Since the Start of the War, Atlases and Fiction are Selling
by Kevin Howell and Edward Nawotka, PW Daily for Booksellers -- Publishers Weekly, 3/26/2003
A week into the war against Iraq, booksellers report that fewer customers are coming through the door, but that over the weekend sales picked up. Shoppers are looking first for atlases, then for fiction and even books on tape to provide a little distraction.Peggy Bieber, owner of Little Professor Book Center in Aberdeen, S.D., said, "I'm hearing that people are getting tired of the media overkill." She added, "Some customers have said, 'Why do we have to hear so much?'"
Sue Griepentrog, assistant manager and buyer for the Little Read Book, Wauwatosa, Wis., told PW Daily that customers are looking for "something well written that would take their minds off the war."
Fiction titles filling that need, according to Griepentrog, include: Crow Lake by Mary Lawson (Dell), Sea Glass by Anita Shreve (Back Bay), The Hours by Michael Cunningham (Picador) and The Master Butchers Singing Club (HarperCollins).
Of the nonfiction titles marching out the door, war books are leading the charge, including Anthony Swofford's Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles (Scribner), Robin Moore's The Hunt for Bin Laden (Random) and Dore Gold's Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism (Regnery).
Carolyn Brown, spokesperson at Barnes & Noble, reported a "pop" in some war-related books and "an increase in requests for books on our two display tables -- one called In the News, which is a current events, and the other on Spiritual Matters, which covers religion and faith."
Arsen Kashkashian, inventory manager of the Boulder Book Store in Boulder, Colo., concurred: "A lot of the policy books took off as soon as the bombs started dropping." He cited Thomas Friedman's Longitudes and Attitudes as an example. Bieber from Little Professor added that although topical, Bush at War by Bob Woodward is not especially popular.
Griepentrog said she spoke with one customer who professed feeling guilty shopping in wartime. But, she continued, "the majority of the customers we've spoken with say they need a distraction. They are just trying to refresh their minds and find a way to pick up their spirits after watching the depressing TV news."
Amanda Tobier, buyer at Third Place Books near Seattle, Wash., said the store took down displays of paperbacks to make room for a war-related table. Among titles selling steadily are Gore Vidal's Dreaming War (Thunder's Mouth) and Noam Chomsky's Power and Terror (Seven Stories).
"Oddly, I've gotten no requests for Iraqi writers," Tobier said. "It's all been war." Jarhead has been particularly popular.
She also relayed this story: "The other day I was standing at the information desk looking at the CNN Web site and before she asked me what she wanted, such as 'Where is the bathroom' -- she asked 'Has anything new happened?' -- people have all eyes on the media. I even had a conversation with our mailman, whom I've seen every day for five years and never spoken to, about Jarhead ."
|
|
