Bestselling books the week of 2/2/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.

2. HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, S&S
 2. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, Random House
 3. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain, Crown
 4. Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, FSG
 5. Killing Lincoln, by Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard, Holt
 6. Ameritopia, by Mark R. Levin, Threshold Editions
 7. American Sniper, by Chris Kyle, et al., Morrow
 8. Goodnight iPad, by Ann Droyd, Blue Rider
 9. Go the F**k to Sleep, by Adam Mansbach, Ricardo Cortes (Illus.), Akashic
 10. Catherine the Great, by Robert K. Massie, Random House
 11. In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson, Crown
 12. Elizabeth the Queen, by Sally Bedell Smith, Random House
 13. The End of Illness, by David B. Agus, M.D., Free Press
 14. The Obamas, by Jodi Kantor, Little Brown
 15. Arguably, by Christopher Hitchens, Twelve

ON THE RISE:
 19. Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning, by Gary Marcus, Penguin Press
 An inspiring look at the pursuit of music, the mechanics of the mind, and the surprising rewards that come from following one’s dreams.

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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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