Top 5 Books Sold at the UVA Bookstore in 2013

1. The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy

by Larry J. Sabato (Col ’74, Faculty)

Fifty years after the assassination, Sabato sheds new light on Kennedy's enduring influence on American politics. A political history, Half-Century is a departure from Sabato's previous books, which have been about campaigns, elections and the political process. "I wanted to understand more about both the assassination puzzle and the events that flowed from it," said Sabato in an interview about the book and his research.

2. Bossypants

by Tina Fey (Col ’92)

In Fey’s memoir Bossypants, she explains how a shy girl from the suburbs of Philadelphia eventually became the head writer for Saturday Night Live, and later, the creator and star of the critically acclaimed TV show 30 Rock. Her memoir explores the career moves, hairdos and bad dates—some at UVA—that got her where she is today. Bossypants has been at the top of the bookstore's best-sellers list since its release in 2011. Fey returned to Grounds in September as the inaugural speaker in the President's Speaker Series for the Arts, and spoke to UVA Magazine about her time as a student here.

3. Goodnight Cavaliers

by Catherine Jennings Davis (Col ’99) & Traci Shirley Thompson (Col ’99)

After noticing a lack of children's books about UVA, Davis and Thompson decided to write their own. Within a few hours, they had a first draft of Goodnight Cavaliers. But their process had only just begun. The authors described their publication journey in an Alumni Spotlight piece.

4. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

by Nicholas G. Carr

“Is Google making us stupid?” Carr posed this question in an Atlantic Monthly cover story and tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? In The Shallows, Carr expands his argument and offers a look at the Internet's intellectual and cultural consequences.

5. Rot, Riot, and Rebellion: Mr. Jefferson’s Struggle to Save the University That Changed America

by Rex Bowman & Carlos Santos (Col ’75, Grad ’76)

Virginia journalists Bowman and Santos chronicle how, for its first 20 years, UVA was less an "Academical Village" than an "early incarnation of an ugly Wild West town." While the student body, in its affinity for firearms, daggers and general vandalizing of people, property and animals, wasn't exactly unique for the time, the University as a bold and independent educational venture was. Santos recounts some of the book's most salient details in Bad Boys: Tales of the University's Tumultuous Early Years in the winter issue of UVA Magazine.