Laughing All the Way…

…to the bank. David Sedaris's collection of humorous essays, Me Talk Pretty One Day (PW's starred review dubbed him "Garrison Keillor's evil twin"), is doing very well in its paperback reprint. It lands on our trade paperback list in the #6 position and Little, Brown reports 200,000 copies in print after four printings. The book was a hardcover bestseller that enjoyed a 13-week tenure—its highest position was #6—and total copies in print after 12 trips to press there are a total of 255,000 copies. The publisher is thrilled with the turnout for the author's ongoing 14-city tour, noting that Sedaris is drawing even larger crowds than he did for his hardcover tour. More than 1,000 people turned out for a Barnes & Noble Union Square event (the evening also featured a reading by David Rakoff for Fraud, published by Doubleday); Sedaris drew about 700 people in Cincinnati, and over 500 in Chicago and San Francisco, and other stores had to turn away fans because for lack of room. A number of retailers added sound systems so that the overflow outside could hear the readings. Little, Brown cooed: "It's as if the people en masse are transforming the bookstores into concert halls, and David is a rock star."

With reporting by Dick Donahue