Oprah, Oprah
by Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 10/13/2003
She gets a double kudo for landing a second backlist classic at the top of the trade paperback charts. Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country had its first landing in the #1 spot since its 1948 publication date. Oprah announced her pick on September 29 and Scribner, in anticipation of huge sales, printed and shipped 935,000 copies with a peelable Oprah sticker. Prior to Oprah, the book had sold close to 57,500 copies in 2003. Sales for 2002 were about 80,000 and for 2001 were close to 108,000. In the #2 spot on our trade paper list is John Steinbeck's East of Eden. The Penguin book has been in the #1 spot five of the last 16 weeks; 12 printings bring total copies in print of the Oprah edition to 1.7 million.
