Is there a 'Jeopardy' connection to Petaluma bestsellers? - Petaluma Argus Courier

The top selling titles at Copperfield’s Books, in Petaluma, for the week of May 30 – June 5, 2022

It’s always a bit of a guessing game, trying to determine why certain books suddenly pop onto the bestsellers list, then just as quickly pop off again. It’s no surprise that a book like David Sedaris’ “Happy Go Lucky” is this week’s No 1 book in Petaluma, since Sedaris is wildly popular around these parts and his book of scathingly funny and delightfully caustic essays is brand new. When it comes to books by famous authors, new is always attractive.

But what’s the deal with Tommy Orange’s “There There,” a critically acclaimed finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer that hasn’t been on the local Top 10 in over three-and-a-half years? This week it’s at No. 8. How’d that happen?

It is perhaps possible that “There There” is the focus of some local reading group’s current attention, since book groups do regularly propel older titles onto the list for a week or two. Sometimes the relocation of an older book to a more prominent location in the store, as happens every October when older horror novels are moved front-and-center, is the explanation for the re-ascendancy of Orange’s delightful novel about modern day urban Native Americans in Oakland.

But I have a different theory.

It just so happens that last Friday, June 3, 2022, Orange’s novel was the subject of a clue on Jeopardy. In the Double Jeopardy category of “Oranges,” the $2,000 clue was “The there in "There There" by Tommy Orange is Oakland, where his characters are headed for this gathering of Native Americans.” The correct response, “What is ‘powwow?’” was not given by contestant Ryan Long, who instead guessed “What is a sweat lodge?” The clue and its solution did lead to a bit of high-profile conversation on various Jeopardy fan sites and social media groups – and yes, Jeopardy has many such fan groups.

So perhaps the sudden weekend spike in local popularity for “There There” was simply the result of a certain curiosity factor set in motion by the mini-blast of attention the game show gave to Orange’s novel last Friday.

A quick check reveals that of the 10 authors named on the Petaluma Bestsellers List this week, exactly eight of them have appeared as part of a clue on Jeopardy at some point over the last 10-15 years, since such things began to be obsessively chronicled on the internet. On Dec. 10, 2010, during the Double Jeopardy round under the category “Chris & Tell,” the $400 clue was, “In a Christopher Moore tale, Christmas is thrown into chaos by Raziel, "the stupidest" of these winged beings.” The answer, of course, comes from “The Stupidest Angel,” a popular annual gem from Moore, who is currently on the local list with his new book “Razzmatazz” (No. 4).

Sedaris has been used as a clue a number of times, as have Madeline Miller (appearing at No. 2 this week with the fantasy novel “Circe”), Louise Penny (No. 6, with “Madness of Crowds”), Jennifer Egan (No. 7, with “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” John Cheever (No. 9, “The Wapshot Chronicle”), and Paul Theroux (No. 10, “Under the Wave at Waimea”).

Egan’s $200 Jeopardy clue, by the way, airing on March 15, 2021, was “Jennifer Egan won a Pulitzer for the book "A Visit from" this group,” the answer being, of course, “Goon Squad.” So why is that book, released in 2011, suddenly back on the minds of local book readers? Maybe it’s because she just released a semi-sequel titled “The Candy House,” which was Petaluman’s No. 3 bestseller the week of May 13, 2022. That’s my best guess, anyway.

Beyond that, I have no clue.

Here is the complete Top 10 Books on Copperfield’s Fiction and Nonfiction list, along with the full Kids and Young Adults list.

FICTION & NON-FICTION

1. ‘Happy Go Lucky,’ by David Sedaris – A brand new collection of essays by a modern impresario of bitterly funny, wryly bull’s-eyed observation is as sarcastic, hilarious and devastatingly accurate as we’ve come to expect.

2. ‘Circe,’ by Madeline Miller - ‘Circe,’ by Madeline Miller – The notorious animal-transforming sorceress from “The Odyssey” tells her own story, and guess what! It’s not the same story told by the piggish men she encountered.

3. ‘It Ends with Us,’ by Colleen Hoover – A 2016 novel about abuse and resilience told as a romance where things go wrong, but with plenty of surprises and twists along the way.

4. ‘Razzmatazz,’ by Christopher Moore – A sequel to the farce-fueled whodunit “Noir,” this new release from Moore takes characters from the earlier novel and puts them through even wilder escapades, all told with spot-on, deliciously hardboiled prose.

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