Readers Flock To Bookstores For 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Author Harper Lee's Second Novel
EATONTOWN, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- Harper Lee's first novel in 55 years was released in stores Tuesday to the delight of fans across the country.
Barnes & Noble stores nationwide opened early for the big release, 1010 WINS' Rebecca Granet reported.
Readers Flock To Bookstores For Harper Lee's Second Novel
Janet Shinneck, who works at the Eatontown Barnes & Noble, said there was a line of about 20 people waiting to pick up their copy of "Go Set A Watchman" as soon as the doors opened.
"One woman came, got her book, went to the cafe, got her cup of coffee and read," she said. "And I saw her as she was leaving and I said, 'What'd you think?' And she wanted to read more."
Barnes & Noble patron Lesley told Granet she can't wait to start reading.
"Yeah, I could probably read it in a day and not want to put it down," she said.
The novel is set 20 years after the events of "To Kill A Mockingbird," Lee's only other published novel.
"Watchman'' finds a grown-up Scout, now living in New York, visiting her native Maycomb, Alabama, and observing a community terrified by the Supreme Court's recent ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional.
Scout herself is shaken when among those joining the racist mob is the man who in "Mockingbird'' stood against it, her father, Atticus.
The new book is generating some controversy for its portrayal of lawyer Atticus Finch as a segregationist with ties to the Ku Klux Klan, CBS2 reported.
But many readers inside Barnes & Noble told Granet that Finch's turn to racism has no impact on their desire to read the book.
Lee completed "Go Set A Watchman" in the 1950s, but the manuscript was only discovered last year inside a safe deposit box, CBS2 reported.
Amazon.com has called "Watchman" its most popular pre-order since the last Harry Potter book, which came out in 2007. At Barnes & Noble, the comparisons were not to a phenomenon like Potter, but to a follow up: Mary Amicucci, the superstore chain's vice president for adult trade and children's books, said that pre-orders were the highest since the 2009 release of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol," his first novel after "The Da Vinci Code" and itself a million seller.
Sales for "Mockingbird,'' already a consistent favorite, have doubled at Barnes & Noble since "Watchman" was announced. The book's first printing exceeds 2 million copies.
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