Buyer’s Musings – Tinkers revisited.

by Sheryl Cotleur

I couldn’t be more thrilled upon learning that Tinkers by Paul Harding won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I’ve loved this book so long and hard that I sat and watched the Pulitzer Web site on Monday April 12th, 2010 just in the vague hope that it would be somehow recognized. After shouting in surprise when the announcement came, I called Paul and left a congratulatory voice message.

We’d become friends some 14 months earlier when Tinkers was first published. My Consortium rep, Lise Solomon pressed a pre-publication copy into my hands begging me to read it because she loved it so much. I was enthralled also and suddenly came up with an unusual idea. After talking it over with Mary Benham who runs our Signed First Editions Club, and who also then read the galley, I asked Lise to provide me with a publisher contact at Bellevue Literary Press. I proposed to Erika Goldman that if she’d print some hardcovers of this original paperback, I’d buy 250 copies and Mary would make it our January 2009 Signed First Editions Club selection. Elaine Petrocelli, the bookstore owner, also loved this idea. Erika decided to print 500 copies and Lise helped sell some to other Bay Area accounts.  I bought more copies than just what was needed for our club and we then set about announcing to our customers, both online and in the store, that we had this special book. After they arrived and were signed, we sold out in three days.

Part of the negotiations included that we needed the book signed so arrangements were made for Paul Harding to come to the Bay Area and do readings at Book Passage and a few other stores. We had a great time getting to know Paul and have kept in touch ever since.

Over the months of 2009 I continued to hand sell and talk about Tinkers, and it has been on display as a staff favorite of mine every day since it’s publication. I wrote about it in our newsletter about that time also which goes out to over 40,000 people. Mary got her employee book club to read it that spring and that created another eight or so enthusiastic hand-sellers. The day the Pulitzer was announced we had sold 242 copies of Tinkers in paperback and 40 at our San Francisco store. We had sold 250 copies in hardcover.

Also in the spring of 2009 I mentioned it to other sales reps I see, several of whom share with me an avid interest in exchanging the news of whatever we love, no matter the imprint. I gave a copy to Ron Shoop, one of my Random House sales reps. He loved it as well. Later he found himself in conversation with a senior editor at RH where he raved about this small press book. I understand that over time she heard others mentioning Tinkers with great appreciation. She eventually contacted Paul and offered him a contract for his next two books. I have never met this editor, but I’m grateful that even a small part of my enthusiasm for Tinkers entered the energy field of it being noticed by her.

In June of 2009, having recently met John Freeman, Granta editor and former NBCC president, I sent him a signed hardcover, one of my personal copies; because I knew he loved good books and was a collector of fine First Editions. It was with complete surprise and delight that I saw he named this novel one of the top five fiction books of 2009 on NPR in December 2009.

In the spring of 2010 I was on the ABA/Indiebound eight-member jury for selecting the top six finalists of 2009 in three categories: Fiction, Nonfiction and Debut Fiction. I was pleased to find a receptive group for choosing Tinkers as one of the six finalists in the Debut Fiction category. One jurist even pointed out that he got special pleasure out of recognizing a great novel that was also from a quality small literary press.

I have mailed Tinkers to literary friends in Europe and still find myself in animated conversations about it regularly. We at Book Passage all celebrate Tinkers and Paul Harding winning the Pulitzer Prize, feeling that we knew all along it was worthy. We are delighted that now a lot more people will discover this gem!

--Sheryl Cotleur, Buying Director, Book Passage


Order a copy of Tinkers by Paul Harding:
While the limited first edition, original  signed hardcover of Tinkers is SOLD OUT, this Pulitzer Prize-winning title will be re-printed in hardcover in the coming weeks. If you would like to pre-order a copy of the new hardcover edition, please click this link to place your order.

You may also order, or request a copy to be held for pick-up, by calling the store at (415) 927-0960, ext. 1.


Read more about Tinkers:

From the Boston Globe

From NPR

From the Huffington Post

Great Books from Small Presses

by Sheryl Cotleur

I've had the good fortune lately to both stumble upon two particularly wonderful novels published by small presses, and to help make them something special at Book Passage. The first is Driftless by David Rhodes published by Milkweed Editions. I came upon an advanced reading copy in my galley pile and settled in to read this delightful and poignant novel. I then looked up information about the author and read his amazing story about how this was his return to publishing after an unexpected 31 year hiatus.

Filled with enthusiasm, I called up the publisher who agreed to ship 30 copies to the author living in a tiny town in Wisconsin, who signed them and then mailed them on to me. In this way Book Passage obtained some of the few signed first editions of this 2008 Milkweed Fiction Prize-winning book.

At around the same time, one of my sales reps handed me an early reading copy of a book she loved called Tinkers by Paul Harding. I agreed with her--this novel is extraordinary in its grace and poetic vision. Tinkers was slated to appear only in paperback, but going through my rep, I entreated the publisher to consider printing some hardcovers as I feel that this work is more than worthy of a major literary prize. Bellevue Literary Press complied happily and created a small print run of hardcovers.

Book Passage will feature this rare and unusual book as our Signed First Editions Club selection for January. We are so pleased to be able to present such quality fiction that might have otherwise been overlooked, and to have had these limited signed first editions available in our store and online at www.bookpassage.com. Moments like these are what make a book buyer's job memorable and filled with pleasure.

Further news on the small press and wonderful book front is this gem from Counterpoint titled Whitefoot by the incomparable Wendell Berry. Berry is a national treasure, author of over 50 books of essays, fiction and poetry. If ever a writer deserved the Nobel Prize in Literature it is he. Whitefoot, subtitled a Story From The Center of The World, features a small mouse who is swept away in a storm and learns the universe is a larger world than she's known and that there are mysterious things alive in it. This tale is for both adults and children and is illustrated delicately and profusely by Davis Te Selle.

Then there's a very special new book of poems by Kay Ryan, our very own Marin County poet and the current National Poet Laureate. This book is titled Jam Jar Lifeboat & Other Novelties Exposed, published by a tiny two-person press in the Bay Area called Red Berry Editions. It is also sweetly illustrated by Marin County artist Carl Dern and the poems are a delight, all inspired by Kay's response to facts she encountered in Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Just sitting at my desk reading these poems has left me smiling and oblivious to the rest of my work!

To order any of these titles, call (415) 927-0960, ext. 1 or email orders@bookpassage.com with your request. For more information on the Book Passage First Editions Club, email club coordinator Mary Benham at mbenham@bookpassage.com, or sign up online at this link.