewish theme is also in vogue, by Unorthodox : we have sold well books by Etgar Keret, Amos Oz, Batya Gur ... ", they explain in the Siruela editorial. "In any case, whom we are destroying is Irene Vallejo. We have reissued in full confinement! And Domingo Villar and the Cazalet saga also continue to do well."

If we go to the really big numbers there are more surprises. According to La Casa del Libro, the three novelists who have sold the most during these two months are Javier Castillo ( The Snow Girl , Sum of Letters), Juan Gómez Jurado ( Red Queen , edited by Sum of Letters) and Elisabet Benavent ( A short story perfect , Editions B). In other words: two thrillers and a sample of the so - called chick-lit and three authors united by another whim: all three are Spanish and debuted in the self-publishing at the beginning of the last decade. In the non-fiction category, the list is led by the inevitable Hariri ( Sapiens , in Debate), Tote King ( Bunker , edited by Blackie Books) and the already mentioned Irene Vallejo ( Infinity in a reed , Siruela).

More success stories: " A open heart , Elvira Lindo has sold very well in recent months," they explain in Seix Barral. "What we sell the most, and very prominently, is the novel by Almudena Grandes , La madre de Frankenstein ", they say in Tusquets. In the group Penguin Random House (which publishes Castillo, Gómez Jurado and Benavent, the authors of the podium) stand out Tierra , by Eloy Moreno, The Fate of Heroes , by Chufo Lloréns and La villa de las telas , by Anne Jacobs. In Anagrama they have four women's books on their list: Canto jo i la muntanya balla, by Irene Solà, Easy Reading by Cristina Morales, Little Red Women by Marta Sanz and Nuestra parte de noche by Mariana Enriquez. And in the children's market, the SM publisher highlights four books: Can I look at your diaper ?, by Guido van Genechten; Animals of the world (Various authors); The adventures of Captain Underpants, by Dav Pilkey and Chicken Pepe, by Nick Denchfield. More: in Galaxia Gutenberg, the undisputed champion is Theodor Kallifatides (for The Siege of Troy and Another Life to Live ) followed by a very appropriate classic for the moment : Biography of silence , by Pablo d'Ors. And in Planeta they say that "we are selling very well both of Posteguillo, ( And Julia challenged the gods and I, Julia ), Terra alta by Javier Cercas, A perfect gentleman by Pilar Eyre, Alegría by Manuel Vilas and We were never heroes of Fernando Benzo. And of non-fiction, without a doubt, Curro Cañete's The power to trust you ".

Grupo Planeta publishers are the main source of Nubico, the reading platform that, among other services, offers a digital library of unlimited loans to its subscribers. At the beginning of the crisis, Nubico representatives announced that their customers had increased their usage time by 50%. Your favorites? Tierra alta , by Javier Cercas; The Last Summer by Silvia Blanch , by Lorena Franco; The north face of the heart , by Dolores Redondo; The Psychologist , by Helene Flood; and I don't ask that much either , from Megan Maxwell. All titles are edited by group labels.

And the classics? "What has been sold in this period has been changing, they explain on the Alianza Editorial label." As the weeks progressed, more collection funds and fewer novelties were sold . An explanation? When the bookstores closed, the flow of novelties was interrupted ... From our collection, The Guardian Among the Rye has been the most demanded title, also because the digital edition of the title was launched in those days ... they brought a favorable inertia of the previous months, they have continued to sell themselves, in the case of Galdós's biography: Benito Pérez Galdós: life, work and commitment , by Francisco Cánovas, Maalouf's essay, The Shipwreck of Civilizations , The Fruit Thief , by Handke and a Big Fantasy, A Little Hate by Joe Abercrombie ...

All we have to do is ask independent publishers: "Our best-selling book is Olivia Manning's La gran fortuna , a novel that came out a week before the confinement began," explains Luis Solano, editor of Libros del Asteroide . "We have also done well with Something to Believe in, by Nickolas Butler that had come out in January. And there have worked two background books that we have promoted again because it seemed to us that they could illuminate this time of confinement: The gifted time , a essay on the waiting of Andrea Köhler and I follow here by Maggie O'Farrell, in which she talks, among other things, of a year of bedridden convalescence ".

Enrique Redel, editor of Impedimenta, also has a favorite from the crisis: "There is a book of ours that is working in an unexpected way, unavailable to discouragement. It is The Summer in which my mother had green eyes , by Tatiana Tibuleac. It has been exhausting editions to forced marches. It was already selling very well before, it has grown word of mouth ... But we are surprised that it has endured this quarantine unusually well. Total sales are around 14,000 copies, 3,000 of them in a pandemic. "

The feeling is that the two months of severe confinement have been very bad for publishing companies but a little better than previously estimated . "I expected it much worse. I thought that April and a May were going to be left blank in sales. Sales are being much lower than would be normal, but at least there is life," says Redel.

His colleague Juan Casamayor, from Foam Pages, agrees with him: "The figures are very complicated, that cannot be ignored. But the absolute vacuum that we expected has not occurred. People have reacted to the stimuli we were sending. The decrease it's huge, but not as critical as we thought. " Casamayor names his best sellers of the pandemic: Sensitive Anatomy. Andrés Neuman; Cockfight, by María Fernanda Ampuero; Seven empty houses of Samanta Schweblin; and Agitation of Jorge Freire.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

• Coronavirus
• culture
• Lockdown
• Lack of confidence
• literature

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