PAGE 8 • GO! MAGAZINE
THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2021 • THE BULLETIN
national bestsellers
Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended
Saturday, April 17, compiled from data from
independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers
and independent distributors nationwide.
HARDCOVER FICTION
1. Ocean Prey. John Sandford. Putnam
2. The Devil’s Hand. Jack Carr. Atria/Bestler
3. The Four Winds. Kristin Hannah. St. Martin’s
4. The Midnight Library. Matt Haig. Viking
5. The Red Book. Patterson/Ellis. Little, Brown
6. The Good Sister. Sally Hepworth. St. Martin’s
7. Win. Harlan Coben. Grand Central
8. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue. V.E. Schwab. Tor
9. Stargazer. Anne Hillerman. Harper
10. Klara and the Sun. Kazuo Ishiguro. Knopf
9. Fast Burn! Ian K. Smith. St. Martin’s
10. Woman Evolve. Sarah Jakes Roberts. Thomas Nelson
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
MASS MARKET
1. The Hill We Climb. Amanda Gorman. Viking
2. On the House. John Boehner. St. Martin’s
3. The Women of the Bible Speak. Shannon Bream.
Broadside
4. The Hero Code. William H. McRaven. Grand Central
5. Everything Will Be Okay. Dana Perino. Twelve
6. The Pepper Thai Cookbook. Pepper Teigen and Garrett
Snyder. Clarkson Potter
7. Broken Horses. Brandi Carlile. Crown
8. Ask Iwata. Sam Bett. Viz
1. A Rancher’s Claim. Diana Palmer. Harlequin
2. A Walk Along the Beach. Debbie Macomber. Ballantine
3. The Wedding Dress. Danielle Steel. Dell
4. Under Currents. Nora Roberts. St. Martin’s
5. The Country Guesthouse. Robyn Carr. Mira
6. Alaskan Rescue. Terri Reed. Love Inspired Suspense
7. Masked Prey. John Sandford. Putnam
8. Camino Winds. John Grisham. Dell
9. Killer Instinct. Patterson/Roughan. Grand Central
10. Catch My Heart. Nora Roberts. Silhouette
TRADE PAPERBACK
1. The Lighter Step-by-Step Instant Pot Cookbook.
Jeffrey Eisner. Voracious
2. Where the Crawdads Sing. Delia Owens. Putnam
3. Later. Stephen King. Hard Case Crime
4. The Rose Code. Kate Quinn. Morrow
5. The Palm Beach Murders. James Patterson. Grand
Central
6. Big Summer. Jennifer Weiner. Washington Square
7. Split Second. David Baldacci. Grand Central
8. Burn After Writing (Pink). Sharon Jones. TarcherPerigee
9. The Hemingway Stories. Ernest Hemingway. Scribner
10. My Hero Academia, Vol. 27. Kohei Horikoshi. Viz
Continued from previous page
Lalami, who will appear in a virtual con-
versation at 4 p.m. Sunday with Bend’s own
Jason Graham, aka Mosley Wotta, told GO!
how real-life circumstances several years
ago inspired the book — “sort of.” She’d just
turned in copy edits for her 2014 historical
novel “The Moor’s Account,” which won the
American Book Award and the Arab Amer-
ican Book Award.
“While I was on vacation, I got a text from
my sister saying that our father had taken
gravely ill,” Lalami said. “We scrambled
to try and get on a plane and go visit him.
When you’re an immigrant, your parents
are thousands of miles away. You can’t just
see them when you want to.”
He recovered, but Lalami “started to re-
ally realize some of the consequences of
decisions that you make when you’re in
your 20s, and you don’t really see the rip-
ple effects of it 20 years later,” she said.
“Because I came to the United States as
a graduate student, and then I ended up
marrying an American and staying here.
I didn’t really realize the consequences of
that.”
With the onset of the COVID-19 pan-
demic, she added, Americans born here
have likely felt a similar isolation and dis-
tance from loved ones.
“That IS the life of the immigrant, and
that certainly has been my life over the last
20-plus years,” Lalami said.
She thought about writing about a cou-
ple who immigrates to the U.S., settling on
1981 as the year Driss and Maryam arrive
in the U.S.
“And then they have another child, and
then basically, the story opens 35 years later,
when the father dies,” she said. “It’s basically
a family story, but it’s also a mystery, and it’s
also a love story.”
‘FRONT DESK’
In “Front Desk,” Chinese-American pro-
tagonist Mia, 10, helps run the front desk
at a motel while her parents are cleaning it.
A Novel Idea ... Read Together
What: A Novel Idea presents Kelly Yang and Laila Lalami
Details:
• Yang will give her virtual presentation at 4 p.m. Saturday.
View it at youtube.com/user/deschuteslibrary
• Lalami will join Jason “Mosley Wotta” Graham in a virtual conversation at 4 p.m. Sunday.
View it at youtube.com/user/deschuteslibrary
Contact: deschuteslibrary.org/calendar/novelidea
Like “The Other Americans,” it was born
of real-life experiences, author Yang said
by email last week.
“’Front Desk’ is inspired by my child-
hood,” Yang said. “I helped my parents
manage three motels when I was a kid.
There is definitely a lot of myself in Mia.
Mia is the more courageous version of my-
self — growing up, I wished I were more
like Mia!”
Yang’s virtual A Novel Idea program
takes place at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
Asked about what she has planned for
the event, “I will tell kids how I went from
managing the front desk of a motel to be-
coming an award-winning author, a dream
I once did not think was possible for me
because I did not see many authors who
looked like me,” she said. “But now, I know
it is totally possible for all kids.”
Yang was 6 when she immigrated to the
U.S. from China, growing up in Southern
California and working at three motels. At
13, she began college at University of Cali-
fornia-Berkeley, where she majored in po-
litical science.
At 17, she began studying at Harvard
Law School, though she opted not to pur-
sue a legal career.
“I went to law school but did not really
enjoy practicing law,” Yang said. “So I re-
turned to my first passion of writing and
teaching kids how to write.”
Published in 2018, “Front Desk” made
several best-of-the-year lists, including
ones from The Washington Post, NPR,
School Library Journal and Amazon. It has
already spawned one sequel, “Three Keys,”
published last September. A third, “Room
to Dream,” will bow in September of this
year.
Though it may be a children’s book,
Yang sees the ideal reader of the book as
anyone from 8 to 100.
“I hope it helps increase empathy,” she
said, adding later that she believes litera-
ture, and diverse characters, can help fos-
ter understanding among people.
“Absolutely — now more than ever we
need more stories that humanize the Asian
American experience,” Yang said.
Last year, Yang experienced anti-Asian
hate speech while visiting a park with her
children last year.
“I was verbally assaulted at the park, in
front of my kids, and told to go back to
where I came from,” she said, adding that
“it was pretty traumatic.”
As the Associated Press reported, an el-
derly white couple called her “Oriental”
and told her to “Go back where you came
from,” sparking a difficult conversation
with her children and tears from her son
when she explained their words didn’t just
mean they should return home, but rather
“for us to go back to Asia.”
As Yang told GO! “People can be bet-
ter allies simply by standing up for what’s
right and using the three keys of allyship
(as explained in the sequel to ‘Front Desk,’
‘Three Keys’) … you gotta listen, you gotta
care, and you gotta keep trying!”
David Jasper: 541-383-0349,
djasper@bendbulletin.com
Submitted photos
Laila Lalami’s “The Other Americans” is the
adult selection for the 2021 A Novel Idea, the
Deschutes Public Library system’s annual com-
munity read. Lalami will give a live presentation
as part of the community read’s festivities at
4 p.m. Sunday on YouTube.
Kelly Yang, author of “Front Desk,” will speak
Saturday via Zoom as part of A Novel Idea.