Watchung Booksellers: Life Beyond Fifty Shades of Grey

The book Fifty Shades of Grey has been topping just about every bestseller list one can imagine, having sold 15 million copies in only three months. From all indications, there's been no stopping sales of the tale of bondage and discipline enjoyed by the two main characters, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, in the trilogy some have described as mommy porn.

But while many people continue to buy Fifty Shades of Grey, the bulk of sales at this point are for the second and the third books of the trilogy, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, according to Margot Sage-El, owner of Watchung Booksellers.

"It seems that the people coming in and asking for it for the first time are asking simply because everyone is talking about it all the time," she said. "You have to read it just to be part of the conversation."

About a month ago, Sage-El noted, it seemed as though all Watchung Booksellers was selling was Hunger Games and Shades of Grey.

"Now we're settling down and everyone is expanding their choices for summer reading," she said.

As a result, the popular bookstore is noticing a number of new huge hits for the summer reading season—in addition to Fifty Shades.

Among them, Sage-El says, are State of Wonder, The Art of Fielding, The Family Fang, Maine, and The American Heiress.

In the State of Wonder, for example, Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have all but disappeared in the Amazon while working on what is destined to be an extremely valuable new drug, the development of which has already cost the company a fortune. Nothing about Marina's assignment is easy: not only does no one know where Dr. Swenson is, but the last person who was sent to find her, Marina's research partner Anders Eckman, died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding her former mentor as well as answers to several troubling questions about her friend's death, the state of her company's future, and her own past.

What are you reading this summer? Are you still reading Fifty Shades? Let us know in the comments section below.