Trump sold like hot cakes, but all of it at his expense!Michelle

Not only do celebrities sometimes become politicians, now politicians are often celebrities.Many of the best-selling books of the year were about political figures. Not their politics, really, but their personalities, habits, feelings and foibles.Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming sold more than any other book, and she promoted it in arenas like a rock star backed up by other famous names (Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon). The book didn’t hit stores until November, but more than 2 million copies sold in 15 days. Even Stephen King doesn’t fill stadiums or sell tickets for hundreds of dollars.The fact that the former first lady wasn’t elected to office but lived in the White House for eight years only goes to reinforce how fascinated readers are with the trappings of political life. Of course book buyers admire Obama herself and her smart take on life. But one of the first gossipy reports on Becoming focused more on how she could never forgive President Trump for his scurrilous “birther” claims about her husband.Likewise, during the first half of the year, the best-selling book was Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff. More gossip than policy, it portrayed Trump as sitting in his bathrobe watching TV. Criticism of the president also came from ousted FBI director James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty, and readers lapped up famous journalist Bob Woodward’s Fear, with its tales of aides undermining the commander in chief.Even parody books about politics sold well. The Last Week Tonight With John Oliver book A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, ostensibly an illustrated memoir by Vice President Mike Pence’s rabbit, was in the top 10 best-sellers for the first part of the year. (It was inspired by Charlotte Pence and Karen Pence’s Marlon Bundo’s A Day in the Life of the Vice President.)After Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina, a parody based on Trump’s comments ascended the best-seller lists. Whose Boat Is This Boat? by the staff of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert said on its cover it was “by Donald J. Trump (by accident).”And The President Is Missing, a novel by former president Bill Clinton and prolific author James Patterson, was not only popular, it seemed to point again to the blurred line between politics and celebrity.One theory floating through the zeitgeist is that politicians are a 21st-century cultural unifier rather than, say, TV shows or other forms of entertainment.With thousands of shows and books available, very few are the cultural touchstones they were in the days when most Americans watched The Magical World of Disney or when writers John Updike and Norman Mailer were household names. We may be divided over whether we’d vote for Trump, but we’re united in that he and those in his orbit are kitchen-table topics.We all know something about the latest headlines, and we all have an opinion. Ask five people if they’ve watched GLOW and most may say “no.” But they all can comment on James Comey.Although political works were the year’s best-sellers, they don’t necessarily show up on many “best books” lists. Those are more eclectic. With more than 300,000 new titles and editions published in the United States each year, choosing the top 10 “best” is close to impossible.That said, it appears few reviewers focused on politics for their favourite books for 2018.Among novels, fiction reviewers for the Post-Dispatch include Washington Black, There There and The Mars Room among their favourite books of the year.Esi Edugyan “brings alive the boy’s sights, sounds and his moment-to-moment sense of impending danger and menace,” Holly Silva wrote of Washington Black, a story of a boy born into slavery in Barbados.In The Mars Room, author Rachel Kushner’s heroine, a former lap dancer, is imprisoned for killing a customer who stalked her. “The book is beautifully written, without sentimentality or agenda, and at times even a sly and dark humour,” Silva wrote.There There by Tommy Orange is a debut novel that has shown up on several “best” lists for its story of modern-day urban American Indians, who struggle with loss and identity.In Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage, a young, happy African-American couple have their lives turned upside down when the husband is accused, apparently falsely, of sexual assault.Rebecca Makkai wrote a powerful novel about the AIDS epidemic in Chicago from the 1980s to contemporary advancements. The Great Believers ended up on short lists for awards.Like Makkai’s novel, The Overstory was oft-praised. Written by Richard Powers, the novel ties characters to trees and a battle between clear-cutting and what some might call eco-terrorism. Reviewer Dale Singer called out Powers’ “ability to balance the humanity of his individual characters’ stories with their passion for the greater lesson they impart.”Singer also liked Barbara Kingsolver’s novel about two families decades apart who lived in the same house. Unsheltered does have a political edge as it’s linked to the 2016 election.Other favourite novels this year include The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Warlight by Michael Ondaatje, Kate Atkinson’s Transcription and Gary Shteyngart’s Lake Success.St. Louis writer Elsa Hart’s City of Ink was chosen by Publishers Weekly as among the best mysteries of the year. Reviewer Repps Hudson said she gives readers “an imaginative view into a China we do not know” with the third in her books featuring an out-of-favour court librarian in imperial China.Other St. Louis- and Missouri-connected books of particular appeal were Don Marsh’s Coming of Age, Liver Spots & All; Martin Riker’s Samuel Johnson’s Eternal Return; John Mort’s Down Along the Piney; The William H. Gass Reader; poet Justin Phillip Reed’s award-winning Indecency; Howard Schwartz’s Palace of Pearls; Angela Mitchell’s Unnatural Habitats and Other Stories; Curtis Sittenfeld’s You Think It, I’ll Say It; Laurell K. Hamilton’s Serpentine; and Denise Pattiz Bogard’s After Elise.For Kelly von Plonski, owner of Subterranean Books in University City, Riker’s novel was a standout. “Such an imaginative story, dealing with death and rebirth in a new way. It is full of humour and pop cultural commentary (the television knowledge is encyclopedic) but is ultimately a story of a father’s love for his son.”A popular nonfiction book by a St. Louis writer was Sarah Kendzior’s collection of essays in The View From Flyover Country.Kendzior’s book had a political bent like so many of the year’s best-sellers. Other nonfiction favourites focused on United States history, including Jill Lepore’s These Truths, David Blight’s biography Frederick Douglass and Susan Orlean’s The Library Book.Jennifer Alexander, collections development specialist at the St. Louis County Library, recommends The White Darkness by David Grann, saying the author “uses his celebrated storytelling skills to present the tale of Henry Worsley, a man whose obsession with 19th-century explorer Ernest Shackleton led him on two polar expeditions of his own in 2008 and 2015.”In The Black and the Blue, Matthew Horace and Ron Harris detail problems of racism in police departments, with a chapter focused on the 2014 Ferguson case of Michael Brown.Heartland by Sarah Smarsh meshed memoir and social issues by discussing how her Kansas family worked hard just to get by. It was a favourite pick by Kris Kleindienst of Left Bank Books.Another popular memoir locally was Jeff Tweedy’s Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back). The Belleville native and Wilco frontman, who confessed to experience with addiction, told the Post-Dispatch’s Kevin C. Johnson that “it’s a pretty low-stakes genre, writing a rock ‘n’ roll memoir. There’s not a lot of pressure. But I wanted it to be honest.” Ellie Kemper, an actress originally from St. Louis, collected personal, light-hearted essays in My Squirrel Days.In it, Kemper claims that as a student she had to “scan the St. Louis Post-Dispatch every Tuesday morning for an interesting current-events article to clip out and read in front of the entire class.”Well, here you go, Ellie.  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS