Oprah as America's English Professor
by Charlotte Abbot, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 6/3/2005
In non-BEA news, William Faulkner got the nod today from Oprah, who departed from the usual one-author, one-title format for her summer reading pick by selecting three paperbacks by the giant of American letters.
Vintage has already shipped 500,000 copies and ordered a further 100,000 of a $29.95 boxed set: As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury and Light in August, plus a reading group guide.
The summer pick has become the main event for the club, typically selling more copies than titles selected at other times. Last summer's pick, Anna Karenina, sold more than 900,000 copies, compared to 740,000 copies of the fall 2004 selection, The Good Earth.
On the show floor, booksellers were pleased by the selection. "Name me one other person who could hold up Faulkner and people would go out and actually read him," said Joe Holtzman, fiction category manager at Borders.
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