LITTLE BEE; One City Pick and a Bestseller
We love seeing good things happen to good books. Chris Cleave’s Little Bee, just out in trade paper, has landed at #3 on the 3/7 NYT Paperback Best Sellers Trade Fiction list. USA Today includes it in today’s “Book Buzz” column; it enters their new list at #22.
Exactly a year ago today, we posted a heavy holds alert on the book, shortly after its release in hardcover.
USA Today notes that the author, who is from London, is currently on a 20-city tour of the US. One of those stops was Santa Monica, which chose the book as their CityWide Reads program.
It’s a nice full-circle for EarlyWord; Robert Graves, Public Services Librarian at Santa Monica Public Library generously credits EarlyWord as being the first place he heard about the book. Graves says the library was thrilled when they discovered that the trade paperback edition of Little Bee notes that it is the “Santa Monica Citywide Reads 2010 selection.”
The program with Cleave, was held this past Saturday. Graves says it was a “smash hit,” with a capacity crowd of over 150. All week, people have been “coming by in droves to say how much they enjoyed it.” As part of the program, the library produced a staged reading, with two actresses portraying the “Voices of Little Bee.” The library also hosted several book discussions, including a live call-in show on the local CityTV, which aired in both Santa Monica and L.A. (for more details, see Graves’ post on the Citywide Reads site; also check out the library’s beautiful resource guide).
Cleave is clearly an enthusiastic speaker:
And, by the way, libraries are still showing holds on the book, although they’ve added copies since we first wrote about it.
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The audio, from Tantor, was on the “Best Audiobook of 2009” lists from both Library Journal and AudioFile.
Trade; 9781400111718; 9 Audio CD; $34.99
Library; 9781400141715; 9 Audio CD; $69.99
MP3; 9781400161713; 1 MP3-CD; $24.99