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Female Authors Helped Bookstore Sales Rise For First Time Since 2007

2015 was a great year for female writers.
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By 

Senior Editor of Breaking News, HuffPost

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Joe Raedle via Getty Images

Print is dead? Think again. 

American bookstores reported an increase in sales for the first time since 2007, according to newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 2015, sales hit $11.17 billion, a 2.5 percent increase from the previous year. However, Publisher's Weekly noted that e-book sales were down.

Harper Lee's novel "Go Set A Watchman" topped the U.S. bestsellers list. "Grey" by EL James and Paula Hawkins' thriller "Girl On The Train" came in second and third respectively.

The Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015 went to Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich. Only 13 other women have won the prize in the 100-plus years it's been awarded.

Also on HuffPost: 

Women Writers You Should Read
Tiphanie Yanique, 'Land of Love and Drowning'(01 of06)
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"Yanique's debut novel bursts with imagination and intoxicating atmosphere, and the deeply felt characters at its heart demand to be heard."
Read our full review. (credit:Riverhead)
Helen Phillips, 'The Beautiful Bureaucrat'(02 of06)
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"By turns, the novel is goofily funny, creepy and unsettling, life-affirming and sweet, deeply thoughtful and pointedly critical of modern workplace culture."
Read our full review. (credit:Henry Holt)
Merritt Tierce, 'Love Me Back'(03 of06)
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"Tierce manages to circumvent the stereotypes so often succumbed to when writing about the South -- eerie, Gothic isolation and otherness -- and instead creates a unsentimental, exciting work."
Read more about Tierce. (credit:Doubleday)
Eula Biss, 'On Immunity: An Inoculation'(04 of06)
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"In a matter-of-fact yet meandering fashion that fans of Joan Didion and Karl Ove Knaussgaard alike are sure to appreciate, Biss allows herself to amble from a walk with her toddler to an unraveling of the etymology of “germ.” The result is a pleasurable, focused journey that will, at the very least, enhance readers’ understanding of our minds and bodies."
Read our full review. (credit:Graywolf Press)
Kirstin Valdez Quade, 'Night at the Fiestas'(05 of06)
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Dark, painful, unflinching -- this story collection draws from the author's New Mexican roots, beautifully unpacking the power of mysticism, religion, culture and community without turning away from the frequent horror the world holds. (credit:W.W. Norton)
Asali Solomon, 'Disgruntled'(06 of06)
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A provocative, nuanced charting of a young black girl's self-discovery as she struggles with being an outsider, both among her white classmates and black friends who don't share her Afrocentric, politlcally radical upbringing. (credit:Farrar, Straus )

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