'Unbroken' hits No. 1 on USA TODAY's list

Going for broke: Laura Hillenbrand, say thanks to Angelina Jolie. Four years after it was published, Hillenbrand's Unbroken hits No. 1 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list for the first time. The top ranking comes a week before Jolie's movie adaptation (snubbed in the Golden Globe nominations) arrives in theaters, on Christmas Day. (The full USA TODAY best-seller list will publish on Thursday.)

Unbroken, the true story of World War II hero Louis Zamperini, was an instant best seller, landing at No. 6 on Nov. 25, 2010. The non-fiction account has spent 183 weeks on the list and twice has been as high as No. 3: last week and the week of Dec. 23, 2010.

The book returned to the top 50 earlier this year, on Feb. 27 (at No. 30), as interest in the movie began to build. A young-adult version of Unbroken published last month is also selling: it cracks the top 50 for the first time, at No. 46, up from No. 61.

According to publisher Random House, more than 5.5 million copies of Unbroken have sold in all formats and editions.

Picture this: Children's picture books (and one with no pictures) are crowding USA TODAY's top 50, no surprise the week before Christmas. One – The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg – is a holiday perennial at No. 37 (it's been as high as No. 1, in 2004, the year of the movie adaptation). Other picture books selling for kids, and none of them published this year: 2002's Snowmen at Night (No. 32), 2013's The Day the Crayons Quit (No. 34) and 2009's Little Blue Truck Board Book (No. 39). One children's best seller breaks the mold, in a couple of ways: B.J. Novak's The Book With No Pictures (No. 24) was published just this fall. And unlike the other hardcover best sellers for little kids, it doesn't have illustrations – just lots of fun words that double as artwork.