It’s always interesting to find out what sold best over the course of a year.  We never know quite what to expect. Some titles explode onto the sales scene (this year, anything by George R.R. Martin), while others accrete over the entire year.  Here are our bestsellers for 2011  (* = Canadian author)

Mass Market
1. Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller
2. Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
3. Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
4. Watch, Robert J. Sawyer*
5. Midnight Riot, Ben Aaronovich
6. Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin
7. Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin
8. Hounded, Kevin Hearne
9. Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin
10. Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin.

Hardcover
1. Wonder, Robert J. Sawyer*
2. Dance With Dragons, George R.R. Martin
3. Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss
4. Go the Fuck to Sleep, Adam Mansbach
5. Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi
6. Embassytown, China Mieville
7. Reamde, Neal Stephenson
8. Snuff, Terry Pratchett
9. Wild Ways, Tanya Huff*
10. Vortex, Robert Charles Wilson*

Trade Paperback
1. Blindsight, Peter Watts*
2. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
3. Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
4. Once Every Never, Lesley Livingston*
5. Cyberabad Days, Ian McDonald
6. Tempestuous, Lesley Livingston*
7. Thief, Megan Whalen Turner
8. Pattern Scars, Caitlin Sweet*
9. Tesseracts 15, Julie Czerneda & Susan MacGregor, eds*
10. Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi

“Some had been ordinary people who’d had enough.  Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact the the world was run by old people who were rich.  Some were in it to get girls.  And some were idiots… who were on the side of what they called ‘the people’.  Vimes had spent his life on the streets, and had met decent men and fools and people who’d steal a penny from a blind beggar and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he’d never met The People.

People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case.  They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward thinking or obedient.  The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and even distrustful of cleverness.  And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem:  it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up.  What would run through the streets soon enough wouldn’t be a revolution or a riot.  It’d be people who were frightened and panicking.  It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning, and all the little rules broke down.”

That’s from Night Watch, which Pratchett wrote in 2002 (so he’s both a genius and a psychic).  Worth re-reading, especially right now.

*Part eleventyteen

Remember:  Tomorrow,  Saturday July 9th, Bakka Phoenix will host a launch for Vortex, by Robert Charles Wilson.  This is the much-anticipated final book in his incredible ‘Spin’ series.  Join us here at the store at 3pm.  We’ll provide the snacks and cold drinks:  you provide the company.  Come celebrate with us!