Shelf Awareness
Crowd rushing in to Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnatti, Ohio, at midnight. |
Initial reports indicated that even though some reviews have been very negative and many readers were shocked to learn that Atticus Finch, the beloved father and lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, is depicted as a racist in the new book, many customers are still enthusiastic about reading and buying Go Set a Watchman. It may not be the cozy, polished extension of To Kill a Mockingbird that many had hoped for or the "masterpiece" promised by the publisher, but it still features Lee's prose, many of her characters and is a key element in the author's development as a writer.
More than 200 people attended the midnight party at the Ol' Curiosities & Book Shoppe in Harper Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Ala., the AP (via U.S. News & World Report) reported. People dressed as characters from the book. The store ordered more than 10,000 copies of Go Set a Watchman.
"Several hundred" people bought copies of the book at Foyles' flagship store in London, according to the Bookseller. Foyles marketing manager Simon Heafield commented: "We had a buzzy evening with the queue starting to form at 10 p.m. We welcomed a few hundred customers who were thrilled with their purchases. We also sold out of DVD and book bundles of To Kill a Mockingbird. If this evening is anything to go by, Go Set a Watchman will live up to its billing as the publishing event of the year."
The midnight party at Hodges Figgins in Dublin. |
The Guardian reported copies of the book being "bought by the bucketload" at the midnight party at Waterstones in Piccadilly Circus in London. At the Waterstones in Barnstaple, a store that did not hold a midnight party, 10 copies of the book sold this morning in its first hour and a half of business, the North Devon Journal reported. Seventy copies are on pre-order.
At least one U.S. retailer jumped the gun on the embargoed book. A Walmart store in West Monroe, La., put out a full display of Go Set a Watchman last Friday. Alerted by a librarian who saw the display while shopping, HarperCollins contacted Walmart, and the display was taken down, Melville House reported. Stephanie Wilkes, a YA coordinator at Ouachita Parish Public Library in Monroe, posted online that after she asked about it, "The manager shrugged and asked me what I was gonna do about it."
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