Thanksgiving weekend, one of the busiest shopping periods of the year, is when consumers are suddenly jolted into the realization that Christmas is a mere month away. And as a result, it's also the time when booksellers get a clearer picture of what books are going to be hot during the season. Although they were terribly busy, several booksellers took some time over the weekend to share their handselling favorites and predictions with PW.
Everyone's still wild about Harry. Potter, that is. "Those Harry Potter books are $20 Beanie Babies!" said Jennifer Anglin of Enchanted Forest Books for Children in Dallas, who replenishes stock on all three books daily. Although she hasn't yet seen reader interest in Harry Potter translate into additional ventures by adults into other children's novels, Anglin is hoping sales of such novels will increase in response to the store's "After you've finished Harry¦" recommendations.
Barbara Theroux, owner of Fact & Fiction in Missoula, Mont., has had adult book clubs select the J.K. Rowling titles. "But," she told PW, "they haven't looked toward the comparable follow-ups like Jean Craighead George [Frightful's Mountain, Dutton] or new the Ramona book [Ramona's World, Morrow]."
Crazy Ladies Bookstore in Cincinnati, Ohio, reports that bell hooks's Happy to Be Nappy (Hyperion), which owner Laura Smith called "a nice gift book with great illustrations that works well for our readers," is popular.
Of the new crop of hardcover fiction, Tom Culbreth, owner of Little Professor Book Center in Durham, N.C., predicted big sales for Anita Shreve's Fortune's Rocks (Little, Brown). "She's a favorite author in this store and PW's review was an absolute rave. When we had her in the store for a signing for The Pilot's Wife [Little, Brown], she said she thought Fortune's was her best book."
For her part, Barbara Theroux has seen an increase in fiction sales, specifically Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife (Morrow), Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune (HarperCollins) and Diane Smith's Letters from Yellowstone (Viking).
Reading groups at the stores PW contacted have boosted sales for trade paperback fiction. At Fact & Fiction, Cathleen Schine's Evolution of Jane (Plume), Walter Kirn's Thumbsucker (Broadway) and Murray Bail's Eucalyptus (Harvest Books) have all posted healthy sales because of handselling by booksellers and reading group members.
Kate McCune at Nicola's Books in Ann Arbor, Mich., reported that Hanna's Daughters (Ballantine) by Marianne Fredriksson "has struck a chord with people looking for literary fiction. We sold a few copies in hardcover but it has really taken off in paperback."
Jodi Picoult's The Pact (Quill) has been selling "tremendously well over the last few months" according to Barbara Shaffer, owner of Tudor Bookshop and Café in Clarks Summit, Pa. Other book club favorites that have continued to sell well past their initial discussion period include William Kowalski's first novel, Eddie's Bastard (HarperCollins), Andrei Makine's Dreams of My Russian Summer (Scribner) and Anita Shreve's The Weight of Water (Little, Brown). "It will be interesting to see if Angela's Ashes [Touchstone] has a resurgence after the film comes out," wondered Culbreth of Little Professor. "All the publicity for 'Tis [S&S] hasn't bumped up sales of Angela's Ashes much in our store."
One of Culbreth's top sellers in the nonfiction arena is retired University of North Carolina coach Dean Smith. The autobiography of the "winningest coach in college basketball history," A Coach's Life (Random House), "has had incredible sales in our store," said Culbreth.
A handselling favorite at Crazy Ladies Bookstore is Karen Kingston's Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui (Broadway Books). "We're really into the idea of getting a fresh start for the new year," said Laura Smith. "It's all about getting the clutter out of your home and your life, and I think a lot of people are thinking that way as the year 2000 approaches. The only thing we're selling even more copies of is Prayers for A Thousand Years [Harper San Francisco], a collection of blessings and expressions by people ranging from Alice Walker to Lech Walesa."
A local favorite at Richard Noyes's Chinook Bookshop in Colorado Springs, Colo., is the $85 coffee-table picture book Colorado: 1879-2000 (Westcliffe Books). The store is selling "cartloads of copies" of the photo-history book, in which John Fielder re-creates photographs of Colorado that were taken 100 years ago by William Henry Jackson.
Although she says there is "no shining star just yet," Barbara Theroux thinks Dr. Seuss G s to War (New Press) may turn out to be one of the most sought-after gift books of the season. The book is a collection of 200 editorial cartoons Theodore Geisel drew for a New York newspaper during WWII satirizing foreign fascists as well as the U.S.'s internal enemies -- isolationists, anti-Semites and racists.
