For the third-year in a row, Eve and Eiven Kilcher’s “The Homestead Kitchen” tops the Homer Bookstore’s annual best seller list. Featured on the reality TV show “Alaska: the Last Frontier,” the Kilcher couple’s cooking book first made the list in 2016.
New this year to the list at third is a book by another “Alaska: the Last Frontier” star, Atz Kilcher and his “Son of a Midnight Land.” Atz Kilcher is the uncle of Eiven Kilcher.
Of the 34 books on the best selling list, 11 are by Homer writers and another five by Alaska writers. The Homer Bookstore ranked its top-25 selling books, but several books tied for places. With five books, the 2018 Kachemak Bay Writers Conference keynote speaker, Anthony Doerr, had the most titles on the list followed by local authors Janet Klein and Taz Tally, each with two best selling books.
The second-place title is this winter’s Big Read author and book, Roz Chast and her “Why Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?”
Two Alaska related books by non-Alaska writers also made the list: “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah and “Tisha” by Robert Specht. Perennial best sellers on the list include Klein’s “Kachemak Bay Communities” and the Homer Foundation’s “Kachemak Bay, Alaska.”
Of national authors with no Homer or Alaska connection, Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” is the top book at number 10.
Reach Michael Armstrong at marmstrong@homernews.com. His wife, Jenny Stroyeck, is a partner owner of the Homer Bookstore.
Homer Bookstore 2018 Best Seller List
1) “The Homestead Kitchen” by Eve and Eiven Kilcher*
2) “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” by Roz Chast
3) “Son of a Midnight Land” by Atz Kilcher*
4) Tie: “All The Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr
“Entangled: People and Ecological Change in Alaska’s Kachemak Bay” by Marilyn Sigman**
5) “Octopus in the Outhouse” by Stacy Studebaker**
6) “Alaska From Scratch” by Maya Wilson**
7) “Kachemak Bay Communities: Their Histories, Their Mysteries” by Janet Klein*
8) Tie: “Every Atom” by Erin Coughlin Hollowell*
“50 Hikes in Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula” by Taz Tally*
9) “Ruthless River” by Holly Fitzgerald
10) “Becoming” by Michelle Obama
11) “Soul of an Octopus” by Sy Montgomery
12) “Kachemak Bay Alaska” by The Homer Foundation*
13) Tie: “Memory Wall” by Anthony Doerr
“Alaska’s 12 Days of Summer” by Pat Chamberlin-Calamar and illustrated by Shannon Cartwright**
14) “Birding Without Borders” by Noah Strycker
15) Tie: “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah***
“The Milepost: Alaska Travel Planner”**
16) “Island of the Blue Foxes” by Stephen Brown
17) “Four Seasons in Rome” by Anthony Doerr
18) Tie: “pH: A Novel” by Nancy Lord*
“Sapiens: A Brief History” by Yuval Noah Harari
19) Tie: “News of the World” by Paulette Jiles
“Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann
“Shell Collector: Stories” by Anthony Doerr
20) “Alaska Dinosaurs and Other Cretaceous Creatures” by Deborah and Janet R. Klein*
21) “About Grace”by Anthony Doerr
22) Tie: “Pilgrim’s Wilderness” by Tom Kizzia*
“King of Fish” by David R. Montgomery
23) “Tisha” by Robert Specht***
24) “Backroads and Byways of Alaska” by Taz Tally*
25) “Tie: Beachcomber’s ABCs” by Molly Montgomery*
“The Boreal Herbal” by Beverley Gray
* Homer writer
** Alaska writer
A display at the Homer Bookstore on Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, shows its best selling books for 2018 at the independent bookstore in Homer, Alaska. (Photo by Michael Armstrong/Homer News)
