Skip to content

Authors · NYT Hardcover Fiction

Colson Whitehead portraitColson Whitehead

Charting Nov 6, 2011Aug 9, 2026 · 61 weeks with chart power

Compare with other authors
Image credits

Honours

Author of the Week

  • NYT Hardcover Fiction

    5 crowns

    20112026

    Longest reign 3 weeks (Aug–Sep 2016) · First crown Aug 2016

Peak Power
8.23%
week of Feb 19, 2017
Career Power
424
share-weeks
Crowns
5
weeks crowned Author of the Week
Peak Year
269
May 2016 – May 2017
Peak Five Years
346
October 2014 – October 2019
Top-five weeks
29
weeks ranked 1–5
Longevity
61
weeks with chart power
Dominance
14.53%
week of Aug 28, 2016
Comebacks
2
Aug 2019 · Oct 2021

Ranked by weekly Power Share, part of the ChartReign Power model — not the list's own positions. How it works →

Exponentially smoothed share of the week's total power (the primary metric).

Titles on the NYT Hardcover Fiction

6 books · 424 share-weeks of Career Power

Power contributed is what each book earned this author: their weekly Power Share, split across their books (a featured credit takes its reduced share). Book Power is the book's own figure, the same for every author on it. Bar length compares books within this list.

TitlePeakWeeksPower
The Underground Railroad#137269.3
The Nickel Boys#31176.5
Harlem Shuffle#2851.9
Crook Manifesto#6314.1
Cool Machine#4110.3
Zone One#1611.8

At their peak

2016 in books

Colson Whitehead's best twelve months on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list ran from May 2016 to May 2017. The most powerful authors over those weeks:

  1. 1Colson Whitehead269
  2. 2James Patterson265
  3. 3John Grisham222
  4. 4Nicholas Sparks215
  5. 5Danielle Steel192
  6. 6David Baldacci160
  7. 7Jodi Picoult138
  8. 8Ruth Ware129
  9. 9Neil Gaiman125
  10. 10Anthony Doerr112

Ranked by Era Power over the same weeks.

Their decades: the 2010s, the 2020s.