Many predicted that Americans would balk at a 560-page novel that requires some knowledge of British history and a 98-person character list just to keep all the players straight. But, since its release here shortly after winning the Booker, Wolf Hall has been in the top ten on Amazon. Holds have doubled in many libraries, with commensurate increases in orders.

In contrast, the National Book Award fiction finalists are not doing nearly as well. Below are current Amazon sales rankings and total holds and copies in four large libraries for the Booker winner and the NBA titles:

#9 Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
929 holds on 132 copies

#259 Let The Great World Spin, Colum McCann
382 holds on 82 copies

#1,481 American Salvage, Bonnie Jo Campbell
22 holds on 23 copies

#1,807 In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Daniyal Mueenuddin
13 holds on 61 copies

#2,019 Far North, Marcel Theroux,
27 holds on 46 copies

#5,179 Lark and Termite, Jayne Anne Phillips
7 holds on 65 copies

Wolf Hall has also enjoyed a wide range of reviews, from People (four out of a possible four stars and selected as a “People Pick”) to The New York Review of Books,. Most of them have been generous with praisel Only Entertainment Weekly held back, rating it a “B”.

• Entertainment Weekly
• LA Times
• The New Yorker
• New York Review of Books
• People
• USA Today
• Wall Street Journal
• Washington Post

Wolf Hall: A Novel Hilary Mantel Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 560 pages Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. – (2009-10-13) ISBN / EAN: 0805080686 / 9780805080681

Downloadable eBook from OverDrive.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Awards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.