Bestselling books the week of 1/26/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.

4. TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Bossypants, by Tina Fey, Reagan Arthur Books
 2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, Broadway
 3. Heaven Is for Real, by Todd Burpo, Thomas Nelson
 4. Unlikely Friendships, by Jennifer S. Holland, Workman
 5. The Social Animal, by David Brooks, Random House
 6. The Hare With Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal, Picador
 7. The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin, Harper
 8. Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff, Back Bay
 9. Just Kids, by Patti Smith, Ecco
 10. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson, Vintage
 11. Empire of the Summer Moon, by S.C. Gwynne, Scribner
 12. At Home, by Bill Bryson, Anchor
 13. Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall, Vintage
 14. Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, Back Bay
 15. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua, Penguin

ON THE RISE:
 17. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, by The Countess of Carnarvon, et al., Broadway
 The story behind Highclere Castle, the real-life inspiration and setting for the Emmy Award-winning PBS program, Downton Abbey

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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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